:Why is it called a Mind Thief?: Rissa pulled out her own flashlight and started playing it across the creature.

:All of those people in there? And whatever wildlife it managed to trap? A lot of them are still alive. Probably all of the people are, it would want to keep them. Well, sort of alive. Their animating Affinity is there, and so is their body, but if they’re removed from its body or it dies, that ends. At that point they become separate but right now they’re literally part of it. Mind Thieves are a bar tale, but one I’ve actually seen.: Serenity stopped, remembering. The one he’d seen before was far larger. Older. They’d found it while looking for a dungeon; it turned out that it had followed a ley line to a nexus, then eaten the dungeon that was there.

He hadn’t lost anyone that day, but it was close.

Serenity paused. He’d looked into Mind Thieves after that, and the one thing that was easily found was that they lived on magic; once they got big enough, they always found their way to a ley line or died. The general rule of thumb was that if you found one off a ley line, it wasn’t any more dangerous than a normal animal. How big that was depended on the planet, but at Tier One Earth ought to be able to support a Mind Thief of up to twenty or thirty feet in diameter off a ley line. This one was far larger than that, and clearly far more dangerous, but there was no ley line. :What is it eating?:

:The animals at the back?: Rissa responded to the words Serenity hadn’t realized he’d projected literally. :That’s why they’re dissolving, isn’t it?:

:Yes and no,: Serenity replied. :Yes it’s eating them but no it’s not enough. And also that’s not why it’s eating them; it can only keep so many minds alive. That’s related to its size. I’m not sure how but I know it’s related.:

Serenity waved the light around, trying to see if there was anything else interesting in the room.

:Hey, is that a monster core? It’s gigantic.: Rissa’s light was shining all the way through the Mind Thief, illuminating a partially-hidden sphere about three feet in diameter.

Serenity took a good look at the sphere. It wasn’t made of a crystalline stone the way a monster core was; instead, it was studded with them. Between the crystals ran some kind of support, but Serenity couldn’t get a good enough look at it to be sure what it was. :No. That’s not a core. That’s an artifact, and it’s probably the answer to all of the questions about this thing. It has to be the power source keeping it alive. More than that, it explains why the creature didn’t seek out a ley line; it thinks it has one. And that’s probably also the answer to why it’s here. Someone wanted it to stay put for a while, then move. I bet it’s another case of bending the rules without breaking them.:

Serenity would have been disgusted except that he knew he did the exact same thing. It was hard for him to blame the Great Factions for trying to work around rules they probably saw as unfair.

He could definitely blame them for trying to do it to his planet, however.

:Any ideas on how we kill it? I notice it hasn’t attacked or even moved.: Russ moved up beside Serenity and Rissa, but didn’t take out his own flashlight.

Serenity had a brief flash of memory from the time he’d fought one as Vengeance. It definitely had moved, but that wasn’t what made it dangerous. :Their primary attack is mental. It can attack physically, but it’s slow. The danger here is the tight area; we really don’t want to be trapped by it. If it’s touching you, its mental attack is stronger and it’s thought that it can bypass some defenses. I’m pretty sure my Mind Resistance is enough to keep it from hurting or controlling me.:

Strong enough Mind Thieves were world-killers, but very few actually made it to being strong enough. They were too one-dimensional. They were very strong in their area but if you could defend against it, they were quite killable.

Serenity’s Mind Resistance was strong enough that he could probably defend himself against one of those world killers, though perhaps not if it was touching him. He glanced down at his sheet at the 278 that was listed and revised the thought; he probably could resist one that killed a Tier One world like Earth even if it was touching him. His resistance was well over 200, and that mattered. He wasn’t used to being nearly immune to things; the Final Reaper had fought things where his Resistances only lowered the damage to something he could survive.

:It’s you two I’m worried about. I don’t want to go swimming in another slime, that was really unpleasant, but I will if I have to.: Serenity paused, remembering the incident in the Tutorial. Wait, he had a high Chemical resistance; why had that happened? Had he not unlocked it yet? Why wouldn’t that have unlocked it?

Voice? Why didn’t the slime boss in the Tutorial unlock my Chemical resistance?

[You would have to answer that. The most likely reason is that you didn’t notice the problem until the unlock period was past]

Wait, you’re telling me that I manage my own Resistance unlocks? I thought you did that.

[Unlocks are separate from initiations. You locked your Resistances; you must be the one to unlock them as well]

Serenity didn’t remember locking his Resistances, but he was certain that the Voice was telling the truth as it saw it. That meant … he didn’t know what that meant. Something to look into later if he ever figured out how. Some time when he wasn’t trying to deal with a giant mind-controlling monster that was probably sent by a Great Faction to damage his planet.

Serenity heard something growling and didn’t realize it was himself until Rissa laid a hand on his shoulder. :Serenity? What’s wrong?:

:I’m angry,: he admitted. :The invasions I can mostly understand, but this, this is a move in a larger game and one that’s probably just something minor. The people who can send it didn’t need to; this isn’t like the Traa or even the Sterath. These aren’t people who should be trying to compete with us; they don’t even have to try to be able to beat us. Yet they’re willing to send monsters to decimate us to do what? Win a minor advantage?:

:They’re not going to succeed,: Rissa reminded him. :We’re well over halfway through closing the gates in less than three months, and we had two years. We will have plenty of time to grow and be able to stand on our own two feet. We just have to do it one step at a time.:

:Not against the Great Factions,: Serenity grumbled. :There’s never enough time against them. You’re right, though. One step at a time. We’ll make it so they never threaten us again.:

:So, how do we kill it?: Rissa repeated her father’s question, but this time Serenity was paying attention.

:There are several ways to kill a Mind Thief.: Serenity knew most of them, too. He’d done a lot of research on them after the surprise. :The usual preferred method if they’re small enough is long-ranged magical attack. That generally works if they’re not in a nexus or haven’t completely gained control of the nexus. After that, they have enough magical power to shield through anything ordinary mortals will do. There are two problems with that; first, we don’t really have the space. Second, I don’t know how much magic is in that ball, but it’s probably enough to shield through anything I can reasonably do with the mana I have on hand. If there were a ley line close enough that I could recharge from, that would work, but there isn’t.:

Serenity glanced at the Mind Thief, then back at Rissa and Russ. They nodded, so he continued. :The next method is to confine it and starve it out. I think you can guess why that won’t work; it’s sometimes possible even when they’re at a nexus if you can get them away from it, but even if we can get the ball away from it, we’d still have to kill it.:

They simply didn’t have anyone they could leave behind to watch it or a great way to truly confine it.

:Attacking mentally is the third option. I can’t; I’m not good enough as a Mind mage. I doubt either of you are, either.: Serenity looked mostly at Russ for that one; he knew Russ was better than Rissa.

Russ was already shaking his head. :I enhance myself physically and have defenses. Direct mental attacks are not my preference, and I wouldn’t count on more than minor tricks.:

:Then we’re down to the one people hate the most, physical attacks. It puts us in the most danger of being hit by it. It also smells terrible when you cut into it. Like rot and sewage.: Serenity didn’t think that description did the horrible smell justice, but there was no need to go into more detail. :We need to drain the fluid out of it, while avoiding being hit by it. Not just because of the smell; it can selectively alter the composition of its innards to be exceedingly corrosive, and it will do that if it realizes it’s under attack. But it’s either that or go swimming, because we need to destroy its internal structure. You can’t see it since it’s translucent like the goo, but there’s actually a flexible structure in there that lets it control itself, links to all of the creatures it’s using, everything. Each creature we cut free reduces its mental power, while damaging the rest of its structure hurts it in other ways and can eventually kill it.:

:Sounds like swimming would take you a while.: Rissa winked at Serenity, clearly remembering the slime boss. :I have an idea. Do you think you can lure it out to the lava tube?:

:Yeah, but let me close the portal first. I don’t want to have to go back past the Mind Thief afterwards.: Serenity wondered what idea Rissa had up her sleeve.

Rissa grinned. :You’re going to have to clear us a path to the exit anyway. The goo will be in the way.:

It was a fair point; they needed space for the goop. :Then why don’t we do it in that long room where the portal is? It’s lower than the lavatube at that point.:

Rissa looked a little disappointed but rallied. :Can you make a suction tube out of magic? Like a garden hose going over a hill? So we cut a hole in it, then it attacks towards that. You use the opening we made to pull the goo out of it, it attacks that way since it thinks that’s where we are. Only we’re not; we’re just letting your magic do the work. But its magic protection doesn’t work because it’s all physical?:

Serenity wasn’t certain it would work, but if it did it would be a far easier way to kill the creature than any he’d come up with. He’d expected a long-running battle of attrition, and that might still happen. He’d win if it did; he could damage it faster than it could replace its mass, even with magic helping. It might take several days, while Rissa’s suggestion was more likely to take hours. :It’s worth a try.:

Serenity trotted over to the portal and closed it. If anything, it was a surprise that it was a normal item-based invasion portal, and just as easy to close as any of the others. :Okay, get back in the lava tube. I’m going to try to lure it this way.:

While they moved, Serenity set up the “draining hose” spell Rissa and suggested. The walls were easy, Energy to make a force-shield, then Nihility to clear it out.