okay, so, thanks to 塔露拉·雅特利亞斯 I have realized something that makes a bunch of stuff in Taeliana, my book-world, abruptly make sense that I was trying to figure out.

(So Tara, take your bow.)

There's a magical metal that exists, orichalcum. It's incredibly hard, difficult to work, but when it is worked, it makes items that are incredibly powerful and unique. (It also supposedly has a chance of sucking in the soul of the person working it, but still...)

Orichalcum is far more than that. And to explain more, I need to digress a bit into dragons.

See, in Taeliana, the dragons are very, very, very different. There's the Grand Dragons, the dragons of Land, Metal and Gem, set to protect those things. But the Grand Dragons realized that they couldn't do it all, so they created their children.

The Six Dragons of the Council of the Land, the Four Dragons of the Council of the Gems, and the Five Dragons of the Council of Metals.

The dragons of the Metals are the dragons of gold, iron, Lehkocel (commonly called brightmetal, lighter but as strong as steel and naturally white in color), Tmovocel (commonly called darkmetal, heavier and stronger than steel, naturally a dark grey in color, retaining that color even after refinement and forging), and orichalcum.

Orichalcum looks like a reddish gold, but again, is incredibly hard and incredibly rare. The secrets of forging it are kept by the iron giants of Mount Dyngpyrtha, the only known volcano on the continent, and only taught to those who prove themselves already skilled craftsmen and are willing to take a blood oath to not teach to any but a worthy apprentice.

Orichaclum is usually discovered when you're smelting other metals and the nuggets of it float to the top of the molten metal. And a ton of iron might - MIGHT! - provide you an ounce of orichalcum, if you're lucky. So a weapon like Breaker of Chains, Meliantha's greatsword, is incredibly valuable, almost incalculably so.

(I did the math casually a while back. Just for the oricalcum, in D&D terms, her sword is worth almost 13 million gold pieces.)

One of the things that the iron giants know, and that they teach their apprentices, and is one of the most heavily guarded secrets of the world, is that not everyone can use something made of orichalcum. Orichaclum itself is not just a metal. To have something made of orichalcum, and to have it respond to you, is to connect to destiny itself.

the sages of the Iron Giants have debated since they realized this as to whether destiny brings the item to the person destined to have it, or if claiming it changes that person's destiny, or if that even matters in the long run, with a few wondering what destiny really is, anyway.

Meliantha has Breaker of Chains, the Slayer of Slavery, the Blade of Freedom.

she doesn't know it yet, but Jey Corbeau, the Grey Swan, holds the Swanblade, the Laughing Blade, the Sword of the Heart, once the weapon of one now sainted.

Juliette will come into possession of Chjamante, the Bastion's Poniard, the Summoner Of The Protector - an orichachum dagger than can be played like a flute and, if you know the correct song and if things are just right, can summon a colossal entity.

...and this is going to cause some people who know the deeper truths about orichalcum to wonder... why are these things appearing now?

always a concerning question to have to ask, especially when you only know enough to ask it, and not enough to start finding an answer

yessssssssss.....

oh, yes, one more thing to note: the Emperor and Empress are aware of that property of orichalcum. So they will, in fact, be amongst the people wondering...

But yeah, you saying I should do that thing apparently kicked part of my brain into this.