Unbound

Chapter Three Hundred And Nine - 309

Chapter Three Hundred And Nine - 309

You Have Walked The Chosen Path(s)!

Congratulations!

You Have Received An Omen (x3)!

Felix grunted, lifting himself up as the surges of System Harmonics and core-wrought Dissonance quieted. Beside him were three hand-sized cards, each embossed with a gorgeous and intricate design in blue-white and red-gold. They were stylized renditions of vines and stones around a central eye shape. He tentatively flipped them, and saw their faces were bordered with white and filled with familiar images. The Fool. The Tower. The Wheel of Fortune. A figure was in each, someone with black hair and blue eyes, walking off a cliff or falling from a collapsing tower. The last only contained a golden wheel, covered in symbols that weren't quite sigils, but the corners featured a tenku, a harnoq, and what he assumed to be a wendigo and wyvern.

"Chimeras," he murmured. Pit nosed the cards, his hooked beak tapping against them. They rang like steel. "Tarot cards, though? Literal tarot cards?" Felix hefted all three. They were heavy, way more than he expected.

I do not know what tarot cards are, but those are Omens, Karys said. He sounded shocked. Blessed Ancestors, it is true. The Unbound truly walk a Path above.

"What? What's so special about them?" Felix paused. "What do you mean they're Omens? I thought Omens were intangible, some sorta System feature related to people's," he rolled his eyes. "Destiny."

They are. That is what is astounding. The System has granted you Omens, look at them!

Felix did, flaring his Voracious Eye.

Name: Omen of the Fool

Type: Omen

Benefit: +2 AGL, +1 PER, +1 VIT per level gained.

Lore: Omens are indicators of a destiny yet to come, of a potential as of yet unfurled. You may only hold a single Omen.

The others were the same, except their bonuses varied.

Name: Omen of the Tower

Benefit: +2 VIT, +1 END, +1 AGL per level gained.

Name: Omen of the Wheel of Fortune

Benefit: +2 PER, +1 AGL, +1 DEX per level gained.

"If I could find a way to keep these, would they add to my level up gains?" Felix asked, not truly expecting an answer.

Perhaps. But keep you in mind the words it says. Only a single Omen may be held.

Felix had noticed that bit, but was hoping against it anyway. "What's the point of giving me these, then?"

The System is mysterious, and Paths are stranger still.

"So basically 'screw you, figure it out?' Yeah that tracks." Felix stood, feeling the burn in his overworked muscles. He took in the hall they'd entered, trying to let his latest escapade fade a bit into the background. "This seems nicer than before."

Pit warbled, sniffing at a tapestry that depicted a soaring cityscape, fluted towers among swirling seas. He sneezed, and a great cloud of dust was stirred. The same was true all around. The materials were superior than beforeblue marble instead of wood panelingand there were triangular alcoves every ten feet, but it was the same hallway. The same dimensions. Dust coated everything as if the place hadn't been used in decades.

"Why dust? I thought these spaces were built for the individual?" he asked.

Questioning the System is usually pointless, Felix. Perhaps it does recycle these rooms. Or, perhaps, this is as you expect it to be.

"Old, like a ruin. Dusty because I expect old things to be dusty," Felix hummed to himself. "Perception seems to guide a lot of the System's...weirder bits."

Indeed.

Suddenly, Pit shuddered so hard he bashed into the wall. "Pit?" He smashed into it again, this time driving deep cracks through the marble and toppling an unlit sconce from its setting. "Pit! What's wrong?" Panic swirled in their bond, but also pain and joy and the giddy rush of power. Felix poked at his interface, until a series of rapid notifications came to him, similar to what he'd seen before.

Your Companion Gains:

+31 STR

+11 PER

+22 AGL

+17 DEX

+15 INE

+11 AFI

+31 EVA

+18 ALA

Dissonance had no sway over Pit, not as it did Felix, so the Harmony he heard through their bond was pure and uncomplicated. It was astounding, simply put, and Felix goggled as Pit seemed to pulse with golden-blue radiance that only reluctantly faded. When it was gone, the tenku sank to his haunches and let his tongue loll as he panted.

Tired.

"Me too bud. What'd you do in there, Pit?" A jolt of their bond answered that, as images of flying through a murderous storm, struggling to reach Felix's apartment, fighting and killing creatures that would not die, merely reformed and advanced again. Felix clutched his friend close, his head to Pit's. "I don't deserve you."

Pit cooed and batted at him with a wing. Felix laughed.

After a time, when they both had the strength to move, Felix and his friends traveled the short length of the blue marble corridor and into a hexagonal chamber. It was twice as large as before, the wood paneling gone as in the hallways, replaced by that polished blue stone. He took it for marble because of the faint white veins in it, though it resembled ice more than anything else. Thin, hexagonal columns separated triangular alcoves, each containing another hexagonal plinth. Empty vases sat atop them, all of them blue with white design work scroll across their tops and bottoms. He picked one up and rotated it. The middle was decorated with figures in robes, each holding stars and battling sinuous, amorphous shapes across a landscape. It looked like a hard battle.

Similar to the mural outside the well, Karys pointed out.

Felix grunted, but he moved to the next, and the one after that. Each vase had a different scene, but all of them were featuring the Nym versus what he had to assume were the Urges. He searched them, hunting for a clue or hint at how they were originally defeated. The closest he came was one large urn depicted the sinuous Urges bound in stars between twice their number of Nym. Useless, unless Felix could somehow duplicate himself. He half-growled as he set it back on its plinth and stomped away.

Except, he must have missed the edge of it, because he heard a loud crash behind him. When Felix turned, he saw the urn shattered into pieces. Doesn't matter anyway, if this is my Path. I'm tempted to break the rest too. He walked away and toward the doors.

Three again, same as before but different. Each were surrounded by sparkling white stone, the frame and lintels carved into lace-like networks of stars. The first door was a pale wood, old but well made, and its lock and latch were both formed of a dull iron. The second door was darker, stained cherry maybe, and its corner was burnt. Its latch was a shiny brass. The last door was far more ominous, featuring a iron-bound wooden door more than half burnt by fire. Embers still glowed on it, flaring and fading in turns between the crazed cracking of the charred wood. For all of that, Felix couldn't smell a bit of smoke.

"Odd," he muttered to himself. His Perception tugged at him, drawing his eye toward a feature he'd seen but apparently hadn't given any mind. "They're locked."

Every single door had a lock at the latch, varying in shape and composition. Would that matter to my Ravenous Tithe? He doubted it, but still. What was the point of a lock here?

Pit chirruped, high and fluting. Key.

Felix joined him, and found the tenku sifting through the broken remnants of the urn he'd dropped. Within the ceramic chips, was a half tarnished key of silver.

"Huh. Guess I get to smash them after all," Felix said with a soft laugh. "Pit, you get that side, I'll get this side."

Perhaps more cautious should be shown

Before Karys even finished the thought, Felix was throwing down vase after vase. They shattered on the hard blue flooring, just shy of the plush central carpet. In thirty seconds, all were destroyed and they had found two more keys. And more.

"What is it?" Felix asked. It was a statuesmall, only about five inches tallof a Nymean man holding a star aloft, made of a pale golden stone and apparently unharmed by their enthusiastic vase smashing. Pit warbled and shrugged, but Karys perked up.

I believe that is a focus of a sort. Nymean Magi would use them in their rituals, focusing the Harmonics through them to amplify their works.

"A focus," Felix said. He pocketed it, though his pants were mostly shredded. "Could be useful. I doubt I know enough about the Grand Harmony or Sorcery to make use of it." Yet, he added silently. "Why would it be here? And why would keys be hidden, or the doors require keys?"

I do not know, Felix. Karys' mental voice was patient as always, despite Felix's agitation. Another challenge, perhaps. And a reward for besting the challenge.

"Not much of a challenge," Felix said. Anyone who'd played an adventure RPG would have sussed out the solution in seconds. "I guess it's not important, and I got a cool magic thing in exchange."

He shrugged and forced himself to move on. He approached the doors again, placing the keys into the locks with slow precision; for all he knew, turning the keys would mean he'd chosen the door, and Felix didn't want that. He intended to do as he'd done before. Three Omen cards received, and three doors opened. There wasn't any coincidence about that.

They feel...dangerous, Karys said. Be wary.

"More dangerous than before? More...invasive?" Felix said as he walked back from the last door, key safely placed. He didn't like the idea of more danger, but he liked the scenario it had constructed even less. He'd lived as if his sister had been taken to the Continent, instead of himself, and were it not for his strong Will and Pit, he might not have remembered himself at all. The System had messed with his memories, and that didn't sit well with him. This time he wasn't going to let that happen. "Were you there, last time?"

I was and I wasn't. I could see your situation, but I could not speak. It was...unpleasant.

"Hm. Then I'll see what I can do about that. The System doesn't just get to invade my head, not without permission."

Simply walking these Paths gives it permission, Felix. What do you think it meant by Choice?

Felix clenched his jaw. Karys was probably right, though he didn't like it. "Then let's get it over with. Pit, hop in." With a determined chirrup, the big chimera vanished in a streak of light, and settled into Felix's Spirit.

Shadow Whip!

One whip, three strands. This time it was a touch harder, though his Dexterity translated well into the twisting shadow tendrils. Each whip latched onto the latch and key he'd placed, and with a deft click, he unlocked each door at once.

Ravenous Tithe!

The doors burst into smoke and light, and the chamber flexed once again. Three doors became one.

The Door Is Open.

ERROR

Multiple Doors Open.

Reconfiguring Paths.

Stand By.

The chamber rippled, followed by a swirling suction and a flash of blue-gold light.

The Hermit.

Silence And Solitude, Fast Friends And Allies.

The Path Continues.

Again, Felix had the sensation of falling, before his feet landed among a buttery yellow glow and hexagonal tiles. The columns and alcoves were instantly recognizable, even if he hadn't seen and heard the blue roar of the waterfall.

I'm in the Temple?

He spun, but the Archon was not there. The entire place was whole and unblemished, untouched by their fight and the Archon's ambitions. In the back, near the raised dais, the green-metal door was shut tight. Suddenly, memories flooded him, events of the past and more, of finding Pit and fighting the monsters around him for days and weeks. Foraging for food and fighting to survive, soon those memories stretched further and further, piling on in a tale that suggested he had been in that Temple for far longer than he recalled.

Bastion of Will!

Felix knew them for false memories, and he flared his Skill with every drop of desperation he had; he'd not live in a lie, especially when it could kill him. The Skill sang, its complex vibrations beating back the stream of System memories, but it was a struggle. Sweat beaded on his forehead and a vein in his neck worked, clenching and throbbing with every passing second. Memory after memory, the sensation of years poured across him like a torrent, like the waterfall itself. Unending.

Then it was done, and Felix stood shaking and panting amid the columns of the Temple. He could recall himself, the real Felix, but just over his shoulder were a cloak of thoughts and experiences he'd never had, things that told him he'd spent years in the Foglands. He blinked and realized that the Temple wasn't quite so empty as he'd assumed. Pelts and tools were scattered about, weapons fashioned from monsters or found in old ruins among the trees, even a number of scrolls that he dimly recalled perusing for hours and hours as he'd attempted to teach himself to read.

All of it was faint, like the ghost of a life, but it was there. Like the last door, this one suggested he had never left the Temple, never gone beyond the eastern mountains to encounter the Archon or find Shelim. He checked his level and goggled at the number.

"Level 94, holy dang," Felix muttered.

There was a clatter in another room. Our bedroom, he knew. Our?

From out of the door came the hulking form of Pit, though only his head. His shoulders were clearly too wide to fit. He looked at Felix with concerned eyes.

I'm too big. Help. I'm too big!

Felix converged with his friend, letting the tenku jump into his Spirit. The weight of his Companion, however, nearly staggered him and Pit was almost immediately ejected back out, into the main hall. Felix clutched at his chest, the pain overwhelming him, as Pit loomed worriedly above him.

Hurt? Are you hurt? Felix?

The pain passed, but Felix took a bit longer to stand. He rubbed ruefully at his chest. "I don't think this version of us has Tempered all that well."

The earth suddenly shook, heaving beneath their feet. Pit squawked in alarm, his huge bodyeasily twice the size he had been beforefalling over as the Temple pitched forward. Something roared in the distance, a sound so loud it was more of a buzzing in his ears than true noise. Felix ran for the entrance, peering beyond the waterfall and into the forested valley.

Misted by distance and blued by atmosphere, the eastern mountains loomed large, but something else loomed higher still. A...thing...something horrifyingly gargantuan moved, a living mountain, rising from beyond the range. It attacked the mountains, devouring them into a mouth the size of cities and creating another series of noises that were more detonations than anything else. The mountains themselves screamed, surged somehow, attempting to defend themselves but they were not enough.

It was the Maw, unleashed.

"Holy shit," Felix gasped, and Pit was right behind him. "We need to run."

Before him, wavering in the waterfall itself, was a door of pale light. It flickered, disappearing one second before reappearing the next. He didn't hesitate, not when the Maw was coming. He leaped through.

Strength.

Conqueror Or Conquered?

The Path Continues.

The world stuttered, flickered, and Felix was atop Pit while clouds streamed by his face. They were racing through the air with all the speed they could manage. He looked around, wonderingly.

The landscape below them was a desolate waste. Mountains had been torn apart, reduced to rubble strewn hills, while the forests and rivers and meadows were nothing more than deserts of dust and ash. Limp winds stirred swirling dust devils across the terrain, but nothing living moved. Felix knew, with the knowledge of dreams, that nothing living remained.

"The Maw was never stopped," he realized. He'd once had a vision, when he'd nearly died in the Labyrinth. It had been a world with the Maw unleashed upon it, one that was reduced to a food source for the ever-hungry Primordial. Below, the terrain leveled out and with a start Felix realized they were approaching Haarwatch.

Nothing remained. A broken wall, faded and cracked. A tower snapped in two, and a city reduced to rubble and ash. The passed over it quickly, into the Verdant Pass where once a vibrant forest flourished. The trees remained, but they were petrified and withered. All moisture and substance had been torn from the land, and great sharp-edged tears in the earth showed him where a massive mouth had taken a vile bite of it all.

Huge beasts swung out of the sky, creatures of bone and sinew and red corruption. They evaded their first attacks, but there were four against them. Great claws slashed and tore at Pit's feathers, too preoccupied with flying to manage attack spells as well.

Adamant Discord!

Felix's core clenched, painfully. The Skill wasn't there, but it was, and his Spirit screamed at the attempt. He very nearly lost his head for that, only Pit's sudden drop saving him from the claws of the enormous Primordial-spawn.

How did I used my Skills in the first door, then? Felix growled to himself and shook off the pain. He'd felt worse, just not in this life. Forced to rely on the Skills the Path told him he had instead, he conjured an orb of dark acid, a Skill that was both familiar and not.

Wrack and Ruin!

Somehow he'd still learned that Skill. The orb shot out, but instead of a single, fast moving projectile it split into dozens. Hundreds. Each with reduced power, but they about covered the sky in acid. The Primordial-spawn stood no chance. Acid ate through their bones and sinew, tearing through their cores as well.

It was over with a single shot.

He fell into the next door, barely noticing it as more monsters crowded the sky.

Death.

All Is Dust. Dust Is All.

The Path Continues.

The world flickered once more, and Felix shuddered. He felt the weight of more memories, crowding against his Bastion, all of them suggesting he and Pit had been traveling for months, almost an entire year. More monsters had come at them, twisted things clearly affected by the Primordial's flesh curse. He recalled a loneliness to accompany the hunger and thirst that was driving the both of them, and those were hard to chase away.

When the walls of another city appeared, hope kindled within him, only to be immediately dashed. It too was destroyed, the walls torn down and whatever structures stomped to pieces. The pair of them landed on a high ledge atop nearby cliffs, and surveyed it all. The countryside stretched endlessly in all directions, but everything looked barren. Pit could smell blood. Rot.

"Nothing could stop it," Felix realized. He'd fought the vocalization of it, hoped that some place might still exist, but the Maw was too strong. "It escaped with all its power intact. Did Grimmar release it?"

Did it matter? He swallowed, his throat on fire. Not for this place.

Below, in the distance, a group of people could be seen. They were moving furtively, clearly afraid, pulling a wagon of things behind them. The larger of their group pulled the wagon themselves, and he saw no avum. No doubt all butchered for food. Felix was briefly cheered by their appearance, bedraggled or not, until more movement caught his eye.

From between two hills stalked creatures with too many mouths and crooked fangs. Monsters of putrid flesh, without eyes or hair, scaled in places but otherwise covered in glistening scar tissue. They raced forward, a flash of speed the people couldn't hope to fight against.

Before he knew it, Felix was atop pit and they were diving. Faster and faster. He didn't want to interfere, he knew it was all fake, a dream at best. Why? Why!

Wrack and Ruin!

His Mana dipped again as countless drops of acid burst before him, flung toward the oncoming monstrosities like a hail of death. Their bodies were peppered by the corrosive, drilled through until they were only pieces, and Pit screamed beneath him. Column of molten lava surged from beneath the creatures, burning them, hollowing the beasts out at his Companion's Will.

They landed among the dead, and shocked, terrified faces.

"What are you doing? Keep running!" Felix shouted. The peopleHumans, allstarted and all but leaped to obey. A soft and fading "thank you" traveled back to him, and Felix closed his eyes. He could feel them. More were coming. A lot more. "Ready to fight, Pit?"

Fight today. Kill. Die tomorrow.

Felix grinned despite the situation. They'd been in worse than this. He held onto that thought as the hills boiled over with Primordial-spawn, some the size of a Human, most far larger. The sky too. It darkened with bone and sinew, more giant birds come to test them. The world seemed to howl at them, a thousand timbres from a thousand throats, all intent on them.

Felix sat astride Pit, facing the horde, and bellowed right back.

They charged, and Death rode with them.