Chapter One Hundred and Eighty Seven - 187Their rooms were located on the relatively small second floor of the main warehouse. It only took up the back quarter of the building, as the rest were empty rafters supporting the roof. A set of long stairs, exposed to the air with only a thin railing for safety, so steep and narrow he had to converge with Pit to navigate them. Felix supposed OSHA regulations weren't really a thing on the Continent.
"This is you," Evie pointed out the second room from the stairs. "You get prime real estate. Probably because you're so scary."
She laughed as she said it, and even Vess joined in which teased a relieved sigh from Felix. He could always count on his friends to give him a hard time. "Alright thanks. To both of you. The fight today was...I'm glad you were there."
"Ah we got yer back, you glow-eyed idiot," Evie said, punching him on the shoulder hard enough to bruise. His Song of Absolution absorbed the pain while still letting him know it hurt a little. Resistances are weird.
"Where else would we be?" Vess asked. "I shall not see this team broken more than it already is; in time I hope that Atar will make a full recovery as well."
"Me too," Felix said, grabbing the door latch. "I'll see you both in the morning."
"G'night."
"Sleep well."
The two of them walked further down the hall and Felix allowed himself a moment, just a second to watch them walk away. Even through armor, Vess' form was...sinuous. Stop it. She's like eight years younger than you, Temper-rejuvenated or not. He looked to be in his early twenties, but he'd been nearly thirty (and looked it) only a couple weeks back. Hitting Apprentice Tier had revitalized his entire Body. Yet his Perception betrayed him, focusing his hearing on their moving conversation.
"Where is my room? Darius tried to have us placed in a separate lodging, I refused, and Cal put her foot down. Said there was not enough space to, ahem, 'accommodate every idiot with a rank.'" Vess laughed lightly, like a set of resonant bells. "I do like her."
"She's a peach," Evie said dryly. "You're up near me. Though I gotta apologize beforehand."
"Apologize?"
"Our rooms are way in the back, sandwiched between Harn and Yan. You cannot imagine how much the both of them snore," Evie groused.
"I have never heard Harn snore," Vess said.
"That's cuz he usually sleeps with his helmet on in the field. It's got a sound blocker or somethin' on it. Believe me, it's bad."
What are you doing? Felix admonished himself, spooling his Perception back in. Eavesdropping wasn't something he wanted to make a habit, no matter how often he had to do it in the field. Eavesdropping on his friends was a magnitude worse. Grumbling to himself, he unlatched his door and walked in.
The room was small, to say the least. It barely had room for a bed and a thick, heavily locked chest at one end, and a thin path leading around both. There wasn't a chance Pit would fit in here, not the size he was now, and his convergence would last less than an hour at a time. A whine of sadness pealed through his chest and Pit sent him a series of sense images, snatches of memory of the both of them cuddled on cots and beds and on the bare floor of the Nymean Temple when they'd first met.
"Good memories, bud, but I'm not sure there's a bed out there that could fit the both of us," Felix said with regret. "I think you'll have to bed down near the training area. Okay?"
More whining happened, but Pit didn't fight back as they walked back down the narrow stairs and they parted. With a flash of light Pit soared out into the empty air above the training area, catching the attention of a few of Cal's original crew, speckled with a smattering of new faces.
Stupid Zara. With my Endurance I could go for like, a week without sleep. At least a week, I bet. Felix trudged back up the stairs, into his room, and practically collapsed on the straw-filled mattress. Felix growled into the thick padding beneath him. This is such a waste of time. I need to train, not...fall asleep...
He was out before he finished the thought.
His sleep was fitful.
Dreams plagued him, filled with the images of men and women in white-enameled armor crawling on the ground. They were bleeding heavily from wounds on their neck and chests, but still they cried out. To him.
Felix ran from them, unable to bear their eyes and words. But he came into the city proper, where Revenants tore apart wagons and houses, places filled with fleeing survivors. They were ravenous and did not care of it was a man, woman, or child, only that it bled.
Horrified, Felix fled to the roofs of town. From there he could see the sun setting over the sweep of mountains in the Foglands. But there, on the horizon, a giant made of gold and fire beckoned to him. A giant with fires for eyes and a helmet for a head, it grasped Felix in its enormous mitt and squeezed.
"Huuah!"
Felix gasped awake to blinding light. For a moment, he thought of that golden gauntlet rising up all around him and his heart raced. But it was just sunlight. Small holes apparently perforated the ceiling, just enough to cast the slanting light of dawn on his face. He'd slept for the entire night, though his dreams hadn't made it particularly restful.
Felix rolled to the edge of the bed and considered his hands. Younger than they were months ago, they were still his. A few scars here and there from dumb accidents when he was a kid. Calluses along his palm, though his knuckles were strangely unblemished. He once punched a made straight through his armored chest, and there was no evidence of it on him.
Why did that make him feel uneasy?
High Endurance, high Vitality, and Sovereign of Flesh were all answers as to why such things were possible. And with training, even stranger feats were waiting for him. He hoped. They had to be.
Felix clapped his hands and stood up. "New day. Plenty to do."
He could focus on his fears when he wasn't so busy. Or never. Never was good too.
The morning was relatively calm, in spite of everything in the city. Zara was doing something in her room, no one knew what, but it left Felix with some time before her lessons. He focused on helping with the rest of the wall, pushing his Stone Shaping further and further. His progress with that Skill had been growing rapidly since he had begun using it to build things, and it made Felix wonder why that might be; the Irontooth ApeBalfurhe took it from used it to rip up columns of solid stone, but he doubted they ever built anything. It wasn't the only shaping Skill he'd heard of, however, so variants must have existed. Regardless, by the time he had managed another length of wall, the Skill had leveled twice.
Stone Shaping is level 42!
Stone Shaping is level 43!
"That's fine work."
Felix was leaning against a pile of debris that had yet to be cleared, idly inspecting the smoother aggregate of his newest wall section. He'd been getting faster at composing and shifting the stone, and with the last level up he felt his control notch up by just a touch. The stone was no longer a rough, ungainly mass of compressed stone and earth and felt more uniform throughout. He turned and saw Hector, Aenea's husband, with his hand to his chin in thought.
"Oh? Thanks. I'm trying to figure out how to make it stronger though," Felix said, pointing to a section in front of them. "Gotta get the, uh, granules smaller. Not sure how to do that other than brute forcing it."
"I've no Stone Sense nor am I even a mason, but this looks like to stand up to an army," Hector said with a smile. "A small one."
"One without ladders, yeah," Felix laughed. He stood and stretched his lower back. He didn't get sore much anymore, but it never hurt to stay limber. "The stone comes from pits on the opposite sides, so at least there's a bit of a trench to deal with. If the Revenants come for us, we'll have a fighting chance."
"And the Inquisition?" Hector asked, his expression darkening. Felix had to remind himself that the man's wife had just been trapped and nearly killed by the redcloaks.
"I imagine the powerful among them could just jump over this," Felix nodded. "I know I could. But even building higher wouldn't solve that; too many Skills to account for, according to the others."
"Do you still wish for the wards you inquired about earlier?" Hector asked, his voice a touch rough.
"Absolutely. That would help solve some of those issues. But you said we'd need monster cores to power it. I don't know what our supply is like right now," Felix began, but the man cut him off.
"I've already spoken to Cal on that. She said she has what we need to set up a standard array, enough to ward away most enemies for a short period." Hector pointed at several spots on the wall. "Here and here we'd place the siphons and condenser glyphs. We'd leave it inert until we faced attack, otherwise we're wasting power for no purpose."
"Alright," Felix nodded. "Not that I'm complaining, but I thought you were skeptical about making it work before?"
"After speaking with my wife, I've--I've decided to make the attempt," Hector said with far more heat in his voice than before. "The things she told me they did, things they said." He growled something in another language Felix didn't recognize. "I'll see them burn before they touch my family again."
Felix patted the man on the back, earning him a surprised look. "My man. Just let Bodie know what you need and we can get it done. I'd like to watch too, if I could."
"Oh, certainly. For the Fiend, that is the least I can do."
Felix hesitated, trying not to grimace. "Just Felix is fine. I don't know why this Fiend nonsense started up."