Another legendary weapon for your enjoyment.

A Blacksmith’s Adventures with Weapons of Legend: Beast Soul

“Hey! Matt! Get that bracer!” Tom shouted, unable to do said task himself, due to being pinned to the ground by a couple of Inquisitors.

“Sure thing!” Matthew said, barreling towards the poor soul who was holding the strangely enchanting object.

When a 6’4″ pillar of muscle in the rough shape of a grizzly bear is charging at you, you might consider getting out of the way, which is exactly what this small (by comparison) man chose to do. Unfortunately for the Inquisitor, Matthew “The Great Bear” Wild, is quite a bit more agile than he would appear, and it did not take any effort at all for him to alter his direction and deliver a powerful blow to his chin. The now senseless man offered no resistance when the renowned martial artist confiscated the bracer.

“How you holding’ up, sis?” Matt asked, addressing the small woman fighting a short distance away.

“I’m doing fine. Shouldn’t you be doing what your mission leader is saying?” Joann replied curtly, before muttering to herself. “I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t asked for help.”

“Jeez, sis, calm down. Just taking care of my family,” moped Matt, before returning to the task at hand. “Hey, Tom! What now?”

“Put it on! And ignore whatever slayer tricks you use to weaken magic!” Tom shouted back, throwing off his foes.

“Umm, okay…” Matt mumbled skeptically, but he obediently put on the bracer.

Immediately, Matt new something strange was going on. He felt his bones start to reshape themselves, breaking and fusing back together. His already hairy body was now producing a thick coat of animal fur. His face contorted and twisted until it resembled the muzzle of some large animal. His hands were now padded and claws were extending from his fingers. His mentality was still mostly human, but he had a peculiar desire for honey that had not been there before.

“What the…? This is freaking awesome! I’m a badass werebear! Ooh, Frostreach bear, nice. Tom did you know this would happen?”

“Well, I knew you would change, but I didn’t think that the Beast Soul would take your title so literally. Now use that newfound power to take down these bastards.”

“You really don’t like these guys, do you?” Matt inquired, tossing more than a few Inquisitors in the air.

“Despicable scum, the lot of them,” Tom answered, doing his own part.

When they had sufficiently cleared out their foes, Tom and his fellow fighters gathered around Matt. Matt took off the bracer, underwent the painful process of reverting back to normal, and then handed it to Tom.

“Wow, that is really something, Tom,” Matt extolled.

“I know, right?”

“Let me see that!” Joann demanded, confiscating the bracer and putting it on herself.

The cracking of bones, the stretching of flesh, and, soon enough, she was a small, slender version of an Arilese bear.

“Why this one? I’m every bit as Frostreach as my brother.”

“It’s not an exact science, Lil Cub,” her brother explained.

Joann simply growled in response.

“Hey, Ken,” Tom said to one of the other fighters, “you’re an abomination, right? Do you mind trying it on? I’d like to see how it reacts.”

“Sure, it can’t be any more painful than a regular transformation.”

Ken slipped on the bracer and…nothing.

“Sorry, Tom. Seems it doesn’t work on someone who already has that kind of thing going on. You try it.”

Tom slipped the Beast Soul on and was once more amazed at the prosaic nature of the peculiar artifact. From his back, a pair of dark, leathery wings sprouted. His teeth sharpened to fine points. The whites of his eyes turned blood red. Even his hands took on a more diabolical look.

“What’s all this?” Matthew asked, shocked at this change.

“One of my many titles is the ‘Demon in the Mist.’ I guess the bracer took that title to heart. So this is the power of guardian leather, huh?”

“Guardian leather?”

“Yeah. Back in the days when wild guardians were much more present and we still used methods of preserving their magic. Someone, somehow, managed to either infuse leather with guardian magic or skinned a guardian. The truth are hard to know, but the object’s effects are well documented. Andros the Beast earned his fame from using this artifact in battle. Supposedly he discovered it in the Sylphwood, after a harrowing encounter with a wild guardian.”

“Huh. Cool. Let’s get out of here, though. We don’t really want to fight anymore, do we?”

“Yeah. Let’s go.”