The Primalist looked down at Faye with crimson eyes, glowing from some strange magic. The vicious blade the Primalist held was poised to strike, and each step forward was accompanied by a smile that looked odd.

Faye did not want to see what the smile would turn into when he actually reached her position on the ground.

Trying her best to ignore the pain of the thorns digging into her leg from the vines the Primalist had sent out for her, Faye lifted her hand and concentrated as much as she could on drawing on her magic.

Fire Dart, you bastard.

The mana ignited and streaked toward him. At only a few paces, even the mildly inaccurate darts were able to hit their target one hundred percent of the time.

She managed to get two off before he was close enough to plunge down with the dagger.

But at that point, a large meteor slammed into him. In an almost comedic manner, Ailith’s armoured form took over the space that the Primalist had been standing in. He bounced backward and landed a dozen paces away.

“Faye, thank the gods! Are you hurt?”

Grimacing against the pain, she replied. “Aye, this is the second time this leg’s been trapped by these bloody vines.”

Ailith cursed. “They’re bad for it. Got one of the crafters with it at the start of the assault.”

“Glad you’re okay,” Faye said, gasping as she needed to shift a little. “I came as fast as I could.”

“Hold on, he’s getting back up.”

Faye raised herself to look over at the Primalist. He was shaking his head. The glow of his eyes had dimmed, but it brightened as he got to his feet.

“Desecrators!” he shouted.

“They really hate fire,” Faye said. She sat up, carefully, already gathering the mana in her hands to burn away the thorny vine.

Ailith let out a surprised grunt. “Is that right? Well, I ain’t got no fire skills.”

She lifted her maul, took a couple of steps forward, and then slammed its giant stone head against the ground. The earth shifted and ruptured in a wave that knocked the Primalist almost off his feet.

Ignoring the fight, Faye concentrated and burnt away the vines entrapping her. It hurt to remove it, but it was better to be able to move freely without ravaging her thigh.

Getting to her feet was a challenge, but she managed it with only a small amount of swearing and sweating. Panting, Faye looked around. The crafters were still huddled by the corpse, Gavan was actually standing before them now, rather than on top of the corpse. He nodded when he saw Faye looking, which she returned.

Arran and the axe wielding Primalist were still fighting. It did look like the axe was moving a fraction slower than it had been before, however. Arran was able to dart in and poke the Primalist in the scant few moments the giant man took to reset his stance after slamming the weapon down or to the side.

Ailith was advancing on the other Primalist.

All in all, it seemed that the attack had been repelled.

But of course, the moment Faye thought it, she heard something emerging from the forest.

Turning toward the sound, Faye saw a small swarm of lesser briars rushing forward in a susurrus of grass and creaking vines. Standing at their back was the figure of another Primalist.

“Oh, come on!” Faye muttered.

She still only had her dagger, having lost her sabre at the Steading and her wooden sword in the neck of the third Primalist she had taken down.

Holding out her hands before her, as if she were pretending to be a mummy, Faye called forth the mana she still possessed.

In rapid succession, she launched Fire Darts at the oncoming swarm of briars. Each one was only knee high, and looked somewhat like a tumbleweed, except they had mouths and eyes, and all glowed a faint crimson.

The darts slammed into the briars, a series of loud pops like firecrackers punctuating the night air.

Congratulations! You have defeated a level five [Lesser Briar].

Congratulations! You have defeated a level four [Lesser Briar].

Congratulations! You have defeated a level five [Lesser Briar].

Faye ignored the rest of the notifications. She did not need them to see the briars falling apart in a flash of flames. Not a single one appeared to be above level five.

The remaining briars were within a dozen steps when Faye’s notification popped up, visible this time despite her mental command to suppress them.

Congratulations! You have gained enough experience points to level up. You are now level 8.

As the notification pinged, Faye felt her wounds knit and her reserves of mana shoot upward. The pain in the back of her head reduced slightly, and the ache in her limbs retreated. It wasn’t a complete healing, but there was enough of a change that Faye felt capable of fighting properly.

Adjusting to the changes in her body, Faye stopped her Fire Darts assault, which gave Gavan a perfect opportunity to unleash his own, much more impactful, barrage of spells on the oncoming swarm.

Ice shards rained down from above, and each one shattered into shards that took out multiple briars each.

Moments later, only a few stragglers were left — they had been near the front of the moving swarm and had escaped by being too close to Faye. They each locked onto her and swarmed forward, their little thorny limbs waving and pulling the monsters along.

Drawing her dagger, Faye crouched and concentrated on the briars as they came on.

Each one glowed with that same crimson power, but at the edges of her senses she thought there was something when she looked at one.

A niggle at the back of her mind… itched. She nudged at it, mentally. She could not be sure what it was, but she was able to sense something emanating from the briars. Unable to easily puzzle it out when they were still coming for her, Faye ignored it for now.

Having drawn her dagger, Faye then switched gears. With only a few briars left, and knowing that they were level five or under, she felt that some experimentation would be useful.

The dagger the adventurers had gifted her was already enchanted. If she focused on it, she was able to sense that innate magic in the blade. With no more understanding than that, Faye took hold of the mana for a Fire Dart and wrapped it around the blade.

When the first of the lesser briars got close enough, it pushed off the ground with some of its vines and reached out with others. The long thorns and waving fronds would have been intimidating if the Primalists hadn’t used much more massive versions as Awakened already or their own spells weren’t thicker, larger vines either.

The briar’s thorn vines were not quite fast enough to take hold of Faye, she backed off and then darted in with the dagger held downward, slamming it into the main body of the briar.

When the blade sunk into the briar’s vines, the mana that Faye held close to its surface disrupted. Instead of creating an impact explosion of flames, or even launching a Fire Dart into the body as she had imagined, it flickered a little and the briar definitely twitched…

Congratulations! You have defeated a level three [Lesser Briar].

Pushing aside the notification, and pushing off the body of the monster, Faye coated the blade in mana once more. This time, she mentally told the mana to ignite just before she stabbed the second test subject.

The tip of the dagger was just a hair’s breadth from the body of the briar, which meant the mana immediately exploded upon igniting.

Letting out a yelp, Faye jerked her hand back. Fortunately, she had the presence of mind not to throw or drop the dagger, but the smoking monster corpse dropped away after the failed attempt.

Okay, no Fire Dart that close to your hand, Faye.

She wasn’t burnt, which she put down to the magical protection of her stats. But it had hurt. Like touching an oven tray after it had been roasting for 50 minutes.

The final briar of the Primalist’s swarm darted toward her. Faye felt somewhat sorry for the little minions. Mindless monsters that were unable to protect themselves were somewhat pitiful.

Of course, those feelings of pity evaporated when the little monster’s mouth opened, and she saw the same crimson glow as the Awakened Briar that had tried to smash her into paste earlier that night. These monsters were all part of the same breed, and they had swarmed the Steading just the same.

Her dagger slid into this briar just as easily as the others. Its internal glow faded as it died. Her failed attempts at creating something new made her scowl a little.

I wonder what it is I need to do differently? Maybe if—

Her musing was cut short. The Primalist had stalked forward. He held what looked to be a cudgel. The handle was long, almost a short staff… but the end of the cudgel was formed into a heavy knot of wood that would seriously harm and crush whatever it came into contact with.

This Primalist was dressed similarly to the others. The rags and pieces of cloth were decorated with bones of various sizes, and his hood sported antlers that swept down and back. Because the light source was behind Faye, she was able to see that his face was mostly uncovered. His hooded headdress did not sport anything dangling in front of his eyes, which revealed his painted, or tattooed, markings.

They started black at the top of his face and faded into crimson by the bottom. The strong markings bore no resemblance to anything Faye had seen so far in Lóthaven.

“Not sure what you’re trying to be,” she said.

The Primalist cocked his head and bared his teeth. “Are you ignorant or arrogant, I wonder?”

“Oh, definitely option number three,” she replied. She lifted her hand and activated Scorching Lance.

It took a healthy chunk of mana from her newly replenished reserves, but the thick bar of dense fire scorched the Primalist’s face. For the final moment of the spell, Faye flicked it downward to slash across his torso. His clothes and skin lit eagerly. The flames crackling and tickling his tattooed face.

Whilst the spell information had said nothing about extending the casting time of the spell, she had a feeling that she might be able to in future.

For now, it seemed to last just over a second.

Part of Faye realised that she was distancing her mind from what she was actually doing to these people by concentrating on her skills and the opportunities to learn magic.

Because, what else could she do? If she stopped to think about it—

But she wouldn’t. Not yet.

The Primalist was still standing, miraculously. She flicked a Fire Dart his way, the basic spell knocking the man to the ground and making her notifications ping.

She ignored it. She was standing on a knife edge and looking at the notification might tip her over.

She turned back to the others. Ailith was warily approaching the Primalist who wielded the kris, because the glow in his eyes had expanded and his movements were becoming wilder, but obviously more powerful. Swings of his knife blurred, and any movements to try and get past Ailith’s guard were much more rapid than before.

Faye wanted to help, but she was sure she would make it worse for the Guardian so she stayed back for now.

Arran, on the other hand, obviously needed no help. His fight was winding down. The axe wielding Primalist was visibly struggling to keep up with the agile Duellist. As she watched, Arran’s sword cut into the shoulder of the Primalist’s main hand, and he dropped the axe with a grunt.

Arran backed away a little, and from out of view a shard of Gavan’s ice slammed into the armoured form, knocking the giant back a few steps so that he almost lost his footing.

Faye threw her hand forward and launched a Fire Dart. It hit the Primalist before he could bring his flailing foot down and the explosion of energy and fire toppled him. The crash of his armoured form hitting the ground made Ailith’s foe turn to look, surprise writ evidently across his face.

Ailith made her move, but the Primalist turned and sprinted into the trees of the forest.

“Oi, come back here!” Ailith shouted after the retreating man.

Arran stepped close and delivered the coup de grâce to the downed man, using his main-gauche to slip between the armour sections.

Congratulations! Your group has defeated a level twelve [Primalist Champion].

Experience awarded.

Faye looked around the clearing. The torches that the crafters had lit were bright enough to light the area almost the whole way to the trees; they were standing like sentinels in the shadows. For a moment, Faye swore that she saw a human-sized one.

She froze.

She knew that shape. But it couldn’t be him. He didn’t exist here.

She had finally escaped him, but somehow, he kept chasing her, kept following?!

Closing her eyes, Faye dropped down to a crouch. She pressed her palms into her eyes, trying her best to control the feelings swirling around her head.

He crowded in. She felt the shadow come closer. He was practically on top of her.

She couldn’t look at him. Looking at him, even acknowledging he was there already, gave him power.

Something pressed on her shoulder. She braced herself for the inevitable pain.

“Faye?”

She froze.

“Faye, is everything okay?”

It was not his voice at all. The pain she expected did not arrive. The hurt caused by words. The hurt of knowing that she never did anything to stop what was happening.

“Faye!”

She looked up. Ailith was crouching in front of her kneeling form. Her hand rested gently on her shoulder, the other holding onto the maul’s handle.

“You did good today, Faye. Amazing. But I need you to pull together just for a few more hours, okay?”

Her thoughts crystallised again into focus. She nodded. She didn’t say anything though.

Ailith helped her stand. She did not trust herself to stand without shaking, but she did not want to show Ailith and the others just how weak she was. They might decide to leave her behind, next time. That was not going to happen. It couldn't happen. She wouldn't let it.

Eventually, she braced herself and looked toward the forest line.

Shadows crowded there, but they were the ordinary shapes of trees and bushes. Nothing in his shape.

“Come on, let’s get over near the others.”

Faye let herself be led toward the crafters, Mage and Duellist. Each step of the way, she hardened her resolve. Locked away the feelings of terror, disgust, cowardice, grief, and guilt that were all bubbling away inside of her in a cauldron of emotion.

Don’t let them see.