Unbound

"Step away from the Manaship!" Vess shouted over the whipping winds. Lightning flashed above them, and the rain was even more violent here, at the edge of the Risen Ward. She had left the Temples of Elemental Fire, intent on finding Evie among the streets, and had instead found this.

"The Pathless does not recognize your Authority, wench!" their leader crowed from the ship's steering. "And the Paladins certainly don't either!"

Arrayed on the deck of a damaged Manaship were thirty or so Paladins, their crimson armor covered in oiled greatcloaks that streamed rainwater onto the broken planks. The Manaship was in bad shape, but to Vess' amateur eye it had fared far better than most struck by the storm; its mainmast had survived but most of its sails and all of its lower guidance fins were torn to shreds. It was anchored at a skydock at the edge of the Risen Ward, an area typically heavily controlled and guarded, and Vess could see a number of crumpled bodies around the loosened moorings.

"They killed the retainers," Fiammetta said at her side. She held a pair of maces made of hissing yellow Mana, and they cast a visible brilliance onto the street around them. "House Iretus runs the skydocks here. They must have salvaged the Manaship, and the Paladins stole aboard."

"Where are you planning to go, Captain?" Vess asked, pitching her voice over the storm. "The sky won't have you, and it's sixty strides to the sea below. You are trapped here. Best for your men if you come quietly, or else I cannot promise you will all survive."

The Paladins hefted a longsword menacingly, as if daring them to approach as their fellows loosed ties and what sails remained. None of them were sailors, that was clear. The captain, however, never dropped his gaze from hers.

"Fah! The promises of a betrayer aren't worth much, Vessilia Dayne!" the captain shot back. Vess flinched at hearing her full name. "Aye, we know who you are, heiress! Just as we know the Hierophant won't tolerate treason from her Dukes. So go on, play at fighting for these heathens. We'll be waiting for you back home, eh?"

Vess gripped her partisan hard enough that, were it not made of exceptional materials, it would have crunched into scrap. The captain was goading her into attacking him—he was an Adept, while the rest of his Paladins were surely Journeymen, and rushing onto the ship would be exactly the wrong move. She knew that, but it didn't stop the insidious promise from wriggling into her Mind. Father. Father will you remain safe as I walk this path?

"Burn it all, we will. And they'll watch as you..."

She let her Perception spread, absorbing what she could of the environment and blocking out the loathsome Paladin. The docks were ahead, a series of stone bridges into the thin air surrounded by large warehouse-like buildings. The Manaship was only one of several such craft, though it was the only one that seemed at all functional. Closer to hand were the shops and taverns of a normally bustling district, now shut and shuttered against the constant storm and especially against their conflict. A few eyes peered fearfully from behind well-appointed sills or silken curtains; those in the Risen Ward, even the laborers, were fairly well off it seemed. Other than Fiammetta, Vess was alone on the paved street.

Oh? As the captain of the Paladins continued threatening her, she focused on a small sound to her left. A scraping of leather against stone and the tap of a harness pulled her Perception further, tugging at her gaze until she found a grizzled older man standing in the upper stories of a nearby inn, half hidden by thick drapery. Their eyes met and he raised a finger to his lips before making handsign at her.

He was wearing livery that matched the downed soldiers by the skydock. House Iretus. Vess' eye flicked up to the roof, where she sensed several dark shapes barely silhouetted against the cloudy sky. At least five archers. All of them Journeyman Tier.

They were drawing a bead on the ranting Paladin captain, but the man only had eyes for Vess' spear and the flashy lights of Fiammetta's magic. "—cannot hope to overcome us. Your godling is dead! And your city is next!"

"Ignore him, your Grace. What should we do?" Fiammetta asked through gritted teeth.

Vess kept her face carefully neutral. "We end them. How many of those weapons can you manifest?"

"Enough, but I'm drawing on my own Mana store now...the air is too wet and cold to pull heat from the air." The former Disciple shuddered, her voice a mix of annoyance and awe. "I've never seen so much water."

"Hurry, damn you!" The captain shouted again, his men still furiously fumbling with the ship's lines. "I can tell by your stricken faces that you do not wish to fight. Run and save your lives, heiress!"

"If you are so confident, Captain, then come and face me," Vess said, ignoring the hiss of alarm from Fiammetta. She sauntered forward until only thirty strides of dock separated them, her blue and white partisan held in a loose grip, as if unworried about the threat the man posed. "You are an Adept, are you not? Surely you could best the both of us with ease." Vess dropped into a stance, her feet finding the sixth Form of the Dragoons, and her spear lifted up and wavering like a monster's stinger.

"You—! Fine!" he shouted, and with a single, overly violent yank, pulled free his own longsword. "I'll tear you to pieces, duchess or no, but first I'll let my men have—!"

"QOURRAHHH!"

The rest of the captains words were drowned out by a sickening gurgle and guttural trumpeting. Vess drew back, stance abandoned, as a hunched creature covered in wet-slicked scales drove a short spear into the man's unprotected neck. It cried out, lifting its spear with preternatural Agility, and the Paladins all moved at once. Seven bolts of sizzling light tore through the air, striking the monster all at once and ripping it to pieces.

The guttural trumpeting didn't stop. In fact, to her horror, Vess watched as tens of the monstrous fish-people climbed aboard the Manaship...and the skydock itself.

"Your Grace!" Fiammetta shouted, and a shield of compacted yellow Mana blazed into being. A jagged spear crashed into it, skittering sideways and followed by two more. "There are twenty—no, thirty of them, at least! What...what are they?"

Elemental Eye!

Elemental Eye Failed.

Vess stepped around the heat shield and thrust her spear through the head of a charging monstrosity. It tore easily through its fish-like mouth, and it reflexively gnawed on the haft with jagged teeth. But it's huge, bulbous eyes went glassy and it sagged on her partisan and yanked it downward...just as another creature leaped into the opening.

Spear of Tribulations!

A Spear manifested out of air and metal Mana, woven so quickly and tightly together that the monstrosity impaled itself on it...and was launched back fifteen strides into two more of its kin.

"Solitary Tribulation!" she hissed, and the conjured weapon detonated into a storm of razor-sharp wind that shredded all three monsters.

Quick as its fellows, more Spears appeared in the air around Vess, floating above her shoulders like deadly, martial arms. She started for only a moment, realizing that her Skill had summoned not her usual seven Spears, but ten. Screams brought her attention back to the fight, as the docks before her filled with the horrid lizard-fish men. Fiammetta wielded her mace constructs in either hand, the heat type proving exceptionally effective against the monsters, but she was quickly being mobbed on all sides.

"Down!" a voice cried out, and both Vess and Fiammetta obeyed without thinking.

A rain of whistling arrows fell all around them, dozens of them, each one finding a fish-man through its head or chest. Bulbous eyes burst and thick, blue blood flooded onto the docks, but only some of the monsters were downed. Many barely paused in their assault, but instead grew more savage and feral, baring jagged fangs and abandoning their crude weapons to attack with tooth and claw. Vess manipulated her Spears, spinning them into defensive arcs that kept the worst at bay as she fought back to Fiammetta's side. She shouldn't have worried, however, as the Faun was laying about herself with an impressive array of heat-forged weaponry that changed with every strike she made.

"Don't! You! Come! Closer!" she howled, each word punctuated by the bloody squelch of fish-flesh pulping beneath her Skill. The smell of foul, baked fish was overpowering. "Burn me, you all stink!"

"Keep it up, we need to keep these creatures out of the town! Archers!" Vess called, parrying another crude billhook with her Spears. The men atop the inn loosed another volley, dropping several more fish-men that tried to run deeper into the streets. "Sound the alarm! Get more men down here! Who knows where else they're coming up!"

Vess didn't wait to see if they complied. Instead she let two more of her Spears burst, shredding a clutch of the enemy and driving a hole in their defenses...but they were swiftly plugged up with more foes.

I cannot end this without fighting properly, she realized, and flared her nostrils. Within her core space, the mountains rang out in the ceaseless winds, and she embraced her new Skill. Dragoon's Footwork, Grace, and Wall Run had vanished. Under the influence of Felix's Link, they had all fused into one. Evolved.

On The Wing!

A rush of Mana and Stamina fled her immediately, funneled into the swirling patterns of her new Skill. Immediately however, Vess' movements became more fluid and graceful, as if her Dexterity and Agility seamlessly combined into something far greater. Her Spears wove to her Will, but her Body moved almost without thought, Vess' partisan intercepting wild strikes with such ease it was like fighting children. She parried and countered, her riposte tearing through hearts and skulls so fast that her weapon was a blur.

Atop the ship, something exploded, ripping through the sky like a signal flare of light and fire. Bolts of golden radiance shot in all directions and far more natural colored flames raced across unfurled sails. Somewhere close by, the bugle of alarm tore into the night, signalling the attack.

Yet Vess didn't care. Couldn't. Her core space resounded with the vibration of On The Wing, and it sent shivers of resonance throughout her entire being. Spear and partisan danced, haft and honed edge one with her hand, arm, an extension of her Body and Spirit and Mind. Within that sound, echoes of the Primordial Essence still lingered, expanding until the blue sky of her core space that swelled above her mountain temple opened into a deeper, chasmic darkness. Stars glittered in that expanse, each one a brilliant, multicolored gemstone. And there, drowning out the light of a silver moon, were two stars so brilliant they sent pulses of light racing across the crags. Red-gold. Blue-white.

Tier IV Link Established!

On The Wing is level 76!

On The Wing is level 77!

A notification she'd seen more than once flashed by again, almost in time with that pulsing light. Connections and meaning chased after it, stark against the endless wind of her core space. Her Body spun and fought, and inside her Mind whirled, carried aloft on ancient wings. The Skill was flight, was evading a dark fate in the dead of night as teeth closed around the throats of those too slow to flee. Of death on her heels, while life sang like fire in her blood.

The vibrations shook Vess, literally and metaphorically, plucking her soul like a lute string. Fury filled her—fury and a terrible, sourceless grief. She fed it into her thrusts, ripping through slimy flesh with each hit. The beasts were vicious and hit like a kicking avum, but each of her strikes was catastrophic for them. Two or three fell with every sweep of her Spears, the shockwave of her thrusts sending others skidding backward and tangling their footing. It wasn't just her impressive new Skills and recent levels—Vess was tearing through this enemy far faster than anyone else on the field, Fiammetta, Archers, or Paladins. As their lizard-like snouts glistened in the fire and rain, she realized why.

Title: Draconic Slayer III (Rare)

You have faced and overcome your enemies, earning the fear and anger that your very presence elicits. You are the hunter, they are the prey. Boost damage against and reduce damage from the draconic Type by 30%!

Dragons!

She leaped, and On The Wing sent her soaring into the sky, synergizing so perfectly with her Born Trait—Exalted Vault—that it was like she took flight. Vess could see as a thin barrier of golden light surrounded the burning ship for a moment...before dark arrows shattered it to glittering pieces. More of the creatures screeched into the night, and a sudden secondary explosion lit up the Manaship, ripping the deck apart as the monsters were thrown back, and Paladins thrown into thin air. Their screams faded swiftly into the roar of the storm and battle.

Draconic Stormfall!

Vess and all ten of her Spears twisted in mid-air, her leap frozen at the apex of momentum, before the wind itself howled at her back. As if a column of the tempest clung to her, Vess dropped back down into the mass of fish-men like descending judgment. All eleven of her Spears hit the stone-paved thoroughfare in a ring around her, and the earth buckled before erupting into a vicious, razor-wind cyclone thirty strides wide and twice that tall.

Draconic Stormfall is level 71!

You Have Killed An Unknown Monstrosity (x22)!

XP Earned!

For a brief moment, the force of her impact scattered the driving rain...before it and the macabre fall of corpse parts descended upon the battlefield. "By spear and Skill and magic's descent," she recited from memory. "We suffer no dragons to live."

Elemental Eye!

Whether because she defeated some in battle, or some other strangeness, her Eye pierced their defenses now. Yet she found herself just as confused as before.

Name: Fathom Hatchling

Type: Draconic (Manawarped)

Level: 45

HP: 1394/1443

SP: 1003/1127

MP: 400/400

Lore: Unknown

"Manawarped?" she repeated. "What is that?"

But her questions were pressed from her Mind, because more of the wretched creatures were climbing up the sides of the city as she spoke. Many clambered atop the burning Manaship as the few remaining Paladins sought to ignite its sputtering engine while dozens more emerged from the manicured lip of the topmost layer. Their claws dug into stone like softened clay, and hundreds of luminous fish eyes rushed at her with cold, predatory malice.

"SKREEEAWW!"

A mighty, shrieking screech sundered the air more completely than the thunder ever could, and in its wake came a shimmering crescent of blinding Mana. It sliced down from above and curved, last second to cut a twenty-foot wide swath through the Hatchlings. Bolts of lightning followed, frozen like spears of galvanized brilliance and shattering to a staccato, concussive beat of fish-man screams and thunder. Pit dropped to the ground, landing in an easy crouch before looming tall before the now-hesitating Fathom Hatchlings.

"Come get some!" he growled.

"Pit! Is Felix—" Vess started, but was answered almost immediately.

A bolt of lightning forty strides across blasted from the heavens, shattering into the assembled Hatchlings and utterly eradicating them. Blood and flesh were turned to a horrendous black vapor in an instant, all of which swirled and streamed back upward. A dire typhoon that terminated in a man dressed all in black.

No, she realized. Not dressed. Scaled. And not Felix.

The storm above them went deathly still.

That's the Fiend.

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