Unbound-Chapter Nine Hundred And Sixty – 960

The World.

Walk The Land To See.

The Path Continues.

The sky was streaked with twilight, neither day nor night. Beef stared at the alternating bands of deep blue and pale, lavender-gray not quite understanding it.

It was Hallow that noticed the moons first. A crystalline appendage Extended from his breastplate, pointing heavenward. Two, near-identical blue moons hung in the sky, surrounded by flecks of debris that gleamed yellow, bronze, and bright silver. Of all the gods, only the Twins remained.

"What's happened?"

The terrain was twisted. Beef could barely discern what it was supposed to be, whether plain or forest or desert. Everything was charred and split, as if suffering from a terrible drought or fire. Or as if the moons had all fallen like they had in Amaranth.

"Danger," Hallow whispered, "we've strayed far to the north."

“Why though?“

Memories answered him. He recalled being cornered in the desert. The Paladins hadn't trapped him in Ahkestria as they had in reality. Beef and Hallow had made it out before the whole place flooded and kept going north, through the Ghrelden Hills and making sure to skirt around Amaranth. All the while he was being hunted by the redcloaks. It had taken months and several sneaky Manaship rides in cargo holds to make it here, to the mountain just outside Levantier.

“Oh no way.” Excited, Beef rushed forward through the crumbling ground. His hooves sank more than once but he plowed through, his Strength tearing deep furrows as he ascended a promontory. Greenery returned as he crested its point, pine and ferns cutting through the char melange, and beyond was a deep crater filled with light.

"Whoa.” Beef drew a deep breath. “Wizard City.”

Levantier, home of the Lucent Towers. In the distance, a great many of the structures floated in the air. Each was clad in light, like tapestries unfurled along every vertical surface, bright and utterly magical. Despite the strangeness of the terrain and the ominous lack of moons, Beef couldn't help but smile. He'd always wanted to see Levantier before Felix had stripped it of some of its cooler features.

He clapped his big hands together. Beef had always loved magic, and this was incredible.

Ships flew around, filling the skies with small sloops and larger cargo vessels. Wizards—or mages if you were boring—filled every inch of the city, and their touch was evident from clothing to architecture to food.

“Should we go down?”

“I believe the Second Door would not lead us here to avoid the city. Plus, I believe it could be fun.”

Beef grinned. “You know it will!”

They entered through the gates less than a half hour later, sweaty due to the heavy cloak he had wrapped around his shoulders. He needn’t have bothered though—the gates weren’t manned, unless you counted the Iron Golems that ran their singular ruby eye over the hectic crowd. He wasn’t stopped.

Beyond the gate, the world transformed. Gone was the char and spoiled water, and instead it smelled of people. It was awful and pungent and upsettingly warm, but Beef far preferred it to the wastes. More than that, the scent and sound of Mana soared around him, wafting across rooftops and alongside storefronts. It filled the streets, flowing like a river down its winding thoroughfares toward the bottom of the crater.

Beef hadn’t a clue why he was there, so he simply followed the current, letting it guide him deeper into the city.

He worried at first that he’d stand out. Even if there weren’t gate guards, the presence of a giant Minotaur was sure to draw attention. He couldn’t have been more wrong. Skills sparks and bloomed with every step as magic was used in a blatant disregard for Mana conservation. Mages did everything from merchants to bakers to smithing and directing the heavy air traffic itself. All of them wore colored robes, each aligned with some faction or another.

A happy warmth spread through his belly. It all reminded him of SwordLore.

There had been a town in the western marches that had hung over a deep whirlpool and was filled with wizards. Mostly elemental water magic, but there were those that maintained the chains that held the city above the whirlpool, as well as numerous guilds that covered everything from craftsmen to archmages. Here, there weren't guilds, but those Towers were close enough.

"Orange is fire, white-green is air, deep blue is water, purple-white is ice." Beef paused. "Why is ice and water separate? I never understood that."

He looked around, scanning the horizon. "Is there no necromancy tower? That's some straight garbage." 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

"Perhaps you could start one," Hallow suggested as they stepped onto a metal roof. His hoofs rang hollow and he tapped across to a flat stone balcony connecting two buildings. He shouldn't have been up there, but they granted him a better view of the Towers.

"Grandmaster Beefhammer. That has a good ring to it.” He tapped his breastplate. “And we'd make a Tower of green crystal."

Hallow hummed, pleased.

"We could get our own outfits too," Beef pointed, "like those guys."

All those factions shuffled around the plazas below, dozens of people in matching robes and armor moving about like little gangs.

Speaking of gangs.

Paladins of the Pathless, their bulky red armor unmistakable even in the vibrant wizard city, prowled down the slanting street. They moved like bloodhounds, not so much walking as stalking, every one of them with their hand on the pommel of their sword. They were led by a contingent of mages, all of them wearing cream robes slashed with violet.

Gah! Beef ducked down beneath the roof of the building. The descending levels of the city made it hard to hide his bulk, and his horns made peeking around corners difficult, and Hallow knew this. Her crystal stretched out, growing out until it could lay its glowing eyes on their hunters.

The distance is tricky and the noise of the crowd is an issue. Hallow adjusted her appendage and sound sharpened. I’ll filter as much of it as I can.

Words echoed across their shared Perception; a whisper down an empty hallway.

“…Fugitive…”

“...been hunting…for months…”

“…Minotaur…”

“Crap." Beef shifted, angling himself as if he could somehow compress his Body further. "What now?”

“We need a way to fight back."

"Fight," Beef grinned. "You've got a plan?"

"I'm an externalization of your Spirit, Beef. If anything, it is you that has the plan."

"Oh," Beef brightened. "Yeah, I got one."

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"Many thanks, Violet Grandmaster. Your presence here will alleviate our allies and their numerous worries."

Elowen restrained her sneer at the fastidious Master mage as he alternated between staring at her and smoothing the folds of his robes. Javur had always been an obsequious little worm, eternally angling for position and favor among the Violet Tower. He had been cruel to her during her training in a past that no longer existed. His dislike for her had been as strong as his disregard for her “unnatural” Lost Race and the advantages it offered.

Now, somehow, Elowen had become one of the Grandmasters that he'd fawned over. Strange. A piece of her had yearned for this, but the sense of belonging she had thought it would bring wasn't to be found. Part of that was due to the false memories that occupied her Mind. They told her a story of study, self-sacrifice, and innovation brought to the annals of the Violet Tower. Mostly, however, it was a tale of treachery.

Grandmaster Tern had fallen ill some months back, officially due to a foreign Status Condition brought to their lands by someone from the east. Wyvarr was named as the perpetrator, and rumors were already flying about how it was an act of war from the minor nation. Lies. All of it. The Tower needed an enemy because it sought to unify the Towers together, and it was an excuse to use the weapon that sat within the Violet's vault.

The Chthonic Star.

Being Grandmaster Tern's favorite student, and privy to many of his secrets, Elowen had found herself elevated. She recalled hundreds of meetings pouring over his cryptic notes and recreating many of his inventions. She was, of course, a Grandmaster Tier and deserved her new position, but this wasn’t based around merit. This was politics. The details were many, and the machinations devious, but Elowen cast them aside. The Second Door wasn't asking her to stop a war any more than it was asking her to topple the Violet Tower. Her choices in this Path were smaller, and far more important.

"By our allies, you mean the Paladins of the Pathless, Javur?"

The Master mage inclined his head. "Just so. Their High Justiciar is waiting for you in the Carmine Towers district."

Elowen raised an eyebrow. "They couldn't travel to us?"

"No, nothing of the sort. They have simply cornered their prey and require our—your—assistance to end their stalemate."

"Stalemate? What is their quarry that could vex an entire company of Paladins?"

"From everything I have been told, Grandmaster, it is a monster.”

“A monster within the bounds of Levantier." Elowen couldn't quite keep the laugh down. "Lead on, then, Javur."

Taking a private ship from the tower to the Carmine district was a matter of three minutes. Traveling as a Grandmaster of the Violet meant that the normal rules of air travel did not apply. They controlled the skies. Her hooves touched down upon the cobbled streets of Levantier and she was whisked across alleys and thoroughfares by her guards. They passed through packed crowds that nevertheless made way for her—or rather, the color of her robes and her guards' emblazoned armor.

Beyond them she saw the Paladins. They had surrounded a half-collapsed manor, overgrown with ivy and untended trees. It was a massive place, taking up a full quarter of the city block, but it was long-abandoned, most likely used now as a Carmine storehouse. The Violet had many such places as well, hidden locations disguised to appear worthless. At least two hundred Paladins ringed the manor, each armed with a sword inscribed with sigils of light, fire, and force. They smelled of unwashed Avum, sweat, metal, and fear.

“Grandmaster Elowen, I presume?” A woman stepped forward, her hair a platinum blonde and a scar marring an eye. "I am High Justiciar Len. I appreciate you coming to our aid."

"Of course," Elowen kept her face composed and her Spirit leashed. She had no love for the Pathless's creatures and that didn’t change inside of an Omen Path, but expressing that would play her hand too soon. "I'm told you need me to help flush out this creature."

"Yes. We have him cornered within the manor, but we are unsure where, and he has…fortified himself."

Elowen stepped forward, limbs glowing now with a violet-gold light. "I shall take care of it."

"Be wary, Grandmaster," the High Justiciar said. "The creature is tricksome. He summons allies from nothing."

Elowen gave a silent nod before lifting off the ground and flying through the collapsed portion of the second story. "Be ready for my signal." She entered, not touching the floor, but hovering through, held aloft by her combined Skills.

The moment she was clear of the Justiciar's line of sight, she released a breath and flared her Perception. Along with her Manasight, it pinged almost instantly upon a very familiar type of magic. Necromancy swirled on the second floor, exactly as she had anticipated. She approached and knocked on a door, leaning her head up to the hole that had been blown through the plaster and lath.

"Beef," she said, "what have you been doing?"

Within, from behind a chitinous bulwark, an enormous Minotaur head popped up. "Elowen? Thank god you're here!" He muscled forward, a bright grin on his face as he opened the door.

"Did you just assume I would be?" She peered around at the room he’d turned into a chitinous fortress. It was filled with spikes and half walls teeming with small four-legged creatures with glowing green eyes and sharp teeth.

He blinked. "This is your town, right?"

"It is. What made you think I was even on this path with you? It could have been any of the others."

That drew him up short. Even Hallow blinked across his crystalline breastplate. "Oh, uh, I guess I just assumed."

Elowen sighed. "This time you were right. Next time, don't be so quick to base a plan around so many variables."

"Sure." He gave a half-hearted salute. From below, something crashed.

"That was the door," Hallow said. "It seems the Paladins are tired of waiting."

Elowen frowned. "I told them to hold off. Either they saw through my ruse quickly, or they have someone with very good ears." She clenched her fists and pivoted, her body still floating above the ground. "You did all this to attract my attention, Beef?"

"Yep."

"What was the next step?"

The kid grinned. "We kick all their asses."

A Paladin blasted through the floor, climbing up in a massive leap. They were suspended inside massive armor made of translucent, golden light and hefted a sword made of the same magic. Each movement crushed wood and stone, and the edge of their blade sizzled and popped as it melted through the walls.

"It's here!" The sword was leveled on Beef. “Blinding—!”

“Order Departs.”

The redcloak's words vanished into a heaving grunt as they were bashed against their own armor. The golden light cracked, the panels flickered and faded, dropping the Paladin bonelessly to the ground.

You Have Killed A Paladin Of The Pathless!

XP Earned!

Hallow hummed appreciatively. "That was effective.”

More clambored through the lower levels, bashing up the stairs with eager shouts. Paladins clad in the same conjured light armor. Beef gripped a hammer made entirely of chitin that glowed with his blackened green magic.

"The next one's mine," he declared before charging forward in a flash, horns goring through solidified golden plates. They burst, shattered to pieces. “What a cool mech!”

“Die, monster!”

"Nope!" Beef deflected the Paladin’s wild slam with a single arm. "Actually, I take it back." With a powerful kick, he booted the Paladin back through the wall. The guy tumbled down the stairwell beyond, crashing into two others.

"It's a shitty mech."

Elowen focused. Her Manasight identified more of the Paladins entering the broken manor, like a wave of golden light, swords unsheathed. Noise and chaos rose to a new height…but none of them climbed to the second level again. Instead, their screams grew frustrated and fearful.

"What's happening?" Beef asked.

Elowen drifted forward, looking down through gaping holes in the floor. The Paladins were running, chased by creatures formed of clotted debris, each sizzling with a jagged instability that bled into the world around it, leaving trails of hissing TV static. A sibilant white noise beyond Dissonance or Harmony itself.

"They’ve returned. Unstable Mana creatures."

"I have a feeling this is gonna be a thing," Beef said, hefting his hammer. “Look.”

The instability spread, infecting the dead redcloaks around them. They rose up in a wave, mockeries of Beef’s Risen Skill. Their bodies bulged and glitched, eyes empty, and their steps eroded the manor. Beef and Elowen fell back to back. Spell and hammer lifted against their foes.

"I have an idea!” Beef grabbed Elowen by the waist and leapt into the air. They burst through the roof, wood and stone collapsing beneath his horns and muscled shoulder.

“Warn me next time!” she squawked as they slid off the roof tiles.

Beef flexed and they shot upward again, collapsing the roof behind them. Beef twisted toward her. "Hold us up!"

Elowen, still unsure of his plan, steadied them in the air. The three of them—Beef, Hallow, and herself—hovered on a cushion of purple-gold Mana.

Beef reached out. “Entropic Paradigm!”

Chitin exploded from the foundations of the manor, spreading outward in rapid sheets that burst through walls and flooring. It folded up, crossing over itself as it tightened into an intricate, clutching clamp. Beef strained, Hallow clenched an extended, crystalling fist that resonated with a deep, bone-shaking vibration. Elowen’s ears popped. The manor compressed, crushed by folding chitin until it was no bigger than a single story.

The buzzing instability sizzled and vanished.

"Huh." Elowen looked down, hunting for any trace of their foes, either Memory-borne or worse. There was none. "That was a good idea."

Beef grinned.