Chương 75: Attrition

Róise's fórsa blade sliced through Cowal's pickaxe as the miner used it to block her shockingly fast attack. He might be a Fifth, but his tools seemed to be firmly Second-grade material - basically butter against her knives. She followed up with a back-handed stab to the face. Cowal dropped the pickaxe pieces and a ball of yellow light flashed in his hand, sending a cone of illumination straight at Róise's face. She recoiled back, blinded.

"Sunlight Nature," Sol muttered, feeling out their opponents with his fórsa sense.

"Maybe… Greenhouse Adept? I never learned all of them before we left Cian's." Miriam didn't have time to wonder. The Fifth on the left was coming straight for her. These were three men all the same Ring as Ultán had been - and he had basically been an untouchable god to them. Róise and Cormac might have a fighting chance, but she was only a Second - and not even a full Second yet. She had not yet unlocked her Adept class for her Life nature.

But she might have a few tricks to catch her attacker off guard nonetheless. It had been an abrupt surprise to unlock her Blight Adept class a week after leaving Cianán's Walk. She had been treating a nasty infection one of the Láthair Maol villagers had developed on their leg during the frantic escape from the island. Róise would normally just heal any injuries with Róisín Dubh, but she had gone scouting ahead, trying to figure out where in the First Ring they actually were.

Something in her heart had flipped, and there was her new class. It was one Cian had told her about, but she hadn't done much so far to encourage it. Blight Nature, Plague Doctor Adept. Refining it since then had kept her busy and her mind off the ever-insistent pull of her tree. Miriam activated a new skill: Local Infection. She'd had little opportunity to practice with this, but her new class gave her levels of control she hadn't realized were possible before.

Liquefactive Necrosis tended to target the lungs - no matter where she touched an opponent, it was the lung tissue that was attacked. Valuable on its own for a lot of reasons, but slow. She had a new strategy she'd picked up from Cormac. Time to see how it worked. The Sidhe coming after her was the Fire Nature she'd seen before. In one hand he held a palmful of flames, clearly arcing back to throw it. Local Infection took hold in the joint of his elbow.

The cartilage and tendons there underwent rapid necrosis and the joint seized up in pain, the flame sputtered out. The Fifth Fire Nature Sidhe grabbed his elbow. Miriam followed up with two vine knives - techniques she had picked up from Róise. Too crowded for a spear in this tunnel. The knives doubled down on his elbow, slicing the muscle and severing a tendon. His hand went limp. No more throwing fireballs from that hand.

Of course, Fifths in lower rings healed extraordinarily fast, so she didn't have time to gloat. Sol was suddenly behind him, one hand on his neck. Getting your fórsa drained by Sol wasn't painful - or at least it wasn't when he had done it to her. This man seemed to feel differently about it, as after only a second he spun around and shook Sol loose. It didn't seem like he'd gotten enough time to make any material fórsa out of it. The Fire Nature man scowled at Miriam.

"Blight? Disgusting. Especially for a dryad!" Miriam shrugged.

"Death is a natural part of life. You're going to find that out soon." In his other hand a fire roared into being.

"Sometimes you need fire to burn the rot out," the man said. The flame grew bigger and bigger, swirling faster and faster. It would hit her like a cannonball if he released the attack. That was one of her problems; she had the potential attack power of a Fourth or Fifth with her oversized fórsa reserves, but the defenses of a half-baked Second. That fireball would obliterate her. So she would just have to stay on the offensive.

Her Waterfall slammed into the Fire Nature man with all the force she could bring to bear, even spending a little extra fórsa to actually create water. Not all that long ago Cian had told her that while any fórsa nature can be strong, there were some that were inherently stronger. Blight was one of the strongest - what could be stronger than death? But it seemed in any world, on any Ring, water was stronger than Fire.

The fireball gutted out and the man slammed into the rock wall behind him, staying pinned there for a moment as the deluge ran its course. This was nowhere near enough to seriously hurt the Fifth, but it gave her a moment away from that fireball. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. It was strange to see Cormac going toe-to-toe with someone. His Fifth was definitely stronger and better trained than Cormac, but he kept just slightly missing somehow.

He seemed to be an Earth Nature, given the spikes of rock and dirt that continually lanced out at Cormac, but Miriam couldn't tell what Adept class. Cormac danced among the earth attacks nimbly, every now and then clocking the Fifth in the face with his brass knuckles. Róise had cleared her blindness with a quick splash of Róisín Dubh, but she seemed to be equally be only a little less than holding her own. Miriam shook her head. They couldn't win like this.

Three Fifths was more than enough to power through two Fourths and a sort-of Second. Sol clearly felt helpless - his techniques were no stronger than what he took from anyone else, and in most cases weaker. They needed some sort of outside advantage. Even if they could get rid of one of the Fifths, it might give them enough of an edge. Wait. An outside advantage. As the Fire Nature man was standing up again Miriam hit him with Raging Current.

She managed to hit him at just the right moment where he would be unbalanced. She glanced over at Cormac - if she could see it, she'd bet there were golden strings all around her. Her target launched sideways, tumbling across the cave, nearly missing another of his companions. He snarled, fire lighting up his fingers again as he tried to stand. Each time Miriam shoved him around it did no damage, but he kept getting angrier.

"Come on!" he yelled, not even trying to get up this time, but firing triangular darts of fire from his finger tips. Two caught Miriam in the gut. She screamed. The fire darts hurt. Hurt more than she thought possible. She dropped to her knees, clawing at her stomach.

"Oh, tree-girl doesn't like fire?" the man said, get up with arrogant slowness.

"There is so much more where that came from." Miriam tasted blood in her teeth. Strangely, it was the first time she had actually tasted her own blood since coming to the Tír. It tasted sweet instead of coppery - almost like old maple syrup.

"Watch out behind you." The man snorted.

"There's nothing behind me except the…" His eyes grew wide. Miram unloaded the biggest Waterfall she could manage at him. He flew backwards into the tunnel that had been cleared and slammed flat against the cold iron barrier. His scream was nightmarish. It was a blend of pain and horror so deep it almost startled Miriam enough to drop her technique, but she held on, pouring as much as she could into pinning him down.

She couldn't have won a physical contest with the man, but with her outrageous amount of fórsa she could break even, for a little while. She was gambling that a little while was all she needed. ✧✧✧ Róise was basically fighting with her eyes closed. A suicidal proposition at best when fighting a Fifth, but she was the beneficiary of Cormac's At What Cost technique, which sapped the luck from his enemy and gave it to her.

Somehow her knives were always in the right position to sneak under Cowal's guard and tag his flesh, and most of the time were in the right place to deflect the burns the tiny suns in each of her opponent's hands inflicted. Still, it was a battle of attrition and she was losing. For every five times she inflicted damage on him, he scored one. Hers barely hurt and his were brutal. Suddenly Cowal spun on hearing the awful sound coming from the end of the barricaded tunnel.

He snarled and abandoned Róise, darting towards Miriam. Róise was not fast enough to stop him. She dropped Banks of Red Roses and fired up Seven Drunken Nights. Róise had learned from Miriam that you could overpower techniques to better affect enemies at a higher level, but this wasn't going from Second to Third. Fourth to Fifth was a much larger gap. Cowal stumbled for a moment, but he was still able to clap a hand on Miriam's shoulder, his palm radiating scorching sunlight.

✧✧✧ For a single instant Miriam felt relief from the pain in her gut. The warmth of the sun infused her with vitality and a sense of well-being. It felt like all the most golden parts of childhood wrapping her in hope and comfort. Then it began to burn. When Miriam had been small she had watched her cattle-herding neighbors apply hot brands to the livestock, permanently claiming their ownership of the animal.

It had seemed so cruel to her then - the red-hot iron, the smoke from burning skin, the panicked whine of the cows. She had cried the rest of the night. Being on the other side of it only deepened her low opinion of the practice. She could feel his fingers sinking into her muscle, scorching down to the bone. Her screams joined the Fire Nature Sidhe's in harmony. Still, she held on to the Waterfall.

The hand tore away from her body as Róise tackled Cowal, sinking her blades deep into his back as she grabbed him around the front.

"I'm here, Miriam!" Sol said, somewhere close. He pressed a sphere to her skin and she felt it break apart - a material fórsa of Róise's Róisín Dubh. Her wounds failed to heal. Cormac couldn't help. He was in no position to coordinate with anyone to activate Luck Armor. At What Cost was the only thing keeping him alive at this point; his enemy far outpowered and outclassed him. He had been driven back towards the stairs - no way to reach either Róise or Miriam. Miriam numbly realized that something had changed.

The Fire Nature man had stopped screaming. She let the Waterfall drop, and with it she nearly did too. Can't fall yet, she told herself. Taking one off the board was useless if she didn't free herself up to help someone else. Steam billowed from the end of the tunnel and as it cleared Miriam could finally see her opponent. He was stuck to the iron, still smoking. Much of his upper body had been flensed.

He looked like diagrams from the anatomy books Miriam had read so frantically that one desperate winter she had taken over the role of doctor in her town. His skeleton was visible in many places. His skin had taken on a dry, papery texture, like old wrinkled parchment. Very clearly dead. Get the next one, she thought.

"Miriam, you have to stop moving," Sol said, panic in his voice." Róisín Dubh isn't working! I don't know what I'm doing wrong!" Miriam used his arm to pull herself upright.

"Worry about it later." With a sad but determined shuffle, she made her way towards Róise and Cowal. She had a handprint burned into her back he needed to answer for.