Chapter Four Hundred And Forty Six – 446
"eeeeeelix? What's going on?"
The world reassembled his vision first, leaving Felix standing with a single hand outstretched, still clasped around a fading ebon-gold thread. Beef was in the same position as before, mouth still finishing his earlier words.
"A vision," Felix explained as the thread vanished entirely. He rubbed his fingers together as the sounds of the sea returned to him, along with the creaking of ropes and sails.
Beef's mouth hung open. "A vision? Like a prophet?"
"No, not like that," Felix said, letting his hand drop to his side. "It's the same thing I did when I would see you. The same thing you were doing when you dreamed of me."
"Oh dang, you can control that?" Beef looked immediately excited, all his concern over the Mind-controlling Regalia gone. "Can you teach me?"
Felix shrugged. "No idea. But we need to talk to Zara first."
"Zara? Why? What did you see? Who did you see?"
"A problem."
Zara wasn't located on the flagship, as Beef and Vess were. She had chosen to travel in the next ship in line, likely because Felix had refused to let Isla travel along with him and Beef. Before they left, he tried to find Vessostensibly to include her on the situation, but also to check in on her. She was in her room but didn't answer when he knocked.
Felix and Beef left on their own.
The seas were still violent, the rains still constant, but both had slackened to an extent after their battle. It made riding atop the chitinous back of Hallow far more palatable at least, though it was only a minor act of Strength and Dexterity to keep balance atop the creature's shifting plates. The Multipede clambered up the side of the next ship, almost frightening the soul out of a Yttin crew member, and the two of them disembarked.
"Sorry about that. Do you know where Zara is?" Felix asked a panting Yttin woman. She swiftly dropped to a knee, but did not answer him. Turns out, she didn't need to.
"Looking for you," Zara said. She walked easily along the deck, her gait uninterrupted by the waves. "I saw Pit streak past us right after the light show you all put on. He would not stop to answer my questions, so I would ask you: What happened?"
Beef grimaced and Felix just kept walking past the Chanter. "We all need to talk."
Moments later, the three of them were ensconced in the captain's quarters on this ship. They were smaller than Felix's, as he rode in the largest Manaship, but they were just as empty of furnishings. Zara didn't even have a chest of drawers, instead having to make due with strange racks that secured a number of banded crates. Felix was tired though, and he seized the water Mana in the air and twisted it to his purpose.
Rime Shaping!
A chair of ice formed between the cracks in the floorboards, rising up to meet his descending backside. Felix sighed in relief. "Endurance and Strength out the wazoo, but sitting down still feels good."
Zara raised an eyebrow and Beef looked at him enviously so he quickly made chairs for them both, explaining the details of their fight against the Fathom and, after, the details of the Regalia.
"And it still contains a spark of the Divine?" Zara asked. "Might I see it?"
Felix hesitated only a little, but Zara's Perception couldn't be fooled. Her mouth tightened, even as he unzipped his pocket and handed the scrap of cloth to her. "Careful, it"
"Ouch!" The Naiad jerked her fingers away and up to her mouth as a golden jolt jumped from the Regalia. "It is defending itself?"
"Yeah. Doesn't want to be touched by us, I assume. Me especially."
"Does it not hurt you?" Zara asked. She could see the golden light zapping against his scaled fingers. "Or does it not penetrate your new hands?"
"It does. I just don't care," Felix said with a shrug. "I've been hurt by a lot worse than some static electricity on a dishrag."
Zara's brow, furrowed with thought before, smoothed out and her expression turned curiously soft. "Do you wish to talk about it?"
"What? No. I'm fine," Felix said. He held out the Regalia again. "Take it."
Instead of reaching for it, Zara let loose a trilling whistle that echoed far louder than it should have. Harmonies unspoken by her voice spread outward from her throat, and a hand of ghostly blue-green light reached out and cradled the Regalia in its oversized palm.
"That's so cool," Beef whispered.
Zara used her conjured hand to twist and tilt the cloth every which way. "It is giving out a piece of song itself. A tempting vibration that rattles against my teeth. You felt its Intent, yes?"
"We did," Felix said. "It wants to get away from me is about all I've gathered."
"That it does. There is a layer of...disgust. Stranger and stranger. You've made an impression on the Pathless, I think."
"That's me, making friends wherever I go."
"Indeed." The ghostly hand rotated once more, displaying the embroidered patterns on the off-white fabric. "I believe this was once part of the Pathless' outer robes, based on what I've learned over the years. The Priesthood wear robes of a similar designa sign of respect, they claim." She shook her head, as if worrying at something else. "There is more to it however. The vibration its sending out is pulling at things. People. Creatures. I was wondering why the Fathom were attacking us."
"So the Fathom are being drawn to it?" Felix asked.
"It is likely." Zara said.
"Across miles and miles of desert and mountains and stuff?" Beef asked. He glanced at Felix. "I thought you said it was weakened?"
"The ritual the Paladins attempted was loud as anything upon the world's Harmonies. The sheer amount of Dissonance unleashed by the Primordial's awakening and the Pathless' aborted array would have been heard across multiple Territories," Zara explained. "It will draw others, I'm sure."
"Is Ahkestria safe then?" Felix asked. A spike of alarm jolted along his spine. "Or will more Fathom spawn come looking?"
"Unlikely. Felix did not lie, Beef; the Regalia is weakened, but it is still a point of significance that drags along the Grand Harmony. Anything with the proper senses will sense it within a certain distance. It is unmistakable now that it cannot hide itself inside your Spirit."
"Hiding in my Spirit?" Beef's bovine face was as pale as Felix had ever seen it, turning an odd greyish-brown.
"The Regalia was burrowing into your Spirit and Mind, and only left your Body for last, when Felix attempted to take it."
"Burrowing?" Beef asked in a small voice.
"Mhm. You already gleaned its intentions in your Mind, but it seems like it was also cloaking itself within the noise of your Spirit. You are...uniquely qualified to host the artifact," Zara said. She tapped her lips with a cleanly manicured finger before walking to one of the secured crates along the side of the room. "But I believe I can find something better."
"What does that mean?" Felix asked. "'Uniquely qualified.' Because he's Unbound? Or a Minotaur?"
"It's because his Spirit is hollow." The door slammed open, its internal locks slide aside as easy as if she held a key, and Isla stood framed by a flash of lightning. She walked in, closing the door again with a faint splash of green-gold liquid Mana. "Such a conference and I am not invited? For shame, Zara."
"You were busy casting after the Fathom spawn," Zara said cooly, unruffled by the other woman's sharp tone. "I would not bother you for such stakes."
"Anything involving my Unbound charge concerns me," Isla all but snapped. She calmed visibly as she beheld Beef's worried expression. "Are you alright, Michael?"
"That'syeah," Beef said, sounding exhausted suddenly. His arm had mostly healed, and the color had returned to his complexion. "I'll be okay."
"Tch." She leaned into the enormous Minotaur, checking his eyes, ears, even his mouth. For what, Felix hadn't a clue, but she seemed mostly satisfied. "You should not be on another ship without me, Michael. You could get into more trouble than you can escape. For instance, that," she said, pointing at the cloth Zara still held suspended with her phantom hand. "That would never have found you had you stuck by my side."
"But you left to help Zara and the others. And Felix wanted to see the Tomb, and if we hadn't done that everyone would have died. Right?" Beef looked at Felix like a man casting for a lifeline. "Right, Felix?"
"Of course you're right," Felix said, giving his friend a comforting pat on the shoulder. Isla, however, got a harder glare. "He's doing fine on his own, Isla."
The diminutive woman pursed her mouth. "I was charged with finding and mentoring him, Felix. I cannot do that if I'm relegated to another ship."
"You'll do it just fine where you are."
"But"
"Enough," he snapped, unleashing just a touch of his Spirit. It roared outward, like the door she had opened to the storm, and he shut it swiftlybut the impression remained.
Isla gave Felix a tight, unwilling nod. "As you wish."
Zara walked back to the group carrying a number of thick slabs of crystal, each a different hue. "This shall allow us to escape the significance of this piece of Regalia. I recall you saying the Paladins used a similar method to contain it?"
"Oh yeah. They had a little crystal container to hold the thing. When it was closed I couldn't even sense its presence," Felix said. "You can recreate that?"
"Not exactly, no. It is likely they had the use of some Divine sigaldry to mesh with the Regalia's specific vibrations. I do not have such tools at my disposal." She set the crystals out into the air, and a new hand branched out of the ephemeral one that held the sparking fabric. With four pieces laid out, she brandished a stylus. "But I can make an approximation with some old fashioned sigaldry and the Chant."
Beef and Felix both leaned in closer, curious to watch the woman work. Isla, for her part, stood silently outside their circle, tapping her foot impatiently.
Zara's hand was steady as she sang a soft, insistent melody just under her breath. The first two crystal lengths were pressed together, and Mana flared where they met, sealing together. But not entirely. The Naiad followed that action up with a series of criss-crossing inscriptions, lines rather than sigils or glyphs, each one a perfect circle above the join. She repeated it, again and again, until all but the last of the crystalline pieces were affixed to one another. With deft movements and a lilting song from her lips, Zara shifted the entire structure over as her phantom hand dropped the Regalia into its hollow interior. It sparked wildly as it fell, the branches of golden light almost like claws, but it slipped easily into the crystal container.
Felix realized he was holding his breath and let it go, feeling just a bit silly. What did you expect? No. You know what you expected. An explosion, a monster attack. Something. The end cap was lifted by more ephemeral hands and moved to the last opening. But this is working. I already can barely hear it anymore, even when I'm listening for the Regalia's song.
In fact, all noise had stopped.
Felix stood up, but the floor was gone, as were the walls and the ceiling. He was alone in a vast stretch of darkness that was entirely too familiar. The Void extended in all directions, endless and featureless, and the only sound was his quickening heartbeat.
But that too changed.
The crashing sound of rushing water filled Felix's ears, and for a moment he wasn't sure where it was coming from. It was sourceless and everywhere, as if the black skies were opening above him and letting loose a wild cacophony atop his head. It wasn't water, but pure sound. Harmony, threaded through with clanging, atonal streams of Dissonance. It was similar to the way his cores produced their songs, but far more unbalanced and chaotic, as if someone was simply mashing instruments together to see how much noise they could produce.
A door to a burnt and blackened sky sat before him, a gate the size of a mountain and no bigger than a speck all at once. The roaring noise raced toward it, screaming into its threshold like a river of howling rapids careening toward a precipice. Felix could feel their attention tilt, not yet aware of him, but their vast incomprehensibility damaging for him to even glance at sideways. Through the gate, their shapes morphed and rumbled, shifted into moons that where chained among the blackened heavens, each overflowing with surreal emotions too complex for Felix to understand.
Title: The Call of Defiance is active!
+25% Willpower Against The Divine!
With all of his Willpower, he fought against the pull of that river, until the gate faded. Until its rumbling was only the thunder overhead, and before them all sat a crystalline tube, perfectly sealed together and marked with a dizzying array of glyphs and sigils across its facets.
Theurgist of the Rise is level 83!
He was in his icy chair, allies around him, none of them seeming the least bit concerned. Felix had a feeling none of them had just almost walked in on the gods for the second time in a week.
Zara sat back, stylus limp in her hand and face sweating. "The Regalia is sealed, and we are safe from its influence, at least for a time. It is done."
Yet Felix had the distinct feeling that things had just begun.
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