Broken Lands

The monster-maker was huge, nearly as tall as Sophia. She could still reach the brass plate on the top, even if it was a little awkward, but putting any real force on it would be awkward. When Sophia tried to yank it off anyway, she lifted the entire device. It was heavy, but not as heavy as a rock that size should have been and certainly not as heavy as if it were solid metal; she was able to lift it enough, balancing on its back legs with its front off the ground, that it felt positively precarious.

Knocking the thing over might let them see if there was an access from another side. If that didn’t work, they could knock it off its perch; it wasn’t that high, really, but three feet was still a decent drop if there was something fragile inside. She could probably let it down and try again with a better hold, but it was already up in the air and she didn’t really want to start over. Maybe she could get a better hold with Dav’s help? “Do you think you can push this over from here? I’m not quite tall enough.”

“Uh, sure. I think I can flip it now that you have it up; do you want to catch it?” Dav moved in front of her and took the weight of the monster-maker, supporting it from its underside, then lifted it farther. He took it almost the point of no return, then stopped.

Sophia already knew that the only opening on the sides of the monster-maker was the hold the deformed bug emerged from, but she took the chance to examine the top and bottom of the device more carefully; they’d been hard to see earlier. The top only had the brass plate, but there was a rectangular plate in the bottom that actually had hinges.

“No,” Sophia decided. “It’s too close to the edge; I don’t want it to knock me over. If it falls over, well, we’ll deal with that then.”

Now that she thought about it, the rock the monster-maker sat on was sort of like a natural pedestal. It didn’t fit with the clearly man-made floor. It was almost perfectly flat, which made it seem like it was placed in the room deliberately; there were no signs of rockfall elsewhere in the room and a fallen rock probably wouldn’t be flat anyway.

Eh, it was probably added specifically to hold the monster-maker. It made flying bugs, after all; maybe some of them needed a little height for their first flight.

Sophia moved up next to Dav and helped him tip the monster-maker onto its back. It skidded as it flipped, but managed to stay on the top of the large rock. The far end extended almost a foot past the edge, which made Sophia glad she’d decided not to be there. “We’d better pull it back onto the rock; I don’t want to get on this thing to try and open it until it’s stable.”

“Did you see something on its bottom?” Dav grabbed one of the legs and started pulling the device along the rock. It was light enough that he was able to do it, but it was clearly difficult.

“Yeah. Give me a lift?” The new top of the monster-maker was only about three and a half or four feet above the surface they were standing on; Sophia could have made it on her own. It was still easier with a little boost from Dav.

She was almost next to the side of the brass sheet that didn’t have hinges. Unfortunately, it also didn’t have a catch or any clear place to grab it to get it to open. Sophia shrugged to herself and smacked it with the palm of her hand; maybe that would reveal something.

Shockingly, the side near her sprung up a full six inches, leaving a large gap between the brass door and the inside. “I didn’t expect that to work.”

Dav lifted himself up onto the top of the monster-maker next to her. “Looks like it did. I can open it while you go in? It’s really too small for me.”

Sophia grumbled to herself; sure, she was below average height, but 5’3” wasn’t that short. For where she’d fit, you really had to include her horns and that made her 5’6”! Yes, Dav was taller than that, and she was sure he wasn’t deliberately making a dig at her height; it was just annoying to always feel short because most of her family was tall.

“Go ahead.” Sophia lifted the hatch a little farther, then let Dav take it the rest of the way up while she examined the area near the opening. It was apparently spring-loaded with an internal catch, sort of like the cabinet doors at home. No wonder it opened so easily. It didn’t seem to be made to be used while the device was right-side up; the legs weren’t long enough to let the door open far enough to access the inside.

Entering the monster-maker wasn’t really a thing, because there wasn’t a space to move into. It was mostly filled with an inner chamber defined by a sheet of bronze that seemed to connect to the exit the bugs came out of. There were a few other bits and pieces that filled the open spaces. They were mostly made of brass; a set of rods seemed to surround the inner chamber connected to a complex arrangement of gears at the back end.

Damaging the gears would probably halt the machine, so Sophia smacked them with the rear of her knife until she got one of them to come loose. She pulled the largest gear out of the box before she turned her attention to the one thing in the monster-maker that wasn’t made of bronze: a three-inch-long crystal that shaded from clear at the base to blue at the tip.

The small crystal had some thin bronze foil on the tip and some lines of what looked like bronze on some of the edges, but the important thing was that it was nestled into a cage that had clearly been made to hold it. There was no easy way to get it out without damaging the box, but bronze was softer than steel and Sophia was in favor of damaging the monster-maker.

The moment Sophia held it up to show Dav, the feathered displays made their return.

Shard of Kestii Collected!

Collecting a Shard is Vocation-granting Feat.

Generating List of Possible Vocations.

Participant Not Eligible to choose a Vocation.

Collection of a Shard of Kestii prior to the minimum age to select a Vocation will affect the possible Vocations granted. A Vocation list will be presented as soon as all required conditions are met.

Your Patron wishes to communicate with you!

Hello, child. Wait, you aren’t really a child, are you?

“No, I’m not,” Sophia agreed. She heard Dav say something similar at the same time.

A fuzzy ball of bluish-white light, almost like a light in a fog, appeared in front of Sophia and Dav. “I assume you two would rather talk in person, or, well, person-to-ball, than through the screens?”

Sophia blinked. She hadn’t even realized that was an option. Talking with someone who spoke only through text was fine; that was how she spoke to the Voice. She was used to it. The Voice didn’t carry on conversations, though, so perhaps whoever this was meant to talk more than it did?

“Yes, please,” Dav confirmed without waiting for Sophia. “I’d say it seems more personal, but you don’t exactly seem like much of a person.”

The ball of light laughed. “I was, once. These days, well, it’s much easier to project sound and a fuzzy image than to actually manifest in person. Maybe I’ll do that someday, but for now you’ll have to put up with this shape. Let’s get on with it; I only have so much time and I’m sure you’d rather not wait until the next time you do something big enough to allow me to talk to you for this.”

The ball seemed to move up and down a little as he spoke. “I’m known as the Wanderer. Unless you choose another Patron or renounce me, I’ll be your Patron. I am, among other things, the Patron for orphans, travelers, and the lost; as far as the Guide is concerned, you two are all three of those.”

“The Guide?” Sophia interrupted the speech. She certainly hadn’t felt guided since she got here.

The Wanderer seemed unbothered by the interruption. “The screens you’ve seen. When he uses a name for himself, he calls himself the Guide. Occasionally, someone will hear a voice talking outside the screens, as well; we believe that’s the Guide talking to himself. Anyone can understand the language even though no one knows what it is; that and the fact that it seems to come from nowhere are two of the big clues that it’s the Guide. No one’s ever been able to find him, but-” the Wanderer stopped for a moment. “That’s a story for another time, I’m afraid. We don’t have time for it right now.”

Sophia was fairly certain she’d heard the Guide before the first screen appeared, but that wasn’t what caught her attention. She remembered the way she heard things from it and understood them without knowing the language. That wasn’t happening with the Wanderer. “You’re speaking English!”

Sophia had the weirdest feeling that if the Wanderer could have blinked, he would have. Instead, there was a moment of silence.

“Yes, I am,” the Wanderer said slowly. “And if we had a few hours, I’d ask you why you are as well; unfortunately, we don’t have that much time. I will remember the question for later; I’m very curious about where you come from. Both of you, since you come from different places. By the way, where’s the third one of you?”

“Third one? There are only two of us,” Dav objected.

“No, I can see … what the hell. Okay, that makes sense. Kind of. What a crazy way for the Guide to handle things.” The Wanderer sighed, though how a ball of light could sigh was hard to understand. On the other hand, he couldn’t just be a ball of light or he wouldn’t be able to speak. “Well, I can’t undo anything the Guide’s done; so we’ll have to live with it. Sophia, Cliff, this will affect your Spheres significantly, but I think I can adjust things so that whatever you choose will work together.”

“Cliff?” Sophia and Dav spoke at almost the same time.

“I’m not going to say the Great Cliff Dungeon every time, so yes. Cliff.”

“Aren’t we still in the Great Cliff Dungeon?” Dav sounded a little confused. “I never saw a notice that we left; aren’t we in a secret area?”

Sophia stared at Dav. She hadn’t realized that he had no idea what was going on. Had he forgotten the trip through the Origin or had he simply not understood it? Was his mind suppressing the memory because it was too painful?

“No,” the Wanderer answered before Sophia figured out what to say. “The Great Cliff Dungeon appears to be a sapient individual with some very interesting abilities, in potential at least, but it requires connection to a larger infrastructure for most of them to actually work. It also can’t sustain itself on its own, so the Guide bonded it to Sophia’s mana core. I can’t tell if that’s because her mana type is compatible, they’re from the same origin, or because you don’t have a mana core; any or all of those is possible.”

Sophia had a sudden sinking feeling as a couple of facts clicked into place. Her Skills weren’t working even though she still felt otherwise normal. Was this the reason why?