Serenity stopped and changed the Affinities he was using. Liminality would make a better wall. That was what it meant, after all, and it was a far better Affinity for him. He’d made shields from Energy once upon a time with a comparison to science fiction force fields, but he had the feeling that Liminality would be his better route forward.

So Liminality for the walls, Nihility to clear the tube out and let it fill with slime. Then a maintained Nihility near the end to keep it flowing. The spell was simple to visualize but far harder to create; by the time he was done, Rissa and Russ were waiting for him. Serenity held the spellform and poked at the feeling in his mind, the call from the Mind Thief. All he had to do was push emotions at it.

Faking the emotions was easier said than done. Serenity depended heavily on his Mind affinity to manage it; a feeling of helplessness and pain was the first thing that came to mind and he pushed it at the creature. If he was lucky it would think he was trying to get to it, but was trapped or injured.

Nothing happened. Serenity kept projecting the feelings, but sent a message to the others. :Can you check and see if it’s moving? If I move, it might be able to tell.:

Serenity would have preferred if Russ checked; he was sturdier, even though he wasn’t technically Tier Two like Rissa.

Serenity stopped himself. With her new Path, that might not be true, especially once she finished it. It gave excellent bonuses. Serenity reminded himself that treating Rissa like glass would only drive her away.

Regardless of what Serenity would have wanted, Rissa was the one that flitted over to the entrance to check on the Mind Thief. :It’s twitching? I don’t know that I’d call it moving, but it’s definitely twitching.:

:Then we wait.: Serenity wasn’t thrilled about that, but sometimes the answer really was patience. He wanted to tell Rissa to head back where she’d be safe, but he held his tongue. She knew to run if it actually came after her, and Mind Thieves were well-known for having only the ability to feel with their outer shell and their minds.

It took hours for the Mind Thief to decide to move. It finally decided to move about fifteen minutes after Serenity increased the fear he was projected and weakened the projection. Serenity used the time to build several additional spellforms, each of which he stored in a rock nearby. They wouldn’t last that long, but they didn’t need to. Doing it while still holding the original spellform was more difficult than Serenity expected, which made it good practice.

Serenity turned from trying to create more protections to trying to make a hole for the goop to run out to the side of the mountain. It was a good thing he had hours, because digging with Nihility that he limited to his natural regeneration rate was fairly slow. It didn’t have far to go, but it had barely punched through in a pinhole by the time the Mind Thief moved. Serenity set the spell to slowly expand the hole, but he couldn’t afford more than that; it would hopefully act as a drain, but not a way out.

Even when the Mind Thief did finally move, it was very, very slow. By then, both Rissa and Russ were watching it. They both had plenty of time to stay out of its way. It stuck out a pseudopod and sort of pulled itself across the ground, stretching its shape as it went.

As it headed for Serenity, he realized it was even bigger than he’d thought it was. :I don’t think this chamber is going to be big enough to keep the goop out of the lava tube. Can one of you explore uphill and see if there’s another way out?:

Russ and Rissa watched the Mind Thief slowly slorp its way out of the cave it had sheltered in for a couple of minutes before Russ replied. :Sure. If you can’t keep out of the way of that without me, I should probably disown both of you. You for incompetence and Rissa for picking you.:

:Hey!: Rissa tried to sound upset, but her objection quickly dissolved in giggles. Russ had already headed uphill before Rissa stopped laughing.

It took most of an hour for the Mind Thief to reach as close to Serenity’s position as he wanted. Serenity had long since run out of things to do that were productive, so he was trying (and mostly failing) to play mental chess with Rissa. She was better at keeping track of the board and kept demolishing him with pieces he’d forgotten about.

It was a relief when he had to abandon the latest game he was definitely going to lose because it was time to deal with the Mind Thief.

The Mind Thief was ten feet away from Serenity when he made his move. He’d originally intended to wait until it was closer, but there was definitely no need for that. It was more than large enough to reach him without the rear end of it leaving the domed cave. More than that, his Boots of Far Step had a limited range; as it was, he was going to have to make a pair of Far Steps at maximum range to have a chance of getting past it quickly, even if he overcharged them a bit.

Serenity Evoked three of the spells he’d placed into rocks near him; one increased the gravity on the portion of the Mind Thief near him, while another extended small spikes from the rock surrounding it. Between the two, it should hold the Mind Thief in place long enough.

The rock spikes might even hurt it, but he wasn’t counting on them doing the kind of damage that was needed.

The third spell was a mild Quickness on himself. He used that speed and the slow immobility of the creature to cut three deep slashes into it with the manablade from his Crystal Hilt. As soon as they started spilling out its innards, Serenity closed off the projected emotion so that it wouldn’t be able to follow him or realize he’d moved, then finally triggered the spellform he’d been holding for hours.

It felt both painful and good at the same time, like he’d been holding something tightly for hours and his muscles both ached and were relieved to let go. It wasn’t a new feeling, but it felt strangely more physical than he remembered. Serenity shook off the feeling; he simply hadn’t been doing that type of spell since he’d come back. He didn’t have time to get all introspective anyway.

The spell latched on to the structure of the Mind Thief the way it was supposed to; Serenity could see it start funneling goo to the ground behind him, near the drain he’d built. It seemed to be pulling more than could reasonably drain, but that was expected.

It was time. Serenity Far Stepped as far as he could reach, but it was less than halfway. There wasn’t enough room in the long, strangely-shaped cave, so he was bent over awkwardly, pressed against the Mind Thief. It pushed more strongly against his mind, but Serenity’s Mind Resistance held; even with the extra strength from direct contact, it would take the Mind Thief a long time to break through.

The outer coating of the creature seemed to soften, and Serenity knew that meant it had detected him; the softening was a precursor to it attempting to swallow him. He pushed extra mana into the boots for the second Far Step, which brought him several feet past the end of the creature.

A glance at the boots told him he’d just taken off most of the remaining life of their enchantment, but after the use he’d given them in the Tutorial so far, that wasn’t that surprising. At least they would still work as boots; that was far more important than the enchantment.

Serenity took a few steps back and watched. The Mind Thief wasn’t smart, but it might know enough to try to escape once it realized it was in a trap.

It took several minutes, but it did seem to be smart enough, eventually, to stop trying to flail at the spell and start trying to retreat. By then, the entire cave smelled awful; Serenity could hear Rissa retching behind him, and he was certain he’d have been as well if he still had the physical machinery to do so. Something was definitely missing because even though he registered it as unpleasant, it wasn’t as bad as he remembered.

Serenity watched and started building a second ‘draining hose’ spell.

There was a human man carried along by the goo not far ahead of him. As the Mind Thief withdrew, the man came close to the surface. Serenity decided not to wait, even though the spell wasn’t quite ready; with the Nihility spell carving the side of the mountain and another ‘draining hose’ spell running, he only had so much mana available anyway. He’d probably have to shut off the Nihility spell if he wanted the two ‘draining hose’ spells to run for a decent amount of time.

Before doing anything about the spells, Serenity cut a line into the side of the Mind Thief, reached in, and grabbed the man. His grip wasn’t great with all the slime and there was certainly no way he could just pull the man out, but a relatively solid hold let Serenity safely wave his manablade around the man, cutting many of the structures connected to him.

The short bits still embedded in the man became visible as they filled with blood. It stained the liquid surrounding him a slight pinkish color.

Serenity shook his head and tugged. There was no death here yet, but this was not life. The man pulled against still more nearly-invisible bits; Serenity sliced through them as he found them. It took several minutes and Serenity could feel the Mind Thief battering at his defenses, but that only reinforced his resolve to weaken the terrible creature.

Eventually, the man was free. Serenity’s front was covered in rancid, rotten-smelling goo and he could tell Rissa had backed away from the nauseating smell.

Serenity dropped the man in front of himself. Once the last connection was cut, it took only seconds for the man to finally die, released from the prison of the Mind Thief. Serenity felt when it happened, a small warm spot of Death and the cool comfort of the River of Souls touching the space in front of him for a moment.

Once the moment was past, Serenity looked up at the sprawled-out Mind Thief. There was little he could do to free anyone else unless they happened to come close; the Mind Thief’s body was only safe to touch near the creatures it had captured, since it would avoid making those areas corrosive to protect its own investment. None of the others were close to Serenity.

He stepped backwards and cut off the draw of the burrowing Nihility spell. It had carved the passage as wide as he had time for. He pulled together the rest of the second ‘draining hose’ spell and set it into the Mind Thief using the hole he’d carved for the dead man.

He backed up until he was in the lava tube. All that was left now was to wait and watch, unless something changed.

Nothing did, other than the goo filling the lower “floor” of the triangular tunnel and overflowing into the lava tube. Serenity watched as the Mind Thief died, then walked through the horrible goo to grab the artifact. He had a strong momentary urge to eat it when he touched it, but the fact that it was three feet wide stopped the impulse in its tracks. He sent it through his Rift to the Origin instead.

While they waited, Russ had found another way out. They made him change to a pair of shapes that wasn’t covered in Mind Thief goo for the trek out, but Serenity took the chance when they were outside to wipe as much of it off him using the snow as he could. The less of it he had to wash off later, the better.

Their sleds were untouched and sped the journey back down to the ATVs up noticeably.