Path of Dragons

The hammer fell, sending sparks flying from the molten metal. Carmen 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 something – anything – really, really hard. So, she had retreated to her forge, intending to lose herself in the process of shaping metal. 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 came from a wild animal than a human woman. The moment the scream died in her throat, she sank to her knees and collapsed into a mess of sobbing tears.

Alyssa was never supposed to be the one to die. Even if everyone else was killed, Alyssa should have survived. Carmen had made sure that her wife had been equipped with all the best equipment – armor the likes of which no one else in Easton could even think about making – and that wasn’t even mentioning Alyssa’s gifts. She was the best fighter in the city, and she’d proven her mettle 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 Carmen had married, but still – she hadn’t forgotten the growing animosity between Alyssa and Roman. That loomed over everything, casting frustrating doubt over the man’s story.

Bending over, Carmen hung her head. Her sweat-soaked hair formed 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.

Carmen knew she was just looking for someone to blame. 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 Carmen 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 Carmen knew there was no one to blame didn’t mean she wasn’t angry. That she didn’t need to vent her frustrations on something. Anything. And given that the metal 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 same 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 embellishments to set it apart, the armor was workmanlike in both appearance and function. It suited Carmen perfectly, and she donned it with grim determination.

Once she’d strapped the various pieces into place, she retrieved a giant, two-handed hammer 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 armed and armored, Carmen grabbed a rucksack, then headed to the nearby home 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, Carmen 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 times – especially in that house. Now, it was empty, and it would never feel full again.

Forcing her emotions aside for the moment, Carmen gathered some provisions – just a few bottles of water and the dried meat 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, Carmen 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 something 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 home. It had already been picked clean, and in the two years since it had been inhabited, the surrounding wilderness had reclaimed the single-story house. But it was still recognizable enough that Carmen 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 something else. Something bigger, faster, and far deadlier. Fortunately for Carmen, she’d changed, too.

Stolen novel; please report.

Even as the monster charged at her, drool flying from its slavering jaws, Carmen pulled the massive hammer from her shoulder. For her first ten levels after Earth had been touched by the World Tree, Carmen 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 hammer 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 Carmen 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 met the charging bear with a sweeping attack reminiscent of a softball swing, and the huge chunk of steel at the end of the hammer took the mutated animal directly in the face.

Carmen experienced a deep sense of satisfaction when she felt bones crunch under the blow. The bear stumbled, though its mass and momentum 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, Carmen dropped her weapon – it was useless when she was buried beneath a thousand pounds of pissed-off ursine – and locked her own meaty hands around its wrists. Thus began a contest of strength. Woman against monstrous bear.

And for a moment, it looked like the bear might come out on top. Then, Carmen 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, Carmen 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 Carmen had let it, the thing would have run. But she hadn’t come out into the wilderness to wrestle bears. She’d come to kill something.

So, without further ado, she cocked her arm back, curled her fingers into a fist, and commenced with transforming her wishes a reality. Over and over, her gauntleted fists descended, and slowly, she pummeled the monster’s face into a bloody pulp. At first, it squirmed as it tried to escape, but soon enough, even that struggle fell away.

At some point, Carmen 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 meant that her Constitution couldn’t really hold up to her Strength. But she’d get someone 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 some time; 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 meat. 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 times, though nothing as menacing as the bear, and when she finally returned to Easton, she’d added a significant amount of meat 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 amenable.

Finally, after washing the worst of the blood away, Carmen 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, Carmen accepted them with as much grace as she could muster. However, at some point, she skated past mere drunkenness and into absolutely sloppy territory.

Which had always been the goal.

However, just before she let herself fall into unconsciousness, someone 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 Carmen. 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?” Carmen 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 me getting blackout drunk give you a goddamn hint?”

Verin’s eyes found the table, and tears started to fall down her cheeks.

Carmen sighed. “Look – I didn’t mean it like that, alright? Just don’t start crying on me. Listen – just tell me what you want, alright? I’m all ears.”

Verin looked up, her eyes glistening. “I was with her.”

“I know. Roman told me.”

“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.”

Carmen shook her head. With sobriety came 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.”

Carmen didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t want to be the one to comfort someone 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 came with a group of refugees. Some 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 something good came of it,” Carmen said. And indeed, she meant 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 mean 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.

Carmen just shook her head and pushed herself to her feet. After paying her tab – with a single copper etherium – she headed back home. 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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