Chapter Seventy - 070

Chapter Seventy - 070

He stared at the darkened door for a long time.

Why did she...? I could have saved her. We were right there.

He felt...what did he feel? Felix wasn't sure. There was an ache, a hollow just below the ribs and in the back of his throat. No tears though. Felix hadn't known Magda for long, and tears felt...It felt wrong. As if he was mourning someone, and that wasn't right.

Pit rubbed up against him, a soft warmth against his hands and legs. Worry and sadness and no little bit of fear wafted from the tenku with every pulse of his heart. Felix gripped his Companion with his left arm, hissing in pain as his body rocked the broken bone in his right.

She's not dead yet. She...can make it out.

He wasn't sure who the lie was for, Pit or himself.

Felix looked around. It was utterly dark within the chamber, a velvety black completely different from the gloom of the maze. This darkness had weight to it, and it pressed down upon him. Felix blinked and tried to activate Manasight. There was a moment of pressure, somewhere between his eyes and brain, and then it passed with a faint, inaudible pop.

Manasight is level 38!

Manasight is level 39!

He beheld a storm. A vibrant, resounding riot of colorful vapor above him, roiling in the air, the earth...everything. It was like a thousand miles of ambient Mana had been compacted and stored in this place, held within like a stormhead that never broke. It was so intense that Felix had to turn off the ability after only a few seconds, plunging his world back into primordial darkness.

Ow. The sight of all that Mana had hurt his brain, stretching some part of his mind painfully. A full forty seconds after, Felix still saw flashes of blue and gold at the corner of his vision, a familiar and unpleasant sensation. Pit nudged him with his beak, and he felt a sense of urgency flare along their pact.

He's right. Grimmar is in here.The initial posting of this chapter occurred via N0v3l.B11n.

He stood up, using the stone object behind him for support and cradling his busted arm. Were it not for the pain that pulsed along his snapped humerus, he would have felt disembodied, a floating eye in a sea of inky black. He glanced at his Health, his HUD the only thing visible in there: it was only at 15%, barely rising above a hundred points.

I can't fight like this. Will my regeneration heal my broken bones? How long would that take? He panted into the darkness, the effort of standing up taking more out of him than he anticipated. Do I have the time anyway? Or is that giant just waiting around a corner, ready to rip my head off?

He figured if it was gonna happen, it would have already. Grimmar didn't seem to be the patient type.

A blinking in his vision made itself known in that darkness. Truthfully, it had been blinking for a while before he'd been thrown into this chamber, but Felix had been...preoccupied. Flaring Pain Resistance and his Willpower to ignore his aching arm, he toggled his notifications.

Pit's Bite is level 24!

Pit's Rake is level 23!

Pit's Wingblade is level 19!

Pit's Frost Spear is level 17!

Pit's Cold Resistance is level 16!

Pit's Poisonfire is level 13!

Your Companion Pit Has Gained 2 Levels!

+4 VIT! +4 PER! +8 AGL! +8 DEX! +6 WIL! +2 END! +4 INT!

Pit fairly glowed with energy, a light that might have been faint in the daylight was nearly blinding here. Felix could tell the tenku fought to not make too much noise, but still let out small peeps as he fairly shook, his body washed by the System's energy.

Good. At least one of us--

You Have Gained A Level!

You are now Level 22!

Shit. I dropped the fang. He rubbed his temples, furious. I must have lost when the giants hit us. Fuck.

Frustrated, Felix walked toward the paintings on the walls, stepping a bit closer to make out their details. He moved through the swirls of ambient Mana, their touch like a delicate caress along his senses that he fought to shut out. The murals were faded with age, far more than the murals out in the Labyrinth. For how long they must have been down here, Felix was surprised any sort of paintings existed at all. These depicted tall folk wearing robes and armor walking alongside a plethora of pale-furred people the size of human children. Other, more strange peoples populated the images, but each working seemed centered on those first two.

Nym and Geist.

Here in the antechamber, a Nym was wearing a crown of bronze and holding aloft a scepter of some sort of pale metal. The Geist beside them held an unfurled scroll, and had their mouth open as if they were reading aloud. Felix followed the mural along the wall, passing through the archway and into a long hallway. He moved a slowly and quietly as he could, though the racket he'd made previously would have woken the dead. The hallway was clear of any people thankfully, Risi or otherwise, so Felix returned to the walls.

A story was being told in these murals, and Felix was enraptured.

The Nym and Geist traveled all over the land, from rolling hills to deep forests, wide lakes and frigid mountains. Sometimes they were joined by others, more Nym and Geist or even a smattering of other races Felix couldn't identify. There was a stretch of silver forest, each leaf etched in shimmering metal. A deep, achingly beautiful lake, swarming with life hinted at beneath the languid ripples. A range of mountains that towered above the clouds, their peaks split. And through them all, Felix saw a familiar detail: a bronze spike, like two pyramids stacked atop each other, stabbed into the ground.

The same as the Guardians' enchanted collars, only several orders of magnitude larger.

The Nym and Geist were shown at each of these sites and many others, standing to the side of the spikes as if investigating. Each time, the locations changed and the two figures seemed to grow wearier and wearier, subtly drooping at the shoulders and knees. The Nym did not raise the scepter quite as high, and the Geist unrolled less and less of its scroll until finally, the two stood in a verdant valley filled to the brim with flowering fruit trees. Here, a massive spike had been embedded, larger by far than any that had come before, and the two figures stood tall and proud. Jubilant.

Felix kept walking, the hall long and uninterrupted by nook or cranny. It was just the story.

The next mural showed a collection of buildings sprouting up, small and grey at first but quickly growing complicated as the mural extended down the hall, larger buildings with more ornate architecture populating the area around the spike. Flying creatures swarmed the air, colorful and wild, while a plethora of peoples filled the growing city. Shelim, he realized. This is Shelim. This city. Felix could pick out a familiar layout, done in multiple concentric circles that radiated outward and intersected. He recognized the groupings of towers, their heights far taller than the other buildings, save for the spike itself. He could even spot the bronze domed capital building, at the edge of the spike's grand grounds.

He found his eyes drawn upward as the mural changed again. Now the spike...shimmered, almost, despite the static nature of paint and dyes, appearing to pulse through the city entirely. A dark amorphous shape was painted above the bronze spike, its thundercloud shape radiating colorful lines into the city and land beyond. The lines were inlaid metals, sparkling as they described perfect parabolic arcs, each terminating in a swell of color that even the Ages hadn't much dimmed. It was, by nearly all accounts, a marvelous and powerful image.

But to Felix, who's eyes could barely leave that ominous thundercloud, he felt it radiate something else. A powerful sense of...need.

Deep in his belly, above his navel, Felix felt an ache. It howled softly with an echo of his empty hunger, the first wakening pangs of a slumbering beast. There was a connection, a kinship that he felt with that shapeless mass. A yearning that made moving his eyes away a feat of mental strength. When he did, he found the rest of the mural gone. The hallway stretched on for twenty more yards, but someone or something had shattered the walls, ripping the facade off with massive claws spaced feet apart. The ground was littered with chunks of broken rock.

There is something very bad in here, Felix swallowed as he looked at the jagged rents through solid stone.

He stepped forward, more cautious than ever among the fallen stone, moving toward the edge of the hall. He heard voices, faint but growing stronger with each step, and Felix was surprised to realize he recognized both of them.

"I am not worthy of your attention," rumbled Grimmar, his voice muffled for some reason. "It is an honor to breathe the air around your hallowed flesh."

"Indeed," said a far daintier voice, the simple word conveying a sense of resignation and weariness. "I see that you have claimed my gift, bestowed upon your ancestors so long ago."

"I have, Mother," Grimmar grated as Felix peeked around the corner, where the hall opened up into a huge open space. Polished granite stretched across the floor, smooth and unmarred. Shadowed alcoves dotted the far walls, which were circular much like the antechamber, surmounted by fluted pillars and covered in elaborate carvings of vines and leaves. The roof arched upward, unsupported by any beams or braces, and bright natural light filtered down into the chamber. The sunlight filled the space with such radiance that for a moment Felix forgot to breathe, the bloom of illumination too bright to see beyond for the barest of instants. When it cleared, Felix could see Grimmar kneeling on the floor, head down and hands pointed forward as if he were praying or...or prostrating.

Beyond him, centered in the circular space was a bronze spike that stretched forty feet up, maybe a quarter of the way to the ceiling, shimmering with a restrained power that nevertheless felt fearsome. The surface was crawling with sigils that flared and faded in rapid succession, never in the same sequence or position twice.

"I hope to be worthy of this smallest piece of your divinity, Mother."

Nearly hidden by the giant's bulk, a woman stood. She was dressed in a simple, flowing gown of pale, wispy cloth that seemed to float around her in a breeze that wasn't there. The woman laughed, a bright sound that sent a wave of serenity crashing through Felix. The walls of his Bastion of Will shook, the dark stone quaking beneath that gentle surge, but they held.

Bastion of Will is level 36!

Bastion of Will is level 37!

Bastion of Will is level 38!

Breath Control is level 21!

Breath Control is level 22!

Felix ducked back behind the wall while he strained to control his breathing, feeling as if he had just run a marathon. Sweat beaded along his forehead, mingling with the dried blood and grime from his recent battles, dripping down his bare chest and back. He flared Meditation, trying to calm his mind, but he was shaken.

That's...holy shit, that's not good. He swallowed, working spit from his dried tongue.

I think I'm in trouble.