When Montoya said "hinges" Lucendez jumped and looked at the door. Yeah, he didn't mean to damage the door, but he needed to talk to Montoya privately. He moved forward with no regrets.
"That, is one of the few personal possessions that I have." Lucendez said. He picked up the box and laid it length-wise on a table. The black box was roughly a meter long and didn't look as though it had an up or down. Lucendez put his thumb to a random spot, the box read his fingerprint and formed a seam along the middle, opening slowly revealing some sort of sword in a scabbard lying in foam.
"This is what the Kusari call a "Katana". For some strange reason they prefer these ancient weapons to guns. I never really understood why, but a friend did, a very good friend loved these things." He took the black scabbard and held it for a minute, then held it out to Montoya. The Corsair Elder took the handle and pulled the sword out. The blade was beautiful, golden characters were etched in a metallic lattice that danced to the firelight. But, as he pulled the sword out, it felt unbalanced. The sword had been broken along the mid-section and was jagged at the end.
"My good friend used the most advanced tempering techniques available back then to craft this. What the Kusari lack in metals they make up for in the strongest alloys known to man. That sword could have been thrown through a star and survived. How does a mere human break such an indestructible piece of metal?"
Lucendez took a seat and sat with his legs cross, staring at his Elder. "Before you answer realize that you hold the only weapon that I have brought into this chamber and that I am not attempting to stop you, quite the contrary. I agree with the ends, but not with the means." He stopped, and waited for his response.
"The thirteen saloons that had lined the one street of Seney had not left a trace. The foundations of the Mansion House hotel stuck up above the ground. The stone was chipped and split by the fire. It was all that was left of the town of Seney. Even the surface had been burned off the ground.
Nick looked at the burned-over stretch of hillside, where he had expected to find the scattered houses of the town and then walked down the railroad track to the bridge over the river. The river was there."
