Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty Nine - 229
"Reed!"
Felix shouted and rushed across the battlefield, catching the big man by the shoulders before he hit the ground. He looked like shit, and his eyes were barely open.
"Fiend," he rasped, but fell unconscious without anything further.
Felix set the big man down, but wasn't quite fast enough to catch his friends. Cal, Harn, Evie, Vess, Bodie and the two Elders all collapsed with the absence of the Hand's magic wind gurney. His Eye assured Felix that they all lived, but every single one had bottomed out their Stamina and Mana.
"Rory! Do we have any healers? Potions?" Felix shouted, his Tempered voice sending a few nearby soldiers reeling. He didn't care. Almost a hundred feet distant, Rory mutely pointed to the Healer's Ward and Felix nodded. "Pit, let's get them out of here."
He carefully balanced all of them atop Pit's back, and they trotted across the brutalized courtyard to the Healer's Ward. Luckily, the structure had avoided too much damage, aside from a few holes melted through the ceiling. Men and women of all Races were nearby, finishing off the Ghostfire Simians and Lesser Wretches with a collection of scavenged implements. They were dressed in simple linen gowns and quite a few had bandages wound around them.
"The sick, recently made whole," Rory said, coming up to help him take his unconscious friends down. "We'd thought they'd been permanently harmed by the Primordial, even before all the heat in the air vanished."
Felix felt a shiver move through him, like a chord struck in another room. A Gnome and a Goblin looked up, meeting his gaze and nodding. Felix could feel...gratitude and frustration in their Spirits. It was surprisingly strong, and the threads between them...all of them lead to him. The former patients got back to work, dispatching the weakly struggling monkeys and bugs.
It took only a minute or two to get all of his friends onto cots and grab one of Portia's Untempered aides to keep watch over them. They brought out a few Health, Mana, and Stamina tonics, enough to address the obvious problem though the aide mentioned the possibility of Status Conditions plaguing them.
"Do what you can," Felix said, clapping them gently on the shoulder.
He joined Rory and Pit back outside, both of whom were in the process of ferrying more of the injured to the healer's tent. Rory had shanghaied the former patients and together they had formed an efficient battalion of surveyors. Surviving fighters were found and carried back. Not for the first time, Felix realized his abilities extended to destruction and death but little in the way of utility.
You're fast though. Move it. Felix took off, locating survivors with his Eye and lifting them as gently as possible after Stone Shaping any rocky debris from their person. He had to be careful not to jostle anyone too hard; his Strength was insane compared to their Vitality and Endurance and he doubted they'd survive being whiplashed in his arms.
Regardless, they cleared the courtyard of the injured, moving them into the Ward or the adjacent warehouses. The Untempered folk who had fled into the fortified structures had begun to peek out, and more than once Felix thought he heard a cheer that was quickly stifled. He was glad for that. Felix looked out at the destroyed wall and savaged courtyard. The number of survivors was less than fifty percent and though the rain continued unabated, it hadn't yet been able to wash away all the blood.
The Archon. DuFont. I'm coming for both of you, he silently promised.
The storm raged above and the rain had begun to blow sideways, but it did not stop Felix. It had only been thirty minutes since the battle had ended, and now everyone was stashed inside away from the elements. Felix couldn't restdidn't need to, far as he could telland they weren't safe. Which meant he was standing atop the broken walls and considered the mutilated masonry. Felix channeled a significant portion of his Mana into his Skill, letting the song of the Skill vibrate throughout his core.
Felix reached out with an open hand. "Stone Shaping," he commanded. The rock around the sundered wall melted into a gooey morass, flexing like gelatin. Felix slowly closed his fist and brought it upward sharply. Like a reversed wave, the liquid stone flowed up onto the wall, filling in cracks and breaks like several tons of cement.
Felix saw it, how his Intent held the spell together, supported by his Willpower, while his Affinity sounded the music behind it all. His ability had expanded more than he understood. He shaped the edge, molding the battlements to match the rest of the wall, before releasing the Skill. The transition from goo to solid stone was nearly instantaneous.
Stone Shaping is level 50!
Journeyman Tier!
You Gain:
+10 INT
+10 DEX
+10 END
"Impressive, Felix," said a familiar voice.
Felix moved before he considered that familiarity, only the jarring flat of a blade stopping his transformed talons from ripping out Zara's throat. She looked surprised, but not as much as Felix.
"You," he managed, drawing his hand back. The sword hadn't left a mark on him. "Where have you been?"
Felix left it unsaid that the attack might not have happened had she remained behind, though it was a close thing. His Mind reminded him of the purple barrier around the Broodmother and likely a dozen ways the Chanter had quietly helped them from the background. But he didn't want to consider rationality, not when so many people were dead.
Zara's face softened and what might have been regret reflected in her ice blue eyes. She pushed a rain-soaked hood back, exposing her sea-green hair. "I tried, Felix. Had I known that this would happen, maybe INo, I cannot lie. I would have followed your expedition. It wasistoo important to leave to chance."
"We didn't win!" Felix reminded her. "Now the worst possible person has Authority over us!"
"And we have two Challengers," Zara added gently.
"One of whom is recovering inside, also nearly a victim in all this," Felix pointed out. "I...I'm just tired. Can you heal? We have a lot of injured people here, defenders and the sheltered citizens too."
"Not particularly well, but I brought the next best thing," Zara said and gestured into the foggy rain. Night had fallen and apart from flashes of distant lightning the streets were pitch black to normal eyes. Felix's Manasight could pick it all out easily, however. His breath caught in his chest. "I was not idle in my return, Felix."
Out of the dark marched columns of shield bearing Tin, Iron, and Bronze rank combatants, wet and bedraggled, but very much alive. At their head was a blonde with a pixie cut and a staff of crooked wood, along with dozens of familiar faces. They started cheering as the wall and Felix came into sight.
"It's something," he allowed.
Along with Zara came reports on the monsters that had invaded. The Wall had gone dark, its protections stripped, and the beasts were swarming up and over it. The bigger monsters were still trapped outside, but it was only a matter of time.
"We could hear the thing quake from miles away," Portia confirmed. She was sweating and exhaustion and anxiety warred over her Spirit, but she kept moving from patient to patient. Green-gold light swelled under her hands, her and Rory moving down the line. "They're trying to break a hole in it."
"More monsters are coming," Zara said in a quiet voice that nevertheless carried to everyone present. "Its a ceaseless torrent from the Foglands. Something is riling them up and pointing them in our direction. With the Wall defenseless, it will only get worse from now on."
"That's what happened here," Hector said, taking another tonic from his wife Aenea. His head was bandaged and his face was raw with scratches, but he was moving again. No small amount of responsibility for that was with Aenea, who had been brewing tonics and potions as fast as she could manage. "Someone drained my arrays too. I had thought it an inside job, but"
"It's DuFont," Felix asserted. Rory had mentioned the red-gold light shimmering through the wall before it failed. Shes using her Authority to expose the city and anyone that could Challenge her."
"Authority can do that?" Yan said as he handed Portia a full wineskin. The grateful healer took a deep swig. "Just open up the gates and screw us over?"
"Worse than that," said a high voice. Keru, Zara's brightly colored kingfisher fluttered through one of the dripping holes in the ceiling. He landed atop Zara's shoulder and shook himself vigorously. Zara let out a small tut of annoyance. "Theres an orichalcum wall built along the Sunrise Quarter limits."
"Diddid that bird just talk?" Kelgan said with wide eyes.
"No," Keru said.
"DuFont is planning to only defend her piece of the city?" Vivianne said, disbelieving. Her short red locks were frizzy from the humidity. "I know she's an ass, but would she sacrifice most of a city to keep power?"
"Seems like it," Harn grunted as he sat up. Cal was up only moments later.
"Harn, Cal," Felix said with a relieved smile. "Have a nice nap?"
"Couldn't been more quiet," he groused before pushing himself cautiously to his feet. He was still in his strange armor, even now. "So when do we take the fight to her?"
"Wait, wait," Felix held out his hands, partially to stop Harn from marching into the dark and partly to get everyone's attention. "There's more."
He explained the Archon, who he was, his responsibility for their current crises, almost all of it. He'd done so for the core of the group, but not anyone else. It had been a quirk of his Oath with them; they couldn't share this info because a lot of it sidled up against his secrets. The people around them were many, including the robed Untempered who had stuck by to help treat the injured. Felix didn't care who knew, not about this. Not anymore.
"So this Archon is...working with DuFont?" Yan said, scratching his bald head. "I'm confused."
"No, he is a separate agent," Keru explained, flitting over to Yan's vambrace. "An old threat in the Foglands."
"Seriously, is no one concerned about the talking bird?" Kelgan muttered, more to himself by that point.
"So he's made his move?" Cal asked. She gingerly stretched her limbs and winced at some accumulated soreness. "How many Arcids were there?"
"Three. Two now," Felix said. "They're tough, and so are their elite troops. Reforged, they're called, big warriors in ice armor."
"So not just a monster horde, a monster horde around giant ice golems?" Evie rubbed her temples and helped Vess sit up as well. "I just woke up, but I'd like to go back to sleep now, please."
"The Archon is driving this attack," Zara confirmed. "But DuFont is allowing it. We have to destroy her first before we can address the bigger threat."
"Assault her how, exactly?" Vivianne asked, and Yan nodded in agreement. "She's holed up behind, apparently, some serious defenses."
"We can" Zara started, but Felix interrupted.
"What is the Bloodmoon?" he asked.
"Vellus' moon?" Vess said, confusion visible on her face. She stood up and conjured one of her silver spears to lean against. "It is Lost, yes? Not seen in an Age at least."
"Why?" Zara asked, her bright eyes boring into his own.
For a brief moment, he was tempted to tell Zara about Vellus and her...offer. But that was a conversation he didn't want to have in front of so many others. He forged on with what he meant to say.
"Because apparently its coming again, and the Archon is planning around it. Something big." Felix shook his head. "I don't know the details, only that he built the Arcids and the Reforged for battle. I" Something struck him. "That's right. The plants."
"What?" Harn asked.
"The Archon, in his Domain, he had like herbs growing in this garden. They mentioned it, in the Memory. All of the plants were something to do with..." He thought a moment, his feet pacing down the aisle of the Healer's Ward. The events were beyond his Keen Mind Trait's limit, but his powerful Mind pulled the information with only a little effort. "Dark Murmurs, as well as the Bloodmoon. Things that enhanced their effect. Does anyone know what they'd do?"
Aenea looked up from tending her husband. "Dark Murmurs? Did you see Aram Leaf? Ceskin Gourds?"
"Yeah, I remember seeing those. A lot of others too, like Bellock," Felix confirmed. "Blossoms that emitted small puffs of fire, moss covered in thorns, red tear shaped fruit. The whole place smelled like blood, honestly."
"A symptom of producing too many alchemical herbs with a concentrated purpose," Aenea said. "A purpose that seems entirely dedicated to the Dark Murmurs, though..."
"What? What do you know, Aenea?" Cal asked.
"Dark Murmurs is a rare Status Condition afflicting an Aspect directly. It infiltrates the Body and breaks it down. It is not easy to counter, but it is also a hard effect to produce. What you're saying, Felix, is that this enemy has gathered huge stores of it? That is worrying and indicates he plans to use it offensively."
"A poison that breaks down Bodies? How is that fair?" Evie complained.
"Offensively? How?"
"That's the thing, it is extremely hard to cultivate the required reagents and even more difficult to weaponize it. More confusing is the presence of Bellock, which disrupts Dark Murmurs. Why would they grow that as well?"
"An antidote for their people?" Alister suggested.
"The Archon doesn't care about his people, so long as he gets what he wants," Felix said with certainty. "It has to be something else."
"I'll think on it," Aenea promised.
"Think quick. We haven't much time. We have to take this fight to DuFont," he continued. "The Arcids are already searching for Teine, and they came here for me and you, Cal."
"They're after the Authority," she guessed.
"No, they can't take it. They're monsters, right? They just don't think we deserve it." Felix gestured back outside, still pacing. "This horde? Like Zara said, it's just the beginning." Felix explained. "We have to stop the Arcids before they kill DuFont."
"If they killed DuFont before the Challenge period was over, wouldn't the Authority flow to you or whoever else had the most Contribution?" Atar asked, looking up from his quiet conversation with Alister. "Why don't we let them?"
"No," Vess said. "DuFont dies before she's Challenged and it is lost, all of it. If Felix or Cal can Challenge her before they kill her, then maybe. At least according to the annals my father had me read."
"So it's a race ta kill an Inquisitor," Harn grunted, his scarred face widening in a smile. "I'm in fer that."
"If all she can do to us so far is drop our defenses, then she's limited in what she can do," Felix guessed, and Zara nodded. "She's lacking either capability, control, or knowledge to use her Authority. That means we have a chance here, but taking on her stronghold is gonna be tough."
"We just gotta be smart about it, yeah?" Evie grinned and picked up her heavy chain. "Lucky for us, we got two things she wants."
Cal and Felix traded grim smiles. He looked around at everyone, meeting their gaze before nodding.
"Let's go knock on her door."
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