Unbound

I need a plan, I need a plan, he thought frantically. A good one for once.

Felix was still hidden as far as he knew, held from Grimmar and that terrible presence by no more than a few dozen feet of stone wall and thin air. There was nowhere else to hide: the hallway ended there and the chamber beyond was as wide open as a place could be, not to mention being lit up by what appeared to be a noontime sun.

If she's as powerful as I fear she is, I'm already exposed. My Stealth Skill is just barely in Apprentice Tier, and she...she's definitely not.

Felix's mind raced, looking at his Skills, at the terrain, at anything he could to survive this next deadly adventure. His mind felt somehow like an enormous greased wheel, spinning and spinning with greater speed and breadth than he'd experienced in his life; it felt similar to when he got his fist significant Intelligence bump. His Primary Stats hitting one hundred plus had amplified his physical and mental stats beyond what he'd ever experienced. He reviewed what he'd just seen in his perfect mental eye.

Grimmar prostrated on the floor, the woman standing before him...above him, even. He called her Mother. The Mother, he assumed. Which, all things considered, was the worst case scenario. Facing off against a deified mother of monsters was not even remotely in his wheelhouse, despite the fatal danger he continually faced with every passing moment on the Continent....

Maybe he should have expected this.

He returned to the mental image, viewing it from all angles. Grimmar was sweating and dirty, his armor scuffed and torn. Evidence of a rough passage through the Labyrinth? Or something else? The giant was also bleeding slightly, from the ears too, which Felix was pretty sure wasn't normal. He shied away from the woman, focusing instead on the massive pyramidal obelisk beyond her: the bronze spike. Curious just how far his perfect recall went, Felix attempted to use Analyze on the obelisk in his own mental image. Surprisingly, results came back.

Name: Essence Anchor

Type: Enchanted Structure

Exploration is level 25!

Congratulations! You have--

Felix cut the notification off and dismissed it. Shit. This is not the time. Shit.

There was a lurching sensation within him, like a jolt through the center of his belly. Concerned, he probed his core, visualizing by dint of his Fire Within Skill. Blue fire, shot with gold and crowned with crackling sparks, it remained largely the same. There was an...echo of that gnawing hunger, one that seemed to be growing louder. That that wasn't the sensation Felix felt, so instead he looked beyond all that, to his Skills. Patterns etched in light, they spun a slow dance around his core. He knew that they lit up and shimmered as he used his Skills, but now several flickered with ephemeral light. The greatest of them flared wildly, burning bright with a sense of exuberance to it. Felix knew instantly that this was his Exploration Skill.

This is what it looks like when a Skill is about to Tier? He regarded the flashing, pulsing lights. It's beautiful.

A few others shone nearly as bright, among them Analyze and...Companion Pact. In addition to Exploration they were his final two options to finally, fully Temper his Mind and Spirit.

But would even that be enough here?

Fire Within is level 33!

"Oh come now," said a bright and airy voice, half laughing. "Hiding is so childish."

Felix pulled from his core, his spine snapping strait as nerves and surprise got the best of him. Haltingly, he edged his head toward the corner and peeked an eye beyond. The woman was still standing in the same place, but now she stared right at him as she gently waved. Beckoning him closer.

"Come, Felix Nevarre," her voice was soft and sweet. "I promise I won't bite."

Shit. I don't have a choice, do I? Pit, stay back...and be ready to run.

A surge of stubborn anger washed through the pact, surprising Felix enough to forget his nerves for a moment. Pit rammed his head into Felix's leg, clearly refusing to stay behind.

Ok fine. We'll do this together.

Shuddering with adrenaline and fear, Felix and Pit took a hesitant step into the chamber. His booted foot clunked against the smooth flooring, which seemed to be made entirely of polished granite and inlaid with countless interconnected stars. Count the stars, he thought with a nervous laugh, pressing forward through air that felt thick with energies and a powerful swell of far off music. His Manasight still ran, though not as strongly as before, and the entire chamber was awash in a storm of ambient power. The closer he drew toward the two figures, the more he realized that much of the power was emanating from the Essence Anchor, so much so that the other two were almost washed out by the noise of it all. Almost, but not quite. A faint buzz rattled in the background, a hum running counterpoint to the Anchor's powerful draw.

He walked until he came to the edge of an inlaid circle, one that surrounded the Essence Anchor, Grimmar, and the woman.

"You're here, and none too soon. I see you have grown stronger indeed since last we spoke." The woman's eyes twinkled at the last, and a spark of recognition flared within Felix. He knew that voice. Those eyes. Blue-green, summer leaves atop a pond. A yearning ran through him, sudden and complete, and the hunger in his belly fully woke. Its growl matched pitch with that hum in the air until the two resonated unpleasantly, his inner ear buzzing with a terrible and distracting dissonance. A far cry from the orchestral thrum of the Anchor only feet away.

"You," he gasped, fighting off what he knew to be an unnatural attraction. "I know you. You're..."

"The woman of your dreams? Naturally," she smiled, her face framed by a cascade of straight black hair, and it was like a second sun emerged from the clouds. Vertigo spun Felix's world for a moment, before his walls settled again.

Bastion of Will is level 39!

Deep Mind is level 26!

"How?" Felix's mind raced, connections appearing and disappearing. "My dreams. My...you've been speaking to me since the waterfall."

"Well before that, Felix," she said, her pale dress billowing in a breeze he could not feel. It was a diluted yellow. "You just couldn't hear me properly."

A low growl emanated from Felix's left. Grimmar, still bowed low to the ground so that his head touched the cool stone, turned and locked eyes with him. A thrill of fear raced across Felix's nerves, but he was quickly reaching a saturation point. Even the giant's toothy grimace was becoming old hat, gross as it was.

"Oh come now, Grimmar," she chided, a pale hand bopping him atop his blue head. A sound like a gunshot echoed through the room, Grimmar's face smashing into the ground hard enough to shake it. "Don't be childish. You're both in line to be my Champion."

Felix licked his lips nervously. That love tap would have broken his bones. What the fuck have I gotten into?

Grimmar lifted his face, swollen and burst along his left cheek and jaw, and gasped. "Him, Mother? He is a disgusting Human...how could he be worthy of you?"

"Human?" She laughed, another bright cheery thing that danced around the chamber. Blond locks fluttered on the same intangible breeze that shifted her dress. "No no, dear Grimmy. He is not Human at all. Are you, dear?

Felix's eyes darted between the two of them, one grimacing in anger and suspicion, another smiling beatifically. He could feel the flare of alarm in his chest, and he felt Pit press tighter against the back of his legs, his own head on a swivel.

"No, I'm not," he admitted.

"See? He's Nymean," she nodded.

Grimmar's eyes nearly bulged from their sockets, and a vein snaked down his forehead. His cheek and jaw were healing quickly, but the sudden strain sent blue blood pouring from the wound, and the giant began to visibly shake. A long moment passed where Felix was positive the Risi was going to attack him, but the giant mastered himself, though not without consequence. Felix saw blood dripping from his nose and ears.

"You stayed your bloodlust. That is good." The woman, whoever and whatever she was, patted the giant on the shoulder. "It would displease me were you to fight in my presence."

"Who are you?" Felix asked.

"She is the Mother, you fool," snarled Grimmar, the heat not yet banished from his tone. At a look from the woman he leveraged himself up and onto his knees. "The beginning and the end of all life upon this wretched plane of mud and blood."

The woman made a tutting sound. "Grimmar is a bit...blinded by religious devotion. For which I give you full credit, dear," she directed at the giant, who blushed beneath the scowl he offered Felix. "I am Lhel. Or I once was, before...all this." She waved a delicate hand around her, indicating not just the vaulted chamber, but somehow all that lay beyond.

"Lhel," Felix repeated, hearing a soft musicality in the name. "Why are you here, in this...whatever this is? It looks like a palace, or a temple, but those don't usually have giant blood beasts guarding the doors."

"How...astute of you, Felix." Lhel sighed prettily, her dress flouncing. "Yes, I am a prisoner here. Trapped these long Ages by my vile enemies."

"Enemies?" Felix asked, eyeing the walls around him. They were at least a hundred feet in any direction.

"Why the Geist, of course. You must have seen their statues and paintings they had erected all over Shelim. Vain little cretins," she muttered.

The Geist? Vvim didn't...wait, they said their People had been here a long time. Ages spent watching and waiting. Or were they guarding? Felix's mind raced, moving pieces around a mental chessboard. "Why would they imprison you?"

"Jealousy. And vengeance," she sniffed disdainfully. "The Geist are feral, deceitful creatures you know. They rose up against us, throwing their rightful betters off our earned thrones and seized them."

"Their betters?" Felix asked, the word sour in his mouth. He was afraid he already knew the answer.

"Us, of course," Lhel said, blue-green eyes flashing in the sunlight. "The Nym."

Images flashed through Felix's mind, carvings and mosaics depicting the Nym all around the Foglands, even there, twenty yards behind him. "Is that you? In the paintings?"

"In the hallway? Yes, that is me, back before..." Her voice drifted and her eyes went distant for a moment, as if she were viewing a memory. Felix cleared his throat.

"So the Geist painted beside you...?"

"Ssev, my closest friend and bitterest enemy." Her eyes flashed again as Mana congealed there, sparking behind her retinas. "They who laid the path upon which the whole of our people walked. A broken path that ended in Ruin." Her voice had a sudden heaviness to it, a weight that pressed against Felix's shoulders. She looked behind her at the soaring Essence Anchor, its surface shifting with glowing, flickering script. "A path that resulted in our empire shattering, our people Lost, and me imprisoned for two thousand years."

Felix shared a look with Pit, and he saw a flash of pity in the tenku's eye. Felix felt it too, though he was wary. Is this my emotion...or hers? He checked his HUD, but no status conditions were listed as when he'd been affected by Vvim's emotional manipulation Skill. Best to be wary, though, he sent to Pit.

Then he heard a chime. His eyes flicked toward the Essence Anchor, and upon its surface he saw three large sigils appear, fluid, organic shapes with which he'd been growing increasingly familiar. One of them was exceedingly similar to the first sigil he'd decoded: light. But it was covered in slashes and markings that seemed to...enhance and restrict it, changing the meaning from light to...eternally retreating horizon.

Sigils of the Primordial Dawn is level 6!

...

Sigils of the Primordial Dawn is level 9!

Meaning and composition flooded his mind, scattered and barely interrelated but enough to drown a man. Having mental attributes above one hundred had its advantages, however: as quick as the knowledge filtered down, Felix sorted and settled it, pulling the disparate ideas and concepts of the sigil script into his steel trap of a mind. The large sigils faded with a second chime, but he'd gathered enough patchwork knowledge to know they said something like 'draw beast anchor eternally retreating horizon never void.' It wasn't completely right, his conjugation sloppy and tenses confused; more like a gesture toward the truth, than the truth itself.

This is important, he suddenly knew. I need to keep her talking.

"Ugh, that noise. Hearing that twice a glass for two thousand years would drive anyone up the wall," she pinched the bridge of her nose, appearing truly tired. Shadows fell across her face, and something was...off there. It was gone by the time she brought her gaze back to Felix and Grimmar. "Where were we? Ah yes. Trapped by my best friend--"

"What is that?" Felix asked.

"Excuse me?"

"You do not interrupt her!" Grimmar hollered, toothy jaw flung wide, though he stilled at a glance from his goddess. Felix had felt his heart lurch in his chest when Grimmar had reared back, but he let himself breath again as he met Lhel's eyes.

"The bronze spike behind you. What is it?"

She stared at him a moment, a tiny smile on her full lips. Her red curls fell loose about her face, though she swept several locks behind her left ear. "Why play dumb, Felix? I know you have the Analyze Skill, so surely you could divine enough to call it by its true name: an Essence Anchor." Lhel's face twisted, the smile turning wistful. "It was our greatest achievement and starkest failure. You wonder why I label the Geist as monsters? Because of this."

She thrust her hands forward and each one filled with a brilliant bloody light. The Anchor too lit up, a protective barrier made of thousands of shifting, rotating sigils visible for an instant. Felix saw that between them, the woman and the Anchor, there was a chain made of sunlight...and it was wrapped around her neck.

Tears glistened in her eyes. "It was an etheric device meant to draw and store energy from the world itself. We tested it everywhere, across the breadth of the Nymean kingdoms. Many places were powerful, many holding a store of power ready to be tapped...but only here was there an infinite source. A Mana Well of unbelievable potency and size, enough unattributed Mana to fuel our cities for an Age or more. Only, it wasn't meant to be." She clenched her hands at her sides. "Ssev and their family changed it, the script upon the Anchor. It was meant to draw from the earth, but instead it drew from the surface, capturing and draining those with the greatest pools of Mana: us."

She tugged on the chain of light, which held firm as if it were solid steel before fading from view. "It locked me here, the only one who could have stopped what came next. Ssev's changes woke a...hunger from the earth, drawn to our draining Mana. Something ancient and unstoppable. It...it devoured them all." She sagged, appearing all of her thousands of years of age as trauma and grief darkened her face. She clutched her hands around her elbows and looked away from the Anchor. "This is my prison. The Essence Anchor, a device I helped create, turned against me by those who were jealous of our rightful rule."

Pity once again tugged at his heart, yet something about her didn't sit right with Felix. Her dismissal of other peoples and casual use of violence against Grimmar were part of it, but it was something more. Something about how...connected he felt with her. It unnerved him that whenever she laughed or smiled or frowned, Felix felt it too, but somehow stronger. Like a feedback loop.

The Anchor still flashed rapidly, displaying different sigils in different locations each time. He had made zero headway, though some part of his mind was still working at it, trying to leverage his fledgling knowledge.

He shook his head, playing up the pity routine. Maybe he could tease more information from her...she seemed very chatty.

"I heard a...crooning, beckoning me here. That was you?" She nodded, her wavy brown hair hanging before he face like a curtain. "Why me?"

Grimmar grunted and spoke, and though his body was still kneeling, his giant frame and voice hinted at a precipice of violence. "A question I would like answered as well. If you would be so kind, honored Mother."

Pale hands parted her black hair, tucking half behind her left ear. She appeared...vulnerable to Felix, someone who had been hurt before and feared it happening again.

Felix blinked. Where had that thought come from?

Bastion of Will is level 40!

Deep Mind is level 27!

"You were called because you dared to survive," she half whispered, her blue-green eyes vivid. "You showed such potential in those first moments of your life here. I wanted you to succeed, for you are the last of us; Nym in truth if not by birth."

Felix's back went cold, the hairs on his neck lifting. "So then you know."

"Oh yes. Those who listen could hear your arrival, Unbound. Your kind are loud in a way that is particularly piercing in this sleepy corner of the Continent."

"Demon," Grimmar whispered, his bloody face alarmed. Despite how his jaw healed, Felix could still see blood seeping from his ears and nose, a slow but nonstop leak. "No wonder you bested me in the Black. Mother forfend, an Unbound."

"Tish tosh," scoffed Lhel, waving her hand at the giant. "They are simply stolen people. Pulled against their will to a world unlike any they've ever seen. You're not the first Unbound I've met, though you are the first I've seen survive a gauntlet of challenges as you have."

Felix watched both of them: Grimmar who now looked with a measure of fear in his anger, and Lhel, who seemed inordinately...proud of him.

"You told me I needed to be stronger," he said, palms sweating. "Why?"

"Survival. Yours and mine. I would not see the Nym perish. To return to being well and truly Lost."

"How are they Lost if you still live?" Felix asked.

"I don't live, not truly. Not here in this desolate oubliette. Forgotten and trapped by the schemes of lesser beasts." She scoffed. "It is not a fit fate for the proud Nym, a race that once strode across the skies and brought terror and devastation upon all who opposed us."

Her voice rose with such earnest ire that Felix felt buffeted by it. There was an awful predatory gleam in her blue-green eyes, like a naked blade poised above flesh. He maintained Bastion of Will, but even still Lhel's vehemence echoed through his soul. Felix found himself angry, frustrated at something he couldn't grasp. He flared his Skill harder, pushing the limits of what he could get out of it, yet the sensation faded slightly, proving to him that it wasn't real at all. That unraveled the rest of it.

Bastion of Will is level 41!

Deep Mind is level 28!

"So, as you have survived and reached my humble abode, I ask this of you: become my Champion."

There was a crash as Grimmar leaped to his feet, his armor clanging around him. He did not speak at first, but Felix felt the pressure of his gaze just the same. He was not happy.

"Mother, you cannot possibly think that this...this Nymean Unbound can serve you better than I! I who have fought the very Hoarfrost for this honor, who reigned supreme at the King's Rock, who carry your very blood in my veins." Lhel turned away from Felix and toward the giant, and Grimmar went pale. Felix was surprised to find he completely agreed with the Risi Chieftain.

"Personally I'm not in favor of the terror and devastation you're talking about," Felix said with a nervous laugh. Pit whimpered slightly behind him. "It doesn't really fit what I thought I knew about the Nym, honestly. In the depictions I've seen they are...compassionate. Protectors."

"Weakness," Lhel replied, her voice rasping as she spun toward Felix. "A legacy of it, spread across our kingdoms. And for what? In the end they were unable to do what had to be done. What I said must be done. And so Ruin came for them." She spat on the ground, and the liquid sizzled against the perfect floor, marring it.

"You remind me of them, child," Lhel's mood flipped on a dime, her lilting voice abruptly soft and sad. "My brothers and sisters, lost to desolation and predation. Gone before their time. Betrayed." At the last, Lhel's voice and tone shook menacingly.

Felix felt panic worm through his guts. He was dealing with a powerful being so far beyond him that she could kill him with a look...and she was quite likely insane.

"That is why I need a Champion, Felix Nevarre. My Champion would carry the core of me, bridging the wards of this prison and letting me breath free air once more." She took a big breath, and all the air in the room shook, the ambient Mana going wild as it surged toward her....into her. She simply...ate it. All of it.

"Freedom is what I desire most of all, Felix Nevarre. And freedom is what one of you can give to me. Please," she added, her soft eyes bright with unshed tears. The light of the hidden sun gleamed off her lashes and stray hairs as she reached out a hand toward Felix. Open. Inviting.

"Please aid me. Become my Champion and we may right these atrocities wrought against us."

Harps strummed through his mind as he beheld what was likely the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen beg him for his help. Help that he could easily give, he knew. He could envision taking Lhel's core and walking out of here with it, untouched by trap or monster, able to devote himself to pleasing this perfect Nymean woman who--

A burr in the chorus caught his ear.

Felix frowned, his joyous train of thought burdened by mundanity. But he couldn't tear his attention away from it: the burr became a rasp, which transformed into a buzzing dissonance that unraveled the song entirely. As if his soul had left his body, Felix felt like he slammed back into himself, fully aware of what had been about to happen.

His hand was inches away from Lhel's own.

"No," Felix said softly, then much firmer. "No."

He stepped back, out of the circle and away from the Nymean woman.

"What?" She asked, her face the perfect image of confused fragility, as if tears and sorrow were only moments from breaking across her features. Felix felt something inside him give, but he shored up the walls of his Skill, and his Bastion held firm.

Bastion of Will is level 42!

Deep Mind is level 29!

Then her face twisted, fine eyebrows drawing down above blue-green orbs that flashed with a sudden and terrible malice. "Fine," she said, and her mouth began to grow far too many teeth. "Then we do this the hard way."

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