Unbound

The air stank of unwashed bodies and sour, spilt ale when Evie stepped into the Cask. She breathed deep and sighed. “Ahh, my people.”

The eclectic gathering of smugglers, cutthroats, and drunks turned toward her voice and many turned back to their drinks. Some, however, seeing nothing more than a slender woman at a bar of ill-repute in the small hours of the night, got certain ideas into their head. These fellows stood up and walked closer.

“Oh look, they’re comin’ to me. Wonderful.” Evie smiled wide as the first Dwarf lunged at her, stepping aside and letting the fool bash his head into the doorjamb. “I’m sure you were very agile, once. Sadly, those times have passed.”

The bartender, a Dwarf with an eyepatch, lifted a heavy crossbow from beneath the counter. “Back off, damn drunks, unless you want me to put a hole in those wineskins you call a gut.”

The drunks and scoundrels hesitated, and a few even sat back down. Four, however, charged.

A hammer made of ice and steel took all of them down as Beef busted through the too-small door. Timber and old plaster rained atop the sticky floorboards, now even stickier as the fools’ blood spilled out.

Evie stepped over them. “Bartender! Do us a favor and summon your boss.”

Old Eyepatch scowled, still hefting his crossbow. “I don’t take orders—”

“Hold now, Brak. Let’s hear what she’s got ta say,” said another. From the shadows at the back of the bar, the widest Dwarf Evie had ever seen stepped into view.

Unsettled mutters filled the room, but none of the louses even so much as moved from their tables. The Rat Lord smiled, revealing several missing teeth. “I am. And who might you be, waltzing into my establishment and killing my clientele.”

“They’re not dead,” Beef pointed out, a bit defensively.

Thrumm craned his neck. “Tch. Pity. Gives you less leverage too. How am I supposed to be afraid of a strongarm that can’t commit?”

As if signaled, another Dwarf rushed from the side, two foot-long knives gleaming in his hands. Beef backhanded the man and he crashed through two tables and a wall.

“Then again, there’s somethin’ to be said for restraint,” Thrumm said with a nervous smile. “How can I help ya, ma’am?”

“It’s stone simple.” Evie spread her hands guilelessly as Beef loomed behind her, a dark shadow lit only by the flickering light in his oversized hammer. “I’d like to hire you for a job.”

“The ripples, they’re so similar but not entirely,” Laur reported. “The pattern suggests directionality…perhaps a relic of Intent…”

Mervin nodded absently. The Chanter had said similar things at the last six places they’d stopped at, and by this point he’d grown numb to the magical babble. Mervin had found it all very interesting, once upon a time, but the Elf was speaking in realms that Mervin couldn’t comprehend. So, instead of worrying about that, Mervin checked their surroundings again.

His team of ten was arranged in a loose circle around the Chanter, all of them on the alert for any sort of attack. Considering the damage to this area of the city, it was far more likely that a building would collapse on them. There were very few people around, and most of them were covered in soot and carrying their meager belongings in their hands.

I can’t do anything for you, he thought with an aimless sort of ache as another few Hobgoblins scurried past, rags on their backs. So much incredible suffering…how could she be a Chosen of the Pathless?

That detail had stuck with Mervin more than any other. He’d fought to keep from voicing his concerns during the Autarch’s meeting, but it had been difficult. He had hoped when he saw the Hierei that perhaps there was something worthwhile to the Pathless, something to account for all the good memories of his childhood…and he heard only atrocities.

Purity. Order. Strength. And yet you hold to none of them but the last. Mervin gritted his teeth. I cannot—

“I see!”

Mervin spun back toward the Chanter to find the tall Elf running his hands through his long hair like a madman. “You see what?”

“The purpose! The flaw!” Chanter Laur grasped Mervin by the arm and pulled at him. “Come. We need to see the gates next!”

“The one’s that are still on fire?” he asked.

“While they’re fresh!”

Commander Kastos’ crystalline hammers drew a cascade of sparks from the Leviathan bone. It was fixed by his Will atop a plain black anvil, and Mana was folded into its shape with every strike. Not his own, Loquis was fascinated to learn, but Mana stored within the hammers themselves. The commander switched between them liberally, applying ice, fire, and even shadow Mana to the piece of shaped bone.

Loquis still hadn’t a clue what the man was making. His instructions had only gone so far as to secure a forge and guard it from passersby. The Torrent’s Rest had a small smithy off to the side of their main building, and it had only taken a handful of crowns to convince the smith to go to bed with a wineskin. As far as passersby went, the place was deathly quiet in light of the Titan’s attack and the fact that it was well beyond midnight.

He blinked at that, more tired than he realized. All of his men were, though they hid it well enough.

Late hour or not, Commander Kastos’ work continued, unabated.

Leviathan bone was replaced by ice-ore, each bent and flattened by heat and strange flows of magic. The commander’s Skills with the forge were remarkable, and honed over the last few months back in Elderthrone. Loquis watched, fascinated, as his commander’s designs took shape.

With a heavy breath, the commander placed the final piece into a bucket filled with a thick, opalescent liquid. It boiled as it entered, but instead of steam or shrieking steel all Loquis heard was a jubilant crescendo of unearthly music. It quickly silenced, and the commander fished a plate-sized hexagon from the bucket.

“Damn near perfect,” he muttered. The commander was sweating, his chest pumping like a bellows, but he looked pleased. On his scarred and broken face, it seemed more like a snarl. “Set it with the others.”

Loquis took the hexagon in hand, fighting back a flinch. The object wasn’t hot, in fact it was bitterly cold. Part bone, part uncanny ice, the strange tablet was a swirl of black and deepest blue-purple. He set it atop twelve others, and gestured to his men to pack them up.

The commander packed up his hammers and gear, but Loquis spared a glance at the anvil. It had grown white hot across almost its entirety. Normally, Loquis would have supposed the structure of it would have failed as the metal turned to mush, but other colors chased the white radiance across the heated anvil. Magic seeped into it as much as the Leviathan bone and ice-ore, except in the anvil’s case the working was unstructured and wild. Dangerous.

“Make sure to tell the blacksmith to throw this anvil out,” Loquis told the Goblin packing up the tablets beside him. “And make sure it’s not melted down. Stress how perilous that could be.”

“Aye sir.”

In the distance, a faint bell sounded, and the commander looked up in surprise. “Dawn already, eh? Damnation. Pack it up, boys and get what rest you can.” He slung his satchel of tools over a broad shoulder. “That’s an order.”

“Aye, sir!” they all shouted in unison, before Loquis sent them scurrying about, cleaning up their presence in the smithy.

All of them would sleep hard. No order required.

Felix flowed through the open window, still devoid of glass, and landed in a roll on a plush rug. Pit came through another, though his wide torso ended up taking a new chunk out of the casement.

Startled, Hierei Faer, Vess, and Tzfell stood from a pile of books. Vess smiled. “You’ve returned.”

Yintarion hovered in the air above Vess’ head. He fixed the two of them with his depthless golden eyes. “Successfully?”

“Was that ever in question?” Pit asked, beak tilted up.

“Domain’s done.” Felix set a shimmering black crystal stamped with whorls of gold onto the table. Two others followed, but they were smaller. “Took longer than I expected.”

“You’ve only been gone three hours,” the priest said, alarmed. “You sped through an entire Domain?”

“No. We emptied it out.”

The priest stared at him, sagging jowls quivering. “You—?”

“I was there to take the Domain’s primary and sub cores. That collapses the whole thing. Pressed for time or not, I’m not setting loose several thousand little monsters on the mountain.” He looked to Vess. “Can you get Harn up here?”

“Of course.”

Vess rose and went to the door, moving deceptively fast. Yintarion stayed behind, curling atop invisible waves of air and fire Mana.

“I still don’t—even for a Master Tier, clearing an entire Domain requires days of work. The bodies alone would need to decay long enough to let their Mana settle, otherwise it’d breach the liminal envelope.”

“The Autarch is possessed of unique…capabilities,” Tzfell said.

Yintarion gave a low, throaty chuckle. Faer looked up at the Wyrmling, clearly nervous.

Felix only grunted and took a seat beside the fire, uninterested in parsing whatever was going on among them all. He had cleared the Domain, but it wasn’t nearly as simple as he had suggested. Felix was strong, true, but he was constantly reminded of how little time he had remaining. That had forced him to use more brute force than might have been strictly necessary, and now his Adept Tier Body ached all the more.

Still, the Domain was done. He’d conquered it mostly with area of effect Skills like Rain of Cataclysm, but he’d also made sure not to waste the opportunity to push another Skill as high as he could: Shadow Whip. Its darkness element had been useful against Imara when funneled through Wild Threnody, and Felix wanted to see it evolve. It was on the cusp of Adept Tier now, but the Domain monsters had died too easy. It was Adept ranked as well, but it couldn’t handle Felix let alone Pit too.

Chthonic Tribute had taken care of the rest.

Felix leaned toward the fire. He was cold, and not just from the long fights. He’d spent hours demolishing hordes of spiders, wolves, and lizards with twisted humanoid faces, but all of it had only occupied a piece of his attention. The hours had given him enough time to contemplate his plans; turn them about in his Mind, examining them from every angle. He knew there were more than a few failure points in his scheme…but he couldn’t think of anything better.

He hoped it would be enough.

Across the room, the door opened, creaking slightly.

“That was fast, was he waiting—” Felix stood when he saw Vess’ face. Felt her Spirit. “What’s happened?”

“You have a visitor,” she said, holding a rapid handsign. >

Vess stepped from the door, and Felix saw a Dwarven woman wearing an outfit that could only be described as rocky. It was formed entirely from stone, specifically a blue-gray granite, broken into uneven chunks and held together by either fabric or perhaps metal. A necklace of blue sapphires hung around her throat, accentuating the red hair that filled the inside of a beaded caul. Bright eyes, a proud nose, and a smattering of freckles gave her an innocence that was belied by the Master Tier presence she exuded.

And behind her, twenty armored Dwarves that were just as advanced. Felix recognized their distinctive armor and the hammers at their waists. Forge Knights.

“Mr. Silas Veil?” the woman asked.

“Yes,” Felix put himself ahead of Vess, blocking the door with his wide shoulders. “How can I help you?”

“You are cordially invited to the Hinterlord’s Grand Gala.” A scroll sealed with red wax and dangling with ribbons was presented to him. He took it, careful to flex Sovereign of Flesh and hide his claws.

Felix turned it over in his hands. “What for?”

“It is a celebration!” she announced with a bright white smile. “The vile Titan has been expelled from the city, and Birchstone shall hail its newest hero!”

When Felix stared at her uncomprehending, the courier’s smile somehow grew even wider. “That would be you, Mr. Veil!”

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