Unbound

Cobb was sweating, and his back ached fiercely. It was cold in the dungeons they had been shoved into, but so many of his fellow miners had been crammed together that all the small Goblin felt was an intense, swampy heat. It was enough that some of the older folk had passed out, and even though it cost the rest of them more space Cobb had made sure to give them room enough to lie down. At least some of them could have a little comfort, before the end.

And it was an end. They all knew it, because the crimson-armored brutes that prowled the halls made sure everyone knew why they were there. That they were being sent to die at the hands of the Temple of the Highest Flame.

Cobb pressed his forehead against the iron bars. They were blessedly cool, and it kept his mind away from the fire that waited them above. Like everyone else, Cobb had been angry and terrified in turns, but it had all faded to a cold numbness. It was like some vile Sorcerer cast a curse on his heart. He felt empty.

He had been pulled from the mines by Temple Knights and dragged up to the Miner's Layer, only to find hundreds of his neighbors all crowding the streets. All of them were marched away from the mines, up and up, through layers Cobb had never been allowed to visit. Miners were beaten badly if they tried to fight or flee, until the golden Knights' side swords dripped with blood as they jabbed them all forward. Eventually they had been shoved into the bright sunlight of the Risen Ward, and it had been all he could do not to stare at how bright, shiny, and clean it all looked. The buildings weren't cracked or crumbling, the paths weren't rutted or filled with filthy runoff. It was like a dream of paradise.

Then the Paladins had shown up, in their dreadful armor, taking them away from the Knights. Cobb hated the Knights, but the Paladins were worse. When those in the lead were unable to move faster than the red-plated monsters demanded, they were cut down. Simple as that, without warning or explanation. More died, until they understood.

Cobb had all but run into his packed cell.

Now he wished for his trusty pick-axe more than anything else. Two of the Paladins were pacing near the end of the corridor, doing nothing except occasionally yelling at the prisoners if they sobbed too loudly. One of them said something to the other, and laughed. Watching them burnt something inside of Cobb, a heat that had nothing to do with the sweaty Yttin all around him.

I'll kill all of you. Some...somehow. Cobb gritted his teeth and squeezed the bars. He was Untempered though, and all he managed was to hurt his hands. You don't get to do this.

The laughter suddenly cut off.

"Jord?" the other said. Cobb pressed his face to the bars, trying to see them both, but could only make out one looking around in confusion. "Jord, where'd you g—"

A blue and white spear burst through the Paladin's throat, turning his words to choked gurgles. Cobb's eyes widened and his heart slammed in his narrow chest. "Something...something is happening!" he hissed at the others around him.

A Yttin shrugged, it's bandages too loose and showing its pale skin beneath. No one else even cared to shift. Cobb gave up, pushing his face against the bars again. It was silent in the corridor, absent even the sound of booted feet.

Then a woman jumped in front of him.

"AHH!" Cobb screamed, hurling himself back from the bars...and getting slapped back into them by wall of bodies behind him.

"Damn, shut up," the Human woman said. Her face and chest were speckled with red, but that didn't detract from the wide grin on her face. She jangled a set of keys. "I'm here to save you."

Cobb and the others were ushered out into the corridor, where he quickly spotted more fallen Paladins. Blood pool around them like crimson shadows, and that heat in his belly spread up into his limbs. His fingers tingled, and he wanted nothing more than to find his pick-axe and carve his way out.

"Hey, you. Take this." The woman that had freed them handed him a long dagger, more of a sword to the small Goblin. She passed out a few more to others. "Protect yourselves, yeah? There's a whole lot more to kill after this."

Cobb stared at the dagger and his own faint reflection, like a dark smudge on the razor-sharp blade. This thoughts boiled, jagged edges tumbling over themselves before a noise cut through the chaos in his mind.

"Evie, more coming down the central staircase," a woman with a spear said. The same spear he'd seen punch through a Paladin's throat. "Is everyone free?"

"Think so. Hey uh, you," the woman, Evie, said to Cobb. "Anyone else down here?"

Cobb looked around at the sea of Yttin, Goblins, Orcs, and Dwarves. There weren't half as many as he'd seen coming up with him from below. Cobb's mouth started before his brain could catch up. "There's more. I dunno where they are. But there's lots more."

"Noctis' tits."

"Tell us where, child," another woman said, this one with earthy, ochre skin. She was looking right at him. "Don't speak, just think it."

"We don't have time for this, Zara," Evie said.

"Go help the Heiress secure the stairwell. It shall be our point of egress," Zara said. Her ice blue eyes bored into Cobb's own. "Think, child."

Cobb did as he was asked. Not to be helpful but because he couldn't refuse this strange lady with hair like the sea. He blinked, and around him chaos erupted once more.

"Good, I have it," Zara said over the din of fighting. She and Cobb were the only ones left in the corridor, the rest having vanished. Too close by, a grip of Temple Knights were trying to get to the woman, but a single gesture rent their armor and flesh in a single, explosive swoop. They fell in...piles. "Let us follow after your fellows, Cobb. Shall we?"

"Uhm," he said. "Sure. Where is everyone?"

"Ahead. They are holding their own, but not for long." Cobb heard a clear, crystalline chiming and was lifted bodily by a wave of watery light.

Magic! he thought with a gasp. Cobb clutched tightly to his long dagger.

The both of them swept onward, up the central staircase.

Atar peered around the wide pillar. Knights in golden armor stood at attention only thirty strides away, their halberds gleaming in the steady light of orange Mana crystals. Beyond them, Atar knew the stairs would lead to the inner sanctum of the Temple, the heart. He tried to keep his mind off the glass flask at his waist and what lay within it, but it was a daunting task to accomplish while also sneaking like a thief. As such, his attention wandered and his battlerobes caught on a pedestal he passed.

Damnation!

A delicate sculpture of a wise woman fell and Atar's heart stopped in his chest...only for a pair of thin hands to catch it before it hit the ground.

"Careful! The Knights all have significant investments in Perception," Fiammetta scolded him as she placed the bust back on its stand. She tossed her head, red hair flicking from her eyes. "I would have thought you'd remember that."

Atar stopped himself from snapping back in kind, but only barely. It was mostly Alister's sour face staring at the Faun's back that halted him—the beautiful ponce would have fought the Disciple on behalf of Atar's pride, and it warmed his heart. Instead, he only corrected his footing. "You...are not wrong. Either way, the lady Chanter is keeping us screened."

"Doesn't mean I like diverting all the noise you make," said the Lady Isla. Her nose was perhaps too generous for her face to be called beautiful, but she was striking regardless. "An Obfuscation of this size does not come without effort. So shut your mouths and focus on your tasks."

Fiammetta made a pleased noise through her doe-like nose, and the Lady Isla shot her a glare. "That goes double for turncoats."

It was very hard for Atar not to grin at that.

They had penetrated the standard defenses of the Temple, thanks to Fiammetta's instruction. As a Disciple, she was well informed on the movements and placement of their defenses. However, Knights were posted everywhere, and it would have posed a serious impediment were it not for Lady Isla's Obfuscation Chant. As far as Atar understood, it was very similar to that Gnome Thangle's work, just on a grander scale. It kept their presence from being discovered, but the effect was active, requiring the Chanter to manually eliminate any stray sound or visual that the four of them produced. All told, it meant that while she could get them into the inner sanctum, the Obfuscation of so many eyes meant her attention was eaten away by the spell, and the way forward was up to Atar.

"Follow me," he said. The four of them softly and carefully slipped past the guards. Atar held his breath as they did so, a habit he had quickly formed, but the Knights' attention did not waver in the slightest. He glanced at the Lady Isla, who had a smug twist to her lips.

Beyond the Knights was the grand staircase leading to the juncture of the three Temples of Elemental Flame, each one cover an aspect of the Urge that they worshipped. The steps were just as Atar recalled from years prior, perfectly crafted and inlaid with a repeating flame. Gold and white marble, they matched the carvings along the grand staircase, which depicted the Scorched Expanse as it was: filled with monsters and defended only by the unrelenting fury of the Highest Flame.

Atar had complicated feelings about their plan, even if it had been his insight that had produced their only weapon. Had Felix been with them, perhaps he could have devoured the Urge—but not even that was certain. Instead, Atar had posited that if the Dustborn curse was hurting the Highest Flame, then what would happen if it were used against the Urge directly? The problem, naturally, had been that they had no undead with them and Felix had cleansed the curse from them all. The Lady Isla, healer that she appeared to be, provided a solution, and in order to do so the Chanter had required everyone that had ever been afflicted by the flesh curse to gather close. A resonance of the curse remained, the faintest of traces in all that had once been touched by it. Harmless, they were told, but a curse such as that was too potent for their Aspects to forget it entirely.

"The fact that it was so faint is remarkable, truly. This Autarch is a powerful man," she had said. Atar hadn't missed the edge of naked hunger in the woman's tone. She was powerful, but that only put the mage on heightened guard.

Through a complicated spellform and the Chant, Lady Isla had somehow been able to extract the resonance of the curse from their collective Aspects. She had then placed it into a glass bottle that Zara had further infused with some other strange ability. The glass had been strengthened, and even then it barely contained the vile, twisting curse that had poured from Isla's spellform. Now that flask sat at Atar's hip, and he hated it—the thing felt...predatory, somehow.

They crested the long staircase and approached a set of golden doors inscribed with sigils of flame and heat. Fiammetta swallowed and held up a pendant of orange crystal, which glowed with a small array. The doors flashed in sympathy and Atar felt the wardings on them loosen moments before they opened themselves. The four of them stepped within.

"Blind gods," Alister whispered. His eyes were rounded and his mouth wide open. "Atar this place...this is bigger than the bottom floor of the Eyrie. Twice as big, even."

"And lined with more warding arrays than I can count," Atar added.

The apex of the three Temples was here, at the Smoldering Nave. Rows upon rows of marble pews spread out in a circular formation, but the majority of the nave was occupied by inlaid flooring and ascending steps, all of which led to the focal point of the Temples. The Altar of the Highest Flame, a bronze dish wider than ten men could stretch, and supported by three pillars shaped to look like men and women in flowing robes. Atop the altar, burning away, was a tower of roaring flame.

"Bit of a show-off, I see," Lady Isla said. "Hurry up, now. We haven't much time, and that flask will not hold forever."

"What?" Fiammetta said, looking askance at the boiling contents of the bottle at Atar's hip. "You never said that before."

"No point mentioning it when it's the only option," she said with a delicate shrug. She paused, then looked at Atar expectantly. "Well? Go, boy."

Atar tightened his jaw, but let the Chanter's tone slide. She was, after all, a Master Tier like Zara. "Alister, Fiammetta, with me. We'll take this one line at a time."

Before they could drop their little present, the protections around the Altar had to be deactivated. The Faun Disciple was equipped to bypass these wardings due to her position, and that's what they relied upon at first. Fiammetta held out her orange crystal and sigils melted out of her path, allowing them through without issue. Only when they reached the last ten feet before the Altar did her access cease being effective.

"This is as far as I am allowed to come," she said. The Faun wet her lips, and Atar could hear the faintest of noises from her Spirit. It sounded like...indecision, perhaps. "Is this truly necessary?"

"They want to sacrifice citizens of your city to it," Alister said, disgust writ large across his features. "That is vile and reprehensible and must be stopped."

Atar watched the fire dance above them, separated by such a small distance and yet the wards were more effective than walls of orichalcum if they were to attempt to brute force their way past them. He couldn't even feel the Flame's heat, great as it was, and its light seemed dimmer somehow. Is that a function of the wards, he wondered. Or is that the weakness I have been hearing about?

Alister cleared his throat. "Atar? Are you ready?"

"Yeah. Fiammetta, I understand how you feel. I too...well, you know. We grew up here, with all of this." Atar wrinkled his nose. "But something is different now. More than anything, I need to know why."

The Faun wouldn't meet his eye, and instead stared unblinkingly at the flickering Flame. Atar sighed. He pulled out an inscription stylus and Alister joined him, scratching lines of light into the air.

Mana flowed and twitched, turned out of alignment with each sigil they inscribed. Atar moved quickly, more fluid here than he ever had been on the field of battle. As the first ward tried to buck and split, which would have warned everyone in the Temple, he guided it back into a cage of glyphs. He fashioned an opening in the array, one that would permit the three of them to close with the next layer, and finished it off by tying the sigaldry back into itself. Uninterrupted as if they had never been there at all.

Sigaldry is level 62!

And you said sigaldry is for the weak, Atar thought with a surge of bitterness. Master.

The next three arrays went the same way, though the effort required increased exponentially. By the last warding, all three of them were sweating with concentration, effort, and the incredible heat given off by the Altar. Atar was unsure how long they had been at it, but it was with an agonizing, glacial stroke of his stylus that the way was finally opened.

Sigaldry is level 70!

A blast of intense heat hit them, knocking Alister onto his rear and pushing Atar and Fiametta back two entire strides. The pressure of their opening raged for a few moments, scorching the stone at their feet before it evened out. They stood cautiously, but aside from the remarkable heat, everything seemed calm.

"Stay here," Atar told them. "I'll approach. If anything happens...run."

"Atar," Alister said.

"No, listen to me. I have the flask, and I have the strongest resistance to fire and heat. I'm going, and you're both staying here." Atar watched Alister struggle with that decision, but he ended up pressing his lips into a thin line and nodded anyway. "Thank you."

"Don't die, Atar," Fiammetta said. Her freckled face was unreadable, but it sounded like she actually meant it.

"I won't. If I'm not around for comparison, people might actually think you're talented," Atar said, forcing a grin onto his face.

"Hmph." The Faun pursed her lips. "I take it back. Go jump in."

Atar's smile was more genuine as he turned away...but it fall apart as soon as he walked through the breach in the wards. The temperature ratcheted up another dozen degrees, and he felt the stone baking him through his leather boots. A half turn around the Altar lead him to the staircase he recalled form his youth, built into the side of the bronze structure and wide enough to accommodate three grown men across each step. He mounted them quickly. At the top, he beheld the Highest Flame in all its glory.

It's...it's weaker than I have ever seen it, he thought with alarm.

The pillar of flame that they had been seeing this entire time was whisper thin and no hotter than a candleflame. Atar lifted his hand and pressed it into the flickering orange light, only to have it pass through, unharmed. The mage's resistance was considerable, but even the smallest piece of the Highest Flame should have baked flesh from his bones. It was only in its center that the Urge burned so hot it annihilated all within.

"What happened to you?" he asked, quietly. Memories resurfaced within him, of kneeling before the Urge when he was five years old. Of his mother and father holding him up on their shoulders to see the Dance of the Seven Flames during high summer. Of when he swore his pact, and could first feel the Flame's warm regard and gentle influence on his nascent core space. Good memories, all of them, almost enough to reconsider.

And then he saw the bones.

In the deep bowl of the Altar, what Atar had at first mistaken for charred logs or monster remnants were instead the charred remains of people. More people than he could count, of all shapes and sizes.

They've been sacrificing people already? he realized in dawning horror. For how long?

"Why are you doing this?" he asked the Urge, hoping, dreading an answer. "What is happening in my city?"

ATAR V'AS.

Atar started. He truly hadn't expected an answer. "Highest Flame?"

RUN. HE COMES.

His eyes widened. "My Master...?"

HE HUNGERS IN THE TOMB. OH, HE HUNGERS AND ALL WILL BE CONSUMED.

"Tomb? What're you—We're here to stop that. No one else will be sacrificed here."

I MUST BURN. OR ELSE LIGHT FADES. I MUST BURN.

"I don't care. Not like this." Atar gripped the flask, unhooking it from his belt.

THE STARS AND MOONS SPEAK OF THIS. OF MY END. IT CANNOT BE, FOR LIGHT FAILS WITHOUT ME. I MUST BURN, ATAR V'AS.

PLEASE.

OH IT HURTS. THE HUNGER CANNOT BE STOPPED, HE PROWLS TOWARD US ALL, THE BEAST AT HIS BACK. FEAR HIS TEETH.

"I'm not afraid of my old master anymore," Atar said. "He cannot have his way. Not like this."

A horn shattered the silence of the Temple. First one, and then many others joined in.

"That is the high alert!" Fiammetta shouted over the roaring flames. "Atar! We must flee!"

"Go! I have to do this!"

Atar lifted the flask and reared back...only to stumble as a lash of flame slashed him across the shoulders. He screamed, and his throw fell limp. The flask fell into the flames, clattering among the bones in the Altar's basin, but it remained whole and just shy of he Urge's raging center. Unbroken.

"Burning blood and ashes!" he gasped, and a second lash hit the mage. Atar was spun around by the strike, this time to see a woman hovering above and behind him, wearing a golden veil and robes. "Matron," he hissed through clenched teeth. His back was bleeding and his Health had dropped by an entire quarter.

"Atar V'as. Truly it is a disappointment to see you here," the Matron said. Atar never could make out their features behind their thick veils, but the condemnation in her voice was clear. "Did you think you would succeed and, what? Explode the Urge with some alchemical concoction?"

All around the Nave doors were thrown open, and a flood of golden-armored Knights rushed down the aisles. Atar scanned around him, picking out Fiammetta and Alister standing nearby...but of Isla he could see no sign.

"And you Fiammetta. A Disciple, taking part in such blasphemy?" The Matron's condemnation turned to a sharp anger. "You will not escape recompense for these actions tonight."

"What you are doing is wrong," the Faun said. She was shaking, but whether that was in anger or fear Atar couldn't tell. "Sacrificing people for power is the true blasphemy!"

"Be silent, girl."

A sudden, immense pressure slammed into all of them. Fiammetta fell with a bleating cry, and Alister cursed as he was forced to his hands and knees. Atar clutched hard to the bronze railing at his side, pushing with all his Strength against a Spiritual pressure he knew as well as the back of his hand.

"Kel'lyv," Atar gasped.

His former master appeared above them, hovering atop the waves of fire Mana that poured from the Highest Flame. The other remaining Matrons and Masters, three of the former and two of the latter, descended from the vaulted ceiling. Atar could see a number of open passages up there, where they must have come through after the warning horns sounded. Kel'lyv's gray face was tight with anger as he regarded them all.

"You shall call me Grandmaster, if I deign to let you speak at all, Atar," the man snapped. Another burst of pressure knocked Atar's grip loose and he fell to his knees at the edge of the Altar. Kel'lyv looked to the others. "How many have escaped?"

"A great many, but we shall round them up shortly," a woman with dark hair cut short are her ears. "The others are still secure, however. We may begin when you wish, Grandmaster."

Instead of answering her, the bald mage cast his gaze all over the chamber, a sneer forming on his face. "What did the Flame say to you, Atar? I know it said something."

Gasps ripped from the Matrons, but Atar barely paid them any mind. His Body couldn't put up with the amount of pressure the man was pressing against him, and it was all he could do to breathe. "She said...that you are...a monster."

Kel'lyv scoffed. "Fool. I've known you since you were a babe in swaddling. Do not lie. I will ask only once more. What did the Flame tell you?"

I HURT. THE BINDINGS MUST HOLD!

This time the gasps echoed among the entire crowd, as the Urge's voice hit them all. Knights looked up in panic at the column of flame, and Atar heard the strangely strident call of doubt blaze through their Spirits.

Kel'lyv was not one to hesitate, however. "You see? The Flame withers while we prattle on. Matrons, bring out what worthless wretches we still have. The ritual must commence."

The Matrons all but fled to do as they were bid, rushing toward a set of doors far to Atar's right. Yet just as they reached the golden portals, the things blew off their hinges. The Matrons batted the doors away, but were unprepared for the silver Spears that impaled one of them, while the other was suddenly trapped by chains of ice.

"What is this!?" the Grandmaster cried out. "Knights! Form upon those fools!"

From the left, another set of doors were ripped open, and a wall of jagged ice spears blasted up from the flooring. Knights fell by the dozen, and those that survived were bisected by the axes of hulking Frost Giants. Lightning crackled and shot outward, burning yet more, and the pressure against Atar loosened.

"Fiend's Claw!" Harn shouted from yet another entryway, his axes raised up and blazing with silver light. "Kill 'em all!"

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