Unbound

Icy water exploded all around Felix as he landed, absolutely soaking him. He stifled a gasp at the chill, which somehow bypassed all his resistances.

"It is a chill of the Spirit, not the Body."

Felix wiped his face, finding Zara standing right beside him, unruffled and entirely dry. She was even standing atop the ankle-deep water as if it were solid ground. Felix frowned, and with a gentle flex of Will, he rose to the surface as well.

"Do you see?" Zara asked. "Her core space."

Felix saw the chains hanging from the storming skies. Massive steel links looping across the undefined core space like lines on a Manaship. The water extended in all directions as a flat plane, but those chains hung from above in discrete clusters of white-frosted metal and crackling ice. The sound of clinking links, breaking ice, and sloshing water filled the space almost as much as the biting cold that drove deep into his flesh.

"The clusters are her Skills?" Felix asked. They were shifting in place, pulled this way and that by the chains that extended in multiple directions. Each moment saw the clusters shrink and grow by turns.

"Good eye. Yes, those are her Skill visualizations. Why she chose this arrangement I do not know." Zara made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat, and bared her sharp teeth. "The chains drag against one another while the ice among them actively halts movement and growth. It is suboptimal for any who wishes to reach the higher echelons of advancement."

Felix could recognize that, even as he felt his back go up in defense of the girl. "She clearly didn't know what she was doing when she visualized all of this. Who does?"

"I am sympathetic, but the facts remain, Felix." Zara's teeth vanished into a scowl. "And then there is her core."

The clear center of the web of chains was shrouded in a blue-white haze, preventing them from seeing much aside from a thick column of ice, fog, and snow. Chains, thicker than all before spun within that haze, weaving among itself as fast and as deadly as Evie's own weapon of choice. The water churned the closer they drew to the core, until its surface was riddled with half-frozen waves that fell and shattered like glass daggers with every passing moment. Flaring his Affinity, Perception, and his Cardinal Flame gave Felix little else...save for the faint impression of a large structure contained within the occlusion.

"I can't see it. I'm assuming more chains?" Felix said.

"Indeed. Ice, water, and metal swirl in their greatest concentration there, forming an edifice of some design. When I approached I was...rebuffed." Zara pursed her lips and started walking closer. Felix followed.

"Rebuffed how?" he asked.

The chains rattled around them both, slipping and clattering against one another as the Skills shifted. Resonant twanging noises echoed as thinner links were pulled on, moving the ice-metal clumps higher or lower, left or right as her core dictated. The water churned, crackling with sudden miniature icebergs. The icebergs grew, until the smallest was twice his size and the largest was far bigger than that. The water fed into them, along with swirls of purple-white Mana vapor that crystallized along the waves, until a flotilla of glaciers loomed around Evie's core. Felix stopped walking, taken aback, but Zara didn't—she merely gestured.

"Observe, and tell me what you see."

With a report like a hundred gunshots, the icebergs all cracked in unison...and exploded.

"Holy shit!" Felix flinched. He was unharmed by the icy shrapnel, but his hammering heartbeat was convinced otherwise. "Those...those are giants?"

Enormous forms had emerged from the detonated icebergs, all of them just as craggy and blue as their real-life counterparts. That they could be anything but Frost Giants was laughable...yet Felix realized they were literally made of ice and hazy Mana. As if the glaciers had given birth to them in truth.

With a singular, wild roar from every one of their throats the Frost Giants charged the icy fog. Hammers and axes and clubs of all shapes and sizes manifested in their hands as their legs churned the slushy water into chaotic spume, and every single one hit the hazy barrier at the same time.

Only to be thrown back by the titanic whirling of a wall of chains.

No. Not chains.

Ice cracked and water fountained as the false giants roared in stymied rage. A wide, muscular figure stepped from the fog, taller than Felix by more than a foot, and holding two complicated lengths of thick chain in its hands. It tugged, once, and the wall of chains retracted and collapsed into structures affixed to the figure's forearms. Wide and wedge shaped.

Shields, Felix thought with a ragged gasp. Magda.

The figure was made of ice and metal, but for all of that her resemblance to Evie's sister was uncanny. From her build to her bearing, to the oversized kite shields on either arm—all of it was as if someone had created a perfect statue of the woman, carved from ice and chains.

Once the shield reformed on her, the dead woman charged, taking a false giant down with a swift decapitation.

"How?" Felix asked. "You mentioned a barrier and I thought...Evie is protecting her core with her sister?"

"A simulacra. A Golem, if you will, though it appears to be formed of Evie's untrained Intent and moderate Will as much as her Mana." Zara gestured and a ball of water lifted from their feet, containing within it swirling motes of Mana and chunks of ice. "A representation of Evie's memories, set to protect herself from invaders."

Magda and the giants clashed again, and this time she held off a dozen of them with ridiculous ease. Her shields were made of chains wound impossibly tight, and more than once they exploded outward to tangle limbs or punch through the false giants' defenses. Whatever she was, she fought almost exactly like the real Magda, blocking and redirecting forces with an implacable Endurance.

"The invaders are made up of Evie's core space too though...right?" Felix asked.

Zara worked the water and ice Mana between her palms, pressing and twisting it in complicated ways. "So it seems, but look closer." The Mana solidified into a foot-long dagger of ice, but that didn't catch Felix's attention. Instead it was the wavy, liquid vapor that had begun to boil from the Mana construct. "The Essence Draught was absorbed by these waters. It is what drives these giants forward, that and the piece of her Will that knows what must be done. Advancement cannot be denied, not this long. I fear there will be consequences for her."

"What can we do?" Felix asked. "Fight...do we fight Magda?"

"While that would work in the short term, it is what I hoped to avoid. Evie's sister is as much apart of her core space as everything else around us, and to destroy her would have cascading consequences. No. We must find a way to access her core without harming Evie's foundations."

"How?" Felix asked. His Mind spun with thoughts of his Unite the Lost or his Fiendforge, but both of those were constructive forces, and Felix wasn't even sure the former would work in another person's core space.

"The same thing you achieved with Atar," Zara said. "I could feel the power you exerted, even from within this place. The fine details are indistinct, but I could feel Atar slipping away before you arrived. After, it was as if he'd been...reforged." She raised an eyebrow at Felix. "However you managed that, you must do so again. You must restore the core space to Evie's control."

Felix frowed at Zara's probing look. "Where is she?"

"Within the center, of course," Zara said.

Right through "Magda," he thought with a dull ache. Of course.

"Haah!"

"Haah!"

"Haah!"

Loquis stood beyond the third barricade, watching in mild envy as the Henaari Dawnguard struck down the shambling undead. Each thrust of their hooked spears punched through withered flesh and desiccated leather armor, while the hooks on them maneuvered the creatures into the path of their fellow's follow up attacks. A succession of unrelenting strikes that could have been overcome with a measure of coordination, but was impossible to avoid thanks to the Dustwights' tendency to group tightly together and attack alone.

They're no smarter than beasts, Loquis thought, scratching the note down with a grease pencil in his pocket-journal. In fact, the Cask Scorpions were a good deal more intelligent. Is it because whatever drives them is mindless? Or...are there simply too many to accurately control?

Loquis knew such vast control over Mana was no easy feat. Whatever was motivating the Dustwights was an order of magnitude greater than anyone he'd ever met. Perhaps the Fiend could do such a thing...not that he would of course. Defiling himself with necromantic Mana? Only a fool would choose such a path.

A shearing sound tore through the air, like rocks breaking against steel, and the Half-Orc saw several Frost Giants wade into battle. Their massive axes and mauls tore through the Dustwights without resistance, and in fact often splinted the occasional Fiend-made fortification. Henaari redoubled their efforts, driving more of the undead toward the giants' assault, and Loquis imagined he could hear the levels they were all gaining.

"I'm losin' levels to those Henaari! Damnable rest!" Asaad grumbled. "Who says we cannot fight for longer, eh? I've got enough piss and vinegar in me to kill a town of those dry bastards!"

"A right natural piss master," Pava said, patting the Dwarf on the shoulder. "Is that what I smell leaking all over your leg?"

"That's blood and you know it, lass!"

"And it's one of the reasons we got cycled out," Pava said pointedly. "I've got enough Stamina and Health to keep fighting too, and Geir hasn't been winded yet."

"Hmm," the Frost Giant rumbled from beside them. The eleven foot giant was folded up beside them, doing his level best to relax before they were set to move back to the battle line. "Battlelord gave orders, as did Osyk. That is enough."

Asaad spat to the side. "I don't listen to your Battlelord, nor to that Henaari scout. I listen to the Autarch and the First of Blade. That's it!"

"Why'd you cower when Commander Harn gave you a sour look then?" Pava asked, smiling. "You certainly listened to him."

"That—I didn't cower! That was my injury, pressin' down on my Mind. If it weren't for that, I'd be out there fightin' now!"

"Sure."

Loquis blocked out their arguing voices. They'd been a "squad" ever since the oasis, Osyk acting as their scout and sometime leader, but the chain of command was fuzzy. Asaad kept trying to assert himself, but while he was good at fighting that seemed to be the extent of his prowess. Well. Fighting and complaining—Asaad had rarely stopped bleating since they'd left the jungle. Pava and Geir were far more agreeable, though Pava had a tendency to act before thinking, and Geir was more taciturn than a rock. Osyk was the chattiest of the bunch, but he'd been told to remain with the Dawnguard due to his skill with the spear. He'd smiled and patted them on the back, ordering them to rest while he carried the load a while. Asaad had pushed back, but that was when Commander Harn had moved down the lines, pushing squads back to rest.

A casual Analyze told Loquis that his team was mostly back in fighting shape, save for Asaad's Stamina and the Half-Orc's own Mana. He was exhausted, having spent himself against the undead horde until he had run dangerously low on Mana. Loquis had nearly passed out under the strain, and while he had a potion at his hip he'd long decided to save it for an emergency. He had time to rest now, so he took advantage. If only his Mana didn't regenerate so slowly, the splitting headaches and heaving nausea might have been tolerable. As it was, they had been resting for a solid hour and his Mana was barely back up to a quarter of his maximum.

"—aiths—!"

Loquis sat up, pointed ears twitching. "Quiet. Did you hear that?"

Asaad, mouth half-open in a rant, scowled at him. "What're you on about?"

"Dust—ths!"

"That!" Loquis said, leaping to his feet. "Someone is shouting out there."

"Who?" Pava asked, peeking around the barricade. "One of the Autarch's team?"

"Who else dares to be out there?" Loquis asked, breathless. He still felt dizzy from his Mana loss, but this felt important. Urgent. He peered into the crimson-orange haze, beyond the bunching horde of undead and into the swirling black winds of the storm itself. The sand was whipping fast enough that it'd tear even his flesh were he to remain out there for long without a shield or armor. "If it were a Legionnaire they'd have died all alone out by now."

"Dustborn!" came the shout again, this time far more clearly. Loquis gasped and saw the Lady Dayne falling from the skies. Two skeletal creatures fell with her, clawing furiously at the noblewoman's armor and head. "Fall back!"

Without warning, the undead horde before them surged forward. Milky, unthinking eyes suddenly gained a clarity that terrified Loquis, and the Dawnguards' unerring thrusts were turned aside or dodged completely.

"What is happening?" Geir asked, standing to his full height. "The undead, they are fighting."

"Been doin' that this whole time, tiny," Asaad said. "But damn if they're not fighting well, all of a sudden!"

Something exploded in the distance, and Loquis realized he'd lost track of the Lady Dayne...but six more of those skeletal creatures came bounding out of the Cursewinds, their faces half-covered in heavy bone-plating and eyes of pure darkness stared balefully at them all.

"Fall back!"

The shout boomed out, loud enough that Loquis' ears hurt. Harn was running past them, shoving his way to the front while still bellowing. "Everyone back to the Warrens! Now!"

Those creatures barreled into the other undead, tearing through their ranks with sheer momentum and unnatural strength. Hooked talons the length of daggers slashed forward, ripping their way through the horde and toward the spear-line. With measured care, the Dawnguard and Frost Giants began to retreat, keeping their weapons and shields lifted and engaged. Dustwights died by the dozen, but still they came, more ferocious than ever.

Analyze!

Analyze Failed.

Oh no, Loquis thought. His Analyze couldn't identify the oversized undead even a little bit, but they exuded a pressure that he did sense, even from such a distance. "They're strong. Too strong. No wonder we're retreating."

"Oh fuck that," Asaad said, hefting his slender saber. "Retreat? I ain't lettin' all that experience go to waste."

"You idiot!" Loquis shouted as Asaad slipped through them all. He ran from their barricade and toward the retreating line, clearly aiming to claim a few more kills before they fully retreated. "Siva save us from fools!" Loquis muttered.

"Do we follow?" Pava asked, her own blade held in a white-knuckle grip. "Pull him out?"

Geir made a chortling noise like a bear with a phlegmy throat. "It would be...amusing to see."

Loquis grabbed at his hair. "Burning ashes! Follow him!"

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