Broken Lands

Dav frowned for a long moment, then nodded. “Yes, there’s a slight buzz there that isn’t exactly normal.”

That wasn’t exactly what Sophia meant, but she knew Dav wasn’t used to magic. Maybe it did feel like a buzz to someone who wasn’t used to manipulating mana. “Right. Then … you’ve seen me throw the imbuement. Do you think you can manage the same thing?”

“It looks easy enough,” Dav agreed. He lifted his sword, waved it in the air, and nothing happened. He tried again to an equal lack of results.

Sophia felt a little relieved. At least she wasn’t going to be worse at this than Dav was; he seemed to be even slower at it than she had been. A couple tries was enough for her to realize she needed to be doing something different, while he was still trying different physical methods. That was probably his lack of familiarity with working with and modifying Skills. “No, you actually throw it with your mind. The physical gesture is just to help guide the direction, because we’re used to throwing things. That’s something I need to practice; I need to get to the point where I don’t need the gesture.”

Dav held his sword out. His expression stiffened and almost looked constipated, but still nothing happened.

Sophia clearly needed to simplify. “Okay, so first feel for the enchantment. You said it feels like a buzz, right?”

Dav nodded.

“Grab it and move it. You need to think of where you want to go and sort of guide it there.” Sophia bit her lip because that was a bad set of instructions; it was like telling someone to throw a ball by saying “grab the ball and toss it where you want it to go.” She needed to say it better than that, but she wasn’t sure how to describe it. Dav didn’t have the vocabulary or practice she had and she didn’t have the control or ability to see what he was doing that some of her teachers had.

“If that doesn’t work, try holding onto it while thinking about where you’re looking intently, that might do it.” Sophia was pretty sure that if he could move it, he’d be able to direct it with practice.

It took Dav only a few minutes after that before he had his first success: an unformed block of mana that no longer really looked like a blade shot straight up from his sword. Sophia felt the drain on her mana disappear as Dav ripped the Ability out of place. He wasn’t looking at it and it didn’t go where he was looking, but he did succeed in moving it and he didn’t hurt himself with more than a minor headache.

“Well, the concept clearly works,” Sophia muttered as she replaced the Imbuement on Dav’s blade. “Now we just need to work on execution.”

Dav managed to throw his sword’s Imbuement again less than a minute later, but it once again went the wrong way. This time, but went off to the left and down. It didn’t come even close to the snake, fortunately.

Sophia Imbued Dav’s sword again, but he didn’t immediately start trying to use it this time.

“I don’t think this is going to work.” Dav stared at his sword with a frown.

Sophia shook her head. “You’re getting there, it just takes some practice.”

“That’s what I mean.” Dav looked up at Sophia. “I need practice before I can do this for real. I saw you pick this up quickly but it’s just not like that for me. I probably need a few days of practice before I’ll be able to do this reliably. It’s not like throwing something. I’ll get there, but it’ll take time.”

Sophia started to object that it wasn’t that different from using any other Skill, then stopped herself. That was exactly why he was having trouble; he didn’t have the practice she had. Reluctantly, she had to admit that he was probably right. “That makes sense. Unfortunately. Ah, in that case I’ll handle the shield. Revina, as soon as I hit it, kill the snake. Dav, get a bit closer but not so close you get the snake’s attention. If It doesn’t die for some reason, kill it. Hopefully that will do.”

The only other option was going back and figuring out how to trap snakes, and this wasn’t about hunting snakes. Revina clearly wanted to carry the meat back or she wouldn’t have field-dressed the one they cut off Dav, but that wasn’t the point of this trip. They did need to deal with the snakes in order to get through safely and there was no reason not to gather any they found, but the point of the trip was air-aligned magic for Revina.

Sophia kind of hoped they’d also find a snake nest. It might let Cliff pick up another martial technique or even a spell, but even if it didn’t it ought to let her get a Spellblade ability or two. Imbue Blade seemed simple but was anything but useless; hopefully one another ability would be just as good.

Everyone took their places, then Sophia attacked the snake. Revina’s crossbow bolt hit the snake’s head, instead of the neck, but it shattered the snake’s skill and pierced its brain. Sophia relaxed internally; the plan was working and should be good enough to get them through the day even if they found several more snakes. All they had to do was see them first, and now that they knew what to look for it was simple enough.

Half an hour later, Sophia quietly cursed her internal confidence that everything was going well. They’d found four more snakes in about fifty feet of street; that was far more than she expected. Three of the four were just as easy as the second snake, but the second of the four, fourth overall, almost went badly sideways.

It was far too close to the previous snake and must have been disturbed as they moved close to that snake and waited while Sophia field dressed it, following Revina’s instructions since Revina knew snakes better than Sophia did. They were already too close to it when they noticed it, because of the distraction of the previous snake, and it twisted right before Revina’s crossbow bolt would have impacted and she hit only the battered stone walkway. Dav managed to kill it before it either wrapped itself around anyone or got away, but it wasn’t nearly as clean as Sophia wanted. They took a little longer to check for a second snake after each snake kill after that.

Six snakes in less than a hundred feet of distance was too many, even if only one of the last five went poorly. The reason was obvious. Sophia shook her head and turned to Revina. “There’s a nest here, isn’t there?”

Revina nodded. “They’re definitely from the same hatching, they’re almost exactly the same size. That probably means a Nest. I’m not sure how close it is, but it should be close, I hope.”

“How does the Guide handle notification of a Nest? Does it tell you when you step into one?” Sophia hoped it did, the same way it had for the Shard of Kestii. It would be even better if she could tell where it was from the outside, but that was probably a fool’s dream.

Unless maybe the dungeon could tell? She tried to silently ask Cliff if he could tell, but either he couldn’t or he couldn’t hear her ask. He probably couldn’t hear her; she’d only managed to talk to him by speaking out loud, so far. She didn’t want to do that in front of Revina.

Rvina nodded slowly. “It’s supposed to. I’ve never been in a Nest.”

There was no point in asking Revina for details she clearly didn’t know. Instead, Sophia visually searched the area on each side of the road. The snakes had to come from somewhere; was there anything obvious? The fact that they were stretching out and lying in the sunlight once they were out of their nest made sense, but it might not help find the Nest.

The only thing Sophia could see on either side of the road that snakes might have come from was the ruined buildings. They lined both sides of the road, partially overgrown and tumbled but still intact enough a huge snake could hide in them.

The thing that worried Sophia was that the buildings didn’t look safe to enter; it seemed all too possible that the stones that formed the second and in some cases third or fourth floors might collapse at any time. Maybe they were good enough in the first place and still in good enough shape to stay where they belonged, but Sophia didn’t want to count on it. She also didn’t want to depend on Revina’s knowledge if it came to it; the buildings looked really unsafe.

Naturally, she was looking around carefully when Dav called out that he’d seen movement. Sophia turned to look. It was obvious what he’d seen: two snakes were traveling together away from one of the relatively close buildings. The nest was almost certainly in that direction; it looked like they’d emerged from a building. Its second story was holding on, more intact than almost anything nearby.

It was impossible to resist and Sophia didn’t really try. She carefully checked for snakes between her and the building, then made her way to one of the openings in its falling wall. As she moved, she watched for snakes and avoided the only one she saw.

Sticking her hand through the opening was enough, even without actually entering the building: the Guide notified her that she’d entered the area of a Ruins Constrictor Nest. Sophia noticed that it didn’t give her any warnings or let her know that clearing it was a vocation-granting feat. It clearly assumed that she already knew that, probably from her experience with the Shard of Kestii.

The question was … should they enter?

Truthfully, Sophia already knew the question. They shouldn’t. They were having some level of trouble with the small snakes that were escaping; they shouldn’t try to fight bigger snakes. They should wait at least until Dav mastered using Imbue Blade and all three of them had crossbows.

It didn’t mean Sophia didn’t want to enter. She did. She just didn’t want to die, which meant she needed to be careful about what challenges she picked.

Dav and Revina joined Sophia at the entrance before she convinced herself to back off. She knew it was the right choice. It just wasn’t the choice she wanted to take.

Dav didn’t suffer from Sophia’s hesitation. He nodded at her, as if he thought she’d been waiting for him, then stepped past the damaged wall. “Wow. This place isn’t at all like it looks from the outside.”

That was enough to get Sophia to actually look. Dav was right: the building looked half-destroyed from the outside. From the inside, it didn’t; in fact, it looked mostly intact, like the building changed as she passed the boundary between what was Nest and what wasn’t.

“We really should go back,” Sophia muttered, then looked at her companions. “But we aren’t going to, are we?”

She wasn’t sure either of them heard. If they did, neither answered.