Unbound

Chapter Three Hundred And Seventy Six – 376

Felix landed among the desolation seconds before Vess herself. The sand around Atar and Evie had half frozen into undulating waves, while the other half was charred and slagged into streaks of glass. An incredible combination of temperatures emanated from them both, and in his Manasight their orange and purple-white Mana splashed and coiled against one another. Where they met, steam gushed upward.

"What's happening to them? Tempering should not strain them so!" Vess cried, kneeling to grasp Evie's hand. She hissed in pain. "She's ice cold!"

Evie and Atar weren't convulsing anymore, not physically at least. Their Spirits were undergoing wild quakes however, and Felix knew they didn't have much time. "They're holding off their Tempers. Find their Essence Draughts! Feed her one, I've got Atar!"

The two of them fumbled with their friends' pouches, and soon found the stone vials Felix and Aenea had made. Quickly, Felix uncorked his and tipped it back into Atar's mouth. Vess did the same.

Immediately, their Spirits calmed. Felix pushed his Affinity and Perception across them, hunting for signs of further issue...but he couldn't be sure. Chaos was erupting all around them as the Dustwights regained their bearings from the explosion of Mana. In almost every direction, the undead swarmed toward them on shambling feet.

Felix raised his hand, and lightning answered.

Adamant Discord!

Dustwights were seized by his Will and their connections shoved back. The stress on those links spread lightning in a radial arc around Felix and Vess, blasting the undead back off their feet. Pillars of blue Mana dropped among them, crushing more of the monsters into the earth as sand fountained around them. Alister, wide-eyed, slid through the gap he'd created and down into the shallow crater.

"Atar! Is he?"

"He's fine, for now. But we have to move them," Felix growled. "Pit!"

His Companion dove out of the twisting winds, landing heavily. Vess turned to the others. More Dustwights rushed them, and a few even hurled their broken spears and swords at the group. A sharp word from Alister deflected the projectiles in a flash of kinetic blue.

"Go! I'll keep them distracted!" Vess hefted her partisan and summoned her Spears all around her.

The Cursewinds crackled, a deep rumbling tearing through them. Felix glanced up, sharply. The skies were black with twisted Mana while the intervening air was a haze of crimson sands, but he saw no lightning among the swirling storm. He could only feel a sharpening of the Intent within its core, but Felix couldn't guess what that could mean.

"Go!" Vess shouted before rushing toward the nearest cluster. More burst from their left and right as Alister lifted Atar onto Pit's back.

"Get on, Alister! Pit! Fly them into the Warren!" Felix didn't wait for them to answer but scooped Evie up into a fireman's carry. Her body was heavy, and that chain of hers dug into his shoulder, but the worst thing was how bitingly cold she wasit was like hefting a block of ice.

Rain of Cataclysm!

Felix sounded the spell, letting it form and flow from his channels in a tightly controlled burst. The Skill was an area of effectquite a large area, in factbut for this he restricted it, clamping on its pattern with his Will and Intent until it was no more than forty feet in diameter. Mana streamed into the air, coaelescing in a snap above the undead. A deluge of flashing green rain dropped within that space, melting every single Dustwight caught within, and freeing Vess' advance.

She grinned back at him, her dimples deep and her Spirit soaring.

Rain of Cataclysm is level 52!

...

Rain of Cataclysm is level 55!

"Take care of her!" she shouted, before leaping up and into the storm.

Pit! Go!

Pit launched into the sky just as more undead clawed their way out of the sand, and Felix did the same. Holding Evie closely, Felix hauled on the connections between himself and the air, arcing over the battlefield and back toward the Leviathan skeleton. He landed at a run, weaving through the Legionnaires that started in shock.

"Make a hole! Coming through!"

Behind him, the undead attacked with renewed fervor, as if they were aware Felix was out of reach. The sounds of conflict rose, but Felix couldn't care. He had his team to worry about.

Quickly, Felix and Pit brought their friends to a fairly sized chamber, one that had been used as a sort of dining area at one point. Felix kicked aside stones and charred remnants of a fire, clearing the ground so he could lay both of his friends down.

"Atar's burning up, Felix," Alister said, dabbing at his boyfriend's forehead with a cloth. "Are the draughts not working? What's taking so long?"

Evie was the same way, just cold, the both of them reacting in accordance to their core attunements. "I don't know. Adept Temper takes more out of you. Took me hours to process my Mind last night. It could just be that, but..."

"They are struggling."

Zara stepped into the chamber, shoving aside thin cloth draperies. "You can hear it, Felix. Open yourself to it. They aren't just Tempering themselves. Both of them are also hitting their next core stage, right now."

Felix's eyes widened. He flared his Affinity and Perception, straining his Fiendforged Mind in the process. Their Spirits were chaotic, and their breathing erratic, but that's all he could truly make out. "I don't hear it."

Zara looked outward, toward the battle happening a level above ground. "You have a choice then. I can aid one of them, but not both. I will need you to handle the other. Are you up for that?"

"Yes." Felix didn't hesitate and could almost hear Alister's muscles relax. "They're my friends."

"Good. Then follow my lead," Zara said before summoning a wisp of her Mana from her right palm. It curled like a hypnotised snake in her palm and was dense enough to appear liquid. "I shall handle Evie, for our cores are similar. You shall take Atar, for the flames you both bear. Press your Mana into their channels and seek out their core space, once there, exert your Will over it. Your Intent must be to stabilize things while they advance their cores. Watch me as I show you."

Cardinal Flame.

Felix's own crackling Mana manifested, a thin stream of liquid Mana surrounded by its more vaporous state. "I've done something like this before."

Zara pursed her lips, though her expression was more pleased than upset. "Good. Let's begin."

Felix caught Alister's eyes. "Hang close. We'll get them through this."

Alister swallowed and nodded, not releasing Atar's hand from his grip.

Felix sent his Cardinal Flame in through Atar's other palm Gate, and delved into the convoluted network of looping pathways within him. Just as with Pit, Atar's channels were utterly foreign compared to Felix's own. It seemed everyone developed their own pathways, though at least the fire mage's Mana Gates were in all the same spots he knew. Skull, palms, elbows, knees, and feet. Where normally there would be a constant flow in and out of someone's channels, Atar's were silent and still, save for a spasmodic twitch. Like a man, gasping for breath.

Atar!

He was failing.

Forgoing finesse, Felix flared his Cardinal Flame and crackling Mana flooded Atar's channels. His senses whirled down looping passages before emerging into the metaphysical space at his center. Fire greeted him within a vast chamber decorated in gold, black stone, and soaring natural monoliths of orange rock. Flames littered the entire space, though it did little for the illumination of the space, and a heavy, fragrant scent of charred wood pervaded it all.

How? The last time he'd perceived a core space it had been Pit's, and that had required him to flood the space with his own Mana to read the strange fluctuations within. Now it was like he was actually here, in much the same way Felix could materialize a sort of mental body in his own core space.

Fiendforge is level 2!

Felix's nostrils flared. Right. That one. But that's for forging Paths, isn't it? How does itStop. It doesn't matter. Help Atar. Worry about Skill possibilities later.

Step by step, Felix padded down the cold stone platform, idly noticing the radiating lines of gold inlaid into the black floor slabs, beautiful sigils and array lines that skittered under close examination. The open floor plan was interrupted by those large monoliths of crudely formed rock, each one a different thickness but all of a height. Atop them were basins, formed of more gold and filled with wood and sweet smelling oils, fuel for the fires that burned atop them.

His Skills are the flames, that's easy enough to reason out. He moved faster, toward the center, which was partially obscured by the bright pyres around it. That is the core then. How am I not surprised?

A huge bonfire the size of a three story building burned atop another orange-rock monolith. This one was the thickest by far, and it was decorated with more of those golden inlay and black detailing. The flame was hard to look at, even with his stats somehow, colored orange and yellow with a significant tinge of bloody crimson. Oil and aged wood fell from somewhere far above, the details hidden in the shadows of the coffered ceiling, and each piece set the bonfire to raging.

Among the flames, Felix could even see the rainbow shimmers he'd recognize anywhere. The first Essence Draught had been consumed by his core...but it hadn't been used to Temper anything. Why? Where the hell is Atar?

Without warning, everything pulsed and Atar's core swelled to twice its size. Constructs of fire Mana lashed outward, splashing into the monoliths closest, yanking pieces of their fire into itself...and yanking on Felix too.

Bastion of Will is level 86!

Relentless Resolution is level 72!

Felix could not be moved, not by Atar's core. A simple refusal made the entire construct of Mana collapse on itself. As if in defiance, he took steps closer anyway, batting away the questing reach of the core flame.

"Atar!"

Hidden next to the great inferno, a figure stood as if frozen. His face was fire and char, as if the man were rendered into wood and set ablaze. He quaked at each new pulse from the core, blinding flames that burst against his wooden flesh and sent ash and sparks scattering off into the distance.

"What the hell happened to you?" he said, horrified. "Hold on!"

Cardinal Flame!

A surge of new Mana spread out and around Atar's strange, immobile body. It felt like a tree on its last legs, dried and crumbling save for the heartwood, where he could feel the faint but distinct pulse of life Mana. He reached for that life, hoping to connect, to use Unite the Lost perhaps. But instead, Fiendforge sang from within Felix's distance core space, a song he'd never heard before.

Fiendforge.

Felix immediately felt his being settle against everything around him, and was possessed of the curious sensation of holding Atar and his core space in the palms of his hands. Of holding himself too, which was trippy and hard to parse, but harder still were the vibrations that twisted and spun between his palms. Not his own, not his Skill's, but the vibrational signature of Atar's core space itself.

That's...What?

It felt broken, or on the cusp of breaking. Cracks ran its length, spiderwebbing outward from the core flame itself and growing with every passing second. He knew, in the way of dreams and System-enhanced knowledge, that Atar's core space was seconds from ripping itself apart entirely.

It gets harder with each advancement, Karys' voice echoed in his memories. Atar was breaking apart as he attempted to Temper and press himself toward his next core stage all at once. Did he know what he was doing? Was he in control? One look at the paralyzed effigy of the man suggested he wasn't at all.

Then allow me. Indistinct impulses from the FIendforge spread through him, and through him into Atar. His hands pressed and pinched, surrounding and pervading the core space with swells of Felix's potency. The vibrations of Atar's monolithic altar sang as its cracks pressed shut, and Felix's Fiendforge met that song with a low tone of steady, uncompromising strength.

Harmony flowed, and everythingever Felix himselfshuddered.

Fire blossomed, shooting upward to splash against the coffered ceiling. Melted stone and gold rained down on them both, but Felix paid it no mind at all. All of his Will and Intent, and the last vestiges of his Fiendforge grabbed at Atar's wooden form. He drew at the life within its heartwood and hurled his own Mana at it, letting his perfect memory replicate the man's face and robes and annoyingly perfect curls.

Fiendforge is level 3!

Fiendforge is level 4!

Wood became flesh and hair and cloth, while life and flame turned to power enough to throw Atar's once-wooden form back into the nearest monolith. Flesh flushed with crimson and Atar drew a pained, exultant gasp.

Felix sagged, suddenly tired, only managing the smallest of smiles for Atar's confused, startled stare.

"Wh-what happened?" he said, leveraging himself back to his feet. He held his ribs as if he'd truly hurt them.

"Adept Temper isn't an easy one," Felix said, breathing hard himself. It had taken more mental energy than he had expected, even with his newly Tempered Mind. "And you're also pushing toward the Ring Stage of your core, according to Zara. What Skill did you Tier up? We need to find it."

"This is my core space," Atar said, wonderingly. Then he looked at Felix in accusation. "What are you doing here? How are you in here?"

The core space shook around them , and the fountaining flame began to die down. Power was waning all over, they could both see it in the dimming of the light.

"No time! Skill! Aspects! I need to get you another Essence Draught. It looks like your core already consumed the first to stabilize itself."

Atar threw up his hands. "I leveled Focus, right over there. Imbued Sparkbolt and Fields of Flame are over on the opposite side."

"Ok, go to Focus, I'll be right back."

"Where are you?"

Felix Willed himself away, resurfacing into his own Body with a painful snap. Blinking at the mounting migraine, Felix whirled on Alister. "I need three Essence Draughts!"

"Three?" the man asked, fumbling to get them uncorked. "Why?"

"Atar's core had already metabolized the first one, using it to boost its growth. It doesn't matter. Pour the next one down his throat, now," Felix ordered. "I'm going back in."

Pain branched through his Mind as Felix blinked back into Atar's core space, startling the fire mage.

"How in Avet's name are you doing that?" he demanded.

"Not really the time to explain, man," Felix said, eyeing the dark architecture around them. There were walls, but they were as drenched in shadows as the coffered ceilings and the flames all around them had dimmed a great deal more. "Our first step is to Temper you, then we'll worry about getting to Ring Stage. Alister is feeding you another Essence Draught. Can you seize it as it arrives?"

"Yes, of course I can," Atar said, offended. "I've done this before."

"Not like this. Adept Tier is harder," Felix frowned into the dark, and inspected the monoliths all around them. "C'mon. Where is it?"

So long as they got the Essence Draught into his core space and Atar made proper use of it, Felix was sure they'd be fine. Aside from their sheer potency, the primary benefit of the Spirit Fruit Essence Draughts were their universal nature. Body, Mind, or Spirit, it didn't matter. The real question was what Essences would be available, but Felix didn't doubt that all would be strong. A Legendary Spirit Tree wouldn't be likely to disappoint.

That said, Atar was the first to actually use one.

Fingers crossed.

"It's here!" Atar shouted, pointing into the dark.

The first of the Essence Draughts poured into Atar's core space like a liquid orange fog or roiling stormcloud. The moment it hit the light, however, it ignited into a conflagration. The flames everywhere burst alight in sympathy while the swirling orange and white hued Draught raged through it all.

"Grab it!" Felix growled.

"I got it!"

Felix grinned in approval as the burning cloud was wrested from the air above them and brought down into Atar's core flame. The bonfire burst alive, raging back to its original height as it processed the Spirit Tree's potency. More. It kept growing, expanding upward and outward until it was once again almost touching the charred ceiling. Atar gasped, but his gaze never wavered as tendrils of flame quested outward. Toward the monolithic altar that held his Focus Skill.

"I can handle it," Atar hissed to himself. "I can!"

Light and flame encompassed them both.

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