I had two ideas for the aetherium sword last night. 1. when an enemy is killed with the aetherium sword, their body dissolves (into ash) and a filled soul gem is created in their place. I thought their bodies could completely disappear and a soul gem is created where they were standing (sort of like using the wabbajack), or they dissolve into an ash pile and a soul gem is placed on the ash pile as if was in their inventory. I don't think this idea really fits into the idea of the aetherium objects though, the way I see it, they are meant to be massively useful, but not overpowered, and this effect makes obtaining soul gems effortless, and thus it's overpowered. 2. The aetherium sword has no effect in and of itself, instead, it can be enchanted at a regular enchanting station, and any numerical effects of the enchantments are multiplied by a factor of four (example: If you enchant it to do 20 fire damage, it will instead deal 80 fire damage), with no disadvantage to the number of charges it has. It cannot be recharged, but when it runs out of charges it can be re-enchanted in the same way, with the same enchantment or different ones. and I just had an idea while writing these ones down: 3. the aetherium sword allows dragon souls to be imprisoned in grand soul gems. When a dragon is killed while the player holds the aetherium sword the dragon soul will be transferred to an available grand soul gem, instead of being absorbed by the dragonborn, this will turn the grand soul gem into a "dragon soul gem" (maybe it's red?). A dragon soul gem should let you do something special at an enchanting station, like grant access to new enchantments, or allow you to weave any spell you already know into a weapon or armor as an enchanment, including master level spells.
