Broken Lands

When Sophia landed, she landed hard, directly on top of the man she was trying to protect. He gave a soft sound but otherwise didn’t stir. That was probably for the best.

She took a moment to search the surroundings and realized with relief that they were no longer in the Origin. It was too dark to see where they were, but the simple fact that it was dark meant that it was safer for the man than it had been. Too much time in the Origin was bad for anyone who didn’t have a touch of its otherworldly nature protecting them.

What was his name? Dave or something like that? No, that wasn’t right; she remembered him correcting her at the beginning of the delve. Dav, that was it. Not quite Daav, but closer to that than Dave. She guessed they’d probably be working together for a while, under the circumstances, so she needed to remember his name and say it properly.

The floor felt cold and solid as she pulled herself off Dav. It was probably smooth stone or tile; it wasn’t quite smooth enough to be polished metal and it didn’t bite at her hands the way a rough metal would. There was texture but not too much texture.

Before Sophia could retrieve the magelight she always carried on delves from her backpack, she heard a voice talking to itself in the near distance; if it was speaking at a normal volume, that meant ten to fifteen feet. The voice didn’t echo, but it also didn’t sound like they were outside.

“Two different locations? Yes, keep them alive. Both of them. All three of them? No, no, only two are candidates. The third is a tool, for all that it also has a strong link elsewhere; it is the same as one of the two candidates. What is it?” The voice sounded distinctly confused.

Sophia wasn’t certain if the voice was talking about her and Dav or not. It could have been talking about the raiders or about her and Dav, but in either case, who was the third person or tool?

More importantly, did she want to bring herself to the attention of whoever that was? He might be her only way out, but at the same time she didn’t have any idea who he was or if she could trust him. For that matter, how did she even understand what he was saying? He wasn’t speaking either Bridge or English, and unlike a normal translation artifact, she wasn’t hearing it in her native tongue. Instead, she heard what he said and understood what it meant.

“How did they combine all of these functions? Yes, I see; it is helped by others, it cannot stand alone. It will fail if it is alone. So! I must give it support. One of the candidates is uninjured; she even has an interesting resonance with it. Yes, that will work.” The odd voice started to hum.

The voice had to be talking about Dav and Sophia. The fact that it knew she was uninjured but seemed to think Dav was meant it probably also knew she was awake. More importantly, it meant she should check on Dav.

The magelight was clipped to the outside of her pack; it was one of those things she always wanted accessible but didn’t always want out. She unclipped it and channeled a small amount of mana into the magelight, then directed the light at Dav.

Dav was lying on his belly with his face turned to the side. She didn’t immediately see any injuries, but she didn’t think the raiders had hurt him before they tried to shatter the dungeon core. They had hurt her, rather badly, but she was a child of the Origin; being thrown there let her heal herself. She was less worried about actual injury to Dav than she was about what the Origin might have done to him.

Sophia reached out and turned Dav onto his back. As she did, she saw black lines with glowing purple patches on his left cheek and forehead; that wasn’t a good sign. He’d clearly been affected. The fact that that was the only visible effect meant that it couldn’t be too bad. At least, she hoped it couldn’t; there wasn’t much she could do about it. Yes, she was a child of the Origin; yes, she’d learned to heal from the man who was possibly the best healer on Earth. That didn’t mean she was all that good at it.

On second thought, maybe it wasn’t all bad. At least he was still visibly human; that meant there was a good chance he was still mentally intact as well. More or less, at least. The mind was what mattered; if only his body was affected, that could be healed once they got to somewhere with a decent healer.

Sophia turned the light towards the voice. She’d already given away that she was awake by turning it on in the first place; seeing who or what the other person present was wouldn’t give anything more away. She wanted to know who talked about someone rather than helping them when they suddenly appeared after crossing some sort of unstable rift.

All she saw was a floor made of cut stones between her and a wall that she could barely make out in the limited light her magelight gave; there was no one there. At least, there was no one there with ordinary eyesight. Sophia reached for her ManaSight Skill, but nothing happened. It was like it didn’t exist. That set her off balance more than she’d expected; she’d picked up a ManaSense Skill with her second Path. It was second nature to her to use it and now she didn’t have it.

Before she could refocus and try to look using the innate sensitivity that originally earned her the Path that gave her the Skill, Sophia noticed something floating in the air between her and the far wall. Maybe that was the person she’d heard?

Sophia walked over to it. It did seem to be in the correct position, but it also seemed far too familiar to her. In fact, she was pretty sure it was identical to the dungeon core she’d seen the thieves attempt to smash. They clearly hadn’t succeeded, but how was it here? This was not the Great Cliff Dungeon! That dungeon had no interior areas like this; all of its zones were exposed to the outside air.

“Yes, this should work. An improved training area controller would be a positive outcome, and while this does increase the chance of losing a set of location information, that version of the information would likely not survive bonding to another support in any case. Even a small increase in the survivability of the remaining set is worthwhile; it is unfortunate that direct intervention is disallowed.” The voice still seemed to be coming from the far side of the dungeon core, but there was definitely no one there and it definitely wasn’t the dungeon core talking. Perhaps it was invisible?

Sophia ducked around the floating dungeon core. She’d get back to it when she had the chance, but at the moment she was far more concerned about the voice that seemed to have still not noticed she was aware. “Hello? I know you’re there; I can hear you.”

“No reward beyond the merge is required, but there is still a little room in the reward budget, since the item itself did not have to be supplied. Fortunate, given the likely value of the reward, especially to an unblessed. Let’s see … ah, yes, that will do. It’s appropriate to the circumstances and should significantly improve their chances of survival once they encounter others. Begin!”

Sophia reached the spot in the air the voice seemed to be coming from. She waved her hand through it while the speaker, whoever it was, kept talking. There really wasn’t anything there. It wasn’t an echo, either; once she moved past that point, she could hear the voice from behind her.

At least that explained why the speaker hadn’t noticed she was up and moving; they weren’t there. It was probably a projection from somewhere else, although Sophia had no idea where or how it was managed. A spell seemed the most likely reason, even if she had no idea why. Perhaps it was a side effect of whatever he was doing to examine her and Dav? Then why hadn’t he noticed she was conscious?

Did he simply not care?

Unfortunately, that was all the time she had to investigate. A moment after she heard the word “Begin,” something hit Sophia in the back. It was a soft impact, not enough to bruise through the light armor she wore, but the impact also came with a creeping numbness that started in her back and quickly spread. The last thing Sophia remembered was realizing she was falling and trying to keep herself from hurting herself as she fell.

She didn’t think she’d managed it, but when the world swam back into focus she didn’t feel hurt. If anything, she felt energized, like she’d had a good night’s rest and slept just enough but not too long - or maybe like she’d had way too much coffee. The feeling was kind of similar to both but not really the same as either.

She bounced to her feet, then realized that even though her magelight was completely dark and she couldn’t see anything, words floated in front of her eyes. For some reason, they seemed to be surrounded by feathers and splotches that almost looked like ink. Were those supposed to be quills, like an antique pen?

Merge Complete

Determining Effects upon Current Sphere

Profession Not Chosen

Participant Not Eligible to choose a Profession

Current Age: Less than One Year

Vocation Not Chosen

Participant Not Eligible to choose a Vocation

Current Age: Less than One Year

No Vocation-granting Feat Completed

Hallow Not Chosen

Participant Not Eligible to choose a Hallow

Patron: The Wanderer

No Sphere Chosen

Further Effect cannot be determined until Sphere is chosen

Recommendation: Choose a Sphere

“What in the world,” Sophia breathed. She’d never seen anything like it. That was not what messages from the Voice looked like. She couldn’t think of what else that might be, however; there were very few things that could put a message in front of someone’s vision and this was definitely floating in front of her vision like a message from Order’s Voice or from A’Atla.

Neither of them had a background image. It was weird, almost like whoever made this was worried about the words not being legible depending on what was behind them. Was it actually using her eyes to display the image?

Sophia shook her head wildly then mentally acknowledged the screen the same way she would to dismiss one of the Voice’s messages. The screen flickered and vanished; at least that worked the same.

A new screen appeared just as she was about to go check on Dav.

Grand Feat completed!

For your Grand Feat of crossing between universes, you have been awarded two Rewards!

First Reward: Enchanted Mana Crystal Enhancement Merged with Personal Mana Core!

Second Reward: Bonus Ability Slot and Free Ability!

Bonus Ability Slots and Free Abilities do not increase the cost of future Slots or Abilities!

New Ability Known: Innate Communication

Innate Communication is the most comprehensive of the set of Communication Abilities for sapients. It includes understanding of all forms of the language and the necessary knowledge to easily communicate in those languages so long as the capability exists. Languages that require methods not possessed by the possessor of Innate Communication cannot be used without that method.

You have passed within the area of a Shard of Kestii!

Participation in the collection of a Shard of any sort will qualify as a Vocation-granting Feat. Actions taken and the Shard retrieved may affect the Spheres offered.

Warning: the area around a Shard is prone to both generate and attract Animals, Beasts, and Monsters. Some Shards may be located inside manawarped areas or may collect mana around them in nonstandard ways.

This can affect both spells and equipment.

Sophia shook her head as she dismissed the second message. If that was going to happen all the time, it could get old very quickly. On the other hand, both messages seemed important; the first one didn’t tell her much, but that was probably because she didn’t understand it and didn’t qualify for whatever a sphere was. The second one, on the other hand, seemed to explain the first, and tell her she didn’t need to worry about communication. That was not at all minor.

As for the bit at the end, if being “within the area of a Shard of Kestii” was like entering a dungeon, she ought to appreciate the warning. It wasn’t nearly as much information as she was used to, but at least it was something.

Sophia dismissed the warning. If she really was within the area of a dungeon, she needed to get Dav back on his feet as quickly as possible.