Me too. Let me help, Pit sent.
Not yet, Felix replied, refocusing on the Unbound just in time to catch a complicated series of emotions crawling across his inhuman face.
"How do you know mythat name?" the Minotaur demanded. He drew himself up, steam and spittle pouring from his snout as he hefted his great maul. "Who told you it!"
"I know a lot of things," Felix said slowly. "If you'd just listen"
"How do you know that name?!"
Michael wasn't listening, and he flashed forward with another Relentless Charge. Felix sighed and did the only thing he could think of: he twisted, grabbing the bull by the horns...and kicked off the ground.
Right into the chasm.
"MICHAEL!"
A horrified shout came from above, but it was lost to the howling of frigid winds and the Minotaur's own fearful bellows. That maul swung wildly and thick fingers grabbed at Felix's body with relentless abandon. Felix's left hand was bashed loose, but on the hammer's return strike Felix make a single, sharp gesture.
Corrosive Strike!
The great maul burst apart, crazed by lines of sizzling acid. Michael screamed, his rage turning to fear as the dark floor of the chasm rose up to meet them both. His inhuman hands seized onto Felix's arms, wrenching him forward into a tumbling grapple, and Felix allowed it.
It made his next task way easier, after all.
Adamant Discord!
Lightning erupted beneath them into a column of blue-white light, and their fall was almost entirely arrested. Almost. They hit the rolling dunes of crimson sand like meteorites.
Felix stood almost immediately. The two of them had been thrown apart by the collision, and his eyes swiftly swept the rolling dunes for his fellow Unbound. Fuck, did I cushion the impact enough?
That worry was put to bed when a horned man roared up from a sea of cascading sands. His limbs were bloody, but Michael stood up seemingly without a hitch.
"Good, you didn't die," Felix said.
"I don't die so easily," Michael snapped back.
I don't appreciate irony, universe. Felix spread his senses, feeling out the terrain of rolling dunes shaped by the ceaseless, gale-force winds around them. Cave opening dotted the stone in multiple directions, black eyes in the dim lighting, and source of the winds as well as the sands. These caves lead...outside? Must be how he got in from the Expanse. Still, that'd require a lot of Health or maybe just a crap load of Endurance.
Voracious Eye!
Felix raised an eyebrow as Michael clumsily slid down the dune that separated them. He was bleeding heavily now, but still working ponderously to reach Felix. "You're level 38, but you're only barely out of Apprentice Tier. You've been here a year, right?" Felix asked. "You're Unbound. Your growth should be faster than this, Michael."
And what was with that name?
"SHUT UP! Chitin Construction! Relentless Charge!"
Sand sprayed in all directions and the Minotaur ascended Felix's dune, a new maul forming in his meaty hands. Yet before he could reach the summit, a dozen stone formations shot upward from below.
Stone Shaping!
Michael shattered through several of them before losing all momentum and had to break them apart with his Strength. But by the time he reached Felix's position, he was already gone.
"Now you're running? Realized your magic spells can't break my Body, huh?" Michael spun until he spotted Felix, who was another dune over. "You might be fast, but you can't hold up against my Strength and Endurance. No one can."
"Really," Felix said. He grinned. "Show me, then."
"Nah," Michael said with a sneer. "Cuz I got magic too, noob."
The shaggy Minotaur lifted his hand, which glowed with blackened green threads before they launched outward into the sands. "Hallowed Call!"
Felix was still recovering from hearing someone say "noob" unironically when the sands exploded all around him. Six bone knights wearing broken Paladin armor rose from the sands, swords and axes in hand. He swept them with his Eye and dismissed them out of hand. He didn't even try to stop them as they scurried up the dune toward him.
"You can do more than this," Felix said. Michael's eyes widened before narrowing angrily. "I've seen it, man. You're going to need so much more to handle me."
"Fuck you! You want it all?" The Minotaur practically glowed with necrotic Mana as a thickened cord shot off toward one of the caverns. "Take it all!"
A wave of sand rolled out of the dark, a veritable tsunami of granules, and within it was a massive shape of overlapping plates. The wave surged and broke across their position, forcing Felix to use his movement Skill to evade and stay upright. As the sand settled, a huge centipede reared up into the air, easily the width and length of a subway train. Eyes glowed with blackened-green light as it's mandibles flexed with small crashes.
"Michael. You have called us?" it boomed into the air.
"PvP time, Hallow! Enemy at twelve o'clock! Kill!"
"As you wish."
The creaturean undead Multipede according to his Eyesurged forward, the spikes and horns atop its skull slamming into Felix's dune like a falling tenement.
Relentless Resolution!
Cloudstep!
Cloudstep is level 50!
Journeyman Tier!
You Gain:
+5 AGL
+5 DEX
+5 PER
Felix skidded atop panels of crackling Mana, only just able to stay ahead of the Multipede's dangerous thrashings. Perhaps he might have survived its hit, but with his Aspects still strained and his scales unavailable, Felix wasn't interested in finding out. He had other tools though.
Cardinal Flame!
Red-gold flames burst along the undead insect as well as the undead knights that scurried across the sands toward him. The knights froze, their bodies burning, but the Multipede shook it off. The knights writhed in pain, and so did Michael.
"AHHh! Hallow! Stop him!"
Convergence!
Pit screeched in joy, finally free as he materialized in a flash of blinding light. Michael shouted, throwing up an arm and creating a shield of chitin, but Pit wasn't going for him. He descended on the undead knights instead, unleashing a slew of Wingblades and Frost Spears.
The knights were crushed, instantly.
"No!" Michael wailed, flinching as if he'd taken the hits. "Those took so long toWhat the hell is that?" he demanded.
Felix shrugged and grinned. "Attack dog."
Michael bellowed again, and the air shook with it. Felix felt a debuff try to worm itself into his Body, but he shrugged it off just as the Multipede slammed down onto his spot again. He dove, rolling out from under the body slam and only catching one of the creature's sharpened legs across the back. Felix grunted in pain but kept moving, racing to meet the furious Minotaur raising a shield and hammer at him.
"How are you so fast?" Michael yelled, swinging the hammer for his head.
Felix ducked it easily, and jabbed his palm up into the weapon's haft. It snapped and the head flung off into the dark. "Michael." He spun out of range of a shield bash, kicking off another Cloudstep to redirect around the bull warrior. "Michael why are you so weak?"
Felix sundered his shield with a single, unpowered strike.
"I'm not!" Abandoning his split shield, two new hammers appeared in his hands, each the size of a great sword. He swung, sending geysers of sand with each missed strike. Felix danced among the hits, barely trying.
"You're Unbound. You should be stronger," Felix said.
"You don't know anything!"
Crackling explosions and opposing shrieks filled the air behind them, and Felix could tell Michael was distracted by the battle between their friends. Whatever Hallow was to him, it was easy for Felix to see Michael cared.
He caught the Minotaurs hammers and dug in his fingers, holding them in place. "We don't have to fight," Felix said.
Michael heaved on the weapons, but was unable to budge them from Felix's grip. "How are you so strong?"
"Do you have bad dreams, Michael?" Felix asked. "Dreams that feel real?"
Chthonic Tribute!
With a herculean effort, Felix pulled on his Skill. The hammers dissolved into smoke and were pulled into Felix's channels, burning him all the way.
Sovereign of Flesh!
Blinding agony seared across every nerve ending, but Felix forced the Skill to engage. Black scales erupted across Felix's neck and chest and arms, a midnight void in the dark chasm. His eyes blazed with blue fire.
"You..." Michael's eyes widened, and despite his bull face and grisly affect, he suddenly seemed incredibly young. "It's you."
"Like I said," Felix said, grimacing through the pain in his core. "I think we need to talk."