Unbound

Fauna Handling is level 2!

The Eider snapped its wings open, catching the roaring winds between its absolutely ridiculous wingspan, and jerked upward as it caught an updraft. The cantle of the saddle jabbed Evie's middle as she was splayed out onto the Eider's back, her hands clutching desperately to the reins.

"Ouf!" she wheezed. The sheer force of their arrested descent had bypassed her impressive Body, forcing her own bodyweight against herself. "That'll leave a mark." The Eider flapped onward, eager to fly...but it was heading in the wrong direction. Evie sawed at her reins, Strength against Strength, as it squawked defiantly. "No, no! You're listening, remember?"

Fauna Handling is level 3!

Evie squeezed her legs, holding herself in the saddle as she once again balled up her simple Intent and shoved it down at the big bird. The Eider threw its big, horse-sized head, its noodle neck whipping to the side as it fought back...before it let out a harsh quack. The reins went a bit slack as it responded to her commands, pulling into a banking turn that brought her level with the rest of the team. The Eider flapped hard, catching up.

"Where'd you go?" Harn shouted over the wind.

Evie made a rude gesture, and the grizzled warrior laughed.

Something about flying as a group was easier, because Evie barely had to guide her dumb bird once they settled into formation. The official led the way, his own mount draped with blue cloth bearing the image of a castle on a hill, while the others were arranged in a large 'V' behind him, each on their own mount. Even the two Giants that were apart of the Fiend's Shadows were slung atop birds, though these were far, far larger and had huge beaks like water pitchers. City center vanished behind them all, the stepped levels of the richest merchants and nobles still somewhat bare. The old Eyrie tower had collapsed on them, when Evie and her friends had fought in the Domain, and they were among the first places that Callie stripped to build the Manor. Quite a few of the nobility had been pissed about that, but Callie didn't much care; Evie heart felt full at the thought.

Just what those leeches deserved, she thought. Only a few nobles she'd met were worth the trouble to get to know, and one was on a giant duck twenty strides to her left. Alister was also looking back at the center of the city, his eyes fixed on one particularly empty stretch of town. Shit. He had a family here, didn't he?

Strains of spiraling melancholy drifted on the air, but Evie shoved it away. Not now. She glanced at Alister again, but he was staring forward now, and his face was carefully blank. The music pushed at her senses. Blighted ass, not now.

"Ho, look at that," Harn called out.

They'd approached the Sunrise Gate far faster than Evie had realized, and now she could see far more clearly over the fortifications. Beyond the wall, where there was normally a wide plain of grasses was instead filled with enormous mushrooms.

"What? Where'd those come from?" she shouted back.

"Lamellans," Zara announced, and her face was grim. "They're mobile and tough, but their spores are far worse."

"Wait, wait. What are Lamellans?" Atar asked. A moment later, as their Eider all dove toward the Gate, he cursed as his Analyze got into range. "The mushrooms?"

"A common foe in this area. But rarely so numerous," Alister said.

Evie frowned as they lost sight of the monstrous horde, their mounts coming to a speedy landing. All of them grunted and groaned as the Eider's webbed feet slapped into the flagstone thoroughfare that had been cleared for such arrivals. Evie pulled on her reins, the big bird finally listening without issue. All around them, Humans, Hobgoblins, Orcs, and others hustled about in blue uniforms and sturdy steel armor. Carts full of arrows were racing across the street just ahead, pulled by two sweating porters, joining a brace of similar carts atop a wide platform. Shouts and odd, meaty screams could be heard, emanating from over the wall itself.

Everyone was moving with purpose and speed, intense but measured. Evie winced. The pressure of emotions was too much for her to hold out against, and she was inundated with a mess of crashing cymbals and squalling strings. Magda had dragged her to an amphitheater once, and it had sounded very similar, just messier. Now though, Evie could pick out meaning from it all. Anxiety and excitement and fear and the sharp tang of bloodlust all wrapped around her, pushing against her skin like a physical pressure.

Eugh. She shoved it all down, reducing its noise if no muting it entirely. Feel like I need a bath now.

AFI +1!

Huh.

"So what changed?" Atar asked. He wobbled a bit as he dismounted, but the mage barely needed his stave anymore. He still used it though, bracing it against the flagstones as he stepped away from the colorful plumage. His new Body was almost as exotic as the Eider, especially his bright white hair and red eyes, drawing more than a few glances from the soldiers around them.

"The Hierocracy did."

Their guide and the Haarguard all around them came to a sharp salute before parting ahead of a small procession. A wiry man with a tall spear walked beside a woman in robes with short blonde hair and a man with dark skin and huge build, while at the front of them all was a woman in blue-dyed leathers and a wide, dagger-sharp grin. Old friends. Kelgan, Portia, Bodie, and...

"Callie!" Evie shouted, and left her mount in the hands of some young Beginner Tier.

"Evie." That smile grew a lot wider. Callie opened her arms just in time for Evie to crash headlong into them. "Oof, watch that chain, girl."

"Sorry," she mumbled into Callie's—her sister's—shoulder. Some of that melancholy song rose up again, and no matter how much Evie shut it out, she couldn't silence the sound. It took her too long to realize it was coming from her own Spirit. "Missed you."

Callie stroked her hair. "Me too, kiddo."

They just held each other a moment. Perhaps if they'd been alone, they would have stayed that way a while, but eventually Evie coughed twice and stepped back. Behind her, Atar, Alister, Harn, and Zara were arrayed before those twelve Shadows. The two Giants among them stood out like sore thumbs, and more than a few of the Haarguard were glaring with hands on their weapons. Yet all of the Shadows stood proud, their purple cloaks stirring in the morning breeze.

"Zara, Harn. You've returned at last." Callie swept both of them in an embrace, perfunctory and lingering, respectively. "I had hoped you would make it in time."

"Did we?" Zara asked, eyebrow raised. "What of the fungal forest just outside your gates?"

Callie pushed a hand through her tawny hair. "Yes, well. Monsters alone won't breach these walls, and we've been sure to cut down any fungus that grows too high. The Hierocracy is clearly pushing the monsters ahead of them, but they are not a true threat."

"Lamellans are hearty beasts, and crafty too. I would not underestimate them," Zara cautioned.

"We are aware. The far bigger threat are the spores that they release, but our mages and the wall itself has kept them at bay." Portia, the short-haired woman in the flowing robes said. "If they get into your lungs, they take root and are quite costly to remove. Impossible, if enough are breathed in."

"How do they handle fire? I—" Atar asked, and Evie felt a fierce heat from him before it vanished. Veins in his neck stood out, as if he were straining against something. "I can help, if fire is of use."

The dark-skinned Human let out a boisterous laugh. "They hate it! Well, they hate lightning, anyway. Not much of fire attunement around here, anymore."

"What Bodie means is that Felix's influence has most of our mages attuning to lightning," Kelgan explained, tucking his spear into the crook of an elbow. "We could always use some more ranged help. Can't get close up in case we breath those blighted spores."

"That's why we're here," Evie said. "Right?"

"Right," Zara agreed. "Darius is on his way to us as well. We've brought some reinforcements from Ahkestria."

"Truly?" Callie shook her head. "No, no I believe you. Karys told me as much. It is just rather miraculous. Ahkestria might as well be across the world, and here you are, only a few weeks removed from its sun."

Evie shrugged. "Ain't nothin'. Killin' in the sand weren't much different than killin' in the forest." She paused, thinking. "Hotter, though."

"You got ranged attacks now, kid?" Kelgan asked, giving her a once over. "You don't look much stronger."

"I'll dance circles around you, old man," she shot back, grin in her voice. "I'm practically Adept."

Kelgan tilted his helmet back, an odd conical thing, and scratched his forehead. "No kiddin'."

"Fighting alongside the Autarch has its benefits," Harn grunted. He reached out and grasped Kelgan's forearm. "Good to see you, spear-boy."

"You too, axe-face."

Greetings went around the group. Friends and allies meeting again after entirely too long apart. That warmth Evie had felt upon seeing Haarwatch had redoubled, a glowing coal just beneath her ribcage. It felt...nice.

"My, you've grown." Portia came up to her and embraced Evie before holding her out at arms length. Her smith was wide and kind. "You've filled out a bit."

"Speak for yourself," Evie returned, gesturing to her belly. It had been hard to tell at first, but up close her condition was all too obvious.

"Ah, can you tell already? I had hoped the robes would hide it better." Despite the complaint, Portia was positively beaming.

"How far along?" Evie asked, excited despite herself. She'd never seen a baby, not from someone she knew, anyway.

"Only a few months. Yan is beside himself."

Evie screw up her face. Of course it was Yan's, the two had been thick as thieves, but not knowing had kept the inevitable mental image at bay. "Right. That's good, I figure."

Portia laughed. "I figure so, as well." She looked around. "Where is Vessilia?"

"Someone said somethin' about killin' right?" Evie cleared her throat and looked to her sister. She had no intention of talking about Vess, not then. "What're we standin' around here for?"

They rode up the wooden platform Evie had seen carry all those arrows. It was empty now as their group piled on, and she gave a dubious glance at the waist-thick ropes and the sheer size of their team. Harn himself was a heavy man, but all of them, including the Frost Giants and Bodie? She was half convinced those cables would snap, or at least the big pulleys would fail, or the avum wouldn't even lift them.

Despite it all, they ascended. When the handler cracked a whip, the whole thing lurched upward like a primitive version of the crystalline lift in Ahkestria. It wobbled, requiring everyone to adjust their balance, but not even the Shadows were so low in Dexterity that they'd blunder off the sides. Still, Evie much preferred the silent and steady version in the Leviathan Depths. Tch. The should make somethin' like that here. Bet Zara and the wonder boys could do it, given enough time. We got the crystals, anyway.

The Sunrise Gate and its fortifications were way higher than Evie remembered it, half as high as the Wall to the west, and the lift wasn't moving very fast. They had plenty of time to stare at the red-gold metal as it passed by.

"Orichalcum," Alister said, his voice catching. He was drinking in the sight of the Sunrise Gate. "This costs several hundred gold per pound!" Alister was agog, but he kept his words quiet. "Where did they find it all?"

"Mines?" Atar said, uncertainly.

"The mines produce quality iron ore and some few others, but not this. Not for a very long time," Alister said. Something pinged in her memory, bouncing off an old conversation. She remembered his family was heavily invested in the mines.

Guess he'd know, she thought. Callie probably had an answer, but she was talking in quiet tones with Zara. "Eh, who cares so long as it's here and workin'?"

"Because...well, I—" Alister deflated a little. "I suppose it doesn't matter much, in the scheme of things."

Atar gave her a sharp look, made sharper by the wave of heat that accompanied it. A mote of something stabbed at her, not to harm, but it unfolded inside her Mind like an blossoming flower. Thoughts not her own came flitting outward in random patterns, accompanied by a burst of blistering heat that filled her Mind with a sizzling agony. Alister's family...mines...his father's dream...be quiet.

"Did you just shove your Intent at me?" Evie demanded, grabbing the white-haired idiot by the collar of his robes. She could barely see through the pain that still scorched away at her thoughts. "Did you?"

For his part, Atar looked as surprised as she was angry. "Ah, uh, I didn't—I didn't mean to—"

"Don't ever do that again." She let go of the mage and stalked away, just as the lift reached the top of the Sunrise wall. Evie quickly stomped off, weaving nimbly through the press of bow-wielding warriors and potion chugging mages. She didn't stop until the sounds of Atar's apologies had been drowned by the impact of arrows on meaty fungal flesh.

Stupid damn mage. She slipped up to the parapet, still cursing. Stupid damn harmonics. Stupid damn...Noctis' tits, that's a lot of mushrooms.

Spread out before her was the forest of huge mushrooms, their caps as big as houses and twice as tall. There was a gap between them and the wall, but it was narrowing as she watched. Spores floated on the wind, moving with apparent aimlessness, but wherever one of them landed a new fungus would sprout. Soon after sprouting they were taller than her, and then nearing a Frost Giant's height only heartbeats later. Arrows laced with flame and acid rained down on them in waves, splitting and sundering the disgusting things before they ever got tall enough to top the wall. Where the fire and acid touched, no fungus grew.

Damn, a rain of acid sure would be nice right about now, Felix, Evie thought sourly. Maybe she was a little bitter at not being involved in their dumb fish hunt. I'd be more use there than here.

She didn't have any ranged attacks, not ones that could hit from such a distance. There was perhaps a hundred stride gap between the wall and the fungal forest, a churned wasteland of mud that looked to be scorched with fire and sizzling acid. Pockets of it still bubbled, likely all that prevented the spores from taking root again. Sharpened pikes had been placed throughout the area, increasing as they came closer to the wall, likely to prevent charges. Charges from what, though?

Frenzied Vigilance is level 68!

Odd reverberations jumped out at Evie's vision, almost as loud as the notification she only half acknowledged. Her eyes felt...strange, burning but cold as Mana surged up from her core and into her head. The thick shadows among the fungal caps suddenly clarified, filling with stirring swirls of...something Evie couldn't identify. What she could tell, however, was that there were creatures moving out there.

"What are they?" she asked aloud.

To her side, someone apparently heard her. A young man shoved his sweat-slick hair back with a skeletally thin hand. "You see something?"

"Huh? Yeah. I do. There, under the eaves like, three hundred strides out." Evie pointed, and the Haarguard leaned forward, squinting.

"I don't see anything."

"Well, I ain't lyin'," she snapped back. "It's a big...mushroom man. And a bunch of tiny crawly things."

"You didn't learn Analyze?" he asked, incredulous. "All Haarguard are expected to—"

Evie waved him off. "I was busy that day. They're comin' closer."

"What?"

"Mushroom man and, oh Twin's teeth," Evie said, grimacing. "Those're spiders. A lotta spiders."

A horn sounded somewhere down the line, soon picked up all over the wall, as the spiders burst from the canopy. They were the size of small avum and just as fast, scuttling over the muddy terrain with unerring strides. The Haarguard next to her shouted in alarm. "Spiders! Spider charge!"

Other shouts came as well, filling the air before being drowned out by the whine of Skill-laden arrows. The spiders were various shades of dull green and brown, almost impossible to see individually, but easy to hit due to their sheet numbers. The muddy field was covered in them, and they let out high pitched shrieks as explosive arrows blasted them apart. When the first volley ended, another began, but it wasn't enough.

The spiders reached the wall.

"No you don't. Bindings of the White Waste!" Evie hurled Mana from her palms, skittering it down the surface of the wall with all the force she could muster. Chains of purple-white ice burst from where the wall and muddy field met, entangling dozens of the monsters in an instant. Most kept coming, but now their jagged legs stabbed and pierced their fellow spiders, killing many under the sheer weight. "Bindings of the White Waste!"

Binding of the White Waste is level 73!

More chains, again and again, lashed outward and trapped the spiders. Arrows and bolts of fire, lightning, and jaws of shadow tore into the restrained foes. She even got a few swipes in with her own spiked chain, reaping a half dozen at a time with each careful swing. Sweet, sweet kill notifications filled her vision. The spiders weren't much before her powerful Skills, but even the largely Apprentice Tier Haarguard's volleys were making short work of them.

Not everywhere though. Further down the line, some of the creepy bastards had made it to the crenellations. Warriors jabbed spears and pikes with practiced motions, focused and only slightly panicked. Evie was impressed. She made a note to give Kelgan and Bodie less of a hard time when she saw them next.

"Lamellan Crofter!"

Those mushroom men, at least thirty of them, plodded out of the fungal forest, their beefy bodies stumping at a far slower pace behind the spider horde. Their heads were giant mushroom caps, wide and thick, shining darkly beneath it with swiveling eye stalks that made Evie want to throw up just looking at them. She didn't though, because she was a professional.

"Why're they called crofters?" she asked, but that skinny man was hiding behind the parapet, both hands cover his mouth and nose. "What're you doing?"

"Get down!" he hissed, before covering his face again.

Evie looked back at the mushroom men, then down the line. Almost half of the Haarguard were covering their faces, and the rest were furiously firing arrows and spells at the lumbering Crofters. One of them fell, cut down by arrows and spells, but that left far too many still standing, and they raised their thick fists into the sky. Jets of gas shot out of their giant caps, streamers the speared across the battlefield, directly at the wall.

At her.

"AH!" Evie shouted, before stoppering up her mouth and nose and whirling her chain. The spores hit, but Evie spent the last of her breath to shout. "Reap the Maelstrom!"

Mana and Stamina fled in equal measure, fed into the spinning length of Evie's chain. Spores scattered, dragged into the path of her dancing weapon as a relentless current was stirred into being. She borrowed mass from the wall beneath her, feeding it into her Body and chain to multiply that force, lungs burning as she tried to banish the pressurize jetstream of foul fungal seed. Screams echoed down the line, but Evie couldn't spare the Perception it'd cost her to know what was going on; everything she had went into Reap the Maelstrom and keeping the spores from touching those around her. And it wasn't enough.

Evie fell as a fist the size of a battering ram hit the wall, setting the weakened stones to quivering just beneath her. Her concentration slipped, and her Born Trait dropped, sending mass right back into the wall and forcing her chain awry. Reap the Maelstrom still spun, but now the cone of wind she'd forged was gone...and the spores rushed toward them all.

"Incendiary Vortex!"

A cyclone of flames ripped through the spore cloud, igniting it, feeding it as it howled down the wall. The Lamellan Crofters nearest Evie were caught up in it too, their fungal flesh turning to desiccated char within a heartbeat. If they could scream, she was sure they would have, as more cyclones manifested along the red-gold fortification, until the air was filled with only smoke and brutal, furnace heat.

"Are—are you okay?"

Evie looked up, and Atar hobbled through the smoke, a scarf draped across his face as his white hair shone in the firelight. He reached down for her, and she took his hand. "Yeah, I—"

Her gaze caught on the skinny Haarguard, who was curled into an agonizing position. Fungus grew atop his face, and he was very, very still.

"I was too late," Atar said, sadness and anger floating through his Spirit. "Cal said the Lamellans are being controlled by the Hierocracy somehow. I should have started with that damn spell instead of my Stars. I thought—I fucked up."

"Yeah. Me too." Evie coughed. "You got more juice in you?"

Atar nodded, not taking his eyes off the fallen guard.

"Good. Cuz I wanna rip that forest apart," she spat. Evie couldn't tell whether the crimson glow in Atar's eyes was reflected flames or whether she actually heard that strange whispering.

And frankly, she didn't care.

"Let's burn it all," Atar snarled.

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