Broken Lands

Chapter 371 – The Secret Anchor

Marcie didn’t continue, so Sophia had to ask. “Something else? What do you mean?”

“Killing people doesn’t give you Wisps,” Marcie said slowly, “Unless that’s your Anchor. It’s restricted information, but it is known to the Registries. We just don’t tell people until they already have an Anchor, because some people would decide it’s easier and set out to gain one of those Anchors.”

Sophia stared at Marcie. It was a complete surprise to hear that that was possible, yet at the same time it wasn’t. Xin’ri’s Wisp gain was decidedly different from everyone else’s. It wasn’t purely tied to creating things as she’d thought, though that did seem to give her a few Wisps. Instead, she gained most of her Wisps when the items she made or modified were used in places that would grant Wisps. 

Xin’ri’s use seemed to be more efficient, and how many Wisps she gained for other people’s use of her items seemed to depend on her presence and participation, but she could gain Wisps from watching an Arena match where only Sophia and Dav fought. 

It made Sophia wonder about Xin’ri’s original teams, the ones that convinced her she was slow and therefore worthless. They’d used her to get items; had they also left her behind when they went off to fight? Were they where the idea of “it comes from making things” came from?

The truth was the opposite, if anything. Xin’ri’s Wisp gain was higher than anyone else’s, as long as she made or modified a large part of the team’s equipment. It was hard to pin down, but with everything she’d worked on with Sweetfire over the past year, it was obvious that it didn’t have to be only Xin’ri that worked on things, either. She had to meaningfully contribute. It was hard to pin it down past that; while they guessed it probably affected how many Wisps she got the same way using it herself did, Wisp gain was opaque enough that it was amazing they’d gotten as far as they had in figuring it out.

It was all item-based, which made sense. It was tied to Xin’ri’s Item Anchor.

Sophia frowned. Xin’ri wouldn’t have had an Item Anchor back when she started, back when other teams taught her she was going to have to make it on her own because she gained Wisps too slowly and probably needed too many Abilities to be useful. “What about before you have an Anchor? What sets your Wisp gain then? It’s not the same for everyone, so it has to be based on your Sphere somehow.”

Dav laughed. “I’m thinking about murder and you’re thinking about mechanics. Now I know how my friends used to feel.”

“The common belief among scholars in the Empire is that every Sphere contains the upgrade pieces you don’t have yet in a nascent form,” Bai answered seriously. “I would have to check my records for more information on that, however; it is not something I have looked into in centuries, so it is not in my active memory.”

He turned towards Marcie. “I would think that an Anchor that encourages murder would be something I would retain knowledge of, however, especially as I am investigating deaths.”

Marcie shrugged. “It was probably kept quiet in the Empire, too; I’m sure the Vocational Registry knew about it, but were you in a position where anyone would have told you?”

Bai thought for a moment then seemed to relax. “No, I wasn’t, but it might explain why certain patterns of deaths were supposed to be reported to the Imperial Justiciars as soon as they were noticed. I assumed it was because the patterns indicated that it was serious enough to bypass the city’s guard, but perhaps it was because they thought it meant a Called was the cause.”

“Or the opposite,” Marcie said darkly. “One of the Spheres that can end up with an Anchor that rewards killing humans is the Profession Guardsman. It’s unusual and even permitted as long as it’s used properly, at least in Izel and Mazehold, but they’re always watched because some of them start trying to feed their Anchor. Almost all Executioners have an Anchor that lets them recover some of their target’s Wisps.”

Sophia paled as Marcie’s phrasing suddenly made a connection in her mind, a connection to Mo’ra and the Broken Swords. “Is that how the Broken Swords work? They’re moving Wisps from one person to the other. I know we already decided that the reason the Broken Lord Hallows people like Mo’ra is so that they can turn themselves into broken swords and hold Wisps and do whatever his Hallowing means, and this seems sort of similar.”

Marcie shrugged. “I don’t know. We found out more from Mo’ra than is in the Registry’s restricted archives, or at least more than I’ve seen. Well, it’s there now but that’s because I wrote it up and had it added.”

Sophia blinked at Marcie. She hadn’t realized the mouse-eared girl had even thought about giving the information they’d learned to the Registry, much less done it. Now that she thought about it, it was something they should have passed on already, so it was a good thing Marcie took care of it. 

What Sophia wanted to do was stop it from ever happening again, but she didn’t have a way to do that. Few people would believe it if they said what the Broken Swords really were, and even if they did, there was nothing preventing someone from killing themselves to help their cause. The only way to truly stop it would be to get people with the Item Anchor to avoid Hallowings, and from what Sweetfire said, that was already handled for Professionals. Maybe the Registry could do something about it for Called.

It wasn’t a perfect solution. It wasn’t even a good solution, really. It was the best solution they had for now.

Sophia really didn’t like the Broken Lord. Once she was home, she was going to see if she could get some help to come back and deal with him. That would be a real solution. It would require being able to cross the Origin again, but she was certain they’d figure it out. After all, she had to figure it out before she could get Dav home, and then again to get herself home. 

It would also require getting people together who could take on a Patron, but she was certain she could do that much. She’d probably have to ask her father for help, but once she did, everything would be okay. The Broken Lord was at the most a planetary-scale problem, and her father dealt with those all the time. He probably wouldn’t even need help.

While that would work for the Broken Lord, it wasn’t the right answer for the situation in front of them right now. They couldn’t handle the Broken Lord; they could handle a murderer, if they could catch him. 

The conversation had moved on without Sophia noticing. She tried to catch back up and even managed to contribute a little, but no one said anything really new. They were just waiting for Xin’ri to arrive, which she did a few minutes later. They caught her up to speed, then decided it was too late to head to Sweetfire’s; it was already getting dark. 

Sweetfire was not in his shop when they made it there the following morning. Xin’ri had a key and let them in, then led the way down the tunnel to the large intersection room that served as a gathering point during mazestorms. It was the first time Sophia had seen it be completely deserted; normally, even when there wasn’t a mazestorm, someone was there. Most of the time, it was children and their teachers, but right now, it was empty.

It was not the first time Xin’ri had seen it empty, apparently, because she led them up a set of stairs Sophia hadn’t used before. They were only half as high as the ones they’d used down from Sweetfire’s shop, so it was clear that they were still below street level. 

The stairs led to a pair of plain doors much like the ones elsewhere in the underground complex, except that there were two instead of one. There were only a few places with doors like that, places that would handle a lot of people. Whether or not this entrance ever handled a lot of people, it clearly didn’t now; one of the two doors was embedded in a layer of dirt and concrete dust that was at least a foot thick. The other one clearly showed where the material had once been with stains, but it had been carefully cleaned until it could move freely.

“Sweetfire says it took him more than two weeks to free that door,” Xin’ri volunteered when she followed Sophia’s gaze. “Something about the dust setting and bonding to the door itself while also refusing to fracture. I have the feeling he could free the other door far faster, now that he knows how, but he doesn’t see a reason to. He says it’s a good, solid ground surface and it works fine. Oh, and watch out for the step once I open the door; it’s not at the same level.”

Xin’ri pulled the door open and hopped up, then ushered them all into a hallway with a slightly sloped floor that was only about eight inches above the bottom of the door on average. There was a significant crease in the floor near the small crack between the two doors and a series of divots that looked almost like the floor was melted that arced over to a slope next to where the door itself sat. The slope wavered and stopped at less than an inch high next to the door. It looked like the gunk that covered the floor was melted out of the way, then the door pulled open once there wasn’t much left. 

The walls were coated in the same gray dust as the floor, but Sophia could make out some odd sparkles when she looked closely. They seemed to shimmer and shift in shade, which gave her a pretty large hint of what they were. “Is that ground up mana crystal?”

“I’m not sure, but it seems likely,” Xin’ri admitted. “There are several crystals that hold mana. Mana crystal is the most stable and the one the most likely to still hold mana after this long, but even the less stable ones might if there was enough of it and there’s a lot of dust. Sweetfire claims it’s why he had to come up with a solvent to get through the door and that’s the reason he even tried in the first place. It was completely sealed off, but it was obvious it wasn’t sealed off deliberately.”

“Xin’ri?” Sweetfire leaned out of an opening a dozen feet down the hallway. “And friends. Come on in, I’m not doing anything delicate yet. I’m still doing cleanup, it’s been a couple weeks since I enchanted anything and the mana-rich dust is everywhere. It’s almost enough to make me want to enchant somewhere else.”

Xin’ri snorted as she led the way into a gleaming white workroom that looked more like the images Sophia remembered of a clean room back home than the dust-caked corridor. “You say that every time you have to do a deep clean and every time you use the facility you admit that it’s worth it.”

“That’s because it is!” Sweetfire waved at the bench beside him. The chair was the only thing that didn’t gleam in a bright white, and that was because it was a polished slightly blue steel. “I only said it was almost enough! Cleaning up mana dust is no fun at all, but I do have a solvent that works. It takes a few hours every time I want to use the workshop, but it saves me days and makes the results more effective. It’s just a pain every time.”