Unbound

Felix looked at Vess. “What did she call me?”

“A Pactlord,” Vess confirmed but looked just as confused as he was. “I have never heard the term.”

“It is one that has formed a Companion Pact with a creature of a higher Realm,” the Henaari explained, though her voice was a bit muffled from the dirt.

Felix looked at Pit, who had started cleaning mud from between his toes. With his beak. Then back to the heiress. “Okay. Vess, please check if everyone is healing. The guards got hit hard and I’m not sure on the mages.”

“Right away.”

Felix glared down at the Henaari, who still hadn’t lifted her head. “Why’d you try to kill us?”

“This one apologizes profusely, Pactlord.” She pressed further into the ground, somehow. “If you wish, this one shall end one’s life now.”

“What? No, don’t be stupid,” Felix said quickly. He was really getting annoyed. “Explain. Now. And lift your head up.”

The woman—Wyvora—tentatively lifted her head but wouldn’t meet his eyes. “This one is an apprentice. This one’s people have been hunted, chased by the demons in ice for many nights now. This one was protecting.”

“Protecting what? Your people? We’re not after your people.” Felix rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to cover up the nose bleed that had started again. His Aspects were shaky as all hell, but he shored himself up with Willpower. “Why attack us?”

Wyvora nodded at something behind Felix. “The demons in ice are sometimes accompanied by things all in metal. Made of metal. Things that looked like him.”

Felix turned to look, still keeping a portion of his senses on the warrior. Behind him, Evie and Atar were pulling Harn up onto a broken stump. His helmet had been knocked off and his face was sliced open in three places.

“You mean the Arcids,” Felix said.

“This one knows not their names. They have slaughter dozens of us and their information eludes even our greatest Minds.” She seemed more disturbed by the latter than the former, and Felix could feel her surprisingly powerful Spirit tremble in fear. “This one feared the worst, and—and when—“

“And when I didn’t answer how you liked, you went on the offensive.” Felix sighed. He could sympathize with her position, as long as she was telling the truth. Still, he gestured angrily at the smoking corpses of monsters around them. “Pretty stupid. Had you been right, you’d have been killed. You pulled every damn monster in the area.”

“Better to die in service than in fear,” she said with a hint of her former steel.

Fifteen feet away, Harn grunted in reluctant approval.

“Vess, what’s our situation?” Felix asked.

“No one died, praise Siva, but four are in poor or worse condition.” Vess pointed to three other prone forms on the dry gully bed. Felix’s Eye picked out Vyne, Kylar, and Davum, each with Health below one hundred. Nevia and Kikri stood over them, worry and fear etched into their faces. Kylar was Bleeding and Davum had several Status Conditions, none of which were great. Vyne had broken his arm, several ribs, his femur, and his tower shield looked scrapped beyond repair.

Evie glanced up from fussing over Harn—himself with a Concussion (Mild) in addition to his wounds. “I got a few potions left for them, but it’s cutting hard into our emergency supplies. What they need is a healer.”

“I’ll be fine,” Harn growled and tried to sit up, but Evie dropped her chain on his chest. It knocked him back to the ground.

“Don’t be stubborn. You’ll take a potion and you’ll like it,” Evie insisted.

“Save em for the kids.”

But Atar and Alister were already administering vials as they spoke. It wouldn’t heal broken bones but it would elevate their Health until their regeneration could catch up. Felix didn’t feel great himself. His regenerations were kicking in and would soon top off, but his Aspects were strained in a way that had nothing to do with his Health and Mana.

“If you require healing, this one humbly offers it.”

Felix snapped his attention back on the warrior. She was no longer kowtowing but still knelt. “You’re a healer?”

“No. This one’s only gifts lie in the hunt. But the Matriarch is a healer of renown.”

“The Matriarch. You’re saying you’ll take us to your camp?” Felix asked.

“Yes. It is the least this one may offer to redress the damage this one has caused,” she kowtowed again.

Felix looked to Harn, who shrugged with a pained expression that said ‘up to you.’ Evie said just about the same with less. Vess, however, tightened her mouth and fixed the Henaari with a narrow eye.

she signed.

Felix signed back.

“How can I trust you, Wyvora?” He asked out loud and noticed the Henaari twitch.

“This one does not know.”

Felix made a show of rolling his options over in head head, but he’d already decided. His first responsibility was to keep his people safe.

“You lead then. But if I notice any tricks—and I will—I won’t warn you. I will end you.” Felix felt anger heat up his skin and prickle the back of his neck. Anger for lives that could have been lost, and for those that were hurt in a fight they had no business in. “Understand.”

Wyvora swallowed and her Spirit shook, but she nodded. “This one understands.”

Wyvora found herself at odds. As a Henaari she had an unshakable pride in her Spear Mastery and in the unrivaled gifts her god granted her, but this one called Felix had countered her so quickly, so easily that her pride had all but shattered. The others she could have bested, even the heavily armored one if she had enough time, but the longer she stared at this mans features the more sure she was of her defeat.

Even with the Blessing, she thought. Fear curdled her stomach. This man would tear me apart.

And he’s a Pactlord! I assaulted a Pactlord! Shame rolled through her, tensing the skin of her scalp and arms, and she wanted nothing more than to hide away for all time. But that was not an option. Wyvora would take them to the clan, secure them healing, and her honor would be…not restored, but certainly mended.

“Oh wait, we don’t want to announce what we did.” The leader stopped their procession almost as soon as it had begun. “Gotta get rid of the evidence.”

He wasn’t wrong. The smoke of all of the monsters would draw scavengers, as well as the eye of the Others. Those from beneath the mountain.

“What—“

Her words died in her throat as Felix thrust an arm into the air and every single corpse burst into dark, greasy smoke streaked with brilliant flares of multi-hued light. The smoke rose up before defying its nature and twisting horizontally…directly toward Felix’s open mouth. All that they were, devoured in seconds.

“Alright. Ready?” He asked.

Wyvora could only nod.

The quickly travelled from the blood soaked clearing. Though there were no more corpses to draw other Reforged to them, Felix wasn’t taking any chances. Those that could, walked. Those that couldn’t were ferried on Vess’ conjured spears.

Vess didn’t complain once, no matter that Vyne and Davum likely weighed three hundred pounds—at least—with all their armor. She did, however, shoot the Henaari a number of sharp, angry looks. Her spear did not stray from Wyvora’s back.

Kylar was supported by both Nevia and Kikri and they managed to make good time despite his injuries. Harn, meanwhile, trudged along, refusing help in any form. Despite Evie’s less than gentle cajoling.

It began to rain not long after they’d left the gully, and no calm spring drizzle. This was a summer storm, complete with black clouds laced with lightning loud enough to shake the trees around them.

Sheets of rain drenched them and made the footing treacherous as they descended toward a river, of all things. The water had forced it to swell over its banks, frothing the currents into fast moving rapids. Regardless, Felix still caught the gut clenching sight of jagged fins and barbed spines threading the water.

“We’re crossing that?” Atar asked over the storm.

“Our destination lies on the other side, yes.” Wyvora’s voice was matter of fact, as if the thought of fording the raging river was nothing more than a stroll across the room. “We will have to ford it at its most narrow, which is several leagues upstream.”

“Joy,” the fire mage deadpanned.

“Think of it this way, Sparky,” Evie said with a companionable slap on his shoulder. “You’re already soaked. Can’t get worse!”

A winged insect the size of a big dog buzzed across the river, barely audible over the wind. Without warning, two long, narrow jaws snapped it deftly from the air. Both creatures disappeared with a splash.

Atar groaned and Alister swallowed audibly. Even Evie looked disturbed.

“Nothin for it,” Harn said. He ambled to the water. “Let’s kill us some fish.”

“Ah but this is too deep?”

Harn didn’t pay her much attention and other than a smirking shrug from Evie, no one else did either.

The river was perhaps five hundred feet wide and only ever got to seven or eight feet deep at the center. Certainly not impassable, but very annoying and likely deadly had this been Earth.

Fly? Pit inquired.

These winds are too strong, bud. Felix watched several trees get nearly bowled over further down the river. The sky was black. You’d get swept away faster than the river.

Pit grumped but stayed put.

Felix walked up to the rivers wild edge. He sent his senses questing through the waters, past large, writhing fish monsters and into the bedrock. His Mana followed after, lifting from the two rings burning at his center, until red-gold and blue-white light poured from him like water of his own. It sank into the earth in a blink, turning it to gel until Felix’s Will and Intent took hold.

And then pillars speared up from the river.

“Blessed darkness,” Wyvora whispered.

“Right,” Atar tapped his stave on the rocks. “Forgot he’s a big bag of Mana.”

Once several feet above the churning surface, the tops of the pillars began to spread and widen, forming into a walkway three feet across and extending in an arch over the entire five hundred foot span.

Stone Shaping is level 59!

By the end, Felix had burned through around half of his Mana but had produced a structure that would, at first glance, impress any engineer at his old firm. He was certain it wouldn’t last long, however. The supports and design would hopefully be enough for their crossing, but the rampaging monsters and violent weather on the Continet would bring it down in months. At best.

He stepped forward and tested it with a foot. It neither wobbled nor creaked, and Felix risked putting his full weight on it. It held, remarkably. At his last estimate, Felix was clocking in somewhere around six or seven hundred pounds thanks to his Journeyman Body.

The guard quietly marveled at the feat of magical engineering, and Wyvora wasn’t as good at hiding her surprise as she thought. His friends, however, were a different story.

“Couldn’t make it a bit roomier, huh? I can barely swing my chain in here,” Evie complained.

“Could’ve done with a roof. Be nice to get out of the rain,” Alister said.

“Right?”

Felix rolled his eyes and followed them across, Pit right behind him. Other than a couple jumping Snapjawed Pike, the crossing was uneventful. Those few aquatic monsters that attacked, they were dispatched by Vess and Alister with ruthless efficiency.

Ten minutes later they were across and no worse for wear. Felix nodded to the Henaari. “Where from here?”

Wyvora licked her lips. “We progress through there and up the winding crevasse.” She pointed to a darker portion of the forest ahead, where it butted up against a set of pale cliffs. “This one must…must express her dismay, Pactlord.”

“Hm?” Felix said. He didn’t fail to note the tension rising on her Spirit. Behind her Vess loomed, partisan leveled.

“This bridge is a wonder…but it will allow this one’s enemies that much closer to this one’s people.” Her wide eyes and elongated head threw off Felix interpretations of her expressions, but her Spirit didn’t lie. She was terrified of what she was about to say. “I would ask that you—that your destroy it.”

Again, she didn’t wince but she may as well have. She’d even forgotten to do that annoying “this one” thing. It made Felix feel like a bully, for all that she’d tried to kill them earlier. He nodded.

“Not unreasonable. I can do that,” he said.

It took less Mana to destroy the bridge than it took to create it, which made sense. Felix know it had several weak points, and he simply dissolved the stone at those sections, letting the entire thing collapse on itself.

It did, however, give him a terrible migraine and a sudden despondency that worked between the cracks of his mood. The bridge fell, but it felt like it didn’t even matter. If he could cross the river, so could his own enemies. It was a delaying tactic, nothing more. The Archon would come and they’d all die. Nothing he made would last.

No.

It felt like shifting the weight of a mountain, but his Willpower grappled with it. The mood moved, inch by inch, lifted by pure force of Will and bullheadedness. It was as insidious, but he’s spotted it. That was half the battle. Once he had recognized what was happening, he could fight it off.

Oof. He literally panted from the mental exertion. Mind strain and Spirit strain. Worse than ever before. Felix stared at his shaking hands. Way worse.

To the others, and especially the Henaari, he simply nodded as the rushing waters consumed the stone bridge.

Control. Maintain control. He clenched his fists. Don’t let them see you sweat.

“Keep moving.”

The cliff led through a winding crevasse and into a box canyon completely filled with snakes.

“Are you kidding me?”

This time the outburst was from Evie.

“How many obstacles are there?” She demanded.

“Beyond this there is one other,” Wyvora said. She walked forward, into the snake pit without hesitating. “This is the easiest of them.”

She stopped in the center of the canyon. A few snakes lunged at her but she didn’t move her long limbs at all. Eventually the snakes gave up and ignored her.

Felix narrowed his eyes and flared his Manasight. Violet Mana clung tightly to the ground, shaped so exquisitely that he’d never have noticed it if he hadn’t looked directly for it.

“Illusions,” he said.

Wyvora inclined her head to him.

They moved on.

The canyon fed out into another forest, though this one was encased in tall cliff walls and the beginnings of mountains ahead. The last range before they reached the Archon’s Domain. From Felix’s vantage, however, all he could see were the thick trunks and dark foliage of the forest.

“This way, if it pleases you,” Wyvora said.

Up through the forest, they followed a hint of a hint of a trail that switchbacked up an increasingly steep incline. Felix flexed his Tracking Skill, hoping to spot something of their hosts—all he found were animal prints and scat, tree markings and bird nests. Of the Henaari he saw nothing, and had he not watched Wyvora walk ahead of him he could not find her footprints either.

High level Stealth or some woodcraft Skill?And do they all have it? A handy Skill to pass down for a nomadic community that, if Vess’ reaction was any indication, wasn’t well tolerated. So I guess the entrance to their camp is gonna be camouflaged and hidden. No one goes to all this trouble to just hide in the open.

The path curved around a high cliff, and when they rounded it, Felix gasped.

Wyvora gestured. “The last obstacle is one few can match. The Matriarch praised the Raven for three entire days when we found a place such as this. Only truly ancient ruins can do justice to the Raven’s munificence.”

Before them, perched on the edge of a cliff was a face. It was overshadowed by a forest of redwood-sized trees, but the darkness only made the Mana of its form glisten. Felix’s eyes rounded, filled with the gentle swirl of complex, gorgeous Mana.

“This is—“

“Nymean,” Felix said. Wyvora looked at him askance. “We’ve seen something like it before.”

“Truly?” Her voiced lifted and curiosity sparked in her Spirit. She nodded to the massive, moss coated head, through whose mouth a wide, dark cavern could be seen. “That is—“

“Oh no, another one of these?” Alister said. “Last one almost took my head off.”

“Let’s hope there’s no crystal for Felix to drop on us this time,” Evie said, slapping Felix on the back.

“That just means he will get creative,” Vess added with a dimpled smile.

Felix smirked and Pit trilled a bright laugh. Yeah yeah, laugh it up. He let the smile drop from his face and tried to scrub it from his Spirit. Game face on.

They all entered the cave.

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