Roman leaned forward and folded his hands on the metal table between him and the two police detectives. “Reckon I want to speak with my lawyer.”

The detective on the right was an odd-looking fellow. His head had been replaced with blue-gray strips of metal that constantly shifted into abstract geometric patterns: one moment concentric circles, the next a looping staircase from a M.C. Escher drawing. Shapeface lifted a styrofoam cup of watery black coffee to his nonexistent lips and noisily slurped it with a nonexistent mouth.

Never having been much of a looker himself, Roman tried not to judge others based on their appearance, but this guy was unsettling.

“Yeah, yeah,” Shapeface said in a bitter tone, as if disappointed in his shitty cup of coffee. “We contacted your lawyer. Don’t you worry, he’s on his way. We’re just trying to get confirmation on a few details while we wait.”

Roman had long ago learned not to talk with the police more than necessary--mostly from crime dramas on television, but it still held up as sage advice. Anything he said could be held against him in a court of law. Particularly since he was absolutely, undeniably guilty. But they couldn’t prove that.

Shapeface’s partner had a more humanesque face, though his poor hygiene had left maggots wriggling through his diseased flesh. His nose had been lopped off, the black slits of his nostrils glistening with mucus. Roman couldn’t help but wonder how that had happened.

Noseless tapped the nib of his cheap blue pen against the table, over and over. An annoying, staccato rhythm, meant to throw Roman off his stride, if he had to guess. Both of the strange-looking officers merely stared at him for the next thirty seconds. The silence felt like a physical pressure; Roman resisted the urge to adjust himself or look otherwise uncomfortable.

“So, going back to where you were, when was it--” Shapeface unraveled a scroll of cracked yellow parchment near his elbow and skimmed through its contents. Crazy that this sort of thing wasn’t handled digitally nowadays, or at least on normal printer paper. “Right. Two days ago, the night of the 27th. What were you up to?”

“Reckon I’ll keep waiting on my lawyer.”

Noseless kept tapping his pen against the tabletop. His tone was nasally, as if part of his voice whistled through his gaping nostrils. “You realize how suspicious that sort of thing is, right? Look, we get you’re going through a lot. The case revolving around Isabella Miller is still ongoing. Sometimes these things get jammed up for a bit in court. Crime rates’ through the goddamn roof nowadays. People are getting disillusioned with the justice system, think maybe they’ll take matters into their own hands. I know if it was my little sister---”

Roman gripped the edge of the table and tucked his chin to the chest, resisting the urge to leap at the detective. He could deny what had happened and force the police to provide enough evidence to the contrary, but he’d be doing himself no favors if he attacked a law enforcement officer on camera.

“Shit, buddy here looks pretty upset, Jeff,” Shapeface said to his partner, taking another noisy slurp of his coffee. “Big dude like him can cause a whole lotta damage. The victim was covered in bruises. Real busted up. Must’ve been some real hams for fists on the fella who did that.” He pointedly glanced down at one of Roman’s hands.

“My lawyer,” Roman forced out through gritted teeth.

“Mister Miller,” said Noseless, “here’s the thing. We know you did it. In fact, we have direct, admissible evidence to prove it. You thought such a thing was impossible, did you? Thought you were real sneaky? Well, Nyarlathotep Sees all. He has Scried upon your past, your present, and your future. In fact, we have here a complete record of your sins, starting from birth until your inevitable mewling death, signed and attested to by He of the Infinite Faces. No one will dare refute this sort of testimony, even in the Courts of Chaos.”

Noseless selected another rolled-up scroll from the table and unfurled it. The parchment unraveled endlessly, spilling over the edge of the table and against the far wall. More and more of the seemingly-infinite scroll piled up, the tiny, illegible script along its surface detailing every questionable action Roman had ever even dreamed of.

Shapeface leaned over, finger trailing along the parchment before settling on one random offense. “November 12, 1998, at Boone Elementary, you pulled on Lizzy Hoff’s hair, causing her to cry in distress. Fancied a little grade school romance, did you, Mister Miller? Some of them don’t like that, you know, though personally my wife--”

Three sharp knocks rang out from the door. A sour expression wrinkled Noseless’ face into something even uglier.

After a moment of hesitation, a familiar figure stepped through the door. John was dressed to the nines in an expensive navy suit, leather briefcase in hand. His long, unruly hair had been tamed into a man-bun, short on the sides.

This appearance, particularly how weirdly hollow he seemed, struck Roman as odd, but everything about the situation seemed a bit off to him. The stress of the situation was definitely warping his mind.

John slammed his briefcase on to the table and nodded at Roman. “Don’t talk. You’re trapped in an illusion right now. You have to snap out of it, quickly. The guardian of the Chaos Gate is a Mentalist, and can affect you even from this distance. Entering his domain so early was a mistake. Even as we speak, Undying Dryads are swarming all over you, biting and punching. Can’t you feel them?”

Roman frowned. A sudden migraine split his head, turning his thoughts into a painful fugue. What was John talking about?

But there was something about his words that rang true. Pinpricks of pain lit up throughout Roman’s body. A tearing pain in his right bicep, as if something had sank its teeth into it. Spittle flew out of his mouth from a blunt impact against his gut.

“Now, now,” said Shapeface, his head twisting into a thin, triangular shape reminiscent of a spearhead, “you can’t just barge in here and start making up complete nonsense. You’re a man of the Law, aren’t you?”

“You have to do something or you’re dead.” John stared deep into Roman’s eyes. “Everything you’ve suffered through would be pointless if you let this asshole lock you in your own memories. Your best hope is to fuse [ Impose Will ] and [ Bulwark Mind ] together into an active barrier. You have to break out.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Roman swallowed. God his head hurt. He glanced down at himself, was surprised to see that his body was far leaner and more muscular than it had ever been before. Not to mention all the gore--splotches of golden ichor and dried blood and caked viscera the color of old bruises. He was even wearing his fighting shorts.

No way he would show up to a police station looking like this.

Roman gritted his teeth. So he was being fucked with, was he? A vague memory broke through the pounding headache--black text flooding across his vision…

[ As always, remember to have fun. ]

So they were all just having a laugh, were they? Roman closed his eyes, imagined the channels of bronze soul energy circulating through his body.

Like an un-used, atrophied muscle, the presence of his acquired skills lingered vaguely in the back of his mind. [ Impose Will ] and [ Bulwark Mind ] both worked by channeling bronze energy into his head, though it was usually a subconscious process.

His protective Mental Quirk required a constant trickle of energy to passively maintain, whereas the [ Impose Will ] domain skill activated once he met a specific threshold of expenditure.

Focusing all his rage from being trapped in this deformed memory, Roman flooded energy into the mental pathways leading to both skills. They were adjacent, feeding off each other, and all he had to do was imagine a new, secondary network branching off of them, meeting in the middle, conjoining them.

[ Impose Mind ].

Flashes of bronze energy flickered about him, appearing for an instant before fading away, as if the illusion around him fought his mounting Will. These streaks extended about six feet in either direction, curving at the periphery of his domain.

More energy leaked from Roman’s forehead, pouring into the invisible sphere around him, filling it with more and more of his soul energy. The vessel filled faster than the streaks disappeared, until growing bronze blotches stained reality around him.

“Ugh,” said Shapeface. “Hate when this sort of shit happens. ‘Look at me, I’m unlocking a new ability in order to overcome a life-threatening situation.’ Which asshole enabled this Tenet?”

As more and more energy spooled out of Roman’s glabella, the torrents of soul energy circulating through his system dimmed--an expenditure far exceeding the normal use of [ Impose Will ] or even a series of successive [ Flash Steps ]. He groaned as the pain in his head reached a crescendo, the corners of his vision dimming. Moments before he passed out, the domain finished filling with soul energy, encasing him in a bronze cocoon.

The illusory world around Roman shattered.

[ Through determination, we pierce the Veil. +2 to Will, +1 to Perception. ]

Roman blinked up at the canopy, regathering his thoughts. His [ Impose Mind ] had shattered along with the illusion, but it had already served its purpose.

A foot stomped down onto his right forearm. He realized he was pinned to the ground, Undying Dryads clinging to each limb. Others crowded around, kicking at him, biting into his exposed flesh--whatever method they could think of to inflict damage.

Roaring in pain and anger, Roman flexed his left arm, flinging away the Dryad clinging to his wrist. It spun through the air like a ragdoll before crunching against an adjacent tree. With his freed hand, he grabbed on to the head of the bastard biting his right bicep. His inhuman levels of Strength crushed its skull into powder, the pulpy green mush of its brain leaking between his fingers.

[ Undying Dryad defeated. 100 experience rewarded. ]

Heart pounding in his ears, Roman laid waste to the Dryads around him. Once the ones pinning him down were crushed, he shoved himself back up to his feet with a kip-up. A Dryad barreled at him at full speed, collided with a swift jab that turned its skull into a burst of rose petals.

Experience notifications ticked across his vision as the mob kept suiciding into him. Even as blood trickled from his various minor wounds, he exulted in his raw physicality. The Dryads were little more than mobile mannequins for him to hone his strikes upon.

One succumbed to a spinning roundhouse kick that crushed its skull and sent it flipping madly through the air. He seized the next by the throat and one of its forearms, pivoting to fling it into several enemies attempting to rush him from behind. A moment later he charged in its wake, devastating [ Chaos Touch ] punches raining down on the off-kilter Dryads.

At least a dozen enemies perished under his onslaught before the bloodlust began to fade and he could think clearly again. A Dryad emerged from a tree next to him, this one half again as tall as the previous he had destroyed. It clutched a pair of obsidian scimitars, and living vines sprouted from its scalp, swirling about as if they had minds of their own.

Obviously some upgraded form of the basic Undying Dryads. This one even seemed to move with a purpose, taking a few steps forward and holding its scimitars aloft. It seemed to be taking Roman’s measure, strategizing how to approach him.

No reason to tangle with this one fairly. Though his soul energy reserves were low, a [ Flash Step ] brought Roman behind the newcomer. The grasping vine-hair had no time to react before a spinning elbow crushed the Dryad’s cervical spine into bonedust. It collapsed to its knees, scimitars clattering to the ground beside it.

[ Undying Dryad Warrior defeated. 200 experience rewarded. ]

Roman looked around for the next opponent. He found a nearby cluster of them grouped around Ella--no, Bella was her name, the Player. Several nearby trees looked to have been felled by her projectile blade technique, and trails of scarlet fire burned throughout the immediate area, though they seemed to be naturally suppressed from spreading like they should.

Blood flowed freely from the teenager as Dryads bit into her. She cried out, whimpering. “No, no! I won’t leave you again! I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I won’t--I won’t run while they do this!”

Fuck. She had probably chased Roman into the Chaos Gate after he ran off on his own. He remembered her story about being tied up in the restaurant, helplessly watching as the carrion golems devoured another survivor, all the while knowing she was next. One of her nightmares was being replayed in her mind because she had set off in pursuit of him.

[ Flash Step ] carried Roman to her side. Rage burned cold in his chest, even more than when he realized he was being fucked with. They thought they could do this to his little sister--no, wait, this wasn’t his little sister (am I losing my mind?).

Roman seized the nearest Dryad and flung it away. More focused on dislodging the enemies opposed to finishing them off, he merely cleared the immediate area until Bella laid alone on the ground. Blood seeped into the forest floor around her, tears pouring down her face as she apologized over and over again to the other survivor in her memory.

Grimacing at his own wounds, Roman hauled her relatively tiny body over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. More and more Dryad Warriors emerged from the ground and surrounding trees, various weapons at the ready.

Roman glanced back at the distant necrodrake, still coiled around the ziggurat and facing his way.

I’ll be back, he promised.

+I will be waiting,+ it replied.

Roman spit a wad of blood off to the side and left the area with a [ Flash Step ].