I awoke to the feeling of someone’s hands patting down my clothing. Opening my eyes, I groggily tried to push those hands away.

“You have some!” I heard a voice hiss, “I know it, give it to me!”

My eyes focused in the dim light which filtered from an unknown source. I could faintly make out an emaciated, vaguely human form. I groggily focused some essence into my eyes and saw that I knew this person. It was the white mage who had greeted me several weeks ago upon first arriving in the city of Aramor. The intervening time had not been kind to her.

While her skin had the perfect smoothness of a white magic practitioner, her eyes had clouded almost completely white, leaving only a pinprick of black where her pupil should be. With the level of darkness around us, I would have expected her pupils to be dilated.

“How did you get here?” I muttered, holding my head as I spoke.

Whatever had taken me down had left me with a splitting headache.

Ignoring me, the white mage spoke, “I can heal you! I just need essence!”

She gave a short, high pitched cackle at that, her body suddenly shivering at the mere thought of the stuff. She shuffled up close to me, where I could smell the unexpectedly fresh scent of her breath. I guess tooth decay doesn’t happen to white mages either. Whoever was keeping her here was supplying her with essence, or her body would have started to deteriorate by now. Based on the thinness of her frame, she was probably no longer eating. It would only be a matter of time until she simply ran out of materials to keep the rest going.

“I won’t do that.” I muttered, pushing her away.

Her expression went from pleading to angry in a moment. With a hiss that would not have been unusual coming from an alley cat, she jumped on me, then began laying into me with her jagged nails. I eventually managed to push her off of me, but not before I had several marks on my face.

“I’ll kill you!” She screamed as I gripped her hands, saliva spraying at me.

“Stop that!” I roared back, slamming her into the ground.

Her eyes fogged from the impact. I briefly wondered if I had given her a concussion, only to be disabused of that notion as her eyes focused on me again. Rather than anger this time, I saw something far less appealing in her eyes.

“Oh,” She said huskily, “This is fine too.”

With a move that I didn’t want to imagine how she had become so practiced at, she lithely swept a leg around my torso and used the leverage to position herself beneath me. I was still holding her hands, but I suddenly felt like I was no longer the one in control of this situation.

“It’s okay,” She crooned, “You can be as rough as you want. As long as I get what I want after we’re done, it won’t leave a mark.”

I stared at her for a moment, then her suggestion clicked. She must have been watching, because the moment the shock of her suggestion registered, she kicked me off of her with manic strength. I tumbled for a moment, then fetched up against the cell wall.

She was up in a moment, crawling towards me with a hungry look in her eyes. I had been locked in a cage with a babbler.

I held up my hands, “Stop!”

“Give it to me!” She demanded, drawing closer.

I contemplated my options. Though she was wasted, I had no illusions about our relative physical strengths. Babblers lose a lot of the inhibitions that make us human in their pursuit of essence. Driven by something beyond muscle alone, I had once seen an especially desperate creature break an adventurer’s arm when he refused to hand over some of the essence he had just brought into town. The adventurer had been a geomancer.

I came to the conclusion that I could give this woman what she wanted, or she would crack my skull in a hopeless attempt to get her hands on it. I didn’t have any essence on me, but there was plenty inside of me.

“Okay,” I said as she drew up to me, “Just… give me a moment.”

Slamming a hand on the wall to my left with a rail-thin arm, she effectively trapped me in the corner I had been thrown into. She leaned forward and I heard her breathing steadily become panting.

She closed her eyes as I brought my two fingers up to her forehead, a look of expectant ecstasy washing over her features. I let a gentle trickle of essence flow into the starved creature looming over me. Her body began to shudder as I fed her that power. This continued for a minute before finally, unable to bear the expectation any more, she ignited the modest amount of essence I had transferred into her. All but the barest fraction which would keep her body going so that she could find more.

White magic blazed inside of her. She arched her back, her face turning up towards the ceiling for a long instant, a mewling sort of whimper escaping her lips. I pressed myself against the wall, trying to protect myself with stillness rather than flight. Muscles contracted and relaxed all over her body as I watched, a detached, clinical part of my mind making careful notes.

With a suddenness that made me worry about her spine, her head snapped forward. As if seeing me for the first time, she hesitated, then threw herself onto me. White magic flooded through my system as she grabbed armfuls of my hair and drove me against the wall, pressing her lips against mine in a parody of a kiss. The flash of pain from the impact was relieved instantly by the magic.

Filled with that ecstatic power, my soul responded in kind. Almost without my own conscious thought, I ignited a far larger portion of essence into white magic. The slightly different flavors of our powers mingled and the ecstasy doubled. She pulled back, her hands twisting my hair to maintain their firm grip. From her vantage point, she looked deep into my eyes and I suddenly understood on more than an intellectual level how someone could fall this far.

And I, my own mouth hanging open and my eyes as vacant as hers, wanted desperately to fall with her.

As I started to tip over the edge of that abyss, a figure came up behind the woman. A hand emerged from the darkness like a striking adder, its fingers getting a firm grip on the babbler’s hair. With a powerful tug, she was dragged backwards off of me. Her grip on my own hair was strong enough that I felt a mild sense of pain as two large clumps of it went with her.

Howling, the woman was dragged from my cell.

“No!” She screamed, “He is mine! I found him! I want him!”

Her screams devolved into howls as she was brutally thrown into another cell down the hall. For myself, I only remembered to suppress my own white magic as another form came into my vision. I breathed heavily, then began to pull myself up, only to be pinned back to the ground by the guard’s foot.

“No, no,” He a voice rebuked the guard, “Let him up, we have a lot to discuss, and I need Master Dyre in a more comfortable setting where he can answer my questions.”

The guard’s silver eyes watched me like a hawk as I stood, but there was no reason for him to worry. I knew that I was cornered right now. I also knew that if I got the chance, I would end this strange man. I had no illusions about my own chances of surviving this encounter. I would fight to live, but I knew that right now, I was well and truly screwed.

I’m such an idiot.

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Surprisingly, Solus did lead me somewhere more comfortable, rather than the rack and hot irons that I had first imagined. He took a seat across from me and bit down on an apple which he had plucked from the table. My stomach growled and he gestured at the food laid out before us. A continental breakfast if I had ever seen one.

“Help yourself,” He said, “I’m really only interested in talking to you right now.”

I ate ravenously, wondering briefly how long it had been since I was taken.

“How were the accommodations?” He asked lightly.

I half choked on my food before responding, “You’re a twisted man.”

“So you didn’t like the wake up call.” He said, faint edge of amusement in his voice, “I’ll make sure to note that down.”

“What the hell was that!?” I growled.

“A test of sorts,” He said, “A little bird recently told me about a geomancer completely drained of essence being able to produce a great work. With a little help from a gray mage of course. I must say that I was a little suspicious, but you proved that little tidbit nicely. Though I’m a little disappointed in the rate of transfer. I was led to believe that the effects were much more spectacular.”

I didn’t bother telling him that what I had just done for that white mage was nothing compared to what I could do when pushed. I didn’t want him getting any ideas.

“Why are you trying to kill Tylee?” I asked.

“Money.” He said absently, “Money drives the kingdom of Aramor. I was hired to remove a great house from the political climate. I must say, I was most put out when you decided to kill my pet. I won’t bore you with the details on how much it cost me to procure that thing. It will take a long time and more than a few mages for it grow back to its original strength from that sample you left for me.”

I felt my fists clench, “You bastard.”

He shrugged, “It’s true. My father wasn’t known for his discretion. That is entirely beside the point though. Why is it that you are working for the Arefinas?”

“There is no way I’m going to tell you that.” I growled.

Solus sighed, then met my eyes, “I promise you, if you make me work for this, I will most likely turn your brain to jelly. I’m not the most subtle at the art of reading minds, but I can be very… thorough.”

My stomach dropped out from my body. This man’s eyes weren’t dark naturally. He was a black mage, and based on the color of his eyes, he was a great soul.

“I-I’ll fight you to the end.” I stuttered, my voice cracking.

I felt a presence being to creep into my mind, like a needle slowly being inserted through my eyeball. Hastily, I channeled essence into my mind to block it, but the power cut through my defenses like a hot knife through butter. As the presence grew more invasive, I felt a pounding start in my head. I could almost visualize the blade that was slowly carving its way into my mind. Every time I wrapped my will around it, it sliced free effortlessly.

I screamed.

In desperation, I forced the flow of essence to my brain to stop. I was not certain if this would work, but it was the only thing that my faltering will could conjure up as a defense. A tunnel drew itself in my vision and I felt dizzy.

Then darkness came.

XXXXXX

I awoke to a massive pounding. Wondering briefly why someone was beating down the door to my room. Derrick was far too gentle of a man to consider such hammering, and Miriam was nowhere near strong enough to create such a clamor.

I opened my eyes, and the bright light seared whatever was left of sleep from my eyes. Slamming them shut, I slowly took inventory of my body. After several moments, I realized that the pounding sound was actually coming from inside of my head. Furthermore, there was a sense of wrongness in my mind, a sense of something have been torn.

I remembered.

Groaning, I tapped into my essence and ignited a portion of white magic far larger than I would normally consider safe. I just wanted to feel better, and I honestly didn’t care about side effects right now. Either that, or I was developing a taste for the stuff.

Relief and bliss washed through me. My headache faded quickly, leaving only a sense of wrongness. It made a cruel sort of sense. The brain is infinitely more complex than any other organ, and I was only an amateur white mage. My magic could heal damage, but I didn’t really understand how to direct it in more than a general sense. On top of that, the mind was an organ which did not normally regenerate itself, I could only assume that this meant the white magic couldn’t just spark life in progenitor cells and let things happen.

So now, I was an alchemist with brain damage. Fun times all around.

I suddenly realized that I had been holding onto the white magic for longer than I needed it. With an effort of will, I let it fade. I felt much better, but there was a distinct hollowness to my skin which I knew had nothing to do with physical damage.

Putting that aside, I pulled myself up. I was once again in my cell. A deep sense of despair welled up inside me. There was no way that I could get out of here, I was trapped.

Rather than dwell on that despair, I settled down and began to meditate. Being a gray mage, I was unable to practice any advanced forms of meditation. Or, more correctly, I was unaware of any techniques that were useful for developing the control of a gray mage. I had a suspicion that my efforts in making things had proven to have the most effect on my increased control, but I still made it a point to meditate every day.

Increased control over your magic has several beneficial effects, aside from the obvious one of not ripping holes in your own soul when performing feats requiring large amounts of magic.

First, a mage with greater control can convert essence more efficiently into magic. I had discovered long ago, that although I did not ignite essence into magic, the act of imbuing items with my will was a similar process, with similar returns based on my level of control.

The first elixir I had made, a twelve-dose level one agility elixir, had taken almost everything I had. Now, with the control I had learned, I could stretch the same amount of essence into a six-dose, level two agility or strength elixir. Put simply, that was an elixir that made you much stronger, and at a faster rate. The size of a soul is fixed, but the efficiency of magic conversion and level of compression of essence within that same space is not.

That leads me to the second boon of greater control. The greater control over essence that a mage has, the greater his ability to compact, direct, and otherwise manipulate it is. For most mages, this was a matter of how much essence they could absorb from a phylactery or other exogenous source before they were completely sated. For me the effect was the same, although I hadn’t noticed an appreciable difference in the time which it took for my soul to heal itself.

Last of all, and probably the most important part of control, was the fact that a mage with higher mastery simply had stronger magic. Magic springs from the soul and is directed and magnified by the mind. Exercising the mind by doing control exercises expands the actual power of projected magic. One of my suspicions about the reason for the lingering magic in Tylee’s sword was that I had developed a much stronger control over my magic since I had first tried enhancing a weapon through simple maintenance.

Solus was a practitioner of black magic, a magic that targeted the mind directly. If I could increase my control level, there was an ever so slight chance that I would be able to resist him. You know, without having to knock myself out. The fact that I was still alive led me to believe that he could not read my mind while I was unconscious. Otherwise, I probably would have had my mind pilfered and my body dropped into the monster feeding pit.

Or something like that.

Time passed as I focused myself inwards, manipulating the flow of essence within my body. When I was finally interrupted, it was Solus again, though this time he had brought a chair with him. Interrogators needed their comforts after all.

“You should really just let go.” Solus said to me.

I opened my eyes and glared at him, “I’m very stubborn.”

“You know that you are as good as dead,” He responded, “Why not make this easier on yourself. In fact, if you were to take certain oaths, I would be willing to let you live. Working for me can be very profitable. I would like to see the true limits of a gray mage.”

Hell no.

“I’m not interested in joining your menagerie.” I growled.

He motioned to the silver-eyed man behind him, “Do you know what this man’s affinity is?”

“Earth.” I replied.

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong.” He said, “Martin here has the increasingly rare affinity for steel. It is a specialized subtype of geomancy.”

“And why are you telling me this?” I responded, still glaring.

“I collect curios.” Solus said, “A gray mage is almost as rare as a steel mage. When I found Martin, he was nothing more than a low-ranking adventurer who had a serious problem with finding a party to join. I can recognize talent, and I make it a point to nurture that talent. Now, Martin is more than a match for a geomancer of similar power. I can help you become far greater than you could imagine.”

“Like I said,” I retorted, “I’m not interested in becoming your pet.”

Solus sighed, then drew himself up. I felt the world around him contract slightly, as if light itself were bending at his presence. Then I smelled the black magic.

“Submit yourself to me, Ethan Dyre.” He said gently.

I felt his words echo in my mind. I closed my eyes and pushed back against that. Rather than a direct attack, Solus was now trying to bend my will with a form of subtlety. When I opened my eyes, they still had a defiant cast to them. Solus sighed and began talking again.

My time in his dungeon progressed much that way. He never tried to read my mind again, but he did come and visit me at intervals which were increasingly erratic. Every time we spoke, he would drop little tidbits of information on me, then, with the power of his magic, he would suggest that I just give in.

The compelling suggestion would fade with time, but in the moments between our sessions together, I realized that I was steadily growing to see his logic. Why should I fight? Why not make an oath now and survive another day? If I took an oath, I would be granted an increased level of freedom and thus, a higher chance of escape. Though I was loath to give up any of my magical power by breaking such an oath, doing so to get away from here would be a bargain.

The thing was, I was still not sure if I would want to leave by the time I gained that amount of freedom. Slowly, but steadily, Solus was turning me.