That's new. His awareness floated closer. Wonder what it means?
"Pactlord."
Felix resurfaced to find Wyvora standing a respectful distance from him. He raised a questioning eyebrow.
"The Farwalker would like to speak with you."
Ready, Pit sent. He was digging his beak into his covert feathers, but had stood up.
"Alright," Felix said, and the Henaari started walking away. Pit followed and Felix was about to when he spotted something on the ground. He bent down and picked it up. It was the leaf Vess had plucked from his clothes. It looked like any other leaf, if out of season, but what caught his eye was the small wisp of purple Mana had had started to leak from its edge.
Why not? Ravenous Tithe.
The hand-sized leaf burst into dark violet smoke, streaming from his hand directly into his mouth.
"Pactlord?"
"Hm? Coming."
Wyvora led him back to the Farwalker, who sat in his wheelchair, lightly stroking A'zek. The giant cat regarded Felix with fierce brown eyes that flashed in the morning sun. Few others remained nearby. The Matriarch and the Synod had all retreated, and the guards had followed them save for the one or two he could sense nearby, watching him.
"So," the Farwalker said. His face, cowled and hooded, was still a nest of unnatural shadow. "You have met the Endless Raven. How did you find the experience?"
"Unique," Felix said with a thin smile. "That portal thing though, that's interesting. Talons of Mzal, huh? How do they even work?"
"A bit of ancient magic. Urges, you see, operate slightly differently than you or I. Where as we live our lives in the Corporeal Realm, Urges dip between all three. In order to visit an Urge, one must either be invited into their territory, be taken, or you get extremely clever."
"Uh huh, and I assume you did the latter," Felix said.
"Not I, but a Matriarch of old did, yes. The Talons are used to form a sympathetic bridge between its material and where the Raven roosts. Affinity and Resonance established with a leading Intent and the Raven's own power fuels the rest," he said.
"A bridge. How? Wait," Felix crossed his arms in thought. "The Urge's role. Finding things in the dark, bringing them to the light. Is that the connection?"
The Farwalker leaned forward. "Exactly it. The influx of life Mana upon the dying tree is enough of a beacon to attract the curiosity of the Endless Raven. Where did you hear of roles?"
"The Raven was pretty chatty," Felix said. "Wouldn't stop talking once I gave it some rocks."
"Rocks?" Wyvora said, and by her tone she was aghast and confused at the same time. "You gave our god rocks?"
"In my defense, they were pretty shiny," Felix said. Wyvora sputtered while the Farwalker laughed.
"You've found the way to the Raven's heart, Felix Nevarre. I am impressed."
Not like it was hard. The bird kept shouting "shiny shiny." You'd have to be an idiot not to figure that one out.
Outloud, Felix merely smiled. "I try."
"You succeed. It is something I am quite curious about. Come, walk with me." The Farwalker gestured and Wyvora began to push his chair along a stone path. It was broken by stretches of earth, as it was not something the Henaari had built but found, along with the tower behind them. Still, the chair barely jostled, a testament to either Wyvora's care or the chair's craftsmanship. "How did you find your Companion?"
Felix raised an eyebrow and Pit let out a deep chuff of air. "That's a bit of a story, but I saved him from a monster that was trying to eat him. Here, in the Foglands."
"Eat him?" A'zek looked disgusted. "Who would even dare?"
"The Seven-Legged Orit."
The harnoq stopped in its tracks, though the rest of them kept walking. "Truly? You bested a Twisted One?"
"More than one, by my count," Felix said. "If I'm guessing right on what you mean by Twisted One, Pit helped with the last two."
A'zek growled. "A creature touched by madness, twisted in shape by the blood of the Teeth Below."
Felix's mouth thinned and he nodded. "Yeah, we're talking about the same things. Blood Beasts. Primordial spawn."
A firm, insistent grip grabbed at Felix's forearm. It was the Farwalker, and his body language was taut as a drum. "Primordial. It remains in the Foglands?"
"...No," Felix said. Not as it was, at least.
The Farwalker didn't release Felix's arm. "It is unlike a Primordial to simply leave, not without terrible consequences for those left behind. Many Henaari have been lost to their kind. Are you sure?"
"I'm positive. The Maw is gone." That was absolutely true, and Felix didn't even feel guilty saying it. He wasn't the Maw, after all. "It was trapped beneath Shelim, in a labyrinth built by the Geist. We...I found it. I ended it."
The Farwalker held onto him a heatbeat longer, staring up at Felix's face from the darkness of his hood. Then he let him go. "You speak the truth. Remarkable. Impossible."
Felix snorted and tried to downplay it. "Less impossible and more just very, very annoying. Pit was essential in surviving it. I'd be dead if it weren't for him." Pit pushed out his chest, and pride for Felix thrummed through their connection. Felix ruffled the enormous bird-dog's head. "How did you and A'zek meet?"
"He stepped on me," the harnoq said in a flat tone.
"I did not. I stepped on the ground, and the ground fell apart," the Farwalker said.
"And then you stepped on me," A'zek insisted. "I remember it quite clearly. You've Tempered your Mind too well to keep the memory from me."
"Bah!" The Farwalker motioned to have Wyvora push him a bit faster. Felix walked beside him, passing beneath a number of ornate, free-standing archways. "Regardless, he was skin and bones when I found him, and I fed him until he was returned to full Health. As payment, I asked that he help me find an object I was hunting here in the Foglands."
"Mm," the panther-like A'zek hummed. "We never did find it."
"No," the Farwalker said and sighed. It was wistful and a little amused. "Just all those snakes."
A'zek shuddered.
Huh. You'd think a half lizard would be fine with snakes.
"Our meeting is emblematic of my people," the Farwalker continued. "We wander, we search, and in the doing we find that which was Lost, hidden, or otherwise forgotten. My Companion Pact with A'zek was the first in our clan's history, and though we keep only oral records, they reach far. We know that, though our Urge guides us, whispers her Blessings, we have roamed long before we discovered her holy purpose. Why has long been forgotten, though I have...guesses."
Felix remained silent. This felt less like a conversation and more like a lecture.
"To see another Companion Pact established not only nearby, but both Chimeras? Though our pacts were established centuries apart, it is a curious parallel. The Endless Raven teaches us that coincidences are rarely without meaning, even if it is not a direct connection." They had come to a circular intersection, where the archways opened up into a wider area of tamped down dirt and half-submerged flagstones. Several Henaari in robes and armor walked around, all of them taking a moment to bow before the Farwalker before giving them all a wide berth. He ignored them. "I noticed that you were surprised at the sight of your Marks."
"I've never seen them before," Felix admitted. "Though I have a good idea of who gave them to me."