Rayni found their first Delve late on the third day.

  They’d killed three more demons by then: two weaker and one about the same Level as the previous ones. Ironically it was one of the weaker ones, a gargantuan, one-horned rabbit or hare, that had managed to gore Messy in the thigh. Thus, Ana now sported a shallow puncture in the same place, while Messy was out of her mind with remorse and swore up and down that she’d take it as a lesson in complacency.

  She also repeated her offer to kiss it better. Ana declined.

  “It’s not a very tall rift,” Rayni said, describing the entrance to the Delve, “but it’s wide. Low Tier, higher Factor perhaps? I don’t know. My gut tells me that we should be able to take it.”

  Ana nodded. Looking around, she was surrounded by excited faces. “Your call, Ray,” she said, “but I can tell you what the group wants.”

  “Oh, I’m with them. And that’s with me assuming that a certain coward of a deity is still messing with the Delves. But first we rest up and make sure that everyone and everything is in the best state they can be.”

  She got no objections there. Three fights had been plenty, and that was on top of them marching another twenty, twenty-five miles that day. They made camp about a mile from the Delve to avoid any demons attracted to or exiting from it, and settled in to eat some freshly shot game and gathered greens.

  “Ana,” Messy whispered into Ana’s neck once they’d laid down in their shared bedroll. “I can’t sleep. I’m too excited.”

  “Yeah?” Ana asked, turning half around so she could face her. Not that she could see her in the dark.

  “Yeah. This is the first Delve I’ll really be a part of since our first one.”

  “Are you nervous?”

  “No! Not at all! Just excited to be doing this again. It’s like… like I’m proving to myself that I can. That I can be with you, no matter where you go.”

  “Mess—” Ana started, but Messy cut her off.

  “No, I know, Angel! You don’t see it that way. And I don’t think that I do, either, not really. But that’s how it feels, and that’s why I’m so—” Messy squirmed against Ana, her arms tightening as she let out a happy little squeal. “So excited to be doing this!”

  Ana finished turning the rest of the way so that she could rest her arm around Messy’s waist, pulling her close. “I’m excited to have you here too,” she murmured into her girlfriend’s clavicle. “There were times I worried, you know? And you’re right. I never would have left you behind, if you were willing to come. I would have brought you on Delves and left you with the back line if that’s what it took, but this is so much better. I’m so happy to have you here, Mess. You know that, right?”

  She got another squirm and a happy little hum in response.

  The next morning they made final preparations, hoisted their packs into a tree, then assembled in front of the Delve. It was time.

  The rift that led into the tiny fragment of a world that was the Delve sat in the middle of a small stream, cool, clear, and only inches deep. It hung in the air above the water as they always did, an impossible aberration, a vaguely lens-shaped tear in reality perhaps four feet wide and ten high. It was hard to say, since one could really only see it by passing one’s eyes over it and determining at which point vision simply refused to be a thing. It wasn’t a void; not a blackness. It wasn’t just that there was nothing to see. It was more that the points on each side of the rift were connected, despite there being a small distance between them that one’s mind simply could not comprehend.

  This was perfectly normal. Everyone said so.

  “Never going to get used to these fucking things,” Jisha muttered under her breath.

  Ana gave her a soft snort and a smile. She agreed completely. Then she addressed the Party.

  “Normally a run-along would go in second,” she said. “I’m not going to do that. My first entrance, not far from here, almost led to a wipe. So I’m going in first. Now, the rift looks wide enough for two, so I’m going in together with Lessa. That way, if there’s anything nasty at the entrance, we’ll be the ones to face it first. Then I want Deni and Messy, then Perri and Jisha, and Ray last. Alright?”

  “Alright.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Bon.”

  “That works.”

  The words of acceptance came quickly; it would have been ridiculous to quibble over order anyway.

  Ana would have liked to go in with Messy by her side. She really would have. It would have been symbolic, if nothing else. But she wanted to do this right, and that meant taking the strongest frontliner with her in. That was Lesirell.

  Once they stood there before the rift, Lessa whispered, “Thank you.”

  Ana rolled her shoulders to get rid of any last minute stiffness. Her hammer-axe and buckler, which she’d taken back from Jisha for the entrance only, sat comfortably in her hands. “What for?” she asked.

  “Trusting me to have your back if things go sideways on the other side.”

  “Sure, but I mean, of course I do. Is this about your one slip-up?”

  “It was a pretty bad slip-up.”

  “Would’ve killed you,” Ana agreed. “But it didn’t, so you’ve got the enviable position of being able to learn from your own horrible demise. And I think you have. You’ve been nothing but solid and reliable since then.”

  Lessa’s dark skin went even darker, and she looked down even as her face split in a pleased smile. “Thanks. Really. It means a lot, hearing that.”

  “Thank me by bringing that same attitude inside. But honestly, I’d expect that you’ve done more of these things than I have. You know what you’re doing. Between the two of us, I’m sure everything’ll be fine.”

  “Lady of Fortune, she didn’t mean that,” Lessa said quickly, chuckling as she said it.

  Ana did one final check, making sure that everyone was ready to go. They were. They were all experienced enough not to need baby-sitting. “Alright!” she said, her pulse picking up in anticipation. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with! Lessa, with me!”

  Side by side, shields forward and weapons at the ready, Ana and Lesirell walked into the rift.

  Ana tried not to expect anything when entering the Delve. In the four Delves she’d done, every entrance had been different. Different in size, different in shape, and different in what she’d faced there. There may be no demons there at all, or there may be a half-dozen, which would fall on her the moment she stepped through the rift. She simply couldn’t know until she entered.

  The experience of passing through that rift, though, was generally the same. If she kept her eyes open—which was tricky while moving towards something that her mind refused to acknowledge—the world blurred around her. Even someone following her in, right by her shoulder, and even that very shoulder itself, fell impossibly out of focus. Then, as she continued forward, everything came back, and she was in a place of glass walls separating her from black, starless infinity, and a soft light that seemed to come from the air itself.

  Anyone keeping their eyes closed, which most people preferred, would feel themselves move from wherever they were into cool, comfortably humid air, like that at the bottom of a deep cave. There’d be no scents and no sounds except what they brought with them from outside—or those of any demons that may be waiting.

  That was what normally happened. The exception had been the first time Ana went in, when she’d lost some time as the Wayfarer grabbed her and fiddled with her Class a bit. Her body, though, had moved on autopilot, killing demons and dragging Messy to safety without Ana ever being aware of it. She’d hoped that might be the limit to how strange things could get.

  It wasn’t.

  “You have no conception of how much trouble this is to accomplish,” said a voice that filled the world.

  For what felt like the entirety of time itself, those words were all that existed. Light and other sensations were not even concepts. Nor, for that matter, was sound. Ana didn’t hear the words; they went from not being to being, fully formed in her memory. They were not even language, but direct understanding.

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  Ana didn’t try to reply. She couldn’t even form the idea of replying. To reply would have required her to be an active participant, and she wasn’t even an active observer. In most respects, she wasn’t. Not anything. So far as she existed, it was to receive the will of that all-encompasing voice.

  “Be honored that I expend the effort to deliver you this message,” the voice spoke, or would speak, or had always spoken. “It is rare that one born mortal draws my direct attention. Rarer still that she has not yet Ascended. Know my command, Anastasia Cole, and heed it well: Await the end of the cycle, and leave this Splinter. Make a life in the Primes, and live out your days in peace. Do not interfere further. That is all. The Splinters will cease to be, as they must. Oppose this, and be ground to dust with your allies. I will make no allowances for ignorance or misguidance, nor will my faithful.”

  When Ana resumed existing, there was nothing to suggest that she’d lost any time. It was like when the Wayfarer had dragged her out of herself for one of their face-to-face conversations: a place between moments. The small entrance chamber of the Delve came into focus no differently from how they usually did. The ground was smooth and level with the bottom of the stream that Ana and Lesirell had just left. Despite that, Ana’s step faltered as the enormity of what had just happened sunk in. She stumbled, her mind momentarily numb, and she might have fallen if not for her Agility and its Enhancement, Perfect Balance. But she kept her feet under her, water squishing out of Ana’s boots as she put her weight on them.

  If Lesirell noticed Ana’s stumble, she didn’t acknowledge it. Nor did Ana have any time to reflect on a deity, quite probably the Sentinel, having snatched her consciousness out of reality as she passed from the Splinter to the Delve. Both their attentions were entirely on the monstrosity before them, as nightmarish a demon as Ana had ever seen that made her infinitely glad that she hadn’t sent Messy or Jisha in with Lesirell.

  The thing, which Inspect told Ana was a [Possessed Swine (Threat: Moderate)], looked like a cross between a wild boar out of a hunter’s worst nightmares and an industrial woodchipper, with some bulldozer thrown in just out of spite. The thing was taller than Lesirell, and nearly as wide. It had the standard excess of eyes staring madly from all over its face, and spines covered much of its heads and upper body, as long as Ana’s hand and more like blades than spikes with the way they all narrowed to an edge on one side.

  The moment it saw them it let out a blubbering squeal and charged right for Lesirell: though with how wide it was it didn’t really matter which of the two of them it chose. The thing’s elongated, almost gator-like snout was wide open, showing a maw entirely full of jagged tusks and backwards-slanted teeth that all seemed to move independently—jaws, cheeks, roof, tongue and all.

  With how huge and solid-looking it was, Ana had no doubt that there was no deflecting this thing’s charge; a charge which would carry it right through the rift, back out into the others who would already be on their way in. Nothing could prepare them for that. It would be a slaughter.

  Ana came fully alive as her combat bonuses kicked in, nearly doubling all her Attributes. She didn’t think. She just let her body move, trusting it and her subconscious to know what to do. Lesirell was raising her shield pointlessly, screaming in equal parts fear and challenge; Ana set her feet, leaned into the woman by her side, and with a scream of her own she pushed off with all the considerable strength she possessed, launching them both several yards sideways.

  Lesirell’s scream went up considerably in pitch. Taken by surprise, the younger woman hit the ground and rolled for another small distance before getting her feet under her. Ana, meanwhile, stayed upright, turning to face the charging monster, ready to throw herself at it if it continued toward the rift. The boar, thankfully, adjusted its charge to follow them. Not quite enough to bite or gore them, but enough that it passed the rift rather than going through. An enormous short-term victory in Ana’s book, since Messy and Deni came through at almost that same moment.

  The demon ignored them. It was focused on Ana, who was both the closest of its two initial prey and surrounded by mana in the form of her Ironskin Shaping. It ponderously slowed enough to turn and change its direction of travel so that it was coming her way.

  Ana leapt aside, pushing mana into her weapon and lashing out as the thing passed. The axe bit sunk in, then tore a ragged gash along the demon’s face as it was torn out by the monster’s momentum. The demon barely reacted, but Ana hadn’t expected it to. This monster was far too massive for a death by a thousand cuts, and if it was anything like a regular wild boar its skull would likely be thick and hard enough that even Ana would have trouble cracking it. No, to bring this thing down they needed Deni’s firepower.

  “Distract it!” Ana shouted as the monster braked and turned. “We have to give Deni time to Shape!”

  “How do you distract that?!” Lesirell asked. The demon’s powerful legs bunched and extended, gnarled trotters skidding on the smooth floor as it gave off another discordant, earsplitting squeal and charged again, this time at Lesirell.

  By then Jisha and Perri had come through. Perri moved in cautiously, placing himself between the monster and Deni; Jisha was more aggressive. Wildeyed, not fearless but not letting her fear control her, the girl surged forward. As she moved she raised her halberd, shifting her grip toward the end, and with a scream of “How you fucking can!” brought it down with all the strength she could muster.

  Her Inter-guild still needed work, but her handling of her polearm had improved far faster than her language skills. The four-inch spike on the reverse struck true between two of the demon’s long, curving spines, and sunk entirely into the monster’s bristled back. It was unlikely that it did any real damage, but the boar swung its head to bring a dozen of its mismatched eyes to bear on the young Fighter.

  Ana saw an opportunity and took it, and she wasn’t the only one. Messy lunged, scoring a cut on the monster’s snout, and though Lesirell’s hack didn’t strike flesh, it cut deep into a spine, snapping it off near the base. And Ana… Ana did as Ana was wont to do when her blood was up. She manifested her wings, and leapt.

  “Mer-deh!” Jisha exclaimed as Ana’s wing-assisted leap brought her onto the demon’s head. “Ana, you crazy bitch! Kaira made me promise not to let you ride anything!”

  Ana had no time to respond. She’d discarded her buckler mid-leap, wrapping her free hand around a spine and driving the axe bit of her weapon into the demon’s fleshy shoulder for extra stability. As the thing grunted wetly, abandoning its charge and shaking its head furiously in a futile attempt to dislodge her, Ana began climbing onto its back, unconscious movements of her wings helping her on her way. Deni needed to be able to target its head, after all, and Ana had no interest in being anywhere near that when one of those plasma bolts came flying. Instead she found herself a solid position among the spines on its back, her right hand gripping onto one of them until the horny growth creaked under her strength. Then she turned her weapon in her grip so that the hammer end was forward, pushed all the mana into it that she could, and went to gods-damned town on the demon’s massive shoulder. And when Ana went to town, it didn’t matter what she was fighting. Man or demon; living, possessed, or revenant; they felt it.

  Ana’s Class gave her a bonus to each Attribute equal to her level. While fighting to defend an Object of Devotion or a member of her Party, that bonus doubled. She also had an Unarmed Perk, Iron Body, that increased her Base Strength by three Points. Then she had nine Steps in her Strength Multiplier; on top of that she had another Unarmed Perk, Close Quarters, that increased that Multiplier by three Steps as long as she was in physical contact with her opponent, and yet another Perk from Blunt Weapons, Bonebreaker, that gave her one more Step for the purposes of penetrating armor and breaking bone. The combined effect was that when that hammer came down, tearing hide, pulping flesh, and striking bone, it hit with the Effective Strength of twelve average humans.

  Ana didn’t hit like a jackhammer; she was closer to a wrecking-ball. The hammer head of her weapon didn’t just break the boar’s shoulder; with a great crack it shattered it, continuing through the splintered joint until only the axe bit on the reverse remained visible. Then she tore it out, spattering putrid blood, ruined flesh and bits of bone everywhere, and did it again.

  As Ana began her destruction of one of the demon’s joints, the others weren’t idle. Perri and Lessa were having trouble scoring any significant hits with their shorter weapons, but they didn’t need to; their shouts and strikes against the beast’s tusks and spines were plenty. Rayni hadn’t even bothered with her hand-axe, nor was she wasting her arrows. She just waved her arms, getting up as close as she dared to the demon without risking a toss of its head tearing her open. Jisha, meanwhile, was showing every sign of enjoying herself. Whoops and laughs mixed with a continuous string of curses in a free blend of every language she spoke as she hacked and thrust with her halberd, aiming for whatever was most convenient. Messy also had little trouble with reach, her blade being a bit over three feet long, and she was showing a somewhat concerning proficiency for popping eyeballs.

  Between them they had the twisted swine tossing and turning, lunging forward but never fully committing to anyone as there would always be someone else who was closer but then danced back as a third person came in. Effectively the monster was always in motion, but never going far.

  Finally, there was Deni. Her first attack was the turning point of the fight, as it so often was. “Clear! Clear!” she shouted as the point of blinding light between her hands grew, and grew, and grew. The others listened, and the moment the young Evoker saw an opening, she took it.

  She’d chosen her moment well. The first plasma bolt struck the demon in the face, severing the last foot of its snout in a shower of steaming gore only moments after Ana demolished its shoulder. The heat of it cooked the flesh for several inches above the ragged edge, filling the entrance chamber with a disturbingly savory scent of barbecued pork.

  That same heat also ruined many of its remaining eyes. Yet the monster had no trouble homing in on Deni, possibly sensing the mana swirling around her as she was already Shaping again. It whirled on her; or tried to. Its ruined shoulder made the motion ponderous and unsteady. Despite its injury it managed to point itself in the right direction, ignoring the multitude of small wounds being continually inflected upon it and using its three fully functional limbs to lurch forward.

  Then Ana’s hammer came down once, twice, three times on its good shoulder, and both forelegs collapsed beneath it, sending its head crashing into the ground. Still its powerful hind legs drove it forward as it furiously attempted to get at the mage, not for vengeance but out of pure, mindless hunger.

  Deni stood her ground and did… something. Ana could feel the currents of mana in the space shift as the marble the girl had been Shaping bled away. Instead her fist began to glow and crackle with energy as she apparently changed her Shaping on the fly.

  Time slowed as Deni’s eyes met Ana’s. The girl was manic, grinning madly, her eyes all pupil. “Sorry Ana!” she had time to shout as the demon bore down on her. “I call this one a Thunder Tap!”

  Then she drew back her glowing fist, stepped forward, and punched the hulking monster in the face.

  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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