Rise of the Living Forge
Chapter 452: The Menu

Ida couldn’t tell if she wanted to wince or cheer with every crunch that echoed through the Menagerie’s street. Ifrit’s golem clearly didn’t have restraint within its list of directives. The suit of armor rained blow after blow down on Gideon, hammering its fists into his armor relentlessly.

But the dwarf wasn’t done yet. He raised his hands above his head, taking the golem’s strikes on his arms as he slowly pushed himself back to his feet. Lines of power thrummed within his armor as it fought to withstand the damage it had taken.

Ida swallowed as she watched in rapt attention, unable to pull her eyes away from the fight. The rest of the crowd seemed locked in a similar position. Nobody wanted to get pulled into the mix.

The only scale I have for Ifrit’s strength is Gideon’s armor… but I know just how strong mother is. That equipment is powerful. Very powerful. It should be more than enough to withstand anything made by another Dwarven Smith, much less some random Adept Tier human.

“Who are you?” Gideon snarled, his words vibrating as Ifrit’s armor continued to slam its fists down on his arms. “How does a mere golem have this much power?”

If the armor could understand Gideon, it didn’t answer him. An ivory gauntlet clamped down on the dwarf’s arm and wrenched him to the side, sending the dwarf sailing through the air.

Gideon smashed into a crumbling building with a resounding crash. But he, unlike the girl that he’d kicked just a few moments ago, weighed quite a bit clad in his heavy armor. There was a loud groan.

Then the walls caved and the entire building collapsed on top of his head. A cloud of dust rolled up from the trashed ruins as the armor strode toward it, the red light burning behind it eyes cutting through the thick haze filling the air. It vanished into the remains of the building.

There were seconds of terse silence broken only by the crunch-thud of stone and rubble being tossed out of the way.

An instant later, there was a scream. Gideon came hurtling out of the cloud of smoke like a missile. He hit the ground with a loud, scraping shriek. Sparks flew up from his armor as it skidded across the ground and he came to a stop near the center of the street.

The warrior rolled over, shoving himself to his feet as he dragged in heavy breaths. Deep gouges covered the back of his armor and the magic within it sputtered, trying to maintain its integrity but fading fast.

Ida’s brow furrowed. She didn’t even dare start to hope. That would be too much. But something felt… odd.

For armor my mother made, this is surprisingly plain. She was always one to show off. Why is Gideon’s armor not doing anything more than keeping him alive? Shouldn’t he be capable of far more than this? Even if he’s completely outclassed, the armor he’s wearing shouldn’t be this easy to damage.

A streak of ivory-colored metal blurred out from the remains of the building. It slammed into Gideon before the dwarf could get his balance again. Both the golem and Gideon tumbled to the ground in a ball of flailing limbs.

And a horrendous, rending shriek split through the air.

Gideon screamed.

Ida’s eyes went wide.

There was a huge chunk of Gideon’s right pauldron missing. And that wasn’t all. A bloodied furrow in his shoulder had deep, jagged gouges running through it. It was almost as if he’d been bit.

Gideon drove a foot up, slamming it into Ifrit’s golem and sending the ivory armor staggering backward. The dwarf scrambled to his feet, breathing heavily as he clutched at his wounded arm. He stared at the golem in disbelief.

It only took Ida an instant to figure out why.

Loud crunching noises came from the armor’s helm. It had split right along the middle, where the mouth would have been. The break was rough and jagged to the point where it almost resembled shark’s teeth.

Ida’s blood ran cold as the crunching noises continued to come from within the golem. It was chewing. She caught a glimpse of shimmering silver-gold metal within the armor’s mouth before it swallowed.

It had straight up taken a bite out of Gideon’s armor — and a fair chunk of his arm as well.

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Is that really a golem?

Gideon let out a snarl of fury. “How is the golem of some mere Adept Tier smith this powerful? Come out, Ifrit! Fight me! Do you really think you can get away with this? You’re done for!”

Even Ida couldn’t help but blink at that. There was no way any smith in their right mind would challenge a warrior. The fight would have — should have — been impossible. But that somehow wasn’t the case today.

Ifrit’s golem lurched forward again. Gideon let out a scream of fury and charged to meet it. The two of them both swung, their fists a blur.

Gideon’s blow drove right into the armor’s chest.

The golem’s caught him in the forehead.

Two ringing clangs echoed through the street like a pair of massive church bells had been rung in unison. Then Gideon staggered back, his arms swaying. The warrior was fading.

Ida had never seen an Expert Tier warrior get manhandled this badly by a mere Adept ranked golem… but the facts weren’t changing. Gideon was going to lose. Unless her mother had given Gideon anything else to call on, he was done for.

He might have already been done for.

The dwarf swayed, barely able to keep his feet out from under him. His hands grasped in search for a weapon. The tiny seed of hope within Ida grew into a sapling. Gideon was really losing.

And if he lost, then her life might not be over after all. There was still a chance for her to earn her way back to freedom. To being a proper Dwarven Smith and escaping from beneath her mother’s thumb.

“I can’t believe you’ve pushed me this far,” Gideon rasped. “A mere human’s golem. But I’ll kill you — and your master — if it’s the last thing I do. I will not be humiliated like this. Count yourself lucky. Not many get to witness me at this level of power. Behold—”

Ifrit’s armor blurred forward. It slammed a knee into Gideon’s stomach. The dwarf launched into the air, flying a dozen feet back and bouncing once across the street before skidding to a halt near the edge of the crowd.

The armor turned toward Gideon.

And then it stopped.

“You should have killed me when you had the chance,” Gideon snarled. Coiling gold magic twisted through his exposed arm as power pumped through his body. “Now you won’t get another. You think I’m scared of a golem? I don’t care if I have to debase myself to going all out against my lesser. Today, Ifrit dies.”

Shit. I didn’t think he actually had it in him to hold back this long. Gideon has always been a proud bastard. Why would he let himself get manhandled this long if he could do something about it?

Ida’s throat went dry. She could taste power filling the air. It poured out in waves, thick and heady and relentless.

And then she frowned.

Wait.

The power wasn’t coming from Gideon.

Ida’s eyes snapped to the side to find a purple-skinned woman standing in the front door of the Devil’s Den, a stained apron wrapped around her waist and death in her eyes.

“Who are you?” the woman asked, her cold voice taut with restrained fury. She held a bloodied knife in one hand and a cast-iron pan in the other — which somehow came off far more intimidating than Ida ever could have guessed. The woman pointed her knife at Gideon. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing on my street?”

Gideon didn’t even bother turning toward her. “Be silent, wench. I have no interest in killing any more of this fool smith’s guildmembers than I need to.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed into slits. Darkness poured out the door behind her and shadows coiled at her feet. They spilled into the street the tendrils of some sealed monster trying to escape from within the inn.

There was one thing about dwarven warriors. They were strong. They were resilient and unrelenting and fast — but no dwarf ever chose to be a warrior. Very rarely did a dwarf ever wanted to be anything but a smith.

But smithing required the ability to sense. To sing. And some dwarves just didn’t have that. Some of them just weren’t sensitive enough.

Far too late did Gideon finally notice the power pouring into the air or the shadows rising up into the sky like the gates to the underworld had opened.

“It’s not the armor you should be worried about,” the woman said. “It’s me.”

The shadows exploded out from around her. They cut through the air between her and Gideon. Darkness coiled around the dwarf’s feet and yanked him into the air by the ankles.

Gideon let out a scream of surprise as the shadows yanked him into the inn in a blur of motion. The doors slammed shut in his wake, leaving only silence hanging over the street like a grim cloak.

No trace of the dwarf remained but the blood dripping from the jagged mouth of Ifrit’s golem.

Then, uncaring of the stunned air, Ifrit’s armor turned on its heel and marched right back into the Infernal Armory.

The purple skinned woman’s gaze swept over the crowd.

“I trust nobody else is planning to act up?”

“No, ma’am,” an adventurer near the front of the line to the inn squeaked.

The woman smiled. “Good. Then get a smile on that face of yours. Service will resume very shortly, so don’t go anywhere. We’ve got a new menu item today. I’m just about to get it cut up.”

Ida’s hair stood on end.

She… she can’t mean what I think she means, right?

Ida took a step backward into the alley.

The purple-skinned woman’s gaze snapped right to her. Ida froze in place.

“You,” the woman said, pointing her knife at Ida. Cold anger burned within her eyes like a simmering stew and a shadowy tendril coiled up behind her. “Inside. Now. Either on your own feet or upside down.”

What little blood remained in Ida’s face rushed out of it to join her stomach in its burial place six feet beneath the ground. Ida had seen how fast those shadows could move, and she knew she was nowhere near fast enough to escape them.

Her mouth went as dry as old parchment.

Shit.

I think I might be the next thing on her menu.