Unbound

Chapter Four Hundred And Forty Nine – 449

Chapter Four Hundred And Forty Nine – 449

It took all of ten seconds to find the tight grouping of Links that were Felix's closest friends, bundled atop his Bastion of Will. They were easily distinguishable from the myriad others that threaded through the silver needle atop his tallest tower, more vivid and thicker than almost all the others. Each shifted through various hues, though one was generally predominant, along with a soft, insistent vibration that felt like each of them.

White-green was Vess. Silver-brown was Harn. Blackened green was Beef. Pit's was mostly a black and crimson, threaded with electric blue, while Atar's was white, yellow, and flashes of vivid, bloody red. The last, Evie's, was a purple-white with woven threads of brightest silver and deepest blue.

He grasped it gently, and a thrill rolled through his consciousness. Evie? Startlement rolled off the Link, but no words. Evie, we are ready. Surprise faded into annoyed acceptance, and Felix smirked. In moments he returned to Atar's core space, rising from his Skill in a confusing procession of flickering visualizations as Felix followed the connecting streamer of his Cardinal Flame. With a dizzying twist, his projected form, shorter and entirely Human-looking, landed beside Atar's mostly charred skeleton.

"Where'd you go?" he asked.

"Just needed to give her some warning. We took too long on your core space." Felix offered his arm to the mage. "Ready?"

Atar grumbled but looped his elbow with Felix's. "Will it hurt?"

"Not a clue."

Cardinal Flame!

Adamant Discord!

Skein of Fate!

His evolved Mana manipulation surged, singing through his own channels before streaming into Atar's. Blue-white and red-gold, the power swirled around them both, separate and alienated from the new-grown monoliths and spitting flames. It buffeted them, tossing Felix's hair about like a windstorm, but stilled at his word. His "thread-sight" expanded, focusing still on the purple-white Link that was stark in his Mind as his mouth opened. He spoke.

"Evie Aren."

Not so much a door as a hole punched into the stone wall before them, and the warm darkness of Atar's core was suddenly inundated with a chill breeze and the sound of rippling waters. Unwilling to risk it failing, Felix stepped forward, almost dragging Atar behind him.

The moment they entered, the hole sealed itself, leaving Felix and Atar standing in frigid, ankle-deep water.

"Gah, what is this?"

"Right. Word of warning: it is very chilly in here," Felix said. "More so for you, I think. You're practically skin and bones."

The flames in Atar's skull rolled in exhasperation, and Felix chuckled before setting out in a steady, distance-eating stride. Evie's core space was one of the widest he'd seen, though it was nowhere near as detailed as Vess' or even Atar's old set up. Everywhere they looked was flat, shallow water pockmarked by the constant, gentle barrage of rain. The horizon was fogged, but toward the center the water and rain became more and more agitated. Ice gathered, solitary floes at first but soon becoming thick icebergs that swayed and crashed into one another as the water deepened and the waves escalated. "It's quite a bit tamer than the last time I was here," Felix remarked.

"This is tame?" Atar's new-formed off-white feet scrabbled for purchase along the sloping iceberg they climbed. It wasn't a difficult ascent, but the roller-coaster movements made it jarring for the mage. "Though it fits! Difficult terrain for a difficult woman."

"You're one to talk, SkelAtar."

The both of them looked up to see Evie standing atop a iceberg of her own...though it could more accurately be called a chain-berg. A flotilla of writhing chains formed a platform beneath the woman, a surface just flat enough to accommodate her slender form. She appeared fashioned from colorized ice herself, but metal gleamed across her arms and neck, as if she was wearing a thin layer of armor.

Atar sputtered. "W-what did you call me?"

She ignored him and graced Felix with an arch stare. "You're late. I've been waiting for hours."

"Things came up," Felix said, but didn't offer any explanations. Atar's secrets were his own, after all. "Thanks for being available for this. Since I woke up, I haven't been able to stop thinking of how my Links may have affected all of you."

"Yeah well, I can't complain. Actually I could, but that'd be a shit move, so I won't." She moved to the side and more chains rose from the bulk below, flattening and weaving together to form a wider platform. "C'mon. I'll take you to see the show."

"The show?" Atar asked.

Felix shrugged and stepped aboard, followed soon by the fire mage. The mobile chain platform stopped and reversed direction, sending arcs of chill water firing around them. "Onward!" Evie cried out, and without build up or preamble, the crude craft rocketed across the waves.

"AAAAH!" Atar screamed as he lost his footing.

Evie reached out casually and grabbed him by his forearm, fingers slipping between his crispy radius and ulna bones. She grimaced as she set the hyperventilating mage back in place. "Ugh. I know this isn't my real hand, but don't make me do that again."

On his hands and knees now, clinging tightly to the uneven platform, Atar only shouted again as they descended another rolling wave.

"You think he'd be used to this by now," Evie muttered at Felix. "Ships've been doin' worse than this for days."

The chain-fashioned conveyance slipped through the other obstructions, always finding a path through the increasingly crowded water, no matter how narrow. The body of her craft thinned and widened by turns, always taking up just enough space to get by, while their platform was kept high and safe out of reach of the rest. It went so smoothly, in fact, that Felix simply enjoyed the speed and wind in his hair. It also allowed him to study the sky instead.

While the general design of her core space was the same as previous, the interplay of her Skills was markedly different. Before Evie's Skills had been isolated balls of chain, many of which were iced over by the troubles of her Temper. When he'd left, that ice had broken and thawed into balls of floating water, each surrounded by rotating tangles of metal. That remained, but now the sky was a complicated net of chains, all of them shifting and clinking as they moved from Skill to Skill in great arcing patterns. Felix even spotted a few off-color chains among the plethora of standard steel. They ranged from a deep blue to a purple white, but they weren't everywhere. Mostly they congregated around the largest and most complex looking knots, chains contorting into convoluted loops and whorls that never once stopped moving.

Unlike Atar's space, which needed building up to really get a good look at things, it was clear which rarity of Skills were being represented. Just like with his own core, it seemed the size and complexity directly correlated to the level, Temper, and rarity of the Skills in question. They had already passed the few Common Skills she possessed, and above were Uncommon and Rares, their construction featuring more and more of those colored chains. Felix wasn't entirely sure what their purpose was...not until they drew closer Evie's core and the rain intensified into a punishing deluge. Their flotilla slowed.

Atar had stood up by this point, and the rain hissed against his superheated skeleton. "Can I say, Evie. I am not a fan of your core space."

"I'm sure yours is pure sunshine, Skelly Boy, but we all work with what we got," Evie shot back absentmindedly, devoid of any heat. "Some of us have more in the way than others."

Felix pointed. "Evie. Those colored chains are all extending from the mists. Do they"

"Connect to my core? Absolutely they do. Tempered links, Harn calls 'em."

"Clever," Felix said, tracing the linkages as they disappeared into the thickening rain and heavy mist barrier ahead of them. "This barrier is still here, though. I thought you had worked through that?"

"Ah," was all Evie said, and it contained a knotted bundle of emotions.

Felix left it alone because through the veil of rain and mist he spotted a Skill he couldn't mistake. Evie's Unique Skill, Chains of the Protector, that she had intuited or perhaps inherited from the memory of her own sister, Magda. It was a kite shield, woven from steel and purple-white chains in knotwork that reminded Felix of Celtic artistry. It was also bigger than the ice floe they rode upon, easily fifty feet tall and half that wide, and as they approached the shield grew larger and more threatening...before Evie waved her hand. It unraveled around them, creating a sudden corridor of chains that blocked the rain and led them further into the mists.

Evie smirked. "I think I got a handle on this, now."

Felix grinned right back, pleased as hell. Atar only grunted sourly as the mists swallowed them up.

They travelled in the purple-white corridor for a time, the mist so thick that it was similar to flying through a cloud bank. Felix's Cardinal Flame spread around him, a tether to this place as much as the Link was, eating away his Mana almost as fast as he could regenerate it. Still, it afforded him a greater perception of the area, even if his eyes were swathed in cotton, and when the flotilla ground to a lurching halt he wasn't surprised. Atar made a weird noise in the back of his throat, but he held on and immediately started grumbling.

"C'mon!" Evie leaped forward, into the thinning mist. "Almost there!"

Felix offered a hand to Atar, but the mage shook his skull. "No, I can do this."

"Alright. See you down there." Felix leaped after Evie, free falling through the cloudstuff before landing with a resounding crack atop thick, crystal clear ice. Evie looked at him, and then at the ice, frowning at the deep fissure he'd put into it. Felix shrugged.

"I thought you could fly in core spaces?" she asked.

"I can. But you're showing us around. I didn't want to be rude and jump ahead of the tour."

"Hmph," Evie said before narrowing her eyes in concentration. Beneath his feet, the ice trembled before jabbing together like icy jaws. Evie panted after, the effort taking something out of her. "Well, don't keep breaking my stuff, if it pleases yer Majesty."

"Please. Call me Mr. Majesty."

Evie snorted, but her amusement fouled when a bundle of dark bones rocketed out of the mists behind them. White fire streaked with bloody crimson flickered across his entire Body, but it allowed Atar to land with surprising grace on the surface of the ice. He also melted a giant hole in it. "Noctis' tits Atar, you're ruining the place! And stop grinning!"

"I'm a skeleton, Evie. This is my face right now."

"It's a dumb face."

"Children. Now's not the time, we" Felix stopped as the wisps of mist faded from before them. "Oh wow."

Evie strode up, irritating suddenly forgotten and spread her arms extravagantly. "Behold! My core!"

When last Felix had seen her core space, it had metamorphosed from a towering structure of chains and ice into a whirling, weaving circle of chains and elemental power. The ever-spinning loop remained, but the linkages had grown astoundingly complex. Water, ice, and metal all wove through one another in labyrinthine patterns, a knotwork that was a beautiful as it was intricate, all radiating the blinding glow of incredibly dense Mana. Above the knotwork ring, clouds swirled like a hurricane's eye, pouring rain down in thick curtains that were being absorbed entirely by the core. The rest was hurled outward, into the mists and beyond. The ground was still ice, fully frozen, but smoother than it had ever been and crystal clear. Felix could see dark water below them, as if he were staring through glass, and only the aura of dire winter that arose from it indicated it was anything else. While smooth, as the ground reached the center it rose in huge, elegant waves from all directions, merging seamlessly into one another to form a series of mountainous peaks. Six lifted up, just barely missing the swirling ring, while in the center the highest peak soared just enough to pierce the very center of the serpentine core.

"Burning ash, this is beautiful," Atar whispered.

Evie, to Felix's utter surprise, blushed. "Thanks."

No longer dazzled by the amazing complexity of her core space, Felix spotted the differently colored chains spread thick against the swirling stormcell above them. Purple-white, deepest blue, a burnished emerald, and even some few glowing silver were among the chains that spread from the edges of the knotwork core toward the mists. "Why are the mists still here, Evie? I thought that...issue had been solved."

The warrior shrugged a single shoulder, as if the thought hadn't really occurred to her. "Just is, I suppose. Seems like a good thing, keepin' my core safe from everythin' else. It did a number on that Primordial gunk you sent my way, too."

"What? Really?"

"Oh yeah. The moment I accepted it started pourin' in, carrying all that dry, sizzling heat with it." Evie grimaced as if she'd swallowed something nasty. "It didn't have much flavor, but it burned fierce. Almost melted my ice, ya know?"

Shit. Felix looked around once again, worried he'd missed some glaring issue. "But...the mists protected you from it, entirely?"

"No, not entirely. But it blunted the edge, let me get in there and do somethin' good with all that Essence. I fed it into my core, piece by piece, fixin' up that storm you see and addin' more streams to my ring."

"Did it affect your Skills?" he asked.

"Like Vess, you mean?" Evie shook her head. "Only sorta. Though for the better, I think. Wanna see?"

"Of course."

Evie flicked her hand, and a screen appeared in front of both Felix and Atar.

Stealth (Common) Has Evolved Into Gloomstalker (Epic)!

Level Is Retained!

Gloomstalker (Epic), Level 70!

Time in the shadows has earned you the blood that streams from your chains, and few of those you stalk live to tell the tale. Even those of higher Tiers have difficulty spotting you, at least at first. Damage done while hidden moderately increases per Skill level, chance of remaining hidden from superior senses increases slightly per Skill level.

Mental Resistance (Rare) Has Evolved Into Barbican's Gate (Legendary)!

Level Is Retained!

Barbican's Gate (Legendary), Level 73!

Your Mind has survived encountering the primeval Essence of a dire creature more convoluted than any you have experienced before! It was only a glimpse of its shadow, but the walls of your Mind have been shored up, rendering them impenetrable to similar attacks. Increases the effect of your Willpower and Alacrity a moderate amount per Skill level.

Unconventional Tactics (Uncommon) Has Evolved Into Minds Of The Mad (Epic)!

Level Is Retained!

Minds Of The Mad (Epic), Level 68!

You have glimpsed into the heart of something vast and incomprehensible, but your Mind has survived and grown for its experiences! While unknowable to others, ancient memories have seeped into your core, influencing the way you fight and engage with enemies. Others will find your movements confusing and erratic, but they are simply blind to the truth of combat. Understanding increases slightly per Skill level.

Commander's Shout (Uncommon) Has Evolved Into Grim Fervor (Epic)!

Level Is Retained!

Grim Fervor (Epic), Level 40!

You are not a commander or captain to lead at the front. You are a dire shadow, a deadly arrow fired into the midst of your enemies. As you appear among two or more allied enemies, an instance of A Crisis Of Faith is applied to up to 20 targets, and an instance of Harrowing Thews is applied to yourself for each enemy in range. Effectiveness of Status Conditions increases slightly with Skill level, range of effects increases slightly with Skill level.

A Crisis of Faith - Reduce Willpower By 10% For All Enemies In Range

Harrowing Thews - Increases Your Strength By 0.05% Per Enemy In Range

Ice Spike (Uncommon) Has Evolved Into Rimefang's Wrath (Epic)!

Level is Retained!

Rimefang's Wrath (Epic), Level 50!

Rage sings its song along the path of Ages, and you have taken it up. Mana coalesces around your hands to form twin, clawed gauntlets of dark, jagged ice. Penetration and sharpness of claws increases moderately per Skill level, hardness of ice increases moderately per Skill level.

Night Eye (Common) Has Evolved Into Frenzied Vigilance (Legendary)!

Level Is Retained!

Frenzied Vigilance (Legendary), Level 65!

You have glimpsed the chaos in the Essence of a Primordial's very being and have emerged changed. Your sight now functions in darkness and light with equal ease, but also spots the the strains of Dissonance that linger within the Grand Harmony. Be wary, for to stare too long at such wildness is to invite chaos into yourself.

"Holy hell." The changes were sweeping and varied. None of the Skills that his Fiendforge had previously influenced had been affected, yet the many were still touched by the Primordial's Essence, and Felix wasn't entirely sure he loved the pattern he saw. Stealth had become Gloomstalker, which appeared to enhance the damage Evie did while unseen and simultaneously decreasing the chance of those in higher advancements from spotting her. Useful and not too worrying, which was the same story for the next one. Mental Resistance had evolved into Barbican's Gate, which appeared similar to Felix's own Bastion of Will, enhancing the potency and power of Evie's Mind by engaging her Willpower and Alacrity more fully.

That was the end of the good news. Next up was Unconventional Tactics, which made him laugh at first glance. It definitely accounted for Evie's particular brand of combat, but now it had been supplanted by Minds Of The Mad. The name itself was worrying, but the description was worse, indicating that pieces of the Primordial of Withered Dust had seeped into her core, and was even now influencing her Mind. Passively, it seemed, but how would that play out?

Commander's Shout, once giving a nice boost to regeneration and Endurance, had been wiped out completely. In its place was a much more self-centered, offensive focused Skill that scaled up depending on how many enemies Evie was fighting. Felix grumbled at the change, but had to admit it fit her brand of combat far better than the rarely-used Commander's Shout. Ice Spike was the same, turning from a relatively weak ice dagger into two conjured gauntlets of ice. That was useful, a powerful alternative for when she was stuck too close to an opponent, but the comments on rage made him hesitate. Night Eye's evolution to Frenzied Vigilance was worrisome too, especially at the mention of her perceiving Dissonance directly.

"Good right?" Evie said, wide grin on her face.

"It...it is. I'm just a little worried about the effect of some of those Skills," Felix said. "Minds of the Mad and Frenzied Vigilance seem particularly...not great."

"Oh, psh," Evie waved off his concern. "They're fantastic, you just gotta appreciate their quirks, is all. Mind you, I still haven't had much time to practice 'em all. Hope to change that soon, eh Felix? You can oversee all the new stuff if we can get a couple spars in. I think my Rimefang's Wrath could do a number on those scales of yours."

He let himself grin, pushing away his apprehension. "Sure. I'm down for that." Worrying, he had been told by his mother, was borrowing trouble. He had enough at the moment, anyway.

"I would appreciate some sparring, once I've sorted my core space some more," Atar said. "Alister hasn't shut up about the training you two did back in the Yttin Warren."

"Fine with me, Atar. We'll set something up soon then." Felix looked at Evie's core one last time, committing as much of it to memory as he could. It was far more stable than Atar's, and more detailed in some ways than his own. Evie didn't need his help at the moment, so he sent his convoluted awareness down through her core, into Atars, and back into his own. He emerged, his friends none the wiser, and a new Link firmly in hand. "We've more place to visit today, however. Next up: Harn Kastos."

The ice and mist punctured, and familiar hole was bored through the fabric of space. A shimmering light, metallic and scorching hot bloomed through the opening, sizzling against Evie's ice and melting huge swathes of it.

"Hey!" she shouted, but Felix grabbed the both of them and rushed them through.