Unbound

After Cal's meeting, Felix and his crew—Vess, Evie, Atar, and Alister—all put their heads together to determine what they would need for the journey ahead. It was quickly decided that they'd each put together a pack, enough for several weeks, as well as whatever weapons and armor they needed. Felix had less experience in this particular venue than the others, so he took their suggests earnestly and made a mental list. Thrilled by a confusion cocktail of fear and enthusiasm for the Quest ahead, he had wanted to go out and secure his supplies immediately. But it was, like, four in the morning. While many were awake and bustling, that did not include everyone or even most.

So the six of them all went their separate ways for the night. Pit had warbled and left through the nearest floor to ceiling window (of which there were several), telling Felix that he was going to fly about town. Evie said she had to go "sit in a wet room" and left (whatever that meant), while Atar and Alister both went back to bed, the latter mumbling about the arrays he'd devised. Atar nodded, annoyed, all the way down the hallway.

"They are nice together," Vess said. Felix turned to see her watching Atar and Alister turn the corner. "Alister is good for him."

"True. I can't imagine anyone else putting up with Atar's...Atar-ness," Felix agreed. His smile turned into a real chuckle when he saw Vess laugh. "I'm glad he moved on."

"Moved on? From whom?" she asked, brows tilted.

"From you?" Felix said, a note of surprise in his voice. "You never noticed?"

"Oh." Vess put a hand up to her mouth. "No, I never realized. How did you know?"

"He told me," Felix said. He laughed. "Actually, no, I guess he didn't. But he'd glare daggers at me whenever he saw us talking. Pretty easy to read between the lines there."

"Oh," she repeated.

Silence stretched in the spare Manor hallway. Felix was acutely aware of her Spirit singing out, but he dampened his senses of it as best he could. It felt like...it felt rude, with her. Felix could tell she was nervous, but then so was he.

"I suppose we ought to go to sleep," Vess said after a while.

"Probably," Felix said. "I haven't slept in...four days? I think."

"Four days? Felix, you need to take better care of yourself," Vess admonished. Felix shrugged—a little guiltily, he admitted.

"There's been so much to do. After the Arcids and monsters were eradicated, all the tasks have been..." Felix let himself trail off. "Compared to fighting off giant monsters and gods, fixing a wall and moving rubble feels good. Achievable, sorta. And over all that, we've got this golden jerk." Felix sighed, running his fingers along a beveled edge on the seamless stone wall. "So there's a timer. Everything always feels...I've been moving crisis to crisis since I arrived here, with barely a time to breathe. Sometimes it feels like if I slow down I'll..."

"You'll what?" she asked.

At some point, Vess had moved closer. Or he had. But they were close. Inches close. He could see the ring of gold in her dark brown eyes. Felix forgot his words for second, distracted by her...everything. She smiled at him gently, her cheek dimpling.

"Felix Nevarre. Primordial. Unbound. Hero. I know what it is like, having the expectations of others on your shoulders. The weight of it all." Vess poked him in the chest. "But you will kill yourself if you keep going like this, Unbound or not. You're not immortal."

"The Archon, the Grandmaster Inquisitor. It never stops, Vess." Felix looked at her, only a few inches shorter than him. "I know I'm not immortal. I'm not perfect. I just...how many would die if I took a break? How long will I last against either of those threats as I am now?" Felix grunted in frustration and took a step back. "It's about survival."

Vess looked at him, head tilted and the collar of her gambeson undone. She was sweating, slightly, and her soft brown hair had a sheen to it. Felix closed his eyes and breathed. "But I will sleep. I need it. You're right about that."

He turned to leave, but a soft, musical sigh had him glancing back.

"All you are doing is surviving, Felix." Vess smiled again, that dimple deepening. "Try to live, once in a while."

She walked away and, despite himself, Felix watched the whole time.

In the face of his preparations and the...agitation Vess had introduced into his life, Felix did go to sleep for about three hours. It was all he could manage. He tried to go back to sleep for twenty minutes after his body had become suddenly, inevitably awake—to no avail.

He brought up his Status.

Name: Felix Nevarre

Level: 49

Race: Primordial of the Unseen Tide*

Omen: Magician

Born Trait: Keen Mind

______

Health: 3833/3833

Stamina: 5103/5103

Mana: 4005/4005

______

STR: 1393

PER: 711

VIT: 786

END: 913

INT: 1123

WIL: 1530

AGL: 640

DEX: 760

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BODY

Resistances: The Song of Absolution (L), Level 67

Combat Skills: Dodge (C), Level 53; Heavy Armor Mastery (C), Level 1; Blind Fighting (R), Level 44; Corrosive Strike (R), Level 48; Wild Threnody (E), Level 51

Physical Enhancements: Armored Skin (R), Level 61; Unfettered Volition (E), Level 55

MIND

Mental Enhancements: Negotiation (C), Level 15; Deception (U), Level 18; Meditation (U), Level 54; Bastion of Will (E), Level 68; Deep Mind (E), Level 56; Manifestation of the Coronach (E), Level 46; Ravenous Tithe (E), Level 70

Information Skills: Alchemy (C), Level 27; Tracking (C), Level 19; Exploration (U), Level 44; Herbalism (U), Level 29; Voracious Eye (E), Level 51

SPIRIT

Spiritual Enhancements: Dual Casting (U), Level 50; Mana Manipulation (U), Level 50; Manasight (U), Level 50; Manaship Pilot (R), Level 1; Oathbinding (R), Level 34; Etheric Concordance (L), Level 64; Sovereign of Flesh (T), Level 55; Unite the Lost (T), Level 8

Spells: Abyssal Skein (R), Level 36; Cloudstep (R), Level 33; Fire Within (R) Level 65; Influence of the Wisp (R), Level 44; Invocation (R), Level 42; Mantle of the Long Night (R), Level 43; Shadow Whip (R), Level 40; Stone Shaping (R), Level 55; Wrack And Ruin (E), Level 45; Arrow of Perdition (L), Level 34; Theurgist of the Rise (L), Level 65; Adamant Discord (T), Level 56

______

Unused Stat Points: 27

Harmonic Stats

RES: 282

INE: 628

AFI: 328

REI: 224

EVA: 110

MIG: 132

ALA: 475

FEL: 181

Energy churned within him, Essence and Mana ebbing and flowing within his cores like a stormy sea. Flaring his Fire Within Skill, he visualized his core space all around himself.

It felt like dropping into a dark, endless ocean. It was pure, unrelieved black in all directions much the same way the Void had appeared. Except his core space contained a vital potency to it, a latent energy that always felt poised to burst alive. With the barest thought, convoluted patterns etched in light manifested all around him, arranged in concentric circles that was sparse in the outer and inner edges, but grew dense in the middle distance. At the center blazed twin lights of crimson-gold and blue-white.

All of it resembled nothing so much as a solar system. The patterns of light even rotated and revolved around the twin suns, moving at a sedate, celestial pace. Each pattern was a Skill, a representation of his abilities that had been carved into his core space by the System. As they leveled higher, moving closer and closer to the next Tier, the Skills moved inexorably nearer to the bright center. The twin suns were two rings of liquid power, flaring and fluctuating as they spun against one another and generating a deeper darkness within their joined centers.

There had been little progression with either of his cores ever since they'd evolved into a [Thunderflame Core] and a [Cardinal Beast Core], the first touched by the Divine while the other was filled with Primordial power. Ribbons of light extended from each of his cores, wrapped tightly around the bright prominence of the nine Skills he'd Tempered into Journeyman. As those Skill revolved, the ribbons twisted, braiding beneath the stacked cores like a maypole made of light. He'd been told his core was in the Weaving Stage, which meant that his Skills and cores were adding to one another, combining and folding together in a new, powerful way.

If I were normal, this would lead to the Refinement Stage of core development. Zara had given him a crash course on the advancement process. But not even the wise Naiad knew how his new, Named cores would affect things.

On top of that, the Weaving Stage often altered the combatant in unforeseen ways. The consequence of folding your Skills into one's Aspects. It was like Tempering, which formed a specialized Body, Mind, and Spirit (the Aspects) out of the Skills one used to Tier up. When Felix had reached Journeyman he had formed all three from strong Skills and potent Essences.

Body: Calamitous Dawn (Journeyman)

Mind: Fatebreaker (Journeyman)

Spirit: Rising Sovereign (Journeyman)

The result had pushed his being further and further from the human he had once been. That didn't bother him as much as it once had, not even the fact that he was a Primordial now. Life was strange, and Felix's was stranger than most; nothing exemplified it so much as the tree-like object that grew from between his stacked cores. It shined with a colorless lightning, much as his [Thunderflame Core] sparked with a blue discharge, but it also exuded a heavy, oppressive weight. The tiny branches of it quivered—resembling nothing so much as veins devoid of a body—and were it not growing out of the dark, hungry abyss between his two cores, Felix imagined it would have collapsed his entire core space.

It was a piece of Divinity.

The smallest, tiniest shard of it, but a piece nonetheless. Zara had confirmed it, though she was flabbergasted and confused as to what it meant. As amusing as that would have been otherwise, Felix hadn't enjoyed it. The piece was stolen—eaten—from Vellus, the mad goddess that had tried to do what so many in power have wanted to accomplish: steal his will and enslave him. Felix found zero enjoyment from the idea that a piece of her had been lodged within himself.

Fire Within is level 66!

Felix sat up with a frustrated sigh. He wasn't going to sleep again.

Might as well train.

Pit hadn't gone to sleep. His flying had continued through the early morning. Felix could sense, roughly, where his friend was and with a flex of their bond he could see from the tenku's eyes. Pit was hurling Wingblades down on Ghostfire Simians that the search and rescue teams had unearthed. Vess had revealed more monsters in the sewers she had said, and now groups were busy hunting them down. Pit's Wingblades made short work of the half-starved monsters, ending nearly all of them by himself. A cheer rose from the Iron and Tin Ranks below, and Pit reveled in the adoration.

Felix snorted and dimmed their connection. He felt a desire to join his Companion and help, but Pit had things under control. Other things required his time this morning, preparations and the like. Still, that didn't mean he couldn't get some training done first.

Previously, Cal said they'd found a cache of old training tools in the ruins of the Eyrie. So many for the lower Tiers, but a few higher Tier ones too. In the past few days, they'd also found and reestablished a training area in the lower levels of Haarwatch Manor, mostly just for the guard, but they'd been told they could use it as well. Felix had been too busy with the Wall and search and rescue before that.

He was curious as to how he stacked up against the Guild's standards. He knew he was strong and fast. Faster than Evie by a good margin. Reaching the Second Threshold and his two Named cores proved to be a distinct advantage, providing him explosive power. Time and again, his stats had given the advantage in almost every encounter he'd found himself in, but through training and experience, his skill was growing too. Finally. He hadn't sparred with Evie again, but he imagined he'd be able to suppress her with skill alone now.

Though I heard she evolved a Skill in battle. Hmm, Felix rubbed his chin. Might be fun to fight sometime soon.

He took the steps three at a time into the basement levels. The air grew cooler against his skin, and Felix could feel moisture clinging to the walls. Within a minute, he found a tiled passage leading to a thick metal door guarded by two bored looking Haarguard. Felix braced for the inevitable "oh you're the Fiend!" but they let him through without a word, though their Spirits rippled in recognition. He smiled in relief as the thick door slammed shut behind him.

Ahead was another corridor, though this one was wider, at least thirty feet across, and lined along either side with thick glass. Four distinct chambers were beyond the glass, though two of them were dark. The other two had a number of arrays glowing on the glass and within the chambers proper, though only on the walls and ceiling. Felix's brief study of them revealed them to be simple enchantments for lights, sound transmission, and...something to control doors inside the chamber. A single attendant stood by either room, studying the goings on in both. Her hands hovered over the arrays and Felix's Manasight could pick out the vapor that lingered around them, held ready.

Controlling the rooms? Felix looked within. Inside the first there were three people in guard uniform fighting off two wooden mannequins that moved about with a jerky speed. The guards were equipped with shields, short swords, and a mace, and they utilized all of them to fend off the things. They fought well, for Tin Rank, and two of them were approaching Apprentice Tier. Still, the Wood Golems struck hard and fast, too fast for the guards. One was struck to the ground and the others raised their hands up in the handsign for "surrender."

Immediately, the attendant let her Mana flow out, engaging the arrays. The Wood Golems stopped moving immediately, falling to the ground as if their strings had been cut.

Oo, interesting, Felix cooed. The arrays control the Golems too? That's very cool.

Show over, he turned to the other occupied chamber. Within was a full squad, five people each equipped with the usual Haarguard complement of weapons and armor. They were moving in better coordination with one another, and all of them were over Apprentice Tier. Iron Ranks, pushing closer to Bronze, maybe. The guards looked well acquainted with their weapons, and Felix didn't doubt they were once Guilders. He could pick out some of sword Forms Rory had taught him, things Felix hadn't been able to put to good use yet. He'd gotten better with his weapons as well since evolving his martial Skills with one another. It cost him Mana to fully utilized that new expertise, but it was worth the increased capability.

The guards were fighting against four Clay Golems and a single Steel Golem. Felix knew the former was a magnitude greater in speed and strength than the Wood Golems, but seeing them in action was impressive. They all had wooden spears that were nearly as tall as the six-and-a-half foot tall Golems, and they looked like they knew how to use them.

They still move weird. Jerky like the wooden ones. A result of the delay between their Spirits and Minds? Felix mused. Hector had talked to him a bit about Golem construction, but it had mostly been over his head. He understood that people created a complex sequence of arrays that mimicked a Spirit and Mind in order to have the Golems react to specific stimulus. Like, magic AI, except extremely limited.

Felix had asked about them because of the nature of the Arcids; from the Memories Felix had extracted he knew the Archon had built the Arcids from scrap and the remains of other creatures. Most recently the Frost Giants. Hector had gotten an opportunity to study their Bodies too, but said he had no clue how they were actually made. "This is entirely beyond me. I can't even understand the edge of this complexity."

Archon was smart as well as strong and tough.

Just my luck.

The guards struggled against the Clay Golems, but two of them caught the constructs' weapons in walls of ice, while the others shattered them with their maces. The weapons—built to exacting Apprentice Tier standards by the Coldfire smiths—were more than enough to destroy the relatively fragile baked clay.

"How easy is it to fix those?" he asked the attendant. She looked at him in surprise, clearly not noticing him until now.

"Blind gods, you startled me," she said, yet the Mana at her hands never wavered. Impressive control.

"Sorry about that. Didn't mean to." Felix pointed the Clay Golems, now piles of scrap at the guard's feet. "You can fix those?"

"Oh um, yes. Wood and Clay are easy. Steel is harder, though," she said.

The guards now faced the single Steel Golem, which had seemed to wait while they had fought off its lesser brethren. The construct carried a longsword and large shield, and it knew how to use it. It was taller than the others, easily seven feet, and it moved with a fluidity the Clay lacked. Strike after strike was turned by the construct, the five guards no more effective than children. In less than ten seconds, every single one of them was laid out, and the surrender sign went up again.

"Fast," Felix noted. The attendant only nodded. Within the chamber, the lights flashed once and a door on the far side opened. More attendants rushed in, swiftly collecting the pieces of the Clay Golems and wheeling the untouched but unresponsive bulk of the Steel Golem away. The guards collected themselves and limped back the other way, toward Felix.

"Shoulda covered us better, Vyne," the lead guard complained as they walked through a gate into the corridor. He was Human, with a thin mustache and a serious black-eye already forming. "Damn thing shouldn't have touched us!"

"I Taunted it, Kylar and it came for me. It was too strong," a Human male with a large shield said. Vyne, Felix's Voracious Eye agreed. "We're not ready for Steel, yet."

"Twin's teeth, man! We're Iron Rank! Steel should be easy," another guard, Nevia, said. She was a Dwarf and dressed in the mage variant of the Haarguard armor.

"But it isn't," said the fourth member, an Elf named Kikri. "And your ice magic was basically useless, Nevia."

"Can it, Elf. I didn't volunteer for the guard for sass from a twig."

"Hah!" laughed the last of them, an Orc.

Felix suppressed a smile at their conversation. Annoyed as they were, they seemed to like one another if their Spirits were to be believed. Plus, they were twenty feet away, and talking quietly. It was a society nicety in a world with people who could hear a pin drop down the block to at least pretend they couldn't, most of the time.

Instead, Felix turned to the attendant and gestured to the first chamber. The Tin Ranks had come and went without much fanfare, and he was very curious about these Golems.

"Can you send me the toughest Golems you have?" Felix asked the woman. She stared at him a moment, frowned, and looked harder. Felix could feel her Skill trying to peer at his details, but his Veiling Amulet wouldn't let her. "Don't worry. I can handle it."

"...Very well," she said and gestured. The gate to the first chamber opened and Felix entered with a nod of his head.

"Who's that?" Vyne asked. He'd set his shield onto the ground and was rubbing his shoulder with a salve.

"Who?" asked Nevia. She followed Vyne's gaze and saw a lone man enter one of the chambers. "Dunno. We just got back into town, right? Think we'd know everyone by now?"

Kikri squinted at the man. "New recruit maybe. Not wearing the uniform yet. Why?"

"He just requested the 'toughest Golems' they had," Vyne said in disbelief.

"What?" Kylar laughed. "Does that idiot have any idea what he's doing?"

"New recruit? Probably trying to look good for the attendant," Davum smirked. His tusks jutted at the woman in question and Kylar put his arms on his waist.

"No way this fool will get through anything, not by himself without armor or even a weapon," Kylar said loud enough that Vyne was sure the attendant could hear. The man had a thing for the mage, he'd been clear on that in the past. "Not when my team couldn't get past the Steel." The man looked at Kikri and whispered. "Think she heard me?"

"Idiot," Kikri muttered. "Let's watch the moron fail and get out of here."

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