"You are demanding a lot from me, all for some two bit healers in the back end of nowhere," Isla said. Felix stood still atop one of the rounded towers in the Priory, having transported Menders and patients alike over to the order's compound for further talks. Isla had been fairly amenable to the conversation when Felix had approached her, and soon was eagerly engaging with the Prioress while displaying a growing familiarity with Dahria and the other subordinates. It had been a bit more than Felix had hoped for, and during the twenty minute back and forth, he had been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Isla cocked her head at his silence. "I am still quite surprised at the audacity of it. Offering to share knowledge that you have no claim over. Tsk." Felix buried his general distaste for the woman and smiled. "It's in the interest of helping others, here and in my Territories. But..." He felt a pulse of satisfaction from the woman, hidden beneath a layer of gauzy anger. Somehow, she had laid a veneer of anger over her true emotions. A curious trick. "You're entirely too happy to be truly mad at me. What did the Prioress agree to?" He had listened in, of course, though Isla had attempted to make the conversation more private and brought them indoors. That was easy to work around by having Pit fly to a window and listen for him, as the Chanter hadn't bothered to erect any sound wards. Now she eyed him and something in his expression must have given him away, because her faux anger turned to disappointment. "You heard?" Felix just kept smiling. "Tch. Very well then. She agreed to your ridiculous terms. Access to their knowledge on Herbalism, their rare seedlings, even Titles and Tempering details." Isla shook her head. "They were willing to pay more for a larger helping of my knowledge, but they did not have enough. They are ready and willing to swear an Oath on the agreement, once you are prepared." "Great news." Felix had more than enough experience dealing with a conniving creature back when he had the Maw welded to his Spirit, and he'd won that proverbial tug of war. He wasn't about to let someone else derail his plans with their own agenda. "How do you plan to convey that knowledge, by the way? I can't imagine you want to stick around here." The slight woman paused while she straightened her dress, the diaphanous layers having twisted in the wind. "I have tomes that I would hand over. It would more than suffice for what these Menders require." "May I see them?" Isla pursed her lips, but from within her voluminous skirts she removed three thick books bound in leather and bright green metal. She handed them to Felix. "Three personally scribed tomes, depicting my earliest work with life Mana and the art of healing. They are not Skill Books, but I daresay they'll find enough in there to keep them occupied for several decades at least." Felix opened the first, flipping page after page as he studied it. The handwriting was fine but far more legible than Pagewright Tern's scrawl, and it was accompanied by a great many sketches and diagrams of various Races and body parts. He kept flipping, letting his eyes rest on each page until he reached the end of the first tome. "This is...wow. This is great." "As I said. More than sufficient." Isla held out her hand, but Felix did not give them back. Instead he moved to the second tome, which he moved through just as quickly. And then the third. He could sense Isla's impatience with him, but didn't much care. "What are you doing?" "Some light reading." "You've barely glanced at the pages. Even with an astronomical Intelligence, you would be able to glean very little in such a short amount of time." "Mm," Felix said, pleased as he snapped shut the final book. "These will be great. Glad you were willing to help, Isla." Her hands twitched at her skirts before collecting the three books from Felix's grasp. "Yes. Well. I did not do so without recompense. You will stick to your end of the bargain? I would not wish to mar our agreements with something so impersonal as an Oath." "I don't need Oaths to keep up my end of a bargain," Felix said. In order to gain Isla's cooperation, he'd had to promise to answer her questions regarding his home. She was 'compiling information about where the Unbound summoned from and how,' and needed his input. Felix figured she just wanted to know more about him, and any excuse would do. "Of course not." "I'll give you my accounting later. Once we're back in Nagast, we'll have plenty of time." Felix gestured to the door Isla had just exited. "Let's go seal the deal with the Menders, and then we can—" The bells of the Redoubt began to toll. Down below, Menders froze for a second before scrambling up stairs and onto the walls of the Priory. For his part, Felix seized the air and rode lightning up onto the tallest of towers, spinning slightly until he saw the source of the disturbance. Two dozen shapes cut through the waters on the far side of the town, perhaps a half mile out and heading toward Bogfeld fast. He flared his Voracious Eye, enjoying once again the fact that the Skill had no limit except line of sight. He blinked. "Damn it." His Perception flagged the Knights amassing along the newly rebuilt town walls. A lot of Knights. He had to move. "Steady! Hold your Skills tight!" a Knight-lieutenant cried out, holding their silver-edged sword aloft. Knights lined up atop the newly built walls of Bogfeld, but the glimmering lights in the glossy stone was ignored for the far more dire threat barreling through the waves. Arrow-like wakes turned the muddy water into foam and dark, glossy scales were all that could be seen apart from what seemed like a hundred pair of glowing eyes. "Aim!" The writhing shapes lashed forward, propelled faster and faster, until all the sound was dominated by thrashing whitewater. Serpentine maws lifted and jagged crests burst across their wedge-shaped skulls as a thrill of hammer-hearted fear jolted every Knight and Gallant. The Knight-lieutenant's voice was all but squeezed from his chest. "FIRE!" Arrows flew like bullets, ripping across space and air with a whine and snap that tore free tendrils of trailing Mana. Glows of blue, white-green, green-gold, and orange abounded, until it was a veritable rainbow that descended upon the advancing horde...only to shatter as a wall of jagged ice ripped up from the waves. "STOP!" Felix's voice hammered into the Knights and Gallants with a physical force, bringing several of them to their knees. He landed atop the hastily formed ice wall with a crack of thunder, sending more ice Mana down into its base to prevent it from splintering beneath his weight. It burned his already-raw channels, but he couldn't help it. "Stop attacking!" "H-hold your fire!" the Knight-lieutenant stuttered. "My lord? Do you wish to make the kill?" "What? No. I wasn't talking to you." Felix pivoted, until he could see down the other side of his icy slope. "Garox? What is going on?" From the lead of the serpents—the Naga—a serpent like the rest but on a smaller scale and bearing a humanoid upper body, slid from the waters atop his brethren. "Returned God! We are pleased to see you here among the waters of our land!" Murmurs broke out among the staggered Knights, but Felix ignored them. "Garox. Why did you charge the town like that? These people thought you meant to attack them." The Spirit Naga shook his head, though his flat expression was tough to read. "We felt a great amount of power emanating from these waters, and the Fathom have been more and more active of late. Our speed was meant to intimidate our foe. To find the Returned God here instead is a blessing." "The Fathom spawn have been killed, at least the ones around here," Felix said. "Just hold there for a second." He leaped, collapsing a portion of his ice wall and hurtled through the air. Felix landed atop the battlements of Bogfeld, surprising the Knight-lieutenant once again. "You're in charge?" The man nodded. "What is going on, sir?" "Some friends have come to visit. They aren't any threat, so please stand down." Felix reached out to the ice wall with his Mana and Intent. "I'm going to drop the wall now." "A-ah, right. Yes, sir." Destroying a Mana construct was always faster than making it, at least for something as simple as elemental shaping. A small pulse of his Rime Shaping started breaking down the ice, and in short order Garox and his fleet of Naga were treading water only a dozen yards outside Bogfeld's new gates. "Those are Naga!" "Monsters—!" "Can I trust you to calm your people?" Felix asked the Knight-lieutenant, and the man saluted sharply. "Yes, sir! Stand down! Everyone put up your weapons!" Felix hopped back down, landing on a lip of stone just outside the town walls. Pit, resting on the flagship, sent him a worried query, but Felix pulsed safety and reassurance along their bond. "Garox. We don't have much time before a lot of people start showing up and asking questions. Did you really just show up here to fight the Fathom?" "Of course, my Lord. We wage war against the wretched filth in our waters throughout all hours of the day and night. Normally they reside within the depths, in the Abyss where light cannot reach their vile scales...but the glorious flood that has expanded our demesne has also riled the beasts. Now they not only contest the deeps, but the surface as well." The flat-faced snakeman looked up at the wall, his slitted pupils dilating as he regarded the Knights above. "Something these Humans know well." "Yeah. We've encountered them a few times," Felix admitted. "They came after us, beyond the mountains there." Garox drew himself up, his brown and tan scales glistening in the sun while the other Nagafolk coiled through the waters, looking at least superficially similar to the Depthwurm. The intelligence in their eyes was a touch unnerving when Felix considered their physical size, even if he was sure he could defeat them all. "They advanced through to the source of the flood? It must have been in great number, for that is always how they attack. The Fathom grows bold and far more deadly with every passing day, their power waxing like the moons. We...cannot hold much longer in the deeps. Have you returned to lay waste to them?" Felix opened his mouth, but hesitated. "We've returned, but my people need to pass through Haestus Temple. War is coming, and they are needed back home." "What of your promise, my Lord? That you would return and aid us against the Fathom?" Garox frowned, and this time his expression wasn't hard to read at all. Dismay and fear. "What of our home?" Guilt pulled at Felix, a companion for his feelings toward Bogfeld. The flooding had caused the Fathom to grow restless...or perhaps simply bold enough to escalate their conflict. "I am still going to help. I promised I would, and I'm not about to go back on that." "I am pleased to hear that, my Lord." Garox gave him a deep bow, his oversized Body (at least twice the size of Felix's own) bending until it was lower than Felix's head. "There are Den's being formed all over the depths, too many for us to contest. The Fathom are multiplying faster than our noble warriors can beat them back. We need your aid now more than ever." "Right." Felix frowned, putting all the pieces of his current crises in order. He had the Hierocracy heading to Nagast at some point, the Fathom fucking people over, and his fellow Unbound in trouble across the Continent. Could he resolve the Fathom immediately? "Is there a concentration of the Fathom? Some source for where they come from?" "Yes. Khasma." "Khasma? What's—" Felix's words were crushed from his chest as a sharp but somehow distant pain ripped through him. In the same second, an alert in red flashed before his eyes. WARNING! Your Defensive Array - Mirk Enclosure, Has Failed! WARNING! The Barrier Has Fallen! What! Energy Remains! Do You Wish To Allocate To The Array In Order To Maintain Perception Occlusion? It means the fog inside Nagast, he realized. Yes! Mana and Essence both rushed out of him, a tithe he paid directly to maintain at least a part of the Enclosure, and it made Felix's knees wobble and overtaxed channels blaze with agony. He gripped his Inheritor's Will as he stumbled to a knee. "Karys!" Green-gold light pulsed at his waist. "Felix! The Mirk Enclosure failed! The Stronghold has indicated that a force of six thousand Hierocratic warriors have passed through Setoria!" "What?" He thought he had more time. "Where are our people?" "The majority have made it to Haarwatch, but only just." Felix's Mind was racing, a thousand thoughts crowding for attention. "Get Cal on. Get people organized. I've kept the fog going in the Territory, so maybe that'll buy us more time. I—I need to resolve things here and—we'll be back soon." "Please hurry. I fear we will need all of our might to defend against this force." Felix stood, pushing shakily from his knees. He met the gaze of the Spirit Naga before him, one that was creased with dismay and flashes of anger. "Garox. We...we need to get to Haestus. Now." "...Very well, my Lord."