Unbound-Chapter Nine Hundred And Ninety – 990
From her very first step, Gabby couldn't believe what she was seeing. The Void Sanctuary, as Beef had named it, was incredible. At first, she’d assumed they had passed entirely into Felix's Elderthrone—no one had really explained how those intimidating Shadowgates functioned, and even the Hierophant hadn’t been fully certain how Felix had been making them work. Beef, with some judicious additions by Elowen, explained.
This can’t be inside a Skill. Can it?
Gabby was having trouble with the concept more than anything else. Skills were glowing bits of power inside of her—weapons and tools that she could tap into, not a whole freaking city. Worse, as they climbed up a hill, she’d spied trees and rolling countryside beyond the walls. A city and the land around it. How far did it go? Where did it end?
The air was fresh, lacking the stink of cities on the Continent. Instead, it smelled like a dozen different things: floral scents mostly, but also freshly tilled earth, and a faint metallic tang. The temperature itself was perfect, not too hot or too cold, with the wind gusting at just the right moments. The sky was a shade of blue so perfect that Gabby could barely look at it.
It even had people. Everyone else was surprised about those too, which helped her sanity a bit. It was quickly made clear that people didn't normally walk about inside of the Void Sanctuary, Divine Skill or not. A few muttered explanations from Beef had told her that some people had started showing up recently, but their numbers were a lot smaller before. Now there were crowds. Not as busy as Amaranth was at its height, nor any other major city that Gabby had marched through, but there were significant crowds on every single street.
She glanced at her brother. How did he get this strong?
Strangest of all, she found comfort in his strength. Nestled there within his Skill, Gabby felt at ease for the first time in…she wasn’t sure how long. She was positive the Skill itself was affecting her, and if it hadn’t belonged to Felix she might not have trusted it—as it stood, she felt calm and steady as they progressed through the city streets. The sensation was welcome. She’d once thought that banishing Imara would heal her, but all the negative emotions lingered on in her Spirit like scorch marks after the fire was out. Within the Void Sanctuary, however, it was like a glass wall had been set down between her and her ashen wounds. It wasn’t numbness, but clarity, observing each twinge of anxiety and discomfort as if she held it in the palm of her hand. It took only a minor effort to trace each emotion back to their origins, and nearly every unpleasant surge stemmed from her Bargain.
Of course they did. Gabby was more surprised at how little that bothered her, in that place.
So it was that when they reached the entry to the vast palace at the city’s center, she was disappointed. The opalescent gate swung wide, revealing a grassy inner bailey and an absolutely massive Shadowgate topped by a tenku carved from Crescian Bronze. The creature moved, its metallic flesh flowing like liquid as it watched them from above. It cried out, a sound echoed by the other real tenku around them. Pit dropped from the sky, joined by that pale Chimera and several others.
Gabby blinked. “Is that a statue of him?”
Beef nodded. “Yeah. That’s Pit’s contribution to this place, I think.”
The tenku strode forward and the Crescian Bronze creature leaned down so that their heads knocked gently against one another. They cawed, a twinned sound that sent a hot wind rippling through the grass. The Shadowgate pulsed.
“We can go in now,” Pit announced, before entering himself. Evie and the first Legionnaires followed.
Gabby slowed her steps. As eager as she was to see Elderthrone, a great part of her didn’t want to leave the Void Sanctuary. Not if it meant going back to the mess of her emotions.
“You ready?” Kevin stood next to her, taller now but still only reaching her waist. He’d extended an arm regardless, like a boy at a dance. “If you’re scared I uh, I could walk through with you.”
She loosed a breath, and a bundle inside of her untangled. Just a bit. “I would like that.”
Gabby couldn’t run forever. There was work to be done.
Together, the pair of them stepped into the thick shadow. A rush of light, sound, and hard pressure surrounded Gabby for only a moment, before her footstep connected with solid stone. She nearly stumbled, though her Dexterity saved her that embarrassment. Not Kevin, however. He tripped and fell forward. Gabby grabbed him with both hands, catching him before he could faceplant on the dark stone.
“Oh my god! Sorry!” He found his feet, a blush somehow making its way past the scales on his face. “I didn’t think I’d—I can’t believe…” He groaned until his voice squeezed to a whisper. “That was so embarrassing.”
“Yeah it was!”
Shadow swept behind his brother, strutting almost, along with Archie and Elowen. The mage rolled her eyes, but it was Archie that spoke up. “Don’t listen to him. I had to kick him through the gate.”
“I didn’t trip though!” Shadow protested. “Besides. There’s something weird about these things. The dark element is…wrong somehow.”
“That’s because it’s not shadow Mana. It’s tapping into the thin barriers between Realms.” Elowen ran a hand down the sculptures of the Shadowgate. It depicted a series of rolling plains and a single, enormous mountain marked by flattened platforms. “These artifacts are truly incredible.”
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Gabby had to agree, and it wasn’t the only one in the room, which could only be the Heart of Darkness she’d heard so much about. She marked the other Shadowgates, some active but most quiescent, but all of them impressive circular carvings of stone and precious metals. All around her, Legionnaires filled a chamber that was easily five hundred feet wide. Their boots fell on fractal patterns in silver and gold that flared with every step and extended to each of the gates and up the walls to a high, vaulted ceiling. The fractals were sigaldry, though more complex than Gabby was used to, and they climbed across the ceiling until they met in the center, where the negative space formed an eight-pointed star. A bright purple crystal hung from the apex, lit from within.
Off to the side, a large archway led to a far brighter room, one filled with the same stretch of fractal-like sigaldry.
Is that the Seal in there?
"You've returned!"
Gabby nearly reached for a weapon as an enormous metal man strode from that archway. He was made mostly of a golden material, but his one arm was made of a blackened substance that looked exceedingly like bone. A helmet covered his face—or was his face—and two fires burned through a dented visor, while a slotted guard stretched across where a mouth should have been.
She swallowed, her anxiety back, once again. "Karys, I assume?"
"Yes! And you, my dear, must be Gabrielle." The Chancellor of Elderthrone bowed to Gabby, a deep one. “I am overjoyed to be the first to welcome you to Elderthrone, my Lady. As the blood kin of the emperor, this is your home as much as anyone else’s.”
Those flames in his helmet-skull’s eyesockets dimmed, almost as if the enormous suit of armor was inspecting her. “I am sure you are beleaguered after your trials. If you wish to take comfort, clean yourself, or otherwise rest, you may find your rooms within the Imperial Palace itself.”
“Imperial Palace?” Felix said sharply, walking briskly from the gate. “Since when did we call the Temple that?”
The big metal man’s mouth guard quirked to the side. “Since all of our former nobility learned of the expanded empire. They came bustling into the Temple, all of them eager for news from the front. I had to give them something to chew on, else they’d still be in my hair.”
Felix scowled. “Why tell them anything?”
“All citizens of the empire received the notification of expansion, my Lord. They knew enough and were eager to press for some advantage as founding citizens of the capital.” Karys rolled his eyes, the little fires doing somersaults inside his helmet. “The news of your victory keeps them busy, and many among them arranged for a celebration in the Scales. Last I checked most of the city was in the streets, cheering you on.”
“Celebrations,” Felix muttered darkly.
Gabby’s stomach clenched. So many had died in the assault on Amaranth and Felix was no doubt feeling the sting of it.
“Leave them to it, for now,” he said after a time. “You and I, Karys, have other work to be doing, and little time to accomplish it.”
He snapped his fingers and the sound was like a gun went off in the Heart of Darkness. People everywhere froze and turned to him. “You all have six hours. Accomplish your tasks, swiftly, and then we are on the move.”
Felix turned and strode from the room. “Dismissed.”
With an apologetic bow to her, Karys followed.
Archie gave her brother’s back a sloppy salute before smacking the Kobold brothers with the back of his hand. “C’mon kids. Let me show you around.”
The other Unbound departed as well, each with their own objectives they’d put together hours ago. Gabby wasn’t sure what everyone needed doing, but then she didn’t need to know. She had her own tasks to complete before the army set out toward Jaast.
She reached down, fingering the dented and ripped plates of her once high Tier armor. First and foremost, she needed to replace her equipment. Gabby might have been able to summon light around herself to bolster her defenses, but the layers beneath mattered just as much. When she ran out of Mana, she didn’t want to be wearing half-broken mail.
“Need to repair yours too, huh?” Beef asked. “I’m headed up to the Forge if you wanna come with.” 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎
“I do. Do you think they’ll have equipment for someone my size?”
“If not, they can make it. Harn and his apprentices are all really good.”
The pair of them started walking. Felix had told her a bit about Elderthrone and the Forge itself, but she was eager to see it in person. The whole city, honestly, but she’d start with the Crafting Halls.
Gabby tilted her head at the Minotaur. “You said repair. Can this Harn guy help you with Hallow?”
“Oh! No. Like you, I can summon my armor. It’s chitin underneath this.” He rapped his knuckles against his crystalline breastplate. Two blackened-green eyes opened up and narrowed at his fist. “Sorry, Hallow.”
“Then why do you need to go to the forge?” Gabby asked.
“Since Harn’s back, that means the Eidolons are back too. I need to pick all their brains about a solution to my big Exult.”
“The…mech.”
“Yeah! I want it to work better, but it’s so hard to fiddle with all the joint bits.”
“Does Harn know a lot about necromancy?”
“Nah. He's just really cool. Smart too.” Gabby's wrinkled brow clearly didn't put a dent in Beef's optimism because his smile continued on. “C’mon. This way.”
Their two enormous figures split the sea of Legionnaires and Chimera and giants as the lot of them drained out into several side tunnels. Following after Felix, they heading for a massive spiral staircase in the distance, just beyond the Seat and Seal. The gold and silver light was nearly blinding, flaring across Gabby’s vision hard enough that she was forced to squint as they passed. Judging by Beef’s equally uncomfortable grunts, he was getting the same treatment.
A defense of some sort…to keep people from puzzling out the sigaldry? Gabby wasn’t sure, but it certainly made her not want to be near the Seal. She picked up her pace, but wasn’t fast enough.
Her vision flashed again, and she stopped.
“What the hell…?”
Congratulations!
You Have Received A Dual Quest!
Belatedly, she realized Beef had stopped with her. He was staring into the middle distance ahead, eyes slightly unfocused. His voice squeaked as he spoke. “What the heck is a Dual Quest?”
