Chapter Seven Hundred And Sixty Three – 764

Chapter Seven Hundred And Sixty Three – 764

Felix literally flew up the stairs, ascending on a tether of crackling lightning until he burst through the doors of the Eye and into the Crafting Hall. As he reached the Crafting Hall, however, apprentices were streaming out of the Glyphworks, hustling away around the Beacon in a panicked stream of robes and discarded styluses. A few clustered near the door, afraid, but all too curious.

"What's happening?" Felix asked.

The apprentices started. "A burning monster walked into the Glyphworks. They just started sitting at the Glyphmaster's workstation. Can you believe—?"

The apprentice looked back and paled when they realized who they were speaking to. "Sir!"

Felix didn't have time for that. "Has anyone been hurt?"

"No, sir, it didn't touch us. It just...started working."

"What? All of you, go. I’ll handle this." Felix pressed past them just as Pit in puppy form raced into the Crafting Hall. Karys and Zara weren’t far behind.

“Felix, wait!”

He ignored them and slipped into the Glyphworks.

The Crafting Hall had been taken apart. Pieces of metal scrawled with sigaldry were welded into a large, concave shape—the sigils were rough, but they all had to do with generating heat and fire. A makeshift furnace? No, that array is entirely too big. That's more like an incinerator.

To the side of the welded monstrosity, a burning skeleton was at the Glyphmaster's workstation, leaning forward with a dark Leviathan bone stylus in hand. Within the flames that shrouded it, the skeleton was charred, and its ribs were black against a pulsating orb of Mana that glowed white with streaks of orange and red. It beat like a living heart, sending liquid trails spiraling out across its limbs and head.

"Atar?"

"He's not himself," Alister said, stepping in from the side.

"I can see that." Felix flared his Emperor's Vigilance.

Name: Atar V'as

Race: Elemental*

“I followed him up here. He just woke up, then flew across town. Straight here." Alister was still breathing hard, and his forehead was slick with sweat. "It took everything I had to stay on his trail. He hasn't touched anyone, let alone hurt them, but it’s not Atar."

Felix frowned. When he focused on the little asterisk next to Atar's race, he came up with something interesting.

Elemental (Urge of Undying Flame)

"The Urge, it's—" Alister floundered, unable to find the words before shoving ahead anyway. "It's piloting him like a Manaship. It won't talk to me. I've tried over and over."

Felix stepped closer. The heat from the skeleton’s aura was incredible. Many times more than what they'd felt at the hospital. "Atar, are you in there?"

The skeleton didn't look up from its work. Its hand moved steadily on the countertop.

"Urge! Talk to me."

The skull, streaked with blackened char, snapped up toward Felix, and pinpoints of white flame burned in its sockets. we are busy.

It returned to its work, which Felix suddenly realized wasn't some slab of metal or stone. The skeleton was inscribing its own bones.

"It said ‘we,’" Alister pointed out. "Atar must be in there somewhere."

"Good point," Felix edged closer, and his boots started melting into the superheated stone floor. He banished them, leaving his scaled feet bare. "Urge, I need to know if Atar is all right."

The stylus scraped against bone, and it was an awful tooth-grinding sort of sound. the mage lives.

"Then release him. You don't need his Body."

he will die. i do not wish for that.

“What are you doing?"

atar lives. his thoughts infect me, press upon me. i have healed him as much as i can alone, but he requires more.

"So you're inscribing his bones. With what?"

there is a skill within us. it is nascent and unformed, but our trials have shifted things within. i sense its potential, but we need more power to activate it.

"I can take a look," Felix offered. "If you'll let me." N/nêw n0vel chap/ers are published o/n n0v/e/(lb)i(n.)co/m

The Urge wearing Atar's skeleton hesitated, pausing its sigaldry before nodding. i will not cease my inscriptions. the mage’s voice grows dim now that i am moving.

"I'll be fast," Felix promised. He stepped closer into the flames themselves, his Garment burning away from his Body. With a pinch of his Will, he cast his Mana forth, sending his awareness along the Link that connected him to Atar.

He fell, dropping into a dark landscape punctuated by the spark of burning braziers and rivers of molten flame. The dark temple that was Atar's core space still existed, mostly intact save for pieces of obsidian that seemed to have burst from within. Those chunks of midnight rock floated within those rivers of white and orange flame, like suspended ribbons of power connecting his broken bits.

Felix's nose wrinkled. The core space reeked of a strange power. It was different than Atar’s own. Brighter. Sharper. The pieces of broken obsidian glittered like razored edges in the eternal night, surrounding obsidian spires chased with cracks that leaked a fitful light. The architecture of the temple was busted, splintered here and there as if by a ruinous meteor shower, and the broken bits were floating, barely held together by flame. In the center, the bars of what was once a cage had been burst asunder.

Atar stood there, no longer aflame, but not human, either. He remained a skeleton, though it was charred until there was not a speck of white left on his bones.

Felix grappled with his friend, pulling him into a fierce hug.

we melded for a time. his echo remains in here. The skeleton tapped its head. i know what we must do.

Guided by Atar's knowledge of himself, Fiendforge made a sudden, intuitive leap. The opaque morass of Atar’s core space clarified, and Felix could feel the pieces of Skills all around him as if he were reaching out his hands. They were scattered and amorphous, chunks of unformed potential lingering just beneath the surface. The most potential was gathered in the obsidian pillar before them, and sudden lines of white-orange fire creased the floor, spreading outward at right angles. Below, the potential shifted, over and over, as if the Skill were still trying to determine what it should be.

"Atar, fix the Skill in your Mind! What you need it to be! What you want it to be!"

Atar frowned. "Why? We're trying to pull the Skill in, we're not..."

"Trust me, this isn’t what you think! You need... Choice matters," Felix said, the words only making sense to him as they came to his lips. "And what you choose now will determine what happens next. Focus. Focus on what you need."

Atar, for all his bluster, wasn’t an idiot. His eye fires dimmed into darkness, and he bowed his skull as he marshaled his Intent one more time. The potential shifted once again, flickering across its center like static against his Fiendforge.

This time, they held.

“I-I’ve got it!” Atar shouted as crackling flames licked up from the glassy floor. “We need to pull it free!”

Felix flared his Will, shaping his Intent into claws that wrapped around the hidden pillar and pulled. It fought back, kicking against his power...and it was stronger than he anticipated. Perhaps because it was someone else's core space, or perhaps because it was not entirely realized, it slid from his grasp.

No, you don’t!

Fiendforge is level 121!

He redoubled his efforts, firming his hold across the entire core space even as he stretched down beneath its surface. Inch by inch, he hauled back, dragging the pillar as if it were miles beneath the earth instead of a scant few feet. Pressure from Atar’s core tore at him, crushing at his thoughts until they were a narrow tunnel, fueled only by his indomitable Will.

Before that, the core space could only fail.

An angled stump of darkest obsidian burst through the surface, erupting in a geyser of molten rock and veils of white flame. Atar screamed. His blackened bones shook, crumbling to ash at the edges.

Felix paused. The pillar had only partially emerged, perhaps half a foot from the ground.

"Atar, you're falling apart. If we push for the rest of this, I don't know if you can hold it together.”

“Just hold it!” Atar said through clenched teeth. Two of his molars turned to ash.

“ I'm clamping as hard as I can against your core space! It's not a matter of it blowing outwards. Your core space is vibrating against itself! I can't stop that. If we try this, you could die."

Atar’s skeletal face twisted, and somehow Felix could tell he was grinning desperately. "Either I die now, or I fade away. This is my choice."

“Fuck. Alright!”

The mage reached out. Felix met him.

Together, they heaved.

All around them, the temple crumbled as the tremors increased by an order of magnitude. Obsidian turned molten, dripping across the floors. Swirls of white flame erupted from the walls, spitting up into the endless night sky. The flame burned across the firmament, looping around them like the contrails of a diving bird, not giving off light so much as burning the darkness.

Atar’s ribs crumbled to ash, his legs turning to dust as fire rose around him like a cloak. It scorched Felix, too, forcing a surprised gasp from his lips as he held tight. Molten stone rolled across his bare feet and up his legs, scorching his nerve endings, but he forced his attention away—and onto Atar.

Boon of Bonds! C’mon!

He reached inside of himself, trying to initiate his newest Title and give Atar a burst of power...but there was something wrong. There were layers of resistance between him and Atar, like a shroud hung across their Link, muddying it. A presence was there. Not something aware, but it was potent regardless. A presence of flame.

"Atar, you need to ask—"

The mage screamed, and fire consumed the world.

Alister reached up and wiped the sweat from his brow. His arm was marred where his sleeve had burned through, and his face was red and splotchy.

"Here, we need—" He swallowed, but there was no spit left in his mouth. "We need an anchor glyph."

yes.

Atar's skeleton was covered in white inscriptions, though they barely showed through the growing curtain of incandescent flame. Felix stood in that inferno, standing senseless, his Garment almost completely burned away. Alister himself had been pushed back ten full strides by the Urge's heat already, yet still he put up his other arm to shield his face and stepped closer, pointing to another patch of sigaldry.

"Here!" Alister shouted above the roar of flames. The Urge was growing hotter by the second, and Alister had no clue how long he could continue to keep his eyes open, let alone stand nearby. "Smooth! Keep the stroke smooth, or else the Mana will lose cohesion!"

i am aware!

The sigil flashed, and the inscriptions across Atar's body surged with sudden, molten light.

step back, mage! the Urge commanded.

Alister stumbled back, his boots sliding across the scorched floor. The leather was almost melted through. "What's happening?"

step back! he does not wish you to die!

Alister retreated, the heat growing beyond incredible to truly life-threatening for even his Adept Body. The floor sagged, melting beneath the Urge's feet, same as the workbench. Fires burst alight, catching across stone and metal like kindling, and Alister's gut went cold.

He'll burn down the entire Glyphworks! Alister reached out and slammed the nearest emergency array, triggering a sudden cataclysm from above. Mithril and Leviathan bone dropped in massive cages, one after the other, slamming onto the burning skeleton. And Felix.

Sigaldry flared, spitting sparks as it fought against the sheer power the Urge put out. But it was done. The cages sealed themselves. The heat cut out.

Until they exploded.