Hunger: A LitRPG Adventure (Unbound Book 3), page 56
Thankfully, they emerged swiftly out into a wide-open chamber, an intersection of many sewer tunnels of all sizes. A wave of indrawn breath moved through the squad as they entered, and it took Atar only a moment to see why.
Dim magelights flickered above, highlighting a field of corpses. Mingled with the crimson light of the Domain entrance and some strange flora, the chamber resembled an abattoir rather than a sewer. Bodies in mangled armor were strewn about in all directions, often in pieces. White enamel was smeared with dark, clotting red, and at his feet Atar spied the rounded remnants of a skull. It was buried in the fetid muck, and as he drew away, the suction of his boot tilted the face upward.
They had died screaming.
Highest Flame, what happened here? Atar pushed down his gorge, fighting to keep his composure as fear surged up through his belly. Last thing he wanted was to embarrass himself before Elder Teine.
Indeed, the Elder was already here, somehow beating the squad despite leaving after them. He was, in fact, already arguing with someone else in the intersection. Atar blinked as he realized that a contingent of the Inviolate Order had poured out of another tunnel at almost the same time they had.
"—Were headed to reinforce the guards over this unreported entrance into the Haarwatch Domain," the Initiate was saying, his body language stiff and unwilling as the Elder loomed nearby. "We had received word that our people were under assault by an unknown force—"
A slender hand was held up, cutting the Initiate off as if he were an errant schoolboy. Elder Teine was not a large man, but his Master Tier aura was a force of nature, and Atar could sense the man leverage it against the zealot. Much as the mage disliked the redcloaks, though, he had to hand it to the Initiate. Had that aura been directed at Atar, he wasn't sure if he'd even remain standing.
"Reinforcement for guards?" Elder Teine asked sharply, gesturing to a pile of discarded metal nearly sunk into the muck. "Explain, then, why manacles and chains are here. Such things are typically for prisoners, no?"
The Initiate paled but refused to break eye contact. "I—you will have to take that up with the Master Inquisitor, sir."
"And indeed I will. For now, you're neither wanted nor needed here. Begone," Teine snorted and stepped away, back toward Atar's squad. "Zealous clods."
The Initiate seethed at the Elder's words before slinking back to his Acolytes. The group gathered around him and fell into a quiet but intense discussion. After a few moments, they retreated back down their tunnel, leaving the Guilders alone.
The Elder walked the short distance toward them, and the entire squad from Captain Elwick to the dullard Dabney all straightened their stance. A strange expression lingered on the Elder's face, one that appeared equal parts concerned and gleeful beneath his silver goatee.
What does he see when he looks at us? Atar wondered, sparing a glance for Alister and the others. When he looks at me?
He had thought previously that Apprenticing beneath Sig'nyh Kel'lyv, Grandmaster of the Desert's Fire, would have engendered some goodwill for him, but Atar had found nothing but a constant struggle to prove his own worth. Elder Teine was a self-professed believer in authority by merit, and only those who demonstrated their capabilities deserved resources. Atar had hoped, nay, expected favoritism, and when it was not forthcoming, he found himself rather adrift. It was such emotions that had tied him to Alister, a scion of a noble House that had also been expecting an easier time.
"Something dark has occurred here. A force appears to have ambushed and utterly destroyed a contingent of the Inquisition." Elder Teine took a deep breath and exhaled as if savoring some sweet scent. Atar smelled only the putrid rot of sewage and the stale blood of dead men. "It is fascinating, is it not?"
"Sir?" asked Captain Elwick, rather tentatively.
"Who, exactly, went up against the redcloaks? I'm missing something here, I know it." Teine drummed his fingers against his lips. "Some look crushed, others stabbed, while more are simply severed in twain. But by whom? Eh? And this!"
Quick as a flash, the Elder of Spirit blinked through the air, reappearing upon the slope leading into a crevasse filled with a shimmering red light. He ran his hand across the crimson-tinged flowering plants and mosses that grew upon the slope, clearly spreading outward from the Domain itself. "The Domain spills outward. We've repaired the sigils twice already, and still it spreads."
"That's from the Domain?" Lilian asked Alister in a whisper. "I thought it was a desert or something?"
"Hush," Alister hissed.
"How're there plants and stuff coming out of a dusty desert?" Lilian kept asking.
Elder Teine stood up next to the crevasse and held out a hand, feeling the yielding membrane of the Domain flex beneath him. A groaning came from the crack in the wall, as if the stone were protesting his very touch. "It is my great sorrow that I cannot check on this myself. I must ask this of you, my dearest Apprentices and Journeymen. Someone killed these men and women, and those same someones passed into the Domain. Or perhaps, something."
The Elder clapped his hands delightedly. Atar narrowed his eyes at the man. He was… enjoying this, Atar realized.
"Yes yes yes! You're all agog at the possibilities, as I am!" Elder Teine walked down the slope again and fixed Captain Elwick with his steely gaze. However, a wide, somewhat manic smile marred the authoritative effect. "Captain! You must lead your squad into the Domain and find out if it was indeed monsters from within that escaped. If that is the case, you are to capture one for study. I must know what happened!"
"And if it’s not, sir?" The Captain asked and gestured around them. "What if it was truly a Human or other sentient Race that did all… this?"
"Then kill them or capture them. I'll not have unauthorized people using my—our Domain, without repercussions," Teine's smile was crooked this time, and his gaze drifted down the line. "All of you are here because your potential is great among the etheric arts. All of you were chosen by me for the power you may one day wield. But without my guidance, that power may never come to fruition. Without my influence, you will toil in obscurity for countless years, wasting your youth as you struggle to merely survive. Yet, I can make you thrive, make you soar above the others in the Guild. You must only listen to my orders to know the proper way.
"You must Oathbind. Here. Now."
Atar's breath caught in his chest, and he flicked a confused glance up and down the line. What?
"Secrets abound in the Domain, the Captain here can attest to that," Teine put a hand on Captain Elwick's shoulder, and the man nodded with pride. "He has kept the Guild's secrets well, as have all of my Journeyman Guilders. Now it is time for the Apprentices to make the same Oath. Are you ready?"
"I am, sir!" Alister had stepped forward without hesitation. Atar could sense that Dabney was about to move and did it first, moving closer to the Elder and nodding his agreement.
"I am!"
"Me too!"
"I am," the final voice said, high and nervous. Lilian's face held everything Atar's heart was practically screaming.
Elder Teine's smile turned comforting, and his eyes twinkled as he placed a hand on her shoulder. He was the very image of a kindly grandfather. "You need not be scared, Lilian. It is a light burden I place upon you, one you need not even think on after this day. You have but to agree to never write or speak about what you see or experience in the Domain, not with Guilders or any others, even among yourselves, once you have left its confines. If you betray this trust, then your Skill levels, your advancement, and your life itself is forfeit. Do you agree?"
With a jerky nod, Lilian acquiesced. The others followed suit, and cursing to himself all the while, Atar agreed as well. Mana built up around them, colorless and vibrant in the strangely lit sewer, and it rushed between the five of them. A flare of crimson light at the Elder's hip joined with the binding, as if sealing the ritual itself.
In moments, it was done. Atar could barely feel it at all.
"Wonderful," Teine smiled. "Now we can move onto the more exciting parts of this endeavor."
The Elder of Spirit beckoned all ten of them up the slope and toward the Domain entrance. Atar hustled so he could stay in the front. He didn't want to miss any of this.
"Whoever finds and traps the beasties that did this heinous act will be rewarded a set of Epic Essences for their next advancement," Teine grinned as gasps swept through his people. "If it turns out that people are behind this, then their capture is also grounds for reward. Dead or alive."
He paused a moment, as if thinking. "I'd prefer them alive. Much more fun that way."
Despite that dire proclamation, the murmurs were even more excited this time. Atar could hear several of the Journeyman Tiers whisper excitedly about winning the Essences, and he felt butterflies in his stomach. It would be difficult to outperform his Journeyman squadmates, but for a chance at Epic Essences for his Journeyman Formation? Atar was up for that challenge… as long as the other Apprentice Tiers were with him. If his exhaustive training in the Guild had taught him anything, Atar knew his limits now more than ever before. He needed Alister and the two annoyances attached to him.
Atar caught Alister's eye and nodded. The noble grinned back at him and shrugged, before nudging him with a sharp elbow. "Not quite a night at the tavern, but still exciting, no?"
"In a mortality affirming sort of way, yes," Atar said, and fixed a curl that had fallen in his eyes. He nodded at the others. "Your… associates going to be helpful, this time?"
"In their own way," Alister said, grinning again. "Don't worry. I have your back. Who else will go to dinner with me?"
Atar narrowed his eyes and ignored the flush in his cheeks. Elder Teine had started speaking again.
"Ah I can see that you're all eager to begin! Excellent! I shall—" Teine stopped short as a panicked voice caught his attention.
"Sir! Elder Spirit, sir!"
Everyone looked over at the tunnel they had only just recently traversed. A woman wearing a Tin medallion and sweat-soaked leathers stumbled to a stop at the base of the slope. She gulped great breaths of air and was sweating so much it looked like she'd gone swimming.
"Well?" Teine snapped. "What is it? Can you not see I'm busy?"
"I'm… sorry… sir. The Master… Inquisitor has… destroyed several… blocks of the Sunrise Quarter," she gasped. "Personally, sir!"
"Pathless forfend," Captain Elwick gasped.
Atar's eyes widened, but it was nothing compared to the reaction of Elder Teine. The silvered Guilder had frozen and stared up at an angle, as if he could see directly through the stone itself. And perhaps he could, mused Atar. Whatever he did, the Elder's face grew pale and his breathing erratic. Quickly, he spun and regarded the Domain behind them, reaching out and sliding his fingertips across the invisible membrane that prevented his access.
"Sir?" Captain Elwick ventured. "What is going on up there? Sir?"
"You must all go, now," he said, his voice flat. "Enter the Domain."
For a moment, no one moved at all. Atar traded glances with Alister and even a few of the Journeymen. Then the Elder turned toward them abruptly.
"Did you not hear me? Go!" He roared, and Lilian was almost bowled over by the sheer volume of his shout. "Now! Captain Elwick, accomplish your goal. The glass has turned; we haven't much time."
Licking his lips and swallowing at that, the Captain nodded and ordered them forward. "You heard the man! Let's go!"
One by one, they pushed into the Domain, the not-quite-liquid surface of the entrance parting around them with no resistance. Atar hung back, for all that he was in the front before, unable to take his eyes off Elder Teine. The man was staring up again, but this time he was fiddling with some sort of device at his waist. A strange vapor poured from the small construct, colored a deep, rotten red that reminded him viscerally of… of the Domain itself.
"Atar, get a move on," Captain Elwick said, and Atar jumped in surprise. Fixing his hair, he cleared his throat and nodded at his captain.
"Of course, Captain. Right away."
Both of them entered at the same time.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
You Have Entered Into The Domain Of Another.
Beware—!
It App—ERROR!
Entrant(s) Exceed Domain Strictures!
Full Manifestation May Damage Shell Integrity.
Ejecting...
A shrill, piercing note filled Felix's ears but was immediately countered by a mellow, more melodic cry. There was a flash of sudden warmth, a rush of heat that punched into his core, and Felix's world became darkness.
ERROR!
It was a familiar sensation, one he'd banished from his thoughts countless times since escaping his last Domain. Previously, he'd battled against a raging ocean filled with horrible monstrous forms, then again in the Void, when he'd faced a dark serpent in the clouds. The visions of those experiences still haunted his dreams on occasion.
Yet this time, it was all different.
Felix found himself in a place of utter, complete darkness, yet when he raised his hands, he could perceive his skin and clothes as if they were fully illuminated by some unseen source. He stood upon nothing, yet the ground felt firm, if a little yielding. He knew this place well.
The Void… I'm in the Void again? Felix peered around him, trying to keep himself calm. The last thing Felix desired was to be stranded in that pirate-infested nothingness. He spun around, looking for some way out. What he found instead was a series of strange, circular lines, nine of them, each one hovering just behind his back and shoulders. Felix leaped away, instinctively using his Willpower to move once again, but the lines remained stationary. Peering closer, Felix realized they were a series of odd sigils, built up into circular symbols like halos of written magic.
Mana constructs. Just like the Maw had used on me in my Bastion. Except these were dim, whatever Mana had animated them had burnt out, leaving only a gossamer corpse of several failed constructs. As he watched, they began to break apart and fade into the Void. They tried to latch on and they… failed?
That hadn't happened before. Whatever these constructs had tried to accomplish was thwarted by… what? Felix felt a certain heaviness in his core, and a quick internal glance showed him a modest amount of essence hovering above his burning center. He had eaten the construct's power, apparently without even knowing it.
Now that's pretty cool, he admitted to himself.
Looking beyond the immediate, Felix spotted his friends a short distance away.
ERROR!
Ejection Failed!
Countermeasures Deployed.
The words appeared before his mind's eye along with that same piercing note. It hurt like an ice pick cracking into his molars. But Felix understood their meaning as he got a better look at his friends.
Evie was a sight, her body moving as if in slow motion. As Felix watched, her eyes slowly started opening, and her body was still braced as it had when she'd stepped into the Domain entrance. Another three Mana constructs hovered at her back, these fully functional and filled with power, power that she was clearly fighting against.
To her left, Vess was in a different situation altogether. Seven different Mana constructs had attached to her, each one flaring with enough power to almost halt the spearwoman's stride mid-step. Her eyes were wide open, and Felix could read a terrified sort of wildness to them, even as he was sure she didn't see him at all.
Harn—
My god, Felix whispered.
Harn was covered in dense sigaldry, the coils of power looped heavily around his shoulders and arms. What looked like two, maybe three dozen constructs hauled him back, his body frozen entirely. Inch-by-inch, he slid backward.
Felix listened closely for the piercing note again, this time leveraging his Affinity as it stabbed into him. The Harmonic Stat had helped him intuit the feelings of others well enough, and he had a hunch it'd be useful here.
Sure enough, as the note resolved itself, faint, general impressions flitted through his Mind and Spirit. Felix suddenly envisioned the shell as constructed by generations of Guilder inscriptionists, the layers of complexity and verbose fluidity between each interconnecting piece of the whole. It was a masterwork far beyond his measly Skill level, and it would have been nothing more than vanity to say he understood more than a fraction of a fraction of its workings. Yet impressions remained, synaptic leaps that his Mind and Spirit made without conscious thought or reason.
It's a liminal space, Felix remembered. The Maw had explained them before as a type of sheath around Domains and other places. It wasn't the Void, but it was drawing from the Cognitive Realm to empower it. The shell held in the Domain, without it the energies and monsters within would spill out into the Corporeal Realm.
The level of complexity and power was a delicate balance, and introducing too much power into the shell by, say, an Adept Tier adventurer passing through would cause damage to the mechanism. The constructs, then, were automated responses, meant to boot someone too powerful from the Domain. But it hadn't worked on him because of his own special circumstances, and the others...
It's definitely trying to throw Harn and Vess out, Felix gasped. Back into a sewer full of Inquisitors and a Master Tier enemy. Shit!
Felix didn't really have a choice, not as far as his conscience was concerned. He couldn't let it happen. Felix just hoped that it wouldn't destroy the shell in the process. Rushing toward Evie, he grabbed at the construct behind her… and his hands passed right through them.
Ravenous Tithe!
Yet the Mana construct did not dissolve into streamers of bright mist. Then an idea came to him; he imbued himself with the Void itself.
Abyssal Skein!
Felix's form turned dark, drawing the essence of the Void as he reached out and put his hands on the constructs once again. This time, his hands made contact. Hauling with his Willpower and Alacrity, Felix shredded the construct in no time. Evie stumbled forward, released from whatever stasis it had held her in.
