Chapter Three Hundred And Forty Five - 345
"Wherehow did you approach without my noticing, Felix?" Zara asked.
Felix only shrugged. "My Agility and Dexterity are pretty good now."
"That shouldn't matter, it's your Aspects that resonate with the Grand Harmony," Zara said, her own Spirit still doing that shuddering spasm. Felix frowned. "I can see you, but you feel..." she blinked. "Everywhere." She looked up, directly at where the Tree was soaring above them. "Spreading around us like the branches of a tree."The origin of this chapter's debut can be traced to N0v3l--B1n.
"Ah," Felix said. "Yes, well. My Spirit Tree and I have more in common than I had figured, I guess."
Zara stared before she laughed. It felt as tired as it sounded, and it unnerved Felix. She's more worn out than I realized.
He had been working with Aenea, attempting to fashion a Cleansing Potion. It was the best she could manage, but said it would be possible with the materials on hand and System provided equipment. Unfortunately, it was not a swift endeavor. Aenea said it would take at least a day to properly make, and even that was pushing it. Which was when Karys made Felix aware of strange vibrations emanating from near the Temple. With no reason to linger in the Alchemical Lab, Felix stepped out to look at it and found the rarefied vibrations coming from Zara's residence. It was no less surprising that his friends were there, practicing.
"Wait, Felix is a Tree now?" Evie asked. "How many things can you pack into those muscles before you burst? Maybe make yourself into a Manaship next. It'd make travel a lot easier."
"Shut up," Felix said, smiling.
"Since you're all here, I won't have to repeat myself," Zara interjected, and gestured for them all to follow deeper into the bore she'd made in his mountain. Twenty strides in she paused and looked around herself; Felix could almost feel her feather-light touch testing the boundaries of her crafted room. Wards of aquamarine light were sunk deep in the walls of the place, wards that Felix guessed prevented sound and light from exiting this mostly sealed cavern. "Please. Conjure a chair. You may wish to sit for this."
Taking cue from the others, Felix drew on his Affinity and Intent, sounding his Skill and shaping its effect. Four armchairs rose from the striated stone floor, as if injection molded from the earth itself, with nothing more than the faintest whisper of sound. Zara looked impressed.
"You have come a long way, Felix," she said.
Felix disregarded her words, though he didn't miss the disgruntled look from Evie and Atar as they all sat. Zara ignored them all, contemplating her folded hands as if secrets were written there. "I belong to an...organization. Called the Cantus Sodalus."
"I'm aware," Felix said, surprised at the anger in his own voice. He had hoped for a flash of emotion from the woman, but she had mastered her Spirit once again, and only silence met his senses. "I saw the evidence of that in the Mark you left on me."
Zara clenched her jaw. "That was only to keep track of you, Felix. When you left the city, I could not risk you falling beyond my reach."
"So you Marked me? Without my consent?" Felix asked. "I thought we were to trust one another?"
"We are. But there is more that you do not know. Could not, until it was time. I" Zara ran a hand through her sea-green locks. "My order"
"Chanters, I assume," Vess said.
"Indeed. All of us are well-versed in the mysteries, dedicated to preserving the ancient histories and uncovering the secrets of Lost Ages. To keeping the world alive, no matter the cost." She met Felix's gaze. "Four years ago, the Divine Oracles of the Hierocracy all saw the same thing, echoed across the fabric of the future. A silence stalking the far flung higher realms, expanding as it came. It left every one of them broken in Mind and Spirit, sundered by the experience, unable to utter anything but a single word."
"Ruin," Felix breathed. The others stilled, their attention sharpened.
"I do."
Zara stopped, and it was a measure of her fatigue that her Spirit was audible to Vess and Felix both; he could see the heiress wince at its intensity. Her Spirit flip-flopped, a fish floundering in consternation and astonishment. "How?"
Felix frowned, his eyes feeling dim as embers. "Dreams."
The next thirty minutes were spent explaining his recurring dreams to Zara and the rest. He hadn't really shared them with anyone outside Pit and Karys, and the latter only because he'd been there for one of Felix's many rude awakenings. When he briefly touched on his Omen Path and the vision of seven Unbound all being held by Paladins...that had piqued Zara's interest immensely. Yet when she inquired deeper on his Path he shut her down; Felix had no interest in sharing the details of his Omen Path and only gave the bare minimum of what she required.
"You have built a connection to the other Unbound, one that I'm assuming exists regardless due to your all being summoned together," Zara mused as she walked. "Your Affinity has grown, and your power...Whatever happened to you during your Omen Path must have strengthened the link, enough for these visions to interfere with your dreams."
"Why dreams, though?" Atar asked. "Seers and oracles operate on the whimsy of dreams, but Felix is neither of those."
"Dreams, all dreams, touch upon the Cognitive and Ethereal Realms. Thoughts drift along connections, skirting the vast expanse of the Void, intermingling and diving into the confluence of all things...There is much that even the dreams of mortals can unveil," Zara said.
Felix frowned at the thought. "So my Affinity has snagged onto these strengthened connections and is...transmitting events around them? How does that work?"
"You are not seeing events exactly the moment they unfold, but echoes upon the fabric of the Continent," Zara explained. "Seers function similarly, though they call it by different terms. None would admit that what they do is closer to Sorcery than their limited understanding of magic. The Masters and Grandmasters know, but true Seeing as done by an Oracle is too powerful to be tossed aside. Bah." She waved her hand, dismissing the lot of it. "They are finding resonance with your own nature, and the echoes follow after. If we can establish a stronger link, then we might even be able to locate them. Before the Hierophant or any other nation can."
"And what makes your group better than the rest?" Felix demanded. "All I am hearing is justifications and excuses. How would you use us, Zara?"
The room went quiet as Felix and Zara matched stares. It was not so much a battle of Wills as it was an effort of sincerity; Felix wanted her to offer him a reason, an idea, something. Yet in the end, the Naiad let her eyes drop.
"We would ask that you fight the Ruin," she said.
"That is precisely what you are admonishing the Hierophant for attempting," Vess accused, and Zara held out her hands.
"No. No, I am asking. We are asking. To fight against this is not something one can be coerced or tricked into attempting, it must be a decision made with the fullness of the truth. A Choice." Zara looked again to Felix. "That is what my order is offering you. A Choice to fight...or to flee."
"Flee?" he asked.
"Where there is a summons, there must also be the inverse," she explained. "If you wished itif you Chosewe would give whatever aid we could to send you home."
Home. What?
Before Felix could even begin to process that, Zara knelt upon the ground. She lowered her head, but kept her vivid eyes on his own. "Please. Eight others such as yourself in the hands of those madmen; free for them to shape, to influence. It would be almost as bad as the Ruin itself. Please help me find them."
Felix's jaw worked, Mind awhirl with the implications of all she had revealed. In the end, however, he found his resolve. "...What do you need me to do?"
