Broken Lands

It only took about fifteen minutes of sitting in the light of his beacon for Dav to feel recovered enough to keep going. He could have moved earlier, but neither he nor anyone else wanted to hurry; he might not be outwardly hurt but soft tissue damage wasn’t anything to laugh about either. They waited until there wasn’t any pain or signs of bruising.

Sophia found sitting in the light of the beacon refreshing; it eased aches in her shoulders and leg that she hadn’t realized were there. That, along with the fact that her joints hadn’t bothered her at all after she recovered from the Devouring Moss fight, gave her hope that Dav’s beacons were really good enough to properly heal.

Dav hadn’t gone more than a dozen steps away from his resting point when he froze. He gestured at them to come forward but didn’t take his eyes off of something in front of himself. “Sophia! Revina! I’ve found another snake.”

Sophia made her way up next to Dav and looked where he did. There was a dull gray-brown shape ahead of them. It was fairly straight but slightly curved and it lay in the middle of the street. It didn’t really look all that much like a stick, but Sophia could sort of see how you could mistake it for one if you weren’t expecting it. “You thought the snakes would be brightly colored, didn’t you?”

Dav flushed but didn’t deny Sophia’s accusation. “Or patterned. Every snake I’ve ever seen was obvious.”

Sophia nodded. That meant he was from an area where venomous snakes advertised themselves and he’d never noticed the non-venomous ones. “City boy?”

Dav nodded.

“It’s okay, I’m a city girl.” Sophia wasn’t sure she’d have made the same mistake. She liked to think she’d have been more paranoid and not trusted that a weird stick was a stick, but she’d made dumber mistakes in the past. “How are we going to handle it?”

“Vyk uses a special long stick with a curved thingy on the end,” Revina offered. “For the ones that are that small, anyway. It doesn’t work on the bigger ones, they’re too strong for him.”

“You couldn’t have mentioned this earlier?” Dav glanced at Revina this time.

Revina glanced away and seemed almost embarrassed. “You seemed to know what you were doing, and uh, I didn’t think of it.”

Sophia nodded to herself. She needed to remember that both Dav and Revina were essentially completely new delvers and new delvers made mistakes. Lots of them. Preparation was one of the most common mistakes and this sounded like a preparation mistake. She’d made the mistake herself when she didn’t ask if there was anything they should bring to deal with the snakes; she’d just assumed Revina would know and would warn them if there was.

This was really Sophia’s mistake. Revina couldn’t be expected to know better and Sophia should have asked. “Should we head back and get one?”

“But they’re a hunter’s tools, not a fighter’s. Shouldn’t you be able to do without them? Don’t you use weapons instead?” Revina’s immediate protest made Sophia give her a hard look.

Dav seemed less bothered by it. He nodded towards the dead snake meat Revina carried. “Probably. I’ll admit that one seemed pretty weak; if it hadn’t caught me by surprise, I doubt it would have hurt me. The problem is that we really need distance.” He turned to Sophia. “Can you make a spell or something that will kill it before it wakes up?”

Sophia sighed but considered the problem seriously. She could, as long as it was just going to lay there. It was fairly easy to make a spell when you had all the time you needed and could see what you were doing. She’d done that for years. It wasn’t fast, but they didn’t need fast.

On the other hand, maybe this was a good time to find out more about Imbue Blade. She’d already invested the mana into both her blade and Dav’s and that might well be why her knife went right through the snake’s scales as if they weren’t there once she penetrated the shield. It would probably take two hits, like killing the one wrapped around Dav’s leg.

For that matter, she wasn’t sure how the shield would react to a proper spell; she might need to overcharge it to get through the shield and still kill the snake; maybe she could build a spell that did both of the necessary attacks, one to destroy the shield and the other to kill the newly defenseless snake?

“I have a few things I can try.” Sophia frowned at the snake. Which was the best to try first?

It was obvious, really. Figuring out how to kill a sleeping snake with a spell using the least mana was very specific and wouldn’t help that much in the future. Figuring out more about Imbue Blade, especially whether or not Dav could throw it the way she could, was far more likely to be useful. She’d probably work on the spell to see if she could get it cheaper than Imbue Blade but the place to start was Imbue Blade.

And the person that should start it off was Dav. Sophia all too clearly remembered the number of tries it took her to both throw the blade at all and aim it correctly; she didn’t want that time delay after she destroyed the shield. It was better to have Dav destroy the shield then kill the snake with her thrown Imbue Blade. If they did it right, it would be fast and safe.

For that matter, could Revina do it? Sophia was pretty sure she could maintain three Imbuements and it would make the girl safer if she had a functional weapon. “Revina, do you have a knife or something you know how to fight with?”

Revina nodded, but what she lifted to show Sophia wasn’t a knife. It looked more like a gun, but with a wide curved stick in front that connected to a piece of wire at both ends which was pulled back almost to the stock. Sophia hadn’t seen many of them, but it was very clearly a crossbow. “I’d rather use this until I have my magic. It’s not enchanted, Father says I can’t use an enchanted weapon until I have a Sphere, but he also says it will work fine until I have my Vocation.”

Come to think of it, Aymini had a crossbow. It had completely slipped Sophia’s mind since she’d only seen it once.

If Sophia had really realized the people of Fallen Kestii had crossbows, she’d have gotten several. At a minimum, she wanted one for her and one for Dav. It would help immensely. Right now, it would mean that she wouldn’t have to teach Dav how to “throw” the Imbuement, at least not if it would stick to a crossbow bolt. That was definitely worth testing.

“Aunt Aymini doesn’t like it when I use it,” Revina continued. “She’s worried that since it’s a hunter’s weapon, I’ll end up with only hunting Vocations. Father says that’s unlikely, that as long as I show aptitude with magic or with an element I’ll get at least one magical Vocation, but I still try not to use it too much.”

Sophia shook her head. She couldn’t really comment on Vocations; it sounded like they were different from her experience with Hallows, where she had an incredible wealth of choices, even if most of them were not well suited to her preferences. It wasn’t like she’d been here long enough for her preferences to be clear; if she’d been judged solely based on what they knew, there was no way she’d have gotten a spell-using Hallow. There just wasn’t time for it.

Come to think of it, maybe that was exactly the reason there weren’t many spellcasting Hallows and why most of the Hallows were so poorly suited to her?

No, that really wasn’t the main reason. The main reason was Cliff. Sophia couldn’t even really blame the dungeon; he didn’t ask to be bonded to her mana core, after all. It was the Guide’s fault, as was the fact that most of the Hallows that worked with the situation were not ones she was interested in.

“Use it anyway,” Sophia directed. “If most of your effort is focused on other things, that’s where most of your Vocations will come from, right? Isn’t that what your father says?”

Revina nodded. She seemed reassured by Sophia’s direction. That was a good thing; it meant that Sophia might even be able to count on Revina to be useful.

“Are you good with it? That is, if Dav or I take down the snake’s shield, can you kill the snake with a bolt immediately?” Sophia needed to plan exactly how they were going to do this. Dav didn’t seem to be much for planning and Revina seemed unpolished, so it was Sophia’s job.

Revina frowned. She looked at the snake, then at her crossbow, then up at Sophia. “Maybe? I’ll hit it, if the snake doesn’t move, but it might skid off the scales.”

Sophia nodded. “That’s fine. Let me see if I can imbue your crossbow bolts; if I can, it’ll definitely penetrate if you hit it after we remove the shield.”

Revina offered Sophia a bolt and Sophia tried to use Imbue Blade. Nothing happened; the ability didn’t trigger at all.

Sophia grumbled. “It must not be counting the head of the bolt as a blade. That’s dumb; it’s still a weapon and the edge of the bolt is sharp; there’s no reason it shouldn’t work the same way…”

She knew how to push a Skill given by the Voice; maybe the same thing would work with an Ability granted by the Guide?

Sophia pushed at the Ability. It was sort of like casting an Intent-based spell, even though there wasn’t any mana moving unless she got the Ability to activate. She could feel something there, but it just didn’t want to work at all. “It feels like it’s almost working, but not quite. It’s like it should work but it doesn’t want to let it happen. It’s going to take more practice, probably a lot more practice. It might even take another iteration of the Skill to get there. At least, that’s how it works at home. I’m not sure how that works here?”

Revina nodded. “Father says that if you think something should work and that you’re close, there’s probably an Ability available that will let you do it. Otherwise the Guide doesn’t let you know you’re close. It just takes the Wisps to Dedicate and you can do it.”

Sophia nodded at that. It was reassuring that this worked the same way she was used to, even if the process of gaining Abilities was different from gaining Skills. It would probably become difficult later on, but right now it seemed like the first few Abilities were really easy to get; they’d gained fifty Wisps for dealing with the Shard of Kestii. That seemed like a lot.

Sure, they’d each only gained one during the past week of defending Fallen Kestii, but one in a week was still fast for not doing much when an Ability only cost ten or so Wisps. Sophia expected a Path that contained four or five Skills to take at least a year and more often several years. The Guide clearly started things off faster but she had the feeling it slowed down quickly.

“Okay, then you’ll have to strike with just your bow. I think … Dav, can you feel the fact that your blade is imbued?” Sophia was certain she’d have to walk Dav through each step of the process. She hoped she’d succeed; it would be very nice if he had a magical ranged attack the same way she did, even if she had to supply the magic. Even the single charge that she could maintain on his weapon could be useful.