Chapter Two Hundred and Eighteen – 218"So you recognize our majesty?" said the Arcid at the front. It was a small thing comparatively, barely bigger than a normal Human and colored like mud. Felix's Manasight picked out currents of dusty brown circulating around the creature, concentrated around its hands and skull.
Earth Mana. It's got a spell ready.
"I recognized your stench, yeah," Felix said.
All three of the Arcids stiffened, and their Spirits blazed with a restrained anger.
"You are one to talk, Fiend," said another, their voice more melodious than Mud. It was far taller and thinner too, like a stretched skeleton made of bright green metal. A sense of green-gold and brown Mana fluttered around its feet. "You stink of the vile, vicious power in this Nest. You're no different than the beasts you've killed."
Life Mana? Or...growth, related maybe. Nature. Felix Eyed the three of them. They were all nearly level fifty, and all of them were beyond Journeyman. Were they all Risi before as well? Like the Envoy?
"Did the Archon send you?" Felix asked, buying time. He could sense more of the Revenants closing in, maddened by the Broodmother's wrath. "How'd you get past the Wall?"
"Pfah!" the last of the three Arcids scoffed. It's voice was deeper than the rest, matching it's immense, spherical body. It was a gun-metal grey and looked like an enormous ball of overlapping plates, its arms and legs little better than short stumps. "The supposed ingenuity of the mortal Races is nothing before us."
"Nor the might of our Father," Mud continued. "Though you should know...I sense our Father's touch upon you." The umber-hued Arcid's eye flames flashed. "That should not be."
"You are tainted by the vicious filth of this place," Skeleton said, waving overly long fingers in the direction of the Broodmother. "Mixing such with our Father's blessed touch is...profane."
"Profane," Felix snorted. The sound stoked the ire in the Arcids' Spirits, and they took several steps closer. Felix eyed the distance between them, only thirty feet, and threw his senses out toward the horde. It was closing in, faster now. "That's rich coming from the Archon. The Envoy tried singing his praises too." Felix felt Essence and Mana surge in his veins in time with his own rising fury. "It didn't end well for him."
"You are an insect. You could never kill the Envoy!" The Orb rocked forward, but Skeleton held out a thin, green hand.
"Do not be foolish, 55390. Look in his hand," it's robotic voice admonished, staring pointedly at Felix's weapons.
Orb growled, like the sound of an engine misfiring, but the thin Arcid still restrained him. "We have better methods than brute force."
"Ah," Ball said, the word deep and sonorous in it's cavernous chest. It twitched in a slow laugh. "Huh huh, of course."
Felix gripped his Blade and Femur tightly, letting his power coil within him. His Will lingered around the etched patterns of his Skills, ready for his moment. But first he needed information. "Why are you here?"
"You think we'd allow you to claim Authority over us? Over our home? Pfah!" Mud sneering as much as it's immobile metal face allowed. "None of you are worthy."
They were too calm, too collected. The Envoy was insane, but it only made mistakes when it was worked up. Would the same be true for these twisted creations? Felix lifted his Blade and bone. "And the Archon is? Last I saw, he was cowering in his hole." Felix smiled, baring his fangs. "Crying over his pet wurm."
"You!"
"Enough! He has transgressed, all of them have," Skeleton intoned. Felix didn't like the sound of its (her?) voice, though it sounded eerily familiar. "Just like the abominations, he has hints of our Father within him. That will not do." Shedefinitely a sheflicked her over long fingers. "Activate the array."
Wait, what?
Those collections of dusty-brown and green-gold Mana surged down, into the ground, and it suddenly shimmered into a blinding brilliance. Light as fetid as a marshy sunset flushed the chamber as sigils crawled across the floor, illuminating the mesh of vines that covered everything.
Nothe array is the vines! Felix flinched before he started running. Oh no.
Mervin's Skill was screaming at him. Wading into the battle was not safe, but once Mervin had chosen to take that course of action, his Sentinel's Regard had quietened regarding the combative hordes of monsters and Inquisitors. Even when Teine had led them into the crater and had begun inscribing the massive crystal, it had remained practically silent. That had changed.
Mervin spun, looking up at the lip of the crater, but he saw no Revenants or Ghouls come to slay them. But he did see a wave of brilliant yellow-red light begin to shine from the roots that overlapped the crater's edge. The light flowed along the rootsvines?that clung to the side of the shattered stone.
When had they grown down here? Mervin shook himself. The thought was idiotic. "Sir!"
"Not now!" Teine snarled, his hands moving furiously. Somehow the Elder was inscribing two separate arrays with each of his hands. The man had covered half the glowing facets of the crystal in a cramped script that flickered with a deep green light. "I'm nearly finished!"
"Sir! The roots! They're glowing!" Mervin repeated.
Teine stopped what he was doing and looked. Had Mervin not seen it, he would never believe that Elder Teine could look so lost, terrified, and hopelessly in love.
"Blind gods," Teine gasped. "The grandeur of it!"
Then the screaming started, as the ground burned, and the very sight of the twisting, growing sigils were ice picks to Mervin's brain. Teine himself shouted as that small device of his tore itself apart and dumped a massive amount of crimson smoke directly on the ground. The sigils sucked it up like it was water and they were parched earth.
"No! Not that!" Teine pled, hurling his own Mana at the roots. Chunks of the glowing pattern faded, only to be replaced in moments as the pulpy matter regrew. "Run!"
Mervin looked quickly between the roots and the Elder, then at his team. They were all staring in alarm as the Bronze Ranks around them ran for their lives. "Sir!"
"You too, boy! Before it's too late!" Teine shoved him, none too gently, and Mervin nearly collided with the side of the crater. He and his team started running, tripping over the glowing roots in their haste. Lars grabbed Mervin by the arm, hauling him after them.
He glanced back. Teine crouched over the glowing crystal, inscribing furiously. Mervin's Perception could easily pick up his muttering over the rising whine all around them.
"...you cannot do this...it's mine!"
Mervin ran.
Darius Reed sprinted up the incline, his booted feet barely inconvenienced by the vines or the slick rivulets of dark ichor that coated them. Behind him, the makeshift gurney of air sped, barely able to match his Adept ranked Agility. He didn't stop to look or even pause to send his senses spiralling back down the path. When the knotted vines had begun glowing, he had only run faster.
The heiress moaned atop his whirling platform, struggling to stand and, if he knew her, to get back into the fight. Darius pressed her down with another flow of air. He had one job, and that was to ensure the survival of Vessilia Dayne.
Whether she liked it or not.
Ana paused atop the banister, peering nervously down into the cavernous chamber. Below, the yellow-red light of the Profane Sigaldry lit the bloodstained space and a pressure descended on her that felt wholly alien and entirely...evil.
The looming faces of the Nym stared at her, as if in judgement, and Ana grimaced back. "I cannot interfere, or else the Quest will fail. Or else his Path will stray. Can you not feel it?" She looked to the statues, their regal faces impassive as the stone of which they were made. "It is at the cusp, now. It is up to him, and him alone."
Ana looked back down, following back to the source of the rapidly spreading array. When compared to the mangled and cobbled together existences flanking him, he stood out like a fire in the night.
"Prove yourself, Unbound," she whispered. "You must."
The Broodmother, split into bloody strips and squalling in pain, convulsed. The Broodmother shrieks sent fissures of discordant pain through her ears, still alive but in agony. DuFont was thrown back from the pulpy remains of a flailing limb, only then noticing as the Nest around her was lit by a net of yellow-red illumination.
"An array..." Daur gasped. "Hundreds of them! All linked together!"
The yellow-red crawled rapidly up the walls, until it was even coating the far distant ceiling. They were trapped entirely by it. A pain pierced her eyes, as if something were rummaging around inside her brain. She gasped as the yellow-red light swelled.
"What is this?"
Felix ran. Each stepfueled by panic and Strengthshattered the ground in small concentric circles. His Agility sent him tearing ahead, so fast that the sheer air pressure ripped his enchanted shirt and pants. His boots tore up the vines with every crashing step, but they regrew, glowing all the while.
The array caught up with Felix before he made it more than sixty feet.