Unbound

"You said they were coming here. Tonight?" Isla asked again.

"Yes, tonight," Dabney told her, his face sunken. Atar wasn't sure if he was more upset about being restrained or about Lilian abandoning him. He didn't care much, either. What truly took up Atar’s attention was the moment ahead of them. Finally, after all their hunting, they were going to confront the source of their problems. Teine.

Atar still couldn't believe that the bastard was alive, let alone walking around and, by Dabney's recollection, casting magic. His core should be ripped apart. How? How is he doing this?

They'd get their answers soon enough. The man was coming to the Eye tonight, and they would catch him and end the entire fiasco. That, of course, was why Dabney wanted to get out of town, in order to avoid whatever Teine was doing.

Dabney had never learned the details, other than the vague goal of “taking Felix down.” Teine apparently didn't consider him worthy of knowing, though he had told Lilian. She had kept it a secret from him, too.

Isla perked up. “I hear movement. We go now."

Atar stood, smoothing his robes as he grabbed his staff. "Stay here, Dabney. You'll be safe."

"None of us are safe," the man muttered, but didn't otherwise object. He sat there, folded over himself within his bindings. "Just—just don't hurt Lilian, Atar. Please.”

Atar hesitated before nodding. "I'll try.”

They slipped through the door, wrapped in Woven Silence to muffle their steps. It was a quick journey down from the Crafting Halls and into the staircase leading to the main hall of the Eye, no more than a hundred strides. There, just beyond the enclosed corridor, they spied two figures limping across the floor, canes clacking with little care or subtlety. It was a man and a woman, the latter with a heavy veil over her face.

Lilian.

The man beside her was unrecognizable, despite his bare face. His features were badly disfigured and his body was skeletally thin beneath the armored robes of a mage. He looked almost exactly how Atar imagined someone would look after having a tower dropped on them and their core shattered.

Teine. How are you up and walking?

Atar’s thoughts stuttered as his amulet hummed against his chest. Behind the two mages, several figures stalked along the edges of the well-lit chamber, only visible thanks to his sigaldry. Their own artifacts gleamed on their wrists, squirming with crimson shapes that seemed awfully familiar.

More familiar, however, was the dark armor and black masks the sneaking thieves wore. Sworn assassins. He’d dealt with them before, and they were extremely dangerous. Twenty-two of them. Burning ash.

He earmarked them, readying his Stars of the Sovereign for their destruction. The Sworn never stopped until their Oathbound contract was completed, and Atar had a feeling that their contract involved killing anyone they tried to stop Teine.

The man in question was heading for the stairs leading down into the inner portions of the Temple. Down there were the residences, training halls, Storage Facility, and the Seat and Seal itself.

"Uldred Teine, disgraced former elder of the Protectors Guild." Isla spoke loud and clear as she stepped out of the shadows of the stairwell. "You are not allowed here."

Lilian started, but Teine just pivoted smoothly and gave a half-melted smirk. "Chanter Isla. You will find that I am allowed anywhere I wish."

Atar followed behind Isla. "I'm just impressed you can walk at all after having a tower fall on you."

"Ah, Atar, one of my star pupils, now a lackey to a monster.”

“Glyphmaster, actually.”

“You are both too late. Nevarre cannot protect this town, and I have proven that tenfold as I have tested its defenses."

"Tested? You're saying all these explosions were you being altruistic?"

Teine smiled, and it was a skeleton's grin. "He is not worthy of his crown."

Atar rolled his eyes. That line of reasoning was too stupid to argue. "Lilian, you can't do this. Think of your cousin."

"My cousin is safe," she said. "As much as I hate him, he's still family. But now he's away from you and Felix, off on some insipid journey. He will not be harmed tonight. You, however—”

“Do you really think we'd let you get any further?" Isla asked, and her hands glowed with green gold power.

"No, I assumed you'd try to kill us." Teine lifted an odd box-like device in his hands, and it gave off a faint crimson smoke. "Which is why my people are about to set off a series of alchemical explosives all around Elderthrone. Far enough away that you might be able to stop them, if you hurry."

Atar traded glances with Isla, and his heartbeat sped up. He knew what those explosions could do to a building, if they were put anywhere near people…

"Yes, you understand," Teine said. "Choose to stop us and thousands die. Leave us, and perhaps Elderthrone survives this night. Make your choice, boy."

"You're the threat," Isla said, and projectiles shot from her open palm in a spray of leaves and thorns.

Teine dodged out of the way, alarmingly spry despite his clear injuries. "Now! Earn your keep!”

Blades illuminated by vibrant Skills flew from the edges of the room, but Atar threw out his hands. “Incendiary Vortex!”

A wild ring of flames surged outward from him, catching the blades within as the sudden, violent updraft threw off their aim. Sworn screamed and burned, their forms becoming normally visible as they hustled to put themselves out.

“They’re getting away!” Isla shouted. Teine and Lilian ran to the stairs, chased by Isla’s binding roots…but they escaped, falling toward the stairs in a heap of injured limbs and out of sight. “Blighted Night!”

The Sworn were still mostly standing, but Isla was in no mood for their tricks. She let loose a shrill note and the floor burst alive with crawling, thorny vines. A dozen Sworn were caught up at once and ripped apart, before Atar’s Stars of the Sovereign burned through the rest.

You Have Killed A Sworn Assassin (x15)!

XP Earned!

“Go after them, Isla,” Atar shouted. “I don’t know what Lilian can do, but Teine is capable of anything. Karys will need the help.”

"What about you?" she asked, glancing between the stairs and Atar.

"I'll take care of the explosives. Go!" Without waiting, Atar ran to the edge of the Temple where the rock gave way to a precipitous edge, and the waterfall thundered past. He swiftly released the buckles on his breastplate, tugging the metal armor off as the array upon it grew dim. "Flame, I need you!"

i know.

Flame expanded beyond his obsidian cage and fire poured into Atar's core and then beyond, bursting from his Mana Gates in a white-hot geyser. It licked across his limbs, expanding around him until it formed wings of liquid flame.

fly, atar!

“If this is a trick I’ll kill you!” Atar promised just as he took off running toward the precipice. The Urge in his chest swelled and his newfound wings expanded just as Atar leaped. He shot out through the waterfall, bursting from it in a cloud of steam and into the night sky.

“This is…” incredible, he mentally finished. The two of them banked hard to the right, sweeping out above the rest of Elderthrone as wind tousled his white locks. “We need to find the explosives!”

There. heat and fire!

A shimmering orange dot appeared in Atar’s vision, white near the center and fading to cooler colors by the edges. He Willed himself toward it and they flew down, faster than he’d ever traveled before.

Not fast enough.

The explosive ignited, erupting into a column that blasted through the building it was in, tearing through walls, windows, and roof all at once.

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Inexorable Enkindling!

His Skill activated at the same instant the explosive burst, and the fire and heat that tried to burn through its surroundings was suddenly yanked upward. Into him. It flowed into his Mana Gates, boosting his Strength, Endurance, and Vitality.

“Blind gods, that burns!” he swore as he swooped back into the sky. “Where’s the next one?”

behold.

Sudden dots populated Atar’s vision as Flame fed him his peculiar senses, and Atar’s stomach dropped despite the roiling might inside of him.

"We won't get them all," Atar said. "We can't. There's... how do you feel all of these? How can you... you have a connection to all of them." Atar could feel stoves and hearths with morning coals banked against the night's chill. If he strained himself, they would fill his vision, far dimmer than the explosives.

i am the urge of undying flame, atar. i am all of them.

Atar licked his lips and came to a stop, somewhere roughly equidistant from the explosives all around the city. He could feel their heat like pinpricks against his skin, and it was getting more intense. They had little time.

“Flame.” He licked his lips. “Can we grab them all?”

that will have dire consequences for you.

“Can you do it?”

…i can try.

Atar briefly closed his eyes and breathed, but he had no time for worries or regrets. The explosives erupted around him, igniting all at once.

Primal Firestorm!

Inexorable Enkindling!

Atar's flesh became flame as the town detonated. Crimson flowers blossomed into the night, shooting high before they were caught in the influence of his Skill.

come to me, my cousins. let us be one.

Fire and heat arced across the sky, ripping free of whatever housing or residence they’d been hidden in, and flew directly into Atar. Like liquid, they splashed against him, burning his clothes and charring his flesh as fire piled atop flame, until the shadow of pre-dawn was illuminated by a howling inferno.

Inexorable Enkindling is level 92!

...

Inexorable Enkindling is level 95!

Primal Firestorm is level 90!…

Primal Firestorm is level 93!

Atar screamed until his voice gave out and his eardrums popped. Fire scoured him, burning away skin and fat and muscle as his very blood boiled.

hold, atar! hold and we—

The inferno around him vanished with a final resounding implosion, leaving behind a greivously wounded mage to hover on sparking, fading wings. He could barely breathe, barely think, as his fading vision witness the sky light up to the east.

"The sun…is rising."

atar!

He fell, and knew no more.

Isla faced down invisible assailants as she sped down the long stairs into the Temple. They wound in a spiral down hundreds of strides with few to no walls at all. She could see her foes through the amulet that Atar had made, but they were fast and she wasn't a fighter. She knew she would never beat the assassins physically, so she didn't bother to try.

“Killing Field,” she hissed.

Thorned vines ripped all around her, spiraling up out of the stairs themselves to catch the Sworn unawares. Many leaped out of the way, utilizing some sort of air manipulation Skill to do so, but those she targeted directly.

“Wild Growth,” she called out, pointing at the evading Sworn. Every single one of them clutched their throats and chests as leaves and roots sprouted from their open mouths. The assassins lurched and fell, either onto the spiraling stairs or the ground far below.

She sped downward until she reached the very bottom. There she was forced to leap over a pile of broken corpses, all of them in dark armor and masks. Many had their chests crushed while others had their limbs ripped clean off.

Karys did some work here, she thought. But where is he? And where’s Teine?

Cautiously, she walked forward into the chambers that sat at the heart of the Temple: the Seat and Seal of Nagast.

She held back a gasp as she looked within. How?

Teine stood in the center, astride the silver and gold light given off by the mind-bogglingly complex array formation. He held that glowing device again, and it was humming with an atonal burr that seemed to give him some sort of immunity to the array’s defenses.

Karys was just beyond the man, bound by some dark magic, his eye fires dim and his metal body slack against the wall.

"Ah, Sorcerer, you've made it, but I see Atar has not," Teine said. He clucked his tongue, "A pity, he was very promising, and could have held a great position within my new kingdom. Were he willing to change his views, of course."

"Your new kingdom?" Isla asked, edging closer. She couldn't see the girl, but the light of the Seat and Seal was bright enough that it fouled her Perception.

"Yes," Teine said. "The Hierocracy is putting me in charge of Nagast, and I will greatly improve conditions here, making the city truly prosper as a center of magical learning."

“You’re insane if you think the Hierophant would just hand you Authority over this place.”

“It is already done, woman,” Teine snapped. “I cannot renege on my Oaths…and neither can they.”

The box in his hand released a tongue of poisonous flame and a noxious crimson cloud followed. Isla didn't recognize the device, but the song it spewed was vile, and tore at her ears with a pounding rhythm that made her feel sick to her stomach. "That thing you hold, that is the antithesis of the Grand Harmony."

"Yes," Teine said. “It is beautiful." He took a final step forward, his hand bringing the device down toward the complex silver and gold sigaldry at the very center of the Seal. Felix's personal glyph gleamed. “And it will do beautiful work.”

He reached down as if to shove the device into the central glyph.

“Briar Blossom!”

Isla lifted her arm to launch a thorn-covered bundle of roots and fluttering blossoms at the disfigured mage, but someone tackled her from behind. Her shot went wide and blasted the device from his hand instead of skewering his chest.

“My cipher!” Teine cried, trying to scramble after it…but the Seal pressed against him, locking him in place. “No!”

Isla hit the ground, the veiled girl on top of her with a blade lifted high to stab.

"Get off of me! Binding Vine!”

"Begone," Lilian said, slashing at her vines. The knife burned crimson, streaked with that same vile cloud as the device. Her vines curled away from its edge, dead before they could get close. “This must happen, Sorcerer. You cannot stand in the way.”

Lilian slammed the dagger down, but Isla twisted her body, throwing the girl off to the side. The girl stumbled, careful not to stab herself with her own weapon, and gave Isla enough time to get back on her feet.

“You’re insane. This is one of the only safe havens from the Hierocracy, and you brought their agents here?”

The lights within the chamber flickered and dimmed. Isla’s heart raced as silver-gold sigaldry began spitting sparks and extinguishing. The device! It was skittering across the Seal, rattling on its own like oil in a hot pan and slowly weakening it.

"You don't understand! Someone like you, with all your power, would never understand," Lilian said. “The Hierocracy never bothered me. I was fine. I was happy! Then the fighting started and it all went away. Everything I had worked toward.”

Still holding out her smoking knife, Lilian reached into a pouch at her waist and pulled free a familiar device bound in familiar metal. Anguin’s metalwork.

"You can't stop this,” she said. “I won't let you!"

With all her might, Lilian threw the explosive.

Isla was too close to do more than pull vines from the earth into a crude barrier as the thing unleashed a firestorm into the chamber. It roared, eating through her vines in an instant, the heat indescribably intense even for her. Tongues of flame rushed toward her…then stopped.

Within a single moment, the explosive vanished almost entirely.

You Have Defeated Lilian Knacht!XP Earned!

Isla blinked her dry eyes owlishly as the last remnants of fire was absorbed into Atar’s flesh as he stood over the other young woman. His skin was cracked and charred, deep splits showing up his bare arms and neck like rivers of molten lava.

“Atar?”

no longer.

Isla flinched back. “What have you done?”

"Finally!"

The both of them turned to the Seal, only to find Teine standing in the center of it, his box-like device once more in his hands. The array formation around him was half-darkened and it spat sparks and half-formed wards with every heartbeat, but none of it could touch the mage. The device twisted the sigaldry around it with a red, bloody light, forming new shapes that hurt her eyes to even look upon. The silver and gold around him faded to crimson as its influence spread, as if it was infecting the Seat and seal with a bloody rot.

“What is that device, Teine?” Isla demanded. “It’s…”

"A gift! A gift from the Archids. And it bears within it a truly revolutionary new script. I have learned so much studying it, even developed it into artifacts." Teine laughed. "Profane Sigaldry could change everything. It utilizes a power greater than anything I’ve known, and it can even disrupt ancient work like this. Can't you see? This is the future."

"You play with things you cannot understand," Isla shouted. "That's Dissonance, you fool."

"Spare me your ancient religion, Sorcerer! This is power, and there is nothing on the Continent worth more than power." Teine lifted the device and slammed it down towards the glyph at his feet.

no!

Isla winced, falling to the side as an explosion of flames consumed the spot where Atar once stood. Atar, flying on improbable wings of flame, tackled into Teine.

The man stood tall, strong somehow despite his decrepit form, and held up the device. Dissonance surged forth, a weaponized opposition against Harmony itself, and it drove Isla to her knees to hear it. It sheared forth, splitting air and flame until it impacted Atar beneath his strange magic.

It tore him apart, rendering flesh from bone in a spray of crimson fire.

Atar. You fool. Tears traced down Isla’s face as even her power failed to muster against that screeching, atonal burr.

"Power! You see? Not even the boy could withstand me and my shattered core," Teine laughed until he coughed. Blood flecked the gleaming floor.

i am the urge of undying flame.

Teine's laughter cut off. The fire that had sprayed outward reversed itself, collecting back into black bones that reassembled into a man coated in an inferno.

i cannot be undone, mortal, the skeleton said, eyes glowing a brilliant, unnatural white. not by you.

Before Teine could scream, the skeleton grappled with him, and they burst into white hot conflagration.

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