After I had enveloped the nymph in her shadow-cocoon, it took a few moments for her to realise her situation, that something strange was going on. At first, she didn’t quite parse what was going on and was talking into the void, but there was no sound, no echo; if I didn’t make a mistake, she didn’t even hear the sound of her own voice. She moved around, but to no avail, the darkness simply shifted with her and kept her from feeling anything. Soon, the screaming started, desolate cries, lost in the nothingness surrounding her. As I controlled the darkness, I heard her and decided that it was time for a first contact. With her, I didn’t plan to completely break her, just damage her to the point that she would welcome contact with me. The idea was that her willingness to come into contact with me and my magic would shut down, or at the very least weaken, her subconscious defense.

Wrapped in darkness, my hand carefully approached the struggling form of the nymph, gently touching her shoulder. The first reaction was shock and she shied away from the contact, causing me to retract my hand. Shying away would just not do, I would have to let her stew for some time. Thinking of stew, I checked the dinner-preparations, and after making sure that the other two nymphs were still out, joined Sigmir and Adra to eat. Both looked a little concerned with the fact that I had killed one of our captives and had another wrapped in a sphere of darkness, but neither felt a need to comment. We enjoyed our meal together and after maybe an hour of eating and chatting, I went back to my little project.

Again, I reached for the nymph’s shoulder and this time, after tensing for a moment, the nymph welcomed the contact, craving anything to occupy her mind in the void. I reached for her with strands of darkness, gently nudging her mind and was incredibly surprised when her mind actively welcomed the invading magic, apparently she craved stimulation. I felt there was tremendous potential to work with, rewriting and conditioning her personality, but it would take serious work and for me, to go to such length, I wanted a better base-specimen.

“Relax, and I can get you out of the void.” I spoke, using Darkness Magic to let my voice penetrate the cocoon around her. There was no hesitation, no struggle in her, just a plea to help her, to get her out of the darkness and back into the light. Part of me wondered if the fact that nymphs were nature-, or maybe flora-, spirits made them especially vulnerable to such an approach. In my mind, it made some sense that a spirit based, or evolved, from something using photosynthesis had a strong attachment to light. Experimentation with other subjects could answer that question, but at the end of the day, a lot of beings were diurnal or in some other way reliant on light. Unless I found some kind of mole-man or maybe some kind of angler-fish, I doubted I would find a creature that enjoyed the isolation in the dark void. Probably not even then, those creatures were just anchored in senses other than sight.

I pulled my mind out of the train of thought it had followed and focused on the present. The nymph was still pleading and now it was time to act.

At first, I created the collar out of ice, letting it settle around her neck, softly speaking to her, telling her that I needed an anchor to get her out of the dark, that it would help me reach her. Without the knowledge just where she was, it was easy to convince her that she was trapped in some sort of otherworldly void and, for a moment, my mind flickered to stories I had read about a person dying and finding themself in some sort of white-space, just to be greeted by a deity and whisked away to another life, a life of adventure, greatness and pleasure. I had always wondered how easy it would be to convince someone of your intentions and now, I discovered that it was incredibly easy, the nymph was either desperate for help, or incredibly gullible.

“You will feel a small prick.” I told her at one point, convincing her that everything was fine in order to get some of her blood. Part of me was annoyed that I had forgotten to get it before putting her under, but it would have to do. She didn’t even question me, she was so desperate to leave the void that even the small cut I used was a welcome stimulus.

I added the blood to the already carved runes and filled the collar with the shadeleaf-paste I had left. Considering the amount I had left, I would probably have to get rid of one of the two remaining nymphs, I doubted that it would be enough for two more collars and I did not want to use it all up. I would have to carefully keep an eye out and ask Sigmir, Adra and Ylva to do the same.

When the runes were finished, I channelled power into them, feeling the tendrils reach for the nymph and my voice was keeping up a reassuring, almost hypnotic patter, drawing her in and letting the tendrils seep into her being. It was interesting to watch; she easily welcomed the threads of ice, they matched part of her natural processes to a T. It was almost as if the magic of ice, of torpor, was supposed to fit into a part of her. Thinking about it, it did make some sense, most trees went into a sort of hibernation, shedding their leaves, storing energy and so on. The rune I read as torpor was at least part of the concept that caused it.

The darkness-threads had a harder time, they were lacking the natural pattern that the ice-threads settled in but it was only a slowing down, not true resistance. The nymph truly wanted the magic to settle in, convinced that it would guide her out of the dark. And it would, just not quite in the way she wanted it to happen.

I watched as the magic enveloped her being, the disorientation settling in and the madness scrambling her mind. Once it was done, I let the shadows around her vanish, feeling that there was no more need for an external prison, she was now imprisoned in her own mind. Just as I had planned, the torpor-runes were weakening her mind, bringing it down into a simple, almost infantile state. When added to the disorientation and madness-runes, the result was a zombie-like state, the nymph had no capacity to question, no capacity to resist. But on the other hand, anything more advanced than walking would be out of question, and even when walking, she would have to be guided. Soon, the threads were fully embedded, keeping her mind in the state of dimness that I wanted it to be and I got a blue window, telling me about something new.

Skill increasedYou increased your skill: Darkness Magic [26/100]

Trait gained You gained the trait: Mind BenderYou are able to use a combination of torture, darkness-magic and hypnosis to bend others to your will. Overall effect of mental subjugation increased.

Now, that did sound useful and worrying at the same time. I doubted that civilised beings would welcome a trait like that, at least if they knew about it. It would be interesting to watch if there was some sort of interplay between this trait and the Ruthless-trait I had picked up so long ago.

Testing the streams of power I still held, I channelled a bit more power into the torpor-runes and watched as the nymph slumped over, falling into a state between sleep and coma. She would remain in that state, as long as power was provided to the collar, so either I would have to do so, meaning I could not log out, or I would have to use another source, like blood-magic. I had planned ahead and the collar had multiple small receptacles to receive the resin-like blood-ambers I had gathered. I did not have enough to fully fuel the collar with those, but it should be enough for a few nights. And for the other nymph, I had planned something else. Before I could take care of the other nymphs, I redressed the collared nymph, I did not want to damage her, before it was time to use her.

With one nymph done, I went over to the other two, observing them and picking the stronger one, this one would sadly have to be discarded. I never let her regain her consciousness, feeling it would be needless cruel. I just stabbed my athame into her, draining her life and the astral power contained within, watching her essence flow into the small pebbles of amber. She did not produce the same amount of power as the dryad had done, but more than the two I had euthanized directly after the battle.

After the second nymph died, I got a nice surprise, the EXP she had given were just enough to push me into the next level, even if they were slightly reduced.

Wanting to get my work done, before going to sleep, I moved to the third nymph. Again, I undressed her and drew a little blood before enveloping her in darkness. I let the her stew for a while, before repeating the process I had used before, offering her help and talking in a kind voice, while I let my magic seep into her mind. It was a lot easier, thanks to the trait, and I wondered if it worked that well because they were nymphs. Part of their being, their raison d’être, so to speak, was to be bound to a dryad, making the process of being bound something natural for them. Again, more experimentation would be required, on different subjects. The whole idea was fascinating to me.

Soon after I had started, the nymph was collared and her mind was subdued - only this collar had small thorns on the inside, drawing blood from the nymph and using the blood and the power within to fuel the collar. I was quite proud of the design, it was quite elegant. The nymph’s own power was fueling the collar keeping her subdued.