Unbound

Chapter One Hundred and Eighty - 180

"Here they are," Portia said.

She had led him to a pair of cots in the rear of the Healer's Ward. Real, actual cots held the two heavily bandaged men. Felix could make out their faces well enough, even if he didn't have his Voracious Eye to identify them.

"If you need me, I'll be making more salves," Portia said in parting, clearly intending to leave him to his...his whatever. Was it grief? Or guilt?

Felix could sense a large portion of the Maw in their forms, more than twice as much as any of the other patients. According to Portia, they were the only Tempered people who had been afflicted, and they were among the worst off. The Maw's influence was clearly twisting their flesh. Small patches of rust-red scales had formed where the rash once blighted their skin, and Atar's teeth were even turning a familiar shade of yellow-ivory. They even seemed sharper.

Vess found him there, leaning over their bodies, inspecting them with all of his senses. "We'd wondered where you went."

"No one told me," Felix said, though there was no anger in his tone. He hadn't been the best of friends with Atar, and he barely knew Alister, but they'd been through a lot together. That meant something, to him at least.

"It all happened so fast and," Vess paused, groping for the right words. "And I suppose it was easier to not mention it. To pretend, for a little bit, that it was not happening."

"This is widespread?"

Vess nodded. "Cal has not told us much, but I overheard the scouts. More and more survivors are being found like this, not dead but...changing."

Felix frowned. Was this where the surge in Revenants was coming from? How they were making more? But it was happening so slowly, surely it couldn't be bolstering their numbers by that much. There was a piece they were missing. Yet that didn't change the fact that people were being changed, which was perhaps more horrifying to Felix than others. He'd only narrowly avoided that fate himself, directly at the hands of the Maw. Even still, he'd been transformed regardless.

The remnant of the Maw, so much stronger in either of the mages, it wouldn't stay out of his mind. It was like a nagging toothache he couldn't stop worrying at with his tongue. Each time Felix tried to physically inspect them, it drew him back.

Could I...?

There was only one way to find out.

Ravenous Tithe!

Vess gasped. Small streamers of rust-red vapor suddenly poured from both mages, pulled in a straight line directly into Felix's mouth. But they were only part of it; from the air around them, a multi-hued array of vapor manifested and swirled into him, like a radiant oil spill being sucked down a drain.

When it was over, Felix leaned forward onto his knees. Fresh sweat beaded on his brow. His breath came in small gasps that he couldn't quite control.

"What was that? Did you use your--"

"Yeah," Felix managed. He stood up, but the storm in his gut had grown a touch wild again. He hadn't meant to pull in the ambient Mana like that as well. The feeling stabilized after his greedy core sucked up much of the loose Mana he'd ingested. "I was trying to get the corruption out of them. I-I think I did."

"I think you have done more than that," Vess said with wonder on her face. "Look."

The groans around them had lessened. Carefully, Felix opened up his Affinity again. While the majority of the room was still afflicted with pain and fear, a few nearby had drifted off into a comfortable sleep. Not completely free of either, merely lessened enough for exhaustion to take hold.

Ravenous Tithe!

Felix tried to take more, whether from the patients around him or the mages. But nothing more was taken. He could still feel bits of it coiling within his friends but it wasn't enough to latch onto, and the same went for the other patients. All of them hadn't reached the point where his Tithe could yank the corruption free.

But what if he leveled his Ravenous Tithe? Would that be enough? He'd already gone over the edge with his Bloodline changing and subsequently fully absorbing the Maw. He was a freaking Primordial now, whatever that meant. Could he make it worse by leveling his Maw-themed Skills?

Sovereign of Flesh, Voracious Eye, and Ravenous Tithe. Three Skills, each with an effect on his Body, Mind, and Spirit. He already had a feeling the motes of ruby power within his core were another source of strength, just waiting to be tapped. It wasn't a question now that he'd thought of it. If he could pull this dangerous affliction out of the air then he'd do it.

Vess leaned over Atar and checked his neck where the skin had started to look healthy again. The scales had vanished, but flaky rash had remained. She looked at Felix in surprise. "It reversed the process, Felix. Is it akin to taking their sickness?"

"Something like that. The corrosive Mana that's hurting them has no effect on me, not anymore. Apparently I can pull it out of the air too, but only if it's concentrated enough." Felix gestured helplessly to the patients moaning all around them. "I can't do anything for them. Not yet."

Portia rushed out from her office. "What happened?" She put a hand into the air and swirled it, activating some sort of Skill. Visible Mana vapor coalesced around her limb and she pulled it down to inspect it. "There's less foul Mana in the air. What did you do?"

She stopped and shook her head when Felix explained it was the effect of a Skill. The look she gave him was intense, and a familiar refrain spilled from her lips.

"Can you do it again?"

Felix moved through the room for the ninth time, but finally was able to pull nothing else from the air. He had been able to pull more from the air than the bodies, as the corrosive Mana mixed freely with the air, light, and miscellaneous other Mana around them. Adhering to one another, he took it all in. Even the normal ambient Mana was gone, and the world seemed almost inert to his Manasight.

With enough applications I can drain an area dry. Good to know. He could use that to stop enchanted equipment from recharging, maybe. Or...or he could stop enemies from regenerating their Mana. He grinned. Yeah. That's useful.

A downside, apart from how long it would take to drain an area, was that it affected him too, but he also sucked in the vapor directly, so the loss was much less. The nebula of essence had returned, though much of it was directly Mana vapor. The vapor disappeared almost immediately into the abyss within his core ring, while the essence cloud lingered on like a roiling storm. Essence, whatever it was, seemed somehow distinct from Mana.

More questions for Zara.

Felix took a breath as he completed his last circuit. "That's about all I can do here, Portia."

"Siva's grace," Portia was once again checking a collection of congealed Mana vapor around her arm, but there were only a few bare flickers of color. She had said it was a Common Skill called Mana Gauge used by many academics interested in the etheric arts. "The ambient Mana is just...gone. Where do you put it all? Why aren't you exploding from the pressure and combating elements?"

Felix ignored the spinning circle of hungry darkness in his core and gave Portia a half smile and a shrug. "It's a good Skill."

"That's not really the point--"

"He is not a liberty to say, Portia," Vess interrupted smoothly, giving the agitated healer a brilliant smile. It was a smile he hadn't seen from her before, an easy kindness that simultaneously kept its hand on the hilt of a sword. "Let it lie at that."

Portia, either not registering Vess' expression or ignoring it, didn't stop. "You must understand, Felix. If we can replicate what you can do, teach your Skill, then we could help a lot of people."

"I can't teach this one," Felix said helplessly. "Even if I wanted to. But I'll make a point to come around here as often as I can and take care of the build up."

Portia's face hardened and went a touch cold. "Very well. If that's all you can offer...I will gladly accept what you can do."

She turned and started inspecting her patients again, but swiftly moved to the far end of the ward. Felix sighed and gave Vess a grateful look.

"Thanks."

"You should stand up for yourself more," she said. "You let the others run roughshod over you too often."

"Hm," Felix said, noncommittally. He wasn't exactly in the mood to talk about his flaws. She wasn't wrong but..."If I can help, I should help."

"Not if helping drains you dry or exposes you to backlash," Vess said gently. She gave him a smile, and the devastating dimple returned. "As much as I can tell you hate it, you are a hero to many. A leader. And a leader cannot overextend themselves, or they risk everyone that follows them."

"I'm not a leader or a hero, Vess," Felix scrubbed his hands across his face. His callouses scratched at his skin painfully, but it was an honest sensation. "I just keep getting put in the middle of shit."

"Then be a leader, Felix. Leaders choose where to go, whether that is into the 'shit' or away from it," Vess said. At some point, she had gotten closer than Felix realized. He could see the variations in the brown of her eyes, like gold shot through dark loam. Her breath was warm and oddly minty against his face.

"Choices have consequences," Felix said softly, and a thrill of suppressed urges danced along his nerves. "I--"

"Monster!"

"Run! Run!"

Unfettered Volition!

The screams came from outside, and cursing to himself, he activated his movement Skill. Bare thought surged into physical action and Felix raced to the door of the ward, pausing only to assess the situation. Vess arrived only moments after him, her own figure blurred along the edges.

The courtyard was in chaos. Men and women scattered in all directions, but they were traveling away from the central warehouse and toward the walls, not the other way around. Had the Revenants gotten inside the camp?

"I'll take the high ground and call out targets," Vess nodded at the warehouse.

"I'm going in," Felix said.

Vess grinned. "I assumed so."

Grinning himself, Felix dashed forward, darting around the Untempered laborers that were fleeing the area. Moving at full speed it appeared as if most people were moving in slow motion, his Agility and Perception working in tandem somehow to feed his Intelligence-strengthened brain information at a far faster rate. It was...extremely cool, if he were being honest.

Felix made it through the crowd and into the widened empty space in seconds, and instantly groaned. He knew why everyone was freaking out.

Pit had woken up.

The now-massive Tenku had apparently freaked out when he'd come out of his slumber, evidenced by the large, jagged hole torn in the side of the metal-sided warehouse. Now he spun in circles, surrounded by poorly armed guards that were shaking in their boots as they leveled spears at him. One of them hung onto a rope that they'd somehow gotten around Pit's wing, and a casual adjustment by Pit yanked the guard from his feet. Pit let out a piteous chirrup, but his enlarged chest distorted the sound into a threatening basso cough.

It was almost funny, were people not threatening his friend's life. Felix could feel his Companion's confusion and worry, but the moment he laid eyes on him Pit became aware of Felix. He perked up, his triangular ears sticking straight up in excitement.

"Everyone, calm down," Felix shouted, and the guards all looked at him in surprise. One man fell down, surprised to see Felix standing so close by. "He means no harm."

"It's a bleedin' chimera!" One of them shouted back, and Felix noticed that none of the spears were lowered.

"He's a friend. Put down your weapons, or I will do it for you," Felix said, but this time a snarl escaped him. The man on the ground scooted back on all fours, leaving his spear in his haste to flee. The others traded glances with each others, but the spears didn't waver. They were all Untempered, his Eye told him, but Felix wasn't about to take chances with his friend's life.

Pit squawked out a worried greeting and tried to step toward him. One of the guards, a reedy looking boy with big, pointed ears and sharp cheekbones stabbed forward. As if it happened in slow motion, Felix watched as the spear head thrust outward and slid across Pit's feathered throat.

REIGN OF VELLUS!

Felix let the power pour through him, but still had the presence of mind not to fire what amount to a gun into a crowded room. He sounded the Skill's pattern backwards, and the power that left him grabbed at the spear--and everything attached to it--and pulled it toward him. A soundless wave of force spread behind Felix as one after the other, the spears were yanked to his side. Five iron spears clattered uselessly to either side of him, two of which still had guards sprawled next to them.

Felix ignored them all and walked calming forward. The guards, Untempered and now without weapons, backed away and into the gathering crowd. "Don't touch my Companion. Got it?"

The crowd gasped and low voices broke out among them. The guards nodded vigorously.

Distance crossed, he held out his hands just as Pit lowed his head and pressed against Felix's own. It was big enough now that it extended from Felix's forehead down to the middle of his chest. A deep rumble vibrated between them, and he stroked Pit's glossy feathers.

"Hey bud. You sleep well?"

Pit chirruped, and words flowed across their bond. I woke. Scared. Where were you?

"Handling some business out here. What's the last thing you remember?" Felix asked softly. Pit responded by huffing a big bellows breath and sending a collection of sense-memories along their bond. Images of the Ravager King, of tearing through the liminal Void, of trying to help Felix devour the newborn Primordial. The memories were vivid, filled with sight and smell and sound; they took all of a second to relive, however.

Felix blinked his vision back and stared into Pit's much larger golden eyes. "Been through a lot, me and you. Now you've been through a whole building, too."

Pit glanced back at the hole he'd torn through the side of the main warehouse. A little bit of embarrassment filtered across to Felix. Sorry.

"Don't worry about it, bud," Felix frowned at the crowd that had gathered around them. Apparently their fear had abated, because it was growing again. He spotted many familiar faces, including those who had helped him build the trench and wall, as well as the members of Yan's team.

"I'm only going to say this once," he said, raising his voice so that the entire courtyard could hear him. He heard his tone echo off nearby buildings, like he was on a megaphone. "This is Pit. He's a tenku. A chimera. He's my friend and my Companion. If you attack him, you're attacking me. Don't."

A soft thud landed behind him, but Felix didn't stop glaring at the crowd. His Perception revealed it to be Vess well before she landed. "That was dramatic."

"Hm," Felix grunted, in a fair impersonation of Harn. "They might not have been able to hurt him, but I don't care. They attack Pit again and I'll tear this place apart."

"It was not a criticism, Felix," Vess said, placing a hand on his shoulder. Felix hadn't realized how tense he was until her touch sent a wave of relaxation through his arm. It didn't feel like a Skill, just...her.

"Well, aren't you two cozy!" A whipcrack voice cut through the crowd as it dispersed. Voices were raised and the general hubbub of activity had resumed, even though it sounded a bit forced. Vess immediately took her hand off his shoulder as Evie came out of the crowd. She was sweating liberally until the still bright sunshine, but somewhere she'd gotten a thin umbrella to create some shade for herself. She noticed his gaze and twirled, chain clinking on her shoulder. "Like it? There's a crafter selling her stock down that way. Snagged one of the last ones."

"Interesting." As Evie twirled, Felix saw that the umbrella was painted with some sort of leggy bird catching a snake in flight.

"Interestin' isn't the word I'd choose for someone wasting their limited stipend on frivolity," Cal said in her sharp tone. She too emerged from the thinning crowd. "Especially when one should be trainin' instead of running around camp."

Evie immediately wilted and Cal turned her attention toward him and Vess. "My apologies for Pit, Felix. He woke up while we were busy and the Tin Rank we had watching him...well, they wouldn't have been able to stop him anyway."

Felix shrugged a single shoulder; he didn't feel angry anymore, just tired. Apparently they were using the same rank designations as the Guild for the camp goers. Untempered for the citizens, but anyone who joined up to patrol or fight were Tin Rank. "I should have stayed with him. But now at least people know not to attack him. Can you see to it that the word is spread among the camp? I was hiding Pit before, but I guess I can't avoid that now."

"I think it'll spread just fine on its own," Cal said, wryly. "A tame chimera? In Haarwatch? I expect the whole city'll know before the end of tomorrow."

"I see." Felix eyed his Companion who ducked his head in shame. "Sorry about the warehouse. I'll see if we can't fix it somehow."

Cal waved him off. "Not the greatest of my concerns. I saw the wall. Impressive. I'll have to bother you to finish the job later."

"Later?"

Cal gave a nod to her left. A few ragged folk were being tended to by Portia; their bodies were criss-crossed with bloody wounds, though none of them were near death. His Eye even flagged two of them as being Apprentice Tier. "A scouting party came back. We sent them out before dawn to meet up with some folk down at the mines. They were ambushed."

"More Revenants?" Evie asked.

Cal's lips thinned and she shook her head. "Inquisition," she said and put her hands on the hilts of her long knives. "You up for some combat, Felix?"

Hunger roared within him as his core sped up, pushing a flush of Mana through his channels. Felix grinned.

"Yeah. I think I am."