Broken Lands

Sophia expected the three they were waiting on to all be teenagers, since that was when Vocations became available. She was wrong; while one of them was almost certainly the minimum age, the other two were easily in their twenties.

Sylva was the first to arrive. She was one of the two in her twenties; stout, sturdy, and only about four feet tall, she seemed almost like a stereotypical fantasy dwarf to Sophia, except that she dressed absolutely nothing like the stereotype. She was dressed in bright, clashing colors that outshone even Rensyn’s colored stripes, with masses of silver embroidery that made the multicolored cloth look almost as silver as any other color. It somehow escaped looking at all like armor mostly because it was clearly not protective in any way. There wasn’t even any magic worked into the cloth. It was fancy, but Sophia was happy she didn’t have to wear it and she definitely wouldn’t want to work out in it.

Dykken and Roy arrived together. They were both some sort of lizardkin or possibly snakekin; they looked essentially human other than oddly pebbly pale yellow skin with a blue streak that crossed their eyes. They were clearly related and just as clearly far poorer than Sylva, at least if simple clothing in more natural colors indicated less wealth. Sophia suspected that it did, especially since it was well-used, practical clothing.

“Good, that’s everyone I was expecting.” Rensyn grinned widely and looked around the group, then walked over to a short wall that was probably normally used to hold a potted plant but happened to be empty. “Find a spot and get comfortable. Roy, you’re the youngest; I assume you’re here to decide if you want to take an apprenticeship or go directly for a Vocation?”

The young man nodded shyly.

Rensyn turned his attention to the older brother. “And Dykken?”

Dykken shrugged. “Called make money. We can only afford one escort, so I’ve waited for Roy to be old enough. I don’t have an apprenticeship, and I don’t want to be a Professional laborer. If Roy doesn’t want to go, well, a Vocation will pay for an apprenticeship for him.”

Roy shook his head but didn’t say anything. Sophia could see that he didn’t agree with Dykken’s choice, but his mute protest didn’t seem to get Dykken’s attention.

Rensyn nodded slowly. “A reasonable choice, but you will find that it’s harder and more expensive than you think. Vocations make money, but they also have costs. Almost any fighting Vocation requires armor and weapons; even mage Vocations-”

“He’s not going to qualify for a mage Vocation,” Sylva interrupted. “There’s no point in taunting him with what he can’t have.”

“Even mage Vocations require equipment,” Rensyn continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. He didn’t even glance at Sylva. “The most common is a focus wand, but we strongly recommend either armor or enchanted robes.”

Sophia didn’t miss the emphasis he put on the word enchanted. It made her smile; he clearly hadn’t missed the fact that Sylva’s clothing was fancy but not enchanted; now that Sophia thought about it, it was probably intended to look like it was enchanted to people who didn’t know better.

“There are a lot of smaller things that are useful and necessary, but that’s why we assign mentors for newly Registered Called. We’ll help you get your initial equipment; we’d like you to stay alive, after all, but you will be expected to pay it back.” Rensyn’s gaze finally turned away from Dykken to look at his younger brother. “If you’re not sure when we’re done, Roy, that’s fine; I think we shouldn’t be sending sixteen-year-olds out to fight. You’re not done growing yet, give it a couple of years. If your brother’s going to go for a Vocation, we can see if there’s work for you around here. There often is, although it may well be in the stables.”

“Work in the stables is good,” Roy agreed. “I like horses.”

“It’s not just horses,” Rensyn said with a grin, “But you’ll see that when we get there. That brings us to you, Miss Sylva. Are you trying to decide between an apprenticeship and a Calling?”

Sylva shook her head. “No, I want a Vocation. I’m not going to spend my life stuck inside one dinky little town like my parents, but Mother wouldn’t pay for the Awakening escort unless I came here first.”

Rensyn’s smile became a little strained when Sylva called Casterville “dinky,” but it smoothed out before she even finished her sentence. “I see. Well, in that case, you’ll want to pay attention when I explain what the Registry offers; you’ll have to make the choice between a minimal registration where you pay for services as you need them, an assisted registration like what I expect to offer Dykken, full membership like Sophia and Dav, or an employment contract like me. There are advantages and disadvantages to each.”

Full membership? Sophia didn’t remember signing up for that. Was that what the badges Arryn gave them meant?

Rensyn started to say something, then paused and asked a question he hadn’t asked any of the others. “Is there an honorific I should use for you?”

“An honorific? You mean a title, the way you called Sylva Miss?” Sophia shook her head. She wanted to counter that idea before it even got started. Being called Princess probably seemed nice when it wasn’t true, but to Sophia it was simply someone being polite before they told her what not to do or, worse, what she was supposed to do next to be a proper Princess. The titles changed from world to world, but Sophia preferred the informality she grew up with on Earth. “Call me Sophia. My family doesn’t matter here.”

Rensyn smiled at that. Sophia could tell he’d caught the implication that her family did matter elsewhere, but he seemed to appreciate the fact that she wasn’t going to make an issue of it. “Sophia, then. A bit of a different question for you; why did you choose a Calling instead of waiting for a Profession?”

“In the middle of a monster-infested cave? That’s not much of a choice, is it?” Dav interrupted, answering for Sophia. He seemed almost upset, like he didn’t understand the point of the question. “We didn’t have the time to wait. Sure, we made it through the insects, but the moss monster was far worse.”

Sophia set a hand on Dav’s shoulder. “I’d choose a Calling if I had the chance to choose again. I’ve always wanted to see new places and make my own way in the world, plus I enjoy a good fight. That was the Path I chose originally and it’s the Path I’ll choose again here. If anything, it seems even more important here; the wilds seem less settled than back home. I planned to travel to either the frontier or to one of the damaged worlds to help; it seems like I can go anywhere here to explore.”

Sophia’s answer seemed to please Rensyn; he relaxed a little and his smile seemed more genuine and less of an ordinary formality as he turned his attention fully on Dav. “How about you? If you truly don’t like your choice, you can change it; if you take a Profession, you’ll never level your Vocation again.”

Dav shook his head fiercely. “I’ll never find a way home if I do that. Everything Sophia said is true for me, too.”

That was true, but it didn’t really matter to Sophia. She knew she’d find a way home eventually. If she didn’t, her family would eventually figure out a way to find her. Either way, she was looking at years of effort, so she might as well combine the search for a way home with doing what she actually wanted to do and see the world. She really hadn’t seen much of it yet, but the fact that there were flaming beavers that could use spells meant that there was a lot out there to see.

Rensyn nodded in acknowledgement then turned his attention back to the trio of people without Spheres. “Right now, I’m expecting both Dykken and Miss Sylva to choose a Vocation, so the four of you do need to know the Registry facilities. Roy, you’re welcome to come with us; I’ll help you find work even if it isn’t an apprenticeship in anticipation of your brother’s registration.”

He didn’t wait for responses before he made a wide gesture that clearly meant their surroundings. “Right now, we’re in the courtyard gardens. This area is popular with people who want to hone their mana senses, because most of the plants either produce or use mana; they’re all carefully balanced so that they have enough to thrive but not so much that it crushes them. Type is important as well as quantity, but I won’t say more than that; you’re better off learning that from someone who actually knows what they’re talking about.”

Sophia was certain Rensyn knew more about gardening than he admitted there. You didn’t randomly talk about plants for half an hour, with examples from everything around you, unless you knew something.

“The plants are why we’re out here because of what they represent: food. The vast majority of these plants are used in the meals served at the tavern. Mana-enhanced food is fairly expensive … everywhere except at a Registry. The Registry tavern is a place to meet people, plan missions, and have good, healthy, cheap food that won’t pull mana out of you. That’s not important at low levels, but it becomes far more important the higher you level. Now, follow me.”

Rensyn led the way out of the courtyard through a different doorway than the one Sophia and Dav used to enter it. The new door led to a small antechamber near the kitchens; Sophia could hear the sound of people eating from one direction while the sounds of cooking came from another. Rensyn led them through the door towards the kitchens. It led into a clear preparatory area with quite a bit of floor space.

A quick left took them into another back room filled with large work tables. A handful of smears of dried blood in hard-to-reach places and several incompletely dissected carcasses revealed the purpose of the room even though no one was working in it when they walked in.

“This is the Registry’s butchery area,” Rensyn confirmed. “If you bring back a field-dressed carcass, the butchers will properly remove the valuable pieces; we keep the meat. This is the primary source of meat for the tavern. You can, of course, take the carcass to an outside butcher, but if you do that you will need to work with them to get your own price. It’s a specialized task to remove the valuable components without damaging them, so most people find that it’s a better use of their time and more rewarding than butchering the monster themselves or going elsewhere. This won’t be important to you until you encounter something with valuable organs; the more valuable they are, the more dangerous they usually are.”

Rensyn gave a quick glance around the group. When no one asked anything, he hurried on.

Rensyn’s whirlwind tour took them all over the Vocational Registry building. The Registry handled everything a delver could want, from laundry to training facilities and instructors. The basics were apparently included in the “full membership” she and Dav had from Arryn, but even without that the prices didn’t seem too bad compared to the cash they’d gotten from selling the huge slab of bronze back in Fallen Kestii.

She’d have liked to spend more time looking at enchanted equipment, but she didn’t argue when Rensyn kept them moving. She could always come back later. Unlike the rest of the Registry, the prices in the shop were not cheap; in fact, Sophia wasn’t actually certain she could afford much of anything.