"Damn it!”
Wendell's fist crashed against the barrier. A flashing cascade of light erupted from the impact, but the barrier didn't so much as quiver under his mountainous limb.
“We were so close!”
Vesss pressed her gauntlet to the invisible wall, and Beef could see her shoulder bunch as she shoved. She didn’t even draw a flash from it. “I understand your goals, but they are not achievable anymore. If we cannot get through here, we must return.”
"Yes. Extraction is our first duty," Yin added, stepping closer to the Lizard. "We need to bring you back to the Tree."
"No. No, we need to get through this. We have to figure out a way," Beef's dad shoved a hand into the ground, peeling back one of the large stones. Mortar gave way beneath his incredible Strength, puffing into the air as it was pulverized, but the wall was unbroken beneath the surface.
"You can't do that," Archie shouted over the crash of rock. "The shield completely surrounds the palace like a dome. We can't get in there."
“How do you know?”
Archie tapped his temple. “Blindsense. That thing is like a goddamn klaxon.”
Wendell leaned against the barrier, shoulders sagging. "There are six points strung through the foundations of that tower. For weeks I’ve been getting them ready, strengthening them with my Skills. Weakening the structural supports and sapping the—” He growled. “I was so close. We could have ended this.”
Beef licked his lips and stepped closer to the broad, unfamiliar back. "Dad, why are you so upset about this? We can stop the Hierophant another way.”
He didn’t so much as open his eyes, just kept his forehead pressed against the invisible barrier. "If we can’t get in there, what are the chances the captured Unbound will survive?”
“I–I don’t know. Maybe someone already got in—”
“And if they didn’t? If the Hierophant can just do whatever she wants?”
“They’ll die, or be as good as dead,” Yin rumbled. “Vessels, slaved to Divine Will.”
“Yeah.” Beef’s dad grimaced, but it looked more like a snarl. “If that happens, then we can’t go home.”
"What?” Archie perked up. “What do you mean?"
"I mean just what I said. If you have any desire to get back home again, we need to save the Kobolds and the Sylphaen—if one of us is gone, then we’re all screwed.”
Beef dropped Bedlam to the ground. “No way.”
“What do you know?” Archie demanded.
"I found record of a way home. It’s a ritual, but it requires all nine of us to be present. If even one of us is dead or missing, it won't work. Beef, I was trying to get back to you. With you here, it's somehow worse. The Continent is no place for any child, no matter how old they are."
“I’m not a kid anymore!”
The Lizard looked pained. “I know. It’s just—”
“I can handle myself just fine. Have been for months now.”
“I get it. I’ve seen you fight. It’s incredible, but this is serious. The gods are coming after us now.”
"All the more reason for us to leave this place immediately," Vesss said. "Stand up, we need to go."
Thankfully, Wendell listened. His dad was stubborn, but at least he wasn’t crazy—he could see getting through the barrier was impossible. "If I could have just reached one of my mines, I could have installed this and set off a chain reaction."
Beef tilted his head. "What exactly did you have to install?"
“Oh. Right.” Wendel took his hands from his head and reached into the hardened case at his side. When he clipped it open, Mana gathered around him like a storm cloud, flashing around a piece of old leather. It was stitched with golden thread in complicated designs, but was no more than a well-worn scrap.
Beef flinched as his dad held it up. The power eManating from the leather scrap was visceral and very nearly tangible. Beef held up a hand, shielding himself from it as if that would help. It shone like a miniature sun in the dim tunnels.
Vesss gasped. "A piece of the Pathless's Regalia."
"Yeah, I stole it from the church. It's part of why they knew where I was. They came hunting for this, and I exposed myself. But I needed it. It's a catalyst to sunder the foundations of the tower. But now, it's pointless."
With a soft thump and a sudden roar, wind whipped down the tunnel as if a giant were exhaling in their direction. The wind became a gale, then a roar that nearly tore Archie from the ground. Beef huddled over him, and his dad leaned over everyone else. When the gale ended, Beef stood up, blinking. He reached out.
"The barrier's gone!"
Wendell reached out a disbelieving hand, his crocodilian face splitting into a wide, ferocious grin. "Yes!”
Vesss spun on the Lizard. “You said you just needed to reach one of your mines, correct?”
“Yes. Just one!”
“Beef! Get Wendell on your Multipede. Find the first mine, let your father do his work, and get back to the Spirit Tree immediately. Do you understand?"
"I’m on it! Come on, Dad." Beef called to the Multipede, and it thundered through the narrow tunnel, just barely fitting its bulk. Ahead, the path widened into a series of larger chambers—cisterns, maybe? It looked like it spread out wider from there, like the undercroft of some vast chapel. “We’ll move faster on its back.”
"It’ll hold me?"
Fafnir landed on Beef’s shoulder. “Hm. Good point. Fafnir, can you lead the Exults out of here with Vesss? Take them all to the surface and the Tree.”
The little Hatchling pouted, its dark features pinching in clear displeasure.
“C’mon.” Beef tapped his chin. “What if I say you can kill as many monsters on the way as you like?”
The dog-sized Risen gave a bright growl and immediately flew to circle around Yin. “I knew that’d work, you bloodthirsty beast,” he muttered. “Hallow?”
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“On it. Hallow Call.”
The Multipede opened up, releasing two hundred Eidolon Exults into the tunnels and lining them up like the scariest bunch of soldiers Beef had ever seen. By the time they’d exited, Beef could feel the Multipede’s relief, a subdued emotion to be sure, but strange to feel anything from it at all.
“With our ballast gone, we’ll be able to hold you just fine.” Beef patted the subway sized Risen. “All aboard!”
The big Lizard clambered on, making the Multipede look kinda small for once. His dad was seriously huge.
“You will take care of him, right?" Vesss asked, and Beef realized she was talking to his dad.
The man blinked. "Of course I will, he's my son."
The Dragoon gave a tight nod, jaw firming, "Good. I shall hold you to that. Beef, get there, get out.
“I will.” He twisted the grip of Bedlam nervously. “What'll you do?"
"We will take the Titan back to the Tree. Once she is out of here, I will join Felix."
"Um, wait," Beef looked around. He swallowed. "She was just here a second ago, right?"
“Damnation!” Yin spun, mane whipping. "Where's the Gnome?"
I'm an idiot.
The thought echoed in his head as he rose through the dark like a rocket. His blind sense filled in the details of brick and compacted dirt all around him. The empty spaces were tunnels that criss crossed his awareness like echoing voids. It wasn't really sound so much as tangible vibrations, but his vision was filled with them and they guided his ascent. They were like ethereal waves that Archie could swim through by manipulating his own vibrations—like wakeboarding through the sea. It consumed his awareness, leaving little room for anything else.
Even if he were truly blind, however, he wouldn't be able to ignore the Titan clinging to his arm.
The pair of them slipped out of the dark, stepping into a dry chamber lined with metal beams that were riveted into the stone and little else. Archie crouched low, looking around to ensure that there was no one present. The Titan—Gabby—fell to her knees, gasping for breath.
"Stop being so loud," he muttered. "Who knows how many of your stupid zealots are still here."
"You…you could have warned me," she panted, "about the lack of air."
"We're traveling through rock, lady, what’d you expect?"
The Titan grunted. A moment later she found her feet, her armor sliding softly against the stone floor. "This isn't our target. Why did we stop?"
Archie finished scanning their surroundings. There was nothing and no one. "Short bursts work best for other people."
"Why?"
He smirked at her. "You just felt why."
The woman’s expression soured and she started checking the weapons at her belt and back. When she started loosening them in their sheaths, Archie had to force himself not to run. His gut reactions to this woman were hard to shake after months of being hunted—and he wasn't entirely sure they were wrong.
Yet when the barrier had fallen and she'd grabbed him and demanded he take her up to the tower, he'd agreed.
I'm an idiot, but we need to save those kids.
The tunnels they'd left were close enough to the surface that the Lizard had said he knew a hundred ways out. Beef and Vesss could handle the bombs down there and get the Lizard back to the Tree—with all the help they had, it was like porting around a private army. They’d be fine.
The Titan said she'd take on the Hierophant. And Archie? He would rescue the hostages.
He glanced at the enormous woman. "You ready to keep moving?"
"Waiting on you, Gnome."
Archie ground his teeth. "I'm a Delven. It's different."
She frowned, eyes distant. "We're wasting time. I can feel the Hierophant doing something already. Get us moving and no more breaks.”
“You'll burst your lungs."
"I can take it." The woman growled. Her eyes were lit gold from within her helmet, like sunset trapped between her lids. "Get me to the top. Now."
Suit yourself, asshole. Archie set himself against the nearest iron beam. "Hold on to me. No, not my arm again. I could barely direct our flow with you like that. Hold here."
She grabbed the harness around his shoulders, meant for a pack he'd forgotten on the Multipede. She gathered up all of it in a single fist, her hands nearly as big as Archie’s head. "I'm secure—”
“Primeval Drift!”
They sank into the wall, falling forward until Archie twisted his Skill, pushing them upward through the stone and iron like a fish through water. They rose, the vibrations pushing him aloft, his Blindsense guiding them to stay in simple stone. The Tier of materials increased as they rose, becoming more dense and packed full of Mana, but Archie had mastered most types of matter. It was getting easier and easier to pass through even complicated metals, and he put all that training to use now, slipping upward at a speed far greater than he could run. Faster, he believed, than even Felix could move.
With Primeval Drift, he was untouchable.
Gabby, much to his annoyance, was just as resolute as she'd promised. He couldn't feel a lick of panic from her anymore, and that was more disappointing than he expected.
Blindsense is level 99!
His awareness expanded as the level jumped up, so the burst of power that showered across his senses like sunlight. It shone suddenly from one of those voids nearby, a chamber of some sort, the power filling it before seeping into the building around it. It was hypnotic and strange, and it mazed Archie’s senses until he reeled inside the stone.
Blindsense was overwhelmed. He couldn't tell up nor down, and he careened, trying to evade it, but the power sent him into a spin he couldn't control. They both spilled out into empty air and fell.
Archie landed with a crash, air driven from his lungs and body jolted by pain and pure surprise. He groaned, his vision slowly clearing, until he beheld a golden giant staring down at him. "GAH!”
Wait. He blinked. A statue?
There was another one behind him, and both were mounted to the walls on either side of a relatively small room. Between them was a crystalline platform, more like a computer terminal in some technology firm, just fantasy flavored. It was covered in sigils, and the sunlight he'd sensed previously poured from it. That was what knocked him for a loop. Even now he felt its weird influence. He stood up.
"What is this place? It's definitely not the top of a tower." Gabby was nearby, already on her feet and ignoring Archie."Hey, lady, I asked you a question."
Something about the way the woman hunched over made him stop talking. Alarm rippled across the back of his neck. The hairs on the back of his neck rose, and Archie swallowed. The Titan reached down, cradling something in her hands. A body.
"Oh hey, I know that guy. He was in Birchstone, Kellen or something." Archie looked around. There were other bodies just outside, a whole slew of them. "A priest of the Pathless, Inquisitors, Paladins, and those guys are High Guards, right? What the hell happened here?"
"Halt!" Came a voice and the clatter of feet against, booted feet against stone. "Put your hands up and exit the control node!"
Through the ornate door at the bottom of the steps, several High Guard rushed into the scene of slaughter. They stopped short, eye’s wide. "The Titan. What are you—?"
A bright flash was the only warning any of them had before their heads tumbled to the ground, followed shortly by their armored bodies.
Holy shit.
The Titan hissed, folding over. Golden light steamed off her back like smoke and her limbs shook, but she didn't drop the body of the priest.
Archie shifted his feet. After a moment, the Titan stood back up, seemingly no worse for wear, but it was really hard to tell with her.
“Listen, I don’t know what’s going on here, but we can’t waste time. The thing that kicked me out of the wall is gone. Let’s go.”
“He called it a control node.” Gabby walked up the steps to the crystal terminal. She stared at something he couldn’t see—a System screen, probably. “Someone deactivated the barrier from here.”
“That guy?”
She clenched her jaw. “No. There’s a log.”
Archie stood, waiting to see if she’d say more. She just stared, her eyes gone entirely golden again. “Right. Glad they took it down. Can you smash the thing and keep it down?”
She dropped her Brightblade, now a warclub, right onto the crystal. It didn’t so much as dent. “No.”
Gabby set the priest down, metal fingers gently closing his eyes.
“Well shit. Then we gotta move faster, or else more people are gonna end up dead.”
She straightened. “Someone is.”