Unbound

The battle had been joined.

Atar watched Harn hew his way through the Knights, taking down their Captains with brutal speed. The Claw was behind him, roaring defiance as they flooded into the inner sanctum. Blade met Blades, and Bones, and Fists, with the crackling charge of Arclight to back them up. Knights died by the score against the improved coordination of Claw's Talons.

The same story repeated itself from another entrance, where Darius led the second half of their forces. His air attuned Skills shielded most from the fiery retaliation of the Knights while his Windblades cut down five or six at a time. Atar was amazed at how easily their forces cut a wedge into the Temple Knights, but soon realized it was due to the fact that many of them had been focused inward, toward the Altar. That momentary advantage had translated into nearly a hundred deaths in the span of the battle, which could have been either an hour or a handful of minutes; Atar could not tell.

Frost Giants convened against a Master, flames beating back their ice, while Vess defended a lone Zara. The spearmaiden knocked aside Knights and ran them through with the nonchalance of a butcher at work, her Spears active in multiple directions at once. Zara, meanwhile, was throwing up walls of swirling green-blue water up and around the Grandmaster, hemming him in and forcing Kel'lyv to expend himself on dismantling them one by one. A stalling tactic, but it gave Atar time to breathe. To fight.

Sovereign of Stars!

White-hot stars shot into the line of armored Disciples, felling one and wounding six others. His Stars burned far hotter than their lesser rarity Skills, but fire against fire was less effective than other options. Beside him, Fiammetta wove Mana into shield after shield, blocking the other Disciples' strikes. Alister called down pillars of force, smashing aside the physical shields many of the Knights held up and battering others aside entirely. The Disciples fought back with blade and magic, all the while they dragged behind them bound figures drenched in mud and blood.

Atar's team was putting up a fight, but they couldn't stop the Disciples' advance.

Two Matrons, blazing with auras of orange, blasted aside Alister and Fiammetta's magic. The two recoiled, bashing into Atar, and the Disciples pounced.

"No!" Atar shouted, just as the first Disciples made it to the lip of the Altar. Straining, the men and women hurled their captives outward...into the Highest Flame.

The bound miners screamed as they hit the mounds of smoldering ash and jagged bone below, and while their rags and hair caught fire, their flesh only cooked slowly under the weakened influence of the outer flames. A wretched, unlucky few rolled into the brighter, hotter center of the altar...and they were immediately turned to ash and smoke.

A building scream flung out of the pillar of the Highest Flame, its shape surging and flaring. Atar watched as its superheated core widened by the smallest of margins, fueled by its consumption. The scream stabbed at every single person, throwing Atar and his friends to their knees just the same as any of the Disciples or Matrons.

THE SOURCE IS TAKEN! SUNDERED! THE HUNGER HAS ARRIVED, CHOSEN! ITS TEETH APPROACH AND I—I CANNOT STOP THEM! BEWARE!

A distant, alarming creaking and crashing sounded from far off...until it halted with a choking finality. Above, the Grandmaster staggered, dropping a dozen strides from the sky while Masters and Matrons alike fell, some crashing through the pews to land, suddenly weakened. Driven to their knees, none of them continued the battle as Knights and Disciples and Claw alike all looked around in confused wonder. A burgeoning silence seized the world, a silence that none currently living in Ahkestria had ever heard before.

The silence of a still sky.

"The storm..." a Matron whispered in horror.

"The Highest lost control of the storm," said a dark-bearded Master.

"The undead will come," another Matron said. "Blessed Flame, but the undead will come for us now."

As if welling from deep below their feet, a preternatural howling filled the city. A Spirit the size of the city itself clawed upward, slamming Disciples, Knights, and Claw members to the splintering ground. Blood arced all around him, and Atar only avoided an invisible slash that split a portion of the golden Altar at his back. His head was screaming with a droning buzz, too loud and pervasive to even think. What is this? What's happening?

"The beast is awakening," Kel'lyv said, his eyes searching out the Altar. He rose, stuttering on burning streamers of flame. "Push those cretins in! The Flame must be strengthened or all is lost! Where are the Paladins!?"

There was a sound at Atar's side, audible in the silence the Grandmaster tried to fill. Even the buzzing that rose from the ground and swarmed his Affinity was driven from his awareness when he caught sight of the woman standing in the flames. Her hair and face were a smoldering ruin, her body succumbing to the Altar, but she held a bundled object up to him no bigger than a Gnome. Her bonds had burned away but she couldn't climb the smooth, sloping sides of the Atar basin. Unthinking, Atar reached into the flames, grasping the bundle—the child—through the burning and yanking them from the offering arms of their mother. The mother fell into the ashes, her body too damaged, but the child was swaddled and as Atar absorbed the flames with Strength Ignition...he found it alive.

"Your Fire Resistance is nicely leveled," said a voice above his shoulder.

Atar jerked in alarm, but he and the bundled child bloomed with a flush of green-gold Mana that settled his alarm. Forcibly so, but he couldn't muster the will to be concerned. The flush of life Mana spread into the Urge's flames as well, soaking into those men and women that writhed outside the savage core. Atar looked languidly up at the bright, angry eyes of Isla. She raised a finger to her lips and vanished.

Status Condition: Forged Calm removed!

Blinking back to himself, Atar held the child close as it began to whimper. The Chanter may have healed it, but they were not safe. He stood with fresh panic in his heart just in time to see the Paladins march confidently through the doors nearest his location.

"Damn it," Alister said, shaking out an arm and picking up his rapier again. His limb was covered in blood and the sleeve was rent, but Atar could no longer see a wound. "This isn't going well."

The Paladins were all wearing great helms, covering their faces, and heavy crimson cloaks hung like shrouds around their intimidating plate armor. The Disciples let them through their ranks, no more than fifty but armed to the teeth. Their leader, wearing a badge of office Atar vaguely recognized as the High Justiciar, drew up just outside the lip of the Altar...and only ten paces from their desperate stand.

Fiammetta conjured a mace and a narrow dagger in her hands, shaped from yellow heat Mana in the air. She brandished them threateningly. "Don't you come closer, murderers!"

That howl tore through again, and Atar winced at its buzzing atonality. Fear surged again, but it was a distant thing happening to someone else. Atar's focus cut through it all, his Mind whirring as he tried to figure a solution.

Meanwhile the Grandmaster rose higher, now blazing with a brilliant internal flame that competed with the Urge itself. "High Justiciar Haim! We need the Regalia of the Pathless now! The beast is nearly loose! Throw that cloth into the Altar and you shall have all that you have asked for!"

"All that I have asked?" the man in the lead asked. His voice reverberated inside the helmet. "Even the right of establishing a church of the pathless within your city?"

"Yes! Even that!" Kel'lyv said through grinding teeth. A number of Matrons shifted as if to protest, but his dark looks silenced them. "Do it now, and our deal is set in stone."

The High Justiciar reached into his cloak and pulled out a crystalline case, holding it up to catch the light. It glinted in the rising sun, casting a prism of colors out into the inner sanctum. Atar couldn't make out the man's features, but he tilted his head as if he were considering something, while another howl welled up from far below. It felt weaker now, somehow, and the buzzing in Atar's ears had dimmed to a teeth-rattling hum.

The Grandmaster growled, drawing closer to them all. "Haim! What are you doing? Complete our agreement!"

To Atar's utter amazement, the Paladin laughed. Then, with a rueful shake of his head, he opened the Regalia case...and there was nothing within. "No. I do not think I will."

Kel'lyv only stared in shock, veins across his forehead all but ready to burst while the flames at his back faded to almost nothing. Part of Atar even enjoyed the man's apoplexy, were his fears running wild within his breast. The Paladin reached up and took off his great helm, revealing features that did not match Atar's recollection of the High Justiciar, little as he remembered.

"Captain Boldt! Where is your commanding officer?" Kel'lyv demanded. The flames returned, rallying with a vengeance as the mage grappled with this betrayal.

The captain laughed, high and sharp. "You think Lord Haim would let some heretic touch even a scrap of the true god's power? You're a fool, Kel'lyv."

The rising sun so prominently on view in the windows about them were suddenly darkened. Atar watched giant Manaships rise up around them, three in their direct vicinity and more in the distance. All of them were fitted with crimson sails emblazoned with the standard of the Paladins, and upon their decks, easily visible in the closer ships, were hundreds of armored figures armed with spears and swords blazing with golden light.

Boldt smiled, like a hungry wolf. "And your city will fall this day."

The Primordial howled, a terrible sound that punched through Felix's Mind like a consuming flame. Fear kindled in him, before he crushed it ruthlessly. His Willpower and Call of Defiance Title were nothing to scoff at, even before a Primordial's undead influence.

Beef wasn't so lucky. The Minotaur fell to his knees, a quivering mess that tried to push as far away from the massive sword and Primordial as possible. At his side was Hallow, skeleton hands over Beef's snout and bodily restraining the massive teen with nearly every one of her Bodies. She stared helplessly at Felix in a remarkably Human gesture, but maybe he was getting signals crossed—whatever Hallow was, it wasn't Human...just as it clearly was unaffected by the Primordial's aura of fear.

That is...bad, Pit sent. Every feather and piece of fur on his body was on end, and his already bushy fox-tail looked like a static-filled bottlebrush. How do we fight them all?

"One at a time," Felix said, keeping his voice quiet and level. The fear aura was fading, retracting almost, as Felix watched cords of its magical cage fray and then snap. Each one was a gunshot burst in his Affinity, a roar of musicality overtaken by Dissonance. The noise above them stopped entirely, and Felix knew that the storm had fallen apart once those cords broke, and that meant Ahkestria was unguarded.

Now, all that power was lingering in the Primordial. No longer siphoned out to power storms, and only the central column connecting to the inferno far in the distance. The Paladins were working to change that, and fast.

Below them, the golden sigils had slowly overtaken the multi-hued glyphwork around the bony mass and sword. It spread outward like a shining rash, infecting the working as it rotated and the Paladins etched out sigil after sigil. Some of them had fallen, a few even had scratched their eyes out and were still howling in terror, but there were more ready to take up the inscription process.

"At least you weren't down there, Beef. Seems the Paladins got hit with a lot more of that fear aura," he said. The Minotaur had stopped trying to scream, and was just lying on the ground, breathing hard as a bellows. He didn't answer except to sit up shakily. "I still don't know what the Paladins are trying to do though. They're changing the array, redirecting the power from above...but if their goal was just to stop the stormwall they've already achieved it."

They are not done, Pit agreed.

Beef made it to his feet, though his muscles kept twitching spasmodically. His head jerked as he leaned slightly to see below. "Sorry. The Status Condition hit me like a sack of bricks."

"Don't worry about it. Willpower helps shake off that kind of thing, but mental attacks are always a pain." Felix waved off his apologies. "Hopefully that's the last blast of fear, but I doubt it. Did you get a mental resistance Skill?"

"I, uh, how'd you know? Mental Resistance. That thing brought it up to level 10 already."

"Lucky guess," Felix said, smiling without much feeling. "You'll see it jump a few more times more, I imagine. I—"

Almost about to tell Beef of his own experiences, there was a flash of light below as a series of strange, ephemeral objects appeared. High Justiciar Rahven Haim stood below, helm off and dark hair streaming in a gathering breeze. He was holding a series of golden panels, each one forged of light Mana and connected to the growing array by shimmering lines of sigaldry. The panels morphed and folded, origami-like, until they formed a bowl-like receptacle that hovered just before the man's face.

"That's Haim!" Beef hissed. "But what's that?"

A familiar crystalline case was pulled from the man's cloak, and even at such a distance Felix could feel it pulse with potency. He gasped. "That's a piece of god-cloth," he said. "Regalia."

Beef clearly didn't understand, but Felix couldn't spare the moment to explain. The array had started making sense to his Skill, and he realized it wasn't just a redirection of energies, but a purification. They're trying to steal the Primordial's Essence for themselves. To do what, though?

With the cage array weakened and redirected, the suppression he'd been feeling had faded. Felix could feel his connections better than ever, could even sense a faint echo of emotion that rattled down their lengths. The ghost of a thousand screams shook their way to him, coming clearly from the city. They were out of time.

"This is it," Felix said. "Last chance to run, Beef."

The Minotaur snorted and stamped a hoof. He threw his head, like a true bull tossing aside an obstacle. "I...hear them. Above us. Those people need help, don't they?" Felix nodded. Mike hefted his chitin hammer and firmed up his bovine jaw. "I'm done running."

Felix felt his gut sink, but he couldn't help but respect the kid's choice. He'd learned not too long ago that choice has a power that even the System wouldn't gainsay. "Alright. Pit and I will take on Haim and distract the others. You and Hallow need to disrupt those inscription circles. A good blow or blast of Mana outta do it for them, they're only temporary. I think."

"Got it." Beef squeezed the haft of his hammer and turned to return down the spiral staircase.

Before he reached the door, Felix raised his voice. "Kick their asses...Beefhammer."

Beef grinned, a surprisingly vicious looking thing, and Felix could feel his Spirit scream in joy and excitement as he took the stairs at a jog. Felix gave Pit a glance. "You ready?"

Pit drew himself up and rustled his wing feathers. Always.

Felix cracked his knuckles and stepped up to the edge of the balcony. He stared down the length of the huge sword and the vile behemoth of bones beneath them. "I'll go first, and you follow behind. Use Frost Spears to—"

Actually, Pit interrupted with a sending of fearful anticipation. I have an idea.

His Companion explained, and Felix slowly bared his teeth.

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