The hamr fell, sending sparks flying from the molten tal. Carn knew it was too hot, that the result was going to be almost entirely unusable. But she didn’t much care. Indeed, all she really wanted to do was hit sothing – anything – really, really hard. So, she had retreated to her forge, intending to lose herself in the process of shaping tal. Instead, she’d quickly made one mistake after another until she stopped even trying to do anything worthwhile.
With a growl, she reached down and grabbed the glowing bar of steel, then tossed it at the wall. It hit with another spray of sparks, then shattered entirely. That’s when she let out a primal yell that sounded more like it ca from a wild animal than a human woman. The mont the scream died in her throat, she sank to her knees and collapsed into a ss of sobbing tears.
Alyssa was never supposed to be the one to die. Even if everyone else was killed, Alyssa should have survived. Carn had made sure that her wife had been equipped with all the best equipnt – armor the likes of which no one else in Easton could even think about making – and that wasn’t even ntioning Alyssa’s gifts. She was the best fighter in the city, and she’d proven her ttle in countless battles.
And yet, she had fallen.
She wasn’t the only one, either. One of the healers had died, and so had the lanky wizard who’d been part of Alyssa’s normal team.
Roman had spun a pretty tale. He’d talked about how brave Alyssa had been, about how she had sacrificed herself so the others could live. That certainly sounded like the woman Carn had married, but still – she hadn’t forgotten the growing animosity between Alyssa and Roman. That lood over everything, casting frustrating doubt over the man’s story.
Bending over, Carn hung her head. Her sweat-soaked hair ford a curtain around her face as the tears continued to fall. She knew her suspicions were unfair. Roman had never done anything to suggest that he would betray Alyssa. In fact, despite their differences of opinion, the pair had been close friends. They had relied on one another at every turn.
Carn knew she was just looking for soone to bla. The fact of the matter, though, was that there was no single guilty party. People died every day. The world was dangerous and deadly, and Carn needed to look no further than the situation itself. Going into the tower had always been a risk, and for once, Alyssa had paid the price for her gallant nature.
But just because Carn knew there was no one to bla didn’t an she wasn’t angry. That she didn’t need to vent her frustrations on sothing. Anything. And given that the tal had proven to be a poor opponent, she decided to seek out a more satisfying foe. So, with tears still falling down her cheeks, she went to the corner where she found her armor.
It wasn’t the sa quality as the beautiful suit of plate she’d made for Alyssa. In fact, it looked just about as ordinary as any suit of armor could. Plain steel, with only a few embellishnts to set it apart, the armor was workmanlike in both appearance and function. It suited Carn perfectly, and she donned it with grim determination.
Once she’d strapped the various pieces into place, she retrieved a giant, two-handed hamr from the storeroom. Like her armor, it didn’t look like anything special. Indeed, it had a crude, almost unfinished look about it. But also like her armor, it was well-crafted, and its quality exceeded any of her creations, aside from the gear she’d made for Alyssa.
Thus ard and armored, Carn grabbed a rucksack, then headed to the nearby ho she’d shared with Alyssa and her son. Miguel was staying with friends for the night, so the house was deserted.
Confronted with that emptiness, Carn once again felt on the verge of breaking down. The years after the world’s transformation hadn’t been easy, but as a family, they’d shared plenty of happy tis – especially in that house. Now, it was empty, and it would never feel full again.
Forcing her emotions aside for the mont, Carn gathered so provisions – just a few bottles of water and the dried at Alyssa had always favored for when she went on her patrols. Once she’d taken care of her supplies, she set off for the gate. When she got there, the pair of guards tried to caution her against going out alone, but one glare was all it took for them to back down.
So, soon enough, Carn was trekking down the well-trodden trails in the surrounding wilderness. At first, she had no real notion of where she was going. She just wanted to find sothing to kill. But in the back of her mind, she knew precisely where she was destined to end up.
And hours later, she stood in front of the derelict building she’d once called ho. It had already been picked clean, and in the two years since it had been inhabited, the surrounding wilderness had reclaid the single-story house. But it was still recognizable enough that Carn couldn’t look at it without tearing up again.
She probably would have stayed longer if it wasn’t for the massive creature charging down the street at her.
On the most basic of levels, it was a brown bear. However, like most of the local wildlife, the world’s transformation had turned it into sothing else. Sothing bigger, faster, and far deadlier. Fortunately for Carn, she’d changed, too.
Stolen novel; please report.
Even as the monster charged at her, drool flying from its slavering jaws, Carn pulled the massive hamr from her shoulder. For her first ten levels after Earth had been touched by the World Tree, Carn had put every free point into Strength. And that attribute had been further enhanced after she’d gained her Blacksmith class. So, even though the hamr weighed north of a hundred pounds, she handled it like it was as light as a feather.
The bear monster closed with frightening speed, and if Carn hadn’t been so enveloped by her own grief and rage, she might’ve succumbed to fear. That wasn’t what happened, though. Instead, she t the charging bear with a sweeping attack reminiscent of a softball swing, and the huge chunk of steel at the end of the hamr took the mutated animal directly in the face.
Carn experienced a deep sense of satisfaction when she felt bones crunch under the blow. The bear stumbled, though its mass and montum were so great that it still tackled her to the ground. Fortunately, her attack had shattered its jaw, so it couldn’t bring its most potent weapons to bear.
It still had claws, though.
So, Carn dropped her weapon – it was useless when she was buried beneath a thousand pounds of pissed-off ursine – and locked her own aty hands around its wrists. Thus began a contest of strength. Woman against monstrous bear.
And for a mont, it looked like the bear might co out on top. Then, Carn regained her leverage, and suddenly, the bear was losing. With a great heave, she flipped the creature onto its back and rolled atop it. Then, Carn let out a mighty roar that dwarfed anything the bear could utter as she ripped her arms out to the side.
More bones cracked as the bear’s joints couldn’t handle the stress. It whimpered, suddenly aware of its own vulnerability. If Carn had let it, the thing would have run. But she hadn’t co out into the wilderness to wrestle bears. She’d co to kill sothing.
So, without further ado, she cocked her arm back, curled her fingers into a fist, and comnced with transforming her wishes a reality. Over and over, her gauntleted fists descended, and slowly, she pumled the monster’s face into a bloody pulp. At first, it squird as it tried to escape, but soon enough, even that struggle fell away.
At so point, Carn had stopped attacking a living monster, instead transitioning into beating a dead bear’s corpse. But still, she persisted, screaming and growling and crying all the while.
It did no good, though.
Her frustration and grief remained as poignant and powerful as ever.
When she pulled away, her knuckles were sore and bloody beneath her armored gauntlets, and one of her hands was probably broken. Her one-sided attribute allocation ant that her Constitution couldn’t really hold up to her Strength. But she’d get soone to heal her when she got back to Easton. For now, she grabbed the knife from her belt and started processing the creature.
That took quite so ti; it was a large animal, after all, and she wasn’t an expert. However, over the next couple of hours, she finished the job, coming away with a decent quality pelt and a few hundred pounds of good at. Once she’d gotten everything she could out of the bear, she began the long trek back to town. Along the way, she had to fight two more tis, though nothing as nacing as the bear, and when she finally returned to Easton, she’d added a significant amount of at to her haul.
She handed it over to the guards and told them to distribute it accordingly. Then, she took her pelt to a man who’d taken the Leatherworker class and told him what she wanted made. It cost quite a few etherium, but he was anable.
Finally, after washing the worst of the blood away, Carn headed to one of the town’s handful of taverns, where she quickly got down to the serious business of drinking herself into a stupor. While she was there, multiple acquaintances approached to give her their condolences, and for the most part, Carn accepted them with as much grace as she could muster. However, at so point, she skated past re drunkenness and into absolutely sloppy territory.
Which had always been the goal.
However, just before she let herself fall into unconsciousness, soone sat across from her at the table. She looked up with blurry eyes, but didn’t recognize the woman. “Don’t think I’ll be much company,” she slurred.
Then, Ethera gathered, and the woman cast a spell on Carn. She never even had a chance to react before it enveloped her.
And gradually, her drunkenness faded away, replaced by horrible sobriety.
“What the fucking hell?” Carn growled. “Hope you had a good goddamn reason for doing that, because…”
That’s when she recognized the woman. Verin. The healer who’d been there with Alyssa when she’d died.
“I…I’m sorry,” the older woman said, pushing her hair behind her ears. Her face was largely unlined, but she had a few grey streaks mixed in with the brown locks. “I didn’t…I just wanted to talk.”
“I don’t. Or didn’t getting blackout drunk give you a goddamn hint?”
Verin’s eyes found the table, and tears started to fall down her cheeks.
Carn sighed. “Look – I didn’t an it like that, alright? Just don’t start crying on . Listen – just tell what you want, alright? I’m all ears.”
Verin looked up, her eyes glistening. “I was with her.”
“I know. Roman told .”
“I should have…I should have saved her,” Verin said. “I wish…I just wasn’t strong enough. But I’m a healer, right? That’s my job. I should have saved her.”
Carn shook her head. With sobriety ca terrible clarity, and she saw the day’s actions for what they were – especially when she saw her own grief reflected in Verin’s.
“Look – it’s okay,” she said. “You did everything you could have done.”
The matronly healer said nothing.
“You’re new around here, right? You just got here a couple of weeks before the tower.”
Carn didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t want to be the one to comfort soone else. She wasn’t capable of it, and even if she was, that was a road she had no interest in traveling. So, she’d changed the subject.
“Yes. I ca with a group of refugees. So of us were allowed in, but…others were not,” she said. “Because of what I did in the tower, Roman is letting the rest in.”
“Well, at least sothing good ca of it,” Carn said. And indeed, she ant it. Not only had they kept the tower from overflowing and burying them beneath a horde of Voxx, but it had saved a few refugees, too. Alyssa would have been proud of that. She took a deep breath, then said, “Look – I’m sure you an well and everything, but I really can’t do this right now. So, I’m going to go. I hope…I hope you get what you want out of all this. We can always use good healers.”
“T-thank you,” Verin said, her gaze back on the wooden table.
Carn just shook her head and pushed herself to her feet. After paying her tab – with a single copper etherium – she headed back ho. She was done feeling sorry for herself. Now, she needed to focus on what really mattered – making the world a safer place for Miguel.
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