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Chapter 555
🕑 Added 2023-02-22 19:39:47 +0000 UTCChapter 555! That's a fun number.
After some consideration, I've editing some bits into chapters 527, 533, and 534 to better reintroduce/establish Pit's condition/issues. Give those a re-read if you like!
Enjoy!
ToC
* * *
Jesus, what am I doing? Felix fell back on his heels, letting the spinning pattern of Chthonic Tribute die down to a low hum. “Pit. Back off.”
His friend gave Felix a curious tilt of his head, but said nothing as he withdrew his ice-shaped claws from the Frostfather’s core. The only problem was he was now trapped down on the Greater Elemental’s surface.
Right. Cloudst—Gnh! Felix tried and failed to muster his Mana for another Cloudstep. His channels had been torn to shreds by that last attack, and forcing his power through them now was like pouring alcohol on an open wound. He hissed at the pain; it was sharp enough that it stabbed straight through his Song of Absolution, and that was to say nothing of the looseness he felt around his lungs.
“Felix?”
“Stay there, bud.” Felix marshaled his Sovereign of Flesh, letting the Essence he’d stolen fuel his Health regeneration as he let fade the secondary set of monstrous jaws. A powerful itch overcame him as things shifted inside, crawling back into place within the shadows of his guts. It sucked, but with some effort he stayed standing. “Frostfather. I accept your surrender.”
You Have Defeated The Frostfather, Greater Elemental Of Frost!
XP Earned!
Your Companion Pit Has Gained 2 Levels!
Pit Is Now Level 74!
He Gains:
+20 STR, +18 PER, +8 VIT, +22 END, +14 INT, +20 WIL, +40 AGL, +40 DEX!
+20 AFI, RES, and REI!
You Have Gained 1 Level!
You Are Now Level 63!
+20 to STR! +22 to PER! +22 to VIT! +26 to END! +24 to INT! +28 to WIL! +26 to AGL! +29 to DEX!
+20 All Harmonic Stats!
You Have 15 Unused Stat Points!
New Title!
Conqueror of Ironskin Domain (Legendary)!
You have achieved what no one else has in the history of this Domain: defeated the Frostfather in combat. Your connection with ice, stone, and metal Mana has deepened, and your dexterity with all three elements has increased!
Rime Shaping is level 85!
Stone Shaping is level 95!
You Have Digested Your Opponent’s Mana!
You Have Gained A Skill!
New Skill!
Ferric Shaping (Epic), Level 1!
You have parsed the secrets of stone to find the refined ore within. The patterns of metal have revealed themselves to you, and the base metal iron is yours to shape.
Felix staggered back as System energy flooded his core space, only distantly aware of Pit doing the same. Notifications jumped out at him. Felix read through them all, smiling grimly as he read the last. Another shaping Skill. Probably from that Superior Steel Elemental. How many more are there?
“You…have defeated me, creature.” the mountain below rumbled. “Are those rewards sufficient?”
“Pretty good,” Felix admitted. He grunted as a spike of pain shot through him; he was pretty sure a bone just reset. “And stop calling me ‘creature.’ My name’s Felix.”
Purple-white eyes flashed curiously. “Why did you seek my destruction…Felix?”
Because I’m stupid and worried and in a damn hurry. “I’m in need of something, and I hoped I could find it here. I didn’t. Defeating you might have pushed me toward where I needed to be, but I don’t want to kill you. I don’t want to kill anybody, if I can help it.” He sat, keeping the pain from his face as he dangled his legs off the edge of his Cloudstep. “Sorry about that.”
The Frostfather’s Spirit, held all around them like the atmosphere itself, was hard to miss. Likewise, the odd twist in its music was very noticeable. Shock, Felix could tell.
“I did not expect apologies. Not from a Primordial.”
Felix huffed a small laugh. “Oh. Right. Well, I’m a lot less crazy than the usual variety.”
“Smaller too,” Pit added.
“Indeed. You are unlike your kin in many ways…Felix. But not entirely dissimilar.”
The mountain shook, and Felix tensed despite the pain, only to realize the Greater Elemental was sitting back down himself. Pit wobbled, but stayed standing. The Frostfather’s feet of stone and metal and ice vanished beneath his craggy exterior, until there was no delineation between him and the mountain itself.
“Not dissimilar. I’m going to assume that’s a compliment,” Felix said.
“Mhm,” the Frostfather rumbled. “Those that I knew were wise beyond measure, before the gods laid their curse upon them. Awfully perceptive, as well. Your words cut me to the quick, just as theirs once did. I am no god.”
Felix folded his arms. “The Risi would argue otherwise.”
“Do not be confused, Primordial. My hand was instrumental in creating the Cold Children, but the confluence of the Grand Harmony and Dissonance cannot be touched by one such as I. Not alone.”
A great, tempestuous wind began; so powerful that Felix once again surged to his feet. Only to find that the Frostfather was…sniffing. “Ah.” There was a sadness in that word, so much that the sky began to purple with rain clouds. “Scion of the Unseen Tide. I knew your mother well.”
“My mother?” Felix wrestled down a spike of alarm and confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“Your predecessor. Your maker.” The mountain rumbled. “She who became the Unending Maw.”
Felix frowned. “You knew her. It. The Maw. How? Why?”
“I am old, Felix. Very, very old. Yet compared to her I was a child. She helped me create the Cold Children. She is their mother, too.”
Shit. Grimmar was right. “The mother of monsters,” he said.
“An apt name. The curse affected her least of all, but all of her kind suffered. We suffered.”
“Who’s ‘we?’”
“The Elementals. Have you seen any outside this Domain, Felix?”
“Some,” he admitted. “Sprites.”
“The least of us. All that remains upon the Continent in any real sense. We were vanquished in Ages past—a casualty of the war.”
“The war. Between the Nym and the gods?”
The Frostfather chuckled, a sound like a rockslide. “Far before that, Felix. The war that began it all. The War for Creation.”
The War for Creation. That phrase had meaning. Weight. Felix almost felt like he could hear the significance in it. Before he could compile his thoughts, the Frostfather continued.
“Before the old gods rose, before the mortal Races, we were the rulers of the Continent. Masters of its elements and peoples. Then we were struck down by them, and our lineage diluted. Weakened. Turned to Naiads and Nixies and Sylphs. The Primordials did not help us. They were too busy fighting their own battles to do more than mourn our fall.” Those eyes, like burning spotlights now, flashed at Felix. “But you…you are powerful. Potent. Free of the flesh curse that felled your kind. How?”
“I’m special,” Felix said. “Tell me more about this war. It was the gods versus the Primordials?”
“Eventually. Your Race…Greater Primordial.” The Frostfather sighed, that sadness replaced by a slow anger. “I remember some, but I did not fight in the war. I was merely an Inferior Elemental then, a limited Mind, but I recall the stories. The Greater Primordials were the generals of the war, driving their lesser brethren into glorious battle. Thousands against the might of the new gods.”
“They led them? A whole army?” Felix asked. He imagined Elderthrone but filled with nightmarish Primordials.
“No. There were others. The kings of all. The gods before the gods and precursors to the Ancient Scions. The Cardinal Beasts.”
Felix’s breath caught in his chest. Cardinal…? Like Cardinal Fiend, or Cardinal Flame. Like my goddamn Named core?
The Frostfather rumbled yet again, and this time it was with curiosity. “Surprise laces your Spirit. When did you become the Maw?”
Felix grimaced. He didn’t like that phrasing. “Less than a year ago.”
“Less than—too soon. Your power is still mostly nascent. It will take an Age to mature fully.”
An Age?! Felix doubted he’d live that long, not with the enemies he’d been accruing. “I don’t have that kind of time.”
“I can imagine not. The gods stir. Even I can feel it here, in this cage I built for myself. I will grant you three boons, Scion. As tradition demands.” A new hand, this one open and flat, rose from the mountain upon an arm of corded stone and steel. It stopped briefly near Pit, who hopped aboard before it was lifted the rest of the way to Felix’s platform. “My power is limited, but I am ancient. I can offer you knowledge above all else.”
Felix placed a hand on his friend as he returned to his side, his icy armor banished for now. “Alright. How does that work? Do I just ask some questions?”
A single finger lifted, easily twice as tall as Felix’s ten-foot battleform, before curling onto the palm. “Yes, but I shall provide the first. You are awakening, Scion. You summoned a manifestation of your core into the world, a feat that should remain beyond your advancement…and yet you did not die at its unveiling. I knew the Maw as well as any Elemental could, and her Hunger knew no bounds. You desire Essence, Mana, and significance, yes?”
“Yes.” Not for the reasons the Frostfather was suggesting, but Felix couldn’t deny those words. “As much as I can.”
“I can sense within you all nine Pillars of your mortal advancement. You stand upon a threshold of power, and with more to consume you will become truly fearsome, it is true. But you are a Scion of the Unseen Tide.” Stones tumbled from around the Frostfather’s core, still open and gleaming in the wintry air. “You must learn what that means. Seek that which unites and divides. The breaking and the binding. If you find that, Scion, you will find a Path to power greater than any I could offer.”
That which unites and divides. Unite the Lost did the former, and Skein of Fate could break Oaths as well as make them, but Felix had a feeling the mountain wasn’t talking about his Skills.
“That is the greatest of knowledge I could give you, Scion. You may ask twice more.” The Frostfather held up two more fingers.
Felix considered his options. He could ask more about the Path the mountain was on about, but doubted he’d get more than he already had, especially since he lacked the right information to do anything but restate the Frostfather’s own words.
Could make him tell us, Pit suggested.
Maybe. But we already pushed him to the edge. Felix patted his friend on the neck, along the metal scales of his barding. Other than consuming his core and hoping to grab a Memory from him, I don’t think there’s much else we’ll get from that line of thinking.
Well…
Pit. Little pig. We’re not eating the god of the Frost Giants.
Hmph. Fine.
Felix had almost lost sight of their diplomatic goals in his fight, and he wasn’t planning on doing so again. An idea bloomed.
“Alright. My first request is that you fix the boundaries of your Domain,” Felix said. “The Risi still need this place to train their people.”
“Done. Gladly.” A wave of shimmering Mana rippled outward, down the mountain and into the distance. The background vibrations around Felix shifted, ever so slightly, and a second finger curled down. “My lesser children have been growing too strong without the Risi to prune them back. Your rampage has solved that, Scion. You and your Companion.
“What of the last boon?”
Felix traded a look with Pit. The tenku looked tired, hitting the end of his considerable Stamina as he panted. Pit nodded. “My Companion is hurt. He is under a curse and it prevents him from healing his wings. Can you remove the curse?”
The Frostfather was silent for a long, tense moment, then motes of ice and stone separated from his remaining finger. They hovered around Pit, rotating around him like tiny satellites. After several minutes, the ice and stone retracted, and the Frostfather grumbled. “I cannot. The curse appears to be wound through him and his core space. To remove it would kill him.”
Pit shrank back, tufted ears held low, while Felix fought off a wave of helpless rage. Fuck. Same as what Isla said. “Then what can I do?”
“I am not a creature of healing. I could, perhaps, replace his wings with ones of ice and steel.” The stone and ice shifted, but did not draw closer to Pit again. “But there is a storm within you, Chimera, one that will not suffer my presence.
“I can offer one thing.”
“What?” Felix looked at the mountain, torn between hope and frustration so big he didn’t know what to do with it. “What can you offer?”
“There is a treasure, an artifact created in Ages lost that can heal anything, Body, Mind, and Spirit. Even this curse.” A shimmering ring of chaotic elements appeared above the Frostfather’s finger. Flame, ice, lightning, shadow—too many Mana types to count flitted through its structure, all of them whirling around like a miniature hurricane. “The Mote of Frenzy.”
Felix reached out, but his hands passed through the whirling display. An illusion. “Where is it?”
“It was last in the hands of my brother, a Greater Elemental of Fire and Stone. Powerful, but not invincible. He was defeated at the hands of the Dwarves, captured and taken. Killed him, perhaps.” The mountain shook again, and house-sized chunks of stone and steel rained down from the Frostfather’s shoulders. The purple skies turned pink and orange. A sunset of rage. “If anyone has the Mote, it is them.
“The Dwarves do not let go of what they claim.”
Comments
The Grand Moose
Dwarves are to the north right? I think Felix has a portal that direction to the Lantier Towers or something? I think i remember they have companion pacts there. Could be a good source of lore about their pacts or something. (Believe Aenea said something about it)
Tim Johnson
that unbound was a gnome in dwarven lands. Either way, we know felix's next destination and well get the clash between him and pathless sociopath unbound.
Dustin
Very good chapter. Thank you for this! So the new Unbound we saw that was being chased by the Hierophant's slaughter-happy lackey, is a dwarf, right? Or was he a gnome in the dwarven lands? Either way, the next Unbound interaction is nigh!!
The Agent Colson
Oooooh fun, Dwarf time.
Rajeev Roy
Now rampage against the dwarves
Jeff Taylor
TFTC
