Waking up in an unfamiliar place was always a jarring experience, and current circumstances were no exception. Frankly, I was a bit surprised to be waking up at all, given my last memories. Before I took full stock of my situation, I groggily opened up my messages to get a sense of what had happened. Battle notifications didn’t work properly while unconscious, but what little the system had recorded before I passed out painted a bleak picture.

  Adaptive Jungle Hydra has bitten you for 106hp.

  You are bleeding!

  You are poisoned!

  Paired with some dim recollection that the hydra had flung me to the ground, my last memories had me shocked that I wasn’t in more pain, at the very least. Clearly, the others must have saved me. A quick scan through the rest of my status and notifications revealed that all the poison in my system had run its course, leaving me as good as new. Mostly, at least. My health was a decently damaged 531/850, but that was more than most people had total. Additionally, four new skill levels greeted me, as was to be expected after such an ordeal.

  Advanced Internal Mana Manipulation has reached level 18!

  Poison Resistance has reached level 21!

  Heavy Armor has reached level 16!

  Bleed Resistance has reached level 16!

  The latter two were fairly straightforward, whereas the first had likely come from my attempts at casting Cure while I’d been half asleep. I idly wondered if that was a possible skill training route. If I could nab some of that root, maybe I could try casting spells while sedated to see if it helped my manipulation skill level faster.

  After that, there was the expected set of notifications for the hydra’s death and the quest completion, but that was all secondary. Quest rewards could wait until I understood my situation better.

  Even before I sat up and scanned my surroundings, the first thing to send my alarm bells blaring was my health. Cal should have been more than capable of healing me up to tip-top shape. A few points, I could have understood. She could have healed me to full health, and then I could have lost a few from the last bits of poison and bleeding damage. To be a full hundreds of points down, though, something must have been wrong.

  A proper examination of the area only added more questions to my list. I could have imagined waking up in the hydra’s lair, in the junglings’ clearing, or even back in the cabin until I recalled that Tal’Ket’s summoning plate was in my storage. To wake up in a very boring, empty space was far outside my expectations.

  In fairness, it wasn’t entirely boring. There was a big ol’ crystal up ahead, and the region was small enough that I could see where it ended in every direction. Behind us, that was the jungle. With the quest completed, the vine wall had vanished, allowing us to travel back into the ruins or the clearing at any time.

  The trippier direction was ahead of us, where it appeared that the dungeon abruptly ended. I’d wondered what would happen if we made it to the edge of the protospace, and the answer seemed to be a sort of spatial curving. The sky, it appeared, was actually a warped sort of dome, and the same kaleidoscopic mana patterns above us stretched downwards to join the ground.

  The sight looked particularly wrong, and I couldn’t stare at the warped space for too long without my head hurting. But then again, I didn’t want to stand there staring in any case. Much more pressingly than the environment or even the crystal -- which I was beginning to suspect was the mana-collection site we were after -- were the three features currently sprawled out on the ground.

  One was a chest made from vines which I assumed was our loot. The other two were familiar bodies. Verin lay directly to my side, and a bit further on, Cal was lying on her side. Before my mind could offer up any macabre thoughts, I identified the two of them, confirming that they were still very much so alive.

  My first thought was that they’d both succumbed to the soporific poison, much like I had. I did have the highest Poison Resistance, after all, so it wouldn’t have been strange for me to wake up first. As far as I knew, though, Cal should have been immune to sleep effects, and with her Apex Shroud, she shouldn’t have ingested any poison in the first place. Then again, what did I know? Maybe she was immune to sleep curses but not sleep poisons. She’d been resolutely tightlipped on the details of her sleep resistance, which left me largely clueless as to how it functioned.

  Regardless, I hit both of them with a few Cures and then a couple Heals for good measure. When they didn’t wake up after that, I figured they just needed some time. I hadn’t spotted any monsters, nor was my Danger Sense flaring up, so I wasn’t too worried about getting attacked. If the other two were just a little sleepy, then I could afford to wait for them to wake up.

  Seeing no reason to put it off any longer, I decided to look through my quest completion notification. Aside from the standard boilerplate, it appeared that the dungeon had rewarded me for my novel approach to clearing the region.

  Based on your contribution and the method of completion, you have been granted additional loot and experience.

  +1500xp

  Nothing groundbreaking, but those weren’t the only rewards. I glanced at the vine chest, trying to figure out how rude it would be to open it without the others. Surely a little peek wouldn’t hurt, right?

  Be nice. You nearly died and probably made Cal lug your body around until she passed out. Not to mention, the others had fought the beast after I passed out. My antidote cooking had played a huge role in our victory, but I wasn’t sure if I could confidently consider myself the most important this time around. I could wait a bit longer before opening it up.

  And so, I waited.

  And waited.

  And after a good deal of waiting, I then waited some more.

  Figuring the two might need a good meal, I even took out some supplies to build a fire and get some cooking done. When the smell of food failed to rouse either one of them, though, what had begun as mild concern began to blossom into true anxiety.

  Attempting to rouse Cal first, I shook the warrior, gently at first and then with more force. Not once did she give me any sort of reaction or make a single peep. Taking a page out of her book, I then summoned up a knife.

  I wonder if she’ll stop waking people up this way if she finds out how awful it is. I kind of doubted it, but it was still nice to give her a taste of her own medicine. Giving her a quick jab to the side, I waited for her to awake with a gasp.

  Instead, she continued to lie there, entirely dead to the world.

  Maybe she’s just a deep sleeper? She has lots of sleep to catch up on, right? I repeated the entire process with Verin only to get the same results. More and more, I was beginning to grow convinced that there was something unnatural going on here.

  But what? I purged them of any poisons left in their systems. What did that leave? A spell? Unsure what I’d even do in that case, I flickered through my vision variants hoping to spot anything out of place.

  On the first pass-through, I got nothing. On closer inspection, though, I realized the two of them looked a bit strange while I had the basic Arcane Vision applied.

  By now, I was used to seeing just about everything around me with ease. My Perception, paired with my vision skills and boons, made it exceptionally hard to hide anything from me. It was a shock, then, when I finally spotted the glow of mana so subtle that I was half convinced that I was imagining it.

  After getting right up close and personal and toggling Arcane Vision on and off, though, I slowly grew certain: There were faint wisps of mana dotting both Cal’s and Verin’s heads. Any lingering doubt that I had was dispelled when the system kicked in with a skill level that I hadn’t seen in ages.

  Detect Secret has reached level 15!

  Emboldened by the confirmation, I experimentally poked at one of the wisps with a needle-like dagger of mana to no avail. A physical dagger fared no better.

  If it’s by the head, maybe it’s something mental? I cursed myself for slacking on my Arcane Vision trial, as I imagined that the mental variant of the skill would have come in handy right about then. If there was something mental going on, I could have used a way to visualize it.

  Wait, I do. Much as I tended to avoid it these days, of course I had a way to visualize mental effects. With a dash of trepidation, I pulled myself into my mental space.

  In some ways, it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. The shattered ground, for instance, had largely mended itself. The cracks in the foundation of my mind were no longer thick enough for me to fall through, and in some places could even be considered “healed.”

  Of course, that ignored the countless broken pieces of the rest of my mind, still haphazardly strewn about. Even if I was gradually healing, and even if my mental and soul resistances had come a long way, nothing would passively rebuild my original Stygian Citadel or the larger structures that made up my mind.

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  The brooding, however, could wait. I’d come here for a better reason than to get lost in defeatism.

  With now citadel walls to block my view, it was a simple matter to cast Sense Minds. A pulse of mental mana rippled through the space, breaking upon any other minds it found within range.

  Despite coming here with the exact hope that Sense Minds would reveal something, I was still shocked when it worked. In addition to the two large and solid minds of Verin and Cal, dozens of tiny purple dots were latched onto them. A quick identification revealed what I was up against while also making my blood run cold.

  Mind Spawn

  Mental Magic: 21

  Mental Resistance: 13

  Beings of almost pure mental mana, mind spawn are close to the bottom of the mental food chain, consuming ambient mental energy to slowly grow and evolve. Often harmless and unnoticeable parasites, these diminutive creatures only become an issue in great numbers when they tend to overtax their host’s mind.

  To avoid killing their hosts too quickly, when many mind spawn gather, they have the ability to provide their hosts with minor amounts of sustenance. In this way, they’re able to force their hosts into comas which are entirely harmless if reversed quickly enough.

  After extended periods, however, a host may suffer from mental trauma, scarring, and depletion. Alternatively, many such comas eventually end when the mind spawns consume enough energy and evolve into something greater -- and far hungrier.

  God’s Eye has reached level 14!

  It’s fine. It’s completely fine. It says it's harmless if I remove them fast enough. Both of them are going to be entirely okay. I repeated that sentiment over and over again as I tried to figure out how I was going to deal with them.

  Besides, their mental magic level isn’t that high. Having viewed them through Sense Minds, I wasn’t able to see their levels or healths, but I did get a peek at their relevant mental levels. Their resistance is lower than mine, too.

  Regular mana hadn’t worked, which probably meant they were only susceptible to mental attacks. Here, my general reluctance to ever learn offensive mental magic came back to bite me in the ass, but I was hoping that I had a workaround. Keeping half my attention on my mental space, I slipped back into the real world and summoned a dagger of mental mana.

  Cal first. If I free her, she can probably Apex Shroud her mind to hide herself from getting reinfected. In any case, I was really glad that I’d chosen to do those damned class trials. Without them, I wouldn’t have been allowed to enhance my weapons with advanced mana types. If we make it out of this, I’m definitely devoting more time to finishing the ones I have left.

  With bated breath, I gently poked my dagger forward, careful not to stab Cal and make things worse. The tip of the thin dagger lanced into the first wisp of mana, and with barely any resistance, it popped.

  You have defeated a Mind Spawn!

  See? Easy. It’s going to be totally fine.

  Even as I had that thought, a disturbance kicked off in my mental space, eager to disprove me. Normally, when I cast Sense Minds, I released a sort of mental pulse which bounced off other minds. This time, however, when I noticed a series of ripples in my mental space, none of them were my doing. Each of the tiny spawns started emitting frantic waves of mental energy, evidently alarmed by the passing of their sibling.

  Another few casts of Sense Minds let me keep track of the various spawns, and it quickly became clear that they were sending out some sort of distress signal, as a fresh batch of the little wisps started flying in from deeper in the region. I was scared for a second that they’d latch onto me, and that would be the end of it, but even broken as it was, my mind had fairly powerful defenses built into it.

  Chief amongst those defenses was the shrouding effect of Stygian Citadel, one of the few powers that hadn’t gone away when my mind fractured. While the wisps chaotically bounced about, sending out sonar-like probes to hunt me down, my mind returned absolutely no useful information to them. And even if they did find me, I liked to believe that my Mental Resistance was high enough to resist a few attacks, even with most of it working to keep my mind stable.

  Should I fight them? I could probably charge my hammer with mental mana and smash them out of the air by the dozens.

  No. Maybe if I tried to challenge this region at a later date, but not now. Right now, Cal and Verin were all that mattered, and my first priority was to get them out of the region. No matter how many spawns I popped, it wouldn’t matter if more kept coming to replace them.

  Not giving the matter a second thought, I scooped the two of them up, one in each arm. Briefly, I debated leaving the chest, but at the last second, I recalled I could just stash it away in my storage, which I did with a thought. All the while, the mental parasites mentally buzzed away, my entire mental space now looking like a flag flowing in the wind.

  Doing my best to ignore them for now, I began running back to the ruins, hoping to heal them in the junglings’ clearing.

  All in all, it was a good plan, I thought.

  It might have even worked had I tried it before attacking that first mind spawn. Or not. Maybe they would have sent out their incessant S.O.S. the moment I tried moving the bodies. In the end, I would never know.

  I made it but a single step before it appeared.

  Well before I saw it, I felt its presence descend upon me, both mentally, and through the pervasive, full-body panic set off by my Danger Sense. Mid-step, I froze, relying on every point of my Dexterity to lock my body perfectly in place. I didn’t know if it could see me moving, nor did I dare risk it.

  At first, it was just a pressure -- a vice-like grip on my mind from every possible angle. As it grew closer, however, I could spot it in my mental space. And frankly, of course I could. Making absolutely no effort to hide its presence, the newcomer practically tore through the fabric of the mental space, sowing chaos with its every motion.

  In fact, for once I didn’t even need to cast Sense Minds to see it clearly, as it practically screamed out its mental identity for all to hear. While most of the minds I’d seen were neat, tidy spheres, this creature was a raw, jagged thing, a deep purple lightning bolt filled with static and rage. If that wasn’t bad enough, it was large. Large, large. Easily-swallow-all-of-us-and-not-notice large.

  Without having to consciously use my skill, I found its information pushed onto me, unbidden.

  Mind Reaper

  Mental Magic: 46

  Mental Resistance: 33

  A Mind Spawn that has evolved after consuming gleefully malicious thoughts and amassing a great abundance of mental energy. No longer content to act as a harmless parasite, the reaper delights in the destruction of any foreign minds it encounters. Its singular benevolent feature is its instinctive kinship with its fellow mental entities, often protecting them when possible.

  I cursed our luck as it approached. Mental Magic at level 46? There was little doubt that this was the region’s boss, and we’d somehow managed to attract it almost immediately upon arrival.

  The only thing that kept me from breaking down right then and there was my mental shroud. For now, at least, the reaper seemed to be having as much trouble finding me as its younger companions, sweeping through the mental space as if searching for me. It roved through the physical world as it did so, eventually moving in front of me.

  Given its horrific mental presence, I was surprised to find the actual form of the reaper was much more mundane. With a vaguely humanoid appearance made from translucent purple mana, the reaper’s only similarity to its mind was the zig-zagging, jagged lines that made up its body.

  I could beat that, I suddenly realized. The smaller ones popped to a single poke of mental mana. What would happen if I stabbed this one with a full-on spear? Did I dare try?

  If the reaper had any sort of normal sight, it didn’t seem to be using it. While I was hidden from its mental senses, however, Cal and Verin had no such protections. Finding them with ease, the creature leaned in towards their heads, passing unnervingly close to me.

  The mental space distorted and destabilized around the reaper’s mind, the aftershocks of its movements enough to qualify as mental attacks. For now, it seemed content to leave the others to the spawns, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t harming the others.

  What was I supposed to do? Just wait until it left? With that much exposure to a monster that “delighted in the destruction of foreign minds,” the others might end up as messed up as I’d been by the time it departed. And that was if it left.

  I need to kill it. It’s fine. It’s probably fragile. Just one good shot. As fast as I can, and it’ll die.

  After sufficiently steeling myself, the only thing left was to act. Burning my stamina as rapidly as I could, I unceremoniously dumped the others to the ground as I conjured a spear of mental mana.

  The entire motion was fast. Ridiculously so. My limbs blurred at a speed that no Earthen mortal could ever hope to match.

  Compared to the reaper, however, I might have been frozen in place.

  The very moment that I used my mental mana, it disappeared from my sight at the speed of thought. At least, it disappeared from my standard sight. Mentally, I watched as its mind thinned out, stretching outwards to form into a dome and then a hollow sphere, fully encompassing.

  Knowing that I needed to leave now, I bent down to scoop the others up and make a run for it, but it was already too late.

  The reaper’s sphere contracted, and the pressure on my mind momentarily intensified by fivefold. I staggered, understanding without understanding that it was breaking something. Snapping it. Severing it. What that “something” was, I couldn’t say, but I knew that I did not want it to break.

  I pushed back with all my mental might, but I might as well have tried to stop an avalanche with my breath. As considerable as my mental resistance was, it was still hobbled while my mind repaired itself.

  The sphere contracted again, and I felt my vision growing black. Was it forcing me into a coma like the others? There was no way we’d be surviving if all three of us passed out, and I tried to use that thought as fuel to keep me awake.

  A futile attempt. One more contraction, and my vision descended into darkness, and I felt my body grow limp.

  With a start, though, I realized I’d been wrong. I wasn’t asleep at all.

  Albeit in an entirely different form, my sight returned to me, revealing a thinly cracked plane of black ground. Strewn across it were massive mounds of shattered black and purple pieces, the remnants of a mind that once had functioned properly. In the distance, a dome of static climbed into the sky, confining me to my own mind and blocking me off from seeing the others.

  My mental space. I hadn’t been trying to fully materialize in my mind. Why was I here?

  Eager to return to my body, I tried to leave, cancelling my skill.

  Try as I might, nothing happened.

  End. Leave. Cancel. Escape. Panic began to well up within me as I frantically tried everything I could think of. There has to be some way out.

  But as every one of my attempts miserably failed, I was slowly forced to admit the reality.

  I was stuck.

  As the reaper loomed outside, I was trapped in my own mind.

  And barring a miracle, there was no way out.

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