Chapter Two Hundred and Seventy Two – 272
It wasn't long before Felix found himself in the center of the encampment, surrounded by Henaari, and staring at the darkened opening of the ruined tower.
"I feel this has been a bit rushed," he said to Pit. The tenku blew a sharp breath from his nostrils and rustled his wings. Concern wafted through their bond.
Tower...smells wrong, Pit sent.
"Wrong how?"
Wrong season.
"Wrong?"
The crowd of Henaari shifted, the warriors and craftsmen moving aside to allow through Vess, Evie, and Atar. They found him easily and Evie shoved her way forward.
"Outta the way, string beans!"
"Why are you all here? Where's Harn and everyone?" Felix asked.
"Still getting patched up. Alister is watching them," Atar said and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "But a couple dour looking friends of yours came and ordered us here."
"Said you'd gotten locked into a trial?" Evie raised and eyebrow. "A little early to be breakin' laws, Felix."
"What is happening? And what is that?" Vess asked, pointing at the tower. Her eyes flashed with Mana as her Elemental Eye activated. "Something dark and cold lives in that place, Felix. Please tell me you are not entering it."
"Well," Felix said as he scratched the back of his neck. "Funny storyHey!"
Vess had smacked him across the shoulder. It wasn't a hard hit, at least not to him, but it was surprising regardless.
"Do not joke. Why do you have to do this?" Vess asked.
Felix sighed. "Sorry. They have information we need for my...task. And...and I think if I don't, they're not gonna heal our people anymore. Honestly, I think they might attack us if I try to walk away."
"Two-faced jackals," Atar hissed. "Let them try."
Felix pushed down Atar's fists. "I like the enthusiasm, man, but I'd rather not fight an entire town."
Vess shook her head. "Better we fight than have you face what I suspect is in there."
"Wait, why? What's in the tree-filled safety hazard?" Evie asked.
"The Endless Raven, I think," Felix said. Evie and Atar shared a look before staring at Vess. The heiress had clenched her jaw so hard he was worried she'd crack a tooth.
"You don't know what you are facing. It is an Urge, Felix. They are defined by what they want. Extremely so. But they are also unstable. Erratic." She pushed her dark brown hair back, out of her face. Quite a few strands had escaped the simple tail she'd put it in.
"So the Raven just wants discoveries then? That's it's deal, right?" Felix asked. "So I just tell it how a washing machine works and it'll leave me alone?"
"A washing machine?" Atar asked.
"I don't know how those work, now that I think about it." Felix considered things a moment, his Mind working quickly. "Huh. I don't know how much of anything worked back on Earth."
He was stalling and distracting himself, he knew. His friends knew it too.
"Perhaps you can appease the Urge, but I do not know. Death follows the Raven and those that follow it. That is known." Vess swallowed and looked away, at the tower. "This is a foolish risk."
Felix's expression softened and he gave Vess a smile. "I'll be fine. It's just another god. What's the worst that can happen? Ow!"
Evie had smacked him right on the top of his head. Metal-backed gauntlets and everything. "Don't be dumb."
Felix rubbed at his skull and took a deep breath. All of them were gazing at the tower, now. "No promises."
With little warning, guards replete with hooked spears and bucklers stepped forward to push his friends back into the crowd. Felix moved to stop them, but Vess waved him down even as one of the Synod spoke up.
"All penitents are allowed to give final goodbyes to their loved ones. Now they will witness your Trial." The woman, almost indistinguishable from the rest of the Synod, waved her hands at the guards. They continued to push his friends back.
"I don't like this a whit," Evie said. "You touch me with that spear and you'll find it somewhere you really don't like."
However, all three of them didn't fight as they were pushed to the sidelines, though Atar had his fists clenched and his Mana on the cusp of ejected from his hands and feet. Vess calmed him with a whispered word, yet she looked little better.
"You must leave your weapons behind, outsider," the Matriarch said from among the Synod. She hadn't done a costume change, but he wouldn't have put it past her. The lady seemed preoccupied with appearances. Or maybe it was just her own pride. "The Raven tolerates no blade in its presence."
"No," Felix said, loud enough to be heard over the casual mutter of the crowd. The gathering went silent, even as it gained new members by the second. "Is your god threatened by a mortal's sword?"
The woman sputtered. "No, no of course not! It is tradition!"
"Don't care." Felix walked to the tower's yawning opening, Pit trailing after him. The Matriarch didn't follow, though he heard her whisper something furiously to a member of the Synod.
The Farwalker and Wyvora were both waiting for him at the entrance, the former in his elaborate looking wheelchair and being pushed by the latter. Felix could feel that chill wind against his skin, like an open freezer compared to the summer's heat. The Farwalker looked at himhe was pretty sure but it was hard to tell with the magic face shadowand nodded.The roots of this story extend from novell bìn origin.
"You who have claimed the Right of Wander shall enter the Realm of the Raven. As do all Henaari, you shall seek a Blessing from the Endless Raven, or else you will be forced to revoke the Right of Wander. The consequences of which are dire."
A third sound emerged, one masked by the storm and surf. The sound of screeching avians. Millions of birds materialized from the dark, forming around the massive beak as it swallowed the Giant Fire Beetle. Magpies, crows, starlings, and ravens swirled and swarmed, dark feathers meshing until they formed a creature equal to the hungry beak.
"The Endless Raven," Felix whispered.
Its head alone was the size of a city bus, and it's body was more like a jumbo commercial passenger plane. Except its wings trailed off into the dark and smoke, as if it truly had no end. It undulated its head and throat, and the faint light of the Giant Fire Beetle vanished into the creature's gullet before it twisted and fixed Felix with a single, house-sized eye.
OFFERING?
"Uh..."
SHINY?
It's...just a big bird? Felix was dumbfounded. He'd expected...well, he wasn't sure what he expected, but not this.
OFFERING?
Right. What do I offer? It likes found things, and apparently shiny things. Felix wracked his brain. He recalled the stones and small objects arrayed around the Shrine they'd found, which brings up another memory. He fishes around in his satchel a moment longer before pulling out the small book he'd found, one filled with cramped Henaari script. He held it out.
"For you."
The Raven tilted its head and pushed closer. It was still in the sky, hovering somehow, but also its head pressed forward until it took the book from Felix's fingertips, snagging it with its massive beak.
CAW! it screamed, and Felix jumped. Pit's feathers ruffled at the sound, half his body puffing up. The Raven flapped its wingsonceand vanished.
"Okay?" Felix said after a moment. Was that it? How am I supposed to leave, then?
CAW!
With another trumpeting call, the Raven descended from the cloud cover, and somehow Felix could tell it was pleased. He chalked it up to being bonded to a half-bird for months. The Raven stooped again and shoved its beak into Felix's personal space.
MORE OFFERING?
MORE SHINY?
"I don't have anything," he said. Not anything I'm willing to part with...
Pit nudged him, then clawed at the ground.
"What?"
Stones are shiny.
"Oh. Oh," Felix said. "Will that work?"
Find out, Pit replied.
Stone Shaping!
Felix poured his Mana out of his channels in a torrent of dusty-brown, and the ground before him turned to mush. Flexing his Skill, Felix pulled rock around, shoving dirt and stone as he delved. Deeper and deeper, sensing the types of rock layers beneath the earth. Loam and clay and limestone, followed by a number of rocks he couldn't name but could feel. They felt hard and flat, unimpressive. He moved on.
Felix had never done this before and the process of it felt awkward at first, but his high Intelligence and Willpower helped him push through the unusual application. He sorted through layer after layer, all while the enormous Urge stared at him with something approaching annoyance. It was taking too long. Then, somewhere perhaps forty or fifty feet deep, Felix felt stone he hadn't before. Crystalline, almost.
With a final surge of his Skill, Felix gripped all the he could and brought it up, up, up onto the surface. The soup that had become the ground before him split and parted before the oddly gelatinous arrival of a large crimson and brown stone. More than large, it was fifteen feet wide as he shaped it together again, sloughing off sides and leaving them smooth and polished.
Stone Shaping is level 60!
Stone Shaping is level 61!
Stone Shaping is level 62!
The Raven, far from being annoyed, looked elated. It bobbed its head excitedly, each motion followed by a blast of stormy winds that sent the sparse trees swaying. It picked up the stone and tipped its head back, swallowing it.
YOU HAVE DELVED AND REVEALED, FELIX NEVARRE. WE ARE PLEASED.
"Oh, whoa. Okay." Felix jerked in surprise at the Raven's sudden diction. "I'm glad you're pleased."
YET WE SENSE MORE IN YOU.
"More?" Felix held his hands out. "I have nothing more to give, Endless Raven. Pit?"
The tenku shrugged and shook his head.
YET MORE REMAINS. THERE. UPON YOU.
Felix followed its gaze to his hip, where his satchel rested next to his Crescian Blade. Felix opened the top of his satchel and rooted around for a moment, looking for something, anything. He touched on jerky and trailbread, a change of clothes...nothing that would interest a demigod or whatever Urges qualified as being.
Felix's hands touched something else, hidden in the bottom of his bag. It was cool to the touch yet sparked in his grip, and Felix swallowed nervously before withdrawing his hand. Glittering in the muted lightning, he held a key made of a clear, faceted gemstone.
Omen Key.
The Raven's eyes glittered.
