I became one with the blur. My face was pressed into the beast's chest and my breath left me the instant I was picked up from the shock of going from zero to sixty faster than any sports car. I was unable to move my body, and could not see where we were or even how I was being held. I still felt it though. Like my entire body was woven into the only thing I could see.

Long and luxurious golden fur frosted at its base by a white undercoat, with a strong smell of dust and sage. It was beautiful. If I had been able to breathe or move, or just wasn’t about to die six ways from Sunday, I probably would have been running my hand through it. If I’m honest I definitely would have been, and collecting whatever shed to make into a bracelet. People did that where I’m from. Legit, it’s actually a real thing.

Though I could not see beyond the creature, I still felt the wind whipping by us at formula one speeds. It was louder than a tiger roaring next to my ears, and by the time a second had passed they had already popped. Whether it was the speed we were traveling at or the ridiculous distance and height it was getting from each gigantic leap, I don’t know, but I do know that after about 5 minutes of constant pressure and adrenaline it blessedly ended.

We had rebounded off so many canyon walls, and launched into the air so often that my stomach didn’t care if I couldn’t open my mouth, it wanted out. I was able to force it down, and not end my day drowning in vomit, but that just left why I was paralyzed. It wasn’t fear, though I did pretty much piss myself, and that scorpion bastard hadn’t been able to get whatever shit he was cooking up off, so what can it be?

While I was wracking my brain to figure out why I couldn’t move, the beast unceremoniously dropped me on the ground. My brain then caught up with my body—cut me some slack, they hadn’t known each other long—it also caught up to the smooth stone floor, where I lay still, drooling like a fountain. Not by choice, mind you.

I had a good view of the rock I had been dumped on, and my expectations of blue and grey sandstones were dashed. It was almost perfectly smooth and flat, dark brown, like earth, but with the body of granite. Just a few feet away from my vantage was a wall of the same stone with a curved joint where it met the floor. The same curve continued for the little ways I could see to either direction, with the walls doing the same, giving the impression of a round or curved room as well.

My savior, and hopefully not my executioner too, was ambling around at my back, occasionally chirping in a somehow deep and also falsetto multitone. I heard clattering as if it was searching through a pile of ceramics and metals, and couldn’t help but wonder what it would be doing. Really I was just praying I wasn’t about to die and it had just taken me as a trophy. Some people might find that a demeaning life, but they’ve never been faced with the two options, I bet. I had no sworn paralyzed slave brothers to rally with, anyway.

A few minutes passed of this, until an excited squeak that rattle my body sounded out. A quick patter with a lot of weight behind them later, and I was being rolled around to see my captor. It was, surprisingly, a mouse. That is, if mice had muzzles like a wolf and were easily as big as a Jeep.

I couldn’t widen my eyes in surprise or fear, but I definitely tried. Its golden orbs looked even more menacing when they were only feet away from my own, and I couldn’t help the bit of liquid my pants got courtesy of my bladder. I know, a lot of you may have faced down much worse than a big mouse, even ones with giant muzzles and sharp fangs. I hadn’t.

The closest I had come to a predator matching is a tossup between seeing a fully grown amur tiger up close, or when I saw an orca while I was in the water off the west coast. I didn’t piss when the tiger had run at the glass, but I definitely did when that orca came up out of the darkness below where I was floating. Don’t go swimming off the side of a yacht just because someone dared you to for a hundred dollars. It’s not worth the weed you were planning to buy with it. Though that would help with the anxiety that comes after.

Though I did in fact have some on me, as the hair holding me in place had not only kept me warm but secured my meager possessions. I had no way to get it, sadly, and my anxiety was staring me in the face. Unless everything was all a coma dream then a giant rodent with sharp teeth and a vicious gleam in their eyes were currently looking at me intensely, a slight cock to their humongous head.

A long moment passed, with nary a twitch of their whiskers. It righted its head furrowed it's brows, looking even angrier than before. What I could only assume was an attack slammed into me.

Not physically, thank a god of your choosing, since that would have quickly made me pate a la Creed. Instead it was a sharp pain in my mind. Similar to a migraine, but with the full force of it clustered directly behind and above the bridge of my nose. They stopped moments later, to my relief, and the pain stopped. They chittered to themselves, tilting their head back and forth before looking at me yet again.

The pain came back and this time stayed, feeling like a high-powered laser pointed at the center of my forehead. It changed though. No longer a steady beam it altered in intensity, ranging from barely there to more painful than the first time, like running your hand from a moving car pretending its floating on a wave of air.

They focused their eyes again, now slitted with all but 2 inches closed and the beam increased in frequency. It got closer and closer to pure, constant agony, but it was no more than a second after it hit that point that everything ended. Not everything, as in the world, I wasn’t and still aren’t that histrionic.

The violent massage of my nerve endings stopped. What had felt like a rapidly increasing wave of heat and agony was now a stream of cooling balm. With its lack, came something else. Something I very much had not expected to come out of this situation. Even with all the craziness I had gone through so far.

| Can you understand me now?

I know, I know. Why would a mouse like thing talking surprise me when I had met multiple god-level entities and even screwed one over? Well. It was a giant talking mouse that could literally rip me to pieces or swallow me nearly whole. Not exactly a thing you’re expecting any kind of communication with.

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I tried to speak and failed, obviously, considering I was still drooling a pools worth of water onto the stone below me. Already it had formed a small circle the size of my head. I then had the bright idea just to think my response towards them. I could still feel the beam in the back of my mind just no longer painful, so it must be some kind of ongoing mental connection.

- I can. Thank you for saving me from that scorpion. My name’s Creed, by the way. I was just taking a bath and tried to hide, but then I just froze up, as you can see.. You’re not going to eat me, are you?

| Maybe. I haven't decided.

-Are you serious?

| I am serious, and call me Sorrelly. To answer your question, no, I do not eat sapient or sophontic creatures. But what you choose soon will determine whether you live or I am disposing of your corpse to the family of that pest I killed earlier.

- I would prefer the choice that doesn’t lead to that? I felt like a ping pong ball being bounced between powerful entities holding my life in their hand. I was pissed, and scared, but I wasn’t stupid enough to antagonize whoever this thing was.

| That is up to you. I do not mean to insinuate that I would be your end; that would be courtesy of yourself. You decided to bathe in and drink toxic water and have accumulated a substantial amount of ***. It is breaking down your bodily Resonances. Eventually it will do the same to your soul's connection, and you’ll pass back into the Stream.

- So I’m dying again. Great. Sorry, I’m just.. Frustrated. This has happened way too often lately.

| You have ingested an Aurum infusion and were saved from death by a Torridai more than once? They raised an eyebrow, along with a small stuttering chirp

- Not exactly. The whole dying thing I meant. You said I could save myself? It doesn’t involve moving, I hope.

| It does not, though I pray you do not believe I am offering this free of charge.

- Honestly? I’m fine with that. I’ve been given too much ‘free’ stuff lately. Hasn’t really worked out well.

| There’s certainly truth to that statement. If there is one thing I have learned in my life in this desert, it is that nothing is free. Everything must be earned, in whatever manner, but nothing is free. I digress, apologies. Your situation is time sensitive, after all.

- That's fine. So what do I have to do? And what exactly is wrong?

I tried moving again, and failed. It seemed I really should have boiled that water, even if it took longer. Or found another source. I didn’t see any cacti though, and only those trees may have held some nearby. It was drink the water or die I thought, but I guess the choice was really die this way or die that way.

They tilted their head back and forth, as if unsure of how to respond, which did not sit well with me.

|There are a few things we could try, but the one with the greatest chance of success also happens to be the one with the least pain/side effects. Some rains, here in the Prismatic Desert at least, are not normal rains, but a downpour of chaotically ordered Aurum. Pure possibility falling from the skies in an ethereal manifestation that could lead to grass growing, monsters or other flora/fauna spawning, the sand turning to gold dust, lava, or the remnants of a stellar core. Aurum, despite having order, is still just a step away from chaos and anything can happen. Structured infinity is still infinity.

- Why would it paralyze me though? Is that just an effect of it, or something else?

|Be glad you are paralyzed, and not dead. The Humegirta, had it been alive, would also be dead. It drank and lay in the lower pools because without the filtering from the stone and plants between it and the source, it too would have succumbed to the same toxins you have.

It aimed one of its paws towards the small containers sitting on the floor in front of it. I assumed they were what it had been scrambling around trying to find before flipping me over. They were identical but simple cylindrical pieces about the size of my hand and half again as tall, with a line near the top that I assumed meant it could be unscrewed.

|These will clear the main bulk of the toxins from your body, as they would not have been absorbed by now. What’s left will need to be slowly cleansed Pneumatically. And by yourself, at that. You’ll need to move the resonance from the Indira extract here, and filter it through every affected cell in your body. Right now, that’s around 80%. Your brain thankfully has not been damaged, or you’d already be gone.

- I, uh.. I don’t know how? I didn’t know what Pneuma or a Resonance were before here, let alone how to use them to heal myself. I’ve only read a small pamphlet since then anyway. How difficult will it be?

| That may be a problem. At the very least you will need to be able to sense your own personal Resonance, isolate its signal from everything around you, and then within it locate the Resonance of the Indira here, then push that through your body to force out the dissonant energy left over from the Aurum that created the water. I would recommend starting now, after I inject you with the Infusion.

- Fuck. Okay. How do I start?

| First, take this, and do not resist. It will be painful in a very physical way, though not so much as when I first tried to communicate with you. Ephemeral abilities such as this tend to feel more damaging than they really are.

They lifted and unscrewed each cylinder in turn, revealing a bright orange and viscous liquid swirling around the inside, seemingly of its own accord. Their left paw raised and both batches streamed out of their containers before combining in a ball just above my chest. The mouse used their other paw to push me onto my back, bringing the orange orb closer to me, stopping about six inches from my barely moving chest.

With a wave of their still raised paw, the liquid sublimated to a gas, spreading to cover me from head to toe, soaking through my thin clothes as if they were not there. At first, it was only warming, as if I had just used a good amount of Icy Hot, but that grew slowly into an intense burning sensation that gathered in different concentrations throughout my body. I assumed that it was targeting the toxins, as they had said and could even feel a much higher amount around my liver, trying to rid me of it all.

|It’s in. Now you’ll need to separate yourself from the Empirical world, turn inwards and feel the Resonance produced by your body. Use the tether of your consciousness and follow it to the place between your body and your soul. Feel the Resonance of your soul, before it is modified by the Realm you're in. In between is your Pneuma. Use this, bound to your will, to move the Indira from your body. When you eject it, the toxins will come with it, though you will be weak for a time.

Sorrelly waddled a good distance away, plopping down behind an eclectic mound of various items and containers of all kinds. It looked like a small time hoarder deciding to sell their wares by the pile.

| This will help you along the way to your Second Oscillation as well, though I doubt you need more incentive than living. I will wait here. Though I am patient, the Infusion I gave you is not. Do not tarry.

With that they closed their eyes, leaving me to blindly grasp for a way not to pass back through Notts domain. If no one will give me real directions, I'll figure it out myself. Or die trying anyway.

With a monumental effort of will closed my eyes, took as deep a breath as my suppression would allow, and dived on in.