Broken Lands

“Villages with a real Nexus, not just a wardstone like that,” Aymini gestured up at the glowing purple thing.

It didn’t resemble any wardstone Sophia had ever seen. Weren’t wardstones supposed to be, well, stones? She was pretty sure this one was mostly metal, sort of like an overcomplicated chandelier with candles or something. It was hard to tell through the magic it exuded.

“I’ve never seen a wardstone like that,” Sophia admitted. “That might be because Dad prefers spellwards and camera-locus detection emitters, but even then, that seems wasteful. Does it have to dump out mana like that? I didn’t feel a ley line as we walked in.”

Aymini’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you mage-trained? You said you were a spellblade, but most spellblades don’t do much with their magic outside enhancing their weapons and some movement spells.”

Sophia nodded. She’d practiced magic since she was a child. She glanced up at the “wardstone” again and the sight combined with her memories of childhood practice crystallized into a realization that had been nagging at the back of her mind: she could see the magic. She hadn’t seen any other magic directly since she crossed the Origin and her ManaSight Skill disappeared.

She reached for it and it still wasn’t there, so that clearly wasn’t how she was seeing this. She couldn’t turn this vision off, either, just like when she was a child. She was going to have to practice and get her natural ability to feel and see magic back under her own control again, wasn’t she? The Voice wasn’t going to step in and help and she didn’t want to accept the Guide’s help.

At least she already knew the exercises. That would help.

“If that’s a wardstone, what’s a Nexus?” Dav waved up at the glowing light source.

“The central point of any Guide-sanctioned settlement.” Aymini said it as if it were completely obvious. It probably was, to her. “Are you telling me you didn’t worry about monsters wandering into your home?”

“We didn’t have monsters, not like the ones here. This is like something out of a game or a story.” Dav shook his head. “Are you saying that a Nexus keeps monsters like that Devouring Moss we saw out and so does a wardstone?”

“Mostly,” Aymini agreed. “If you didn’t have monsters, you definitely had a Nexus; it must have been kept secret. That’s interesting, since everywhere I know of has a public space for the Nexus. Without it, you can’t - wait, are you telling me that you didn’t have Professionals?”

Dav shook his head. “Not if you mean the Spheres. That’s all new to me.”

It was a little less new to Sophia, but she was beginning to think that Spheres had less in common with Paths than she’d originally thought. The interfaces were similar and they both provided abilities you wouldn’t have without them, but beyond that they seemed quite different.

Aymini sighed, then looked down and shook her head slightly. “I see. That means you don’t even know the basics. Do you at least know the three types of Spheres?”

Sophia nodded. She remembered that from the Guide’s first message. Or maybe it was the second? No, she was pretty sure it was the first. “Professions, Vocations, and Hallows.”

Aymini nodded. “Most people are Professionals. It’s safe and stable; apprentice until you’re twenty-five, then visit your local Nexus and take the Profession you’ve earned. As long as you stay inside a Guide-recognized Settlement, you’re safe unless there’s a Challenge; if there is a Challenge, there’s time to get to a safe area so really you’re only in danger if your Settlement is defeated in the Challenge.”

She looked at Dav, then Sophia. “Almost anything can be a Profession, from barmaid to farmer to settlement guard or alchemist. It’s even possible to change Professions if you gain the necessary skills. The one thing that can’t be a Profession is anything focused specifically on fighting and support of people who fight. Guards and healers sometimes seem like they cross those lines, but they really don’t; guards do get some fighting Abilities but their focus is very clearly on maintaining the peace in the settlement; in fact, many of their abilities are specifically tied to being in a settlement. It’s the same for everything else that’s split; the Professional version is focused on something other than fighting and the Vocation is focused on fighting. There are a lot of nuances, but they don’t matter to you two unless you want to switch to a Profession, and once you have a Profession, you can’t return to a Vocation, even if you want to.”

Frustration shone in Aymini’s eyes for a moment. She clenched her hand, then deliberately relaxed it. “You’ve probably wondered why I can tell you have a Vocation. It’s simple: it fades quickly, but if you know what to look for, anyone with a Profession can feel when they’re facing someone with an active Vocation or Hallow. It doesn’t happen if they’re close to a Nexus, whether it’s permanent like a Settlement or temporary, provided by a Profession. The wardstone doesn’t count as a Nexus, so I knew you two had Spheres but not a Profession the moment I saw you.”

“Does it work the other way around?” Sophia didn’t think she’d felt anything odd when she first saw Aymini, but she wasn’t looking for anything either.

Aymini shook her head.

“Why are you helping us?” Dav’s question wasn’t quite an interruption, but it definitely broke Sophia’s train of thought. “We showed up out of nowhere with a story that probably doesn’t make much sense; why would you go to all this effort?”

Aymini snorted. “What effort? We fed you two and I’ve talked to you for a bit. At another time maybe we’d have to be careful with the food, but right now we’re more worried about it going bad before we can use it all than we are about not having enough. As for why I’d help you? Two reasons. First, you need the help; we’ve all been there, that’s why we’re here in Fallen Kestii. We help each other. Second, well, you have Spheres that aren’t a Profession. That means you can fight; we need people who can fight.”

As if to underscore Aymini’s words, a loud crack of noise, almost like a bug zapper, echoed through the room. Aymini sighed and gestured for the two of them to stay seated. “Vramt will take care of it. It’s his turn. It’s probably just creepums; it’s still early in the night.”

Sophia had to ask; Aymini had mentioned them several times and she had no idea what the name might really mean. Devouring Moss was descriptive, shouldn’t creepum also be descriptive? “What is a creepum?”

Aymini looked startled. “I thought everyone knew what creepums were. They’re minor annoyances, but they tend to come in groups and they’re too dumb to stop when they’re outmatched. Come on, follow me.” She hopped down from her chair and darted towards the entrance they’d come in. Sophia and Dav were close behind her.

Sophia stopped short when she stepped through the archway back out into the courtyard. There were at least twenty of the critters; more than half were already dead, fried by lightning or fire, frozen, or cut in half. The moment she saw one of the still living ones move, she knew why they were called creepums. They looked almost exactly like a colorful fat caterpillar with a stinger on the back and an oddly flattened head that seemed to be mostly eyes in front. They even moved like a caterpillar or an inchworm, pulling themselves up to scoot the back forward then flattening themselves back down to push the front forward. It looked both extremely silly and a little disconcerting at the same time. Caterpillars weren’t supposed to be over two feet long.

Aymini let them watch Vramt kill creepums for a minute or so, then ushered them back inside the warded space. “Let Vramt have his fun. With that many, I’m definitely happy it was him on duty tonight and not me. Which is exactly why I want to recruit you two: we can promise the opportunity to fight and gather Wisps, along with support from us to keep yourselves ready to fight. You’ll serve as guards for Fallen Kestii and possibly even venture into Shard spaces to try to gather more of the Shards. If we get enough, we might be able to rebuild the Nexus, but even if we can’t gain that many, we can use them to sustain persistent spells like the wardstone.”

A Shard of Kestii was the power source for the giant purple ward thing? Sophia wasn’t certain if she was glad she’d had Cliff save the Shard they’d gathered or saddened that she hadn’t let him gain the power he might have from it. Maybe she should present that to Dav before they got too deep into the conversation with Aymini, if she had the chance when Aymini wouldn’t overhear.

Dav’s reaction at Aymini’s proposal seemed unimpressed. Sophia felt the same way; food and a place to sleep was good, but it wasn’t worth tying themselves permanently to people they didn’t know without asking for more.

Sophia shook her head. “We can probably work with that for a few days, but I don’t think we want to stay here long term. I don’t know about Dav, but I want to eventually be able to go home and before that I want to explore this place. I’m not ready to settle down.”

Dav nodded emphatically. “What’s the point in being here if we don’t travel?” He paused, then pointed at Aymini as she started to take in a breath. “Don’t answer that.”

Sophia chuckled.

“A few days is a start. We can start tomorrow, let you get used to things while I’m there to watch your backs. For now, is there anything else you two want to ask me?”

“Yeah,” Dav spoke up almost immediately. “You said you’re an alchemist. Do you have any use for Devouring Moss? How about large quantities of a metal I think is probably bronze?”

Dav’s question led to the two of them actually explaining how they appeared, found the Shard of Kestii, and fell across the Devouring Moss before making their way up to find the group of people in Fallen Kestii. They left out any mention of the Guide’s appearance, Cliff, and the Wanderer; the rest didn’t seem worth keeping secret. Once they sold the stuff they’d gathered, someone would figure out where they got it anyway.

As it turned out, the answer was yes for the moss and no for the bronze, but Aymini knew exactly who they needed to talk to about everything else. Vramt would want the stones they’d found in the mechanical insects; they were exactly the sort of stones that he made necklaces around. There were quite a few people who would be interested in the bronze.

It also meant that they learned something about the currency used in Fallen Kestii. It seemed quite a bit more complicated than the dual Etherium and dollars system Sophia was used to, but Dav seemed to follow the series of conversions easily. Sophia had to admit that she liked the decimal system she’d grown up with; moving from one coin to another by multiplying by four, eight, or sixteen just seemed odd.

It seemed like it would take some time to sell everything, but Aymini seemed thrilled at the idea of Fallen Kestii gaining a large amount of metal, so Sophia assumed they’d probably come out ahead. Since they had no real idea what it was actually worth, they probably wouldn’t do as well as someone who did, but at the least it would be worth the pain of dragging the sled.