The Devil's Foundry

Electra buried the hatchet into the Strong Maw’s skull one last time.

Its body twitched once, limbs spasming as the doglike creature finally realized it was dead. “Shiii—sugar.” Electra wiped her brow. She was breathing heavily, sweat matting her blonde hair. “That was much harder than I thought it was gonna be.”

She took a deep breath, straightening up, as she looked over the clearing. There were about six Strong Maws bleeding out on the jungle floor.

“Least I’m done here.”

The jungle was thinner on this part of the island, so she hadn’t had too much trouble finding the monsters. Strong Maws, now that she’d had ample up close and personal time with them, looked like a thickly furred dog, with a stubby nose and lots and lots of teeth. Electra could see why a village would have trouble with them, especially when farmers didn’t really have a lot of combat related skills.

Fortunately, they were weak to electricity.

Ding

System Messages

You have Defeated Strongmaw level 4!

You have leveled up to level 4!

Buzzer Bolt has increased to level 3!

“Heh.” Electra grinned. “Not bad for a day’s work.” She’d only been level two when she left Silverwall, because Empress hogged all the kills from the first fight (not that they should have killed all of them, but she couldn’t change the past). It was nice to finally make level four. “Probably stronger than her now.” Knowing her nemesis, Empress would probably be holed up in a building somewhere, making a magical super robot instead of grinding her levels.

With a sigh, Electra yanked the axe from the last monster’s skull. She didn’t have time to waste thinking about Empress. Next, she needed to cut off some ears or something for ‘proof’ of her kills and get back to the village. It was getting pretty late.

Not to mention that she was starving.

Electra turned just in time for a shadow to launch itself at her back.

She flinched, arms coming up defensively as one last Strongmaw lashed out at her. Its claws met her arm, only for it to be blown back in a blast of lightning.

“Frick and Frack!” Electra jumped forward, chopping off the head of the whimpering mutt before it could regain its senses. She glanced into the trees wearily, looking for another attacker. Only after a few minutes passes with nothing else slinking out of the woodwork did she relax.

“Thank god for Lightning Reflex…” Electra muttered.

Skills

[2/5]

Lightning Reflex: Level 1

Create a reflexive burst of lightning the first time an attack would hit you every 15 seconds. Costs mana.

She’d earned it from taking out a few of the stragglers late yesterday before finding her way to the main pack. Not how Electra expected to test it out, but hey, at least it worked! With one last nod, Electra slipped her axe back into her belt and started back towards the village.

Then she stopped, looked up at the sky, and turned around to march the other direction.

Her hand reached out, finding the mark she’d cut in a tree trunk less than twenty minutes ago. “Fricken stupid fantasy world without fantasy gps.” Luckily, after taking a day longer than she should have to find the Village from Silverwall, she’d decided to track her location a little better. This time, it only took two hours longer than expected to get back to the village.

And at least 45 minutes of that was because she forgot and had to go back for the ears.

It was evening when she knocked on the door of the village elder’s house. “Hey! I’m back!”

After a moment and a rustle, the door opened to reveal the familiar face of Hilv. He’d hosted her while she scouted the surrounding village for the Strong Maws.

The old man’s eyes lit up when he saw the clutch of ears in her grip. “You did it then?” At Electra’s nod he moved to the side. “Quickly, quickly, come inside.”

She raised an eyebrow, glancing over her shoulder towards the empty main road, but she let herself be pulled inside all the same. “Something up?”

The man sighed, rubbing a hand down his face. “I was hoping we could have avoided the guild showing up in person.”

Electra blinked. “What, the adventurer’s guild? Didn’t you cancel the quest with them?”

He sighed again. “I did. My hope was that such a small mission would be beneath their notice, but they sent several adventurers to assure us we needed to hire them.”

Electra frowned. “That sounds like extortion.”

Hilv gave her a small smile. “And who is there to hear that claim?” He shook his head, puttering around the room. “We’re simple farmers here, Miss Electra. We don’t have the strength to throw off their influence, whenever and however they choose to exert it.”

She opened her mouth, before catching herself. “They won’t be happy with me for finishing that quest, will they?”

He chuckled. “Most likely not, no.” He patted her on the shoulder, but his wrinkled hands were steady and sure. “Don’t worry, you’ll get what we owe, I’ll handle the adventurers. Just… stay here.”

Electra’s frown deepened even more. “What will they do to you?”

“Make an example.” He waved a hand at her outraged expression. “Don’t worry, don’t worry. They won’t kill anyone. And the village will get its gold back at the end of the day. We’ll just be paying in… other ways.”

He moved to walk past her, but Electra caught his arm. “I’ll talk to them.”

Hilv looked up at her in surprise.

“It’s my fault, after all,” Electra said. “I didn’t have the money to pay for the entry fee.” The words tasted bitter on her tongue, but if being a hero was easy, everyone would do it. “I thought I could make it solo. Didn’t think things were like this.”

The man shook his head. “Miss Electra, that’s…” He waved his hand helplessly. “They’re higher level than you, rare class or not! And even if you manage to defeat this group, there are hundreds of adventurers in Silverwall!”

She cracked a grin. “Don’t worry.” She parroted. “I’m not going to fight them. Where are they, anyway?”

The old man sighed. “In the tavern.”

“Least they’re paying for food.”

The man gave a small nod. “It will help pay for the damage.”

Electra held back a wince. Damage?

Any intention she still had of fighting it out went up in smoke. She wasn’t here to make these people’s lives harder. She just…

Electra shook her head, putting on her best press conference smile. “Don’t worry about it! I’ll make sure it’s all taken care of.”

The man gave her a doubtful look, but didn’t stop Electra as she exited his house, marching across the simple dirt road in the direction of the tavern.

The group of ‘adventurers’ met her right in front of the entrance. The first was a man in leather slipping out the door. He held it open, letting two women step out. One was wearing armor, and the other a cloak.

Electra gave them a quick once over.

The man was the rogue. As made clear by his dark leathers. He had enough daggers to outfit a small gang to go along with it. The two women were the archer and the warrior respectively. The warrior was the smallest of the bunch, but Electra guessed that classes and stats made size less important.

The warrior had muddy blond hair, and a big old ‘frick you’ axe hanging off of her back. The archer had a bow, and she was fingering the quiver of arrows peeking out from beneath her cloak.

Electra could tell in a heartbeat; these people were looking for a fight.

“Hello there!” The warrior raised a hand, giving a cheery grin. “Heard there was another adventurer around here. Any chance we can see your guild card?”

Electra sighed. “Sorry, I’m not a part of the guild.”

“Not a part of the guild?” The girl put on a surprised expression. “Not a part of the guild! This entire area is our turf, you know. You can’t just go muscling in on our quests, it depreciates the value of our members.”

Electra said nothing, holding her tongue by force of will, and many many public relations training sessions.

After a moment, the warrior girl shrugged. “Well, I suppose we can make an exception for you just this once. As long as you say you’re sorry.” She leaned forward, fingers playing along the haft of her great axe. “You are sorry, aren’t you, rook?”

“Yes.” Electra ducked her head, swallowing the taste of acid on her lips. “I’m truly sorry, I didn’t understand.”

“Mmm, that’s better.” The warrior stepped forward, reaching under her own brown cloak to pull out a pouch. “Well anyway, here’s what you’d get, minus the fee for cancelling a quest.” She gave a smile. “Of course, we’ll have to make up our payment in other ways, but as a prospective guild member, you don’t have to worry about that, do you?”

Electra eyed the simple cloth pouch. Maybe it wasn’t a lot of coin for a team of adventurers, but a one-woman job like her? It was a lot of money.

She could also, of course, read in between the lines.

‘Damage’ and ‘recouping costs’? Please, they were going to make an example of the whole village. They were being nice to her to tell her which side she was supposed to be on.

Electra… really fricking hated gangs.

But hating them wouldn’t fix anything. Making a scene wouldn’t fix a single, damn, thing.

So, she just smiled and took the pouch. “I get it. But hey, it was my fault you know? Let me cover you guys’ costs for these people.” She leaned forward. “Not like they have anything worth taking anyway, right?”

She reached into the pouch, pulling out a handful of coin—less than half—before tossing the rest back to the warrior.

The woman blinked, before breaking out into a more natural grin. “You’re not so bad, rook!” She slapped Electra on the shoulder. The hero held back a wince as she lost a few points of HP. “Knew you’d figure it out.”

“Well, yeah.” Electra smiled, rubbing the back of her head. God, this was almost as bad as that one-time Wonder Man asked her out in front of an entire press corp. “Thanks for spelling it out though, I’m kinda slow.”

“Everyone is, at the start.” The woman laughed. “Hey, we’re pretty much done here then, wanna come back to Silverwall with us? We can get you all squared away with the guild.” She gave Electra an appreciative once over. “Rare class like yours, we’d love to have you on our squad.”

Scratch that, it was worse.

Electra’s smile grew a little strained, especially at the venomous glare the archer fixed her with over the warrior’s shoulder.

“You know, normally I’d love to, but I’ve been hiking through the woods all day. You all go on ahead, I want to have a chance to clean off before walking for another day.”

“Sure, sure!” The warrior patted Electra again. “Look us up when you get back to the city, name’s Vire.”

“… Will do!”

With that, the three of them turned to leave; apparently heading back to Silverwall at night wasn’t a big deal for more seasoned adventurers.

The rogue, a man with jet black hair, glanced over his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry’ he mouthed.

Electra blinked. She shrugged, nothing he could do about that. All too soon, they vanished back into the surrounding woodland.

Electra was left standing in the middle of the road, half a pouch of loose coin still clutched in her raised hand.

And no idea what she was going to do next.