Unbound

Chapter Twenty Five - 025

Reign of Vellus!

Felix exploded with azure light, the force of the upgraded Skill discharging into actual bolts of lightning as it sheared into the Arcids beside him. But they were heavy, far heavier than anything he had tried to move before, and instead of throwing them Felix was launched backwards like a rocket. He smashed half into a crumbling ivy covered column, gasping in pain as the resounding impact shuddered through him.

"Impossible!" The archon raged, his armor suddenly blazing with carmine light. "KILL HIM! DESTROY THE NYM!"

Groaning, Felix shoved away the pain and tottered to his feet. Slender and Big Boy were thundering toward him, and while he had flown nearly fifty feet and they were remarkably slow, their huge strides were eating up the gap. Felix spotted Pit cowering behind a toppled tree and jerked his head backwards.

"C'mon!"

Felix paused, looking back at the looming giant and the Finder's Necklace loosely in its grip. For some reason, the archon was trembling but wasn't moving at all, glowing brilliantly red all the while. Shaking his head, Felix ran.

They raced toward the back of the chamber, Felix hoping all the while that he had been correct. When the heavy greenery eventually opened up into a dim stone corridor he grinned wide and glanced to the side at Pit...just in time to see the massive rock that was hurtling in their direction.

"Watch out!" Felix dove forward just as the boulder would have crashed into them, grabbing Pit and tucking into a roll. He was back up on his feet, this time carrying the chimera in his arms as he ran as fast as he could. The boulder hit the ground with a huge crash, jarring Felix's bones and teeth as he ran. He didn't stop. He couldn't.

If I stop, I die.

Running is level 16!

The dim hallway tilted toward to the right, meandering through the mountain around him as if a drunk burrower had made these tunnels. A sudden thunderous crashing came from behind, though Felix refused to look. The walls shook and cracked, small crevices chasing their way down the hall as the cacophony of a landslide barreled toward his unprotected back. Pit gave a challenging squawk over Felix's shoulder, his fur and feathers sticking up in a puffy display of dominance. A bright flash and Felix felt a burst of wind as Pit launched a Wingblade at the Arcids.

KWIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAHH!

The Wingblade splashed against their pursuers with little effect. Big Boy let loose a mighty bellow, shaking the air with a voice that sounded like high speed car crashes; metal on metal, compacting and rattling at incomprehensible speed. It tore through the passageway, its larger size neither fitting nor caring as it crashed through the stone walls. The smaller Slender was moving a bit ahead, faster than its brethren.

Pit let out a pitiful eep before tucking his head into Felix's shoulder.

The corridor began to twist worse the further they went. Floor tiles were missing in many place, tilted up on their edges or knocked entirely out of the ground and piled in the corners. It took all he had to keep up his speed with the difficult footing, pushing his Agility to the edge of his capability as the iron Arcids thundered behind him. He risked a look over his shoulder.

Slender was steadily gaining ahead of it's bulkier counterpart. While the latter was shearing through the narrow hallways with the force of its charge, the former stomped ahead, only fifteen feet behind Felix. With a startled yelp, Felix put on more speed, pushing his body harder than before.

Running is level 17!

Physical Conditioning is 14!

His Stamina was depleting rapidly. The heat was mounting again, his resistance not high enough to negate the consumption penalty it inflicted. It was only his high Endurance that allowed him to press on, leaping over dislodged blocks of stone as the corridor became increasingly dilapidated. A sudden sharp turn in the hall had Felix skidding as he negotiated it, his shoulder bashing painfully into the rock even as chips of stone debris scattered from the impact. He stuttered forward again, pushing against the earth for all he was worth.

Just in time. He felt a violent breeze blast past his back as he jumped forward, and the wall behind him exploded.

The sound of impact was the loudest thing Felix had ever heard, and it sent him careening wildly down the passageway, falling to all fours several times in an effort to remain moving. Rocks pelted him, drawing sharp bloody trails across Felix's back and legs.

He glanced back again and saw Slender woozily extricating himself from the shattered wall. Unable to make the same tight turn as Felix, the Arcid hurtled full force into the stone wall. It was buried nearly to its waist in rubble, but it was moving the weight quickly.

Felix slid to a stop, focusing on the smaller Arcid. He had to delay them. He couldn't run forever. And if Slender couldn't manage that turn...

Influence of the Wisp!

Felix blazed with blue-white fire, and a moment later so did Slender. The ironbound creature looked at its limbs in evident confusion, even as Felix received a notification that it had been Enthralled for 1 second. It looked up at him, the cold fires in its helmet flaring wide in realization before turning to look back the way it came.

That was when Big Boy hit him.

Like a freight train, the bulkier iron lackey plowed into Slender and the wall beyond. Unable to move or even cry out, Slender tangled with Big Boy as the wall before them gave out. Ominous rumbles shook the corridor, and Felix's sharp eyes quickly spotted expanding cracks tracing cross the walls and ceiling. He jumped backward as a slab of stone fell, powdering the ground as it slammed down, and more cascaded after it. In moments, the two Arcids and the hallway itself was buried under several tons of rock.

But the rumbling continued. Felix ran, eyes up for any more collapses, but the vibrations petered out after several hundred feet.

That was close. His heart was racing, and he was unable to shake the image of an entire mountain falling on top of him. I gotta get out of here.

Two more turns, all left, and he found himself at the base of a large set of spiral stairs. Each step was three feet tall, making it an awkward climb, and there was enough space for even the golden giant to fit through here. Cautiously, Felix climbed the stairs, keeping as quiet as possible. After three revolutions, the stairs opened up onto a large landing which contained a single wooden door.

The door was huge, easily 12 feet tall, and it had an elaborate metal lock affixed to its oversized latch. Felix considered the massive lock, nearly the size of a watermelon, and aimed a Corrosive Strike at it. The metal groaned and snapped in two hits, twisting and melting by turns. He ducked into the door and shut it behind him, panting as his Stamina ticked closer to empty.

Did I lose them? If he was lucky, the tunnel collapse had taken care of them. However, Felix hadn't gotten any kill notifications for the Arcids. Tough bastards. Hopefully they're at least busy for a while.

Felix gulped the warm air, tasting a sour flavor even as he reveled in being alive. It was hard to place, tasting faintly metallic. The chamber was similar to the other's he'd been in: geometric engravings, squared pillars along the edges of the room, and pentagonal tiles once etched with details now lost to time. Then he noticed the giant desk, easily twice as big as a standard desk and paired with an equally large and sturdy-looking chair. An inkpot the size of a coffee mug sat on the surface, which was just barely visible from Felix's vantage, set next to several reams of thick parchment.

Felix had stumbled upon the archon's chambers.

Exploration is level 15!

He immediately crossed the room, inspecting another door opposite the one he entered. It was heavy, metal, and silvery; a departure from the wood or black iron doors he'd seen so far. It had five different raised panels, and was molded with the image of three seven-sided stars across the central one. The stars stacked vertically, and were made with a 3D depth, like the interior of a cake mold.

Oh god, I miss cake. I haven't had cake since Gabby's birthday...

When was that? A month ago? He'd only been on the Continent for two weeks or so, but it felt like a lifetime. His life from before he woke up on that sand spit was like a continually fading dream, and the longer he struggled here the more real this all became. Felix sighed and looked back at Pit.

"C'mon buddy. We have to keep moving," he said, but the tenku was busy attempting to climb onto the chair of the archon.

"What're you doing? Those things could be here any second!" Pit didn't listen, instead flapping his wings vigorously to pull his oddly proportioned body up onto the chair. Once there he trilled happily, turning toward the desk and hopping nimbly atop it. Felix pulled at his hair, exasperated. Then Pit started kicking things off the desk.

Parchment rained down on him, and Felix had to swat away a particularly large stack that slapped onto the stone floor. Glancing down, Felix saw that many of the pages were blank but a few had a series of sigils scribbled onto them. He bent over and picked them up, leafing through the incredibly detailed designs. Each of the pages were roughly 11x17, and their entire surface was covered in densely packed markings. He didn't understand any of these, but he recognized them as similar sigils to those in the Temple, the same ones the lackeys had been trying to reproduce onto scrap metal for some reason.

On the last page, he saw an odd illustration. Made out in the same hand as the rest, it depicted an oblong shaped stone, faceted and hovering over an incomplete pillar or altar. There were a series of sigils listed next to this drawing, each one more convoluted than the last, and they were almost...upsetting to look at, somehow. As if they each held a terrible secret hidden in their designs, like branches obscuring the horrid flesh of a corpse.

Sigils of the Primordial Dawn is level 3!

With an effort of will, Felix tore his eyes away from the page, suddenly breathing heavily. The room seemed warmer than before, the air more cloying as if thickened, hugging close to his skin like a thin film. Felix swallowed, his saliva gone dry as he felt emotions of helplessness and constraint assault his senses, pressing against him like the walls in a shrinking room. Then something inside him pushed back, Felix's mind unable to take the vertigo inducing sensations. The emotions intensified, as if fighting against his will, but a short moment later they shattered into nothing.

Bastion of Will is level 26!

The effect suddenly cut off and Felix fell down on his ass. The papers landed next to him, ink staring menacingly back in his direction. Felix grabbed them and shoved them into his satchel. He'd look at them later. Or never.

Wait. He toggled back his notifications and stared. What the hell is Bastion of Will?

Scrolling backward, Felix saw the notifications for increases to Running and Physical Conditioning and...

Oh shit, that's right.

He had hit Apprentice Tier for Mental Resistance, thanks to the archon's repeated attempts to rip apart his memories. He pulled up the notification.

Congratulations! You Have Reached Apprentice Tier in Mental Resistance!

You Gain The Following:

+10% WIL

+5 END and VIT

Rarity of the Skill has upgraded!

Skill Level is maintained.

Mental Resistance (Rare) has become Bastion of Will (Epic)!

Bastion of Will (Epic), level 25!

Your mind is a fortress, and your Will is fierce. Let crash the might of your enemies, you shall not be moved. Resistance greatly increases with Skill Level.

"Whoa," Felix huffed. "Hell yeah." His second Epic Skill in as many hours, this trip into the mountain hadn't been a total waste.

Though that'll change sharply if I don't get out soon. That archon isn't the type to give up, and that wurm of his--

Felix's eyes widened as realization hit him.

I'm an idiot! The wurm can tunnel through solid stone!

"Pit! We have to go! Now!" That wurm wouldn't be stopped by a measly cave in, and the moment the golden giant realized his minions were stuck, he'd sic his precious Helga on him. Felix stood up and saw his tenku companion attempting to push an entire locked metal box off the edge of the desk. It was about the size of a cigar box, but seemed considerably heavier.

"Oh jeez dude, really?" Felix reached up and grabbed it, stowing it in his satchel. The leather bag creaked ominously, but it held for now. Happy, Pit lightly hopped from the desk, using his larger wings to glide gracefully to the floor.

They rushed toward the three star door. The latch was clear and didn't have any sort of lock, so Felix whipped it open and stepped out into a short corridor ending in two staircases. One led up, and one led down, and both were choked with debris. Growling in frustration, he reached out his right hand and cast Stone Shaping.

The flow of earth Mana was suddenly brought into stark contrast all around him, and Felix felt as if he could reach out and shape it all to his will. Focusing, he mentally commanded the stone before him to shift and open the way forward. With a scraping groan, the stone flowed like thick oil, pulling away from a central pathway no more than two feet wide and extending nearly ten feet up. With a gasp, Felix felt a large chunk of his Mana disappear immediately, eaten away by the Mana hungry spell.

Stone Shaping is level 14!

Wiping his brow, he hustled up the stairs, squeezing himself through the narrow crevice he had created. Even if the Arcids got free, they weren't following him through that gap. The stairs were clear after that, save for the occasional rocky debris. The next level expanded into several well preserved hallways, but he kept going up.

Gotta make the surface. Gotta go up.

Felix climbed nearly six flights before he could go no higher. The last level opened out into a wide landing containing only a set of double doors surmounted by a stylized frame covered in elaborate geometric patterns. Blocky and angular, like everything else here, the doors were fifteen feet tall and appeared to be made of stone as opposed to metal or wood. Felix approached them carefully before shoving one of the doors lightly, but nothing happened. He pushed harder, and they made a grinding noise before shifting ever so slightly. Felix's muscles protested as he dropped his arms, the release of tension almost worse than the weight itself.

Heavy. Really heavy.

Felix put his back into it, this time shoving on one of the doors with both hands. Slowly, the door swung open, grinding loudly into the floor as it went. It took four hard shoves to get the door opened enough for him and Pit to slip through, but even then the gap was under two feet wide. These doors were incredibly heavy even for his 78 points of Strength. He could imagine someone else being trapped here forever, unable to budge these behemoths.

Pondering these thoughts, Felix emerged from the double doors to find himself in a cavernous space. The walls were perhaps 300 or 400 feet away in any direction but back, and the ceiling was probably twice that. It all looked like rough stone, arcing above him and strangely devoid of anything like stalactites. The air was incredibly hot, hotter still than that courtyard where Pit had been caged, and he could feel the sweat drip from his pours almost instantly.

Exploration is level 16!

"Uff, I'm getting sick of this heat, Pit." Felix wiped his forehead with a ragged, dirty sleeve. Pit chirruped back at him, his wings drooping. Felix glanced at the ground, noticing it was flat and relatively level, despite the disturbances in the lower tunnels. Whatever seismic activity warped the structure below didn't affect this place too badly. The ground extended out a couple hundred feet, though not all the way to the edges of the chamber, he could tell. A ruddy light emanated from the edges of the cavern, and swirling gusts of sulfuric fumes filled his nose. Not quite believing what his senses were telling him, Felix walked to the edge.

A surge of hot wind buffeted him. Below him was a massive pool of lava that neatly encircled the stone platform he was on.

Heat Resistance is level 13!

"I'm in a volcano?" Felix panted through the increasing heat, his Stamina visibly ticking down. "What the hell?"

SLAM!

Suddenly the doors quaked, as if something huge had smashed into them. Felix spun around, hand on his sword. Dust rained down from the carved edifice above the doors, cracked and worn but still as beautiful as anything else down those tunnels.

SLAM! SLAM! SLAM!

The cracks spread further, splintering the stone and sloughing off entire sections. Whatever was behind those doors wasn't giving up. Felix gasped a breath, panic rising as the doors began to break down. He cast about, looking for anything, any possible escape route.

There! At the far end of the chamber, a platform extended nearly flush with the ground, making it all but invisible from straight on. It stretched outward in a sort of stone bridge toward the far wall of the cavern, which featured a shadowed archway. A bridge! The exit!

That's when he realized the slamming had stopped. Felix turned toward the stone doors, sensing a sudden something moving at high speed. He activated Manasight, and aside from the absolute deluge of orange fire Mana, there was an ochre blur the size and shape of a city bus barreling toward the surface.

Toward him.

"Fuck fuck fuck!" Felix started running just as the ground exploded into a geyser of liquefied stone. Helga, the massive wurm reared back with a screeching roar, breaching like a shark after a seal, her entire body clearing the ground for the briefest of instants. She landed with a bone-jarring quake, snaking toward Felix even as she hit the earth.

Felix ran with everything he had, but he could hear the wurm gaining on him with every step he took. He risked a glance backward, and saw a nightmare: Helga slid forward, her body twisting like an impossibly large serpent, her four-way mouth wide open and filled with drool soaked teeth the size of swords. Fear ran like cold electricity up his back and down his limbs even as he pushed himself to run faster. Faster.

Running is level 18!

Then he was at the bridge, the stone tapering to only five feet wide as it arced over the bubbling magma below. But his relief was short-lived: only thirty feet out the bridge ended, sheared off long ago. The far edge of the cavern was beyond a nearly fifty foot gap, an impossible distance.

Pit was at his feet, racing alongside him. He had grown bigger, but was still faster than Felix, and his wings...

"Pit! Jump and fly! Fly to the other side!"

Without a beat, Pit chirped and raced ahead, running to the edge of the bridge and jumping as far as he could.

Reign of Vellus!

The kinetic forces of the spell were leagues easier to shape than before, and Felix's quick mind and Fire Within Skill activated in unison. Azure lightning discharged from his body and Pit let loose a surprised squawk as he was pushed up and forward twenty feet. Felix had hoped the tenku's smaller mass and increased speed would allow Reign of Vellus to give him enough oomph to make the jump...and as Pit hit the zenith of his boost, his red-black wings snapped outward in a glide.

Reign of Vellus is level 26!

"Yeah!" Felix cried out.

Then Helga ate him.