Broken Lands

Sophia wasted a moment wishing she had her father’s aura. He could make a fight stop by putting the fear of Death into people who were fighting. She couldn’t. Her aura was far better at comforting than it was at shocking, which was simply annoying. She had to use spells to do what he could do just by being there.

Her spell was taking too long to build. Sophia growled under her breath and decided that she could afford it: they weren’t going to be fighting today, after all. She let the spellform fail and threw a bunch of mana into the center of the room, roughly shaped by her Intent. It wasn’t reliably repeatable, cost her more than half her mana pool, and was nearly useless as an attack, but it would get everyone’s attention. They’d probably be half deaf and dazzled for a moment, but even that would help.

A deafening noise filled the air, accompanied by streamers of color that swirled around the room. Sophia couldn’t hear herself swear at the not-quite-right spell effect; she’d wanted a bright flash, not the aurora!

It seemed to work, at least. Almost everyone other than the people administering beatings stopped for long enough to look around, and that made the three people beating the woman obvious, especially when one of them yanked on her cloak hard enough to pull her momentarily out of a ball and she yelped just as Sophia started being able to hear again.

This time, it wasn’t just the staff that tried to stop the fight. About half of the participants were shocked out of their single-minded focus on the people in front of them for long enough that the pained grunt of the woman being beaten could be heard as she was kicked by one of the men surrounding her.

A young man who looked similar to her lunged at her assailant. He didn’t manage to stop the next kick. He was knocked aside into a woman with wolf ears, who caught him, then stepped forward and grabbed the attacker’s arm and twisted it behind his back.

After that, everything seemed to happen at once. Sophia’s view was hidden almost immediately, but the room no longer had the energy of a fight.

That was a good thing, because after that spell, Sophia didn’t either. She wasn’t out of mana and she hadn’t hurt herself, but spending that much of her mana pool all at once always made her feel a little off until she had a few minutes to recover. Sophia found a chair and watched as Dav set up a healing beacon under the table she was seated at then waded into the crowd to see if there was anything else he could do.

It was almost a minute before her hearing returned, and that was with the help of Dav’s healing beacon. Maybe she wasn’t just feeling woozy from the magic; maybe she had actually hurt herself with that spell.

Sophia checked her ears. There was no visible sign of blood, so it probably wasn’t too bad. At least, she hoped it wasn’t; hearing damage from loud noise was not something she’d ever looked into. She knew how to judge all sorts of other injuries, but that wasn’t one of them.

The fact that she could hear again meant that it was fine for now. She’d have to get checked when she got to a good healer, but she was certain Uncle Blaze would insist on checking her health, even if she forgot. He did that after month-long trips to other planets; he’d certainly insist on it after a years-long trip to another universe.

Sophia smiled at the thought. She missed home, but so far it wasn’t that bad. The memories of her family kept her company, and she knew they’d want her to have a good time on her adventure. It wasn’t quite the adventure she’d dreamed of, but a glance at Dav reminded her of several ways it was better than she’d imagined.

Sophia wiped the sappy smile off her face when she saw Rensyn approach with his hand encouragingly on the back of the young woman she’d last seen curled up in a ball on the floor. She moved like she hurt, but Sophia knew that as long as it was just bruises and strains, she’d be fine after spending some time in the area of Dav’s healing beacon. Even hairline fractures would likely heal successfully, and she didn’t look like any of the hits she’d taken were worse than that.

The woman was mostly dark-haired, but it went from dark to white partway down. The length didn’t seem to be consistent; there was even one white streak on the top of her head. She had dark eyes and pointed ears and she was dressed in black clothing with white embroidery and a white shirt underneath. Her skin color was just deep enough that she didn’t look washed out by her colorless apparel. The only hint of color she wore was the bright blue stone on a necklace; that had to be her Registry insignia, even though it was noticeably simpler than Sophia’s.

“Sit down, Raevyn.” Rensyn pulled a chair out for Raevyn. “We need to talk, but I’m going to want your brother for that. And did you see where Amy went?"

“Moti’s headed this way,” Raevyn answered as she sat. Her eyes were already examining Sophia and Dav curiously as she spoke to Rensyn. “I think Amy headed to the bar.”

“Of course she did,” Rensyn sighed. “I’ll send her your way. Until then, this is Sophia and Dav; I’m going to be acting as their mentor and building a group around them. Why don’t you talk a bit and see if you suit each other?” Rensyn turned and walked away without waiting for Raevyn’s answer.

Sophia wasn’t sure where to start, or at least not how the conversation about party membership usually happened here. What she did know was how it happened back home; there, it was a combination of friendship, compatibility, and utility. She and Dav were friends, at least for that definition; they’d choose to fight together even if their styles didn’t mesh and adjust their styles until they did work well together. Since she didn’t have any other friends here, she needed to look for compatibility. “Raevyn? Is that your name?”

The black-and-white haired girl nodded. “Raven Quinn.”

Sophia nodded politely and gestured to herself. “I’m Sophia Rothmer.”

“Dav Carolan,” Dav said quietly. Sophia glanced his way and saw that he was watching Raevyn with a worried expression. “How do you feel? It looked like you were beaten pretty badly.”

Raevyn shook her head. “I’ve had worse, I’m already feeling better.”

Sophia knew that wasn’t necessarily a sign of how bad the damage was; instead, it was probably because of Dav’s healing beacon. Raevyn didn’t seem to have noticed it, since it was under the table and probably mostly hidden by Dav’s legs.

Raevyn let out a long sigh and looked down. “Rensyn wants us to see if you’ll let us join your group. I guess I should get it over with; you’d find it out when you ask around about us anyway. My twin Moti and I are Bean Sidhe.”

Sophia blinked at that. Was his name moth the way his sister’s was raven? Surely not.

The term Raevyn used for the two of them was distinctive. For a moment, she thought the girl said banshee, but she shook that thought off; she’d clearly meant it as two words. Sophia was pretty sure that she meant the mythical faeries that were the origin of the term banshee and not the monsters that also used the name, but in truth, the woman in front of her didn’t look like either a wraith or a fairy. An elf, perhaps, but Sophia knew that modern myths, ancient myths, and reality were all related but might be rather different from each other. “Bean Sidhe? What does that mean?”

“Do you want the truth or what everyone says?” The words were said dismissively, but Sophia could hear the worry behind the flippancy in the voice of the man who spoke them.

“How about both?” Sophia answered without skipping a beat as she turned to look at the man she assumed had to be Moti Quinn.

Like his twin sister, he had hair that started out black and became white as it flowed down his head, dark eyes, and pointed ears. Unlike his sister’s hair, the white in his hair all appeared at more or less the same length, somewhere between his ears and his chin. He had a pair of scars under each eye; they looked almost even enough to be some sort of ritual scarification, but they weren’t quite in the same place and the pair under his right eye were far more distinct than the pair under his left eye.

Like his sister, he wore black and white clothing, although his vest was clearly dark leather rather than his sister’s dark cloth. It was in rough shape, like he regularly fought in it and didn’t have a great way to repair it. That made a lot of sense when Sophia thought about it; armor repair enchantments were probably a lot less important when you had the “shield” that the Guide provided. It let some things through but not the full force of the blow.

Sophia wondered how much of the damage to his armor and clothing was from the fight. She hadn’t seen him get hurt, but she didn’t know what happened before she entered the tavern.

His Registry medallion was fancier than his sister’s. Instead of the simple half-sphere, Moti’s stone was faceted and the setting included a radiant pattern that almost looked like feathers. Or ... maybe they were moth antennae? Sophia didn’t think she’d have considered that as an option without his name.

Moti chuckled and pulled a chair from another table to sit with the trio. “At least you’re not running. Most people think Bean Sidhe are bad luck. Associated with death, tell you when you or someone you love is about to die.”

“Or if they know a little more, they know we can see ghosts and think that means we can get them to talk and tell them where treasure is.” Raevyn sounded bitter. “We can’t. Even if we could talk to them - which we can’t, neither of us has a Sphere that lets us talk to ghosts on our own - most people don’t leave treasure lying somewhere that’s easy to get!”

“That’s what that fight was about?” Dav made the connection faster than Sophia did.

“More or less.” Moti’s tone of voice and his refusal to meet Dav’s gaze told Sophia that there was more to the story and that he didn’t want to talk about it.

Raevyn set a hand on her brother’s arm, but her attention was on Sophia. “You should also know that what we do isn’t magic. We can’t cast spells; we deal with spirits.”

Sophia was pretty sure that dealing with spirits was magic. It might not be spellcasting, but there were a lot of magical abilities that didn’t require spellcasting; Dav’s Healing Beacon Summon was a good example. On top of that, she couldn’t really tell what the Guide called “spells” apart from any other use of magic. “So? Why would that matter?”

Both Quinns seemed shocked by the question. After a moment of stunned silence, Raevyn seemed to realize something. “They’re not from Casterville.”

“No, we aren’t,” Dav agreed before Sophia could speak. “And we don’t care if what you do is magic or not. We do care if you can work with us. So far, you’ve told us what you can’t do; what can you do?”