Rise of the Living Forge - Chapters 147-148 (Patreon)

Arwin could barely muster the energy to move. Even though Anna’s magic was working its way through his body and healing the damage he’d taken, he was just too tired to stand. His mind hurt more than his limbs did.

Jessen’s corpse sprawled out on the ground before him, charred to a crisp. The fire licking across the man’s features had burnt out. His head was a vile sight to behold. And yet, in the end, it was just another dead man.

As his breathing steadied, a glimmer of gold swirled through the air before him. The Mesh seemed to have been holding its breath throughout the fight. It had waited to say anything until just after he was lucid enough to actually register its words.

Title: [Indomitable] has been earned.

[Indomitable] – Your body has been beaten, and yet it carried on. Your mind has teetered on the precipice of oblivion, yet it refused to give in. Forged in the ghosts of the past and tempered in the present, your mental fortitude has been honed to a point beyond what most can comprehend.

Arwin might have laughed if he had the energy. He had no idea if the Title had come from managing to kill Jessen despite the sorry state he’d been in, or if it had come from seeing the man’s decimated body and thinking nothing of it.

In the end, it didn’t matter. The Title was a powerful one. Mental affects were some of the hardest to deal with, and anything that kept others out of Arwin’s mind was something he valued. He reached down and ripped one of Jessen’s gauntlets off. Then he took the other. Both were stuffed into the bag that Lillia had bought. He rooted around Jessen’s waist, finding a bulging knapsack tucked into his greaves. Arwin pulled it free and stuffed the whole thing into his larger bag, too weary to even look through its contents. He’d take a look when he had enough brainpower to actually process what he saw.

Arwin took Jessen’s boots and greaves as well, stuffing everything into his bag until it was bulging. He then jabbed his hands into the dirt, scooping out handfuls of dirt, and poured it over Jessen’s face.

Then he did it again. Footsteps behind him gave Arwin slight pause, and he glanced up to see Lillia arrive beside him. She’d pulled her cloud of darkness back so the others could see her again.

“What are you doing? This bastard doesn’t deserve a funeral,” Lillia said.

“It’s not a funeral. I don’t want them to see it,” Arwin replied. He looked down at Jessen’s half-covered face. “Do you remember the first person you killed, Lillia?”

“No.”

“Neither do I,” Arwin said. “But I think the others would remember this.”

Lillia inclined her head. Arwin scooped one more handful of dirt over Jessen’s face, then braced his hand against his knee and made to rise. Lillia stuck her hands beneath his arms, helping him up.

“Thank you,” Arwin said with a weary sigh. He leaned against her; his limbs barely even able to keep him aloft. A flash of panic shot through him as he took a look around the clearing. Reya laid on the ground, completely soaked red.

Arwin lurched forward, but Lillia grabbed him. “Relax. She’s alive. Just unconscious. The blood isn’t hers.”

Breath slipped from his lungs with such relief that it could have crushed a brick of steel. They were all alive. Tired, but alive. A relieved smile passed over Arwin’s features.

They’d done it.

Rodrick scooped Reya up, holding her to his chest as they all walked to stand in the center of the clearing. The night sky hung overhead, stars twinkling down on the play that had just unfolded before them.

“So much for the Iron Hounds,” Rodrick said.

“We — I — killed a lot of people that probably didn’t deserve it,” Arwin said softly. “Not all of those men were here by choice. Not all of them knew what the Iron Hounds had done.”

“You can’t be feeling sorry for those sorry bastards,” Anna said. “There’s no mercy in war, Arwin.”

“That wasn’t what I meant. We did what was necessary. If we didn’t kill them, then we wouldn’t have been able to fight Jessen safely. We’d have been cut down from behind. That doesn’t mean they deserved death. I don’t regret, but I do acknowledge. In the end, the weight of their blood is on Jessen’s scale. They were pawns in his game, but his game is over. Without him, I doubt the Iron Hounds will be able to continue on.”

“Not like they’d have been able to do much anyway. We must have killed half of them tonight. Well, us and the Wyrmlings. I think the Wyrmlings did way more damage to them than we did,” Rodrick said. He adjusted his hold on Reya to make sure she didn’t fall.

“What happened to her?” Arwin asked.

“She got really adamant about diving in Wyrm guts,” Olive said. “Said something was in there that she needed… and there was.”

Rodrick held out his hand. A blood-red dagger rested within it. As soon as Arwin’s eyes passed over it, the Mesh swirled forth to identify the weapon as the Wyrmhunger. He scanned over its description.

Arwin couldn’t hold it in anymore. He started to laugh.

Well, would you look at that. I guess Reya got her dagger back after all. That’s why Jessen’s Wyrm was so reluctant to move. The damn thing had a dagger cutting it up from the inside this whole time.

“She should be fine with some rest,” Anna said. “I didn’t find anything serious wrong with her other than some serious drainage of energy. She was as limp as a noodle.”

“I’ll make something for her to eat when she wakes up,” Lillia said. “It’ll help.”

“Does anyone know why that thing was in the Wyrm?” Olive asked, eyeing the magical dagger. Arwin was pleased to see that there didn’t seem to be any desire in her features. Even though it was clearly a weapon with more potential than Olive’s, it belonged to an ally.

Bringing her in was the right choice.

“It’s a long story,” Arwin replied. “But, technically speaking, Reya put it there.”

“I’ll tell you on the way back,” Rodrick said. “It was one hell of a fight.”

“Can you help me over there?” Arwin asked Lillia, nodding to the withered Wyrm. “I want to see if there’s anything salvageable.”

Lillia nodded, and the two of them made their way over to its body. Arwin let himself slip from Lillia’s grip and knelt on the ground beside the monster, upstream of the blood. He ran a hand along its scales. They cracked and flaked away like dust. It was like the monster had been completely drained of its life.

“Did Reya’s dagger do this?” Arwin asked.

“Yeah,” Olive said, walking up to join them. She swallowed. “We need to hide it when we go into the city. My sword is one thing. If people saw that, there’s no way Reya would leave alive. She’d be ripped limb from limb as people tried to steal it.”

If only Olive knew what Rodrick, Lillia, and I are wearing. I should find out if she wants to join us in proper when we get back to the tavern. If she does, I’ll be time to bring her into the fold completely. No point hiding things any longer than we need to.

Arwin pushed himself back to his feet. Even if the Wyrm had been completely harvested, there were Wyrmlings scattered throughout the clearing. There were enough of them to make more scale plate armor than Arwin cared to even imagine.

They’ll certainly sell for a lot of money.

His body was so tired that the idea of going around and looting all the monsters felt like torture, but he pushed the feelings away. He was not going to throw away a veritable horde purely because he was tired.

“Can anyone help me gather as many Wyrmling scales as possible?” Arwin asked. “I want to use them to make armor. If we fill the bags Lillia got us, we should be able to get a whole lot of them. Mine’s already a bit stuffed, but scales don’t take up that much space until you have a lot of them.”

The others all exchanged looks. Then they got to work. It was a slow, tedious process, as descaling usually tended to be. It was welcome. Arwin’s nerves were shot from the adrenaline that had been pumping through them. The chance to mindlessly pull some scales away and stuff them into a bag was a blessing in disguise.

It took them a little under two hours to stuff their bags full of Wyrm scales. The rest of the monster’s bodies were probably useful as well, but there was just no more room.

“We can come back and get the rest of what’s left later,” Lillia offered. “I doubt anyone will be coming to the forest in the near future. Not until they realize that the Wyrm is dead.”

Arwin glanced back at the corpse of the Wyrm that had once ruled the forest. He hadn’t even helped kill it. None of them had. Reya had technically taken the monster out entirely on her own.

Well, I suppose her dagger did — but if anyone gets an assist, it’s her. I’d love to know what kind of reward the Mesh will give her for that. Something tells me it’s going to be a Title, and a good one at that.

“Let’s go,” Arwin said. It felt like a weight lifting from his shoulders. “I think we’ve all earned a long break and some much-needed recovery.”

They walked into the forest, leaving the clearing behind them.

“Say,” Rodrick said. “Considering we’ve technically just destroyed a guild, don’t you think we need a name already?”

“I’m not good with names,” Arwin said. “I haven’t been able to think of one yet.”

“What about Menagerie?” Anna asked.

They all paused to look at her.

“Why?” Olive asked.

Anna’s cheeks colored and she gestured vaguely around them. “We have a smith that fights better than the rest of us, a woman dressed like a demon and another one with one arm, a street rat, and a pervert that hates wearing pants. It just kind of feels a bit like a zoo.”

Olive has no idea how much of an understatement that was.

“Hey,” Rodrick said. “I do not hate wearing pants.”

“I notice you aren’t denying the first accusation,” Olive said.

“I’m only a pervert for Anna.”

“Aw, that’s sweet,” Anna said.

A much-needed laugh passed through the party. It wasn’t one full of energy or joy. It was a laugh of relief that they were still alive. It was of victory and survival, and it felt incredible.

“I rather like that,” Arwin said. “Menagerie. It fits.”

Nobody objected, and so it was. Their guild finally had a name — even if it wasn’t technically even an official guild yet.

They all continued through the forest, making their way back to Milten. Not a single one of them noticed the man standing in the trees behind them, his cold blue eyes tracing their every step.

Chapter 148

Xiodan had seen much in his time. He’d witnessed the rise and fall of hundreds of minor guilds and dozens of major ones. He’d been summoned to witness challenges and officiate more duels to the death than he could count.

Some of the warriors he’d seen bore such might that an entire guild of Adepts wouldn’t have lasted more than a millisecond before their might. He’d born witness to mages with power to twist the earth and shatter the skies to rain hellfire down on entire armies.

He’d seen guilds vanish in the blink of an eye, and he’d seen them rise just as quickly. And, in his time, Xiodan had learned that few things generally went according to plan. He was personally partial to avoiding plans entirely.

It was impossible for things to go wrong if he’d never had a semblance of how they would go right. As long as he survived, he considered any night a success.

But this — what he had witnessed tonight — this was a failure of colossal proportions. A grin pulled across his lips. It was something he’d seen before, of course. He doubted anywhere this far to the reaches of the Kingdom could properly surprise him.

Not everything interesting had to be surprising. Jessen, for example, had been interesting. The man was a miserable creature. He’d been so caught up in the games he played that he’d completely lost any semblance of the value of human life.

But, in spite of that, he was competent. Jessen had pulled together an entire guild, all for the sole purpose of feeding every single last one of them to his Wyrms. It had been a rather genius strategy.

Push weaklings to higher tiers to get them to recruit more weaklings. Keep the cycle until he had a huge number of bodies waiting to be fed, then bring them to the Wyrms and kill them off in swathes before anyone noticed.

The ones that survived would think themselves special. They would have met the same end as the others, just after the Wyrmlings had fed. Then feed the Wyrmlings to the Wyrms as well. In the end, the only ones remaining would have been Jessen and his Wyrms.

The amount of energy he would have gathered from the whole debacle would have been significant. Not nearly as significant as setting out and seeking challenges against powerful opponents, but it was evident that true challenge had never been Jessen’s style.

He hadn’t just wanted power. He’d wanted suffering. But, insane or not, he’d still had a fair claim to start a guild. There were rules, after all. Xiodan’s place wasn’t to judge good or evil. It was merely to judge.

Jessen had requested that the Watchful Eye send an agent to witness the birth of his new guild, a guild that contained only himself. Who knew what his plans had been after that. Perhaps he’d planned to find other adventurers closer to his level of strength. Perhaps he’d planned to continue repeating the same cycle. It didn’t matter. Jessen was dead.

And yet Xiodan had still judged. Not Jessen, who he had been called for, but the group that had killed him and his budding guild. He’d listened in on their strategy and watched it play out. He’d observed their curious fighting style and… odd abilities.

Menagerie.

That was an apt name for them. A small smile pulled at the corner of Xiodan’s mouth. His trip hadn’t been wasted. They weren’t worthy of a rank — not yet. The Secret Eye didn’t acknowledge guilds before they were truly worthy of attention, and they were not at that point yet.

They were, however, worthy of just a little bit more attention.

I think I may have seen the birth of something quite interesting tonight. I wonder what fate will make of you, Menagerie. Will you be a shooting star through the night sky, burning bright one moment and gone the next?

Will you become worthy enough to truly hold our attention?

Or will you sputter and blink out before you ever have the chance to properly shine at all?

I suppose we shall find out.

Xiodan turned and strode through the forest in the opposite direction of Milten, not making a single sound as he vanished into the shadows.

***

Arwin didn’t remember much of the walk back to Milten. He vaguely recalled the odd looks they got from the guards, but they didn’t look all that different from any other travelers heading back in the middle of the night. Being covered in blood and bearing bulging sacks of loot was practically a signature for adventurers.

They all stumbled their way back to Lillia’s tavern. By some miracle, all of them managed to make it without falling asleep halfway down the street. Nobody could be so much as bothered to take a bath when they got back. Grime or not, sleep was calling their names like a siren. Rodrick, Anna, and Olive all headed upstairs without a word, carrying Reya along with them.

Arwin sent a glance up the stairs toward his room. The idea of trying to scale them now sounded like torture — but even if he’d planned to, Lillia was his arm support, and she was already guiding him to her room.

He was so exhausted he barely even noticed when they entered it. His eyes might have closed at some point while they were walking. All Arwin knew was that one moment they were walking, and the next he felt straw at his feet.

He and Lillia flopped into bed. Neither of them even bothered to try and sit and talk. The moment the straw so much as tickled Arwin’s skin, he slipped into a deep sleep.

Arwin had no clue how long he slept. But, however long it went on, it was the best rest he could ever recall getting. He woke to a comforting warmth and a sense of peace that couldn’t have been replicated by any other feeling in the world.

They were free of Jessen. The Iron Hounds were dead. Zeke could rest, and the rest of them could work on recuperating and repairing the street. The world stretched out before them. Its arms were outstretched and full of potential.

And, speaking of arms, there were some of those wrapped around Arwin.

He blinked. That was odd. He was pretty sure that shouldn’t have been possible, as one of his arms felt remarkably numb and the other was draped over something. He did not have four arms last he recalled.

The drowsiness pulled back as Arwin’s mind started to run again. It quickly became apparent that the feeling of warmth wasn’t purely figurative. Something warm was quite literally pressed against his body — and wrapped around the length of his leg.

His head finally snapped back into function as he drew in a breath, registering honey and freshly baked bread. It wasn’t just anything that was pressed against him. It was Lillia.

Even if he’d wanted to unentangle himself, the task was quite impossible. His right arm was pinned beneath her and her the something that had been holding his leg was what he suspected to be her tail.

Something about him waking up must have caused a chain reaction, because Lillia let out a murmur. Her hair brushed against him as she moved her head and froze in place.

“Arwin?” Lillia whispered, her breath tickling his nose.

“We’re alive,” Arwin said in a startling display of observance.

“Astute. And we’re… ah, entangled.” She made no move to extract herself.

“So it appears.”

They were both silent for a moment. Arwin wished he could have dragged that moment on forever, but he snuffed the desire. He’d made a promise, both to himself and to Lillia. Jessen was dead. The Wyrms were too — and he had no excuse to give himself any longer.

No excuse other than Lillia wanted to say something too. I should hear it out first, just in case she wants to tell me something that runs opposite to my own feelings. It would save us a lot of hassle.

“I suppose now is as good a time as any, isn’t it?” Arwin asked. “You said there was something you wanted to tell me.”

“You said the same thing,” Lillia said hurriedly. “You can go first. I don’t mind going after.”

“No, I wouldn’t want to intrude. You can speak first.”

“You don’t have to be polite,” Lillia said. “You go.”

“I have my reasons. You should go first.”

“As do I,” Lillia replied.

“Just go,” they said at once, then promptly both broke down in suppressed laughter.

“Has anyone ever told you how damn stubborn you are?” Lillia asked.

“I was about to tell you the same thing,” Arwin replied. He drew in a small breath, trying to convince himself that it was to steady his nerves and not to smell Lillia’s hair, then let it out with a huff. “Fine. I can go first.”

“If you’re really that adamant about it, I won’t make you,” Lillia said. “I can go first if you really want me to.”

Arwin glared. He couldn’t see Lillia, but she could see him just fine. He was rewarded with a sheepish cough.

“We’re never going to get through this at this rate, are we?”

“No, we aren’t,” Arwin agreed. “What if we just say it at the same time?”

“Not the best way to make sure your point is heard clearly,” Lillia pointed out. She paused for a second, then cleared her throat. “That’s perfect, actually.”

“Okay. Ready?” Arwin asked. “We can do a countdown.”

He felt Lillia nod. Arwin steeled his nerves. His heart was pumping in his chest like a runaway horse. He was pretty sure he was more stressed about this than he had been for a fair number of fights he’d been in.

“Ready?” Arwin asked.

“Yeah. Just do the damn countdown already,” Lillia grumbled. “I’m going to die of old age before we get this over with.”

Arwin did the countdown. He practically spat the last numbers out in his haste to get to the point.

“I think I’ve fallen for you,” Arwin said, his cheeks burning so bright that they could have lit anything but Lillia’s impenetrable darkness.

“I have romantic feelings for you,” Lillia said at the exact same time.

A second ticked by as they both processed what the other one had said. Another one followed it. Arwin became even more vividly aware of Lillia’s body completely pressed against his than he had been moments before, and that was saying a lot.

“Wait. That was what you were waiting to say?” Arwin asked in disbelief. His mind bounced around in his skull, jumping from elation to bafflement.

“Yeah. I didn’t want to put anything at risk by causing a distraction or making things awkward between us,” Lillia muttered. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Same reason.” Arwin started to laugh. “I think we might both be a bit stupid.”

Lillia buried her face in his shoulder. “I don’t want to think about it anymore. We can’t ever let anyone know about this. If Reya finds out, she’ll never let us live it down.”

“I was giving her love advice,” Arwin said with a shudder. “Agreed. This dies with us.”

“This means we don’t have to move, right?” Lillia’s tail tightened around Arwin’s leg.

“It would take a literal force of nature to get me to do anything for the next few hours,” Arwin replied. There was so much he wanted to say — so much he wanted to do. But, for the time being, they were both more than content to lay in each other’s company.