Dressed to kill 11 (Patreon)

“She’s… still down there?” I asked. “You don’t mean — ”

“She’s not alive.” Sandy said, leaning forward. The hanging carcasses in her workshop cast shadows on the room that crawled up the wall.

A silence stretched between us. I looked down at the floor, caked in dried blood that crusted into the texturing carved into the stone bricks. The iron smell of blood warred with the scent of spices that escaped the door to the house. Sandy’s dad was cooking.

“Okay.” I said.

“Okay?”

“I’ll help you. We have to clear the floors to be able to get — to get farther down, right?”

Sandy stared.

I nearly jumped as there was a knock at the door. It swung out on its hinges. Gerald stepped in, holding a huge cloth bundle, his eyes wide as an owls as he scanned the hanging bodies.

“Sandy!” Gerald said. “Your dad is a dick.”

“You can’t just say that.” I said.

Sandy laughed.

“You go to your first town meeting?” She asked, reaching out to Gerald.

He had to stand his cloth package upright to be able to navigate through the carcasses before pushing it into Sandy’s arms.

“Yes!” Gerald said, exasperated. “He’s so… so…”

“Assertive.” I suggested.

“Arrogant.” Sandy replied. “Demanding. Patronizing.”

“Yeah. That.” Gerald said.

Sandy unbundled the cloth, letting it fall loosely to the floor. She smiled viciously at the tool she held in her hand; it was not quite a sword.

The blade was square from tip to handle, the sharpened edge gleaming in the lamp-light. Bones decorated the blunt edge, wolf teeth pointed inward. The only thing sharper in the room was Sandy’s smile.

“Today’s the day.” Sandy said. “I can feel it.”

Sandy played with her new cleaver, cutting directly through the chitin covering the corpse she had been working on. Her eyes widened.

“Do you have to get your patterns for smithing one at a time?” I asked. “You must be leveling fast.”

“I… no, I started with some.” Gerald said. He looked away from me, not meeting my eyes, staring at the blade in Sandy’s hand. “It’s fun though. There’s always a ton of work orders. My dad had been behind on them for years. We’re catching up.”

Gerald pressed his back to the wall, sliding down to the floor.

There was a knocking from the other door this time. Me and Gerald both nearly jumped, but Sandy just scowled, turning around and kicking away the chair that blockaded the door to her house. It swung outward, revealing the tired face of Sandy’s dad.

In the softer light of Sandy’s lamps and fleeting afternoon, he looked beaten and exhausted rather than hateful. His eyes scanned the room, lingering on the huge cleaver Sandy held.

“What?” She asked.

“Food?” He said, pushing the plate in his hands forward. It was stacked to the point it looked like it would fall off. “For you and your… friends.”

He stared at Gerald.

“We don’t need your…”

“I’ll take it!” I interrupted, snatching the plate out of Henri’s outstretched arms. He frowned, stepping back. Sandy slammed the door in his face.

Gerald looked nervous, picking at pieces from the plate and considering them carefully before eating bite by bite. I sat down next to him as I waited for night to fall. We definitely weren’t traipsing to the dungeon in the daylight for anyone to see us, especially since the town was extra active today with Valjean’s presence.

“So what kind of work orders do you guys have?” I asked Gerald.

“Huh?” He asked, looking up. “Oh. Boring stuff, mostly. Occasionally weapons and armor but mostly smaller metal stuff. Candle holders. Parts of lamps. Nails. Gears. Bolts.”

“Crossbow bolts or machine bolts?”

“Machine bolts.” He said. “They’re a pain because after each one we have to resmelt all the filings.” He said.

Then he dove into the intricacies of smithing.

We whittled away the last hours of daylight until the sun set and then kept each other company until it was dark outside. Gerald went home after eating.

“He’s so nervous lately.” I said, leading the way out into the street.

Sandy grunted. She was carrying her giant cleaver like a baby, still wrapped in cloth.

“Probably just because Valjean is here. Who isn’t nervous around nobles?”

The wagons the nobles led into the town were in the town square, the horses tied to a post nearby. They were giant silhouettes in the light that made it between the houses; burly, monstrous things, their presence setting me ill at ease. It felt like a monster was staring me down from the alleys, even though I knew they were most likely asleep.

We crept around the wagons arranged in a half circle. They were still only half loaded with goods; the rest would be shoved on tomorrow morning to be sent back. This close to them, I noticed there was dried blood crusted on the side of them. I stopped in my tracks and stared at it.

The Wild was a dangerous place; the safe zone of the dungeon made sure that no monsters accosted us inside of the city, but outside of that the animals that roamed it survived by virtue of strength alone, which meant almost everything out there could and would eat you. Only the Noble’s had the capacity to defend transports through the Wild. In a border town, that meant only the Mayor and whatever Unlanded Nobles he had enlisted.

One day I would be able to travel the wild by myself. Already I felt the effects of just reaching twenty-one dex; I might not have reached superhuman, but I felt as if I was already near the human limit.

We stepped into the dungeon, the lurching sensation washing over me. I staggered forward when solid ground came back under my feet. Sandy followed behind.

“Today’s the day. I can feel it.” Sandy said, dropping the cloth from her cleaver. Then she pulled out a lamp from her own bag, sparking it to light. It was brighter than the ones in her room, featuring a metal base and thick glass.

“When did you get that?” I asked.

“Got it just for the dungeon. It’s hardened. Delivered today.”

I blinked at that, confused.

“If you got it today, doesn’t that mean you ordered it last month with the last shipment?”

“Yes.” Sandy said. “I figured either you became a noble or I went back to clearing the dungeon.”

She looped the lantern in her belt and stepped forward, her cleaver menacing as it glinted in the light. Our nightly dungeon clears had become routine. I barely even paid attention to the heavy fatigue that hung over me night after night.

I felt what Sandy was talking about as we stepped into the dungeonheart. The air felt like it was full of static electricity, making my hairs stand on end. 

We found the first wolf quickly. It charged us with a growl. I trusted Sandy to deal with it, watching her back. The blade cut the air with a rushing noise. The squeal of the wolf joined the wet noise of torn flesh, then a crack, then two thumps.

Two halves of the wolf hit the floor, already dead.

I turned to look at Sandy. She was staring at the blade in her hand with a frown.

“This isn’t normal, Gwen.”

“What do you mean? It’s a better knife, right? Better performance is…” I stared at the two halves of the wolf corpse “Could you try to keep them in one piece? Maybe a clean cut at the neck. That’s going to be a pain to stitch together.”

Sandy’s eyes read invisible text in the air as she pulled open her system.

“This blade is raising my Speed and Strength by five each.”

 “Thats… good, right?”

“A new blacksmith shouldn’t be able to… it doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe his dad helped.” I shrugged. “We can check after we’re done here.

We moved deeper into the dungeon. Each time Sandy swung, she carved directly through the monsters, the blade tearing them apart like wet paper. The messier fighting style also left pools of blood as we mushed through the cave. I activated [Shadow Cloak] as we entered the final room.

There was only one wolf left. The stealthy wolf posed no threat to us anymore; Sandy killed it without any more effort than the previous monsters. I paced around the room as the static buzz in the air rose to an uncomfortable level.

It felt like magic in the air, static electricity building and pulsing inwards. The edges of the wolf glowed and then fell dim, all the static in the air disappearing at once.

“No.” Sandy said. “Shit.”

She walked to the center of the room, touching the ground with her fingers.

“What is it?” I asked, breaking out of stealth to step forward. “Is it opening?”

“It’s not. But you felt it, right? It can’t be more than a day away.” Sandy said, staring down into the floor. 

“Then lets get ready for tomorrow.” I replied.

Sandy dragged the wolf — only the Shadow one. The others weren’t even worth selling, according to Valjean, and we had an excessive supply of basic leather.

With my mana full, I was able to sew together Sandy’s cloak with superhuman speed.

[+2 XP]

I stood with a yawn and a stretch, holding out her cloak. Sandy was at the side, paging through a book. I flicked my wrists, making a flapping noise with the cloak to grab Sandy’s attention. She looked up from where her head rested on her hand.

“Finished?” She said, stepping forward and grabbing a handful of the fur. She ran a hand through it. “It’s… nice.”

The book on her desk folded itself shut, tired and wrinkled paper reforming to its memory. The cover was colorful; pink with an image of a flower imprinted on it.

“Try it on.” I said.

She spun the cloak onto her shoulders, pushing an arm through it before staggering over, blinking wide eyed.

“Woah.” She said.

“That’s the attribute bonuses.” I said with a grin. “To think nobles just get to raise their attributes with their levels.” 

“Who needs nobles when you have this?” Sandy laughed, sitting back in her chair. She squinted forward. The cloak raised Dexterity and Perception by two points each; a quantifiable difference in ability.

“Tomorrow. We’ll be ready.” I said, nodding seriously. I touched a hand to my chest, and, with a thought, the cloak disappeared from over me and into the warddrobe. I switched shirts too. A handy feature of the skill was that it pulled out the clothes perfectly clean and wrinkle free.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” Sandy asked suddenly, leaning back in her chair and basking in the glory of her new cloak.

“Sleeping in.” I said. I could finally relax after a week of staying up late to sew to keep up with the work order the mayor had assigned us. Maybe mom would pick up another one tomorrow. But I could deal with it later. For now, I needed to relax.

“Maybe doing some painting.” I followed up.

When I made it home, my bed practically sucked me in.

I hadn’t expected to wake up to shouting.