Broken Lands

It didn’t remember much. It didn’t remember its name or how it ended up in darkness. It knew there was a before and an after, and this was after.

It heard something, or it thought it heard something. It wasn’t the way it vaguely remembered hearing; no, it heard with its body, its mantle, its tendrils. The noise came from all around it. It took far too long to figure out that there was a direction to the noise. By the time it figured that out, the noise had stopped.

The noise had been patterned. Words? It wasn’t sure. That had meaning, but it wasn’t sure what meaning there was.

It tried to blink and realized its eyes were closed. Oh. That was why it was in darkness. Open eyes revealed that it wasn’t in darkness. Light filtered into the ruined area it stood in. It got a short look at stone columns and a rubble-strewn walkway before something else appeared in its vision.

It knew this. It was important. It had words on it, and they were important.

It couldn’t read the words.

It blinked, when waved an arm-tendril irritatedly at the Status. Yes, that was what it was, wasn’t it? A Status. That was why it was important; it told you important things. It couldn’t remember what, but it was coming back to it. Slowly, but it could remember!

Something was very, very wrong. It wasn’t sure what. Not being able to read the Status was only one part of it, but it was a major part.

Something seemed to click, and even if it couldn’t read the words, it knew what they meant. Monster, they said. It would give monsters power. It never turned down power; it might not remember much, but that was not something it could forget. Power was good.

More words appeared. This time, the monster knew they described it. It still couldn’t read the title; Chaos-Warped (Land Jelly) didn’t mean anything to it. The Status seemed to recognize that after a moment and it shimmered and warped into an image.

That was it?

Yes, yes it was. It felt both completely right and deeply wrong at the same time. It stared at the image for a long time. A giant, multi-lobed top section with enormous orange eyespots on the pair of symmetrical bluish-green side-bumps explained why it could see all around itself. The many, many thicker tendrils were arms; the largest ones could support its weight and serve as legs. The thinner tendrils were how it caught prey, then it would drag the prey in to consume.

That was now. It was right for now, and the longer it stared at the image the more right it seemed. Before was lost.

Mostly lost. There was still something it needed. Several things it needed.

First, it needed a name. A label. Chaos-Warped (Land Jelly) seemed to be what the Status wanted to call it, but that wasn’t its name. It was it.

It was … it was … it was Physalix. It knew that was not the name it once had, but a new name was needed and Physalix sounded right. It didn’t know why it sounded right, but it did.

The Status seemed to agree. A section of it changed. Physalix still couldn’t read what it said, but it knew it meant what it was.

What else did it need?

It simply stood there, lost in thought, until well after the image of itself disappeared and it finally realized one part of what it needed. It was alone. It wasn’t supposed to be alone. There were supposed to be others there. They’d been there, helping it, assisting it, serving it, before. This was after, and in the after they were not quite as separate as they had been in the before.

It knew where they were, or at least which direction to go to find them. It also knew that they were just as lost and confused as Physalix was. That was all it knew, but it was something.

It also knew that there were others. Others who had caused before to become after. Others who had ruined everything, even if Physalix didn’t know what the everything that was ruined was.

It also knew that they would make tasty food, especially the one who was different. The one that should have ended but did not when the before became the after. The one that glowed.

It could even tell which way they were, or which way one of them was. The one that would be the least tasty was also the one that was the most like Physalix; that was the one it could feel. The feeling was weak, almost broken, and very far away, but it was still there. It could follow the feeling.

That was for later. First, it needed to find the other pieces of itself that were not itself. It needed to find out what the Status could do for it, what being a Monster could give it.

That word was wonderful. Monster. It meant power, and Physalix liked power.

Oh! That was why it wanted to eat the tasty bright spark that should be dead. It was power!

Physalix’s tendrils twisted in joy. It was learning and remembering! It would be all that it had once been and more, and it would be soon!

As soon as it found and ate the bright spark.

Physalix slowly turned and lumbered towards the closest of its allies / other selves. It could not come to Physalix, so Physalix would go to it.

A knock on the door woke Sophia from a restless sleep. It wasn’t the worst sleep she’d had since she fell through the Origin and ended up in the strange land on the other side, but it also wasn’t the best. For some reason, she’d had nightmares of jellyfish. She had no idea where that came from. She hadn’t seen an ocean in months!

“What is it?” Dav called out from his position partially next to and partly under Sophia.

“You two should get moving if you want a morning meal before the general session,” a cheerful voice called from the other side of the door. Sophia thought it might be the receptionist from the previous day. “Rensyn’s almost done with his. The others will be here soon.”

Sophia groaned and untangled herself from Dav. There wasn’t time to cuddle; it sounded like they were already running late.

Ten minutes later, Sophia followed Dav down the stairs. She stopped at the bottom and looked around; there was supposed to be a tavern area with meals somewhere on this floor, but she’d forgotten to look for it the following morning.

The entrance and the receptionist were off to the right. Sophia noticed that the woman at the table was the same woman. Aimiva, if Sophia remembered her name correctly. She must have been the one to knock on the door.

Sophia gave her a cheerful wave. “Thanks for the knock!”

“Of course!” Aimiva smiled as she waved back. “You asked for a wake-up and things are always quiet this early in the day.” She chuckled, then pointed down a hallway that looped around behind the stairs. “The tavern’s that way; most people use the other entrance if they’re not sleeping here.”

“Thanks,” Dav rumbled, then led the way. Sophia waved her own thanks.

The tavern, as Aimiva called it, was really not all that different from a small restaurant in a hotel back home. The decor was different, but there were people seated at several of the tables. Sophia guessed that one of them was probably Rensyn, but she didn’t know which. She could wait; she’d meet him soon enough.

Sophia and Dav hurried through a quick but high-calorie meal. The food was decent, even good, but the real star as far as Sophia was concerned was the chewy, flavorful brown bread. She hadn’t realized how much she enjoyed bread until she’d gone without it in Fallen Kestii. Fruit was good, but it wasn’t the same. The fact that Dav didn’t seem to feel the same way was convenient. “Are you going to eat your bread?”

“Nah,” Dav shook his head. “Trade it for that ham you’re ignoring?”

It wasn’t just ham; it was a full-size pork chop, and Sophia had eaten as much of it as she wanted. It was already odd for breakfast, even though she knew she’d appreciate the energy later in the day. “Sure.”

Either the meal was shockingly cheap or Sophia still didn’t quite get the value of money; three bits each sounded small, but she wouldn’t really know until she had a chance to look at more prices in Casterville. The one thing she could say for certain was that they had enough money that six bits wasn’t really enough to notice.

It wasn’t until they were outside the tavern that Sophia realized she didn’t actually know where the class was being held; Aimiva hadn’t ever said. When she asked, Aimiva directed them to the “inner courtyard.”

The door to the inner courtyard, unlike the other doors in the Vocational Registry building, was inlaid with small panes of frosted glass. It reminded Sophia of a particularly fancy screen door, but there was no second door; only the wood-and-glass door stood between the building and the courtyard. Sophia opened it, took one step into the courtyard, and froze.

The courtyard was full of magical sources. The door must have blocked them; she hadn’t felt anything until she stepped outside.

Everything looked like it was covered by a heat haze for a long moment as the magic made its presence extremely obvious in her new MageSight. She blinked, then blinked again, trying to clear her vision.

“Sophia? Are you all right?” Dav sounded worried as he set a warm hand on her shoulder.

“It’s all the magic,” Sophia answered as her eyes finally started to refocus on the scene around her. None of the magic was strong, but it clashed and eddied and billowed. She wasn’t used to it; with some practice, she was certain she’d manage to control her vision better. It seemed to emanate from either the plants or maybe the ground where they were planted. “Are the plants magical?”

“Many of them are,” a man she’d overlooked because of how well he blended into the strange magical landscape answered. He was dressed in colorful clothing with wide vertical stripes of green, blue, orange, and purple, with fancy golden embroidery at the cuffs and neck. The pendant on a golden chain around his neck was clearly the equivalent of the ones Sophia and Dav now wore that identified them as Called to the Registry, but the spherical orange stone that dangled from a chain attached to his belt had an entirely different feeling of magic. “I find the gardens pleasant, and it’s a nice day today. I assume you two are new to the Registry?”

“I’m Sophia and this is Dav,” Sophia answered before Dav could. “We’re here to … that is, we’re looking for Rensyn?”

The man smiled. It was clearly something he did often, as his face fell into well-established lines. “You’ve found me, then. I take it you’re here for the introductory session?”

Sophia nodded.

“There should be five of you today,” Rensyn said calmly. “The other three aren’t Called yet; they’re still thinking about whether they should go through with an apprenticeship or try to gain a Vocation. Until they arrive, why don’t we take a look at the plants? Many of them are flowering at the moment, but there are a few that should be ready to harvest. Unless you both already know how to do that?”

Dav shook his head. Sophia had to think about it for a moment; she’d done a little, but it wasn’t really what she was good at. “Is that something Called often do?”

Rensyn gave a cheerful roll of his shoulders. “In a garden like this, no, but out in the wild? That depends on how dangerous the area is and how important the plant is.” He didn’t wait for a further response before he walked over to something that looked like a profusion of green leaves with an extremely low, barely visible amount of magic. “This is spikeleaf. As you can tell, it’s not called that because of the shape of the leaves; instead, it’s called that because of how it tastes when it’s cooked…”