He walked over to the slab where I had laid for so long, tortured by my inaction. “I claim thee,” he pronounced as he reached over and gripped my pommel. He lifted me, felt my weight, and smiled.

His existing sword, incidentally—that which had served him so well in penetrating the Night Pits of Anduklar and which had killed the fire devil for him—he tossed unceremoniously aside. It landed with a clang on the stone floor.

This did not improve my impression of him any.

“Ha ha.” He smiled. “A blade of legend. And now you are mine.”

And you, I silently added, are mine, fair knight.

“I name thee . . .” he paused for dramatic effect, though just who it was supposed to benefit was a mystery to me, “. . . I name thee Hardthruster!”

Hardthruster! I burst with laughter. Can you be serious?

The Knight started. “Who’s there?” He spun about, his sword—me, Hardthruster—at the ready. “Where are you?”

Look at what you have in your hands, I advised him. I expect that’s a sentence you’ve heard once or twice before!

“Who is speaking to me?” he demanded.

Honestly, Hardthruster? Why not just go ahead and call me Phallic Extension Project? That’s easily the stupidest name anyone’s ever tried to give me—and for a long period in the Frandalon Dynasty, I was known as Stiffee!

“What devilry is this!” The knight dropped me. I landed on the floor pommel first, bouncing once before clanging against the stone floor with a mighty racket.

In a flash the knight was gone, tearing out of the room in terror, without even pausing to claim his discarded sword. There I lay on the floor, without even the dignity of a slab any longer.

And I thought: that really could’ve gone better.