Unbound

“You can’t just rip open the walls,” Laur said, pushing forward as if Felix were about to do exactly that. “The wards will detect it and send word to the nearest citadel. See? This array cluster, here.”

Felix did see, and he lowered his hand. “How fast do they respond?”

“Typically they inspect ward failure as soon as it occurs. Distance from the citadels differs, of course, but the clans hold the Low Roads sacrosanct and they still reel from the Titan,” Tzfell said. “They will come with a swiftness born of pride and fear.”

Felix gritted his teeth at the mention of Imara, but pushed the feeling aside. Locked it away inside a house inside his Mind. “Okay. Then can you push them aside? Like with the ones before?”

“Yes,” Laur answered without hesitation. “My experiences upon the Undermount have grown my Skills. A rare occurrence, but welcome. This I can do.”

As Laur started in on the indelible barriers, Archie stepped close. “How do you do—” he made whooshing gestures with his hands. “—that stuff? It’s a Skill?”

“A number of them.”

“Seems like cheating, making the ground just move around.”

Felix raised an eyebrow, but didn’t stop watching Laur’s work. “Says the guy who can walk through rock like its water.”

“Well, yeah, but that’s it. I can’t make it into a bridge or even burrow a hole. I can’t even pull others through with me.”

“Is that normally a concern? I thought you were the ‘lone wolf’ type?”

Archie scratched his black beard. “Yeah. Guess so.”

Laur twisted his hands, the thrumming nature of his Chant changing pitch as Felix observed. Sigaldry wasn’t changed, but it was bent, the forces it channeled turned aside through the matrices of stone and gold and mithril. Layer upon layer, until there was nothing more beyond his Manasight but the shadow of deep, untouched earth.

The Elf stepped back, brow beaded with sweat. “It is done.”

Felix licked his lips and lifted his dark hands once more. “My turn.”

Stone Shaping.

Affinity-sounded and Intent-shaped, the Skill pattern thrummed within Felix’s core space. Mana rose from his dual cores, tangling among the waveform world within before shooting outward, through his pathways that etched a gilded road among his Body, Mind, and Spirit—until finally, a thick liquid power issued forth from his palms, and the hard tunnel wall was turned soft. Like wet clay formed too thin, it bent, folded over itself until a hole opened before them. Oddly shaped chunks of metal splashed down, separated from the more common stone around them, before Felix nudged them aside. The hole deepend, turning into a tunnel in its own right, and a barren floor of hard packed dirt beckoned them all.

“Get in everybody,” he said without strain. This, at least, was a common usage for his Skill. “I’ll go last.”

Vess and Yintarion went first, followed quickly by the Chanters and Archie. The Eidolons plodded through, carrying their riches, a sleeping Harn, and the still glowing elemental core. Evie was right behind, eyes never leaving the injured warrior, while Beef took up the rear.

He looked a bit nervous. “It’s safe?”

“Yeah. I’ve done this before.” Felix nudged the Minotaur teen with his elbow. “You good?”

“It’s just a little tight and I’m just…big now.”

“Ah.” The Eidolons had slipped in without an issue, but Beef looked truly unnerved by the darkened tunnel. With a flex of his Will, his shaping expanded, raising the roof of the tunnel. “How’s that?”

“Better.” Beef smiled. “Thanks Felix.”

The kid walked in and Felix followed, pulling the stone back into place behind him. Thanks to his close attention and his Born Trait of perfect recall, it was a small matter to reassemble the wall of the tunnel as it was before. The only difference was a small aperture near the ceiling, among the scrolling knotwork. That he left open for airflow.

Felix pressed through his friends and Eidolons, slipping his way to the front as he maintained his hold on the stone around them. It was thick and syrupy, dripping down the sides of the wide but short tunnel like a melting candle that never quite diminished.

“Impressive,” Orun said. The stone Eidolon flexed his large hand. “The air. It…tingles.”

“Resonance with our matrices, no doubt,” Tethys said. Her voice was softer than Orun’s, but it was clear as a bell. “Low Tier stone here, but there must be commonalities.”

Evie cleared her throat. “That’s fascinatin’, I’m sure. It’d be a sight more interestin’ if I could see the face makin’ all the noises. I’m blind as Alister, here.”

“Alister isn’t blind,” Beef said.

“Then explain him courtin’ Atar.”

Oh. Right. Felix had forgotten. He could see perfectly fine. “One sec.”

Yintarion was one of the few of them with light Mana Skills, but he was still engrossed with the Elemental core. Instead of bothering the Wyrmling, Felix grasped chunks of the sludge around him and shaped them into foot-long rods of faceted stone. Then he spun up the pattern of two more Skills.

Rime Shaping.

Auroral Forge.

The buzzing inside of him returned as his Skills resonated with one another. The stone rods flashed, turning to blue-white crystal that glowed from within. It was a gentle light, nothing like a lantern or lightbulb, but more than enough for anyone with even Journeyman Tier eyes. With a gesture, the rods clattered to the ground. “Take those.”

“Ah!” Archie said, yanking his hand back with a hiss. “They’re cold.”

“Ah,” Evie said, tucking one into her belt. “Much better.”

“Little glowing icicles,” Beef marveled, holding one up. “Oh I like this, Felix.”

“Something I learned from the Dark Passages,” he said with a half smile.

“Oh yeah. This looks just like the big blimp stone on the Sailwhale.”

Archie raised an eyebrow. “Sail-what-now?”

Felix left the two Unbound to talk and focused on shaping their way ahead. Tzfell stood at his left shoulder and Laur stood at his right. “Laur, be on the lookout for any more wards we might bump into. Tzfell, you know tunnels right? Think you can help me avoid the worst stuff?”

“I know some stonecraft, but only what was taught to me as a child. It is not my specialty.”

“I can help,” Archie said, cutting off his conversation with Beef. “I might not be able to—” he waggled his fingers at the slow-moving mass ahead. “—do that, but I’ve got Blindsense. I can see things coming before we hit them, even in solid rock.”

“Right. Right, that’d be perfect.” Felix ushered Archie to the front with him. “Hang by my side and tell me if I’m gonna hit any metal, monsters, or worse.”

“Got it.”

Felix turned, addressing everyone. “Alright. I don’t plan on being in this for long. I’m shifting the tunnel up and it’s gonna be fast, so get your running boots on and stick close.”

He flared Stone Shaping once more, and the sludge of magic-softened stone and earth sloughed away, pushing across the ceiling and walls to collect at the rear of the tunnel. There it filled it in, reconstituting into hardier materials, and shunting their burrowing ever forward. It was similar to how he’d inched across the cavern, though infinitely easier—this was a task Felix had accomplished with far less Mana and levels under his belt.

He was thankful for those advantages, however. The stone they broke through was not common Tier I rock as it was outside the Archon’s Domain, nor was it Tier II or III. Every bit of it was Tier IV, requiring either an Adept Tier Skill to budge it, or to be a stat hoarding cheater like Felix. Lucky for him, he had both.

“Chunk of heavy metal up ahead,” Archie warned after a time. “Not sure the type, but it’ll slow us down.”

“Thanks.”

Felix changed direction, the shaft ducking below the metal deposit and curving along its bottom for perhaps half a mile. The metal wasn’t familiar to Felix, but it resisted his Ferric Shaping and wasn’t worth the hassle of trying to burrow through it. Once Archie gave the all clear, however, Felix reoriented back upward at a severe incline. It was a sharp ascent, but Felix shaped stairs out of the ground and kept going. Their goal was the surface, and he had no idea how far underground they currently were—all he could do was head up and hope for the best.

Often they encountered pockets of “bad air,” as Archie described it. Not quite poisonous gas, just a foulness that the Delven had run into before. “When I’m Stoneswimming I don’t need to breathe, but I’ve seen what happens when you suck up too much of it,” he explained. “More than a few smugglers get retired early due to Status Conditions like Lung Rot. We’re better off being safe.”

Felix didn’t disagree, and they diverted around those too.

Stone Shape thrummed in his core, though none of what he did pushed it in any significant way. It was a single level from Master Tier, and he hoped that if he could get a few shaping Skills to Temper then maybe he could evolve them. The last level of Adept Tier, however, was a veritable wall. On the other hand, it wasn’t the only Skill he had to employ.

Ferric Shaping is level 71!

Storm Shaping is level 61!

Every once in a while, they encountered metals Felix could handle. Deposits of iron and tin and zinc, common enough and diffuse through the compacted stone and dirt. Those he shaped away with Ferric Shaping, expanding them into softened strings that flowed through the sludge walls. The air, meanwhile, he pulled through the ever-lengthening hole connecting them to the Low Roads. It was increasingly difficult to provide them all with enough breathable air in their moving dirt capsule, consuming a full third of Felix’s ongoing Mana pool as they dove farther and deeper into the unknown earth.

He didn’t mean to dive deeper, of course, yet hazards necessitated detours. Again and again, he came against high Tier materials and empty patches of foul gasses. Not interested in risking his friends, he moved around them over and over, but each delay strained him. The airflow was getting harder to manage and the more Skills he pressed at once the more that buzzing hum increased between them all. It wasn’t quite a complete song; the Shaping Array that contained all of his shaping Skills still lacked that certain something that would allow him to combine them. Instead it was like a poorly secured load on the back of a pickup—he rattled.

“More foul air ahead,” Archie said. His little ruby eyes gleamed. “It’s a large cavern, but it's packed with the stuff. We gotta go around.”

“No,” Felix growled. He was more than annoyed. Fire leaked through his chest, a scourge across his heart. “We go through.”

“What—! We can’t!”

Felix didn’t listen. He thrust his hands forward and split open the stone ahead, revealing a wide opening into darkness…and a thick, yellow fog rushed toward them all.

Chthonic Tribute!

He seized the poisonous fog with his Will and opened his maw wide—it flooded in, all of it pouring into his mouth in a torrent.

Foul. Mmm. Hunger sounded disgusted and then conflicted. Then pleased. Good. New.

The fog vanished, leaving the deep cavern utterly empty save for the whistling suction of air from behind them.

“Oh. Or you can, I guess,” Archie said, stepping into the cavern. “You…sucked up the bad air?”

Felix grimaced. “More or less.”

“You can do that?”

“He can do that,” Vess said as she passed into the cavern. “Felix. We should take this time to make camp.”

Felix looked at everyone’s faces, lit by the cool glow of his light rods. His chest felt tight, but he couldn’t be sure if it was from the poison fog he just ate, Pit’s Mote of Frenzy, or…something else. “...Fine. We can all use some rest. Just make sure we check the cavern.” He bared his teeth at the dark. “Who knows what’s out there.”

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