You-Cursed Armor artifact|Mirien Flathir

The door to the "Five-Leaf Clover" tavern slammed shut with the heavy finality of an exhausted traveller collapsing into bed. Mirien stepped over the threshold, and the floorboards groaned mournfully under her weight — even they could sense how worn out she was.

The dungeon clearance had been a success. The goblins were dead, the trophies gathered, the report for the guild nearly ready. But all she could think about now was a hot bath, a tankard of ale, and sleep. An attempt at sleep, at least. Just to lie down.

She tossed her spatial pouch onto the floor by the bed and was about to fall face-first into the pillow when something clinked. Something small, metallic, had tumbled out of the pouch and rolled across the floorboards.

A ring.

She stopped. Picked it up. Turned it over in her fingers.

It was black. Not merely dark, but truly black — like a starless night, like the depths of the dungeon from which she had brought it. On the inside surface, runes twisted that she could not read. They resembled neither Elvish, nor Dwarvish, nor anything her mother had taught her.

She had found it on an old altar in the depths of the dungeon. It had lain there alone, on a cracked stone, in a circle of dust that seemed not to dare to touch it. And it had glittered.

"I ought to check it for magic," she said aloud. "Father always said: don't put on what you haven't checked."

She turned the ring over once more. The candlelight slipped across the black metal, and for a moment it seemed to her that the ring flared from within — not with light, but with darkness. Deep, velvety, beckoning.

"But it's so beautiful..."

She slipped it onto her finger.

For a second, nothing happened. She even had time to think, "Well, there you go, and I was worried." And then the ring vanished. It simply dissolved into the air, leaving not a trace upon her skin. Mirien blinked. Opened her mouth to say something — and didn't have the time.

A wave rolled through her body. Cold, prickling, like a thousand tiny needles, it swept from her fingers to her shoulders, from her chest to her thighs, flowing around her, embracing her, enveloping her. Her old armour — the faithful steel that had journeyed with her through more than one dungeon — vanished. Dissolved into the air, just like the ring.

And in its place, something else appeared.

Black. Form-fitting. Smooth as polished metal, yet supple as fabric. It hugged every curve of her body, every muscle, every line — like a second skin. Dark metal pauldrons, greaves. As though it had always been there.

"What?.."

She ran her palms over her body — over her shoulders, her chest, her stomach. The material was warm. Alive. It responded to her touch, vibrating faintly beneath her fingers. Mirien felt panic rising from somewhere in her stomach to her throat.

"No. No, no, no. Come off. Get off. I command you!"

She seized the edge of the armour at her throat and pulled. Useless. She tried to work her nails underneath. No seam. No clasp. The armour was whole — seamless, solid, as though cast in one piece.

She rushed to her pouch, snatched out the first shirt she could grab, and tried to pull it on over the top. The fabric flared up in her hands — and crumbled to grey ash at her feet.

"What the..." she grabbed another. The same fate. A third. A fourth. All of her spare clothing — everything she had worn for years — turned to dust within seconds.

Mirien froze in the middle of the room, breathing heavily. Her chest rose and fell beneath the black armour. In the mirror opposite, her reflection stared back — tall, muscular, curvaceous, clad in form-fitting black armour that hid nothing. Absolutely nothing.

She opened her mouth.

"What is going o-on! Well, I don't want it like this, ugh!" her voice cracked mid-wail, and she stamped her foot in despair. "Come off! Please! I'll never put on shiny things ever again! I swear! Well... almost swear. But come off!"

Several days had passed in a fog. Mirien had learned not to flinch every time the armour changed its form. She had learned not to blush — well, almost — when it vibrated in the most inconvenient places. She had learned to keep a straight face, even when it squeezed her thighs or slid across her waist as though testing its boundaries.

But she still hadn't learned how to take it off.

And now she was walking through the central market of Valeria's capital — tall, straight-backed, in her form-fitting black armour that drew more stares than she would have liked. Merchants called out to customers, hawkers shouted about fresh pastries, a blacksmith's hammer rang somewhere. The air smelled of spices, leather, hot metal, and horses. An ordinary market day.

Mirien walked without looking around. Her face was calm, distant — the mask of the "Unapproachable Mirien" was working flawlessly. The merchants who recognised her nodded respectfully. Young adventurers stepped aside to let her pass. No one could have guessed that inside, she was running through the same mental dialogue over and over.

"Maybe a blacksmith will know what this material is. He is a blacksmith, after all. He's worked with metal all his life. If anyone can figure out what this armour is, it's him. Or her. Or... gods, I don't even know who I'm going to see. I just heard there's a good blacksmith at the market. What if he laughs? What if he says it's just a cursed artefact, and I'll never get it off? What if..."

She stopped in front of a shop with a sign reading "Master Blacksmith." The smell of coal, scale, and red-hot metal drifted from within. It was dim inside, lit only by the orange glow of the forge.

Mirien sighed. She adjusted an already perfectly placed pauldron. And stepped inside.

"I need a consultation," she said in an even, cold voice that betrayed absolutely nothing of how tightly everything inside her was coiled with embarrassment. "My armour... it won't come off. And I want to know what it's made of."

The forest greeted her with silence. Not the kind found in deep thickets where no birds sing — no, the birds were singing, the wind was rustling the treetops, a woodpecker tapped somewhere in the distance. An ordinary forest. An ordinary day. An ordinary assignment.

Mirien walked along a barely visible trail, her thoughts flowing in their usual course. She was thinking that the weather today was surprisingly fine, that the village she was headed for was still half a day's walk away, and that the armour had been unusually quiet these past few hours. That was unsettling. It usually never missed an opportunity to remind her of its presence — squeezing a shoulder, or vibrating somewhere around the small of her back, or suddenly becoming a couple of shades more transparent. But now — silence. As if it were lying in wait.

"Maybe it likes the forest too?" she thought, and immediately cut herself off. "Gods, I'm personifying the armour now. Father was right. I spend too much time alone."

She adjusted the strap of her spatial pouch and continued on her way. The sun broke through the foliage, painting golden patterns on the earth. Something rustled in the bushes — a rabbit, probably. Or a fox. Or... something larger.

Mirien stopped. Her hand came to rest on the hilt of 'Headcleaver.' She listened.

Silence. But now — a different kind. The birds had stopped singing. The woodpecker had stopped its tapping. Even the wind seemed to be holding its breath.

"Well, of course," she muttered to herself. "Nothing foretold trouble. And now it's foretelling. As always. Wonderful. Just wonderful."

She slowly drew her sword from its scabbard. The steel flashed in the sunlight — clean, sharp, ready. The armour around her body tightened slightly, as if bracing for a fight. Or, perhaps, relishing the prospect of one.

From beyond the trees, a low, guttural growl echoed. Not a wolf's. Not a bear's. Something else. Something she didn't yet have a name for.

Mirien drew a deep breath. Her face turned cold and focused — the mask of a warrior, honed by years of training.

"Alright," she said quietly. "Let's have some fun."

The main hall of the "Five-Leaf Clover" guild was noisy. Several groups of adventurers were discussing assignments, someone was arguing over a map, someone was cleaning their weapon at the far table. But when Mirien walked in, the murmur died down for a moment. It was always like that. Tall, straight-backed, in her form-fitting black armour, with 'Headcleaver' at her back — she looked like a walking legend. And she intimidated people by her very presence.

"The Unapproachable Mirien," someone whispered behind her back, and she pretended she hadn't heard.

The guild master, an elderly dwarf with a grey beard braided into three plaits, beckoned her over to the counter.

"Mirien! Excellent, you're here. We've got a new lad. Copper rank. Brimming with enthusiasm, itching for a fight, but his skills are practically non-existent. Give him a training bout. Show him what a real fight looks like. Only..." the dwarf hesitated, scratching his nose. "Try not to break him. He'll come in useful."

Mirien looked at the new recruit. A very young lad — perhaps eighteen, perhaps twenty. Light hair, freckles, a wooden sword in his trembling hands. He gazed up at her with an expression as though he'd been asked to fight a dragon.

"I... I'm ready!" he blurted out, his voice cracking. "I mean... I'll try. I'll do my very best. Really."

Mirien sighed. Inside, she was embarrassed — she always got embarrassed when people stared at her — but outwardly, her face remained cold and calm.

"Hold your sword tighter," she said in an even voice. "And don't look at me like that. I'm not a dragon. For now."

The old castle stood on a hill like a rotten tooth, forgotten by time. Mirien had been making her way through its corridors for over an hour, and 'Headcleaver' had known no rest today. The goblins came often, but she managed — one after another, methodically and cold-bloodedly. The vile creatures had clearly made a lair here, and the assignment promised to be straightforward.

Until she stepped into the great hall.

The glassless windows gaped like empty eye sockets, the torchlight danced on the damp walls, and from every dark corner, yellow eyes stared back at her. Dozens. Perhaps hundreds. Goblins filled the hall, the balcony, the galleries — crawling out of the cracks like cockroaches, and there were far too many of them.

"Well, of course," she muttered, settling into her fighting stance. "One against an army. As always."

The first wave of goblins charged at her. Mirien took a broad swing, and 'Headcleaver' sliced through the air, cutting down three at once. But new ones were already scrambling to take their place. A fourth goblin leaped from the side, aiming a spear at her unprotected thigh, and she barely managed to deflect the blow. A fifth threw something that looked like a poisoned dart — it clanged against her armour and bounced off, causing no harm. The armour was harder than any steel, and she might have been glad of it, had the goblins not kept coming.

They surrounded her.

The ring was closing in. Goblins were pressing from all sides — small, wriggling, stinking creatures. There were simply too many. She could take down another ten, maybe twenty. But then they would overwhelm her by sheer numbers. Mirien was breathing heavily. Her arms trembled with exhaustion, but her face remained stone. She would not show them fear. Never.

"Come on, then," she hissed through clenched teeth. "Who's first? I promise, it will hurt."

The dungeon was old. Very old. Mirien could tell by the smell — not of fresh mould, but of something ancient, a dampness compressed over centuries that had soaked deep into the stone. The torch in her hand cast trembling light upon walls covered in cracks and the marks of old claws. Somewhere far ahead, water was dripping — a steady, hypnotic sound that could drive a person mad if they listened to it too long.

But Mirien wasn't listening. She was humming.

It was an old Elven melody her mother had sung to her in childhood — slow, quiet as a lullaby. In the dungeon, her voice sounded strange, echoing off the stone and returning to her as a ghostly refrain. She couldn't recall all the words — Elvish came to her less easily than the common tongue — but she remembered the melody perfectly.

"Mírë andúnë, lómë núra..." she sang softly, turning into yet another corridor. "Precious sunset, deep night..."

'Headcleaver' was at the ready in her right hand, though she held it loosely, its tip angled down. The assignment was simple: explore the dungeon, mark new passageways on the map, note any locations with traps or valuable resources. No monsters, according to the scouts' reports. No threat. Just a stroll.

She lowered the torch, studying the floor. Tracks. Fresh ones. Not goblin tracks — too large. A troll, perhaps? Or one of the deep-dwelling creatures? She frowned, but after a second simply shrugged. If anything crossed her path — 'Headcleaver' would handle it. As always.

She moved on, and the melody slipped from her lips once more.

The armour on her body remained silent. It was calm, warm, and motionless — no vibrations, no constrictions, no hints of anything. Just armour. Just a second skin. She was almost getting used to it.

And behind her, in the darkness, something was stirring.

Mirien didn't see it. Didn't hear it. She was humming, and her voice drowned out the soft, wet sound — as though something slick and long was slowly creeping across the stone. Tentacles — black, glistening, with suckers — were rising from the cracks in the walls, reaching after her, following at a distance. There were dozens of them. But they did not attack. They waited. They watched.

"...lómë núra, elen síla..." she sang, peering into another empty chamber. "...deep night, a star shines..."

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