Ragged, tattered scraps of cloth were all that remained of what looked like once may have been a night dress or cheap robe. Their feet were bloodied and blistered as though they had been walking for days on rough ground.
Their hair was matted and dirty; it clung about their sunken eyes and jagged cheekbones. Emaciated faces rasping for breath, as bony hands and claw-like fingers stretched out towards me.
“… N-no! Don’t come.”
It was all I could manage as I hurled the solid stone at the closet one. It hit squarely in the centre of the face, and they went down, falling heavily.
A moment later, I watched in horror as the man, with blood streaming down his face, began to crawl forward with a strange serene smile on his face. His eyes, like the rest, stared at me like those of dead fish. Glassy and empty.
I recoiled.
Staggering straight into the open arms of another one of these strange almost zombie-like scavengers. Squirming against their smothering embrace only bought the others time enough to close the distance to encircle us fully. They descended upon us.
As they drew tighter in a moment of panic, I tried to read their thoughts or use empathy to glimpse their emotional state.
Each minds voice was the same, each aura a pale white.
The female who had first grappled me nuzzled further into me. The mental voices of the other reverberated with thoughts of (‘Master, Master’)
“Danna-sama, you are not alone anymore.”
Her voice was soothing, and as though some great tension suddenly released, a wave of fatigue overcame me. The warmth radiating from the group hug was relaxing, and I eased into my first restful sleep since coming here.
In a sunlit glade a strange mass of bodies, clothed in rags, snored peacefully as the sun crested its zenith and began its descent.
Back in the starlight void, a new message popped up.
-: Your first Believers have gathered.
Conditions met for acquiring: Mind Link (Acolyte).
Mind Link: Allows the formation of a mental bond that works over any distance, telepathic communication is still possible even if you do not share or understand a common language. :-
The disembodied voice chimed in after I dismissed my new spell.
“Nee nee that’s great isn’t it, now you have friends. So, we can get to killing God faster right?”
It was too cheery for my liking, and I was still mad about the previous little five-day tutorial I had barely survived.
“Why are you so insistent on killing God, I mean, aren’t you God?”
“Ah! No, you’ve got it wrong. I don’t want you to kill the actual God, I just want you to kill the concept of God…”
The thought of killing an idea; an abstract construct, notwithstanding I let the voice continue uninterrupted.
“…Well by that I mean you have to destroy religion. It was fine at first, but it’s got a little out of hand lately, so it needs to a little punishment~.”
“That’s a pretty tall order.”
“It’s fine. Don’t sweat the small stuff. It’ll work out.”
I wasn’t sure if it was trying its best to reassure itself or me.
“Also I’ve taken away your name because it makes it far too obvious that you’re a world traveller. Got to stealth in; softly, softly, unfortunately. My church has a pretty brutal Inquisition that just loves their torture time.”
With our talk over, I awoke to find myself in a bed of strange bodies. First things first, introductions are in order. I immediately activated Mind Link and began with the closest one, during the night the number had grown to fifteen, with the link established, I used Empathy and Read Thoughts to garner anything from her.
Her aura was calm and content. Like the rest of them, her surface thoughts were full of (‘must serve Master’) repeating like a mantra. I focused my thoughts solely on her, drowning out the background chatter, trying to read a little deeper.
As I dove in my body relaxed into a meditative state, and my mind became awash with a disembodied sensation as I projected my consciousness into her mind.
Memories of yesterday bubbled to the surface of her psyche.
Images filled with stumbling through the forest, disregarding the pain and hunger she felt, all just to reach that beacon. It was a strange siren pull that told her it was safe and warm, and her Master was there; waiting.
In the peripherals of her memories, she quickened her pace. Others shuffled along beside her through the trees.
It told me nothing of who she was or any information about this world, that would be held deeper.
I must go deeper.
Slowly, like peeling back layers or bailing water from a sinking boat, I read deeper and deeper. Worming myself further, I was aware of the slow trickle of blood running from my nose and the change in those around me.
They were worried.
My persistence was rewarded.
-: You have acquired a new spell: Mind Probe (Acolyte).
Mind Probe: all the subject’s memories and knowledge are accessible to you, from memories deep below the surface to those still easily called to mind. :-
I activated it immediately; the slowly building throbbing pain in my head ceased.
Instead of wading through a slow sinking pool of memories, I could shift and shuffle thoughts as I pleased. I sorted them by year to start with, but that seemed to leave them as vast chunks of a timeline.
I next split them by content, assigning a multitude of tags to each memory. This way, I could cross-reference.
She had led quite a pitiful life, sometimes as a serf and sometimes as a prostitute but always as a poor commoner. When I finished diving in her mind, I took to linking with the others. Each had a past much like hers. My first Believers were a rough collection of serf’s, indentured slaves and beggars.
I wasn’t complaining.
