Chapter One Hundred and Fifty Five - 155
Mervin Cors was on Wall duty.
He'd been on Wall duty for the past few weeks, ever since that man had jumped outta the Foglands. He was told it was punishment, but Mervin was more than happy to stay on this side of the Wall. Where it was safe.
Safe from the Inquisitors, at least.
He'd been hounded by a lot of people, Guilders at first but then the Inquisition, all asking about Felix. Who was he? Where had he come from? What could he do? Mervin didn't like the attention at all. He answered the questions as best he could, but none of his words seemed to satisfy the Acolytes, and they had started to get angry. For servants of the Pathless, they did not take his ignorance well at all.
They had pressed him, hard. Asked him a thousand questions in a thousand different ways, using words that befuddled him despite his rigorous education. He'd learned all his letters well before he was ten, and his math wasn't too bad. But the Acolytes looked at him like he was an idiot.
Worthless.
Not even his revelation about the glowing obelisk was enough to sate them. Sure, at first they were pleased, but after a week they returned with more questions. Queries about Mana and blood and things which a former ploughman knew nothing about. And now, he was hearing rumors of some fighting between the Guilders and Inquisition, though he didn't put much stock in it. Servants of the holy Pathless wouldn't engage in such foul business, he was sure.
Regardless, he was happy to be out of all of it, whatever might be going on. Ironically, up here he found a place to relax.
"I think they're gone for now," Piotr said with his steady baritone. "Mervin, Lars, Garin, rest up. Lettl, Davik, Oren, stay sharp."
Suppressing a groan, Mervin allowed himself to sink to the carved stone bench built into the Wall, one of hundreds along the length of the defensive construct. It sat behind a wide crenellation, heavily protected from anything attacking the outside of the city, the perfect place to rest when your stint atop the Wall stretched long into the night. The sun was just about to set, but Mervin had been on his feet since mid-morning, having taken a double shift from another Tin Rank. Anything to stay up there, away from the questions.
"Wave's been gettin' stronger. Those last bugs had weird metal on em. Like steel, almost," Lars said with a strained grunt. He'd been on the same shift as Mervin all day.
"Steel bugs? You been drinking again, Lars?" Garin asked with a grin.
"Shut it," Lars groused. "I saw it."
"Calm down. It ain't nothing we can't handle," Piotr said. "And I saw it too, Garin. You callin' me a drunk?"The origin of this chapter's debut can be traced to N0v3l--B1n.
"Sir, no sir," Garin lazily saluted.
Mervin glanced nervously at the older Piotr, but the man just rolled his eyes and kept watching the tree line. He was in charge, their senior but still another Tin Rank. He didn't have the authority to do much to Garin. Ranks were spread thin since the bugs had gotten through the wards weeks back.
"What if Tier Two's show up again?" Melvin asked, voicing the worry that ate at him. He felt safe from the Inquisition up here, but the monsters were getting stronger. Lars was right about that.
"That's what the Bronze're for," Piotr said, nodding at several women tinkering with metal styluses on the red-metal parapets. Shimmering symbols flashed beneath their markings as each worked quickly to repair damaged sections of the walls. They were all preternaturally beautiful, a symptom of Tempering themselves into Apprentice Tier. The bronze medallions hanging from their chests meant they were likely close to Journeyman too, and their assured competence at their craft was clearly evident.
"You think they can fix it? They've been at it for hours," Lars asked.
"They're Bronze," Garin said by way of explanation as he leaned back, his eyes closed. "Elder Spirit's got em trained on those scripts. Wouldn't be out here if they didn't know their stuff."
Bronze. It seemed an impossibly far chasm to cross to Mervin. Still at level eleven, he'd failed to raise any of his Skills beyond level twenty, let alone Temper himself with them. His one saving grace was his extremely high Perception for his level, a stat that had saved his life several times by that point. But it wasn't enough. He didn't have the Strength to destroy a Skink with a single punch, or the Skill to disappear in plain sight and knock out an Acolyte with lightning.
He was no Felix, whoever or whatever he had been.
"Can't believe the monsters damaged the script so bad," Melvin said. "Thought this Wall was indestructible?"
"Ain't been fixed right since the incursion a few weeks back," Lars said. "Been patching it up nightly ever since. But like I said, those bugs're gettin' stronger. I know it. Soon we won't be able to hold em back."
"Easy Lars," Piotr said fixing the two of them with his steely glare. For all that their Rank was the same, Mervin felt like a bug himself when Piotr looked at him in that way. "The Wall will hold. To say otherwise could be considered insubordination, yeah?"
Lars' mouth shut with a clack of teeth, and Mervin felt a frown start to form on his face. Piotr was agitated far more than normal. Because of the rumors? They'd all heard the booms and felt the ground tremble earlier that day, but patrols had told them not to worry about it, that the Elders were handling it.
Is he worried about the Inquisition? Surely he doesn't believe that--
Someone stood beside him.
With a start, Mervin found a short and slender man in cream robes standing within an arms-length. He was older, his hair and goatee silvered, but looked to be a youthful forty years old. A strange artifact was in his hand, like a flask of some sort, leaking a glowing, rust-colored steam.
What in the world--?
"Elder Teine!"
First one, then all of the Bronze Guilders snapped to attention as they saw the slender man. Mervin was so surprised by the speed of their movements that it took him an entire five seconds to register that he was looking directly at the Elder of Spirit in the Protector's Guild.
Flaring the Skill, Felix grabbed at the rocky floor across the entire breadth of the tunnel. It was a tactic that would not have worked only a few hours ago; but now, with his Mana over three thousand, he had power to spare. The ground turned to sludge before dropping away completely as the first of the Spawn hit the trench, sending them toppling down below. The sudden thirty foot drop was not nearly as brutal as the six-foot long sharpened spikes at the bottom.
You Have Killed A Spawn of Hunger (x17)!
XP Earned!
Stone Shaping is level 31!
Stone Shaping is level 32!
The Spawn didn't halt at all, the trench forming too quickly to avoid and their hive-mind/herd mentality too dim to make on the fly decisions. For all their advanced levels, the Spawn were exceptionally stupid beasts.
Not true for the ones that followed. The Knights of Hunger.
Huge and hulking, they were easily fifteen feet tall and about ten feet wide. An avalanche of muscle and fat, they were vaguely humanoid, covered in a similar patchwork of rust-red scales and sickly yellow flesh, and like all Primordial-Spawn their faces were devoid of anything save wide, drooling maws.
The Knights leaped over the trench, treading atop a number of lesser Spawn in their run ups, and landed hard enough to depress the stony soil. They were met immediately with potent orbs of flame and pinpoint strikes of needling kinetic force. The two Knights put up their hands defensively, only for both of them to be lashed by smoking white chains from the ground beneath. Purple-white Mana steamed around them as the Knights bellowed their fury, tearing their limbs free with a minor effort.
But not in time for either of them to avoid three spears a piece striking them directly in the teeth.
The explosion of air Mana rocked the Knights back, throwing one of them prone, and tore gaping, bloody holes in their faces and throats. If they were Human, the fight would have been over. But they had all fought them before, and Felix knew their kind better than most.
Unfettered Volition!
Felix raced out of cover, Harn following a split second after. Of the two of them, Felix was far faster and reached his Knight before Harn had crossed half the distance. Flaring a number of Skills at once, he unleashed hard.
Influence of the Wisp!
Shadow Whip!
Reign of Vellus!
A Knight of Hunger (x2) is Enthralled for 10 Seconds!
Hurling his hands forward, Felix enveloped both of the Knights in wisplight, and the hungry fire began eating them alive. Unable to let that be all, Felix summoned a blackened whip of darkness and brought it smashing down from above, shattering the Knight's arm as it tried to manifest spikes of bone along its length. The arm was forced into the creature's gut by the whip first and then by the wave of kinetic energy that slammed into it like a hydraulic hammer. Blood spurted sideways, gallons of it, and lightning crawled across the immobile monstrosity.
You Have Killed A Knight of Hunger!
XP Earned!
Influence of the Wisp is level 32!
Influence of the Wisp is level 33!
Shadow Whip is level 30!
Felix started toward the second Knight when an axe blazing with silver Mana tore into its chest. He took a step back and looked as Harn jogged the rest of the way, and retreived his weapon.
"Damn, kid. You're a lot faster than before. Is all that from levelin' up?" Harn said, wicking the blood from his axe.
"That and my new Body. I'm a lot more...dense now, I guess." Felix shook his head. "This shouldn't have felt so easy."
"Be glad it did. We could use a little easy. It's only gonna get harder from here." Harn fixed Felix with a contemplative gaze. "I get why you didn't tell us before. About the Maw. Bein' as you are what you are, not knowin' how we'd react...I get it. But from now on, I'm gonna need you ta trust me. Battlin' without knowin' yer allies' capabilities is like fightin' blind and deaf. Easy way ta die."
Felix clenched his jaw, fighting down his first instinct to mention his Blind Fighting Skill, before nodding. "I think I can do that. I trust you, Evie, and Vess."
"Not Atar or the noble welp, huh?" Harn asked, a smile in his voice. "Don't fully blame ya there."
"Atar's alright, but I'd rather Oathbind him than take chances." Felix shook his head. "They're--"
"What is that?"
Felix turned to look at Atar who was jogging up to them. The man pointed beyond the trench Felix had made, to where the Primordial-Spawn had been congregating. Feeding. Glimmers of light shone through the gloom of the tunnel, as if something had been etched along the wall of it. A spike of pain wormed across his brain as Felix looked, and he noticed for the first time a slight pulsing in the ambient Mana all around them. It was very faint, like music heard from rooms away, but there it was.
"It-it's the same as your pages! The same as the Butcher!" Atar crowed and sped toward the lights. Quickly, Felix reversed a portion of his trench, the earth reforming breaths before the fire mage rushed across it. "Sigils, Alister! Felix! Sigils!"
