"I'm almost disappointed, to be honest," Tor said as they all looked down the passage to the Crystal chamber of their new Trap Delve. "No wall or anything."

"Rush job," Omda suggested.

"Maybe," Ana said. "The goddess didn't warn me about anything being wrong with this place when I asked."

Kaira snorted. "Definitely a rush job. None of us worship the Sentinel, so he can't see us, right? He must have been able to tell when we entered, somehow, and fucked with it!"

"No matter how he did it, we're almost out," Rayni said. "It's a rougher Crystal chamber than normal, but we'll just have to get it over with. Standard approach?"

"Standard," Kaira confirmed. Ana may have been the one to form the Party, but in all things tactical, Kaira was the one with experience. "And yeah, that's a nasty Chamber, but we've got a trump card, right?" she said, clapping Ana on the shoulder.

Kaira explained what "standard approach" meant, first to Ana and then to Jisha. "It's simple, really. We've got three demons in there, all of them Levels 18 to 21, so it could be a rough fight. But demons are thick as shit, right? And sometimes, quite a lot of the time, really, they'll be so in love with the Crystals in there that they won't notice the bastard next to them getting shot at. So we'll go as close as we have to and no closer, and I'll let loose with the strongest Shaping I can, without making myself useless for the rest of the fight. We shouldn't expect that to kill my target, but if we're lucky it'll be crippled. And if we're really lucky, only my target or maybe one of the other two will wake from their stupor to come after me. Then we won't have to deal with all of them at once. If they all come… normally we'd fall back and try to separate them, but with one of those barriers a hundred yards back, that's not an option. We'll just have to focus on one, then Om and Ray go into melee and hopefully you all can keep the other two from eating me."

To Ana she added, in a voice low enough that Omda or Rayni with their high Perceptions shouldn't be able to hear her, "This is going to be a shit-show. I'm going to burn myself out at some point, because I don't see all of us getting out alive if I don't. Don't you hold back either, alright? Whatever I've told you about 'no heroics,' forget it for now. If ever there was a time to pull some crazy high-risk, high-reward stunt, this is it."

For Kaira to be condoning risky behavior drove home the seriousness of the situation to Ana. The themion woman was hot-tempered, and her mood could swing wildly, but she was a careful, considerate leader. Ana understood the reasoning, though. The three demons they faced had high Threat Levels to everyone but herself. They'd been powerful creatures even before being possessed — a bear, a massive, shaggy wolf, and a wolverine. Now they were grotesquely grown and swollen, their fur falling out in clumps where weeping sores had formed. Their jaws were distended and riddled with surplus teeth, their bodies covered in spikes and plates of bone. The wolverine had a whole extra set of legs, which looked fully functional and carried a ludicrous number of curving claws, sprouting from in front of its hips. It would have been a risky fight for a Party like theirs at the best of times.

These weren't the best of times. The Delve had been deep, the passages long and winding and branching frequently. Those passages weren't empty, either; the Party had killed five more demons as they searched for the Crystal chamber, and they'd had to use a couple of healing potions as Ana accumulated cuts, bites, and burns. They'd rested under the effects of Ana's Companionship Ability, which boosted all recovery times, and Kaira's Mana Confluence, which let her recover from mana depletion more quickly, but they were still a little worn down from the walking and the fighting. It had been a long day.

After her quiet aside to Ana, Kaira raised her voice again. "That looked like a Supreme peak Crystal, with a decent factor. Lucky us, huh? So let's get this over with so we can grab 'em and get back outside! Is everyone ready?" As everyone indicated that they were, she asked the same thing of Jisha. The girl put on a brave face, limbered up, and gripped her poleaxe tightly.

They were as ready as they'd ever be.

Once they'd formed up, while Kaira was doing her Shaping, Ana thought about what the Evoker had said. Kaira expected to push herself into severe mana depletion, and she'd encouraged Ana to pull out all the stops. She didn't see them all surviving if they didn't. Ana, though, wasn't so sure.

They were facing three demons, one of them with a Threat Level of Serious, and two Considerable. They were strong, yes, but Ana had gone up against worse. She'd faced longer odds and come out… not unharmed, but alive, and she was stronger now than she'd ever been.

Ana wasn't arrogant enough to think that this was going to be easy or risk free, but she suspected that Kaira wasn't taking into account just how damn unfairly strong Ana was. And if Kaira wanted her to go all out, Ana wasn't going to disappoint.

"Tor," she said.

"Yeah?"

"Once this kicks off, I'm going to do something heroic. You may be on your own for a bit. Thought I should warn you."

Tor sighed. "Any way I can talk you out of it?"'

"Nope."

"I thought not. Does this have anything to do with Kaira whispering to you?"

"Yep. Keep an eye on Jisha for me, would you?"

Tor sighed again. "Yeah. Sure."

"Jisha," Ana said over her shoulder as Kaira's blinding projectile took shape. She pushed on her Command Skill to really drive her words home. "Stay behind Tor. Whatever you do, stay behind Tor. Okay?"

"Okay," Jisha said doubtfully, then again with more confidence. "Okay! What about you?"

"Don't worry about me. It's going to look a lot worse than it is, but I can take care of myself. Just worry about yourself and Kaira, and stay alive long enough for me to do my thing."

"Stay alive." Jisha swallowed, then steeled herself. "Right."

Ana wondered how much of the girl's bravery was due to herself. Between Champion and Lead From The Front she should be providing Jisha with a healthy Willpower bonus, but Jisha had been remarkably resilient ever since she'd been healed of the Void Plague. Sure, she'd almost pissed herself when their camp was attacked in the middle of the night a few weeks ago, but almost was the operative word there. She'd made it through, and she'd been eager to learn to fight afterward.

Ana hoped Jisha would survive to really grow into herself. She had potential.

Then Kaira screamed something in Wanteul that drew a shocked snort from Jisha, and a miniature star flashed down the passage with a tearing hiss. It moved faster than Ana could track, and before Ana finished turning her head there was a sharp pop from the Crystal chamber, followed closely by a wet spatter and the hiss of boiling fluid.

When Ana's eyes reached the chamber, the bear was missing one of its rear legs. Along with most of that quadrant of its body, really — Kaira's spell had really done a number on it. Even as Ana watched it lost its balance and settled back heavily, gray and crimson loops of intestine spilling from its ruptured abdomen.

Reacting to the attack, the wolf and the wolverine both moved. So did Ana.

If the bear survived it would need a moment to recover, and would be slow to join the fight. It could be safely ignored for the next several seconds. The wolf was bigger than the wolverine, but its Threat Level was only Serious where the wolverine's was Considerable. Besides, the wolverine just rubbed Ana the wrong way, worse than most demons did. It was something about how it scuttled, a multitude of tiny legs on its belly propelling it along between strides.

It was about fifty yards from where they'd formed up to the Crystal Chamber. The moment Kaira cast, Ana brought her wings out. From a standing start, using her wings to boost herself forward, Ana covered forty of those yards in the moment it took the two charging demons to move ten. With her bonuses active she met them — or rather the wolverine — feet first, Combat Acrobatics and her Agility letting her easily turn all of her momentum into a flying double side kick. It was something she's learned more as an acrobatic exercise than as a serious attack, and she would never have even considered using it before coming to the Splinter, but now she was moving at well above sixty miles per hour and she didn't trust one ankle, one knee, and one hip to survive the impact.

With her whole body rigid behind her heels as they impacted the wolverine's skull, Ana's legs, hips, and the rest of her did survive. The wolverine didn't.

Ana's Effective Strength before Perks and Enhancements was almost 80, compared to a human average of 10. But when she kicked out at the last moment before smashing into the demon, she did so with far more force than even that would have granted. Hammer Blows not only increased her Effective Strength by some unknown number, but also turned her kick into a Blunt Weapons attack, adding Bone Breaker into the mix and raising her Strength Multiplier for that attack.

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The effect was that Ana hit like a cannonball. The wolverine's head, with its dozen madly rolling eyes, its bone spikes and hundred teeth, disintegrated into a shower of pustulent blood and bone fragments. Whatever remained was pushed into its chest cavity along with Ana's feet as the carcass, not yet understanding that it was dead, continued forward. Its momentum wasn't cancelled out, and it didn't start moving backward, until its organs had been turned into salsa a fraction of a second later. At that point, Ana was more than knee deep into it, her feet having stopped when they reached the thing's pelvis.

Ana and the sack of flesh on her legs were still moving rather quickly. She was also dropping toward the ground and was about to experience some truly spectacular road rash, but instinct and reflexes caused her to beat her wings and stay in the air. She did not, unfortunately, have quite enough time to brake before bouncing off the back wall of the Crystal chamber.

She didn't have time to regret her overzealousness. The bear, still somehow alive, went for the closest living thing: her. It was coming at her, surprisingly fast on three legs and trailing innards, a ravenous hatred in its eyes.

Lightly dazed and using her wings to stay off the ground, Ana kicked off her flesh-sock. She was painted red from her toes to her hips, with chunky splatter reaching as far as her chest, and her trousers and skin both were torn where cracked bone had cut her during her — for the demon — catastrophic impact. But nothing was sprained or broken, and with her Unbreakable Grip she still had her weapon and her shield.

A quick look past the bear and back up the passage showed Tor and Omda holding off the wolf. In the short moment that Ana looked she couldn't see anything like desperation in their faces or movements. They worked well together, their faces focused as they struck while keeping themselves between the demon and the three ladies.

During that short moment Jisha hacked at the wolf, and her scream had far more battle fury in it than fear. Five against one. They'd be fine. Ana could stay right where she was with a clear conscience.

With a confidence that had as much to do with her battle high as it did experience, Ana set her feet back on the ground, Channeled ambient mana into Earth to power her stone-skin Shaping, and met her challenger.

Perhaps "challenger" was too strong a word. Yes, it was a bear. Yes, it was taller than she was, and that at the shoulder. But the thing was crippled, and Ana's blood was boiling hot. The thing didn't stand a chance.

One Medium, two Minor, two Lesser, and one Least Crystal was Ana's reward for the fight. She gained a Level Unarmed Combat, too, and one in Axes, bringing them to Level 12 and 7 and giving her another Major and Medium. Not bad, she thought. Should work on my weapons Skills more, though. And Defense. Hard to do when cracking their skulls open is so easy.

When Ana met up with the others, she was a mess. The damn bear just had not wanted to die. She had burns all up her arms from its slobber, but they were hard to see under all the clumpy blood and the bits of flesh that stuck to her. Her armor was scratched, even torn right through in one place, but the damage was already repairing itself as it had so many times before; a little gift from the goddess that had chosen her. And her cuts and scratches were nothing a bit of healing potion couldn't fix.

In contrast, the others looked alright. Being more conservative fighters — Kaira excluded — they were certainly much cleaner. They'd also taken down that possessed wolf without anyone getting hurt, which was better than Ana had managed. Of course, there were five of them. They'd had an advantage.

Nobody spoke for a while. Jisha stared at Ana with a mix of awe and horror — hopefully, Ana thought, because of all the blood. When still nobody seemed inclined to break the silence, Ana said, "Good job, all. Crazy enough for you, Kaira?"

"Wayfarer's tits, Ana." Kaira's voice was uncharacteristically subdued. She looked tired. "I know I told you to… I should just assume that whatever I think you might do, it'll be worse. Or maybe better? More? I should, shouldn't I?"

"I think that's a safe bet," Tor said from beside the remains of the wolverine. "Gods beyond, I've heard of kicking someone's head in, but I've never actually seen it done. Do you even need us, Ana?"

"Of course I do," she said, turning toward him. She wasn't entirely lying, either. She'd been thinking about this very thing as they descended through the Delve. She'd asked herself if she should have just gone out with Ray again; at least that way, if they entered a Delve and found it trapped, just like this one was, only herself and Rayni would be at risk.

Her answer to her own question had been, "No." Even with the Delve being trapped, she didn't regret going with this Party.

Sure, she could handle any of the wandering demons they'd seen so far, and she thought she might be able to clear a lower tier Delve on her own. Sure, she really only absolutely needed Rayni and Omda to find demons and Delves for her. But having Tor and Kaira along meant that they could take on any Delve they were likely to find, and besides, she liked their company. That was worth far more than she might have guessed just two months before. And Jisha… it was selfish, but every time Jisha looked at her with awe Ana's pride swelled. In a weird way, it reminded her of Nic. She'd taken down an aggressive drunk outside a pub once, and Nic had looked at her the same way Jisha often did. As though Ana were the most amazing person they'd ever met. She hadn't wanted to acknowledge it at the time, but looking back it was one of the things that had made Nic tolerable.

She didn't say any of that. Her gut told her that frank honesty wouldn't get her the results she wanted, even if she used all her skill and experience to make it sound completely spur-of-the-moment and unrehearsed. It would just sound like she was downplaying her own strength and trying to find ways to make the rest of them feel better about themselves. So instead she finished with, "I need someone to carry the tents and cook for me, don't I?"

There was an amused huff from Omda, and Tor chuckled. "I suppose you do. I didn't know it was possible to mess up breakfast pottage, but you surprised me this morning."

"More importantly…" Ana said, trailing off. She felt unexpectedly nervous all of a sudden. "Do you all still want to Delve with me? This whole deal with the barriers is some real bullshit, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's how it's going to be from now on. Anyone who goes with me should expect their Delves to be messed with."

"Told you she wouldn't give up!" Kaira exclaimed triumphantly.

"No one gainsaid that," Omda replied patiently, as Kaira turned to Jisha and let loose a burst of Wanteul that made the girl snort with laughter.

"I think what Kaira means is that we're with you," Tor said. He nudged the shattered carcass of the wolverine. "Honestly, your effectiveness in a fight more than makes up for being unable to retreat."

Ana couldn't help but smile. The idea that they'd judge it too risky to go into a Delve with her had bothered her more than she'd wanted to admit.

"What you said before… that was a joke, right?" Rayni asked anxiously as she and Ana worked on harvesting something black and spiky from the wolf's liver. "You still need me to find stuff to kill?"

"And to find the best camping spots, and the cleanest water, and a bunch of other stuff," Ana reassured her. "If you're still willing to go out with me. I thought I made that clear?"

"Oh, good. That's good," Rayni said. Her voice was neutral, but Ana could tell from how she held herself that she still had something to say. They worked mostly in silence for another minute, the only words being Rayni directing Ana to lift or cut something, before Rayni asked, "Are you still planning to leave?"

"Yeah. When the cycle ends. That's in three months or so, right? Unless the white obelisk and the void plague messed up the schedule."

"It shouldn't have. That's mostly about alignment and some other stuff I don't really know about. You'd have to ask a mage like Mistress Thair how all that works."

Thair. Ana was pretty sure she'd heard the name before. A tall, narrow-faced human woman, a Summoner with her Level in the 20s. "She's the one who runs a lot of the deliveries, right?"

"Right. Um, anyway, that's beside the point. I wanted to ask what you're gonna do once you leave."

Ana finished removing the disgusting little nodule she'd been working on. She rinsed it in a small bowl of water mixed with some herb set off to the side, which was supposed to preserve it temporarily, then placed it in the jar they were collecting their harvest in. Then she turned to Rayni and said, "I'm going to keep Leveling, of course. I told you, when we first went out together. My goal is 50 and beyond. That hasn't changed."

"Why leave so soon, though? Sure, this Splinter is low-Level, but you'll get some pretty strong demons further south. I'm sure you could get into the 30s before the Levels get too slow."

Ana considered. Rayni had been the one to tell her that "I don't want to talk about it" was a perfectly acceptable answer to pretty much any question here. But she was also a friend, despite how they'd started out, and Rayni clearly had some vested interest in Ana. It couldn't hurt to be honest, could it?

"I don't like the attention," she said candidly. "The stares. The way people expect things of me. I want to go somewhere no one knows me."

"What about Messy? Does she want to go?"

"Gods beyond, I hope so," Ana said grimly.

Rayni pressed on. "And if she doesn't?"

"I don't know, Ray. I really don't know."

"She's really important to you, isn't she?"

"Yeah," Ana sighed. "She really is."

They worked in silence for another while, but Rayni still held herself like she had more to say. The others seemed to have noticed that something was going on that hadn't been resolved yet, because no one approached them.

"Take me with you," Rayni finally said, forcing the words out.

"Hmm?"

"When— if you go. Take me with you."

Ana again went through the simple ritual of finishing what she was doing. "I thought you liked it here," she said.

"It's been good. But you…" Rayni said. She looked down, turning her small, curved blade in her hand. Then she stopped. She looked up with an intensity in her eyes that Ana couldn't remember seeing before, and the words just burst out of her. "Ana, being around you is inspiring! It's not just that my Skills Level faster around you, for whatever reason, or that I make as much in a day with you as I normally make in a week. You make me feel like… like I can be more. Like I don't have to stay a Huntress struggling to get by while helping my family with their debt. When we went out together, when we were going to face Karti, now, I feel like I might be able to put that all behind me and go somewhere! Become something! When you talk about reaching Level 50 and becoming an Ascender, it feels like I can do it, too! You give me hope, Ana."

Rayni looked down as the fervor left her, but she smiled. "It sounds stupid and childish, but there it is. You give me hope. Don't take that way. Please? Take me with you."

Ana stared at her silently. Rayni had looked as shocked at her own outburst as Ana felt. Then she said, "I'll think about it. Alright? I'll think about it."

"Alright," Rayni said, and they got back to work.

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