He is... effective. There's nothing else for him to be, really, it hardly even occurs to him that that's remarkable—except in comparison to other people, of course. He is effective at whatever he's doing, and efficient.

No one makes blades better than he does; he can do other things, too, of course, but blades are what he's exceptional at. No one uses blades better than he does, either, and he fancies it's because of how well he understands them.

Maybe he even identifies with them, a little. Forged in fire and magic, built with precision and purpose, and very, very good at what he does.

With Leandra he isn't, exactly, happy. But he likes his life. You can't miss what you've never had, after all, and he doesn't really think happiness suits him very well anyway.

Leandra is, on the whole, pleased with him. This doesn't stop her from replacing him, of course, but it's why he lives to serve someone else when she does. She respects effectiveness; he is talented and deadly, invisible and untouchable until he strikes, with all of the patience of death itself. Except, this is not really what the priestess of shadow needs. Death is all well and good, but her phantom blade lacks in understanding of the overall game board. He is a useful instrument, but nothing more. No knowledge of where and how would be best to strike. For what she seeks, she needs someone with more cunning. Someone who understands humans, and which strings can and should be pulled for the appropriate results.

She has him find his own replacement. Well, kill him, to be specific, but he still has to find him first. The killing itself is also somewhat debatable, because he doesn't stay fully dead for all that long, and the fight... mostly isn't. For all that he's assisting in his own replacement, he is more than a match against in a duel against a mere thief. Bane the legendary bandit is neatly killed while in the middle of one of his own heists, and his body is dragged back to Leandra to be raised, and that's that.

The thief proves to be useful in his own way, and puts into motion the rise of the second hand the ghostly assassin serves.

Through a complex and somewhat hare-brained plot that the phantom both is not fully party to and doesn't care at all about, a brilliant man is betrayed by his allies, and then brought back to avenge himself. His name is Kriig, and Leandra gifts him her phantom assassin as a show of alliance.

(The phantom is, of course, not asked for a particular opinion on this matter.)

With a handful of raised skeletons and the help of one very deadly ghostly blade, Kriig invades and conquers the great Dunley Iron Mine. This cuts off the major source of iron in the region and gains the undead forces a shelter from the sun in one fell swoop. The human casualties are raised, and Kriig directs them to begin proper fortifications of the new stronghold with the practiced efficiency of a seasoned general. It is the most brutally efficient operation that the phantom has ever seen, and quite possibly the first time he's ever been properly utilized to his fullest potential.

"You're as skilled as that witch promised," he says, and it's the first direct compliment the phantom has ever received. "What's your name, lad?"

The phantom does not really register that as a compliment; it's just an accurate description, after all. "I do not need one," he says, his voice sounding as if it came from the bottom of a well, though more understandable than an echo for being right in front of his interlocutor.

"I'm going to get enough of that with the skeletons," snorts Kriig. "There's already going to be too much 'you, with the hat,' for my liking. Hm... what do you think of the name Cyllian?"

...the phantom is really not sure how to respond. What the hells is this man trying to communicate.

"It's... a name," he replies, slowly.

"Well, if you think of a better one for yourself, let me know. 'Til then, it's faster than 'hey you.'"

And with that, it's back to much less confusing matters. They've got a lot to do, and not all that much time to do it, even if they do technically both have forever. There will be a counterattack, and they will need to be prepared for it.

Is "Cyllian" in fact faster than "hey you"? The phantom supposes that if there are many hey yous around that could get confusing.

...Cyllian supposes.

Hm.

Okay.

Anyway, back to work. And...

...

...he's still not happy, he doesn't think, or if he is he does it in a different way than other people do. But oh the General uses him so much better than the Shadow Priestess. He is thankful to her for giving him to the General. He creates beautiful, deadly weapons, and he himself gets to be a beautiful, deadly weapon. They are an extension of him, and he is an extension of the General, and they all cut through the General's foes like silk paper. He gets to be the most he can be.

(And if there are other feelings in him, feelings that in a lesser man could cause him to hesitate when striking someone down, well. They don't make him hesitate, and that's really all that matters. Other feelings can be excised appropriately.)

Kriig continues to not disappoint as a wielder of this living weapon of war. Cyllian is a key part of a ruthlessly efficient fighting force - assassin and smith both, arming the common skeleton soldier and then striking against any greater threats that they couldn't overwhelm with their numbers and simple tactics. There'd been another name for the iron mines, once, but soon it comes to be known as the haunted mines. Champions are sent to try and dislodge them from their stronghold, and then they all die. From their remains, Leandra raises new soldiers, some of them phantoms themselves, to bolster the fighting force. Still, even when he's no longer unique among their forces, Cyllian himself is considered irreplaceable. He is deadly, yes, but there's more that can be done with armed soldiers than unarmed ones, and the Shadow Priestess hasn't bothered to show anyone else the secrets of forging such powerfully magic weapons. It's possible she might not know as well as he does, despite the air of omnipotent mystery she cultivates; it's not as if she has as much practice in the day to day forging, or the physical ability to manage it herself. In the end, it doesn't really matter.

It is from this that Cyllian is stolen.

His latest wielder is... is...

Well.

He wears the hollowed out head of a decapitated horse over his own. 'Foulrot the Soultaker,' is what he calls... the horse that he claims is possessing him... and therefore the only name he is ever known by. He, or possibly the horse, wields two large butcher blades with an unmatched level of skill, but little regard for their ongoing care.

So, obviously, he stole the best available smith to make more of them. And nothing else.

...when he says "nothing else" what exactly does he mean, here?

Literally just more of these exact blades. He would like many of them, for when they break. Which is often.

Oh and, uh, stay and guard the forge he makes them at from anyone that might come to try and steal him back, he guesses.

Those exact blades? The... the butcher blades? The ones he had before he had Cyllian? That Cyllian himself didn't make, that he probably found in a dump somewhere and which looked like they were getting rusted by the time Cyllian saw them? That are so incredibly inefficient at doing—anything, really, but especially anything that's not literally butchering meat—

Those blades?

Yes. Those blades. But magic!

But.

But.

Butbutbutbutbutbut.

Not other blades? Cyllian can do other blades. Like swords. Daggers. Axes. Knives. So many blades.

No, no, no, no! These.

Just these.

Nothing else.

Does. Does he. Does the. Does Soultaker want. Tips. About. How to. Care for his. Blades. So they don't. Break. As often.

Nope! That would get in the way of his art.

Which is butchering people. If you kill people with enough violence in places of high ambient magic, you can make ghosts!

There are. He could. Be violent. Without. He. There. They. He.

But.

.......okay.

Excellent! So glad they understand each other.

Even the ghosts he makes with his 'art' are shoddy imitations of the craftsmanship Cyllian is used to. Confused, directionless souls, wandering aimlessly through these misty woods, angry and upset at their own demise.

Sometimes, if they wander too close to his forge, Cyllian gets to kill them.

Cyllian isn't happy.

He's honestly not sure what being happy is like. From everything he's been able to see it's not really something he does. He just exists, mostly. He's a tool, something with a purpose, something sharp and deadly and powerful and useful. Swords aren't happy, daggers aren't happy, axes aren't happy. They just are, and do.

...but Cyllian does wonder, in his copious amounts of spare time, what a sword would say if you asked it how it felt about being left to rust in a cave somewhere.

Cyllian isn't happy, but at least he doesn't rust.

When the Soultaker isn't around, which is often, and hasn't recently tasked him with recreating those horrible blades, which is most of the time, the phantom spars with shadows. He cannot fight his new master, but he will not let himself become unable to fight. The pitiful shades his master creates are not much better than that, either.

And when the phantom is tasked with more of the same, with creating yet another iteration of those butcher knives, he does an exquisite job of it, and outdoes himself every time. Not that that's enough for the blades to not inevitably shatter under that man's ministrations, but oh they will be beautiful until that happens.