Unbound

"Here," Tzfell said, wiping her tattooed brow with a kerchief. "That should finish it."

Laur stood up, his normally fine hair bundled back in a sloppy braid. He, too, was sweating and had stripped down to his undershirt. "I am completed on my end as well. My lord?"

"Yeah, I'm done too." Felix stood back and looked over the entire array with a critical eye. It was close to a hundred feet in diameter, and was probably the most complicated working he'd seen outside the ancient seat and seals. Complexity didn't mean better, of course, as the strongest effects were often the simplest, but in this case they'd seen no other way to approach their problem.

They'd gone over the formation countless times. It had to work right, and on the first try to boot. If it was the gods that were dulling his connection with the other Unbound, then it was obvious they'd notice him sooner or later. He would likely not have the time for a second attempt. Felix believed two were in the jungles of Jaast, and one was probably in Sunara, but the others were a mystery. All he had to go on was a library and some sewers, and that was from five months prior. They needed an update.

"Archie, are you ready?" The thief was eating from the heaping trays of food the servants had brought down to them.

"Yeah, let me just finish this and I'll be there." Felix watched the man shovel half a loaf of bread, cheese, and some sort of candied meat down his gullet. For once, he found he wasn't in the mood to eat anything.

You feel nervous. Do you need me down there?

I am, but no. I got this, buddy.

"Okay. I'm good now," Archie said around his last mouthful. The man walked up to the edge of the array and looked around. He swallowed. "So where do I stand?"

"Right here, Lord Ross," Laur said, gesturing to a blank area encircled by inscriptions. Archie gave it a long look but walked over and stepped gingerly into it.

Felix took three calming breaths and then strode out into the array himself. It still bore a great resemblance to Zara's creation, though this one accounted for more than just the standard elements and was anchored by several nodes.

"So I just stand here?" Archie asked.

"That's all," Tzfell said. "Once it is running, just remember to keep your limbs within the circle at all times. To cross the array at that point is unwise."

"Wait, why?" He folded his arms together and tucked his elbows closer to his torso. "These aren't going to cut me apart, are they?"

"No, nothing of the sort. While pain may be a result, the true worry is fouling the Autarch's efforts. The amount of Mana we are using here is dangerous, and only the balance we've achieved with this inscription will keep it within safe levels. If the array is disrupted, that balance could go out the window, resulting in a catastrophic failure."

"Meaning what?"

"Just stay in the center, Lord Ross.”

“You'll be fine, Archie," Felix said as he passed the man. "All the array is doing is drawing on the connection between us and amplifying it. I need it to guide me."

"How come Beef isn't here then?"

“He is, in a way.” Across the array, Laur produced a piece of blackened green crystal and a tiny building framework, replete with buttresses and joists. He placed both within the center of another empty circle.

"You're kidding me.”

“If you could produce a solid item from your Skills, I could use that instead," Felix explained. "Your talents don't lie in that direction, so I had to ask you to help more directly."

He walked over to another open circle along the outer edge. "Or you could do this." Felix Willed the scales from his left forearm and sliced it open with a single talon. Blood poured out of him, spattering against the empty stone for two seconds before his regeneration caught up to the wound.

Archie blanched. "Nah, I like my blood inside, thanks."

Felix laughed. "Fair. I don't even know if this will work.”

“Is that for..." Archie made a fist and shook it. "For her?”

“My sister? Yeah." Felix hoped their connection was strong enough that blood would work in place of her presence or her magic. But he had no assurances that it would. "You're totally safe, Archie. I thought I'd explained this better before, but I guess not. If you really want to, you can back out right now. No hard feelings."

Archie held up a hand. "No, I said I'd help. And I will. I just don't understand this magic stuff."

Felix nodded. Skills were one thing, even if you could shoot fire from your fingertips or walk through solid walls. It felt like almost a trick. The Chant and sigaldry were different. He'd learned that many times over.

There was another spot, right in the center, where the array spiraled inward. And it was there that Felix made his final stop. Marked with his own personal glyph, it was connected to the array by a series of fine inscriptions, each modified to the point of redundancy to keep him insulated from any unwanted attention. It wouldn't keep anything close to a god away from him for long, but seconds mattered on the battlefield.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Felix cracked his knuckles. And this was war.

He sat down, placing himself exactly equidistant from the nodes of the array. Archie, Beef, and the one with his own blood were like the three points of a triangle around him, a shape that carried a lot of weight in arrays and sigaldry in general. They were his anchor points. Between those three, five others remained open. They were the focus of the array, each one corresponding to one of the remaining Unbound that we had nothing from them to place within.

"The wards are in place, my lord," Laur reported.

"We will monitor your progress from the outside as requested," Tzfell said, though her professional tone only just hid the annoyance in her Spirit. She didn't like the risk he was undertaking, and had said so multiple times. She had, however, stopped expressing it. "You may begin at any time."

"Right." Felix folded his legs beneath him and placed his hands in his lap. After another, steadying breath in, he exhaled and released a wave of potent, undifferentiated Mana from all of his gates at once. It sank into the glyph beneath him with a deep, resonant call, then shot outward, howling across the array as it lit up each sigil almost instantly.

"Fuck!' Archie shouted, flinching from the sPiting wave of white light. Yet, he immediately relaxed and observed his lifted hand as the Mana swept through him. "Oh, this isn't bad at all. It doesn't even hurt.”

Felix grunted. It felt like fire in his veins as his own Mana circled back to him, propelled by the formation to sink deep into his Mana gates. A tide of power rushed his core space and Felix gave up all awareness of things outside of himself and plunged into his Void Sanctuary.

He descended like a meteor from the blue sky of his Skill, passing through the golden shield and opal walls. The pain faded to a distant ache as he landed atop the palace at his center and he looked up. The sky was an unclouded blue and the wind was warm. A river of connections surged through the nine-point star extending from the tip of the tower, like threads through the eye of a needle.

Millions of connections were there, many so small that they were barely solid. Connections didn't take up physical space, not really, but he still had to sort them. He pulled out Beef's first, then Archie's. It was easier as they were both near him and part of the array. He avoided Gabby's even as it vibrated fervently.

The blood seems to be working. He'd leave hers until the end.

With Beef and Archie's connections in hand, he focused his Mind upon them. Like flipping a switch, the array flowed through him and into the threads. He could see Beef walking through some dusty halls with a strangely excited Yintarion. He switched, and could see Archie as if his eyes were open. The man was tense, but pretending not to be as he reclined within the array, flinching whenever a surge of colorless Mana popped across the sigaldry.

Felix's focus shifted and he grasped at a new connection, the first of many. It squirmed in his grip, splitting into two and almost wriggling free, but failing against his will and intent. A gulf opened up beneath him, a distance so incomprehensible that his Mind shuddered to contemplate it as a barrier of light rose up in his way.

Propelled by the array, Felix didn't stop. He hurtled through it, shattering the barrier into shards of razored light that cut at him like the sharpest of swords. Void Sanctuary turned them aside, though not without feeling their impact. Felix grunted in renewed pain and he ground his teeth hard enough to shatter his molars. The world spun by as Felix hurtled across thousands of miles in the span of an instant until, with a lurching thud, he stopped.

He looked around himself, and it was far less dreamlike than ever before. Felix felt like he’d truly been transported somewhere else.

A jungle surrounded him like a warm green embrace. Insects buzzed, frogs croaked, and distant birds sang. Dawn had come only moments before, and the green canopy was filled with a warm, soft radiance that was both familiar and comforting.

In a moment, though, all of that was shattered. A massive blue and yellow snake crashed through the jungle, collapsing smaller trees beneath a bulk that rivaled Pit's own. A much smaller creature clung to its wedge-shaped head, a green-gold lizard-dog no bigger than a child. The Kobold slammed a sickle into the creature's head, and the serpent hissed, thrashing its head about to dislodge its assailant.

“Stop fooling around,” another Kobold shouted, this one purple-black in scale and fur. He stood just off to one side, a bow in his hands.

“I'm not! Fungal Root!” Green-gold Mana rushed through the first Kobold and slammed into the serpent's head. The snake arched up, its fanged mouth open in a silent scream as mushrooms burst from its eyes and throat. It died, crashing to the earth and spewing a god-awful amount of ichor onto the fronds and moss.

“Finally,” complained the darker one as the first hopped off the corpse. “What did you do with the others?”

“Others?”

The trees split, several collapsing as four other serpents surged toward the Kobolds. Mounted on their backs were heavily armored knights bearing ten-foot-long lances of gleaming blue metal.

“Halt! You cannot run from justice! Stand and bear the consequences of your lawlessness!”

“The other knights, you idiot!”

“I only saw one!”

The knights began to glow with a blue metallic light until the leader's crested helm shone like a moon come to earth. “Stand down, criminals! Place yourself before the mercy of Divine justice!”

“Hard pass!”

The knights twisted their lances, and the weapons were sheathed with blue force Mana and the leader pulled a length of rope that crackled with lightning. “Then you force our hands, Kobolds! Spread out and take them down!”

“Undeniable Salvo!" The dark Kobold called out and fired his bow. A volley of magical arrows peppered the knights and their mounts. They slammed, they screamed through the air, splitting into three separate streams that attacked from three entirely different angles. And as they hit, they burst into pressurized blades of acid and poison that dissolved the metal of the knight's armor and sent the serpents to bucking.

“Wild Growth!” The green gold Kobold cried and two massive flower pods burst from the fecund earth. They immediately unfurled, releasing clouds of noxious pollen that caught up every single knight.

The knights fell back coughing and summoning spinning wards around themselves, but the leader would not be denied. "Charge!”

He and his red-yellow serpent surged forward and he brought his massive lance to bear, only to have the Kobolds leap off its length before departing in entirely separate directions across tree branches and vines.

They ran.

“After them!” the knights called.

The vision dissolved into streaming lights as Felix laughed.

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