Delaana put the hammer down and wiped the sweat from her brow. Taking the moment to survey her work, she looked around the forge. Weary and sweat-encrusted, she looked at the breastplate she’d just finished repairing. Or had she. Frowning, she picked up the armor to inspect her work. Cringing with disgust she tossed the now-useless hunk of metal down. How the hell had her father made it look so easy?

Cleaning up the area the master-smith had allocated her, she put away the tools and now useless pieces of armor she’d tried repairing. The pieces she’d been hired to anodize, both weapons and pieces of armor, were perfect. But those poor dinged or jagged bits of metal she’d attempted to repair only looked worse.

Sighing, she washed up and put her own armor back on. It was job-hunting time again.

Leaving the crusaders had been the most difficult and most easy thing she’d ever done. She lived to exterminate evil, yet shed come to learn that evil came in different, and sometimes friendly, forms. She’d be welcomed back into her garrison at any time she wanted to return, but mindless killing of whatever she was pointed out didn’t come so easily anymore. And fighting evil with her own evil was ironic at best. Regardless, now she needed work. She needed a cause. She needed to continue to fight for good. Quite practically, she needed money.

She’d come to Osis, hearing it to be a city of opportunity. It was also a city of thieves. Thankfully, it was also a city of smiths and she’d found work, even if she was wretched at two-thirds of what she tried at the blacksmith’s. Ah, well. Perhaps another merchant or scholar would need protection for a caravan. As she left the forge, dark emerald armor on, tail tucked, horns covered by her long hair, Delaana offered a prayer to the archmage, to be taken care of as she swore to take care of others. Worried thoughts mixed with her optimism as she thought of the new drinking game she’d learned in the tavern she currently slept at. If there was no work to be found, there’d be good cheer in a cup of ale and interesting company.