The dagger had a blood-red gem on either side of its hilt, glittering as though filled with blood. A gentle shake before the eyes gave it a dizzying, mesmerizing quality. The ends of its guard, woven from intertwining gold and silver, curled backward, both beautiful and protective of the hand. Its blade was double-edged, no longer as dazzling as the hilt. The sharp edges and straight blade were a pale gray tinged with white.
Ruger held the dagger steadily between a few fingers, turning it before his eyes for inspection like a merchant appraising and pricing an item for his next transaction.
The man beside him, who had been playing with a mouse, was drawn to him as well, seemingly curious about why Ruger kept staring at the dagger.
The moment he received the dagger, he had instinctively wanted to do two perfectly ordinary things.
The first was to grip it.
The second was to put it into the Bedroom Space.
But now, he merely held it between a few fingers and examined it before his eyes.
Just as he was about to do the first, the mysterious Spirituality so beloved by Wizards had sent an inexplicable tremor through his heart, as though some subterranean beast held it in its jaws.
And when he instinctively tried to put it into the Bedroom Space, an even stronger feeling had swept over him.
He had immediately stopped and begun studying it with keen interest.
He recalled a scene he had seen while using the Divine Object Art.
This thing seemed to have originally come from a demon's body, as though the demon had broken it off itself. After being worked on by that Wizard Apprentice, perhaps with some of the rituals Faith Wizards specialized in, it had become what it was now.