The chick was losing joy in the fact that it could walk. It began to see it as dull and didn't want to continue. As it went along it noticed the edge of the forest, which sent it into a scurry to get out as quickly as it could, although it was still slow. As it finally exited the forest, it stumbled onto a dirt path.
As it left it saw both sides of the road, it picked the left side of the path and continued on its journey.
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After the badger was subdued, they brought it into the town and used the veterinarian's shop to do a check-up on it.
It appeared to be physically normal, but it was mentally ruined. They were able to connect to it after it had been removed from the forest but, its subconscious was affected to seek out and find whatever it had been viewing. Through multiple spirits viewing its memories, they found a timeline of events that would let them get the best guess as to what had happened in the forest.
With 8 spirits, each assigned to a different timeframe of the badger's life, they were able to track everything up until it viewed what was in the clearing and after it had been removed by the worm.
As badgers are typically nocturnal, it had been awake finding food when it had seen a potential mate and had taken off to chase it, when the mana in the air seemed to suck past in waves to one direction in the forest. The weakest and strongest animals all seemed to flee while animals that didn't fear as much rushed in the direction of the pull.
As it arrived it saw hundreds of other animals both predator and prey for it, but it paid attention to neither and focused on-
The focus came back as it was struggling against a worm and doing everything in its power to go to it. It needed to be there for it. Otherwise, it would potentially be food if it didn't lower itself.
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"And that is what we were able to extract from its memories, as all of you can see it struggled to the point of harm in an attempt to go back to the clearing." Said a woman in a long dress skirt and a typical blouse. The three men and four women in attendance at the meeting began to discuss amongst themselves for a few minutes, debating on how they should go about this.
"We should send in a race or job user with the ability to resist the obvious mental manipulation. Some of the monsters and animals seemed strong enough to escape its grasp as you can see them huddled outside." Said one of the men, while another argued, "That would be the case if only mentally strong monsters or animals were outside. Let alone being strong in either of those, we have regular animals outside huddled with monsters that could destroy an entire city if they combined their effort before reinforcements arrived."
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The final man said, "Why don't we ask the people in the room who actually have a job for this instead of bickering? Or would you rather disgrace yourselves even further in front of our superiors?" With that said, the two men turned sheepish and apologized to the women in front of them while dipping their heads lower to one in particular.
"With all that being said," said a thin and weak looking woman with pale skin and sores across her skin, "We should be contacting a seer. If that doesn't lead anywhere we might need to bring in a sense-deprived person into this." The others grimaced and slowly began to nod not wanting to offend her.
"I'll bring in my boyfriend." said one of the men at the table, "But it might take a few as we were planning our afternoon together." One of the women barked with a short laugh and waved him off as he began to leave.
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The chick had been walking for close to an hour at this point and it was getting thirsty and tired. While thinking about water that would taste good and really wishing it could find some, it began to rain. The chick walked onwards though, as it didn't have the thinking capabilities to catch water in its mouth quite yet. However, the rain was pouring down so eventually a puddle formed.
Having not learned its lesson whatsoever, it began to drink from a puddle and couldn't help but sigh, as it tasted amazing. But then it pecked a rock and hurt its beak. The bird felt a flash of pain and the all pebbles around it turned into dust. When it went back to drink more, it noticed the water had turned bad, so it cheeped in anger and continued on its way.
Unfortunately for road workers, they would have to replace quite a huge area of the dirt path as the entire underside of it was made up of gravel to absorb impact without displacing too much dirt. A fact that nobody would realize until someone's carriage would sink down just under a foot without a way to leave. Good luck to them.
The chick went to the side of the road after another 30 minutes of walking and entered back into the forest to find a hollow to sleep in.
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The boyfriend attempted to peer into the clearing itself but instantly felt part of the relay mind crumble and then said, "Yeah, so I'd rather not do that again, if I had been using my actual head to look into the clearing I'd be just as well off as that badger. I don't quite understand why you would allow such a thing to continue existing though. Don't you guys usually just bomb whatever is causing issues like this?"
One of the women who had stayed behind to watch the man in case of any problems responded, "Well, we can't exactly risk angering a beast that is able to control or erode minds and souls. That leaves possession targets that we could end up having a difficult time differentiating from any others. If it were human, we could easily spot them struggling to control a new body, but with a beast, I don't see us noticing faster than their instincts right themselves. Neither do I wish to risk it."
"Then I'd say your best bet is to send in a sense deprived as there hasn't been any recorded case of mental manipulation through smell they should be fine."