Broken Lands

Before she did anything else, Sophia pulled out her knife and Imbued it. She only half-believed in the Ability, since it was not at all like the Abilities the Voice would give for an initial Path; even the fact that she already had an ability was weird. Admittedly, she’d had to fight her way to the Shard of Kestii first; perhaps that was similar to the minor amount of Path-aligned learning the Voice required?

Dedicating Wisps was a completely weird way to look at it, though. Progress through a Path was simply experience in what you’d decided to learn; that made sense. What was a Wisp?

For that matter, had she earned any from killing the monsters or were they all from reaching the Shard? It sounded like she and Dav had the same number of Wisps; he had an extra Ability because he’d been required to buy one fewer Ability Slot. That didn’t help, but she could only save the question for later. She didn’t regret the questions she’d asked; they were probably more important than questioning what a Wisp was.

Sophia shook her head and waved the Imbued knife in the air as if she were clearing her mind with the motion. The imbuement was fairly draining for a basic attack; she’d probably be able to use the ability a decent number of times before she had to rest, but “a decent number of times” wasn’t all day and might not even be an entire fight if it all went away when she threw it. It was too bad that the Guide didn’t give her discrete numbers for her mana, but she could feel that she’d used roughly a tenth of it, maybe a little less.

Throwing it seemed like a good thing to test first, now that she knew what the cost was. Sophia turned and faced a distant stalagmite; it would do for a test subject. She slashed towards it.

Nothing happened. Her knife was still Imbued and she didn’t feel a drain on her mana. That was kind of embarrassing. How exactly was she supposed to make this work?

For her second try, Sophia pushed her Intent out like she was shaping an incomplete spell as she slashed. This time, she could see an insubstantial knife that looked just like her own blade as it sped across the space and smacked into the stalagmite.

There wasn’t much effect on the rock; at the most, she’d left a nick. That was really all she’d expected to do with a single hit. At least she knew what she needed to know about launching the Infused knife; it was a lot like casting a spell where some of the parameters were fixed either at the time of casting or even later instead of being in the spell or Skill itself.

Sophia triggered the Imbue again. This time she paid attention to how it worked; it took time for her mana to spread through the blade. That meant throwing it would be far slower than a proper ranged weapon like a bow; it was too bad she didn’t have one. It would be even better if she had someone who was better with a bow than she was or her spells dammit-

Sophia cut off that train of thought. Maybe she was temporarily crippled, but it wasn’t going to last. She wasn’t going to let it last. Which meant she needed to fully understand this new Ability and figure out how to make the most of it. It would be a while before she could go home; with luck, by then it would no longer be urgent.

There was one more piece of the Ability to test: it was supposed to be able to enhance her knife. That was a little harder to test, since she didn’t want to damage her knife. It was her backup weapon and the only weapon she carried that didn’t require a Skill. She couldn’t afford to break it until she had a replacement.

Maybe she could extend the imbuement beyond the knife’s physical structure to give it a better edge? That seemed implied. She tugged at the Imbuement mentally, then tried to push it where she wanted it to go. No matter how she tried to influence the Imbuement, it stayed right where it had gone when the Imbuement stopped. She could apparently throw it but wasn’t able to alter its form.

That left one obvious thing to try: could she shape it while it was forming? That could be useful both for throwing it and for fighting with a slightly different weapon than the one she actually carried. It would be unfortunate if it could only take on the shape she pushed it into when she Imbued the weapon, but in some ways that was almost a relief; it was the sort of limit the Ability probably needed in order to make sense.

Sophia released the Imbuement and watched as it faded. That was interesting in its own right; it took at least three times as long to fade as it did to form, even after she stopped holding it. That might actually be a feature rather than a bug, even though it meant she probably couldn’t re-Imbue it until it finished fading; for anyone without the practice at holding a spell in place, the lingering effect would mean that losing concentration wouldn’t cost them the time and mana spent using the Ability. It probably also explained why the Imbuement could be thrown; it was to get rid of the lingering mana. The fact that it was also an attack was a bonus.

Sophia triggered Imbue Blade a third time, but this time she gave it the image of a blade slightly larger and sharper than her knife’s blade. When the magic settled into the shape she’d pushed it towards instead of into just the blade, Sophia knew that she’d cracked that part of the way the Ability worked. There were still some tests to do on just how good the Imbued blade was and whether she should Imbue beyond the blade itself, but now she knew she could.

That meant it was time to help Dav break down the bugs and the monster-maker. It was only right to help, and it would also give her a good chance to work with the Imbued blade.

Dav seemed to take Sophia’s assistance as permission to talk to her, or at least to ask a question that he’d clearly been wondering. “So, why are you here? I mean, what’s your specialty?”

Sophia frowned at Dav. “What do you mean? You were there when the bandits tried to kill the dungeon; I don’t know what went wrong then, but it tossed us through the Origin and we ended up here. I’m not very happy with the Guide, but I think it may have pulled us out, which is worth something.”

Dav shook his head. “No, not here; here here.”

Sophia paused her effort to cut a tube away from the bronze chamber that once held newly-created monsters to stare at Dav. After a moment of wondering what the heck he was talking about, she used a phrase she’d heard her mother use with her father. “Use your words, please. I need a better explanation than that, I’m not a telepath.”

Dav flushed. “Oh, um, right. I mean, I know why we’re here in the game; the world shattered and then the emergency disconnect threw an error. Unusual, certainly, and the intro wasn’t very good before that, but not unique. Good and immersive; in fact, it would have been better to start there. No, I mean, why are you participating? I didn’t guess you were real until you were here, you did a great job of playing your role, but you’re definitely not scripted.”

Scripted?

Sophia took a moment to process what Dav clearly believed about what was happening. He thought they were in a game and had thought she was an NPC until he spent time with her? Was that what he said?

She wanted to blame his weird beliefs on his time in the Origin, but there was enough odd about him that she couldn’t quite do it. Why would anyone do the years of training Dav so clearly had and not take either a combat or training Path at some point? Yes, there were people on Earth who didn’t choose to Tier up, but it just didn’t add up. This was clearly the time to ask about that.

“I see. So, back up and tell me about why you’re here, first.” Sophia needed to get him to realize that they were in reality, but she also needed him to stay functional. A few hours of downtime would be fine, but it might be better to take it slow. She needed to not lie but also not confirm anything until she knew what she was working with; whether he was hallucinating or not might change what she needed to do. “I agree that we’re both real, but I need to know more about you before I say anything about where I come from or the situation we’re actually in.”

Dav took a deep breath and set the makeshift rock hammer that had once been half of a loose floor stone down. “That … yeah, I guess that makes sense. I wondered why it was set up the way it was, why I didn’t even get to use a character creator when you clearly did. They must have snuck me in the back. If you can help me leave, I will; I don’t mean to be anywhere I’m not supposed to be.”

Sophia held up a hand. Dav had clearly realized that something wasn’t right, but he didn’t seem to have figured out the truth yet. “You’re not in any trouble, at least not from me. Tell me what you think is going on, or what you were told, and I’ll tell you what I know.” She paused, then glanced around. “While we do that, why don’t we start a fire and have something to eat? I’m pretty sure we’re going to spend the night here. I have a tent, and it’s big enough for two, but uh…”

Dav didn’t seem to get the hint that she wanted him to tell her about his overnight supplies. He also didn’t seem to get the hint that he was supposed to help Sophia set up a camp on the large dry rock that once held the monster-maker. Fortunately, he wasn’t oblivious enough to miss the fact that she wanted him to talk and if he was willing to do that, Sophia was willing to set up the camp alone.

This time.

“I’m from Alinport, in New Hartford,” Dav started. Instead of looking at Sophia, he faced away from her, almost as if he was ashamed of his origins. “It’s near the Dust zone, but we weren’t Dusted; my parents were both soldiers, and we stayed after they left the service. There were only three things to do in Alinport: join up, work for the base, or work the docks. I didn’t want to do any of those, so I studied and got out. I didn’t get the schooling I wanted; they wanted my skills but somehow the payments for school never happened. Funny thing is, they probably spent more than twice the amount they didn’t pay on directly teaching me the things they didn’t want to pay for, so I’d be useful to them.”

The fire was finally going well enough that Sophia could leave it and start setting up the tent. They wouldn’t need it to protect against rain, but they probably would need it to deal with the chill. With luck, Dav would also have a sleeping bag; Sophia’s wasn’t really big enough for two.

“What did they train you to do?” She didn’t really care who “they” were; they were either figments of Dav’s imagination or they were far enough away that they didn’t matter. What they’d trained him in, however, might be relevant.