Ana woke feeling much better than she had any right to. Her side was stiff, and so was her leg, but that was it. No pain. And there was no confusion! She remembered the dinner, the Ascender, the fight, lying — again — with her head in Messy's lap…

  That must have been when she passed out. The last thing she remembered was Messy's singing.

  She was a little confused about where and how she'd woken up. She could feel Messy nearby — her and… Tor; why was Tor in their Party? But they were both hurt, and Messy wasn't with her. And Ana wasn't in a bed. She was used to waking up in a bed with Messy clinging to her, after she'd done something stupid-and-or-heroic. Instead she lay alone, wrapped in a blanket, on the floor of Touanne’s lab. Why would she be on the floor?

  And why could she hear so many different softly murmuring or groaning voices?

  One explanation occurred to her. A phrase from her old world: mass casualty event. She'd heard people running before the Ascender arrived. He may not have been alone. And if they had many injured, they'd want to keep them close to Touanne, both for her experienced care and her healing aura. Thus, using any available surface.

  “Shit,” Ana grumbled. She needed to know what was going on, to see if she was needed, and to check on Messy.

  Wayfarer? she called inside her mind. Anything you can tell me?

  Stay put, came a faint, tired reply. Fucking shambles!

  Well. That wasn't worrying at all.

  A quick glance under the blanket showed that the right side of Ana’s torso was a mess of yellowed bruises from breast to hip. The same went for her left leg below the knee, but some testing showed that it should bear her. Carefully, she got to her feet.

  She only had her bandeau and underpants on, so she kept the blanket wrapped around herself as she took a few careful steps to the door.

  The hallway was empty, but from the sound of it there were two people in the patient room, and the front room sounded full. Ana walked that way a little stiffly, and as she did the door opened, revealing Jisha.

  “Ana!” the girl said, keeping her voice down. “Good! Good! Mestendi is trés worried! Oh, but sleeping. Back to the lab!”

  “What?” Ana asked. “Why?”

  “Because…” Jisha thought, then switched to French. “It’s pretty much over, but we don't know if all the fuckers have been cleared out yet, and we don't want it to be easy for them to find you. Although, since you’re up… can you fight?”

  “Right now? Kind of. But if anyone takes a swing at me I’ll be good.”

  Jisha nodded thoughtfully. “Okay. Come. We put Mestendi and Torden near the wall, so they’d be close to you.”

  “For Companionship?” Ana asked as she continued forward. “That's got, like, a ninety foot range.”

  “Fuck your feet!” Jisha laughed. They’d entered the front room, and Ana could see at least eight people lying close to each other on the floor. “Thirty meters? Truly? Ah, well, whatever. Here! Your girlfriend. Be gentle!”

  “What do you—?” Ana started to ask, then sighed. “Kaira’s been a bad influence on you.”

  “Probably!” Jisha agreed and clapped Ana’s shoulder. Then someone coughed, and the girl grabbed a cup from the counter and bustled off.

  Messy was asleep. She was pale, not deathly so but enough to be worrying. Her left hand was a ball of bandages, and she had another wrapped around her chest, holding a wad of something in place under her right arm, just below the armpit.

  By sheer habit Ana Inspected her, and took a small sharp breath when she saw the label, [Elfin Duelist (10)].

  Messy had reset her Class. They'd talked about it before leaving the outpost to fight Karti and his cult, but Messy loved being a Jeweler. She loved it enough to forgo the combat bonuses that the Fighter Class would have given her, at a time when they needed as many strong combatants as they could get. But something had made her reset now.

  Ana remembered the last thing she heard being Messy's singing, and the last thing she saw being the Ascender, dead with his own dagger in his chest. She had a guess at what had happened.

  Ana vowed to herself, then and there, that if Messy wanted to go back to her old Class, then Ana wouldn't consume a single Crystal until Messy was a Level 15 Jeweler again. But she also, silently and selfishly, hoped that Messy wouldn't. Not because of the Crystals — that would only be a few weeks or months of work — but because the idea of a Messy who could somewhat keep up with her, who could truly hold her own in a serious Delving Party, made her heart race.

  When Jisha returned just two minutes later, she found Ana stretched out on the floor beside Messy, holding the elfin woman's good hand in both of her own.

  “You know,” Jisha said as she sat down on a stool by the counter, “for someone who calls herself a psychopath—”

  “Sociopath,” Ana corrected idly.

  “Sociopath,” Jisha continued without a hitch, “you’re very affectionate. Is that normal?”

  “In general? I don't know. But for me, no. Definitely not.”

  “So it's just… her?”

  “I think so,” Ana said, without elaborating on the hours she’d spent going over and over the same thing. Then she said, “I should get out there, shouldn't I?”

  “Not without seeing Touanne, you shouldn't,” Jisha replied firmly. “I promised not to let anyone leave without her permission, including you. But Tellak forced her to take a nap, and she needs it.” She looked at Ana doubtfully. “Please don't make me try to stop you. It would be very embarrassing for both of us.”

  “I’d just throw you over my shoulder and take you with me,” Ana said, gently rubbing Messy's fingers. “But don't worry. I’ll stay.”

  “Phew!” Jisha ran the back of her hand over her forehead in exaggerated relief. “Hey, since you're awake, could you invite the others here into your Party? The bonuses could really help some of them. They're in no danger anymore, but healing still takes time.”

  Ana considered that. Enough people knew about the Attribute bonuses she could provide that there was no way it was staying quiet. She still had a few secrets, but nothing that she'd give away by adding people to the Party.

  She checked the Party interface, and it was her, Messy, and Tor. She knew that Messy had been Party leader for a while, because there’d been a notification about leadership reverting to Ana, so that explained Tor. They had nine spots free; there were six others in the room.

  “Sure,” she told Jisha. “Assuming you can wake them long enough for them to accept. Good thinking. Uh…” she looked the girl over, seeing no sign of injury. “Are you okay? Did you get hurt at all?”

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  “Some splinters and small burns when they blew the door in,” Jisha said, gesturing to where the table stood propping the door closed. Twisting to look, Ana saw a scorched, dinner plate-sized hole where the handle should’ve been. “Nothing bad. And I’m in a Party with Touanne and Tellak already.”

  “Alright,” Ana said. “Here for a lesson?”

  “Just so!” Excited, Jisha added, “I managed to draw some Life mana out of myself and circulate it with Touanne!”

  “That's great,” Ana said, giving Jisha a genuine smile. Then she considered the satisfaction she felt at the news. Was she simply happy for Jisha? But, no, what Ana felt for the girl was still focused on how Jisha made her feel about herself, and her possible future usefulness. That was to say, she still liked Jisha in the old, familiar way, instead of the selfless, all-consuming desire she felt for Messy to be happy.

  That was a relief. Ana didn't know what she'd do if she felt anything similar for more than one person.

  “So… are you planning to become a Healer?” Ana asked.

  “No. Touanne doesn't think I could. She was very nice about it—!” Jisha added quickly.

  “I’m sure she was.”

  “Yeah. But I don't think I’d want to, for, uh… well, exactly the same reasons she gave. I just—” Jisha gave Ana an embarrassed little smile, her skin darkening as she blushed. “I really like the fighting. Even now.” She gestured to the door again. “I mean, I didn't kill anyone — Tellak and Jancia did for them — and I cried a lot after, but I feel… I did something good. They wanted to take Touanne, and I was strong enough, and good enough, to help Tellak keep them out. Good enough that she trusts me to watch the door while she’s looking after Touanne. It was… I was pretty sure I wanted to continue like this, but now? Now I know.”

  “You did good,” Ana agreed, feeling a surge of pride for her part in shaping and preparing Jisha for what had clearly been an important experience. She let go of Messy with one of her hands and offered it to the girl, who only hesitated for a moment before she bent down and clasped it, wrist to wrist, the way locals did. She gave Ana’s wrist a squeeze before letting go.

  “Anyway,” Jisha said, “Touanne doesn't think I will ever go deep enough into the Craft of Life to qualify for her Class. But Madam Drisa at the office said that there is an Evolution of Fighter called Warden that has Abilities for both fighting and using the Craft. Not for healing specifically, but still. I think I want that.”

  “Life can mess around with plants and stuff, too,” Ana pointed out. “We had some Nature-mages with us when we rescued the farms and fought the changelings. They couldn’t heal worth a damn, but they did some great stuff to help break up the charges.”

  “That could be interesting,” Jisha said agreeably. “But I’m most interested in healing. Touanne thought I’d be better at that than the plant stuff. Or the, ah…” Jisha blushed again, then blurted, “Did you know there’s a whole branch of Life that’s just about sex and babies, basically?”

  “Fertility, yeah. Nothing wrong with that. Don’t see it being very useful in a fight, though.”

  Jisha giggled. “As a distraction, maybe? But, no. Healing, that’s what I want to do.”

  “I know I’d love to have a healer with me,” Ana said seriously. “My conditions haven’t changed, and from what I can see you’re there already. But if you can learn to heal you’ll be a pretty unique asset.” Then something occurred to her — mostly a joke, but something she thought Jisha might be able to appreciate. “Tell you what? Learn to do whatever it is Touanne does for cramps, and I’ll bring you along no matter what.”

  She got an amused snort and smile back.

  It was over an hour before Touanne appeared.

  A few people had woken during that time, long enough for them to accept Ana’s Party invitation and gasp with the sense of intense wellbeing that came with the Vitality bonus before going back to sleep.

  Messy had woken, too. She'd been disoriented, but when she realized who lay next to her holding her good hand the fog cleared enough for her to break into joyful tears, sobbing, “Oh, thank you! Thank you!”

  Ana didn’t know who she was thanking. It could be Ana, Jisha, or maybe the Wayfarer or some other divinity entirely. It didn’t matter. There would have been no difference in her reaction regardless. “You did it, love,” Ana whispered, taking one hand off Messy’s to wipe her girlfriend’s tears with her thumb. “I’m alive. You’re alive. We’re both going to be fine.”

  “Thank you,” Messy’s last words before drifting off again was nothing but a faint whisper as she struggled to lean her cheek into Ana’s hand.

  Ana was pretty sure she heard a muffled squee from Jisha. She ignored it. Her ego could survive being cute.

  In between talking to Jisha and exchanging a few words with anyone else who was awake for long enough to string together a sentence, Ana took a look at her one Ascension Point. It sounded powerful, yet when she queried the System about what it could be used for, she found the results slightly underwhelming.

  Increasing a Base Attribute or a Multiplier, getting an enhancement or a Perk, or ‘Translating’ her Class to a different one, which apparently meant keeping all your experience and simply exchanging all of your features; none of them seemed sufficient. Not when all but the last were things her Class provided her easily enough. At least she wasn’t forced to spend the Point immediately, so that was a relief.

  She was, she decided, spoiled. She allowed herself to feel smug about that.

  When she queried the System for unavailable possible uses of an Ascension Point, things got a little more interesting.

  When she asked why those uses were unavailable, the reasons were simple: her current Class was already at Paragon Tier, and regular Classes couldn’t go any higher; she needed to be Level 50 in a regular Class to unlock Ascension Levels and Ascension Classes; and the last one was self-explanatory. She couldn’t very well gain a Level in something she didn’t have.

  It was no wonder that Ascenders were reportedly so rare, she realized as she re-read the two sets right after one another. It wasn’t just that it apparently had the potential of turning you into an arrogant fool with delusions of invincibility. You could get Ascension Points by gaining Ascension Levels, yes, but you couldn’t unlock those Levels without first gaining an Ascension Point. Meaning you had to gain an Achievement that gave you such a point before you could gain any more.

  Ana decided to hold onto that Point. Who knew if she’d get another before Level 50, and then how long would she have to wait? And if nothing else, she liked the thought of having a panic button. One which, if she were to be brutally honest with herself, she was almost guaranteed to smash sometime in the near future.

  When Touanne arrived, her haggard state would have told Ana everything she needed to know about how the Healer was taking the situation even if her aura hadn't been blaring her distress to anyone able to listen. Ana had wondered for months about how one of the most skilled mages in the outpost could be so bad at controlling her aura under stress, but it was just one of those personal quirks, she supposed. Tellak was with her, the waxy cast of her already pale skin and the lavender bags under her eyes showing beyond any doubt that she was no less exhausted than her friend.

  As worn out as they were, they both lit up at seeing Ana awake. “Although I really would have preferred for you to stay in the lab,” Touanne said tiredly.

  “Don’t be cross with Jisha,” Ana said from where she still lay on the floor. “You know I can fight if I have to. Besides, I wanted to leave, and threatened to pick her up and take her with me if she tried to keep me. She talked me into staying.”

  “I’m sure that was terribly difficult.” Despite her words, there was nothing condescending in Touanne’s tone. She looked at Ana’s hands, still clasped around Messy’s, and smiled softly.

  “Yeah. A real negotiator is our Jisha,” Ana agreed, smiling up at them all. “But I do need to get out there. Telly, what’s the situation? Do you know?”

  “It should be over,” the pale woman said. “But I’ve been watching this one to make sure she actually got something resembling a nap. I haven’t been out for hours.”

  “But no news that things have turned for the worse,” Ana said.

  “No news,” Tellak agreed. “And no new wounded for over an hour. It’s been a constant stream all night.”

  “All right. Touanne, I need to go. Do you think I’m okay?”

  The Healer’s breath hissed out of her in resignation. “Not at all,” she said. “But I understand that you must. So, out of respect for you and the situation, I won’t protest. But I beg of you: if you come across any hostile people, don’t let anyone strike you in the chest. In fact, don’t even breathe too hard! Your ribs are barely holding together as it is, and your lungs…” Tears threatened in Touanne’s tired eyes, and Tellak put a comforting arm across her back. “Gods, Ana! If Mestendi and Torden hadn’t brought you when they did, I don’t know if I could have saved you!”

  Ana nodded somberly. “Duly noted. If needed and possible, I’ll run. I promise.”

  Touanne sighed. “I’ll take what I can get.”

  “I’m sure you meant what you said, but please be careful, Ana,” Tellak said as Ana picked herself up from the floor. “You can see for yourself what Torden and Mestendi look like. They were both barely hanging on when they brought you in. Torden told me they killed three men defending you. Don’t make that have been in vain. It would destroy Mestendi. You know it would.”

  “I’ll be careful,” Ana promised again. By the door she moved the table out of the way, then collected a sword that was just leaning against the wall, testing its balance with no real idea what she was doing and deciding that with her Strength and Dexterity it didn’t matter. Then she turned back to the trio at the back of the room and said, “I’ll try not to be long,” before exiting into the street.

  and read 8 chapters ahead of both Splinter Angel and Draka! You also get to read anything else I’m trying out — which is how Splinter Angel got started.

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