Unbound

Felix joined his team just as they reached the base of a huge set of stairs. The others were a little singed, but basically fine, and had already downed at least one Health Potion. Beef started talking as soon as Felix came to a stop.

“God, Felix, I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have said your name.”

“Stop. It’s fine.” With a flash of light, Pit emerged from Felix’s Spirit in tenku form. “Pit, buddy. You okay?”

The tenku limped a little and his tail was smoking, but his Health was barely below ninety percent. “Could be better. You?”

“I’ll live,” Felix said. Already Sovereign of Flesh was stitching his Body and Health back together, and all it cost him was a bit of stolen Essence. He still had plenty. “Guards are following, folks. Are these the stairs up, Tzfell?”

“Yes. The Serpent’s Coil. They wind from the base of the Undermount to the very top.”

Felix gazed up the long, serpentine set of stairs, noting that they were made from a pearlescent stone and inlaid with what looked like copper and iron. “Talk as we walk. What can we expect?”

Everyone began to ascend, taking steps two or three at a time.

“Beyond the pleasure palace are the Lesser Mausoleums. They are the final resting place for the great heroes of my people, and are guarded.”

“Shades.”

Harn spat. “Nasty things, Shades. Range from Tier II to Tier V on the worst end. But they won’t tangle with us if we don’t interfere with their territory.”

“A true statement, and yet functionally useless. The Shades aren’t bound to singular mausoleums, but to the entire Necropolis, which encompasses the first two landings on the Serpent’s Coil.”

“What if we stay on the Coil?” Felix asked.

Tzfell shook her head. “Those that are near will come for us, and it could be hundreds. We must be prepared.”

“I am very fast,” Evie pointed out. “But…I’ve never fought a ghost before. Curious how it’d be…”

Harn waved his hand, cutting her off. “You don’t wanna, kid. They’re immune to physical attacks and most types of Mana. Light and life Mana put a dent in, but it’s less than you’d expect.”

“We don’t have any of that,” Beef pointed out. “Well, save for Felix and Pit…and Yin. Right? You’ve light and water attuned Skills?”

“Indeed. Once I would destroy entire armadas across these tempestuous skies.” The Wyrmling hesitated. “In my current state, I could handle…considerably less.”

“The Coil is not safe unless you’ve acquired a pass from one of the Hinterlords. Since we’ve no way to get those, nor the time, we are playing it loose with the rules,” Laur said. “I will break down the wards on each landing as we reach them, but it may take time. I will need you to defend me while I unlock our way forward.”

“We’ll handle it,” Felix promised.

Exploration is level 77!

It took ten minutes of all out running for Felix and his team to reach the first landing. The Serpent’s Coil was true to its name and wound in circuitous patterns all across the Undermount which, from so close, seemed at least ten times the size it was before.

Small shrines and graves decorated with burning lanterns covered the lower slopes, interspersed by trickling streams, blooming trees no bigger than Felix’s waist, and empty bowls before each of them, filled only with dirt and leaves. Each one marked those that were somehow prized by Dwarven ancestry but not important enough to earn their own mausoleum. According to Tzfell, they were all for poor soldiers, folks that the Highbloods clearly didn’t care about. All the markers were in disrepair in one way or another. It was honestly a little depressing, and Felix was almost happy when the first Shade showed up.

At first blush, the thing looked like a skull in a flowing cloak, hovering across the ground like a ghost. There was no cloak though—the thing was made of shadows and thick, undulating strips of flesh. The skull was accurate but it was far too large to be a Dwarf or even a Human. More giant sized, really, as were the yellowed, skeletal arms that hung uselessly from its sides.

“Tier III. Guess this guy wasn’t too important,” Beef said.

“They will get stronger the higher we ascend, as will the pressures of the Void above.”

“Cheery,” Evie muttered.

They walked the Coil, keeping an eye on the Shade all the while. At first it simply hung near its small mausoleum, like a tired guard doing an overnight shift. The problem with the Serpent’s Coil, however, was that it wound too lazily among the cliffs. When the Coil drew them too close to its position, that great skull tilted like a dog with a scent. Tier III or not, the speed at which it moved from aimless floating to all out attack was incredible.

“Skyflare!” Yintarion announced, and from his mouth emerged an orb or dense, golden Mana. It rocketed outward and impacted the Shade, where it burst into a conflagration of light. The Shade was burned up immediately.

“That was disappointingly easy,” Evie said.

“Perhaps,” Yintarion said between panting breaths. “But the Skill is a remnant of my greater stature, and it takes a great portion of my Mana to utilize. Too many and I will be useless until my Mana regenerates.”

Evie poked the Wyrmling. “Thought you were getting stronger. What’s all the food been for?”

He curled away from her fingers, a scowl above his white-tufted chin. “Preparation. I need more time, you chain-swinging brute.”

“Evolutions are hard,” Pit commiserated. “Took me forever.”

“We must keep moving,” Tzfell said. “The Shades will gather if we tarry too long. Each one we engage with has the potential to attract a swarm.”

Abyssal Skein. Felix tried to activate the Skill again, but it fizzled out before it could spread out of his core. The wall was still there. There goes the stealth option.

“Pit and I will help you, Yin. My Auroral Forge is less concentrated than yours, but Pit’s is mighty. Together we’ll cut the path. Vess, focus on giving Yintarion as many Mana Potions as he needs. Everyone else: go. Stay in the center of the stairs and move fast.”

They took off, single file, Felix in the lead. Around them, the mausoleums grew in size and complexity from small huts to elaborate, miniature houses. The Shades increased as well, their numbers swelling until the mountainside was crawling with thick, fleshy shadows. Most didn’t notice them at all, and the few that did were quickly dispatched by Yintarion’s Skyflare.

Felix set a brutal pace, driving all of them to sweat and pant despite their Adept Tier Bodies. Ironically, with a Journeyman Body, Beef was handling it better than Vess or even Harn. Around thirty miles of stairs had passed beneath their fleet feet, but the Minotaur was still running with an ease only surpassed by Felix himself. Wrapped around his torso, Hallow’s Homunculus was whispering encouragement all the while.

The mausoleums grew and so did the trees. Huge, beautiful trunks colored a myriad of hues, adding to a widening canopy that cast emerald shade onto the tombs and Coil. When the team drew too close to that shadow though, they were attacked. A handful of Tier IV Shades burst from the darkened edges of a small copse, fleshy tentacles grasping and huge skeleton heads shrieking so that a frigid chill stabbed at them all.

Beef met them with an earth-shattering hammer strike. No Skill, just brawn and a little magic from his weapon Bedlam. The potent artifact shook the earth and sent the Shades scattering, but most importantly its special ability disrupted their shadow magic entirely.

Evie’s chain came next, followed closely by exploding Spears and slashes of Dawn’s Advent. The latter was the most useful, being light Mana, but it did little more than cut through their thick appendages. The Shades advanced, through the hailstorm of violence, until another Skyflare took one out.

“Potion!” Yintarion shouted.

In the breach, Felix lifted his hands and unleashed his own Skill. Spikes of gold condensed out of the omnipresent light all around them, stabbing through enormous skulls and pinning thick tentacles all at once. A dense field, four feet long and sharp as razors, they sizzled where they touched the shadow-stuff of Shade flesh.

Chthonic Tribute!

All six Shades resisted for only an instant before they burst into dark smoke and were devoured.

Weak. Delicious.

It’ll do for now, Felix told his Hunger. The lesser Shades went a good way toward replenishing the Essence he’d spent on healing himself. There will be plenty more to come.

Good.

Abyssal Skein. Like a bubble bursting, the barrier between Felix’s Skill and the world vanished. The cold oil sensation flowed outward, fading his presence from the world and his party’s Perception…until he spread it across their connections as well. They gasped, taken aback.

“This will help a lot,” Evie said with some relief. “Shade’s won’t see what’s comin’.”

Vess hefted her partisan and grinned. “Let us put it to the test, yes?”

The team moved on.

Abyssal Skein is level 84!

…

Abyssal Skein is level 88!

The Serpent’s Coil slithered further, winding through barren cliffs and forested hills, navigating the ever-growing necropolis around them. His stealth held up, and with Evie, Harn, and Pit each contributing their own Skills on top of it, their party remained unnoticed eighty percent of the time. Those that could notice them, however, were strong.

Tier IV Shades became more and more common, crowding the pathway as the small crypts became larger and larger, until even Tier V creatures swarmed the edges as well. Those were the true threats so far, the equivalent of a Master Tier, and more than most of his team could handle.

Felix changed tactics. Stealth was the watchword but where that failed they went into immediate and full offense. Blades of light and orbs of destruction rained upon the Shades, obliterating the weaker ones while the stronger were at the very least stunned. Before the Tier V monsters could retaliate, Felix unleashed his Hunger. Again and again, their Essence funneled into his core space, until nothing stopped their ascent up the mountain.

The ground shook.

The Shades had just begun to thin out and the mausoleums had transitioned into truly huge structures, fronted by old growth forests that obscured their view of the distant peak. Those branches swayed with more than the wind as pebbles and ill-kept tombs tumbled down the slopes.

“What the hell is that?” Beef asked.

Felix looked back down. They were far away from Havenhold and much of the Undermount itself was in the way, but in the hazy distance beyond the strange forests he thought he saw something flicker.

Flames.

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