I logged back into Road to Purgatory just as my unconscious-debuff was about to run out, allowing me to regain consciousness. Waiting, surrounded by darkness, I was able to consider the things I had done during the forced time-out. It hadn’t been a long time in the real world, just enough time to check the forums and skim some more through Mrs. Wu’s interesting book about assassination, realising that it was collated in a fascinating way.

The first part of the book was relatively harmless, at least for a book on martial arts, describing breathing- and meditation-techniques followed by forms of movement and how to use those forms to maximum effect. That was the first time it started to show its true colours, describing in great detail how much force was needed to achieve a specific result. There were ways to to render someone unconscious in a relatively safe and easy manner, there were ways to inflict crippling pain that made your opponent lose their ability to fight but wouldn’t leave a permanent mark and finally there were ways to kill your opponent.

The second part was less harmless, it described ways to scout out and sneak up on a target, even talking about modern security-measures one had to be aware of but the main part was describing methods that didn’t need advanced technology and focused on the human body and simple tools to achieve maximum efficiency. There were descriptions how to make those tools from simple materials, making me wonder if the idea was that the operative had no support and had to make do with whatever they could easily acquire without giving themselves away. If so, I thought it did a good job, making me curious if I would be able to craft some of the tools described out of simple household-items. But when would I ever need a homemade grappling hook?

The third part was both less and more concerning, it dealt with the social aspect of intrusion and assassination, tailored to be used by women. How to use one’s body to gain entry into normally restricted areas, how to seduce, distract and mislead. Most of what I was reading made little sense to me but when I applied the ideas described to past experience, it shed some light on some things. Things that I had failed to understand, reactions that I had missed and miss-interpreted. It made me wonder just what other people were thinking, how they saw the world, for the conclusions reached in the book to make sense.

That part also spoke makeup, how to use clothes to their best effect and, the most interesting section in the part in my opinion, how to hide the tools of the trade in your clothes or even within your body. The last idea needed quite a bit of dedication but I could see how it would be difficult to search down there, unless someone was very, very thorough, which should only happen if suspicions were formed and avoiding that was the whole point of the section.

The fourth part of the book was similar to the second only instead of describing tools it was the chemistry-part. How to make certain drugs, from fast-acting knockout drugs that one might use on a dart to poisons sourced from relatively easy to acquire materials. There were aphrodisiacs, even if the notes described that milage would greatly vary and caution was advised with those and there were drugs to cloud judgement induce suggestive states. Again, the notes provided additional information how those drugs were useful but only to a point and that another section would go into greater detail on interrogation-technique, the do’s and don’ts of the application of those drugs and torture-techniques.

It was even the next part that went into just those details, at first there was a detailed description of torture-techniques that made me shudder to my core, wondering what kind of mind one had to have to even consider the ideas described but still, it was fascinating material. But, even as the book described ways to inflict pain on someone that would make them wish for death, it made it very clear just how limited the actual usefulness was, that people would tell everything they thought you wanted to hear just to make the pain stop.

Instead, there were methods to control, to slowly use addictive substances and even pleasure as tools to break someone, slowly cracking their mind until the content was yours for the taking. Some of the ideas, they were things that I could easily use on Mundus, my mind-magic allowing me to speed some of the processes up and even introduce sensations directly, without needing to manipulate the physical body. Just how good had Pantheon-Entertainment made their world, it was something I wanted to find out. Maybe, if I ever got my hands on the Spellcaster that had tried to kill me earlier, it would make for an interesting project to break someone like that, a powerful mind, turning them into a gibbering husk of their former glory.

The book was fascinating and I couldn’t wait to go through the rest of it and read the complete thing in full detail. It was something I had never encountered before and I loved to learn new things.

On the other hand, when I had checked the forum, I had learned that there was something going on around Kolyug, something that might have some connection with the earlier attack. I wasn’t sure if there was a connection in timing or if the spellcaster simply had grown bored or if we were reaching the edge of their range, I simply had no idea. Too many variables, too little information for anything but wild speculation.

I had to smile at the fact that the Ghost-squadron had actually managed to be useful, mostly due to their ridiculous playstyle. By following that group of guards and describing what they had seen in the forum, I was reasonably certain that the guards had used the enchanted gem Adra had cut from the bear’s chest to divine the location of their adversary and decided to bring the fight to them. It also confirmed that there were more of those manipulated monsters out there, that I had merely stumbled upon one of them, maybe an earlier, possibly failed, version.

All in all, the description made me quite glad that we had put a lot of distance between us and Kolyug as I had absolutely no desire to go toe to toe with such an enemy, he had almost managed to kill me, despite us being a few hundred kilometers away from Kolyug. In closer contact, I would have been turned to ash, especially with my vulnerability to fire and heat.

But somehow, it felt wrong to just run away but who did I know that might be interested and able to teach such a powerful spellcaster a lesson? Just the Grandmother, for the ability part but how to get a message to her? There had been mention of her enforcing her own brand of justice if she felt like it and I was reasonably sure that her magic was ultimately grounded in the natural order so maybe someone messing with that order by implanting magical crystals into animals would ruffle a few feathers and if it was close enough to home, she might be tempted to go out and deliver a smackdown. So, I just had to consider how to get a message to the Grandmother, one tempting enough to do just that.

I was just thinking about possible ways to get a message to the Grandmother when the countdown in the blue box in front of me reached zero and the blackness around me started to fade, with light shining through my closed eyelids. At the same time, sound, temperature and smell returned to me, all telling an interesting story. But no story was more important than the one told to me by my sense of touch, which made it clear that I was being carried. By Sigmir, unless my nose was misleading me.

“Quickly, I have no idea how long she’ll be out.” Adra’s voice, filled with urgency and sounding close-by, managed to break through the slight fog that had enveloped my mind when I had fully entered my Avatar’s body.

“I’m awake.” I told, as I was opening my eyes, quickly closing them again to avoid being completely blinded by the light.

“Thank the ancestors.” Sigmir gasped, sounding a little winded and getting the attention of the others.

“Want to tell me what happened?” I asked, while using my magic to draw a quick formation to relieve Sigmir of her exhaustion. She softly groaned as my magic was washing over her while Adra began talking.

“It seems that the ponies let us leave their town but don’t want to let us get away. A couple of them came after us, trying to hunt us down. We managed to stay away from them in the forest but I’ve got to admit that they are persistent buggers.” she explained and I felt a vicious smile spread on my face. Now that I was back and Sigmir could focus on fighting instead of carrying me, we hopefully would be able to deal with them.