Page 2955

'Near the end of his life,' said Garovel, 'Agrian reportedly came to have such a vindictive nature that any perceived insult he suffered caused him to fly into a rage and level entire buildings before calming down again.'

'Ah...' Worwal's tone shifted to one of tired familiarity. 'He resorted to slaughtering innocents, then...'

'Well, er, actually, no. Not quite. According to several different sources, he went out of his way to never kill a single person directly, even his enemies.'

'What?'

'The stories disagreed about why that was, but none of them disputed its historicity. Some said he was, despite all appearances, quite softhearted and simply incapable of taking a human life, while others said that it was actually a strange sense of cruelty that motivated him in this way. They said that he preferred to destroy or otherwise remove all of a person's worldly possessions, leaving them with nothing.

'There was one tale about a king who insulted him over supper by saying that a locket that Agrian had gifted the king's mistress "had the craftsmanship of a drunken child." Agrian kidnapped him in the middle of the night and abandoned him in the wilderness, telling him to "try crafting something better." The king survived and made it back to his stronghold, which apparently wasn't what Agrian had in mind, because he kidnapped him and did it again.' Garovel broke for a pregnant pause. 'The king didn't make it back a second time. No one ever saw him again.'

Geez, Hector thought.

"Hmm," hummed Abbas. "Forgemakers are notoriously eccentric. That story rings true to me. And it would require a truly strange contradiction of a man to create a Forge that rejected its own creator."

'You might be right,' said Garovel. 'Though the term "eccentric" is a bit generous, I think. He had many similar stories that did not involve kings, stories where he would simply burn down someone's house and tell them to "start anew."'

"Ah..."