"What?" he asked.
"You do too much yourself," the Naiad murmured, low enough that few would hear.
"I can handle it. My Mana will regenerate before we get halfway across this chamber," Felix said.
"That's not the point, Felix. You devalue your people," she said. Her ice blue eyes flicked back toward the company behind them. "If you do everything for them, then what are they to think of their purpose? Why should they grow strong if you fight their battles for them?"
"What? I'm not, I'm just using my resources as wisely as I can," Felix protested.
"She is right," Vess said from his other side. She looked back at the Legion, Dawnguard, and Frost Giants, all of them watching Felix or the waters or Garox. "Leading is as much about delegation as it is taking responsibility for the welfare of others. They are your resources as well, and providing them a purpose, a task, especially in situations like this? It will hold them together."
"And hold them to you all the more," Zara said, flashing her sharp teeth.
Felix frowned. He could see the sense of it, had even been doing exactly that back in his Stronghold, if only because he literally couldn't do everything at once. Not that he hadn't wanted to..."Alright. Point taken. Battlelord Ari," he said.
"Yes, Autarch?"
"I will need your people's help," he said with a smile. The Battlelord's stoic expression never changed, but he nodded and listened as Felix described what he needed. All of them had the passive Mantle of the Long Night as he once had, which could generate ice in a field around them, but was entirely too broad for his current needs. However, over half also had access to some form of Rime Shaping. Together they built a large barge out of shaped ice and some tangled roots Felix grew from the mossy walls. The roots sank through the ice, reinforcing what was basically a big, flat rectangle with a railing around it.
All in all, it took them perhaps five minutes of concerted effort to fashion the barge, likely double the time it would have taken Felix alone. Yet the jangling notes of pleasure and approval from the Frost Giant's Spirits was enough to convince him he had done the right thing. Moreover, Ari himself had shaped the hull, adding far more of a draft to it. When Felix had asked why the shape mattered, the Battlelord had only muttered, "Stability."
He had left it at that.
As his team climbed aboard, the whole thing bobbed a bit but was so wide it accepted their weight easily. When the giants climbed up, it sank considerably, as when Felix and Pit had boarded, but the deep draft kept it from sinking too far. It felt steady and solid as a rock. Felix met Ari's eyes and nodded. "Stability."
The barest flash of white shone through the Battlelord's blue lips, easily mistaken for a grimace, unless you could hear someone's Spirit. Satisfaction and approval thrummed across the giant's emotions...and not just the giant's. Vess and Zara looked on, their Spirits almost a match before the Naiad clamped control over her own.
Felix strode to the prow while the Frost Giants moved to the sides, oars of shaped ice in their hands. Yet before they began to move forward, the water roiled before them. Two Naga rose from the depths, sending a spasm of fear through literally everyone; they were both giant serpents, though lesser in size than Jadorak. Garox gestured to them, a bit impatiently.
"These two will tow your vessel in our wake. Come." He turned and began winding across the chamber. "We will waste no more time."
Fashioning a set of vine-ropes from the bare hints of plant matter in the ship, Felix handed them over to the Nagafolk, both of which took them gently in their mouths before swimming forward. With a lurch, they were off.
"Oh, shit," Felix said, turning. He anchored his feet, even forming a quick Rime Shaping to hold him to the barge.
Adamant Discord!
A flash of blue-white lightning surged across the chamber, hitting the far doors and pulling, hard. The barge and the Naga both jerked to a sudden, hissing halt. Felix flared his Skill and yanked the heavy, warded doors shut with a muffled boom. The wards flared blue, sealing shut automatically. The two Naga looked at him, irritation clear on their snake faces.
"Sorry. Left the front door open. We're good now."
Confusion and annoyance swirled on both of the serpents, but they cast it aside. If they happened to jerk them all a little harder than necessary in their rush to catch up to Garox, then Felix didn't blame them, though one of the Legionnaires almost fell off.
"Can't have him touching that Gate," Felix muttered to the others.
"Wise," Atar said, eyeing the water and giant snakes. "I don't trust these things."
"They're big snake people," Evie said, leaning against the railing languidly. "What's not to trust?"
"Don't lean. Unless you want to fall in," Harn warned her. Evie stuck her tongue out at him, but she straightened up.
"So...we're going to meet a king," Alister said. "And none of us are dressed properly."
"A scandal," Evie said, lips quirking up. "We'll never show our faces in snake society again."
Alister nodded, sagely. "Mhm. Though in all seriousness, do we know the protocol for meeting a Nagafolk king? I haven't even heard of their monster Type, let alone knew they had royalty."
Felix looked to his Chanter mentor. "Zara?"
She shook her head. "Little is known, other than they claim dominion over many of the deeper bodies of water in the Ghreldan Hills. I did not know their kind were so organized, however, nor their claim of royalty. I can only surmise that one of their kind evolved beyond all the others and took control of this Temple. It would certainly appear attractive as a den, especially to creatures that are not known for building anything for themselves."
"The Deepking is strong, at least stronger than Garox," Felix said, working out what they knew. "Some of those serpents down there are huge, but Garox was smaller. So perhaps this king will be smaller still, more Human?"
"I do not know the evolutionary stages for their Type, and based on Garox's reverence, this Deepking could very well be something far from the norm," Zara said.
"You think you could take em?" Evie asked. "If we have to?"
Felix considered a moment, running down the details he knew. He even threw a quick Voracious Eye at their escorts. They proved far weaker than Jadorak, leveled in the high one hundreds. "I think so. My concern is for everyone else."
"They'll be fine," Evie said, waving her hand casually. "Probably."
Vess snorted, then blushed. "Should conflict erupt, we shall prioritize keeping them from harm so long as we can, Felix. You and Zara are by far the strongest individuals here and are better spent focusing on the larger threats."
"Hm," Harn grunted in agreement and Felix smiled.
They were led through chamber after chamber, all huge, all twisted and broken as if they had fallen a great distance. Yet, somehow, they endured as whole structures, and even exuded a palpable sense of power. Zara commented she could feel the water now, all around them. They had to be several hundred feet below the surface. That made Atar very uncomfortable, but honestly no one was happy about it. Pit least of all. The poor tenku's wings were sagging the longer they remained in the sunken ruins, and there was a steady thread of yuck, too much water, too wet, too low from him. Felix extended what comfort he could, if only emotionally.
In each chamber they traversed, Felix could sense more of the Naga. Many were resting on ledges, and more still were below the waters, coiled in great piles of scales and fangs. A nightmare, but one that was quiescent at the moment. He hoped. Felix couldn't feel much from the sleeping Naga, though the ones pulling him were clear as day, their Spirits unguarded and remarkably uncomplicated. Flitting emotions of pride and irritation, mild discomfort, even a thinly-veiled hunger when one of them caught sight of Felix's company.
Garox was different. From him came nothing but a calm certainty, his Spirit a placid well of tranquility so utterly unlike the naked hostility of Jadorak that it was like Garox was an entirely different species.
I suppose he is. A Spirit Naga, whatever that might mean.
While his allies spoke quietly among themselves, Felix made a point to study the Nagafolk. How they moved, their bodies, everything he could glean. According to the feel of his Voracious Eye, most they encountered hovered around Tier II, but there were still many, Garox included, who were Tier III. Tier III was the equivalent of a Journeymen combatant, and probably on the stronger side too. Monsters usually were, according to everyone he'd ever met. They also seemed as agile as their Lore suggested, but their scales weren't as dense on their bellies. If they were to fight, he surmised that he could conjure ice spikes up into their undersides, putting them out of commission in rapid order.
Yet again, Garox was another thing entirely. He may have only been Tier IIIand that made him a match for most of his companybut he wasn't just a serpent. With humanoid arms and the weapons sheathed at his waist, he had all the deadly grace of the serpent form Nagas but with the added versatility of a bipedal warrior. He would require a substantial investment of power to defeat. Felix, Zara, or even Darius (maybe) could manage it without much issue, but it'd take them from the fight of the literal hundreds around them.
No. Fighting wasn't the way he wanted to get out of the sunken Temple. He could only hope the Deepking actually wanted to talk, and this wasn't a drawn out ruse to eat them.
At the end of a long, winding passage, they reached a wide set of doors made of an ivory material. Eyeing it, Felix was surprised to find it was bone, and made far more crudely than anything else they had seen. Garox moved in front of it, still atop the water, and traced his long-fingered hands across its surface. Sigils ignited sepia and dark blue in an array that lifted the bone door straight up into the ceiling, revealing a relatively small chamber fronted by another bone door. Garox gestured them to follow, and they proceeded to cram themselves into it. Once inside, the rear doors closed again and sealed.
"This is...unnerving," Alister said.
"Those sigils are just a sealing ward, to prevent entry or exit," Atar said. "But why have us all in here?"
At the far end, the bone doors flashed with light and slide upward, and suddenly the water roared and the barge bucked upward. Everything began moving far faster, and Felix had to clench onto the ice-railing to keep his footing. They drifted forward, faster and faster, until they hit the point where the doors had been...and the roaring and drop was made clear.
Below the river-like passage turned into a spiraling set of cascading rapids, set with fallen stones and roaring spray.
"Brace!" Harn and Darius shouted at once, and the barge dropped into the chaos.