Unbound

Chapter Ninety Three - 093

After catching up, Felix made sure to keep a solid distance between himself and the group. The Wall Quarter was busy, though it mostly seemed to be revelers passing by than laborers or Guilders. Shouts and catcalls echoed from the street corners, and the constant press of bodies was a distraction. Felix found himself wanting to pull away from anyone that got too close; a vague sense of unease built up within him.

Calm down. This didn't bother you earlier. Focusing was the easy part, Felix found, his Mind, Skills, and stats primed in that particular direction. His Bastion of Will rose up around him, inspiring a blast of mental clarity that scoured the unease from his mind. Felix felt a growling sense of irritation from beneath his Bastion and narrowed his eyes.

I'll deal with you later.

The group had managed to extend their lead, and when Felix caught back up he found them parting ways. The two rich cousins and their burly friend went one way, while Atar continued on, deeper into the Wall Quarter. Felix didn't hesitate and kept following the fire mage.

True night had fallen, though the time was something approaching nine o'clock during the warm summer's evening. Lampposts were everywhere, lighting up the night, and a few carriages rattled up and down the thoroughfare. Atar kept to the main streets of the Wall Quarter, places filled with people out for the evening. Doing what, Felix wasn't sure.

They were moving parallel to the western wall, where Felix had entered the city, and closer to the higher tiered sections. Folks were dressed in fine clothes with vibrant dyes and complicated embroideries. Women wore dresses of various lengths, or even pants in many cases, while men were bedecked in colorful jackets and waistcoats. Atar blended in with these people with ease, his fine robes and glittering bronze medallion worn openly on his chest affording him appreciative glances from passersby.

Sticking to the shadows, Felix avoided such gazes as much as he could, more interested in remaining as unobtrusive as possible. He kept Abyssal Skein inactive, as being nigh-invisible didn't help with crowds, and the toll it was taking on his mental acuity was becoming concerning. It wasn't enough to make him stop using it (the Skill was far too useful for that), but he wanted to get a better understanding of what the Void was before abusing it.

Atar meandered through the streets, not stopping anywhere but definitely searching for something. Four times he paused near public seating like benches or tables near some sort of bistro. He would pace like a cat kneading its bed, moving around the area in clear dissatisfaction. Each time he moved on again. As they walked further and further, Felix heard strains of up-tempo music and good-natured shouting, while the streets were slowly filled with the sizzling sounds and delectable smells of food stalls.

We're closer to the Crafter's Quarter than I thought. Where is he going?

Only a few more minutes later, Felix found out. Outside a tavern called the Bearded Trout, an array of outdoor seating was placed, and Atar finally huffed and chose a table furthest from the tavern itself. Felix paused as a nearby stall and watched. The fire mage pulled several books from his robes, far more than Felix would have guessed. He placed them all on the table in front of him and began thumbing through the pages.

You came all this way to read some books? Felix furrowed his brow. Why bother--

"Oi! You gonna buy or just stand there?"

Felix started and turned. He saw a number of annoyed faces glaring at him, some next to him and the others behind the food stall counter. A Hobgoblin in a grease-stained jacket stared at him over an impressive looking mustache. Behind him two line cooks were cooking a variety of vegetables and some sort of blue meat in large pans. The smell was powerfully good. Felix's stomach made an impressively loud gurgle, and he grimaced in embarrassment.

"Oh, uh, yes. I'll have the uh," he glanced at the menu, which had been rendered in grease pencil on a board. "Onion and...pelk bowl. Please."

The mustachioed Hobgoblin grunted and shouted the order to his assistants. "That'll be three stone."

Felix reached into his satchel and pulled out some coins. He had made change at the tailor's and had plenty of silver and copper coins now. Too many, he felt. Felix counted out three copper coins and handed them over. By the time the Hobgoblin tucked the copper in his waistband, a huge steaming bowl of noodles topped with onions, peppers, and shredded blue meat was placed on the counter. A large wooden fork-like utensil was planted in the center.

"Pleasure doin' business. Next!"

Felix scooped up his bowl and found a place to sit where he could still keep an eye on Atar. Though the mage had been alone for some time, Felix had first found himself reluctant to approach. What would he say? Then, as Atar took longer and longer to settle down, he simply grew curious. What, exactly, was Atar doing out here? Studying in the evening air?

That's weird, even for him.

Maintaining line of sight, Felix absently nibbled on a piece of shredded meat. He blinked in surprise and looked down at the bowl in front of him. It was delicious. The flavors exploded on his tongue, salty and savory, the beef cooked to perfection. He looked back at the food stall he'd purchased it from and saw they only had one or two people in line.

Why isn't the line a mile long? He shoveled more of it into his mouth, using his fingers in the absence of any utensils. It's so good!

The bowl was gone in minutes. Felix checked to see if Atar had moved anywhere and, noticing he had not, he returned for more.

A few minutes later, Felix's table was filled with seven different bowls, each heaping with rich, savory sauces and strange spices. He hadn't eaten since that morning, and the Nym made up for that oversight with gusto. Felix gorged himself, engaging in the wholesale slaughter of noodles, vegetables, and meat. There were no survivors.

While he ate, Felix kept a wary eye on Atar, always waiting for the young man to get up and leave abruptly. He never did so. In fact, the fire mage looked increasingly ensconced at his table, the books around him forming a small fortress behind which he furiously scribbled on a some sort of notepad. From this distance, Felix could see the sweat beading on Atar's forehead and the dark circles under his manic eyes. As he'd noted before, the mage seemed frantic and stressed, and here it seemed worse than ever.

Felix finished slurping down the last bite of his final bowl when Atar shifted the books before him, nearly toppling the small tower he'd made. During his recovery, he exposed a book that he'd been furiously referencing, one with a beaten leather binding that looked extremely familiar to Felix.

Hey! Felix stood up at his table, chair scooting backward. That's my journal!

A few patrons nearby looked askance at Felix, but he paid them no mind. Atar didn't notice, and Felix had decided he was done with watching.

Why the hell does he have my journal? Technically the Henaari's journal, but many of Felix's early ramblings and questions were jotted down in those pages. Felix started walking toward Atar, watching as he stared with frustration between the journal and some other books. He clearly couldn't read Henaari or English and was trying to decode it. But why? Why would--

Atar pulled some loose paper from the back of the journal, and his face paled. Felix clenched his teeth.

The Archon's papers. Great. He has those too.

Distantly, Felix felt Pit stir in their room, a faint pulse of concern. He sent back an answering pulse of reassurance before striding up to Atar's table. He pulled out a chair next to him and sat down, as nonchalant as he could make it.

"Hi buddy," Felix grinned. "Long time no see."

Atar was staring at a ghost.

Mouth gone dry, hands shaking, the mage tried to stand up but only manage to knock his own chair backwards. He would have fallen were it not for the ghost arresting the chair, his grip like steel. The man had grown stronger since last they met, and...yes, of course, he'd undergone his First Formation.

How? Atar boggled as he was righted by the musclebound youth before him. How did he survive?

"Not excited to see me?" Felix asked, and Atar pushed back his mussed hair in a bid for more time to think. "I get it. Not everyday you run into the person who's belongings you stole."

Quick as a flash, the journal was in Felix's hands. The cracked, beaten, tormented journal that Atar had spent the last two months attempting to decode. The one that, were it to be taken away, he'd loose all chance at advancement.

"Wait! Don't! You don't know what you have there!" Atar made a halting grab for the journal, but the blue-eyed man kept it easily out of reach. And Atar wasn't so far gone as to lunge across a table for it.

"I don't? Looks to me like the journal of a Henaari farwalker." He flipped the journal open, landing on a section written in grease pencil in a hand much different than the beginning. "And here is where someone wrote in English. Do you know this language?"

"Ah no, bu--"

"Didn't think so." Felix closed the journal with a clap, and fixed Atar with a bright blue gaze.

Weren't his eyes darker?

"You don't understand, Felix. I need that journal. It's the answer!" Atar's bewilderment burned away under a dawning realization. "You can read it?"

Felix frowned and tucked the book into the satchel at his side. Atar's eyebrow raised at the quality of it, at the quality of everything Felix was wearing aside from his coat. That had the air of a laborer's best evening jacket, but was hardly equal to the rest of his ensemble. Atar flared his Analyze.

Analyze...

A flash of pain lanced through Atar's brain, but it was gone in a moment. Some fools in the tavern started singing. Ridiculous. He focused on the window that popped up before him.

Name: Felix Nevarre

Race: Human

Level: 22

HP: 250/250

SP: 234/234

MP: 310/310

Lore: Humans are multitudinous on the Continent. They are statistically weaker than most Races, especially at lower levels.

Strength: Stronger than average for level.

Weakness: Slower than average for level.

Atar frowned at the information before him, not because it was wrong per se...but it was underwhelming. The fire mage had thought Felix would have been much farther above him.

"How do you know that language? The Henaari tongue, yes, that's esoteric but there are scholars for it. But that, no one knows that language." Atar folded his arms to hide their shaking. If he knew that strange script, then perhaps...!

Felix stood a moment longer and eyed him. Then with a hefty sigh, he scooted out one of the wrought iron chairs and plopped down in it. The metal groaned in protest, and Atar was surprised that only made Felix sigh louder.

"Atar, that's my handwriting." Blue eyes fixed his own. "Why do you care? What's so interesting about a journal?"

Atar's head spun. No that can't be it. It's all I had to go on.

"A journal." He sat back in his chair, and, for lack of a better word, slumped. "And I assume what you've written here is...?"

"My personal thoughts about the Foglands, notes on monsters, that sort of thing." Felix leaned forward. "What's going on? You look exhausted."

Atar rubbed his face and gestured to the books scattered about the table. "Research. Since we returned from the Foglands I've been under the wing of one of the Guild Elders. Elder Teine has been a boon to me. He sheltered me from the fallout of that preposterous mission, as well as provided much needed actual instruction in the time since."

"Fallout," Felix murmured, his lips twisted in a grimace. "I'd heard bad things about Magda and Harn since I've been back. What about the others? Are they under this Elder too?"

Atar twisted in his seat, not quite meeting Felix's eyes. "The others have gone a different way."

Silence reigned for a bit, and when Atar risked a look up, he saw Felix considering the other books on his table. He ran a surprisingly gentle finger along the spines of several, mouthing something. "Research. Into what?"

"This," Atar took a breath and slid one of the papers toward Felix. It contained the single greatest find he'd ever made...but it was hardly news to the man he took it from. "I found this in your journal there. I had thought--hoped--that the indecipherable writing would shed light on these pages. You've dashed my hopes there."

Atar looked at Felix and saw him blanch, but his jaw also clenched and his brow furrowed. With a swift movement, Felix flipped the thick sheet of vellum over.

"That's not a pleasant thing to be looking into. I'd suggest not going down that rabbit hole."

Atar gaped before retrieving the paper and stowing with the paltry few others. "And that is not an attitude I expected from a Magician, Felix. This is a remarkable work of sigildry! It's unknown, clearly powerful, and..."

"Dangerous. And that's being generous. Can't you feel it?" Felix tilted his head curiously at Atar blank expression. "Is that all it is? School work?"

Atar frowned at the unfamiliar word. "If you mean training, then yes...and no. This has a practical application too. A month ago, I encountered markings remarkably similar to these here, in the city itself."

Felix's face went stony, and Atar leaned back. "Where?"

"Across the city. In the Dust," Atar gestured vaguely north. "You've heard of the murders? The one they're calling the Butcher? These were found...carved into one of their victims."

Another sheet of vellum was placed on the table, this one with several scratched sigils that radiated the same sense of unease Felix's papers did. Felix considered it for a moment before turning that one over too.

"So you're trying to catch the killer?" Felix's voice was skeptical, though Atar thought he noted a sense of unease. The man seemed...twitchier than before.

"Yes. It's part of a Guilders' duties, to protect the city in which they are stationed. The Elder put out a standing offer that whomever finds this killer will be greatly rewarded." Atar smiled and he felt Mana surge in his channels for a moment. "A chance at training atop the Spire is in the offing, Felix."

Instead of a shocked exclamation or even an appreciative murmur, Felix just blinked. "Okay."

"Okay?! The Inner Ward is the best place to train in the city!" Atar stared at the man, willing him to understand before he remembered. "You're more of a bumpkin than I thought."

Felix had the strangest knowledge gaps of anyone Atar had ever met. He was an annoying enigma while in the Foglands, but now he might be the key to everything. He decided to be honest, to lay out what he could.

After all, if he failed...it didn't bear thinking about.

"I saw these runes cut into the fleshy remnants of a Half-Orc. And I saw similar runes scrawled in the body of the next corpse as well. I'm willing to bet they've been on all of the victims, stretching back two months now. I need to know their purpose. If we can decipher them, then maybe we can find the thing that did this!"

"This city is huge, but it's still a city. How hasn't the murderer been found yet?" Felix tapped the paper. "These sigils...I'll tell you now they make me uneasy. Where would someone that could do this hide?"

"Only one place," Atar said, tapping the side of his nose. "The Domain."

"The Domain..." Felix seemed to chew over the idea, before he raised his hands, palms up. "What exactly is it?"

"Sun's wrath, Felix...It's a Domain! A place of intense ambient Mana where a powerful monster has laired? The Guild uses it to train Tin and Bronze Ranks, on top of the seasonal Cullings. Why else would this city have formed?" Atar ran a thin hand through his increasingly out of place locks. He would have to visit his man down Camphor Way in the morning. He was due a trim. "It's like you fell out of the sky, sometimes."

Felix did one of those annoying smiles, only this time his teeth were bright and near perfect. Atar huffed a breath through his nose. That only made it more irritating.

"So this Domain is below us. Below the Eyrie, I assume? And only Guilders can access it?" At Atar's nod Felix turned his gaze toward the center of the city, a dark looming silhouette against the rising moons. "Interesting."

"Interesting, he says." Atar rolled his eyes. "Something is getting in and out of the Domain without alerting the Guilders at the entrance. That means its clever, powerful, or worse."

"How many people has it killed? You said it's been around for months?" Felix asked in a measured tone that made him sound...disinterested. Atar could hardly believe it.

"Fifteen exactly, as of five nights ago. And that body, the only one I've seen since the first, had similar markings slashed into it. You have to tell me what you know? Where did you find these?" Atar held up the vellum pages again and saw Felix flinch only a second before a tight grip forced his hand down again. "Ah!"

"Don't."

Atar looked into Felix's eyes and saw them glowing, as if an internal fire was pushing against his irises. Pale blue and...the sound of thunder.

"Where are the others? What's been happening with Vess and Evie?" Felix asked quietly and released Atar's wrist. The mage winced and massaged his left arm, certain that a bruise would be there in the morning.

"Like I said, they aren't in my circle anymore. Lady Dayne has been training in the Inner Ward, to the jealousy of many including myself. I've not seen her since you left." Atar sighed mournfully at that, the tattered remains of his plans to woo the ducal heir gone before they started. If only he'd had more time!

"And Evie?" Felix asked, his gaze penetrating. "I feel you've been avoiding that topic."

Atar fiddled with his collar and picked some dirt from his robes. He'd have to get them laundered soon. Travel through the Dust was always taxing on one's wardrobe--

"Atar."

"Fine," the mage huffed. "Evie hasn't been around. Since Harn got demoted and her sister was...she left the Guild. Her and a bunch of others. The survivors we saved."

The blue-eyed bumpkin sat back, crossed his stupid muscley arms, and frowned. Atar swallowed and considered leaving. Clearly the man wasn't going to help him. He wasn't even sure why he'd expected otherwise! It was probably for the better this way. Whenever Felix showed up, his life turned toward danger and disappointment. He couldn't afford that, especially not now.

"Fine."

"What?" Atar blinked in surprise, unsure he heard Felix utter that word. "You'll help?"

Felix nodded, and Atar's spirit soared. Finally! He could make some headway and beat out the opposition! He could--

"If you get me access to the Domain."

"What? No. That's impossible!" Atar's rising star suddenly smashed to the cobbles beneath them. "There's no way to get you past the guards. They're Silver Rank, Felix!"

Before Atar could react, the vellum pages in his hands were gone. A small gust of wind buffeted his robes, but the mage's senses couldn't even keep up with what had happened. Then he saw. The bumpkin had them, and he was carefully tucking them into his damned bag. Atar flexed his fingers impotently before collapsing backward with a groan.

"Uuugh! Fine! You win, you idiot. I'll do it."