“Dash! Dash!” A slap jolted me awake. Why did people always hit me to wake me up? Why couldn’t they just let me be? Kan’on… I’d bet money Kan’on had been the slapper. Guy had no sense of propriety or station. Well, I didn’t either, for that matter.

My eyes snapped open, recent memories flooding me with panic. Immediately, I wheezed and struggled for breath, my armor and chest still crushed from the goliath Carver’s blow. I tried to sit up, but pain stabbed through my chest, then the real pain started.

Absolute agony suffused my consciousness. My soul, my power, rocked about as if a giant hand gripped it, shaking it like a child’s toy. The grip dashed me against the walls of my being, shattering me, then remaking me anew, over and over.

I came to, throat raw from my incoherent screaming, as the agony finally settled to a throb, then faded away completely. This familiar feeling, what had caused me so much grief over the last twenty years, was the same feeling as when I had been cursed. Had I just been cursed a second time? What had I done to deserve this?

Fuzzy memories surfaced, recent ones, of meeting some great mind, but I couldn’t get a handle on the specifics. Follow the path, is what it told me? What did that mean?

I rolled over and heaved up what little my stomach contained and then looked around. Kan’on bent over me, silhouetted in the early morning light. Blood and ichor stained his once elegant battle robes. He swam in my vision. I couldn’t focus. Everything seemed so big. Or so small. My mind was too big for my small body. My vision doubled and I closed my eyes, but that didn’t help. My inner world was too big as well.

“Dash. Listen to me! You need to heal yourself. I don’t have the healing skills to bring you back, I’m barely keeping you alive!”

“I don’t have any power left,” I croaked out. That wasn’t true though, I could feel my power, completely full, and almost vast in comparison to what it had been just the night before. “Hold on, I think I can manage it.”

I went to draw the rune, but the stabbing pain in my shoulder reminded me of the grisly injury. Using my offhand, I drew the typical healing rune, investing it with the normal intent and willpower, then my power.

I swiped my hand through it and immediately screeched in agony as all my injuries, every cut, every broken bone, every bruise, snapped back to normalcy instantaneously. The rune shattered as if struck by a hammer. What in the depths was that? Had I done that? It was so fragile; I must have messed it up somehow. Business as usual then.

I climbed to my knees, then used Kan’on as leverage to stumble to my feet. The world swam, not just my eyes, but my sense of the Flow was too sharp, too intense, putting me off balance. My mental tendrils whipped about, spreading out faster than I could think, further than I could imagine, and didn’t stop. My sense of self shrank to a tiny spec in the face of my sense of the vast world around me. It terrified me. I struggled to reel myself back in, pushing away the fear as I did so. Another fuzzy memory surfaced, myself diffused over the vast world, my consciousness fading away.

I pulled at the clasps of my armor, but the ruined chest and shoulder prevented me from pulling it off.

“Help me get this off, would you?”

Kan’on yanked and pulled until the armor fell to the ground. I picked up the pieces and shoved them throw the Flow into my cubby. Looking around, I spotted Clyde, Kayla, and Orleander leaning against a nearby building, looking worse for wear. Each had numerous injuries, even Orleander, but Clyde looked ready to fall over from blood loss.

Bodies of the dead surrounded us, both Carver and human. We were in a different alley, closer to the central part of the barrier if I had to guess. Someone had to have carried me here.

I took a second to take stock of the losses I could see. In the morning light, townsfolk and soldiers alike composed the bodies of the dead, helped transport the wounded, and otherwise organize recovery efforts. The sight sickened, me. My responsibility. We lived, but the cost had been heavy. I hadn’t expected to come out the other side, not until Jass showed up. Jass…

“Where is Jass? And who put that deeps damned idea to tattoo glyphs into that head of his? That’s basically drawn-out suicide!”

Everyone’s face went grim. I looked at Kan’on for an answer, but he just turned and walked away, conflict written clearly across his features.

“He is resting, back at the estate. Due to his… condition, he will be resting for many days. Possibly a week. I am uncertain because what I know of him is based on rumor only,” Orleander said.

“What condition? I saw him fight, there wasn’t anything out there last night that could even touch him, let alone put him down.”

“He is a Malassian Dog Soldier.”

“That doesn’t mean anything to me. I’ve heard of Malass, but I’ve never heard of a Dog Soldier.”

“He is… was a slave soldier. The noble houses of Malass raise children as slaves, train them, brainwash them, and force the glyphs onto them. Of course, I don’t have to tell you that every time he uses the glyphs, he literally burns away his own life, reducing his years. They’re powerful, maybe the most powerful fighters on the continent, but the cost is too high, their lives too short. They raise them and use them like dogs. Hence Dog Soldier. Jass is very old, for a Dog Soldier.”

I considered that nugget for a moment, my stomach churning. “Shit. And he lit himself up like a bonfire with his glyphs last night, to save my dumb ass, burning away his damned life to do it.”

I growled at the absurdity of the practice, the inhuman treatment and mindset that went into it. Damn nobles everywhere, depths take them and keep them. I’d have to deal with Jass later.

“What’s our status.”

Clyde stepped forward, swaying on his feet, before stopping in front of me. He took a few seconds to catch his breath and tried to get some words out before I interrupted him with a held-up hand.

I quickly drew another healing rune and slammed it out into the alley, catching everyone in its effect. Everyone stiffened or gasped in pain as their injuries instantly sealed or jerked back into place. I followed it up with a refresh rune, including myself in the effect. It hit me like I’d drank ten pots of tea and I staggered back a step. Something with my power was off, everything felt too small, too fragile.

“We lost about half our defenders. We were doing good, right up until the big ones showed up, then it fell apart. All the Ilfids are dead, except two of the Brutes and the drone. Five of the big Carvers showed up and broke through the barricade. Kan’on took one, Jass took two, and the Brutes took the rest, but suffered for it. Without Jass we would have been in big trouble. He brought you over after he killed his second big guy, then fought until he fell over himself. The Carvers retreated shortly after, as it was nearing morning anyway.”

Clyde’s summary had confirmed what I’d already been thinking, before I nearly got myself killed.

“The Inculids succeeded in mind-controlling humans, last night. That’s what I was doing right before the goliaths showed up, taking care of that problem.”

They paled at that. Clyde’s eyes were like saucers and Orleander gripped his hands forcefully, his face a mask. Kan’on didn’t react at all and Kayla was inscrutable as ever behind her head and face coverings.

“I figured out how they’re doing it, or at least the conditions they need to make it happen. Like I said, I took care of it.”

The memory triggered another memory, and I threw my awareness of the currents out into the Flow, much further and faster than I’d intended, to look for signs of the ritual. It was still there, in the background working its purpose. I threw my tendrils and awareness out across the whole town to look for any remaining thralls. I mentally lurched at the ease with which my mental filaments suffused the town.

There were many thralls. I could feel their connections to the Inculids like pulsating veins connecting a parasite to its host. They were mostly grouped up in the center of town, no doubt the work of the new boss in town, Mr. Woodcarver. I spread my awareness even further reaching the furthest outskirts and found even more thralls. They looked to be trapped in various places, but it didn’t matter.

I snapped my mental tendrils at all the connections, haphazardly destroying them. I felt almost no backlash. Dozens of connections I’d just snapped, and had only a slight headache as a result, and my power use had been a blip. I needed to rest, to think. As my last action, I lit the spark of my intent out into the Flow and shredded the ritual in all directions.

Something tickled my awareness, something looked at me, through the currents. I recognized the feeling, the alienness of its thoughts, and turned my attention toward the Labyrinth entrance.

Deep within, I wasn’t sure how far, it sat and watched. I knew somehow, through some instinct, that this was the Inculid queen, or their equivalent. The leader of their collective. It watched me, aware of me specifically, and I shuddered. Its power, though dormant, undulated out into the Flow in giant waves, which until now I hadn’t been able to recognize.

I jerked away, breaking whatever connection had formed, and brought my attention back to the group.

“They’re not leaving, the Inculids. They’ll try again.”

“How do you know?” Clyde asked.

There wasn’t any snark or defiance in his voice, just resignation. I had to give the man credit, despite his astonishing lack of initiative, the man faithfully carried out his duty. The spirt of his duty, not just the letter. I could admire that, if not his tiresome personality and armor design aesthetic.

“I can feel it, sitting there in the Labyrinth. It watches us even now. I feel its malice. Let’s head back to the estate and start trying to figure out how we’re going to pull the rest of the way through this.”

“You all go ahead; I have to stay and oversee my people.” Clyde, newly refreshed from my tricks, turned on his heel to see to his people. To fulfill his duty. I let him go.

The rest of us marched through the town on foot, mud sticking to our boots the whole way. The camp in the middle of town bustled with activity, the mix of residents and caravan folk gathered, not just for safety, but also to corral the bound former thralls. The woodcarver, fatigued and dead on his feet, stood to one side conferring with a frantic crowd of people shooting rapid-fire questions at him.

I tried to turn us in another direction to avoid what looked like the start of a popular uprising, but my stall keeper friend spotted me before I could make my move and directed the crowd’s attention my way.

I sighed; I had too much going on in my head to be able to deal with what was going on in the heads of others.

“Where is the Baron, Orleander?”

“The Baron ensured the safety of the estate and its surroundings during the battle.”

“In other words, he ran and hid. Take care of this crowd please.”

“As you wish.”

Count Orleander and his perpetual shadow peeled away to intercept the approaching crowd. I continued forward, accompanied only by Kan’on, who had been silent since the discussion of Jass’ condition.

“You doing ok there? You got something on your mind?”

Kan’on continued for a few steps, silent, before answering. “It’s a tragedy, what they’ve done to him, to Jass. Even so, I can’t imagine letting myself come to be in such a situation. I would rather have taken my own life than be controlled in such a way, forced to spend my life for slavers. Why? Jass is strong, I witnessed it myself. Why did he allow it? I don’t get it, with his strength, there is no way they could have denied him if he chose otherwise.”

I walked awhile without talking, ruminating on the questions, trying to apply my own experiences to the situation. Kan’on was right about Jass’ strength but didn’t understand that brute strength and mental fortitude weren’t the only things to consider in such things.

“From the way Orleander described it, I’d imagine that Jass grew up with an incredible amount of mental manipulation. It traps you in a state of mind, makes you think you want to be where you’re at. Even with mountains of evidence saying otherwise. I don’t know the whole story, but I’d guess there’s a fair amount of zealotry involved. But look at it this way; Jass is here, not in Malass, so he didn’t allow it. He got away.”

Kan’on huffed, no doubt unconvinced. I smiled sadly at the irony that he couldn’t see. The martial schools were well known for indoctrination and he couldn’t even see the result of their teachings on himself, how it skewed his view of the world.

I’d have to see to Jass, one way or another. It wouldn’t sit right with me to let him languish as he was when I could fix at least one of his problems, if he wished. Especially not after he’d yanked my bacon out of the fire.

There was a price for everything though, some more cruel than others. Jass would have to make his own choice.