Unbound-Chapter Nine Hundred And Seventy Eight – 978

The tunnel eventually ended. The spiral leveled out, and the vast underground forest expanded before their very eyes. Pit crooned, his lilting call swallowed by the sudden expansion of their path.

“I think we found it!”

The swirl of Sprites burst free, finally breaking away from their spiraling flight around Pit's four wings. They scattered ahead of them, joining the blue motes in a cascade of stars that rushed ahead of Pit’s Ouranic Dominion.

Vess reached out, threading her hands through the light as a few Wind Sprites buzzed around them in gleeful loops. She froze, eyes wide. “Incredible. This is more than a simple grove.”

Beyond a final set of delicate archways, the trunks and tangled roots spread outward into a true forest on a grand scale. Felix couldn’t quite believe it himself. Despite being deep underground, the ceiling was lit by floating motes like a sea of stars, and the cavern was so vast that the distance was obscured by a faint blue haze. Mana swirled around them as they flew, deep, dark currents of earth and shadow. Light was there as well as water, fire, ice, and even poison in small, glimmering amounts. The wafting riptide surged with every beat of Pit’s wings, setting them gliding upon rivers of magic.

"It is beautiful," Vess said. Her voice held a cathedral hush to it, soft and quiet.

“It really is.” Felix leaned forward, flaring his Perception. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was hampered in this place that he hadn’t been able to find without a map. He could still see better than perfectly, with every nearby leaf, branch, and grass detailed in perfect clarity but distances were not to be trusted. That blue haze obscured more than just the far wall of this underground cavern, and it made Felix nervous. “Do you feel that?”

“All I feel is wonder…and a smidgen of calm.” Vess tilted her head. Shook it. “It is foreign to me.”

“That’s my thought as well. Pit?”

“Feels like I’m swimming in syrup,” his Companion said between wingbeats. “I don’t feel very calm, personally. But there’s something here, for sure.” 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Felix nodded along. A thick strain of peaceful notes rolled against his Spirit, soft enough that its edges blended into the world around them without apparent seam. Like Pit and Vess said, however, it wasn’t an internal song. This emotion was being pushed on them.

"Something's up with this place. Pit, take us further in. Carefully.”

Pit chirruped once before climbing up into the air turning toward where the forest seemed to stretch taller than elsewhere. The ceiling itself glittering like gold as the Sprites flew in flocks of thousands. The blue motes hung lower, nearly lost in the haze, save for where they silhouetted dark vertical trunks the size of skyscrapers. As they flew closer, that sensation of peace grew in his Spirit.

Giant’s Grove didn’t mean just giants. Felix grinned. Spirit Trees.

Nine of them, all bigger than the Atlantes Anima by an order of magnitude, filled the immense cavern with their vast boles. Felix let his eye wander across their spreading branches and realized he had been wrong—the ceiling wasn’t gold, it was a canopy of gleaming gold leaves. Those spread out so far that no part of the vast space was untouched by them.

Unseen Beholder!

The Skill flared within him, pressed to its limits as he met unexpected resistance. Felix bore down, shoving past the barrier through simple brute force. It gave way begrudgingly.

Name: Athos Garganta

Type: Spirit Tree (Ancestral)

Lore: Planted by the first Gigas, these Spirit Trees bind the souls of their greatest ancestors to this Realm. They are anchors for their dead and were once revered by their living. Guardians and advisors, they are the throat through which the ancients sing.

The Trees sprouted from the backs of vast rocks, each a cliff in its own right, tangling their roots among craggy faces. Surrounding it was several acres of meadow carpeted with brilliant flowers that flowed liked the sea beneath the ceaseless onslaught of Mana currents. The blossoms all glowed individually, a phosphorescence that was gorgeous to behold, and yet cast little light.

"Interesting," Felix thought aloud. "Land there, Pit."

"Got it." Pit's tight spiral ended, and his wings snapped, beat thrice before snapping taut. They descended between the trunks of giants, landing amid soft grasses and glowing wildflowers.

"The Grove’s beauty is only amplified from down here.” Vess ran her hand through the waist-high blossoms and gazed up at the towering Spirit Trees. “They seem quite different to the usual Anima in your Grove.”

“They are.” Felix swiped the notification toward her.

"Interesting. Quite different. Ancestral…I think that is a categorization above Elder, no?"

“Karys?” Felix tapped his sword. It buzzed to life. “Been listening?”

“I have, my Lord. Ancestral Spirit Trees are different from the Atlantes and Abundance Animas in not only form but function. I’ve contacted Paxus but he is currently maintaining the Atlantes Grove. I am sure he can tell us more.”

Felix drummed his fingers against his hilt. “Hm. Let me know when he’s free. We’ll look around ourselves for a while.”

“Be careful, Felix. Aeonis is more ancient than other cities, that is clear. We do not know what lies beneath it.”

The glow around his sword faded as Karys signed off and Felix regarded the wide Grove around him once again. Vess did the same, walking outward in a spiraling pattern through the flowers.

Pit sniffed the air before sneezing. “Smells sweet. Too sweet.”

“I can feel a measure of vibration through the soles of my feet. It is quite unsettling, but that peace is counteracting it.” Vess poked the ground lightly with the butt of her glaive. “I am unsure if I like it.”

Felix leaned down into the flowers and grasses. That distinct vibration only increased as he knelt and pressed his scaled hand into the mud. Cold and wet, it felt the same as any other soil, but there was a layer deeper that thrummed like a drumhead. It sang through the air like a half-remembered melody.

“There’s something under the ground.” Felix could feel it. His Authority brushed against it, but it wasn't enough to grasp.

Before, when his Authority had been rejected by these “Elders,” there had been a familiar pressure set against him. He knew what it felt like to be blocked from control—his enemies had done it to him countless times. It was simply very strange to happen in a city he'd resurrected from dust.

"Take a look around," he said, returning to his feet. "Something blocked me from connecting the Shadowgate. There has to be more here than a bunch of rocks and Trees."

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Vess and Felix headed in separate directions while Pit took to the air once more. His Companion swooped through the lowest branches, flying close to their gargantuan trunks and through their wide boughs. Each one was far larger than the Atlantes Anima. They swelled upward and opened wide, vast and strange. The leaves were as different as anything else, dinnerplate sized blade set into a stem that resembled a fern’s frond. The leaves were a dark gold, visibly metallic, and glowed with a touch of their own internal light. Sprites played among them, flitting around Pit and hiding behind boughs. The bark itself was a pale white tinged only slightly with green, and wrapped the massive trunks with a delicate smoothness.

Felix walked closer to the nearest Tree. Its roots were spread wide, flowing from the trunk like frozen limbs that framed the meadow with pale knotwork. The largest were thicker than some office buildings but even the smallest offshoots were heftier than Felix’s torso. They wrapped themselves around and through those upthrust cliffs of pale rock, whose surface was threaded with glittering striations of gold, as if mimicking the leaves above. Little enough could be seen of the rock, however, as the roots formed tight nets across their entire surface. Felix was certain that if he were able to lift one of the roots, the stones would come right with it.

Vess leaped amongst the rocks, hopping from Tree to Tree, her hands steadied on the trunks. She caught his eye and shook her head. She'd found nothing. Pit, likewise, flew wide across the heights of the grove. The elemental spirits followed him, jostling playfully around his feathers and tail, but they didn't stop him. Indeed, they seemed to egg him on, encouraging him to fly faster and bank harder in strange twists and turns. Pit was more than happy to oblige. Felix rolled his eyes, but he let him have his fun.

Felix climbed the stone, tapping it with his claws. He could feel a great many things cascading across his Affinity, but much of it was noise. The Sprites gave off much of it, and their emmanations were extremely hard to separate from the currents of Mana that flowed throughout the Grove. He was increasingly certain that the sense of calm was a distraction—from what, he had no idea.

Focus…

Snippets of song nipped at his awareness. It faded and swelled, again and again, each time growing in clarity through the noise. Until, eventually, Felix heard its echoing refrain and reached out. His Affinity flared, and the general harmonies of Aeonis rose up around him. Each and every city he’d brought back with Unite the Lost had a distinct signature to it—he’d noticed this before, but it had always been more of a curiosity. That signature—the song—was what Unite the Lost tapped into when Felix resurrected them. The song was replayed, set with new vitality, and the ancient Memory was revived once more.

There. A strident dirge rolled through the harmonies of Aeonis, separate and intrinsic at the same time. It was beautiful and agonizing at the same time, like a bright silver knife that cut him to the bone. Emotion swelled over his Spirit, foreign but familiar, and he gasped three heavy breaths.

"What's wrong?" Vess asked him, landing close by. She grasped his shoulder lightly. "What brings you to tears?"

"I'm…not sure.” Felix placed a hand on the trunk of the nearest Tree. The dirge intensified at his touch, pouring through him at an incredible volume. A lamentation shook his Spirit, a torrent of despair that seized him from brain to bowels with an ache he couldn't name but fully recognized. It was a deep despair, a sadness born of loss, buried under duty. It was rigid and cold—like calcified bones clasped around a deadened heart.

The song paused, producing a momentary caesura that Felix knew instinctively needed an answer. He gave one, a song billowing forth from him through the vibrations of his Affinity.

There were no words, merely emotion. The loss he felt in the dirge demanded sympathy, and Felix had felt his fair share of sorrow. He poured himself into the breach, a doomed duet that compounded the original composition until a syncopated beat bridged the silence. Felix shook, teeth rattling as his Spirit was vibrated to the core and the Grove’s lament echoed across the vast stretch of eternity.

Felix…?

Pit’s question faded, lost in rising harmonies as images sprang forth around Felix like watercolor shadows. Memories followed, animating splotchy values until they smeared into visions seen through rain-soaked windows—the glimpsed landscape from a speeding train. The world spread out, green and new, bright with life. He saw it, the calm and quiet as well as the cacophony and violence inherent in nature itself. Elements moved, lifted from the world by their own Will, given form and shape by their narrowed Intent. They exuded power, but it was an unthinking might, without malice or benevolence. The Green Wilds sang of sword and shield, light and shadow, birth and death. Beasts strode the earth beside him, fauna great and small that fed on gleaming flora, bright insects, or drank their fill of lustrous waters as their very existence sang along with a bountiful Harmony.

Chords changed pitch. Notes descended into deep octaves.

He saw giants, but they were nothing like the Risi. These were creatures of such great immensity that they dwarfed mountains. Entire forests grew upon their backs, teeming with life and rocking with every glacial step they took. In their wake, these giants left behind more growth, a fecundity that echoed across the Green Wilds in vast swaths that fed yet more beasts.

Just like the sculpture.

The Memories kept moving, faster and faster. Time blurred around Felix as cities were built atop the giants, inhabited by creatures that mimicked them in shape if not size. Gigas, Felix somehow knew. They hunted and gathered, spreading between the walking forests in vast numbers. Violence and struggle toppled some, while others thrived, all the while their cities grew in complexity.

Time passed as the song sang of Lost things. A mountain rose from the grassy plains, and a new city was built atop of it. Aeonis developed before his eyes, lifted up onto carved platforms around the mountain, and those walking forests sank all around it. The Gigas thrived within, adding to Aeonis as the centuries turned to Ages and the song of their people swelled into a vast crescendo of strident strings. Glory plucked at Felix’s Spirit, intermingled with that dirge that would not wash clean.

A darkness was coming for Aeonis.

Time stretched long into eternity as the Ages passed, and what was old was forgotten. A wash of great fear spread from Aeonis—a song of a violet darkness that consumed all. Felix flinched from that, but the visions would not stop, nor would the song. It spoke of the darkness, it sang of it in screeching discordant tones. It howled its dirge of a people Lost, of cities abandoned, and forests turned to rock as their protectors were brought low.

Yet, at the heart of it all, a drumbeat sounded. Distant, it strode forward with inevitable certainty, shaking through the world. Onward, deeper, hidden. There, at the roots of the earth, where the Spirit Trees wound deep into carved stone, it thrummed.

It—

Felix blinked his eyes awake, seeing around him the deep etchings of vast fingertips, swirling marks carved into the standing stones at the base of the Spirit Tree. All at once he saw it: the path toward connecting his Shadowgates to Aeonis. Before he could reach for it, however, it fled from his grasp.

Pit. I need you.

His Companion answered. A flush of emotion rolled through their Bond. What the heck was all that?

I’ll explain later. Converge with me, please.

Pit grumbled, but in a second and a flash of light, the tenku settled into Felix’s Spirit. His Harmonic stats surged, joined with his Companion’s, and the swirling lamentation before him sharpened. Notes he’d barely heard before became obvious, and the shape of the song rolled out before him as if inked in stanzas. That pause was still there, empty space where the dirge was incomplete and the Authority of the Grove bucked against his Will.

Felix pressed against it, inserting the rarified vibrations that sang at his center. Skills and Pillars, Named Cores and the Divine Tree, they all provided a unique signature that whispered across his Affinity and into the Grove.

Pit.

His friend trilled, and the tenku’s own song joined in. Strident cries added strength to Felix’s music, a counterpoint that pushed them both to a great fullness. The Grove trembled. The dirge dimmed before brightening, a rising glissando that—

A growl shook them all.

Bind Your Wills, Ancients.

The Scion Calls To You.

The Beast reached out, seizing the confluence between their beings and crushing it between its claws.

Stop! Felix called, but it was too late.

The world quaked, shaking the Spirit Trees around him as golden leaves fell in torrents. The ground broke, pieces of it splitting wide, and from the fissure came gouts of searing steam. Felix and Vess leapt back, skidding through the dewy grass as flowers flared around them in a blaze of purple-blue phosphorescence. Leaves dropped from above in a blizzard of golden fronds, as shiny as real metal.

Vess put her hands to her ears. “What did you do?”

A terrible crash of bass drums and gongs washed over them both. It rolled into driving timpanis that marched in strident steps across Felix’s Spirit, as words bugled across his Mind.

Authority Recognized.

Authority Denied.

Dissonance squealed against his Affinity. Felix jerked back, eyes squeezed shut, and Pit screeched before crashing to the ground. Fields of glowing flowers went dark as the Chimera tore a brief furrow before finding his feet. Vess leapt to his side, and Felix nearly joined her when a voice rumbled from the fissure before him.

“Song has been sounded, but Intent is unclear. Will you have, but what of fear?” A deep, crimson glow rose amongst the sizzling steam. “Speak, Creature. Tell us true. Why should the dead listen to you?”