Unbound

The room ahead was as dark and quiet as the stairwell had been, but in Felix's Manasight it all swirled with color. Evie stalked ahead, moving low to the ground and as quietly as possible. Felix couldn't see much, being stuck in the back, and after two gut wrenching minutes Evie returned, her eyes brightening significantly as she stood up straight.

"I was wrong. Can't find anything," she whispered. "If someone was here, they left no trace. Even the dust ain't disturbed. Everyone fan out though, see if you notice anything I missed."

The other four climbed the rest of the way into the room, inspecting it for the first time. Felix's vantage widened until he could see a oval-shaped room containing four open archways and a single odd depression in the center. He stepped closer and found that it was a pentagonal hole, with two tiers of seating in it. The very center was the lowest and contained a boundary of carved stone.

It's a fire pit with...tiered seating. Reminds me of those old conversation pits from the 70s.

Weird, but not too remarkable. Felix kept looking.

The floor was more of the same pentagonal tile, mazed with stress fractures and coated in a thick dust that, just as Evie said, was undisturbed until they trudged through it. There was no sign of anyone, either via his Tracking Skill or his Manasight, no matter how he strained the ability.

Felix turned back to the women, his Manasight still flaring from his inspection of the room. Both of them were vaguely humanoid shapes dominated by the green-gold of life Mana, a blurry line of power that branched like small saplings along their spines. But for a few flickering moments he could spot flashes of other colors sparking within their bodies. He blinked and they were gone.

Ugh. He rubbed his eyes, feeling them strained after relying on the Skill for so long. So no one is here. What did Evie sense, then?

"Nothing is here," announced Atar, walking from one of the side rooms and dusting his robes. "Just dust and more impeccable sculptures. Who exactly lived in this place?"

"Not a clue. My father's library is extensive and still I have not heard of an entire city within the Foglands." Vessilia put her hands on her hips, clearly entranced by the stonework all around her. "It is truly fascinating."

Felix saw Atar smile in her direction, a familiar light in his eyes.

Felix smiled to himself, turning toward one of the archways and noticing yet another stairwell. This led up, much as the last, with the same smaller stairs set into the center.

"Third and final check. Nothing. Anyone else?" Evie asked from across the room.

"...No," offered Atar while fiddling with a pouch at his belt.

"Zilch over here. Just dust," Felix added.

"Vess?" Evie prompted when the young woman didn't reply. She looked up guiltily from inspecting the walls, eyes wide.

"Mhm? Oh! No. Nothing at all."

"Okaaay," Evie drawled, stretching her shoulders and arms. "Then we make camp. We can't stray too far; gotta let Maggie find us somehow."

They did just that. In a short piece of time, the five of them had settled in, not having their packs or even blankets to lay out. Instead, as the wait turned to an hour, Vessilia and Atar had drifted back to the walls and Evie paced and fretted near the stairwell. She wasn't nearly as calm about her sister going off into danger as she projected.

Does she have the Acting Skill too?

Unsure what to do with himself, Felix sat at the edge of the tiered depression, idly petting Pit's fur/feather combo. Somehow the combination was smooth and soft, not nearly as coarse as he would have expected.

I need to get away. Gotta take care of these vials soon. Can't imagine they'll last much longer without refrigeration.

Unwilling to wait any longer, Felix stood and made his way to the stairs on the far side of the oval room, Pit close behind him.

"Where're you going?"

Felix looked back over his shoulder at Evie, who, despite her question, was barely paying attention to him. "Can't sit still, so I'm checking out the floor above us."

Evie nodded, then brightened. "Good! Keep an eye out for anything weird, and don't do anything I would do."

"I think you got that backwards," started Felix.

"No I didn't." She was already back to pacing.

Felix felt a chuckle bubble up in his chest. What a weird girl.

He started up the stairs. Cute though.

The stairs spiraled upward for a few minutes, decorated much the same as the previous one. So it was a galaxy of magic that guided him upward, his Manasight having to work double time in order to pick out what was stair and what was the flash of inlaid precious material.

Why do simple materials like these make my vision strange? It was more than colors, it was a vibrancy to these metals and gemstones that almost oscillated in his eyes. As disconcerting as it was beautiful. Analyze doesn't ping them as anything special. Just silver and copper, lapis lazuli and serpentine. Not even really rare fantasy metals like mithril or anything.

So caught up with these sights, Felix only barely registered that the stairs were ending. So he was startled when he found a solid wall directly before him. Painfully so, as he thunked his forehead against the rough stone, and stumbled backward two steps in surprise.

"Ow! What?" Felix rubbed his head. "Why's there a wall here?" Felix considered the mortared stone before him, eyeing the makeup of its dusty brown Mana shot through with jagged veins of silver. It was like any other wall in the tower and completely unremarkable for that fact. Annoyed, he turned around.

Then he turned around again.

W-where are the stairs?

They were gone. Felix was in a narrow room; a hallway, really, no more than five feet wide but stretching forward another fifty feet. Triangular alcoves lined the path, each heavily shadowed but filled with sculpture of some sort. Pit whined, picking up on Felix's distress.

The stairs had vanished into thin air. Or had he been teleported? Was that a thing? Or...

Or did the walls move?

Felix wasn't sure why he found that more creepy than being trans-located by magic, but it was. He tapped the walls again, pushing against the floor and baseboards in the hope that he could activate some hidden catch. But nothing was there. Analyze sent back the same information as any other wall, and his Manasight caught nothing else. So it was with a rapid pulse that he took step after step down the new corridor, Pit padding behind him with his wings tight and tail low.

There was no dust, he noticed. His steps brought back the clean sound of hard leather on harder stone, with a slight scrape as he pushed off his back foot or pivoted. Every sound felt close and immediate, as if nothing else existed except him and his boot noises. As he passed the first of the alcoves, he saw white statues of animals on simple, fluted display stands. He Analyzed them as he went. There were detailed recreations of large cats called Kanwar, birds called Fellhawks, Grey Wolves, and even small, Fat-Tailed Lizards. But as Felix strode further down the hall, the statues grew...strange.

Each subsequent alcove repeated the same types of creatures as before, except each of them had been altered in some way. The Kanwar had grown scales and small horns, the Fellhawk had gained fangs, the wolves grew another set of legs, and the lizards...they gained wings.

Oh what the hell. Skinks are gonna follow me forever. What is all this?

The corridor came to an end with each of the animals having gone through a complete metamorphosis, turning into altogether different beasts than they started. Felix Analyzed them and came up with four new names: Harnoq, Tenku, Wendigo, and a Wyvern.

Not Skinks at all. Something totally different.

"Tenku, huh?" He eyed Pit, who sniffed at the sculpture. "One of your aunts or uncles, buddy?"

Pit simply snorted in disdain and walked ahead. Felix smiled and followed.

The room opened out into a larger chamber, an ovular one almost identical to the one below, only without any adjoining rooms, just a single darkened alcove on the far side. It even had the same tiered pit. The two largest differences were the total lack of dust here, as if someone had just cleaned the room, and the absolutely massive bas-relief murals dominating every single wall.

Exploration is level 20!

Much like the ones below, they were far better preserved than the countless carvings outside. They also heavily featured natural formations. One wall was entirely filled with a split peaked mountain made of thick, dull iron, heavily forested and featuring two peaks that appeared to have been sundered in two at some point. Second wall had a sprawling forest, rendered in silver and serpentine stone. And the last wall featured a waterfall above a sprawling lake, the water picked out with lapis lazuli and pieces of near translucent alabaster.

On top of that, the walls were crawling with depictions of animals. Most were unidentifiable to Felix as they seemed to be a mish-mash of multiple species spliced together. Some, however, greatly resembled the statues in the previous hallway.

Chimeras.

Repeated over and over were small white figures, rendered as caring for or otherwise interacting with the chimeras. Unlike any other carving, they were made of a smooth white stone.

Are these the caretakers of these ruins? The original inhabitants? Felix found himself fascinated by it all, especially the similarities between this place and the Nymean Temple. The Temple also had naturalist style art. Is it similar ideology? Or were the two connected?

Across the far side of the room, the shadowed alcove resolved into another archway, this one with a set of stairs leading up...and back down a level.

Good. Not sure how I got turned around, but I can get back to the others easily. He ran a hand across an immaculately rendered tree on the wall. I'd hate to use Stone Shaping and ruin some of this.

Mind more at ease, Felix made his way back to the tiered depression. He seated himself within it and took a breath. Then he laid out his blood vials.

Hoarhound blood. Risi blood. Assassin blood. Felix set them all on the bench beside him, eyeballing them in turn. The first two were dark colored and rimed with literal frost, the hound blood most of all. The power of this blood hadn't seemed to have abated, and the idea of eating them was challenging at best. The last was the simplest, but also the one he was worried about the most; the liquid had darkened considerably and it was normal human blood. Not magical creature ichor or whatever. Just like, A positive.

Just take it slow. I'll do the Hoarhound first. Chances always seemed better for Skill gain rather than Memory gain, but it was a crap shoot as far as Felix was concerned. He hoped for a Skill, in this case.

Felix lifted the container, hands sticking slightly to the cold surface. He popped the seal and ice cracked from the vial. With a grimace, Felix tipped it back quickly, except the blood within was viscous and moved like tar. It rolled, stretching and drooping until, all at once, it plopped right into his mouth.

OUGH! It was vile, a thick, terrible paste that Felix had to actually chew to swallow. What was worse, the viscous liquid was so cold that he felt pain radiate from his tongue and throat, a sensation that burned a line of agony down his entire esophagus.

New Skill Learned!

Cold Resistance (Common), level 1!

You've felt the powerful effects of frost and have grown stronger for it. Damage reduction increases with Skill Level.

Felix pushed the blood down, actively shoving it toward his core. He cycled the thick sludge, pouring it into the furnace of his Fire Within, willing that his power devour it. After a moment, his blue-white Mana surged, and the power began to eat up the ichor, burning it for fuel.

Pain.

Frost crackled across his back and ribs, extending down his arms and legs with a burning ferocity. Cold poured off his body like steam, and Felix could sense a purple-white Mana vapor begin to pool around him in the tiered pit he sat in, his own special fog that rolled out from his chest.

It was agony.

But he could handle this.

Cold Resistance is level 2!

Cold Resistance is level 3!

...

Cold Resistance is level 6!

Pain Resistance is level 28!

Congratulations!

Your Title Gourmand Has Garnered You Insight!

You Have Fully Digested Your Opponent's Mana!

You Have Learned A Skill From A Hoarhound!

Mantle of the Long Night (Rare), level 1!

The cold of the Long Night cannot be stopped, only delayed. Extends an aura of cold centered on yourself. Range and strength increases with Skill Level.

Yes!

The pain stopped as sudden as the notifications appeared, and it was like a drug all by itself. Then his brain flooded with palpable relief, easing through his bones even as his appetite surged. It had worked.

Thank fuck. Felix rubbed at his chest, memory of the burning pain going nowhere soon. I hope this Skill is worth the pain.

His stomach growled, loudly.

How long since I last ate? He honestly wasn't sure, so he fumbled with his satchel and pulled out a few servings of jerky and hard bread. Between heavy chewing and hearty swings of his rescued waterskin, Felix made short work of the meal. By the end of it, he felt remarkably more human.

That was...more food than I've had in a while. I feel like I could eat more, too. Is this because of my stat increase? More power so more fuel is necessary? He'd have to test that at some point, but he shook his head and checked his Health and Stamina. Both had recovered adequately during his meal, so Felix meditating a bit longer to top himself off before uncorking the vial of giant's blood.

This vial smelled awful. Distinctly gamey and extremely cold, like a distillation of a piercing winter wind pushing through a bloated carcass. Steeling himself, Felix quaffed it.

Thick, but more corn syrup to the Hoarhound's molasses, it rolled down his throat quicker than he anticipated. A slight burn as it did, still obviously cold, but almost refreshing compared to the first.

What a cool life. I can now add knowledge of the palatability of different monster bloods to the ol' resume.

He laughed, touching his chest, the blood feeling like gnarly heartburn. At this rate I--

The world pulsed, a familiar ripple pushing out around him like a stone in a still pond.

You Have Gained A Memory From A Risi Warrior!

Would You Like To Review It Now?

Yes/Yes

Felix's eyes widened, but then he was gone.

He was somewhere else. Someone else.

Lork was pissed.

Pissed and uncomfortable.

Lork hawked, reaching deep before spitting a wad a phlegm the size of Felix's fist onto the ground. It landed with a great, gooey splat and made a few of the prisoner's scatter. Even seeing the Humans run didn't cheer him up.

It had been a bad day.

Lork had been part of a hunting party in the city, and had gotten separated during a commotion with free Humans. The Mother-cursed fog turned him around, and by the time he found his crew they had all been killed. Even the Commander.

Fie on that fat bastard. Lork wouldn't lose any sleep over him.

But that meant he was the one who had to report their defeat to the Circle. As a result, he got stuck with guard duty and half rations.

"Damn those Humans!" They had cost him three entire meals at this point! The moment he found them, he'd show them the meaning of fear. He'd eat their entire faces off and make em watch!

Still, he mused, digging a finger through his wide nostril. Could be worse. Lork was doing guard duty but was in easy reach of the icefire and their frostbanks, keeping his body in better condition than it had been running patrol out in the city.

Kept my mind, though. The Daughters ain't taking no chances with patrols. Lork had seen a few of em, empty eyes and empty skulls for twelve hours, just puppets for the frost witches. Some ain't even come back.

Lork shifted on his rock, still uncomfortable. Despite his rocky perch, this was the closest to home they had in these insufferably warm lands. It was nice to bask in the frostbanks.

Even if he had to watch a bunch of pale children shiver in their cages.

"Oi, Lork. Meal time." A gruff voice came from the left, closer to the icefire than Lork was allowed. The only exception was meal time. Lork traded off with a fresh warrior, this one barely bearded. Lork snorted, getting a venomous look from the kid as they passed.

Closer to the fire, Lork found a pile of charred meat, seared over the icefire and stacked on a large flat rock. Other kin were seated around the icefire, breathing in its healing smoke and basking in it's radiance. His mouth watered as he considered the array of meat before him, aching to take all of it, flee to a cave and gorge himself. Before he can act on it, a burly kin got in his way.

"Short rations for you, Lork," the kin growled, white beard fluttering. He grabbed a couple thin haunches and shoved them toward Lork, not moving until the punished guard had started walking away again.

Lork made his way to the edge of the icefire light, barely close enough to enjoy its power. Disgusted at his own weakness, Lork tore into the haunches, quickly stripping them of flesh. The others started talking once Lork moved away, some disappointed there had been no fight. Lork barely listened.

"...entered the labyrinth. Ain't none of em comin' out." One darker blue kin was saying, his white beard greasy with meat juice. A taller and more slender kin reclined next to him and burped loudly.

"They got that leader though, right? The angry one." The slender kin made a face, pretty comical on his larger and exaggerated features. "She been through like seven times now, I think. She ain't dead yet."

"You think they'll get it?" asked a hopeful voice, another beardless kin with wide eyes.

Mother's breath, how desperate are we? Taking in children. Lork snapped the bones in his hands, beginning to suck on the marrow as he lamented the state of his people. The others kept talking.

"Grimmar will make em get it, even if he has to puppet them himself," vowed one scarred veteran, hands filled with a thick slab of meat that he had barely touched. "Blood will show, and we'll get ours. Make no mistake."

Grimmar. Even the name made Lork shiver. Their leader and ruler of the Circle was kin enough to inspire his people to travel three thousand miles to this cursed land, and witch enough to put fear into the hearts of all who might oppose him. It was Grimmar's mad plan, this journey to the south, Grimmar's visions that guided the Circle, and it was Grimmar's might that would claim it all.

He'll do it, Lork agreed. Nothing could stop Avet's own.

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