Silence - Chapter 34

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Felix! Stop!

He didn't listen, bounding across the ground faster and faster, he pressed all he could out of his Skills. Relentless Charge carried him forward in a flash, and he chained them together over and over, pushing himself until his Mana hit the halfway mark. Then he ran some more, desperate, feeding some of the Essence into his crackling core. It washed back outward, lighting up his Skill pattern.

Relentless Charge is level 13!

Even that took the lions-share of the nebulous Essence he held within his core space, so thin was the System's influence. But Felix didn't care. He pressed on, until the miles disappeared and the second ward layer loomed close by.

That was when the air rippled ahead, and a Manaship a bit bigger than his sloop ripped toward him. Its dark sails and broad bone beams shone with Mana, a vibrant life that animated the ship as men and women dressed in coarse leathers screamed obscenities into the black. They noticed him at the same time Felix saw them, and the ship took a wide turn, bringing four ballistae to bear on him.

"Fire!" a voice cried out, and four bolts the size of spears exploded forth, lit with a terrible green light.

Reign of Vellus!

Felix dumped his Mana into the Skill, spending almost a quarter of it on the cast. A sphere of omnidirectional force slammed outward, slapping the Void with a sound like thunder as lightning chased after it. The wave of kinetic Mana hit the ballista bolts and stopped them dead.

"Well, if it isn't the Mana-freak!" said a feminine voice from atop the forecastle. Felix saw her, a Half-Orc woman with white hair, dark green skin, and eyes as sharp as the cutlass at her side. A mandolin was slung at her back, but she didn't seem in a mood to play it. He recognized her: Bridgven Parsdattir, the bard from the Ten Hand's fortress. "Just who we've been lookin' for! Reload!"

"Why are you here?" Felix cried out, barely able to keep his temper in check. Faced with an entire ship filled with pirates, he couldn't let his anger make the decisions here. He counted at least seven aboard the ship, with more potentially inside.

"We tracked you, fool! You think someone can steal one of Captain Nokk's ships and get away with it?" She laughed, delighted. "I will say, setting the voidbeasts on the Captain's flagship was inspired. I may write a song about it!" She grinned, and her tusks gleamed in the light of green flame. "Fire!"

Relentless Charge!

Felix vanished from his position, easily evading the ballista bolts and running toward the hull of the ship. They can't fire at me if I'm on their ship, right? More pirates pointed and called out, tracking him.

"He's a slippery one! Keep him in your sights, boys!" Bridgven shouted. "First one to pop him get's their pick outta the loot we took, eh?" A raucous cheer went up among the pirates, and Felix snarled.

"What've you done?"

"Plundered your little nest of marks!" Bridgven cackled, firing her own light crossbow at him. The bolt missed and flew off into the Void. "And oh, great goddesses of old! What riches we've taken! Our ships will never run dry, boys!"

"Plenty of birds to fuel 'em!" someone shouted and laughter followed.

Felix bared his teeth.

Relentless Charge!

Relentless Charge!

Relentless Charge!

He zipped through the air, chaining each Charge so that he fairly rocketed up and into the side of the ship. He hit so hard it tilted, throwing off the aim of several arbalests, and was only just able to catch hold of the railing. He pulled himself up with a single yank, vaulting ten feet into the air before landing in a deck-splintering crouch.

"How'd he do that?"

"I don't care! Kill him!" Bridgven yelled.

Shadow Whip!

Corrosive Strike!

The first two were snared by his whip, split into two, and hauled off their feet. A single, punishing acid punch put them both into the deck, splintering it further. They did not get up.

"You little—!" Another pirate hurled himself at Felix, and this time it was an Orc the size of a linebacker. He caught Felix at the waist and heaved backward...yet Felix was unmoved. He was too heavy. The look of confusion the Orc gave him before Felix clocked him would have been hilarious in any other situation. Now, however, Felix simply moved on.

There were plenty more pirates to go.

Pirates came at him in waves from every direction, two or three at a time, bearing cutlasses and pikes. Pale washes of Mana flowed from their channels, but it was weak. All of it was weak compared to Felix's own abilities. Skill after Skill buckled under Felix's own, and Corrosive Strike, Shadow Whip, and Reign of Vellus took a hefty toll on them all. The last to come at him had a metal hook tied to a rope that he whirled about. He was fast and dangerous, even better than Evie, but not faster than Felix. He caught the hook in his bare hand and yanked, hauling the pirate into the main mast where he just about cracked it with his skull. A heavy stomp ended him for good.

Then it was just him and the Half-Orc. She held her cutlass out, but Felix's Manasight could see her gates swirling with unreleased energy. "Who are you, eh? You're not some nobody that got sucked into the Void. Who're you runnin' with? Blade Eels? Three Skulls?" She pivoted as Felix advanced on the forecastle, bright green Mana swirling on his own fists.

"Who?" Felix asked as he closed the distance.

"Pretend all you like, but I know a con when I see it," Bridgven snarled. "You came to our home with lies and a sob story, all the while you were ready to fleece us." Suddenly she laughed, and Felix got the impression that she wasn't entirely sane. "I can respect a good grift, some solid misdirection. But now you've killed my crew. Now you've made me mad."

Mana swelled in her off-hand, thicker by far than her crew and she made as if she were pitching a ball at him. Felix tensed, ready to dodge, when his Perception flared up like a klaxon. Desperate, he leaped straight up, almost Willing himself higher as a scything blade of silvery Mana swung horizontally through where he had stood. Felix, holding onto the lowest shrouds, gaped below. Even if he had dodged where he'd planned, it would have sliced him in half.

Bridgven laughed. "I told you! I love a con!" The scything blade twisted and shot upward.

Reign of Vellus!

Just as the scythe sheared through the voidleather rigging, his blast of kinetic force sent Felix sideways, into the main mast. Felix rebounded off it and fell, hard, onto the deck twenty feet below. Boards burst beneath him. Felix scrambled to his feet, ribs and back a mass of agony, and ran across the deck.

The Half-Orc laughed again, sounding more and more unhinged. "Don't run away! Stay awhile!"

Her scythe followed him, slashing and stabbing in turns, cutting through rigging and bone shaped railings with equal ease. Felix barely kept ahead of it, bounding from railing to rigging to main mast again. He tumbled without thinking, and felt every nerve ending seize all at once. Felix fell like a sack of grain, just beyond the mast, gasping in excruciating pain as Acrobatics tried to activate.

The Half-Orc's scythe missed him by bare inches, unable to get an angle on him from the opposite side of the massive main mast. Distantly, he heard her snarl in annoyance. "Get up! This is no fun if you don't fight back!"

The agony did not let up despite his wishes, searing his skin and arms and every muscle between. It felt as if a thousand blades were stabbing into his core, and each stab sent waves of pain rolling into the rest of his body. Heavy boots thudded on the deck, pulling his eye. He saw Bridgven slide to a stop, now on the other side of the mast. She scoffed, and that mad gleam in her eye had redoubled.

"Fine! Stay still and die!"

Felix threw his mighty Willpower against the savage pain in his core, and drew enough control to push against the main mast with his legs. He skidded backward like a hockey puck, so fast he fetched against the railing with the sound of splintering bone.

"GAHH!" The impact was more than enough to jostle him from his tormented core, and Felix lurched to his feet. He gasped, panting for breath, as Bridgven rounded on him. Her scythe hovered in the air above her. His Mind whirled, Perception flared for something, anything. Damnit, I hope this works!

Influence of the Wisp!

Blue-white wispfire ignited across the Half-Orc's chest, flaring along all of her limbs, an echo of the fire on Felix himself. Yet even as it lit, it died and flickered out.

Enthrall Failed.

But it was distraction enough. Felix ran, not for his enemy, but laterally, toward the main mast. Bridgven swung, but at the last minute pulled short, unable to damage her precious ship. Felix couldn't even muster up the amusement to enjoy it. He leaped, straight up.

Reign of Vellus!

At the apex of his leap, which carried him up thirty feet easily, he sent a focused beam of force directly above him. Felix's entire body was forced back down, slamming into the deck of the Manaship. He'd learned he'd grown in weight and density since earning his Apprentice Tier Body, and now he relied on it. The entire deck pitched to starboard, and the Half-Orc pirate was thrown from her feet, her balance utterly broken.

Wrack and Ruin!

Reign of Vellus!

Felix ran up the near-vertical deck, propelled by the spark of lightning and thunder behind him, rocketing up at her with all the strength he could muster. Bridgven snarled in surprise as they met, her eyes wide and manic, too fast, too close to avoid him...he slammed the orb of dark acid straight into her solar plexus. His fist followed it, until both emerged in a shower of viscera that revealed destroyed flesh and bone in equal measure.

You have Killed Bridgven Parsdattir!

XP Earned!

The deck rolled in the opposite direction, slamming hard into his feet and knees, sending him sprawling like a sack of meal. Gamely, he grabbed onto a dangling line of voidleather, and was flung about like a child's toy, smashing into the deck as the Manaship fought to find its equilibrium.  When finally the ship settled, Felix was wrung out and more than a little battered.

"Oough," he elocuted, rolling heavily onto his back atop the heaving deck. "Unbound's number one weakness: big ass ships."

Felix spent some time on his back, but eventually leveraged himself into a sitting position. He gasped at a pain in his ribs—it felt like one of them had cracked, but not broken. He couldn't be sure. Felix stood. Bodies were all around him, many tossed against the starboard railing during his maneuver, and he scanned them nervously. Manasight flared, checking the masts and sails for anyone still lurking, but neither his Skill nor his Perception caught anything at all.

He'd won.

Aside from that bit at the end, you did well. Very well.

Felix jerked his head up and saw the Maw hovering above him, its lank hair drifting in a non-existent breeze. It smiled with delight.

Such excellent violence. You'll make a fine Vessel, yet.

"Don't get your hopes up," he snapped. Felix looked about. "I will take this vessel, though." Quickly, he descended the steps into the areas below decks. He swept his Manasight through the area, looking for more pirates, but found no one else aboard ship. At least, no one until he reached the rear most section, where he could hear a set of soft, pained cries.

The door was locked, but Felix put his shoulder to it and tore it off the hinges completely. It flew through the air, only barely missing a set of complicate machinery that could only be the Mana engine running the ship. Set in the center of that engine, however, was a...a person.

"Oh no," Felix gasped.

According to his Eye, he was a Dwarf named Svengard, but he responded to nothing Felix said or did. That is, until Felix came close enough to see just how closely he was bound to the engine array. Void bone spikes were driven into the Dwarf's chest and arms, along with a complicated series of voidleather bindings, each inscribed with complicated sigaldry that extended deep into the guts of the machinery.

"Kill...me..."

Felix flinched back, horrified. The Dwarf's eyes were clouded over, but they still tracked Felix. He tried repeating it once more before the Dwarf was too exhausted to go on.

"God damn it," Felix muttered. "I'm not gonna kill you."

Then you will be draining him to power this ship?

"I'll pilot it myself. I've got the Skill and the Mana to spare," Felix said, still grimacing at the Mana engine before him.

Unless you remove him, that will not work. It is designed to pull Mana from one placed here, first. The Maw was suddenly atop the engine, pointing at a particular line of script. Says so, right here.

Felix clenched his jaw, unwilling. Then without warning, a shrill cry stabbed through Felix's Mind and Spirit. His back arched with the intensity of it, and sense memories flashed through his head in a hectic rush. Then it was gone, and Felix was gasping for breath.

Pit. He turned and left, pounding up the stairs at speed. PIT!

So you just leave him there to rot? The Maw kept pace with him as Felix leaped off the deck of the Manaship, setting it slowly tilting again in his wake. Not very heroic and noble of you, Felix Nevarre.

"I'm not kill him, you psycho! And Pit's in trouble!" Felix gathered his Stamina and Mana, and activated Skills that set him flashing forward atop a wave of lightning.

Reign of Vellus!

Relentless Charge!

Reign of Vellus!

Relentless Charge!

Reign of Vellus!

Relentless Charge!

He approached the second ward again, this time at speed, and flashed through its defenses. He watched the Void ripple, revealing dozens of stone islands in eyeshot, many of them linked by braided chains. More importantly, he could see Bateo's home in the near distance.

The farmhouse was a pyre, blazing acid-green in the dark.

"No," he whispered, before pouring more of his Mana into his Skills. His channels fairly screamed, torn raw by the flush of power, until he all but crashed into the side of the island. Felix rolled with the impact, hurtling himself forward and Charging across the two outer islands.

Relentless Charge!

Relentless Charge!

Relentless Charge!

Relentless Charge!

Felix all but flew through the Void, flashing ahead regardless of his Stamina and Mana. He landed heavily atop the still burning island, gasping and panting. Felix pivoted, taking it all in. The pens, the fields, all of it was torn apart and ruined. The farmhouse—the farmhouse! He could feel the heat from where he stood at the edge of the island, and it stabbed at his skin like a thousand daggers.

"Bateo! Estrid! Kids!"

Disregarding the pain, Felix stumbled up the steps three at a time. The building was burning hot the higher he ascended, screaming against his nerves and shrieking within his core space. Felix spasmed but pushed onward, bellowing as loud as he could.

"PIT! ESTRID! BATEO!"

He struggled to the top of the steps, half-blind from the pain. His chest felt as if it was ripping in half, but Felix didn't—couldn't—stop.

"PIT!"

Inside! Hurry!

Felix gasped, instantly regretting it as the heat surged into his throat, but he grimaced through it and stumbled toward the door. His weight alone shattered the thin bone panels and fire bloomed all around Felix as he staggered into the farmhouse. The kitchen was more or less intact, but flames had consumed the upper stories and dropped portions of it down from above.

Where are you?

Here! Hawk hurt!

A warmth in his chest pulled Felix, distinct from the nightmare of pain around him, and he turned with it. There. Pit struggled with a large stone beam that had fallen down across the living area. At first Felix feared his Companion was trapped, but then he saw another figure next to the tenku, and this one wasn't moving at all.

"Bateo!" Felix rushed to their side, hissing as the heat redoubled and flames licked at his boots. His Aspects screamed in agony, and he could feel his Health draining with every second he remained. "Pit! What happened?"

Attack! Stolen! Hawk hurt! Hawk trapped!

Each word was a stab at Felix's brain, but the tenku was scared and injured. Felix activated Voracious Eye through his half blind vision...and saw Bateo still had some Health remaining. They could save him.

S-stone Shaping!

The Skill stuttered as it activated, bombarded with the waves of furious vibration from his Heat and Fire Resistance Skills. But Felix flared it bright, forcing it beyond the interference, pouring Mana into his channels and out of his palm Gates. Dusty brown Mana sank into the stone beam, melting it into a sloppy goo that Felix shaped away from them all. He spread it about, smothering what fires he could with it, while Pit got under Bateo and began dragging him out of the house.

Felix followed, burnt and haggard, tripping across the boards and down the rickety stairs. The three of them kept moving until they were well clear of the blaze. Pit and Felix both slumped to the stone, exhausted.

Fire Resistance is level 20!

Heat Resistance is level 22!

The pain of both flared again—a jagged, brilliant pillar of agony—before it collapsed on itself, and chunks of his Essence store was torn away once more.

"What," Felix said with a cough. "What happened?"

Enemy fired. Burning flames. Pit trembled, and Felix realized the tenku had their burlaps sack of belongings tied around himself. Stole hawk. Hurt hawk.

Along with the words, he sent a series of sense memories similar to what had been in his terrified cry earlier. Images of ships, multiple ones, sailing into Echo's Reach and laying waste to everything in their path. Of people marched onto the ships at spear-point, wrapped in chains.

"Felix..."

Snapped clear of the sense memories, Felix took a shaky breath. His core still felt like it was splintering, but it wasn't so bad this far from the heat and flames. To his side, Bateo was awake.

"Hey man, hang on. You're hurt so don't strain yourself," Felix said, but the Korvaa didn't listen. His wings were burnt up and his left side was...it was bad. Felix tore his eyes away from it, trying to only focus on his friend's bloody face.

"Felix...they took her. They took my Estrid. And the hatchlings, oh gods." Bateo tried to cough, but only convulsed. His eyes were too bright and too wide. "The pirates took them. You...you have to save them. Felix!" His hand gripped Felix's own with a startling strength. "Promise me!"

"Save them? I'll tear the pirates apart to find them, Bateo. Don't worry about that. Worry about getting better, yeah? Pit? Do we have any potions? Bandages? Anything?" Felix felt panic pulling at him, but he refused to give in, Willing it away as Pit shook out a number of things from his bag. Yet when he turned back, the Korvaa's hand had fallen loose. Bateo was still.

“No, no not again,” Felix said. He heard a plaintive note to his voice but couldn’t help it. “Bateo…”

Voracious Eye...

His Health had dropped to zero, as well as his Stamina. The Korvaa had died with his eyes open, hand reaching out, grasping for him. Felix stumbled back, unable to look at the farmer. His friend.

Why? Why couldn’t he live? He had a family—Felix hesitated, following the man’s grasping hands, reaching toward the black. Not toward him. Toward his wife and kids.

“I’ll kill them all, Bateo.” Felix’s vision narrowed. “All of them.”

Pit barked and pointed his beak in the direction of Echoes Reach. Felix saw more green fires blazing in the distance, yet Pits memories said the pirates had already fled.  Felix grimaced but turned away from the sight.

Stone Shaping!

He couldn't leave his friend just sitting there. The rock beneath Bateo softened and swelled, pulling his body down into its embrace. Above the spot, Felix crafted a rudimentary pillar, then extended branches to either side, thinning and splitting them. He add wide bits to the ends, shaping them into pointed ovals. At the end, panting with the effort, Felix had made a small stone tree. It wasn’t very good.

Bateo would've loved it.

“Pit, can you run?”

Yes.

“It’s a short distance. Let’s—let’s go.”