[CENTER][img]https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/marvelcinematicuniverse/images/d/d0/Ebony_Blade_%28Eternals%29.png[/img][/CENTER][indent][sub][COLOR=#696969][B]Location:[/B][/COLOR] [color=white][I]New York[/I][/color][/sub][sup][right][COLOR=#696969][b]II[/b][/COLOR][/right][/sup][/indent][center][COLOR=dimgray][SUP][sub]_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/sub][/SUP][/COLOR][/center]
[indent][color=A9A9A9]I slide through closing doors into the subway carriage and plonk myself down on a seat, breathing hard and thinking about how out of shape I've let myself get. It's still before 5 so it's pretty quiet, and the few other passengers in the car don't even spare me a first glance, let alone a second. It's New York, after all. When the train arrives at my station I get off, having caught my breath in the in-between, but the sense of urgency has worn off slightly: if the delivery has arrived already, it'll be waiting for me, and if it hasn't, I've got nowhere to be; I'll sit and doom-scroll all day until I hear the buzzer go. 

When I get to my building my lift is still out for the third week running and I curse the super, whom I've called personally at least three times and my neighbours probably more. Especially the old couple the floor above me; one's mobility-impaired and four flights of stairs aren't really an option for an octogenarian with a walker. I've been helping out dropping groceries off and taking their trash out when garbage day comes around but even I can tell they're getting stir-crazy. Cabin fever. Wish I could relate; most days I barely explore beyond my mattress, let alone walk out my front door. Today's been the most eventful afternoon I've had in months.

I reach my floor and my neighbour - Janek - is sitting in his usual spot: a cheap patio chair positioned outside his apartment, smoking a cigarette. He taps the end off as I come up the stairs, sweating again, and the embers drift down to a small grey-speckled patch of floor below.
[color=#778899]"C'mon, man, I asked you not to ash in the hall. I don't want to track your shit into my apartment."[/color]
Janek shrugs, taking another drag. [color=white]"Wipe shoes."[/color] He suggests, chewing his words through a thick Slavic accent. We frown at each other. 
[color=#778899]"Just inconsiderate, man."[/color] I finally say, and step over the discarded embers in an emphatic sort of way before fishing my keys from my pocket and unlocking my door. [color=#778899]"Have you seen a parcel arrive for me?"[/color] I ask before heading in. Janek just shrugs again.
[color=white]"I don't see anything. Not your postman."[/color]
[color=#778899]"Whatever, Janek. So much for being neighbourly."[/color]
He regards me with such an utterly discompassionate expression that I may as well be talking to a brick wall. I let myself in, and behind the closed door, flip him off, looking through my peephole. He flips me off too, and despite myself I do find that quite funny. 

I turn around and step into my apartment proper and stop immediately because there's a long wooden crate sitting on my kitchen counter. It's just...there. I look at my door; it looks fine. I even check my window, but it's locked just like how I left it. Only the super has spare keys to the apartments in this building but if he'd been, I'd have heard about it, and he's avoiding us anyway because he doesn't want to be pinned down and made to deal with the elevator. And he wouldn't have given a fuck about bringing in a box for me anyway. He'd have been more likely to have taken it for himself. So...how did this get in here? There's no manifesto, no shipping receipt, not even a postal label. It's just a blank crate on my counter. Hmm. 

I take a look at opening it but it's nailed shut pretty tight and there aren't any locks or hinges or latches or really anything to crack the lid, puzzling me further. I go back to my front door and lean out into the stairwell. Janek's still on his chair, still smoking, and he makes a point of not looking at me.
[color=#778899]"Janek, do you have a crowbar? Or a hammer? I need to crack something open."[/color]
Janek scoffs. [color=white]"Janek, stop smoking. Janek, take post. Janek, give me your tools. No. Janek has strict 'no assholes' policy on his tools."[/color]
[color=#778899]"How come [i]you[/i] still use them, then?"[/color] I reply, and Janek actually smirks at this.
[color=white]"Is fair point. Give me moment."[/color] He says, standing up and pushing his way back into his apartment. He reappears a few seconds later holding a claw hammer. [color=white]"Here. Give back quickly. I don't want to be nagging you like you nag me, understand?"[/color]
I roll my eyes, but thank Janek and disappear back inside. The claw slips neatly into the seam beneath the lid of the crate and with some effort I pull down on the hammer until the wood splinters and nails rip out and the crate pops open. I put the hammer aside and pull the lid the rest of the way off before laying eyes on what's inside.

Resting gently in straw and packing peanuts is a sword, sheathed in a scabbard. The guard and pommel of the hilt are a dull gold, but the grip itself is tightly bound in a deep crimson leather strip that winds around the metal between. The scabbard itself is plain, dark-stained leather, with only a crest I don't recognise carved into it near the top. I run my hand lightly across the scabbard, feeling the leather grain beneath my fingers and tracing the lines of the carving. Carefully, I snake my palms beneath it and lift it out of the box. It's heavier than I expected, but there's something comfortable about the weight. Is this really the artefact my grandfather described as the 'key' to his inheritance? 

I set it back down in the crate and pick up the hammer instead, returning to the stairwell to hand it back to Janek, who's waiting for me. 
[color=white]"What you get?"[/color] He asks, thanking me as I pass him the hammer.
[color=#778899]"A delivery from my grandfather."[/color] I answer, wondering if I should elaborate. I decide to. [color=#778899]"A, uh...a sword."[/color]
Janek's eyebrows shoot up. [color=white]"Sword! Maybe I start smoking outside after all, eh?"[/color] He says, chuckling and prodding an elbow into my ribs. I chuckle back half-heartedly, and Janek ducks back into his apartment and leaves me in the stairwell puzzling over the crate and its contents in my head. After a few minutes, I return to my grandfather's gift.

It's shockingly unassuming for being a sword, particularly one of such apparently importance. I look over the crest engraved into the scabbard again; it's about the only identifying feature the relic has. I fish my phone from my pocket and snap a photo of it, then quickly run it through Google Lens, hoping that the wonders of modern technology will handily unlock this puzzle within a few nanoseconds and save me the trouble; but no such luck. The search doesn't turn up anything specific, mostly just returning papers and sites explaining crests and the various meanings of the symbols involved; I take a cursory look, but it's nothing illuminating. The only interesting titbit is a footnote on one website mentioning that many historical artefacts, particularly weaponry, can be dated and even identified by nicks and imperfections on the blades - microscopic debris left in chips can tell the right expert with the right equipment where it was used and roughly which era, which can then be used as context clues to deduce the wielder, and some weapons were even inscribed with unique artistry and runes for power in battle or luck against death, the methods and patterns themselves identifiable to certain periods and smiths. I look at the blade. The scabbard is in very good condition, and the leather looks contemporary, and I get the sense it's probably not the original but one freshly-made to help preserve the sword. I pick the sword up by the scabbard again and wrap my other hand around the grip to pull it free and inspect the bla-

I have the distinct sensation of walking into a room within which a loud and lively conversation is taking place between a large crowd of people all speaking at once, and upon my entry, every mouth closes and all talking ceases and in the deathly and conspicuous silence, a hundred and more pairs of eyes turn and settle their gaze upon me. And then they all start talking again.

[center][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/019d3be9-247c-7535-ae1a-4ebed4247144.webp[/img][/center]
Beneath the rabble is a voice that is not a voice, but a dark urge, a malodorous insistence upon evil deeds and the worst impulses, and despite the cacophony of speech all directed at me in a single surge, it is the clearest, the loudest, the most seductive. The other voices seem to notice my daze, because all at once they harmonize and, in a shattering chorus, deny the tempting tongue. The refusal is so loud and powerful that I drop the sword in shock, and as the grip leaves my fingers all voices cease entirely.

I take a few minutes to catch my breath and collect my thoughts while staring at the sword laying in the box. I try to convince myself it was just a brief bout of hallucinatory madness but I'm also reluctant to label myself 'bat-shit crazy' quite so quickly. Talking swords? I live in New York, I've glimpsed the Spider - and I've seen the news coverage of Hawkman in Chicago; the world is weird, but I never thought that weird would come home to [i]me[/i], and 'talking sword' still feels so separate and alien to me from the publicly-acknowledged weird out there in the city. Very heavily against my better judgement, I reach out and grasp the sword again.

It's less of a rush, this time; it's like the voices know they scared me off, and they're more subdued now, the roaring conversation reduced to a low background murmur that blends together into a kind of white noise layered over the darker sound. Above them, one singular voice speaks to me directly, in a tone vaguely familiar in an ephemeral way.
[color=white]"Dane? Is that you?"[/color]
The question lingers a while; I hear it, but I also know I don't [i]hear[/i] it - it's like my own internal monologue got a new set of vocal cords and a mind of its own. I'm not sure how to respond.
[color=#778899]"Yes? Hello?"[/color] I say out loud, my voice echoing slightly off the kitchen cabinets. Still I hear the background murmur, and again the single voice cuts through above the din.
[color=white]"I know you must be confused. Maybe frightened. We all understand; we were all the same."[/color]
My forehead creases as I furrow my brow. 
[color=#778899]"Sorry, 'we'?"[/color]
[color=white]"Every Knight who's ever wielded this blade; generations of our family dating back centuries."[/color]
My mind boggles. [color=#778899]"Our family...?"[/color] I trail off, and then the nascent familiarity with the voice's tone clicks, and I come to a sudden realization. He sounds like Dad.
[color=#778899]"...are you my grandfather?"[/color]
There's a pause.
[color=white]"Yes. Nathan Garrett, your grandfather. You are my heir, Dane; this blade is your oath-sworn birthright."[/color]
[color=#778899]"I haven't sworn a damn thing."[/color]
[color=white]"Neither did any of us, with one exception; yet we carried the blade all the same, and so here we are. It's just how it is."[/color]

I start putting the pieces together; my grandfather, his will, my inheritance, the sword. I get angry; indignant.
[color=#778899]"What exactly have you opted me in for?"[/color] I demand, my voice hard and demanding. The reply is solemn and unwavering.
[color=white]"Duty. You will understand, in time."[/color]
Nathan Garrett is a stranger; no father to his son, and no grandfather to me. Years of disconnection from any kind of family rush to the forefront of my mind; and now, only after losing Dad, the seeming intention of his first and only contact with me is to trap me in some unwitting obligation under false pretences of promised fortunes. 
[color=#778899]"The fuck I will, asshole."[/color] I say, and drop the sword back in the box, leaving it there as I grab my jacket and head back out for the second time today - a new record - and head for the nearest hole-in-the-wall for a beer.
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