Broken Lands

More people trickled into the old house over the next few hours. Most of them arrived as individuals, rather than as groups, and Samuel cheerfully led each of them to their assigned rooms. He seemed to know everyone, even the people who were assigned to the other teams. Sophia watched him work for a while, then went to find Dav.

He wasn’t in their room and he wasn’t in any of the common areas on the first floor. Sophia was certain he wasn’t in anyone else’s room, which only left one place: the roof. Access to the roof was through the attic area; there was a door set into the slanting side of the roof that flipped up to let people crawl onto the roof. It was open when she got there.

Dav wasn’t the only person on the roof, but he was the only one who seemed to be watching the scenery while lost in thought instead of searching for something. It wasn’t quite like being in private, but as long as they were relatively quiet, Sophia expected the sentries would mostly ignore them.

Sophia made her way towards where Dav sat and knelt next to him. She whispered, “Penny for your thoughts?”

Dav’s head flew up and he froze for a moment until he saw Sophia. He let out a deep breath. “I didn’t hear you. Ah, not that many. I’m just thinking about home.”

Dav didn’t talk about his past that much. Sure, he’d spilled some details that made it obvious he hadn’t had the easiest life, but at the same time he didn’t seem to want to say much more. He tended to focus on the present, the same way Sophia did.

Sophia didn’t want to push him too much, but at the same time she was curious. “Oh?”

Dav waved at the trees that surrounded the old house. “There wasn’t anywhere like this near Alinport. Oh, there were places that sort of looked like it in the Dust zone, but all that had was trees. Over there, you see that overgrown gateway framed by the trees?”

Sophia followed his wave, then nodded. It was obviously an entrance to an enclosure that surrounded the house they were in. It wasn’t how they’d entered, but then again it didn’t look like there was much left of the wall even though the stone gateway was remarkably intact. There was even part of a metal gate left.

“Something like that could happen, but in front of it, off to the left, do you see the fallen limb?”

Sophia squinted. This time, it wasn’t very obvious. “Do you mean between the two trees? Are you sure that’s not just a big root?”

Dav shrugged. “It doesn’t look like a root to me. Whatever it is, it’s the kind of thing you look for in the Dust Zone. The Dust would gather around it to change the fallen limb into the perfect fallen log, whatever that means. That means the Dust is in the open where it can be attacked more easily. I’d have called it in for the reward and then started running; you don’t want to be near an attack on Dust.”

He paused and looked up at Sophia. His expression was hard to read, with both a smile and the lines left behind by tears. “Here, it’s just a fallen limb. Maybe some mushrooms will grow there or maybe an animal will make it its home, whatever happens with fallen logs. The Dust isn’t going to modify it and we don’t have to attack it. It’s different, you know?”

Sophia nodded slowly and settled into a spot next to Dav. She hadn’t realized just how different things had to be for him. She wasn’t entirely sure she did know, not really. “For me, it’s like being on a world a long way from home. It’s strange, sometimes frustrating when things don’t work, but it’s an adventure. One that I know my parents won’t pull me out of. I wanted an adventure, to get away from what I did. I know a lot of people would want my old life, but I wanted something different. Something more. But if you’re not happy with it…”

Dav huffed slightly and smiled. “I didn’t say I wasn’t happy, I said it was different.”

Sophia knew she’d blundered. She wasn’t sure what she should have said or even if there was a right thing to say, but she clearly hadn’t managed whatever it was. “Do you want to go back?”

“Back to the way it was back home, you mean?” Dav shook his head. “I’d rather bring my parents here, if I could be sure they’d be protected.”

With what they’d seen of this place, the Broken Lands, Sophia was fairly sure that wasn’t guaranteed. “If we can manage that, it might be better to get them to Earth. They’d be safe there. Safer than here, at least.”

Dav frowned. “Do you really think that’s possible?”

Sophia nodded confidently. “‘Course it is. I know we can get to Earth, and if we can get to Earth, we can get to other places too, like your homeworld.” She paused, then decided that a little light teasing might work. He really didn’t seem bothered by his scales, so it was probably fine. “Assuming your parents will recognize you with the cosmetic work you’ve had done.”

Dav stared at Sophia blankly for a moment, then his hand rose to his face. “I’d actually forgotten about that. Mom will have words for me, I’m sure. Hah.” He shook his head again, with a wide smile this time.

Sophia was definitely going to have to remember that something about his altered appearance and how his parents would react amused Dav.

“Oh, there you two are. Anything interesting happening up here?”

Sophia whirled towards the attic entrance, startled by Amy’s voice. She was disappointed she wouldn’t get to talk to Dav alone anymore, but she knew better than to exclude Amy. People who fought together didn’t have to be friends, but they did have to work together and rejecting someone was a great way to make that impossible. “Looking outside and talking about the past,” was the best Sophia could come up with.

“We don’t have forests like this at home,” Dav added, then invited Amy to join the conversation. “Are you from an area like this?”

Sophia wanted to smack herself for not doing the same. She was the one who’d dealt with fellow adventurers for years; why did it seem like Dav was better at it than she was?

Amy walked over to the couple and looked over the edge of the building. Her eyes wandered over the forest for a long moment before she answered. “In the warm season, perhaps, but Rockhold is far colder than Casterville. We’re a Shard of hunters, not farmers. This forest is a good place to hunt, for now, but I don’t think it will last us much longer.”

Sophia couldn’t let that assertion stand without question. “Why not? We just got to Casterville.”

“And you’ll leave it before you take another Level, unless you want to stay for a very long time,” Amy countered. “Or perhaps soon afterwards, if this mission goes well. Casterville is safe, and safe means things are slow for Called and Professional alike. I certainly don’t plan to stay for too long, though I’ll give this team a chance. I think there’s potential, as long as Rae doesn’t get us into too much trouble.”

“You think Rae’s going to get us into trouble?” Sophia shook her head. “I thought for sure the trouble maker was Moti.” She didn’t add the other possible troublemaker, since that was Amy herself. She was abrupt and could seem rude, even though Sophia was pretty sure she was just direct and blunt. That seemed impolite to say, even though it was true.

Amy grinned. “Moti likes his jokes, but it’s Rae that attracts problems. I’d say you would as well, you’re too nice, but it’s more likely that they’ll go after your lovesick puppy…”

Sophia wasn’t sure what it was about trading insults that made people come together, but whatever it was, both Amy and Dav certainly had it. By dinnertime, they’d traded enough good insults that Sophia had lost most of them, but they were clearly having a wonderful time.

It wasn’t something Sophia had ever been any good at, but she was pretty sure she’d be able to get Dav to laugh by calling him a half-snake half-monkey forest newt with a severe case of gigantism and not enough sense to stay in water. The insult didn’t make any sense but it was funny.

Twelve hours later, things were not nearly so funny. Sophia did not like early mornings, but Samuel apparently had the same idea as Rensyn: if they got moving before it was really light out, they’d be in place while the corpsevines were still sluggish.

Samuel was in the lead as they passed through the gate she’d seen with Dav the previous day, then made their way towards the West Conservatory. He was, surprisingly, the only Fire mage in the group. Sophia had assumed there would be more, but apparently one was enough.

The closer they got, the more nervous Sophia became. She did not like dealing with things she couldn’t see coming. She knew they weren’t supposed to be attacked by vines outside the West Conservatory, but she also knew that they didn’t really know what they were getting into.

That was why Rensyn wanted them to level, after all.

Sophia was so busy watching her surroundings that she nearly ran into Essia when she stopped. A glance forward told Sophia why: Samuel wasn’t moving forward. Instead, he was looking around.

The Fire Mage turned around with a grin on his face. “We’re almost there. All we need to do is get past that line of archways and we’ll be in the area where corpsevines were found ten years ago. That’s where we’re going to start. I just hope we don’t have to burn the forest this time.”

Sophia blinked at that. Burning the forest down had not been mentioned as an option. She probably should have considered it. Fire mages were people who liked fire, after all, and the surroundings did look pretty flammable.

“Why did they build the wall like that?” Dav asked from behind Sophia. “Is it even a wall?”

Samuel shook his head. “It’s for display and marking the boundary, not to keep anything out. There are similar markers near the other Conservatories, though this one was probably the most elaborate. The others are maintained; this one hasn’t been, not since the Conservatory was abandoned.”

It looked like a lot more than ten years’ growth to Sophia. Maybe that was an effect of the corpsevines’ Domain?

Sophia frowned. “Is the corpsevines’ Domain the reason the plants are so well established? Wouldn’t that mean there could be corpsevines out here?”

Samuel frowned, then shrugged. “I hope not, but there’s only one way to find out. Come on, we need to get a bit closer in and we need to get there soon or we’re going to be delaying the main attack.”

Sophia didn’t really need the reminder that the distractions were supposed to be well underway before the main attack went into the Conservatory. She was definitely interested in exactly what sort of distraction one Fire mage could cause that meant he needed fifteen other people to guard him plus a healer with five guards of her own. Samuel was the strongest of them, but he wasn’t that much stronger.

Her answer came about five minutes after they passed through the archways. Samuel stopped, pointed at the sky, and said, “You can watch, but not for long.”

A ball of red fire rose from his hand and bloomed into an explosion of fire in the sky. It shattered some of the tree branches and they began to fall like burning rubble towards the ground. As if Samuel’s spell was a signal, the sound of another explosion rocked the suddenly silent forest moments later.