The first thing she did was steady her breathing. A calm, focused mind was her primary weapon in war.

Second, a quick assessment of everything she’d learned about her opponent. More nimble than Sláine had expected, reliant on poison, and further possessed the ability to spit said poison at their foes. Though the so-called tunnel mite guardians had teeth sharp enough to pierce, they couldn’t shred her body, and they had no appendages suitable for sudden, lethal strikes. This suggested they primarily used venom to slow, incapacitate, and kill their prey before digesting it with acid.

Given her natural immunity to poison, Sláine had an advantage.

Two things worried her: getting the toxic substance in her eyes, and becoming overwhelmed by too many opponents at once. It wouldn’t do to allow a half-finished enemy to catch her unawares, and servants of Contagion tended to gather in large groups. It was also known as the Swarm, after all. The Many Cannot Be Contained.

If she had only one direction to worry about, her chances would be better, but unfortunately there was no way of securing that in a tunnel.

She could, however, at least try to diminish that possibility. Turning, Sláine sprinted back down the way she’d come, the echoes of her footfalls reverberating around the sound of resolute scuttling. She passed the intersection they’d taken earlier, and it was some distance away from it that she turned, spinning to face the coming horde. That way, if anything approached from the other path, it would funnel into one hallway rather than being able to come at her from behind. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

Each second, each breath, each heartbeat filled her with the thrumming anticipation of battle.

She'd been right to seek more favorable ground. In the murky darkness, she saw movement from each of the tunnels before her, and as soon as they'd drawn close enough that she could define the edges of their armored segments, the pair of monsters split the air with a unified screech.

Dropping low, she settled into a defensive crouch, and when the first scuttled into biting range - the segments of its mouth peeling apart to expose its ghastly maw - she thrust forward, hooking her blade into the soft flesh of its mouth and ripping it back as she dodged the second insect's wrath.

Sláine struck again with a grunt. The shaft of her halberd clunked against one, preemptively shoving it back while the sharp edge pressed into the jaw of the other, splitting it like a length of timber. Blood spewed into the foul cauldron of its mouth. The thing roared, and its acid splattered across Sláine's dominant arm, burning against the bare flesh and twisting her mouth into a scowl.

It flopped over in its desperation to wiggle away, and maintaining pressure on its handle, Sláine drove the spear of her halberd down the tunnel mite’s throat.

[ Tunnel Mite Guardian has been slain! ]

The noise the sewers pitched upward in fervor. Briefly, Sláine jerked her attention towards the tunnels, seeing at least three more scrambling down one and another crawling from a large hole scoured into the wall ahead. Best to retreat. With a snap, however, the second monster surged over the wooden shaft she’d been using to keep it at bay and sunk its teeth into her. Sláine snarled and charged, throwing her shoulder into it and slamming it into the wall.

And again.

And again.

And again, until its halves had been forced apart and she could heave away her blood-soaked arm. To punish it for its audacity, she hooked the thorn of her halberd into its back and hauled its writhing form along with her.

Something vital must have been struck in the struggle, because the thing collapsed, though she continued pummeling it until another message from the System confirmed her kill. Sláine put the cracked corpses in-between her and their brethren, who quickly gained ground.

Five total, she counted in that brief moment. Sláine kept them at bay as best she could, switching tactics to take advantage of the reach her weapon offered and sending jab after warning jab towards the group. Somewhere in there, a vibration in the back of her mind told her that her [ Axe ] skill had ticked up to level 3. Pleasure settled in her gut, mingling with spires of pain, and when the left-most guardian tried to take advantage of her thrust towards the opposite end of the line, she reveled in slamming the weapon into it so hard that the resulting crunch echoed.

Of course, in the time it took to wrench it free form the insect’s oozing side, two more threw themselves forward. The first tripped over the corpses, which she rewarded by severing something in its neck, but the second managed to slide forward underneath her swing. It bit, hard, but rather than giving in to the burst of acrid heat, she sent a downward cleave towards the arc of its back.

It was an unusually effective split, cracking all the way through its shell and - as she passed one hand over the other to draw the axe back - tore through flesh to expose the pale yellow of its innards. Was that the Protocol at work?

[ Tunnel Mite Guardian has been slain! ]

[ Tunnel Mite Guardian has been slain! ]

[ You’ve been afflicted with Poison! ]

Shit, Sláine internally cursed, both at the message and the presence of more monsters crawling from the beyond.

And behind her too, she noted, taking stock of the battlefield to locate some safer ground. Another mental ding - this time her [ Dodge ] skill - and with a spark of an idea, she thought back to the [ Skill ] the System had said she’d acquired during the last round of combat. Could she use it, perhaps? Hadn’t it said something about a circular swing?

Something clicked in her, like a match snapping alight or the resounding thunk of a latch settling properly, and Sláine understood a singular truth: yes I can. Her arms whipped back, her lips parted, and in a clear, sharp voice, she announced, “[ Reckless Spin ]!”

[ You’ve got this - System Use has reached Level 3! ]

It was almost like the curve of steel became the outer edge of a spiral, akin to the rings lining the trunk of a felled tree or the rippling on a lake as rain spattered across its surface. It carved cleanly through the vilekin as they hungrily pressed in, rending chitin and spraying blood across the floor, the ceiling, the walls. It felt fluid, the motion, and after a spiked jab into the exposed skin of a guardian’s throat, she repeated the move again.

Sláine didn’t even notice it anymore; she didn’t notice poison or pain or kills or levels, simply giving herself over to the dance and the slash spin cut thrust throw hack cleave. After awhile, she stopped counting anything at all, and she only stopped herself once everything other than her had fallen still.

She huffed, body burning, liquid sliding down her legs and arms - some Sláine’s, some not - and each palpitation of her heart burned her with the joy of being alive. Adrenaline was a wonderful thing. It filled her dull world with color, the stink of battle and the cut of her axe giving her reason to keep plodding along on this path she’d carved for herself.

Keeping her ears perked at attention in case more monsters were on their way, she paused and took an inventory of her state.

Some of her wounds had already healed throughout the battle, but the ugliest of them - the deep marks on her leg and the place where one of the soldiers had bit down so hard she’d heard a crunch - showed few signs of growth, and from them emanated dull, aching throbs. Probably would be worse for anyone else in her position, she thought. Along with her healing properties, Sláine possessed a high tolerance to pain.

As she examined her arm, she thought about that… skill she’d used.

When Yora had been instructing her about what kinds of abilities she’d be able to harness after registering with the Protocol, she hadn't been entirely certain about what to imagine. Even when she’d taken Sláine to watch some of the martially inclined members practice on the training field, she couldn’t discern how those things would apply to her. What she’d seen were sudden, inexplicable boosts of speed and strength, strange effects surrounding their practice weapons that looked - to her - like magic.

But when she’d used that skill - [ Reckless Spin ] - it was like she’d… been guided through the entire motion. It wasn’t that she’d lost control of her body, but it’d felt like this is exactly what I should be doing, so why do anything different? While reminiscent of a movement practiced so often that the muscles remembered it, it had clearly originated from a source beyond her.

And the effect it’d had on the monsters around it hadn’t felt natural at all. If she replicated the action without using [ Reckless Spin ], she was certain it wouldn’t have had the same result. In that way, it did remind her of a spell.

Touching her arm, Sláine tried to check her stats again.

[ LEVEL 5 ]

[ BERSERKER ]

[ HP 730/1060 ]

[ MP 49/50 ]

[ AP 300/480 ]

[ STATUS: POISONED ]

It came much easier this time, though it still took some internal rooting around to find that tell-tale weird-feeling that hearkened a command. The initial few variables snapped into focus, and this time she got the sense that if she kept pushing she’d be able to read more, though the numbers shifting before her were enough distraction for now.

Her [ HP ] - what did that stand for, health points? That number kept changing, going up and then back down again. She assumed that had to do with her current condition. The amount of poison she’d been exposed to must have become more than the anti-toxins in her blood could handle, so while her naturally regenerative abilities exceeded the effect it had on her, it slowed the process down considerably.

Her [ AP ] ticked upwards at a steady rate, but what caught her particular attention was the [ MP ]. One point lower than the maximum, and while she was fairly certain her total values had gotten larger all-around, [ MP ] was the one she were certain had gone up.

…She knew that spell-casters used [ MP ] for their magic, but did it govern anything else? And, if that value kept getting higher, would she be able to access magecraft in any capacity as well? The only Floribunda who could weave spells at all were Oracles, and their powers didn’t extend beyond divination which was directly granted by the Root from birth. None of her people had ever been able to learn how to harness magic, not even when Elven prisoners had been taken during battle and questioned about their methods.

But if Elves could harness magic from their system - the Aether - then Sláine supposed it would make sense if accessing humanity’s Protocol network might make that a possibility as well, though Yora had said she had no talent for it. Did that just mean it wouldn’t be easy, or was that possibility barred from Sláine completely? What was the difference between magic and the abilities she’d just displayed during the battle, anyway?

Was that even something she wanted? She’d seen the destructive power of spell-casters firsthand - mostly foes, but even now from her allies - and the thought of anything that would make her stronger was appealing. Deep down, though, it felt sacrilegious.

A memory hit her. A voice, and - “I’m sorry, Sláine. I guess it just wasn’t fated to be.”

Scowling at the intrusive memory, she looked for something else to distract her.

“Damn bunny, you’re kind of a murder machine, aren’t you?”

Ah, yes. That would do.

>> Apologize