Mishki seized as the warlock's presence clawed into his mind.

"Well done, my child," the warlock purred through the mental communication of the Hive mind. "I suspected there might be another person involved."

Mishki couldn't move a finger. Frozen in his own skin, he watched helplessly as Logan, hunched with fatigue, raised a trembling palm.

No jetting flame or icy cone poured out. The human just staggered and slammed a clenched fist to the side of his head.

"What a shame," said the warlock, clicking his teeth as his fingers drummed along his staff. "By my Analysis, you have exhausted your mana and stamina."

His smile split too wide across his face, and Mishki for the first time realized how different the warlock looked. His leering grin had grown more detestable, stretched and cracked at the edges like a mask gone brittle.

"Soon," the warlock continued, "your health will follow suit."

Hurt and confusion shrouded Logan's face as he met Mishki's eyes. Mishki fought to move, to explain, to scream that he hadn't betrayed him. The strain of shaking his head felt like it would snap his own spine. He tried to form the words, but his lips wouldn't part.

Still, somehow, it seemed Logan understood.

He calmed. Jaw relaxed. Shoulders uncoiled.

But the warlock moved faster.

The orb at the end of his staff pulsed, and a wisp of purple vapor slipped from its tip. The cloud curled toward Logan, wrapping around his head like smoke-stained cloth. Two tendrils split off and latched to his temples.

"Ah-ah-ah," the warlock tutted. "No Meditate for you. We can't have you regenerating any vitals, can we?"

Mishki wanted to leap forward and snap the staff in half. Instead, he twitched a finger.

Even that took all his strength.

While he stood helpless, the warlock seized Logan's wrists and dragged him toward the glowing furnace reactor orb, where the aerudine remained shackled.

Brave goble, we don't have much time.

The voice cut into Mishki's thoughts like a tuning fork, soft, harmonic, and impossibly deep. Without moving his head, Mishki's gaze flicked toward Avalyn.

Her expression was not as anguished as before.

Still strained and weary, but now alert.

"These will hold long enough," the warlock muttered, pinning Logan beside the aerudine. Mishki could see the warlock's improvised bindings were weaker than those that restrained Avalyn.

Your warlock lacks the strength to conjure reaver-grade bindings.

"Can my friend escape, then?"

No. He has not surpassed Level 100. The chains will hold, even if they are crude.

"Now," continued the warlock, "let's have a look."

The warlock grabbed Logan's gear pack from his belt and yanked it open. He plunged a hand inside, elbow-deep, muttering to himself. With a grunt, he set his staff against the wall and used both hands to rummage through the pack.

Your friend cannot free himself, but you can, Mishki.

"The warlock still holds the hive mind! I am no match for his power. Even now I feel him summoning gobles here."

You may not be, but I am. My body is restrained, but my power yet flows. They needed it to flow, so I could fuel the furnace. Will you allow my power to imbue you?

The warlock's motions grew jerky as he concluded his search. He spat in disgust and tossed the bag to the floor. "A metal triangle and a hodgepodge collection of herbs? What is this nonsense?" His cloak billowed with a snap as his attention shifted to Mishki. "Where is the egg?"

Mishki's throat tightened. His legs wouldn't move. His tongue was lead. But the warlock was already stepping closer, gaze narrowing.

Your form is too unrefined to properly contain my power, brave goble. If you allow me to do this, it will be painful.

The warlock raised a clawed hand, his face twisting the longer Mishki went without answering.

"Do it."

The world erupted in violent white light, laced with writhing purple tendrils. Pain exploded across Mishki's nerves. Every thread of his being lit up as if his bones were being pulled in opposite directions. It wasn't just pain. It was awareness, too vast for his body to hold.

As Mishki writhed, everything else melted away. Before his eyes, every detail of the chamber, the furnace, the stone floor appeared to turn to candle wax, dripping and blending into the nearest surroundings.

The transformation continued until all that remained was an abstract parallel of the furnace room, composed of braided energy and twitching strands that stretched around him. Even Logan and Avalyn appeared frozen and disfigured.

The only person who resisted the transformation was the warlock.

Unchanged, the warlock stood so close his twisted fingers nearly grazed Mishki's face.

The warlock froze and his eyes shifted to each side. He raised an eyebrow and regarded Mishki. "How did you access the Hive's mental plane? Your level is far too low for your awareness to transcend here." He squinted. "Is that… do you have a Dream affinity?"

Just as quickly, amusement lit the warlock's face. "Are you attempting to challenge me?"

Deep, shattering laughter rattled within Mishki's skull, which already felt too frail to contain his own thoughts, let alone the violent cackle. "Me, your superior? Your warlock!"

Draw from my power, Mishki! Do not let it overwhelm you. Shape it! You must first gain control over it before I can help guide you.

Mishki clutched the force roiling inside him. It felt like gripping wind and trying to bend it into a spear. He pushed it outward, but too fast and wild.

The resulting blast surged past the warlock, cracked the walls of this mirrored mind-realm, and snapped back with an elastic recoil. It struck Mishki hard, flinging him through space. Motion had no meaning here. He might have been flung anywhere from ten feet to a mile, but the bands of energy shaping this dimension warped until it reappeared just as it had.

At least the warlock was several feet more distant now.

With a shrill cry, the warlock retaliated by throwing violet bolts, striking Mishki square in the chest.

Pain again. His whole form convulsed.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

But this time, Mishki held the aerudine's strength tighter. Not as a weapon, but as a scaffold. Similar to how the surrounding room appeared misshapen and smashed together, so too was the power. He could not see it, but he felt it simmering inside him like water on the brink of boiling.

Rather than hurl it blindly, he wrestled with it to shape it. What he envisioned to be an agitated surface began to settle.

The Hive's mental plane remained a distorted overlay of the real world. Everything around him had unwound into loose, fuzzy threads, as if yarn had soaked in water and the furry outliers had diffused into one another. The psychic network leaked into this place like ink bleeding between pages.

But a sudden warmth bathed him and in the safety of that moment as the churning power calmed into rhythmic waves.

Yes, Mishki. You are attuning the frequency of your affinity to mine.

In the corner of his vision, where the stairs were located, distorted blobs began to storm down. These were other gobles, surely, ordered here by the warlock through the hive mind.

Despite the chaotic jumble, a certain clarity in his brain bloomed.

Confidence welled up as he glared at the warlock. The person they had placed in charge to care for their colony, but who suppressed them instead.

The warlock, now gathering another bolt of condensed psychic energy, didn't seem to notice the shift in Mishki's posture.

Mishki hugged the aerudine's energy tighter, like a cloak against a blizzard, and his awareness sharpened. The warlock wove his strands dense and narrow, drawn from the abundant psychic mana in this place.

Mishki stepped left in a blink, and the bolt missed by inches.

"I see," Mishki murmured. He held Avalyn's essence in his hands, like a coating of sparkling quicksilver.

The warlock froze. "What?"

Mishki shaped a responding network of psychic mana, mirroring the warlock's construction. Yet, the aerudine's might proved too much, causing his first attempt to fail spectacularly; it collapsed upon itself, similar to a giant's clumsy attempt to handle something as fragile as a flower.

"You cannot—"

Mishki ignored him. He adjusted, folding the weave with better balance this time, now accounting for the aerudine's power.

The blast struck true, and the warlock recoiled with a hiss.

Congratulations! You have learned a new skill! Mind Lance (L), level 1 Go on, take another stab! This is one sure way to drive someone to madness, in the truest sense. +5 INT, +7 WIL

Mind Lance is level 2! … Mind Lance is level 8!

The energy pulsed outward from Mishki's chest. His fingertips tingled, and if he wasn't looking at them he might believe the skin had been flayed from the powerful skill, but he kept his focus.

The warlock lunged sideways and vanished before reappearing across the plane. It was a strange way to experience space and distance, because their bodies clearly hadn't moved. The shift had been more felt and understood, and within moments the structure of the realm shifted and reset, once again capturing the initial orientation as if the warlock hadn't dodged at all.

Mishki read the shift in his focus, tracked it before throwing another crackling bolt.

They clashed.

Bolts. Blades. Binds.

Mishki dodged a mental tether and struck with a retaliatory pulse. The warlock flared with a cascade of violet shields.

Mind Lance is level 9! … Mind Lance is level 12!

The warlock tried to retreat, but Mishki anticipated it.

He pivoted, appearing at the escape vector a moment before the warlock could finish his shift. His Mind Lance was already in motion.

It drove into the warlock's forehead.

The warlock's eyes bulged wide, then both gobles exploded outward, flung from the plane like shattered pieces of a snapped connection.

Logan could barely keep his eyes open. Every time he tried to summon the energy for a blast of CryoPyre, his temple flared as if he had driven a chisel into it.

Mana depleted.

I'm well aware, System! The chains securing him to the bizarre, draining orb were slack enough for him to move maybe six inches, but his empty stamina reserves made even that impossible.

He was only half aware of the storm of gobles pouring into the chamber. The real confusing part, though, was that he could swear they were rushing to seize Mishki, but kept rebounding as if Mishki were tucked away in a zorbing ball.

Logan always thought zorbing would be fun.

Why was he thinking about zorbing?

Oh yeah, the storm of gobles…

Something hit his jaw, and by the time Logan realized it was the warlock's staff, the warlock was already fallen to the ground and the chains binding Logan collapsed around him as if they had never really been holding him against the furnace reactor.

A sliver of green and blue lit up on his HUD, distinguishable only because it was more than nothing.

Stamina: 1/358 Mana: 1/588

He was recovering! Once he hit 10 Stamina, he had the strength to lift his chin. He gasped at the sight of at least fifty gobles, the warlock included, prone and dazed. Mishki, however, wobbled upright. A strange film glazed his eyes, and his body moved disjointedly, as if his limbs were loosely hanging from marionette strings.

The aerudine was still bound to the orb. Her closed eyes fluttered open.

"What just happened?" Logan asked.

The majestic being smiled. "Mishki has destabilized the warlock." The aerudine's tone sombered as she glanced to the warlock. "Yet as long as he lives, my binds stay locked. Unlike you, my tethers are linked to his soul, not just his mind." She turned to Mishki, an intense concern bathing her face. "He has pushed himself too hard. I am surprised he has not collapsed, but he is stuck."

Logan glared at the fallen warlock. Everything that had happened—that was happening—was partly because of this wicked person. The warlock stirred, hand stretching for his staff, but Logan pinned the warlock's forearm with his boot and slashed at the warlock's arm. He hadn't necessarily expected it to sever cleanly, but it did, and the warlock went unconscious with blood loss.

Logan took a deep breath, and looked at his gauntlets. He could end it now.

But Mishki needed this. So instead of thrusting a clawed fist down, he staggered to Mishki, then guided the dazed goble to the staff. Logan placed the staff in Mishki's hands, wrapping the goble's sharp-nailed green fingers around the gnarled wood. A glimmer of recognition glinted behind Mishki's eyes, but his body still trembled.

"Come on, Mishki. You got this."

The gem on the staff glowed, and Mishki gasped as his movements steadied once more. He glanced to his left and right, seeing his stunned kindred, then growled as he saw the warlock.

He tightened his grip around the staff and roared as he slammed it down.

A sickening thwack rebounded off the walls.

Mishki swayed, smiled, then dropped.

You have assisted in killing a goble warlock! Shared experienced gained.

You are now level 18! +3 END, +6 DEX, +9 INT, +12 PER, +6 WIL You have 26 free stat points.

The aerudine's binds clattered to the floor and she wasted no time rushing to Mishki and cradling his head in her lap. She closed her eyes and pressed the tipped end of her wings to Mishki's chest before breathing a relieved sigh.

"He lives, but he is in critical condition."

Logan chewed his lip as he waited to see what the aerudine would do.

When she did nothing, he cocked a brow. "What are you waiting for?"

"I cannot help him." The genuine sorrow in her tone was clearly meant as an apology to Mishki, even though her words were for Logan's ears. "I'm afraid my power is the reason he is in this state. It is an affliction of a shattered mind under the governance of the Dream affinity. Since my power is what caused it, I cannot cure it."

Logan paused. "Dream affinity?" He glanced up, through the ceiling. He wasn't oriented enough to know which direction Gnashridge lay, but his mind turned to Mariv. "I think I know someone who might help."

The aerudine perked up as Logan mentioned the gnomish divining wizard. "Yes," she said. With a hasty swoop, she swept Mishki into her embrace, cradling him like a baby. He looked so small in her arms, and Logan pitied him. "I must take him there now," the aerudine finished.

"Wait! I still need your help." He gestured to a chute dropping into the abyss. "In case you didn't know, there's an ancient monster down there trying to tear the world apart."

The aerudine shook her head. "For a similar reason as I cannot help Mishki, I cannot combat the Devouring Coil. By now, any use of my powers will only fuel the Coil and strengthen it." She hunched. "I had come here, hoping to find a prophecy. I never realized how much power the reavers had or I would never have let them catch me unawares. But by the sound of it, the dragons of this world are lost. And nobody here has heard of an ancient race long gone from history."

Logan's mind raced to puzzle together the pieces flying rapidly through his head. "You! You were the one studying the prophecy in the Cave of Cursed Music." Even in the grim furnace room, Logan laughed. "You're talking about Elevated Kindred, aren't you?"

The aerudine cocked her brow at Logan.

"You got it a little wrong, though. It's called Exalted Kin. And I'm one."

"You are human." The confusion in her voice almost made it sound like a question.

"Well, primarily. But I also have a hidden race. And remember that gnome I mentioned?" As Logan shared about Razor, the aerudine grew more hopeful by the second.

"Then hope remains! I will bring Mishki to the divining wizard and guide the dragon you speak of back here. Without her help, all is lost." It was her turn to laugh. "I cannot believe the amount of luck I've had in meeting you."

Logan smirked, and his attention flitted to the distorted presence of his Interdimensional Storage Ripple. "Yeah, I've had my fair share of luck too."

Her smile grew stern. "And you will need more. I am sure you have seen the shearing void rifts?" Logan nodded and she continued. "The Devouring Coil will not stop until it tears down the Boundary on either side. Make no mistake. If it succeeds, everything as we know it will be at the mercy of perils far worse than even the Coil itself."

Everything as we know it. Logan figured there was a lot of stuff he still didn't know about this world. But that was all the more reason to stop the Coil.

Briefly, he wondered if it would drop a monster core, but it would have to die first. And right now, Logan needed to stall it long enough for the aerudine to find Razor and bring her back. Until then, Logan would have to manage.

Alone.

Another headache assaulted him with that thought.

He sighed and forced the worry out of his mind. He was going to see this through.

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