I could have done with a little foreshadowing. The inn keeper back then just had the tone of a poorly written, all too eager negotiator without the undertones of "I Will Kill You In Your Sleep."

I enjoy Saia. She's a very cute character, and that she is a lesbian and is prone to showing affection and a magnet for affection from Beth is both hilarious and sweet. I sincerely hope you use this more in a more comedic manner, such as an innkeeper or other people who assume that Saia is a slave of the more... less talked about variety.

(The hostess waved maniacally, as if banishing the awkward air that had fell upon us. "No, no, it's fine! I understand where you're coming from. I respect your decision. You have needs."

"... Excuse me...?"

Leona poked me on the back. When she had my attention, she pointed to Saia, blushing bright red and arms protectively wrapped around her.

The gods must get some sort of sick entertainment from my life.)

The ambush was honestly unexpected for me, but the action scenes this time are pretty lacking. I'm pretty sure Beth needs some lessons in story telling, particularly the "Zoom Shot," as in "The cold unfeeling steel plunged into his neck.", rather than "Saia plunged the cold steel of her dagger into his neck." for emphasis and dramatic purposes.

Leona's perversion and banter was amusing, but not exactly laugh out loud funny. She's brash and shameless, yes, but not quite brash and shameless enough to be hilariously audacious.

I look forward to seeing where this goes.

PS. Still loving the mention of cheaply made armour. I just love the perpetual state of poverty and poor equipment for all the bad guys.

Our dear Captain's quite the Venture Capitalist, isn't she? Oh, I am SO going to enjoy seeing her deals escalate. From horses, to trained war animals, to airships, to artefacts of doom, to the humiliating baby pictures of local villains, I'm quite sure there's no area dear Beth won't touch...

The drunkard contest seemed a bit out of place. The whole scene with the drinking contest moved a little too fast, without any padding to slow it down to a more comfortable speed. I would have enjoyed a few more idle observations about the drunkards rather than the speed-of-light pace here. The whole thing just feels like a split-second, side event rather than a major scene.

Once more, EDITS.

Profession - a career

A profession as a mercenary swordswoman is full of blood and violence.

Professional - of being in a career

She lives her life as a professional mercenary swordswoman.

Happy - the feeling of joyousness, pleasure

I'm happy.

Happily - adverb form of Happy

I'll happily hack down these pesky weeds for you.

There's a LOT more I can complain about, but those are all style issues. Very objective and not worth the review space.

Anyway, I enjoy how White and Black are so kind to and superhuman compared to our dear Captain. I enjoy her new exercise routine and the extremely hilarious, totally unnecessary fashion in which White performed it. I would just love to see this happen more often, most especially when White's feats get steadily more and more ridiculous. Wrestling a grizzly bear for morning exercise, perhaps?

Her vigilantism of less than morally upright persons is interesting. I would love to see her get into run-ins with the law, most especially since the people she help and her ways of doing so are kinda questionable.

("Why yes," I replied dryly, "I do so enjoy supporting crippling alcohol addictions for my own benefit. Will you please leave us alone now?"

The guard bristled at this. "So you admit to your crimes, fiend!"

I sighed. Why wasn't this guy in theatre? This mild hiccup in our plans was rapidly developing into tuberculosis in crappy tin armour who used too much hair gel.)

The action was a bit too rushed and styled bad for me, but hey, if you want to do it this shallow and beige, your call, man. I just want to say that the purely topical descriptions of the action without any purple prose (My head rang from the blow. I slapped both palms to my skull to silence the bell-ringer gleefully smashing my brain with his hammer.) are boring, and move the pace way too fast. The quick brutality of the initial chapters were excellent, but now that things are slowing down and we're getting more into the characters, you may want to buffer things a bit.

Suggestion for the next chapter:

My everything hurt. Pain erupted in places I hadn't even known existed. I shed my armour, went back to my plains servants clothes, tried not to agitate my aches, but it was all for naught-every movement hurt something, and not moving was sometimes more painful than moving.

Leona tsk'd at me. "Serves you right for sleeping in your armour."

I would have growled at her, but then, that would have hurt something. So instead, I settled back into my morning draught of drugged mead. I had to remember to thank the inn-keeper for keeping these special "Morning After" batches of his product.

Too many intricate details about our heroine's activity. I'd rather not know the blow by blow accounts of her taking a bath.

I laugh at her thought process. The joke about her wanting a brother but since he would have been killed by the raiders, she dismissed the thought, was morbidly hilarious.

The details about Black and White like a Cat and Dog was very sweet. I particularly liked that bit about the cat being like a lookout.

I felt that the slaver would have been more amusing if you drawled it out more. I would have enjoyed it if Black was busy elsewhere and the slaver was already making his assessment before Black came to discourage him.

Once again, mild grammatical error:

Resend - to send once more

Resent - to regret

I find her being used as a haggling tool to be very clever. I have an issue with how the fair price always seems to be half of White's additional to the base offer, but it's nice to see you being realistic with the flexibility of old timey trading.

The armour description was a bit excessive, but its nice to see that our heroine won't be so helpless any more. I felt like a more general description of the armour (blood red, finely crafted, imposing) than a blow-by-blow exposition on the armour and its individual parts would have been better.

Leona was amusing. I love how brash and confident she is compared to Beth. That she is so shameless and flirty is making her a very likeable character indeed.

Beth's delight at having gold in her pocket was very nice. I like how she's finally enjoying her small step up from abject poverty.

The conversation about their party was appropriately rapid-fire and skimpy on the details. I liked how the replies came very naturally, and the characters were rather expressive despite you not going into detail about what they do. (Here's a tip: don't. Leave some for your reader's imagination.)

I like the beginnings of our dear Captain. That foreshadowing was nice.

A few issues aside, this was an excellent story.

I enjoyed how our unfortunate heroine slows down events by making strange, amusing observations about her fate. I found that the images in my head of her trying to make a dramatic last stand then getting effortlessly cleaved, just as she would in reality, to be very comical.

Two grammatical errors:

Scared - a state of being frightened

Scarred - to bear scars

Sored - feeling physical pain

Soar - a kind of flight

I found White and Black's fighting style's to be brutally refreshing. I enjoyed how they don't do the overdone "Slash Slash Slash" and instead dispose of their enemies in some enjoyably gory ways. I enjoy how they use their heavy armour and fast reflexes in fun ways, like stopping a swing AND crushing a windpipe! Creative, enjoyable, AND realistic!

I have an issue with the abundance of -ing's here. This is a purely an issue of style, so please do not take so seriously that I think that she should have said "I began polishing" than "Applying pressure I began to rub the sword."

Nice work with the non-verbal communication. I found it very, very funny, most especially when she was starting to get the hang of communicating paragraphs without words.

The description of Red River was amusing, though I would have enjoyed it if the town was a bit more euphemistic about their main industry. "Women of loose and negotiable virtue" or some other fancy term for whore would have been way more amusing. That said, this does offer some future amusement; I'd love to see how our heroine deals with being in a whore town.

The little bit of lore building with the armour was excellent. I love your skimpy but telling descriptions of the poor state of the country's protector's equipment, and how Black and White worked. It was a very fascinating thing to read, most especially since it adds another side and mystery to the two of them, and explains (somewhat) their dexterity and strength.

I laughed when Black explained why White couldn't ride. I liked how our heroine also posed that question; what sort of armour would be too much for a cart and two workhorses?