Unbound

The Chanters didn’t say much after Felix showed up. The stooped old lady had only bowed a little before she swooped off, clattering across the heaving deck on a knobbly cane, calling out for the injured to be gathered together. The entire ship soon transformed from a clutch of silent survivors into people with purpose. Now, Bloodied Chanters dabbed at dried blood on their faces, while several Gnomes in green-gold tabards were treated for broken limbs and puncture wounds from wooden shrapnel. Among them all Wooden Golems loped, agile hands armed with tools as they began to repair the busted Manaship.

“Lord Autarch the ah—the engines are shot,” said a Gnome dressed in more gold than green. Yorun, according to his Voracious Eye after a brief amount of resistance. Felix looked closer at the man, noting the chain around his neck and slight bump just under his tabard. A Veiling Amulet. Chanter made. Interesting. “I—we cannot fly. The Sorcerers they, ah, they suggested you might be able to help?”

“Oh. Yeah, I can help.” Felix was a little miffed to be their errand boy, but he couldn’t just leave them to sink into the Bitter Sea. He also couldn’t fault them for taking stock of the wounded, even if they did ignore him. What did you expect? Applause? Worship? He snorted to himself. You stopped them from getting killed by the Dread. He didn’t need validation or thanks.

It wouldn’t have hurt, though.

A short time later, Felix flew ahead of their broken Manaship. It was incapable of flight, but it still floated, and the Chanters’ shields kept it from getting burned away in the highly acidic water. So, while Felix flew, he hauled the Cipher’s Venture behind him. Tethers of shadow clung to the bowsprit and prow, wrapped around wood and steel as surely as any steel towing cable, while a steady wave rolled beneath its hull, propelling it forward.

Shadow Whip is level 68!

Hand of Calamity is level 70!

The shore was a decent distance away—Felix had been forced to hurl himself almost two miles out to reach their ship—so he took the time to think on a few things. Namely the Dread itself.

It listened to me, which is new. Felix hadn’t faced the Dread in real life since his arrival on the Continent nearly a year ago, but even when he revisited their meeting in his Memories there was never any conversation. The Dread, he had thought, was a monster capable of murder and only murder. But that isn’t right. The Maw used it to Mark me when I arrived, which means it’s either a puppet or it can take orders. There’s no one around to puppet it anymore, so I guess that means it’s smart enough to chat.

That understanding was further fueled by what he’d noticed as the Dread had left, and Felix fired off his Voracious Eye.

Name: The Dread

Type: Bloodbeast

Level: 1344

HP: 4342877/4343091

SP: 3216712/3216846

MP: 1134928/1134928

Lore: The Dread is the last living Bloodbeast intentionally forged by the Primordial known as the Unending Maw. It feeds upon all those that enter its waters, driven by dark instincts and its very blood, and nothing will stop it once it begins its assault. Of all Bloodbeasts, there is only one greater still living.

Strength: Incredible reach, Strength, and the ability to consume the Mana around itself.

Weakness: It has relatively low Agility, and there are limits to how much Mana it can consume at once.

Link: Tier X

A Tier X Link. He couldn’t afford to check his core space right then, to confirm that the Link was with him, but Felix didn’t doubt it. It listened to me…of course it did.

The Maw was dead, eaten up by Felix himself, but its Hunger lived on. The reason the Dread was a Bloodbeast was because of the Maw, because of what it had done to him; originally a Geist warrior, they had been thoroughly transformed by the Maw’s power, turned into a monster. A slave.

My slave, now. His skin crawled at the thought. I’m not standing for that.

Yet when he panned the waters around him for the beast, there was nothing. The Dread had vanished, and Felix hadn’t the time to hunt it down. Soon, he promised himself.

It only took fifteen minutes to pull the ship to shore. Once the gray sands were visible, he sped up, pushing more and more of his Mana into the acidic water. The potency faded the closer they drew to shore, thankfully, but that also meant Felix’s control was equally diluted—he didn’t have a water shaping Skill yet. So he just ramped it up.

Hand of Calamity is level 71!

Shouts of alarm rang out on the decks of Cipher’s Venture, but they were fine. A huge wave swelled beneath the hull, lifting them up at an angle and sweeping them toward the shoreline. Felix surged ahead, crackling with lightning as he let his Shadow Whips slacken, and spun up one last Skill.

His magic sank through the water, into the sand below. A ramp of hardened sandstone lifted, casting green brine in all directions moments before the Cipher’s Venture sailed up its rising length. The Chanters shouted again, and this time their shields popped like a bubble as several of them tumbled onto their butts, but it was fine. Felix stopped feeding the wave, pulling his power back until it was no more than a whitecapped swell of mostly water.

The sandstone flattened and widened, retaining just enough of a groove to guide the Manaship’s hull into toward his impromptu dry dock. Felix dropped back, hauling tight on his Shadow Whips, and spinning the entire ship sideways into the raised platform. It wobbled, wood and metal creaking in the magically hardened slip, before it settled in with a deep, crashing boom.

“You’re all set!” Felix shouted as he dismissed his Shadow Whips. Folks aboard the ship climbed back to their feet, some bruised but mostly just embarrassed—and all of them staring at him. The Chanters’ Spirits gave off nothing, but the Gnomes were torn between appreciation and annoyance. Yorun, at least, gave him a shaky thumbs up from the helm.

Was that petty? Felix hovered for a moment, crackling with static electricity. Yeah.

He’d earned a little bit of pettiness, sometimes.

Felix flew on, down toward where he’d left Zara. In her place though was a shield of swirling blue water Mana. It was clear his remnant wave had crashed right into the Chanter, gouging deep pits out of the sand to either side of her.

Oops.

The shield collapsed, splashing around Zara’s feet to reveal the woman standing unharmed….while beside her was a far more disheveled-looking Isla.

Felix landed next to them, the wet sand squishing around his boots. “Oh, hey. When did you get here?”

“Just in time for your little show, apparently.” Isla shook her half-sodden dress, and Felix didn’t miss the dirt on her cheek or the brambles caught in her normally immaculate hair. “Is that the craft with our people aboard it? Did you truly just haul them to shore like a—like a fisherman to market?”

“Your skirt is smoking,” Felix pointed out.

The Chanter cursed, and even that was musical. A series of green-gold tendrils flowed upward from her feet, wrapping around her blue gown. The smoking was smothered immediately, but the hem of her fine dress was ruined. “Yet more indignity. This cost me a great deal to import from Tevin.”

“In the Ghreldan Hills?” Zara looked as if she just put something together. “So that is where you’ve been getting your finery.”

“The trade through your Beacons is quite nice,” Isla admitted. Begrudgingly, Felix thought. “I have long been without luxury, holed up in that sand pit of a city, and while Nagast is no cultured metropolitan…it has its charms.”

“Uh. Huh,” Felix said.

“What?” she asked, narrowing her eyes through a curtain of tangled locks.

“I just don't know how to respond to a compliment from you.” He turned toward the ship just as a gangplank was extended out of the side. “It’s a nice change.”

Isla spluttered something unintelligible, but Felix didn’t really care. The gangplank crashed into the Stone Shaped dry dock along a long flat plane that ramped downward toward the rapidly drying sand. Thirteen figures disembarked, each of them moving with a slow, processional gait while a swell of song took to the air. Woodwinds and strings sang a concerto of peace, humility, and appreciation as the Chanters descended. None of them wore anything close to a uniform, either in color or fabric or design, but there was something distinct about each one that Felix flagged as different from other people. He narrowed his eyes, unsure of what he was seeing.

A few more followed right after the Chanters, three boys and three girls of varying Races, each garbed in simple robes of undyed wool and flax that absolutely looked like a uniform. A shitty one, but still. They had something of that strangeness about them that he had noticed in the Chanters, but it was fleeting at best. Perhaps it was just harder to spot, due to surprise. Apprentices, obviously…but how old are they? He doubted any of them were older than fifteen, and the youngest looked to be a literal child of seven or eight.

Behind them came a contingent of Gnomes, all of them garbed green and gold tabards, wide leather belts, and a bevy of odd tools. A panel sewed into the front of their tabard depicted three interlocking gears overlaid by a hammer. Yorun led them, along with a handful of Wooden Golems that marched in single file down the ramp. Felix spotted a control rod in Yorun’s hands, a fine one made of crystal, wood, and mithril. It hummed almost as loud as the Chanter’s marching song, buzzing like he was standing under a set of power lines.

God, they’re milking this entrance. Did they forget I just saved them? At his side, Zara and Isla fidgeted as the slow procession made its way toward them all. They were nervous. Surprisingly, Felix felt extremely steady about it all. Which was good, considering what he needed to do.

The Chanters stepped onto the sand, and where they tread it turned to verdant grasses and wildflowers. Spring bloomed in winter, each step forming a path that led them through the acid-strewn sand toward Felix.

Well, okay, that’s pretty cool. Felix chewed his cheek, thinking. Could I do that? It’d just take some Green Shaping, I think.

The Chanters reached them after a solid five minutes, the squishy ground grown into a verdant causeway. The growth slowed down as their processional song faded, becoming a murmuring melody that lilted among the cold sea air. The men and women in the lead parted, making way for the elderly woman with the cane. Felix had noticed her before, but had refrained from using his Eye on any of the Chanters—since folks with an Affinity could feel that sort of intrusion, it was just polite. He assumed it was Mauvim, though. She was nearly bent double atop her knobby cane, and the skin of her face and neck was fighting a losing battle with gravity and elasticity.

“Zara,” she said, her voice sharp and without any waver. “I am pleased to see you in the flesh, once more.”

The Naiad curtsied. “And I you, Mauvim.”

They embraced.

“Isla,” Mauvim paused, squirting at the slighter woman’s face as Zara stepped back again. “You have something in your hair.” Isla’s face turned a very interesting shade of pink before she started to pull at her locks. Mauvim said nothing, only turned to face Felix. “Lord Autarch Felix Nevarre.”

Mauvim bowed, her crooked body somehow making it look effortless. The others copied her bow, if not as deep. She looked around as she straightened. “A fine place, this beach. And a finer protector.”

Zara shifted. “You speak of the Dread.”

“A Bloodbeast,” Mauvim said. “Those are exceedingly rare, and for good reason.”

A dark-skinned Chanter, younger-looking than Zara spoke up. Her voice was stern. “They are to be killed on sight, for their very touch warps flesh and rots the blood.”

Yorun gasped, and more than one set of eyes turned on him in surprise. The guy didn’t care though. In fact, he was pissed. “It touched so many of us! My people—!”

“Are fine. I apologize for making you worry, captain,” Mauvim interrupted. “This Bloodbeast is cleansed, somehow. Untainted by the flesh curse.” She stared at Felix. Through him, almost. “Remarkable.”

Felix had nothing to say to that, so he ignored it. “Why exactly are you here?”

A faint ripple spread through the group, but Mauvim met his steady gaze. “To teach…and to beg for asylum.”

“Asylum?” Isla asked. She cast her gaze across everyone, across the battered ship. “Where did you sail from?”

“Neer, atop the Klaven Cliffs. We only narrowly evaded the Hierocratic blockade,” a Dwarven Chanter said. She was bald with very interesting tattoos across her scalp and face. They interlocked like geometric knotwork, and glimmered like metal. “This ship and our Makewright friends here were all that we could pull from the flames.”

“The Hierophant has moved on the Neerans? What has changed?” Zara asked.

Mauvim lifted a hand, palm down. “All shall be answered, but this is not something to be discussed in the open. Our plan was to fly to your Stronghold, Lord Autarch, but your defenses are too strong. Even discounting your Dread, we can barely see in this fog. I would like to see your Territory before it grows too dark. We have a great deal to discuss, young man.”

Felix snorted. “That we do. But you’ll not be entering my lands without an Oath.”

This time, the ripple of emotion was very obvious. The dark-skinned Chanter scowled at him. “You would bind us, boy?”

“You expected to just fly into my Territory unchallenged?” Felix stared down the woman, and he felt his eyes burn. The growing dark around them was illuminated by blue-white and red-gold. “Let me be very clear. The only reason you are allowed here now is because I trust Zara. The Cantus Sodalus remains unproven.” He swept his gaze across every one of them. “Give your Oath, or I’ll put you back out to sea myself.”

“Alone, Autarch?” The dark-skinned Chanter asked, and a percussive rhythm gathered behind her voice. “Against us all?”

Felix let his Voracious Eye spool up, identifying her. “If it means keeping my people safe, Emelda, then yeah. Alone.”

A loud crack shattered the rising tension, forcing Felix and Emelda’s gazes to break. Felix glanced at Mauvim and her lifted fingers. “Enough. Emelda, all of you, stand down. This is not the way. We seek shelter and asylum, and we seek to prevent the end of all things. Only here may we find succor, where the armies of the Hierophant have been beaten back not once, but twice.” She took a deep breath, as if all the talking had taxed her. “We will take your Oath, Lord Autarch Nevarre. I only ask that it does not take away our power of choice.”

Felix frowned. “Of course not. Unless that choice is to betray me and my people. I’m not in the business of making people my slaves.” Thoughts of the Dread flickered through him, but Felix shoved that aside. Later. “I only ask that you not disclose the secrets of my people or Territories, not to take up arms against my people or Territories, or otherwise act against any Territory that I hold Authority over. On pain of loss of your Temper, your levels, and your stats.”

Skein of Fate is level 64!

The Oath congealed around his hands, a spiraling loop of silver thread invisible to all others. A faint pressure laid atop of it, a distant hand attempting to pull it away from him—but Felix shouldered it aside as his Call of Defiance Title activated. Get outta here, Siva.

He swore he heard the air around him hiss.

Skein of Fate is level 65!

Without hesitation, Mauvim dropped to a single knee before Felix. “I give my Oath to you, Lord Autarch.”

One by one, all of the Chanters did the same, some taking a bit longer than others. The Gnomes knelt as well, as did the Wooden Golems, funnily enough.

Skein of Fate is level 66!

…

Skein of Fate is level 68!

“Zara,” he said, feeling the Oath latch around each and every one of their visitors. Yet before Felix could get another word out, the Chanter dropped to a single knee.

“I too give my Oath to you, Lord Autarch,” the Naiad said. The Oath bound around her Spirit as well.

That leaves… Isla stood not far off, hair still in disarray but her expression regal enough for a queen. She pursed her lips.

“Oh very well.”

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