The creature crawled through the vents of the house, slowly making its way through the unfamiliar environment. Despite the eyes of the creature glowing a luminescent orange, it did not use normal vision to guide its way. No, this creature was completely blind -- at least to the normal visual spectrum.

After crawling for a few minutes, it paused next to an open vent, exactly where it knew it would be. It squeezed around the back of the couch, navigating unerringly through the clutter of a destroyed living room.

It made its way through the hallways of the house, not pausing as its feet stained red in puddles of cooling blood. Passing the first two doors in the hallway, it stopped at the third, pushing open the cracked door. At the other end of the room sat a child. Young, less than ten, but she wouldn’t always be young. The creature knew she had a future ahead of her.

The child stared at the strange monster, whimpering. She held a large bloody knife to her chest, uncaring of the stains it left on her shirt. Glowing orange eyes met young blue eyes, neither blinking.

The creature needed to be completely sure before committing. It may have been old, but its life was still too important to waste on a silly mistake. It kept staring, seconds stretching to minutes, seeing so much more of the girl than what was merely crouched before it.

For her part, the girl just hoped the monster would leave her alone and that her parents would come back. She held the knife desperately, her only lifeline in a world gone crazy. When the monster finally moved, she reacted on instinct, the knife flashing forward and down. For a moment the girl thought she missed, but at the last instant the monster moved quicker than she could see -- into the path of the knife. As the glowing orange eyes dimmed in death, the girl shut her own eyes, wishing she was anywhere else.

Minutes passed as loopy red lines slowly faded into existence on the girl’s arm. And when she finally opened her eyes again, they glowed a luminescent orange.

- The Oracle, Inclusion +1 day 02:45 hours

An hour later, Sam returns.

“...what happened in the trials?” Sam asks.

“The council didn’t tell you?” I reply, surprised. I tense. “Are we still free to go?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Sam answers. I relax marginally. “They are eager to be rid of you, actually. We can leave whenever you are ready.”

I breathe a sigh of relief and bend over to collect my supplies, my friends doing the same. Styx frowns slightly as she hands over her much larger pile of cards.

“You’re coming with us?” Melete asks Sam.

“Yes, if you will have me. The same rules as earlier still apply?”

My friends turn to me. I stare at Sam, thinking, before I answer. “Yeah, that’s fine. But don’t ever lie to us again.” For the last statement, I try to put as much menace as I can into my voice, but I’m worried it comes out more tired than threatening.

“Of course,” Sam replies. “And once again, I apologize for the deception. I truly do regret my actions, despite the beneficial result.” There’s a moment of silence before Sam continues. “To be entirely truthful, I wasn’t planning on accompanying you any further. I was worried that I had soured our relationship, and the council had concerns that I had formed a bias towards a small subset of humanity rather than remaining neutral. But no other diplomats volunteered for the task, and the council impressed upon me the importance of maintaining a good relationship with you.”

“They’re that eager for an alliance with humanity? Certainly didn’t feel like it in the trials,” I mutter, Melete and Pallas nodding along.

Sam had already turned away to lead us through the tunnel but pauses and turns its large yellow eye back at us to respond. “Oh no. Truthfully, they do not want humanity as an ally. But they want humanity as an enemy even less.”

We follow Sam out of the chamber into the dark hallways, blue lights guiding our way. We walk silently and see no sign of any Alatir, just empty tunnels and black walls with whorling blue symbols. I have no idea of our direction, but it does feel as if our path is angled slightly upward. It’s possible that the empty tunnels are simply another illusion, and in reality we’re passing hundreds of other Alatir, but I can’t find it in me to care. We’re healed and we’re together: as long as we get out of here, they can hide whatever they want.

Eventually, I see a light that isn’t blue, gleaming up ahead through the darkness. We round a bend, walk a few more feet, and suddenly we’re free and standing in the sun. It’s in the process of setting, but even the indirect sunlight is a relief after the hours underground. I breathe deeply of the pine-scented air.

The wheelbarrow is resting just outside of the entrance, bloody blankets resting inside. There aren’t any Alatir nearby, at least none that I can see, but I don’t question it. I walk to the empty wheelbarrow, grab the handles, and without a word lead our group away.

We walk for less than an hour, just until Sam informs us we’re outside of the Alatir territory. Staying close to their home may be safer when it comes to other monsters, but I don’t know if I’d be able to sleep knowing invisible Alatir scouts are watching.

“I know you were the one to find the fruit snacks in that cupboard a few days ago. But that doesn’t mean you deserve all of them,” Styx exasperatingly explains to Melete as they work to distribute dinner.

“Yeah, but maybe at least a larger portion? I bet you would have completely missed them had I not been there,” Melete whines back.

“I guess that makes sense,” Styx says. “As long as you’re willing to have a smaller portion of the beef jerky Atlas found.”

Melete grumbles before eventually passing out small bags of fruit snacks to everyone, tossing one to where Pallas sits on watch. Despite keeping a constant lookout, I notice he’s staying close enough to hear our conversations, smiling along with me at Melete’s complaints.

As we eat dinner, we take turns relating the story of our meeting with the Alatir council to Sam and Styx. They are appropriately impressed and horrified with our actions. Styx laughs at Pallas’ description of Melete’s attempt to sing while puking, while Sam is left speechless when I describe threatening the council member. As I tell the story from a removed perspective, without the adrenaline of fighting monsters, the desperation of trying to save Styx, and the exhaustion of our journey, I cringe at our decisions. But luckily we were able to survive and are once again reunited, finally hale and whole.

It was only for a day, but the group without Styx just felt...incomplete. Like a puzzle missing the most important piece. I may be the one who they’ve designated as the ‘leader,’ but Styx is the glue that holds us together. She’s patient with Melete’s antics, is able to get Pallas out of his shell, and is the only one willing to disagree with my more harebrained ideas.

I lay in my makeshift bed later that night completely exhausted. Since the battle with the hive, we had been pushing ourselves to our complete limits, desperate to save Styx, only to cap off the harrowing journey with battles. But despite the exhaustion, I fall asleep with a smile on my face.

We sleep late the next morning, allowing ourselves some extra rest before continuing our journey. For the first time, we allow Sam to take one of the shifts on watch. I’ve yet to see Sam sleep, but it seems irresponsible to give up all of our watch duties.

“You will need to be ready to awake quickly when I am guarding,” Sam says as we eat breakfast the next morning.

“Well, yeah, obviously,” Melete responds through a mouthful of granola.

“More than usual, I mean,” Sam says. “While you were sleeping, I tested speaking to you using my illusion abilities to attempt to wake you up. It was not successful.”

“Ah, and you can’t make real sound,” Styx is the first to understand what Sam is trying to say.

“Correct. I will have to make physical contact with you in order to wake you up. So be ready to wake from contact with my leg.”

I frown. “Who exactly did you attempt to wake up last night using your illusions?” I had some really weird dreams last night which I can’t quite recall. I wonder if Sam is to blame.

“I attempted to communicate with all four of you. It was not successful for any, no matter the created illusion,” Sam responds.

Hm, that does bring up an interesting idea for how to deal with the illusions of the Alatir: altered states of consciousness. Although I’m not sure if being high would be any better than being trapped in a created illusion. It bears consideration, though, that sleep is a potential defense against the Alatir’s most potent weapon.

I know we’re allies now, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be paranoid. Walk softly and carry a big stick. And for the Alatir, there’s no bigger stick than immunity to their strongest weapon.

The conversation has continued around me while I lose myself in my thoughts, finally broken out by Styx’s voice. “You about ready to get moving again? You manage to find where we are on the map yet, Atlas?”

I shake my head and pull out the map. Sam is looking over my shoulder and I give him a small glare before asking, “Do you know where on this map your territory is?”

It only takes a few minutes for us to reorient ourselves, but with Sam’s help, we’re able to pinpoint our current location.

“I’d estimate another three days minimum until we get to Clayton. Probably four,” I say as I fold up the map.

“So expect a week, got it,” Melete answers, picking up her backpack. “Let’s get going!”

“Hold on a minute,” I say before the rest of them grab their own bags. “Before we leave, I want to spend a few minutes testing out my new skill.”

Styx and Pallas nod and sit back down, while Melete replies with a drawn-out, “Fiiiiinnnneeee.”

“I know more or less how it works,” I begin, “but it doesn’t affect just me, so one of you will have to help me test it.”

They look at each other for a moment before Styx slowly raises her hand. “I guess I’ll be your guinea pig...but what does the skill do?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot you weren’t conscious when I got it. It’s from the hive queen, called ‘Bond: Mental,’ and lets me form a mental connection with other people. Supposed to let me share senses and communicate somehow.” I notice Sam is paying rapt attention as we talk.

“And you didn’t try to use it when fighting the council? Even though the hive is somehow resistant to their illusions, and this skill might give you that same resistance?” Styx asks.

We sit in silence.

“...I didn’t think of that,” I finally say as Styx looks at me skeptically. “I was more worried about it potentially throwing off our normal fighting routine. And there was a lot of other stuff on my mind!” I reply defensively.

Eventually, Styx just nods. “Fine, fine. So how is it supposed to work, exactly?”

In response, I activate the skill. It feels different from my ‘Adjust: Self’ skill. Where my first skill requires effort to use and maintain, with larger and more complicated uses requiring more effort, ‘Bond: Mental’ seems binary: either I’m using it, or I’m not. I can’t discern any way for me to use it harder.

With a thought, I direct my skill towards Styx, somehow knowing how to specify her as the recipient for the skill. I know exactly when it makes it to her because she jumps in place, sitting with her back ramrod straight.

“That’s...weird,” she says. “I think it just reached me. It feels like...it’s asking for approval?”

“What are you waiting for then? Say yes!” Melete says from the sidelines. They’re all staring intently at us as we test the new skill, although I doubt we’ll be a very entertaining show. It is called a mental bond after all.

“Okay, here I go,” Styx says.

And my world is overwhelmed with sensations.

I feel as if I have been split in two: one version of me is sitting in my current location, seeing, hearing, and smelling everything as normal. But there’s also a second version of me, somehow less than the first, but just as vivid. And that second version has the same senses of vision, hearing, and smell -- but all from Styx’s perspective.

The two points of view clash and I struggle to reconcile them. It isn’t like looking at a television or computer screen, where the new information is simply a subset of my normal vision. No, it’s more like I’ve gained an entirely new set of eyes. But the pathways in my brain that allow me to easily reconcile the different points of view from my two normal eyes are not there with this new point of view.

I close my own eyes, concentrating entirely on the new feed of information. My friends are asking me questions, but for the moment I ignore them. I direct my entire focus on Styx’s perspective, trying to force my mind to accept it as my own.

After a minute, I begin to grow comfortable with her view and decide to take the next step. Slowly, I open my eyes and attempt to process the information from both perspectives simultaneously.

And it works! I’m not sure how much I’m actually able to pay attention to either perspective while my complete concentration is centered on simply assimilating the information, but for now I don’t feel overwhelmed by the contrasting points of view.

And then Styx turns her head to respond to something Pallas says. Hit with a sudden bout of vertigo-triggered nausea, I turn and puke my recent breakfast into the grass.

“Hah! Told you! You owe me a piece of jerky,” Melete says to Pallas.

S: 148

D:144

W: 321

I: 102

C: 101

0

Skills: Adjust:Self, Bond:Mental