Once more into the breach (Dungeon diving, pt 4)

You retrace your path to the split in the tunnel and take the upwards-sloping path. Or rather, the initially upwards-sloping path; it actually only rises for a short while before it turns much more steeply downwards, nearly forty or forty five degree. Brighid stops at the top of the slope and warns, "It will be very difficult for us to run back up this way quickly, so if this tunnel is too short, we may not be able to retreat the way we did before. Are you prepared?" You think hard on it, and decide to backtrack to the first cavern and try the other tunnel there first.

It takes you about twenty minutes of backtracking to reach the other tunnel, but you follow it around until this one, too, splits off in two directions. On a hunch, this time you pick to follow the tunnel the right. After more twisting and turning and scraping against natural rock walls, you once again approach a larger cavern with a wider tunnel exit. This time, however, the place doesn't look empty. In fact, three extremely large mites, each very nearly Brighid's size, turn to face you and raise scythed forelimbs. You don't even wait for anything else to happen and launch all seven of your Barrage motes against the one in front. They explode all over its carapace and wash over the other two as all three charge towards Brighid, but even the full barrage, almost 220 damage, doesn't bring it down.

You curse and begin to cast your Flame Jets as Brighid raises her glaive over her head, pointing it vaguely downwards like a scorpion's stinger. As the lead mite scuttles into range, she swiftly stabs forward with her glaive, which bursts into ghostly flames just before the head pierces through the creature's thorax. Brighid instantly pulls the polearm back a few centimeters and then twists her shoulders, chopping down through the side of the thorax and cutting off several of its legs in another burst of flame. The mite collapses to the side, but reaches its wickedly sharp scythed claws towards her, clearly not finished yet. You complete your cast of Flame Jet with each hand and begin to pour fire into the one on the left. Brighid brings her glaive around and buries it point-first into the first mite's head, but killing it costs her as the other two close into range and lash out at her with their claws. The screech of their hardened carapace across the Sunsteel plates of her armor is hideous, and she cries out in pain as one of them finds a gap in her armor. The two mites slam into her but she braces herself and shoves back, sending one of them spinning backwards and pushing the other far enough away from her to allow her to strike it with her glaive as she shortens her grip on the polearm.

Even as you concentrate your fire on the one Brighid pushes away, two more of the large mites clatter into the tunnel. "More company!" You yell to her, but she doesn't have time to acknowledge as she desperately fights off the mite lunging and clawing at her. She is a blur of motion, turning to take strikes on her armored flanks and chest while chopping and thrusting at the mite, using the haft to parry where she can. All four mites are smoldering from Brighid's Fiery Aura, but unlike the juveniles these have enough Health that the damage over time doesn't cook them within a few seconds. Brighid is nearly overwhelmed fighting all four of them and takes dozens of minor hits as she whirls and spins her glaive. You back up and support her attacks with Flame Jets, and after a few seconds she manages to catch one of the mites between herself and the wall of the tunnel and deliver a devastating double rear kick which shatters its thorax in a spray of pale green-white ichor. At the same time, your Burning Barrage comes off cooldown and you begin to chant the words to re-cast it. "Sorry about this!" You call out to her and then send all seven embers streaking towards the most injured-seeming bug.

All seven motes hit essentially simultaneously and Brighid and the other mites vanish in a rush of flames. Your party interface lets you know that you didn't hurt her all that much, but it takes a few seconds for your eyes to recover from the sudden flare of light and allow you to see her still standing and fighting. The bug you unleashed your Barrage on is a blasted, dismembered wreck several meters away. The other two are scorched and singed from the explosion, but the forty or so damage they took wasn't enough to drop either of them. Brighid manages to slice both claws off one of them by feinting and catching it off-guard as it slices at her, but she pays a price as the other huge mite rushes forward from her other side. One of its claws clatters harmlessly off her breastplate, but the other swipes up from below and catches her under the bottom of her chainmail skirt, slicing deeply into the flesh of her lower belly with a spray of bright, red blood. You scream her name in panicked anguish, expecting to see intestines spilling out of the woman you love, but she just wheels in place, slamming her hooves into the mite which just landed what would have been a mortal wound on a human and decapitating the one she just disarmed with a casual swipe of her glaive. Enraged and still panicking, you pour flame into the remaining huge mite until your Flame Jets' duration expire and instantly begin the ritual for Pulse of Life.

Brighid whirls back around and lifts her weapon overhead again -- you can see her wince in pain as the stance strains the wound in her belly -- then stabs downward again and again into the last mite. It attempts to stand up under her onslaught several times, but eventually it begins to twitch and curl up onto itself as normal insects do when they die. You finish the ritual and feel immediately drained as the air around you begins to shimmer with wisps of glowing gold-silver-white energy. Brighid plants the butt of her glaive against the ground and leans against it, collapsing down onto her knees, panting, blood splattered all over the tunnel floor underneath her. You rush up to her, grab a soothebalm leaf from your pouch, crush it in your palms, and slather the sap and paste across her belly, casting Patch Wounds even as you continue to channel Pulse of Life.

"Are you alright? I don't know that I can heal that Wound!" You ask her, desperately willing the healing life energy into her faster.