Broken Lands

Collections Agent would probably work really well as long as she was dealing with things she’d never seen before or hadn’t seen enough for Cliff to Collect, but it would fall down hard if she had to fight something she already knew about, where there was nothing new to Collect. That was a pretty major problem as far as Sophia was concerned; she didn’t know how easy Collecting was, but she definitely didn’t want to have her Path … er, Hallow … failing in the middle of a horde attack. There were simply so many times where you wanted to fight something you’d seen before that it was hard to justify.

Spellblade felt basic. It was close to her old Path, which was certainly nice, but she wasn’t certain it brought anything new. It was broad, since it dealt with all combat, but was combat really all she wanted to do?

Image Specialist didn’t have a use limit. If she wanted to, she could use it anywhere. In many ways, she wanted both it and Spellblade; that sounded very flexible, at least once Cliff had enough things Collected.

Collections Agent was the first one Sophia crossed off her list of the three. While it was definitely the one that would let her do the most things, it was also the only one that had situations where it didn’t work at all where she would definitely want the support of a Path.

Hallow. She needed to get used to calling it a Hallow. Or should she use the more general term Sphere? Well, whatever it was called, she needed to remember that it wasn’t the same as the Paths she knew. She would never have warned someone that a second Path was hard to gain, while the Wanderer had warned her of exactly that about Hallows.

Thinking of Paths made Sophia realize there was something she’d completely missed on her first look at the Hallows. “Why aren’t there any quality of life or … well, peaceful Hallows? I guess the healing one was sort of peaceful, but one of the linked Paths, Hallows, was about blades.”

“All Hallows have a purpose in combat, as do all Vocations.” The Wanderer’s tone shifted from cheerful to serious as he spoke. “In fact, that’s their primary purpose; you won’t find one that doesn’t have a way to kill, though a trap specialist might never fight himself. A healer may well spend more time healing than fighting, but that doesn’t mean they can’t or shouldn’t kill. All other Spheres are Professions, and if you don’t know that then I need to warn you: if you take a Profession, you will never be able to advance your Vocations and Hallows again. I do not know why it is that way, but it is.”

Sophia wasn’t really interested in a peaceful Path as her primary Path; she was a delver and she enjoyed it. Even so, the idea that she couldn’t have one grated on her sensibilities. She’d always planned to take one to help with her inability to shapeshift at some point, and while that wasn’t exactly useless in combat that wasn’t the point.

Not that that helped her decide between combat Paths. Sophia wrinkled her nose; this wasn’t an easy choice. Image Specialist and Spellblade both sounded good, but it was almost like whoever wrote them went out of his way to make them as generic as possible. Illusionist would be better than Image Specialist and would mean the same thing, while Spellblade was literally just the two things it did jammed together in a single word. “None of these seem like they want me to choose them, there aren’t any that really stand out.”

“Why, thank you,” the Wanderer interjected. He sounded pleased with her complaint. “They’re not supposed to. If you see something that stands out, it’s either my mistake or, hopefully, because it’s exactly what you want and are looking for. I refuse to entice people to choose things that aren’t their preference, no matter what I think would be better for them.”

“Of course not. People will always choose what they want to do. Or, I guess, what their friends want them to do.” Dav seemed eager to hop into the conversation. He was probably bored since Sophia was taking longer than he had, but Sophia refused to hurry. It’d probably been only five minutes or so and this was an important decision.

The Wanderer chuckled. “Patrons who choose to can have a great deal of influence. Your choice alone tells me that I may want to change Eldritch to Chaos-touched or even the simpler Warped. Or maybe it is right for you; if it is, then I should certainly leave it the way it is.”

“‘Course it’s right for me. How could I skip…”

Sophia tuned out their bantering; it was distracting her from her choice. It was funny; the Wanderer’s advice was just like her father’s. Choose who you want to be and what you want to do. Image specialist still sounded powerful; it would let her do all sorts of things, even without making the illusions solid. Illusionists could be scarily powerful and worked across Tiers well, because they made the opponent work against themselves if they were smart.

Unfortunately, Image Specialist wouldn’t let her stab trouble. It might let her blow it up if she made the image of a giant spell explosion real, but she’d probably only be able to do it rarely. That was an assumption but it seemed a reasonable one.

Which did she want to do, fool the enemy or stab them in the face?

The fact that she asked herself that question made her choice obvious. She thought Image Specialist might be the more powerful and flexible of the two, but it wouldn’t let her do what she wanted. She picked Spellblade without further thought; she’d already agonized over the choice long enough, and no matter what she was confident Spellblade wasn’t a bad choice.

She knew she’d regret the decision, but that didn’t mean it was the wrong decision. She’d regret any decision she made. She thought she’d regret Spellblade less than the others, and that was enough of a reason to choose it.

The Guide didn’t wait for Sophia to ask for a Status screen; he shoved it in front of her vision as soon as she confirmed her choice of Hallow.

Sophia

Spells:

Unaffiliated Abilities:

Warped Human

(Empty, 1, 1)

Innate Communication (Bonus, Free)

(Feather Image)

Body: 5

Martial Abilities:

Species Abilities:

Core: 7

(Empty, 1, 1)

(None)

Shield: 10

Spellblade Abilities:

(Empty, 1, 1)

Wisps: 10

Spheres

Spellblade (Hallow)

Level:1

Collector (Linked)

Level: 1

There was a lot of stuff to unpack on the Status screen, but one thing stood out immediately. “Warped Human? What the heck?”

“Mine says Chaos-Warped Human,” Dav supplied. “Interesting.”

“Didn’t you know you were warped?” The Wanderer sounded a little surprised. “It seems fairly minor, just a pair of horns and maybe your eye color.”

“No, the problem is that I’m not human!” Sophia snapped at the Wanderer. He’d missed her ears and her scales, but none of that changed the fact that her heritage was a bit of a sore spot. “I’m half-dragon and the other half isn’t human, even if it looks pretty close!”

“Dragon?” Dav sounded startled. “I guessed demon, but dragon works too.”

“What’s a dragon? I know what a demon is, and Sophia definitely looks nothing like a demon.” The Wanderer’s question got both Sophia and Dav to stare at the ball of light.

“You’ve never heard of dragons.” Sophia shook her head. Somehow, the surprise of that statement cleared the shock of seeing her species misrepresented. “We must be farther from home than I expected. I thought dragons were known everywhere.”

The Wanderer gave her a moment to collect herself before he prompted her, “Keep going; you’re not done yet and I’m almost out of time to answer questions. I think your companion is already done.”

“Almost,” Dav disagreed. “I still have ten more Wisps to spend. I’m not sure what to spend them on; everything seems to cost more than that now.”

“The first is the cheapest,” the Wanderer agreed. “I expect that the only thing you can afford if you’ve filled your initial slots is a level, but don’t buy that. A level will increase your Shield, but it will also make the cost of everything else increase.”

“I could also afford a Species Ability Slot,” Dav countered. “Should I buy that or wait until I have more?”

The Wanderer paused. “With the Eldritch Summoner ability you chose … if you have an open Species slot, you might be able to gain a Free Ability. It won’t be shaped by the Guide, so it may or may not be useful. You probably won’t be able to choose whether or not to slot it, and unslotting or fully removing it may be expensive if it’s possible at all. I can’t recommend it, but I have to admit that it is an option.”

“Why?” When the Wanderer didn’t immediately answer, Sophia repeated the question. “If you can’t recommend it, why do you have to mention it?”

She was glad he had; it was as much a warning as anything else. Even so, she couldn’t leave the question just sitting there. She expected to hear that it was in the rules from the Guide or something, but that wasn’t the answer the Wanderer gave.

“Many people choose to restrict information that way,” the Wanderer agreed. “I don’t. For all that the Guide believes you are newborns, you are not; you can make your own choices and your own mistakes. I’ll help where I can, and I’ll try to warn you, but I won’t do something to you or not tell you something for your own good. Now, get on with it; we have only a few minutes left.”

Sophia could respect that position. She just hoped she’d ask the right questions.

A quick examination of her Status showed that she didn’t have any new Abilities yet, but Dav was busy buying some with Wisps; hopefully the ten she had would let her fill one of the open slots. The fact that Cliff’s Hallow and level appeared on her Status was a little bit of a surprise, but not enough to really question. That only left one thing to ask before the Wanderer had to leave from this screen. “What are Body and Core?”

“An evaluation of your physical and magical prowess. They can be increased by dedicating Wisps-”

Dav interrupted the Wanderer with a snort.

The Wanderer chuckled lightly. “But as your companion has noted so eloquently, they are expensive. You’re both lucky to have such high starting values; it will make them cheaper in the long run, because only the amount of increase is figured in, not the total value. Be warned that you do still have to maintain your body and mana core; all too many people forget that the numbers can go down as well as up.”

Sophia could bet that was true. It was the same way at home; many people depended on their Enhancements and forgot that those were essentially just a modifier to preexisting strength or whatever.

She focused on the Spells section, to see if she could buy anything that way. Everything else seemed to be Intent-based and context-sensitive.

No Spells are available for your Hallow!

Your Spells are obtained from your Linked Partner’s Collection.

(Feather Image)

Would you like to dedicate some of your Wisps?

Yes. Yes, she would. This was clearly going to be a pain, since she apparently wouldn’t have any Spells until Cliff somehow Collected some. She’d bet the same thing was true of Martial Abilities. “Wanderer, how do I slot Spells and Martial Abilities once Cliff has them?”

“Focus on them and you should get the option. If you don’t buy any related Spellblade abilities, you’ll have to pay to remove them later, but if you pick up the right Spellblade Abilities, you should be able to develop a library you can choose between periodically and add to from Cliff’s Collection. There might even be a way to use Cliff’s full Collection; it depends on how you progress the Hallow.” The Wanderer paused, then addressed them both. “I haven’t seen either of your Hallows before, so your progression paths are new to me; I’ve seen a lot of other Paths but none quite like yours.”