“The guilds are moving to secure the allegiance of these planets once their seats on the council are filled. The triumvirate will send gifts and knowledge in equal measure. We have needed a new universe for assassins for some time now.”
-Intercepted transmission from a Throneworld of the Necrocracy
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Twenty minutes after coming across all of the minds hiding inside of the massive tree, Thomas still hadn’t found any clues as to where the alpha might be. Vaguely he knew that he needed to get moving because he was still out in the open between the gigantic mangroves. However the lack of an alpha inside the clearly massive amount of cats inside the tree was making him nervous.
Quickly he moved to the outside of the ring of trees with the power of his own mind. Now facing the outer edge of the circle Thomas began to move past the suspicious tree and began to analyze the others in the ring as he began a long trek along the outer edge. Checking each tree’s interior and sometimes casting his mental gaze up into the canopy that revealed just a handful of massive birds flying above him.
At first glance the third tree was completely devoid of thought, but as Thomas slowed down and looked closer he spotted a few lights of thought but not nearly as many as the second tree had. However, reading the surface thoughts at a glance revealed all cats in roaming groups as well as a handful of lone hunters. Surprisingly enough not a single crab ambush hill was within his range and he hadn’t spotted one yet.
Perhaps killing their alpha had caused all of them to flee past the edges of this circle of trees. Thomas pondered the answer to that mystery as he continued to fly around the circle of trees. Keeping his platform close to the root system edge for cover meant that he wasn’t attacked a single time. A few cats caught his scent but none of them were quick enough to catch him while he was flying on the platform.
Every other tree only had a handful of cats, not a single one was close to the second tree he had encountered. Even as he closed in on it for the second time it almost blinded him with the sheer intensity of so many thoughts in a compressed area. Regardless of the difficulty he had to at least try and dive further into the thoughts of all those cats and at the very least get some clues as to where the alpha was.
More than an hour later after carefully reading a hundred minds he finally saw it. A single thought that was very simple but told him exactly where he needed to look next.
‘Alpha returns from hunting with food soon. Must tell the pack.’
Of course, the alpha was out hunting and he’d need to wait for it to get back and then try to kill it. There was no way he was going to fight all of the cats inside the tree by himself, so there was only one option. Wait until the alpha returns, and then track it as it leaves to corner it away from its massive pack. Thomas nodded to himself and sat down on his invisible platform to rest while he waited.
Sitting down on a flat surface kinda sucked, so Thomas decided to test his abilities while he kept a close eye on the pack that was only one tree over. Shaping the flat platform into more of a curved seat was as easy as breathing and it was much more comfortable. After relaxing for a moment he decided to try and look deeper into the minds of the monstrous cats that apparently hunted down the massive birds.
In Thomas’ mental perception, minds were like pinpricks of light in an endless void. The void was three dimensional but only minds were visible within it, there were no obstacles like the hundreds of feet of wood that separated him from the cubs playing inside the tree. Only space that he could reach across with his own mind and read the thoughts that hovered just above those spots of light. For example those cubs were thinking about what kind of bird was going to be for dinner, while the adults were guarding against possible threats. A few small packs roamed the roots but the vast majority were sitting just below the canopy of the tree, waiting for something.
Slowly something entered the range of Thomas’ telepathy from above. Reading its thoughts revealed it to be a bird diving at full speed towards the den of cats. Its defenders saw it coming and readied themselves for impact. Just as the bird spotted a cat and changed its angle, four other cats leapt from the tree and seemed to glide around the bird in a pincer formation. As soon as it happened Thomas opened his eyes to get a better look at what was happening because he couldn’t believe what was happening in his mental perception. Luckily the battle was happening on the side of the tree that he could see.
Four cats were gliding through the air like massive flying squirrels with their limbs splayed out and on a collision course with an absolutely massive hawk-like bird of prey. Two died almost instantly as the bird changed directions and caught them in its sharp talons that sliced them to ribbons. However the two that survived clung to its back and then Thomas understood how dangerous a second set of legs made them. While the middle set of legs helped them to stay on the hawk's back, the back set began to rip into the bird's body with savage efficiency. In less than ten seconds it was over when one of the back legs ripping into the hawk's body found an artery that drenched its hairless body in dark red lifeblood.
The dead bird’s inertia carried it into the canopy where ten other massive cats were waiting to grab it and drag the food into their den. The exchange made Thomas even more wary of fighting his way into the den by himself. Waiting to catch the alpha off guard was absolutely the safest way he could think of fighting it. Besides that he wondered if it were possible to find some more information about the alpha from the minds of its packmates.
Activating telepathy once more expanded his mental perception and the lighthouse of minds within the tree was bustling with activity. Each point of light was an individual that had its own unique feel. Thomas was reading the thoughts of the cats that had survived the encounter with the bird, trying to look deeper. That was when he got an idea. To actually touch the point of light within his perception. What he could see appeared to just be surface thoughts. The cat was hungry, it wanted to eat, it thought of the dead cats and mourned them but there was no deeper insight into any of those thoughts that he could see.
So with only a tiny bit of caution Thomas began to reach out with his own mind, a stand of golden light reached out from his own location and connected to the cat that had dealt the killing blow and brought down the bird. Instantly his mental perception shifted and the physical world faded away completely. Instead of viewing every mind within a certain radius, he was inside the mind of the cat. No longer were there hundreds of points of light representing individual minds but instead a nebula of thought surrounding him.
Massive instincts were like stars within his own mind, while strands of thought acted and looked like gasses floating around them. Thomas intuitively understood that the color of the thoughts represented their emotional content: red thoughts were anger, blue were sad, and so on. His mental avatar stood in the middle of all of this and soaked it all in, understanding driven by his path told him everything he needed to know. That he could influence these thoughts, turn this monster against its friends with a careful manipulation of its thoughts.
Thomas reached out and manipulated thoughts for the first time. Mixing the red of anger and hate with the softly glowing purple of the love for the pack. The cat's thoughts shifted and mixed together, swirling together and combining as he manipulated further. Mixing in more and more hate, shifting the beast's perception instantly as he did so until he had created hatred for the pack.
Overwhelmed by its hate, Thomas could feel it turn and attack its brother. Felt the hate blossom as it killed its own brother eating beside it, and turned to wreak more havoc on the pack. Thomas very nearly saw it go down biting and trying to kill as many as possible while its pack tried to bring it down.
Stars began to dim as its injuries piled up, thoughts of pain lanced through its mind as an insidious fear of death began to sap the light from its mind. Thomas watched it all, he had crafted this story from nothing. The hatred it now felt for its pack was fake but its actions based on that falsity were all too real. He felt it die as every last star slowly dimmed down to nothing and then finally went out.
Sitting alone in the darkness Thomas realized what he just did. Since arriving in the dungeon he had been pushed to his breaking point. A lack of food, water, and information had buried him alive. He was no longer the same person that he had been when he had stumbled into the dungeon. He wasn’t a failed actor, or working a dead end job, he was a psionic of the storm. The paths he had taken granted him power over the mind and the real world but until now he had failed to understand what that meant.
If Thomas used telepathy on a human would it be that easy to make them kill others? Just a few thoughts mixed together an he could make mass murderers, fake suicides, or worse. He had just made a cat kill its family, he felt the pain of death even now sitting in a mind devoid of thought. Even if he escaped this dungeon, he would never be able to escape how it had changed him.
Right then and there Thomas made a promise to himself. That he would only use telepathy on another human when his own life was on the line. When he made it back to the real world, it was probably going to be very different but that didn’t change the facts of what he was capable of now. Thomas slowly withdrew from the dead mind and returned to his normal mental perception, his own thoughts filled with sadness. In a way he had enjoyed the way his life used to be. Sure his life wasn’t going anywhere meaningful but at least it all made sense.
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He had failed a few times and was just starting to get back up, going to some more auditions and had contemplated moving to LA. Even if he didn’t succeed as an actor, he was only twenty two, he had still had a chance to pivot and succeed at something completely different like finance. Life had followed all kinds of rules before he had stumbled into the dungeon. He could’ve gotten a degree at a different university and done something with his life. Now he was forced to fight to survive and escape. Even when he escaped there was no promise that the world he returned to would be the same that he had left behind.
Thomas was fighting for his life inside a dungeon and there was reason to believe that the same thing was happening all over the world. World governments could be collapsing or going to war, nuclear annihilation and all kinds of nightmares that had been hanging over peoples heads since the beginning of the old war. Thomas considered all of this without realizing that his physical body had fallen into the mud when he failed to keep his mind focused on the mental seat that he had made. With a grunt he pushed himself against the nearest root still deep in thought.
Thinking so much about what he couldn’t control wouldn't do him any good, he had to focus on what he could do. What he could do was find the alpha, and kill it. The experience of fighting the crab alpha, and the intuitive understanding of their own minds had Thomas feeling very confident in his abilities. Until the alpha actually returned from what appeared to have been a hunting trip from the central tree or beyond the circle and into the plains of mud.
After fighting the crab alpha Thomas had understood that the alphas themselves were quite different from the species that they ruled over. The crablord had been massive beyond belief and its mental attacks had nearly shifted the battle in its favor. From what he could tell of the cat alpha at a glance in his mental perception. It was extraordinarily intelligent. Its mind was brighter than any other that he could see, and its surface thoughts were much more complex. It even had a name.
It called itself Azar at least as far as Thomas could understand its alien thoughts. The name wasn’t ever spoken by the cats, nor could Thomas find out where it came from. Unless he decided to dive deeper into its mind to find out. After the experience he had the last time he did that only a few minutes ago Thomas decided against attempting such a thing. Besides, with a mind that bright he wasn’t didn’t want to take the risk that his own mind could be vulnerable diving into the minds of others. Looking back on it, linking his mind directly with that other cat had been incredibly dangerous.
Thomas watched as Azar moved deeper into the tree, until it was alone in an empty room. The rest of the den was abuzz with mental chatter, apparently Azar had brought back a bounty of many birds and even a few crabs. Although where the cat had found the crabs had confused Thomas to no end. Were they just scraps found before or during his battle with the alpha? He shook his head and refocused, the fact that the cats were eating crabs had nothing to do with his goal.
Kill Azar and find the exit guardian to escape. Maybe Azar knew where the exit guardian was, Thomas had a feeling that if he could read the cat alphas mind that it would shed some valuable light on where the exit guardian could be found. However that was a risk with a being as intelligent as the alpha was. Thomas himself thought that he would absolutely notice if something was reading his own mind, and didn’t want to risk spooking it into staying inside any longer. Another day or so and he’d have to start eating cats, and he really wanted to escape before he had to eat too much of that. The thought of it almost made him gag.
Time passed very slowly even with no shortage of thoughts to watch or minds to discover within his mental perception. The packs at the roots of the den, and others rotated out with groups inside the tree fairly regularly with one exception. Not a single pack went out towards the central tree. Some cats did look at it but none made the trek across the muddy no man's land to explore.
Once or twice he had to move a bit out of range of the den because of passing packs that sniffed the air as if trying to find him. Being able to move quickly and far in advance of passing patrols was a valuable upside of being able to literally see the thoughts of everything in a certain radius. Now that he thought of it, the radius had to be several hundred feet because he could sense the tops of one of the trees when he focused. Fitting for a seventy point skill, although it did make him wish dearly that his telekinesis also had that much range.
As time passed, the light refused to fade from afternoon to dusk and Thomas began to get more and more confused as he waited for Azar to leave the safety of the tree. Why was day refusing to turn into night? Did dungeons not follow a day or night pattern? Were days here longer? All these thoughts ran through Thomas’ head as his prey began to move once more.
Watching its mind was childsplay, reading its surface thoughts was actually easier because it was intelligent enough to have clearly readable thoughts. The alpha seemed to gather a pack of four fighters near the base of the tree. Together the group of five moved up inside the tree until they must’ve been walking across the branches and yet they were walking in the direction of the central tree. Across an area without any branches at all the minds of the cats clearly made it appear as if they were walking.
Moving fast, Thomas jumped and formed a platform under his feet. Zipping through the air as he leaned into a turn that he knew was coming. He was able to keep them in range while hanging as low to the ground as possible in the no man's land in order to stay hidden. However when he opened his eyes to try and spot the cats walking in the sky, he saw nothing at all. Regardless of if he could see them with his eyes or not, their very thoughts banished any hope of remaining hidden from him.
No matter how much he just wanted to fly up to them and knock all five cats out of the sky and to their death, he had to wait. The first goal of tracking the hunting party was to attempt to find the other alpha or the exit guardian, the second goal was killing the alpha for whatever loot it would give him. Passing over the no man's zone was a little nerve wracking even as he tried to stay low. Outside of the range of his mindsight but just barely visible to his actual eyes were several birds flying around in circles above the central tree.
In Thomas’ mindsight the cats appeared to be climbing higher and would soon leave his range. With a shaky breath he pulled up to the base of the root system and began to ascend. Keeping Azar’s hunting pack within range as the invisible group crossed into the canopy. That was when Thomas realized why the cats were invisible. The top of the tree was filled with birds. Hundreds of them.
Each and every one of them was extremely intelligent but at the same time territorial. Keeping their own nests clear of competition was a point of pride, as he saw when one of the others got too close to the territory of a neighbor. What sat in the middle of the squabbling birds was a mind that was unlike any other, even Azar’s.
Its mind was on fire within his mindsight. Flickering with what felt like actual heat that forced him to look away after a few moments. Even from that tiny glance he could tell, it was either the exit guardian or the bird alpha. As he tried to keep looking at its surface thoughts to glean more information, every other bird in the canopy let out a piercing shriek. The cats had attacked one of the birds in the outer territories and were beating a hasty retreat.
That was when the possible bird alpha moved from its central territory. Faster than anything he had ever seen its mind zipped through space he nearly lost track of it. As if they knew what was coming, the cat's split up and took evasive maneuvers. Several immediately bailed out and flew away from the tree while Azar stayed behind.
Thomas strained to see what would happen with his eyes as he began to fly closer to what could be a battle between both alphas. It would be useful to see how they fought at the very least, if not mop up the loser. When he entered the lower canopy the atmosphere immediately changed. The air was warmer and slightly more humid among the branches, and the reason why became abundantly clear when he saw Azar and what he was sure was the bird alpha hurtling through the branches in a blaze of fire.
For the first time he saw the cat alpha, Azar in the flesh. He was just like the rest of the gigantic hairless cats, but extending from his front shoulders were two long and thin tentacles that waved in the air. The tentacles ended in what looked like additional claws. His skin was also colored a dark brown with jagged red scars running across his back. Rippling with muscle Azar snarled at the approaching bird alpha. The fire in Thomas’ mindsight forced him to look closer at Azar before forcibly turning his view away from the impending fight.
A fireball heralded the bird alphas' approach, exploding into the branches and setting most of them aflame. Azar gracefully leapt away from the fireball, almost stepping on air as he managed to stay in the canopy. Then the bird alpha arrived, covered in red feathers with patches of fire and scales all over its body. Thomas started to sweat as the temperature increased further still as the massive tree branch warped under the heat.
Thomas flew back a few feet to watch the fight without his mindsight active. Azar leapt between branches as the bird alpha tried to catch him in its claws. Suddenly the bird opened its mouth and a fireball shot out at Azar only to pass through the cat as if he wasn’t there.
Unruffled by the failure of its attack, the bird tried to corner Azar on the edge of the branches. It was clear to Thomas what it was trying to do, make the cat alpha jump off the tree and then chase it down in the open air where it held the advantage. Surely Azar knew what it was trying to do as well, and desperately attempted to stay standing on the branches. Even as the bird alpha slowly but steadily advanced.
Azar was being backed into a corner, without many options left. Thomas watched the battle tip in favor of the bird alpha looking for a possible weakness or secrets that he could exploit when he fought them. That was when Azar made a terrible decision.
Backed into a corner with nowhere to go, Azar's only choice was an obvious trap. Maybe the cat alpha would be able to phase through the bird alpha as it pursued him into the sky. So Azar turned and jumped, spreading his legs and catching the air. The bird alpha was waiting for that and watched its prey for a moment before flapping its wings. All the fires raging inside the canopy stopped and was drawn into its wings that began to flare with light and heat that forced Thomas to fly lower and stick to the tree to escape its notice.
The cat alpha seemed to notice what was happening behind it and suddenly changed directions with a twitch of its tail. Just as the last flame combined with the rest, now covering the bird alpha with fire. It shot forward so quickly that Thomas barely saw it rocket through Azar's body as if he wasn’t there. Thomas made note of that ability, but still couldn’t tell which of the two he’d rather fight first.
Each was extremely powerful and fast with special abilities, however the bird alpha was probably more dangerous. Thomas decided as it made another pass at Azar, fire flaring from its body as Azar twisted in midair and took a step. Managing to dodge by inches even as the cat alphas skin began to burn under the heat.
Thomas flew to the side and watched as Azar made a move. Every alpha had a few special abilities, the crablord had some form of telepathy and was able to create some kind of water blade, Azar could probably become intangible and walk on air, while the bird alpha could control fire. So when Azar suddenly disappeared, even Thomas was shocked.
Even the bird alpha let out a squawk of surprise and began to beat its wings to stay in place and look around for the evasive cat alpha. With the bird alpha still close by Thomas didn’t dare check the area with his mindsight so he was just as stumped as the bird. Still he didn’t dare move in the slightly burned branches, now would be a terrible time to attract attention.
With nothing to do but wait in the still uncomfortably warm upper branches, Thomas decided to check the area very carefully with his mindsight. Just in case more birds were rapidly approaching or Azar was right behind him. No matter how bright the bird alphas mind was, he’d rather be blinded for a little while than get killed by surprise.
His mindsight revealed something that he never would’ve expected. The bird alphas mind was still burning in his mental perception as if it was empowered by the fire that engulfed its physical form. However, right behind it was Azar's mind. Invisible to the flaming predator as it slowly began to fly higher and higher. Clearly giving up on chasing its foe as it let out another piercing shriek and began to return to its nest. Until the bird alpha had flown all the way back to the center of the tree neither Azar or Thomas moved an inch. That was when a voice rang in his head.
“You follow pack. Not kill. Help kill guardian?”
Shock flowed through Thomas’ body as he turned to look at where Azar sat in the air. He couldn't see any connections linking himself and the cat alpha that would allow for telepathic communication. Now visible and looking at him from a perch made of hardened air. Azar pushed a few thoughts to the forefront of his mind. Images of a man walking around the dungeon searching for items, throwing bottles of glowing liquid at what he had assumed was the bird alpha. Then of the man walking around the roots of one of the trees and writing in a book. Finally there was an image of the man looking directly at Azar and offering him a vial of something that smelled incredible. Even just seeing the memory made Thomas salivate with desire.
“You mean that was the exit guardian? And you want me to help you kill it? How does that benefit you?”
Azar tilted his head to the side and began to walk down towards the ground on steps made of nothing but air. His answer rang in Thomas’ mind as he began to descend as well.
“We must. Escape this place.”