Rise of the Living Forge - Chapter 147 (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.