The group marched through the snowy and cold planes of the Frozen North. Gladly, no one felt cold, thanks to the warm and comfortable clothes they had.

The sun began to set, the temperature lowered to almost fifty degrees Celsius below zero. Thankfully, there was no wind, the weather wasn't too harsh. But there were dark clouds far behind the group. Dark clouds that shouldn't have been there in the first place. Andromalius noticed that a while ago, and figured out it was something dangerous.

However, the group must find a shelter for the coming night. Andromalius knew that the temperature will become even lower, and that situation would be very bad for others, including Inanna, who didn't have natural protection from the biting frost like Andromalius.

Everyone walked in silence, as any word spoken would give the precious warmth away. But even in this cold, depressing scenery, the spirits were up, thanks to the Cape of the Lion's Mane Twilight Sparkle was wearing. Every pony believed they can make it through to the destination of their journey.

"So, what do you think?" Inanna spoke inside Andromalius' head.

"About what?"

"About everything."

"Hm..." Andromalius thought. "We've just started, but I already have a bad feeling... Did you see those dark clouds far behind us? That's where I encountered Sombra. I don't like that. He may already know we're here. If he attacks..."

"You've defeated him. You can do it again." Inanna assured him.

"If he doesn't learn from his mistakes. But we'll be ready for him if he strikes." he replied. "And I'll also have to protect all of you in your sleep. You'll be vulnerable to Sombra's magic unless I am still seen by him as dangerous to mess with."

The group noticed a strange object partly covered in snow. It was something made of stone. Andromalius changed the group's route, leading them to that object.

The group found it was a building covered in snow. Only the top of it was peeking from under the blanket of snow.

Andromalius used the hellfire to melt the snow, gaining access to the wooden door that was still fairly intact. He warily opened it, trying hard not to break it. Inside, there was a stairway that led further down. The group descended the stairs and found themselves in a square room without much furniture: only two wooden chairs and a table were there, and some very rusty weapons not suitable for fighting. There also was a lone window, too narrow for the snow to fill the room through it.

Overall, the place wasn't too bad.

"Well," the hell stallion spoke. "I guess it is our shelter for the night. Make yourself comfortable, ladies."

He went to light the remaining torches to make the room warmer. Thanks to the nature of hellfire, even the smallest fire can warm much, not consuming too much fuel either.

Soon, most of the frost that covered the room in some places disappeared, leaving small pools of water, which were quickly dried by Andromalius.

The group allowed themselves to relax. Ponies could take off their clothes, thanks to the warmth the hell stallion provided, and started unpacking their sleeping bags. The bags were made of good material that kept warmth, and the enchantments they had also gave an extra good feeling to the bags.

However, ponies still didn't want to sleep. They had a lot of question to ask Andromalius.

"Andromalius," Twilight Sparkle addressed him, gaining his attention. "Princess Celestia has told me you need help. But with what? I'm fairly sure you are much powerful than any of us here, including me."

"I must find an artifact." he answered. "An ancient artifact that I'm not aware of his whereabouts. At first, I was going to take only Inanna with me." he frowned. "However, Celestia insisted that I should also take you. She believes that the power of the elements you're wielding can help me."

"But you also have... something." Rainbow Dash pointed at the Alicorn Amulet. "Isn't that thing some kind of element, too?"

"That is—"

"The Alicorn Amulet." Twilight Sparkle finished for him, narrowing her eyes. "I remember seeing it in a book. Isn't it supposed to drive its user mad?"

"Apparently, not me." Andromalius replied. "I suppose the amulet isn't unlike those artifacts you're wearing, ponies. As each of them requires a certain personal trait to work, so does mine. However, your artifacts just won't work if a wrong person takes it to use. Mine punishes for it."

"Nerd talk..." Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, receiving a glare from Twilight. "What?"

"Ahem." Twilight cleared her throat, returning to Andromalius. "Well, it makes sense, actually. But... What does the amulet do?"

"As far as I know, it just increases the power of spells and the amount of mana. I don't know how many times, though. Maybe twice, maybe ten times. But overall, the artifact is really powerful. Maybe not as powerful as yours, but it lacks a serious con — inability to be used without other artifacts of the same kind. Mine works pretty fine by itself."

"But what's with the design? It is too dark, in my opinion." Rarity interjected.

"Design matters not as far as the thing in itself is useful." Andromalius replied, earning a huff from the fashionista. "Swords are perfect examples."

"Do you have a sword?" Rainbow Dash asked. "I really like swords!"

Andromalius nodded, then summoned his weapon.

"This?" Rainbow Dash's eye twitched. "It looks so impractical!"

"Ya know them swords?" Applejack turned to her rainbow-maned friend with a surprised look on her face. "Ah know ya're a fighter, but that..."

"Yeah, I know swords and how to use 'em." Rainbow Dash replied. "My father is a weapon expert, duh. Studied them more than Twilight's time spent on books, actually."

"Oh, so, Twilight's a book nerd, and you're a swords nerd?" Pinkie Pie giggled. "That's interesting!"

"So, Rainbow Dash," Andromalius said. "What's your opinion on my weapon, then?"

"Let's see." the pegasus gestured for the hell stallion to give her the weapon for examination. "First of all," she took the weapon in her front hooves. "It's too damn heavy. Something about seven kilograms. Using that as a club? Yeah, that would do. Fencing? Nah.

"So, the next thing is the blades." she looked at the three blades. "Why the hay so many blades? Those ones perpendicular to the main don't make sense. Especially seeing that they're sharpened. It's just impractical weight.

"And then, the balance. Where it is?" she used one of her hooves to discover the point of balance. "Near these three blades. Yeah, maybe this weapon's good for smashing stuff and swinging around like a cavespony, but for fancy fencing — nah. Too unbalanced, too bulky, too heavy, and that's it about it. Overall — totally not cool.

"Tell me, did you actually use this piece of junk in a fight?"

"Once." Andromalius nodded. "Got a cut on my face, though. Didn't react in time"

"Oh..." Rainbow Dash facepalmed. "You could lose your head there, quite literally. You got lucky, that's it."

"What do you suppose I should do, then? I still need it."

"You should either get yourself a new weapon or reforge this one into something more useful. Like that thing." she pointed at the nearby rusty longsword. "If that thing wasn't so rusty, it would've shown you how much better it is against yours."

"Care to enlighten me theoretically?"

"Well, first of all, I must mention that you're really strong. Muscles and everything, including magic stuff." she waved her hoof. "But the thing is, strength's not as important as being fast and precise." she explained. "Why would you need more power when you're faster than your opponent? They won't be fast enough to react, and that is what you want.

"A strong hit usually can be parried or dodged. The momentum the weapon like yours has will make it move further before you can bring it back. This isn't the thing with weaker strikes. And weak strikes aren't less efficient than strong ones..."

Fluttershy turned to Pinkie Pie and whispered: "I know it's really hard to believe, but Rainbow Dash has her own lecture mode."

"...So, lemme give you some advice, Andro." Rainbow Dash said. "Throw this junk away and get yourself a good longsword. If you like big stuff too much, get a greatsword. Really, this weapon you have is really not practical."

"Actually," Inanna appeared in Andromalius' head. "This weapon was forged just to intimidate the opponents. It never intended to be practical."

"Why didn't you say it earlier?"

"I thought you'd discover that by yourself."

"Ugh..." Andromalius urged not to facehoof. "But can I safely reforge it?"

"Yeah." Inanna replied. "I doubt we'll discover a forge anywhere here, though."

"So..." Andromalius frowned. "I guess if you're right, I'll have to reforge this weapon someday."

"Actually," Twilight spoke. "If my suspicions are true, we're in the famous Guard Tower, an outpost on the hill in the Valley of Horns. It is written in ancient books that weapons were forged here, in this very tower we're currently in. It also used to have a huge military camp nearby, the largest one in the unicorns tribe's lands, actually, so, if we can find the forge, we can reforge the weapon right away!"

"We don't have a blacksmith here." Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "Books can't give you the skill either."

"I have an idea, Andromalius." Inanna was once again telepathying with the hell stallion. "You can summon a blacksmith from Hell. We've got a lot of them there. Also, they're good at what they do. I know one, he's one of the best — Seran, the incubus. These mares would like such a company, too."

"That's not a bad idea, I suppose." Andromalius agreed, and then said: "I know how to solve that problem."

"You're the blacksmith?" Rainbow Dash replied. "Sorry, but with the knowledge you have, I doubt you can make anything that won't shatter in a few hits. That needs a professional."

"I'll solve the problem. Let's go find that forge first."

The group descended a few floors down, finally coming into a rather large room. It had an anvil, many wooden crates around the room, some rusty instruments lying here and there, and a few other things that had rotten by that moment completely.

"And we can will this?" Rainbow Dash snorted. "Come on, this is totally not suitable for anything! Rusty... and everything!"

Andromalius walked to the crates and opened one of them.

"You better come look at this." he told the pegasus. She walked to the crate and looked into it.

"Well, I was wrong, okay." she said, inspecting the oiled blades that looked pristine. "Hm, these blades aren't that long for you. A toothpick, perhaps, not a sword. C'mon, let's see what other crates have.

Everyone opened a few other crates. Those crates had blades of different length and shape, they were also made of different metals. Some crates had oil bottles stored within, others had wood for handles, and a few had some fake leather.

"Oh my!" Twilight Sparkle beamed. "These things are very ancient, but they look pristine! Any museum would like to have that!"

"Without oiling, the blade's will get rusty." Rainbow Dash shook her head. "Good thing that this oil they have here is really good. Magically enhanced, maybe... Anyway, all this stuff can be used to arm... At least two hundred ponies. Including you, Andro.

"But we have another problem... There're no good instruments here. Unless we get someone with actual instruments, these blades won't be that useful."

"Andro, I've arranged everything. You can safely teleport Seran here, he has the instruments and skill, even while being rather young." Inanna thought to Andromalius.

"I have a blacksmith, actually." Andromalius said.

"I see no one." Twilight noticed.

"Are you hiding him in the pocket?" Pinkie Pie asked. "Nah, of course not! You don't have pockets!"

Andromalius chuckled at that, and then his amulet glowed. A few seconds later, an incubus was teleported into the room. He had jet-black short spiky hair, gray fur, pale-gray eyes, and one curved horn bent like Inanna's ones. Unlike the succubus, his wings had membranes, and his tail was shorter and had a spear-like end. He had a cart full of different instruments with himself.

"Hello, ladies and a gentlecolt!" he greeted everyone while ponies stared at him mouth agape. "Yup, I'm a blacksmith. Well, no time-wasting, I'll get to work right now. Shouldn't keep Andromalius waiting, now should I?" he turned to the hell stallion. "Well," the incubus was almost two times smaller than Andromalius. "Considering your size, you need a greatsword or a polearm. What you'd like?"

"A greatsword, I suppose." Andromalius replied.

"You're a weapon expert?" Rainbow Dash asked Seran.

"Yup." he nodded. "Know plenty about stabbity slashitt smashity shootity stuff. Polearms, swords, sabers, bows, crossbows... Maybe I can even assemble a ballista or a catapult. Don't know, no one ever asked me to do that kind of stuff."

"And what can you tell me about swords?" the pegasus asked another question.

"Well," Seran grinned. "If the pommel is unscrewable, you can use it to throw at your opponent to end him rightly."

For a second, Rainbow Dash looked surprised. But then, she started to laugh, and the incubus followed. Others just stared at them with confusion.

"Yeah..." Rainbow Dash wiped away a tear. "You really are a sword expert."

"How does that determine a sword expert? And what is a pommel?" Andromalius asked.

"Well, a pommel is that thing on the opposite end of the sword. Not the sharp end." Rainbow Dash explained. "And there is a joke going around... An old minotaur manuscript — minotaurs invented swords and fencing, by the way — depicted a swordstaur with a pummel in his hand, which he then threw at his opponent. It was written that a good combat tactic is to unscrew the pummel, throw it at the opponent vigorously, and then use the sword to end him rightly. And that was an ancient prank."

"Unicorns, who first got fencing techniques from minotaurs, thought that the pommel-throw is an actual technique. It wasn't that effective, as you may guess." Seran added.

"But anyway, a good sword is a sword..." Rainbow Dash grinned.

"With unscrewable pommel." Seran finished, then chuckled. "Hm, I would like to know your name, lady."

"Name's Rainbow Dash." the pegasus puffed her chest. "The one and only!"

"Nice to meet you, Rainbow Dash. I'm Seran." he bumped his hoof with hers. "The one and only, too." he turned to others. "Alright, time to get to work. Everyone out, I need space to work."

"Lemme stay with you." Rainbow Dash asked. "Never saw the sword-making." she said, and then added: "Also, I may polish one. Gotta start with something, I suppose."

"Well, you can be of help." Seran nodded. "Others — shoo, now!"

Author's Notes:

That's how Seran looks like:

Also, I'm going to use more realism with things like swords and fencing. After I started learning fencing, I facepalmed so much at the fantasy weapons that aren't really useful or entirely not useful in real life. Really, that gave me a headache.

So, what will happen with that bulky, heavy things I made as a weapon? You'll see.