Edmond took a deep breath, and pushed. The stone door at first didn’t move, and for a bit he was worried he’d break his makeshift crowbar. But soon, with the grinding of stone-on-stone, the door started to swing open. Edmond wiped off some sweat and checked the sword he’d been using for damage - a bit scuffed, scraped, and a little chipped, but still plenty good for slashing things.

The adventurer could, probably, stand to be a bit less rough with his things. But he was a successful warrior; if this two-handed greatsword broke, he had the cash to buy another, and other weapons to tide him over in the meantime. Edmond was less worried about efficiency than he was about this lucrative quest he was on.

It was a fairly simple rescue mission - some mage had gotten herself stuck in the depths of a dungeon. Sure, it was an old, high level one, but that wasn’t a concern to Edmond. He had the skill and experience to take the place on all the same, as long as didn’t fight stupid. The dungeon was filled with strong monsters - the chips on the sword had been as a result off having to try and use it to fight stone golems - and even more full of traps. He’d lost his ten foot pole at the entrance and the spare three levels above, meaning now he was checking for traps using the longest implement available to him, his sword.

But for all that, it would be worth it. In addition to the hefty gold reward, the quest notification that was posted by the mage’s panicked apprentice had promised free enchantments on the gear of any adventurer who could accomplish the task - and for a man like Edmond who had a lot of gear, and no magical abilities to speak of, that was worth the gear’s weight in platinum.

The dungeon’s floors were dense and filled with traps and hostile monsters, but there were only a limited amount of them to search. As Edmond had been expecting, the mage was at the bottom, and he suspected she’d be in the room furthest from the stairs - that was how these quests tended to go. So he picked his way through the floor slowly, deliberately. He beat a Living Armor to scrap, had to duel a strange mirror-monster, and got his sword singed when he tested a weird bit of floor that immediately turned into a pillar of fire.

Soon enough, he reached a final door - the last room in the dungeon, and likely the location of this mage. Another stone door, another use of his battered blade as a crowbar. At least the slight bend at the tip where a trap had nearly crushed it made it easier to use for that. The door slowly grinded open.

Inside was a surprisingly nice room. Beakers filled with liquids of a dozen assorted colors bubbled. One of the walls was covered in papers on which scores of notes were written in chicken-scratch handwriting, and the opposing wall was covered in diagrams big enough that the drawings slid off the paper and onto the walls themselves. Strewn about the floor were small packets that once contained preserved foods, intermixed with notebooks and tomes of magical knowledge. In the middle of the room was a table, with what looked to be a living armor in pieces spread across it at random.

In the middle of the room, sketching something into a book as she examined the inside of the helmet, was a woman. Purple hair falling to near the floor, tall, and wearing purple robes that concealed most of her figure, it seemed obvious to Edmond who this was. The mage he was looking for, Esther.

“If it is another specimen, put it in a corner somewhere. I am still working on this one.” Esther said with a wave.

Edmond blinked. “...Ma’am, this is a rescue mission.” he said, putting on his best ‘professional’ voice.

“Then you best find someone who is in danger, rather than wasting my time.” Esther snapped, not looking up from her work.

Edmond rubbed his forehead and groaned. “Ma’am, I was hired by your apprentice to bring you back to town. You’ve been in here for a week.”

“And had the most effective, distraction free research I have had the pleasure of having for years. It is quite easy to survive here when you have noted all traps and rewritten every guardian to ignore you.”

Edmond sighed. One of these then. “I’m sure that’ll be very interesting to your apprentice, lady,” he said, his patience wearing thin, “But you’ll have to tell him yourself. I accepted the quest, and I’m not leaving without you.”

“Settle in.”

Edmond didn’t have time for this. He walked up towards the mage. “You’re going to have to come with me…” he said. Was she crazy? They were in the most dangerous dungeon in the region, and she’d been there goodness knows how long - he didn’t see where she was keeping her food. Even if she were safe from the monsters, this wasn’t sustainable.

“That is an optimistic thought.” Esther noted.

Edmond sighed. He didn’t like doing this, but it was for her own good. He raised his sword over his head, and swung downwards, aiming to bop her on the head with the pommel; he was confident enough in his control that he’d knock her out, not leave any lasting damage.

Provided it made contact, at least.

When he was just about to hit, his sword was yanked out of his hand by an unseen force. “I have been working on some interesting spells, here.” Esther said conversationally, “Thank you for the opportunity to test a few.”

The sword floating in the air suddenly started to shift. Edmond braced himself, but it didn’t go flying at him. As it floated, the metal began to ripple, and then spread from the core greatsword. The leather-and-iron hilt seemed to split at the middle, the two parts lengthening and thickening. At the same time, the blade grew rounded at the tip while it’s metal squeezed out at the sides two thirds up it’s length.

The almost liquid metallic substance kept growing. The hilt’s split halves touched down on the floor, with the pommel halves extending out to give it steady footing. Meanwhile the round bulb at the tip of the sword grew and grew, until it was roughly the size of a human head, while the thin bits of metal spreading out in a t-shape from the blade grew longer, and then started to round out and thicken. Oddly, no matter how the material stretched and strained, the sword never seemed to thin or dull, the transmutation spell magically expanding the material.

Soon, it became clear that the metal wasn’t expanding at random - it was taking a specific shape. Namely, a human one. The engorged, split hilt started to look like a pair of legs, while the handguard started to expand into a set of hips; the metallic protrusions were turning into shoulders and arms, and soon to grow hands. Which meant the orb on top of the blade…

“What are you doing to my sword!?” Edmond demanded.

“Making sure you can’t use her anymore.” Esther said simply, and let the spell keep working.

The head started to gain definition just as the rest of the shape resolved itself. The blade thickened across it’s length until it was big enough to resemble the human torso. The sword was definitely turning humanoid, and just as definitely turning female.  The proportions of the hips and waist, along with some… protrusions, on the chest, made that very clear. The face that had begun to appear was, surprisingly, quite pretty…

Soon, the spell was complete, and the former sword landed on the ground. For a few moments, there was no movement. Then, her eyes blinked a bit - pure, magical purple behind the metal lids - as she looked around, and then down at herself. She seemed astonished at having hands, let alone the ability to move them. “...Well, that’s very interesting.” she said after a bit. “...Definitely not bad though.”

The mage coughed. “Sword. We had business to attend.”

The metallic woman waved Esther off. “Oh, don’t rush me! It’s not every day you go from inanimate object to sentient being!” she said, experimentally rapping her knuckle on her chest. It bounced off with a loud ‘clang’. “Oh, I felt that!” she said, before repeating the process at various parts of her body.

“Uh…” Edmond stared at the woman that had been his weapon not moments ago. This was… well this wasn’t what he expected when he entered the dungeon.

“I think I’ll go by… Greta. That’s a nice sounding name. Yeah.” The sword girl nodded to herself. “Now then…”

In a flash, Edmond was restrained. One moment the woman had been standing there, the next he was held in a literally iron grip. The woman had dashed behind him and was now holding him tight, and in a none too friendly way. “W-What-”

“What did you do? What do you think you did!?” The sword girl demanded.

“Use you- hrk!” Edmond tried to struggle, to escape, but the sword girl had no apparent intention to release him any time soon, and he could no more move her arms than he could push a building.

“It’s not about that! I’m a sword, I’m meant to slash things!” Greta squeezed tighter, knocking the wind from Edmond. “I’m not meant to pry open doors! Or to test for traps! I am a sword, not a damn crowbar! Or a ten foot pole for that matter! It’s a wonder I didn’t fall apart before you got me here!”

The mage, who had been watching with curiosity, coughed politely.

“What do you want, lady?” Greta asked.

“Just to confirm, are you an independent being, or are you compelled to follow my orders? I have never had to use that one before.” Esther said, taking out a notebook.

“Independent. If you’re going to tell me to loosen up-”

“I am.”

“Then screw off.”

Esther jotted a few notes in her book. “Anyway, I would like you to loosen up so he does not expire before I can cast the appropriate spell. By all means, hold on to him.”

Greta smiled and loosened enough to let Edmond breath. “Go at him then! I wanna see this…”

“What the hell- why-” Edmond groaned.

“You interrupted me. You assaulted me. You wished to take me some place against my will. For all I know, you are some brigand, who only took the quest to find a consequence-free victim.”

“Why…” Edmond sighed, “Does it sound like that first one is the one you’re most mad about…”

“That would be because it is.” Esther said simply, before placing a finger on his chest and channeling magic.

His armor started to ripple much like his sword had - but rather than having his armor start turning into a metallic woman, something else happened. The steel plating started to expand, sliding across his body. The metal went up his arms and down his legs, and even started to creep up his neck. Anywhere that wasn’t already covered by plate was benign covered in metal. “Damnit, damnit, let me go, I’m sorry! Seriously, I thought it was for your own go-”

Before his excuse could leave his mouth, Edmond was completely covered in metal. He looked less like someone wearing armor, and more like a full suit of plate on an armor rack. For a moment, the was it, as his body settled. But then, the armor started to shrink.

It felt strange - the armor was shrinking, and his body was certainly being condensed by it, but he felt no pain or even discomfort. It was odd, but not bad. His arms and legs seemed to pull inwards as his body and armor morphed, leaving him standing rigidly straight.

It was when his legs began to merge together, and his arms melded with his chest, that he began to get an inkling of what was happening. It felt much like his sword’s transformation had looked, but almost in reverse. He was being turned into something, and if the witch had any sense of irony, it was going to be a sword.

His body continued to shrink until he was at about two thirds his former size. His legs had already merged to become a proper hilt, his feet rounding out to become the pommel. He felt his hips spread and flatten, likely becoming the handguard of the new blade. Meanwhile, he felt a crushing but somehow not uncomfortable force as every part above the hips flattened. His arms were wrenched upwards over his head, pressing against each other at the fingertips to become the point.

He had his hilt and his point, and the rest was filling in rapidly. His plate armor and helmet vanished into plain, well made steel as he was flattened to the proper shape. Hammer blows of force beat the identifying features out of the metal - his face, his shoulders, any irregularity in the silhouette was hammered to shape.

It hadn’t taken long at all before he was complete, clattering to the ground between Greta and Esther. “...Serves him right. Don’t know how to treat a sword, so be a sword.” the sword-woman grumbled, picking him up and giving him a few experimental swings. The rush of air past his blade felt… surprisingly nice. “...Does kinda feel weird to use a sword instead of being used.”

“Right. Now… back to work…” Esther said.

“He was right, you know.” Greta said.

Esther blinked. “About what?”

Greta gestured broadly around. “You’re out of food. And nearly out of paper.”

Esther looked. Then her stomach rumbled. “...So I am.”

“...We probably should head to the surface.” Greta said.

Oh, that was just great, she didn’t realize he was right until after turning him into a sword, the former adventurer grumbled internally. Would she at least turn him-

“I do not have the materials for a reversal spell. And the idiot probably defeated all the living armors I had modified, so new monsters will be coming in…”

Greta looked at Esther, then at the sword. “...Need some help getting out?”

“That would be appreciated. Let me gather my notes.”

Edmond watched incredulously as, after casting two high level transmutation spells in the name of staying where she was, Esther simply packed up and got ready to leave. Some mages really detached themselves from reality.

As soon as they left, they were fighting monsters. Having been a sword herself seemed to give Greta some knowledge about how to properly use one, and her body was quite strong - she swung Edmond around expertly, cleaving the monsters that had retaken the tunnels in two with ease. Esther cast a spell every now and then, but seemed more concerned with her notes - but that didn’t seem to bother Greta after she got used to the body.

It felt strange to be used like that, the knight thought. But somehow it didn’t feel… bad. He knew he should be worried, as every cleave and cut felt more and more natural, but it was hard for him to feel it. It was hard for it to feel much at all, really. Greta was a very skilled wielder, and respected her weapon, making sure to clean and sharpen it after each floor, using some grindstones she’d looted and some clean rags that Esther had.

It was getting hard to think. But the sword didn’t really need to think. It needed to swing hard, cut hard, smash hard if the pommel was used. It didn’t remember Wielder’s name, but it didn’t need to - its Owner was competent and treated it nicely and that was all the sword needed.  Floor after floor of monsters was slashed to bits, and the sword thought less and less. No thinking was needed to fulfill its purpose, after all. What it had once been was not even a distant memory. It was a sword. If it had ever been something else, then that something was ingots and ore.

There was light in the tunnel ahead, and as Owner stabbed one last monster to death, it wasn’t with a former adventurer. Greta was wielding a mere sword. A moderately magical one, but a sword all the same.

Greta raised a hand to shield her eyes as she stepped out into the sunset. It was dim, but it was also the first time she’d ever felt sun on her body, or wind, or much of anything. It was… interesting, to say the least. Esther plodded out behind her, and kept walking without a second thought.

“H-Hey!” Greta said, running after the mage, “Where are you going?”

“Home. My apprentice needs me. And needs a stern talking to.” Esther said simply. “Your task of taking me to the surface is complete.”

Greta was quiet for a bit. “...Need someone else to serve you? I don’t have anything better to do, and evidently you shouldn’t be going on expeditions yourself. You made me, you know I’m good for it.”

“I made you with an experimental and untested spell. I do not know anything for sure.” Esther corrected. “That being said… you do have a point.”

The two discussed the terms of their new agreement as they walked towards town, the adventurer turned sword forgotten. But of course, it didn’t mind that. It didn’t mind much of anything - it was just a sword.