Her veins burned as her blood turned to ash, the skin around them blackening and cracking with the heat. The pain was excruciating as she watched a rust-red blade start to grow out of the previously empty hilt. She didn’t know what the relic did, but it had to be powerful for it to be hidden away like this, so she probably had a far better chance with it in her hands than if she kept running. Her pursers’ blood would hopefully appease the forgotten god she had just stolen from, and she hoped hers would understand her desperation.

Time meant little to her at the moment, the pain still blinding, so she measured her progress by how long the sword was. By the time it was as long as her forearm, she heard shouting. By the time she heard footsteps, a sword longer than her arm had grown, tip sharp and sides serrated. Her entire left arm and shoulder were black and burning, but she didn’t have time to focus on that. Sweat dripping from her brow from the heat and pain, she forced herself to move behind the door. The builders of this room either had too much time or were far too paranoid for their own good. Pillars crowded the room, breaking up light and rendering it moot quickly, and alcoves built into the walls and the pillars themselves made for excellent hiding places. The door itself wasn’t much better. It was staggeringly too large for the room. To see her, the men would have to go to almost the center of the room, move around an additional pillar, and hope to notice the alcove tucked as close to the door as the builders could presumably get it. In short, she had the time to plan her moves once the first one appeared before she had to fight for her life.

By this point in her quest, fighting for her life wasn’t an unusual position for her, but it was the first time she’d do it with a sword. The only reason she even knew how to hold the thing was because of her mother.

Lantern light was now visible under the doorway, almost blinding in its intensity, as the first person arrived at the room. She could hear him shout in a language she didn’t know, telling his friends he had found a room. She heard him mutter to himself about how dark the room was, watching the edge of the pillar for the second he rounded it. His friends were far behind him, she could hear them arguing about going down a staircase a hallway over. If she could kill him quickly, she could leave before the others arrived. His footsteps echoed like cannonfire, but she held still, eyes closed to avoid the blinding lantern light.

_There_

His footsteps rounded the pillar, and she darted forward, covering the ground between them faster than she thought possible. He screamed, or maybe she did, and then he was dead. As soon as she opened her eyes, she had to slam them shut again from the pain, blindly stomping out until she hit glass and broke the lantern. When the spots stopped dancing in her vision, she looked down at the corpse in front of her. The blade had sliced clear through his torso, bisecting him. It was over, and she had to grab onto the gouge in the pillar next to her for balance. She had seen plenty of bodies, but none this close, not so quickly she had killed them. The blood had never been fresh before.

_It didn’t matter_. She had to leave. The men in the hallway over had heard and were coming toward her. She could hear them draw their swords and knew at least one of them was silver. She wouldn’t last long against that one, not while she was still so weak. _It wouldn’t be hard to pick them off_. She could get out of this situation slowly if she needed to, though.

Some part of her mind piped up, scared and confused about what was happening, but the men were getting closer and she could feel their lantern light already. Her sword trailed through the bloody mess on the floor and she scrambled out of the room, taking off deeper into the temple. _It was familiar ground, a home turf advantage_. Her god would understand. If she were to continue her quest, her pursuers needed to be dead and she couldn’t kill them all at once. _They needed to die_. A bit more sacrilege would be nothing but a passing memory once her quest was finished.

Over the course of 6 days - she could feel the sun rising and setting - she picked off the rest of her pursuers. They got antsy to leave after their fifth death, but she ensured they had no escape routs. _No loose ends_. By the last day, there was only the one with the silver and two others left. _Kill the extras first_. A much more manageable battle. As expected, the man with the silver was the hardest to beat, but even he only managed to land a single hit, one her sword repaired easily enough. She wondered what her mother would think about her sudden swordsmanship. She hoped she would be proud.

On a whim, she picked up the silver sword. It was heavier than her, and her sword clearly didn’t like it, but it was a good weight. _Don’t let it touch me_. It was a short sword too, which would be useful if she was ever in a room too small for hers to comfortably fit. _It didn’t matter_. Maybe she could even dual wield! Both swords worked fine as one handed weapons, and those in her town who could dual wield were always touted as been especially skilled. _That is unneeded_. So, against the urging of her sword, she collected the dead man’s scabbard and fit it to her waist. She let her sword drag through the man’s blood as she walked away.

Leaving the temple under the cover of night, she began making her way south once again. At the pace she was going, she could reach her destination in a week. Three days if she ran when the sun was up too, but she would reserve that for once she was further away. _The light would be blinding, a major disadvantage_. If any more of those men were around, she didn’t particularly want to approach them now that she didn’t had the advantage of the temple’s confusing layout. Maybe once she learned to dual wield and had finished her quest she could return to tie up loose ends. _What was the quest again?_