SUBTLE WINDS - Second lost world.

Mother had spoken. We the Furies were to learn to enact her wrath. Learn to rain down her fury and vengeance upon those who deigned to disparage her. To do this we had to learn to fight, to bleed, to slay, and to do war.

We were not Divinas, the warrior messengers of Dylaeria, neither were we Bravurans with thick skin and muscles. We lacked the void affinity and were definitely not as smart or mischievous as the Gemini.

But we Furians were disciplined. Strict, skilled, and capable. And when the mother directed we followed.

*

I halted at the foot of the weeping mountain, its red-hot tears flowing unhindered down its rough face. We had learned to avoid its touch, as while it didn't harm us it proved to be uncomfortable. To my right was Graden, the male Furian who had made it his life work to annoy and disturb me. Up ahead was Arane, our self-imposed scout. Her speed at flight maneuvers was convincing though.

The female Fury was fast and agile, her movements dextrous in a way I could never reproduce. All around us were several spires crying rivers of colored liquid and coughing up ash. It would have been a sight of beauty for us who had never seen anything but the continuous rolling clouds of Dylaeria if the scenes from the silhouette hadn't opened my eyes to what our mission here was.

This world was a dying one, a lost world according to the images. It was still on its path of destruction not completely dead like Vaustaris had once been. Our assignment was simple. Carve our way to the heart of the world where the stone of rebirth and the mother's key of creation would be. There was nothing past the visions of what to do. Only life and beauty are to come.

Along with the visions of scenes that had been, was the system quest that hung over our heads like an executioner's blade.

It was this very quest that brought us right here. To the very base of what should have been a glorious mountain. Holes and crevices had been borne into the mountainsides like giant termites eating through wood. From this holes spilled out slow waves of red and gold liquid.

The Furies, my brothers and sisters gathered around me as I stood looking up at the hole-ridden mountain. Waiting at the base I watched as Arane descended from the great height her red and black wings flapping lightly as she broke her descent. The little gusts blew the ash settled on the ground and stirred it up.

"Unknown creatures up the mountain top." She reported.

"Anything to know?" she paused for a second before she shook her head and looked back up.

"It's best you saw for yourselves."

We took off our wings beating and creating a cacophony of sounds like a flock as we rose to the summit of the mountain. We'd barely gotten halfway there when we found the creatures Arane warned of. I could not call them monstrous or beautiful since there was nothing else we had seen to compare them to. What we did note for sure was the seeming effect the environment had on them.

Black rocky flesh with red veins trailing over their surface, empty eye sockets, rock wings with bits of leather flesh, and a crooked hind limb that was nothing like ours should be. It was the claws on their four-fingered hands and the row of serrated teeth in their open mouth that had me and several of my people halting.

It was not the first time we were using inspect, but it was the first time our target was both a non-messenger and also a possibly hostile entity. The result barely registered in our minds as the creatures bellowed.

[Lost Ones] - [Unknown]

[Lv 10] - [Chimeric]

A creature that had borne and survived the hellscape of a lifeless world. Your chances against it are at 30%. As beings born of the cold embers of divinity, they have lost their reasoning in their need for evolution and now radiate spite and rage for all that basks in true divinity.

[PERKS] - [Voltar] - [Sulphuric Ash] - [Remnants of the Lost]

The average levels ranged from ten to eight with the highest being at thirteen. The unknowns all dived down straight their limbs stretched out in preparation to tend flesh. I was ready in a moment shield raised to defend and spear propped on its edge the blade reflecting the red atmosphere.

The distance between our parties diminished, stone wings unfurled as the higher leveled unknown caught itself in the wind draft and clawed down at me. I braced for the strike raising my shield to mitigate or halt the blow. There was no impact, nor any reaction. I watched stunned as the unknown shattered into ash and swallowed me whole.

[PERK] - [Voltar] and [Remnants of the lost] have resonated to create binding negation [Mill of the Throdden]

The system information jolted me out of my shock just in time to notice the sheet of red liquid shaped into several tiny projectiles and shot at me. Agony, unlike those of the crying or bleeding mountains these particular liquids were hotter. Burned and melted at the points they touched.

My wings furled up as two of the liquid drops splashed on the appendages. I watched and felt the feathers burn and wither into ash, the tendon and flesh beneath seared. I fell faster than I could realize yet the Mill of the Trodden was either that big or just fell with me.

My wings were burning up with the intense pain and I was certain that the ground was my destination. I'd never seen a messenger drop from the sky and why I had no idea what was bound to happen something like a baser instincts urged me to arrest my fall.

[Fury's Armanent].

Red illustrious wings converged over the burned and shriveled appendages on my back. Like crutches, the deep red energy boosted my wings' movements, and a powerful flap halted my descent. The Drops of red and gold liquid kept coming, while I evaded a few, some were halted by my armor which ruined various spots others splashed off my Fury's Armament.

A perk gotten suddenly while we stayed on Dylaeria, we were not the only species of the messengers to gain it though. Amongst the messengers, each of the species had a different alliteration of the perk. While it was capable of use in all features, the use was weaker or stronger depending on tbe species and their armament's affinity with them.

For we Furians our armament was wrath based. An offensive style that made us capable of channeling the rage of others to fuel offensive attacks. The first energy could only be used weakly for other things that were not focused on dishing out damage.

This was why I barely blinked as the same red energy coalesced into my right palm and flowed through the spear shaft in my grasp. A smirk graced my face as I realized something.

This was the perfect training for my people to get experience and knowledge. Unlike practiced I swung the spear like it was a sword letting the red light spill out its blade. I watched impressed as the beam tore through the mill and out exposing the red skies of the outside.

My relief and joy were cut off by the pained roar that certainly came from the Mill of ash around me.

'It uses itself to form this cocoon of ash and wind?' I stared shocked even as the slashed open hole started shrinking and mending itself together. Right before the last bits of the crimson light from outside was snuffed out another red beam tore open another hole.

"This is a risky skill!" I shouted over the din of the Mill's roar. "Let me show you why". I swung once more letting the beam loose even more intensely. The roar turned into a guttural scream as I sliced through the Mill going in a circle till the top and bottom of the ashen tornado had been bisected.

The Mill was quick to gather back together reducing until the Unknown was left. It held its cracked and half-split torso together as what looked like the same red steaming liquid flowed out from the wound. Even with its hollow eyes, I could still feel its unbridled rage focused on me as it heaved with anger.

Then its anger froze and withered, replaced instead by a slow manifestation of an eerie smile. Before I could understand what the facial expression meant I saw the red liquid flow up instead of down. The magma settled into the crevices of its stone-like flesh and covered the surface of its hard body. I was too surprised at this attempt to stop it as the magma finally reached its head and covered it all up. Going as far as to enter its hollowed-out eyes and leave a red glare within.

Behind it the wings had stretched even wider, its arms and body bulked up even more, its hands and fingers now covered in the same material that extended like short gathered claws. I exhaled.

Its face now partially covered by the dried red magma did nothing to hide its coy smirk right before it dove at me, wings flapping with a boom that shattered the sound wave. I barely sensed it before it smashed into me with a force, unlike anything. My mind spun as the environment turned topsy-turvy and then I hit the ground with another boom that hurt my hearing.

"Accursed Voltar creatures" I painfully screamed from the impact, my bones rattling and the breath knocked out of me with the scream. The system chose that moment to write in my sight.

[You have named an Unknown, race]

[For naming an entity not formally named, you have gained the Finders and Namers Feat]

[The Mother watches]