Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

A loud whoosh in the mist above paused the fight giving her once again the chance to escape. Feanys had been playing the cat-and-mouse game with her attackers for a while. She had fought them several times and managed to escape using the ramshackle houses and mist.

Although she was better at fighting than a traditional thief, thanks to her unique class "Mountain Brigand", she couldn't persevere fighting two opponents at the same time. Ultimately, it was still a class reliant on stealth, traps, and ambushes.

Slowly, she reached the end of her rope. The materials to set traps were running low and she didn't have any time to drink potions during the constant pursuit. She had already been lucky just now; the next confrontation might be her last.

Parkouring through the ruins of the city, she did her best to avoid any rubble that could make noise. As a mountain brigand, she could move like a ghost in the wilderness, but the cityscape made it hard for her to lose her pursuers.

When Feanys couldn't hear anyone behind her, she used the chance and dropped through an open trapdoor into the small cellar of a building. She hid between the shelves with sacks and jars, maybe it was once the storage of a shop?

Crouching down, she forcefully calmed her ragged breathing. The cuts and bruised from the fight burned in the cold and moist air. She smiled in derision. Who would have thought that she, who had dominated the great mountains, would end up in such a state, even running from a fight?

Using the little break, she drank a potion and applied an ointment to her wound to quicken the healing. The brigand was occupied smearing the green ointment on the worst cuts when she heard the floor above her head creak. Someone had entered the building.

She could hear the light steps.

"I know you are here." a cold voice stated quite certain.

"It is futile to run. You should have realized that your stealth can't keep up with our detection skills. Just surrender. It will make life a lot easier for all of us." he lamented.

Yes, she knew. Feanys had exhausted all her experience and stealth skills to the max, but they were still able to follow her. From her hiding spot in the dark corner of the cellar, she could see the male figure of one of her pursuers drop down through the trapdoor.

The dim light from above gave him a menacing silhouette. Another creaking. A second person had entered the house. The wooden floorboards groaned a lot louder than the first time.

"Ornsten, is she here?" the second pursuers asked from above in a booming voice.

"Yeah. Stay up there Smoke, in case our slippery target gets past me."

Before Ornsten could step deeper into the cellar, the floorboard sighed again. Just lightly.

"Who? Who are you guys? Ornsten, we have- Urgh! Wha- How! Agh!"

Ornsten still deliberated to look for her or help as the fight broke out above their heads. Quick steps, the heavy thumping of meat being hit, the tip of a massive sword pierced through the floorboards, followed by the rumble of someone falling.

The undead stared at the ceiling in shock, as a bloody claw pierced the floorboards from above with a squelching sound.

From her corner, she saw the undead curse and turn back, but then he started acting weirdly.

"Do you think you can beat me because you got rid of the musclehead?" he spoke to the thin air and pulled out his terrifying lance. He started wildly stabbing at thing air as if fighting several opponents.

He fought the air valiantly, but the moment he stepped into the dim light below the open trapdoor, a blood-dripping claw shot down from above and grabbed his head. Five sharp claws easily pierced his skull. With a scream of terror, he vanished upwards through the opening. With a disgusting crunch, his scream was instantly cut off.

The proud mountain brigand pushed herself even deeper into the small corner, pilling moldy rag,s and bags over her head. She already stood no chance against those two bastards, what kind of hellish monster had wiped them out so easily?

Feanys waited, surrounded by the smell of earth and mold, but nothing happened. When everything stayed quiet for a while and her wound had healed, she decided to carefully take a look at the situation.

She climbed up, back into the house. No signs of their bodies, she only found the two pools of rotten blood on the floor.

"Yo." she suddenly heard behind her, after she snuck out on the street.

Feanys jumped in fright but instinctively brought out her weapons to defend.

"Calm down, I'm with Caleb. You look like a bandit... are you Pheanix?"

Speaking to her was a cute girl, lifting her hands to the air as a signal that she came in peace. Although she wasn't sure yet, that she knew her name and that of their leader and most of all, that she was not an undead charging at her, gave her hope.

"I-it's Feanys," she answered hesitantly. "If you are really with Caleb and the others, then we have to get away. My attackers were spirited away by a terrifying beast. It might still be in the vicinity." she warned.

...

Cade could only awkwardly scratch her cheek as the rough-looking bandit girl described what just happened. The terrible monster she was talking about was her. As rakshasa, she didn't mind the flesh of the undead. She had bagged the two as proviant, after defeating them.

"Ah, yes... I'm Cade." she introduced herself.

"Follow me, we have to intervene in another fight, before we meet up with the others."

"What are you talking about?" the exhausted bandit asked tiredly.

"Come, let's talk on the way."

Still hesitant, Feanys joined Cade on their way through the city. On the way, the rakshasa girl tried to explain what was going on, despite not 100% knowing everything herself.

Soon, they heard the noise of battle muffled by thick fog.

"This way, come on." Cade spurred.

Feanys sped up, too. She had become more compliant after listening to the rough context of what was going on. Although she did not seem to have treated the evaluation as a game, realizing that she could have suffered a fate worse than death incensed her.

It was quite funny to Cade, to see the woman that had just been shivering and crying while hiding in a pile of waste, was incensed enough to get the irrational notion of taking revenge. However, she couldn't say that she disliked this kind of a tomboy.

"How dare you step before me, with such a weak will?" the deep voice of a giant hollered from ahead.

They came just in time to see a figure get flung away and crash into a house, turning it into a complete ruin. The scene that was revealed to them from the fog made them stop in their tracks

"You ain't getting away after breaking my precious poleaxe."

Grasping them on their ankle, a dwarven warrior was pulling back a battered person as it desperately tried to crawl away. He continued to lift the attacker with force and slam them back on the ground.

He was about to dismember the undead with a massive falchion when he noticed the two women approach.

"P-Polter?" the woman beside her mumbled, seeing the bloody dwarf.

"Oh! If it isn't Feanys. You are finally joining the party? Finish off the poor sob stuck in the wall over there, if you don't mind." he gestured at the house turned rubble, where the legs of his other victim were sticking out from.

"Don't bother, I will do it myself," he said, when he saw the two ladies not moving, even after he beheaded his undead. He proceeded to pull out the person from the rubble and end its undead existence.

He wiped the falchion before sheathing it again and put the massive tower shield, as big as himself, on his back before approaching the two.

"Did you see enough, Ladies?" he asked.

...

"Is everything according to plan?" came a wizened voice from the communication orb. Despite the static because of the great distance, she was able to understand what it said.

"Yes, Grandfather. I had some small complications with the team, but now they are all on my side. When Spatia finally notices that things deviated, it will already be too late." she assured the old man.

Although everything had been her idea, because of the class she had gotten just before the evaluation, as the patriarch of the family, her grandfather had made the decisions and helped smoothen things along the way.

"And the bones?"

"It is harder than I expected, but I will be done soon."

"Good. Don't forget, Natina, our rise will start with you."

"Everything for the Family," she said.

"Everything for the Family." it came back from the orb, and it finally dimmed.

She gripped the orb tightly. Yes, she would lead her family into a bright future.