Gary

Gary, formally Gareth Xandier, is a leonid adventurer and master smith whose craft is inseparable from his loyalty to his friends. One of Jason Asano's first companions on Pallimustus, he helps teach the outworlder, forges the sword that becomes Hegemon's Will, and later gives up his mortal future to hold back Undeath's forces. Gary's final choices insist that his life be understood through friendship and compassion rather than only through heroic sacrifice. (Chapters 9–23, 56, 766–777, 845–851)

Biography

Greenstone apprenticeship

Gary meets Jason as a captive of the Vane blood cult, where his suppression collar blocks essence powers without removing his immense leonid strength. Jason returns to release him despite having a chance to escape alone, and Gary immediately recognises the act as heroism even while Jason rejects the label. Once free, Gary uses strength, practical judgement, and practiced teamwork with Rufus Remore to help the captives survive. That first exchange establishes his lasting view of Jason: troublesome and theatrical, but worth repaying because he acts for people when leaving would be easier. (Chapters 9–15)

After the escape, Gary becomes one of Jason's earliest teachers. He explains essence interactions, magical craftsmanship, summons, and the practical economy of adventuring, while helping Rufus and Farrah Hurin drive Jason through punishing physical and combat training. Gratitude becomes craft when Gary forges Dread Salvation, a growth sword designed to help Jason when his own powers fail against an enemy. The gift is not decorative prestige; its abilities are tailored to Jason's weaknesses, demonstrating Gary's belief that a smith serves the person who must rely on the finished work. (Chapters 17–23, 39–42, 56)

The expedition disaster turns that protective instinct into grief and vengeance. Gary and Rufus try to shield Farrah while she holds the retreat line, but a superior silver-ranker breaks Gary's ribs, severs Rufus's arm, and kills her. Afterward, Gary is consumed by the possibility of restoring Farrah and throws himself into understanding the Builder constructs responsible. His deconstruction work becomes materially useful, but it also isolates him; the impulse to fix an irreparable loss through craft reveals both the depth of his love and the danger of treating every wound as a problem that a sufficiently good smith can solve. (Chapters 109–113, 137–138)

Yaresh and the messenger war

By silver rank, Gary has shifted from regular adventuring into full-time smithing, with craft offering a constructive answer to grief. Farrah's return lets the old trio reconcile with the years they lost, while Jason's transformed sword brings Gary back into their shared history: he reforges Dread Salvation as Hegemon's Will and later elevates it into a relic. In Yaresh, he joins other craftspeople to rescue civilians, using structural experience, his forge golem, and conjured metal to reinforce unstable passages. The same abilities once focused on weapons now preserve buildings and lives. (Chapters 448–449, 581, 663, 845)

In the brightheart city, Gary's earth, iron, and forge magic makes him indispensable to fortifying the hollowed wall against the undead. He improves barricade designs, refines material shaped by brightheart craftspeople, spends the one-use Gary's Big Hammer to plug a catastrophic breach, and sacrifices his forge golem to destroy a gold-rank abomination. When ordinary strength is no longer enough, he accepts the Cup of Heroes. The choice gives the defenders the demigod power and time they need, but Gary makes it knowing that borrowed divinity will take his life. (Chapters 764, 766–777)

Gary defeats the immediate crisis without pretending the bargain can be undone. He restrains use of Vessel of the Ancestors because maintaining it may hasten the divine power's departure, then later rejects attempts to define him only by the legend of fighting Undeath's avatar. He asks Jason to choose compassion when uncertain, gives his divine hammer to Hero's church, and spends his remaining time with friends and family. After almost a year of mounting soul-deep pain, he chooses to release Hero's power; the golden light leaves his body, and only an empty chair remains. (Chapters 777, 836, 845, 848, 851)

Appearance and personality

Gary is an enormous leonid with a lion-like head, a glorious mane, thick fur, huge hands, and a physique compared to a professional wrestler enlarged beyond reason. His voice is a deep rumbling growl, and even for his physically powerful species he is imposing. In battle he adds heavy conjured iron armour, a shield, and massive hammers; as Hero's avatar, golden radiance and increased size turn that already hulking form into a giant capable of meeting an undead divine avatar directly. (Chapters 9–11, 109, 766, 776)

He is warm, irreverent, practical, and emotionally direct. Gary enjoys food, jokes readily under pressure, and uses craft as his most sincere language of affection. He can become obsessive when faced with loss, but his later development is defined by learning that not everything valuable is a problem to fix or a feat to memorialise. At the end of his life, he prefers ordinary memories—meals, laughter, work, and friendship—to images of himself as a demigod. (Chapters 23, 56, 138, 845–851)

Magic and abilities

Essence set and leonid gifts

Gary's Hammer, Iron, and Fire essences produce the Forge confluence. The set supports weapon and armour conjuration, metal shaping, structural reinforcement, summoning, and magical smithing, while his leonid gifts supply exceptional strength and stamina. Even at bronze rank, his physical attributes approach low silver, letting him function as a front-line bulwark; at silver, his strength is close to gold. Raw strength does not erase rank differences, however, and a high-silver enemy can still break his armour and ribs through a correctly landed attack. (Chapters 15, 53, 109, 663, 766)

Gary normally fights in heavy iron armour with a hammer and shield. He absorbs or redirects the force aimed at companions, creating stable targets for more mobile attackers such as Rufus. His thrown hammers can return to his hand, and conjured weapons let him replace equipment during prolonged operations. This defensive style is durable but not agile; he depends on positioning, armour, and teammates rather than evasion, and aerial battles can leave his grounded summon and structural powers with fewer useful options. (Chapters 109, 755, 766)

Smithing and structural craft

Gary is trained in magical craftsmanship, an external-magic discipline that shares theoretical foundations with ritual magic but specialises in forging. He evaluates materials, works quintessence into equipment, collaborates with ritualists on complex items, and creates growth weapons whose powers align with their intended users. His finest work develops through relationship as well as technique: Dread Salvation is forged from gratitude, then can only advance beyond its original potential when Gary personally reforges it after Jason's experiences have changed the blade. (Chapters 19, 23, 56, 235, 448–449)

His craft also functions at civic scale. During Yaresh's evacuation, Gary shapes and reinforces rescue tunnels, uses the forge golem's controlled molten-metal spray as temporary lining, and draws on earlier experience strengthening remote-town defences. In the brightheart wall, he improves designs and refines stone and metal shaped by other craftspeople. These feats require appropriate material, time, and collaborators; Gary's own powers are better suited to weapons than buildings, so his effectiveness comes from applying learned structural knowledge to a team of complementary shapers. (Chapters 663, 764)

Forge golem and hammers

Gary summons a forge golem through an essence-powered ritual using iron filings. The hulking construct is made of dark industrial metal with molten light at its joints and can produce or manipulate extreme heat and metal. It is slow and cannot fly, but its expendable nature makes it suitable for rescue, heavy labour, and sacrificial defence. In the brightheart battle, Gary detonates it inside a breach, coating a gold-rank abomination in molten metal so allied shapers can impale it and close the opening. (Chapters 17, 663, 755, 767)

His hammer abilities vary from regular combat weapons to purpose-built strategic tools. Gary's Medium Hammer is a massive but reusable sledge, while Gary's Big Hammer is a tiny carried item that expands to fill a two-storey breach, crushing the undead inside. The latter costs more than his ordinary weapon and is effectively single-use unless someone enormous can reclaim it. This is characteristic of Gary's craft: the tool is powerful because it was made for one exact crisis, not because it supplies unrestricted force in every fight. (Chapters 766–767)

Avatar of Hero

Drinking from the Cup of Heroes fills Gary with borrowed divine power and makes him an avatar of Hero. His aura can enhance allies across a battlefield and oppose divine undeath, while his strength and senses rise beyond ordinary silver rank. The power is conditional and terminal: it is granted for a heroic crisis, tries to return to the god afterward, and progressively damages Gary's body and soul. Even Jason's realm can prevent physical death and pain without stopping the soul-deep deterioration caused by containing it. (Chapters 774–777, 851)

Flame Investiture infuses a hammer with divine fire. Gary uses it on a thrown weapon that grows to the size of a house, breaks every chain anchoring the undead avatar's harpoons, and then strikes the avatar itself. Vessel of the Ancestors increases Gary's size, enhances Power, Spirit, and Speed, supplies ongoing health, stamina, and mana recovery, and alters some essence abilities and leonid gifts. The transformed state lets him fight a giant divine avatar, but unfamiliar size initially impairs his control and prolonged use risks accelerating the loss of Hero's power. (Chapters 776–777)

The divine state also changes his forge magic. Gary creates a much larger divine forge golem from a circle of golden fire, molten stone, and transmuted metal, and his presence prevents lesser undead from approaching freely. These effects rival gold-rank and divine threats only while the Cup's power remains. Gary cannot preserve them as a normal advancement, and his refusal to bind himself permanently to the altered state is what ultimately allows that power—and his life—to end. (Chapters 772, 776–777, 836–851)

Items

• Hegemon’s Will: Gary forges the growth sword originally called Dread Salvation for Jason, designing it to overcome enemies resistant to Jason's afflictions. He later reforges it as Hegemon's Will and, before his death, elevates it into a relic that follows Jason's transcendent growth. (Chapters 56, 235, 448–449, 845)
• Gary’s Big Hammer: A costly one-use expanding hammer built for fortification-scale emergencies. Gary throws it into a two-storey breach, where it crushes the undead and grows until it plugs the opening. (Chapters 766–767)

Power progression

Relationships

• Rufus Remore: Rufus is Gary's closest friend and long-time teammate. Their combat styles are complementary—Gary stops enemies so Rufus can cut them down—but their deeper bond is built from years of travel, shared loss, and unguarded companionship. Gary's death becomes one of the defining griefs Rufus carries into teaching on Earth. (Chapters 9–11, 109, 448–449, 774, 845–851)
• Farrah Hurin: Farrah and Gary share magical-craft interests, battlefield trust, and a friendship strong enough that her apparent death drives him toward obsession. Her return gives him time for reconciliation, and she remains with him through his final farewells and meal. (Chapters 17–23, 109–113, 138, 448, 848–851)
• Jason Asano: Jason's decision to return for the captives earns Gary's lifelong gratitude. Gary teaches him, forges the first and last versions of his sword, and finally asks him to use compassion as a guide when power and uncertainty threaten to carry him away. (Chapters 9–23, 56, 448–449, 777, 845)
• Clive Standish: Clive's magical theory helps Gary interpret the changing language and nature of Hegemon's Will, while Gary's craft turns those conclusions into a weapon Jason can use. Their work exemplifies the collaboration between theoretical ritual analysis and practical forging. (Chapters 448–449)
• Neil Davone: Neil and Gary serve the brightheart expedition in different forms of protection. Gary's divine power makes him a distant phenomenon to the brighthearts, while Neil earns personal trust and assumes leadership; together they supply overwhelming defence and approachable continuity. (Chapters 776–797)