I gave just the most imperceptible raise of my glass before pulling another sip of ale from it. "I know how you feel about the whole 'nice to be needed' thing."

But did I tell her--it--what I was needed for? Well, Rose was awfully forthcoming with "her" own past, and nobody else had walked in from the storm. The barkeep probably had an ear out for whatever conversation we were having, but that was more an involuntary habit of the job. I tended bar a couple times, and found myself flitting between different threads of conversation, my imagination running wild to plug in the holes of bits I missed to make patrons' stories far more interesting.

Fuck it, I decided. If he ratted me out, I'd just kill him, pump his corpse full of cordyceps, dust him off, and put him back behind the counter to resume life as if nothing happened.

"There was this shadowy group of assholes I used to work for," I began between bites of my sandwich. "Real black ops kind of things. Pulling strings behind the scenes, knocking off targets, affecting trade routes for our financial benefit. Y'know the fun stuff. Anyway, their leader, this silver-haired assassin bastard, he takes note of me as I'm making my way through the world. I'm an alchemist of sorts. Brew poisons, mostly."

And plagues, but I obviously left that bit out.

"They were effective, so he brought me in to be his potion master. Paid me a decent amount, too. Gave me a real sense of purpose, y'know. My family disowned me after a violent misunderstanding, so I was wandering around for quite a bit, picking up odd jobs, wondering when I'd be able to settle down. So, of course I took him up on his offer."

I shot a flickering amber look the barkeep's way, making sure that he wasn't paying attention. Bless him, he took the hint and decided to duck into another room to check on his stock of alcohol.

"One day, I get this special order. We're planning something big. No, bigger than that. Bigger. I get my instructions, and I get to work. About two months later, an infestation of rats bearing a new strain of plague is reported as the cause of about half of the island nation of Eiskalt dropping dead. Ruined their farmland and tainted their water sources, too." I took another drink from my mug, preemptively washing the sour taste of that whole episode out of my mouth. "And then, my usefulness spent, I was cast aside. Like a weapon. No offense."

I left out the bits where the clan's leader was having a mental breakdown and needed to be put in time out for a year in his own dungeon before allowing my laziness to force everyone else's hands and remove me from my post. As it turns out, I'm a pretty shit leader. Not nearly as effective of a monster when left to my own devices without a guiding hand to aim me at the next target.

"But since then, I've sort of found my own way, I suppose. Traveling the world, perfecting my formulas, discovering new ones, collecting books and other weird shit along the way..." And then I got to thinking. This sword, the thing that was possessing this Rose girl, was so used to doing one thing and only one thing that I began to wonder if it had any other desires. Anything that it wanted to do; not because it was being told to, but because it had a legitimate desire to.

And so I asked it.