Aylie trudged through the snow behind Ember and the man they were following. His name was Ren, a piece of information she had read from his mind about twenty minutes before Ember had remembered to ask.
Their travel time had been cut considerably shorter by Aylie’s use of Starlit Portal and they were due to arrive within the next few minutes.
Starlit Portal - Spell - Target
Tin - You may teleport a short distance
Iron - You may create a portal that you and one other creature are able to step through, that travels a longer distance.
Bronze - The number of creatures that may step through increases to a total of five and the distance increases further.
She had been attempting to read Ren’s mind the entire time they had been walking and yet still couldn’t pull out whatever hidden information resided in there. It was strange, as the man was an open book except for this single thing.
Normally, she would avoid purposefully attempting to read someone’s mind like this. It was hard enough in cities to avoid catching stray thoughts from the thousands of people living their lives even when she wasn’t focusing on the ability. When she did do that, it became hard to determine her own thoughts from those of the people around her.
Out here in the wilds, it was a bit easier. Without many creatures around, the only stray thoughts she caught were the base instinct urges of the animals living in the snow and those were easy enough to ignore.
She knew it was an invasion of privacy to read someone’s mind, yet the little sinister thing attached to this man’s thoughts was too strange not to look into. It felt like something was calling her attention to it with all the strength it had.
The more she looked, the more certain she was that it was a type of demonic influence.
In the almost four years that they had been fighting the demons, during the invasion and after, she hadn’t ever felt something like it. Was this a new type they hadn’t seen before?
She had told Ember about it but she hadn’t wanted to act on it yet. Ember had confidence that they would be able to deal with whatever it was, seeing as the highest-rank demon they had seen during the invasion had been Silver rank, excluding the Thousand-eyed one. While that may not hold true four years down the line, it wasn’t an illogical assumption.
Through the trees, Aylie saw a deep red thread of mist floating in the air, twisting. It was like an ethereal thread going from one invisible point to another. She was about to point it out to Ember when Ren turned to them with tears on his face.
“I’m… I’m so sorry. The- They threatened my chil- children.”
Red threads trailed out of the forest, shifting back and forth like they were searching for something. Ember didn’t react to them, watching the man with concern, the scan of her diagnosis ability visible to Aylie.
She spun around, watching the threads behind her inch ever closer. They looked and felt dangerous to her and she didn’t want to touch them unless there was another choice. Starlit Portal was still on cooldown and would be for a while longer. The threads weren’t natural in any way, their essence antithetical to the living nature around them. They definitely came from demons.
A ripple in the astral drew her attention back behind her, where Ember stood with a red thread attached to her head. Like they had finally caught a scent, a dozen other threads surged forward and attached themselves to Ember, the woman standing rigid.
Aylie didn’t panic, trying to read what was happening. They were some kind of mind control, the power feeling incredibly strong despite being undoubtedly Bronze rank. She wouldn’t be able to beat this thing with power directly, she knew that. There was always a way though, and she knew what she needed to do.
Stepping forward, she grabbed one of the red threads in her hand and felt an immediate link to the demon’s mind.
Active 3 - Worldweave - spell - varies (Previously Dreamweave)
Tin - You may weave the dreams of creatures that are asleep. The more familiar you are with the creature the further away you may use this. Additionally, these dreams can have an effect on the target's real body.
Iron - If the target of this ability is tired but not asleep, you may weave a waking dream that has only minor effects on them.
Bronze - You are able to weave waking dreams on any creature but these dreams may be broken if the dreamer realises what you are doing.
She used Worldweave, letting the demon see a simple change to reality when she had grabbed the thread. Rather than it being stuck to her hand, it was stuck to her head and she was under its control.
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The demon accepted the waking dream easily, as it matched the demon’s expectations of events better than reality did.
Weaving dreams was a complicated thing. It was easy to get something to accept one if the change you made was small enough, careful enough. Maintaining one, then changing it to suit your needs, was a bit more difficult. If something too outlandish happened, it would snap them out of it. Aylie would have to read the demon’s mind so that she could change its reality from what it expected, to what it feared.
She felt a nudge of command come down the thread and she followed it, turning and walking towards the town.
As they walked, she slowly pulled information from the demon’s mind through the thread. It had been born here, in a den not too far north of the town. Slowly, it had taken over the people one by one, each controlled mind increasing its power enough that when the remaining third of the town had figured out why people were acting so strangely, it had been strong enough to take them all by force.
Unluckily for the demon, it had missed one person. It had noticed too late, the person too far away by then to be caught. A short time later, the escaped man had come back with a group of mercenaries, ready to eradicate a demon den. However, all they had found was a perfectly normal town.
The demon had worked hard, studying the minds of its victims to figure out how they lived, spoke, ate, walked and all the rest. It had fooled the newly arrived mercenaries into believing the escaped man was crazy and they had left. Little did they know, it had taken the mind of that escaped man before they had even stepped into the town.
Then it had run into an issue.
Without more people to control, it was stagnant. If it didn’t grow in power, it held no hope of standing up to the other powers of this world. It wouldn’t take much for it to be found out, the right person with the right set of abilities and when that happened, whatever had defeated the Thousand-eyed one would be able to kill it with ease.
So, it had to find more people. Luckily, it had known of a few secluded people in the mountains northeast of the town thanks to the memories of the townspeople.
Aylie opened her eyes, able to figure out the rest for herself. She had let her body unconsciously follow the commands coming through the thread and found herself in the town now, walking about and performing daily tasks as if nothing was wrong and she had always lived here. Ember was still near her thankfully.
She knew what its fear was now, the arrival of something too strong for it to handle. Someone like… Zalia.
If it was beginning to search through Ember’s memories, it would find Zalia there first. It would feel the bond between her and Ember.
A plan in mind, she began weaving the waking dream, manipulating reality for the demon. When the man who had brought them here had turned around with tears in his eyes, Aylie had felt a little slip of control from the demon. She played into that, making the demon believe that the man had escaped control.
A thread became visible, attached to Ren’s head. Then, it pulled free and the man had control of his own body once more. He immediately ran, chased by more threads and all of the townspeople.
Aylie lay a little trail of power in the dream, an ability that belonged to someone else, the feeling of the power being that of Zalia’s.
It took a while for the demon to notice it but when it did, it went on alert. No, Ren hadn’t escaped its control, Ren had been freed from its control by another power, one too strong for it. Aylie had that power rip another townsperson from its control, though that person just stood there stunned.
The demon began to panic, searching around for the source of the power, the powerful being that was taking away its control. So Aylie gave it one.
Zalia flew through the sky on wispy wings of air, bow in hand, her mind as Aylie knew it, impenetrable.
A few abilities from the townspeople flew up to strike the dream Zalia but were either ignored or blocked with ease. Another person was ripped from the demon's control.
The power of belief was an interesting thing to Aylie, being someone who could control it so viscerally. It wasn’t actually her own power taking away control of the people here from the demon, it was her power convincing it that it wasn’t strong enough to maintain that control in the face of a stronger enemy. The demon’s fear become reality.
She began pulling more people from its control, one by one. Each person lost weakened its power even further, its strength drawing in line with Aylie’s.
Ember was still nearby, frantically searching for a way to stop the dream Zalia from taking away its control. Aylie stepped up to her and grabbed one of the threads linking her to the demon and ripped it away. Aylie felt the demon’s panic as it realised there was another being here capable of ripping away its control. Yes, that was right, Aylie was more powerful than it and she had been free all along. She pushed that thought into its mind.
Grabbing the rest of the threads, she pulled them free with ease. She held onto them all, following them back to their source. Ember looked around confused, then jogged up to Aylie.
“What is going on?”
Aylie gave her an easygoing, confident smile.
“I’m dealing with the problem.”
She followed the thread out of the town, continuing to pull townspeople out of the demon’s control with the dream Zalia behind her. She could feel that the demon wasn’t focused on Zalia anymore though, no, it was focused on her as she followed its own threads back to where it lived.
They found it, a den opening with hundreds of threads leading out of it, many of them receding back inside. Aylie walked through and into a cave. There was a small demon sitting centrally in the space, curled up and whimpering as she pulled its power and control from it.
Then, she felt bad.
It had only been trying to survive. Yet so had Aylie. When it came to survival, it was either you or them but that didn’t mean she had to feel good or bad about it. Zalia had told her that long ago and she had remembered feeling angry about the words then, yet she thought she understood now.
As more and more of the townspeople were taken from the demon’s control, she had it fade into a real dream and the whimpering stopped. Now asleep, she was capable of much stronger effects. In its sleeping dream, she made everything slowly disappear until only the demon remained in the pitch blackness. Then, it popped out of existence.
As that happened, the demon died.