“Food’s ready.” Scarlet called out to Keera, who had been digging their Latrine behind a conveniently dense bush. While Keera had been busy there, Scarlet had prepared a few primitive eating utensils, borrowing from the idea of chopsticks, even if her version was just a short, sturdy branch, stripped of its bark. But it would allow them to eat without burning their hands, which was a great plus. To Scarlet, every bit of resources that they could scavenge meant a tiny bit of power, a tiny bit of independence.

Keera came back into their camp, taking a seat on one of the blown over tree-trunks, watching as Scarlet carefully lifted the grilled, or maybe roasted, food from the hot rock and placed it on another rock, washed smooth and thin in the river.

“Enjoy your meal.” Scarlet said softly, after placing the food-rock between them, seating herself on another trunk she had pulled close and handed Keera her not-quite chopsticks.

Keera eyed the food with suspicion but when she saw that Scarlet simply started to dig in, picking up chunks of fish and root-vegetable, she shrugged and started to eat. The fish tasted slightly boring, Keera thought she could hear it call out for lemon-juice, but the root-vegetables made more than up for it, their sharp and spicy taste bringing tears to her eyes, something that also happened to Scarlet, as Keera noticed slightly gleefully. For the first time, she saw what she considered a normal, human reaction in the pixie. Strangely, that sign of humanity, maybe even weakness, made Keera feel a lot better, compared to the almost casual indifference she had previously observed in Scarlet.

After eating, Scarlet spoke up. “Would you show me your crystal monster? I’d like to learn more about them and their usage, so comparing our experiences might help.”

Keera shrugged, and pulled the crystal that she was mentally clutching, not sure how much pressure was truly needed to control it, out of her belt-pouch. Scarlet was observing her actions closely, not just using her eyes but also with a good chunk of her mental abilities, only keeping a rough scan of their surroundings and control over Cyca, who was back in her lap, active. The crystal looked very similar to the one housing Cyca, roughly the same size, maybe a little bigger, and almost entirely clear, only a few, golden-brown flecks adding colour to it.

But the interesting things happened in the mental realm and what she felt was not filling her with hope. Keera seemed to clamp down on the crystal and only letting go with jerky and abrupt steps, making Scarlet wonder if she hadn’t even tried to use her crystal before. The crystal monsters were their lifeline, probably literally, and Keera seemed to be more afraid than curious.

But after a few mental jerks, the crystal started shining and Keera dropped it and stepped back. The light engulfed the crystal and around it, a brown-scaled being materialised, it looked almost like some strange cross between an armadillo and a badger. The moment it appeared, Scarlet was distracted by Cyca who seemed to instantly want to pounce on the new crystal monster, hunger emanating from her, but Scarlet tamped down on her, forcing her to stay in her lap. Looking closer at Keera’s crystal monster, it reminded Scarlet of the crystal monster the other guy in town had used to dig the grave for Roger. Only, Keera’s monster was smaller and its claws were a lot less impressive, but still, if it also had the ability to move earth, maybe even rock, it would be a very useful ally while out in the wild, depending on the exact limitations.

But for now, the poor thing seemed paralysed as Keera had clamped down on it, as soon as it had appeared.

“So, what can it do?” Scarlet asked, curious if Keera had seen anything while capturing it.

“Not sure, the Doctor simply smacked it down and I struck before it could get back up.” Keera answered, with a slightly embarrassed smile.

“Well, make it do something. I saw a similar crystal monster in town, it was able to shift the earth somehow, it looked similar to telekinesis. Maybe yours can do that, too. And if not, I’d guess its claws and maybe teeth are likely its weapons of choice.” Scarlet suggested, looking quite curious.

Keera looked to a fallen branch and closely guided the crystal monster to strike it with its claws, it was a movement she could easily imagine, unlike the nebulous idea of shifting the earth. She had never been able to use telekinesis so using that as an analogue was not an option. On her mental command, the crystal monster moved forward and started hacking into the branch, wood shavings flying into the air.

To Scarlet, the movements of the crystal monster looked stiff, almost mechanical, like a puppet hanging on strings and she quickly realised that Keera was guiding every single movement, making the projected body move in inefficient and unfamiliar ways, treating it like a machine that needed every action spelled out in its programming. Scarlet, on the other hand, had taken the crystal monster as a living thing, even if it was a very strange one, and used simple, mental commands, leaving the actual execution of those commands to the crystal monster. The only thing she really did with the mental connection was curbing and controlling the feral impulses of Cyca, like the impulse to rip both Keera and Scarlet to shreds and the impulse to devour Keera’s crystal monster.

After the crystal monster had hacked through the branch, Keera had started to maneuver it around the cleared space, still keeping control of its every move. As she did so, Scarlet noticed that slowly sweat was forming on Keera’s brow and her face formed into a frown, the strict mental control taking its toll on her physical body.

Scarlet decided to demonstrate her own method and spoke up. “Watch how my crystal monster moves.”

With that, she mentally ordered Cyca to move from her lap and walk over the clearing, letting the monster’s intelligence and ego decide how to accomplish that task. As Cyca moved closer to Keera’s monster, Scarlet had to add a little extra power to her control to make sure that the instinct to devour another crystal monster was suppressed but other than that, it was quite easy. After letting Cyca walk over the clearing, Scarlet made her climb a tree and jump from one branch to another, with the final jump ending up back in her lap where Cyca got scritches, a gesture the crystal monster seemed to appreciate.

“Did you see the difference?” Scarlet asked and Keera looked rather annoyed.

“Yes, I saw. So, you are a much better and more powerful psion. Tell me something I didn’t know.” Keera complained.

“I didn’t demonstrate to show off. Unless I’m wrong, you try to control your monster, as if it is a machine. I direct my monster, letting it decide how exactly a specific task is to be handled. It’s far easier on you and your monster moves a lot better. But take care, you need to keep strict control over the monsters instincts, or it will attack one of us.” Scarlet explained, trying to find the words to describe what she was doing, the exact mental processes were not something she could form into words but she hoped that with the description, Keera would be able to come up with her own ways to control the monster.

With a frown, Keera tried what Scarlet had described, not controlling but directing. It was rather difficult, mental domination had never been something she had either enjoyed or had been good at but under Scarlet’s direction, she continued to try. She had some limited success, the biggest problem was to only suppress the monster’s instincts, often putting a too broad suppression on it, but she was feeling that erring on the side of caution was better.

“Ok, enough for now.” Scarlet said, pulling Keera from her attempts to control her monster.

“Hrm?” Keera asked, looking up while clamping down on her crystal monster once more.

“You’ve overdone it, you have a nosebleed. No need to continue working right now, we have the next couple of days. If you don’t manage tomorrow, we will continue for some time, even after your nose starts bleeding.” Scarlet explained.

Keera wiped the blood away and, with a grunt, banished her crystal monster back into its stone form, feeling annoyed that her body had started to make problems. Bleeding from the nose was the first stage of psionic exhaustion, the next would be bleeding from her ears and gums, afterwards bleeding from the tear ducts and the last stage, the stage that her instructors had described as the do-and-die stage, where brain-damage was more likely than not, was sweating blood. The smile on Scarlet’s face and her explanation felt rather ominous to Keera.