“Lessie!”
Deni’s anguished scream filled the wide passage as Lesirell flew through the air, crashing hard into the glassy wall. To make matters worse, when the girl thought that she might have just seen her friend die, she lost control of her aura entirely, broadcasting her grief to anyone with the Connection to hear. It was not something Ana needed on top of the deep ache in her stomach, from the blow that had sent Lesirell flying, or the corresponding pain in her upper back and head from where the younger woman had hit the wall. And she especially didn’t need it when she was facing a monster like the one before her.
Where the hell do all these bears keep coming from, she asked herself as she screamed and waved her arms, trying to draw the revenant’s attention. I haven’t seen or heard a single goddamn normal bear here. So where do the possessed and revenant ones keep coming from?
“‘m fine!” Lesirell groaned from where she’d collapsed on the floor. She may not have suffered any injuries, but she was still very much winded, and her fight to get back on her feet was a slow thing. Ana doubted that anyone but she and Rayni could have heard her over Deni’s screaming, which had gone from anguished to murderously furious.
Instinct born of a dozen fights and more with Kaira and Deni in her backline told Ana to move, and move she did. She leapt sideways moments before a streak of heat and blinding light screamed past her, blowing a chunk out of the revenant bear’s side and setting the dry scraps of flesh and hide there ablaze.
Not that it did anything to deter the monster, which seemed to have decided to take its tormentors out in order of size. With Lessa out of the way it now had its sights set on Messy, who thankfully had always had a much more mobile fighting style than their younger companion. That had only been amplified by her new Class, which gave her Abilities with names like Instinct and Reflex and Speed and Precision, which together gave her situational bonuses to Perception, Acuity, Agility, Dexterity, and even Strength. Ana had seen the effect they had on her girlfriend in the fights leading up to this, but at no time had it been more apparent than now.
The revenant bear, which had a Threat Level of Considerable to Ana and would have likely torn the Party to shreds if she hadn’t been there, lunged forward. Its forepaws, huge in themselves and tipped with long, curved claws, swept in from the sides as its jaws opened impossibly wide, coming down to bite the lithe elfin woman in half.
Ana was moving before she’d even processed what was happening, but by the time she brought her hammer down on the revenant’s elbow Messy was already out of harm’s way—for the moment, at least. Rather than throwing herself backward, which wouldn’t have worked with the skeletal bear’s forward momentum, she’d thrown herself forward and to the left, ducking so low her chest was no more than a foot above the floor as her long blade slashed through where sinew and tendon should have connected a living bear’s pectoral muscle to its upper forelimb. After passing outside the monster’s line of movement, she’d then spun and slashed through where the dorsal muscle would have connected, which would have left the limb almost completely useless.
Somewhere in there she’d also quipped something like, “Whoa, we only just met!”
Ana had mixed feelings about that. Yes, Messy’s most powerful Ability so far, Flair and Style, gave her significant temporary bonuses to both Skills and Attributes that scaled with how successfully she used her Social Skills in combat, specifically Acting, Charm, Deception, and Intimidation. And Ana certainly knew how effective it was to put your opponent off their game in a fight. But was it really necessary to taunt an undead bear?
She shoved that thought to the back of her mind. It wasn’t like Messy could help it—the Ability made her want to use it the same way that Ana’s Abilities made her protective of everyone in her Party. And they were still in the middle of re-killing the aforementioned undead bear, which wasn’t exactly the time to reflect on the effect of the System on people’s behavior.
Messy’s two quick slashes, precise as they were, unfortunately had little effect on a creature that didn’t subscribe to normal biomechanics. Its joints moved perfectly without muscle or tendons, and all her blade did was to expose the bone around the bear’s shoulder. Ana’s hammer, though, struck with explosive force. Splintered bone flew as the revenant’s elbow shattered entirely under the force of her blow, leaving its limb truncated and making it turn its attention from Messy to Ana.
Messy and Ana, though, weren’t the only people in the fight. Perri, Rayni, and Jisha had all backed off warily for a few seconds after the sudden paw swipe that sent Lessa flying, but when the bear lunged forward unsteadily toward Ana, they went back into action. Perri hacked two-handed at the remaining forelimb with his falchion. Jisha landed a heavy blow to one of its hind legs with her halberd, sweeping sideways and really putting her hips into the strike. And Rayni, taking a page from Ana’s book, leapt onto the monster’s back and started hacking away at its hips with her axe, screaming wordlessly as every blow chipped away at the bone there.
In the end, beyond that one strike, Ana barely had to do anything. She successfully fought down her impulse to leap onto the revenant and try to wrench its head off, and instead kept its attention by staying close and smacking it in the face a few times while pushing as much mana as she could into her Ironskin. Otherwise, she let the others do the work of wearing it down, destroying one limb after another until it could only barely move. Lesirell got her revenge by striking off the last leg right above the knee, and when Deni finally finished it off, taking the risk of closing in to deliver a Thunder Tap that blasted half its skull off, it was pretty much a formality. The thing lurched and snapped its jaws at her, but she timed her strike well, and Ana didn’t have to find out what happened if one of her wards was supposed to lose a hand.
Almost as soon as the notification came, Lesirell stood next to Ana, looking down sheepishly. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I messed up again.”
Ana reached up to lay her hand on the much taller young woman’s shoulder and rejected that claim entirely. “You really didn’t. From what I could see you did everything right, to the best of your ability.”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t fast enough. It surprised me.”
Ana shook her head. “Sure, but that’s not your fault,” she said, as the rest of the Party gathered around the two of them. “Sometimes your opponent will be faster than you, or stronger, or tougher, or something else. You didn’t mess up. You did everything like you’d practiced, the way that worked in, what, nine fights today? The thing took you by surprise. It took us all by surprise. Any failure is shared by all of us. You just happened to be the one who took the hit.”
“But you’re the one who suffered for it!” Lesirell insisted.
“And I’m glad I did. Because if I hadn’t you’d be going home on a stretcher, if at all.”
The tall young woman still didn’t seem convinced.
“Listen,” Ana said. “No, really, look me in the eyes and listen. Do you know about how I came here?”
Lesirell had been momentarily stunned after looking Ana in the eyes, as most people were, but when she recovered she mumbled, “You’re, uh… you’re kind of an Accidental, but not really, right? Deni told me. You were with some kid who got summoned, and you kind of just came along.”
Ana nodded. “Right. That kid, Nic, he was maybe a bit older than you, and he wasn’t good for much, but there was a quote he liked to repeat. It was from a… call it a theater play, I guess. Closest thing you have here. It’s something you need to hear and accept, I think. Are you listening?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. I want you to really hear this, and think about it, because it’s one of the few things that kid ever told me that actually improved my life in some way. Here it is: ‘It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That’s not a weakness. That’s life.’”
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The chamber fell silent as six people pondered the wisdom of a fictional starship captain.
“So…” Lessa said slowly, “you’re saying that sometimes my opponent will be better than me, or better prepared, or just luckier. And that’s not my fault.”
Ana nodded. “Sometimes you’ll fail. As a Delver, those failures can be catastrophic. That’s the risk you take. I’m here specifically to make the risk of that happening lower. Remember what I told you after the deer?”
Lessa’s face darkened with embarrassment as she recalled the last time she got Ana hurt beyond a scrape. “To learn from it?”
“Right. That time you actually made a mistake. You let your guard down and took your attention from an opponent you thought was down. This time there’s no mistake to learn from, but you’re still in a position to learn from something that should, by all rights, have killed you. So think about what happened, and what you can learn from it, and promise me that you’ll actually work on what you come up with.”
“Speed,” Lesirell said instantly. “I need to work on how quickly I can react to things. Perception, Acuity, Agility, and just plain old practice.”
Ana grinned. “You already thought about that, didn’t you?”
“The whole damn fight, since I got to my feet,” Lessa admitted. “‘If only I’d been a little faster, if only I’d seen it turn fast enough,’ that kinda thing.”
“Good,” Ana said, then waited expectantly. “Well?” she said when Lessa didn’t speak.
“Oh! Um, I promise that I’ll work on it.”
Ana patted the younger woman’s shoulders firmly. “Good. I’ll expect you to hold to that. Now!” She looked around the group. Everyone was waiting for her to tell them what would happen next. “I believe we just cleared this Delve. Don’t we have Crystals to harvest?”
The younger members of the Party exploded into action, their excitement wiping any thought of learning from failures from their minds. As they made sure that they had all their equipment and that they were ready for the Delve to collapse, Ana checked her notifications. To her satisfaction, she had two of them, not just the one she’d expected:
“Thank you, Captain Xavier,” Ana muttered with a smile. It had been a while since she gained a Level in that Skill, even though she had pretty much daily martial arts classes. It would have been nice to get a Level for that rather than for teaching life lessons using something she’d cribbed from a TV-show; with no validation from the System, she’d been getting a little self-conscious about her ability as a teacher. But she’d take it. A Minor Crystal put her 200 Experience Points closer to her goal, after all.
She had 15,000 Points worth in Storage now. Only 5,000 to go. And they hadn’t even gathered their prize for clearing the Delve yet.
Ana frowned slightly when she realized that the Peak Crystal was only a Greater.
It was like Messy read Ana’s mind. “Now, Angel, remember what we talked about,” she murmured, resting her chin on Ana’s shoulder.
“I know,” Ana sighed. “It’s good, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Angel. Yes it is.”
Messy and Kaira had both explained to Ana how spoiled she’d been. A Delve of Greater Tier was considered a lucky find in this Splinter, with its low level of ambient mana; the Supreme from Ana’s first Delve was very rare, and no one expected to see another Ascendant, like the first Trap Delve, in a long, long time, if ever. Getting a Greater with a Factor of 3—as determined by how the number of Crystals increased for each step down from the Peak—was a good omen for their outing.
Ana still wished it had been a Supreme. She was so close to Level 20 now, and her take from a Greater Factor 3 Delve wasn’t going to take her there.
“Next one,” Messy promised, wrapping her arms around Ana from behind and rocking her side-to-side, as though Ana were a disappointed child. “The next Delve will get you there. And how amazing will that be? Level 20 in a little over three months!”
“I suppose,” Ana said, giving in and rubbing her cheek lightly against Messy’s as she let herself be cheered up.
The honor of taking the Peak fell to Deni, who was tied with Messy for lowest Level and with Jisha for youngest Party Member. She did so with great ceremony, not just making the Crystal vanish into her Storage but taking it in her hands, then raising it in her hands and crying out, “Behold!” as the mana swirled chaotically around them. The other four in the Party that she’d recently Delved with looked on with bemusement, while Ana and Messy had no idea what was going on.
“Every time,” Perrion muttered when he saw Ana and Messy’s perplexed looks. “She does this every time.”
Then the Delve collapsed as expected, and they all became aware of something they’d overlooked. And it wasn’t the way half of them suddenly stood in calf-deep water, having dropped into the stream the rift had hung above.
“Well, shit,” Jisha said. “I can’t see anything.”
They’d been in that Delve all day. They’d had eleven separate fights, counting the entrance and the Crystal Chamber, with rests in between. Every one of them had taken at least one nap, and time had gotten away from them.
Without them noticing, separate as they were from the Splinter at large, night had fallen. The moon was high, and the stars were bright, and except for Rayni and Perrion they couldn’t see a thing among the dense trees.
“See, Lessie?” Ana said. “This is messing up. Completely avoidable.”
What could they do but laugh?
It wasn’t a big problem, in the end. Deni’s little trick of creating and holding a ball of plasma in her palm wasn’t something she could do for long, but she could do it for long enough that everyone else could get out some of the torches that any prepared Delver carried. It also served to light those same torches to work by. With little wind and no real risk of rain they settled for a simple camp; just a dry, flat patch of ground where they could make a fire and lay out their bedrolls.
“Hey, Mess, babe?” Ana whispered as they lay close under their furs, looking up at the stars with the fire crackling and Perrion sitting watch just a few feet away.
“Yeah, Angel?” Messy whispered back.
“That was one hell of a manoeuvre with the bear. When you ducked under its paws the way you did. Like, duck-cut-spin-cut. Almost like you were dancing rather than fighting.”
“I might as well have been for all the good it did,” Messy said, laughing softly. “Did you enjoy watching me?”
Ana rolled over on her side, laying her head on Messy’s shoulder. “It’s always nice to appreciate something beautiful.”
“Then I’m not too bothered about how little that dance actually did,” Messy said with a happy little chuckle, sliding her arm under Ana’s shoulders and pulling her close. “You know, I’ve had all these things I imagined or even practiced doing, but I never had the Attributes or the confidence to pull them off. But now I finally feel like I can! And not just the new Class, though that helps enormously, but with you there… it’s like you keep saying. I feel like I can take chances, you know?”
“You’re not worried about me getting hurt?” Ana asked.
“I am,” Messy admitted. “But I know how tough you are, and I know that you don’t want me holding back. Am I right?”
“Completely.”
“So I won’t. I’m going to try things, and take those chances, and push myself to get better. Knowing that you enjoy watching me only makes me more excited.”
“Somehow, I never doubted that.”
The next morning they divided up the Crystals. The average worked out to just over 2,660 Points worth of Crystals per person, with the normal variance where someone who took a lot of higher Tier Crystals, which sold for more silver, ended up with a lower Experience Point total.
Ana just wanted as much Experience as possible and ended up with 2,800 Points’ worth: 8 each of the Minor, Lesser, and Least Growth Crystals. That left her 2,200 Points short of Level 20 and giddy with excitement. And it got better.
“I’ve got enough for Level 11,” Messy said to the group at large. “Do you think I should do it?”
“So do I!” Deni exclaimed. With her having struck so many of the killing blows, the Delve had been very profitable for her.
“I have for Level 12,” Jisha remarked carefully, and all eyes went to Lessa and Perri, who’d been whispering heatedly with each other.
The two came to some silent agreement and turned to meet the others’ stares. “We,” Lesirell said with an air of great importance, “have just agreed to both spend the Crystals for Level 14.”
All five who had spoken now turned to stare silently at Rayni, who flushed dark under their scrutiny. “Well…” she said. “I, ah… I can afford Level 16 if I spend everything except that Greater I just took. I can. It’s just… the money, you know? I—”
“All in favor of giving Ray a bigger cut of the next Delve if she Levels now, say aye!” Deni commanded.
“Aye!” Messy, Jisha, Lessa, and Perri all chorused, Jisha only a fraction of a second late.
Ana couldn’t help herself. “Aye!” she laughed. “And before anyone asks, I’m short for my Level, and I want to keep my highest Crystal if I can. But with luck I’ll get mine after the next Delve.”
“The ayes have it!” Deni declared. “Ray?”
“I…” Rayni looked around the group, half stunned, then grinned. “Well fuck it, who am I to deny the will of the Party? Level 16, here I come, I guess!”
It was a very high-spirited Party that left the site of their camp, continuing dawnward to search for their next Delve.
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