He’d barely made it out of the font.
Kaelen had curled himself up against Valen’s spine from the bath, as far away from the skin’s surface as his delicate mass could manage, listening to the ambient purity of the holy water’s purification radius rub away against him like sandpaper over a sore patch.
[Ding!
Font Exposure Survived – Peripheral Contact Only.]
[ Permanent Mass Loss: 8%.
Core Integrity: Stable.]
Eight percent of myself, for being in the same chamber with pure water.
He would have allowed himself to mourn that loss, as long as it was to ensure he was alive, and no longer.
A cheap price.
I’ve bled for far less.
It had been hours since then.
Since the camp was set up in a wide stone hollow far behind the temple, its torches burning out, and two guards healing up their wounds from the fight with the temple guardian, and Valen was sitting, by himself, regarding the small fire with hands still shaking from whatever battle shook them.
[Neural Infection Progress: 22%.]
“You now possess sufficient neural density in the prefrontal cortex to attempt sustained thought interference,” Nix said, subdued enough to make sense for the hour.
“This is no longer superficial interference.
You are starting to get a real grasp on how he thinks, as opposed to merely what he sees.”
Then let us see how far it will take you.
He would have tried to attempt some new thought implantation, but that would be too obvious – clumsy, unsubtle, easy to detect by an unprepared mind as an outside interference.
So Kaelen did the more subtle, and in many ways crueler thing and found the thoughts that were already in there, the little seeds of arrogant pride and mistrustful suspicion, that every enlightened soul grew from the inside if there was nothing around to tell them otherwise – and gently, oh so gently, made them grow.
She’s been standing closer to the treasure room maps lately, than anyone else.
The thought bloomed inside Valen’s skull as if it had always been there, as Kaelen’s own notion of the font had bloomed minutes before.
Not only that, but Selene knows things about this expedition.
Things she refused to share.
Why would that be, if not to plan something for her own benefit.
Valen’s jaw set tighter, regarding the fire while growing with intensity.
[Ding!
Suggested Cognitive Pattern Integrated.]
[ Host Behavioral Shift Detected: Suspicion Index Rising.]
“Effective,” Nix remarked.
“Good choice of thought to implant, as it has rich growth potential.
You are not planting paranoia into him – merely preventing it from fading away when it naturally should.”
I am not planting anything.
He is always suspicious of those around him, thinking that they are not worthy of his trust.
Merely helping his natural inclinations to not grow dull with time.
He let the thought process bleed further into Valen’s consciousness, testing the range his twenty-two percent of access allowed him to reach.
She insisted on the font.
Isn’t it rather coincidental, that she did so right before we reached the thickest part of the dungeon?
Just right before whatever treasure awaits us in its depths.
Valen’s hand tightened on the sword at his knee.
By the fire, Selene approached, offering a waterskin for him to drink from.
“Keep your distance,” Valen said.
Selene paused where she stood by the fire, brow furrowed.
“Excuse me?”
“I said – keep your distance.
You’ve been standing a little too close to me, don’t you think?”
“I thought we were friendly enough, that I could sit by the fire and share the food with the soldiers.”
“I thought we were friends, too.
But that doesn’t seem to be your opinion of me.
Because I have been thinking of the font, of how convenient it was that you suggested it right when we needed to reach the thickest part of the dungeon to find whatever lay in its depths.”
“Valen, that’s ridiculous.
I suggested it because you looked like you were about to drop on the spot!”
“Did I?” Valen stood, still holding the sword.
The knight commander’s firelight played up the plates and slashes of his armor, revealing it to no longer be as firmly set as it would have been a day before leaving the keep.
“Or you wanted me to drop, so that I could scout ahead and find my way to where the treasure lies?”
The other knights exchanged uneasy glances among themselves, and none were brave enough to interrupt the Knight-Commander and his accusations directed against his equal – and perhaps best asset — in the expedition.
[Ding!
Behavioral Manipulation Successful.]
[Target Isolation from Support Network: In Progress.]
Good.
Isolated, and growing more suspicious of the only person here capable of finding out what is in fact happening inside his skull.
Kaelen shivered happily in the cold and hungry nothingness behind Valen’s eyes on this night, and the knowledge that an arrogant man, put in a position where nobody can be trusted to not lie to him, will commit a number of silly mistakes – a fate that was most definitely in store for this foolish Knight-Commander.
Selene did not contest the accusation, merely stepped back, face composed but obviously calculating.
She waited and waited – until Valen seated himself by the fire and the sword was back in its sheath, before returning the respectful distance he asked for – but now, with a clear, safe distance behind which she could still see him.
[Ding!
Secondary Threat Detected.]
[Target: Mage Selene.
Activity: Preparing Diagnostic Spellwork.]
What is she–
Kaelen picked up on it, on the same fraying thread of sense that allowed the to hear Valen’s thoughts moments ago, though it was more confusing than frightening as it leaked into his senses and understanding right now – the hum of a spell someone was working.
Someone not trying to be heard.
Not trying to be sensed.
Aimed not at the camp as a whole, not even at Valen himself, but somewhere right behind him, at the vulnerable and open part of his spine.
She’s actually doing an invasive body scan!
“Analysis suggests an application of sub-dermal scanning magical theory,” Nix said.
“Designed to identify any irregularity beneath the surface.
If her magical capacity is sufficient, your current thought-network can be identified as an anomalous surface growth.”
She’s not only becoming suspicious.
She will see if she knows what to do with that knowledge right away.
“Right.
Now you can’t influence her spells to twist her mind, as you twist people’s minds.” That was a fact that had been a constant worry in the backs of his mind, ever since he had first started this process.
The way it was working now, with thought interference meant that it was not hard to twist someone’s thoughts they were already in the middle of having.
A spell was entirely different business.
“So what does that mean for us?”
“Means she’s going to be doing that right now, while we are not preparing to enter the next chamber of the dungeon,” Nix replied.
“How prepared are you to avoid her attention while doing that?”
Kaelen did not have an answer, not yet.
The threat detection indicator on his control panel flickered with new red light, momentarily blotting out the other, more familiar lights, as another new sensation bloomed inside his mass, far more bright and intense than anything he had known since first threading through the outer layer of the boots that led into Valen’s knee.
[Ding!
Interface Restoration Complete.]
[Divine Bloodline Assimilation Threshold Reached.] [High-Tier Evolution Tree Unlocked.]
[Available Paths: Void Gazer Microbe…
Soul-Eating Thread…
Reality-Phasing Amoeba…]
[ Select Now.
Selection Window: Limited.]