Threshold: A LitRPG Adventure (Unbound Book 5) Page 2

  "Sing the song of passage, milady," it chirped in the common tongue.

  Zara smiled, lips over her sharp teeth, and let out a short, melodic whistle. From her lips came the sound of thick paper turning in calloused hands, and the creak of cured skin, bound with glue and thread. The small owl let out an appreciative hoot and flitted back up to the rafters.

  "Keep an eye on the door," Zara murmured before moving into the back room.

  Hidden along the side of her office was a second door cleverly built into a false wall. No magic or music hid it away, just tricky engineering. She tripped the disguised latch and entered, closing it behind her.

  Within was a long, narrow room that smelled of sage and must. At the far end, to which she hustled, there was a basin of water atop an elegantly carved wooden stand. The basin was made of beaten copper, and it was empty. Another whisper of Will set aquamarine power flowing down Zara's fingers and into the bowl, until the liquid Mana began to swirl rapidly in a counterclockwise motion.

  A note escaped Zara's lips, a sound that reverberated in the narrow room as if it were an amphitheater. Blue and gold briefly flashed in her vision as the System noticed her song. But soon the aquamarine increased, and the swirling Mana rose out of the copper basin. All at once, it formed into the shape of a skull. It was followed by tendons and muscle and skin forming over the skull, layering over itself until it formed a facsimile of a floating, withered head.

  "You're late," the head accused.

  "Forgive me, Mauvim, it has been a busy day," Zara said with a bow of her neck. "I have been advising the new Lady of Haarwatch, guiding her in the power she now finds within herself. It is remarkable what power true System Authority grants a person."

  "Babysitting nobility, newly made or not, was not your task. What of the Unbound?" Mauvim's voice was sharp as a whip, and Zara thought she heard a note of worry. "Is he ready for what is coming?"

  "He is..." Zara let herself trail off, her Spirit tracing the faint connection she had with the boy. He stood somewhere to the west, most likely the Wall again. "There is still work to be done."

  Mauvim hummed to herself, her jowls quivering. "Then you must push him. Things are changing quickly. Word of more arrivals has spread along back channels and secret messengers,."

  "Did our people find them first?" Zara asked, and it was as if a fist clenched her heart.

  "Unclear. Silence has taken hold. The Hierocracy received word of a 'great threat' to the south and has sent its Paladins to seek them out. Three entire battalions into the Expanse." Mauvim shook her head and continued. "Early word from Isla is that the Unbound has taken the form of a Minotaur, of all things, but I've not heard from her in weeks. Regardless, if the Expanse doesn't kill the Unbound, the paladins will."

  Zara frowned. The Paladins were worse than the Inquisitors, and far stronger. "Does Isla request aid?"

  "She wouldn't even if she could. You know the scrutiny she faces in the sands."

  Zara did indeed know. The Scorched Expanse was nearly as anathema to Sorcerers as the Hierocracy, if for different reasons. "And of the others?"

  The tiny head of her mentor harrumphed. "Little is known. To the north, we’ve heard rumors of a Gnome with strange powers, and the east is as quiet as ever, but that is to be expected. The border lets little through, even information on the strains of Song." Mauvim fixed Zara with a single, unblinking eye. Rendered of Mana and catalyzed Spirit, it was far more elastic than her true face, which the ancient Sorcerer only used to enhance her meaning. "Your experiment. Is it through? He is truly Nymean?"

  "Yes." Zara nodded. "Things and information have changed since last we spoke, however." She swallowed, a bit nervously. Though she had reported the results of the Territory-Wide Quest, she had not gone into much detail in her last missive. When last she had fully reported in, Felix had just arrived back in Haarwatch. With quick words, she explained the events that had unfolded the past several months. Mauvim, for her part, listened with increasingly boggled eyes.

  "...And that brings us to now. We have the city under control, and we're attempting to shore up defenses before any more redcloaks arrive or the threat of the Archon manifests once again."

  "Two cores? Divine and Primordial?" Mauvim muttered to herself. Her Spirit lashed wildly from fear to hope and back to terror. "And his Race...he has become a Primordial? But what of the infection? The curse all Primordials suffer under?"

  "Entirely absent," Zara said, though she couldn't quite believe it herself. "The Maw's influence nearly ruined this region, but when Felix absorbed the last of it, all of those changes were nullified. Somehow, the boy is free of the Blind Gods' curse upon Primordials, though we have not yet dared to experiment with his blood."

  "Remarkable," Mauvim breathed. "Denied a god, a Lost one no less, and fought off an invasion. He is the greatest candidate yet, Zara. We must bring him in. The others need to meet him."

  "That is the plan, but...the dangers here are not to be ignored. There is much to do before he can access the interior of the Continent." Zara could feel the wounds in the city where the Archon's Mark had cut into the ambient Mana. "The Archon must be dealt with, once and for all."

  "Very well." Her mentor sighed. "Little is known of your true situation in the west, at least as of now. But word has spread of the Foglands opening up for the first time in recorded history; that would have been impossible to hide. The Inviolate Order was clearly suppressing it before, but now the news spreads like wildfire among the merchants. Talk is of rare resources the likes of which we've never seen. Your little town will be awash in new presences sooner rather than later. You do not have much time to get him out of there before things get complicated further."

  Mauvim drew herself up, for all that she was a projected head of Spirit and Mana. "The Order is making moves. Your dispatch of the Master Inquisitor was felt, even here, though the Grand Inquisitor has not yet taken action. She sits within the Enclave, still. As long as she remains far from you, you can remove your threats with time enough to secure the Unbound." Mauvim paused again. "I feel a quiver in your Spirit. What is it?"

  Zara grimaced. "A few redcloaks survived, and they ride for Setoria with news that Haarwatch has fallen to a Primordial."

  "What!?"

  Zara bore witness to a great many curses and off-color phrases, ones she had never before heard in her long life. So many that the ancient woman eventually ran out of languages and merely sputtered in rage.

  "I will see what can be done about Setoria. But we run short on time, all of us," Mauvim managed after a while. "We cannot tarry. Events are pushing forward faster by the day. Is this Felix worthy? Will he serve?"

  "The boy has made questionable Choices, some of which he hides. But I believe he is worthy, yes," Zara nodded to herself, letting conviction swell within her Spirit. "I believe he will serve against what comes."

  "He must. They all must. The darkness on the horizon has begun to blot out the edges of the Song. It is faint, but the fledgling seers all speak the same. Ruin advances."

  Mauvim fixed Zara with ageless eyes. "We must all be ready for the war to come."

  Felix stood upon the battlements of the Wall, peering again into the darkness of the forest. The sun had set, and three moons were hovering before him, two blue and one silver. The Twins and Siva. He glanced at them, his Perception enough to make out their pocked faces and empty seas. Other than their color, they seemed so very similar to the moon of his home, yet his Affinity tingled.

  Vellus was chained to her own moon. Are the other gods the same? He chewed his lip. Am I staring at more gods?

  Pit let out a derisive note as he flew by, buffeting Felix with wind and making him laugh.

  "Yeah, I'm not a fan of the gods either, at this point," Felix said to his Companion. "Makes me wish I could go back to being an atheist. At least then it was just other people trying to screw me over."

  "What was that?"

  Felix looked up and saw Hector Ty'nel stepping out of one of the Wall's many enclosures. A Human of middle years, he was around the same height as Felix and bore a well-groomed goatee. He was wiping a series of styluses on a rag that sparked in the dark.

  "Oh, just complaining," Felix said. "Pit's a good listener, even if he won't sit still."

  On cue, Pit dropped from the skies with a clatter of claws and eight hundred pounds of muscle. The orichalcum battlements rang like a gong as he hit, each claw striking a different tone. Pit pushed against Felix, nuzzling his giant head against his chest in a way that was at first endearing then quickly annoying.

  Treat?

  "You big pig," Felix muttered and pulled out a ream of jerky he'd scrounged up earlier. Pit snagged the whole of it, gulping it down in an instant. "Hey! Some of that was for me."

  Pit put his head down, feigning regret, but Felix could feel the jerk's Spirit. He was happy as a clam.

  "I've got some food from my wife, if you want to share, Felix," Hector offered. Felix happily took him up on that, giving Pit a squint and grimace.

  Pit trilled out pleased birdsong and leaped into the air, already taking laps again.

  Pit's Flight is level 42!

  Hector laughed. "He's a handful, that one. Still can't believe you've tamed a Chimera, though."

  "Tame is not entirely accurate," Felix said with a smile. "It's more of a partnership thing."

  "Aye, a Pact. People've been talking about it since you saved the city," Hector sat down and pulled out a large, hard-bottomed satchel. He pulled out various cloth-wrapped items, and Felix's mouth watered. "I've heard quite a few have gone looking for their own Pact to make."

  Felix sighed. "Yeah, those idiots below are all clamoring for me to tell them how to do it. They don't particularly care that it has drawbacks.
"

  "Ah, the Fiend's Legion," Hector laughed and handed Felix an unwrapped sandwich. Felix's Voracious Eye took it in: roast avum, onions, some sort of lettuce knock-off, and thick brown bread. "You can't really blame them. They see you, how powerful you've become, and they want to emulate that. Kind of flattering, I think."

  The Fiend's Legion was the name of the self-styled defenders of the city. They had taken up watch over the massive hole left in the Wall by the Apollyon and were preventing any monsters from entering the city. There hadn't been many in the past week.

  "You deal with it, then." Felix groaned and took a bite. "Oh holy crap, this is good," he said around a mouthful.

  "I'll pass the thanks along to the cook," Hector said, beaming. "Nea hasn't had much time to cook, what with all the brewing and concocting she's had to do. Been living on what I could scrounge from the grocer down on Echo Lane, but Nea got mad when she heard. She went all out for tonight."

  Felix smiled as Hector spoke. His voice was warm, and he could literally hear the love he had for his wife in his voice; it rippled across his Spirit with such clarity that it humbled him. Felix and the Alchemist hadn't always been on the best terms, and it was interesting to see another side of her.

  "How's your kid doing with all this? Amaya, right?" Felix asked. "Hard as this is for us adults, I can't imagine dealing with it so young."

  "She's handled it well, though mostly that was because we found your camp so early on." Hector shook his head. He stared out over the battlements, back toward the city. Lights were picked out among the dark shapes of rubble and ruin, but far too few. "The first few hours after the tower fell? It was a nightmare. Things are coming around now, slow as it is."

  Felix nodded. He'd been unconscious for a large portion of those early hours, but he'd heard enough tales to last a lifetime. Revenants rampaging across the city, the Eyrie collapsing, people across the city dying in droves. He couldn't help but feel guilty about it. So much of what happened had been—well not his doing exactly, but he had been involved.

  Guilt didn't have to make sense.

  Hector and Felix talked and ate, weaving between topics of sigaldry and his family life. Amaya was a cool kid, a bit precocious, and reminded him of Gabby. His sister, the one he'd left on a boat with her hurt friend.

  God, I hope they're both okay. That mom is okay and isn't missing me too much. The thought made him sad, enough apparently for Hector to notice.

  "Sorry, I can go for days when I talk about my kid, ya know?" Hector smiled and wiped his hands. He began picking up the discarded cloth and replacing them in his satchel. They had worked through the large spread very quickly, but that was to be expected of folks with Journeyman Bodies. He could go a long while without any food, but when he ate, he had to eat. They needed the energy, anyway, especially if they were gonna work all night again. "You ready to get back down there?"

  "Yeah, might as well get back to it. There's a lot to do." Felix stretched and tried to think happier thoughts, like all the Skill levels he'd gained since he'd begun this project.

  "We're a bit away from the foundational arrays, but you're learning fast. We should have this Wall working again in a day. Two at most." Hector patted Felix on the back and walked back into the enclosure, where a set of spiral stairs led down into the guts of the Wall.

  Felix hung back, looking at the sky. Stars were spread across the cloudless night, more than he'd ever seen in his life, and he could pick up a dark shadow flitting across them.

  Back at it, Pit. Keep an eye on those dorks down below, yeah?

  A single, hawk-like cry cut through the dark, and affirmation thrummed across their bond. Felix nodded to himself and got back to work.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Theurgist of the Rise is level 65!

  Invocation is level 42!

  Felix had been learning a lot in the past few days. While part of his retreat into the Wall had been to escape the… consequences of notoriety, it was also to sate his curiosity. When initially surveying the Wall for major issues, Felix and his team had encountered more than the giant hole in the center. Sigils had been burned out, and entirely new sigaldry had scored itself into the magical metal.

  It was Profane Sigaldry, the Archon's own creation, and it was a perfect opportunity to advance his sigil Skill. Theurgist of the Rise was a combination of Sigils of the Primordial Dawn—according to Zara, a sort of ur-script, a precursor to modern work—and the Archon's Profane Sigaldry. Toge,her, they interacted in the strangest of ways, which meant standard modes of sigil training had limited effects for him.

  Hector was more than happy to study a new inscription style, as were Atar and Alister. They were somewhere nearby, likely on the other section. Hector and his team of eight Iron Rank Inscriptionists had made it to the lower levels of the Wall, where the more complicated arrays were housed.

  "Felix, look at this," Hector said, four hours after their evening meal. He pointed to a circular array of sigils molded into the orichalcum panel. Felix's eyes flickered across it—his Skill humming as he did.Names and connections spooled out in his Mind, as much his own memory as the Skill boosting him. He recognized maybe forty percent of what he was inspecting at any given time.

  "Strengthening array with a… kinetic buffer," Felix said. "Same as all the rest on this level."

  "Not that, this," Hector clarified, pointing at the diagonal slash of scorched markings across the array. Profane Sigaldry. All of the arrays had been marred in some way by them. "It's not just the sigils used here, it's the positioning. Look," Hector traced his finger along the scorched line, twisted, inverted magical markings describing a path across the majority of the original array. "The way it cuts into each major glyph is intentional. The only thing I can't figure out is the language itself."

  Felix pointed at the Profane Sigaldry. "I told you. It's inverted. The runes take up the negative space the standard stuff doesn't occupy."

  "Runes?" Hector asked, eyebrow raised.

  Felix rolled his eyes at his own lapse. "Sigils. It's a name from—nevermind." He traced out a symbol near the glyph—a combination of sigils to form a centralized symbol—for the kinetic buffer. "This is the inverted symbol for force. It's… huh. It must be directly countering the array it crosses. Wow. That must have taken some serious effort to do."

  Hector blinked at him, and Felix realized his assistants were as well. The Inscriptionist stroked his goatee. "Serious effort. You aren't kidding. There is no possible way this could have been done by an enemy leagues away. Either we're dealing with a genius savant with powers far beyond us—in which case, we should simply run—or this was sabotage."

  Felix's mind flashed to the Arcids, the three that had infiltrated Haarwatch and had caused so much damage. "Sabotage makes sense. But I wouldn't push magical bullshit off the table just yet. If I've learned anything the past few months, it’s that the Continent has an unending supply of it."

  That got a few chuckles, weak humor though it was. Felix was preaching to the choir a bit; having their Guild and town pulled down around them by a super monster and its spawn had left its impression.

  Felix left Hector to his work and walked along the interior chambers of Haarwatch's Wall. Everything glowed faintly, suffused with Mana that coursed through the simplest inscriptions and the ones that were damaged the least. Cal had sent power to the fortification with her Authority, but she hadn't much to spare at the start. Even a week later the resources that Haarwatch had operated on were too depleted to do much more than power a few defensive constructs. It wasn't enough to fight off another monster horde. Not yet.

  He meandered down another set of stairs, accompanied by that red-gold glow. The Guild had been pretty Spartan about their decorations: there was a tapestry every hundred yards, but that was about it. The tapestries depicted the Guild logo, a spear and sword crossed over a shield. The subdued architecture was interesting despite the drapery, done in a style that Felix recognized from below the city and a few other places. Nymean architecture, he supposed.