Unbound

"So you recognize our majesty?" said the Arcid at the front. It was a small thing comparatively, barely bigger than a normal Human and colored like mud. Felix's Manasight picked out currents of dusty brown circulating around the creature, concentrated around its hands and skull.

Earth Mana. It's got a spell ready.

"I recognized your stench, yeah," Felix said.

All three of the Arcids stiffened, and their Spirits blazed with a restrained anger.

"You are one to talk, Fiend," said another, their voice more melodious than Mud. It was far taller and thinner too, like a stretched skeleton made of bright green metal. A sense of green-gold and brown Mana fluttered around its feet. "You stink of the vile, vicious power in this Nest. You're no different than the beasts you've killed."

Life Mana? Or...growth, related maybe. Nature. Felix Eyed the three of them. They were all nearly level fifty, and all of them were beyond Journeyman. Were they all Risi before as well? Like the Envoy?

"Did the Archon send you?" Felix asked, buying time. He could sense more of the Revenants closing in, maddened by the Broodmother's wrath. "How'd you get past the Wall?"

"Pfah!" the last of the three Arcids scoffed. It's voice was deeper than the rest, matching it's immense, spherical body. It was a gun-metal grey and looked like an enormous ball of overlapping plates, its arms and legs little better than short stumps. "The supposed ingenuity of the mortal Races is nothing before us."

"Nor the might of our Father," Mud continued. "Though you should know...I sense our Father's touch upon you." The umber-hued Arcid's eye flames flashed. "That should not be."

"You are tainted by the vicious filth of this place," Skeleton said, waving overly long fingers in the direction of the Broodmother. "Mixing such with our Father's blessed touch is...profane."

"Profane," Felix snorted. The sound stoked the ire in the Arcids' Spirits, and they took several steps closer. Felix eyed the distance between them, only thirty feet, and threw his senses out toward the horde. It was closing in, faster now. "That's rich coming from the Archon. The Envoy tried singing his praises too." Felix felt Essence and Mana surge in his veins in time with his own rising fury. "It didn't end well for him."

"You are an insect. You could never kill the Envoy—!" The Orb rocked forward, but Skeleton held out a thin, green hand.

"Do not be foolish, 55390. Look in his hand," it's robotic voice admonished, staring pointedly at Felix's weapons.

Orb growled, like the sound of an engine misfiring, but the thin Arcid still restrained him. "We have better methods than brute force."

"Ah," Ball said, the word deep and sonorous in it's cavernous chest. It twitched in a slow laugh. "Huh huh, of course."

Felix gripped his Blade and Femur tightly, letting his power coil within him. His Will lingered around the etched patterns of his Skills, ready for his moment. But first he needed information. "Why are you here?"

"You think we'd allow you to claim Authority over us? Over our home? Pfah!" Mud sneering as much as it's immobile metal face allowed. "None of you are worthy."

They were too calm, too collected. The Envoy was insane, but it only made mistakes when it was worked up. Would the same be true for these twisted creations? Felix lifted his Blade and bone. "And the Archon is? Last I saw, he was cowering in his hole." Felix smiled, baring his fangs. "Crying over his pet wurm."

"You—!"

"Enough! He has transgressed, all of them have," Skeleton intoned. Felix didn't like the sound of its (her?) voice, though it sounded eerily familiar. "Just like the abominations, he has hints of our Father within him. That will not do." She—definitely a she—flicked her over long fingers. "Activate the array."

Wait, what?

Those collections of dusty-brown and green-gold Mana surged down, into the ground, and it suddenly shimmered into a blinding brilliance. Light as fetid as a marshy sunset flushed the chamber as sigils crawled across the floor, illuminating the mesh of vines that covered everything.

No—the array is the vines! Felix flinched before he started running. Oh no.

Mervin's Skill was screaming at him. Wading into the battle was not safe, but once Mervin had chosen to take that course of action, his Sentinel's Regard had quietened regarding the combative hordes of monsters and Inquisitors. Even when Teine had led them into the crater and had begun inscribing the massive crystal, it had remained practically silent. That had changed.

Mervin spun, looking up at the lip of the crater, but he saw no Revenants or Ghouls come to slay them. But he did see a wave of brilliant yellow-red light begin to shine from the roots that overlapped the crater's edge. The light flowed along the roots—vines?—that clung to the side of the shattered stone.

When had they grown down here? Mervin shook himself. The thought was idiotic. "Sir!"

"Not now!" Teine snarled, his hands moving furiously. Somehow the Elder was inscribing two separate arrays with each of his hands. The man had covered half the glowing facets of the crystal in a cramped script that flickered with a deep green light. "I'm nearly finished!"

"Sir! The roots! They're glowing!" Mervin repeated.

Teine stopped what he was doing and looked. Had Mervin not seen it, he would never believe that Elder Teine could look so lost, terrified, and hopelessly in love.

"Blind gods," Teine gasped. "The grandeur of it!"

Then the screaming started, as the ground burned, and the very sight of the twisting, growing sigils were ice picks to Mervin's brain. Teine himself shouted as that small device of his tore itself apart and dumped a massive amount of crimson smoke directly on the ground. The sigils sucked it up like it was water and they were parched earth.

"No! Not that!" Teine pled, hurling his own Mana at the roots. Chunks of the glowing pattern faded, only to be replaced in moments as the pulpy matter regrew. "Run!"

Mervin looked quickly between the roots and the Elder, then at his team. They were all staring in alarm as the Bronze Ranks around them ran for their lives. "Sir!"

"You too, boy! Before it's too late!" Teine shoved him, none too gently, and Mervin nearly collided with the side of the crater. He and his team started running, tripping over the glowing roots in their haste. Lars grabbed Mervin by the arm, hauling him after them.

He glanced back. Teine crouched over the glowing crystal, inscribing furiously. Mervin's Perception could easily pick up his muttering over the rising whine all around them.

"...you cannot do this...it's mine!"

Mervin ran.

Darius Reed sprinted up the incline, his booted feet barely inconvenienced by the vines or the slick rivulets of dark ichor that coated them. Behind him, the makeshift gurney of air sped, barely able to match his Adept ranked Agility. He didn't stop to look or even pause to send his senses spiralling back down the path. When the knotted vines had begun glowing, he had only run faster.

The heiress moaned atop his whirling platform, struggling to stand and, if he knew her, to get back into the fight. Darius pressed her down with another flow of air. He had one job, and that was to ensure the survival of Vessilia Dayne.

Whether she liked it or not.

Ana paused atop the banister, peering nervously down into the cavernous chamber. Below, the yellow-red light of the Profane Sigaldry lit the bloodstained space and a pressure descended on her that felt wholly alien and entirely...evil.

The looming faces of the Nym stared at her, as if in judgement, and Ana grimaced back. "I cannot interfere, or else the Quest will fail. Or else his Path will stray. Can you not feel it?" She looked to the statues, their regal faces impassive as the stone of which they were made. "It is at the cusp, now. It is up to him, and him alone."

Ana looked back down, following back to the source of the rapidly spreading array. When compared to the mangled and cobbled together existences flanking him, he stood out like a fire in the night.

"Prove yourself, Unbound," she whispered. "You must."

The Broodmother, split into bloody strips and squalling in pain, convulsed. The Broodmother shrieks sent fissures of discordant pain through her ears, still alive but in agony. DuFont was thrown back from the pulpy remains of a flailing limb, only then noticing as the Nest around her was lit by a net of yellow-red illumination.

"An array..." Daur gasped. "Hundreds of them! All linked together!"

The yellow-red crawled rapidly up the walls, until it was even coating the far distant ceiling. They were trapped entirely by it. A pain pierced her eyes, as if something were rummaging around inside her brain. She gasped as the yellow-red light swelled.

"What is this?"

Felix ran. Each step—fueled by panic and Strength—shattered the ground in small concentric circles. His Agility sent him tearing ahead, so fast that the sheer air pressure ripped his enchanted shirt and pants. His boots tore up the vines with every crashing step, but they regrew, glowing all the while.

The array caught up with Felix before he made it more than sixty feet.

The greedy threads of the sigils activated beneath him, a sudden, irresistible weight on his entire body. A sharp, acrid scent proliferated, followed closely by the atonal whine of some immense thing just beyond his perception. In a flash of terrible syncopation, he felt the chitinous creatures that scraped along the bottom of that horrid place. The one he'd plunged into when he first entered the Archon's Domain.

Let go, Felix...

Let us innnnnnnnn—

But then it was gone, and Felix fell to his knees. The ground burned, scorching his trousers, and the pressure threatened to crush him to the earth. Something sank into him, less like fingers and more like the raking claws of an uncaring giant; within his core, his very soul, something was taken.

In his Manasight, everything around him was yellow-red, a vapor so thick it felt almost solid. Yet from within him, his Fire Within detected a similar radiance that was yanked from his channels. It was agony similar to the ravages Essence took upon his pathways, and it just kept going. It felt like his soul was vomiting up every bad decision he'd ever made in his life. It burned and stabbed at his core, splashing from Felix before soaking into the array beneath his knees.

Like...calls to like, Felix managed. Profane Mana...how'd it get...inside me?

But then he saw it, as more was seized and ripped free. The yellow-red Mana had somehow dwelled among the Primordial Essence, masked by the crimson corruption so thoroughly he had never sensed it. His Manasight, now fully cognisant, felt only hate and spite and an unbridled fury as it scoured his channels and spat out into the world.

That fury, he panted before another wave of fouled Mana spewed from his skin. It wasn't...it wasn't the Essence at all.

It was the Archon.

The arrays dimmed beneath him. Felix collapsed. He'd fought so long against the pull of it that his muscles seized the moment it disappeared. His Health, Stamina, and Mana had all taken a big hit; none were above half. Felix flared his Meditation and focused on recovery. Essence burned, enough that he was going to have to take another bite before long.

“Ah, quite a lot,” rumbled the Sphere. It’s voice shook the space between Felix’s bones even from a distance. “As expected of our great progenitor.”

"Our Father-Master has seeded this realm with all the tools we need to complete our Trial," Skeleton intoned. "It is only on us to make proper use of them!"

Felix turned back to them and saw a curious thing: the three Arcids, so different in dimensions, standing before a floating, shifting polyhedral of familiar energy. Yellow-red Profane energy, stolen from him and—he looked around—stolen from all around him. From sixty feet away, he could feel a coiled malice within it. Carefully, Felix leveraged himself back to his feet.

"The Fiend lives!" Mud announced. He almost sounded impressed before he noticed something else. "As do the abominations...That is unexpected."

Around them, Felix could sense the amassed Revenants and Ghouls recovering. Their Spirits felt confused and angry, but the flavor of the emotion was strangely muted. Toothless, almost.

"Something else animates them," Skeleton hissed. "Something ancient."

"Irrelevant," Sphere boomed. The massive Arcid rolled forward, until its stubby arm rested atop the shifting shape of energy. "They will not survive the next."

His resource pools slowly ticked back up, and Felix felt better than before. Clearer. More calm. Pit chirruped curiously, but Felix hadn't the time. He squared himself against the Arcids, ready for violence.

"Oho! The Fiend has changed his mind! No longer the prey!" Mud laughed, a little too boisterously. "He wishes to play the predator!" With a curt gesture, a tiny portion of the gathered power zipped into the three of them. Their metallic bodies were limned with a fiery light, almost blindingly so, and Felix gasped. To his Voracious Eye, they rose from High Journeyman to High Adept in a span of seconds.

Below them, the array relit, but this time it formed a series of four, interconnected script circles. Where they overlapped was where the Profane energy hovered.

"They are all prey, baring their false fangs," Skeleton said, her thin hand joining Sphere and Mud's above the energy. Power hummed in the air. Felix charged.

Unfettered Volition!

Reign of Vellus!

Before his kinetic lightning could reach them, the energy surged into the array. A cascading wave of violent, angry, hateful power flooded the earth, sweeping over and through Felix like a relentless tide. His charge was stymied, his body lifted and thrown backward. He hit the front ranks of charging Revenants and tumbled through them as they were all tossed by hurricane force winds. Felix saw a mad collection of scales, claws, and white-enameled armor all pitched into one another.

"Authority is wasted on you mortals," the three Arcids shrieked in unison. The three of them raised their other hand up, pointing at the Broodmother. Power diverted from the array at their feet. "None of you deserve such power!"

Another surge built, a wave so powerful that Felix could feel its screaming edge.

"We shall remove the temptation."

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