Unbound

Chapter Three Hundred And Fifty Eight – 358

Chapter Three Hundred And Fifty Eight – 358

The Deepking and Garox led them through a door cleverly hidden in the walls. It was huge, clearly sized for some grand procession or creatures of far greater dimensions than the Nym themselves. The Abyssal Serpent fit quite easily, and the enchanted flows of water along its length had obviously been modified by the Naga to make upward traversal a comfortable prospect for them. Who precisely had laid the inscripted arrays was put to rest as Garox altered a sigil on the fly as they moved, increasing the amount of water that poured in from above so that all of them would be able to make use of the tunnel at once.

His people were nervous, but settling to an extent. The Deepking, the Horror, the restoration of the Templeall of it was enough to inure someone to new surprises. At least to an extent. His friends were no exception, and as their ice barge was pulled up the large tunnel by another pair of Naga, it was like their lips were all unfrozen.

"So. Snakes," Evie said. "You're the snake king now."

"Please, Aren," Atar said in a haughty tone. Alister watched them both with a faint smile on his face. "He's the Naga King."

"My apologies," she said, offering him an elaborate bow. "I hope I have not offended hiss Majesty."

Felix groaned. "You're killing me, Evie."

The woman looked shocked, and even placed an outraged hand against her chest. "Me? An assasssssin?"

"Oh my god!"

This passage was far calmer than the tumultuous one that brought them down, and in less than ten minutes their group exited the waterlogged tunnel and exited into another series of long hallways. Garox and the Deepking still led the way, the latter parting the waters with his immense body while they all swept along in his wake. Now that Felix knew what to look and feel for, he could sense a number of other secret passages throughout the halls. Where they led he was unsure, and the stone of the Temple still kept his Perception confined to the interior, but it was nice to feel more aware of his surroundings.

Finally, they were led into a tilted dome, where the Temple itself had once been shattered. Already the repair function was reconstructing the shattered dome, with traceries of gold and silver building new stone atop old. For now, however, the wall was open to the elements and a curtain of liquid hung across their path, flowing smoothly across the gaping hole but not rushing into the Temple. It was all dark, like an evening sky just before the sun sets.

"Impressive," Zara said. "A major ward is a difficult array to fashion with such fidelity."

Garox bowed to her, accepting the compliment. "It is the work of our ancestors, one which we have maintained for an Age. We have not the Skill to replicate it, sadly, but it protects us here. Beyond this point, the Haestus spreads wide. We must prepare before venturing out into its waters."

The Deepking spoke this time, coiling his huge body around their barge and all but filling the shattered dome. "We are a hundred lengths beneath the lake's surfaceten of your Human leaguesfar enough that most creatures will die long before they escape. If you will allow me, my Lord, I shall cast a warding on all of your people so that they may survive the depths."

Felix exchanged a quick look with his friends. "I don't see why not. Go ahead."

The Deepking chanted something in his rumbling voice, and the Abyssal Serpent's scales lit up from within as Mana steamed off his body. It was a deep, deep blue and it reached out as the king finished his chant, winding around each and every one of Felix's company. Himself included.

Status Condition: Sunken Ward!

Waterbreathing and protection against the pressure of the depths has been woven around your Body.

Duration: 1 hour.

Very nice. Felix fought off the urge to eat the spell, instead letting it wrap around him like a gossamer cloak. The abyss inside him was still happily munching away at the Horror's Essence, but it was greedyFelix could feel it stretch out toward the Sunken Ward before he forced it back. Not that it typically did anything without his consent, not for months. In fact, there was a good chunk of his own Mind that wanted Sunken Ward for himself. It could prove useful, were he able to extract a Skill from its Mana pattern. No. What are you gonna do? Ask they cast it twice on you? That'd be awkward. Just...just let it go.

Four Nagafolk lined up in the water beside the ice barge, their ridged backs wide enough to accommodate all of his people were they to split up. That was a relief, actuallytheir swimming speed was doubtless faster than what his people could manage alone, and he wouldn't be required to figure out how to get them to the surface alone. The Henaari climbed aboard with fascinated expressions, each of them inspecting different parts of the Nagafolks' backs, while the Risi were more stolid about it. They climbed atop them and hunkered down, intent only on keeping their weapons free and easy to draw. The Legions were more scattered, ranging from fearful to curious, but the firm hand of Darius had them in place in no time.

A pale green Naga rose up next to Felix, offering its ridged back. "Settle atop my back, if it please you, Returned God."

"Ah, thank you..." Voracious Eye flared and Felix smiled. "Le'lani. I appreciate you offering to help us like this."

The Naga tilted her head, regarding him with eyes the color of cool iron. Cautious fear swirling among her Spirit. Like the other three Naga escorts, she was strong but did not hold a candle to Felix's own power, and somehow she could tell. The shock in her eyes was enough to tell that. "We serve."

Felix had a few complicated emotions about that declaration, but he pushed them aside for the moment. His first responsibility was to get his company out from the bottom of a lake. The ethics of claiming divinity could wait until later. From atop Le'lani, Felix looked up at the Deepking. "Our thanks for this," he said.

"It is the least we can do for you, Returned God. I only wish I myself could escort you...but there is much to be done. The rest of my people must know of your arrival, and that you shall lead us against the vile Fathom when next you return." He nodded far below him, where Garox's much smaller shape waited. "Garox will lead you all toward the shoreline, and from there guide you on your divine mission. If you need anything else, you have but to ask."

Felix nodded. Hesitated. "There is one last thing..."

"Name it and I shall do it, Returned God."

Chthonic Tribute!

"Can you cast that warding on me again? Mine seems to have faded."

There was rude, and there was stupid. Perhaps he wouldn't get the chance to consume the spell before it faded, or something else unforeseen would happen. Better to cover his bases while he still could.

The water of Lake Haestus was really, really cold but none of them could properly feel it. Felix could tell, Perception being a weird extension of his literal senses, but the Sunken Ward prevented the cold, pressure, or downright filth in the water from touching them. That said, it did nothing to stop his vision, for which he was extremely grateful.

Atop Le'lani, Felix (and Pit converged within his Spirit) had a wide view of the darkened depths around them. Water Mana swirled with shadow and flickers of other, stranger colors. They passed over his sight so quickly he couldn't identify them, only serving to highlight the sprawling swathe of fallen architecture all around them. Columned porticos and sagging triangular roofs proliferated, smaller structures that were part of a grander whole. It had been an entire complex at one point, but now individual structures all leaned haphazardly against one another, separated by rocky shelves and maze-like growths of pale coral. Fish and other, more sinuous shapes flickered through the periphery, the smaller creatures driven out by the naked aggression emanating from their Naga escorts.

Garox swam ahead, his swords sheathed but his body primed with swirls of deepest blue Mana. As they passed several tangled fronds of seaweed, each bigger than one of their Naga escorts, those swirls slashed outward. Swords of water Mana severed the plants with precision, cutting free just enough space for the Naga to slip through, under, or over the crumbled arches and tilted passages of the Temple complex. A few times they had to dive deeper than before, and Felix caught glimpses of muted light that wasn't just more Mana vapor. Sigils and array lines of gold and silver almost boiled in the dark water, casting shifting shadows through stone and plant matter, and Felix could hear the song of the Temple repairing itself ever so slowly.

> Felix asked Garox, his voice warbling along the Sunken Ward. All of them were connected in a loose sort of fashion, allowing for a measure of communication so long as they were near one another.

The Spirit Naga did not stop as he inspected the next tilted thoroughfare. > Garox paused, looking back at Felix uncertainly. >

> Felix sent, firmly. >

Garox shifted, his Spirit tumbling with a confusing mixture of sounds. He bowed deeply at his humanoid waist. >

At his back, Vess chuckled. Her Spirit hummed in approval. >

Felix shot a look over his shoulder. >

> Vess sent, flexing her legs around the curve of Le'lani's ridged back. >

Pit snorted within his Spirit, amusement echoing across their bond.

Shut up, you.

They continued on, until the fallen ruins of the sunken Temple were left behind and only the craggy expanse of deep water trenches lay before them. A massive tangle of seaweed rose all about the area, a veritable forest compared to the solitary copses around the Templeeasy to hide in as they swam for the surface.

> Harn sent, the Naga he rode with Evie and a contingent of Legionnaires. >

Another serpent rode from the dark ruins, this one bearing Atar, Alister, and the majority of the Arclight Legion. Their artillery snake, Felix mused to himself. The rest of the Legion were on Le'lani with him. None aboard Atar's Naga looked particularly excited to be swimming through the dark waters with barely enough light to see, let alone case spells. Yet Felix thought he could a particular revulsion emanating from the fire mage.

Weird. He really doesn't like the water, huh? Felix thought, and Pit trilled at him. Images came to him of A'zek recoiling from a too deep river in the Foglands, along with Pit's whistling laughter. Kindred spirits, I suppose.

Mm, Pit sent, too amused with himself to answer fully.

> Darius said as his group neared. Dawnguard rode behind him and Zara, their attention split into as many directions as they had members, all of them looking like the picture of battle-ready. Meanwhile the Frost Giants were all latched nervously onto the largest of their Naga escorts. The massive serpents were eerie in the dark waters, their eyes reflecting minute light and seeming to glowthey clearly made the Hand nervous, for all that they bore no aggression or ill will toward Felix or his people. >

Low mutters of assent met Darius' command, but Felix wasn't paying attention to them. Instead he focused on Garox who had come swimming steadily back to them after scouting the seaweed forest.

>

Le'lani slithered after the Spirit Naga, keeping close to his whipping tail.

The weeds engulfed them all, until everything was shifting shadows and stuttering beams of murky light. Fronds waving in the currents that grew all the more wild the higher they traversed. Where before the Naga moved as slow, sinuous sherpas through the ruins, now they were arrows in flight. All four of them swam and flowed around the swaying fronds, chasing after the rapidly advancing form of Garox. Once or twice, Felix even saw crystalline blue light following their convoylight that resolved into tiny crystalline figures made entirely of dense water Mana. Sprites. They vanished and reappeared without warning, like tiny stars in a sky...filled with seaweed.

Felix shrugged. He'd made worse metaphors before.

Still, it was a heady experience, especially devoid of almost all the discomforts such a dive and ascent would normally inflict on someone. The Sunken Ward was frankly amazing, so far as Felix was concerned, and he decided he'd make it a priority to digest its secrets as soon as they reached dry land.

The light above grew stronger and stronger as they swam, until Felix could make out fluid, rippling sunstreaks that flashed far above. Garox let out a surprising sigh of relief.

>

Which, of course, was when everything went to shit.

A screaming roar shook the seaweed forest only instants before lithe, fifty-foot long forms attacked. Serpent jaws parted, bearing poisonous fangs at their escorts, more Nagafolk but possessed of a hideous, bloody hatred. A dozen emerged from the weeds, circling around them, cutting them off. A familiar white bastard was leading them.

> Garox screamed, and his warded voice sent shockwaves among the weeds. >

> Jadorak lashed his tail through the water, stirring a flurry of bubbles. >

His cronies rocketed forward, propelled by fin and movement Skills, straight toward Felix's people. The Naga pulled back, their own fangs bared, but the dozen attackers were too many to fight off.

Felix's team were no slouches, however.

Water boiled and ripped as gouts of crimson flame and pillars of intractable blue force were launched outward. Three Naga were knocked aside with hissing screams, while chains of ice and sweeping metal arcs caught still more in their grasp. Spears of wind, blades of air, and localized whirlpools of blue-green water spread outward, ripping gashes and tears in their enemies' hides even as more advanced on Felix's party.

The Spirit Naga leaped forward, a great wave of power emanating from him and hurling into the jaws of their attackers. A half-second's respite, Garox pressed his advantage and engaged all of them.

> Garox shouted, his voice throwing the enemy back once again. His own blades of water Mana spun around him like shadows of the scimitars he wielded. >

The four Naga under them surged upward, so hard and fast that Felix barely had time to pivot and see the Spirit Naga enveloped in a press of bodies.

> Vess shouted, her face torn by indecision as the waters flowed around them. >

> Evie hollered back.

Evie was right about that, at least as far as their followers were concerned. Felix's core team would likely have survived, but he didn't just have them to worry about anymore. He

Felix's Perception screamed at him only instants before another five serpents collided with their party. Fangs sank into scaled flesh and water bubbled with impacts as serpentine bodies twisted around one another. Men and women screamed in panic, nearly thrown free.

> Felix shouted, his own voice throwing out waves of pressure. He leaped off Le'lani, flaring Relentless Resolution.

> Vess shouted in warning. Too late.

A blur of pale scales slammed into him, hard, and fangs the size of greatswords came down on him. Felix brought his hands up in time, catching the teeth around him and preventing their close, but Jadorak's speed brought them careening upward. The rush of water and rotten breath and flexing jaws soon replaced by the blasting relief of air and sun and sky.

"You are not worthy!"

A forked tongue lashed against his body, stabbing at Felix gut. The apparently barbed tongue stabbed straight through his Garment and impacted his torso hard enough that it launched him from Jadorak's mouth entirely.

Felix tumbled into the open air, finding himself high enough that he could see a distant smear of land to the south. Shit! Pit!

With a screech, his Companion exited Felix's Spirit and soared up into the air. A quick Shadow Whip snagged onto the tenku's hindleg, letting Felix swing unceremoniously below his ascending friend. Doing so, he saw that Jadorak was arcing above them, flipping back down toward the lake far below them as gravity finally took hold.

Felix twisted his body, leveraging his weight to swing in greater arcs. When I say, Converge, okay?

Pit trilled in frustrated confirmation.

I got this one, bud. Felix grunted as his Shadow Whip pulled him into another, wider arc. I'll let you take the next idiot that attacks us.

Jadorak, his bloody eyes blazing and white scales glistening in the mid-morning sun, roared as he fell like an arrow. His fanged mouth was agape, ready to swallow them whole. Felix reached the pinnacle of his arc and let go of his Shadow Whip.

Now!

Pit vanished in a flash of light, and Mana exploded out of Felix's channels.

Rain of Cataclysm!

The storm of Mana blasted from Felix's channels and took root in the sky as they fell. Clouds appeared, a virulent green streaked with a deadly purple-grey that discharged a deluge of deadly projectiles. Acid fell, punching into Jadorak's scales with relentless impunity. Hot knife meet butter. The albino Naga howled in pain, his falling form twisted against the rain as they both finally impacted the lake's surface.

Sound and fury overwhelmed Felix's senses for a moment, the bubbles and roar of water and thrashing sea serpent too much to parse. But he reached out blindly and sent his Shadow Whips in all directions. He felt them snag on a writhing bulk and pulled, hard, yanking himself clear of the water and right onto Jadorak's perforated hide. The bastard was ragged as hell, covered in blood and streaks of dissipating acid. He thrashed beneath Felix's grip and took off, speeding atop the surface of the lake. South, toward land.

"You will...never rule...my people...!" the Naga screamed at him. His breath was labored but his Spirit was firm. "We will kill you!"

Felix could sense more Naga rising from the depths, at least six, all of them converging on Jadorak's path. "What is wrong with you? We were leaving!" Felix shouted back.

Jadorak twisted, slamming Felix into the lakes speeding surface. Water tore at him, ripping his Garment to pieces, but leaving Felix's powerful Body unharmed. That is, until churning blades of water stabbed upward, aiming for his chest and neck. Felix flinched, pulling back on his Shadow Whip just in time to miss a devastating wound. Instead his shoulder and right arm were torn bloody as if by a thousand tiny teeth. Jadorak laughed deliriously.

Youre no god!

Youre right, Felix said. I never claimed I was! But I am Nymean.

More lies! The Naga turned again, pulling them closer to his converging allies. They were running parallel now to the rocky, tree-crowded shoreline. "You will die here, false god!"

Adamant Discord!

Felix grabbed onto the rocks and trees and everything he could manage, finding their connections too weak alone. Instead he burned his Mana and strained hard against his Aspects, grappling with Jadorak and the land itself. Yowling in surprise, the Naga was turned astray, his parallel path flipped instead into a collision course.

"I'm done with reasoning!" Felix howled, pulling harder. Lightning spat from his hands, shocking him as well as the Naga beneath, and he could almost feel rocks and trees breaking apart. "I'm done!"

With an unwilling bellow, Felix and Jadorak slammed into the shoreline. Jagged, upthrust rocks and tangled marsh trees met their implacable charge, and Felix was hurled bodily from the serpent's back. Stone and tree shatter and snap beneath his dense Body, a tumble of limbs that furrowed the soaking wet earth.

When he came to a sudden stop, Felix could only groan into a gutter of thick, putrid mud.

"Fuck."

He climbed out, his Body aching and torn, to find the albino head of Jadorak only feet from his own. His neck was stabbed clean through by a tree trunk as wide as a car.

You Have Killed Jadorak, The Horror Of Haestus!

XP Earned!

Two hundred feet back, in the waters of the Haestus, the albino Naga's backup watched him. Anger and disbelief echoed off of all of their Spirits, and Felix gestured. Jadorak's head burst alight with red-gold flame.

"Come and get it, then."

Almost as one, the Naga slunk back into the lake.