The plan to bait the lizards somewhat worked. They managed to kill a few dozen of them that had tried to eat the boar leg. "This can't be all of them. We walked through the entire mine and this is all we killed? There's no way that half of them were at the entrance." Rumi felt that she was going insane.
"That's not the biggest problem. Lizards lay eggs, right?" Rumi looked towards Eliza once she heard Alba's question about lizards laying eggs.
"Why are you looking my way? Are you comparing a lizardman like me to those rock lizards? You do know that lizardmen give birth the same way that you dwarves do, right? Don't compare me to these shitty lizards." Eliza was getting stressed out she had constantly been focused for the last few hours.
Jasmine stepped between them. "Calm down, Eliza. She didn't mean anything by it. I know you're annoyed at this job but don't take it out on your allies." Everybody was on edge and Jasmine recognized that this wasn't good for the group. "The plan to kill them with the bait doesn't seem to be working and as she said we haven't seen any eggs even though we've reached the end of the mine. Let's return towards the entrance and slowly make our way down with my flame breath like we planned earlier."
Eliza looked away and took a deep breath. "You're right. I think that's the only way we'll be done with this before the day is over."
The group brought the dead rock lizards to the surface where Ahk was waiting and were faced with an odd scene. Ahk was holding one of the villagers in one hand while holding her axe with the other. The other villagers were surrounding Ahk with weapons in their hands.
"Can anybody explain what's going on here?" Jasmine figured that it was probably a misunderstanding caused by Ahk's limited speech.
The rude villager was the one to speak up. At the moment he was carrying a pickaxe. "Your bitch of a friend won't let go of Brad." Jasmine was able to figure out that the man named Brad was the villager in Ahk's hand.
Jasmine knew that there was more to the story than that. This man was constantly trying to hide things from their group and Jasmine was getting annoyed at dealing with him. "And what was Brad doing before she picked him up?"
"Why would it matter what he was doing? She needs to put him down." He was still hiding things from the group.
Jasmine stepped forward, making sure that her gauntlets were on properly in case that there was a fight. "From when we first got here you have been a real asshole to our group. We've already gone through the mine and it appears to be cleared out. If you want to keep being an asshole then we can just pack up and go."
The man got angry at her words. "You're just going to abandon the request!? Do you think we'll let you just go!?"
"I don't think you will be able to stop us. You couldn't even kill the rock lizards on your own. We've already killed several dozens of them." Jasmine walked closer to him, punching her fists into her palms in succession to test out her gauntlets. "You are not the person who requested our service. We do not answer to you. I do not know why you think your group of weaklings would threaten us."
The man was just a local tyrant and wasn't ready for Jasmine to stand up to him. "What do you plan on doing?" He backed up as Jasmine slowly walked towards him until he was up against their barricade.
Jasmine yelled towards Ahk while staring down the villager. "Ahk! Drop the man and let him return to his friends! The next time one of them bothers you then don't worry about capturing them!" Jasmine turned back towards Ahk. "You haven't had a chance to use your new axe yet so feel free to use it on anybody stupid enough to mess with you."
Jasmine started walking back to her group but decided to say one more thing to the rude villager. "The next time one of you decides to come on this side of the barricade while we're still working, I'll assume that you're trying to do something bad. You don't want to get caught a second time."
The group of villagers left in a hurry which left the group of women alone again. "Wow, you really went off against that guy. So cool." Eliza was trying to prove herself as Jasmine's number one fan by fawning over her actions. If Gren knew that Eliza was competing for Jasmine's attention then he'd probably have a smug smile on his face. "I thought you were going to punch him when you started walking towards him."
"I thought about it but decided that it wouldn't be good to hit him first. We need to think about our reputation. We can deal with people like that guy with words but we can't be the first ones to attack them. Even if he did attack me I'd have to do something like take his weapon away and just knock him down." Jasmine gave a long sigh. "If they're a risk to any of you then don't worry about our reputation. Remember what Gren said; he doesn't want any of us risking our lives."
Jasmine inspected the carriage to make sure nothing was removed from it or placed in it. All of the sacks were from when their business was still a bakery so the sacks had the Flours Bread & Baking Company logo on it. None of the sacks were opened and each of the sacks had the logo on them. If someone took something then it was before she got there since she didn't see any of the villagers carrying a sack. "Ahk, what did you catch the villager doing before you grabbed him?"
"Man touch barrel. Ahk grab man." So he was touching the water barrels? Jasmine found one partially opened and decided to dump it out just to be safe.
"We've got to be more careful. The two of us will go deal with the rest of the lizards in there while the rest of you stay up here with Ahk to defend the carriage. Don't let anybody touch the rest of our water; for all we know they were trying to poison us." She shook her head. "If I knew that the people in this place would be so annoying then I never would have accepted this request. Remind me to ignore any requests that take us to Ironside in the future."
The women decided to take a break and eat some food so Jasmine joined them and refilled the canteen that Gren gave her while eating a piece of meat. "It's annoying to refer to you as 'the living statue' all the time. Can I just call you something until we can figure out a way to communicate better?" The living statue nodded and Jasmine thought about a name. "From now on we'll call you Livi. It's short and girlish and, best of all, it can be short for living statue so it's easy to remember."
Jasmine got up after gulping down the rest of her meat and started walking towards the mine before stopping and thrusting her fist into the air. "On we go, Livi, let's imagine that these rock lizards are those annoying villagers and wipe them all out." Jasmine continued walking forward without worrying about Livi's response... not that she could respond.
It took them a while to reach the bottom of the mine and Jasmine was a bit lightheaded from constantly breathing fire so she took a break. "If there were any eggs along the way then they should be dead, right? Even the adults couldn't withstand my flames." Livi nodded to Jasmine. There were only a few lizards that they had missed when baiting them. For some reason most of the lizards were at the entrance.
Jasmine took another drink of water, finishing off the water in her canteen. Breathing fire really dried out her throat. Thankfully this seemed to be the last time she would have to breathe fire today. "Remember, Livi, if I pass out then drag me out of here." Jasmine breathed in deeply and released a large flame one last time, lighting up the entire chamber. A loud hissing noise came from behind the flames and the mine began to shake, causing dust and pebbles to fall from the ceiling. "That's... not good." Jasmine was still a bit out of breath. "Livi. We leave." Jasmine thought that the mine was collapsing.
Livi helped Jasmine along as the two jogged towards the entrance and Jasmine slowly caught her breath. Behind them there was another hiss and the vibrations became more violent. Jasmine looked back while the two were running and noticed something that shouldn't have been there. "RUN! FASTER!"
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Outside of the mine there was a slight vibration that slowly started to get stronger. "What is that? An earthquake?" Eliza was a bit worried about Jasmine and Livi that were still inside of the mine.
Ahk picked up her axe. "Not earth quake. Big thing. Fight." Ahk had challenged many large monsters before and knew the difference between the vibrations made by a large monster and an earthquake.
"Is anybody else scared that Ahk is smiling right now? Is she saying that a big thing is coming our way that we'll need to fight?" Rumi was a bit cowardly without alcohol in her system so she decided to open up her last bottle and drank down a few gulps before putting her helmet back on.
Ahk walked over to a tree and chopped it down with one strike, grabbing it when it began to fall. She lifted it up and placed it near the entrance of the mine. With a few more slashes of her axe the tree quickly lost all of its branches and its tip was sharpened into a spike. Ahk slammed her axe down into the ground before wrapping her arms around the tree. The other women watched in amazement as she lifted the giant stake up, aiming it towards the entrance.
The vibrations were getting even louder and some screams could be heard. "Ruuuuuun! It's behind us! Get away!" Jasmine and Livi rushed out from the mine, dodging to the side when they saw Ahk running towards them with a giant stake. A giant grey monster appeared behind from where they were and collided against Ahk's stake. The former tree landed in the giant rock lizard's mouth and got lodged in its throat.
Ahk held on and pushed even harder as the giant rock lizard struggled. It twisted its neck and continued biting down even harder, causing the tree to crack. Ahk realized that it was going to free itself soon so she let go of the tree and jumped backwards, grabbing her axe. The tree snapped and the rock lizard hissed in pain as the inside of its mouth was pierced with bits of wood.
Jasmine saw the fight between Ahk and the giant lizard and decided to help out. It would hurt to breathe flames while her throat was dried out but its mouth was still wide open and she might not get a chance like this again. Jasmine gave it her all and aimed a large blast of flame into its open mouth. The rock lizard closed its mouth shortly after the flames hit it so most of Jasmine's flames ran along its face, leaving scorch marks along its rocky exterior. The flames didn't do enough damage to kill it and caused it to become even more enraged.
The three dwarven women snuck around to its side while its attention was aimed at the people in front of it and waited for an opportunity. Eliza was still near the carriage, waiting for the rock lizard's underbelly to be exposed. Livi was still standing to the side and since her expression didn't change it was hard to tell if she was excited or panicking.
The rock lizard and Ahk started moving at almost the exact same time. The rock lizard was charging towards Jasmine when Ahk rammed into its side with her shoulder, knocking it off-balance. Ahk lifted her axe in front of her when she saw its arm coming back towards her. The impact caused her to get sent back a few feet but she was able to quickly recover and rush forward once again, swinging her axe upwards towards the exposed skin on the lizard's front limb, aiming for the joint.
Ahk's axe became embedded in the giant rock lizard and the rock lizard's movements forced Ahk to let go of it. Ahk severed the monster's muscles but the limb was still attached to the rest of the body by its skin and scales. "Jas. Help flip." Jas was what Ahk called Jasmine since it took her too long to say Jasmine. Ahk wanted Jasmine's help flipping the giant rock lizard since she knew that she couldn't get the same grip as Jasmine could on its underbelly. Jasmine had sharp claws but Ahk's nails were dull.
Eliza moved to its front and stabbed at its face to keep its attention off of Jasmine as she came around to its side. The giant rock lizard was still struggling but couldn't put in as much strength with only three legs. Jasmine used her iron claws to pierce the small bit of skin that was showing and used all of her strength to try lifting it. After the rock lizard was lifted a short distance, Ahk placed her hand underneath the rock lizard and started to lift it even higher. "Tree."
Jasmine noticed that Ahk was pointing towards the other half of the tree that fell out of the rock lizard's mouth earlier when it broke. Jasmine removed her claws from its side and dragged the tree towards Ahk before helping her place it under the lizard. Ahk then used it to push the giant rock lizard higher, causing it to flip onto its back. Jasmine helped Ahk get onto the giant rock monster's belly and watched as Ahk pulled her axe out of its leg. The lizard was struggling but Ahk managed to keep her balance as she raised her axe above her head.
Ahk's axe gave off a glint from the sun that caused Jasmine to close her eyes. When she looked back up the axe had already cut through the lizard's neck. The lizard stopped struggling but Ahk continued to hack through its neck, making sure to decapitate it. The other women gathered to watch as Ahk pulled the head away from the rest of its body. "OHHHHHHHH!" Ahk raised her axe and gave a nice long yell to celebrate her victory.
Jasmine was tired and decided not to go back through the mine until she had a long break and everybody was rested up. She didn't know if there was another one of those monsters down there and wanted to make sure that everybody was ready to face one. "Jasmine, they've returned." Jasmine thought that Eliza was talking about the rock lizards but saw that there were some villagers peeking out from behind the barricade.
"Let them wait for a bit." Jasmine's voice was a bit hoarse from overusing her flame breath. She dunked her canteen into the water and rushed to drink some water. "Ah. That's a lot better." Her voice still sounded a bit rough but there was a clear improvement over what it sounded like before she drank the water. Jasmine continued to drink some more water before putting her canteen down and walking over to the villagers, putting her mask back on and tightening the leather straps just in case they tried to do something.
She wasn't wearing her gauntlets anymore since they were covered in blood but her natural claws were still sharp. The villagers were a bit scared of her so she stopped a distance away from the barricade. "Can I help you?" Jasmine tried her best to be polite since they were following the rule about staying on their side of the barricade but a bloodstained woman that just helped kill a giant monster would be scary no matter how polite she was.
One of the villagers gathered their courage and approached Jasmine. "Can I have some of the lizard meat? I'll trade for it. The village ran out of real food days ago and no traders will approach this place since they know there's no metal to trade for anymore." The man was on his knees and begging her for food. She didn't plan on taking the lizard corpses with her anyways so there was no harm in letting the villagers have them.
"I don't need the lizard meat but I need to meet the foreman. Once he confirms that the request is complete then we can leave and your village can share the meat. Of course, that only goes for the meat from the ones that I killed. I can't make the decision for the rest of my team." As long as that rude villager wasn't around it seemed pretty easy to talk to the other villagers. The kneeling villager smiled and got up before running towards the village. The villagers didn't seem like they were starving so Jasmine figured that the villager was exaggerating when he said he didn't eat anything for days. "A 'thank you' would have been nice." Jasmine muttered while scratching the top of her head before heading back to her friends.
"So, what did they want?" Eliza was quick to ask Jasmine. "That guy seemed to be begging for something before running off. Did you threaten them some more?" Eliza seemed like she was excited over something.
Jasmine shook her head. "Why would I threaten them? It's only that one guy that was rude to us. The rest just seem a bit hungry so I think they might have been egged on by that rude guy. I told them that they could have the lizards that I killed and he ran off to get the foreman for us."
Jasmine continued to take her break and finished an entire wolf leg on her own. The wolf's legs were really chewy compared to the boar meat but it still tasted good. "Rumi, do you mind if I have a glass of your wine?" Rumi was a bit reluctant but it was Jasmine's husband that bought it for her so she agreed. Jasmine really had to agree with Rumi that the alcohol was better after working up a sweat.
"That was amazing, Ahk. I've never seen someone lift such a large tree before, let alone run with it. If you weren't there we never would have been able to win against such a large monster." Letta was impressed at how Ahk fought. The fight didn't last long so the dwarves didn't get to fight against it but Letta was still excited. Her heart was still beating pretty fast.
Ahk didn't reply as she sat down and crossed her legs. Letta decided not to bother Ahk after a while and instead went over to talk with Alba. Alba was sitting and thinking about something with her head down when Letta approached her. "I've never seen something that big before. Wasn't that fight amazing? I just wish that we got a chance to help finish it off."
Alba looked up at Letta. "Do you think that we helped by being here? We killed a few rock lizards but Jasmine would have killed all of them anyways." Alba stood up and dusted off her armor before turning to look at the giant rock lizard. "Just look at that thing. We did nothing to help kill it. Compared to them we're weak." Alba looked at her hands while thinking about how little she contributed on the trip. "I don't think we're suited for mercenary work. Back when we were miners I felt like I was able to do anything but I've realized that I can't do everything after this. If it was just us sent to this mission then we would have died."
Letta's excitement disappeared when she thought about Alba's words. "Sorry, Alba. I wasn't thinking." Letta lowered her head before Alba put her hand on her shoulder.
"It's fine, Letta. You didn't do anything bad. I just don't want you doing anything stupid." Alba knew that Letta was older than her but Letta always had her head in the clouds. That's why Alba was always the leader instead of her. "You don't need to be some amazing warrior like Ahk to be important. Remember what I always used to say to you?"
"Without the miners there's no iron." Alba's words helped Letta realize that she was important in her own way but that was in the past. "Alba. We're no longer miners. Are we still important?"
Alba thought for a bit and shook her head. "I don't know but we did a pretty good job clearing that rubble. Even if we're no longer miners we can still have a purpose. We helped make things easier for the women back at home, didn't we?" Letta nodded and went back to eating after her mood had improved. Alba was left alone once again, giving her a chance to think about this trip.
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The foreman didn't appear before Jasmine was fully rested. "We've only got a couple hours of light left. Livi and I will go back down and inspect the mine one last time to see if we can find the nest and burn it out." The other women kept their weapons nearby in case there was another giant monster down there.
"Just the two of us again. Do you think that we'll face anything else down there?" Jasmine looked towards Livi to see her response. Livi shrugged, not knowing whether or not there would be anything left alive down there.
Jasmine wasn't expecting an actual response from Livi anyways. The trip back through the mine was boring but Jasmine noticed that the walls and floor had markings made by the giant rock lizard when it was chasing her. If it caught her then she would probably be dead right now.
Jasmine reached the area that the giant rock lizard came from and saw a large hole in the wall. "I think I know where these rock lizards have been coming from." The hole led to a cavern with a large opening above them. Inside the cavern was a spring and what seemed to be the rock lizard's eggs; they were all hatched but it was odd. The eggs were only slightly smaller than the rock lizards themselves.
Jasmine took the time to burn all of the eggs and the surroundings. Some more of the rock lizards were in the nest and died to her flames. Jasmine wanted to be more thorough but she didn't know what was on the other side of the opening above. It wasn't smart to go somewhere like that on her own and it didn't look easy to get up there. There was a smaller path off to the side of the cavern that Jasmine couldn't fit through so she tried her best to burn anything that might be down it.
By the time that Jasmine returned it was already getting dark. "Has the foreman shown up?" She didn't see him nearby.
None of the women had seen him and it was too late for them to bother him. It was decided that they would spend the night and that the women would pair up while taking turns keeping watch. Livi would be part of all shifts since she didn't need sleep.
The order that they decided on was Jasmine and Letta first, Eliza and Rumi second, and finally Ahk and Alba who would be in charge of waking them all up when the sun rose. Their camp was set up and a fire was started to help keep them warm so Jasmine set up the hourglass. After the sand fell for the fourth time it would be time to switch.