Zarh...Estaria was many, many times stronger than her last time she had met him, but Zarh had had many moons to gain Khorne’s favour and mutate new gifts, plus she didn’t even broach the surface of his skill when they last fought. She would need to prepare. Being dismissed by her Major, she returned to the barracks and began. First, she opened her inventory, and sold off all the crap she had picked up in the Underway. Alchemical reagents didn’t sell automatically, as she could have been an alchemist, or could know a player who was. Still, she just needed the money right now, and so everything got hawked and Estaria was 10,000 pieces richer. Her Halflings really did help with looting, as they carved open every Skaven and took it’s gal-bladder.

Second, she spent her many medals from the Karak training on potions. Buying one “Greater Potion” of each stat - excluding the two duds - drained her medals to 0 and sold out all the potions. Not just the Greater, but the standard and lesser as well. Downing each of them, she tried not to grimace at the conflicting tastes that would drive her pallet into a frenzy. She needed all the firepower she could get right now.

50 Luck: Lucky Glance - an attack that causes your Luck to deplete will not roll over onto your health

Dismissing that box as soon as it was read, she then explored a new tab she hadn’t really bothered with so far. It popped up after her Greatsword Job, but never really interested her enough to go get into it. Now, however, she was interested. Opening the “Workshop” tab, she examined it, and found it was a thing for upgrading equipment. Even giving them magical properties, but she needed the items or a hell of a lot of money for that. A simple Yellow Enchantment was 30,000 without the needed item. Chucking in her Greatsword to the slot, she hit the upgrade, and turned it from White to Yellow. Then upgrade again from Yellow to Green. And then finally from Green to Purple. The next step required a special item to take it to Orange, but she didn’t have that item, so just had to live with it being a Purple. The first upgrade was 5,000, the second 10,000 and the third 15,000. With it now being a Purple, it now had a higher base damage than Ulric’s Fang, and equal Armour Penetration, and a trait called “Razor’s Edge” that could cause Bleeding. Lacked any magical effect though, and was slower.

Next expenditure was her armour, which went up to Purple. However, unlike the Greatsword, which simply got Razor’s Edge, Estaria was given a choice on which trait she wanted on her armour. “Agile” or “Twin-Layer”. Agile would reduce the agility mallus down to 10, and Twin-Layer would instead add more armour. She had enough agility to overcome the -20 and so gave it Twin-Layer. She was kind of irate at herself that she had never come here before. Though it was a new addition, she could definitely have used it against the Abomination. Probably would have been a waste though, since she lost her sword and traded the armour in for this plate.

She wanted to get her two pistols up as well, but she was having money troubles, and that wasn’t good. She could fix them though, and between confidence in her new gear and a burning desire for revenge, Estaria got herself a B-rank dungeon key and entered, clearing the area of all the mobs for best rewards before heading into the dungeon room itself.

“Oi, Wazzic? O’s dat git?” The Warboss asked, pointing at Estaria.

“I dunno Bozz, S-” Wazzic was cut off with a bullet to the eyeball, and then Estaria summoned her handgunners to unload a volley on the Warboss. Blackpowder weapons were great for doing damage to luck, and while there was little health damage done, she could dismiss the handgunners - would only get in the way during close combat - and summon the Greatswords. Finally, giving them the buff, she charged off with them and the Warboss fell pretty quickly to the combined arms. What could get a girl more courage than cleaning a B-rank dungeon like it was a D-rank?

Total Obliteration - 35000+10000 gold earned. Bozz’ ‘ead looted

The dungeon was over, and that was a very tidy sum to get for an hour’s work. Slightly overleveled for that dungeon though, so the experience gains were not that great. With mechanical efficiency and a fiercely focused mind, Estaria opened the inventory and looked at the new item, Bozz’ ‘ead. It could be sold, or traded for an “Orc Box”. So she got an Orc Box, and the random spin gave her a shiny new pistol called “Brain Paster”. The name made Estaria chuckle to herself, and then she went back to the workshop. Troll-Drenger was already Green, so it was 15,000 to get that up to “Giant-Drenger” and gain the “Two Barrels” trait, which was pretty self-explanatory really. Brain Paster was a Yellow, so 25,000 and the “Long Barrel” trait, for more damage and accuracy. Finally, jittering with nervous energy, Estaria checked and double-checked her equipment, before finally pacing till the morning came and going out to meet the men gathered for her.

100 Veteran Swordsmen, and twenty Handgunners were gathered for her to go up to Marienburg and end Zarh’s reign. She tried not to worry about it so much, she had just taken out a Warboss without much trouble. Giving the order to move out, Estaria got on the road and set a firm pace, so they reached where they were going in short order. And there, in front of her, was Zarh and his men, butchering and raiding, and then, spotting Estaria and turning to her.

“I am Zarh! Skull-gra….wait, didn’t I kill you once?” He asked, gripping his gore-slick axe tightly. It was here that Estaria knew where her fears were coming from. A little thing about his head that made this whole fight so much more than simply killing a guy that had once killed her.

Zarh Ubertrim - Level 36 Skull-Grabber of Khorne