Unbound

“They will not touch this place,” Yin hissed.

“We will not let them,” Vess agreed. “Fortress Fenwald! Do you have defenses?”

Defenses Include:

Sealing Wards

Jagged Illusion Array

Acid Pour (Disabled)

Arctic Flash (Disabled)

Burning Lash (Disabled)

“Vess,” Felix warned. “We’re not killing them until we know what’s going on—”

Her angry eyes flashed gold in the low light. “Fenwald, deploy the Jagged Illusion Array around the intruders.”

A deep humming came from the fortress around them, vibrating against Felix’s feet as much as his Affinity. Before it was resolved, Vess and Yin rushed out of the hatchery. Felix and Pit followed, close on their heels.

“Whoa,” Pit said, skidding to a stop right outside the hatchery. Where there once was an open space, now the staging grounds was walled off by a craggy barrier that extended all the way to the ceiling. “An illusion, huh?”

Felix focused, flaring his Manasight as he peered through the illusory wall. There was a certain resistance but it wasn’t powerful enough to deter him, and suddenly the staging grounds were entirely visible again, albeit covered in ghostly walls. “It’s a maze,” he said. “I can see everyone.”

The raiders were mostly grouped near the door, which had been busted open. Pieces of it were scattered across the entryway, surrounded by around twenty men and women in cloaks and armor. One was on the ground, clutching their chest and groaning, but the rest were warily watching all around them. Most had spears, and several were leveled at Tzfell and Laur, who had clearly been captured and bound.

Felix clenched his fists.

Harn and the Eidolons were standing in the archway to the forge, staring into the maze with sour expressions and frustrated Spirits. Evie, Beef, and Archie were at the mouth of one of the tunnels, and Evie’s chain was swinging, testing the illusory walls. Each time it came close, the chain was knocked back, as if the maze was truly solid. Clearly annoyed, Archie ran forward, engaged his Stoneswim, and slammed face first into the illusion—or rather the illusion slammed into him. Lightning coursed through his small body and hurled him backward into Beef, toppling them both to the ground.

“Jagged Illusion Array. It supplements the fake walls with lightning Mana, to keep people contained,” Felix said. He could see it, a bright blue-white energy that sizzled just at the edges of the transparent walls.

“I can’t see through it,” Pit complained. “How’s that fair?”

“Converge with me. Share my senses.”

“Oh right!”

With a flash, a heaviness settled in Felix’s Spirit. A lot heavier than usual. Felix grunted in vague discomfort.

Feeling tight in here, Pit observed.

Not a picnic for me anymore either. You’re heavier now.

Pride wafted from his Companion. Let’s go fight some raider—oh, Vess already did.

Across the room, Vess and Yin were stalking through the illusory maze with only her partisan and his whipping tail. Already two groups had gotten separated from the pack and were down on the ground. Felix checked them, but they were all alive. Just badly beaten. As he watched, they knocked out two more with swift, exacting strikes.

Your girlfriend is scary.

With all the stragglers taken care of, there was only the main group left. Felix flared his Relentless Resolution and blurred across the ground. The array struck at him, but he bent the lightning away from himself with an application of Storm Shaping, sending it into the ground as he sped past.

He arrived just as Vess and Yin did. She turned a fiery gaze on him. “Don’t interfere. Please.”

Felix bit through the words he wanted to say, but only nodded.

“Matriarch’s Lament.”

The head and neck of a Dragon formed around Vess’ own, far less spectral than usual. It carried a sense of the real now, its scales glittered and his fangs glistened. A massive roar tore from its throat, visibly rippling the air around them as its power trumpeted forth. A lament of unremitting loss that seized the hearts of all who heard it, sapping them of vitality and pitching them into a listless despair.

Even Felix had to work to shrug it off. The raiders had no chance. They fell to their knees, while some were only supported by their spears. Their Spirits curdled, shoved back until they all but boiled with despair and terror.

Vess regarded the mass of raiders through her draconic visage. Their armor was almost as patchwork as their cloaks. All of them stared open-mouthed at the new, horrifying arrivals. “You are not welcome here, raiders.”

“Dragon…”

“...her face…”

“RAAH!”

One man broke through their frightened muttering and charged Vess, spear leveled for a thrust. She batted it away contemptuously. The man spun in place, his footwork broken, and she brought the butt of her spear up into the back of his skull. He crumpled like a sack of dirty laundry.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Draconic!”

Spears manifested in the air—but they weren’t Vess’. They shot forward, forcing a reflexive step forward from Felix, but Vess countered it. Her own Spears met the foreign ones, gold to her silver, and clashed in a rain of sparks.

Both Spears were thrown back.

A figure in full platemail surged forward, a real spear in his hands. This one was nothing like the previous, Felix could tell at a glance, and Vess could too. The armored raider was shorter than Felix, almost half as much, but built wide and strong. His armor was also a sight nicer and less beat up than the rest, featuring a full helm that is shaped into the likeness of a roaring lion.

She met the man, spear for spear, strike for strike. They were fast and skilled to boot, but Vess had the momentum until her partisan caught on the armored figure’s crossguard. Yin roared from her shoulder.

“You are not welcome in this place,” Vess spat as the Dragonic visage finally faded from her face. Yet it laid bare an expression no less ferocious. “Lay down your arms, or forfeit your lives.”

The lion-face fighter hesitated. “Vessilia?”

Vess shoved hard, disengaging before leaping back. “Who–?”

The man dropped his spear and Felix did step forward this time. Could be a trick, Pit. Be ready.

The helmet dropped to the ground.

A mane of auburn hair was held up in a tight bun, revealing the lines of a sharp jaw, flawlessly tanned skin, and eyes that were almost black. It wasn’t a man at all.

Vess paled, her spear shaking. “Auntie?”

Yin looked between them both. “I take it that means we aren’t going to kill everyone.” He let loose a rumbling, disappointed growl. “Pity.”

The silence that followed was loud, and interrupted only by the groans of fallen soldiers.

It was a quiet group that ascended the steps beyond the now-broken doors and into the surface layer of the Fortress Fenwald. They passed small knots of people, some in armor and some not. The former had a beaten but healthy glow about them, while the latter were more hollow cheeked and bedraggled. All of them however, were riveted by their party.

For all of his height and dark hands, Felix was the most common among them. Archie drew some stares, and Beef certainly did, but even the Eidolons didn't garner so much attention as the golden Wyrmling that preened atop Vess’ shoulders. Anger and outrage rippled among those that witnessed Yin, followed by a dull confusion. Felix imagined the latter was directed at Vess’ aunt, the Viscountess Verona Dayne.

“Come, Vessilia. We’ve secured one of the few chambers on this level for our officers.” The woman marched at their head with a stride that conveyed a stalwart power. Not just anyone could meet Vess, spear for spear, and that made Felix wonder about who exactly was inhabiting this ruined fortress.

They can’t be raiders…but why look like them?

Angry soldiers flanked them as they passed into inner halls that had every window blown out and across ballrooms that had been partially reclaimed by the swamp. A balcony opened up at the end of their long walk, revealing a view of the inner bailey. It was raised up and mostly dry, especially when compared to the mire at the edges of the collapsed walls. Felix spotted figures down below, many moving in and out of tents and around large cookfires. Children and their gray-haired minders were plentiful, crowded eagerly around several campfires while men and women in armor handed out bowls of some sort of stew.

“Hunting has been poor in the mountains,” Verona said, noticing Felix’s attention. “We have done what we could to feed all that came with us from the lowlands.”

“You fled Pax’Vrell,” Vess said.

“We did. Come inside, I can explain it all.”

The Lady Verona walked past a pair of guards and through a pair of double doors set beside the open balcony. The guards were the first soldiers that had well-kept armor, and Felix finally peered more closely at their escort. Their patchwork leather and chainmail faded away under his scrutiny, replaced by well-polished platemail and stainless tunics. Even their skin was cleaner and healthier.

An illusion. Strong one too. The moment he stopped focusing, the image of unkempt raiders returned. Who’s maintaining it?

Vess took the lead, walking after her aunt, but Felix and the rest followed soon after. Their escort stayed outside.

Within the chamber was a long table laid out with dozens of maps and surrounded by a great deal of important looking people. Every single one of them wore polished armor patterned with scales and wings, armor that Felix’s Voracious Eye confirmed were all impressively enchanted. As Lady Verona walked through, they all turned toward the doors, and several hands drifted toward the spears that leaned against the walls.

“Dearest, we have a guest,” Lady Verona said in her husky voice as the double doors closed with a soft boom.

“As I live and breathe, is that little Vess?”

An older man stood. He had a strong chin covered by a wild beard and stout arms that he wrapped around Vess’ slender body. His long, aquiline nose and lighter eyes sparkled in the hovering magelights. “It is a relief to see you hale.”

“I—Uncle Patrim.” Vess struggled to find the right words. “What is going on?”

“Ah, yes, I imagine all of this is quite confusing to someone who has been away for so long.”

“First, I would ask what is that?” A man at the table asked, pointing a gauntleted finger at Yin. He had dark hair and pale skin, with a sharp nose and what looked like silver eyes. “My Analyze tells me it is a Wyrmling, but that cannot be. No Dragoon would suffer a draconic Type atop her own shoulder.”

“I—” Vess’ voice shook before it firmed. “His name is Yintarion of the Cerulean Skies. And he is my Companion.”

A sharp gasp tore through the room, and hands that had hovered now clutched their spears tightly. The silver-eyed man grimaced. “It is worse than I feared. Lord Dayne. Step aside.”

“What? You are not touching my niece, Tarok.” The older man put himself between Vess and the others around the table. “She is beyond your authority.”

“All that truck with draconics fall under my authority, Lord Dayne. Even her. Even you,” Tarok said, and his silver eyes narrowed. “It is our duty to protect this land from their influence.”

The men and women stepped closer, spears held ready. Felix eyed them all, and though names and Races varied, they were all of them Dragoons. They were higher level, and their Temper was Adept, with Tarok approaching Master Tier. Despite their clear threat, however, Patrim was unwilling to budge from Vess’ side.

“And it is my duty to protect my kin,” he said, as Mana curled around the man’s hands.

Tarok clenched his jaw. “So be it.”

Okay, that’s enough.

Before any of them moved, Felix unleashed the full might of his Spirit onto the Dragoons. A massive, smothering pressure slammed into them, accompanied by the distant sound of a buzzing, orchestral crescendo. The vast majority of them buckled beneath its weight, falling to their knees or rears with startled cries. Tarok and a few others maintained their feet, but not without great effort.

“Do I have your attention?” Felix asked, striding forward. “Hi. I’m Felix, and no one is going to harm a single hair on Vess’ head. Understand?”

No one said a word.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Now,” he turned to include Vess and her aunt and uncle. “Let’s talk.”

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