Gaining confidence over the next few days, finishing up her daily training and harvesting tokens from it. She had a goal in mind now she was raking in the metaphysical dough. Her Greatsword friends were supportive about her development, and they even did as promised and raided a local pub. With how it happened in the Karak, Estaria paced herself and made sure that the morning wasn’t loud and bright. Not that the Greatswords gave any showcase of their hungover state during the morning roll-call.

Eventually, she managed to get her 100 tokens, and opened the Agility shop, immediately scrolling down and purchasing “Dwarf-Crafted Micro-Mainspring of Multitudinous Precipitation of Pernicious Lead”. She immediately took it to the firing range and spent an hour getting used to the weight and fire rate and reload. It took a good chunk out of her Cool to quick load, so she’d drill herself into manual loading with her new super-speed.

After she was done fan-girling over this miracle of modern engineering, she looked through the Physical shop. Contemplated buying potions or something since she was well stocked on swords, but one thing caught her eye. For 30 tokens, she could get a ‘Toolkit’ which opened a ‘Workshop’. That, sounded interesting, so she scrolled looking for if there were any special versions of this toolkit.

She managed to find at the bottom, for 90 tokens, a ‘Master Engineer’s Toolkit’ that gave four options for upgrade as opposed to the two she would get with the toolkit. Buying that - and a Dexterity potion to further ease her fluid motion with the Greatsword - she would lean against the wall and see what she could do with this Workshop.

It was as she expected, a thing for upgrading equipment. Even giving them magical properties, but she needed the items or a hell of a lot of money for that. A simple Yellow Enchantment was 30,000 without the needed item. Chucking in her Greatsword to the slot, she hit the upgrade, and turned it from White to Yellow. Then upgrade again from Yellow to Green. And then finally from Green to Purple. The next step required a special item to take it to Orange that she couldn’t just pay to skip, but she didn’t have that item, so just had to live with it being a Purple. With it now being a Purple, it now had a higher base damage than Ulric’s Fang, and equal Armour Penetration, and a trait called “Razor’s Edge” that could cause Bleeding. Lacked any magical effect though, and was slower. Apparently she only got a choice of 4 when there was a choice to make…

Next expenditure was her armour, which went up to Purple. However, unlike the Greatsword, which simply got Razor’s Edge, Estaria was given a choice on which trait she wanted on her armour. “Agile” or “Twin-Layer”. Agile would reduce the agility mallus down to 10, and Twin-Layer would instead add more armour. Agility was paramount to her fighting style, always had been. She wasn’t one of these fools to go against her Sigmar-given advantage for some kind of need to validate herself, so she made it Agile. At once, she could feel the armour lightening and shifting around her. It felt not only easier to move in, but more flexible as well, allowing greater manoeuvrability.

She wanted to get her two pistols up as well, but she was having money troubles after dropping mad cash on the weapon and armour. She could fix them though, and between confidence in her new gear and a confidence in her new skills, Estaria got herself a B-rank dungeon key and entered, clearing the area of all the mobs for best rewards before heading into the dungeon room itself.

“Oi, Wazzic? O’s dat git?” The Warboss asked, pointing at Estaria.

“I dunno Bozz, S-” Wazzic was cut off with a bullet to the eyeball, and then Estaria summoned her handgunners to unload a volley on the Warboss. Blackpowder weapons were great for doing damage to luck, and while there was little health damage done, she could dismiss the handgunners - would only get in the way during close combat - and summon the Greatswords. Finally, giving them the buff, she charged off with them and the Warboss fell pretty quickly to the combined arms. Maybe the worry came not from her lack of capability, but from the fact she didn’t use her guns or her summons against the Bestigor. He deserved more, but that didn’t make her any less…

“Who would have thought I could get enlightened mental progression through butchering Orcs” Estaria muttered to herself, wiping off her Greatsword.

Total Obliteration - 35000+10000 gold earned. Bozz’ ‘ead looted

The dungeon was over, and that was a very tidy sum to get for an hour’s work. Slightly overleveled for that dungeon though, so the experience gains were not that great. Leaving the Dungeon, Estaria opened the inventory and looked at the new item, Bozz’ ‘ead. It could be sold, or traded for an “Orc Box”. So she sold it for the extra money and went to the workshop again. Troll-Drenger was already Green, so it was expensive to get that up to “Giant-Drenger” and gain the “Two Barrels” trait, which was pretty self-explanatory really. Her Repeater Handgun was given a makeover as well with the “Rifled Barrels” ability, for more damage and accuracy. Seemed weaponry didn’t get a choice in what was given. She could live with that though, her gear was cool.

The next morning, Estaria was called to office, so went in her uniform, still at odds with the idea that it was hers, that she was deserving of wearing it. Nobody commented on it, so she just stood there and waited to be acknowledged.

“Major” Commander Tal exclaimed, a prompt for her to start listening. “We have a diplomat heading to Nippon soon, it’s an Island to the east we have been trading with on and off for a while. The rumors are that they have great warriors and strange mages, so we hope to encourage them to come help us fight against Chaos during these times. Given the state of affairs, we don’t have a free barge going to Marienburg for three weeks, which isn’t an acceptable delay right now. So we are going overland.

You have command experience, and Captains are in short supply right now, so we want you to head his expedition. We’ll be sending a hundred swordsmen and twenty handgunners, to meet up with a squad of Greatswords from Carroburg on route. We hope that a small squad can move quickly and avoid attracting attention that a larger band has, while also providing adequate protection”

Estaria would stand and listen for a moment. Nippon, a whole different country, far from all she cared and all she loved. But done for all she cared and all she loved. And with her there, there was no way this mission could fail, so it wasn’t something she was just going to refuse. So with some contemplation, she would nod and give a salute.

“I would be honoured to lead this expedition, Commander” she exclaimed, getting her order to sort out her life and then dismissed. Heading from the office, she would stride out of the barracks and down the street, to her home. Elaine needed telling that Estaria would be gone for months. Would the woman’s libido be able to handle that? Should she broach the topic that Elaine could see other people?

The second idea was immediately scrapped. Gods above, How awkward would that be? She’d rather fight the Hell-Pit bugger again. So she just carried on. And as she carried on, she passed the shrine to Ulric. Sigmar was the God of Altdorf, but nobody dared scorn Sigmar’s God by not giving him a place in the Capital. Estaria stood outside it for a while, looking at her Boon, and the building. It was alright now, wasn’t it? She was powerful, beyond any mortal, and didn’t need to bother him.

“I…” she spoke, to the building, and Ulric above. There had always been tomorrow to start, always been tomorrow to work on it. But now, she was going to a whole new land, for months, where there would be no shrines and no priests and nothing to give her the safety net of tomorrow. But at the same time, it was selfish on two fronts, to ask him to look after Elaine. She had her own religion no doubt - they never talked about that, it was one of the off-limits conversation topics - and Ulric was busier than ever. She didn’t deserve to bother him.

So she didn’t, and just headed home. The people on the street made her feel strange, in a mildly uncomfortable way she just couldn’t put her finger on. Though that feeling was washed away when she came home and found Elaine. No more discomfort, no more awkward feelings. Was it love, that stopped her feeling like this towards Elaine? It couldn’t be anything else, it wasn’t like Elaine was any better than any other being on the street at combat, and that seemed to be the deciding factor. The Greatswordmen made her feel better than the average joe on the streets, after all.

“I love how shiny your breastplate is, Major~” Elaine rolled the last word, stepping up to her and kissing Estaria. “But you are home early. What’s the trouble?”

Estaria would sigh, Elaine always was insightful. Always knew issues, even before Estaria did sometimes.

“I need to go. And this will be something that will take me away from The Empire for several months. It was a hard decision, but this might turn the war in our favour and save countless lives” Estaria told her love. There was a flash of panic in Elaine’s eyes, but it was suppressed, and pressed down.

“Are you telling me this, or yourself? Go, my little Hero. You’ve already fought the villain at Middenheim, already got the girl here at Altdorf. All that is left is to save the day, no?” Elaine asked rhetorically. “I’ll try not to burn down Altdorf in the meantime” she added a touch of humour onto the end, and then finished off with a much deeper kiss. How could Estaria refuse, in the face if such a delightfully supportive woman waiting for her when she got back?