Two days passed as I sat in the Library before I finally quit putting it off and entered the endless hallway of giant vault doors.

Stepping inside, I was expecting some big spectacle, but nothing seemed to happen other than a faint hum of power coming from deeper within.

Mel walked up next to me, placing her hand on my forearm. “Just picture it in your head then the door you open will be the correct one.”

I took a deep breath, approaching the closest door to me on my right. I placed my hand on the cold steel handle, turning it with a bit of effort, I hadn’t expected I would need in my mental construct. The metal gears, ground against one another in a high-pitched squeal as the bar released and began turning freely. Pulling on the handle, I swung the door open towards myself, not sure what to expect.

The door opened to reveal exactly what I had expected. It was a mirror reflection of my time trapped in the Array. The copy of myself stood stock still as it stared at the gruesome sight of my mother and sister. Resisting the reflex to look their way, I instead focused on the glaring issue with the room. Everything behind my copy was off slightly as if not fully rendered yet. The street and buildings were blurry and there were no people or the Lizard creatures from the attack. My father looked as if he were still in the periphery of my vision. It made it painfully clear this was still just a memory and an old one based on the panic in my copy’s thoughts.

I’ll do anything, Please! Anything you want. My copy pleaded to any god or demon that would listen. Anything! Just let me wake up.

“Cassieus, run!” I heard my mother's voice echo out across the vault room. My heart skipped a beat hearing her voice like this again. Even if it was just a memory of an auditory hallucination, it made my chest clench.

“By my estimations, this would have been around the first century,” Mel said.

“One hundred and forty-seven years in. Just before the second major mental breakdown.”

I nodded, my mouth too dry to muster up a response, that one had been especially bad. I had lost my sense of self. Over the course of the next couple hundred years, my mind had slowly degraded to the point where I couldn’t remember who I was or why I couldn’t move. I had no way to tell how long it took before the fragments began weaving back together, but I had to assume it had been much longer.

Unable to continue with the panic building up in the pit of my stomach, I turned to close the door, anxious to be away from this place. As my eyes left my copy, a spark of orange-red fire caught my attention on the edge of my vision. Reacting, I turned back to find nothing there except an infinite hallway, completely empty.

“Mel?”

“It’s in your memories, so it was real, but I don’t sense anything here or any intrusion into the Library at all.”

“I think it’s time to get out of here, I-” I was cut off by a sense of danger screaming in my head, but too late.

A hand grasped me by the neck and lifted me off the floor, my feet kicking out uselessly, as they just passed through the figure in front of me. It was an imposing humanoid figure, almost ten feet tall, and made entirely of bright flames that licked the air around it as if it were searching for its next meal. The shape of the thing resembled a fire elemental, but where an elemental would have no discernible features, I could clearly make out a face, and it was furious.

It brought me up to eye level, speaking in a guttural tone. “Mine… Too…” It rasped, before sending me flying in through the Vault door. The moment I made it past the threshold of the entryway, my mind flickered, then aligned itself with the memory I was standing in, forcing me into my copy’s body, seeing through the eyes of my past self.

“Mel. Help,” I cried, my thoughts coming out as more of a whimper, as my vision was fixed on the sight that haunted me. I tried to will myself out of the memory but only managed to cause a small ache in my temples. “Please…”

There was no reply, no movement, nothing except my permanent hell. The panic I had observed my copy experiencing, now began seeping into my own emotions, as I had a sickening thought.

I had never left!

No! I told myself. I learned too many new things that I had no knowledge of previously for that to be fake. My memory is just influencing my emotions, that’s all. Calm down, Cass. Focus. This is all in my mind.

Concentrating on leaving the Library, I focused on my Meditation Ability, activating it to send me back to my real body.

Not sure how much time had passed, I concentrated, pushing the fear and anxiety down deeper.

Moments later I opened my eyes and began coughing. The air was filled with a cloud of dirt and dust all around me like I was in the middle of a sandstorm. After waving my arms ineffectively, to clear some of the air, I used my Mana sphere to push back some of the floating particles, instantly receiving a debilitating headache, causing me to fall over on my side clutching my head.

“Cassieus?” Mel’s voice rang out in my head, filled with worry. “Are you okay?”

“No,” I grumbled out, not bothering to use our telepathic link.

I checked my resources and discovered the source of the pain. I was completely out of Mana and my health was at less than fifty percent.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know what happened after you were trapped. I lost access to all my senses, and couldn’t feel you anywhere.” She said in a small voice. “I thought we died.”

Sitting up slowly, I did my best to convey my support for her. “It’s gonna be alright, We’ll figure it out, just after we find out what happened here.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Looking around I noticed I was inside the Temple, standing in a crater that had destroyed several walls as well as the ceiling and floor, leaving a large hole to the higher levels of the temple.

Corpses of the Numliques lay scattered by the dozen in piles at my feet, slices marring their bark-like skin or crushed into an almost unrecognizable paste. There were a few petrified bodies, clearly victims of my Thief of Time Ability.

After only a few moments the rest of my team entered the stretch of hallway I was in.

“Is everyone okay? What happened?”

“What in the bloody hell do you mean: What happened?” Kira’s reply came with a bit of bite behind it. “You start yelling about revenge and then run directly into the temple, not responding to any of us, forcing us to chase after you, and you ask us what happened?”

“The lass is just angry because she was outvoted on following you inside,” Isamaar added, sounding cheery as ever. “Don’t worry, we followed the trail of corpses so it wasn’t too difficult.”

“I would like the explanation once we are out of here,” Trennel said.

“He better have a good one too. He’s lucky I don’t kick his ass.”

“Let’s get out of here, I think I antagonized them enough to create a response.” I pulled out a Mana potion and downed it, watching my bar slowly tick upwards. “We’ll have to move up our schedule a bit.”

We all turned and began jogging towards the entrance, keeping an eye out for any movement in the side paths that branched from the main hallway.

It… took over? I thought to Mel as we ran back down the corridor.

“That seems to be the case, yes,” Mel said. “I don’t know how it slipped past the Library’s defenses or your own mental ones. It shouldn’t be possible for anything under Master Tier.”

Unless I let it…

“How could you have let it? I would know about something like that.”

I felt that rage before. From one of the vaults when we first integrated.

It was from the grief and the rage that Mel hid away when she sorted through my memories and emotions. I didn’t know how to voice such an insane idea, but to someone living in my head, it didn’t need to be put into words.

She didn’t laugh or call me crazy, which I would have in her place.

How am I going to explain this to them without mentioning the attacks?

“You’re going to have to skirt the truth a bit. You’ll have to tell them about me soon anyway, as I will gain a more corporeal form as soon as you advance. And I assume you will want to bring them inside to train more efficiently so they can keep up with you.”

I don’t know if I want them in there if that thing is roaming around and able to get around your senses.

“It had the chance to attack them but it chose to enter the temple instead. I don’t think that it can harm you physically while it’s in there. It could have come after you while you were sleeping in your room, but it stayed hidden until it had the chance to delay you while it tried to take over..”

Do you think I should try to speak with it?

“We should gather more data first. You should really focus on the fact that it locked you in one of your own memories, inside of a place where that shouldn’t be possible. You need to be careful regardless of its intentions.”

I shuddered involuntarily, trying to shut out the memory once more, Mel coming to my assistance, locking it away in its own vault for now.

It’s a part of me, I can’t stop thinking about it.

“I think you’re safe while you’re running the show, just hold off on meditating until you are alone,” she said, pushing her elbow gently into my ribs.

It didn’t take long before the scuffing of a set of leather boots announced Isamaar turning the final corner to the exit. I hadn’t gone very far into the temple it seemed, the time dilation working against the entity and its plans.

The first thing I noticed as we exited was a twenty-foot half-dome wall of ice, leading out to the left side door frame leading all the way down to the far end of Fras’s Trap. It looked only half-finished before it had been abandoned to follow me inside.

“You’ve got some explaining to do,” Kira said angrily the moment we were out. “Not only could you have gotten yourself killed, but you could have ruined the floor for the rest of us, making the whole trip moot.”

“I apologize, but I will explain at a more appropriate time, as we should be expecting company very soon.”

“What about the plan with the murder hole?” Isamaar asked.

I looked at the entrance, previously frozen over by Isamaar’s spell. Frozen chunks lay scattered leading into the temple hall.

“Do you think it will still work with how many corpses were littered through the tunnels?” Trennel asked.

“If it were Goblins, I would say no, but the Numliques should ignore their fallen in search of a source of food for their queen, so it still may work.”

“I would prefer to take as many out as possible before we head further in,” Fras added.

“We should work on getting at least the funnel to the pit up and running,” I said, then turned to Fras. “How far along did you get in your traps?”

“I got most of the coal beds set, and the barriers are up, but the shifting wires will take too long for the entire area.”

“Alright, set up some more of those wires near the entrance as quickly as possible. Take Kira so she can tell you when to get out of there,” I said. “Isamaar, get as much of the other half of the wall finished. Trennel, can you help move some of the dirt to reinforce the outer wall?”

All three gave quick nods before starting their tasks. Kira sat on the ground and closed her eyes near the top of the steps, listening for the approaching creatures and grumbling about my selfishness, while Fras conjured up another set of wires that he strung across the jamb. One of the silver tripwires glowing with red Fire Mana hung across the entrance at knee height.

Another thought popped into my head, as I idly checked my notifications while walking down the stretch of ice leading down the steps and away from the temple. A chilling realization appeared within the emptiness of that screen.

The system didn’t credit me with those kills.

My mind raced as we continued towards the far side of the massive pit. The fact that the entity had taken over my body was chilling enough, but to have none of the Experience gained from its rampage hurt worse for some reason.

Do you think that it received those levels?

“The Experience had to go somewhere, so that is probably a safe assumption, and no I don’t know what that means in the grand scheme of things,” Mel said, walking next to me. “We’ll just have to play it by ear for now until we have more information.”

I had noticed her reluctance to go back into the Library alone, and I didn’t blame her. Whatever that thing truly was, it affected both of us in a place where we were supposed to have the ultimate control.

Walking further away from the temple, closer to the dense thicket of towering trees, I placed my warping anchor down in case I needed to reposition in the upcoming fight. Turning I saw Trennel helping by using his disks to scoop up the soil he had already dug up, and dropping it next to the rapidly constructing wall of ice Isamaar was conjuring.

We need to speak with Osiph and ask him for his advice about this when he returns. I thought to Mel, as I began heading back over to the temple steps, ready for the impending attack.