“Screw waiting!” I said in disbelief. My eyes almost popped out of my head as the memory loomed in my vision as if I were right in front of the gate itself. I couldn’t stop my sputtering mouth from word vomiting all over the place.
“That looks like a damn gate to hell, like a ‘walk-between-realms’ kind of gate, the kind of gate that gods and monsters and alien armies waltz through as they laugh maniacally about how they’re going to grind our bones to make our bread.” I turned to Tuki, taking a mental picture of his size and comparing it to the memory of the size of the gate. “Fuck, it does look big enough for giants. Great, that’s just what this world needs, giants, as if giant monkeys and dogs and crocodiles weren’t enough.”
Unable to stop my frightened grumbling, I clambered onto Tuki’s back. With a few powerful flaps, the magnificent bird effortlessly climbed to the sky. The air from way up here on Tuki’s back was frosty as the early morning chill hadn’t worn off. Winter was well on its way and even the southern region of what used to be the United States didn’t want to change its weather patterns for the apocalypse. Spot sat in my lap in his smallest form, acting as a heat buffer to prevent speed-induced hypothermia. The peace of the early morning was really at odds with my pounding heart and racing thoughts.
Looking back through my memories with my Consciousness Sorcery, I remember covering that one gate up with stone back way back when before I really knew everything, and there’s a glimpse or two of one from slivers of Reeanth’s memories that I’d been able to glean. Combing through what I possessed of Rath’s memories wasn’t really that helpful, as dragons seem to have their own workaround to walking between dimensions.
As the encampment came into view, I decided to go with the most diplomatic option first, saying hello. My idea made me feel like the unwanted aunt at a kid’s birthday party. Oh hello, I brought presents to mask the fact that I’m already a bottle of wine in. Don’t mind me. I’ll just hit on the neighborhood dads while I’m at it.
I rolled my eyes as my reeled my brain back in. Asking Tuki to drop us off about a mile before what I assumed was the edge of the territory, I made sure Spot knew to stay in small-dog form and then took the time and care to ensure as little magical energy as possible was leaking from my gear. Svalinn was in gauntlet mode and Gungnir sat as an unassuming dagger at my waist. To be less conspicuous, I had Svalinn and Gungnir appear to be dull steel so that no one would look twice. I looked well armored, but not like any sorcerer I’d imagine.
I always pictured a Gandalf looking dude as the classic wizard or sorcerer complete with big flowy robes and holding a fancy staff with a giant gem at the crown. And here I was with my silvery platinum and iridium covered bone armor that almost made me appear as some kind of fancy magical knight. Double checking to make sure my armor wasn’t currently shiny, I decided to round out the disguise.
I used my Consciousness Sorcery to branch off a background process in my mind to constantly project an unassuming wave or light fog of mental magic that simply communicated the idea ‘not an active threat’. I could do worse, honestly. Anything to misdirect from who I really was and my real intentions. I couldn’t guarantee that these people wouldn’t instantly attack, and convincing them of something that clearly wasn’t true would be harder than a subtle deflection, as I am not currently a threat to them as long as they don’t attempt to harm or threaten me.
Tuki’s mental bond let me know that he was way up above the alien camp by now, waiting on my call to swoop down and get us out if we needed him. Spot bumped me in the leg, reassuring me that he was dog enough to muscle us out of there as well. Taking a deep breath, I turned and started jogging towards the camp. Spot easily kept up, his optimistic canine demeanor not knowing or really caring that this might be the most dangerous or dumb thing that we’ve ever done, he just liked to run. His tongue lolled out as if he were having just the best day. We were only missing a tennis ball and a bag full of dog treats. I couldn’t help but chuckle just a little bit, loving the way that animals could be so in the moment.
And me, trying to live in the moment, almost got myself killed. Not paying attention to how fast we were going, we got pretty close to the edge of the camp and I hadn’t even been in touch with my ongoing magical scans. I’d simply been enjoying the effortless run and the fantastic morning air.
A warning siren sounded in my head pulling me up short just as a magical veil shimmered out of existence and came down revealing ten huge tower shields facing me. I skidded a few inches before I noticed their silvery spiked fronts covered in black runes that menacingly crackled with energy.
As if that weren’t intimidating enough, each tower shield was held by a giant Centauri warrior that held a fearsome futuristic black carbine propped on top of their shields. It was a Roman shield wall complete with guns; I didn’t miss the fact that they also had sword hilts sticking up out of the back of their armor either.
Now that I was actually paying attention to what my magical senses were telling me, I could make out the strangeness of their firearms. There was no detectable explosive material like gunpowder at the base of their bullet, but each bullet was shaped like a shotgun shell filled with something dense. Speeding up my perception of time temporarily as I stopped with my hands up, I took a closer look at the bullets pointed my way with my magical senses.
The entire weapon system looked more like a miniaturized railgun than anything else. I remember some half-assed schematic from an old Popular Science or Popular Mechanics magazine. A whole bunch of nerds from before theorized about using opposing magnetic fields to shoot bullets or missiles without gunpowder or rocket fuel. The concept was cool but here the shotgun-ish rounds themselves were filled with pieces of silver coated diamond spiky ball that were half the size of a pencil eraser instead of metallic spikes that mainly relied on kinetic energy. Keeping in mind the size difference here between a regular human and a Centauri human, the rounds were also proportionally bigger as well. One blast from that thing would probably cut me in half, and maybe Spot too if he got shot while still in his smaller form.
Stuck to the back of their tower shields just above where their arms were gripping the handholds, I could barely make out magnetized magazines full of different kinds of ammo. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. As far as I know, the Centauri don’t have sorcerers but they do have battle wizards, and if you couple that with a blend of futuristic technology and magic, obviously you get beefed up magical guns that would make any nerd drool. They put Master Chief to shame. But that’s the kind of firepower it takes to live in a universe where magic is real and even dogs are capable of easily eating unarmed humans, let alone the kinds of monstrosities that our outdated legends describe.
Mentally commanding Spot to sit next to me and look friendly, I very carefully and very slowly took a step back with my hands up. “I mean no harm!” I said clearly, doing my best to keep a friendly tone. “I’m just looking for some help. Please, is there someone I can talk to?” Their helmets covered their faces, so I couldn’t even tell if they understood me.
“English? Please, anyone? I can talk mind to mind if that helps?” Opening up the barriers to my mind, I kept my consciousness’s tendrils out in the open but ready to retreat or attack at the first sign of danger. One of the Centauri on the edge of the shield wall, left his shield standing there connected to the others and faced me, his gun pointed straight at me as his other hand pulled the sword from its sheath. He yelled something I didn’t understand, but from his motions it was clear he wanted me to get on the ground. Slowly taking another step back, I raised my voice.
“I mean no harm, I promise, but I am not doing that!” I said, shaking my head, trying to get across that I wanted to talk to someone but I wasn’t submitting to anything. I took another slow step back.
The soldier’s yelling turned into a sharp bark. As one, the other nine Centauri lifted their shield walls, the unmanned shield came with the rest, took a step forward and slammed them down. This wasn’t really working the way I was hoping. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, and whatever Rath gave me forever ago that allowed me to understand Reeanth had clearly worn off. She could speak English now due to our magically enforced bond, but that doesn’t help me now when she’s at least three days away.
“Reeanth Le’Talv! Reeanth Le’Talv!” I called out, slowly taking steps back as if trying to not to trigger the predator instincts of the Centauri.
The bristling intimidation tactics stopped as all ten of them looked back and forth at each other. I knew that Reeanth was a ways away, but they sure didn’t, and I could work with that. While their faces weren’t visible, I could feel their residual emotions leaking out, familiarity with what I said and hints of confusion as well.
“I know Reeanth Le’Talv, let me speak to someone who knows English or a damn good translation spell!”
The way they hunched forward again with their weapons pointed at my face communicated that they understood somehow that I cursed in their direction and assumed that I was insulting them, even though it wasn’t directly meant for them. Centauri number ten outside of the shield wall, who I assumed was in charge, took a couple steps back and raised his forearm holding the sword near his mouth and started speaking. His gun was still pointed at me, but lowered as if he recognized that I wasn’t an immediate danger to him or his men.
As I was waiting, I took the time to take and store mental pictures of what my senses were showing me about Centauri number ten’s armor and weaponry. Reeanth’s weapons were gone before she swore herself to me and her new armor was in seriously bad shape compared to what she used to have, but this guy had the full kit. He had the good stuff, the new stuff. Their system of magic was so different to mine. Reeanth was right, they didn’t have what we would call batteries, but what they did have was a sort of flowing closed system. They banked their energy preservation process through an intricate flowing system of rune channels and devices with their body as the primary producer!
In layman’s terms, they did not have batteries like mine to store their energy, but they did a bunch of strange runes clustered every couple of inches from each other that acted as a kind of mana sink, where it pooled until it overflowed and then traveled down another channel to another mana sink. They barely lost any energy as the magical power wasn’t actually being stored, but moved around like a closed hydroponics system with reservoirs that fed the system as they received more than they could hold. It was as if they made a river as winding and curving as possible while adding as many deep pools to the river bends so that as much water could stay in the system as possible. The bleedoff of the power that the system couldn’t catch was constantly absorbed by their weapons which also had a similar system of runes and channels.
The Centauri body itself, the flesh and blood, was clearly the main generator of power, the spring that fed the energy into the suit, and at the end of the runic channels, the magical power was fed back into the body. It was genius, they worked with what they had and created a kind of energy preservation system that mimicked a river. There were even whirlpool runic structures evenly spaced out along the suit to absorb mana from the air to minimize the energy loss. Without being able to store power, but having the capability to produce it and the technology to channel it, they created a sort of web of constantly circulating magical power that was complex enough to slow down the loss of the excess mana.
I could see the immediate weakness of the system, they could only pull a big chunk of magical power from their personal reserves of energy. However much their body could hold at one time, that’s what they could use. If they wanted to refill their reserves or gather extra energy for a really big spell, then they could pull more from their suit which held the extra power even though it still bled through various runic leaks.
At the fingertips of their armor, and at other combat contact points such as feet, knees, and elbows, were angular runes that gave off a feeling of hunger, which I deduced were a vampiric structure allowing them to directly drain enemies of their mana. This sapping effect would allow them to offset the cost of using their magic while in combat. Noting the same runes carved along the blade of Number Ten’s sword, I turned my attention to their shields. The more I applied my Consciousness Sorcery to my magical senses, the more I could feel or almost hear some kind of intent behind the runes, probably a leftover imprint of the crafter that made the runes.
A grouping of sigils near each of the spikes on their shields radiated an animalistic hunger, equipped with either a kind of blood or mana draining function, and then there were puzzle piece lines of runes along the seams of shields where the adjoining one connected and the other runes slotted in with its partner. To the discerning power of my Mana Sorcery, those sigil lines sounded like stubborn dogs that won’t let go of food when you’re trying to open their mouth. My guess is that was the binding mechanism for the shields to withstand a charge or assault from larger enemies.
A cross-like inscription of runes ran up the middle and trailed along every edge of the individual shield, invoking the strange image of kids playing hot potato. Now that one was confusing, something about transference or quickly getting rid of something. The feeling got stronger until it hit me, that was their version of kinetic transference runes.
When you put it all together, the strategic creation and placement became apparent. I should have figured it out quicker. The vampiric runes would make the enemy bleed if they crashed into the shield and drain them of their mana at the same time. Then, the binding mechanisms at the edges would keep the shield wall together through large impacts, functionally forcing the shield wall to literally be a single unit. And then, the entire time that combat was going on, the kinetic runes would absorb the charge and channel the kinetic energy from the blast or assault into the earth. I bet some of that kinetic energy also got converted into pure mana for their gear and armor but I couldn’t make out the back of the shields too well.
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[Focus!] I said, mentally chiding myself for getting lost in the alien design of their armor and weaponry. [Focus, speed up perception of time for a moment and screenshot everything for later . . . . . aaaaaaannnnd done!]
I finished up just in time for three even bigger Centauri soldiers to arrive from their base and start conversing with the guy I designated as Number Ten. Two of the new soldiers were pointing at me, their voices quickly getting louder while the third mediated with his arms crossed. Spot sent the mental equivalent of a question to me, now? Giving a firm ‘no’ as a reply, I sent down the feeling of me petting him on the head to keep him calm.
While I was keeping my dragon-canine from hulking out and playing ‘fetch’ with the Centauri, my own patience was beginning to wear thin. I thought about how easy it would be, use a bit of Earth Sorcery to entomb them, a dash of Flesh Sorcery to drain them of their mana, and then Consciousness Sorcery to pry their minds open and get the delicious answers I wanted.Unfortunately, that particular course of action would absolutely eliminate any possibility of us becoming allies, unless I altered their memories. And my sense of caution won out mainly because this whole imaginary scenario fiasco was in full view of the quasi-settlement.
Simply not worth the risk.
Turning my attention towards the gate that was put up way too fast for my liking, I saw that it was exactly as Tuki’s memories showed me, or a bit further along in construction. Grand runes larger than cars were being etched and mechanically filled in so that I could clearly see it from way over here, but at least it didn’t look ready.
“Hey!” I shouted, surprising the arguing mini-giants. “Reeanth Le’Talv! I know you know who that is, and she’s on her way here. She’ll be here in a couple days. I don't have time for this! My brother is here, I followed a tracking spell and god fucking damn it I ain’t leaving without him!”
The mediator started laughing as the other two drew their weapons. “Quit playing with the human, can’t you see he’s shaking with fear?”
My jaw dropped. The bastards understood me this whole damn time. The other two larger soldiers doubled over laughing as well.
“Stand down Reavers. It’s obvious he’s a native. Not that there’s many left of them. Besides, we don’t know who the fuck she is, but ‘Le’Talv’ is a title that only nobility possess.”
The non-shield wall soldiers straightened up after a minute and took off their helmets, wiping the tears of laughter from their eyes. All I wanted to do was flatten them, in this exact moment, or better yet, feed them to Spot. The one who didn’t point a weapon at me was a male, easily a foot taller than the rest of his soldiers and about as wide as a freaking bear. The other two were female, judging from their long hair, feminine bone structure and higher pitched voices. Try as I might, they just had too much armor on to see if there were female parts, yeah nope, they got hips.
“What’s your name, son? And how long have you been out here?”
Gritting my teeth, I answered slowly. “Ben, and too fucking long. Close as I can guess, probably anywhere from four to six months. You tend to lose track when you’re fighting for your life.”
The two females' happy expressions vanished instantly. “You mean at least four years right?”
“Captain, it can’t be true?” The second woman looked at the Captain and then back to her counterpart. “That would mean . . “
“Yes Corporal, it would mean exactly that.”
Spot’s quick singular bark cut them off. “Mean what, exactly?” I questioned, trying to look each of them in the eye. “You know, for those of us who don’t know?”
At the Captain’s nod, the first female answered. “First, my name is Smith, Corporal Ashley Smith, and this is my bond-friend Corporal Ava Johnson. We were rescued from the tearing of the Veil four years ago.”
Corporal Johnson picked up where her friend left off. “We were briefed that time passed differently between the rest of the universe and here due to the introduction of magic into a zone that didn’t have any, but no one really knew how much. The overwhelming tide of mana and Chaos skewed every kind of reading, both scientific and magical that was possible. It’s also a rare enough event that our leadership had no way of anticipating a time-compression.”
The largest of the soldiers stepped forward and nodded in my direction. His bread was neatly trimmed and my Flesh Sorcery screamed at me that this man was older than he looked. He had been magically de-aged and enhanced. “And I am the acting Captain Casparai, former United States Army Ranger, inducted into the grand army of the Alpha Centauri Empire. Formally, we are under the lost throne of Atlantis branch as that was the former capital of the Empire that we hope to recapture while we’re here. We serve here because the lower levels of ambient mana do not affect us as much as our Centauri overlords but also because we have a better chance of connecting with anyone left behind.”
“So,” I sputtered, hamming up my role. “You all are human, or, used to be? You’re huge, all of you! And how did you learn their language?”
“Modern alchemy and cool magitech,” Corporal Johnson answered easily with a sly grin. “In order for us to use magic and have a chance at returning home, we had to undergo alterations. The three of us chose to do so with a bit of frost giant blood, so now we’re much bigger and stronger than any normal Centauri and our inherent magic is deeper. And here.” She tossed a small necklace to me. “That is a universal translator. It’s a bit rough but it gets the job done. Over time, it will imprint the latest language in your brain and you won’t need it. See, we all have one.”
“You can come too if you want,” Corporal Smith offered while also showing off her translator. “They offered the enhancements for free if we agreed to join the military and scout out earth. Our orders are to restart civilization again and find the lost capital of Atlantis. Most of the readings are still unintelligible but it’s either under the Sahara desert or locked underneath the Antarctic.”
Captain Caspari jumped in. “OR! Or it’s been swallowed up by the Pacific. We know Earth has lived through more than a few natural disasters.”
I couldn’t bring myself to speak for a moment. It was all a little much. They were too friendly, even if they were telling the truth, which I just couldn’t believe. I watched as they bantered like old friends, or soldiers who’d seen some serious shit together. I could tell that they all had a bond deeper than just being friends. The Centauri holding the shield wall hadn’t moved a muscle, keeping me dead in the sights as they watched the meet and greet unfold.
Coughing in surprise as they all turned to look at me, I shrugged my shoulders as Spot bumped my leg. “No, thank you, but I’m good. All I want to do is find my brother. His name is Andrew Jones, and he goes by Andy. He was twenty-one when this whole thing started, but that would make him twenty-four or twenty-five if time got all mixed up like you said. I have it on good information that he’s here.”
“I’m not sure we know anyone by that name,” Captain Casparai said slowly, easing the grip he had on his shield. “Most of the able bodied chose the genetic treatments and species alterations. The promise of a much longer life and fantastic abilities was too much for most to resist. It’s not just physical issues that these treatments fixed, but mental ones went away. So many former service members with post-traumatic stress disorder jumped at the chance for a ‘cure’.”
“I’m sorry, but I feel like you’re avoiding the question, or there’s something big you’re not telling me.”
Corporal Smith cut in with a pained smile. “What the good Captain means to say is that some cures and treatments had a contingency, and those usually were to join the frontline against the Hive. They’re a sort of insect based alien that . . “
I cut her off with a wave of my hand. “I already know about the Hive, and honestly, I have much bigger problems to deal with. I just want to know if you have a soldier or human or whatever kind of person here that used to go by the name of Andrew Jones. My name is Benjamin Jones, but everyone calls me Ben.”
Corporal Johnson gasped. “What do you mean you don’t care about the Hive? If you know about them, then you know they’re the biggest threat humanity as a whole is facing, and should be begging us to help fight them! You’re a magic user, it’s your job!”
“Do you think the Hive is a bigger threat than the Hungry Ones?” I asked innocently.
The relaxed posture of all the Centauri suddenly changed into a fearful kind of angry watchfulness even as I calmly kept right on petting Spot behind the ears. I could feel that every one of them was instantly more tense.
“I can take care of myself, genetic treatments or not, but you’re in for a huge surprise if all you’ve been told about are the Hive.” Finally letting my guard down, I knelt down next to Spot and scratched his scruff. Sighing deeply, I gave my buddy a hug. “I’ll tell you where they are if you let me see the faces of all of your soldiers here. I’ll be on my way if my brother isn’t here.”
“Sorry kid,” Captain Casparai replied, “We really can’t let you leave now, operational security and all that. But we can let you see if your family is here, it’s the least we can do. What kind of magic can you do anyway? I have to keep my men safe.”
“Ahem!”
“And women.”
Not stopping my steady scratching of Spot, I took a deep breath and thought about it. Letting them know that I was a sorcerer was definitely not an option, and I didn’t miss the overt threat either. With my dog here, the most believable option is what would keep me sufficiently under the radar.
“I’m a beast-tamer.”
Their laughter wasn’t funny for me. It was honestly the best lie I could come up with at the time, and somewhat plausible too. Speaking softly but just loud enough for everyone to hear, I said, “Spot, change!”
I’m normally not very good at lying, but having Consciousness Sorcery really helped out my ad-libbing skills in the moment. Normally, my bad memory would screw me over in the department of keeping track of what lies I told and to whom, but preprogrammed emergency verbal responses on command certainly help, especially considering how little brain power it actually takes to come up with a plausible lie.
Reinforcing my command mentally with exactly what I wanted him to do, my dog grew to his normal size, currently bigger than a Ford F-250, and bounded around as if that’s what he wanted to do all along. Three jumps and a buttload of barking served to freak out the soldiers who faltered behind their shields from the earth shaking, which I helped just a teeny bit. “Good boy! Now shake!” His giant tail began to wag back and forth, bowling over the captain and his corporals.
“Damn it dog, not ‘shake’ the tail, shake hands!” I laughed out loud, holding one hand up. My favorite dog did exactly what I wanted him to do. “We can play with Kong when we get back, I know you want to,” I cooed, unable to hide my own glee.
Spot carefully lifted one paw right in front of my face and I high-fived it. “Good boy, now get small again. Can’t be freakin’ out the new locals now can we?”
In a flash of yellow and orange fire, my dog was normal size again, sitting calmly at my feet. Pointing up in the sky, I caught Captain Casparai’s eye. “And that one up there is mine too. Don't shoot him or we might have a problem. I’m not really a threat to y’all, but that’s Spot’s snuggle buddy.”
So maybe I wasn't what a dungeons and dragons nerd would classify as a usual ‘beast tamer’, but I sure could fake it, especially considering Spot’s enthusiasm to prove me right. A loud crack of thunder from the Centauri gate cut me off from having to explain further. Snakes of white lightning arced from one giant set of runes to another as the inner space of the gate where air used to be started to liquify and swirl like a whirlpool that some deity decided to flip on its side.
“What the fucking hell is that?” Even though I asked the question, I’m pretty sure that I didn’t need an answer just yet. Finding my brother and taking this whole thing down while not making new enemies all fell to the wayside as the sharp scent of ozone became more prominent and things began crawling out of the gate. Wasting no time, Spot grew to his largest size, easily over two stories tall with angry flames dancing across his fur.
“It’s a damn gate you backwards normie,” Corporal Smith said, turning her weapons towards whatever was coming out of the gate. “And that isn’t supposed to be happening! Captain, those don’t look like reinforcements to me!”
Casparai checked his weapon and barked, his demeanor completely changing as he took charge. “Decant the sleepers, we’re gonna need em!”
At the Captain’s orders, Corporal Johnson sped off towards their camp, the rest of the soldiers hauling ass after her. Their long legs ate up the distance faster than any normal human sprinter could do. As the other Corporal ran off after her battle buddy, Captain Casparai rounded on me and slapped me on the chest with a small medal that stuck in my armor.
“Welcome aboard pipsqueak. You’re hereby deputized into the Marauders, the vaunted 2nd Legion of the Reclamation fleet. Wear the shield proudly.”
That odd disk wasn’t just a medal. The instant the little plate of metal hit my armor, a set of tiny metal spikes began doing their best to burrow through my chest plate to get to my skin, and even smaller tendrils of magic were attempting to drill into my armor. Clapping my hand over it and steeling my face to keep from reacting to the insane sense of danger that came over me, I focused my Earth and Mana sorcery into it, ripping up the small enchantments and crumpling the disk without letting the Captain see as he had already turned back towards all the hubbub and was starting to catch up with his squad.
I froze as what could only be described as Godzilla’s ugly ass cousin from West Virginia stepped, or stomped, or crushed its way through the gate. The large black longhouse looking structures that I now knew were hibernation chambers were now floating up and away from the chaos while opening up all along the long sides, multiple sets of five fully armored soldiers hopping out, shaking their limbs as if they had just woken up.
Quickly forming up into shield walls with their carbines at the ready, they met up with the other groups of awakened ‘sleepers’ and began retreating, or tactically moving in a rearward direction. Not a word was spoken between them, almost as if they were communicating telepathically or had trained for this exact scenario. More soldiers emerged from the floating hibernation longhouses than I thought possible. They must have been stacked up in there tighter than bees stacking honeycomb.
Grabbing a hold of Spot’s knee, I hoisted myself up to his back to get a better look at Fugly emerging from the gate. Half of the limbs of the massive alien intruder were solid black, shiny like a beetle’s carapace while other parts appeared to be raw flesh slowly weeping acidic ooze.
I didn’t have time to talk. As quickly as this situation was devolving, I had to find my brother. Mentally communicating my plan to Spot, my trusty canine took off and ran down the Captain before he could get very far. As gently as he could, Spot snatched him up and tossed him up and over so that he landed, painfully, right in front of me.
“Wha-oof!?”
Not giving the Centauri time to react, I grabbed the good Captain by his shoulders and flung us both backwards, quickly using my Earth Sorcery to turn the dirt we landed on into a much softer kind that swallowed us up. With a concentrated spike of mana, I drove my mind as gently as I could into his, bypassing his somewhat formidable but badly set up mental defenses.
Thirty feet below the earth’s surface, I held the Centauri soldier perfectly still with my will alone as I plundered his mind for what I wanted. Reeanth’s mind was full of ciphers and encryptions, but this guy was relatively new. He didn’t have the hundred plus years of training and programming that she did to keep me out. His mind wasn’t even well organized, not that I should be complaining or even have any room to talk.
Mine was a kid’s playroom until I got my Consciousness Sorcery.