Unbound

The cavern had a squeezed feeling to it, for all that it was perhaps fifty feet wide at the narrowest. The ceiling hung a shade too low, the walls bulged, and his glowing ice lights revealed layers of striations at least thirty deep. They were far below the surface, where untold pressures had hollowed out the earth, and even the air felt heavy.

Not poisonous though, Felix confirmed for the third time. Now that he’d consumed so much of it, he could feel its absence. A certain lack of connection. Vess, Evie, and Yintarion slipped away, scouting the edges of the cavern to ensure no monstrous surprises awaited them. Felix, meanwhile, posted up next to a large stalagmite and let himself rest.

With a minor act of power, he shaped a large glowstone in place of a campfire. It rose from the earth like a flower of ice, filling the majority of the cavern with a dim blue radiance. Felix settled back, pulling free the journal of the Rockshaper from his pack. Essence of Will: Shaping Unity. Quite the title.

The Rockshaper had been a powerful mage in his time, and had specialized in at least one type of shaping magic. Felix had high hopes that it might answer at least some of his questions.

“Oh, a bigger lightstone. That’s great.” Beef sat down, grunting as he let his ice hammer Bedlam fall to the ground. A tiny tremor ran through the earth, jolting small stones several inches into the air. “I know all we did was walk behind you, Felix, but I’m beat.”

“I believe it was the lack of bountiful air in the tunnel,” Laur said. He perched atop a shelf, feet dangling above a time-worn groove that was filled with small, pale mushrooms. “Too little and our Bodies will fail, no matter how Tempered. Hear that whistling?”

“Yeah?”

“That is the stream of air that the Autarch is pulling into this cavern. It will stabilize soon, and likely by itself. It is a well known fact that Mana travels from areas of high concentration to lower concentrations.”

“Is it?”

“So what if it has?” Archie asked, stride up to settle next to Beef’s enormous bulk. “We didn’t ask to be here.”

Laur frowned. “I meant nothing by it, just a simple statement of fact. If you care to learn, I would be glad to teach you whatever I can.”

“What’s the price?” the shrewd Delven asked. His goggles were back on, but there was little doubt in Felix’s mind that he was squinting hard at Laur.

“Merely the time it takes to impart it.”

Beef leaned back against another rocky shelf, wiggling as Hallow slipped from his shoulders to sit at his side. “That sounds good to me. Magic is cool as hell, so the more I know, the better.”

Archie folded his arms. “Alright. Explain, Elf boy.”

Laur made a point of straightening the tattered sleeves of his robes before continuing. “The process of Mana shifting from high to low concentration is a piece of a greater pattern. It is how we all pull the power through our Gates; the low concentration within our core spaces acts as a sort of suction, pulling at the greater powers beyond us. You know this, or else none of you would have compressed the Mana inside you and attained Ring Stage.”

“Right. Thrumm had a trainer; taught me about all that stuff.”

“That is good. Then you know that beyond our pathways, in the world itself, Mana behaves in much the same way. All of it dances to the tune of the Grand Harmony.” Laur lifted a hand and rainbow light shimmered between his hands. It was predominantly blue and gold, but it flickered between many others. “Air shifts. Water flows in currents seen and unseen. Earth settles, burning in hidden flames that melts stone and metal alike before it erupts from the depths, escaping into the lower concentrations on the surface. All of it is a cycle. A rhythm that beats beyond normal hearing.”

Sounds unspooled from the Chanter’s grip, like a piece of music that Felix had once known intimately and had completely forgotten until that very moment. Beef and Archie both leaned in, their faces enraptured and terrified.

“Can you not hear it? The very pulse of the world?”

Hallow tilted her lumpy head inquisitively. “I feel it. My stone rattles with it.”

One of the Eidolons, Iiana, murmured in contemplation. “The Song of Creation. You know the ways of old?”

Laur inclined his head, gesturing between himself and Tzfell, who crouched over Harn’s unconscious form. “We are Sorcerers of the Fallen Hall. Chanters of the Grand Harmony.”

“Fallen Hall?” Eagin asked. “What is this?”

“A name for something that once was,” Tzfell said, leaning back from Harn’s bandaged legs. “We are heirs to the Lost legacy of the Nym.”

Iiana crouched low, peering at the Chanters. “Nym. Our brothers were once Nym, long before we forsook our Bodies for the honor of Exultation.”

“And you?” Laur asked. “Forgive me if that is indelicate to ask.”

“Mm. It is no matter. We do not hide our past. I was once a Theron, and my might was as vast as the song upon my chest.”

“I was a Dwarf,” Orun rumbled. “Though I hesitate to admit such after what we have suffered under my distant kindred.”

“I was of the Risi,” Telys added.

“And I was as well,” Eagin admitted. “Exultation was a great honor, though it diminished our size.”

Iiana smiled, her stone lips somehow making the expression immensely sad. “I do miss my antlers…but to protect Khalheim we were willing to do anything. Are willing.”

Eagin nodded. “Sacrifices of our own choice. Still, our power was still great enough to protect against any threats to the North—”

“Any save one.” Orun’s face was twisted into a dark grimace. “We failed when it came to the end, brother.”

Eagin clapped Orun on the shoulder. The sound was like a rockslide. “We stood our ground. We held what we could. Not even an Eidolon’s eternal flesh might stave off cataclysm itself.”

Felix put down his book. “You’re talking about the Ruin. You remember it?”

“Aye lad. We are ancient, and the Ruin tore holes in us, but we recall some of the end.”

Beef swallowed nervously. “What is it?”

“Vast. It is beyond anything I could ever describe, and the words themselves feel snatched from my Mind before I can utter them. I can only speak of the moments before its arrival, when the Chthonic Host fell to light and shadow.” Eagin shuddered. “The War ended, then, as it arrived. The skies blackened, the sun turned to blood, and—”

“All was Lost.” Telys hung her head low. All of them did. “But at least the Ouranic horde was scoured from the ice fields of our home. They fared little better than the Golden Empire.”

Everyone sat there, digesting their words. Felix, however, fixated on the last. “Ouranic. Chthonic. I’ve seen those words before. What do they mean?”

“Realms beyond this one, apart and separate. They lie beyond the Omen Path, but that is all I know. The Ouranic and Chthonic fought, opposed as Harmony and Dissonance itself…They—” Eagin winced in a very familiar way. Karys often made the same expression. “My memory fails me. It is Lost.”

Felix frowned. He wasn’t surprised, just disappointed. He’d seen the term ‘Ouranic’ used in a System alert, when they had entered the heart of Khasma, where the Divine-infested Fathom had dwelled. And ‘Chthonic’ was a part of him. His Body was called Chthonic Ascent and a Title he bore was Chthonic Traveler. Not to mention two of his Skills bore the name: Chthonic Tribute and Last Cry of the Chthonic Host.

The Eidolons settled back, gathering together as if in mourning. Felix left them to it. He recalled that they had not been in control of themselves or their thoughts for a really long time. Karys at least had been sleeping across the Ages. He had more questions, but they could be asked later.

“That was a whole lotta nothing,” Archie muttered. “What’s this Ruin, anyway? And why do we care?”

“A threat,” Beef said, huddling his head between his wide shoulders as if he were shrinking in on himself. “The final boss.”

“Wait, what?” Archie glared at Felix. “You never mentioned that.”

Felix raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were leaving?”

Archie glanced at Iiana, who bore within her the pieces of the ritual to send them home. His hands clenched and unclenched. “I am. I just don’t like things being hid from me.”

“We weren’t hiding anything,” Beef protested. “You just haven’t stuck around to hear it all.”

Archie lifted a finger, mouth open to protest, before he stopped himself. He dropped his hand. “Alright. That’s fair. I did kinda run out.”

Huh. Felix was surprised. Archie didn’t seem like the type of guy to admit fault. To anything. Maybe I was wrong about him.

“But it’s your fault for not saying anything sooner. This Ruin thing seems way more important than talkin’ about Nagast or the Horoscope or whatever.”

“Hierophant,” Hallow corrected.

“That’s what I said.”

“Then please, ask me what you will, Archibald. Beefhammer.” Laur shifted closer to the two Unbound. “I will answer what I can.”

Archie, Beef, and Hallow eagerly engaged the Elven Chanter in question after question, and Felix listened for a time. None of the answers were new to him, however—they were the same things he had asked, once upon a time. What is the Ruin? How long until it gets here? How do we fight it?

There were no satisfying answers to those questions, and Felix witnessed frustration mount before Laur switched to describing accounts of the Ruin’s power. Of what it had done to those peoples that rose too high, too fast. Its purpose seemed to be to eradicate all that grew too powerful, though how it knew what to strike remained as much a mystery as its appearance.

The questions wore on, Delven and Minotaur bickering quietly among one another along the way. Felix eventually tuned them out and retrieved his book. He opened it delicately, careful not to tear the pages, and slowly began working out the Rockshaper’s Dwarven script.

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