Severin crossed the threshold first.
The grey-aproned assistant kept her right hand on the inward-opening door while Alicia followed behind his left shoulder. Saelith entered on his right, turning her bow in her left hand so the lower limb cleared the frame.
Oil and warm metal scented the room. Chalk lines marked a rectangle around a long ironwood bench bolted to the stone floor. 2 worn leather rests waited along its center. At the north end, insulated leads hung from a brass-faced cabinet crowded with a needle gauge, a narrow paper strip, and more levers than ornament.
A man in a dark work coat stood beside it. Protective cuffs wrapped his wrists. A round eye lens hung unused against his chest.
He glanced at Severin’s empty hands, then at the open door behind them.
"Morcant?"
"Yes."
"Independent claim for 1 sword."
"Yes."
The appraiser pointed toward a narrow shelf on the east wall. "The room costs 4 Gold. That buys the apparatus, 3 procedures that won’t damage the weapon, our original record, your copy, and comparison against the public F-to-S bands."
Severin stayed south of the bench. "The 4 Gold ends before anything meant to damage it?"
"It does. Anything destructive needs another written consent."
"What do these 3 procedures measure?"
"Maximum Core Essence the weapon can hold under a controlled load. Not sharpness. Not balance. Not age. If the apparatus can’t find a maximum without risking the object, the record says so."
Clean enough.
Severin reached into the Void.
4 Gold settled into his right palm. He crossed to the shelf and placed the coins in the shallow brass tray waiting there.
The assistant counted all 4 coins, slid them into a locked drawer beneath the shelf, and wrote the payment beside his claim number. The 4 Gold reduced his personal coin to 173 Stellar Gold 7 Gold 3 Silver 5 Copper.
She closed the chamber door. The latch clicked, but no key turned.
"Keep clear of the chalk," she said. "If I say hands back, move them."
Severin returned to the south end of the bench.
"Watch the contacts and the copy," he told Alicia.
"Yes, Master."
Her silver ears angled toward the cabinet. She moved southwest, where she could see the assistant’s hands and the record desk without stepping across the chalk.
Saelith chose the west lane on her own. Her bow remained in her left hand, point down. From there, nothing could reach the blade without crossing her sight.
The appraiser waited.
Severin reached into the Void again.
Wisdom’s Edge appeared in his right hand.
The pale-silver blade caught the room’s yellow lamp light without giving any back of its own. Its restrained dark-silver guard, black-wrapped grip, compact dark pommel, and deep-green inset looked almost plain beside the cabinet of brass and copper.
The assistant’s gaze sharpened at the weapon’s sudden appearance. She said nothing.
Severin set his feet south of the bench. His left hand supported the flat near the forte while his right kept the grip. He lowered the sword onto the 2 leather rests, point north, grip toward himself.
The leather gave under the weight with a dry creak.
"Don’t touch the edge," he said.
"Wasn’t planning to." The assistant lifted 2 brass jaws lined with dark leather. "Hands back."
Severin released the flat and kept his right hand close to the grip without crossing the chalk line.
She fixed the jaws against the blade near the ricasso. Neither hand went near the grip. Copper-silver leads ran from the jaws to the cabinet.
The appraiser looked at Saelith.
"Your bow stays where it is."
"It will."
The assistant checked the grounding lever, then checked it again. 2 metal rings beneath the bench answered with a faint clack.
"Contact test," the appraiser said. "1 Core Essence. It proves the connection, nothing more."
Severin watched the needle.
"Proceed."
The assistant closed the hand lever.
A soft hum passed through the bench. The needle jumped from its stop and held at the first mark. Wisdom’s Edge remained still. No heat touched Severin’s face. No light moved along the fuller.
The assistant released the lever and pulled the grounding bar down. The needle slid back to 0.
"Valid contact," the appraiser said.
The assistant checked the jaws, then stepped back to the lever.
"Standard sweep," the man continued. "It runs without interruption through the public bands and stops if the weapon strains, discharges, or refuses the load."
"Proceed."
The lever came down again.
The needle crossed 2 Core Essence, paused, then moved to 4.
A second bank clicked inside the cabinet.
The blade didn’t shift against the leather.
The assistant kept her right hand on the cutout. Alicia watched that hand, then the jaws, then the curling edge of the fee record on the east desk.
The hum deepened. The lamp flame nearest the cabinet trembled, though the air around the sword stayed clear.
The needle reached the last marked band and stopped there. Wisdom’s Edge showed no bend, glow, heat, vibration, or new mark.
The assistant grounded the bench. The cabinet’s hum thinned to silence, and the needle returned to 0.
The appraiser studied it for several breaths, eyes narrowed, before speaking in the same level voice.
"Public S begins beyond 64 Core Essence. That still requires a finite maximum. Passing the band doesn’t invent another letter."
"What remains without damage?" Severin asked.
"A separate accumulator. 128 Core Essence. It’s this branch’s certified ceiling for a protected test." The appraiser nodded toward the mechanical cutout. "Twin grounds stay active. If the load turns unstable, the machine breaks the circuit."
"This branch’s ceiling," Severin said.
"Yes. Not the sword’s. Not every Guild’s."
"Proceed."
The assistant disconnected the standard bank and fastened a thicker lead from the lower cabinet. She checked the grounding rings, pressed the cutout arm into place, then looked at the appraiser.
"Grounds ready."
"Raise it."
The lever descended.
The needle moved more slowly this time.
The cabinet gave a hard internal click at 64. A second coil began to hum beneath it. The needle climbed beyond the public band, crossed the blank brass between marks, and reached 128 Core Essence.
The assistant’s hand stayed on the cutout.
Wisdom’s Edge lay where Severin had placed it.
The needle quivered against the apparatus limit. A small mechanism inside the cabinet began striking type against the narrow paper strip.
Tick. Tick-tick. Tick.
The strip crawled forward and curled against the desk.
The appraiser watched the needle settle.
"Ground it."
The assistant released the lever and dragged the grounding bar down. The hum collapsed through the bench. The needle fell to 0.
Only then did she touch the paper strip.
She tore it free and handed it to the appraiser.
He read the printed line.
Maximum Core Essence: Indeterminate
The appraiser crossed to the east desk, set the strip beside a blank Guild sheet, and wrote beneath the measured field.
Weapon Grade: Unclassifiable
Alicia’s ears tipped forward. Saelith didn’t take her eyes from the blade.
"What does indeterminate record?" Severin asked.
"That this apparatus made valid contact, applied every protected load available in this room, and didn’t find a finite maximum." The appraiser capped his ink. "It doesn’t mean infinite. It doesn’t mean indestructible. It doesn’t make a new Weapon Grade. Greycross can only say our F-to-S table can’t classify it from this test."
That was the narrow failure Severin had paid Greycross to put in ink.
The appraiser glanced toward the cutout. "There’s another route."
"Destructive."
"Yes. We disable the cutout and raise the load until the weapon or apparatus shows failure. It needs new consent. It may scar the blade, misalign it, reduce what it can hold, crack it, or break it. The Guild doesn’t promise repair, and a failure point still won’t tell us what else the weapon does."
"No. Record what your machine proved."
The appraiser looked at him for a moment, then nodded. "Sensible. Less satisfying, but sensible."
Nobody moved a lead toward another position.
The assistant grounded the bench again before opening the jaws. She removed the north contact, then the south, and coiled the leads back toward the cabinet.
"Clear," she said.
Severin closed his right hand around the grip. His left supported the flat near the forte. He lifted Wisdom’s Edge straight from the rests.
Saelith examined the blade from point to guard.
"It never left your reach. No new mark."
The worn leather beneath it held only the shallow impression of its weight.
At the east desk, the appraiser fixed the type strip to a Guild sheet. The assistant prepared the claimant copy beside it. He wrote the 3 procedures in order: contact at 1 Core Essence, the public-band sweep from 2 through 64, and the branch-ceiling test at 128. Each procedure ended with no damage. The last 2 also recorded that no maximum had been found.
Severin shifted 1 step east to the near end of the desk, keeping the point north and the sword in his right hand.
"Keep 128 Core Essence on my copy," he said. "And that every test was nondamaging."
"It stays. So does your refusal of the destructive test."
"Good."
The appraiser wrote the fee, signed each sheet, and pressed the branch mark into their lower corners. He kept the Guild original. The assistant brought the claimant copy around the desk rather than reaching across the blade.
Severin took it in his left hand.
He read the copy while Wisdom’s Edge remained steady in his right. His name and 1 sword were correct. It listed all 3 procedures with their loads, followed by the printed Indeterminate field and the appraiser’s Unclassifiable conclusion. The last 2 entries showed Destructive test: Declined by claimant and Fee paid: 4 Gold.
Alicia leaned just enough to see the paper without crossing in front of him.
"Your copy came back, Master."
The assistant opened the chamber door. She carried the Guild original toward the claims counter while Severin stepped into the registry corridor with the sword in his right hand and the copy in his left.
Saelith followed behind-right. Alicia returned to his left shoulder.
A man waited against the corridor wall a few paces from the chamber. A plain Guild badge on his coat bore a stamped B. His eyes went first to the bare sword, then to the marked paper in Severin’s left hand.
"What Grade did Guild give that?" he asked.
Severin turned the copy only far enough to expose the Weapon Grade line.
Weapon Grade: Unclassifiable
The Hunter’s half-smile thinned. He didn’t reach for the paper.
Severin Stored the claimant copy.
Then he Stored Wisdom’s Edge.
The Hunter looked at Severin’s empty hands, then at the front of his coat, where no Guild badge was pinned.
"Private yard tomorrow," he said. "Guild witness. 10 Gold each. Interested?"
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