November 10th, 2019
New item to talk about here in my journal. Found it recently in nest (loose terminology there) of an upyr. It took me a while to track down the beast’s nest, but given that it attacked me and not some random guy off the street (even took some digging to identify a pattern of attacks), I figured it’d be best to make sure there wasn’t some poor sap slowly dying of exposure or starvation or thirst.
Fortunately, there wasn’t. Also fortunately: this upyr was a pack rat and left a pile of stuff for me to sift through. I’ve seen worse episodes of Hoarders so, definitely could’ve been worse. Among the things in that stash was Victim Knife.
Victim Knife
What it looks like:
This is a long, stiletto style blade. It’s double edged and looks silver to me (Or the steel is so finely honed and polished as to appear silver) tapering out roughly 18 inches to a fine point almost of needle width. It weighs too much to be aluminum. Its grip is cross-woven black and red leather.
There’s a myriad of sigils etched along the blade that Colby has identified as being fae in origin. He declined an ability to translate them though. My guess is that it tells of the cost associated with the weapon’s magical properties.
I took the grip wrapping off (it rewove itself five minutes after I removed it… it was an experience to see it happen) and the blade is full tang and just as delightfully bright in material. Hidden by the wrap is this knife’s namesake (that’s right, I didn’t name this one): Victim Knife. It was scratched into the metal in plain English. I don’t know if someone else scratched (it looks scratched) it into the hilt or if it was left there as a maker’s mark. Either way, it’s hidden unless you take the wrapping off.
How to activate it:
The usage of the knife’s special qualities is both easy and difficult. You need to exert intent. The first time will be easy. Exert your intent to cut through anything (I assume anything, but haven’t extensively tested it) and the sigils on the blade will glow with a soft green light and the point and edge of the blade will become so sharp it’ll pierce anything. See below for why only the first time will be easy.
The Cost:
Once activated, the sigils glow. As long as those sigils are glowing, every cut or stab or puncture will exact a bloody toll on whoever activated it. Each cut cuts the wielder (good luck letting go before it deactivates too. In my tests, I couldn’t open my fingers no matter how hard I tried). The cuts hurt too, but in my experience, haven’t been deep enough to actually cause lasting harm. That being said, the wounds inflicted by this magical nature hurt like the dickens and are very real and present on your body. They’ll need tending to, to avoid infection or other complications (hey, blood is a potent component in spells and leaving some for someone else to use is a dangerous consequence).
Also, I don’t know about you, but I find it difficult doing something that I know will hurt. Maybe you have a stronger will than I.
The Dangers:
I hinted at one of the dangers in leaving a blood trail. It can be used against us and we hunters often engage in illegal activities that start at breaking and entering and escalate from there. Leaving that sort of evidence, readily, behind isn’t usually a good idea. Then there’s the act of inflicting wounds on yourself. Sure, a laceration across your ribs that’s a little more than skin deep might not seem like a serious cost until some supernatural creature’s uncanny ability to smack said wound and drive home just how painful it is.
Hell, I’ve known mundane mortal assholes who would exploit an injury to gain advantage over an opponent.
I’m among those assholes.
I know what you’re thinking: why not activate it, make whatever tiny incision, then let the sigils time out? Well, I’ve not figured out a direct connection with how long the sigils remain active and number of cuts, but I can say that if you don’t use the knife soon enough, whatever magics are powering the thing still exact its pound of flesh before powering down. The future scar on my left shoulder is testament to that.
The Benefits:
This knife is damned sharp and, if my assessment is correct, silver. Lots of things have an acute allergy to silver. It can be used as a stake (likely why I found it in the lair of the upyr) making it incredibly useful even without its magical qualities. The rarity of it is without question. When you mix in that with a mote of intent you can turn that useful blade into something that slices through near anything (I tested it on concrete, steel, silver, the body of my car [sorry baby]) makes it undoubtedly useful.
If you can get past the mental hurdle of knowing it’s going to hurt you as you hurt other things, that is.
The History:
Some speculation on this point: I found this in the hand of a corpse in this nest. I’m glad that the upyr didn’t possess the mental faculties to take the weapon and make use of it. I’m guessing, given the fae script on the blade and the unclean scratching of ‘Victim Knife’ in the hilt a hunter brought this weapon to tackle the upyr.
I’m pretty sure they, as the blood draining nature of the upyr left me a scarred mummy-like corpse to look at, knew about the properties of the knife. I didn’t know it when I collected it, but the myriad of scars on that corpse spoke to this hunter knowing just how to activate the weapon and its usage.
I’m guessing that they got it in a trade with some fae and may, or may not, have been given the full run down of the qualities of the weapon. But, knowing your foe is just as important to a successful hunt (shout out to the importance of doing your homework and research). Just like the myth of a shark being able to sniff out a drop of fresh blood from a mile away, an upyr is drawn to fresh wounds.
What does this knife do? Opens fresh wounds when using it.
This hunter brought a weapon they expected to end the fight quickly with, but didn’t know that dismemberment without staking wouldn’t put the beast down permanently.
A frantic fight later and the hunter’d lost this fight and the upyr got to stalk another victim.
The Victim Knife’s a useful tool (and one I’ll be keeping in my personal arsenal), but be wary of the damage it’ll inflict.
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