Divinity Rescue Corps
87- Saving Lives and Using Leverage

I was just getting my Token back after only three and a half hours of meditation with the skill when a cry went up, and the Guardians were sprinting up the hill with the Wizards over their shoulders.

“What the—”

I started unpacking the backpack I’d brought along, frowning at the scene. One of the Wizards was soaking wet, and blood ran down one leg visible under the robes. The other was missing also pale with shock, though he hadn’t been harmed.

An application of Healer’s Breath didn’t do enough, so I whipped up a potion to heal in a few minutes, using Treatment (Potions) with a few of the herbs I’d brought. Afterwards, I asked either of them if they could cool down the potion, and the shocked Wizard just blinked at me.

“Frost spell,” I said, getting in his face. “Now.”

He chanted the words and made the motions with his hands, and as soon as he touched it, my boiling potion in the tin cup cooled enough for me to feed it to the other Wizard. He was unconscious, so that meant ordering the Guars to hold his head a certain way. When that didn’t work, because I wasn’t Boss or Blake, Cinzy came over and got the dying Wizard into position.

I dribbled the healing potion into his mouth, and the throat did its work automatically. Thankfully, I watched his hit points stop dipping from the blood loss, and begin to tick up. They’d been about to hit zero.

“How are you two so absolutely terrible at your jobs that this guy nearly died?” I demanded. “There are three of you. What in the devil is wrong with you?”

Taunt check success. Nice.

Only one of them had the good grace to appear ashamed. The other two snorted, and the one, a guy with curly strawberry blonde hair and a few freckles, casually shoved me backwards. I was about to go sprawling, but the temporary Physicality Token helped me roll and come right back up on my feet. The one damage I’d suffered was enough, and I sank my temporary Token into physical damage resistance.

“They’re doing it on purpose,” Cinzy said.

“Doing what on purpose? Throwing the Wizards to the sharks?”

“Exactly.”

I rocked back on my heels, and looked at the Guardians in a new light. These… people, these pieces of shirt, were deliberately pushing the Wizards into danger. But for what?

“Oh yeah,” the one Guardian said, “you go ahead and judge us. Go on then.” He took several menacing steps toward me. “You get your experience points the easy way, you just find things that are sick, and you work on makin’ em better. I bet I’d be level forty-some if I were healing in a world that’s sick.”

Level… forty-something? Did they think experience just fell out of trees? I worked my butt off and wasn’t even level 20 yet.

“Guardians get fuck-all,” he snarled. “You think life is so grand, makin’ people love you every time you give em a potion. Not grand, not for us. Nothing attacking us on the journey. No marauding armies we gotta hold back. There’s no xp to be found anywhere.”

“Should’ve been a Healer then,” I told him. “Then again, you might be running around giving the natives diseases just to have a chance to heal them up.”

The Taunt check was very successful, and I knew that because the other Guardian barreled into this freckled one to keep him from tearing me apart.

“We can’t,” he was grunting. “Boss says we have to keep him alive.”

“And we don’t kill,” the third Guardian said.

“Fletcher, what are you doing?” Cinzy hissed.

“Oh come on,” I continued. “You can’t change your class to Assassin? Because you’re the worst Guardians imaginable.”

The two who were holding back Freckles both looked my way, as the Taunt succeeded. “You need to shut the fuck up, Squishy. We’re all that’s keeping Todd from tearing you in half.”

“You kill me,” I said, “all these Wizards die, and then the only xp you’ll get is trying to protect Todd from your Boss. Not a point of Ingenuity between the lot of you, is there?”

“Fletcher, stop it!” Cinzy tried again.

Another Taunt success. Another Durability and Physicality Token for just an hour. Cinzy wasn’t entirely wrong; what was I doing here?

Todd and the other two all reacted… poorly. The two who were holding back Todd released their grip, and Todd gave a mighty roar. He charged, a mutated, overly muscled linebacker closing in on someone who, at best, had a climber’s build.

Cinzy let out a squeak that was both adorable and filled with concern over what my condition was about to be.

I had to wait for the last moment before using my temporary Physicality Tokens, along with one of my regular ones. When I did, it was to launch myself up into the tree at my back, and heft myself onto the branch just in time to hear Todd slam face first into the trunk. The thud had some crunch in it, and also some wetter sounds. Both the other two guards and Cinzy all went ‘Ohhhhh!’ with horror and dismay.

I peered down to see Todd’s face a mass of red. He was out cold, the big dumb idiot.

“Fletcher!”

I was not fast enough, nor did I have the Physicality Tokens to avoid the big grabbing hands clutch my body and wrench me out of the tree.

This is how I knocked my chin on the branch and got knocked the F out.

***

Temporary Durability and Physicality Tokens lasted an hour.

I came to and figured out the situation with only about three minutes to spend my temporary Durability Token and boost my physical damage resistance yet again. This had come at a high cost, though later factors made up for the pain and loss of hp. In a big way.

They’d rigged up a bier for me out of sleeping bags and tree branches, so although the going was bumpy and I had a bit of a headache, I was pretty comfortable. More comfortable than being tied to a tree, that was for sure.

Todd was next to me, still unconscious. I had a look over his condition with Diagnosis and found he only had a handful of hit points left. He must have taken some serious damage ‘guarding’ the Wizards, and then even more face planting into a tree trunk.

Cinzy walked behind, and far behind her, the last Guardian checked the area for threats. I blinked at Cinzy and tried to use Psyspeech again.

Success.

I’m glad they haven’t been using you as an xp farm, I told her, and again her eyes widened. No, I can’t hear your thoughts with this, only project them. Anyway, it would be pretty awful if they used you as bait every time they wanted to level up. I can see by the look on your face that you’re not pleased to be here. I’m sure they don’t give you much xp out here either, and I’m sure Blake hits on you constantly.

She nodded at this.

Help me get out of here. We’ll rescue these Wizards with the help of the team. Sadly I ran out of time on Psyspeech, or I would have talked longer.

A doubtful look grossed her face, and she literally chewed over this idea by biting her lower lip. Now, Cinzy was undeniably the most beautiful person I’d ever met, and her chewing on her lower lip was enough to drive any man out of his mind. I closed my eyes and tried to get some meditation done, so that I’d have some hit points by the time we reached Blake’s camp.

***

“You do get out of this,” my mother said.

“Yep,” I confirmed. “It’s not fun, and it gets pretty tense at some points.”

“Like this one,” Sarah said. “Ugh. Drat and Cinzy?”

“That’s what I thought, at first,” I said, and let the realization sink in. At first were the key words in that sentence.

***

Things were not all what they seemed. Sure Blake and his cronies were using the Wizards as xp farms. Yes they were marching the Wizards into danger, only to snatch them out at the last minute to save their lives. And a few times after the last minute.

But no, I was about to find out that what I thought I knew about Cinzy and Drat were wrong. Dead wrong.

The first thing that happened, once the Wizards and their captive Healer were once again shackled up, was Blake and Boss approached their Guardian buddies and conferred about what had happened.

After some roaring laughter and swearing, they stormed over to where I was holed up in my wood shelter, and Blake ripped the door off.

Shoddy craftsmanship are two words I definitely didn’t say.

“You. Up on your feet.”

“I’m pretty tired,” I told him.

“Up. On. Your. Feet.”

I turned to behold him. Blake might be too big to fit through the doorway, but he could certainly make his own way. He could tear this house apart without any trouble.

“Aren’t you guys tired of kicking the snot out of me?”

“You hurt Todd. You heal him up.”

Now I did stand. “I’ll heal any Wizards you guys throw in the jaws of the lions, but I’m not healing any of your guys.”

“Is that so?”

“That’s so.”

“A Healer that won’t heal is just an extra mouth to feed,” he said.

“I think we’re agreed then, you can let me go.”

Now he threw back his head and laughed. “Get your ass out here and heal up Todd.”

“No,” I said.

“Archie?” he said.

I heard a sigh, and a muttered curse about how nobody was supposed to call him by his real name. Then Boss edged his way in, past Blake’s gigantic bulk.

“Archie?” I asked, with perfect innocence.

“Yeah. You interviewed me.”

“You look completely different,” I confessed. “Shaved head, tattoos, and a whole lot of extra Physicality.”

He grunted and untied my wrists, then heaved me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “That’s what happens when you actually have a chance to level up.”

I was then taken out to one of the tents, where Todd lay in the waning light, and set on my feet.

“Heal him.”

“I already refused.”

“You’re low on hit points, Squishy,” Boss said, “Don’t make me—“

“Kill me? A Guardian is supposed to protect, not kill.”

“A Healer is supposed to heal, not allow people to suffer.”

I just arched an eyebrow at him. “Yes, it’s weird that I pushed Todd into an oncoming tree and he bashed his face, just so I could heal him up to farm some experience.”

He scowled at the implication that he was putting people in harm’s way deliberately, so he could save them and get the experience points.

“Okay,” I said loudly, “I’m definitely not going to pull a weapon and attempt to murder this guy. That’s what a Healer doesn’t do. I’m not going to shove him into a cloud of poison gas either, because that’s what a Healer doesn’t do, and I’m—“

“Shut up and get on with it.”

I frowned, peering down at Todd in the gloom of encroaching darkness. “Actually I can’t.”

“Heal him. That’s not a request.”

I bent down. Already, Affinity told me the bad news, but I had to see what had caused it. A quick Diagnosis check told me everything I needed to know. “I mean I would, now that I’ve got a sword point at my back… but I can’t. He’s dead.”

Boss—Archie—swore and literally threw me bodily out of the way so he could get to Todd. I might have died from the impact, except that Blake caught me midair and set me down.

“Get back to your lab building.”

I shrugged and headed back.

Someone had done something to Todd. I couldn’t tell without my tools if it was a pillow to the face, knife to the eardrum, or poison, but Todd wasn’t breathing any longer.

I needed to speak with Drat, and pronto.

The first thing that happened was I leveled up in Healer.

***

In the deep of night, I was awakened by a light touch. My eyes shot open and I prepared to defend myself. I half-expected Drat to tell me just what in the heck he had been thinking killing one of those guys.

Instead Cinzy was right in my personal bubble, inches from my face.

I darted a look out toward the entrance of my makeshift laboratory.

“We’re safe,” she said. “He’s sleeping.” She had no trouble hypnotizing the guards or putting them to sleep. I just hoped we had enough time before the guard’s shift ended and someone came to replace him.

“What you did today…” she breathed.

I nodded. I had lured that Todd guy into a trap, baited him, and it had been painfully obvious. It was just good luck that Todd and the other Guardians were too stupid to see that trap laid right in front of their eyes.

“You’re something special, Fletcher,” she murmured, eyes half closed. I wasn’t entirely sure what to say to that, and Cinzy saved me from saying anything by continuing. “I was right to give you my… to be with you. I knew you were a good guy.”

In order to be quiet enough, we had to be close. Real close. Cinzy got down, laying directly next to me, to breathe in my ear.

I opened up my sleeping bag and she shuffled in, pressing herself against me. Gods, she wasn’t wearing a bra. My arm got nestled right in her cleavage, which was bountiful, smooth, soft, and perfect. I needed to use better adjectives when describing this goddess.

“Thank… you…” Better than nothing, I guess.

“I’ve been thinking about you ever since. I can’t get my mind off you.”

She was going to say more but I leaned forward and kissed her. Her eyes went wide only for a moment, before she kissed me back. This wasn’t a peck, this was passion. She pressed full lips to mine and was soon licking everything she could get her tongue on. Then she had her hands on my shoulders and my chest, rubbing around my body.

“I don’t care if you were doing Ivy and Isabelle. One of them probably knew you were so good, and they knew you could give them what they couldn’t give each other… they took advantage of what a good guy you are.”

Swinging one leg over, she straddled me and continued kissing. Now she added grinding to that. Before long she had slid one hand down between us and was rubbing my full length.

“When we touched, I saw the kind of guy you are,” she whispered, and kissed me again. “But I… forgot. When you talk back to Blake’s goons, I see what kind of guy you are.”

One hand slithered into my pants and took hold of me. The kissing continued. She poured all her passion and longing into my mouth, and slid her body against mine.

“And then you really messed up that jerk.” Her shirt went flying off, and I was grateful to have Eagle Eyed, because her naked body was glorious to behold. Curves were soft, over strongly toned muscles. My free hand drifted up to them automatically, gently teasing at her nipples and kneading her flesh.

“Cinzy, we need to get out of here,” I told her in between kisses. My hormones really wanted me inside her, but my brain really wanted me free of Blake and this insanity.

“I… do you trust me, Fletcher?”

What kind of question was that? She had done a fair amount to erode trust. She was sleeping, if not with the enemy, then near the enemy.

“There’s a plan,” she whispered anyway. “Drat has a plan.” Still she slowly stroked up and down, teasing, maddening.

“Then untie me,” I told her.

She scrambled to comply. As much as I didn’t want to go along with this plan, if she and Drat had a way to save these poor Wizards from getting repeatedly sacrificed, I’d do it.

Hands freed, I stood and backed her into the laboratory’s log wall. I put her hands up and held both wrists in mine.

“I’m sor—” she didn’t have time to say, before I kissed her again. Hard. My newest ability Drive In Deeper had activated and I was rejuvenating hit points at a furious pace. Once we both came, I would get a Likability Token back. It would do.

“There’s something I need you to know,” I told her quietly, while stroking the junction of her thighs. I slipped my hand up under her skirt and then down her panties, where I found her shaven smooth, and already wet.

“I don’t care,” she breathed. “If it’s Regina, if it’s Tara, if it’s Larelle and Chrysta. I don’t care. I need you.”

“You can have one of my abilities,” I told her, skimming her panties down her thighs and off her feet, one after another. I proceeded to flip her skirt up and run my tongue over every available inch. She pressed one hand against my head and began humping my face. I put my enhanced tongue to work, slithering it up inside her while raking the broad part over the little nubbin of flesh. She cried out, then was forced to clamp a hand over her mouth when I used Entwined Ecstasy.

With the bonus to pleasure, it only took her two minutes to begin shuddering with climax. She began to melt against the wall of the lab bonelessly, and I turned her around so her ass was pointed directly at me. Gods but she was delicious. She still had the piebald patches of light and dark skin everywhere, but the shape of her was perfect: thin, toned, with a nice heart-shaped ass. She wanted me stuffed in there.

I raised one of her feet and placed it on the makeshift work table Blake’s people had made, and worked a finger up into her back door.

“You get an ability,” I told her, “I get an ability from you.”

“Oh… okay,” she breathed. She clearly didn’t care about anything but the sensations I was giving her.

“You want my cock?” I breathed.

“Mmmm,” was the only response.

“In your ass?”

Her mouth opened and closed, again and again, until she seemed to realize sound wasn’t coming out. Instead of speaking she nodded.

“This can’t happen again,” I lied, and she made a petulant whimpering sound. “Not here. You help me get out of here, and I’ll do this all the time,” I whispered, and pressed forward. I expected more resistance, but her backside opened up to allow the head in, and from there it was only a matter of adding lubrication before slowly thrusting in and out.

And then, with my health some two thirds full, she was jamming herself back against me, slapping her cheeks against my abs. With one hand clapped over her mouth, she forked herself onto me.

I luxuriated in this for a time, loving the sight almost as much as the incredible tightness of her ass clamping against me.

“Did you give this incredible ass to anyone else?” I demanded quietly.

“Nn… nnn…”

With a thought, I told the Adaptability Quality to relax, and my cock swelled outwards to its full size. She gave a squeak so adorable and pathetic, I was tempted to tell her I had feelings for her.

“You promise?”

She nodded, then leaned back when I relaxed the enormous pressure of my full size back down a bit, and kissed me hard. I don’t know how long we remained like that, with her jamming her ass down onto me and kissing, with me running my hands over her boobs and down to play with her clit. She came once, slumped to the wall, and came again when I didn’t stop the assault.

Every time her ass smashed into my abs it rippled in a delicious way that sent me closer to the edge. Every time she smashed it down she squeezed onto me and gripped my whole cock tight. Every iota of movement only served to drive me crazier.

Part of me wanted to recreate the mental image of Tara waddling around in the kitchen, seriously pregnant with my spawn. I wanted to pull out and blast up into the right place, make her mine forever. Instead I grabbed her hips and shoved upwards, then pumped everything I had into her bowels.

This is Christopher using his favorite kind of leverage.