Unbound

Astride a river, the Arcids found that the trail of their Father's power vanished. They had questioned the locals quite vigorously, but they had all broken into pieces. A fragility they had enjoyed...until none were left to question. The mortal Races were truly too frail; it was remarkable any of them could live as long as they did.

The mountain the Wurm's tunnel had emerged from had contained a bounty of mortals, enough that their escorts had taken their fill before collapsing the shaft behind them. It was what they deserved, for completing their Father's task...but they had overshot. Now the Arcids were left following the bread crumbs of their Father's power, along with the new Territorial Quest, tracking it all to the source.

Vines covered the walls, what few remained standing, and most of the furniture was crushed to pulp. Bodies were stacked up like cordwood, a phrase the Arcids had only recently learned, but all found relatively delightful. A small, umber brown Arcid stepped through the rubble, kicking it idly. "Not here either. Have you read the trail correctly, Number 55389?"

From behind a cracked column, a wheezing Human suddenly scurried. A vine unwrapped from the wall and snapped at the portly thing. It grabbed his feet and hauled him into the air.

"Ahhh! No no no! I'll do whatever you like! Please!"

"I have not read the trail incorrectly, Number 55118. The trail simply seems to have been muddied by these Humans." With a dismissive wave, the skeletally thin Arcid slammed the man into a stone column. Unlike some of the others in the room, this Human was not Tempered and the column was fine. The man, however, was not. "It is no fault of mine that their stink pervades the air here. The trail is clouded by their miasma."

"And the other," rumbled their companion. An Arcid entered, nearly as wide as the other was tall, his body rolling with its strange gait. "Can't you feel it? The pressure of it?"

"Primordial," Number 55118 said, softly. His umber hued helmet turned upward, staring beyond the ceiling. "Apart from Father's magic, I can taste its presence."

"Aye," the acid-green Arcid agreed. "A thorn in my side. A burr in the bone."

The three of them stood there, unmoving as their Minds all reached out toward the presence that drifted from the sky. A behemoth that should have destroyed this city, and a thousand cities like it. It had been torn apart, but it's Mark did not leave. It lingered in the sky, the clouds boiling in its place. Yet it also pulsed in the streets. Something, someone was carrying its Mark.

Nothing else made sense to them.

"Aha!" Number 55389 cried, hurling a false pillar to the side along with nearly a dozen bodies. 55390 wrinkled its forged visor at their disturbed scent, entirely too potent. They'd only been dead a few hours at best. 55389 lifted another latch and a large section of the floor vanished into darkness. The stone dropped and formed a stepped path, from which vented an outpouring of their Father's power. "It is here!"

It was the trail, renewed. 55118 took a deep, excited breath. They were close.

"55390, widen the path."

"Yuh," the big Archid grunted. It's massive body moved toward the hole and began tearing up the stone. Soon they could continue. Their goal was just out of sight.

Father would be pleased.

Orange-eyed Ana walked the camp, nearly invisible beneath her ripped and charred rags. They felt as a second skin, comfortable in a way that was almost nostalgic. It had been over a year now since she'd worn this Mask, but with the face came memories of how to move, how to speak. Barefoot, she carried her crooked iron rod and tended the lamps, turning them out for the morning.

The Inquisitor camp was far wilder than she had expected, knowing their unreasonable demands for order. Owed in part, no doubt, by the size of the area. The Inquisition had claimed much of the Sunrise Quarter, blocks and blocks that had to protect against the growing monstrous threat. Their forces, already hurt by the fall of their leader, had quite the job cut out for them. Knowing their usual process, the slapdash nature of it all felt wrong to Ana.

Clearly, DuFont is affecting things more than I anticipated.

She knew the woman had risen to prominence since the fall of Katan, but to have placed her hand on the scale in such a way was surprising. How had she cowed the other Inquisitors, for instance? She saw the soldiers, kitted out and being honed for war, but they were barely making a dent in the Revenants that abutted their territory. It made little sense. She could clearly see that the fool was waiting on something, but what? Unfortunately, despite her abilities, she could not easily suss it out.

So she walked.

The streets were filled with people, and while most were clean and well-kempt, there was an undercurrent of terror through all their Spirits. It was far worse than her own camp, where refugees had fled for safety. Here, they were taken, stolen from the streets if need be. Here there was no Blue Eyed Fiend to calm the raging seas, something she had impressed her again and again. No, in the redcloaks' shadow, darkness bred further darkness.

"Keep it movin'!" Ana watched as six citizens were led down the street, fitted with chains and led toward a wagon destined for the mines. The man in the lead snarled, yanking on the chains and setting two of his slaves stumbling. "Here ya go, got six for ya."

The wagonmaster, another Acolyte with dirt on his face and a tangled beard sneered. "That's two short of your quota, Tomas! Get it movin' or else you'll lose your cushy job 'ere and be on guard duty down at them mines, hm?"

Tomas snarled something, but accepted his pay and left his victims with the wagon.

Bastards. They were rounding up all of the commoners and forcing them to mine in their compromised sites. She had heared horror stories of monsters coming through, from the dark, places typically protected by the city wards. One of the eastern mines had just been annihilated when the whole thing collapsed beneath the onslaught of some sort of wurm. Killed two hundred souls. Ana clenched her fist, and her iron rod creaked.

"Hey, you!"

She ignored the voice, continuing onto her next lamp.

"Hey, i'm talkin' to you!" A calloused hand grabbed her by the shoulder and spun Ana around. A man with a short, pug-like nose and crooked teeth leered down at her. The same one that had led the chained Haarwatchers to the wagon. "Where're you goin', alone on a night like this?"

There was only the one man, and the street was rapidly emptying. Most of the folks around her were merchants or the like. They had no interest in helping her, lest they put their own necks on the block. She smiled at him, flashing a bright, even smile.

"Acolyte, huh? You alone?"

The redcloak smiled at her, his aggression turned to slimy charm. "You know it. Too strong for a team, little girl. Now how about you—"

"Where are the rest?"

"What?" Tomas stared at her, eyes dull and flat.

"Where are the rest of the Acolytes for this area? Every other neighborhood has three squads. This has just...you."

"I'm all it needs, baby," Tomas continued. "Everyone else ran off, outta this miserable city. But not me, I'm too strong. Gotta protect all of you from the monsters."

Tomas moved his hand up, drifting it closer to her waist, but Ana had had enough. Her hand snapped down at stopped his with implacable, iron strength.

"Wha—?"

"Where did they go?"

"Ah, yer—ah! Yer hurtin' me!"

"Where did they go?"

"Ou—out of the gates. To Setoria!"

"Avet's black teeth," Ana swore. "They've gone for reinforcements."

"Le-let go of me! You can't do—ah!—this to me!!"

Ana released the Acolyte, letting him crumple to the ground. This changed her approach. She should have expected it, but—

"Touch me, bitch?! I'll show you!"

The man swung a haymaker at Ana in a wild attempt at reestablishing his masculinity, but Ana hadn't the time. She raised her eyebrow and let a wave of aquamarine vapor billow outward. It caught the man by the fist and spread rapidly along his skin, twining among his muscle and bone. The brute was barely Tempered, or the spell would have taken far longer to affect him. He froze in place, his skin lit up from within by her light.

"How long have they been gone?"

Tomas' throat worked, and he found his mouth free to move. "Four days, a week, maybe. Please...don—don't do this to me..."

The aquamarine power flooded his mouth again and he could no longer move it. He could breath, but just barely. Ana had dealt with her share of cretins in her years, and this sorry excuse was cut of the same cloth. She leveled her iron rod, it's tip sharpened to a deadly point. Tomas' fear thrummed through his Spirit.

"Where is DuFont?"

Mervin didn't like being on the streets.

Admittedly, he was surrounded by Guilders with levels ranging into the twenties and thirties, and he was steps away from Elder Teine himself. Harm was not likely to touch Mervin or his teammates. It was ironic, he thought, that when Teine made them his personal guard that he was protecting them rather than the other way around. The clatter of glass down an alley had him snap in that direction, but it was only a damn daika. The idiotic chicken-lizard fell off a pile of garbage and scurried away.

"Calm yourself, young man," a smooth voice said. Mervin pulled his spear back up and his spine felt like it locked into place. "We are in no danger."

The Elder looked like he was out on an evening stroll. While the sun was low in the sky and the evening air was cool, there were monsters in these streets. Even if Mervin's Perception couldn't pick them out. They were systematically clearing the Wall Quarter at the moment, but the Revenants plagued them just as much as the rest of the city. The difference was the other Quarters didn't have the Wall to steal their attention. A few Bronze Ranks were with them, along with some Iron and Tin Ranks; not many at all compared to the danger they had faced as they cleared the streets. The bulk of the Guild's forces were still needed to defend the Wall. Monsters assaulted it in waves, creatures that were slowly battering down its defenses. It had gotten so bad that the Elder had wanted to search sooner but couldn't risk leaving their post. Now he'd changed his mind, for some reason.

Mervin worried that it wouldn't hold, but the others called him an idiot for being concerned. "It's lasted longer'n my grandpap's been alive, it'll last a few beasties," Garin had said. He just hoped they were right.

"Street is secure, sir," a Bronze Rank confirmed, and the Elder nodded absently. He was fiddling with that box again, the one his Sentinel's Regard kept telling him was extremely dangerous. Mervin wanted to edge away from it, but he was to stand guard. So guard he did.

"Very good," Elder Teine said in his smooth voice. It belied the gruesome scar that marred his face. He pointed ahead with his device. "There. The trail leads there."

Mervin looked. It was a pump house, one of the many that somehow helped the river from flooding the lower parts of the Quarter. Never claiming to be more than a simple village boy, Mervin had only the foggiest idea of how they worked. Magic, as far as he understood, scripted pipes housed within a building larger than the farmhouse he grew up on. Though the Elder and thus Mervin did not move forward, the Tin and Iron Ranks did, a wave of them pushing toward the pump house to secure it.

They didn't survive.

The nearest wall of the pump house exploded outward, propelled by a concussive wave of force that made the air itself squeal. A massive thing rushed out, nearly twice the size of a Revenant, thirteen feet tall and hulking with muscle. Tin and Iron ranks were swept away with a single, brutish arm. Several were turned into a vile paste, splattered against nearby walls.

"Form up!" Piotr shouted. Lars raised his bow, arrow already shimmering with Mana. "Protect the Elder!"

A horde of Revenants boiled out of the torn edifice, following in the massive creature's lumbering wake. Suppressive fire rained down upon them, a sea of elemental bolts and physical arrows. Yet the abominations were not halted. They crashed against their front lines, bearing much of the front row to the ground. Mervin flinched and moved forward, but a hand halted him.

"Not our job," Garin grunted. Mervin restrained himself, reluctantly.

The Revenant's tore into the lower ranks at first, but cracked against the superior power of the Bronze Ranks. Mervin was able to thrust his long spear and deliver a few strikes to the pressing beasts, but his teammates had the real victories. Lars' arrows flashed out like summer rain, a deep blue Mana trailing each projectile, while Garin's halberd chewed vicious chunks from the abominations' necks and shoulders. Piotr's own spear spun with deadly precision and far more Skill than Mervin could manage. Most of them had their Omens Revealed by the Pathless long ago, and despite the lesser gains they were stronger than him in most ways.

Sentinel's Regardis level 25!

With a gasp, Mervin fumbled out a glowing vial. Teine had given them all a selection of Rare draughts, a most generous contribution, in the hopes that they would Temper.

Congratulations!

You Have Reached Apprentice Tier in Sentinel's Regard!

You Gain:

+3 PER

+3 INT

+...

Rare Essence Detected During Formation!

[Essence of the Hungry Survivor]

Choose A Feature:

Desperate

Relict

Craving

Which do I—? Mervin hadn't the time, and the word were unfamiliar. The Elder had not prepared him for this. He chose.

Congratulations!

You Have Absorbed The Essence Of Relict!

Mervin nearly screamed as the light of the true god filled him, and a terrible, burning sensation shuddered through his center and radiated outward. It was like paths of fire were being etched into his flesh, lines of agony that twisted wildly through his chest and toward his limbs.

"GRAAAAAAAAHHH!"

The massive creature—the Ghoul—howled in near tandem with Mervin, and it rushed their central formation. Whether it was drawn to his Tier Up or not, he didn't know. But onward it came. Mervin fumbled for his spear, dropped in the crush of it all, but his hands wouldn't work. They wouldn't—

There was a flash of silver and brilliant, achingly pure white. A torrent of wind Mana flooded the street, so much that Mervin's Sentinel's Regard couldn't keep track of it all. Dozens of discs of compressed air sliced in convoluted arcs, and dark ichor splattered out onto the road. A thud shook the earth as it fell, mewling but not quite dead.

"Secure it. I wish to study this larger strain," Teine instructed. His Bronze Ranks leaped forward with manacles and chains, each of them so heavily inscribed that they sparked with each shift. He walked over to Mervin and helped him to his feet. "You Tempered your Perception Skill? And you used my Essence Draught?"

Mervin nodded, not trusting his voice to speak. Elder Teine grinned, the boyish charm of it ruined by the tug of his scars.

"Excellent. Quite excellent." He turned to the rest of his team. "Guards, walk with me."

They went further into the pump house and saw the mangled remains of the inscribed construct and a jagged hole down, into the depths beneath the city. Teine held the device over the hole and it goes wild, spitting frothing waves of corrosive light Mervin was increasingly certain his friends couldn't see.

"The way lies forward. Or, perhaps, down is more appropriate," Teine laughed in his throat. "Come. Destiny awaits."

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