Unbound Chapter 457

"At least it is offering you a choice, now," Vess said.

"At least there's that," Felix agreed.

"Hey! You guys okay?" Beef landed on their narrow rock shelf with a stumbling grunt. His maul was a broken stump in his hands, and trailed a haze of necromantic Mana. "Did you...did you explode it from the inside?"

"More or less, yeah," Felix said. "You good?"

Beef's fur was a matted mess, but most of it looked like dark ichor and not blood. He thumped his breastplate with a fist. "Me? I'm invincible!"

"Yeah?" Evie landed beside him with far great grace; like a bird, almost. Her chain was coiled neatly around her waist again. "I saw a Hatchling stab you in the mouth while riding your horns like a Goblin on an avum."

"Gah! My only weakness," Evie said, tutting. "You're too stupid to insult."

Ignoring them, Felix looked out over the crashing sea and his fleet of ships just beyond. The decks were awash in magical projectiles, but the waters were almost empty of Hatchlings. "Looks like they're mopping up the rest just fine, but let's be sure. Beef, Evie. Go clear 'em out."

"You—Oh, aye aye, cap'n," Beef said with a mock salute. He nudged Evie, maybe a little harder than he should. "Race you down, tiny?"

"Avet's eyes, I'll beat you twice."

Felix smiled as the two leaped from the cliff-face and down into the tumultuous sea. He sat with a small groan on the uneven ground. "I'm gonna check out the Memory. Watch over me?"

Vess shifted, planting her spear. "Can you keep holding off the harsh edge of the Storm Ward?" The wind teased her hair out of her thick braid, and she tucked it back absently.

"I think so. I'm not running any other Skills, with the System or Chant. A Memory dive shouldn't be too much to handle."

"Thanks." Felix wanted to say something more, ask her about her core space and how she was feeling...but instead he just closed his eyes and mentally selected Yes.

Perhaps because of his Adept Mind or simply ease of use, but the process happened fast. The world faded into a deep monochrome gray, then rippled before bursting into a thousand shards of light.

The shards revealed a black expanse, similar to his core space but more akin to the Void itself. Felix flexed his Willpower, and the black shattered too, unveiling a wild array of Depthwurms, thousands upon thousands of them all stacked atop one another like the worlds weirdest conga line. Each one, he knew, was a Memory fixed at some point in the Depthwurm's timeline. There, at the center, was the Depthwurm with its chest burst apart; its most recent Memory. Its past snaked backward through, over, and across every conceivable inch of the space, until Felix was swimming in a mess of scales and twinned heads.

Felix drifted through the Memory space, idly wondering where it was even stored now that the monster was dead. He had a feeling it was somewhere inside of himself, which was interesting for several reasons, but he didn't let it distract him. He focused, feeling about with his Affinity just as he shaped his Intent: why were the Fathom waiting here?

An ephemeral feeling drew him onward, strengthening with every Depthwurm iteration he passed, until he came upon a version of the creature that only had a single head and seemed a touch smaller. Bracing himself, Felix reached out and grabbed hold.

Felix opened his eyes, curiously standing exactly where he had been before: on the rocky shelf at the edge of the Stormeater Peaks.

Below him, the waters were in even greater turmoil than before, rising far higher too as they rushed violently through the Caleph Pass. There was no dry land, no hump of stone and soil, just a continuous, raging river driving forcefully into the Ghreldan Hills. Swimming through that river, however, was the Depthwurm. Upon its serpentine back, just out of the rushing waters, were two dozen or so Hatchlings. They clung with webbed claws to the Depthwurm's numerous dorsal spikes, even as the huge beast began to climb up one of the opposing peaks.

"What are you doing?" Felix muttered to himself.

The Depthwurm kept climbing, only stopping when it had reached a deep crevice, where it proceeded to claw and scrape at the rock. The Hatchlings all hopped off at that point and joined in on the digging. In short order, the crevice had been ripped wide open into a wide cavern that the Depthwurm shoved its wedge-shaped head into, wriggling itself further and further as Hatchlings carried off smaller bits of stone. Eventually, the thing disappeared entirely into the mountain, just as the skies blackened with billowing clouds.

Felix shaded his eyes against the sun, but the glare vanished as sigils replaced the blue expanse of sky and began to rotate. The clouds spewed from the arrays until there was a roof of thunderheads above him, and driving rains followed soon after. "Storm Ward."

He figured the Depthwurm was looking to evade the lightning and hail that soon pummelled the peaks...but as time flowed onward, hours turning rapidly to days, the creature emerged. This time it had its second head, and carried hundreds of Hatchlings upon its back as it dove into the tossing sea. Waves proved little obstacle for its powerful muscles, and the Fathom spawn shot off into the distance, yanking Felix's consciousness with them. Time blurred again, light rising and fading as days turned into a solid week...and Ahkestria itself rose before them.

"This is where they came from." Felix chewed his lip as the Memory began to flicker and fade. A hum dropped into his hearing, high to low, a thready pitch even without the boom of remembered thunder. The last he saw before it all winked out, was the Depthwurm pushing off the crystalline base of Ahkestria, leaving deep scars in the otherwise potent material.

Felix opened his eyes, and for the last time he sat upon the rock ledge above the Leviathan Depths. His attention wobbled, disoriented ever so slightly, and his grip on Authority slipped. Just a touch. The storm boomed, and a wave of hail and rain fell from the sky, forcing Vess to leap back with a curse.

"Ah! Sorry!" Felix clamped down on his Authority, steadying his grasp and reopening the corridor between the Pass and his fleet. "Trouble on the dismount. Oh."

A notification trilled, popping into view.

Ephemeral Evocation (Epic), Level 1!

You have learned through trial and error how best to steal into the Memories of others, pulling details from their Minds that even they might have forgotten! Increases chance of salvaging Memories from a consumed target. Bonus to Intent when searching through Memories. Increases time spent within Memories in exchange for greater detail.

Felix let a smile stretch his lips, more pleased than he could say. His ability to glean Memories from those he'd consumed had long been a strength of his...but actually garnering a Memory was not a sure thing. This, however, was promising.

"What is it?" Vess asked. "Did you find what you required?"

"I think so. Also got a new Skill." Felix explained the Skill, briefly. Vess looked suitably impressed, but pivoted to stare at the opposite end of the Caleph Pass. "What?"

"The cavern it made. Now that you mention it, I can feel a...heat emanating from high up on that peak." Vess pointed with her spear before jabbing it back onto the stone. "I thought nothing of it before, but now I am certain it is their home. We must finish these draconics off, quickly."

"It's a Den," Darius said, standing atop the lip of stone. He, Vess, Felix, and Evie all stood atop another rocky ledge, and a number of the Fiend's Claws too. "You see the membrane?"

Felix did. A shimmering barrier stretched across the cavern's opening, almost invisible except when it caught the light at just the right angle. It reminded him viscerally of a Domain's entrance, and he said as much.

"That's because it is one...or will be, anyway." Darius ran a hand long the edge of the opening before rubbing his gauntleted fingers together. He grimaced in distaste. "A Den is the first stage of a monster congregation. Monsters sacrifice one of their number, stealing their core and nurturing it with resources until it grows large enough to shroud their home in a filmy barrier."

"The weight of it dimples the world, and the shroud builds up to keep it separate from the Corporeal Realm," Felix muttered, half to himself. He could feel a heaviness near the cavern's entrance, though it wasn't anything spectacular. "So a Den is the first stage. Then Nest?"

"Den, Nest, Lair, Domain, in that order," Darius confirmed. "Though there is no rule saying a sufficiently powered core could not skip from Den to Lair. The only prerequisite seems to be the core resource of choice and monstrous population."

"More monsters, bigger worries," Evie said succinctly. "It's what Mags used to say."

"Apt, if a touch vague," the Hand allowed. "From the looks of this barrier, this Den was approaching somewhere around the halfway point. I don't think we fought nearly so many monstrosities down there, so I'd have to guess that more are inside."

Disgust at the Fathom spawn rose up in Felix—disgust and a tired anger. Felix let his Cardinal Flame billow outward, wreathing his hands in red-gold flame. "Fine. Then we flush the whole cavern."

"Wait!" Vess pressed a hand to Felix's chest as if to stop him. He could have walked right through her gesture, but he stopped. "You read the Lore on the Hatchlings, yes? The System marked them as cruel, and that it toyed with their food—"

"Keeping their prey alive for days," Felix finished, his memory twigging onto the Lore entry. "Shit. You're thinking they have prisoners?"

"Snacks, as they would see it. I cannot believe they have not raided nearby settlements," Vess said. "And Bogfeld is just beyond the Pass."

"Blighted Night," Evie cursed quietly.

Felix wrestled down another surge of anger, this one cleaner and brighter than the tired thing he held previously. "You're right. Shit. We need to send people in, hunt them down and rescue anyone they can. I'll lead the first team—"

"No can do, Blue Eyes," Evie said. "Remember when we all jumped into Haarwatch's Domain and it got all shifty on us? You really think this little Den can handle me, let alone you walkin' through it?"

Months ago, they had entered a Domain on the verge of breaking apart. It had, eventually, but even stepping across its threshold had put undue strain on it, and that had been far stronger and reinforced with Guilder arrays. "What if it does? I thought a Domain breaking apart just meant the monsters were let loose. These monsters already can come and go as they please. So what's the difference?"

Darius folded his arms, still staring at the whisper thin barrier before him. "Shrouds work strange. Rules of the Continent don't fully apply in there. A Den is gonna have the weakest affect in regards to that, but we can still expect some spacial warping. Break that and the monsters will get alerted, but who knows what happens to the people inside."

"Shit," Felix growled. "Then what do we do?"

"We need to send the a few Talons into the Den. Most of them are Apprentice Tier and won't disturb it too much. Those Hatchlings are tough, but they're a manageable hurdle." Darius looked at Felix, his expression an odd mix of impatient and awkwardly subservient. He was waiting for Felix's order.

"Alright. Do it." It pained Felix to put his people into danger when he couldn't be there...but he had to admit the Claw had grown by leaps and bounds. They had handled themselves well only twenty minutes prior, and all of them had topped off with their store of potions. They were ready.

"Talon Leaders, forward!" Darius shouted, and six men and women of various Races stepped up. The Hand quickly explained the situation to the Talon Leaders, all of whom maintained serious, even grim expressions while Felix witnessed their Spirits soar in excitement. Soon enough, the six leaders led their Talons forward and into the cavern. The barrier flex and parted for them, until they were all swallowed by the Den.

"And now we wait," Vess said through a frown.

The waiting took an entire two hours, and Felix was driven by anxiety to do something. So he got the sailors and remainder of the Claw to begin crossing over the Caleph Pass.

The Pass, as he'd noticed before, rose up higher than the waves of the Leviathan Depths, providing a tall barrier against the sea. It rose up at the center, stone and soil mingling, and was also an impossible obstacle to their heavily modified Manaships. The Yttin crew, however, had ideas on how to surmount the issue, ideas that involved ramps, pulleys, and an entire crew's worth of Strength. Here the Frost Giants proved their worth yet again, shouldering much of the burden of dragging the somewhat stripped down Manaships up the chitin-constructed ramps.

They had only pulled a ship halfway up the hill when the first Talon member emerged from the Den. Felix was so relieved to see that the first group had returned intact that he failed to recognize that the team were carrying piles of weapons and armor. Most of it was scuffed and dented, but all of it had a similar design to it, one that tickled at Felix's memory. Far more pressing and alarming, where the people that followed after his Claw.

They were haggard and bloody, but most were walking under their own power. The few that weren't were laid out between two Claw members, grievously injured but alive. Goblins and Gnomes were perhaps the predominant prisoners, and from the reports the six Talon Leaders began to convey, it seemed the Den was a confusing maze of narrow tunnels. Bringing the taller Races into such places made little sense, especially if the Fathom spawn preferred to keep their food alive.

They bustled around, handing out Health Potions to the direst of wounds and Stamina potions to many others. Shock was thick on many of their Spirits, but perhaps Zara or Isla could do something to remedy that. They began the long process of ferrying folks down the cliff-face to the ships below, while Felix turned over the glimmering blue jewel in his hands.

"—we killed the last of them, we believe. Our Perception was not enough to penetrate through the Den, but at the end we were not quiet. I imagine any remaining foes would have rushed out to engage us, seeing how they are little more than mindless beasts," the burly Orc leader said to them. "My last man is inside with the core now, Lord Autarch. If you wish we can retrieve him?"

Felix nodded along with the report, his Mind split along several thoughts. The last comment, however, caught him up. "He has the core? As in the Domain Core?"

"He does. It is a Den core, water attuned. Do you wish for us to remove it?"

Darius met Felix's eye and nodded. "If there is no one left inside, then I suggest we do so. Removing the core will cause the shroud to collapse. Essentially the same thing that would happen were you or I to walk through it."

Ahh. "Right. Then if you please," Felix said.

The Orc saluted and used the handsign for "removal" on one of his subordinates. They jogged back into the Den, returning in a few moments with a Hobgoblin woman carrying a fist-sized, deep-blue jewel. The thing glimmered in the half-light as the sun began to set, clearly potent for all its diminutive size...and behind her the opening of the cavern flashed with a brilliant light before collapsing entirely on itself. Rock cracked and boomed, the cavern mouth spitting out streamers of dust, but soon it all settled.

The Hobgoblin passed the gemstone off to Felix, who took it with a great deal of interest. "Good. You all did a great job. Getting this many people out...I'm impressed. Go with them and see that your people rest." The source of this content ɪs N()velFire.net

The Orc saluted, as did the others, before all of the remaining Claw members began the winding trek back down the cliffs. To Darius, Evie, and Vess, Felix held up the gemstone Core, idly flaring his Voracious Eye.

Name: Den Core Of Abyssal Waters

Lore: A low tier monster core that has been converted into the beginning stages of a Domain.

"How does it grow?" Felix asked.

"Through the consumption of resources. Mineral, organic, it depends upon the Type. This is an aquatic Domain Core. It draws power from water and those that reside within it. Perfect for these Fathom," Darius said.

"And convenient for them that a sea simply sprang up out of nowhere," Felix growled. Evie took the Core from him gently and started peering at it. He let her. "These guys are getting on my nerves. They seem entirely too ready to pounce on this development. How?"

Evie hefted the Core in her hands. "They were fightin' the Nagafolk, yeah? Maybe things ain't going so well as that Deepking said they were."

"They must be eradicated," Vess stated, as if it were the only truth in the world. "They are clearly expanding. We cannot let them prey on any others."

"We must also return to Nagast," Darius added. "Zara would agree with me. War is coming to your Territory, Felix, something far worse than a couple attacks from some lizards. Draconic or not," he said, holding a hand out to his former ward.

"Draconic Types are a disease. They will spread, rapidly, if they have not already," Vess stated, real heat in her voice as she faced down against Darius' surprised expression. "I will not let them continue. I cannot, not if I am to uphold the Dragoon's vows."

"Vows that do not bind you, outside of the order as you still are."

"All prospective Dragoons must live by the vows as if they had already taken their Oath," Vess said. "You know this. I will not abandon them for convenience."

"It just means we need to hurry," Felix said, interrupting the two of them. Vess seemed truly angry. "Let's just make it to Bogfeld. We can regroup there."