Laevinus stood, surrounded by shadows of endless war. Daimons slaughtering humans. Humans slaughtering humans. The figures merged, indistinguishable from each other. It didn’t matter to him - the nightmare was all the same. His sense of being disappeared, he became one with the screams.

Intense heat snapped him out of his frozen state. He threw his hands over his eyes. As he lowered them, they felt heavy; he looked down and found them stained gold. Lives, cut so short and so brutally at the blink of an eye. How many did he send to Paradis, carrying the memories of their traumatic end? And to what end? They made him Magister, yet all he had ever done was desecrate the Eternal Library with Ichor. All in the name of Magus. The hypocrisy was never lost on him.

A softer voice cut through the screams. The sensation of warmth on his skin and the whispers of sweet nothings made the world around him slow. The memory of a promise brought him to his senses. The fear from his eyes glazed over. He could see the tinge of ultraviolet lining the shadows around him. This was something more than his usual nightmares.

‘They were a threat,’ he told himself. His Thought-Form shifted; he donned black and grey, marked by the symbol of the Inquisition. ‘The Draekslanni were led astray by Daimons. They were given enough warning to turn away from Kaeva. The Magisterium acted rightly.’ He reverted to his red upon white. ‘The possessed can not be saved. It was a mercy that he burned them to Paradis.’ The Ichor on his hands began to evaporate along with the carnage around him.

He repeated those words to himself, swallowing his disgust. Each affirmation multiplied, layer upon layer, and buried the doubts in his heart. They formed the reflective walls of a great maze. Laevinus knew where to go - he stepped forward through one wall and found himself on a balcony of glass. Endless turquoise skies marred only by many long pillars of ultraviolet stretched along the horizon. The Daimonic protrusions pierced deep into his mind, stopping only at dead ends. Had he not erected the maze in time, he would have surely been possessed.

He rested for a moment to recover some Focus, then looked over the balcony. With his mind cleared, he drew forth the surviving memory shards of the Crafts District. Not a single legionnaire was spared the Daimon’s spell. Not even Pavonikos. He held him tight in his arms in vain. Laevinus pulled away from that moment. He sought the comfort of happier times but stopped himself - he could not afford to give away those memories to the creature residing in him.

This was no time to mourn. If he was alive, then there was a possibility that Flavius’ child was alive too.

He parted the skies and turned his sights to the spell that encased him. It was unlike any Kaevan spell he had encountered but like any spell, it was bound to have a weakness in its form. He envisioned a single circular lens and looked through it.

Scanning the mess, he spotted weaknesses around the spell where the protrusions poked through. The tangles of threads were spread thin and waved around freely around the breakage. Could it be that the spell was unraveled by the fingers themselves? He gave the protrusions a brief study and quickly determined that he was half-right; as he had seen in the Crafts district, the tendrils were covered in their own shields.

It was just what he needed to carve his way out. He may have lacked the eyes to comprehend the spell fully, but in all his experience, he knew that the light of Paradis could sunder any spell if applied correctly - like spreading roots through the cracks of a stone.

He took a step backward until he was back in the glass balcony and dissolved the imaginary lens. His eyes remained focused on the very point he marked out. With limited Focus, he approximated that he could summon several minor bolts of light. His eyes glowed faintly, constricting the sky around him into a single point to mark the weakness like a scope - a trick he had picked up on over the years to limit the damage of Essence Burn.

The first bolt met its mark. Violet tendrils shook violently as the light spread through them. It had been strong enough to expel the pillar-like tendril, yet the dome remained. The bolt wasn’t strong enough, but the way it caused the structure to vibrate showed promise. He shifted the point to another weak spot, this time widening his scope significantly. His mind would be scorched but it was a risk he was willing to take.

Paradisian light flooded his vision and washed through the scope. Pure knowledge uncontrollably spread through the Daimonic spell, popping each part of its bramble-like structure with a glassy clangour. Laevinus’ mind was blank for a moment until he regained sense of himself. The boundaries of his Mindscape slowly came back to him until he was grounded once more.

He looked up to see that the skies were free of the ultraviolet haze. The only problem left were several thick tendrils that remained in his mind. Inspecting them closely, he saw that these had dug deep into his mind, probing around within the protective maze he formed earlier. He could sense the Daimon still scratching at the walls. Had he more Focus, he could have banished them already, but breaking out of its trappings had left him too drained. They wouldn’t be a problem for now. He needed to establish where his physical body was.

He opened his eyes to Tirra and what he saw terrified him - fear that the Daimon latched to him surely supped upon well. His surroundings resembled that of the inside of a beast; lit intensely by vessels of ultraviolet, the room was filled with wrinkled blue masses. The more he studied them, the more he noticed their resemblance to the Sanctus Vivliotekum housed in every skull.

He heard weak laughter from one end. Straining his eyes to their peripheries, he could make out human features sticking out from the casing; there were others here too. He had sensed them before in his Mindscape - he had caught stray thoughts and fears that didn’t belong to him. Then, he thought it was the Daimon interfering with his mind. He wondered if this was a small taste of what becoming a part of the eternal library would feel like. No. This place was a twisted parody of Paradis. He felt sick just thinking about it.

Before Laevinus could let it all sink in, he felt his nerves flare up in warning. He slowed his own breathing, trying to subdue himself without using up anymore Focus. He lowered his eyelids, just enough to see through a thin slit. Haggard breaths echoed through the room. A figure glided slowly past him. Its body drooped and its thin membranous wings sloughed off, revealing eyeless pits in its ragged body. Several more things dropped out of it, glinting faintly before sinking into the ground.

He kept watching the Princidaimon, cursing himself for being so powerless when it was in this weakened state. The Princidaimon walked to one end of the flesh wall, tendrils digging deep into the creases. There was a pleading cry as one person was wrenched out. He could feel what they felt. Burning fear and a brief sense of desperation.

The screams were cut short once they were pulled in and smothered by those wings. The Princidaimon shook slightly and moved to find another victim. With each person wrenched out, Laevinus felt their terror, thoughts and memories that were not his flashed through his mind. All the while, the Princidaimon grew stronger.

When Laevinus’s mind returned to him, he tried to reach down for a Focus potion, but his arm wouldn’t respond. His burnt Essence had left all of his limbs non-functional. There was a hand next to his side. Not his, but he could feel the slight sensation of tempered glass against it. It hung loosely outside the flesh prison. He could manage only a small twitch of the fingers, brushing lightly against the vials of precious Focus potion. Whatever was connecting him to the hand wasn't strong enough to give him full control.

He opened his eyes to Roya once more. The memory of glass on skin grew close like a guiding light. He took it and brought it to one eye. Through it, his Mindscape appeared dull in colour. He searched around until a bright gold slither of pulsing thread caught his attention in the distance. Looking closely, it was tinged with ultraviolet - threads that wove together with parts of his own mind.

His journey ended at the wall of ultraviolet encasing the other mind. The Daimonic tendrils that bound the other person’s connections to him couldn’t get past the maze below to give him enough control over the arm.

He set his eyes down to the maze and rearranged some of the walls. He would have to ensure it would go no deeper than his control over his own arm. Guiding the violet tendrils along, he finally allowed them to bind deeper into that burnt part of his mind. He felt a terrible feeling pass through him, making his own arm shake uncontrollably. It was difficult to wrangle control back but after some time the feeling passed. Lingering memories that did not belong to him drifted freely in his Mindscape.

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The arm’s owner was one of the few visiting Magisters who had come to Lidantium for an meeting. Laevinus couldn’t determine its purpose from what few memories there were, but he could have sworn seeing a glimpse of a High Magister’s cloak in those memories. But that couldn’t be possible. No High Magister had gone to Lidantium that fateful night. Laevinus shook the thought from his head. He couldn’t waste any time thinking about this now.

He opened his eyes to Tirra once more. The Princidaimon was close now, back turned as it began feeling around for another person to consume. He flexed his new fingers. Once he had gained control of the arm he searched for the vial of Focus potion once more. His half-lidded eyes kept a careful watch of the Daimon in front of him. The tension rose, but he stifled it down.

The vial slipped against his fingers. His eyes darted downwards and so too did his hand. Before it fell past saving, his hand caught it.

The slightest movement from the creature made him shrink back and assume a false-sleeping state. Within his Mindscape, he waited in the darkness, hoping that the Princidaimon would pass him by. After some time, he gathered enough courage to open his Tirran eyes again.

The Princidaimon was gone from sight. Taking his chances, he willed the arm that wasn't his to life. The seal broke the moment he met eyes with the dirtied glass. The vial touched his lips. Rejuvenating bitter fluid touched his tongue but the feeling stopped too short to quench his thirst. Desperately, he shook at the vial and pressed it against his tongue. There was nothing left in it. He felt around again for another vial. None were left, not even on the arm’s owner.

Quickly, he weighed up his options. He had enough Focus to heal his Essence Burn and free himself of the Daimonic tendrils inside him, but not enough to free the people here. Would he even have enough to fight the Daimon now?

‘It’s not enough…’

The answer was as clear as a warped lens. He accepted it begrudgingly. If he was to keep his promise, he needed to escape and find Pavonikos.

Back in Roya, he set to work on healing the parts of his mind that were scorched from his earlier attack. The repair was quick and imperfect, but he had full control over his limbs once more. He felt sensation return to those areas again, the signals giving him some sense of what was happening in Tirra now that he had more Focus and awareness. The Daimonic brain matter had constricted their movements somewhat, but he could manoeuvre them just enough to move himself deeper into the crevices between the flesh.

With his sights set upon the many tendrils, he shifted the balcony into a great scope. Each lens, a portal to every tendril in his mind. His surrounding Mindscape darkened, shielded fully from what he was about to do next. All he needed was a single shot of Paradisian light, and all at once, every one of the Princidaimon’s fingers were scorched and flailing. They all receded out of his mind, finally leaving his mind blissfully to him alone.

The serenity did not last. There was a change in Roya - what followed was a sense of quiet dread that stilled Laevinus’ surroundings. Then, like a terrible shriek, a deep hatred flooded his Mindscape and engulfed him as quick as wildfire. Overwhelmed by primal fear, he was paralysed, his screams blending with the others neighbouring him. For the first few moments, he begged it to stop. After a few minor Chronocycles, he forgot all concept of stopping. Once more he lost his entire being to the screams.

The screams began to die down, but the rage was there. He saw through a hundred pairs of eyes. One of them slid out from somewhere and dropped down. Looming above was the Princidaimon. All of its stolen eyes looked deep into his. Something told him that it knew where he was - many thoughts warned him. It lunged into his view.

He was jolted back into his own mind. All sense had not yet returned to him, but he knew something was after him. He returned to Tirra to quickly move his body deeper into the mass surrounding him, using minute amounts of Focus to form small gaps lined with air-producing moss to sustain himself. With very little knowledge of the room around him and an active threat that could spot him easily in the open, he had so few choices. At least the Princidaimon would have a hard time reaching him so far in.

As the fear cleared, he regained enough of his mind to crush the vial in his scarred hand. He cast his eyes down towards the shards, reforming it with his Ichor to form a gold-stained lens fitted over one of his eyes. The mass seemed to go on endlessly - that is until he stumbled back into a cavernous space. He almost lost his footing on a stringy bit of flesh that stuck out at an odd angle.

There was a figure at the centre of it all. They were tangled within the flesh, form mostly concealed and warped as a single pillar suspended by many tendons like a bird caught in spider’s silk. He pried one eye-lid open - their iris and pupil were one solid ultramarine colour.

“This is…”

To confirm his suspicions, he looked to their memories. Draekslan appeared before him. Then Lumis. He caught a glimpse of the woman she once was before she wound up in this accursed place. Whatever her intentions were, he could not tell; her memories were too scrambled. But she had been Draekslanni. From her memories and state, she must have been here for a very long time.

Her mind was a ruined forest. The trees seemed dead, but still bore fruits of thoughts and memories - no doubt due to the bright tendrils that ran through them. He caught sight of recent ones - recent for he saw memories of his own approach into this strange cavern. What caught his eye right away was the glimpse of legionaries making their way through the insides of this corrupted place.

Hope swelled in him as he saw many being awakened. What was more was that he saw Pavonikos amongst the many. He wished to see more, but the memories were fragmented. It troubled him to see that rather than leaving, those soldiers were continually ascending up the spine.

“The Princidaimon is here! Turn back!”

He shouted it into Roya, all in vain. He strained to hear anything but the voices of surrounding minds. No thoughts could not reach past this room.

He felt eyes upon him - the same sort of feeling when someone was aware of another in their Mindscape. He stumbled backwards and accidentally brushed her deepest memories. He was in the wings of Draekslan again. The city of Eidigan had been torn from the skies. The Drake-given gifts that kept them held up were mangled, never to fly again. From a distance, two young girls about Pavonikos’ age emerged from the dust. One led the other, who constantly looked back.

She stared at him with those wide ultramarine eyes. There was no hatred in them. Only the question, ‘why?’. With that single look, his maze-like defenses were shattered. He forgot himself, forced to face the same question that haunted him for many Blinks.

“Run.”

Hot pain wrenched him back into Tirra. Several tendrils had pierced through flesh and bone. His limbs and spine were destroyed. The girl’s thoughts reached him too late. He was quickly pulled out of the brainy mass.

The Daimon he had faced before weakly walked along toward him. As it got closer he felt its limbs constrict around his form. He felt its desperation. He felt its victims emotions ebbing through him. The Princidaimon could see through him, his defenses were gone. His thoughts, his most delicious passions and fears were laid bare. It pulled him closer and closer, hardly resisting his scent.

Mustering every bit of Focus he had left, he released the spell he had prepared. The lens covering the surface of his eyes glowed bright. Reflexively, the Daimon tried covering its eyes, for it knew what he was about to do. Too late. Light engulfed the room, and all eyes that gazed upon it absorbed the onslaught of Paradis. When the light cleared, Laevinus was barely conscious but he saw that the top half of the Daimon had been blown off.

Laevinus could not move. His body was paralysed by his injuries. Before he could rest his eyes, he saw the pile of flesh twitch. Several stolen eyes around the torso looked up at him. The remains of ragged wings pulled the abomination forward. The Magister could only watch as it crawled over him. On the verge of passing out, he tried one last time to unleash the light of Paradis upon his foe. Only a slither of light escaped as he began to lose consciousness.

As it consumed him, he was lucid enough to see what it intended to do. He found himself in that very room again, lying in wait. Powerless to do anything, he saw the Imysion ascend into the room. His own light was turned against them. With them all blinded, he lunged forward. When the dust settled, he saw the Tribunus pierced by a long spear like tendril. His tendril. He carried the blinded youth’s limp body, holding him as he did when they were but a small infant. The memories of that joyous day coalesced with things he was forced to see.

Down he fell to despair.