Unbound

At the topmost level of Hevaan, there was a garden. Surrounding the garden were low walls made of black stone, veined with gold. Unlike the fortifications around the city itself, these walls were meant to frame what lay within rather than keep others outside of it. In fact, the regular openings invited the opposite.

"Garden" was perhaps a misleading term as well. It was more of a park, set before the sweeping majesty of what was clearly a palace wrought in silver and gold at the very top layer of Hevaan.

Grasses and ferns grew here, along with small clusters of moss and dangling flowers, but it was all untamed. Much of the greenery in the area looked familiar—remnants of the jungles below as they were pulled up from the earth, and it spread over perhaps two entire acres before the pristine walls of the palace hemmed it in. As such, it was easy enough to find the center and easier still to dig a hole and place the Seed of Remembered Light into it.

Felix smoothed the dirt over, summoning water from the air to pour down on top of it until the soil puddled into a granular muck. Then he waited.

"That's anticlimactic," Archie said from behind.

"Give it a sec," Felix muttered. "I didn't add the special ingredient yet."

Felix focused, and from his center, he sounded his Skill.

Unite the Lost.

Mana, Essence, and significance poured from him, spilling into the earth before sinking through and directly into the Seed. Ever so slightly, the earth shook—a beat roused from the depths as if there were drums within the deepest layers of stone—until a melody picked itself out of the gathering tattoo. At first it was the sound of crystalline bells, sharp and sweet, then the rosened thrum of strings filled the spaces between them, accompanied, at long last, by the soft lilting of woodwinds.

Name: Altissima Anima

Type: Spirit Tree

Attunement: Processing…

It rose upward, gaining mass by the second. Power poured through Felix's hands and feet, feeding the Spirit Tree. It took from him, but Felix frowned as the Tree rapidly ascended into the air. That's moving slower than the last one, isn't it?

Through no fault of its own, Unite the Lost faltered. The stream of power dropped to a trickle, as if the Tree were refusing anything more than the barest of sips. Felix focused his attention on the trunk, already almost bigger than his arms could reach around but nowhere near the height it should have attained.

Altissima. Can you hear me? Felix put a hand on the smooth, silver trunk. Is there a problem? Are you okay?

His words meant far less than the Intent behind them. Images flitted across his Mind, rushed and hazy as Altissima groped for a connection to Felix. Its burgeoning awareness brushed against him and where it touched a bloom of light flowered, thrumming with an intensity that set him back on his heels.

There was a sensation of lurching collapse, as if falling down a vast hole, and power was yanked through Felix’s channels once more. Unite the Lost returned in a roar, sending potency into the bole.

Its roots speared downward faster than its branches spread above, only fifty feet above. These quested through the dark soil, pressing through layers of mud, clay, and sediment as they sought something.

A memory rolled through Felix's Mind, one caught from the edges of the Tree's boughs. It was a melody made foggy by time, echoing through the trunk of the growing Tree and into him, like bolt of lightning.

A beast of many limbs raged through a forest of enormous silver trunks and dangling golden leaves. It screamed, the remnants of ancient swords rusted into its pebbled hide as it snapped boughs with its antlers even as it crushed lesser monsters beneath its trampling hooves. Golden branches tangled its limbs, but the beast only latched its mighty fangs onto the nearest trunk before wrenching its silver flesh open. Iridescent sap streamed from its wounds and the beast bellowed, drunk on rage and the heady nectar of a Spirit Tree.

In its glut, it failed to notice that the Trees had grown angry.

Branches wrapped around shoulders and neck, while roots tangled its hooves. It stomped, freeing itself, but only found more tendrils waiting. Silver roots speared up into its belly and limbs, sinking deep into ichor-filled veins as the beast cried out, its rage turned to terror. It struggled and gored and bit, but for every one another ten rose to take their place. The Trees did not stop, not until the beast was cocooned in silver roots, its many limbs withering and its mighty roars fading to a raspy squeak.

The beast perished, and the grove of Spirit Trees flourished.

Felix blinked as the memory finished with him, leaving him standing beside the expanding trunk of the Altissima. Was that an ancestral memory?

The Tree didn’t answer. It was entirely too preoccupied with something else, as evidenced by a burgeoning excitement at its center. Through his connection with the Altissima, Felix followed its roots as they broke free of the platform, winding around the Crescian Bronze pillars, before plunging deep into the swamp far below.

There is a Temple there!

Felix had sensed a piece of it early on, but he hadn’t been sure. At the base of Hevaan, where the pillars rose from the muck, a structure still lay half-submerged. Altissima’s silver roots spread across its muddied facade in an instant, breaking through gaps in the stone, seeking the Temple's center.

And the Mana Well within.

Flipped by some ancient cataclysm, the entire chamber was overturned and filled with murky liquid that was only lit by the glow of the Tree’s silver roots. Those stabbed forward, seeking out the cracks that riddled the seals on the three Mana Wells that lurked within. The largest of the three had failed long ago, but even now Felix witnessed thick wisps of poison and acid Mana stream into the water like an oily cloud. The waters practically vibrated with their resonance—the same kind that had filled the swamps above and formed the Poison Fields.

Riding upon the roots as they grew into that cracked Well, Felix jerked in surprise as a withered husk of a creature leaped to sudden life. Its many heads struck out, snapping at the silver incursions ineffectually, even as its thorny crest glowed with unreleased power. Its red eyes gleamed with a long held rage, but it stood no chance.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Name: Rattlehorn Hydra

Type: Monstrosity (Manawarped)

…

Its name echoed among Felix's awareness, but that was all he learned of it before it was drained entirely. As in the memory, the roots cocooned the withering corpse even as they grew outward, filling the Well entirely. Its power fed their rapid expansion, and the Tree sundered the two lesser Wells in the same instant.

The Urge Of Doomed Dereliction

The Urge of Envious Wrath

They stood no chance. Speared upon silver roots, their fleshy, corrupted forms were drained in seconds. Their power fed into the Spirit Tree as a visible light traveling back up the way he’d come. The Urges died before they could do more than bellow with inchoate fury, and even their desiccated flesh began to dissolve as the roots cocooned them in silver.

A thunderous crack brought Felix back to himself, and he opened his eyes to see that the Altissima’s trunk had expanded rapidly. Its bark transformed from smooth silver to something textured and toothsome, while its limbs thickened and spread higher than any Tree he'd ever grown. It had shot up in a gnarled curve, splitting into a dozen thick boughs before budding again and again. Relatively thin branches sprawled outward, arcing over the sky above Hevaan. Far below, the black stone creaked as silver roots climbed from their city-plate to the next, spreading as fast as onrushing waves, until the base of Hevaan was as silver as the heights were golden.

Felix was pushed back, riding along the roll of the earth as it was displaced by building-sized roots. His friends scrambled away in panic, but Felix stood still, his hand against the edge of the Tree, staring upward as emerald moss propagated across its textured bark. Above, the smallest of branches drooped and hung like a willow, sprouting with leaves the color of gold.

Attunement Complete!

Altissima Anima Is Attuned To Life, Water, Poison, and Metal!

Huh. About what I’d expected out of a jungle Tree. Ourea attuned to Shadow, Earth, Life, and Fire, which tracks for its environment too. Felix grinned. Neat.

The Spirit Tree's canopy spread for miles, a roof over the city of Hevaan that gleamed with gold. Even as the bright blue sky of summer peeked its way through, the shadow of it cut into the heat of the jungle, bringing them all a blessed relief.

Aura of Temperance’s Plenty

Type: Aura (Passive)

The Altissima Anima cradles the air and waters under its influence, singing a soft refrain from the verses of the Green Wilds. All things grow faster beneath its boughs, increasing harvest yields and animal populations. All beings are comforted by a sensation of peace that soothes agitated Spirits.

Aura of Seeking Spears

Type: Aura (Active)

Those that seek violence within the Altissima Anima’s influence will be met by its equal. The hatred of the mindless and cunning alike will be answered by the silvered roots, their Health drained to feed the Spirit Tree.

“Whoa,” Felix muttered. “More like Spear of the South, huh?”

From the edges of the upended park, he heard the faint sound of Archie and Beef’s groans, and he grinned.

“You did not come to see me, Autarch,” Mauvim said with a smile that creased her ancient face. “Do I frighten the young so much that you’d rather lift a mythical city from Ages Lost than look at me?”

Felix and Pit stood on a golden-lined street, between tall statues of robed magi and the black stone dome and pillars of some empty municipal building. They’d decided to go on a bit of a tour of Hevaan before they gathered up their people and left, while Harn and the others had returned to Morva.

Felix tensed, shooting a glare toward Pit. You didn't warn me.

She was hidden somehow! Pit looked at the Chanters with narrowed eyes. She’s spooky.

Fixing a smile on his face, Felix turned. "I wasn’t avoiding you, Mauvim. I had planned to come see you and the others as soon as I wrapped up things here. How are you?"

Mauvim’s smile faded, though the Chanters at her side looked as serious as ever. "We have been better. I'm sure the boys have told you already that the Chanters took some casualties during the last battle."

"They did. I'm so sorry to hear that."

"They died saving people—there are few honors greater,” she said seriously. The Chanters at her side murmured in agreement. “We have spent our time these last few days in town, providing healing and our various magical specialties to the locals. Imagine my surprise when I learn that you have arrived in the area and left soon after. It did not match my shock when an entire city rose from the jungle, however."

“Am I required to consult you on all my actions?” Felix raised an eyebrow. “There were things to be done. I did them.”

“You have lifted a city of gold from the wilderness and raised yet another Spirit Tree over this Territory. This is a remote Territory barely worth invading by any but the meanest of opportunists. Why spend resources so frivilously?”

Felix clenched his jaw. This was partially his fault. He’d cut Mauvim and her Chanters out of his council, at least for the most important things. “I have my reasons.”

“I do not doubt it, Autarch.” She ground her knobby walking stick into the smooth thoroughfare. “Would you allow my Chanters to explore your new city? It is no doubt a treasure trove of information and sigaldry that we can put to use.”

Felix sighed. "Of course. You and the Chanters are all welcome to explore Hevaan to your heart’s content. If you can see some use for what we have here, then fantastic.”

She inclined her head by the slightest of margins. “My thanks.”

“Hm,” Felix grunted. “Before you head off, however, I need to speak with you. Privately.”

The old woman nodded at him, ambling forward with her knobby cane and waving off her entourage. The other Chanters pulled back, many of them shooting Felix inscrutable looks.

They don’t like me much, he mused. He’d flouted their control a few too many times for some of the Chanters’ liking. Oh well.

Mauvim gestured, and a sound and sight ward rose up around them, distorting their images and trapping their voices within its confines. “There. What would you like to discuss?”

“You don’t have long to research this place. We’re all returning to Elderthrone soon. I’ll need you and the Chanters for what is to come.”

The ancient Chanter eyed him, her rhuemy gaze still sharp. “What has happened?”

“A lot. I can tell you more when it’s safer. For now, trust me that I needed to claim the Seat and Seal of this Territory swiftly. Hevaan was just a consequence of that.”

"Hmm, quite the side effect,” she said, frowning. “Congratulations on your new position, by the way, Emperor Nevarre."

Felix waved away the title. "Yeah, that'll be useful for the assault.”

“On Amaranth, I assume."

Felix nodded.

Mauvim clucked her tongue in exasperation. "That is madness, dear boy. The Hierophant is a Paragon with the favor of a god on her side."

"A dead god.”

“Divine just the same. The Pathless may have died but do not for a second believe that the Hierophant is less formidable because of it. Ocalla Marzul has lived for nearly as many centuries as I have and she is a force of nature. To underestimate her is to accept your own doom."

"She can be defeated," Felix insisted. "I refuse to believe that between the god and his priest, the god was the weaker one."

"Believe what you must," Mauvim said, her withered hand waving off his words. "Just know that the Hierophant is more than she seems. There's a reason we have not been able to stop her all these years. She has the Orders, the High Guard, the Hierae, and who knows what else in her back pocket."

"We don't have a choice. There is no other path here; no other play. We need to stop what is about to happen or else everything falls apart."

"Felix, I do not know the entirety of what has happened, but I know your options might be limited. You might find yourself between death and worse, but it does not matter.” Her cloudy eyes were intense beneath her heavy brows. “There is always a choice.”

She swept away, back toward her coterie of Chanters, leaving Felix alone to think.