Chapter Three Hundred And Nineteen – 319Zara jolted awake, the darkness of unconsciousness banished in an instant of blaring Harmonics.
"Lady Zara? What's wrong?"
Several of the Haarguard stood by, clearly watching over her slumbering form. The Naiad swept her gaze around the small room, barely big enough to house two guards and herself, yet nice enough for all of that. "Where are we?"
"In Setoria, ma'am," said the same guard. "We got you to an inn as soon as the gates shut behind us. The Lord Hand's orders."
"I see," she said primly, peering out the relatively small window. It was paned with glass, which meant the inn they stayed at was far more expensive than it appeared, and it looked out on to a wide square that was absolutely teeming with people despite the late hour. All of them were shouting and hollering something, a chaotic mix of joy and frustration. A festival. "Have the Inquisitors arrived?"
"No. We have eyes on the Waystone, and not a single Redcloak has shown their face."
That was good. The Waystone, a manner of communication between cities, was the only manner in which the Inquisition could reach their Grandmaster. They had to stop them from reaching it at all costs. Zara stood, dark robes gathered around herself. Her face was serene despite the Mana drain by which she was still afflicted. "Then let us join these eyes. We cannot hope that the Inquisition will simply give up."
At that moment, it felt as if the world quaked, and a massive, dire chord was struck. Zara screamed, unable to help it, accosted by reverberations that twisted Harmonics into knots of discordant chaos.
Distantly, she was aware of feet pounded on the stairs outside her room, of a hand hammering at the door. Someone else entered, Thangle, and spoke, but the words made no sense. Her Affinity soared, trembling from the touch of that chord, and Zara could hardly breathe.
Felix! It's him, it has to be. She looked up, to the west, from where the sound was already fading. What has he done?
"Zara? Zara the others sent me! It's the Redcloaks! They're here!" The Gnome was tugging at her robes, his own white hair in wild disarray. "They've landed a Manaship at the Waystone!"
You Have Killed The Betrayer, He Who Has Fallen!
XP Earned!
You Have Gained 1 Level!
You Are Now Level 56!
+20 to STR! +22 to PER! +22 to VIT! +26 to END! +24 to INT! +28 to WIL! +26 to AGL! +29 to DEX!
+20 All Harmonic Stats!
You Have 105 Unused Stat Points!
Your Companion Pit Has Gained 2 Levels!
He Is Now Level 64!
+20 to STR, +14 to PER, +4 to VIT, +18 to END, +6 to INT, +12 to WIL, +32 to AGL, +34 to DEX, +10 to RES, AFI, REI!
Unite the Lost is level 14!
...
Unite the Lost is level 37!
Apprentice Tier!
You Gain:
+Reduction of Significance Consumed
+10% RES
+10% REI
Claws digging into stone and root, Felix arrested his long fall, clinging instead to the rough bark of a monstrously growing tree. It moved like a serpent, expanding by the second and sending him higher into the Temple, through shattered ceilings and sundered sediment. Around him, in every direction, stone collapsed or was bound by the fierce grasp of hungry roots. The Spirit Tree blazed with Mana and more, almost blinding to his sight even without Manasight, fed on the storm of potential he'd fed into its seed and whatever Merodach had contributed.
Twinges of System energy fluttered through himHarmony meeting the Dissonance of his [Cardinal Beast Core] and sparking into conflictbut Felix ignored it for the most part. After everything else, it felt like a love tap than the electrifying jolt it usually seemed. Now he was more concerned with the feedback he was getting from his external senses.
Voracious Eye!
Name: Atlantes Anima
Type: Spirit Tree
Lore: Spirit Trees are a rare and powerful organism imbued with elemental Mana dependent on their growth cycle. The one before you is in the process of attuning itself.
The Seed of Remembered Light had reached far above him, bursting from the top of the cliff and diverting the river itself. A torrent of water poured all around him as he clung to its bark, a roaring cataract in all directions, as the branches above spread out into the night sky. Far above, beyond steam and spray, Felix could see ten thousand stars become blotted out by rapidly expanding boughs and huge, palmate leaves bigger than his entire body. As it spread, Felix felt his awareness spread with it, riding atop the highest twigs as it soared into the heavens, and spreading down, down into the earth. Roots as thick as houses smashed through the cliff-face, charging into the slick earth and shattering those vile reservoirs that remained. Winds shook him, clouds wreathed his crown, the rumble of water fed him, as did the ants that struggled among his spreading roots. Felix was the Spirit Tree, and the Tree was Felixonly his immense Willpower, Intelligence, and Perception kept them separate enough that he didn't go immediately insane.
Aria of the Green Wilds is level 80!
Deep Mind is level 68!
...
Deep Mind is level 74!
Felix could feel his friends and enemies battling among one another, their fights only paused the shortest of intervals during the Spirit Tree's ascension. The roots he spread about hadn't killed themnot oneand that surprised him before he felt the Spirit Tree's utter conviction in the sanctity of life.
Of Choice.
Felix? A voice called to him, seemingly from far away. He knew it was Pit, but Felix couldn't pay it any mind.
Below him, he could feel his friends fighting. Evie and Kylar, fighting off a horde of lesser beasts while Harn battled an agile Arcid covered in blades. A'zek weaving among the greater threats in the horde, killing with precision from the moonshadows. Wyvora and Vess, struggling against that poison-attunded Arcid that had both of them covered in burns and weeping wounds. Alister, standing atop Atar's prone formstill living, but severely injuredhurling columns of force at a legion of ice-armored warriors. More than that, he could feel the monsters themselves, their strange thoughts and alien impressions. Fear and rage threaded with an insistent strumming at the back of their Minds, and urging to pushed them forward into battle. He could even sense the approaching forms of the Haarguard, Nevia, Davum, Vyne, and Kikri all racing toward the sounds of furious battle. Coming to help.
All of it was there, in him, below him. Apart and separate in a way the left Felix dizzy. He was tangled so close with the Spirit Tree, with its...not Mind, but presence. It spoke to him in song, strumming his Affinity so that thoughts and concepts flowed between them with lightning understanding. He could finally hear why the Tree had not killed, of Choices long torn away. Chains forced on unwillling Minds and Spirits, lashed to carry a burden none of them agreed upon. Marks hung heavy across the battlefield, metaphysical brands that had twisted every single creature the Archon had touched.
He could make it stop.
He could fix it.
Unite the Lost!
The Spirit Tree joined with him, amplifying his power through some mechanism Felix couldn't understand. He had no need to, not then, only for the power within his core to spread out through his channels and into the shuddering bole beneath his fingers. It's branches still grew outward, leagues in diameter now, and everything that fell under them was struck by Felix's descending light and song.
Harmonies silenced the night, breaking apart the fighting that had shown no signs of stopping. He could feel his friends pausing, mid-strike as their foes crumbled to their knees or were seized in fountains of brilliant radiance that spun from above. Stolen significance, great swaths of it, fled Felix's core space with a roar of transformed joy. Whatever he'd taken from the Urges had been transmuted in the process, turned from the fetid impulses they had embodied and become something lighter; refined, even. All of it poured out, into the Tree, into his enemies.