Unbound

"What happened?" Felix shouted, before yelping as Pit Converged with his Spirit.

Go to them! Pit sent, along with a flurry of anxiety and pain. I need a second!

Got it! Felix crashed through the few plant monsters that tried to intervene as he sped back to Beef's side. "Beef! Hallow?"

The War Nagas circled up, keeping their thick tails between the fallen and the enemy. “My Lord! What do you wish of us?”

“Just keep those plants back!” Felix crouched beside Beef, finding Isla already leaning over his giant face. “What’s going on? Is he okay?”

The Chanter was singing beneath her breath and removing the magical helmet from Beef’s head. It popped off with the sound of pressurized air, the orichalcum retreating from his horns like liquid metal before forming into a dense sphere. Isla dropped it into the mud and pressed her fingers rhythmically alongside Beef’s jaw and temples. “His Aspects are rebelling against an external force. He’s retreated into his core space, which will protect him for a time but not forever.”

“The boy has been feeling ill since we began our journey,” Paxus said. He stood close, concern etched onto his face and broadcasting from his open Spirit. “His Aspects seem strained.”

“Because of his arms?” Felix asked. Cold guilt wormed into his chest.

“No. Your associate healed him of that injury. This feels like more.” Paxus’ left eye twitched. “He swells with a foreign vibration.”

“Let me in you stupid stone!” Isla’s song broke and she thumped a fist down onto the muddy earth. “His blighted Spirit is defending against my delving.”

“Hallow?” Felix looked at the various Bodies around them. At the Multipede, Wickerjak Risen, and the crude rock Homunculus. “He’s reacting to the ooze, right? Is it the Dissonance?”

“You know…of course. Lord Unbound, the underpinnings of the Grand Harmony do not lightly reveal themselves. They are hallmarks of foul creatures and those that have pushed too far.” Paxus met Felix’s eye as shrieks and splintering wood grew loud all around them. “I can tell you speak of Dissonance with the cadence of familiarity, Lord Unbound. Your existence is, by its very nature, counter to our own but you too must tread carefully around such power. There is a reason it is hidden.”

“A little late for that,” Felix said. “Isla, step back. I have a way in.”

She did so, settling back onto her heels with a dissatisfied snort. “I told you. His Hallow Spirit is blocking all delvings. You cannot reach him.”

Felix thrust a hand into the middle distance, where a thick thread thrummed at right angles to the world. A Tier IV Link between himself and Beef, made of dusty-brown and blackened-green threads that were more than Mana and less than physical. “Watch me,” he growled, and Pit crowed in his Spirit.

The Link sang.

The world around them winked out.

Very briefly, in the moment that Felix’s awareness was consumed, he felt inundated by a faint, rigid presence. The presence lost all rigidity the moment Felix flared his Willpower, and suddenly he was freefalling in the black.

The darkness soon resolved as Felix’s booted heels hit a plush surface. He flexed his knees, his landing softer than he expected, and cautiously looked around. “Beef?”

He was in a small room, just big enough for the bed, desk, and dresser that it contained. Two of three walls were plastered with posters of various cartoons and anime, all of them featuring barely-dressed heroines with swords that rivaled some of his own in size. Felix wasn’t familiar with any of them, but he’d never made much time for TV once he’d started working. Dotted among the posters were shelves overflowing with seven inch statues of the same scantily clad characters and more than one cheap, plastic axe. Piles of laundry, stacks of papers, and empty, slightly greasy containers were scattered all over the bed and dresser, but the desk was immaculately clean. It was a wide affair, with plenty of space for the three monitors and large tower unit.

“That looks more expensive than my last apartment,” Felix muttered. “Pit, you in here?”

I am. With a flash of light, Pit manifested on the bed in Dire Hound form…and promptly fell over, big ears flopping as he slid between the bed and the wall. “Gah!”

Felix snorted. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Ooh! There’s food back here!” Harsh crunching filled the room. “Salty! Tastes like onions!”

Stale flavor filtered across their bond before Felix cut it off. “Weeks-old chips. Eugh. I don’t think you should be eating someone’s core space.”

A sense of stubborn incredulity and sarcasm accompanied the taste of ancient chips. No words, but with more than enough Intent behind them to suggest the phrase: Really?

“Shush.” Beef had been very reluctant to show Felix his core space before. Is that why? Because he’s a slob? The comforter shifted on the bed as Pit wormed further down beneath, revealing a long body pillow with a printed, cartoon lady on it. “Oh, no wait, I get it now.”

The sound of muted thunder drew Felix’s eye to the third wall, the last one. Just beside the bed and desk, it was dominated by a large, eight-pane window. Now, Felix was pretty tall—around six and a half feet since his transformation—and this window was taller still. It extended from the floor all the way up to a few inches shy of the ceiling, which Felix estimated at about ten feet. That alone was interesting, but not nearly as fascinating as what he saw beyond it.

There was a storm outside.

“What’s that?” Pit asked, wiggling out from under the bed.

Felix only stared, letting his Companion join him at the window as rivers of rain coursed down its panes. The rain itself seemed to fall slowly, and he saw lightning trace a bright line through the distant clouds that seemed to be locked in place. Directly outside were the pebbly shingles of a sharply-pitched roof and farther out, the hazy silhouette of a suburban neighborhood. Skeletal trees waved in the wind as if they were underwater, their slow-shifting branches changing the shape of the houses Felix couldn’t quite make out. The storm and the dark concealed it all, even from his Perception.

“Beef? Are you here?” Felix asked again. The place was clearly the teen’s bedroom from Earth, now functioning as a core space of some kind. The anime statues, the posters, the cheap, fake weapons, even the general unkempt disarray of the place spoke to it. “Beef?”

Where was he?

Apart from the window, the third wall was also covered in knick-knacks, but these were framed instead of stuck up with pushpins and packing tape. Awards for academic achievement were dusty and crooked, hung with old, tattered looking ribbons and tarnished medals. The glass was so smudged that Felix couldn’t make out the subjects on the placards, only that there were at least sixteen, with half as many medals, ribbons, and tiny trophies on tinier shelves. Below that was the computer.

“What’s that thing?” Pit asked, sniffing up into the air with his small nose. “Smells like magic.”

“Probably is,” Felix said, casting his Perception outward. The room was throwing him off for some reason. It felt like there was an itch he couldn’t scratch, a feather touch behind his eyes. He wrinkled his nose, smelling only the onion funk from his Companion. “Everything is magic here. It’s all visualized internal Mana. And if I had to guess…” Felix reached out and jiggled the dark shape next to the keyboard. Lights immediately flashed from the optical mouse, racing across the keyboard in red, green, and blue shimmers before ascending the tall, black tower of the PC. “This must be Beef’s core.”

The three monitors flickered to life, a little too bright in the dark room, but soon resolved into a long desktop image of a rolling, golden field lit by a gorgeous setting sun. Brilliant pinks, oranges, and faint greens streaked the clouds and mingled among the rows of grain. It looked photo-real, almost as if Felix could reach through the screen and into the scene. The only thing that broke that illusion were the numerous icons that cluttered all three monitors.

“Skills, if I had to guess,” he muttered. Experimentally, Felix took the mouse and guided the cursor—shaped like a small hammer—toward the nearest icon. It was shaped like a big, green beetle and had the name “Chitin Construction” appear as he hovered over it. “Oh yeah. Skills for sure.”

The icons were placed around the three monitors in no particular order. Where Felix would have grouped them all by type, or maybe by function, were this a real computer, Beef had them in an arcane pattern. Felix was certain it meant something, so after hovering over the one Skill he let it be. He wasn’t here to fiddle with the kid’s core…not yet, at least.

Look.

Felix froze, still bent in half before the computer keyboard. He didn’t hear the word so much as feel it as a basso thrum through his middle.

The Floor.

He looked to his metal greaves. They were half-buried in the thick carpeting…and directly next to a set of black cables that dropped from the desktop before snaking up toward the—

No. Look. See!

The room stuttered, skipped, as a snippet of screeching static tore at Felix’s ears. He was standing at a wall, toes touching it. It was the fourth wall. There are four walls? How? How’d I miss that?

It was made of stone. Two-foot square blocks were stacked atop one another, undressed and rough, but fitted together so cleverly it was hard to find the seam. In the center, just next to the computer desk, was the door. A crack traversed its beveled face, one that very nearly bisected it. The crack was just wide enough to allow a chill wind to whistle through it, and to allow the cables to pass into the darkness beyond.

Felix kept his eyes wide, not daring to shift his attention at all. Something was trying to make him forget this wall and door existed, and if he looked away Felix wasn’t sure he’d know to look back again. His middle rumbled, no longer a voice but a deep, throaty growl.

Open. Eat.

He pursed his lips. Felix should have known the voice was his Hunger. I’m not eating anything here. This is my friend’s core space, understand?

“Felix, who are you talking to? And why are you staring…at—” Pit shook his head, jowls flapping. “Weird. What are you doing? You’re staring…”

“Don’t worry about it, bud. Just stand back,” Felix warned and still refusing to blink or shift his gaze, he pulled a fist back as far as he could. “Beef! Beef, I’m coming in!”

There was no answer, but Felix didn’t expect one. He threw his arm forward, a demolition charge of flesh and scales, and the entire stone door exploded.

Pit squawked with surprise. “Wow! What did you—Hey! A wall! Where’d that come from?”

Felix was already through, shoving past the two-foot thick remnants of the door and stepping out onto a flat expanse of…nothing.

“Is this the Void?” Pit asked, and for the first time since they arrived in the core space, a trace of fear had crept into his Companion’s voice.

“No, but it feels like it,” Felix said. At a right angle to his senses, the Link between him and Beef thrummed insistently. It quivered once, then again, and again. Each time rising in pitch until it sent a cascading series of ascending notes. “Beef! Bee—Oh.”

The room looked infinite and cavernously empty at the same time. Unrelieved black extended in all directions, which made it very easy to see the crude granite platform, plinth, and poorly designed throne. The teen Minotaur was slumped there, head lolling as drool poured from his wide mouth.

A set of wavering lines wrapped around the platform, shining with a multitude of flashing colors. They slipped onto the platform, snaking through the plinth and throne in concentric circles. A set of three thick cords that connected back through the broken gate and directly to the desktop PC.

“What is this?” Felix asked as he burned his Agility. The distance between him and the platform vanished in an instant. He pointed at the glowing lines. “Stealing internet from this place?”

Beef’s head didn’t move, but his shoulders shook ever so slightly.

“You can hear me,” Felix said, looking around. There was nothing but the platform, plinth, and throne. He kneeled down at the edge of the platform, running his dark hands above the braided cords of light. “Good. Hold onto your butt while I rip this whole thing apart.”

“W…wait…”

Beef’s voice was a faint rasp, and he still couldn’t lift his head. Felix hesitated, about to touch the strange light that seemed responsible for holding his friend hostage. “Beef? What’s going on? This doesn’t feel like it’s just Dissonance.”

“My…my Spirit…” he hissed, and a measure of power pulled the tendons in his neck taut enough that Beef met Felix’s sharp gaze. “Hallow…”

The plinth beside them burst into an indescribable, transcendent song, nearly throwing Felix back. Through the din, however, he heard a single word from Beef.

“Regalia.”

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