The forge-room trembled with heat as Sylas placed the newly-built furnace at its heart. He drew forth the Brisingr, using shards of the Balrog mixed with a sliver of mithril. Runes of fire glimmered faintly on its hilt, echoes of the duel where Gandalf had once wielded it to summon Anorflame, holding back the Balrog's black tornado-fire.

But Sylas knew well: that miracle had been Gandalf's power, not the sword's. By itself, the weapon was bronze at its core, its mithril content too slight to give it the strength it deserved. That would change tonight.

He lowered the blade into the furnace. Even under the searing heat, the sword endured stubbornly. Slowly, agonizingly, the blade began to weep molten metal. Sylas fed more crystallized fire into the furnace. With its tenfold amplification, the flames flared white-hot, stripping the impurities from the sword. Bronze lava pooled, hissing, and at its heart gleamed a single bead of mithril, no larger than a thumb-joint.

Sylas's eyes narrowed. "That will not do."

He reached into his satchel and drew out a piece of mother of mithril. Splitting it with precision, he cast half into the furnace.

At first, nothing happened. The mithril lay upon the molten bronze, untouched by the flames. Even the surging heat that could vaporize copper left it pristine, glowing faintly but refusing to yield.

Sylas frowned, then pressed more crystallized fire into the forge. The flames turned from blinding white to a piercing blue, the air itself trembling with their intensity. The bronze within began to gasify, shimmering vapors rising like spirits. Still, the mithril resisted, softening only by the smallest degree.

His lips curved into a thin smile. "So, even you would test me."

He raised his staff, its tip blazing with runes, and unleashed a crimson Fire. It poured into the furnace's heart, mingling with the enhanced blaze. The color of the fire shifted to blue-violet, and the heat surged beyond any volcano, beyond dragon-breath.

At last, the mithril began to sag, its perfect edges softening, its form surrendering by degrees.

In the blink of an eye, a week passed. The mother of Mithril's, once half the size of a fist, had finally melted completely. The original bronze of the sword shrank away during the process, leaving behind a single point of purest essence, a golden core, brilliant and dazzling.

Yet mithril, for all its enchantment, was light. A sword made solely from it would be difficult to balance, lacking the weight needed for lethal force. Therefore, Sylas fused the molten mithril with the heavy bronze essence, forging an alloy that carried the best of both worlds: the lightness and anti-corrosion of mithril, its affinity for enchantments, bound with the stability and solidity of bronze.

Drawing the fused metal from the furnace, he let it cool just enough to harden, then raised his mithril hammer. With careful rhythm he struck at a strange frequency. Each blow carried his magic deep into the alloy, urging mithril and bronze to merge more completely, to awaken their shared memory.

When the fusion neared completion, he returned the alloy to the furnace. Again it was melted, dried, and reforged, the mithril, bronze, and his magic interweaving within the flames. This cycle repeated, day after day, for three long months. Only when the two metals were indistinguishable, every grain infused with memory, did Sylas finally end the smelting.

By then, the silver-gold alloy had taken on the shape of a treasure-sword. With a mithril carving knife, he engraved runes along its body, each one binding fire to steel. When the last rune was inscribed, he plunged the blade into the molten mithril of the furnace, wrapping it in the essence of flame and silver.

The reforged blade glowed red-hot. Without hesitation, he thrust it into a prepared basin of blood-red liquid, hissing violently upon contact. This was no ordinary water, it was a potion brewed from dragon's blood, a demonic elixir of quenching. The blade drank deeply of its essence as it cooled, its surface flashing with faint precious light.

Thus tempered, the sword was drawn out, reforged, and tempered again. Another three months passed before the work was done. At last, a slender longsword emerged, flashing with silver light. The body of the blade gleamed argent, yet beneath the surface ran veins of golden hue from the bronze within.

The hilt was cross-shaped, its heart carved with the image of a phoenix. Crown-like flares adorned either end of the guard. At its center gleamed a red gem, while smaller jewels adorned the pommel and guard. They were crystallized flames, cut and shaped like gems. Miraculously, though once unbearably hot, the flames had been bound so that they radiated only a steady, gentle warmth. To hold the hilt was to feel comfort in winter, warmth against any cold.

Along the blade ran the words of Spirit Script, etched deep and glowing faintly with power:

"Sylas, wielder of the Flame. Hold this sword, command the fire of judgment, and destroy all enemies of the light."

The inscription upon the blade was written by Arwen herself. It did not merely record the sword's name and its master, it bound judgment into its very essence, a command to destroy the will and power of darkness wherever it arose.

Looking at the sword, half a year of toil and sacrifice brought at last to completion, Sylas felt joy and a deep sense of triumph.

"Brisingr!" he called aloud.

At once, the sword vanished from the forge, only to reappear in his hand. Feeling its perfect weight settle into his grip, Sylas could not help but smile. During the long forging, his spirit and will had become interwoven with the blade. It had already acknowledged him as its master. Wherever he might stand in the world, he need only summon it, and the sword would fly instantly into his hand.

What's more, no one else could wield it. Without his consent, the blazing sword would sear the unworthy, burning the grasping hand at best, killing outright at worst.

Beyond that, the sword carried all the properties of mithril. It was unbreakable. It drank in enchantments and repelled spells. Even curses of death would shatter against it. More wondrous still, it bore the hallmark of Elven craft: it could absorb the nature of whatever was fed to it, growing ever stronger, evolving like a living thing.

To test this, Sylas uncorked a crystal vial of serpent venom and poured it over the blade. The silver-gold metal drank it greedily, and soon the sword shimmered with a deadly sheen. Now, every stroke would not only burn with fire but deliver a poison so potent it could kill in a heartbeat.

He tested again, this time against the husk of the Balrog. Driving the sword into its corpse, he felt the weapon pull, absorbing, devouring. When he drew it free, it glowed with a fiercer fire. Not only could it consume flame to empower itself, but it could now release fire in great gouts, laced with the fury of the demon itself.

Yet Sylas was not finished. From a glass phial, he let fall a few drops of light distilled from the crystal of Eärendil. The sword drank the starlight, and a miracle occurred. The flames within the hilt-gems grew clear and pure, no longer marred by the corruption. The entire blade shone brighter, as if washed of all shadow.

To his astonishment, he found that whenever the sword was held beneath Eärendil's star, it would actively absorb the starlight. This revelation filled Sylas with joy. The light of Eärendil was poison to all dark creatures. If his sword could draw upon that radiance endlessly, then it would truly become a bane of shadow.

Eager to test its blessing, he set the sword atop the heights of Amon Sûl, where it might drink nightly from the star's beams. There it gleamed like a beacon, awaiting the day it would be called into battle.

With the forging completed, Sylas laid aside forging for a time and turned his mind once more to alchemy. The arts of Elven smithing had deepened his understanding of the hidden harmonies of creation, and he believed that knowledge could be bridged into alchemy. His ultimate aim was the creation of the Philosopher's Stone, the key to immortality.

Yet he knew the truth: a recipe alone was not enough. The Book of Abraham preserved instructions, yes, but without mastery of every foundation of alchemy, the goal was as unreachable as asking a schoolchild to craft weapons of the Valar.

So Sylas sought help. He turned to Elrond, Lord of Rivendell, his would-be father-in-law. Elrond did not approve of Sylas's bond with Arwen; he grieved at the thought of his daughter forsaking immortality for a mortal life. Yet his love for her stayed his hand. He could not bear to see her heart broken.

Thus, when Sylas presented him with scrolls of rune-work and treatises on the Stone, Elrond studied them in silence. With his great wisdom, he mastered in months what others might never comprehend. His knowledge of runes surpassed even Sylas's, and his insight into the making of the Philosopher's Stone reached depths Sylas could not yet dream of.