Roots burow upward though my feet. Submit. Give in. Let the life take root. What is the purpose of life if not to thrive? To grow and become something more, if not for your family. If i just excepte this contract I'll become something more than I could ever hope to be on my own, I'll the mother needs is any oath. Why then does the Lightning Spirit prevent me from speaking my agreement? Why does it not want me to bind to the Mother. I push my Astral mass and desires upon the wepon. Let us find peace, and purpose within her care. Bittes and lashes in a Frenzy are it's response all the while electricity freezes my muscles. Preventing me from speaking Preventing me from finding peace, Preventing me from obtaining revenge!
Fine I shall…shall…do what? What am I doing?
Pulling my self back together though a haze of thoughts that aren't my own I start hyperventilating as I realize something Is digging into me from within the Astral, and from somewhere else that I can't really sense.
Despitely I clutch Glutton to my chest." Thank you, thank you, thank you" I can barely whisper out the words. It hurts. Everything Hurts! Yet I know I'm physically fine. I need to cut off these connections, sever the connections influencing me. DESTROY THE PAR••• make a choice! Chose something and remove temptation!
"SURVIVAL, I chose survival!" Startled by my yelling and pulled from her own thoughts, Ghost looks angry for a moment but her face quickly contorts too tariffyed as she sees something wiggling beneath my skin. Then it all stops as the pages go blank and two shards slam into my center. My nascent core physically contracts, highlighting several scares running along my centers interior and the core it's self.
Left panting I barely notice these changes instead I happily passout as a presence is cut from my mind.
-
Hours later I wake up to Ghost attempting to drag me to the 3rd floor entrance. She gotten embarrassingly far. considering her progress I'm ether very light, or she's very strong. Considering she doesn't have a permanently solid body… I I don't like these thoughts.
"Ghost?" I ask horsly
"AHH! Oh your awake. Well let's get moving no time like the present to decend and get out of here." She keeps dragging me by my arms looking nervous.
"Ghost I need rest. I'm sitting at an odd 25% healthiness and I'm pretty certain I was almost possessed by a tree! We can decend tomorrow. We have enough food and water for a week if we ration it, one day of rest should be fine."
She glances between me and the stair well. "Ya your right one more day should be fine."
"Thank you. Now ware's our supply bag?"
She points over near the stair well entrance. Sitting down next to it I pull out the puzzle maze that should give me a skill. I've been unconscious long enough, and have ignored this resource for to long. Time to find out what earning a skill is like in this world.
-
How do you solve a maze that shifts and changes at random intervals? Normally time would be enough to solve any maze. If you beat your head against a wall long enough then surely something will give way. Logically there's three options, get lucky, find a pattern, or follow your instincts. Now you might argue that Luck and Instinct are the same thing. I'd personally say that following your instincts is more like trusting in something you don't fully understand stand yet. You don't need to know how gravity works to trust you won't fly away when you step forward. Not that the Twilight left gravity intact for everyone.
So I'm a world ware magic exist and the laws of reality are long since worn thin, your gut instinct might just be more reliable than recorded logic.
My instincts are garbage, My Luck is valued at one, and I'm recorded as having a 4 intelligence. I've always been better at just pushing through the pain and discovering first hand why something is than guessing. My memory is decent I think, just untested since I was immobile so long. At least I remember always beating my brother in memory based games when we were little.
After half a day I've roughly mapped out the 5 repeating patterns using the ashy floor to draw them. A hand, heart, eye, ear and sphere. Each share an entrance at the bottom and an end in the middle. All shift slightly depending on how you looked at them. Which I guess brings up the final question. Do i need to solve all 5 or just one? Without any better options I start filling the Maze with my astral mass. The tablet feels larger on the inside than the outside? But not by much.
Bit by bit, iteration by iteration, hour by hour I brute force the solution to the maze. Recording the paths in the ashy drawings, so when the maze changes and im booted back to the entrance I can more quickly contenue from ware I left off.
At some point Ghost falls asleep. At another Glutton asks for some Force to play with. Yet no monsters arrive, so the interruptions are minimal. Finally after hours I completely the first Maze variant and feel…incomplete. More. Another. The second finish soon after, then the third and fourth. The eay maze takes longer, but even when I finish that I feel something is missing. Look at the path ways I recorded on the floor fills me with frustration!
Body, Mind, Soul, Core. Spirit…Something mental and something instinctual? I can't see every puzzle… I'm missing two of them, that much I'm certain. Is the tablet defective? No. I can't see the last two maze's for some reason, so what I have will have to be enough.
Flooding the Maze with Force and astral mass each maze begins rapidly swapping. Heart, eye, ear, hand, sphere, heart, eye, ear hand sphere, heart, eye, ear, mouth, hand, sphere. Each completion path overlaps, burning a pattern into my retinas. My mind. My center.
-
Ghost shakes me awake as quickly wiping a look of discust off her face." You okay? Is randomly passing out normal for you? This is like the 3th time you've passed out from in front of me."
Pulling my face off the shattered tablet, and out of a pile of ashy droll I fail at holding in my dinner.
BLAUGGG
Bile spills from my mouth. My center feels so full, a sickly fullness that spills into my stomach and lungs. It makes me want to curl into a ball for hours more.
" No. Maybe actually, I was immobile for a long time so my sleeping habits are pretty bad." I crook out while reaching for some water. Glutton sends me feelings of support and comfort. Everything will be fine.
"Well you succeeded in breaking that wired maze. Did you get anything out of it?"
Turning my attention inwards I check my center… My stomach coils at what i find.