The Online Craftsmaster

So Erika had no other way than to go out and search for some guys willing to get punched by her, but she had already learned, yes she really deeply thought about it, she didn"t use her axe anymore as she couldn"t find anyone anymore that would fight with her if she used it. She even felt a little hurt when she ordered one of her robots to spar with her and he ripped his mana crystal out before his brethren could force him into the sparring ring.

Erika also tried it once to spar with John and even though it was an interesting and hard fight she was a little frightened by John even though she won the fight, she could clearly remember the tremors that were ravis.h.i.+ng through her body as she blocked his attacks with her weapon. She only won against him because she was more experienced and used feints and tricks that she actually despised but just his strength alone forced her to used them, Erika just couldn"t imagine what would happen if he would seriously learn to fight.

But Erika had a dark premonition, there was something going on, and even though she asked John to prepare for war she still felt that something was wrong. Erika always trusted her senses but this game world that they were in was slightly different than the real world, things could happen that wouldn"t be possible in the real world. Even Erika started to question her senses that all pointed to war, but maybe it was just her mental scar acting up wanting her to fight and kill. It was as if something wanted to drag her back into the dark times.

Erika kept remembering the times she was on the battlefield, it was as if she was dead inside, as if someone pulled a switch turning her from a human being to merciless killing machine. Erika would always hear story talking about a blood red maiden haunting the battlefield ripping apart soldiers and leaving behind nothing but scattered corpses, it took years for Erika to understand that she was that blood red ghost. Every time she walked onto a battlefield she charged into the enemy lines killing the first few with bullets and as soon as her ammunition was empty she had pulled out her knife and started killing the enemies without mercy.

Erika knew that she should be so cruel and that her mother didn"t want her to be a killing machine but she couldn"t control herself, it was as if her sight was dyed in red and should couldn"t escape this nightmare. that time was her lowest point in life, it didn"t matter to her anymore if she died or lived, but that was the time when she suddenly met this female soldier that made Erika touch a sewing needle for the first time in ages again.

At first she didn"t want to do it even though her heart was aching and crying just wanting her to pick up the needle and the thread and sew something, but slowly she started working on small projects again always with some kind of excuse why she had to sew something. She started by embroidering badges like blood group or ranks on uniforms of her and her brothers in arms, or fixing some holes in the uniform, or even st.i.tching open wounds of her fellow soldiers in the middle of the battle saving their lives while doing that.

But Erika never really started sewing and tailoring yet until one day when she was coming back from the burial of her foster father, the female soldier that brought her back to sewing was missing. Later Erika found out that her platoon was on patrol and the drove into an ambush and as they were escaping a car bomb went off killing the female soldiers and two others. Erika felt bad when she heard that and nearly started cutting herself off again going back to the time she was a killing machine but as she was sitting on the bed of her dead comrade she saw the needle and thread laying around.

She picked them up and just started sewing again, she could do everything her mother taught her as if she was sitting beside her. The sewing and tailoring became something like an anchor for Erika, and even though she still couldn"t stop going into battle she had something that kept her grounded and sane. It also helped her when she was retired from the army, it was something that kept her busy but she still had the craving to fight. And that"s how she started playing King"s Reign and how she met with John and the others.

Even now Erika kept this anchor that brought her through the war, maybe it was even stronger as she found a small orphanage in one of the cities that John governed over, at first she just visited them or brought some food because Claire asked her to do that but soon as if Claire knew it Erika found thread and needles in the baskets for the orphanage and she started teaching those small childs sewing and embroidering while also teaching some of the boys to fight.

You could say that it was a therapy for Erika, something that helped her get over everything that happened to her in her life. Today was also a day where Erika visited the orphanage and she spent golden hours there surrounded by laughing children and even laughing herself. But suddenly a scream could be heard from outside, the orphanage was situated on the outskirts of the city so that the children could run around and play but from time to time some wild animals found their way to them on their search for food.

Erika grabbed her axe and went outside to kill the wild animal, but what she saw was something different. The first thing Erika noticed was the horrid smell of rotten flesh, she looked around and saw a strange silhouette that was slowly walking towards them. It was walking strange and as it came nearer Erika could see some details, It was a man, the arms and legs were replaced by machinery but it seemed as if it wasn"t working very well, the man was clearly undead as his body was half rotten and some birds even started eating part of it as one eye was missing and his guts were spilling out and were dragged on the floor.

At first Erika thought that John was a maniac for creating something vile like this but then she shook her head, she knew that John wouldn"t do something like that, but she had to suffering of that corpse, that poor man had a grimace of pain on his face and Erika knew that it was the last face this man showed when he was still alive. Erika ran up to the undead and swung her ax, but the undead blocked her attack with one of his metal arms and clawed after Erika with the other. Erika evaded and kept on attacking, she was surprised by the strength of the undead and if this fight carried on she would lose as the undead had unlimited stamina.

So Erika used her speed trying to circle around the undead but was still blocked by one of the arms, the fight carried on and suddenly Erika started to get the advantage, her ax was a masterpiece of craftsmans.h.i.+p while the machinery on the undead was mediocre at best so the arm that was mainly used for blocking Erika´s attacks broke under an attack giving Erika the upper hand allowing her to directly attack the undead with a well place attack in the lower stomach.

But against Erika´s expectations the undead didn"t care about the wound he just kept attacking until Erika finely chopped his head off with another well placed strike. Erika was breathing heavily and was looking around but couldn"t find another one of those undeads. So she turned around called for her robot soldiers telling one of them to bring to corpse back to the dungeon while ordering the rest to guard the orphanage.

Then she sprinted back to the Dungeon knowing that this was just the beginning and that her senses didn"t betray her. She rushed into the dungeon, down the floors taking Claire, Vito and Olaf that she met on her way down the dungeon with her until they reached John´s workshop. Erika stormed through the door without knocking and walked up to John and at the same time Eva came through another door into the room and both of them said in unison: "We have a problem..."