Guardian Angel Chapter 21 (Patreon)

You know, sometimes I regret dropping Nicola, but I'm happy with where this is going, and it would look very different if I still had a second MC running around.

Oh, and this is a long one, just over 4k words. Enjoy!

//AB

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Ana didn’t get any kind of harvesting Skill in that first Delve, but she did learn what things to look for and how to slowly and laboriously extract them. Compared to her clumsy attempts Rayni’s work looked effortless, and some of the others, especially Mestendi, were clearly also quite skilled at the task. Still, she did get some impressed looks for how well she did as a beginner, doubtlessly a combination of her high Dexterity and Perception Attributes. The problem was not in the execution, but in knowing what to look for and how to get it out in one piece.

Rayni kept giving her odd looks as they harvested, but it was to be expected. First she’d been told of Ana’s performance at the entrance which must have made her feel vindicated, as to her assumption that Ana had a hidden Class. But then she’d seen the party Ability that was now affecting her. Based on the Ability’s name and effect, Ana could only guess that Rayni must be doubting herself. That, of course, suited Ana just fine. Let her wonder.

Once they were done collecting what Rayni thought was worth the effort, they gathered up, brought in Dilmik and Sendra, who’d been standing sentry on the other side of the rift, and moved on. There were three twisting passages going off the chamber they were in at seemingly random angles, but when Deni brought up her concern of getting lost Kaira clearly wasn’t worried.

“We’re good,” Kaira said flippantly. “We’ve got food in case we need it, but a low-mana area like this? The Delve won’t be too big. We’ll check around until we find the core – that’s where the Crystals are – and then we’ll do a final sweep before we grab them. With any luck we’ll have time to find and clear a second Delve before we’ve got to head back.”

And she was right. They went down one passage, killed two demons by overwhelming them, and found that it was a dead end. They didn’t bother harvesting; that had been mostly something to do while everyone recovered, and between Ana’s party Ability and the ease with which they’d destroyed the two creatures, no one needed to. A second passage split into two, and following the right hand path, killing a demon on the way, took them back to the first chamber. That didn’t make sense. It should have led them farther from the entrance, not closer, but the experienced women insisted that this was normal, and that passages might connect in impossible ways. You just had to map each Delve without preconceived notions like cardinal directions, or occasionally up and down, being constants.

MC Escher bullshit aside, that left only one way to go.

They heard demons in the distance before they found the final chamber. Rayni, scouting ahead, confirmed that this was indeed it, and that it contained, as she put it, “two giant, scary bastards and a goddamn shit ton of crystals!”

“Count your blessings, ladies,” Kaira said, her smile almost feral. “You’re getting those crystals, one way or another. But I’m not doing the work for you unless you’re in real trouble, right? So, we’ve got two strong enemies, right, Rayni?”

“They both made my Danger Sense want to piss itself, yeah,” the Huntress replied.

“So, you know what to do. Anyone?”

“Focus fire,” Sendra said, and Kaira pointed to her with a snap of her fingers.

“Good woman! Focus. Fire! Ana and Messy, I want the two of you to hold off whichever one looks nastier. I’ll leave the choice to you. The rest of you pour everything you’ve got into the other one until it’s properly dead, and then you all finish the job together. Rayni and Dilmik, range or melee, it’s your call. And if I hear anyone–” Kaira’s face turned dead serious, “–and I mean anyone call my name, I will cut loose, alright? That means I’ll probably steal your Crystals for the fight, but it’s better than someone getting seriously hurt or worse. All good?”

“All good,” Ana said, as her companions nodded or said some variation of the same.

“Alright, then get your butts in there and earn some Crystals!”

With that the group shrugged off their packs, formed up, and moved in.

Up ahead the passage opened into a chamber. A raised mound in the centre was festooned with oddly translucent crystals, like larger versions of the Shard that Touanne had shown Ana. They were spread oddly regularly around the mound, with the smallest crystals ringing the bottom and the size increasing as they got higher and fewer towards the peak, the mount being topped by a particularly large Crystal that looked to be the size of Ana’s forearm. In the odd, sourceless light of the Delve the Crystals looked almost like silver line drawings against the black, glassy background.

And there were indeed a lot of them. The mound was covered in Crystals of different sizes and shapes, and Ana eagerly imagined how close her share of those Crystals would get her to her next level, and her next Attribute boost. Almost as eagerly as she eyed the two monsters basking in the presence of the Crystals, and the knowledge that in a moment she would be fighting for her life and, more importantly, get a full 5 point boost to all of her stats. The anticipation of that rush was almost as good as the rush itself!

That was probably not a good reason to go into life-or-death situations, she thought, but she shoved the insight away. No time for self-doubt. They were only seconds away from combat, after all.

“Right one?” Mestendi asked as they stalked forward.

“Right one,” Ana agreed, and Petra to their side nodded. The demons had noticed them now, but seemed reluctant to leave the Crystals. The one on the right definitely looked like the nastier of the two, and when Ana focused on them the labels agreed. The ragged thing on the left was merely a Revenant Elk (Threat: Considerable), while their chosen opponent was a Possessed Black Bear (Threat: Lethal). With Considerable being the previous highest threat Ana had seen, this promised to be their toughest fight yet, and Ana wanted it.

And then they were there, too close for the demons to ignore, and the rush that hit Ana, telling her that she was officially fighting to defend… someone, set her mind on fire. With a whoop she surged forward. The bloated bear reared up with a bubbling moan, ready to smash her into the ground, but it was so slow! She moved easily past it, crossing under its arms and slashing with her sword, first up at its armpit, then down at its knee. The cuts weren’t deep, despite the force she put behind them, but they got its attention. It twisted to follow her, slashing with its claws, but she danced back and deflected a near-hit on her shield then stepped in again, her sword flashing out to cut it right across the nose.

While Ana and Mestendi engaged the bear demon Petra had stepped in diagonally between the revenant, the duo and the back line, effectively preventing the creature from moving on either group. It bit and slashed with its horns at the stout woman, but she stood firm, taking the hits on her shield rather than dodging. As Ana looked quickly past her own foe she saw two arrows and a blazing marble come sailing in towards the elk. The arrows did little damage despite their broadheads, but the marble took it in the right hip, blowing a small crater in it and causing that leg to fold for a moment at the same time as ice coated the ground beneath it. It crashed to the ground, which Petra and her hammer took immediate advantage of, smashing into the deformed skull of the thing.

Mestendi, on her part, had exploited the bear’s focus on Ana. Normally a graceful and dexterous fighter, now she slashed furiously with her sword at the demon’s back limbs, trying to get through the thick, tough hide to the muscle and tendons below. That was how you destroyed a foe much stronger than you, and which did not feel pain: you wore it down, little by little, until finishing it off was only a formality.

Unfortunately, while she had the Skill and Dexterity to wield her sword effectively against lesser demons, the bear was simply too tough. And while it was focused on Ana, that didn’t mean that it ignored the elfin woman savaging its hindquarters. Even as Ana dodged another swipe from its claws, its back leg kicked out, catching Mestendi with her sword raised and sending her tumbling back towards Petra and the elk. Down, hurt, but not injured, Ana thought. She wasn’t sure how she knew that, but chalked it up to her boosted Perception and Acuity.

The elk was back on its feet. It had taken hits from several more arrows and another blast from Deni. The flesh of its face was sloughing off and its skull was cracked from Petra’s hammer, but it was back on its feet and fighting. And when Messy went down, it saw easier prey than the woman in front of it.

Ana saw it move towards Messy, and then she was moving herself. The bear was between her and the downed woman. The elk swiped at Petra with its horns, forcing her to block and take a step to the side, and then it was moving towards Messy. Ana leapt, superhuman strength carrying her up and onto the bear’s back, where she drove her sword in deep between its shoulder blades for balance. The elk reared up and smashed its hooves down, missing Messy by inches as she just barely recovered her wits and rolled.

“Switch targets! Switch targets!” Ana roared, and then she leapt again, abandoning her sword and crossing the dozen feet between the bear and the elk easily despite her foot slipping on the bear’s slick hide. Her mind was working so fast that she had time to notice Petra’s startled expression as the woman’s shield came down.

The elk rose again, and Ana smashed into its side.

Despite the force of her leap, Ana did not carry a whole lot of momentum. She was not a large woman, and even with the added weight of her equipment she barely moved the massive demonic creature, but she did catch its attention very effectively as her free left hand grabbed onto its left antler.

Ana was not a large woman. She didn’t have much weight to put behind a punch. To do real damage she needed leverage, and now she had it.

Currently, while fighting to defend herself or someone in her party, she had 28 Strength. She put every single ounce of that behind her blows as she began smashing her buckler into the thing’s head and neck. The sounds of Petra and the others engaging the other demon faded behind the wet, crunching thluks of metal meeting foetid flesh and twisted bone. The elk reared up, pulling Ana off the ground entirely, but she held on and kept smashing. It brought its head down, trying to stomp Messy again, but she had rolled out of the way and was retrieving her dropped sword. Ana…

Ana flopped out like a piece of wet laundry when the elk reared back. She kept smashing, and the thing’s right antler broke off with a wet, sickening crack, but when it threw itself down it brought its head all the way down. And it was strong enough, and quick enough, that Ana didn’t have time to do much of anything to soften the impact. She belly flopped hard into the floor, the air exploding out of her as she lost her grip on both the antler and her shield, bouncing a foot into the air before coming back down.

Stunned, she tried to rise, to roll, to move, but the thing reared up and smashed its hooves into her back like twin hammers. Her armour held, but damn, did it hurt!

Although… she should be dead after two blows like that. Ana knew that she should be dead, and instead she was… annoyed. Her lip was busted, and she was probably a walking bruise, but between the armour and her Vitality she could shrug off a blow that might have killed any of the others.

The others. She glanced right, and saw Petra and Messy in a desperate fight to keep the bear back from the back liners. But they were holding. Hold a little longer, she willed, and got her hands under her.

Looking up, she saw the elk's head descend, jaw horribly open, and twisted teeth snapped at her as she shoved herself to the side. It reared, again, and she was in a terrible position to dodge. She steeled herself to just take the hit, but it never came. The sound of air tearing preceded a nearly solid sphere of clear water which crashed into the elk’s chest as it raised itself, knocking it clean off its feet and into a heap on the still icy ground.

Ana wasted no time. Her sword was still lodged in the bear, and her shield was on the ground somewhere, but she had her fists, her feet, and her daggers. Drawing one of the long knives she threw herself onto the demon’s back as it struggled. While her legs locked under its ribcage, squeezing hard, her left hand found purchase on its head. Only this time she ignored the remaining antler, her middle and ring fingers hooking into the left eye socket as she heaved and pressed with her thumb against the thing’s ear. With a squelching crack it broke through, leaving her with an unbreakable grip.

The thing roared. It was a horrible sound, a wet, twisted mockery of an elk’s bugle. It tried to shake its head, but Ana was strong. With her legs locked around its chest and her hand controlling its head, it could barely move its neck.

And then Ana began to cut. Or, more accurately, to stab, tear, and gouge at the horrid thing’s putrid neck for all she was worth, using an eight inch blade to slowly, brutally work her way through the skin, muscle, and tendons. Black, clotted blood splattered onto the ground, spattering everywhere as the thing staggered and shook, trying to dislodge the furious woman on its back. Finally, her work done, with the head hanging on only by the spine and the creature somehow still moving, Ana drove her dagger between two of the things vertebrae, took a firm grip on the skull with her right hand as well, and heaved and twisted until there was a crunch and the spine gave. As its head came off in Ana’s hands, the elk demon finally crashed to the floor one last time, with Ana riding it down.

She hit the floor and stumbled to her feet, feeling spent and unsteady. But she had no time to catch her breath. Petra and Messy were still up, but they were both hurt and moving sluggishly. But then, so was the demon. It hadn’t been able to get past the two melee fighters, but while both Petra’s hammer and Messy’s sword had done very visible damage, they were not the main source for it. Arrows sprouted from every part of the creature, focusing on the joints, slowing it, and it was pockmarked with charred and weeping craters and thin, bleeding slashes. Those confused Ana for a moment, until she saw Sendra raise her hand, twist, and launch a razor thin whip of water at the bear as it reared up, opening another gash across its neck from which blood began to gush almost instantly.

Part of her knew that they probably didn’t need her. The fight was practically over. She could rest. And yet she moved. Her Party was fighting. They were in danger, and she could not let them get hurt if she could help it. And so she moved. Collecting her shield on the way, she took her place between Petra and Messy, screaming, waving her shield, and darting forward with her dagger when the opportunity presented itself.

Then, a mistake.

Deni, drunk on success and anticipating victory, stepped forward, screaming, “An opening! Give me an opening!” Ana looked back, and saw her coming closer and closer, lightning arcing between her raised hands and lips moving silently as she prepared some powerful spell.

Demons were drawn to mana. And here was a small, soft creature, brimming with the stuff and calling more and more in.

The enraged thing charged. Heedless of the hits it took from the three front liners it charged towards the young would-be Evoker, forcing them aside by its sheer mass.

Ana tried to grab on. Instead she was knocked back, tumbling ass-over-head and landing by Deni’s feet. Looking up she shared a brief look with Deni as the girl’s eyes widened, the excitement replaced with helpless fear as she realised what was about to happen. She began to backpedal, but it was too late for her to run. The demon was too fast, and Deni had been focused on her casting, moving forward to get a better angle. As Ana began to turn she saw the others reacting. Kaira, beginning to cast her own spell – it would doubtlessly obliterate the beast, but by the time she finished the damage would be done. Sendra, absolutely focused. Dilmik, fumbling an arrow in her shock. And Rayni, her bow on the floor, moving forward, snarling with a hatchet raised as though it would do any good against the monster.

Ana twisted, but she wasn’t fast enough. She watched impotently as the bear lumbered past her, one clawed foot stepping on her to add insult to impending tragedy as its head came down, jaws closing over Deni’s shoulder and half way down her back.

And Ana didn’t move. She couldn’t. But she acted.

She couldn’t let Deni get hurt. Not as long as she herself lived. The demon’s jaws closed on Deni. The girl shrieked, in fear but not in pain. A bolt of incandescent white flashed past her, singeing her skin and curling her hair a split second before it impacted the demon and caused its chest to explode out and to the side in a shower of steaming gore.

And Ana, blind with agony as she felt every jagged tooth tear into her flesh, screamed.

*****

At the edge of her consciousness, Ana heard singing. It was low and melodic, beautiful, in a language she didn’t know. She groaned with remembered pain, and the singing stopped. “There, now,” the voice said instead. “Hush. Drink this.”

She felt something against her lips, hard and smooth, then a thick, cool liquid with a sweet taste touched her tongue. As soon as she responded the trickle of liquid sped up, and she gulped it down gratefully. “Good,” the voice said. “A little more. There.”

She was lying down on a hard surface, but there was something soft under her head. She tried to move but the right side of her torso was a mass of pain from the shoulder to the centre of her sternum. The pain made her groan again, and she felt a hand stroke her hair. “Hush, now,” the voice said, and the singing resumed.

*****

The next time Ana woke up she felt much better. Her eyes opened, staring into infinity, confusing her until she remembered the strange edges of the Delve. She was still lying down, still with her head on something soft.

“Ana?” said a gentle voice, and a head full of braids filled her vision, two amber eyes lined with black drawing her attention. “Hey, Knife Girl. There you are. Welcome back.”

“Messy?” Ana said softly, her throat feeling dry. “How long?”

“About an hour and a half. You got hurt quite severely, and the potions take some time to work.”

Ana looked down at herself. Her armour had been removed, and her shirt was stained with blood. A lot of blood. “What happened?”

“Well,” the elfin woman said with a crooked smile, “first you saved my life again, I think. And after that, well, we’d all like to know what happened after that.”

“Deni?” Ana said urgently. “She got bit. Is she…?” But she already knew, somehow.

“I’m fine,” Deni’s voice said, and her face joined Mestendi’s above Ana. “Though I… I have no idea how. We, uh… we were hoping you might tell us what happened. That you might know.”

Ana blinked, then closed her eyes. She was tired. She wished she was fighting something; she had so much energy and could think so much more clearly when she was fighting. Still, she tried to remember the sequence of events. She’d been knocked down, she remembered that. The big bear demon had gone all out to get to Deni, and the thing had driven its head into her gut, knocking her back and flat on her ass right by… Right! Deni had been walking up! She’d been preparing some big spell, and that was when the demon charged! And Ana had ended up by Deni’s feet. Then the thing had stepped on her, which had been painful, yeah, but it was when the demon’s jaws closed on Deni that…

It had felt like Ana herself had been the one who’d been bit.

But that was… That sounded familiar, but wrong. Because she had an Ability, the titular ability of her Class, but it wasn’t supposed to… was it?

She quickly opened her Summary and brought up the Ability’s description.

[Ability, Guardian Angel: While within 5 feet of an object of devotion you can absorb any harm meant for them, including magical or physical attacks or poison. While fighting to defend an object of devotion or a member of your Party, the base value of each attribute counts as 5 points higher. All values increase with class level.]

But that wasn’t right, was it? It didn’t use to say anything about a Party when she’d read it before, had it? And why did the text in the part about the Party look different? Anyway, the text said ‘you can,’ not that it happened automatically. Unless…

Ana pulled up the description of her Ability, Devotion, and there it was. In the middle of the description there was a line, complete with the different-looking text:

[...] You cannot willingly allow your objects of devotion or members of your Party to come to harm.]

Danger Sense had the same addition about members of her Party, as well.

Something had happened. She didn’t know what, but something had changed her abilities to include members of her Party. It was the only explanation she could think of. And now that she knew, if she focused, she could feel the others around her, all of them healthy and rested.

She lay back, her head in Messy’s lap, her mind racing. The elfin woman leaned back and began to sing softly again, her fingertips gently stroking the sides of Ana’s head. It was nice. Soothing. And she knew what had happened, now. She’d absorbed a hit meant for Deni, which would have likely killed the girl outright. Ana, with her massive Vitality, had been able to take it. It had just been so excruciatingly painful that she’d passed out, probably when combat ended and her bonuses went away.

And anyone with more than half a brain would be able to put the pieces together, she was sure of it. A clerk like Deni coming away unscathed while Ana screamed in pain on the ground was not something they’d be able to overlook.

So, she came to a decision. And it would be better to do it now, though she regretted interrupting Messy. The singing and the gentle stroking were quite pleasant.

She opened her eyes. Deni was gone. “Messy,” she said reluctantly. “Could you gather the others? There’s something I need to tell you guys.”