Unbound

Chapter Two Hundred And Eighty Six - 286

Chapter Two Hundred And Eighty Six - 286

"Local Authority. Huh." Harn looked up at the night sky, thinking.

They were seated around a piece of splintered statuarya hand, closed around a broken swordbetween the tall Nymean sentinels. Those monstrous insides were glaring down at them all, the Henaari having decided to spend the remainder of the night in the shelter of its wardings. They were minor, but were clearly driving away wandering beasts and unwanted eyes.

Handy, that.

Built to celebrate our people's pact of trust with the folk of the Continent, offered Karys. There are a number around the land. The Guardians face outward with orbs of power, while within are contained the horrors that would ravage the world.

"What horrors?"

"What?" Evie asked.

Many kinds. I know that you've encountered some already, though how you purified the Primordials' flesh curse is remarkable.

"What flesh curse?" Felix asked.

"Hello? Felix? Are you talking to the sword guy now?" Evie said, waving her hand in front of Felix's face. He blinked and looked up at the others around them.

"Oh. Yeah, Karys was telling me some...things." Felix smiled, banishing his concern for later. "Now's not the time." He refocused on his team, all of whom were spread around in the shadow of Pit's extended wings. Evie, Vess, Atar, Alister, and Harn were to his right while the Haarguard were to his left. All of them were looking at him with confused expressions.

"A sword spirit," Kylar said with a breathless sort of glee. "I never thought I'd see one."

"Still haven't," Nevia reminded him. "The Fiendsorry, Felix said it was a ghost he bound to the blade. Not the blade's own spirit."

Felix considered correcting her wording, but decided it didn't matter. "Karys is a boon. He's helped me a bunch and we've only known each other for an hour. But more to the point, this proves I can take Authority."

"How? Didn't the System try to kill you last time?" Atar said. Too late, he glanced at the Haarguard and snapped his mouth shut.

"What? Why would the System try to kill you?" Vyne asked.

Felix waved his hand. "Not important. My friend here tells me it's because of...circumstances, that I was able to take this location."

"What about other Nym ruins?" Harn asked. "Can you take those too?"

Provided you take proper control, yes most likely, Karys said.

"Should be able to," Felix said.

"We can see that as a win, at least," Vess stated. "It means that, maybe, we can secure Authority over the Temple before the Archon reaches it."

Who is

"How far out are we?" Atar asked. He had wrapped his cloak tight around himself, as the night had grown unseasonably cool. "A week or two?"

"Thereabouts," Harn said. "Should only be a couple days until we reach Shelim, provided the way's clear."

"And the Farwalker said the city is occupied by our friends," Evie said. "So we go around the city?"

Felix nodded. "I think that's for the best. We'll circle the city and head directly into the mountains. Hopefully we can find a way through them without alerting the Archon."

Felix found the Haarguard staring at him. "What will you do?"

"Do, sir?" Vyne asked.

"It's gonna get even more dangerous in the coming days. If you all want to return to Haarwatch, now's the time to do it."

Vyne and others opened their mouths, their Spirits all flashing with denial and no little bit of fear. Felix held out a hand, forestalling them. "Think it over. Let me know in the morning. There's no shame in admitting if a fight is beyond you."

The Haarguard gave him thoughtful nods, even Kylar. "Let's all get some rest while we can. We'll set off at dawn when the Henaari pack up." Felix stood and stretched. His muscles actually felt tight and a bit sore after his fights.

The others spread out, grouping up and chatting. They didn't have to worry about doing any sort of watch as the Henaari more than had that covered. The nomad people had insisted his team relax after driving off their would-be murderers, giving them the rest of the night to rest before they set off in the morning.

The Henaari and Felix's team would part ways then. When he'd arrived on the back of his Companion, the Farwalker and a surprisingly subdued Matriarch had welcomed him with open arms. The gathered Henaari had cheeredin Spirit, at leastand the Farwalker explained their plan. The wandering people would head for one of their nearby redoubts to the north, near where the Hoarfrost abutted the Foglands. There, they hoped to escape the Archon's creatures.

Felix understood. This wasn't their fight. As the Farwalker put it, "the Great Raven empowers us to challenge the dark for the thrill of the unknown, but she does not send us to death." And to face the Archon directly was...well, it was toeing that line.

Felix wandered the area.

Quite a few gave Felix deep bows of appreciation for what he'd done, often clutching close their loved ones at the same time. Felix could feel the shaky relief in their Spirits, like someone told they had days to live only to have the diagnosis reversed. It was nice, the recognition, he could admit that to himself. But it was far more rewarding to see a few of the faces he recognized from the first tunnel, now reunited with family members and children.

They would have died, had you not acted. You have done a good thing, Inheritor.

"Thanks Karys. Always nice to be reminded of that."

Felix settled in against the back of one of the monoliths. A snarling creature with too many eyes and an upsetting number of mandibles loomed above him, but he paid it little mind. The echo of their growling had been unnerving at first, but Felix had seen weirder stuff. He'd followed the threads of sounds, hoping he'd find an illusion array buried in the statues or ground, but the traces of it simply vanished. At the same time, the vicious snarls had cut off completely. Whatever he'd done, it meant that he could settle against the statue without anything louder than the wind in his ears.

They fled. I had thought them only hiding.

"Who did?" Felix unsheathed his sword and placed it across his lap. It felt odd talking to it at his side, considering it had once been a person. "Who are you talking about?"

The horrors I mentioned. Those growls you heard through your Harmonics were not illusions. That was a spellwrought connection to another place, a Vault much like the one in which you found me. Karys sounded agitated. And now I can find no sign of that connection. As if it had been severed.

"Not by me. All I did was trace it backwards," Felix said. "The thing disappeared the closer I looked." Felix looked up at the statues and the monstrous visages. "I've been told the Nym collected monsters, hoarded them like a CEO hordes cash. Is that true?"

What is a CEO?

"A rich guy," Felix said.

My people did not hoard monsters, Felix. They protected people from the worst the Continent had to offer. The Golden Empire was one of peace and learning, free of the strife inherent in our neighbors. The sword buzzed, wisping slightly with green gold vapor. Threats were hunted down. Where something could not be eradicated, it was contained and restricted.

"Okay. That gels with what I've learned about them. But why even forge a connection between some distant Vault and these statues? What's the point?"

Goodwill is transient, unless people are reminded what is done for them.

It clicked. "So these are political statements." Felix could see it. No wonder the outside looked so heroic while the inside was designed to scare the crap out of people. "And they upped the 'wow factor' by setting up an audio feed directly into the cages. Dang. I'm impressed."

Except now that connection is gone. The threads have snapped.

"Weren't they just something to bring the monsters' Spiritual presence here?"

Yes, to my knowledge. But even still. It is worrisome.

Felix looked around the area, feeling with his Affinity and Manasight. Shadow, life, earth, and water laid thick in the night, while each monolith was a pillar of spiraling colors. Those colors spread outward, forming the wards he'd noticed before, and they were just as strong as when he'd arrived. The only difference was the easing of subconscious terror that everyone within the statues had felt.

"At least people will be able to sleep better," Felix said. "We'll deal with the possible consequences later." A thought occurred to him. "Karys, do you have an idea of where these Vaults were all located?"

I knew the cities in many parts of the Empire. The Vaults specifically were not my purview, but as a Paragon I would often find myself traveling along the Wayward Path.

"We'll have to take a tour sometime." Felix had a feeling that Karys would keep him asking questions for the rest of his life. He flagged the words 'wayward path' for future reference and settled down to meditate. "Wake me if something bad is happening."

I shall do so.

Felix sank into his core space.

He did not often take the time to meditate, not actively at least. As a result, his Meditation Skill had taken forever to reach Journeyman because while he used it passively during his waking hours, it was rarely ever more than that. A simple calming exercise that boosted his regeneration rates. Cal and Harn had told him that it was rarely a Skill people received, and more a mindset for enhancing and evolving one's core. Felix hadn't done much in the way of advancing his core since he'd formed two of them, and they were due a check up.

He sank through the darkness, floating casually through the glimmering lights and swirling storm of Mana and Essence that made up everything. The two cores, blue-white and red-gold rings of flame, burned and turned below him while dozens of blazing Skills revolved around them in a slow, endless dance.

Felix shaped his Intent, honing his vision of what his core space resembled. Lights burned brighter while the dark clarified and deepened, as if it truly were an infinite expanse. The ribbons of light flourished, twinned sets of blue-white and red-gold, snagged about his Journeyman Tempered Skills. Below his cores, those ribbons twisted together in the tightest of weavings, still not that much more advanced than weeks prior.

Felix wasn't sure how to proceed from there. He'd thought tightening the weave or increasing the amount of monsters he absorbed might help, but it looked the same as ever.

I'll talk to Harn later about it. And Karys. That guy knows a lot.

But that wasn't his purpose tonight.

Instead, Felix pivoted through the cloud of Essence, senses stretching outward. It was easy enough to find the Memories. They drifted through his store of Essence like bright knots in a diffuse mist. There were four Memories Felix could immediately see, and he breathed a sigh of relief. They were points of heaviness that drew Essence and Mana both toward them, and unlike any Memory he'd ever had, Karys' Memories were anchored, like stars in the sky.

Previously, the dark abyss through the double rings of his cores would devour the Essence he brought into his core space. Including, naturally, any Memories. Why it did so was unclear to Felix, though the indiscriminate nature of the hunger was familiar to him. The abyss frightened him, nearly as much as when it had its claws in Felix properly. He had thought he'd rid himself of it when he'd conquered the Primordial remnants left in the city, at least, he no longer felt those physical pangs anymore.

He could sense a terrible vastness beyond the circular aperture of his cores, a whirlpool like pressure that wanted to consume everything. Karys' Memories were fixed, boulders in a stream of Essence, but they weren't the only Memories there.

Felix's eyes widened. A burning orange light, a Memory from the Arcid, tottered on the edge of his abyss. Felix seized it, flexing both his Will and Intent, yet the hungry dark only redoubled its efforts.

It was slipping away.

We need this Memory! We have to see what the enemy knows! Let go! Felix was yanked closer to the abyss. Pit! Help!

An insidious bellowfelt, rather than heardshook through him. The hunger dug in its heels.

If you let it go, I promise I'll get you something much bigger and more powerful to eat! Okay? Just! Let! It! Go!

Felix could feel Pit approaching, but before the tenku could converge with him, there was a sudden slackening of the abyss' pressure. Surprised that even sort of worked, Felix didn't hesitate: he hurled the Memory straight into the liquid flame of his [Thunderflame Core].

The world pulsed, and Felix was somewhere else.

Felix stepped into the Escher-like mental space of the Arcid's Memories, and saw before him the expanded existence that was Boilerface.

He focused his Intent, his need, spearing through the convoluted mind space without hesitation. He needed to know what the Archon was up to, what he knew. In a flash, he'd reached a more pristine version of Boilerface and collided with him.

The world shattered.

He was standing in Shelim, though it looked strange without the fog. He was among a number of other Arcids, all of them looking like armored humanoids but with a strange twist to each. One was a pale, white-green color and had blade-like wings emerging from its back. Air-attuned, clearly. Two appeared as almost liquid, one covered in a viscous black goop while another was literally armor floating in a gel-like body of virulent green.

Between them all, were dozens and dozens of Wurms, Hoarhounds, and Reforged warriors.

"The Henaari are interlopers in my realm. They are not welcome, and neither is their foul godling." The Archon stood tall before them, resplendent in golden armor. He was bigger than any of the Arcids, though many of the Reforged dwarfed him in size. They could not, however, approach the strength of his presence. Felix could feel the construct radiating power like a damn sun. "More importantly, they have the key to the Temple. Find them. Find the key, no matter what."

Felix tried to keep himself small, despite it being a Memory. The last time he tangled with the Archon, the guy somehow realized he was in a Memory, likely because of his Mark. Felix didn't want that happening again. He watched, but out of the corner of his eyes, careful not to focus too much on the Archon.

"What does the key look like, Master?" the winged one asked.

"You will know it when you see it. We have no idea what the key should be, just that there is one, and that Henaari's corpse radiated traces of the key's power." The Archon growled the last. "That such a pathetic creature thought it could steal my birthright...well. Worse shall happen to its kin."

Felix shuddered at the sense of unhinged hate and bile that brushed against him. The Archon was insane.

"What if they don't have it, Master?" The gel-like Arcid cringed as it asked the question, clearly expecting displeasure. Yet the Archon's mood merely twisted toward a dire glee.

"If the Henaari do not have the key, then we shall take them to the Forges. There we shall bend them to my Great Purpose, and the Henaari will find it for me."

Dread sank into Felix's gut as the assembled horde raised its voices in exultation.

"Nothing shall stop my ascension! You hear me, Herald!" The Archon jabbed a finger into the sky. "I'll tread the Broken Path! I'll conquer it!"

Felix snapped back to his body like a recoiling rubber band. He gasped, panting for breath and sweating like he'd run a marathon.

Pit was there immediately, pushing his beak at Felix in concern. Felix clutched at his friend's feathers, fighting to stabilize the sense of terror and hate that had almost overwhelmed him.

"What the hell was that?" he panted.

You were influenced by the Memory you examined, Karys said. I would have warned you, but I did not know you were capable of accessing such things. He paused. How did you gain a Memory from this creature?

"...Ate him," Felix said.

Oh. Oh! Then that explains this next part.

"What?" Felix asked, before his vision was inundated with notifications.

You Have Fully Consumed Your Opponent's Essence!

Thief of Fate Title Engaged!

You Have Learned A New Skill!

Incendiary Shell, Rare, Level 1!

Channel fire Mana in a burst attack that damages all foes around you for thirty feet.

Synergy Detected!

Incendiary Shell (R) and Mantle of the Long Night (R) Are Compatible!

Do You Wish To Combine And Evolve?

Y/N