Broken Lands

Chapter 365 – Arcane Coatl Hybrid

There was a great deal of testing in Sophia’s future to see exactly what Aural Plumes would do for her and which ones were better than others. She also needed to find out if she could add new aural plumes; after all, if she could have a warming plume, why couldn’t she have a cooling one? She hadn’t felt like spending the Wisps on another Ability was worth it back when she picked up Keep Warm, but maybe it would be worthwhile now. 

That was one possible development path for the Ability, and as long as she could improve the overall Ability and didn’t have to improve each and every one of its components with Threads, it would be great to add more. If she did have to improve all of the components, she probably needed to trim back how many she had. 

Translucent and Prismatic probably needed some special attention, too; while they didn’t seem appropriate for attacks, it probably wasn’t a coincidence that her protective aura Ability was Translucent Aura and her main attack was Prismatic Plume Strike. Could she use those Abilities to duplicate the protective focus of Translucent Aura or combine the attacks of two people she’d tagged with her Arcane Signifier? Maybe she could even split one person’s strike so that it hit multiple enemies.

It was entirely possible that neither idea would work, but Sophia knew she was going to end up testing them. Sweetfire would insist on it the moment he heard about her Ability suite, the same way he was going to demand detailed testing of her Hoard.

The Hoard would almost certainly come first, now that she thought about it. Alley Sweetfire still got unreasonably happy every time she made a Sweetfire Firewater Feather. She could only imagine how he’d feel if she could capture other mana in a semi-stable form for him to use.

It would probably be both fun and incredibly annoying. Testing things with Sweetfire always was. He had incredibly interesting ideas and demanded overly detailed tests. They learned a lot, but Sophia always went home exhausted after everything he wanted her to try.

Sophia shook her head and tried to suppress her grin as she moved on to the next section. It wasn’t hard, because the next part was the section she was the most worried about, the part she’d pushed together based on theories that were no better than half known; entirely too few of the locals kept a Species listing into the third upgrade. She didn’t really know what she was doing, but she refused to give up her heritage and that meant she might as well do what she could.

She snorted at the term ‘Arcane Coatl Hybrid.’ It was clearly based on the Species ‘Suras Arcane Hybrid,’ but it made Sophia feel like the Guide wasn’t really sure what to call her. Did it think she was a Suras or a Coatl? For that matter, those were both from her father’s heritage; why was there no mention of her mother in either term other than calling her a hybrid? The Guide wasn’t solely for humans. She knew that much from both Othala’s mention of Archons and a few things Bai had said about the people on the other side of the Gates. It had to know that she was partially human … didn’t it?

Did she care?

Sophia was more than a little shocked to find out that she did, in fact, care about her human heritage. She’d always thought she didn’t, that it was her draconic heritage that mattered. Instead, the lack of hte word ‘human’ bothered her far more than mischaracterizing a dragon as a coatl. It was clear the Guide had no idea what it was doing there.

Unless … maybe it thought she was Suras instead of human? Most modern Suras did look more or less human, but that was because they were predominantly human; they were almost more of a human culture group and bloodline than a separate species, these days, not that ‘separate species’ ever meant that much to the ancient Asuryans. 

How did it even know what a Suras was? And why didn’t it call her human, then? Her mother wasn’t Suras, her father was, and he was a dragon!

Sophia snorted. She was just aggravating herself over nothing now. She needed to get through the rest of the page so that she was fully familiar with her third upgrade. Then she could go tell everyone about it. 

Arcane Scales

Call upon your Coatl heritage to thicken your skin into scales. Your scales provide unparalleled defense against magical damage but are weaker than those of other coatls when there is no magic present. Arcane Scales can be reinforced with additional mana.

That was very similar to Scaley. She didn’t use the Ability often, but it looked like it would still be there when she needed it.

Prismatic Wings

Lift yourself into the sky upon wings made of all types of magic splitting and blending to obey your will.

Sophia wasn’t sure what to make of the change to her flight Ability. It had to go on the list of things she’d test later. It sounded fine, probably. She wasn’t sure why it changed; she hadn’t touched the Ability directly any more than she touched Scaley. Maybe it was because Manifest Wings already had an overt magical lean that Scaley becameArcane Scales and Manifest Wings went a step farther to become ‘all types of magic.’ 

It was just as likely that the Ability wasn’t different other than the name. Her wings always looked prismatic to the eye.

Latent Lifeweb Link

To be Suras is to be linked to the life around you, especially to those of your kind. You have never woken the link, but it aids you in what connections you find. 

Sophia blinked, then reread the Ability description. It didn’t change. 

As far as she knew, no one in her family had a connection to a lifeweb. They were mentioned in some of the old stories, but she’d always thought they were fables, talking about being part of a larger ecosystem, not literal fact. If they were true, then this Ability was based on something very, very old. 

The only thing she could think of that might be relevant was Dav’s mindlink. She’d always found it easier to use than the others did, other than Dav himself. She’d assumed that was because she had practice, but maybe it was whatever this Ability was about. 

Whatever it was, it didn’t seem like something she could actively use. She’d want to keep it in mind if anything came up where it seemed important, but there really wasn’t much to do with it now. It was passive and might not ever be important beyond whatever assistance it gave her with Dav’s telepathy.

Come to think of it, she did have another sort of connection. She was Linked to both Cliff and Taika. That might not be what it meant, but there was no reason to assume it wasn’t. She couldn’t do anything new with the Ability, but it might explain why it was possible in the first place.

Child of Death

The child of a world of death and a man who is Death Itself, your touch carries both the finality of death and the hope for a new beginning … that will still end in Death.

“Okay, what the hell is with these descriptions?” Sophia had no idea what that even meant. It was true enough about her father, and when she thought about it; Earth could probably be described as a world of death given that all of the mana bore a hint of it, but she’d have called it a world of magic rather than death. Tzintkra was a world of death; Earth was just a bit damaged.

At the same time, it was a description of her  heritage rather than a useful thing she could do. That wasn’t how the Guide’s Abilities worked. 

At least, it wasn’t how they worked for anyone but Dav. His descriptions were often mostly useless, probably because the Guide couldn’t really seem to figure out what they were. Maybe she should talk to him and see if he had any ideas. 

All she could think of was that maybe it would let her infuse True Death into her Abilities, except that she could already do that with Aural Plumes. If that was all it would do, it wasn’t useful. There had to be something else.

It did make her think of her brother who truly was a child of death, though. Leo was quite likely to be a death dragon by now, if her mother’s guess was right, and Sophia’s mother’s guesses were usually right. If it wasn’t likely, it wouldn’t have been in the letter.

Sophia wouldn’t trade her situation for Leo’s. She liked her magic far too much to want to change it; she’d find another way to show the part of her heritage that had always been hidden.

Fleeting Foresight

The future reaches out to you yet you cannot see its full breadth. Only a hint comes through, questionable and lost, shaping your actions to reach the future you desire.

Well, that one was better than Child of Death. It was definitely her mother’s heritage, so at least she now knew that that side of her family wasn’t completely ignored by the Guide. It definitely reflected the fact that she hadn’t really inherited her mother’s oracular talent. Jenna was the only one of Sophia’s siblings who had, and even she chose to use it in a different way from her mother and grandmother. She had the training, though Sophia’s mother always said it was far less than what she’d had at the same age.

It was almost a surprise to know that Sophia had any of the talent, actually. She’d never had a vision as far as she could remember. All she’d ever had were a few dreams that were later echoed in reality, but they were always things that she knew about, so she could have just been guessing as she slept, then filling in the blanks afterwards. From what her mother said, that was a danger every oracle had to learn how to counteract; your mind could and would fool you about what was and wasn’t a vision if it came on you in an altered state of consciousness. Even daydreaming was dangerous in that way.

Despite that, Sophia could only be happy about the Ability. It specifically called out the future she desired, which meant that while she might not know it was happening, she’d have a better chance to make the right call in the moment when there was no way to be certain. That was an extremely valuable Ability, even though it wasn’t at all flashy.

Arcane Absorption

You are mana and mana is you. You can absorb unaffiliated mana.

The description felt almost incomplete, because it didn’t say what she could do with mana she absorbed. Would it refill her mana pool or could she use it to create Plumes? Maybe she could even fill her Hoard that way?

What did it really mean if the mana was unaffiliated? Did it mean mana that didn’t have an Affinity or did it mean mana that wasn’t being corralled by someone’s aura or an enchantment?

“Something else to test. Wonderful,” Sophia groused to herself. Despite her complaint, she knew it really was wonderful. No matter which of the options turned out to be true, it would be useful. Some would be more useful than others, but even the worst would let her recover mana more easily.

Yes, overall, she could say that everything worked out. Her Grand Talent, her new Sphere, probably wasn’t exactly what she’d have picked if she had full choice, but it was good enough. She was happy with it.