She walked in, nonetheless, and saw both her cuirass on the armor stands. Beside one was a shield, too. With her blade already safely in its sheath at her side, she approached and found a tablet hanging from the nearest stand.
Fife, I got the two blades fitted. I would recommend wearing it as your absorbed armor, that way the blades will become part of you and be better supported. The shield was made with most of the remaining stuff. I focused on absorbing energy and deflecting with that, so give it a try. With that kinda thing, we can always refine it and make a new one for you, since shields are popular.
Axel
The way Axel signed his name in the gold of the tablet's surface was the exact way he did so on the pommels of swords he made. Though she'd looked, she had never found where he put his mark on her armor.
Not that she minded. Axel was a natural genius with armor and weapons, and for that she'd wear his name across her back if she needed to. The absorbing armor was annoying to put on only because she had to work her wings into it. The blades along the leading edge of each were something she was particularly wary of. Her focus, when Axel was hammering them, had been on slicing and cutting. Her shortsword (despite being longer to accommodate her size) might be focused on piercing, but when she lashed out with a wing, it was a wide swing.
The way her wings slid into the armor took a lot of shaking around and pushing. Eventually, though, she got the backplate settled and lowered the breastplate. The buckles were fastened by rote now, though Fife took care with how she held her wings. When it was finally fastened, she activated her Tank ability and absorbed it.
Her wings felt heavier than ever. When she stretched one out, it almost toppled her over sideways. When she examined her wings, one at a time, the entire leading edge of each from the hand out to the tip of the metallic webbing was now a thrumming blade. She didn't want to test her own scales against the new blades, nor did she want to risk the rest of her armor.
Fitting the rest of her armor was far simpler. Her outer armor already had holes cut into the back to allow her wings to stand free, and after a little time working on the straps she was once more fully clad in adamantine.
She took slow, easy breaths as some weird stress she hadn't even realized she had left her. With a laugh, she realized she wasn't at all comfortable without her armor on. Grabbing up her new shield, she turned for the door and marched out.
"And then I told Gnasher to attack and he did!" Mixie had a lot of energy still boiling through her after several days beyond her first real battle. "Miss Tannyr was safe and I helped find the new dungeon!" She was talking to her brother in the lower barroom while all the "cool delvers" were assembling.
Ruffling his sister's unruly hair, Axel laughed. "And how is the training with Hilda going?"
"She said I need to get a spear and javelins made. That they would be better than a sword. Also, that I need to do a loooooot of running. Running is boring, though! Why can't I grow wings and fly instead?" Mixie stomped her feet and leaned forward, focusing all her willpower on growing wings—though to her utter disgust none sprouted.
"That," Fife said, scooping Mixie up, "might take a little more work, Squirt. Ask your mom if Trav can give you one of the fancy new classes."
"New classes?" Mixie squirmed in Fife's grip, turning a little and seeing her new bladed wings. "Your wings have swords in them?!"
Extending her arms before her to keep Mixie from touching the divinium blades, Fife said, "Yes. Sharp enough to cut adamantine, so don't touch 'em, Squirt." Only when Mixie relented did Fife set her down and stretch one wing forward, careful to keep her wing tips angled away. "You already have at least one dungeon class under your belt, and piles of equipment from here, so you should be able to get Ally class. That would let you get wings like mine."
"Or," Katelyn said, having overheard the conversation, "you could learn cool fire magic."
"Hear that? Katelyn just said she'll teach you everything about magic," Fife said, sticking her tongue out at Katelyn with a big grin. "But then you'd have to stop learning how to use swords and shields."
Reaching out for his sister's shoulders to stop her falling over completely thanks to the accuracy of the comment, Axel gave Fife a pleading look. "She's swapping from sword to spear."
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
"Only because I'm so short." Mixie crossed her arms and pouted. "But Commander Hilda said I'm getting better with a short-spear."
Crouching down, her armor creaking as she did so, Fife got as low as she could manage and still be on her feet to talk to Mixie. "Hey, you'll get bigger. I've seen some pretty big goblins, but you've gotta train hard and make sure to eat alllll your mom's cooking. Okay?"
"Even the yucky vegetables?"
"Especially those. Also, they're not yucky." Fife straightened back up. "And don't forget to talk to Trav and your mom, okay?" Mixie's enthusiastic nodding, and Axel's single nod, were Fife's signal to move on to her party.
Astrid, Breath Of Spring, Katelyn, Jack, and Brayden were sitting at a table. "Sorry for the wait. I had to get some new additions." Fife noticed her stool already at the table and pulled it closer to sit on. "So, Astrid, what do we know about this dungeon?"
"They're overconfident, rely on magic, and we really don't need this crew to break whatever defense they put up." Astrid let out a grunt. "But it would be a good idea in case they get lucky, or were acting deliberately weak."
"And that's why I asked for you all to help with this. I don't want any surprises we don't have several people to deal with." Nodding around the table, Fife smirked. "I also want to catch up with my friends and test out some new toys. Hopefully, they have a few levels for us to delve."
Katelyn swished around her cup of juice and downed it before saying, "Can we get this over with quick? I have a fortune in platinum waiting on me."
Jack asked, "Not a 'small fortune'?"
"No," Katelyn said with a huge grin. "There's nothing small about it. I'm working on doping it and rather than the low yield that gold gives, platinum is simply accepting the magic one-to-one. It is a large fortune."
"Who cares about fortunes? Gold doesn't buy much." Breath Of Spring shifted to the side and, careful of Fife's wing, snuggled up against her armored love. "But I agree, we should go and see if we can make friends with this dungeon."
"Yeah," Brayden said, standing up. "But remember, even if it isn't friendly, we can't shatter it." While Fife and Jack both nodded firmly to him, Brayden noticed Astrid look at him curiously. "We would need another sanction order, and I don't think any city gets as many of those as we do. Though, that could change now we can sanction a dungeon for someone with the promise of another sprouting later."
Rising from their chairs, the group made their way up to the second floor and then outside. From Breeze came a huge canine, running toward Breath Of Spring and sweeping up to her so she could grab handfuls of his fur and launch onto his back. She spent a moment ruffling the Bloodied Wolf's neck while he pulled in beside Fife.
Walking through the city streets toward the main gate, Fife found it interesting how different her reception was here compared to the capital. "People don't really care about us," she said as they neared the main gate. "When I was escorting Tannyr in the capital, I got a lot of weird looks. A kobold can pass for a short lizard-kin, and I could have if I didn't have the wings."
"But," Brayden said, "it's because of who we are that the people here accept us. Fife, you literally stood your ground wherever the city needed you. Breath Of Spring, the guards of the fort around your dungeon still speak of your abundant healing and how they fought on again and again knowing you were there, and—"
"And you," Jack placed a clawed hand on Brayden's shoulder. "You called down Brogdar's wrath to support the arms and spirits of those in the city. We earned our place here, like everyone else."
"Your right to stand tall wasn't fought for here," Katelyn said to Astrid, when she saw the big woman hang her head a little. "I do a lot of reading, as you know, and a good portion of the recent accounts tell of a group of wolf-dragons ripping apart West Reaches. Would you happen to know who they are, being a wolf-dragon and head of a knightly order?"
"It seems like a whole world away." Astrid looked back over her shoulder in the direction of Travis' dungeon. "And yet I could walk back into it before the day is over. We have a war coming, and then more. Is the South always like this?"
"No. We have put on a special show just for you." Katelyn caught the grin on Astrid's face and realized she'd hit her mark. "So, do you want to practice some fire magic today?"
"We've only been practicing for a few days. Are you sure?" Walking through the open gatehouse, Astrid had a chill as she remembered the first time she'd been here.
"Maybe. Maybe not. The advantage of using spells in an offensive manner, with Fife around, is you rarely have to contend with something getting in your face to stop you. The downside of practicing here is that I am not sure if this dungeon will have many targets." Laughing, Katelyn added, "That means we need to get them before Fife can."
Astrid returned the laugh with a wide grin. "Something tells me these pixies aren't going to be a big fight, but they might have caught some animals."
"Just remember the basic spell-form, pick a target that hasn't gotten to Fife yet, and the worst that will happen is they'll come running your way." Katelyn felt she didn't need to tell Astrid how to use a sword, and was glad to see the woman pat her hip where her sword hilt was. "Exactly. I don't think this dungeon has been here more than a month at most. While dungeons can grow fast in their early years, it's not Travis in there."
"Hey, Astrid!" Fife said as they walked out from under the gatehouse and into the open land around the city. "You know where this dungeon is, so can you take point?"
Not questioning Fife's knowledge on the location, since she had already described the place, Astrid strode to the fore and turned her head to look directly at where she knew the dungeon to be. "Follow me." It was a hunt, though one she felt her pack didn't need to be called to participate in. Each was training hard for the coming siege, and this wouldn't take more than an afternoon, she felt.
Available at:
This story is released under the license. If you are paying money to see this or the original creator, , is not credited, you are viewing a plagiarized copy of the story.
Patreon or fuel my writing on ! Join me on or .
Canary in the Coal Mine
Daremo
shortskirtsandexplosions
Sirion123
Vi Watch
Emtu
Jeffh4
Shi
Istyatur
Shelbo
Treascair
Joseplh
Seinta
Nidd
HarmonySpent
Purpleninja
Lab
Jeffh4
Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license in addition to all other licenses required by the sites I post to.