Broken Lands

Sophia pulled out a bunch of feathers and let them drift around her, captured in her aura. They were necessary for Translucent Aura to work, although she was probably going to have to specifically control the plumes to protect herself. The heavy mana in the area wasn’t “attacks;” it was simply dangerous.

Translucent Aura

Your plumes deflect and diffuse the magic imbued in attacks within your aura. You can concentrate plumes together to enhance their effect. Attacks initiated by people and objects marked with your Arcane Signifier are ignored unless you direct your plumes to stop them. Other attacks may be permitted by commanding your plumes.

She threw out a few more plumes, just in case, then called on Armored in Arcane Scales.

Armored in Arcane Scales

You passively exude mana that reinforces your skin with magic-resistant scales. Your scales provide unparalleled defense against magical damage but require additional mana to aid them against other forms of damage. You may expend even more mana to manifest your scales in a secondary suit of scaled armor as a layered defense.

Scales formed across her body, followed by armor settling on top of her clothing. It was a risk to her Sphere if Ivorha was right, but the mana in there was intense enough that Sophia was worried about risking a lot more than that without the protection. With luck, she wouldn’t need it and everything would be fine.

She really hoped she was lucky.

She watched the mana move for a moment, then carefully made her way past the eddies of mana. Some of them ripped at her aura as they moved through it. Even after she retracted her aura closer to herself once she was past the wards, she felt a dull ache in a part of herself she couldn’t ever remember straining before.

She couldn’t stop using her aura, no matter how much it stung to use. If she did, she’d have to depend on her eyes to tell her where the mana was, and that was just not going to work. If she guessed wrong on how distant the mana was, she could step into it or skip a better, safer place to stand while she moved around other dangers. It was more than a little worrying that it already hurt, even with Translucent Aura.

The feathers were already a little ragged, so she added more. It reduced the ache a little, but it was clear that she wasn’t just feeling the stress on the feathers; it was actually pulling at her aura uncomfortably.

Sophia moved two steps forward, then three to the right, then one back and two more right, before she was finally able to take five steps forward. She shifted to the left, then had to retreat as a curtain of magic seemed to come at her, scraping her aura more like running a cheese grater across her aura than getting stabbed by a talon. It stung enough to notice and she probably had some scrapes, but it wasn’t actually dangerous.

It might be if it kept going, but she didn’t have a choice. Translucent Aura was working so far; she just needed that to continue.

It felt almost like a very complicated dance as Sophia kept moving. However much she tried to move forward, she moved back and forth far more. Despite that, she made slow progress and eventually managed to get close to the World Tree’s pillar.

Naturally, it wasn’t particularly close to Leo. That took another five minutes of careful maneuvering and one quick dodge when an opening finally appeared next to him with an already-closing open corridor she could move through. Mana scraped her hip as she cut it a little too close and she had to stop and recover her balance because her leg felt momentarily unsteady.

It was the first risk she’d taken and it needed to be her last. If that happened again and she wasn’t within a safer area, she might end up on the ground as mana moved across her, and that would be more than just uncomfortable if the ache she now felt in her hip was anything to go by.

Worse, the outer layer of her scaled armor was dull and cracked where the mana brushed by it. It hadn’t just struck her scales, it had overloaded them. She was glad she had the armor, but she had to hope that it would recover the way it was supposed to … or that Xin’ri could repair it.

Either way, she didn’t have time to worry about it. Now that she was stable again, she needed to deal with Leo. She was pretty sure the fact that he was currently made of the wood of the World Tree was the main reason there was a place large enough for her to stand, but that was also the reason she couldn’t actually reach him; clouds of mana surrounded him where it leaked out of his form, especially near his hands and feet but there was enough to see that it was moving around him in a sort of a sheath as well as moving through his body. She couldn’t tell how powerful the spillover was, but she knew it was not something she could risk.

Well, that was why she brought the tarp. Sophia lifted it and tossed it over her brother’s head, careful to hang onto the rope she’d secured in the top two eyelets. It wasn’t perfect; one side was folded over him instead of wrapped around him because of the arm he had against the tree. If she pulled towards her, she might tip him in her direction, away from the tree, the way she wanted or she might just pull the tarp right back off him.

She was pretty sure it would be the second option. This really wasn’t secure. It wasn’t quite working out the way she thought it would. Why hadn’t she brought any weights for the ropes? If she had weights, she might be able to toss the rope over his arm and have it swing enough to be caught afterwards.

If she tugged cattycorner, as much towards the tree as beside it, it might work. All she needed was for him to fall onto the tarp enough that she could secure it around him or at least grab him using the tarp as insulation. It was worth a try.

She tugged on the left rope, then the right when the tarp started to slide. After a moment, it caught and she gave it a sharp pull. The tarp slid … no, Leo was tipping! It was working!

That was, it was working until she realized he was tipping over towards the tree and would probably end up entirely within the constant haze of mana entirely around the pillar if she didn’t do something. Using the ropes was not going to work, but the tarp was there and it did seem to be pushing the mana that surrounded him away, so …

Sophia’s right hand closed on the tarp around Leo’s arm before she even finished the thought. She was not going to let her brother fall uncontrolled to the floor; even if he was wooden, that was all too likely to hurt him. She felt a sting from her hand as she tugged him away from the Tree, but at least he was lighter than she expected.

When she set him upright, he stood there. The mana that filled him was already trying to escape into the relatively clear area she stood in, so there wasn’t much time, but she took the time she needed to properly loop the rope around him and the tarp so that she could carry him on her back; it was the best she could do.

It took longer for her to get out than it had to get in, because she had to look for much wider openings than before. Every time she failed and let the wild mana hit her brother’s form, she knew it; mana ran down her back and left her feeling almost sunburnt.

Leo was silent the entire time. Sophia tried not to worry about that; she needed to worry about the fact that she needed to get out.

When she finally stumbled up to the marker Dav left, she swayed in place. She had to bypass the wards again and her aura hurt to extend that far. It was still easier than carrying her brother while she cleared each ward one at a time, but that didn’t make it any easier. She made sure to doublecheck that they were all disabled, but the far one wasn’t. It took two more tries to get the pattern right while continuing to hold the patterns the other wards needed.

The moment a lane opened, Sophia called for help. “Dav, pull us through. Please.”

An arm wrapped around Sophia’s waist and pulled her to her boyfriend. It was the correct size the entire time even though that didn’t make even visual sense, but Sophia knew better than to question it. Dav wasn’t really moving through a fourth dimension to reach her, but it was the easiest way to describe it.

Sophia pulled her aura in close, leaving it only a few inches farther out than her skin. She could normally pull it in far enough to not be felt outside herself, but that hurt enough she wasn’t going to push it right now. Close but not too close hurt the least.

Dav slowly moved his arm out from around her waist, as if afraid she would fall.

She felt unsteady enough that she couldn’t say it was out of the question, but it also wasn’t her top priority. “Can you take Leo? We need to get somewhere with some space and lower ambient mana levels.”

Dav picked up Leo by the tarp as if he didn’t weigh anything. “Ivorha? Where can we take him?”

“Ah,” Ivorha seemed stunned for a moment that probably wasn’t as long as it seemed. “Uh, there’s a room down the hall, hopefully it will be empty.”

The room Ivorha led them to was in fact not empty; instead, it looked like it was being used for storage and possibly as a break room. While most of the room was filled with crates or covered with sheets, an old couch sat facing the door. An end table next to it held a clay mug with a broken handle, but other than that the space from the couch to the door was clear and large enough for Dav to lay Leo out.

Sophia stumbled past her brother and sank onto the couch before she dismissed her armor. The outer armor went easily, but the inner scales took focus that was hard to maintain when she ached the way she did right now. After a moment, she felt them evaporate and relaxed. The feathers she’d used as her Translucent Aura’s protection were all long gone, but … wait. Why were there iridescent scales on the back of her right hand?

Sophia pushed the thought away. She’d deal with that after she dealt with Leo.

She reached out to him mentally. “Leo? You’re out of the heavy mana area. Can you shift back now?”

Leo didn’t answer out loud, but color started to flood into his skin. A moment later, she wasn’t looking at Leo in his human shape; instead, a small dragon stood in front of her, stretching.

“I’m sorry,” Leo apologized while he seemed to twist himself into a pretzel to make sure everything was where it belonged. “I thought it would be easier than that, Bunny just wanted to talk to the World Tree. I didn’t think it would hurt you like that.”