Jace and Lessa stood inside a small alcove adjacent to a main hallway. He pressed his back up against the wall, keeping as far out of view as he could. The walls of the scavenger sect headquarters were brick, but they weren’t clay—rather, rusty chunks of scrap metal pressed together into rectangular shapes. The odd sharp edge poked out, and he nearly cut his hand on one.

“Do candlefolk get tetanus?” Jace whispered. “I don’t suppose you’ve had your shots?”

“What?”

“I…uh, lockjaw? Iron poisoning?”

Lessa scrunched her eyebrows. “Never…been an issue. Why?”

“Never thought to ask until now.”

He leaned out around the corner, carefully observing the hallway beyond. A worker kyborg trundled along on tracks, sweeping the floor with a broom, but otherwise, it was empty. Wherever Kinfild and the scavengers had gone, they were out of sight.

“Come on,” Jace whispered. “He can’t keep the wielders tied up forever.”

He stepped out into the hallway, careful not to make any abrupt movements that would spook the kyborg, then rubbed his forehead. “I have no idea where we’re going to find any sort of card, and we can’t exactly ask around.”

Lessa darted across the hallway, holding her rifle up in a shooting position. “We could threaten someone.”

“If they don’t have a way to raise the alarm.”

“Or if he doesn’t scream.” Lessa’s face scrunched. “Can you ask your sheet thingies?”

“Split?” Jace whispered. “Can you help out? I dunno, give me a sub-quest or something, lead me on the right way?”

“Well, it won’t respond to you just asking with words…” Lessa whispered. “It can’t hear you.”

“How else?”

“Like you close the sheets.”

Jace tilted his head to the side. “With…intent, I suppose.” Before he tried anything else, though, he darted down the hallway until he reached a different alcove—this time, one with more shade. Pipes crowded the walls, a tarp hung down, and a few crates filled it. Perfect for hiding.

Then, he concentrated. Kinfild said Wielders had an extra sense, and Jace was already starting to feel the pull of powerful objects. He wasn’t advanced enough to use the senses properly yet, but perhaps he could use his connection with the Split in a similar way.

He applied the same effort and will he used to muster a technique card and manifest it physically, but directed it upward—closer to his eyes and head.

Nothing.

Slightly lower, then. He directed the will and intent around his chest and held it.

A puff of golden sparks spewed out and fluttered into the air, manifesting into a flat sheet, but it only displayed his main status sheet.

Not what he needed.

“What are you doing, Jace?” Lessa whispered.

“I have an idea…” he replied.

Location of the intent and willpower likely didn’t matter. What mattered was the content. He needed to want something else.

What he wanted was a new quest to show him the way, a hint. He wanted the world to bend around him and light his route, guide his footsteps, maybe show a little glowing point of where he needed to go, and make things easy.

But the old world didn’t work like that, and neither did this one. Clearly.

He had no clue what he was doing, no idea how to do it. But he just needed that technique card—that was all. “I don’t ask for much…” he whispered. He tapped into the frustration, letting it swirl about within him and imbue his essence.

If hyperspace routes were the channels Aes took through the galaxy—and, in turn, the Split—then…that had to mean something for his own powers too, right? He was a hyperspace Wielder, after all. He concentrated on the hyperspace Aes in his channels, now imbued with his frustration and annoyance, and tracked the Aes as it flowed around his body.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Then, he pushed it out with intent, requesting its help. He was willing to do most of the work. Just…just manifest the sheet.

He shut his eyes tight and exhaled, then pushed his Aes out from his chest, letting it seep through his skin like he was trying to fuel a Vault Core or some other Aes-fuelled object. A neutral warmth spread across his skin.

When he opened his eyes, a sheet of glowing sparks and dust manifested in the air in front of him.

Except this time, it was blue and white.

The colour of hyperspace Aes.

[Subquest available: Find one (1) previously unpossessed common quality technique card. Reward: None]

Jace raised his eyebrows. As soon as he breathed in, the sheet dispersed, and he didn’t have to dispel or accept it.

“That…was a new colour,” Lessa whispered. “What did it say?”

“Nothing useful.”

But the Split had sensed the location of technique cards before, and it had been willing to alert him. When he’d arrived here, it had directed him to his first card. Clearly it could sense it. “But it’s just not telling me…”

Lessa pursed her lips. “The Split can’t consciously tell you. It’s not like a conversation. You don’t work with it like a human, you use it. When we sense people’s abilities and strengths, we view the Split more as an enormous energy field.”

“I saw it…” Jace rubbed his chin. “I mean, I thought I did. Before I arrived here. An enormous glowing guy. Kinfild said that was part of the Split. It was human shaped, and it tried to speak with me.”

“Perhaps.” Lessa crossed her arms. “I don’t know for sure. But there’re plenty of creatures here with humanoid forms, and they don’t all behave like humans. Look at the vratghouls. They’re mindless, murder machines.”

Jace chewed his bottom lip. “Alright. I suppose I can try. It’s like an ability, not a conversation.” He looked down and folded his fingers together. “How do you view other people’s abilities or look into the Vault Core?”

“It’s like…throwing my will outside my body. Staring deeply at them, looking into their soul, and watching how it affects the currents of the world. Then you start to see apparitions, like they’ve made an imprint with their abilities.”

“Then I have an idea. I need you to…do that, and watch how it shifts. If the Split is sensing a technique card, then perhaps you can envision it as well. With my hyperspace Aes being close to the Split’s own existence, maybe it’ll give me a leg up.” Then, he tried again, mustering the sheet, forcing the quest to pop into existence. “Alright, Jace. Project your will, project your will…”

The blue sheet emerged in the empty air. Jace concentrated, holding onto it as long as he could.

He tried to view the Split as a fact of reality, a thing, a mesh that floated over the entire world and surrounded him. He could use an object, but he couldn’t talk to it. He cast the image of the glowing, rune-covered man out of his mind and instead focussed on how the planet’s surface projected it.

Meanwhile, Lessa stared at him, an eye shut. Golden dust brimmed on her eyelashes.

“Wait,” she whispered. “Did you see that?”

“See what?”

“There was…almost a trail.” She reached up and tucked a strand of thick black hair behind her ear. Sparks. When I concentrated really hard, tracing a path with the Aes, it appeared in the air.”

“I was too busy looking at the sheet. There could very well have been, I just wasn’t paying attention beyond.”

“Alright, we’ll try it again.”

“I’m…still holding the sheet open,” he said between breaths. With each inhale, the sheet wavered. It wanted to disappear, and he had to keep pushing out hyperspace Aes to fuel it. But still, he peered over the sheet, watching the air beyond.

Lessa shut both her eyes and grunted, and a faint trail of blue sparks manifested in the air, dragging away from the sheet and linking Jace to the quest’s target—his chosen target. He let the sheet fade, but held the quest in his mind, and tracked the sparks.

They only flowed out a few feet from his chest, moving with his cycles. A bar traced away from him, and though it wasn’t much Aes to maintain, the sparks disappeared and faded, permanently spent.

“Can you open your eyes and keep…doing what you’re doing?” Jace asked. He provided the sparks, providing volume to Lessa’s definition.

“I…I don’t think I’m doing anything.” She opened her eyes and wiped them, pushing away the golden dust. “Not anymore.”

“It didn’t do that last time.”

“I might have given you the kick you needed to start it off, but the trail’s still there. I’m not helping out anymore.”

“How?”

“Your quest is linking you to the card, which leaves an impression in the Split. I…helped identify a full link between them, aiding the Split in finding the link by my direct watching, but now that the link exists? Just keep using your Aes to give the quest volume.”

“So you can keep moving?”

“Yep!”

“Then we’ll follow the link.” Jace stood up and stepped out from behind the stack of boxes, then continued to track the link.

It didn’t obey the walls of the facility. It just left a straight line away from him, diagonally up and to the side. It still only projected out a few feet, ending before it touched the wall, but it was like a compass needle.

“To the left,” he whispered, then set off down the hallway.

“We need to find a stair—”

Before Lessa could finish, a voice shouted, “You two! There, down the hallway!”

Jace glanced to the right. A pair of scavenger guards in orange ponchos stood a couple hundred feet down the hallway.

“And…we’ve been spotted…” Jace muttered. “No Wielders yet, though!”

“Then we run?”

“You read my mind.”

They sprinted down the hallway away from the guards.