The gold parted.
Felix tumbled into a raw space, a flash of jumbled sensations rushing past him. They assaulted him, raking across his Aspects with sharpened prongs. Pieces of textureless black snapped a chill gloom at his limbs, sapping them of strength before glimpses of gleaming brightness blinded him to all else…before they both faded. Void and Ethereal Realms hung around him like patches set into a tunnel wall, and they were accompanied by other visions he could only imagine were the real world. Those flickered past him as he tumbled head over heels through a windless chasm inundated with gold.
A pressure plucked at him, pulling his limbs outward even as it crushed the rest of him—the chasm narrowed, a tube squeezed tight as a wire, and all that was Felix got stretched into a tangled infinity. He twisted, jerked to the side, pulled and prodded as heat and light and sensations of all kinds rippled through him. A kaleidoscope of color and nameless patterns swelled through his Perception, but the blinding white of the Ethereal continuously intruded. The gold slipped away, repelled.
Too late, Felix realized that the influence of the Ethereal had not gone away. It had merely been shifted aside. It lashed out as he fell, Desolation trying to dissolve him, but his Body flared with protection. Authority clad him like thin armor. Desolation burned against it, but he slipped through its touch, whisked away through the sigaldry he'd carved into the gate's perimeter.
He spun sideways, straight through the gold. Cymbals crashed, and the world shook as his Body punched a wound through the Realms and cratered what lay beyond. Felix groaned as he came to a stop, sprawled in an undignified heap. Briefly, he felt for all of his limbs, checking to make sure everything remained where it had started. He was fine, his Health and Stamina untouched. So then why did he feel like a hundred pounds of crap in a ten pound bag?
Felix opened his eyes to find himself surrounded by fine, black ash. It was piled high enough that he was sinking into it with no sign of the bottom. “Gah!”
Felix coughed, fighting the ash from his lips even as he spread himself outward to arrest his fall. The ash settled, and though it took a couple tries, he found his footing and stood up. It wasn’t that the world was full of ash, but that his arrival had piled the feather-light stuff up around himself. Limping slightly, Felix clambered out of his crater, ash swirling around his shins until he reached what was a flat hilltop. The ash was far thinner there, only up to his ankles, and not nearly as exhausting to move in as snow.
Even so, he was spent. His Body felt strained in a way that was annoyingly familiar—a resistance hung around him, far more than the Crucible alone could produce. He looked around himself, and his palms started sweating.
Oh no.
The gate hadn’t dumped him into the Void or Desolation. Instead, it chose the next worst thing: the Deadlands.
"God damn it."
In the Deadlands, Felix was weakened, as was Pit as he leapt from Felix's Spirit. The tenku winced as he landed, his wings wobbling as he struggled to stay standing.
"Why did we come here?" Pit asked as his stance firmed. “Is the Tumult thing here?”
"I don’t think so, but I can’t be sure. What I do know is that the Ethereal wasn’t supposed to punch into the gate like that."
Felix started pacing, nearly slipping in the ash before he stopped. All around him was new terrain. In his previous visits, he’d always entered the Deadlands atop an expanse of flattened, dead grass surrounded by mountains. Those weren’t present at all. Now they stood in some sort of desert. The sun above them shone bright but weak, the heat from it barely registering against his face. Instead of sand, the fine black ash fell ceaselessly from above. In the distance, mesas rose up while dunes carved across the rest of the landscape.
"This is where the gods dwell," Felix muttered. "Or at least hang out. Unless we want a fight, we need to move fast and find an exit."
Felix pulled the Eye of Tumult from his belt, and a golden thread unspooled from it and extended into the distance. "Looks like we've got our compass."
He and Pit began to walk. Flight was certainly possible in this place—Pit even attempted it once. He’d been able to maneuver himself twenty or so feet into the air before he glided back to the ground. The strain of it was too much on his already aching Body. Pit hadn’t escaped the wringer when they’d squeezed through the gate. Even if he had, flight in such an empty place was painting a target on their backs for anything within miles. They both stuck to the ground, just in case.
The going was tough. It was as if they had never been Tempered or built up their stats at all. The meager heat seemed to leech into their bones, putting a serious dent into their water supplies as they followed the pull of the golden thread.
Felix was uncertain how long they walked. Hours, perhaps, but probably less before they found a difference in the terrain. The ash dunes flattened, giving way to crispy scrublands where the plantlife was a charred shadow against the bare dirt. Ahead, sickly clouds clung to the horizon, and it was only after stepping close enough that they could see the clouds were coming out of the ground itself.
A hole had been cut into the heart of the world—a geological wonder that put the Grand Canyon to shame. Felix and Pit edged up to the side of it, looking down cautiously. Pulses of deep heat emanated from below, lifting those clouds on slow currents. The heat was stronger by far than the weak sun above, and light filtered up through the mist, tinting them sodium yellow where the canyon walls shrouded them from the sky.
“Is that lava?” Pit craned his neck, but pulled back when something below crashed. The earth shook, knocking ash over the lip of the canyon in vast waterfalls. It mingled with the yellow clouds before vanishing from sight. "What the heck was that?”
"Felt like an earthquake,” Felix said, kicking more ash off the side. “Maybe all that lava is from a volcano.”
Pit’s ears laid back against his head. “It’s gonna erupt?”
"I don't know, buddy."
Another quake hit, just as strong. Then another. Felix frowned as the earth stilled. “That’s too fast.”
“Too fast?”
“It fades and starts up again in only a few seconds. It sounds more like something huge is falling.” Whatever it was, something was going on down there. Felix leaned over, holding up the Eye, and the golden thread arced downward into the clouds. "Well, we've got our heading. How do you want to do this?"
Pit stretched his wings. "I have an idea."
While flight might have been beyond them, gliding was easy. From the top, they soared down to a ledge just above the roiling yellow clouds and landed with a heavy thump that jolted Felix's teeth. Seconds later, Pit leapt again. Felix's stomach jerked up into his throat, but his friend was more than capable. Ledge after ledge stepped down the canyon, many of them wide enough for two Pits, and he made short work of them. The farther they went, however, the fewer landings they found. Some were far too small to hold more than a single paw, but Pit hit them each time, his aim unerring, as they followed the golden thread all the way down.
The earthquakes continued unpredictably, each one shaking the canyon walls around them. Once or twice, one nearly caused Pit to flounder his footing, but he held on, claws driven into the stone, beak stuffed between crevices, and wings flapping frantically to hold himself aloft until it passed.
Soon, however, the clouds thickened in earnest. Visibility was gone, though this close they were more like shreds of mist passing rapidly upward.
“There’s a landing just below those clouds.” Pit’s gaze never left his mark as he crouched against their thin protrusion. “I can make it.”
Felix put a hand to his friend's neck. "Stop. Look."
A disturbance cut through the clouds, trails of movements as if it were a creature swimming deep below. The wake of something massive. They saw nothing, not even Unseen Beholder—a Skill that could pierce through illusions and seek out the heart of System info—could grab a thing. Deep below a crash flared the light of lava, and the earth shook once again. This time, thin cracks split up several walls, and to their right, an immense slab of stone sheared off and fell down into the emptiness below, sending swirls of clouds into wild eddies.
Pit’s hackles rose. “What the heck is that?”
Where the wall had fallen away, one of the cracks spread. Fast.
Felix frowned as a deep hum shook through him, resonating with the deepest parts of him.
Reunion Awaits, Scion.
Beware.
The crack exploded open, not like stone but flesh. A wound ripped into the Deadlands, oozing with fetid Mana as the gap revealed the dark expanse of the Void—and through it a vast, unending bulk.
“No,” Felix hissed.
Miles of pus-slickened flesh and crimson tendrils slid by, packed with rigid thorns and rubbery tumors studded with purple eyes and gnashing mouths. An eager, hungry bellow screeched into the canyon loud enough to knock them both down against the ledge. Felix hit the earth, leg trapped beneath the heavy tenku, yet he barely noticed. A Need pulsated against him like a second heart, thundering in his ears until all he heard was that bellow.
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The Whalemaw had arrived.
Felix's heart thundered in his chest, panic stripping the nerves from his limbs, before two details hit him like a pair of bricks to the skull. The Whalemaw wasn't focused on him…and it felt weaker.
"The Deadlands," he said aloud, as if doing so would bolster his courage. He climbed free of his Companion. "It weakens everyone who enters it. Whatever this place is, it's affecting the Whalemaw, too."
This would have been a fantastic detail if Felix wasn't equally hamstrung, if not moreso. A fight now would be bad to say the least. Yet, while the creature was blinking its eyes in all directions, it did not notice either of them. It had no blind spots. It should be able to see him, clouds or not, but Felix could almost feel its Perception sliding away. Away from his belt.
The Crucible. It's hiding me. He could kiss the damn thing. I love this belt.
The creature dove down into the yellowed clouds, a miles-long slither that ended with the flex of its massive tail fin. A crash came from below. Not an earthquake, but of teeth on metal. Still, the canyon trembled twice in quick succession before blue flashed through the clouds. The Whalemaw bellowed.
“What do we do?” Pit peered over the edge. “Still go down there?”
“Gotta follow the thread. Besides,” Felix grinned. "It looks like the thing has its eyes on a different sort of prey."
Felix remounted Pit, and his Companion spread his wings despite the fear that clutched at them. The clouds were thicker now, churned up by the Whalemaw’s passage, and each leap was a blind one. Felix had a brief urge to use his Skills, but he’d refrained for the same reason now as before: he didn’t want to be noticed. The Deadlands was the gods’ playground as far as he was concerned, and with the Whalemaw here, it was ten times more dangerous. They’d gotten lucky enough to be ignored, and he wasn’t going to upset that.
There were more than a few close calls. The Crucible and Deadlands proved awful for coordination, but Felix and Pit covered for one another. After long, sweaty minutes, there were no more ledges. They’d reached the bottom.
There, the ground was split into a thousand glowing crevices, each filled with molten light that baked the air. Hotter than a furnace, it pricked at Felix's skin, drying all of his sweat instantly.
Whew. We gotta move quick. My coat is damaged enough. Pit stepped carefully around the crevices. Are these…all in the same direction?
So they were. Felix held up the Eye, and the thread followed the same direction. It made progress simple, if agonizing. The cracks in the earth radiated from a point lost in the mist, but they began clustering closer the farther they traveled, and the heat multiplied. Still, it was only a short while before they found their destination. There, at the lowest part of the canyon, was a deep depression where something had clearly been hitting the earth over and over again.
Felix walked closer, clouds obscuring vision as the thread led him forth. Things moved in the mist, figures that looked like shadows at first. Pit and Felix froze. The shadows resolved into ten-foot-tall humanoids, hunchbacked and covered in horns that twisted wildly across their backs.
Immediately, Felix knew what they were. Godslaves. Pit.
On it.
They spread out. There were hundreds of monsters, and despite their unfortunate maladies, they were clad in potent and unmistakable armor. Blue and gleaming, each set was forged completely out of force Mana.
These are the Twins’ godslaves. Felix blinked. Is that who the Whalemaw is chasing?
Are we killing them?
Felix checked the Eye again. The thread led right through their heaviest numbers. Looks like it. Remember, physical attacks only. Can you handle that?
Pit snorted mentally, a feat Felix didn't understand. Of course. What do you take me for?
In moments, they were in position. The Deadlands dulled Felix's power, and his Crucible dragged at him, making him far weaker than normal. But Felix had grown since the last time he was there.
Go.
The pair of them rushed forward, wind whistling in their ears. The godslaves stood no chance. They died by the dozen, bodies broken by tooth, claw, and fist. Force armor whined and shattered beneath their Strength, and even when the creatures knew they were coming, even when they brought retaliation to bear, they couldn't match his speed, let alone Pit's.
They died without even uttering a warning cry.
You Have Killed A Twinblessed Malformed Scarling (x344)!
XP Earned!
Silence descended upon the misty bottom of the canyon, and their smoking corpses mingled with the sodium-colored clouds above. Felix breathed heavily, and Pit flopped onto his rear end.
That was harder than I expected.
Double restrictions will do that. Felix lifted the Eye again. In their fight, he’d moved closer to where it crossed the depression at the center. The thread extended beyond it. Almost there.
He stepped closer, and the hard, baked earth folded into softness. What?
Loam pressed beneath his boot, fragrant in a way that felt almost violent in that dead place. Felix blinked against fumes that would not be out of place in a jungle, but here they were overwhelming. There was a presence, almost, the sheer moisture like a sauna roiling around his face. Before them, a piece of the ground was somehow alive, and it was settled across the entire crater.
The earth was dark, rich with minerals and water. It reminded Felix of the Sachet of Fecund Offer he'd poured on the Spirit Tree. He knelt, running his hands across the surface before he threaded his fingers into it. A thrill of energy passed through him.
scion.
The word was whispered to him from his center. That alone arrested his attention. The Beast never whispered. you must take this soil, scion. you must dig.
Felix hesitated. Why?
no questions. we have not the time. consume it.
Back, Foul Monstrosity! Blood Beast! You Do Not Belong Here!
Felix nearly jumped out of his skin as the voice of the Twins, male and female at once, spat their words. They echoed like thunder through the canyon. The clouds and the walls made distance impossible to determine, but Felix was fairly sure they were far away.
The Whalemaw was hunting the gods.
Pit laughed. Serves them right.
The confirmation was the best news Felix had heard all day. The Whalemaw was the perfect distraction. Maybe it would even devour them and save Felix some trouble. If only he were so lucky—his stomach dropped as his Mind followed that chain of thought. Felix stood up and peered nervously into the distance. The last thing he needed was for the Whalemaw to get ahold of one of the gods. He'd never be able to handle it then.
scion!
Felix checked the Eye. The thread led across the fertile floor, ending against a pale bluff no more than a hundred yards away on the other side of the crater. He could risk it.
Empyrean Embrace. Felix ate into the earth, dissolving it into mush and smoke that flowed into him in a torrent of Mana and Essence. Nothing else.
more, scion. there is more.
Empyrean Embrace.
Dirt and stone and clay followed, all of it teeming with power. Mana and Essence galore filled him. Felix funneled a great deal of it down into the Beast, yet the greedy thing didn’t care in the slightest.
again!
"What the hell am I doing here, Beast?"
reunion.
Felix scowled. "With what? Answer me, for once."
with ourself. The Beast's hand extended, clutched across Felix's core space. Empyrean Embrace!
The Skill activated without Felix's permission.
"Don't touch that," he tried to say, but the words were choked off as streams of power entered into him, dirt and stone dissolving into smoke, stripping the ground bare as ethereal jaws tore through the earth.
It revealed an arm.
Massive and made of a thousand bones, there was little flesh upon it, save a gossamer thin layer that provided a ghostly shape for the once mighty limb. It bucked against his hunger, sliding away from his Skill. It fought back in a way few things could.
This Is Ours! the Beast cried, and Felix wasn’t sure who it was speaking to. The ground rumbled. Rocks fell from above, crashing onto the canyon floor around them. OURS!
Who—? NO! You Mindless Fish! Do Not Touch—! The Twins howled, their steps thundering in the near distance as the sound of metal hitting flesh cut off the words.
The gods were coming back. Worse, the Need he'd felt before grew far faster. Sharpened, like a viewfinder coming into sickening focus. The Whalemaw was in the lead, and it sensed him.
The Beast lurched forward, stretching out of his abyss and seizing Felix's Skill between his jaws. Empyrean Embrace!
The Skill burst from him, spearing outward, despite Felix's urge to run. The arm resisted consumption, but beneath the Skill, it had no choice. It broke. Streamers of near-solid smoke sizzled into the air, filled with gleaming lights that cascaded through every single color Felix had ever seen. It poured into him, a torrent that drove him to his knees, buckling the earth beneath them as magma was sent flying.
The Whalemaw screamed. Pit fell over, hurt by the sheer noise of it. The walls of the canyon burst, exploding as they were smashed into by the miles-long abomination that only now cut through the fog.
"Felix, run!"
Power still surging through him, the Beast had vanished, and Felix stumbled to his feet. He ran across the open crater, even as he fished the Eye from his pouch. With a grunt of effort and seizing thigh muscles, Felix jumped across the open crater and landed in a stumble, not slowing for a second as he raced towards the pale bluff. The golden thread speared into it, and as he drew closer, a rift split the world.
The Deadlands groaned. Or maybe that was the Whalemaw. Felix couldn’t spare the time to look, only to put all his effort into speed. The Eye flared, colors cascading across its surface, as the Whalemaw burst free of the clouds.
“FEEE….LIIIIX!”
Horrors beyond horrors, the voice was a basso scream that slapped into his back like a mattress made of rotten air. He tumbled head over heels, catching a glimpse of a mile-wide mouth lined with glistening teeth and ten thousand writhing tongues.
"Convergence!" Pit vanished as he leapt into Felix, the force of his jump knocking both of them forward and into the golden light just as the jaws snapped shut.
