Unbound

Pain blinded him as much as the dark. Beef reached out, thick hands grasping at nothing but weeds, algae, and the furry bulk that crushed him low into the mud. Water clogged his nostrils, blinded his eyes, and weighed down his limbs as much as the Crawler. Those tendrils yanked at his horns, tipping Beef’s head back and up—exposing his neck. The Crawler opened its immense maw and lunged.

Keratin Conception!

A rough shield of chitin manifested across his chest, deflecting the Crawler’s teeth for a brief second. Beef slammed at its snout, his fist moving too slowly, and barely had the Strength to do more than nudge the beast. That crimson radiance flared and the chitin shield shattered as a tooth broke through and into Beef’s meaty chest. He screamed.

Status Condition: Broken Rib (Minor)

Beyond the ruddy magic around the Crawler, something else began to burn. It danced in the cloudy water, igniting the pitch into limpid gray. A shape whipped by at an incredible speed, a blurred line led by twin streaks of molten light. The Crawler opened its mighty jaws, belching out a river of bubbles as those lines of light carved through its back.

Molten flame.

The tendrils were cut, split apart and spewing ichor into the chill waters. Beef tossed his head and set his hands against the Crawler’s lower jaws, pitting all of his Strength against its bulk. The creature writhed, its shape gleaming with a greater crimson glow than before, as if that molten light had ignited something within it. It shoved back at Beef, pressing him deep into the mushy earth. Cold mud enveloped him, sapping his Dexterity, and his legs found no purchase.

That shape came again, and this time, Beef saw it clearly. Archie, propelled by some strange Skill, zipped from above and drove his two daggers into the Lurkwood Crawler’s eye.

The monster bucked in agony, and Beef shoved all of his Will and Intent into his Skill.

Streamers of Mana shot into the muck to bolster his footing, and he shoved. The Crawler fell back and Beef rocketed away, crashing through rotted logs and submerged boulders. Pain lanced his neck and back, his ribs and left leg, but he kicked again, flailing with his heavy arms to propel himself upward and out of the depths.

You Have Killed A Lurkwood Crawler!

XP Earned!

Beef broke the surface, splashing and gasping. As cold as the water was, fire burned across his Body—he couldn’t keep his head above the water, as each kick seized his broken leg.

Hands grabbed him. Beef startled. “Jeez–! Archie! You saved me!”

“Can you swim?” Archie asked between breaths.

“My leg got chomped on!”

Tendrils whipped across the swamp, but Archie intercepted them with his molten daggers, cutting them to pieces. More islands swam toward them, faster than Beef thought was fair.

“Build something to stand on,” Archie said. “Sit on. Whatever! I just learned Swimming but it’s hard as hell to fight underwater.”

Beef mustered his Mana, and it was running dangerously low. He shoved what he could into his Skill and ejected it down into the water. Not bothering with the careful construction of the path, Beef shoved a spike of chitin down into the earth deep below. “Hold on,” he grunted.

“To what—aahh!”

A circular platform surged up beneath their feet, launching the both of them up and out of the chill water—for all of two seconds. The spike moved, slipping from the soft muck below, and the entire structure collapsed. Both of them splashed back into the swamp.

“What the hell!”

“I’m trying!”

“Try harder! They’re coming in fast!”

Beef didn’t need to be told that. The mossy islands were rushing at them as fast as speed boats. Panicked he grasped the chitin spike that had failed and ripped it apart, reforging it with a powerful bellow.

He forced a spike down again, but this time the moment it hit he sent a dozen sharp strands stabbing outward at the base, anchoring it in all directions. He forged that flat platform again, lifting both of them out of the water once more. One of the Crawlers bashed into the base, and the entire thing rattled—but it held.

Three Crawlers circled fifteen feet below them. Beef limped onto one hoof, pressing his back against Archie’s as they surveyed the monsters out for their blood.

“This better not fall down again,” Archie spat. “That water tastes like shit.”

“It won’t, I–I think I secured it.” Beef’s Mind began to whirl on that subject. He’d done something new a second ago, and he needed to figure it out.

Archie lifted his daggers, the blades glowing like lava. “How many did we kill?”

“Two, I think.” Beef looked out at the swamp. “Why—”

“Then why are there more than before?” Archie asked. Around them, eight Crawlers swirled like miniature, menacing islands. “And why isn’t anyone helping us?”

“It’s trainin’” Evie said from a nearby tree. She was kicking her feet as she peered down at them. “Entertainment too.”

“Great,” Archie said with a groan. “Why are all of you insane?”

Beef felt a twinge of fear as he gazed out at the Crawlers. There were too many to fight all at once, just the two of them. Archie had his magic daggers and was fast, but Beef was hurt badly. He could barely stand and a bolt of lightning tore up his side with every breath.

I’m coming, Beef!

An explosion rocked the water as a bedraggled Lurkwood Crawler burst from below, its eyes gleaming with blackened-green Mana. Riding it like a horse was Hallow, and she sent a flurry of crystalline bolts out into the fray, causing two of the Crawlers to shift their attention. The Risen Crawler clamped its jaws on the rear end of another, twisting ferociously and drawing a deep bellow from its prey. That drew yet another beast, and all three converged on his Risen Companions.

Hallow! Get outta there!

She was driven back, the monsters latching onto the Risen with single minded hunger, until all four were pressed back into the reconstructed Gloaming Way. Chitin and stone shattered beneath their bulk.

“Hey! That took me forever to make!” Beef fumed, partly in anger and partly in fear. Hallow was in danger. “We need to get down there and even the odds.”

“Then do your spooky wizard shit!” Two of the Crawlers bashed into their platform, making it shudder violently. “Summon zombies or something to fight for us!”

“It doesn’t work like that!” Beef licked his lips. He could jump down onto the Crawlers below, but killing them wasn’t a sure thing, not if they dragged him back under water. “I’m almost out of Mana, too. I need—”

He saw it, the corpse of the Crawler that Archie had slayed below. It had bobbed back to the surface and fetched up against a copse of trees…fifty feet in the wrong direction.

“I need that,” he said, pointing.

“A body? Then do your thing!”

“I can’t. I’m too far away for something this strong.” Beef summoned more chitin to wrap around his left thigh. It bound tight enough that he had to stifle a scream, but it should brace the bone for long enough. “I need to get us closer, fast. How good are you with those daggers?”

Archie spun them on his fingers, nimbly avoiding the molten blade. “Never had any complaints.”

Beef blinked at him. “From—from victims?”

“What? No! God, it’s innuen—”

“Nevermind, I don’t care. C’mon!” Beef poured the last bit of what he could afford into his Skill, and an angled chute formed. He grabbed Archie and jumped down it.

“AHH!”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“WOO!”

The chute was short, barely able to send them more than twenty feet…but it directed their fall right onto the nearest patch of solid ground.

It just happened to be a Crawler’s back.

Beef hit feet first, which drove a spike of blinding agony up his leg and chest, but he kept moving. It was as if his Mind overrode the screaming signals in his Body, running instead on sheer Willpower and dogged Endurance.

The Crawler shuddered, sinking slightly before vine tendrils whipped upward at them. “Archie!” Beef shouted.

“Got it! Fanblade!” The lava daggers whirled, and the vines shredded before they could reach either of them.

“Whoa! You weren’t kidding!”

“Watch out!”

A second Crawler bursted out of the water, leaping up from the water toward their mini island. Beef jumped too soon, barely clearly its scaly head as he blasted off higher than any Olympic athlete…straight into the water.

Keratin Conception!

He hadn’t the Mana left for the Skill, not if he planned to Raise another corpse, but he’d finally pieced together his realization. The pillar and platform he’d conjured broke apart and streamed toward his new location. They splashed down, but Beef was submerged for less than a moment as a new platform rose up to support them both.

“Thought you were outta Mana?” Archie asked, clinging to his shoulder.

“I just—I used the Mana I’d already spent,” Beef explained, gulping air. “Broke it down. Recycled it.”

“You can do that?”

“Apparently.” The Crawlers were flailing in the water, but they were reorienting on the two of them…and they were very much in reach now. Before he could handle that, however, a painful pinch in his chest turned to a spinning maelstrom of energy and Beef gasped.

Keratin Conception is level 75!

Congratulations, You Have Reached Adept Tier!

You Gain:

+20 WIL

“Oh no! I need to Temper!”

“NOW?!”

+20 INT

Beef fumbled with a pouch at his waist, only to notice it had been ripped off of him at some point. “My Essence Draughts!”

Archie held up a single stone bottle. “Found this in the water. Take it. I’ll hold them off!”

“Life saver!” Beef broke the seal and drank it in one go.

+...

Legendary Essence Detected During Formation!

[Essence Draught of Atlantes (Necromantic, Earth, Life)]

Unbound Nature Resonates With [Essence Draught of Atlantes (Necromantic, Earth, Life)]!

Calculating Effects…

Choose A Feature:

Riot

Decay

Conquer

Distantly, Beef was aware of Archie leaping off of his back and brandishing his daggers, but it was like he was watching it on a movie screen. Instead he stood in the midst of his core space, at the edge of his stepped well filled with gleaming statues. His Skills were filled with light, but none more than Keratin Conception, which was twice the size of any other and blazed like the sun.

Sudden understanding swept through Beef like a storm, as if a great voice were whispering revelations into his ear. His power had developed as a way to fight. A matter of survival, first and foremost. But since meeting Felix and his people, that had changed.

Images flashed through his Mind, too fast to follow yet he took in all their details regardless. Fighting the Fathom. Protecting the soldiers in Haarwatch. Fighting the giants atop the Razorspine. Building ships and walls and all the other things he’d accomplished with Keratin Conception. It was his greatest tool and mightiest weapon…but it had always been used to protect.

The choice was clear.A threat had come, and he would end it.

One way or another.

Congratulations! You Have Absorbed The Essence Of [Conquer]!

A thrill of power coursed through his veins, pumping new energy into his core as the System rang out in joyous cacophony. Beef fought down a giddy high as he came back to awareness, just in time to witness Archie stumbling back from a deep gash across his leg.

“Shit!” He dropped one of his daggers and clutched at his wound. “Gah, that hurts!”

Another tendril came for him, but Beef stepped up, interposing himself. The lashing split his fur and skin across his left hip, but he could take it. He helped Archie up.

“Thanks, Beef.” Archie picked up his dagger. His face was pale and covered in sweat. “We gotta move if you wanna reach that Crawler.”

“We’re not gonna make it.” Beef knew that now. The monster corpse was too far away now, and the enemy too close. There was no way they would reach it in one piece. “I–I think we failed the test.”

Archie grimaced. “Fuck that. You want a corpse? I’ll get you a corpse.”

Before the Delven could charge forward, another notification shook Beef.

You Have Killed A Lurkwood Crawler!

XP Earned!

Across the water, his Risen roared in triumph as another Crawler was killed. Hallow wasted no time, clambering across the beast and slapping her hands onto the dead monster’s hide.

“Hallow Rise!” she intoned.

Power surged out of Beef, using the last bit of his Mana that he’d earmarked for the task. His leg gave out. The Crawler came back to life, filled with a blackened-green energy and a sudden, terrible ferocity.

“Kill!” she ordered, and the two Risen surged forward, falling upon the last Crawler against them.

“Holy hell,” Archie said, mouth agape. “She can use your Skills?”

“Just—just a couple,” Beef said. He was on his knees and didn’t think he’d be standing any time soon. His leg was too far gone. Thankfully, the Crawlers were all very preoccupied by the new threat. “I don’t have anymore Mana left to Raise more corpses, even if we killed another one.”

You Have Killed A Lurkwood Crawler!

XP Earned!

“I think your rock friend is taking care of that.”

Hallow rode atop the healthiest Risen as it fought, but the living Crawlers were savage and all of them now glowed with that furious crimson effect. They ripped at the Risen, and each time blackened green light escaped, weakening Beef and Hallow’s control.

Something else left too with those wounds. Something ephemeral and buzzing. A withering heat that spoke to him on a deep, intrinsic level.

Entropy.

It called to him across Hallow Rise like a buzzing echo. He could taste it. Touch it. Mold it. An idea wormed across his Mind, bolstered by the new Feature of his Tempered Skill. A whisper from something far away and as close as his own soul.

Conquest, it whispered to him, requires death. Seize them both.

All things fall.

All things rise.

The statue of his Skill bloomed with a stark new illumination from within its carven breast. Death surrounded them in that swamp, and Beef could feel it like a cloak that draped the entire valley.

Keratin Conception!

Power welled up from that withering heat. It spun around Hallow and his Risen, coating all three of them in a bubble of whirling blackened-green light. The Crawlers reared back, wincing from the display.

“What?!” Evie shouted from above.

Beef could only grin.

Gleaming chitin sheathed the immense bulk of the two Risen Crawlers and Hallow herself. Panels of spiked armor coated it from snout to tail, even among the moss and small trees of its back, and as the living Crawlers attacked their tendrils and teeth could find no purchase.

And it cost him nothing. He stole the power from the rotted plants around them and the rotting carcasses entombed in the water.

The power of death, in the palm of his hand.

Keratin Conception is level 76!

Entropy

WARNING!

Power Is Required To Fuel The Evolution!

You May Not Survive The Process!

Proceed?

Y/N

Oh heck yeah, baby!

Proceeding With Skill Evolution.

Stand By.

Pain seized his senses, until his vision was a dark tunnel and his ears rang like the worst sort of feedback. Unlike before when the Skill Tempered and power suffused him, now he felt like a squeezed rag, dried out and empty…before his core ignited. In his Mind’s eye, he could see a new statue standing in place of the old, twice as large and gleaming with shimmering green, black, and golden light from inside.

A towering figure, surrounded by armored plates and appendages like armored crab claws.

Keratin Conception (Legendary) Has Evolved Into Entropic Paradigm (Transcendent)!

Level is retained!

Entropic Paradigm (Transcendent), Level 76!

You have discovered the truth of necromancy. Entropy sings from within the depths of Dissonance, and lies at the heart of death. Within it is power untold that can be used by those who have the knack. You capture that energy as it escapes the dead and dying, molding it. Wielding it.

Congratulations!

You Have Earned A New Title!

Favored Of The Withering Dust (Unique)!

The echo of a Primordial speaks to you on a primal level, and your ability to harness the power of entropy has doubled. All things decay. All things rise.

Beef stumbled, his core empty of Mana but his awareness now expanded in new and alarming ways. He could feel the buzzing heat of entropy in the air, and with a flex of his Will he seized it. Shaped it.

Entropic Paradigm!

Legs of razor sharp chitin burst from his Risen before stabbing outward with abandon. Though the Crawlers chomped a few, several took terrible blows to their face and eyes. Ichor ran freely and two more died in quick succession.

The rest fled.

Beef panted, leg busted up and the rest of him not much better. He laid down, not caring that water spilled onto his low platform. The cold felt good against his burning wounds.

Archie leaned against him, almost as exhausted. He didn’t mention the water either. “We survived.”

“Yeah.” It was all Beef could manage.

“A marketplace.”

Beef blinked water out of his eyes. “What?”

“My core space. You asked and—” Archie coughed. “Fuck it. It’s a crowded marketplace.”

Beef smiled. “Cool.”

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