Splinter Angel Chapter 71 (Patreon)

Ana discovered very quickly that while the air inside the Delve was thick with mana, there was no earth to connect to. She couldn’t draw Earth-aligned mana, and with no skill for channeling, Systemic or otherwise, she couldn’t Shape.

She could still draw ambient mana into her weapon and shield, so that was something. Still, it was terribly annoying. The first new Skill she was learning once she had a moment, Ana decided, was Channeling.

The cavern at the entrance of this Delve was far larger than the first one Ana had seen. The previous one had been fairly tight — a dome no more than sixty feet across. This one was four, maybe five times that size, with multiple passages leading off into gods knew where. “All of these passages,” Sira said, waving expansively, “lead to dead ends or back to here. But these two lead deeper. We went down one, and it only split at one point, where we saw the demons. That’s the only way deeper we saw. Then we followed the side of the split without any demons and came back here.”

“Then we go down that same passage and wipe those demons out,” Pirta said. “Does anyone think otherwise?” When no one protested, she continued. “Good. Shall we?”

“One thing,” Ana said, turning to her two most junior Party members. “Sadie, Braggie, I want you to remain at the entrance.”

“Sure, yeah,” Braggie said, almost too fast.

Sadie, though, wasn’t one to just back down. She always did what was needed of her, but she usually tried to make some kind of quip to mask her nerves. This time was no different. She tried to look indifferent, giving Ana a cocky smile as she said, “What, are you worried about us bringing down your participation and stealing all the Crystals?”

Her obvious joke got some snorts and chuckles from the assembled Delvers, but no matter how good of a front she put up, she couldn’t fool Ana. Each of the two was just as anxious as the other. Even if Ana hadn’t been able to read their body language, she would have known through Devotion — their general condition right now was healthy, but deeply unsettled.

“No,” Ana said, rolling her eyes good naturedly. Sadie responded well when you played along, and there was no reason not to. “Though now that you’ve brought it up: since your contribution will be whatever the minimum is, we’ll have to compensate you for the Crystals you’re missing out on. I’ll figure something out. But, no, I’ve got an Ability that lets me know how my Party members are doing. No maximum range that I know of, either. I want you with the civilians so that I’ll know if anything happens back here while we’re away. I need you to keep your eyes and ears open, so that we can pull back to support you if needed. All right?”

She didn’t add the obvious — that they were the most expendable of her Party, being both the least experienced, and the least Skilled when it came to combat. Nor did she think it was necessary to specify that the way she’d know was that she’d feel if either of them got hurt or terrified enough to alert her.

“Yeah,” Sadie said. “You can count on us.”

Her slight smile and the arc of her eyebrow told Ana that she knew what Ana was doing in choosing the two of them. But “the marshall needs someone she can trust to keep an eye on things” was a much more flattering reason to be held back than “this is too dangerous for you,” so Sadie took the out graciously.

“We won’t let you down,” Braggie agreed, and her relief at not having to go down those dark passages was palpable. Anybody could see it; unlike Sadie, Braggie wore her heart on her sleeve.

“I know,” Ana said, locking eyes with each of them to convey that not only did she trust them, but they had better show that they deserved that trust. “And, one more thing. Do you remember the girl we cured? Jisha?”

“Sure, yeah,” Sadie said. “The sad, lonely girl.”

“That’s her, unfortunately. Do either of you speak any Wanteul?”

Sadie shook her head. “Not a word. But you do, Braggie, don’t you?”

“Not well,” an embarrassed Braggie said. “Barely enough to get by.”

Ana clapped her on the arm. “That’ll do. Keep an eye on Jisha, would you? You don’t have to keep her company all the time. It’s a lot more important to stay vigilant. But let her know that she’s got more people than the Ters sisters to talk to. Maybe check around, see if anyone else is fluent? Like you said, Sadie: she’s lonely. She can only talk to a tiny handful of people, and we can’t always be around.”

“I’ll look after her,” Braggie promised.

The assembled Delvers had waited with various levels of patience, from “everything in its time” to “I’d rather not do this, so any delay is welcome” and “I’m only standing still so the marshall doesn’t give me a look.” Once the two volunteers had walked off to find Jisha and their friends, that patience evaporated. By silent agreement and without a word from either Ana or Pirta, everyone drifted into formation, a few scouts pulling ahead as the rest moved slowly down the chosen passage.

Ana fell in with her Party, wishing she were a higher level so that it would be easier to get everyone within range of the protective component of Devotion. It was barely a conscious thought — they were actively seeking danger, expecting a fight, so she wanted her Party close. Not that thirteen feet in any direction was bad. She had Pirta and then Waller to her left, Messy and Sylt to her right, and the remaining five in two rows behind her. Everyone fit within her bubble of protection without crowding. But once the fighting started, things might get confusing. Frontliners moved up, while backliners hung back. Parties drifted apart, supporting each other or people in other Parties as needed. Ana herself might be needed on short notice farther away than she could currently cover. She’d made the mistake of leaving her Party behind only a couple of nights ago, and three of them had paid for it, taking disabling hits that she could have weathered. Ana was determined to do better in the future.

It was a good reason to want to level up.

The moment she became conscious of that thought, she wondered what the hell was wrong with her. The ideas made sense — of course she wanted to keep her Party alive. She considered most of them friends, or at least friendly acquaintances. Messy, of course, was in a higher class of her own. And Ana might not have even reflected on the thought if it was restricted to the people she liked, but she felt the same about Trig and Sylt, who inspired indifference at best, and Waller, whom she suffered mostly because she wanted to keep an eye on him.

Her capacity for protecting just anyone was not and had never been her motivation for wanting to get to a higher level. She had one reason for that, and one only: to get strong enough that no one could push her around, or otherwise impinge on her freedom. Wanting to protect others wasn’t wrong, but it was a role, or a job — it wasn’t her. And she wouldn’t even entertain the idea that just over a month in this place had changed her on such a fundamental level, if eight years of working for Mr. Stamper hadn’t.

No, there was fuckery afoot. Something was messing with her head, and the list of suspects was very short: the goddess who’d made herself a semi-permanent presence in her head, or her Class — which she only had because of, or thanks to, said goddess.

And since there was no reason not to, since they were currently moving slowly down a featureless passage, waiting for the scouts to come back with anything interesting, Ana simply asked.

Hey, Wayfarer? she thought.

Yes? the goddess answered after a few moments. Is anything happening?

No. Are you messing with my head?

Not beyond what’s necessary to make you hear me.

Then is my Class messing with my head? Changing my priorities?

Oh, most likely. The goddess’ tone was blasé, like there was nothing at all noteworthy about that. Why?

Did you know it would do that, when you chose it for me?

Not specifically, no. But it’s nothing unusual. Most high tier classes incentivize certain behaviors.

It’s changing how I fucking think? Ana snarled into her own mind.

Beside her, Messy gave her a worried look. “I’m fine,” Ana whispered.

“Later?” Messy asked softly, clearly not believing her.

“Later,” Ana agreed.

The Wayfarer, meanwhile, continued her side of the conversation, her voice getting more strained and distant with every word. Ana, if it disturbs you so much, you can change Classes. I ask that you don’t — I have high hopes for you. But I can’t stop you. Just please see this crisis out first.

Goddamnit, you know that I won’t, Ana said.

The Wayfarer didn’t respond.

  *

The first fight went smoothly — completely unremarkable, really, except for how comically one sided it was. The three possessed animals were strong, great big hulking things that rated (Threat: Extreme) to Ana. Under the massed fire of thirty-odd mages and the same number of bows and crossbows, though, they went down so hard that there was barely anything to harvest —- not that they had the time for that. Ana’s reward was minor, with her Party’s only contribution being one bolt from Deni and an arrow from Rayni — she hadn’t even had time to load Kaira’s arbalest. But it was also free, so she wasn’t complaining.

Spirits were high, people chatting excitedly in low voices, when the first signs of trouble appeared.

“Hey, did you feel that?” Ana heard one of the mages ask.

“No, what?” someone replied.

“Like a strange tingle, all over my skin. Came and went so fast I thought I might have imagined it, but I don’t think I did.”

Ana’s skin prickled.

“Shit, I thought it was just me,” said a third voice, close to the first two. The third voice rose so everyone would be able to hear. “Hey, did—”

“Halt!” Ana called out. “Listen up!” She turned in the general direction of the third voice and racked her mind for a name. “You. Stera, right?”

“Right, Marshall,” said the woman called Stera, a Flamecaller (15).

“Ask whatever you were about to. And everyone! Listen!”

“Yeah, uh…” Stera looked uncomfortable now that she had everyone’s attention. “Did anyone else feel a tingle all over their skin, just a few moments ago?

There were a number of scattered confirmations, including from Simt. All of them, Ana noted, were from mages of some kind, with levels in the mid teens or better. All of them, except Ana.

“I felt it, too,” Ana said, silently cursing herself. She hadn’t even thought about it! “Hundred fifty feet back, maybe?”

“Sounds about right, Marshall,” Stera said, and the others agreed.

“All right. Simt, with me. Let’s go back and see if we feel anything. The rest of you, stay here.”

“Right you are, Marshall,” the diminutive Kineticist said, joining Ana in walking cautiously back through the passage.

They walked a hundred feet. They didn’t see anything. They didn’t feel anything. They walked fifty-odd more, and it was the same thing. Then they tried to walk another foot, and they couldn’t.

There was nothing to see, nothing to smell, nothing to touch. But when Ana tried to walk forward, she might as well have been walking into a wall. “Shit,” she hissed. She tried to tap the air with her weapon, and it passed through just fine. Then she tried with a finger, and the air felt as solid as the floor she stood on. “Shit, shit, shit! Simt, you try!”

“Way ahead of you, Marshall!” The tiny woman was pushing against empty air, legs straining. Then she fell back, Shaped for half a moment, and flicked out a small distortion in the air, like a tiny pressure wave. It dissipated against the invisible barrier.

Behind them, the watching Delvers began to talk among themselves. A few more mages stepped up and tried various magics. No one could affect anything beyond the barrier. A piece of summoned stone or orb of water could pass, but lost whatever force drove it. Flames or one of Deni’s plasma balls simply dissipated. An engraved weapon could pass as normal, but once mana was channeled into it, it stopped at the barrier.

Someone threw a nut. It bounced down the passage. But no one could move any part of themselves so much as a fraction of an inch past the invisible plane in the air.

The conclusion that more educated people than Ana came to was this: everything could pass, except mana. And since every person with a Class had mana inside them, they couldn’t pass either.

Morale plummeted. They were trapped. Just like the expedition.

“All right. That makes things simple,” Ana said. She walked past the crowd, stopping a dozen feet past the back line. “Are you coming, or what? Only way out now is to collapse the Delve, and we don’t have time to mope around.”

“You heard the marshall!” Pirta’s voice boomed before being swallowed by the quasi-real walls surrounding them. “This changes nothing! Form up and move out! We’ve got a job to do!”

  *

Ana had reported what happened to the Wayfarer, hoping she might have some insight. The goddess had cursed, without giving a single useful piece of information, until her voice faded from Ana’s mind entirely. All Ana got out of the exchange was that the goddess thought the Sentinel had exploited some loophole in “the rules” to trap the expedition once they entered.

At least now they knew what to look for. The scouts went nowhere without at least one mage, who would probe every twist, bend, and side passage with magic before they moved ahead. The already slow going had gotten slower, but that was just how it had to be.

When the scouts located another invisible barrier, they avoided that passage. Once they’d explored every other option, though, the situation became clearer. Every passage that wasn’t blocked off led to a dead end — a passage that stopped suddenly, or a small chamber, with or without long-dead demons in it. Their only option if they wanted to keep going was to pass the barrier. And then the next. And the next. Sometimes they found a lonely demon or two that had wandered in and gotten lost, and if she was quick enough Ana got to play with her borrowed arbalest. And play was the right word. The demons were less a danger than they were stress relief for the increasingly frustrated Delvers.

About an hour past the second barrier, Ana felt Sadie and Braggie panic, which shifted to bone deep terror. Every fiber of Ana’s being screamed at her to sprint, not run, back, to protect them from whatever was happening, but with two barriers between her and them it was impossible. Ana grit her teeth until the women’s terror gave way to relief, then anxiety, and then more relief. They were both alive, and hopefully neither had lost any friends.

Or it had just been so bad that they were relieved that they hadn’t lost more. It was impossible to tell.

Ana didn’t say a word about this to anyone. Morale kept dropping as it was, but they kept going.

What was the point of stopping?

We’re being forced along a path, Ana told the Wayfarer after a few hours. Any open passage is a dead end. Every way we can go traps us deeper.

Must be path to Crystal chamber, the goddess replied. Her voice was weak and distant after her tantrum. Can’t stop you from going closer.

That’s the rule where the Sentinel found a loophole? Ana asked. She needed this to be clear.

Bastard! Yes!

So the barriers can’t lead to a dead end, right? Because that would keep us from reaching the chamber. If we keep following the barriers, we’ll get to the Crystal chamber, and then we can close the Delve and get out? Does that sound right?

Yes! Gods… hope so.

Yeah. Me too, Ana said.

Goddess, but she wanted so badly to fiddle with the pistol she kept in her belt pouch. With how strong she was it probably did her more good as a talisman than as a weapon, but it had saved her life no less than three times in the last forty days, and it was a comfort. A very different kind of comfort than Messy could provide — one that reminded her that if worse came to worst, she had a trump card.

With one line of thoughts, she sing-songed to herself, Whatever happens / I have got / a nine mill hollow-point / and they have not.

With the other she raised her voice, projecting all the confidence and courage Stasia would feel in this situation. “Listen up, everybody!” she said, and there was only the soft sound of feet on the strange ground. “According to the Wayfarer, there are rules. There has to be a path to the Crystal chamber, so no trapping us behind a barrier in a blind passage. We’re going to change tack. From now on, as soon as the scouts find a barrier, that’s the way we’re going. No more wasting time! Hold the scouts back as they return, and let’s finish this!”

  *

It was hard to track the hours. Sometimes they rested. They ate what they had, drank conjured water to preserve what they’d brought, then kept moving. At least there were no more attacks at the entrance, and all Ana felt from Sadie and Braggie was boredom, anxiety, and the occasional flash of happiness.

By Ana’s best guess, the Delvers had been walking for ten to twelve hours when the scouts returned, saying that they’d found another barrier. But that wasn’t all.

“The expedition!” Rayni shouted the moment she came into view of the main group. “We found the expedition!”

Without a word — or rather, without waiting for a command — the Delvers surged forward. The passage filled with excited questions, to the point that not a single one had a hope of being answered.

Pirta handled that in what had become her usual manner. “Silence!” she bellowed, loud enough for some of those nearest her to cover their ears. “Thank you! Miss Rayni, are you sure?”

“Hells yes, I’m sure, Captain!” Rayni came to a panting stop. “We turned a corner, took a couple of steps, and Omda — he’s a Ranger, in the same Party as the Barlos’ kid — he was just right there!”

The talking started up again, but Pirta didn’t silence them or stop. Rayni was swept along in her wake, took her cue, and jogged to keep up with the captain at the same time as Ana arrived.

“Did he say anything?” Ana asked. “What about the others?”

“Yeah! Yeah, he said, ‘Finally!’ when he saw us. Then when we approached, he said, ‘Don’t come! It’s a trap!’ They’re all stuck behind one of these gods-damn barriers.”

Dammit, that wasn’t supposed to be possible! Ana cursed inwardly. Outwardly she remained calm, confident, and pleased. “I’m sure there’s a good reason they haven’t been able to get out,” she said. “Omda, huh? It’ll be good to see him again.”

“Yeah, he went to get the others! I’d think we’ll get to see all of them when we get there!”

All of them who are left, and who knows how many that is? Ana thought. How many revenants had they killed? Nine or ten, at least. More? The expedition had lost at least that many. Although… that might not be true. Ana didn’t know if all the killed revenants had been identified. If they were lucky, some of those revenants would have been people Ana had killed, or some of Karti’s people who’d died, killed by the expedition or some other way.

They could only hope, and she didn’t mention that out loud. They’d know the truth soon enough.