A dark explosion shook my vision. It seemed to originate from the ground, radiating darkness all around before it was quickly encompassed my streams of teal light from a distance source. The light surged forward, colliding directly with my vision, the eyes of what seemed like a humanoid figure dissolving in to mine as I shook awake.

When I looked around, I was met with relatively familiar surroundings. I was a short distance from where I had passed out, the night earlier, as the glowing pink sunrise in the distance seemed to indicate. I then realized I didn’t see Viktor anyway. I jumped to my feet, worry overcoming me as I frantically looked around. Thankfully, he was in a hammock above me. He seemed to be hanging off, as though he’d fallen asleep while looking over.

He was still sound asleep, so I decided not to bother him right now. Instead, I needed to find the other missing person. I quickly formed a seal on my hand and flew above the clearing to check around us. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the river of blood that had been circling us before was completely gone, leaving behind nothing but a massive trench around us.

Now, that only left the question of where Damien was. Despite what had happened right before I passed out, I was still very wary of Damien and potentially even more so. His strange message had been so out of nowhere and I still didn’t quite know what to think of it.

For now, I just needed to find him. If he’d been killed by Viktor, which I highly doubted, his soul fragment would still have been in the clearing somewhere and I hadn’t seen anything, so he must have still been alive.

I dropped down, returning to the clearing. If he was knocked out, he should still be somewhere close to the clearing. I began to scan the area surrounding area until I finally care across him. Just a few feet behind Viktor, chained to a spire, was Damien. He seemed to currently still be completely out. There was even less color in his skin than usual and if it were anyone else, I’d probably be worried. Thankfully, Viktor was apparently able to create essence suppressing restraints.

On top of the other security, there were also several flowers gathered around the unconscious blood apprentice, constantly spewing a thin veil of pink powder. I could only assume that these were the same plants Viktor had planned to use on the darkness apprentices.

I somewhat wished that he was actually conscious because I had some serious questions for him right about now. He wasn’t very helpful to me as he was, but he also was far less murderous which was quite the plus. I began pacing, trying to figure out what I could do for now, but my mind was going blank. Then I realized the answer. The mind. While he might not be awake, his brain was still active and I could potentially access his mind like I had done with Sage and Thyme’s. While none of these had been intentional so far, I had gained a lot more control with my observer’s eye.

I made my way back around to the front of Damien where I stared at him. He really did look like two different people when you covered one half of his body. It was extremely odd and only sought to further my curiosity and my inclination to try to get inside of his mind.

It was pretty lucky Viktor was still asleep because, if he had been awake, he probably would have wanted to stop me from doing this. After all, every other time I’d done this, it was unintentional and was usually pretty emotionally taxing to view the inside of someone else’s mind, especially when their emotions were as extreme as with the other things I’d seen.

I took a few deep breaths, collecting myself. Even if I wanted to do this, it was still quite nerve-wracking to be trying to actually do this. There was no guarantee of what I would see, if I could even get inside of his mind. Once I had collected myself, I flicked my fingers over my eye, watching as the world shimmered and the essence around me came in to sight. I focused in on the essence in Damien, specifically the collection inside of his brain. I had seen it before with others. It was a strange looking collection of essence. It didn’t flow the same way as the essence in the rest of the body.

I slowly moved my hand forwards towards Damien’s forehead. I stretched out my index and middle finger, placing then directly in between his temples. I closed my eyes and focused, imagining the resonance between our auras and our minds, allowing mine to flow in to Damien’s freely. I could feel a tug on my body as the ground beneath me seemed to dissolve. When I opened my eyes I found that I was completely surrounded by darkness. However, unlike when I was inside of my mind, my body wasn’t normal. I had once again become the glowing teal version of myself from when I’d entered in to Sage and Thyme’s memories.

“Jester! Sylak!” I called out, thinking that they might potentially be here as well, but I received no response. If they were here, they were nowhere near me. However, I still had another person I was looking for. “Damien! Where are you!” I was once again met with no response, the words only echoing around me before dissipating.

With nothing else to do, I struck out in to the darkness, my body proving some like, but still not enough to see anything in the distance. Just like in my mind, my ability to see in the dark didn’t seem to matter. However, in contrast, there were none of the glowing ripples around my feet. The ground didn’t seem as completely solid as the ground inside of my mind though.

I stopped for a moment and knelt down, reaching my hand out to touch the ground. Instead of it being like a smooth, endless surface, it seemed to have a very thin layer of liquid atop it. I tried to scoop some up, but the layer was far too thin. It couldn’t be like any liquid I was used to because, despite the fact it made walking feel different, it didn’t create a slippery surface at all.

Without that mystery cracked, I stood back up and continued walking. The entire place was almost entirely silent except for my footsteps and the occasionally odd sound. I couldn’t tell what the sounds were or the source of them. Anytime I tried to stop and listen for them, they just stopped completely. It was all extremely unnerving and I was starting to think it may have just been the remnants of an echo.

Eventually, I decided that my current method of trying to find something wasn’t working. I took a seat on the ground, letting my mind draw its focus to the space around us as I attempted to expand my senses and feel for something, anything.

I sat there for a long time just expanding the range of where I could feel things. At first, I felt nothing, but then I began to sense something in the distance. The issue was, I couldn’t actually tell how far away it was. Then, after what felt like an hour, I found something I more concrete in feeling. It wasn’t just a sense that there was something in that general area. I could actually feel the presence of life, or whatever passed for life inside of here. More likely than not, it was Damien.

Thanks to the rules of the mind, I was able to just focus on the source of the feeling and draw myself nearer to it. In just a few minutes, it was practically on top of me, given how strong the feeling was. When I opened my eyes, I was confused. There was nothing here. Not that I could see. I stood up and began walking around when I quickly found that there was something here. All around me, hidden by the darkness they shared their color with, there were dozens of black spikes jutting out of the ground. However, they weren’t the presence I had felt.

I could still feel the presence somewhere very close, but where it was, I had absolutely no idea. It was too strong to get a proper direction on, at this point.

“Hello! Is anyone there?” I shouted in to the darkness around me.

The instant I spoke, a chill shot down my spine and I was met with an overwhelming sense of fear and panic. I frantically scanned the area around me, but there was no source for such a feeling. Then, I felt something on my leg. When I looked down, I found there was a black tendril crawling up my leg, circling it and holding me in place. I tried my hardest to break free from it, but it had a solid grip on me.

That was when I realized the spikes around me had closed in on me and were now just a few inches from me. They had all pooled together to form a rippling mass of dark liquid that was closing in on me. The second they reached me, I felt all the energy drain from my body, an overwhelming sense of dread taking over my entire being. I wanted to scream for help, but I couldn’t. There was nothing I could do but close my eyes and accept my fate.

“Avien!” a voice called, but it sounded like I was underwater.

My eyes shot open and I found I was still standing where I had been with my fingers still on Damien’s forehead. I immediately retracted my fingers, looking at them as if I had just placed them on a hot stove.

I turned around, finding that the source of the voice had been Viktor calling from behind me. He was rushing towards me, a look of concern on his face. “Avien, what are you doing?”

That was the real question right now. I had just willingly chosen to enter the mind of someone we knew to be a dangerous murderer, all in hopes of finding some answers to the hundreds of questions I had right now. But I hadn’t found anything at all. I had just found an empty abyss of nothing that clearly didn’t want me inside of it.

“I was just…” I gestured to the unconscious body behind me.

Viktor stopped next to me, his expressing growing more confused and slightly grim. “You were what?”

I sighed, already knowing what he would say. “I… went inside of Damien’s mind or, at least I think I did. There was nothing there though. It was just an empty place full of darkness.”

“Why would you go inside of that lunatic’s mind?!” I could hear a little bit of anger mixed in with the confusion.

“He said something to me before I passed out. I wanted to see if I could find some answers inside of his mind, but I had no such luck.”

“What did he say to you…?”

“ He said… he needed help and that he needed to get to Malfuim, but he sounded different and his face… it looked different. Something changed in him when he said that. I don’t know what, but I had to try and find out,” I explained.

“Why would you be so reckless? What if something had happened to you?”

I gave him a confused look. “What could have happened to me? It was all going on inside of his mind.” I decided it was best to leave out the way I had gotten out.

“I… I don’t know, but you don’t either! I try so hard to protect you, but sometimes it feels like you’re trying to get hurt…”

He did have a point. I had gone in to this knowing that Viktor wouldn’t have been on board with the idea, but I did it anyway because I was curious. But still, I hadn’t been injured, despite what happened inside of there.

“Regardless, we have to do something with Damien. We can’t just leave him here forever,” I offered.

“I figured we could probably give him to someone to take care of him. Unless you want to do it yourself. In which case, be my guest.”

I looked over to the motionless body chained to the rock and thought. I knew what Viktor would say, but I also knew I should do it. “Why don’t we bring him along with us to Malfuim?”

“Why would we do that? Because he asked you? Plus, he doesn’t need to add anymore illusionists to his kill list. He’s already gotten rid of most of them already.”

My ears perked up at that. “Illusionist? What’s that? I’m assuming it isn’t the same as it was in my world.”

“Basically, they’re people who possess illusion essence. With that, they also possess the ability to enter people’s minds and do what you just did. The only difference is, the best ones are in Malfuim.”

“I see…” It was beginning to make some sense what might be happening. Anytime I’d entered the minds of anyone else, it was nothing like when I was inside of my own mind. But with Damien, despite the fact it was certainly different than my own, it was far more similar to mine than anyone else. That, along with the presence I felt but couldn’t find was starting to raise some serious questions.

“I think there’s something going on inside of Damien’s mind and he needs an illusionist to help him. Plus, if you can keep his essence suppressed the whole way there, we should be fine.”

“But-“

“If he had wanted to kill the illusionists in Malfuim, he would have done it by now, right? Please, I think he’s in need of help. If things don’t go well, we’ll take care of him. Just, trust me, okay?”

Viktor thought for a moment before conceding, letting out a loud sigh. “Fine. But we need to make some preparations first.”