Amelia
(God it’s weird to write a character with this name now that I’m using it for myself.)

Rosa waltzed along happily beside me, her purchases safely stowed inside her inventory. If I ever had the audacity to tell her just how fucking adorable she was like this, I think she’d put a blade through my chest. It was hard not to admire her, though! I mean, she was a five foot tall fox girl right now, with these big fluffy floppy ears that bounced slightly every time she took a step.

I was actually surprised at the route she’d decided to take with her return to society. I mean, she was so damn good at painting the snow with the blood of her enemies. Why’d she feel the need to put a stop to that level of artistry?

Hooking my thumbs into my belt, I gave her a side eye, “So, little fox, what type of enchantments are you thinking of using on your gear?”

“I want something that gives me a little more protection than simple armour ratings,” explained Rosa, twirling her little tote back around her finger. Another thing that she was doing that had the little gremlins in my brain screaming, ‘cute cute cute cute cute!’

“I think I’ll add some sort of dynamic reactive hardening to the cloak and vest, maybe the pants too,” she continued, turning her big purple eyes up to meet mine. “Some tracing enchantments too, so I can find out who hit me if it isn’t already obvious. That kind of thing. I don’t really need stat buffs, so I imagine I’ll have more room for more interesting enchantments.”

“That’s awesome,” I said. “Maybe once your enchanting is high enough you could add more stuff to Jazz.”

She smiled. “I was already thinking of some—”

Whatever ideas she was going to tell me were cut off when we heard yelling, then a scream.

We were a ways up the starboard inner wall of the Taeru now, halfway home. This far up the wall, the city hadn’t quite made the transition to vertical, so the stacking of building atop building was particularly bad here. It made the whole area a warren of alleyways and cramped streets, and therefore a perfect place to get up to no good. The locals called these suburbs the Crannies, for obvious reasons.

Rosa was already moving towards the sound, her smile gone, replaced with an emotionless expression that sent chills down my spine. Oh dear. Here we go.

We ducked down a brass and wood alleyway that took us out into another street, this one fully enclosed by the various buildings around it, but still fairly large by Cranny standards. A large group of players stood surrounding a much smaller group, weapons drawn on all sides.

The smaller group had a member down already, a healer by the looks of her crumpled body. It already had the telltale signs of system decay. Before long, it’d vanish, taking whatever gear the game decided to allow the player to keep.

“What the fuck, dude!” the tank of the smaller party yelled, shaking with so much anger that her metal armour rattled.

The man who’d obviously killed the healer just shrugged, his expression also containing a certain amount of anger. He also radiated a confidence that I recognised, and his next words confirmed my suspicions. “I told you, carebear, if you’re going to do your little PvE dungeons from the front lines, then you gotta pay the tax! We’re out here fighting to keep the pags from killing us all, while you dance around doing easy mode shit.”

The tank scowled further behind her helmet, and her long draconic tail swished side to side like an angry cat. “Who do you think provides the mats for you to keep fighting, huh? Not everything can be looted off the corpse of a pag.”

“Yeah, that’s why we’re asking nicely for some of that ore you brought back,” the PvPer shouted, stomping his own armoured foot down onto the tarnished steel of the street like a petulant child.

Dudes like this gave us PvPers a bad name. Just because we killed other players, didn’t mean we were doing harder work than those who fought primarily monsters. Like, come on. I’d love to see that walking talking burn blister of a man take a hit from a dungeon boss. That shit hurts.

"Maybe we should step in and mediate this situation," I murmured, turning to look at Rosa. Except, she was nowhere to be found. Oh. Oh no. This was going to be worse than the time one of my privates thought it would be funny to throw a can of that weird scandinavian rotten fish shit into our campfire. I could still smell rotting fish juice in my dreams.

Looking back at the altercation happening in the street, I could already see the telltale wisps of fog rising from the deck. The haunting vapour licked at the boots of everyone involved like the first trickle of water before a flood.

Above, the enchanted street lights flickered slightly, briefly plunging the street into almost absolute darkness. It was about then that they—and the few passersby—noticed that something was wrong.

The PvPers realised first, I think. At least some of them did. I could see the way their shoulders twitched and hunched with instinctive fear.

Near the back of the PvP group, a healer stood in edgy black inquisition style garb, his staff swinging with spiked crosses and shit. Like a tentacle of some eldritch horror, a dark chain drifted down from the ceiling, and in one swift movement, yanked him up into a crack between steel plates. Unfortunately for everyone below him, he didn’t quite fit through the hole. His body fell back to the ground with a wet splat, minus his head. Blood sprayed out from the stump of his neck, and like the bass had dropped, all hell broke loose.

Rosa appeared among the bullies as the Witch of Chains without any fanfare. Bladed chain links ripped flesh, wrapping around their powerless victims before crushing inwards like the world’s most metal snake.

This time was different, though. Different from all the other times Rosa had torn apart her enemies with mind-numbing ease. This time, she was screaming. A banshee’s wail of rage, forced like glass sandpaper over her vocal chords.

She spun like that, her hauntingly beautiful form contorting and shifting to control the chains that caused so much carnage. Chains were wrapped effortlessly around her waist, her arms, her shins, only to be uncoiled in a burst of gore and shattered bone.

Without mercy, she tore them all to pieces, but she wasn’t quick about it. Some tried to run, only to find their hamstrings cut, or entire feet sliced off by the axe blades on the end of my friend’s weapons. Then a chain would reach out and yank them back into the meat grinder. There was no escape, no recourse, no negotiation. Just the scream, the blood, and then a trip into a death dream.

When she was done, when every single bully was dead, she floated to a deceptively graceful stop. Her chains coiled and twisted around her like limbs linked directly to her mind, which they absolutely were.

She laid her pitch black eyes on the whimpering, scared victims of the bullies, and she smiled. “You may keep whatever they drop. Consider it … reparations for their rude behaviour.”

The tank, who’d been so tough standing up to the bullies before, could only nod wordlessly. Beside her, one of the mages raised a hand like he was in a classroom.

Rosa arched one perfectly curved eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Are you… are you the Witch of Chains?” he asked, his voice high and squeaky with terror.

The laugh that Rosa let out was… sublime. Terrifying, yes, but also rich and melodic, like a cello played by a beautiful and muscular naked woman. “Yes. I am she. Take care now, little ones.”

Then she was gone, collapsing into smoke that wormed its way between the steel deck plates, and out of sight.

The PvE players all stood there, staring at the spot that had just swallowed Rosa’s smoke. Then, slowly, the tank began to laugh. Like, full belly laugh, complete with hands on her knees.

“Holy shit!” she cried, wiping tears from her eyes. “That was so fucking epic. That was so cool!”

“Talk about instant karma, wow!” another said, nudging a severed arm with a foot.

One of the others, who was now kneeling next to the corpse of their friend, held up an item. “Shit, lucky the Witch jumped in. Veronica would have lost her necklace. Do you think we’re the only people who she’s ever actually spared? Come to think of it, why is she in the city at all? Isn’t she meant to be some sort of world boss that haunts the front lines?”

Small fingers tangled themselves in mine, and I looked down to see Rosa, back in her tiny fox form. She was … smiling? Like, actual happy smiles.

“Wehi nā! Did you see that?” she whispered excitedly. “I totally destroyed ngarara. Like, full on wrecked them! Look at that first tō tero, I punted his head down into the market once I pulled it off.” She said the last with a tiny giggle, and it took all my strength not to wrap her tiny form up and snuggle her.

I was also slightly confused by what she’d said. “What was all that stuff? The funny words.”

Blinking up at me, she had to think for a moment before she understood what I was asking. “Oh, sorry. It’s just the other language of my country. Te Reo Māori. Some of their words and phrases have slipped into the general vernacular of Aotearoa English.”

“Are you like, a native speaker of that other language?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No, but the next town over had tons of Māori folks. I used to escape to and hang out with my friends there when I could. The people in my town hated them, but my town was full of bogan racists who fled to small towns in the south island after the reforms.”

I rolled my eyes. “Typical. Assholes are the same everywhere. I’m glad you had those other folks to hang with though.”

“Me too,” she murmured, eyes glazing over as her past tiptoed into centre stage in her mind.

Uh oh. Better distract her. “Anyway, let’s keep heading for home, yeah?”

She brightened again, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes. Of course. I have so much learning to do, and levelling too. This is honestly exciting. I’ve barely even interacted with most of CORA’s game systems.”

Rosa continued to babble about all the things she wanted to try while we turned and made for the guild house, while I did my best to slow the speed I was falling in love with her. A vain and frankly arrogant thing to attempt I know, but I had to try, right?

QuietValerie

So yeah. I got very inspired by some comments in last chapter. hehe. Let me know what other ideas y'all have for things you want to see happen. As always, please check out my patreon or kofi (For single payments) if you have some spare change!