"Where did they take her?" Sláine demanded, staring down at the man with his hapless smile and his shackled hands held up, palms facing her. While it was nice to know that she'd be left with some stamina if she defeated everything before running out of [ AP ], something about how much she did not want to kill him really grated on her nerves. She didn’t have experience with choosing to spare suspicious entities, and what if this instinct not to kill him where he sat wasn’t coming from her? What if it was from this place? What if he was doing something to her mind?

…What if it was Aria somehow putting thoughts into her head? As good-natured as the System seemed, Sláine still hated the idea of them being able to control her brain. Yes, she knew they’d said Protocols had to acquire consent but still…!

"Er. Uh. Well, that's not really the kind of thing I'd know, considering — "

Sláine's glower deepened as he rattled the chains binding his wrists, and he quickly scrambled to continue. "But, but I can, uh, I can probably help you find her! If you'd perhaps considering putting that away? Um, er, if it's all the same to you --"

“Stop simpering,” Sláine ordered, her frown still firmly in place even after a quick check with [ Threat Detection ] produced nothing. Should she just ignore how much she didn’t want to and kill him anyway to be done with it?

Sláine ran through a few mental calculations. Red was gone, but the woman could teleport and given that she hadn't yet, something had probably happened to her — it could even be the fault of that… sudden pain she’d been in right before she’d been grabbed.

This man — could he actually help her? Would he have any ideas about what was going on? Who the fuck even was this clown? — Oh, wait, duh, she knew what she could do.

[ Inspect ] -> [ Strange Man ]

[ An artificial manifestation of Professor J. Amethysko, created from Red's memories and given life in this strange world. This is it. This is the feeling that drives human beings to drink. Please wait there for a second and then reach out again. I need to confirm some things. ]

Great. As sympathetic as she was to Aria's plight, she really could use some help from them right now.

"Your name is Amethysko?" Sláine snapped, desperately wanting to just pick a direction and start destroying things until she got what she wanted, but she could be good and patient for a bit if the weird god-machine was telling her to do so.

"Please, call me Janus," he replied, to his credit not trembling like a coward but still seeming anxious about just how easily Sláine could render him a bleeding corpse on the floor. Tch. It was good he knew to be afraid of her, but it didn’t do much for Sláine’s respect of the man.

"You know Red?"

"Um. That's... w-who, exactly?"

"The woman from before. The," Sláine hesitated over the word. "Princess."

"Oh! Oh, no no no, not personally, at least not yet, though I came here because I wanted to meet her. I, have something that might help Lady Agriope with her, um, problem."

"Problem," Sláine repeated.

"...Yes."

"Which is?"

"Er, if you don't know I — I ought not to really say — ?"

While in normal circumstances Sláine wouldn't care, wouldn’t even want to know, right now she was confused and angry and touched the tip of her weapon — just a prick, the slightest contact — against his throat, wanting some straight answers now, especially if they’d be useful in getting her to Red and helping the damn idiot our.

...Weird, there was an unusual lack of give to his skin.

"Right! Yes, yes, you've quite made your point, and I'm referring to the woman's, um. Lack of heart."

A lot of thoughts went through Sláine's head at once. She didn't know what to do with any of them. "What does that mean, exactly.”

She loomed over him.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"It — I mean what I said! I, um, my field of study, its in magical replacements for lost limbs and organs — you can, er, even see," He pulled up the leg of his pants, revealing an unusual swath of dark, swirling essence that didn't even look solid, much less match his skin tone. Actually, it looked kind of like the things Red could create from her shadow magic…?

"I'm one of the Shattered Ones so it's quite relevant to my people, you see, giving them more options to — anyway," he stuttered at a dark Look from Sláine. "Princess Agriope is unfortunately missing her heart, and when I heard she was looking for me, I thought I'd come willingly but then those muscle heads came and, well, quite rudely kidnapped me, and then dragged me here, and then you just — killed them all, didn't you, oh goodness, I'm going to get arrested now aren't I, oh golly, oh dear, I'm being held-up by an absolute lunatic please don’t kill me, I have a little sister and she’d be very sad if I got myself — "

At some point, Red just tuned the hyperventilating man out. That better have been enough time.

[ Inspect ] -> [ Janus ]

[ Professor J. Amethyskos, summoned from the dead using Red's memories. Okay. It seems like Amoena trapping you two in a prison of Red's memories was more literal than I'd thought. She's starting to revert to the way she was in each memory, like it's some sort of play, and it's happening faster now that you're not there to ground her. You're going to have to find her and snap her out of it, Sláine. ]

"Okay, but where is she?" Sláine interrupted the still-babbling man. Damn. That explained the clothes. And the height change. But the mask had remained…?

[ Inspect ] -> [ Janus ]

[ Professor J. Amethyskos, just as unlucky as he was in life. Okay, this is tricky because this place isn't really geographically sensible, it's a bunch of memories linked like — a string of pearls, think of it that way, but because they all originate from Red I believe she’s going to have to be in each one, so if I just direct you to a new memory you'll find her pretty quickly. At least, you should. ]

Well, they seem pretty sure of themselves, Sláine thought, her internal voice dripping with sarcasm. Great.

"Ah, well, I'm guessing they took her to a more secure locati—"

"Not talking to you," Sláine interrupted, striding forward and past him into the dark. "Is he going to be able to go from memory to memory too?"

“Wait, hey, are you just leaving me here—?!”

[ Inspect ] -> [ Pew ]

[ A sturdy marble pew in the Temple of the Betrayer’s Moon, a place derived from Red’s memories. He shouldn’t, unless he’s present in whatever memory you end up in next, but don’t take that statement as fact because a.) I can’t properly analyze what method Amoena is using to do this and b.) something is really, really weird about his manifestation. ]

“Okay, that means…?”

Sláine heard the rattling of chains and then a mighty whooomph as something struck the floor. She glanced back, seeing that Janus had tried to scramble to his feet and run after her, but had unfortunately slipped on the slick, bloodstained floor and fallen directly into a puddle.

She couldn’t repress a snort at the shrill, breathy little shriek he let out as he realized just how soaked with gore he was. Probably mean, she thought, he really did seem like a person genuinely in the wrong place at the wrong time, but she was going to take her schadenfreude where she could get it.

“If you want to come along, you’re going to have to not be a burden.”

“I, I, okay! Just! You’re going to find Lady Agriope, right? You, um, have some sort of business with her?”

“Yeah,” Sláine said. “I’m going to get her out of this mess.”

She quickly [ Inspected ] the altar to get Aria’s reply before going on her way.

[ A sacrificial altar that the temple’s priestess would use during ceremonies. I can’t tell, okay, I’m doing so much other stuff and my connection to you is not stable, nor is my ability to properly analyze your environment, but I don’t think it’s a bad kind of weird. ]

“Mess? What do you mean, exactly?”

“That’d take too long to explain,” Sláine replied, not really intending to become pals with a person who was probably going to vanish in the next few minutes. “What kind of weird is it, then?”

The man caught up to Sláine, almost slipping again before reaching her side. He huffed a bit, as if out of breath, but Sláine didn’t look at him, even as she stored her halberd in her [ Inventory ] and pulled it out again to take advantage of the flash of light. There, she could see the exit to this place just ahead.

She strode forward.

[ Inspect ] -> [ Door ]

[ A large set of carved double doors fashioned out of thick boards of compacted mushroom mycelium. It’s just… I can’t really properly reach Red, but I feel like I can get kind of a connection to her through him. It might just be a side-effect of him being also registered in my system along with being made from her memories, but… ]

Sláine stopped in front of it, resting one hand on the door and pausing before pushing it open. Her face was illuminated by the flickers of light from her summoning her halberd once more, and in the glow, she could see Janus giving her a confused, but keenly interested look.

“Wait, you knew this guy, Aria?

[ Inspect ] -> [ Door ]

[ The exit to the next memory. Yeah, and I really liked him a lot so could you maybe just — keep going? This really isn’t — I really don’t want to be dealing with this right now. ]

…While it was still strange to think of the giant floating cube forming the part of humanity’s System Sláine was attached to as being a person, she still found herself sympathizing with Aria’s predicament. Briefly, she wondered about how awful it must be for them to watch their — ‘friends’ be put in danger without being able to directly do anything about it.

What was it like, being without a body, being a watcher on the sidelines only able to supply notifications and comments to inquiries?

It wasn’t a great thought, so she put it away in a box and pushed open the door.

>> Enter new memory