Silence - Chapter 20

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Though he had a bed and privacy, Felix found it difficult to sleep. It wasn't that Pit snored loud enough to wake the dead, or that he didn't trust Bateo—not entirely, at least—but mostly it was that he'd slept a lot on the sloop while they were drifting. It hadn't been the most restful sleep, but it reset his internal clock all the same. So as the hours ticked by, Felix got to work.

The first few hours were devoted to the painful job of closing his Mana Gates. His two palms were done, and over those two hours he'd managed to close not one, but both elbow Gates. It hurt like hell, but he did it. Felix was still getting the hang of opening and closing them, or keeping them closed as needed, but his proficiency grew at least a little. By the time he was moving down to his right foot, he almost felt like he knew what he was doing.

Of course, that was when the Maw reappeared.

"Where have you been?" he asked, eyeing the listless way the Primordial was floating through his cramped room.

Investigating.

"Investigating what? Tenebril farming?" Felix half-laughed. When the creature didn't respond right away, he grew even more suspicious than normal. "Investigating what?"

Do you not find it curious, Felix Nevarre? That the one you found you, who engendered a meager speck of trust within your breast, that one was he who took you in? How outlandish. Those birds are plotting, and this one, this farmer is in on it. The Maw sneered. Him and his tiny brats.

Felix snorted a relieved laugh. "Bateo and his family are the least of my concerns," he said as he stood from his nest of blankets. The room spun, just a little.

You've used too much Mana. Your stores are low.

"They're climbing fast enough," Felix said. "Faster than anyone else out here. Did you know that most of them have no Mana total at all?"

Mhm. The Void has poisoned their core spaces. Not completely, but enough that it leeches any Mana they dare try to absorb.

"Bateo said he was born here, and that his people have been looking for a way out for an entire Age." Felix toyed with the rough spun blanket.

A likely story. If it were true, then they've never had Mana at all, except what they steal from these beasts, the Maw said in disdain.

"Don't you do the same thing? Isn't Ravenous Tithe literally that?"

We secure the power of our enemies and turn it against them. That is the prerogative of the predator over the prey!

"Mhm," Felix said absently. It was a measure of the weirdness in his life that he was able to respond so casually to an insane Primordial that had been grafted onto his soul. Yet he couldn't quite help it; whenever the Maw devolved into rhetoric about "predators" and stuff he kinda zoned out.

Deep Mind is level 31!

Felix jolted to his senses and cast a suspicious look at the Maw. The creature was floating near the triangular apex of the ceiling, inspecting the pale, lifeless bone of its construction. It had lapsed into silence. Had it done something to trigger that Skill level? Felix brought up the the Skill's description.

Deep Mind (Epic), Level 31!
You have delved deeper into the mind than most, traveling upon a dark confluence of truth and perception. Increases Resonance per Skill Level, increases potency of mental Skills by a moderate amount per Skill Level.

No clue what makes it stronger, other than mental...duress. Felix thought on his first meeting with the Maw, where his Bastion of Will and Deep Mind kept rising in level the longer it spoke. At the time, it was toying with him attempting to befuddle him and lure Felix into agreeing to be its Vessel. And now...

Now I am a Vessel, just not how it wanted. I have to assume it's gonna keep trying to take control. He looked at the Skill description once again. And I have to assume that it did something to provoke that level.

Felix took a breath and with an awkward twist of his Perception, he fell inward. Into the dark space just below his rib cage and above his navel.

His core space.

It emerged from the darkness, a burning star set upon the black. His core. A blue-white star of flames and crackling lightning, immobile in his center but whirling nevertheless. Farther out were bright patterns of light in varying colors and sizes and intensities, each strung out in concentric circles around his core. Each light, a Skill. He fell until he hovered just before the enormous, raging inferno, just out of touch of his nearest Skill. Armored Skin, it turned out; not the one he wanted.

Where is it?

The distances were fuzzy, murky even, not resembling the Void so much as a brackish lake filled with grit and debris. His core itself was the clearest, the most defined, as were those Skills closest to it. Felix peered at them.

Stone Shaping. Influence of the Wisp. Unarmed Mastery. Every Skill I Tempered into Apprentice Tier—that I used in my Formation—they're the closest ones. He drifted toward them as they floated sedately within his miniature solar system. Higher leveled Skills are closer too, like they're...getting more sustenance from my core.

Felix looked around, peering through the murk and found one of his newest Skills: Abyssal Skein. It hovered in the middle distance, twisting on itself like a maze. As a Rare Skill, it was a decently large pattern, complex certainly, but it wasn't its rarity or level that made it strange. It was a Void Skill, his first, and it seemed to...drink in the dark. Felix squinted, for all that he was within his own vision, but the particulars of Abyssal Skein's pattern were impossible to parse. It flickered, almost vanishing before resettling in its former position.

Felix turned away, unable to bear looking at it any longer.

Is that what happens with everyone's core in the Void? It grows strange and...glitchy?

He'd have to ask Bateo, though he suspected the birdman likely wouldn't answer. It seemed the sort of thing people would keep close to their chest.

Felix pivoted away from Abyssal Skein and caught sight of another disconcerting pattern: Acrobatics. Unlike Abyssal Skein it didn't glitch, but it did spark, like exposed live wires. The pattern of the Skill was disrupted, severed almost, as if a series of claws had torn through it. Looking at it was painful, like a visual migraine, and Felix quickly averted his gaze. Others were out there, ten others that had been damaged by the Maw.

Anger and fear pulsed through Felix, both impotent in a way he'd grown uncomfortably used to—there was nothing he could do about them. Not unless the birds knew something about fixing broken Skills.

Thanks to having a considerable Will, Felix was easily able to force himself away from that line of thought. It wasn't productive, not at the moment. He returned to his original purpose. Deep Mind, Deep Mind, where are you?

As if it heard him, the Skill pulled into sight, closely followed by his Bastion of Will. Both were patterns of exceptional size, not the largest—that honor belonged to Etheric Concordance—but of considerable complexity. They also both dealt with the Mind and a good a place to start as any.

Okay. Deep Mind. Does it look different? Would I notice? Felix thought as he drifted closer to its folding whorls of light. Pulses in regular rhythms shot down the pattern, knots of light that were followed by the barest of humming. It was a song—a vibration, really—as much as a shape, flaring to a crescendo when he activated his Skills. That process was automatic though, a thought trigger pumping Mana through the Skill, his channels, and out into the world through his Mana Gates. Only recently had he started following the pattern, altering it slightly with a few of his Skills. Deep Mind is a passive Skill, reactive. So can I follow the pattern? See why it changed?

It was worth a shot. The perception that was "him" in his visualized core space floated closer, until Deep Mind took up all of his vision. It loomed, like an actual planet made of textured ribbons of light, hollow but huge. Felix grasped at his Affinity, the Harmonic Stat that was all about sensing the music that seemed to underlay the world.

Affinity - Affects empathy and connection with the Harmonies. Confluence of Vitality and Perception.

At only 60 points, it was far weaker than most of his Primary Stats. At first he heard only the omnipresent hum—the only thing he could perceive this close to the Skill—but as he tested the parts of it, it began to resolve into something steady and deep. Dark, full tones rolled beneath a glissando of lighter notes, hinting at...secrets. Felix couldn't explain that thought and didn't try, he simply listened. Followed the pattern.

Until it stopped.

He'd reached the center of the Skill, of the etchings all around him. Light pulsed and traced in a kaleidoscopic display, but there it did not touch him. There was a profound silence there, insulating, empowering. Felix felt...more. If he focused, he could even see beyond the Skill, out into the dark of his spinning core. All the gunk and flotsam that drifted in the hazy shadows between Skills and his burning sun, it came into sharp relief.

Fire Within is level 37!

Oh jeez. Gross. He recoiled from the sight, and at the same time felt a tight pull on his being. Space rushed around him and he was suddenly outside Deep Mind again.

Deep Mind is level 32!

Confluence of truth and perception, huh? Felix was of the mind that the rarer Skills got, the more obtuse their function became. Which...made sense. Harn had said the Beginner Tier of power was easy to muscle through by simple repetition and training. Apprentice Tier was harder, requiring a deeper understanding of one's Skills. So clearly he'd just learned something. Sure wish I knew what, though. I can't—Oh.

Felix looked at Deep Mind again, and at the dark around it. Dark that so resembled the Void outside. Was that intentional? If his core space was created subconsciously, how did he know to add in the Void? Regardless, coincidence or not his Deep Mind was trying to parse something about his space, and maybe even about the Void itself.

It's pushing against the Void? Since it's passive, maybe it's always running in the background then, always trying to delve deeper.

Deep Mind is level 33!

Delve for what though? A secret—?

What are you doing, Felix Nevarre?

"Ahh!" Felix shouted internally and externally as he rapidly oscillating between the real and the envisioned worlds. The Maw loomed over him in both, entirely too close for his comfort. "Back the hell up!"

The creature fixed him with a gimlet eye before tilting itself backwards. Felix leaped to his feet and took a step backward for good measure.

"I don't ever want you that close," he panted. His pulse thundered in his neck and temple, and Felix fought to rein back his emotions. "Understand?"

Were you within your core space? The Maw floated down until it was only inches above the attic floor. I could hear the vibrations. It was...disconcerting.

"Good to know." The Maw clearly didn't care to listen to Felix, so finding things that discomfited it were the next best thing. "I'll make sure to try it again when you're being a pain in my ass."

Petulant child. I am trying to help you.

"You have a funny way of helping, Maw. I was looking at my core space. You interrupted."

The Maw scoffed. Your core space. You envisioned a strange, floating dance. It is inscrutable, an emptiness littered with detritus. A pathetic attempt.

"That's outer space. Sorta. It's a solar system."

A what?

"A solar...You know the sun? It has—where I'm from it has planets that revolve around it."

Madness, the Maw scoffed. No wonder your planet is so broken. That it would produce an Unbound is a marvel that I cannot answer. All revolves around this world, from the stars in the heavens to the shuddering depths of the Realms. We are held aloft by the Will of those that came before, the Primordials of the Dawn. What holds your pathetic marble in place? What prevents it from hurling into the Void?

"Uh, gravity?" Felix said, nonplussed. He tried to keep track of the crazy the Maw spewed, but it was getting a bit much.

Gravity...what is this? The Maw's face twisted. It has the taste of more nonsense.

"What? No, it's a natural law," Felix said. "Been a while since physics class, but anything with mass creates it's own gravitational pull. So if you get something big enough, like a planet, then it has its own gravity. It's why people on the Continent don't fly off into the sky as the planet spins."

And you say your Earth slings around your sun? How does your ball of mud not dominate the star? It is not the path of the greater to dance for the lesser.

"Uh, well. The sun's a lot bigger than earth. It can fit like," Felix felt the memory surge into his Mind, fully formed, of a scientist with a bowtie explaining a great many things. "One point three million Earths inside it, if it were hollow."

That is indeed large. Suspiciously so. Why would the sun not destroy your Earth, with it in its thrall?

"So because it's so big, it has a lot of gravity. The sun holds the earth and a bunch of other planets in orbit around it, and the opposing forces create paths that the planets travel on. At least, that's my understanding of it, and I guess that's what I drew on when I made my core space." Felix scratched the back of his head. "It was all instinct really, just ideas on top of one another and then bam: there it is."

How...fanciful, the Maw said, but the derision in its voice had faded. Instead it was staring into Felix's midsection as if dissecting him. Then you must embrace that idea. Turn your errant madness into power. Your core space, and your progress in the Visualization Stage relies on the potency of your Mind. Lucky for you, you have your Fire Within, which is a Skill designed to aid such growth.

"Really?" Felix considered the pattern for Fire Within that floated through his core space. "That seems convenient."

It truly is not. You fought tooth and nail for that Skill, nearly dying beside that waterfall. That you latched onto the fledgling flame of your core was an inspired choice...and an astounding stroke of luck. Embrace that luck, use the fruits of it to your advantage and seize what lies before you.

Felix glanced at the Maw, noting its stolen features were twisted into an uncomfortably intense expression of rapture. Its words, in turn, felt less like good advice and more like the guidance of a wild cat on the hunt.

Don't give me that look, Felix Nevarre. You are as much a killer as anyone.

Felix frowned. He had killed, but only when there was little other choice. The Continent and the Void had rarely given him other options. What he didn't like, however, was the look of satisfaction on the Maw's face. Like it was proud of him.

Your core space, inferior though it is, has...potential. You must clarify it, however. It drew itself up until the Primordial was look down its nose at him. Its voice reverberated with a dire promise, with temptation that picked at Felix's heart. Only I can aid you there. Only my Ages of experience will catapult you into the realms of power that is your destiny.

Bastion of Will is level 43!

"No thanks," Felix said simply. The echo in the Primordial's words cut off mid-thought, like someone had cut its mic. The creature's odd spell defanged, the Maw's face cycled through disbelief and then smoldering outrage. With a smirk, Felix dropped back into his core space. It had given him an idea.

His descent was rapid this time, a mere blurring of his surroundings and Felix was there beside his burning core. His Bastion of Will was in the closest orbit, being so highly leveled, and without pause he dove into its twisting pattern.

Unlike the others, his Bastion was special. Perhaps the construction of his core space affected its appearance, for as he passed into the Skill it was as if he were truly entering the atmosphere above a planet. Grey skies and low, scudding clouds swirled around Felix as he descended. Below spread a field of grey grasses, rocky mountains, a dark forest, and a green, steaming sea. And in the center of it all, a squared fortress that had seen better days.

Felix landed atop the lone, central tower. It was square shaped but listing slightly to the side, Tower of Pisa style. The battlements that surrounded the inner bailey were ragged and broken in several places, crenelations sheared off in many places. The place had suffered extensively during his fight with the Maw, when he attempted to resist her takeover. That struggle had transferred to his Bastion when the acid seas had risen, carrying horrors to his walls. Now the water had receded, though not entirely back to its original place. The damage had stopped, but there hadn't been any healing. The earth itself was ruptured, the grass dead between gaps of exposed loam.

His Bastion had just protected him from another manipulation attempt by the Maw. How many had he missed because his mental fortress was in disrepair?

The air whined slightly, distorting with a pale crimson as the Maw manifested. A strain of atonal chords speared across Felix's senses, enough to make him recoil against his tower. The Maw's thin body stumbled slightly as his Skill's gravity suddenly affected its immaterial form, and it hissed in displeasure. Remarkable that you didn't lose this Skill as well. You see what I did, just by stepping into the domain of your Spirit? The damage I was able to wreak? While I am a peerless power, even lesser beings can achieve the same with enough Will, Intent, and potency. You have but to seek clarity. In all things.

Felix looked the Maw up and down. "How do I do that?"

You strengthen it, reinforcing it with your Spirit and Mind and Body.

"Hm," he said, noncommittally. Inside he was already planning, flipping through plans that formed in his Mind. Angles against the monster in his brain. "I see."

The Maw opened its mouth once more, perhaps to press its point, but suddenly closed it. Instead it simply watched him.

This is going to be difficult, he thought.