ABH - CH 39 - Soldering a Plan

A/N: 17 chappys ahead!!!

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Soldering a Plan

Rise of Winter, Week 5, Day 5

“This is so stupid—who designed these outfits?” Freddie growled, not caring if Ogon responded or not. The spirit wouldn’t know the answer anyway. “The pockets can’t fit a potion vial? Useless!”

The bulbous ends of the potion wouldn’t slip through the opening of the pants pocket, and for that, Freddie wished the designer responsible a slow, painful demise. 

“It’s too fat for my Young Lady of Flames,” Ogon hummed, flitting around—careful not to land on the vials lest he melt the glass. Again. 

“I can’t believe you ruined a mana potion,” Freddie groaned, swatting at the ember. “Get back, you glorified spark, I have to figure this out.”

“Mean Lady!” Ogon laughed, flying up toward the ceiling, where he landed on the junction of wall and ceiling. Slowly, the stone started to glow with heat, but the ember did not move. “If only you could wear it.”

“That’s easier said than—” Freddie cut herself off before looking up sharply at the spirit. “You might be a secret genius, Sparky.”

Then, Freddie dug through her satchel, grabbing the two items she’d deemed useless. Well, not useless, but not interesting. 

The necklace that had been resting atop her precious pillow. 

She had never bothered to [Inspect] it.

[Inspect] 

[Azellian Pendant, Tier 1, Uncommon]

[A necklace crafted from Azellian ore and a stone of true Reza. It is enchanted with the ability of a Yellow Goblin to cast [Mana Barrier]. Uses remaining: 3] 

[Crafted by: Dungeon M283]

Snorting, Freddie unclasped the blue metal—Azellian—and slid the pendant off the chain. Freddie didn’t know a lot about what she was going to attempt, but it had to work better than when she tried to mill grain by hand. 

This was a much simpler idea. 

“Take the chain,” Freddie hummed, singing the words, then grabbed one of the potion vials. “Wrap the chain.” She carefully laced the chain under the top ledge of the vial. “Then melt it all together.”

[Fire Conjuration+Fire Manipulation]

She didn’t call to her a massive ball of flame, nor did she call the hottest flame she could manage. Both of those things were too much, and Freddie only had one chance at this, lest she ruin the chain. 

So, she called a small flame, no larger than what a candle would produce, and she started it at a low heat. Without manually changing the color of the flame, she could better tell how hot it was. 

This wasn’t her usual brute force application. This was finesse. Of which, Freddie was terrible—and thus meant she had to go extremely slow. 

She used [Imbue Flame] on her fingertips and the potion vial, holding the chain tightly and giving the vial just a fraction of distance from the heat. Just in case. She didn’t want to waist a mana potion. Then she sharpened her flame into a needle thin line. Freddie felt her will being challenged by the act, but she ignored the sweat beading at her brow. Instead, she angled the fire onto the metal and slowly upped the heat. She had to guess the exact temperature, but she tapped the chain once to see how it held up with the heat. 

The first attempt was odd, especially to Freddie. 

“Oh, good Gods, how hot is that fire?” She said, shock filling her. Because between one moment and the next, the metal was molten and reforming around the glass tightly. 

Pulling back her flame, she looked up at Ogon, “Hey. You know temperatures?”

“Mmmm, not as you would understand them. I know the heat of a flame, the warmth of the suns, the burning of magma.” Ogon laughed, darting back down to dance around Freddie’s disheveled mop of pink hair. She hadn’t thought to brush it. 

“Ugh, poetic,” Freddie said, pulling a face. “But useless.” 

Ogon just continued laughing, his voice the sound of a crackling flame. 

Freddie waited another few minutes before testing to see if the chain had cooled. She vaguely remembered you could cool metal by dunking it in water, so she hunted down one of the mortars she’d pilfered and a waterskin. Pouring the ice-cold water—because enchanted shenanigans—into the bowl, Freddie dunked the tip of the vial and the hot metal into the liquid. With a hiss, it was submerged. 

Giving it a minute before lifting it back out, Freddie tapped the edge of the bowl to shake the water within. She wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to happen with that, but she figured it couldn’t hurt. 

When she pulled out tip of the vial, the metal had turned a cobalt blue—a stark difference from the rest of the chain, which was pale as the sky. But it was cool to the touch, and seemed sturdy enough when Freddie shook the vial by the chain, so she repeated the process with a health potion. 

In the end, Freddie connected the chain by the belt loops on her pants. The vials were too bulky to wear around her neck, and had irritated her when she did some test punches. Plus, if the vials shattered, she didn’t want the shards going into her chest or abdomen. That would defeat the purpose of having them at all. 

It was a slight problem that the metal had formed so closely to the vials—but that was a problem for a later Freddie. Not a this instance Freddie. 

“It’s time, Ogon.” Freddie snapped her fingers, and a sharp grin spread across her face. “Let’s wreck this floor.”

“Let’s burn it all, my Lady!” Ogon shouted in response, and Freddie’s smile softened at the words. 

[Fire Step]

“At least the Ranga Vine doesn’t smell,” Freddie mused as she walked over the pit.

She did send a ball of fire down to the monster corpse—for good measure. It had, after all, impaled her and Freddie was not the sort to forgive just because she’d gotten her vengeance. 

As she stepped down to the floor, Freddie pulled off her satchel, tucking it a few feet away from the edge of the pit. As she did, she heard shuffling in the distance. 

Shaking out her arms, Freddie looked at Ogon. “Are you ready? I want you watch how I fight. Then do your own thing around me.”

“Teamwork, it’ll be beautiful,” Ogon hummed, distancing himself away from Freddie as she began striding down the hall. 

Red, Yellow, Purple, or Stone. I’ll just break through, quick and easy. Freddie thought to herself, a savage smile taking over her expression. 

Rounding a corner, Freddie was rewarded with the easiest of prey: a Red Goblin. It had a spear, and it was standing in a corner of the hall that made a sharp turn. 

Freddie didn’t wait for the monster to see here, she charged. 

[Running]

“[Fist of the Flame Monk]”

She went with an elbow to the sternum first, to knock the wind out of the goblin, then she brought her fist up to hit its chin to send it backward. Grabbing its neck with her other hand, Freddie turned the goblin around and slammed the goblin’s head into the wall with a flimsy crack. As she went to grab its arm, the goblin started to gurgle. Freddie wasted no time sending the monster to the ground, swiping under its legs and using her grip on its arm to flip it around again. 

As it landed with a thump, Freddie brought her boot down on its skull. 

“Ugh, boring,” she grumbled as the Red Goblin disappeared into miasma.

“That was so quick, the beast didn’t get an opportunity to retaliate,” Ogon hummed. “Is it always like that?”

“No,” Freddie huffed, “otherwise life would be unbearable. But the goblins can only get up to Level 10 on this floor, and so the Red Goblins are too weak to match up to me. It’s a difference of [Rarity] and Level. Not necessarily skill. I can see them coming, can break their bones with ease, can snuff them out of existence in a moment—all because I can overwhelm their attributes.”

“Better and stronger than them, I knew I picked the right Young Lady of Flame.” Ogon zipped around Freddie’s head, catching a strand of hair on fire before Freddie caught the smell and put it out. 

“Stop calling me that,” Freddie groaned. “I don’t go by my [Class] name. Just call me Freddie.”

“Can I?” Ogon chirped. “Can I, really? Freddie! There, I did it! Freddie!”

A grin split across Freddie’s face. “That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

“I will! I will use it so often it is worn to ash!” Ogon gave an odd cackle, and Freddie narrowed her eyes. 

“Was that a joke?” She demanded. “At my expense?” 

Ogon just gave another cackle before darting toward Freddie, who had just enough time to use [Imbue Flame] on the skin of her face before Ogon rushed up to it and pressed. 

“I can hear it. You like the joke. Your mana warms up at them!”

Freddie swatted at the spark, a light color on her cheeks. “Ugh, fine, whatever. We don’t have time for this. Let’s get moving.”

As she turned, Freddie heard, clear as day, Ogon grumble, “We have plenty of time. You’re trapped here.”

Freddie rolled her eyes, swiping the red and black mana pearl and slipping it into her pocket. As she stepped, the potions at her waist made a tinkling noise, setting Freddie on edge. She didn’t like the way she could be heard. Never mind the chatter between her and Ogon, this was a sound she couldn’t fully control. It was a sound she could make by mistake. 

Then again, all Freddie had to do was punch faster than the sound could betray her. 

She took a breath. There was no point in dwelling on it now. She’d already wrapped the chain around her belt—and it wasn’t as if she was willing to go without potions on hand, not after getting impaled.

On the first floor! Freddie bristled before forcing another long breath. Embarrassing. 

Getting worked up would not serve her. Not then, anyway. 

Turning on her heel, Freddie rounded the corner—only to freeze. The hall forward was dim, but not hidden. There was no magical darkness blocking her view. Instead, she could make out a brightly lit room. The shadows still flickered, which told Freddie it was likely an open flame of some sort lighting up the chamber ahead—which worked perfectly for her. It was a great way to save mana on [Fire Conjuration]. 

Sneaking closer, Freddie pushed herself up against the wall and held the potion vials still with one palm. It was thirty slow, agonizing feet before Freddie got a full visual of the room before her. Against the far walls were barrels of different colors: red, yellow, purple, and black. And, she had been correct. There were actually two bonfires going, lighting up the wide space. One was out on the open, surrounded by several Red Goblins. The other was smothered under a stone plate, with several lumps of a greyish mixture atop it. 

There was another pair of Red Goblins tending to the lumps, which Freddie began to realize were some kind of bread. They had begun to rise slightly as she watched. At the edge of the room was a partition and Freddie could see more shadows milling about behind it. 

Freddie’s reaction was instinct, really. She couldn’t help it. As her heartbeat sped up, and her hands itched to form fists, Freddie knew one thing was true: she was a fighter to her core. 

Going up against seven—no, ten goblins at once sounded like the time of her life. 

Especially as she spotted a Purple Goblin rounding the bend of the room and approaching the make-shift stove. 

This would be a melee, a frenzy, a free for all.

A grin spread across her face and she stepped backward, back and back and back. Until she was at the corner where she’d throttled the previous Red Goblin. Then, she looked at Ogon. 

“We’re going to fight, you can have five red ones. I’ll take the other five and the purple one. Deal?” Freddie demanded, a glint in her eyes, a sharpness Ogon had yet to see before. 

Something that made the ember flash an orange light. 

“Deal.”