Broken Lands

Sophia set her fork down and looked between Aymini and Revina. “So, a couple of things. First, did you have to spring this on us today? A little warning would have been nice.”

Revina turned to Aymini, while Aymini looked down. Dav took another bite of his breakfast with a smile.

Sophia knew she wasn’t going to get a good answer, because there probably wasn’t one. It was probably a case of “I didn’t think of it until just now,” but Aymini didn’t want to say that. It meant her next question would also leave Aymini floundering, but Sophia was pretty sure she was okay with that. “Second, why should we? So far, you’ve said we should keep Revina safe if we go out with her; I’m good with that part but I haven’t heard why we should go at all. Wouldn’t you be better able to keep her safe?”

If they didn’t go, they’d have to watch the building and deal with anything that attacked while Aymini was out. They’d been doing that for a few days, so she was pretty confident she could handle that with Dav’s help, even if Aymini and Vramt weren’t available.

Aymini looked up at Sophia. “If you do find a Nest, they hold Wisps. That’s worth something. I also thought you might want to get out and see the city, and … well, I want Revina to get her Vocation safely and maybe earn a place with people who can handle themselves and I know you two can. You’ll be leaving, probably with the next merchant that comes through, and Revina really shouldn’t leave until and unless she has a Vocation. But she won’t get one here on her own or with our help; it’s almost impossible to find something that one person can do alone that counts as a Vocation-granting feat these days.”

“The next merchant that comes through? How often does that happen?” Dav leapt on a detail that had nothing to do with Revina.

Aymini shrugged. “Whenever they arrive. It could be any time; the roads should be as clear as they ever are. Gianre will probably be the first merchant this season; he travels on his own, and usually makes his way across the pass before anyone else does. I’d rather it was Arryn, but Gianre usually gets through before he does.”

“Pass?” Sophia frowned at that. “Through the mountains? They seem a long way away for that to be the only way to reach civilization.”

Revina shook her head and spoke faster than Aymini. “No, the pass to enter Fallen Kestii. That doesn’t take you to the mountains. It’s sort of like a bridge, but it’s natural, so we call it a pass.”

Sophia blinked at that. A pass was like a bridge? They were almost opposites; the only way they were really similar was that they were routes you could travel on.

“It’s more like a stitch, holding Fallen Kestii to another place,” Aymini said. “If we were to restore the Nexus, it might be possible to reweave the old connections. I’m not sure we want to do that. For now, the pass is enough.”

So it was sort of like a magical portal, maybe? “Is it a gateway? I know you mentioned those?”

Revina looked doubtful but Aymini shook her head. “No, Gateways are different. There are no Gateways in Fallen Kestii; it takes a powerful Nexus to handle a Gateway. How about this; you can take her around searching or I can, but if we find a Nest, I’ll come back for you and take you to where the three of you can run through it. I’ll also pay Gianre to escort the three of you out of Fallen Kestii to the Vocational Registry. After that, you can stay with Revina or split from her because she can find others there; she’ll be valued.”

Sophia was beginning to think that they didn’t know what it was and that she’d have to see it to really understand what they were talking about.

“What’s a Vocational Registry?” Dav glanced between Sophia and Aymini. “I don’t really want to register my Vocation. That seems a bit intrusive.”

Aymini frowned. “Why would you - oh, right , the name. No, all you tell them is a general classification so they can match you with teammates and requests. Most of what they do is for the large Companies, and you’ll probably want to join one, but you can start as a Party first. Most do, until they’re ready to start taking on the bigger tasks. A Party can clear a Nest if it’s small, but a big one requires a Company; the Registry helps people find a group with appropriate Spheres to handle it. We don’t have a Registry Office here because, well, we’re far too small; you only find them in the true cities and sometimes Company headquarters.”

It sounded a lot like the Adventurer’s Guild to Sophia. At least that was familiar, though she wasn’t really sure how well that would work in a place where you had to travel on foot or maybe on an animal; could you actually travel fast enough to reach places where there was trouble before it was over?

Sophia dismissed the thought. It was something to worry about later, other than one question. “Will that help us figure out how we got here and maybe figure out how to get home?”

Aymini shrugged. “I don’t know, but it’s the best idea I’ve come up with. Most powerful mages are nobles, but they do usually maintain close ties with the Registry, even if they aren’t members. A lot of them are members, because they head Companies. If nothing else, it’s a place to start.”

Sophia nodded reluctantly. It was irritating to not have a solid plan, but she knew that if someone landed in the middle of nowhere on Earth, they’d have a hard time finding anyone who knew how to teleport them home unless they knew where their home was on the portal network. Everything Sophia had seen so far indicated that the people of Fallen Kestii were even more backwards than that. They didn’t even have a full map of the city; she hadn’t found anyone with much more than directions to a couple of towns outside Fallen Kestii, even though she knew they all came from elsewhere.

“Does that mean you accept?” Revina sounded hopeful.

Sophia wanted to. She wasn’t quite ready to explore the city on her own, but she was getting close despite the dangers; there just wasn’t enough to do in the buildings that had been set aside as Fallen Kestii. She glanced over at Dav. “I’m willing if you are.”

Dav nodded. “It seems like a fair trade. Fair enough, at least.”

Sophia stayed with Revina while Dav roamed a few buildings ahead, watching out for possible threats. She wanted to understand the young woman a little more before she passed a decision on her; was she really as spoiled as she seemed or was she just nervous?

So far, Revina seemed to know what she was looking for. She’d directed them to several patches of mushrooms, though apparently only one of them had even a single blowshroom. She hadn’t found anything else she was looking for, but she also hadn’t been annoying; instead, she seemed focused on her task.

“Vramt and Aymini are your parents?” Sophia already knew that wasn’t true, since Revina called Aymini “Aunt,” but it seemed like a good place to start.

“They were a Team,” Revina didn’t sound bothered by the question, at least. If anything, it was like she’d expected it. “There were five of them. Mother was the Team’s bruiser; her brother was the healer and Aymini’s sister was their second swordsman. When I was eight, there was fighting. I don’t know the whole story; I just know that only Father and Aymini survived and they joined a group headed for Fallen Kestii. That’s what you wanted to ask, right?”

Sophia nodded. “Your aunt seems to care about you a lot.”

Revina shrugged. “She’s afraid that I’ll-”

A shout from Dav drew Revina’s attention at the same moment it drew Sophia’s. It wasn’t immediately obvious why he was shouting, but Sophia could see sunlight glint off his sword, so she ran forward. As she got closer, she could see that there was a large snake wrapped around Dav’s left leg. He was trying to stab it with his sword, but the weapon was just awkward enough that he wasn’t having much luck.

Fortunately, the snake didn’t seem to be doing much of anything.

Sophia pulled her knife and struck as soon as she was close enough. It glanced off the shield that the snake, surprisingly, had, but scratched the back of its neck. Now that she was closer, she could tell that the snake was, in fact, doing something: it was squeezing Dav’s leg like it thought that would be enough to kill him. From Dav’s pained shouts, that probably wasn’t true but it definitely wasn’t fun.

The snake snapped at Dav’s sword ineffectually the next time he tried to stab it. It was sort of flat-nosed, with a wide overall head. Sophia only knew a little about snakes, so all she could really say based on its head was that it definitely wasn’t a viper. Of course, she already knew that; it was almost certainly a constrictor of some sort, since that was what it was doing to Dav’s leg.

The fact that they’d been warned there was a snake called a Ruins Constrictor helped, too. Sophia was certain this wasn’t the snake Revina meant when she said that; it had to be a juvenile at best. There was no way this snake would feed almost a hundred people for several days.

On the other hand, as annoying as this one was, Sophia wasn’t sure she wanted to face the larger snake.

Sophia’s second stab hit the snake in the back of its head and it went limp. Even with that, it took a little while to unwind the snake from Dav’s leg and he didn’t want to put any weight on it after the snake was removed. Sophia supported Dav’s weight over to a large fallen stone block after carefully checking to be certain there were no snakes nearby.

Revina followed, carrying the carcass of the dead snake. She clearly didn’t want to leave it behind, which made sense; it might not be even close to the size of the snake the hunter Vyk Deryn wanted to kill for meat, but it was still plenty large enough to provide a good bit of meat. “What happened?”

Dav looked away from Revina for long enough to summon his Healing Beacon. “I made a dumb mistake. I saw a stick lying in the middle of the road and didn’t think twice about stepping on it. I should have looked closer; it was a snake, not a stick.”

Sophia blinked when she saw the beacon. It wasn’t the same as the last time he’d summoned it; this one looked more like a glowing green stone tower made of round disks, some of which were covered in moss, with a conical stone cap on top. It looked more like something Sophia might have called a beacon than the first one, but it definitely still didn’t look anything like something that ought to heal.

“Oof. That’s no good,” Revina told Dav. “Did it get through your shield? Do you need to head back? Aunt Aymini makes a really good healing salve that should be able to heal your leg.”

Dav shook his head. “We just need to sit here for a bit; my summon will handle the healing. Do you know why the snake didn’t do much to my shield? It seemed like it bypassed it.”

Revina nodded. “Snakes can do that. That’s why Vyk doesn’t hunt the small ones; he says only the big ones are worth the effort of building the trap and leading them into it. I think part of it is that the lure he uses takes some ingredients that are hard to gather.”