The Great Core's Paradox

The bubbling feeling of joy in Valera’s stomach wouldn’t go away, doing its best to force her mouth into a wide-set grin. She knew that it wasn’t the time for it; even now, a Guardsman was pinned underneath rubble, waiting to be rescued. Depending on how well his leg healed, he might be facing an early retirement.

Still, it wasn’t her job to free him. Valera’s fingers had already taken a beating, the flesh at their tips scraped away in her attempts to break through or lift rubble that was far, far beyond her capacity to actually do anything about. And besides, others - more able than her in the field of lifting heavy things - were already moving to help. Things were getting done, and swiftly at that.

So really, was it so wrong to be happy about this?

After all, her little cutie had saved people! Again! She couldn’t wait to rub this in Doran’s face.

‘We really should just kill the thing while it’s weak, Valera.’ ‘It’s a monster, Valera.’ ‘I bet it doesn’t even like humans, Valera.’ She could just hear his doubting voice in her mind, all worried and stern.

They showed him! Nothing so cute could be evil, and that was just a fact - and a proven fact, now! Sure, the little guy had been a bit...surly, at first. Sure, she had taken a few nips here and there and it had hurt her heart a little every time he hissed at her, but it had all been worth it in the end.

The glowing necklace of the Guardswoman in front of her was a symbol of that. Valera still couldn’t quite believe everything that was happening; she had known that the whole Little Guardian tale was more accurate than it should have been, what with how many times she had found the little guy comforting scared or crying children, but something like this…

It was almost miraculous, and with the way that the woman was staring at the little snake on her shoulder, it seemed that Valera wasn’t the only one to think so. Being able to know that someone was in danger from so far away, and then being able to guide the way to them on top of that was just ridiculous. Inconceivable.

Valera had never heard of any nullsmith-forged item that even came close to replicating that; if something like it existed, it had been kept secret by its creator. The only drawback was how difficult communication could be. Only the little snake’s seeming desperation in combination with somehow managing to replay the woman’s words had allowed her to make the hunch that they weren’t being shown something that hadn’t happened yet.

She had a feeling that snake necklaces would soon become very fashionable among members of the Guard. Valera knew that many of them were nervous about hunting monsters so frequently; they’d likely grab onto the idea of the Little Guardian Totems with both hands and hold on for dear life.

A slight smile broke across her lips as the Guardswoman gave a light, tentative scratch to the preening little snake. He wobbled a bit underneath the touch, flicking his tongue in and out to taste the air. The sight was pretty cute.

It was a shame that she needed to interrupt it.

“Excuse me, Miss…”

The woman blinked a few times, as if surprised to find someone standing in front of her. “It’s Triss,” she finally replied.

“Well, Triss, I’m sorry to say that I need to borrow your little friend there,” Valera said with a point of her finger. “There’s still a bit more work to be done.”

As if to emphasize her point, another monster threw itself into the remaining wall of rubble with a resounding crash. The Guardswoman winced at the sound; unsurprising, given that she had so very recently thought herself doomed by those same crashes.

Triss nodded, gesturing towards the Little Guardian with a ‘have at it’ sort of motion. A few seconds later, Valera had her very own shoulder-snake. Just as she was about to go, a thought struck her.

“Say, Triss...would you mind if I borrowed your spear?”

Newly acquired spear in hand, Valera slipped past the opening in the rubble, a little snake wrapped securely around her shoulder and upper arm. Two laborer types - strong, and with physiques that demonstrated that admirably - toiled away in an attempt to free the pinned Guardsman. With Captain Wren - a monstrously strong man himself - assisting, it would only be a matter of time before the injured Guardsman was freed.

...she just knew that she was tempting fate by thinking something like that. Call it superstition. Call it a sixth sense. Call it instinct. In the end, Valera didn’t care what it was; all she cared about was the sudden and immediate urge to move.

She did, throwing herself to the side - at least, as much as the rather cramped confines allowed, careful not to crush her little passenger as she fell.

Directly in front of where she had been standing, the rubble crumbled, causing a cascading effect that sent stones tumbling dangerously. Valera shook her head and blinked a few times as the dust settled, throwing a glance towards the fallen Guardsmen. She breathed a sigh of relief when she noted that he was fine; none of the rubble had fallen near him, though the shifting had likely done bad things to his still-pinned leg, and possibly undone the efforts to free him.

However, there was a silver lining: the Flat-Horned Chargers were still stuck on the other side. When the stones moved, the ones at the top fell down to replace them - and now there was a convenient ramp for Valera to climb, with an equally convenient hole at the top to let her jump down on the other side. It would leave her alone and trapped by a wall of stone, but Valera had survived worse odds.

Besides, another hit like that could crush the pinned Guardsman. It was pure luck that it didn’t already.

Path decided, Valera gave a quick shout to signal her Captain before clambering up the fallen rubble. After a quick look to verify what she was getting herself into, she dropped down into the near-darkness on the other side. Glowing mushrooms, along with the light of her own armor and weapons, helped to highlight her enemies - alive, dead, and dying.

It looked like their Little Guardian had already taken a few bites; that went a little towards explaining how the rubble was still standing after so long. Valera had wondered about that. Flat-Horned Chargers, for all that they weren’t the most intelligent of monsters, more than earned their name. They were large and hefty creatures - yet, despite that, had the ability to move far faster than they should have been able.

Sure, it took them a moment to get going; something about the way their muscles were formed gave them a bit of a slow start. But give one a little bit of room to move, time to get going, and suddenly that all fell away. The acceleration after they reached that point had really been something, when Valera had seen it for the first time. Given enough time, their charges could take on extremely dangerous levels of force, impacting with a strength great enough to shatter stone.

Which, even if she hadn’t already known that, would have been obvious by now.

They only had a few weaknesses. The first was the slow start: get in close enough that they couldn’t build up momentum, and they lost a large amount of their danger. The second was self-inflicted injury: though they had thick skulls and sturdy horns designed to weather the impacts of their own charges, slamming into stone hard enough to shatter it was still unhealthy. Between the damage the impact itself did and any cuts that flying fragments caused, Flat-Horned Chargers had a tendency to hurt themselves. The third and final weakness was in the charge itself: its deadly momentum was a double-edged sword.

At the sound of stomping feet, Valera flipped the head of her borrowed spear into position, wedging its other end into a crack in the rubble behind her. She wasn’t very good with spears, not like Rowan was. But something like this?

This was simple.

The braced spear dipped underneath the monster’s lowered head, piercing through its sternum as it ran itself through. She dodged to the side at the last moment, feeling the wind rush past her as the corpse continued through to the other end of the spear.

Valera left the spear behind, freeing her twin blades and closing the distance to the others with a vicious grin.

As dangerous as it could be, sometimes Valera absolutely loved her job. A satisfied hiss at her shoulder seemed to agree with the sentiment.