Unbound

Time flew on leaden wings. Felix, finished with the diplomacy of his position, retreated to the Alchemical Lab and spent the next six hours working at Aenea's side. Four painful failures behind them, Felix and Aenea had finally done it. A Cleansing Potion, the limit of their combined Skills, and shining bright with all the power of a selection of Tier II herbs, distillations, and topped off with a hair of the dog that bit him: the Spirit Fruit.

"Okay, one last go, bud." Felix lifted the bluestone carafe and Pit regarded it with suspicion.

Will it hurt?

"Uh, probably," Felix admitted.

Most things do, Pit agreed.

Felix hesitated, meeting his friend's golden gaze. He felt only steady trust from him. "Ready?"

Ready.

Pit drank the gleaming potion, a full quart of liquid, and grimaced expectantly. A confused warble slipped from his throat though, and he opened his eyes in surprise.

It tastes good.

Felix grinned, trading looks with an excited Aenea. She rubbed her hands together, a touch anxious. "Do you feel anything?" she asked.

A...wriggling, Pit sent to Felix. He still couldn't communicate effectively to anyone without an unlocked Affinity stat. It is...a worm in my belly. I—

Felix dodged back, dragging the Alchemist back with him in the second of warning he had; still, they both only narrowly avoided the deluge of brackish liquid that poured from Pit's channels. Shouts of alarm went up in the Lab, but Felix didn't answer their inquiries, only watched with mounting concern. Pit wretched as if vomiting, and that liquid kept coming out of everywhere like a swam of ten thousand flies all made of thickened oil. They flowed outward for five entire minutes, a lake of impurities that pooled around him until he lost control of his legs and Pit splashed down into it all.

"Pit!" Felix dove into the disgusting goop, cradling all that he could of his friend's massive form. "Pit are you okay?"

There was a surging tide of percussive beats, each one louder and more wild than the last, until the pool around them flashed away into light. Dark was rendered into motes of radiance, impurities washed clean. All of it dissipated, leaving behind a foul, acrid scent as Pit's shudders ceased.

I'm...okay.

Felix helped the tenku stand, the chimera's massive weight nothing to his Strength, and didn't let go until he was sure Pit was truly fine. Pit trilled at him, pleased yet annoyed, and finally Felix backed away several steps; close enough to catch him should he fall again.

I feel good. Better than before, Pit sent.

"Before eating the Fruit?" he asked, and Pit nodded his big head. A taloned foreclaw lifted and swiped at something Felix couldn't see...until a blue window rotated into his view.

Chimeric Core Strengthened!

+10 To All Stats!

Pit shook his body like a wet dog, wings still tucked tight, and let out a pleased warble.

"Wow," Felix said, sharing it with Aenea. She let out a low whistle. "That was just from the Spirit Fruit?"

Aenea laid a tentative hand on Pit's side, and when he didn't protest, she peered at his thick fur as if looking through it. Into him. "When Pit ate the Fruit he should have been hurt badly by its power—burned up from the inside at the very least. What your Companion has done flies in the face of what I understand about attunement and the elemental nature of our souls."

"A habit of ours, I think," Felix said. Pit, I'm going to check your channels and core now. Okay? He activated Cardinal Flame when the tenku agreed, and sent it questing into his Companion's channels with an effort of Will. Mana drained from him rapidly as his power flowed and filled the pathways, looking for any instance of a stained black. He reached Pit's core without finding anything out of the ordinary, and in fact the channels felt healthier and thicker than before. Sturdier. It was when he reached the core that he knew something had definitely changed.

Where he had once felt a vast cavern filled with a cage of wild power, now that same space was almost entirely filled by the gem-like stone. The stone, Pit's core, used to be black with streaks of crimson, matching his fur and plumage. Now it flashed with rainbow hues, cascading with a thousand internal colors and a tactile potency. Of the impurities there was no sign, not even the barest fleck of darkness on his shining center. Felix withdrew his Mana and let it dissipate back into his own channels.

"Your better than ever. Your core is different, though," he said. "Stronger. Bigger."

Evolution?

"Maybe. The Farwalker said it should have happened already." Is this what happened to monster cores as they progressed? Thinking on it, Felix could recall extracting quite a few of the things, and their core varied depending on the monster's Tier and Type. Coloration, composition, size, all of it fluctuating. "Aenea does size determine anything about a beast's core?"

The Alchemist was still stroking Pit's side as she answered. "Yes and no. It indicates the creature in question has grown fairly large physically, but the density of the core and the Mana within can still be quite low in quality. I've even seen some relatively small Insect Types that have cores the size of my fingernail so packed with Mana that they'd outshine your furnace there." Reluctantly she stopped petting Pit and stepped back, visibly collecting herself. "I do not have a Skill to inspect your Companion's core, but if it has changed as you say, then perhaps a tipping point is being reached. There is a Type of sea-dwelling creature to the east, near the Fury's Chasm, a creature that lives within a shell its entire life. As it grows and advances, the creature abandons its old shell to find a new one that will fit its stronger form. I believe most beasts and monsters function in the same manner, their old selves outgrowing their forms, necessitating a change. Or so I have theorized," she finished, offhandedly. "It is not my area of expertise."

Felix chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment, thinking. "Who's area of expertise would it be? Do you know of anyone like a Beast Master? Someone that specializes in Companions?"

Aenea shook her head, much to Felix's disappointment. "No. That Title is not familiar, and before your own Companion I was always taught it is folly to tie yourself to a beast." She shrugged at Felix's sour look. "It is what the Guild teaches, at the very least. Aside from that, few study monsters rather than eradicate them. For that you'd have to travel to the north, to Levantier, and speak to the Scholars of the Lucent Towers."

He nodded, making a mental note. Levantier. Hm. Vess said one of the Shadowgates had those Lucent Towers carved into it. He groaned, inwardly. We could go there next, if we didn't have this Unbound to save. We'll make it there after, okay?

Pit nodded, his Spirit unconcerned. I feel good. Strong. We will face whatever comes, together.

Felix grinned, scratching Pit along his neck. "Together."

"What was that?" Aenea asked.

"Don't worry about it. How's the Draught coming?" Felix asked.

This time Aenea's sigh was heavy. Weary. "I've cracked the how, but it is a certain deficiency in equipment that is causing me problems. I cannot manage to distill even the smallest sample of Spirit Fruit." Felix frowned, but Aenea kept speaking. "It isn't that my lab is much more advanced than this. It's the Spirit Fruit itself. We'd need a Master Tier's instruments to properly separate the useful from the dangerous elements contained within."

An idea wormed into Felix's head and he almost smacked himself. He'd long since figured out how to separate his foe's Mana and Essence and Memories from the chaff of their power...why couldn't he do that for the Spirit Fruit too? He walked past the Alchemist and pulled a new Spirit Fruit from the storage chest, holding it up as the ambient Mana swirled around it like a mini whirlpool. He could consume the Spirit Fruit, but the real question was whether he could bring the separated portions back out of his channels at all.

Only one way to find out, he thought. "Aenea, grab me two flasks. Big ones, I think."

"What are you doing?" she asked, grabbing two stoneware containers and placing them on the counter before Felix.

Felix grinned. "No reward without risk, right?"

Her eyes widened. "Wait—"

Chthonic Tribute!

The Spirit Fruit burst asunder, rendered into a flashbomb of blinding power. It was like he was suddenly holding the sun, and as it passed into the Mana Gates in his palms Felix bit off a scream that tried to well up his throat. The Essence of the Fruit rocketed through him, taking the most direct route toward his cores, until it burst wild and free into the vast semi-physical space within him. Yet as it tried to crackle and explode as it had done within Pit, Felix's Will and Intent clamped hard upon it. All of it.

No, he sent to it, his Intent a blade that cut free the spitting impurities from the Fruit. Be this. Pure. He hewed off chunks of it, holding both with the iron grip of his Will as it all dangled above the Divine Vein and the spinning of his dual cores. The power resisted him, but it had no chance and before long there hung two writhing, formless shapes in his core space.

Now for the tricky part, he thought.

Cardinal Flame!

Mustering his internal control, his Intent, and his Willpower, Felix hurled the two wriggling masses from his Mana system. They spun off, each down a separate pathway that snaked and looped along his chest and shoulders before traveling directly down his arms. Pieces of it tried to escape, to latch onto his channels, but Felix was relentless and all-encompassing. His Will would not be gainsaid.

One final tug of resistance, twin streams of liquid power poured from his palms. His left was a stinking mass of foul waste and impurities, while his right deposited a gleaming volume of opalescent fluid, the both of them so copious that the stoneware containers were filled to the brim.

"By all the moons," Aenea whispered. "How?"

Felix, his Will finally relaxed, took a soft set of breaths. "Trade secret."

Aenea just swept toward the containers, her own powers questing toward them as if to test their potency and composition. She physically recoiled from the waste container, her face a mask of disgust, but the gleaming fluid was little better. It made her tremble to be so close to, as if she'd looked for it all her life. "This is...you've created a formless distillation. Attunement-neutral, able to...this could take any attunement we want." She met Felix's eyes, and for once he saw real admiration in her gaze. "With this...with this we could make a universal draught. It would work on...anyone. At any Tier. And with a far greater Mana capacity than the Guild's own mixtures by several orders of magnitude."

Felix nodded, feeling a bit tired after all that. "Good. We need to make as many as possible."

"Let's run it through once together, then I can handle the rest," she said. "I'll need you to continue doing...whatever it was you did. How often can you perform such a miracle?"

"As often as I have to," he said, fishing out another Fruit while more stoneware clattered atop the counter.

They got to work.

Cardinal Flame is level 77!

...

Cardinal Flame is level 79!

Alchemy is level 44!

...

Alchemy is level 49!

Four more hours swept passed in a flurry of activity. Felix sifted and siphoned the power from twenty seven Spirit Fruit, each one filling a gallon-sized container with useful material. The other gallon-sized containers held waste, which Felix had emptied into an enormous granite urn he'd shaped from his supplies. That cut out most of its stink, thankfully, while they decided what, if anything, could be done with the foul stuff.

The good stuff, however, was quickly used; turned out, they couldn't make universal draughts but they could infuse the distillation with a measure of attuned Mana and make it suitable for specific core types. Felix didn't understand a lot of it; Aenea was operating on another wavelength that he could only grasp snippets meaning from her words and movements. In the end, however, she had furnished Felix with eighty-one Essence Draughts. Each Spirit Fruit had been able to make three, all of them more than potent enough to Temper someone into Master Tier, according to the Alchemist.

Name: Essence Draught Of Atlantes

Type: Essence Draught

Lore: An alchemical distillation of a powerful Spirit Fruit from the Atlantes Anima! It is a near-universal draught, able to be used by someone of any Tier to advance themselves so long as it is attuned to their core's element(s).

Simple description, but powerful results, Felix thought as he left the Alchemical Lab. He held one of the draughts in his hand, no more than a tall vial and glittering with potent air Mana. Infusing the draughts had been relatively simple compared the rest of the process, as it had required someone to pour the requisite Mana type into the distillation, and Felix had just about every kind. Without his aid, however, making them would be far more complicated. We've a whole night ahead of us. I think I can handle making a lot more to stock up on. The Storage Facility would keep them fresh, as most of what they require is sufficient ambient Mana.

Given enough time, Felix would be able to Temper everyone now in his Stronghold. Even if he was gone awhile, when the time came for the Legion, Henaari, or even the Haarguard Reed had brought with him, they could all Tier up properly. He gripped the vial, and hopped down the stairs into the first floor of his Temple. I wonder where Vess is? She'd like to see this, I bet.

He made it only four steps before he noticed a presence waiting. For him, specifically, or so his Harmonic senses told him; there was a chiming connection between them, taut with anticipation. More than anything else however, Felix was surprised to find out it was Kimaris, the Witch, who had come to see him. She stood at the opened edge of the Temple, where the diverted waterfall only half-covered the gaping hole where a cliff-face once stood.

"Autarch," she said, inclining her giant-sized head to him. Silky white hair slipped over her shoulder and swung with the movement, which only drew attention to the swaying of her loose, drapery-style robes. They were a blue, darker than her skin, and detailed with complex fractal patterns along the hem. A wide belt of pale leather and moonstones cinched the whole thing together.

"Kimaris. How can I help you?"

The Witch did not smile, but affixed him with her grave stare and the force of her personality. "You are leaving."

"Jesus, what's the point of saying it's a secret if no one listens to me," Felix muttered to himself. "I am, for a time."

"You are leaving and you are not taking a single of my warriors with you," she said. Her thin, white eyebrows drew down. "Yet you offer a spot for those...vermin-worshippers."

The Henaari, he realized. Closer, he also noticed that the patterns on her robes were actually ice, shaped to look like embroidery. "Yes, the Henaari are coming with me. A few. I don't plan to be gone long."

"You must allow us representation, Autarch."

"What? It's...we're going to the desert. You're Frost Giants." he said.

"We have charms to prevent extremes of temperature from harming us," she said, waving aside his concern. "We are warriors. As your sworn vassals, allow us to prove our worth."

"You've been doing a great job so far with the Domain."

"Pfah. Child's work. You go to face these armored fools that praise the Trackless One, yes?"

Who is flapping their gums? "I'm not clashing with them if I don't have to," he said. "My hope is to slip and and out. Gone before anyone notices we were there."

Kimaris nodded, firmly. "You will fight them. You've the blood of a Titan, a true warrior. Battle calls to us, whether we ask for it or not. We shall join you."

"...Fine. But only a few, and they will follow the chain of command. You listen to me, then you listen to those I designate over you, got it?"

Kimaris inclined her enormous head, letting her thick white locks sway forward once more. "It will be as you say, Autarch."

Felix doubted it would be so easy.

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