~Several Weeks later~ Valkyrie grinned and she circled Alexa in the newly retrofitted training room on the lower level of the guild Estate. Alexa was armored as if she was going to war and her green eyes flashed with bottled rage as she charged at Valkyrie, a dull practice sword whipping over head in a powerful downward chop that could have cleaved a lesser opponent in half. As it was, Val was fast enough to slide to the side, catching the blade on her own sword and deflecting its deadly power just a fraction of an inch to her right. Valkyrie swept her leg and caught Alexa high on her calf, just behind the knee. Alexa lost her balance for only a second before the new strength of her spark was able to reinforce her stance and blunt the effects of the kick. Alexa grunted from the slight pain and slashed her sword back, trying to catch Valkyrie across her neck. Valkyrie loved sparring with Alexa. The woman had always been fast and never held back. It pushed Valkyrie to new limits tha

Valkyrie pointed at the table. “I won a round or two.” Alexa looked at the cards and burst out in laughter, “Don’t tell me you bluffed that guy out of half a million on a pair of twos. Damn woman, I knew you liked to live dangerous but serious? Twos?” “He was an arrogant ass. I was doing him a favor taking that money off him. He would have made other poor decisions with it tonight if I hadn’t removed those means.” Val replied in a mock defensive tone. “well I suppose smashing open the doors with his head was likely a better use of it than he was getting out of it. He did challenge the queen of the underworld after all.” Alexa replied. “So how did you do with your 100 dret? Play anything fun?” “Aside from playing heartstrings, I was a good girl. I only helped others place their bets,” Alexa said. “Helped them place bets?” Val asked curiously. “You know, this spark,” Alexa whispered, “its amazing. I can calculate things so fast now. So, when probability was good, I might have sugg

That evening, Valkyrie stepped out of her room with her fiery red hair on full display she had opted for a more feminine black dress made from a thin and supple leather instead of her usual armored corset and reinforced pants.It would be strange going into a potentially hostile casino with so little in the way of defense and a lack of weapons. However, she was never truly without weapons. She always had her wrist blade and hidden in her hair was a assortment of small knives, sharpened hair pins and a few vials of various poisons.One that she was most proud of was a small vial with tiny pills in it. Each pill was sigil signed to activate under two conditions. First it had to be in contact with stomach acid and second was a mental command from her to actively release the ingredients. She would likely need to be within a few feet to trigger this, but is was something she could trick Tobi to ingest earlier in the evening and then use it if they happened to have a meeting later in the ev

A scream from outside the office drew their attention to the door. Blood from the corpses had seeped under the door and into the hall.“Shit. We need to not be here. The city watch will be alerted any minute.” Val said, looking to the window. “There, lets go.”She stumbled to the window, her arm still not wanting to work correctly. The window opened on its own and Val saw Samiel holding out a hand to her.“Bastard.”“Think what you will but I was still near by.”“Near by wouldn’t have stopped them from killing us.” Alexa spat as she climbed thought the window.“I was near enough that I could have acted had it become necessary. I had full faith in Valkyrie’s abilities and you have shown a knack for handling yourself up to now.” Samiel replied to Alexa.“Your still a bastard. I should geld you and feed it to the fish.” Val said sadistically. As they made their way down the street.Whistles sounded as the city guard began running from various parts of the city. As neared high street un u

The next morning, Valkyrie awoke sore and mentally exhausted. Unlike when she had trained with Lilith before her big fight with Vex, she had not had the luxury of a day of rest for her body at the end of the training.It still amazed her that dream training with a spark could wear the body down so drastically. Such training had saved her life in the past, but after she had seen the rigor and devastation of total war, she wasn’t sure she or Alexa would make it out of this one.Chef Brown was already making breakfast when she arrived down stairs.“Chef, expect a few more to arrive.”“Of course, I can easily make more. Any idea how many I should be prepared for?”“At least four, plus Alexa.”“Very good miss.”It was just a few minutes more before Farson and his second arrived, followed quickly by Jonah and his second.Valkyrie spent a few minutes going over her immediate plans for them. They were to help Maggie build a new bakery and a storage warehouse as soon as possible. In addition,