As they scrambled away from the hulking form of the golem, Faye spun and threw a [Fire Dart] at it. It was crashing towards them, each foot fall shaking the ground enough that they stumbled.

The dart splashed across its rocky exterior with insignificant effect.

Faye did not have time to curse, it was hard enough to move out of the way of the golem’s bull rush.

Which is how it reached her, in what felt like a few moments, and slammed a fist the size of her chest into her torso.

She must have flown through the air, but she did not remember doing so. The next thing she knew, she had landed in a painful knot and jumble of limbs against the thorny embrace of a wall of bramble.

Her whole side was on fire, each movement inadvertently sending rivers of pain through her.

There was no doubt that a blow such as that would have killed her, before gaining levels.

If the Primalists had had the power to summon this, why were they only using it now? There were too many gaps in Faye’s knowledge of the enemy.

She grimaced. The pain rose in waves along with the beat of her heart and flow of emotions. She tried a calming breath, but even that made the pain unbearable.

Short breaths, she kept herself crouched over the pain, ever so slowly attempting to stand.

The golem had moved after the militia, but they were sensible enough to get a building between them and it. For now, it wandered around the outside of the building, following their slow circumspect route.

That would not last long, especially if the Primalists engaged.

She could only watch as the giant monster of stone and power roared, lifting its boulder-like fists to the sky, and bringing them down to smash the stonework of the house to the ground. The militia backed away, but the rubble and dust cloud slowed them.

Panic clutched at Faye’s heart, spiking the pain.

She reached out a hand, aiming. The [Fire Dart] had practically no effect on the stone body of the golem, but it was her weakest spell.

This time, she screamed as the mana flowed through, past, or near her broken ribs.

[Scorching Lance] streamed from her hand in a thick, molten beam. The beam was not as steady as it normally would be, the pain had weakened her casting. An analytical part of her noted the problem even as the other quailed at the pain.

The beam of solid flames crunched into the golem’s body, carving a line through the stone that blackened and wisps of smoke rose from. The golem leaned into the beam, holding up its massive arm.

When the beam inevitably ended, the golem lowered its arm. Faye thought something was wrong, but a moment later it exploded into action.

Pushing itself forward, the golem lurched into a run. The massive bulk of stone and crackling energy came toward Faye as fast as a freight train.

Shit shit shit!

The adrenaline that flooded her body was enough to get her moving. It was not enough to keep the pain at bay. Wracked with nerves that felt on fire, Faye screamed as she moved. But it was either move and be in pain or stay and be killed.

It was no choice at all.

The lance hurt it, she thought, desperate for a way out, but there was minimal damage.

The way that Faye was moving, following the bramble walls, she would get boxed into a corner between briar on one side and the stone of a house wall on the other. Throwing two [Fire Dart]s out, one quickly after the other, she burned a small patch of the edge of thorns away.

She almost collided with the wall, and she sucked in a breath as the pain ramped up again. But the golem was still a dozen metres away. She had a few seconds.

Pushing into the thorns was painful, each one was as strong as steel and would break through thin sections of armour easily. She ignored it and pushed on anyway. She scraped against the stone of the house as she wiggled deeper into the bramble wall.

If the Primalists were able to control the wall after they set it, she was as good as dead. But nothing she had seen so far suggested that they could. Of course, she had not seen them summon massive stone golems either.

The random thoughts were a way to distract herself from the pain and fear. It mostly worked. Shaking footsteps of the golem told her it was close enough to hurt her. She pushed harder.

A stone fist slammed into the briar, but the bramble held back its assault. Broken pieces of wood and leaves rained on Faye, getting down the neck of her gambeson and digging in, but she felt like laughing.

A moment later, she used some mana to burn through a particularly dense patch of bramble and found the corner of the house the briar wall was anchored to. Following that stone wall became easier, a natural void had opened here — just like with the other brambles in the courtyard Faye had assaulted.

It seemed that the golem was not interested in waiting for her, as its footsteps retreated. Sending a quick burst of prayer to whichever deity deigned to listen, Faye asked for the militia’s lives to be saved because they should not have to die for following someone like her into battle.

On the edge of her senses, Faye felt something odd. She activated [Mana Sense], but the bramble all around her was blinding with vivid green motes of light. It was only a fluke that she caught sight of a single mote of crimson.

Dropping [Mana Sense], Faye switched her focus to [Fire Dart], lifted her hands to either side and released darts in quick flashes.

Congratulations! You have defeated multiple [Lesser Briar]s.

Experience awarded.

The roars of the golem and rustling of bramble as she pushed her way through were suddenly drowned under the tide of screeches from lesser briars.

She had been surrounded.

Dozens upon dozens of the little nests of malignant thorns swarmed toward Faye as she sunk down with her back to the stone wall of the house. Each blast of flame would propel the lesser briars away, leaving their smouldering corpses a few metres away each time.

It was quickly apparent that she was in a losing battle. So, she switched tactics.

Flipping focus once more, she concentrated and managed to launch two [Scorching Lances] directly ahead of her at once. The draw of mana through her broken body was enough to draw tears to her eyes and a moment of half-blackout as the pain grew too high.

But, when she was done, the brambles before her had a very narrow, still smouldering path burnt through them.

She ran forward, hunched over almost double. Her arms protected her head and face as much as possible and she pushed through the rest of the thorns as fast as she could.

Better scratched and free than overwhelmed and suffocated to death with smoke. Light grey smoke had started to rise, despite her spells finishing, and it stung her eyes.

A lesser briar tried to latch onto her, but a small burst of mana that she commanded to burn was enough to get it off her. And then she was free of the thorns but not without a parting gift as one dug into her face and opened a smarting cut across her cheek.

She turned and watched as other lesser briars attempted to climb out of the bramble, too, but Faye drew her straight blade and ignited it with mana.

Each time one or more of the animated briars tried to leave the confines of the bramble, she launched a projectile of [Blades of Flame] at it. She was not being too precious about aiming, because invariably the arc of flames would scorch into another of the briars, anyway.

She marvelled as she used spell after spell but found that the blazing furnace of mana that she always felt inside had reduced by only a fraction of what it would have before she had chosen her class.

With each new attack, the lesser briars — dumb monsters they may be — eventually learned to stay back from the edge of the bramble.

By now, the burning corpses had set a slow burn on the whole bramble, too. She was not mad about that but knew it might become a problem later if it spread too far.

Will have to end things before then, she thought.

A noise behind her alerted her, and a quick flare of [Mana Sense] told her that Primalist magics were being prepared on a nearby rooftop.

Her jian was still ablaze, she with a flourish, she turned and sliced three precise cuts that launched three [Blades of Flame] at the Primalist that had attempted the ambush.

She did not stay to watch as the man leapt away.

No ding of a notification told her that he was still alive but that hardly mattered. There were more to take down.

Taking a ladder that someone had erected behind one of the houses nearby, Faye scaled to the rooftops herself. The ambusher was nowhere to be seen, which suited her fine. Focusing on the dirt area before the eastern gate, Faye watched as the Primalists tried to carry on with their rituals.

Fortunately, the militia had gotten to the captives and were encouraging them to leave. They were lowering them off the roof of one of the houses, over the bramble wall.

The Primalists were furious, she could see and hear them arguing amongst one another, but they were not doing anything to stop the escapees. They were also not doing anything to stop the golem, which was still rampaging across the area.

Faye could not see the militia at all, which she fervently hoped meant they were safely ensconced somewhere rather than broken and bleeding. The golem had no interest in pursuing people it could not see, however, and it had started moving from place to place at the far end of the Primalist’s area, near the house of captives, occasionally roaring and slamming its fist into the ground.

Each time it did so, the people on the roof would stumble. One particularly unlucky fellow had just been about to lower himself over the side with the help of one of the militiamen. The rumble of stonework caused him to lose his footing and he went over the side.

Faye flinched. His attributes might prevent his death but did nothing for pain.

Noticing something odd about the arguing Primalists, she tried to put her finger on what it was. There were two people facing one another with the plinth almost directly between them. One kept gesturing to the golem, and the other would point at the ground by the plinth.

It seemed that their enemy were not quite so unified as they had first thought.

She spent only a few minutes watching, crouched on the roof, but in that time the pain of her injuries lessened by a sliver. It allowed her to take a full breath again.

Doing so, the fog of darkness that had settled so quickly on her shoulders lifted for a heartbeat. Enough for Faye’s consciousness to take hold of it, rip it in two, and push it away.

The relief lasted all of three heartbeats.

Three were enough.

You. Th-dum.

Can. Th-dum.

Succeed. Th-dum.

The wet blanket settled across Faye’s shoulders again. It felt real enough that she tried to grab it with her spare hand. But of course, nothing physically touched her.

Come on then, she told herself. Let’s get through this.

She rose to her feet, then took hold of the ledge at the edge of the roof and gracefully leapt over. The ground rushed to meet her, but it was only a fall of a single storey. She landed in a crouch and pushed herself back up in a smooth motion.

She jogged forward. Activating [Mana Sense], she saw that the Primalists were all concentrated ahead of her, and none of their summoned servants were nearby. Satisfied, she slowed to a walk and called out to them as she got closer.

“Let’s talk a moment!”

She waited, nervously, as the Primalists stopped shouting at one another and turned as one to face her. Their head dresses and clothing were just as grimy and strange as they always were, but for a moment she saw them as they were, rather than as she had been assuming them to be.

One half of these Primalists wore exclusively the jagged teeth of predators, claws, or jawbones from big cats. The second half wore the antlers and small bones of grazers and other forest animals.

Two sects? she asked herself. It did not fully matter but it was interesting that she had not had time to notice, before.

“You ask to talk, outsider?” the one with the antlers, closest to Faye, said. “Talk of what? The weather? You slaughter our people and ask to talk?”

Faye frowned. “We have defended ourselves.”

“The prey always talks of defending, but never talk of their aggression,” the other Primalist, with the jawbone of some predatory animal strapped to his own bottom jaw said.

“In what way have the people of Lóthaven been aggressive toward you?” Faye asked. “This is their home, which you entered with monsters, creatures that bring pain to those who live here. You rounded up their children—”

“Monsters are not the beasts and creatures of the forest,” the antlered one said, interrupting, “and our guardians protect those of the Forest.”

Faye heard the emphasis the Primalist placed on the word but could not understand the difference.

“I don’t understand, why attack their children?”

“Their children…” the other repeated. A moment’s pause. “You are not of them?”

She paused.

“You are not part of them, and yet you kill for them? Murder those of the Forest without mercy?”

Faye frowned. This was not how she had imagined this conversation going. But her gaze slipped aside to the young boy who was still being held by the two Primalists, holding an arm each. She started in surprise as she recognised him, despite the pain etched on his features.

It was the boy from the market square, what felt like a lifetime ago. What was his name?

She was not sure she had caught his name… she remembered his father, though. Deorsa. A pain in the arse, but this was his son.

With a lurch in her heart, Faye realised that if his son had reacted that strongly to the teenager whose corpse had helped summon the golem — she shifted to look at it for a moment, but it was still distracted on the other side of the dirt area — then that meant Deorsa had already lost one son that day.

She squared her shoulders.

“Where I come from,” she said, loudly, slowly, “we do not harm children. To do so invites retribution. In whatever form that takes.”

Here, she gripped the handle of her sword tighter, leather wrapping creaking under her knuckles.

“Give me the boy, and I will consider retribution… deferred.”

The Primalists looked from Faye to the boy, then around at each of their followers. She understood what they were saying with the look.

You and what army?

“You are not of them,” the antlered one said, “you do not understand. But for your crimes, we declare you foe and enemy of the Forest.”

Faye shook her head. It was as if she was missing a massive chunk of the conversation. It made no sense. But it was the most she had ever heard from the Primalists that was not utter gibberish.

She decided to up the ante.

“It is too late to declare me foe and enemy,” she said, lifting the tip of her sword so that pointed at their cowled faces. “For I have already claimed that title with the blood of your weak...” She laced the steel of her blade with mana and let it ignite. “And written it in the smouldering embers of their corpses. Leave this place.”

A little dramatic, she thought, but hopefully gets the job done.

The Primalists stepped back, almost as one, leaving the space before Faye empty. They took Deorsa’s son with them. He looked at Faye with an expression mingling hope and horror.

The golem, as if called for, turned its massive bulk toward Faye once more.

She shook her head. She had learned barely anything. It had still been worth the attempt. Despite the blanket on her emotions, there was still an existential horror in the deepest recesses of her mind and being that railed against the brutal killings that happened between people here.

She had pushed it aside, since those first Primalists, but of course every villain is the hero of their own story.

The golem roared as it came forward. Its bulk slid forward as it gathered momentum, slowly at first but accelerating with each second that passed.

These men and women thought they were protecting their people, righting wrongs that the people of Lóthaven had committed. But where was the end? Who would break the cycle?

Was it even possible to get off the merry-go-round?

Faye was not sure, but the golem racing toward her broke that line of thought and smashed it to pieces. She lifted her jian, engulfed in magical flames and mentally prepared herself to fight a giant stone monster whilst still suffering the effects of her first encounter with it.

She was not looking forward to it.