Broken Lands

There was an obvious question to ask, so Sophia asked without waiting on Dav. “How does it learn more people?”

Arryn shrugged. “It’s hard to say. Healing spirits like this are rare; most are fairly smart, but this one isn’t and I haven’t seen anything quite like it before. That means it can’t tell us what it’s looking for. It might be the length of time it’s around someone or it might be something more esoteric, like a sufficient importance to the summoner or even an elemental connection. It’s not going to be as easy as telling it to memorize someone, unfortunately; I asked and the response was that it can’t memorize me, not that it needs to be told to memorize me.”

Importance to Dav or a common element? Either one seemed possible, especially with the way Dav wasn’t meeting Sophia’s gaze. They’d spent a lot of time together, after coming through an experience that was probably pretty traumatic for Dav, even if he didn’t talk about it that way. He didn’t talk about it at all. Sophia knew she wanted to be important to Dav in one way, but it was possible she was important in others instead.

At the same time, Dav’s “element” had to be eldritch, the Guide’s name for what Sophia knew as Potential. Potential wasn’t the same thing as Sophia’s main Affinity, but she’d grown up around it. It didn’t harm her or try to change her, which was about as close as you could get to having it as an Affinity. She couldn’t discount that, either.

“Any of those seems possible,” Sophia admitted. “Dav? Any idea?”

Dav shook his head. “I don’t get any feedback from it; I summon it and that’s it. It just sits there and does its thing.”

Arryn chuckled. “I’ve heard that before. Listen to it and you may learn something. Or you may not; some people never do. That may unlock some of the inspection skill set, but even if they’re available to you, you probably shouldn’t take them all. They’re just too expensive unless you’re in a line of work that requires them. You’ll see it again when you talk to the intake specialist at the Registry; other than that, most people depend on a scout team to find and categorize Nests and Challenges, and your talents don’t look like you’re headed in that direction, though Revina might be.”

“You talk like a teacher,” Sophia accused Arryn. “Is that because you were a Registry Master?”

Arryn shrugged. “I taught a lot of young teams to work together. I guess some things stick with you. Anyway, that was a lovely meal. Why don’t the three of you come with me and I’ll introduce you to Peaches?”

“I’ve met Peaches,” Revina said. “He’s probably asleep anyway.”

Sophia noticed that Revina followed Arryn despite her objection. She figured she might as well go with them, and Dav seemed to agree.

They were almost to the exit when Aymini cursed behind them. She must have realized that they’d left her and Vramt with the cleanup of their daughter’s celebration. Sophia rushed a glance backwards; Aymini seemed annoyed but Vramt was definitely amused. Vramt had already started clearing the table with a giant grin on his face. Sophia grinned back, then hurried to catch up with the others.

The first thing Sophia noticed when she got outside wasn’t Peaches. Instead, it was a fancy-looking wagon. It was made of wood covered with a curving, flowery inlay; over the top was a gray cloth cover. On top of the cover was a semicircular box topped by a tiny flag and a light. There seemed to be more lights, or perhaps small openings, in the side of the cloth cover. A door on the end clearly gave Arryn a way to see out while he was inside. A pole ran from one side of the door forward; Sophia couldn’t imagine how that could help connect a draft animal to the wagon, so it was probably for the display of a sign or something.

“It seems really small.” Dav glanced up at Sophia as she let the door close behind her, then immediately looked back at Arryn. “How do you carry everything? Do you have a tent, too?”

Arryn grinned. “You don’t think I have an enchanted wagon? This thing was one of my first purchases when I decided I wanted to become a traveling merchant. It’s bigger on the inside. I also don’t keep my goods in it; it’s for me to sleep in. I have a bed for Peaches, too, but he only comes in when the weather’s nasty or there’s a monster he doesn’t want to face; he doesn’t like the climb and is comfortable outside. You three will make it a little tight, but there’s enough floor space.”

Arryn walked around the wagon, then gestured for them to come closer.

Sophia got halfway around the wagon before she realized that the lump of brown fur on the ground was probably Peaches. “How does he even fit through the door? He’s wider than it is. I think he’s as big as the wagon!”

Arryn chuckled. “Not quite, and carefully. There’s a reason he doesn’t like the climb … and that I have that much floor space. All right, Peaches, you can stop faking sleep now; I know you’re comfy but you have to get up.”

A rumbling voice came from the brown lump of fur. It sounded like a wordless protest.

“Fine, Peaches. I’ll get you some grilled snake if you get up and say hi.” Arryn clearly wasn’t above bribing his draft animal and he clearly expected Peaches to understand him, even if Peaches couldn’t talk back.

Sophia took in Peaches as he stood. He was at least ten feet tall and as wide as her and Dav put together. His head did sort of look like a sloth, but if she hadn’t been told he was a giant sloth, she’d have assumed he was some sort of bear, able to stand upright even if it was a little awkward looking. He wore a leather harness with quite a few buckles that was clearly to distribute the load of pulling the wagon better. There were also leather straps woven into his brown fur in a number of places. On his arms, they almost looked like arm guards, but sophia couldn’t think of any reason for the ones on his head other than decoration.

Peaches rumbled again. He focused on Dav, then Sophia, and nodded at the pair. He then turned back to Arryn and made a sound that Sophia would have sworn was inquisitive.

“Yes, you big lunk. It’s dinnertime and I promised grilled snake. Peaches, this is Dav; that’s Sophia and this is Revina.” Arryn pointed to each of them in turn, then gave a wave in the direction of the bearlike giant draft sloth. “And this is Peaches. He can’t talk, but he has his ways of making his opinions known; listen to them. I’ll be here for a couple of days, then we’ll head to Casterville; that should be a good place for the three of you and it’s on my normal route. We can talk about how the trip will work tomorrow; for tonight, I’m going to be feeding Peaches and then making some sales. You know how it goes.”

Arryn winked, then led Peaches into the building.

“Did that just happen?” Dav stared at the doorway ahead of them.

Sophia nodded. “Yeah, he just told us we were coming with him. I guess that’s a good thing?”

“No, not that. I mean … how did that bear just fit through the doorway? The door is smaller than it is. In all directions.” Dav still hadn’t looked away.

Sophia shrugged. “He has to be able to fit to get into the wagon. That door’s even smaller.”

“Peaches does that,” Revina sagely told the two stunned foreigners. “I’m pretty sure a lot of his bulk is actually fluff. You’ll see when he lets you pet him; he looks really rough but he’s actually really sweet and fuzzy!”

Sophia stared at the door for a long moment, then turned to Dav. “I think our training space has been occupied by a wagon.”

Dav grinned at Sophia and waved at a spot a bit farther down the courtyard, outside one of the other occupied doors. “We could move a bit?”

“We’ll have to.” Sophia thought a little light sparring would be a great way to work off her nerves. It might also be able to take her mind off the possibly magical bear-sloth.

“Did you take the mana core specialization?” Sophia settled onto her warm sleeping bag. It really wasn’t quite cushioned well enough for a stone floor, but it was the best she could do unless she set up her tent and used its magical features. That seemed silly when they had a perfectly good building keeping them warm and dry, but the floor really was getting awfully hard.

“It seemed like the best option,” Dav admitted. “Vramt was really adamant about it, and with the knowledge that it probably doesn’t limit me any more than I already was … really, does Eldritch even have limits?”

Sophia shrugged. “It’s more about creation than manipulation of what’s here, so that’s probably a limitation. Even then, I bet there are ways to do a lot of things. I mean, look at Vramt; he’s a stone mage, but he does a lot more than just moving stones around.” She paused and decided it was time to say something she hadn’t quite brought herself to say before. “I don’t know why the Guide labeled it eldritch. As far as I can tell, you’re affected by Potential, the sea of chaotic energy that created everything in the first place.”

“If that’s not eldritch, what is?” Dav winked at Sophia. “Primordial chaos sounds pretty impossible to understand.”

“It’s whatever you make of it,” Sophia half disagreed. “If you think you can’t understand it and control it, that will be true. If you believe you can and are careful to always know what you want, I bet you can control it. Maybe not completely, but you already are partly controlling it by summoning the healing beacon. I bet you could summon the same one again if you tried hard enough.”

“Maybe if I remembered it well enough,” Dav agreed. “I don’t think I do, so I’d end up with a half-melted abomination that seems more eldritch than what I’m already getting.”

“Only if that’s what you expected to get.” Sophia shook her head with a grin. “Go on, try.”

Dav groaned. “Are you sure?”

“What else are you going to use the mana on?” Sophia tried to look like the picture of innocence. She didn’t think she succeeded. “Anyway, it’ll be good practice in visualization. You’ll probably need that later if you’re going to work with Potential. Go on, give it a try.”

Dav rolled his eyes but summoned a Healing Beacon.

Sophia looked at it and frowned. The stone base with flattened speckled blue then green spheres stacked, topped by a cone, didn’t look exactly like any of the beacons Dav had summoned in the past. Sophia was pretty sure the glow was different, too, more like the yellowish glow of the most recent beacon than the green glow of the earlier ones. It was still close enough that Sophia was pretty confident which beacon he was trying to imitate. “You’re trying to make the one you did right after the snake that wrapped up your leg, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Dav admitted. “It seemed the simplest. I think I may have oversimplified it, though; I don’t think any of them were this plain.”

It did seem kind of plain, like everything was smoothed. That didn’t seem like a bad thing to Sophia. “That proves my point, doesn’t it? It’s following your mental image.”

“Does that help?” Dav looked up from the beacon to meet Sophia’s eyes. “I’d have to be able to change more than looks for it to matter.”

“It’s worth trying, but maybe not on a healing beacon?”