I want to go back to my mentor’s tower…

I hold my head in my hands and sigh deeply. That thought has been plaguing me since I came back from my Sanctum. Go back to the tower.

Sure, fine, I will, but I can’t until I’ve done what I came here to do. Regardless, the craving does not listen to reason, nor abate in any meaningful way. It simply is. Annoying.

More than anything, I’m bothered with how it keeps dragging my mind away from figuring out what to do with the thing I awakened in myself when I… lost my mind a bit. It’s multiple personality disorder made more real through Energy. A thing, representing a piece of me and my will, has gained sentience and wants to destroy things.

Fortunately, in order to force Kaythe’s consciousness into hiding within my Sanctum, the “Insanity”, as I’ve come to call it, had to give up on interfering with my Energy. I can feel the normal flow, circulating alongside my blood at a rapid clip, and jumping at the slightest hint of a command. That, and I was able to leave a slight impression in a tree trunk by punching it without breaking a bone. The balance is back… but Kaythe is out of my reach.

I hope Lethin takes what I said seriously. If she doesn’t, and either fails to protect Kaythe or just slaughters Insanity endlessly, we die. I can’t beat him by forcing Insanity to submit, as I can’t be inside my Sanctum and doing what I need to in the real world at the same time. I can’t get along with him because I don’t trust him not to kill people for no reason. I can’t destroy him because I’ll die.

A cage, though… a cage might work. It isn’t like he’s useless. Somehow, that ego that puts even my normal one to shame managed to completely neutralize Lethin despite her more than doubling my Energy pool. That should have killed me, but something about his mindset prevented it.

Of course, my return threw all that away and the cage couldn’t hold her anymore, but it did work. That would solve a lot of problems. That, and the ability to shrug off any amount of pain. A lot happened during those later fights that would have put me in dire straits due to the unimaginable pain throwing off my focus, but with Insanity in charge, I felt nothing. My head was clear regardless of circumstances.

Honestly, if I could swap him in more easily, that would be worth it… but even though he’s sentient, he’s still just a piece of me that broke and doesn’t want to heal. He’s not a person, he’s a personality, and while I mention the associated disorder, I know it’s more complicated than that.

I had to snap, completely, before I could even achieve that mindset. Hours of pointless torture and unimaginable pain. Fear gripped every piece of me when I saw those roots in my…

I shudder, pushing away the memory, before begrudgingly pulling it back. I came to terms with the killing, but the torture is still mostly blank. That moment, however, is crystal clear in my head. The benefits of a high Intelligence.

My heartbeat quickens, my hands grow clammy, and the edge of madness starts to creep forward before I pull myself back into reality.

… Maybe it would be easier than I thought. Regardless, even if it’s easy to enter the mindset, pulling back out of it is much more difficult. Passing out, weakness, and weird Energy feedback are more than enough side effects for me to never want to let Insanity take the wheel, and that’s discounting the horrifying shit I do when I’m like that.

Too many consequences for not enough reward. I kinda wish the system would step in and help me… giving me modes to switch between or something, but it makes no effort.

“Time to sleep.”

“Cerberus? I didn’t hear you get up.”

“I made no attempt to hide myself.”

“No… it was probably just me getting distracted.”

“Distraction is akin to death in the wilds. You claimed you could take watch.”

I turn away from him, looking into the half darkness that extends around us, where I can just barely make out some bushes and the odd sprouting plant among the sticks and trunks.

“I thought things were getting better, but they aren’t. They’re worse, and I don’t know how to solve it. It’s possible that no one has ever had to deal with something like this… ever.”

“What is ‘this’?”

“It’s…” Fuck. I didn’t mean to tell him that last part, and now he’ll know if I back out. Where before, he seemed only slightly focussed on me, now he’s captivated. “When I talked about what happened after I was kidnapped, I left out the part where I… changed. I turned into a psychopath, killing without regret or thought… I wasn’t bothered by pain. I treated everyone around me like tools and obstacles instead of…” I trail off, unsure what I actually treat others like. Normally I’d say ‘treat them like people’, but what does that mean to an alien? Regardless, Cerberus dips his head in understanding.

“When I finally got out, that was actually what messed me up so badly: dealing with the guilt and backlash from messing with my brain so much. I thought I was getting over it, but that part of me now exists in the… same place I brought you to talk to your fellow Carnines. Back when this whole thing between us started. It’s there and it’s breaking things.”

I can’t meet his eyes the entire time. It hurts to know he’s listening instead of just dismissing me like I wish he would. It’s not his problem.

“It bows to you.”

“...What?”

“This part of you. It respects you. You have power over it.”

“...”

We sit there for several minutes while I contemplate. He’s right, Insanity first chose to ask me for permission, but he didn’t respect my decision. Not quite respect, but something close. He can’t just take the reigns. He has to goad me into letting him out before he has any real power. Also, he couldn’t stop me from taking control again when I wanted to, instead relying on me choosing the thoughtless abyss.

Maybe he’s aware of some way he could be… ‘solved’. Something that would take away his sentience but leave the mask that I could put on freely.

But how?

“Good night, Cerberus.”

He bows his head slightly, never letting his roving eyes rest.

My sleep is fitful, and I wake groggy and unsettled.

We eat a morning meal in relative silence, much to the appreciation of Thetzeke who still worries we’re being pursued. We move quickly, somehow avoiding any of the truly thick strands of trees like the one we pursued Thetzeke through what feels like so long ago. According to him, they are actually a single organism that stores vast quantities of material in its interior, like a set of giant cisterns. The outer trunks tend to contain defense mechanisms, like the acid we almost fell into, where the inner ones contain incredibly sweet sap and filtered water. They’re considered sacred by the Ferins due to their robustness and high utility, and many of the strands of them in this forest were planted by them long ago. I have questions on the validity of that, considering how all signs indicate that this place resets every cycle, but I’d rather not start shit with our guide. Whatever makes him happy.

Darkness begins to fall, suddenly as usual, and we immediately stop for the night... but Thetzeke looks slightly more anxious than usual.

“Something bothering you?”

“No, nothing. We are near a place of extreme importance to my people. A massive lake to the north. Avoiding camping near it would be preferable, as we might run into others here.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine. Why is it sacred?”

“This lake has natural currents of Mana running through it. At maturity, my kind are tested in its waters. Most are rejected, few are blessed but ultimately turned away. I am one such blessed.”

“That’s… interesting. What does it mean to be blessed by this lake?”

“I am forbidden to speak of it.”

“Hah, who’s going to care? The people who tortured me and threw you out? You don’t owe them.”

“Do you merely play at being a fool or is that the truth of what you are?” Where his voice usually sounds like wind through trees, this time it feel aggravated, like trees in a storm.

“Are you seriously defending them after what they did?”

“It was just.”

“From whose perspective?!”

“You trespassed. That is what happens.”

“Yeah? I’m sure it was worth it. Seeing that damned archive going up in flames certainly wa-” A small green flash is all the warning I get before an empowered vine snaps out from a tree. The crack as it snaps where I was tenths of a second earlier almost takes out my left eardrum. My sword sings in the air, following a practiced motion to get into a mobile, prepared stance.

“Cut that shit out! Now!” Lauren already has her knives out and Cerberus makes it very clear through his growling and tensed body that he’s prepared to take Thetzeke down.

“I told you how many elders I killed, yeah? They were the best of you. Really want to try your hand?” The last words make it out as little more than a snarl.

Dimly, I’m aware that I’ve been antagonizing him, but he escalated it to force, and a fight would definitely help me calm down-

Leave him alone. Now. Lethin’s voice reverberates in my mind, shaking my vision with its intensity. I lose focus for a moment at the sudden pain, but not enough to miss another flash of green. I dodge again, and take off running in a random direction. It’s too dark to see where I’m going, but my sword makes quick work of anything in my path. With all the Energy I have, I don’t have to slow down from a maximum burn for several minutes. Trees are chopped down, rocks are destroyed, and foliage is leapt over or eradicated. I can’t see very far ahead, but I don’t need to.

My fury at the injustice and naivety of Thetzeke’s thoughts, bitterness at how I’m acting like a child, and overall stress from the past few days are too much to handle sitting still. I don’t focus on where I’m going, only on getting there faster than humanly possible.

Which is why I trip and fall violently when my foot suddenly sinks down far further than it should and the trees I’d been using to balance myself are nowhere in front of me.

I come to a stop some twenty feet later, sopping wet from the strangely warm and shallow lake I stumbled into.