Ilmir scrambled backwards, cursing her own poor luck. Ever since the first time she had seen one, she had known she had never wanted to fight someone who is in the middle of a Descent. She had known Tess and Fortune were at least somewhat more involved than, say, her and War, but she hadn’t known they were this close.
But now wasn’t the time to think about that. Right now, she had to remember what Grandma and Uncle Even had told her about Descents. Checking her Stamina reserves, she had enough leeway to briefly use Godspeed so long as she only sped up her perception. So, she activated it and let the world slow down around her while she thought.
Right. The first piece of advice she had been given about Descents was to run – fighting a god’s avatar was not a battle most were capable of winning. Unfortunately, that wasn’t really an option at this juncture, so she had to move on to the other methods of dealing with it.
What was most important was that Descents had a time limit, one that couldn’t be worked around without gravely injuring the avatar. How long varied depending on how long the avatar had been an Appointed, how accustomed they are to Descents, and their level, so Tess wouldn’t have very long, a minute at most.
And what made this winnable was that, to a certain extent, the god Descending was at least somewhat limited by their avatar’s capabilities. They couldn’t use most of their god powers unless their avatar had something similar, and they couldn’t use more Mana or Stamina than the avatar had available, nor would their stats be buffed unless that was part of that god’s Descent abilities.
Which led her to the biggest unknown. She had no clue what Fortune’s Descent did. She hadn’t had an Appointed before, so this was new territory for everyone. So, she concluded her best bet right now was to use her superior mobility to keep away from Tess/Fortune during the minute the Descent lasted.
She let Godspeed drop, backing up as it suddenly began to pour down rain.
And then she was thrown to the side, her body moving without her consent as a moment later a bolt of lightning struck where she had just been standing, causing her ears to ring.
Last Resolve has prevented a fatal blow!
Last Resolve has used all remaining uses of Resolve. Cooldown: 24:00:00
“My, how unlucky.” Fortune taunted, leisurely walking closer to Ilmir, “Well, look on the bright side; it’s incredibly unlikely for lightning to strike the same place twice. Now that that nasty little blessing of yours is out of the way, why don’t we have some real fun?”
Ilmir’s stomach dropped. This fight was already over, and she knew it. If Fortune was able to provoke Last Resolve like that within the five seconds she’d actively been attacking Ilmir, then she was able to end this fight any time she wanted; anything more was just toying with Ilmir.
Back on her feet now, Ilmir reached into her bag and pulled out a lightning resistance potion, hastily drinking it as Tess/Fortune…Fortune’s avatar watched disinterestedly. Once she finished, Fortune’s avatar threw Ilmir’s own sword back at her, forcing Ilmir to jump to the side and–
There was another earsplitting boom as lightning struck the flying sword and it exploded. Ignoring all reason, each individual shard of the sword was blown in such a way that they hit right where Ilmir had dodged, knocking her back and then skewering her to the ground, a large piece of sword lodged in each of her limbs. Each time she tried to struggle free something messed her up – a stray piece of rock, launched into the air by one of the lightning strikes, landed on her and neatly stopped one attempt. In another, the way she moved loosened up the sword…only for a large piece of hail to land directly on it, lodging it even deeper.
Fortune’s avatar smiled, walking over as Ilmir spent the last of her Stamina to activate Flesh Mender, keeping her from bleeding out then and there. If she could just hold on thirty more seconds, the Descent would be over, and she would be able to struggle free and make something happen.
Fortune’s avatar was standing over her, still smiling that infuriating smile. “Well, you know what they say.” She said, “There’s no kill quite like overkill.” She reached forward with a claw and scored a deep gash in Ilmir’s neck.
You have been dealt a critical 594 damage by Tess Los!
Tess Los has inflicted Heavy Bleeding! You will take 1,002 damage every second for 150 seconds or until the bleeding is stopped!
That was almost as bad as the nasty hit she had taken at the beginning of the fight, and without any more uses of Resolve she had no way of getting rid of it.
Heavy Bleeding has been removed!
Fortune’s avatar did something and the bleeding ceased, leaving Ilmir to watch in puzzlement, and then, mounting horror, as Fortune’s avatar stepped back, blew Ellie a kiss, and began to chant a spell.
By all rights, she shouldn’t have the Mana necessary to cast a spell like this. Ilmir didn’t know exactly what Fortune’s avatar was casting but judging from the several enormous magic circles expanding out around her, it was an incredibly high-level combination spell.
The wind was picking up speed around her, the temperature plummeting and the rain beginning to fall even harder as thunder roared above.
Ilmir struggled against the metal pinning her to the ground, but she was once again met with improbable events preventing her from making any headway. It had been over a minute and a half since the Descent had begun, so why was it still going?! It should have ended quite a while ago, but Fortune’s avatar didn’t show even a hint of the damage she was supposed to have.
The clouds above rumbled ominously, Ilmir’s hair standing up as she felt the lightning approach once again. Fortune’s avatar reached the last stanza of the chant too, but Ilmir’s attention was torn away by a massive cracking sound. The Gauntlet of Challenge, which had been floating patiently above, waiting for a killing blow to be struck, shattered.
Fortune’s avatar’s expression went from one of smug satisfaction to horror – she couldn’t stop a spell like this, not without backlash. And given the power of the spell and Tess’s frailty, that backlash would likely kill her outright. So, she kept going. “Fimbulvet–”
And then, Uncle Evan was there, magic circles running up and down the air around him as he worked a spell.
“No.” Fate boomed, pointing Uncle Evan’s finger downward. The magic circles immediately disappeared, the energy within dissipating harmlessly as Fate’s avatar dispelled the spell with no apparent effort.
That left the lightning. It likely wouldn’t strike Ilmir directly, but it would still hit the area, and a bolt imbued with divine energy would do some damage, even through the wards on the guild’s headquarters.
But her grandma had calmly moved into the center of the area, raising a clawed hand. The lightning struck it, but instead of damaging her grandma like it should, it danced about her palm, at least until she closed her fist, crushing the light. “Got it.” Dominion puffed. “We should be in the clear now.”
At this point The Rumors had moved over to Ilmir and were extracting the metal from her body, Ker healing her up as the gods conversed.
“Fortune, stop your Descent now.” Fate instructed, “You’re going to hurt Tess.”
“I…I can’t!” Fortune said, panic in her voice, “Every time I try, I get sucked back into her!”
Fate’s avatar nodded at Dominion’s. “Dominion, can you do anything about this?”
Stolen novel; please report.
Dominion’s avatar stepped up to Fortune’s avatar and placed a hand on her forehead. There was a pulse of divine energy and then…
“Still here!” Fortune replied, “I…I think it’s the Class!” She said.
Dominion’s avatar nodded. “She’s right.” She agreed, giving Fate’s avatar a meaningful look. “The divine energy in the Class is too strong, and it’s keeping me from doing anything. Thankfully, it also seems to be preventing any of the normal side-effects to a Descent, so Tess should be fine. We’ll have to take her to the Class’s creator, though, get her to deal with this.”
Fate’s avatar grimaced. “Alright.” He waved a hand, and then him, Dominion’s avatar, Fortune’s avatar, and, oddly enough, Ellie, were gone.
----------------------------------------
Tess blinked, accustoming herself to her new surroundings. They were in a sterile-looking area, all sleek white walls and tile.
This is the god’s workplace. Fortune told her. They were still in Descent, of course. It was an odd sensation, where they both had control over the body, their intents and thoughts merged in such a way that their every action seemed like it was a mutual decision made with no conscious deliberation.
It looked like Gramps and Eyfura’s Descents had both, ended, though. Instead, a figure was standing next to each of them, ones who Tess instinctively knew were Fate and Dominion.
Fate was a tall orc wearing a rather sharp suit, his bald head sparkling. He gave the group a nod, then pulled a phone out of his pocket . “I’ll get the boss.” He said, opening a door near him and stepping out of the room, already putting his phone to his ear.
Dominion was a halfling, and she was small even by their standards. She was dressed casually and had brown hair and eyes, overall just looking… average. Tess wouldn’t have given her a second glance if she passed her in the street.
“Hey, why’d the Gauntlet break?” Fortune asked, “I thought you had made sure those things could handle high-tier spells.”
“I did.” Dominion sighed, “But I didn’t test what a Descent would do to them. I didn’t think anyone would Descend in a fight with such low stakes.”
There was silence for a moment, and then Ellie spoke up. “Um…can…someone explain what’s going on? Where are we? Why can’t Fortune stop the Descent? Who’s this “boss” of yours?”
Dominion sighed again. “Right, sorry about all of this.” She said. “This is all stuff that normally only Appointed get to know about, but I suppose Fate’s decided you’re fine to know. No, I don’t know why, no one really knows what he’s thinking.”
She frowned. “You haven’t sworn an Oath, to keep anything secret, which is less than ideal. If you mention so much as a hint of this to anyone not in the know, then you’re going to have a few grumpy gods on your case, and I don’t think you want that, right?”
Ellie nodded furiously. “Yeah. Um, might want to have me swear an Oath, though, don’t want to let anything out accidentally.”
“Already laid the groundwork for it, and you just accepted by saying that.” Fate said, stepping back into the room, “You were going to find out sooner or later, so this is just moving things up for you, really. Anyway, the boss is on her way.”
“Correction, already here.” A woman’s voice said. Tess and Fortune turned around, and, to Tess’s surprise, the boss was a slime person. She was tall and made entirely of green slime, a small smile on her face as she looked at Tess and Ellie’s surprised expressions.
“Hey there, my name’s Amy.” She said, giving a small wave. “I’m in the Administrator in these parts. You can think of Administrators as kind of the creator god, the ones who make everything. No, as far as I can tell, there isn’t anything above that, but Administrators came from somewhere, so I can’t say for sure. Yes, there are others, but I’m the Administrator for this universe, and you probably won’t have to deal with ones from outside this universe so don’t worry about them.
“Anyway, Fortune, I’ve heard you’re a little…stuck.”
Tess and Fortune nodded. “Yeah, every time I try to leave, Monster Breeder just pulls me right back in.” Fortune said.
Amy stroked her chin thoughtfully. “Well, that’s…actually, yeah, I wasn’t thinking about that when I made Monster Breeder. Give me a few minutes to look over this to see what I can do.” She said, walking over and placing a slimy hand on Tess’s forehead, “Fortune, if people have questions, answer them for me, will you? Dominion and Fate, you can go back to what you were doing.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Fate said, giving a small bow and leaving with Dominion.
“So, how does a Class trap a god?” Eyfura asked.
“Um, I’m not exactly sure.” Fortune replied. “Here’s what I understand, Amy, correct me if I’m wrong.”
Amy nodded distractedly, and Fortune continued. “So, um, Monster Breeder was a test by us gods. In order to give out Phantasmal Skills, we have to spend something called Worship and then pick someone to give it to. Me and a couple of the other gods were thinking of ways to get around that, and we came up with the idea to put them into a Class.
“So, we asked Amy and it turns out that doing something like that was possible, but we weren’t sure how it would work with Rewards Crystals. Amy made the Class because none of us were good enough at that sort of thing to do what we were thinking of, and we put it in a Rewards Crystal with nothing else inside to see what would happen.
“As it turns out, it just makes the chance of getting the Class so abysmally low that even with the bonus from being the only possible reward, it’s effectively impossible to get. We put the crystal in a beginner dungeon in hopes that, eventually, someone would get the Class and we could see how it worked, but once people found out the crystal didn’t give anything people stopped coming.
“So, eventually we decided that, when I eventually decided on someone I wanted to give my blessing and make my Appointed, I would lead them to that crystal and see if they got the Class. Obviously, Tess did, but we weren’t thinking about how the Worship would conflict when I Descended.
“And I don’t know if it’s something to do with how Amy made the Class, but it doesn’t seem to want to let any being that goes inside the user’s soul out, and normally that would be Cores, but… apparently it works for Descents too. And since I don’t show up as a Core or anything, Tess can’t exactly eject me like she would a Core.”
“Yeah, it looks like when I made this, I co-opted the Descent mechanism into something for absorbing and holding cores.” Amy confirmed. “It’s not a good way to go about things, but I was a lot more inexperienced then and it was probably the easiest way.”
She straightened up. “Alright, I’ve got a workaround for the moment.” Amy put her hand out and a core dropped into it. She handed the core to Tess. “Absorb this then eject it.” She instructed. “It’s an empty core I’ve made some quick modifications to, it’s going to see Fortune just sort of floating around in your soul and latch onto her. When you eject it Fortune will pop out with it, which should solve the issue until I get my other workaround up and running. Don’t worry about making room for her or anything, when the core dissolves that smoke will head back to her real body and she’ll “wake up” there.”
Tess took the core, giving it a small glance before absorbing it. It was around the same size as the largest core she had ejected, which was the core for the spirit she was currently using as a pet, Isabella. The process had been uncomfortable and somewhat painful, yes, but it was something she could deal with, so she went ahead and absorbed the core.
You have absorbed a $z5y^ core!
$5#k4
*9D%#
“Ignore that.” Amy said. “It’s just the system freaking out because that was a very non-standard core you absorbed. Just go ahead and eject it, it’ll be fine.”
Tess nodded, blushing a little. “Um, do you mind if we use the bathroom for this? It’s a little messy.”
Amy laughed. “Go ahead.”
Fortune helped guide Tess to the nearest bathroom, where she began the ejection process. It took much longer than other cores she had ejected, totaling a few minutes of rather uncomfortable pushing but, eventually, the core was out, and Tess was once again alone in her mind.
She took a moment to catch her breath, looking around the bathroom as she did. It was…normal, like it had been lifted straight from a school or business or something, albeit a fair bit cleaner than most public bathrooms she’d seen.
Once she was done catching her breath, she cleaned up the other mess that inevitably came with pushing as hard as she had been and left the bathroom.
She was immediately accosted by Fortune, who caught her in a hug. “Sorry, if I had known what would happen, I would have talked to Amy before all of this. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble for you.”
Tess returned the hug. “I know, it’s fine.” And she did know, she had felt Fortune’s panic during the Descent. And, furthermore, she felt like she knew Fortune well enough to know that Fortune didn’t mean for any of this.
After a few moments, Fortune pulled away. “Right, we should get back. The others are probably worried.”
Tess nodded. “Yeah, you’re right.”
The two made their way back into the room, where it looked like Amy was trying to have a conversation with…only partial success. Eyfura and Gramps were talking just fine, but Ellie was just standing there looking awkward, like she wasn’t quite sure she belonged.
“Oh, Tess, how are you feeling?” Ellie asked, rushing over and giving Tess a hug, “I was starting to get really worried.”
“Um, fine now, I guess. How have things been going here?”
“We’ve mostly just been talking about what happened to you. Um…” She glanced at Fortune, “Do you mind if I ask what exactly your Descent does? I’m really curious after seeing you two like that.”
Fortune gave her a smile. “Normally I’d say no, but because it’s you I’ll let you in on it, so long as you don’t tell anyone else. Deal?” Ellie nodded, so Fortune continued. “It’s honestly really simple. My Descent makes Tess’s Luck stat apply to everything, instead of just chance based things. It even extends to her enemies; they have to make checks against her Luck in order to do anything to her.”
Ellie stared. “So…she’s basically invincible.”
Fortune smirked. “Something like that. If her opponent has some blessings, Phantasmal Skills, or something else from a god, that’s somewhat exempt from it, but other than that she just gets to do what she wants, and no one can stop her.”
“That’s par for the course with Descents, though.” Gramps said, walking up to the group. “But I must admit that, from what I saw, Fortune’s was stronger than most. Anyway, Fortune, Amy needs you to go work with her so she can get your Descent working properly, and I need to take everyone back.”
“Got it. And, uh, thanks, Evan. You and Fate really saved my bacon there.”
“Don’t mention it. Just keep taking care of Tess for me.”
Fortune smiled. “You don’t even have to ask.”
Gramps nodded. “Right. It’s been a long day, let’s let the two of you get some rest, eh?”