Unbound

How come no one ever said scout work was so burnin' boring?

Evie had been marching along with her "torch" for what felt like glasses, unable to leave her rigid position in the formation. It was a light jog, usually, nothing she couldn't handle. Their Endurance was almost impressive, doing it in full plate and all. Almost. They had strength enough to talk among themselves, too. Their conversations weren't exactly enlightening, but Evie learned a collection of new, Pathless-flavored curses. That was something, at least.

Combat, however, was a distant memory by that point and it left her hands itching. They ran into Revenants often, but it was always up toward the front, far enough that she hadn't seen a lick of action yet.

Bet the others are in the heat of it right now. Evie pouted. Jerks.

But it had been her decision to chase after the spy, her decision to tag along with the dumb redcloaks. Evie couldn't blame anyone but herself, not that she didn't try.

Without warning, the Acolytes around her started running. One bumped her from behind, the one that breathed almost exclusively from his mouth. "Watch it!"

The man grunted, but didn't say anything back. All of them seemed intently focused on the run, now.

What's going on? The increase in speed was, again, not really an issue for her unless they kept it up for another hour. Her Endurance was likely the lowest of her stats. She was more of a sprinter, after all.

"Keep on them, men! Shields out! Spears at the ready!" Nearly as one, the redcloaks took down their shields and held them close to their body. Evie was left running in her stolen cloak and helmet, nonplussed. Ahead she could hear the growling howls of Revenants, but there wasn't any sign of Skill discharge or even the sounds of fighting. They were...chasing the monsters?

No answer was forthcoming, but the chaos of their fast pace was soon evident. Not every redcloak had great Endurance, and a number of them fell behind. They tried to do it orderly-like, but the narrow sewers prevented a lot of their standard maneuvers. Taking the cue, Evie did the same and pivoted out of line to drop back. No one even glanced her way, though mouth-breather did grumble something.

Near the back was where the supplies were, rolling along inside a sturdy but narrow covered wagon. Evie had wanted to take a peek since they started their march. So while everyone else jostled into position, she dropped further back, letting them overtake her before dropping into a roll beneath the wagon's girth and flaring her Stealth Skill. The wagon kept going, easily clearing her small body and allowing her to pop up behind it.

Stealth is level 47!

Grinning to herself, Evie jogged behind the speeding transport before hopping aboard. It was such a rough ride that the driver wouldn't notice her extra weight, but for good measure she reduced it by a third.

Stealth is level 48!

Inside the canvas covered wagon were a collection of crates and barrels, cleanly and clearly labelled. Evie's eyes lit up. She had wondered what exactly they were transporting, as most Apprentice Tier combatants could do without food and water for a goodly amount of time. And she was right; it wasn't rations or even spare weapons.

Potions. Heaps of em.

Crate after crate rattled with the sound of Mana-reinforced glass. According to the labels, these weren't Tonics. They were full fledged Healing and Stamina Potions, along with a lesser number of Mana Potions. Evie practically drooled beneath her dumb redcloak helmet.

Then her Perception snagged on something, and she peered between the stacks. There were another set of boxes, perhaps a span in length and half that in width. All of them were stamped with a stylized flame. Evie's eyes widened, and her grin turned absolutely jubilant.

Oh, Siva's Grace, yes. This is what I need.

Shouts and screams echoed down the tunnel, far louder than before. With quick, sure movements, Evie grabbed one of the smaller boxes and hid it beneath her cloak. The shouting and howls grew louder.

Revenants. A lot of them.

With a graceful tumble, Evie slunk off the back of the wagon and back among the winded Acolytes. Ready to fight some monsters and ruin some redcloak plans.

This scout stuff is easy!

"Mervin, dear boy, come and look at this," Elder Teine said.

Mervin glanced at the others and ducked his head, hustling toward the Elder's position. Of the sewers beneath Haarwatch, this section was strangely clean. Mervin hadn't even known they existed, let alone that they were so big. They had walked what felt like leagues beneath the city, up and down twisting tunnels and forgotten, slimed over stairwells. Each step brought them against more monsters than he'd ever seen this side of the Wall. The Bronze Ranks and what remained of their Tin and Iron Ranks had managed to beat them back once again. Now they were resting at an odd, hexagonal intersection filled with carvings.

"Do you know what these are, Mervin?" the Elder asked.

"Sigils, sir," he replied, smothering his irritation. He may have been a farm boy, but he wasn't an idiot. His father's homestead had plenty of inscribed equipment on it, though Mervin hadn't been allowed to touch it. Teine had done much for him, however. Getting mad was unacceptable.

"Not just sigils. These," Teine said with a gesture at a few, fitfully glowing markings. "These are unknown sigils."

Mervin glanced at where the Elder was pointing, and immediately looked away. An indescribable ache stabbed at his Mind while his Skill, Sentinel's Regard, practically screamed at him.

"Are you alright, my boy?" A warm hand set on his shoulder. "Tell me what you're feeling."

Mervin's eyes were watering, and his senses were reeling. All the while, a klaxon sounded in his head. Sentinel's Regard was an Uncommon Skill, primarily focused on identifying and responding to threats to his life and safety. It was only into Apprentice Tier, but it was Mervin's best Skill. He focused on the piercing feeling and tried to describe it. "It-it feels like an off-key squealing, sir. Right between my eyes."

"Fascinating. Off-key, you say," Teine murmured. He gestured to a Bronze Rank nearby, and they jotted something down on their scroll. "Tell me more as we walk."

"O-of course, sir."

The painful sensation disappeared after a short while, so long as Mervin avoided any other glowing sigils. Even still, they practically vibrated at the edge of his Perception. Teine drilled him for details on what he looked at, how soon he felt something, the location of the pain even now, and so on. Mervin answered as best he could until the Elder was finished.

"Hm, and how is your Temper coming, Mervin?" the Elder asked.

"Oh, I am proud to say I'm only a single Skill away from Apprentice Tier, sir!" For this, Mervin had all the enthusiasm in the world. The Elder had lavished Mervin and his friends with Essence Draughts; each of them had been given rare draughts the Elder had made himself. The four of them were all nearly Iron Rank, with only Piotr having crossed that threshold. "Thank you again for your generosity, sir."

Teine waved a hand, as if thousands of crowns in draughts was nothing. "The least I could do for such faithful guardians. You've all grown in strength quite fast, and that is worth its weight in gold. Keep doing as you are, and I'll consider my investment paid in full."

The Elder's smile was easy and kind, despite the scarring that tugged it astray. Mervin didn't fully understand the man, but his willingness to provide for his team had cemented the Elder as a superior worthy of praise.

"As I understand it, you have yourself a Perception heavy build, yes?" Teine asked and Mervin nodded, a little embarrassed. "I can sense you're ill at ease. Don't be! Perception is quite useful to those like us."

"Like us, sir?"

"Of course! Those who wish to see the Truth, not have it hidden away behind layers of fog and mystery." Teine grinned conspiratorially at Mervin. "When I was your age, I had earned quite a few Titles that pushed my Perception above the norm. Took quite some getting used to, though I imagine I don't have to tell you that, hm?"

Mervin let a small smile come through. "No sir."

Teine clapped his hands. "Good. So! Tell me what you've noticed since coming to rest at this intersection. No," he said, stopping Mervin from looking around again. "What you remember, not what you notice now. Report, now."

"Yes, sir," Mervin saluted, but hesitated. It was the stern look in the Elder's eye that forced the next words out of his mouth. "The intersection is clean, far cleaner than other places we've travelled. The markings—sigils—that you're inspecting are all over, on the floor, walls, and ceiling. Only a third are glowing, which I assume means they're being powered by a failing source."

"Hm, hmm," Teine tapped his lips thoughtfully. "Anything else?"

"Oh, ah, no sir. Just that the sigils seem stronger toward the western tunnel."

Teine's eyes lit up. "Very good, Mervin. I am impressed." Mervin practically glowed at the praise, but the Elder wasn't done. "But you're quite wrong about the power source."

"What do you mean, sir?"

"It's not failing at all," Teine said, and gestured again to the strange, painful sigils. Mervin tried to glance at them all quickly, but that same squealing pain reappeared between his eyes. Still, he managed to see them at least.

The intersection was half-filled with empowered sigils.

"It-it's getting...stronger?"

"Yes, it does seem so," Teine said with what could only be a smile on his lips. Mervin stared, wondering how the man could be so calm. So...happy. "We're nearing the center. It won't be long now before we find the source of this fascinating array. I, for one, am quite excited."

Mervin couldn't say the same.

Reign of Vellus!

A blast of kinetic lightning exploded three of the seven approaching Revenants, turning them into bloody paste. The other four were merely tickled by the weakened spell and didn't so much as pause in their charge.

"Field of Flame!"

An arc of fire hit them as they ran. Immediately they were engulfed by the spell, yellow-orange but deepening toward crimson as it ate their scaled flesh.

"Pillars of Stength!"

Stone burst from the tiled floor, shattering them as rounded pillars of rock impacted the remaining Revenants.

You Have Killed Manawarped Revenants (x7)!

XP Earned!

Territorial Quest Alert!

You Have Gained Contribution!

"Getting tired?" Bodie rumbled, then nudged Felix companionably. The man was strong enough that the nudge would have rocked a boulder, but Felix forgot to let it budge him. "Oof! I forget how heavy you are!"

"Oh, sorry," Felix said absently, staring at the burning remains of the Revenants. "I'm more distracted than tired."

"Distracted is a good way to get dead," Atar groaned, massaging his lower back. "What's goin' on with you? Is it your pet?"

"Hm," Felix grunted. He'd gotten his Spirit Damage down to 7%, but even with Portia's aid it hadn't dropped any lower. Not in the time they had available. "Companion, dick."

Atar threw his arms up in the air. "As you say. Just keep your head about you, Felix. It's not just monsters we're worried about, not anymore."

Felix was frustrated, but it wasn't at Atar—at least not completely. He'd let Pit out into the world a few times since they had headed out from the previous chamber, but each time the tenku had keened in pain. Nothing was wrong with him physically, as all of his wounds had regenerated long ago. Instead, it was the same issue as before: Spirit Damage. Only Pit's Spirit was weaker than Felix's own. So now the chimera was sleeping it off while Converged, and Felix was scrambling to fix it.

His spells were weaker with the damage, but truly he simply hated seeing his friend in pain.

"HA! Got it!" Cal said from behind them, and Felix turned to see the treasure hunter on her knees next to the wall. She had a series of thin rods in her hands, industrial sized lockpicks basically, and slipped them smoothly from nearly invisible grooves in the wall and floor. "Trick was to simultaneously trip them both. Holds the damn things in stasis." She snorted and swiped at something only she could see. "Even got a damn Skill level out of it. Been a while since those went up."

She looked up at the three of them.

"Any problems with the horde?"

Bodie laughed. "Not a one. Who are you asking?" He clapped Atar on the back and the fire mage sprawled onto the ground. "Oh! Sorry, young Atar!"

"Hrmm—watch your burnin' Strength, oaf," Atar mumbled into the floor before slowly pushing himself up. Felix wasn't sure if Bodie had enough Perception to hear it, but he helped the mage to his feet quickly regardless.

"Calm down, he didn't mean any harm," Felix cautioned. Bodie's Spirit remained calm, if a shade confused. Its rhythm was a collection of timpanies against a rising glissando of flutes.

"If yer done playin' around. We've gotta move again," Harn grunted.

Cal's assumption that the Revenants would have discharged most of the Nym's traps proved to be a little optimistic. The hallway from the chorister's chamber had been fairly straightforward but was still rife with hidden dangers, many made more dangerous by the smoking corpses of Revenants scattered down its length. Four times now one or more of them had nearly been skewered by a fast moving blade or a dropping triangular column of stone.

Once, a cloud of bright green fog had filled a six foot long section of the hall. The fog had utterly melted a Revenant corpse in seconds. Harn had to seal his armor completely with his weird Born Trait and slip through, though even his armor pitted and hissed. A few seconds of bashing later and the fog dissipated, revealing Harn with his silver axe half-buried in a sigil the size of his torso. There had been no sign of the sigil before he'd destroyed it.

Moving as a smaller group had been a wise move.

Not only because of the traps. They had been forced to combat isolated pockets of Revenants as well; creatures that had been left behind or walled off by discharging obstacles as the horde had fled. They were, for the most part, easy pickings. Free experience, even if they barely pushed Felix toward his next level. But it was slow going and Felix chafed at the delay.

His senses were screaming to him that the Revenants were closing in; more and more of the miasma had started permeating the air. The Primordial Essence shuddered above, visibly disturbed every few minutes, and noticed only by Felix. His Manasight could spot it easily, but none of them save Vess and the Hand had anything similar. Theirs was called Elemental Eye and it seemed to feed them limited Mana information, but required a large amount of Mana and concentration to operate.

Barely better than normal eyesight, Felix mused. He was a bit spoiled with his Manasight, and having leveled it nearly to Journeyman it afforded him plenty more information. It was synesthesia inducing though, often mixing his senses with the ambient Mana he sensed all around him. How the steel Mana in a blade could smell like desperation was beyond him, but it was interesting information all the same. That, he thought, looking up at the roiling clouds of Primordial Essence. That smells like hate and hunger, and it feels like a thousand spikes in my skin. And it's getting stronger.

They moved ahead, navigating the hallway at a snail's pace. Cal found and disarmed most of the traps, especially those that were mostly mechanical in nature. The more arcane ones were either found by trial and error, or Atar sniffed them out. His Skill with sigaldry was growing rapidly and he managed to find a number of buried glyphs in the walls and floor.

Every dozen feet, more Revenants had to be dealt with, and Felix took his frustrations out on them. He'd murder them all and tithed their bodies, replenishing the stores of Essence that his hungry core kept devouring. The speed at which his core was emptying his Essence nebula was alarming, so Felix made sure to replenish it as often as possible.

Yet he noticed that each time he did, his sense of the Primordial Essence waxed brighter. Felix had noticed it happening weeks prior, but here, where the Essence was gathering and truly potent, he felt it like a thousand threads all pulling at him. It was so much like his Affinity stat, that which connected him to the world at large. Felix let himself slip into the sideways vision that let him perceive the silver strings of his Oathbindings. They also pulled at him, wrapped around his body like manacles and stretching off toward his friends. Vess. Harn. Cal. He even felt Evie, though she was farther away and...

...Evie was close and getting closer. Below them, coming in from the east rapidly, along with so many other people. Headed toward—

He could also feel other connections looming ahead. Too many. Red on top of red, strings of corrupted miasma and Essence, wound tight around his soul and just as real as any Oathbinding. They pulled him in all directions, all at once; it was a sensation that he found horrifyingly familiar. Of being trussed up in the dark, feeling the world itself pull at every part of him until he sat weightless and motionless between it all.

With a ragged gasp, Felix tore himself from the vision. He loosed his Bastion, capturing the sensation of connection within his central-most tower. Locked away just below the silver spire at the very top. Cut off, the overwhelming sensation of unidirectional pressure disappeared almost entirely.

Bastion of Will is level 64!

"Evie," Felix managed. Cal turned to him so fast he could have sworn she had been walking backwards. "Evie is ahead."

"What? Where?"

Felix swallowed and blinked away the image of glowing strings from his eyes. "The Nest is ahead, or else there's an army of Primordial Spawn just waiting for us for no particular reason. And Evie's headed straight for it."

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