Faye took some deep breaths, steadying herself for whatever was to come next. Gavan and the leader of the group of miscreants that had been causing them trouble were still facing off.

“So, who are you?!” the man with glowing, red eyes said. His heaving breaths punctuated each word.

It seemed there were a couple of moments of tense peace, so Faye took the chance to look around for her sword. It was half-embedded in the soft ground, a few metres away. Unfortunately, it was behind the half-hobbled hammer wielder.

She moved her gaze back to the stand-off.

“A pair of mages, wandering the middle of nowhere…” the man growled. “Adventurers.”

Gavan’s eyebrow cocked and he smirked. “I am truly surprised you got there—”

The leader moved in an explosion of speed and power. Gavan did not have to move far, just a twitch of his hands. The [Ice Shard] almost flashed forward, but the enraged man swung his fist and smashed the shard from the air.

“Wrong choice, you piece of shit,” the man shouted.

Faye immediately turned away and ran toward the man who had used the hammer. His eyes widened as she came for him. With a wince, he surged forward and held up his hands in a boxer’s defence. He could not put weight on his leg but hopped forward as best he could, regardless.

Faye ignited mana around the dagger once more, brandishing the weapon and charging forward. The man swayed, but stayed as strong as he apparently could. Faye had to respect that, at least a little.

She stabbed forward, low, and the man threw his hands down to block, but she pulled back and stabbed again, and again. Each time, he got a hand in the way, but he was getting more and more off-balance.

Until, in the end, Faye was able to slam her shoulder forward. The breath left his lungs in a blast and he fell back, moaning in pain.

Darting past the groaning man, she stooped and picked up the sword. A quick visual inspection told her that it seemed as intact as before the collision with the hammer. Which was surprising, considering that the hammer had hit with incredible force.

Shaking her head, and once more telling herself that she needed to thank Eanraigh for his work on the sword again, she turned back and sized up the situation.

The leader of the pack was in the middle of a small blizzard of icicle shards that Gavan was throwing out, whilst he backed away. He looked to be in control, except for the fact that Faye could see the amount of mana he was throwing out was more than she had ever seen him using before.

She had instinctively turned [Mana Sense] on, and the sheer amount of mana in the area was dropping precipitously. Unfortunately, there was another pair of problems in the two other men.

The one with the axe was moving around to flank Gavan, but his attention was fixed on the leader and he could not deal with the flanking axeman. Joss, the other fighter, was practically hiding behind his boss.

Faye ran forward.

“Keep him occupied, Gavan!” she shouted, which drew the attention of the axeman; exactly as she had hoped.

The man looked between Gavan and her approach, and with a grin, he turned toward her and hefted the axe. He changed direction and came directly toward Faye.

His upper arm was wrapped in a bandage that was already soiled. However, he did not seem particularly bothered. Faye slowed and pointed her blade straight at the man.

“Beat you once already,” she called out, “won’t go so easy on you this time.”

“Funny,” he said, “you think I wasn’t?”

She narrowed her eyes and flicked [Mana Sense] on to see what the man was preparing. Unfortunately, there was something a little strange. The mana that surged through his body was not responding in the same way that the mana that Gavan, or the Primalists, were using mana.

The man started shouting, a wordless cry that seemed to echo and grow with each second he uttered the sound. It rang Faye’s ears. She gritted her teeth against it, but her vision blurred. A moment later, [Mana Sense] faded away and she could no longer see he mana coursing through the man’s body.

He was still screaming as he lifted the axe.

Faye tried to take hold of her mana to use, but found her grasp on the mana was uncertain. Instead of the usual raging bonfire within hands’ reach inside her, it was far out of grasp.

Spitting out the sudden taste of copper in her mouth, Faye lifted the blade to a high guard. The axeman was close, now, the sound of his shout practically splitting her head open.

He pulled the axe down in a huge blow. Despite the pain in her head, Faye was able to slip to the side of the blow. The axe blow slammed into the ground with a shake. Faye stumbled a little, and then truly staggered when the man jerked forward and headbutted her.

She cried out in pain. Salty blood poured out of her nose.

The axe head came up and hit her in the stomach. She tried to battle through the pain, but it was too much on top of the man’s unceasing, echoing shout emanating from the man.

“Too bad.”

Faye looked up at the axeman’s face. The head of his axe came into her vision as well, and a thrill of fear went through her.

“You have a lot to learn,” the man said.

A shout from the other side of the inn’s yard drew the man’s gaze, and Faye turned to see. Gavan had stopped sending the barrage of icicles towards the leader, and had instead resorted to surrounding the man in [Ice Wall]s.

The mage turned toward Faye, saw her on the floor and frowned. He lifted his hand and a flush of healing surged through her. But with that, Gavan actually staggered. Faye blinked.

The axeman stepped over Faye and walked toward Gavan. “Looks like you’re all out, mage.”

Gavan shrugged his shoulders and looked up. “More than enough left for you.”

Axeman lifted the axe and propped it on his shoulder. “What about him?”

A metallic fist slammed into Gavan’s side, and he crumpled over it.

Faye spat out a curse and rolled onto her side. She wanted to get up but her limbs just were not answering her commands.

Axeman shook his head and turned back around. “Well, looks like he didn’t have enough to deal with me.”

He walked back toward Faye, taking his time.

“Brachais! Come get the boss out of this.”

The axeman, Brachais, looked over his shoulder. “It’ll dissipate on its own now the mage is out.”

The other man, Joss, shook his head and started wailing on the ice wall with his fist weapons, sending fine spiderweb cracks through the magical ice with each hit.

Brachais, on the other hand, turned back to Faye and smiled.

“You aren’t strong enough to work through the effects of the skill,” he said. “You can stop trying, now.”

Faye reached for the mana again and it was still far out of reach. She hated the sensation. It had been hardly any time at all in the grand scheme of her life, but it was infuriating that she could not access the mana now.

“You know,” Brachais said, “It has been a long time since some marks took one of us down. Impressive, almost.”

He was standing above her again. He was completely relaxed.

“Impressive, but suicide. You’re both dead, as soon as our boss says the word.”

He drew back his boot and kicked her in the stomach. She cried out and coughed as the pain radiated out from her belly.

“Step away from her!”

Brachais scowled and looked up. She could not see what he was looking at, but she could guess.

The innkeeper had emerged.

“We’re going to deal with you, soon enough,” Brachais said, pointing a finger over Faye. “I would leave well enough alone for now.”

“I said, step away!”

Brachais lifted a foot, and looked as if he were about to step over Faye’s form when she heard the release of the innkeep’s crossbow. The bolt slammed into Brachais’ chest.

Congratulations! Your group has defeated a level 18 [Siúnn Warrior].

Experience shared.

As soon as Brachais died, the notification popped into her mind, the soft chime announcing its presence. With it came the sudden relief of no more pain in Faye’s head.

“Oh, my, God, that hurt.”

“Get up, lass,” the innkeeper said, “now!”

Faye scrambled to her feet, pulling her sword up with her.

The brawler, Joss, had stopped slamming his fists into the [Ice Wall]. He was staring at the bodies of his fallen companions and looked to Faye with a strange expression on his face. She could not quite tell if he was angry, afraid, or something else entirely.

“I’m fairly new to the Guild,” Faye called out, “so, I’m not sure of all the rules and procedures. For example…” she sheathed the sword in mana and ignited it, “am I supposed to let you go, if you surrender?”

Joss’ gaze did not waver.

“Or, now that your boss has been captured… do I have to consider him a non-combatant?”

The brawler’s fists were by his sides, but his stance was wider than normal, as if he were ready for a fight.

The innkeeper approached her from behind, so she turned to watch him approach.

“Oh, no, these lads attacked you both. Guilders don’t leave scum like this alive if they get the chance.”

Joss did not give Faye another second to consider. He moved quicker than she had seen him move before, it could have been a skill. But the moment he did, she realised that he was not coming for her.

He was aiming for Gavan.

“No!” she shouted, and with a mental reach, pulled on the rest of her mana to activate both [Cleansing Flame] and [Blades of Flame]. The rest of the power inside of her burned to nothingness the moment she activated both spells. The flames that licked along the metal of her sword turned a blazingly bright white, shining across the yard as if it were daylight.

As she swung her blade, she slashed from the bottom right to top left, letting out a scream of anger and terror all at once. Joss was already a step away from Gavan’s prone form. His fist raised, ready to rain down on the defenceless mage.

But the white fire of Faye’s [Cleansing Flame] was quicker than him, even with whatever skill he had activated. The diagonal slash had created a diagonally expanding arc of fire that engulfed both Gavan’s prone form and the attacking fighter in one blow.

As the mana drain peaked inside of her, Faye cried out at the resulting pain in her head, and dropped to her knees.

She absently heard the release of a crossbow bolt.

A second later, she heard the now-familiar ping.

Congratulations! You have defeated a level 17 [Iron Fist].

Experience awarded.

“Damn, lass, you must have burned him to a crisp.”

Faye could not talk around the blinding pain in her head.

“I think you caught your friend, though.”

She nodded and thrust a hand toward the mage, pointing at him. The innkeeper must have taken the hint because she heard his footsteps cross the yard. A second later.

“By the gods, he’s alive! He’s… on fire, but he’s alive!”

“Healing,” she managed to get out. “It heals him.”

“Right, well I’ll take your word for that. But you might want to think about what you’re going to do with the last of them, cause that wall is fading.”

She looked up, squinting through half-closed eyes. The [Ice Wall] was, indeed, starting to fade a little. The translucent, clear crystal of the usual magic-enhanced ice was becoming cloudy. Each crack and impact the ice had taken, amplified, and made obvious without mana rebuilding it.

Faye tried to stand, but instead found herself throwing up at her feet. She had no idea what she would do with the man who, last she had seen, was punching Gavan’s spells from the air with glowing red eyes.