Chapter Sixty Four - 064It was nearly noon by the time Harn returned to the tower.
Slogging up the five floors, the heavily armored man tried to control his breathing...and his anger. His fists creaked on the handle of his axes, metal faintly groaning under the influence of his immense Strength. Even so, Harn's finely tuned Brawler's Body sensed the enemies with spears from an entire floor below.
Happy to give vent to his bile, Harn rushed up the stairs. Unfortunately, he had to stop short when he saw the spears were held by two of the ex-prisoners. They jumped a full second later when they actually noticed him, one of them even giving a pathetic yelp.
"W-who goes there!" The pathetic one stuttered.
The other one, a woman with freckles and dark brown hair, merely lowered her spear and sighed. "It's the Onslaught, Frederick." To Harn she apologized. "Sorry for that, sir. We're all still a bit shaken. Go on in."
Inclining his helmeted head, he brushed past them without a word. Inwardly he seethed. Harn would have loved a fight at this point. His blood was burning for it.
"Harn! Thank Siva you're back!" As soon as the warrior had pushed past the hung blanket, he was rushed at by Evie. She looked around and behind him expectantly before her face started to fall. "Did you...Where is she?"
"Vess still lives, near as I can figure," Harn held out his hands placatingly before pulling off his helm. He was a sweaty mess and his grizzled face was less grizzled and more bearded with every passing day. "I lost the trail near the edge o' the city. That...woman is good, unfortunately."
Evie nodded, not meeting his eye, instead turning to the crowd. The room was filled with the survivors of their rescue mission, most in small knots talking in soft voices. "Well, almost everyone is here. What do you want to do?"
Harn raised an eyebrow. "Almost everyone? Who's missin'?"
Evie didn't answer for a moment, but didn't have to as a familiar voice cut across the crowd. "Maggie's not here."
Harn turned, orienting on the voice he knew so well. "Callie. What's goin' on? Explain."
Callie stood from her seat by the tiered firepit, not so much sauntering as stalking in his direction. She was bandaged up and her armor was beat to hell, but Harn felt an aura of danger around the treasure hunter that he hadn't felt in a long time.
"Mags saved that kid from the Risi Chieftain. Shielded him, the idiot," she spat to the side, the sputum coming out too red. She held her side a moment. "They both got knocked into the sink hole."
"What?" Harn's eyebrows rose and his heart thundered again, readying his Body. "Then what're we waitin' fer? We can get 'em back by sundown."
Callie frowned and lowered her voice. "You expect these rundown dregs to make it back though the giant's encampment, down into the Labyrinth, and back out again? You'd be sending em to die, Kastos."
Harn gritted his teeth, his worry boiling in his guts. But she was right. Even if they left the prisoners here to fend for themselves, they'd likely get found and die. The Risi had increased their patrols a hundred fold, and even Harn had a tough time evading their notice on the way back.
"Someone has to lead these folk outta here," Callie went on, poking her long slender finger at Harn's chestplate. "You and Evie and the Te'thys boy have the best chance at that. Evie told me about the Sworn too, and I bet a dozen crowns that she's already halfway back to Haarwatch. You might even catch her, if she's stupid."
Harn deflated, knowing a good idea when he heard it, even if he didn't like it. He looked around, noticing for the first time that each of the Guilders were ready to go and eyeballing their group. "Fine. You're right. If nothing else, Maggie would want us to get them to safety first." He looked back at the treasure hunter. "What'll you be doin'?"
Callie spread her arms, daggers suddenly appearing in her hands with a blink of purple-blue Mana. "What I do best. Infiltrate and extract. Maggie's down that hole, and I aim to get her out."
Harn nodded, and Evie placed a reassuring hand on his bicep. She turned to Callie. "Make sure you save Felix too. He didn't have to go on this mission. He...Promise us you'll do what you can."
Callie nodded, her eyes serious and her mouth grim. "If he's alive he's coming too, even if we have to drag em."
"You're hurt," Felix insisted, pointing at the obvious giant fang. "Let me help you."
"No, don't touch it!" Magda hissed, pulling her impaled arm away from him. "The poison is strong."
Oh shit. Felix took a step back, the woman's tone more than enough to convince him she knew what she was talking about. Magda grimaced and lifted herself onto her uninjured arm, propping herself up against the stone wall. "Get back while I deal with this. It's ain't gonna be pretty."
Felix took another three steps back, unable to tear his eyes away as Magda braced herself and lifted her pierced arm. Felix's Manasight flickered, it's normal perception still subdued down here, but even so he could identify a thick, powerful vein of power coursing through the fang, unloading a vile mixture straight into her body. With a strangled cry, Magda struck her left forearm against the Labyrinth wall and the stone itself shattered in a spiral of cracks. With a grunt and cry, she did it again. And again. Until finally, with a meaty schlorch the fang dropped from her arm and onto the ground, where it began to dissolve the moss around it.
Magda pushed herself away, letting her body roll to the right. Her arm pumped out thick red blood with abandon, drenching the stone. "Don't approach it," she panted at him while still lying prone and fetching a bandage from her hip pouch. She pressed on it with her right hand, hard. "That's Rotvein poison. Nasty shit that I haven't seen in years. Not since," she grunted, attempting to sit up to no avail. Felix leaned over and helped her. "Not since that Nymean ruin we found. Bastards."
Felix, his face hidden from her eyes, bit his lip and furrowed his brow as he watched her blood darken the bandage. He felt a sluggish ache in his gut, a sleepy predator sniffing a fresh kill. He reoriented. "Are you...is the poison gonna kill you?"
Magda sighed and pressed harder against her wound. "I'll live. But I ain't gonna be shit for a while. Rotvein does what it says, meant to eat your body from the inside out. I've got an Ironblood Body, second Temper, which is fairly resistant to poisons and wounds; but Rotvein is strong." She coughed, a wracking fit that went on for a full minute. Breathing heavily, she looked up at Felix. "I'm...weakened. This poison is just the final hair on Yyero's darkened backside. Whatever that bastard did to me, it hurt me."
"Grimmar? What'd he do?" Felix asked.
Magda coughed, this time spitting out a mouthful of blood. "The damn giant bit me during the fight. It sounds impossible but he tore a hole in my leg and...ripped out one of my Skills."
Felix felt the ground give way beneath him, his head and gut doing upsetting things with his balance. He stumbled back, suddenly dizzy as pieces started to fall into place. "He...ripped out one of your Skills?" Felix was incredulous. "How? Is that even possible?"
"No clue," she grunted, wrapping her arm with strips of dark paper. Felix didn't recognize what they were. "It's still there it's just...in pieces. Damn near killed me though."
Felix recalled Harn mentioning breaking one's Skills to undue a Tempering...is that what happened? He kept his speculation to himself, but his mind raced. The giant had claimed its transformation was a gift from the "Mother," but what did that mean? Why was it so similar to his Gourmand Title? Hell, the blue chieftain had even said it'd steal Felix's memories. That was explicitly the same as his Lessons of the Past.
What the fuck is going on? Harn said the Mother was some made up religious nonsense, right? This is...it's a weird coincidence; too weird. What's the connection? It came to him, faster than he expected. The Song. The Grand Harmony. The music of the System, whatever it is. Grimmar said that the Mother was down here, and that the...Holy Deeps contained the Song more strongly. Felix paced as he wracked his memories. Then maybe...
Felix listened with that special sense he seemed to have, the one that let him perceive the...musicality of the system around him. Felix didn't have a Skill for it, not stat or icon, but he could do it all the same. He tilted his head, hearing the silent roar of mist, the distant clack of stones shifting, pushing his Perception to the limit. But...nothing. Just silence and stone, fog and darkness.
So he relaxed, kept his mind loose, freeing it from conception and direction. Felix sought to hear the music beyond everything, the burgeoning concerto that seemed to weave in and out of reality here on the Continent. And almost instantly, the song began.
There was a swelling of stringed chords before it diminished, then rose again. Like...like something breathing.
Something immense.
"AYYSHHHH!" Magda cried, her forearm suddenly bathed in steam as the paper she had placed upon it glowed with a series of bright orange characters. Felix flinched and took a half step forward before he realized she was fine.
"What the hell was that?" he asked.
"Script seal," Magda panted, flexing her left hand. "Seals the wound but it hurts like Avet's hook. Gimme a second to rest and regenerate. My Health is too low to keep moving."
Felix nodded and stepped away, eager to get some distance and think things through. He approached Pit, who had been watching the entire ordeal with a tilted head. Felix felt gentle curiosity and confusion through their pact, as if the chimera were wondering how the big one got injured. Gathering his thoughts, Felix sent back his impressions: fang, bitten, poisonous injury, hurt and weak. Pit's golden eyes met Felix's and nodded before he started to root around the two serpent corpses.
Sighing to himself, Felix toggled his notifications he'd minimized during the aftermath of the battle.
You Have Gained A Level!
You are now Level 21!
+3 to WIL! +2 to INT! +4 to DEX! +1 to END! +2 to PER! +2 to VIT! +4 to AGL!
You Have 5 Unused Stat Points!
The usual stream of energy poured into Felix, but after his Tempering it felt...mild. It was still equal parts pleasurable and painful, a confusing mix that he didn't like to dwell on, but it just seemed reduced in some way. Perhaps if he gained multiple levels at a time it'd feel different. And that has to be the plan now, he decided.Whatever is making that music is down here with us. I'm gonna need all the levels I can get.
A flutter of excitement burst against Felix's chest like a wave, and the Nym turned to see his Companion digging frenetically at the body of a Greenfyre Serpent. The first of the two was slowly evaporating into that greasy black smoke, its stink already filling the hall. Their bronze-like scales had been resistant to damage, though it seemed the lack of living energy within it weakened it's endurance, and Pit was already paw deep in the elemental's entrails.