physical description: elegant smallsword, stiff spine, quick to blood
material composition: 1.00% carbon, 98.10% iron, 0.90% manganese
record of creation: blister steel packed with charcoal; melted in clay crucibles at ~1 500 °C; slag removed with flux. Drop-forged and hand-ground
accumulated history: Forged in Sheffield. Bloodied in three duels. One fatal. Used at dawn. Steel remembers a heartbeat.
physical description: folding blade, silver-gloss, honed to whisper
material composition: 1.10% carbon, 98.30% iron, 0.60% manganese
record of creation: crucible steel from Huntsman process, tempered in warm oil bath. Honed on strop of horsehide and linen
accumulated history: Passed down four generations. First shave under father's hand. Tradition cuts deeper than nerves.
physical description: flat silver blade, mother-of-pearl grip, scroll-etched
material composition: 92.5% silver, 7.5% copper (sterling); handle nacre
record of creation: cast and hand-chased in Sheffield; shaped with nickel tools, buffed with rouge
accumulated history: Engagement dinner. Locking eyes across sole in lemon cream. Blade never touched flesh but carved fate.
physical description: bone-handled meat knife, broad Sheffield grind
material composition: 0.95% carbon steel blade; grip from stag bone
record of creation: drop-forged and oil-tempered; blade draw-filed and stone-finished
accumulated history: Shared roast before the fire. Fingers brush on bone grip. Heat pooled in the steel long after the meat was gone.
physical description: silver-plated fruit blade, serrated edge, jam-sticky
material composition: carbon steel core, sterling-silver cladding; mother-of-pearl handle
record of creation: forged for tea service, plated in electrolysis bath, carved initials on ferrule
accumulated history: Midnight cake in monastery ruins. Elopement with laughter and sugar-sticky fingers. Jam glinting like blood under moonlight.
The assault of new memories ended, leaving Archer with more additions to Unlimited Blade Works. It wasn't as if he would ever run out of space. In his personal hell, there was always room for one more.
He didn't waste time dwelling on the new histories; instead, he checked his surroundings. First visually. Underground chamber, low ceiling made of stone. Sturdy—unlikely to collapse. Gate to Irem at his back, one exit ahead with wood rooted into ruin. Two potential places an enemy might hide in ambush—staggered piles of stone.
Then scent: the mundane—dust, wood, cold earth—and beneath it the lingering supernatural residue of punishing fire and rage that had outlived death. A ghost's echo.
Finally, he let a brief Structural Grasp ripple down through the stone—Magecraft turned into quiet, practical radar—enough to map the chamber and confirm no one waited in ambush. There were some rats, a few snakes, and a couple of overly large spiders, more suited to Australia than England, but nothing that posed a viable threat.
Only then did he turn to check on his troublesome Master—and on their other, arguably even more troublesome, companion.
His Master's newest incarnation, Mercury Von Dort, was familiar—and not merely from Archer's newly added set of enemies. No—this Mercury resembled another Mercury entirely, the demon-hunting boy scout. Just aged from fourteen to eighteen and stuffed into a Victorian man's suit. Same longish brown hair—so dark it was nearly black; the same androgynous face, only four years older, but not enough to give even a faintly more masculine cast.
Archer supposed the resemblance held some convoluted meaning tied to parallel worlds, names, and Second True Magic—but he left such nonsense to his Master.
And GLaDOS remained a potato on a Roomba. Fitting, really.
"Why are you still in the form of the Eater of Dust?" his Master asked the little robot, in the tone he reserved for when the world was too stubborn to conform to his grand expectations.
Archer did not quite get it, but he knew he needed to worry. His Master would elaborate soon; he simply couldn't help himself.
As expected, his Master continued, standing tall with shoulders back, chest open—Tohsaka's Lecturing Position Number Three— "Unlike last instance, there were three—let us use the word persons—who were present at the gate at the moment of opening. Baron Mars Blackthorn, Mercury Von Dort, and the ghost of Saint Carolyne. Mapping Mars and Mercury is obvious, but the third should have been you. Not only because she was present, and because of the name, but also because, while her face was ruined by fire and rot, it was not beyond my capacity to mentally restore it, and when compared to our Caroline, your human original, the resemblance was striking. Thus, I could surmise that she is your alternate, and thus you should have matched her form. Why are you a robot and not a ghost?"
"It's a matter of superior willpower," the little robot said, puffing up. "Unlike you two, I do not meekly surrender to the dubious whims of interdimensional portals."
"It is not meekness; it is prudent adaptation," his Master countered, shifting his stance to feet shoulder-width apart, firmly planted—Tohsaka's Lecturing Position Number Two— "You know that the best quantum-mechanical models we have admit multiple stable minima. Thus, it is one possible explanation that what we consider universal laws of nature are less universal, and more local. Thus, taking a form native to the other side of the portal is merely avoiding the chance of melting into goo, in case that, due to some constants being different, chemical bonding is less stable on the other side."
And like a kid caught with a hand in the cookie jar, GLaDOS countered, "Who would want to be a dead human instead of a perfectly functional machine?"
Archer knew he had to derail this train of conversation before it ended in either a wreck or a massive waste of time, so he interceded, laying sarcasm on as neatly as a glaze that refused to let go. "Hands, perhaps?"
"Digits are overrated," the little robot responded. "Besides, this body has Wi-Fi."
"What are you connecting to in Victorian England?" Archer asked, a touch of incredulity seeping into his voice.
"I set up the hotspot on the Irem side of the portal," his Master cut in, one hand on his hip, the other sweeping outward in an elegant open-palm gesture, Tohsaka's Lecturing Position Number One. "I don't expect much from the readings — not with the limited-grade equipment I have with me. This universe contains humans, as did the last several I visited, so its physical laws must be close to my baseline models. If I had stepped into a universe whose physics couldn't support human evolution, the divergences would be obvious. Here, they will be subtle—likely far below the resolution of anything I can assemble without, say, a high-energy particle collider. Still, it is an experiment worth running."
Someone who knew his troublesome Master less well might mistake these lectures for nervousness, or for a pompous display of intellectual arrogance. In truth, this was the closest his Master ever came to sincerity—stripping down his thought process until almost no filters remained.
Because to his Master, words were just another set of tools—implements to pervert the universe in his image. Archer was not sure why his certainty fixed on "pervert," rather than build, shape, or twist. But instinct told him it was the right word, and he trusted his gut.
Besides, it was an unbearable truth: his Master was a pervert. Archer knew that best.
"In that case, best we go scout the next gate. Nothing urgent here," Archer said.
Normally, he preferred to let his Master take point—a sword needed a hand to wield it, and harsh experience had taught him that ideal made a cold one. But sometimes he had to nudge the man before curiosity rooted him in place.
He gestured to the elegant cut of his Master's suit. "Also, disappearing for a few weeks might give the scandal time to cool."
If there was one thing worse than a rake stealing a bride before the wedding to despoil her, it was a rake stealing a groom for the same purpose. After all, sodomy was a crime in 1848 England—and not a respectable one, like being an axe murderer.
"It is illogical to fret about the opinion of people who are both irrational and impotent," the little robot added. "On the other hand, I do agree that there is little scientific merit in staying here when new portals to new worlds await."
Well, that was not what Archer had meant.
He had not suggested lying low to protect his troublesome Master from good Victorian people. It was the other way around: good Victorian people needed protection from his touchy Master. The last time his dread Master lost his temper, a small American town had found itself invaded by a hill-sized demon spider.
"You grasped the situation very quickly," his Master said to GLaDOS, his eyes alight with curiosity. "Does that mean you have St. Carolyne's memories? Because I do remember Mercury explained the whole sordid affair to her in detail, when she appeared before both of them after hiding here, in these ruins."
"There was some unauthorized and unwanted data transfer," the little robot almost reluctantly admitted.
His Master hummed, visibly satisfied by the answer. It was both sincere and manipulative—visible only because his Master chose to show it, to signal that he was pleased by a proper and truthful response, and to encourage similar behavior in the future.
Turning to Archer, his Master said next, "You made a valid point. The sooner we finish scouting all the worlds we have access to, the sooner I can compile all the information and devise a proper plan of action. There are also new additions to Irem's library—among them a number of necromantic grimoires. I would appreciate some free time to browse them. But there is one little thing to do before we move on."
Archer had no choice but to add, in a tone as dry as dust in this ruin, "Well, get on with it. So you can spend some quality time with dead-people porn."
This was not just teasing. It was percussive maintenance—like hitting a coffee machine when it got stuck. Not that Archer would ever use a coffee machine; proper coffee was hand-ground.
And like the proverbial stuck coffee machine, his Master sometimes needed poking to get working right.
"Despite your continued claims, necromancy and necrophilia are not synonyms," his Master replied calmly—though his eyes were alight with a cruel glint. He was also measuring Archer's new body for a rope harness.
A wise man would have taken that as a warning. Naturally, Archer doubled down.
"All evidence suggests otherwise," Archer blithely continued. "Just look at you."
It was not as if he were asking for punishment. Asking would spoil half the fun. He simply wound up his volatile Master and let his wicked nature run its course.
His Master's smile sharpened—slow and predatory—and Archer could almost feel rope burns. Then came the deliberately visible effort of temper being leashed, the silent message unmistakable: later. Only afterward did his Master's expression settle into something open and gentle.
With a stage magician's flair and grace, his Master produced a small jewel box from one of his pockets and opened it, revealing a pair of rings.
"Wedding rings? What do you intend to do with those?" Archer asked, a bit confused. "Also—why do you have them?"
"To answer your second query first: frankly, I don't know," his Master replied, with a small, amused smile.
"You don't know?" Archer asked. "Don't you have Mercury Von Dort's memories?"
Because Archer certainly did have Mars Blackthorn's. They offered an unpleasant answer to a question Archer sometimes asked himself—what he would be without the binding force of his ideals.
Mars Blackthorn's life suggested he would be directionless, hollow, empty—wandering through life and seizing on any distraction: affairs, duels, drink, danger—much to the detriment of both himself and others.
"Yes. But that only means I know what he knew," his Master calmly explained. "And he did not know why he had taken with him the very symbol of the wedding he was running away from."
"I'm sure you have some idea," Archer replied with a smirk. "You're somewhat better at introspection than the sheltered Victorian young man."
"Perhaps," his Master replied with a mysterious smile, but did not elaborate.
Instead, he moved his hand over the rings. The gaudy, nouveau-riche bands shimmered—and were replaced by simple, elegant Elven wedding rings. Rings Archer could not fail to recognize instantly, not after he had forged one for his Master, and his Master had forged the other for him in Imladris so long ago. Such were Elven wedding customs.
"They've merged with our rings," his Master continued, almost theatrically melancholy. "Perhaps it is an omen, or just a coincidence. But I was thinking that we could renew our vows. No reason to let those wedding rehearsals go to waste."
A forbidden wedding in a catacomb beneath a ruined monastery—so twisted it was almost romantic, at least to his Master.
After all, his Master had once delivered an entire lecture on the nature of sacrifice in magecraft—how the emotional connection between the one holding the knife and the one under it formed the true potency of the ritual—and then declared that he could make something wondrous out of Archer's death, instead of saying something simple like I like you.
Archer did not want to think about why that had become a fond memory.
"Let's be efficient about that," Archer said, his smirk more fond than dry as he watched his Master light up with joy. "But are we just reciting vows—like Mars helped Mercury rehearse—or do you plan to have someone officiate? Because I draw the line at hypnotizing a priest. Or summoning a demon. That's a step too far."
"There is someone here with the requisite skill to officiate a heretical wedding," his Master replied, turning to GLaDOS, who had been silently watching their banter like an avid daytime soap viewer. If the little robot had a mouth, she would probably be munching popcorn—or whatever the robotic equivalent was.
"That unwanted data did come with a relevant information packet," the little robot admitted. "It even suggests that officiating a ceremony for a non-reproductive human mating pair yields some form of satisfaction. I strongly disagree with that notion, but I am willing to test it. For science."
Parsing that, Archer knew she was drawing on St. Carolyne's memories—the ghost-nun, the heretical saint burned for putting love above doctrine, and who, proving fools learn nothing, had continued marrying man to man even after death.
The little robot spun in a tight circle on its wheels until it stopped opposite Archer and his Master, then shouted, "Minions, attend me!"
From the dark corners of the room, the spiders emerged—each the size of a man's fist—some skittering across the floor, others descending from the ceiling on threads.
"I was not sure that would work," the little robot muttered.
"We follow you anywhere, Your Holiness. No matter what form you take," the spiders replied in a chittering chorus.
Talking spiders. Of course. He should have expected something ridiculous like that. But how had he missed magical spiders? With another sniff he reassessed—and the answer came quickly: their magic smelled the same as the one lingering over GLaDOS, the burned scent of St. Carolyne. They must be some type of familiar.
"We have a new wedding," the little robot said, though her word choices and faint archaic accent suggested to Archer that she was being guided by inherited memories. "Start the preparations."
One spider descended via a silken thread onto his Master's shoulder and began stitching up the small gashes their run to the monastery had put in his nice suit, weaving fresh silk to close the tears. His Master's assent was given with a deliberate mixture of dignity and amusement.
Archer endured another spider doing the same to his suit, resisting the urge to squash it. It wasn't the touch of little legs, nor the nearness of venomous fangs, but the constant chittering of a large working spider that bothered him.
"Female would bite head off," the spider chittered as it worked. "Better stick to males. Much safer."
And two other spiders were bringing wedding paraphernalia, each item borne in improvised spiderweb slings linked by silk threads: a pair of candles, a goblet, and a bottle of wine.
"Not the Wine of Ages," the little robot scolded. "That is only for those who have given up any hope of having a place in the world of the living. Bring normal wine."
Archer reminded himself that he needed to use Structural Grasp before any liquid from that cup entered his or his Master's mouth. Not that he wouldn't have done so anyway, as a matter of precaution.
While the chastised spiders went to fetch another bottle, a bark echoed through the underground chamber. Archer tensed as he saw a small skeletal thing sprint toward his Master—then relaxed by a fraction when he saw it was a little dog made entirely of bones, sitting politely with a small collar clenched in the bare jaws of its skull.
His Master took the collar and read the tag aloud: "Euclid."
He knelt, and while fastening the collar, explained, "When I was ten, Victor and I each got a puppy. He named his Scraps, and I named mine Euclid. But our mother soon decided it was a mistake, and the puppies disappeared. She said they ran away, but I suppose she lied. She does that."
Then, with a forced smile, he added, "I suppose we will at least have one guest at the wedding."
It was one symptom of smooth integration—stop thinking of the local self's memories as someone else's and start accepting them as your own. Archer could feel that happening to him too.
Not wanting to think about that inevitable process, he instead focused on the fact that his Master had just acquired an undead pet. It was less surprising that it had happened than that it hadn't happened earlier.
But he supposed his Master was too proud to use magecraft to make a pet.
When the new bottle of wine arrived, the little robot began to speak in a liturgical cadence, "We are gathered here under the auspices of the highest virtue, which is love, to celebrate a joining. If anyone would dare to object to this union, speak now—and forever hold your breath."
She paused for a moment, then said in a more casual tone, "No takers. Pity. You may speak your vows."
"With this hand I shall lift your sorrows," his Master spoke first, somehow managing a tone both solemn and affectionate. "Your cup shall never be empty, for I am your wine."
Elegantly, he poured the rich-smelling wine into an old cup.
"With this hand I shall lift your sorrows," Archer repeated more gruffly, raising his hand. "Your cup shall never be empty, for I am your wine."
He touched the wine, letting Structural Grasp slide through it. It was old and richly bitter, made in this very monastery before it fell into ruin—unsullied, and not poisoned.
His Master picked up the candle next.
Archer's nostrils filled with the subtle scent of crushed rubies—the signature of his Master's fire magecraft—just before the tip of the candle bloomed into flame.
"With this candle I light your way in darkness," his Master continued, planting the candle in the ground before the little robot, on the patch of stone that served as a makeshift altar, next to the cup.
Then he took the ring, and in a purring voice that sounded dangerously possessive, placed the ring on Archer's finger. "With this ring, I make you mine."
"With this candle I light your way in darkness," Archer said, sounding to his own ears more determined than he had intended. Then he took the last ring—the one his Master had made so long ago in Imladris—and placed it on his Master's finger. "With this ring, I make you mine."
And the moment the second ring settled into place, he felt it.
Elven marriage was a spiritual matter—more magic than ceremony. Usually, the bond was faint when they were not both in elf-form. Muted, distant.
But now, like a young sapling forcing itself into a great tree, it spread roots through all of him, and bound all the tighter.
Soft as silk, stronger than adamant. Alive as roots of the earth.
Even to his own ears, it almost sounded poetic.
"You may take a sip and kiss the groom," the little robot intruded into his unnecessary poetic thoughts.
As if he needed permission for that from anyone. Besides his Master's.
His Master took a sip, wetting his lips red with wine, then passed the cup to Archer. Archer took a sip as well, the wine bitter on his tongue—good enough as a prelude to something sweet.
But as his Master leaned in, he suddenly stopped, pupils widening in pain.
Archer saw it then: a rope of lightning coiling from the Irem Gate, burning into his Master's back.
Archer reached for him, but the moment his hand touched his Master, he dissolved into motes of light and was yanked back into the Gate.
"It's a summoning. Not disintegration," Archer said, voicing aloud what scent told him — though the words still sounded, to his own ears, almost like a desperate prayer.
"That is a distinct relief," the little robot said. "I suppose the Gates had a bit of impatience with all the delays."
"Interrupting a wedding is bad manners," Archer growled. Fear and anger were a potent mix—but that had to be mastered carefully. "I suppose I need to teach someone a lesson."
He marched straight toward the Gate, to find what new trouble his very troublesome Master had managed to land himself in.
"Like 'do as I say, not as I do,'" the little robot muttered as she followed him.