Val scrambled to her feet. “Kyl…” she breathed, “Kylee!”

She sprinted past the boulder three meters in diameter, stomach in her throat, ignoring what she might see once she made it around. Saints, stop thinking about the worst and focus! Swallowing down the rest of her perturbation, she made the journey in the near dark. One of the falling rocks must’ve crushed a torch. Roughly around Kylee’s last known area, she whipped out a G1 fire scroll, using what little light it made offhandedly to survey the situation. A long sigh full of relief escaped Val’s pursed lips.

Kylee managed to get most of herself out of the way.

“If you ever give me a heart attack again…” Val muttered, half-expecting an answer. When silence was all she received, she doubled down and got to work. One of Kylee’s legs was caught underneath the boulder. Val scrambled inside her cloak and pulled out a rudimentary piece of first aid: a tourniquet. No point freeing the leg when she wouldn’t have time to stop the bleeding and apply a healing scroll.

“Kylee,” Val said, giving her friend a good shake. No response. “Well, at least you’re not awake when I’m putting this on.”

Val wrapped it around just above Kylee’s knee and tightened it as hard as she could. “You shouldn’t be unconscious though,” Val kept muttering to herself. Unless… Val’s breath caught as she came closer, ignoring how her friend’s mask scraped her cheek. She heard breathing sounds, which was good, but it sounded raw. Unfiltered.

“Damn it!” Kylee’s mask broke. Unfortunately, the extras were safely tucked away in the campsite unable to be of any use. Shoving away the frustration, she downed two aether tonics.

“Metal Spike.” A long rod materialized into Val’s hand. She wasted no time in wedging it beneath the boulder and flooding her limbs with aether. Energy enhancement bolstered her strength and she tugged the spike downwards. It pushed the boulder just high enough to release its weight on Kylee’s leg, and she kicked it out of there as quickly as possible. At that, her arms gave out, and the boulders slammed into the ground loud enough to wake the dead.

Kylee, though, remained knocked out. Val tacked on two G3 healing scrolls on her friend—one for the damage the boulder caused and the second because she felt bad kicking it—and worked to get the tourniquet off.

“This won’t do…” she mumbled, glancing at Kylee’s lifeless body. In a blink, Val snapped off the Support’s mask and replaced it with hers, eyeing the ceiling all the while. The elemental might’ve sealed it, and Kylee might’ve reinforced it in its death, but it still came crumbling down. The light from the lanterns above leaked through the open holes past the ice pillars, while unable to illuminate anything down here it was just enough to point out where the exits were.

Val ignored how drawing breaths became almost laborious. She ignored the numbness in her fingers and the coldness in her feet. Bloom’s Essence poison works fast, so she’d just have to work faster. The four-week-long training—also monikered the ‘Month of hell’—that Age of Atera pushed her through returned in a blitz. Various bits of knowledge swarmed her recent memories, not just of using tourniquets, but also evacuating casualties. Limp bodies. Injured teammates.

During that time, she discovered that she may be a little too weak for a ranger roll and she was currently far too near her alchemical limits to down an aether tonic to enhance her strength. Luckily, other techniques out there existed. In three swift steps, she lifted Kylee’s legs so that her knees locked, held Kylee’s feet down as she tugged one of the Support’s arms, pulled her into a standing position using both hands and brought Kylee’s body over the shoulder in one motion.

Words left her mouth as she worked to cast her newest spell. “Chained Lances.” It was the very same one Hammer Squad checked out at Reynor City’s biggest library, except—despite Jesal’s enthusiasm—she abandoned the invocation version for the conjuration. And, like with most conjuration spells, she held no control over it once two coldsteel lances popped into existence. It didn’t waste time in shooting for the gap she fixed it for, so she rushed to snatch the long chains that quickly disappeared in front of her. Seconds later, she was in the air, using every ounce of strength to keep her and Kylee from falling back down.

A blink later, they flew out of the underground cavern and into the light, crashing against the tunnel ceiling. They narrowly missed the lances embedded in the dirt, soon landing just beside the opening. Val struggled to catch her breath. Her time was waning.

“Come on Val,” she groaned, rolling onto her palms. She pushed herself to a stand, took a moment to acknowledge that she was halfway there, and then worked to lift Kylee onto her back once again. She set off at a light run out of the damned tunnel, holding tight to Kylee’s armour as she put one foot after the next.

Darkness crept into the edge of her vision. She wheezed to get what little oxygen she could. No feelings remained in her limbs. The poison was setting in. The distant earthen wall grew taller as they drew nearer. Almost there, Val.

Come…

On…

She wasn’t going to make it. Signal—she had to signal and let someone know they were here, that they needed help, that they survived. Using the very last bits of her aether pool, she conjured a Metal Spike and set it sailing over the campsite’s earthen wall. Caro, Jesal, Rick or anyone would recognize the pale, icy metal that was indicative of coldsteel. That was indicative of Val.

The ground rose up. Kylee tumbled past Val as they both hit the floor, rolling till her momentum carried her no further. The Support would hate to be seen like this. She would have to be alive to care… Val thought, and moments before consciousness finally let her go, a whisper reached her ears.

“Kaedyn…”

----------------------------------------

Breathing dug glass shards deep into her lungs. Val’s muscles twitched with every waking movement. An agonizing throb halted her train of thoughts each time it struck, and Val now grew a sense of camaraderie with the metal pieces Lowell forged. As much as she wished the sensations to stop, she was glad it was there. She could feel it.

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She was alive.

Something was missing, though. Something she was trying to protect… or rather someone. Val cracked her eyes wide open and shot up. “Kylee,” she croaked.

“Woah there.” A hand gently pushed her forehead back into the bed below. “You just came back from the brink of no return, and look at you, so full of energy.”

Val glared from her pillow at the Kidraan healer, but her anger was met with amused blue eyes and a wry smile on brown skin. “I need to find—”

“Kylee,” the healer finished, letting Val’s forehead go. “I heard you the first time.” With a grunt, the twenty-something-year-old woman took a stand and headed for the flap some few steps away. As she opened it, she cast a glance back. “If you have the energy to talk like this, you’re mostly in the green. However, just to avoid any reports, I’ll have you know that I’ve taken a look at your vitals, and a preliminary look at your organs. You’ll need to see a doctor after clearing the rift to rid yourself of the remaining poison, but most of it is gone. So, in short, you’ll be fine—for now.”

“Thank you,” Val croaked, managing a tiny nod of appreciation.

“No need, it’s my job.” She lifted a hand and stepped out. “I’ll find this ‘Kylee’ of yours, so sit tight. And for all that's saint-like in the world, go easy on the potions, will ya?”

“Copy that,” Val got out. And like that, the healer was gone. Where are my manners, I totally forgot to get her name… She berated herself, scooching up in her bed. Rare enough, it was a bed rather than a makeshift pile of blankets and sleeping bags. She must’ve been in bad shape to be awarded this kind of treatment. Who knew how long she was out for? Thankfully—or unfortunately—the rift hadn’t been cleared, so it couldn’t be long.

That did not answer the question of why the healer wouldn’t know Kylee. Besides her being a Lenson and all, she was also, in fact, injured. Thankfully, the question mark decided to walk in, not a scratch on her face, clad in carbon fibre bottoms, with a blue cloak draped over her frame.

A sea of relief nearly put Val back to sleep. Her teammate was safe—healthy enough to be standing, too—and Val didn’t know where to begin asking her line of worries. Kylee beat her to it, staring a hole through Val’s face. “Why.”

Val chuckled a bit awkwardly at the sudden interrogation. “Why what.”

The Support gestured to her bedridden state. “Where would I start?”

The why’s hung in the air between the two girls.

Why spend a bunch of expensive items to drag her out under the boulder?

Why lug a body out of a hole?

Why trade masks?

Why save her?

The thought of asking such an inquiry rang alarm bells in Val’s brain, enough to shock her out of her dazed state. This was not a natural question to pose. Most would simply settle for a “Thank you.” Either she did not believe herself worth the risk or… Someone else paid the price for risking it once before. A certain name floated in Val’s head. Kaedyn, she’d said before they passed out. Both children lost, she’d mentioned in Reynor before she and Jesal shut down the conversation.

Val took a deep breath at what she surmised, hoping she hid the way her heart silently cracked as each clue fell into place. Her lips curled upwards encouragingly as she patted the space beside her. “Help a girl out and sit, alright? I can barely speak.”

Whether it was her smile or the scratchy voice, something convinced the Support. An uncharacteristic huff left Kylee as she trudged over, crawling over Val’s leg and squeezing into the space left between Val and the tent wall. She folded herself into a cross-legged position, her fingers laced in her lap and her back ramrod straight—the stark opposite of relaxed.

Val had to stifle her laughter. “Might as well make yourself comfortable.”

Kylee grumbled to herself as she, with no small amount of hesitation, lifted the blankets and stretched her legs underneath, resting her back on the headboard.

“Better,” Val said, leaning backwards and gazing at the tapered roof. “Now, to answer your question. You’ve heard about Raven Efron, I assume. The rumours, the news, everything.”

“Your feud with Versetti was most worrying, forgive me if I stuck my nose in the wrong place.”

“Forgiveness officially granted," Val huffed. "Dad’s practically infamous. I can’t stop anyone from digging it up, much else you.” She swallowed a lump past her throat. Here goes. “For some reason, he always foresaw me as a squad leader. So he never hesitated to drill into me his three obligations as a squad leader himself.”

She raised a finger. “One: bring loot back home. People tend to revel in the action, but you’re in rifts for one reason—to provide for your own. So be sure to bring back something, anything, if possible."

Up came another finger. “Two: bring stories back home. Diving rifts is never a one-man-job. Figure out your team dynamics, make the strategies, and use the right tactics. No matter how you plan things, though, things will go awry in rifts. It’s just the way they are. Embrace them, turn them into cautionary tales. Better yet, bring them home. Because, if you can, you’ve successfully completed rule number three.”

“And rule three is, I assume, bring your squadmates home?” Kylee chipped in.

Val nodded, forgoing counting and instead resting a hand atop Kylee’s. “At any cost. They say the first rule of saving a victim is to never make yourself one. But Dad threw that into the wind. He believed he had a duty—a responsibility—to bring the adventurers he took into a rift out of one. Now, I’m not as confident to say that I put any of you in a particular rift. We were given assignments, we were given groups, and frankly, I was given this position. No.”

Val raised a hand to stop Kylee from cutting in. “I was. Still have to do a lot to earn it. The point is, however, I stand by the fact that I should get my teammates—captain or not—out with me. So…” Val gave Kylee’s hand a quick squeeze. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat, okay?”

“It…” Val winced as Kylee’s grip tightened. “It doesn’t change the fact that I hate what I forced you to do.”

“So become stronger.”

Kylee reared back, puzzled at the statement.

“Be strong enough that you’ll never be the one needing saving,” Val added. “You don’t realize it, but you save our asses more than once in rifts. Not too comfortable being on the other end, huh?”

“Ugh,” Kylee threw an arm over her eyes. “You’re so annoying.”

Val couldn’t hold back her laughter this time around. “Thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

“I know.”

“Idiot.”

The Striker huffed a chuckle, her throat stinging even as a smirk tugged at her lips. “Looks like I’m not the only one Caro’s rubbing off on.”

“Just sleep.”

“I think,” Val got in between breaths, “I think I’ll do just that.” The shards, dulled at such a conversation, returned with a vengeance. The throbbing headache simply never left. It was indeed time to get some shut-eye. She scooched back down, placing her head on her pillow. “Feel free to stay,” she yawned.

“...okay.”

A faint smile spread across Val’s face at that as she, willingly, let herself slip away to oblivion.