Corvis let out a sigh as he looked at the crumpled painting. Nothing I can do now, he thought ruefully. Corvis turned away from the now destroyed artwork and looked around, only for his eyes to be drawn to the bookcases. He walked over and looked at the plethora of options. None had titles on the spines, but nonetheless, they were, from what Corvis could tell, put in sets. Each set was a group of books matched by color and texture. He grabbed the first book from the case, colored a verdant green with the texture of branches and leaves. Corvis ran his hand along the book cover and lamented his lack of feeling when he was a sapient crystal.
Corvis took the first book of the set and walked to the closest chair. Before he sat down, Corvis brushed the dust off the chair and small table, then put the book down. Then he went over to a small cache of wood next to the fireplace and grabbed a few logs. He piled the logs in the fireplace before stopping for a moment. "I hope this works," he mumbled before putting a hand on the stacked logs. Corvis's face became a mask of concentration as he pulled on his mana pool. Slowly a flame flickered to life in his hand. He grabbed the end of a log and held on for a minute before it finally caught enough for him to let go. The old, dried wood burned well, spreading to other logs in moments before growing into a strong flame. Corvis smirked. "Guess I haven't lost my lack of skill with my new body." He went back to the cleaned chair, took a seat, and closed his eyes for a moment, enjoying the feeling of temperature and sitting down. After a while, he grabbed the book and blew it off, a cloud of dusk bursting into the air. Then, he cracked open the book.
The pages were empty. Corvis looked at the first blank page for only a second before flipping to the next and then the next. He did this until he ran out of pages. With a confused frown, Corvis got up and put the book back before grabbing the next. Once again, this one was empty. He continued this process till he came to the last book in the series. The process was much the same except on the final page. A single line of text still existed. 'I would remember that day for the rest of my life.' For some reason he couldn't explain Corvis felt unsettled by this. He stared at the words, but nothing changed. He felt no memories stirring. Just an empty, unsettling feeling. Eventually, he placed the book down on the table and grabbed the first book in the second series. This one was yellowed white and felt like old paper against his skin. The cover had a diagram of a creature—specifically, a snail. Corvis opened the cover, prepared for a blank book again, but, to his surprise, was met with words instead.
'I was in the forest as usual when I found a weird snail. I decided to keep it and even named it. I decided to name it Squib.'
Corvis sat there with a frown on his face as he flipped through pages, skimming through them. They were all familiar, mirroring memories from his childhood. His frown grew deeper when he thought about the empty books. "That painting and those books… they must be my memories. But that doesn't tell me where I am. I could be in some other realm or trapped in my own head". Corvis just sat there in silence for a while with a hand gently stroking his chin. Then, with a sigh, he decided to give up. No matter how he thought about it, he was completely stumped. I've never heard of people being pulled into their own mind, not that I would know even if it happens. I really am starting to wish I had diversified my research. Not much I can do about it now, though. "Whatever is happening, I need to escape from here. The storm is gone, so maybe I can explore? Or maybe I should seek the answers inside myself," Corvis mumbled to himself before letting out an exasperated sigh. Back to the drawing table, he thought, once more starting to brainstorm on any means to escape.
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Starlid felt like it had been drained of life. It could barely move, just lying on the ground after waking once more from a state of torpor. No energy was left in its body. It wasn't natural. Why is he still unconscious? It's been… actually, I don't know how long, but it has been a while! Starlid thought before getting up with the little energy it had left. I don't think I can do much more of this. Dragging its feet, the elemental started to slowly make its way over to the core. Once it arrived under the core, Starlid floated up and touched the core. Just like I thought, I've done all I can. Now I can finally recharge Starlid thought before laying down on a bed of moss and entering a torpor state once more.
Several hours later, Starlid felt a presence. It burst into action, preparing to ask Corvis what happened when it realized something. The presence wasn't Corvis's at all but a giant bug that was standing near his core. It looked like some kind of beetle with a rocky shell. The creature was eating some vegetation near Corvis's core, ripping into it with massive mandibles. Starlid looked at the enormous insect with interest. It was about as long as an average person's legs with bulky jaws that could chew through the thick moss and vines as if they were nothing. The lumbering insect sliced through moss and vines with its reinforced jaws, slowly grinding the material into a paste as it ate its fill. "Well, well, well, look what the plants drew in!" Starlid said as it rubbed its hands together before letting out an ominous chuckle. It floated up to the core once again, but this time guided it instead of repairing it. A small stream of mana came out of the core and shot into the big bug. It shook for a moment, twitching its antennae and making a hissing sound before, all at once, it stood stock still and looked at Starlid. With a smile, the elemental leapt onto its back. "Take me to look around the dungeon," Starlid commanded. As soon as the insect heard the order, it turned around and moved back to the other room.
Once they arrived, Starlid looked around. The room was much more vibrant than the last time Starlid had been here, however long ago that was. The trees had larger leaves and more branches, the ferns had more fronds and grew much larger, the moss was thicker, and the vines had spread from walls and the floor to the tree's trunks. "Looks like I wasn't able to stop all the leaking, not that it matters much." Starlid looked around for a few more seconds before being satisfied and went back to the core room. "Protect the core and me," the elemental said before sitting down and entering its mana pool, beginning the process of quickly absorbing more mana into itself.
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Corvis paced around the small house, trapped in his own head. He had been brainstorming for hours, just trying to find out how to escape the prison he was in.
Finally, after hours of testing ideas, he was at the end of his patience. Clearing his mind, leaving the cabin, looking through all the books and at all the paintings, none of these ideas worked. Now he was stuck. With a burst of anger, he slammed his foot into the bookcase. To his surprise, it moved easily, as if it was made of paper and not wood. Even more surprising was what was behind it—a lightly glowing crack in the wall pulsed with white light. Corvis walked in front of it and crouched down, examining the strange thing.
He stared at the strange thing for a while, and it almost seemed to hypnotize him. He sat there dazed, staring for what felt like only a few seconds to him, but in reality, it was several hours. Finally, he shook his head and cleared his thoughts before walking away from the strange crack. "What is that thing?" Corvis said absently to himself as he tapped his chin. Before anything else, Corvis took a seat in the chair and sat down, staring at the strange crack while trying to piece together what it was. "My lack of research in any field other than necromancy and Biomancy is coming back to bite me. I have no idea what that thing is."
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Starlid let out a sigh of relief after finishing pulling in its normal amount of mana. It flexed its arms and moved its finger. "It's good to be back to normal again!" Starlid got up from its spot and looked around. Unsurprisingly, not much had changed other than a few bites out of the surrounding moss. The elemental stood up and walked over to Corvis's core, looking at it. Starlid's eyes gleamed with energy as it looked at the core. The amount of mana leaking out was leaps and bounds less than what it had been, going from a flow to a drip. "Good, that shouldn't be too big of a problem. Now to wait until he wakes up." While Starlid looked at the core, he felt something hit him in the back. The elemental turned around and saw a small ball of star mana gingerly floating in the air. "What's this?" Starlid said as it put a hand out palm up facing the strange ball. The concentrated mana ball landed gently on the elemental's outstretched hand before bursting. "Oh, this must be from that tree. I guess it finally switched from fire to star," the elemental said as it looked over at the tree. The tree had definitely changed, but the changes were small and mostly superficial, at least at the moment. With a nod, Starlid walked out of the core room and into the second room of the dungeon. There it saw the strange rock beetle crawling along the wall, seemingly doing nothing. "I wonder where that snake went?" Starlid wondered aloud before walking over to a pile of vines and sitting on it. With a sigh of satisfaction, Starlid sat down and contemplated. "I hope Corvis wakes up soon. I prefer talking to Squib and Corvis to being alone here."
Starlid sat like that for a few hours, simply taking a break after all the mental stress it had endured.
"This calm is nice and all, but I want to get back to normal. I wonder when Corvis will wake up."
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Corvis had finally given up and decided the only way forward was interacting with the strange crack. After all, he had few options left, and he wasn't intent on killing himself to see if that did the trick. But, no matter how he thought about it, Corvis couldn't find a way to escape this place. He was out of options. Corvis could stay here, but he would be alone and trapped, and he decided after some contemplation that it was time to take some risks.
Corvis walked to the strange crack and touched it with no hesitation. As soon as his fingers touched the break, he felt a bundle of emotions rush through him in mere moments—panic, fear, despair, anger, and confusion. The strangest part was that all these emotions felt like his. These roiling emotions felt like they were his own. The most interesting and perhaps alarming thing was what they pertained to. They all had to do with him becoming a dungeon. He pulled away as quickly as he could, but the feeling persisted. He felt strange. Corvis realized that these emotions had been suppressed, but he didn't know how or why. He stared once more at the crack. It seemed that it had become smaller, but it may have been a trick of the mind. With a shake of his head and a sigh, he jammed his hand into the strange crack once again. The emotions shot through Corvis once more, but he was more prepared this time, so he kept his hand inside. Corvis hunkered down as he felt his formerly chained emotions finally be released.
Corvis fell to the ground, finally having completely released all his sealed emotions. As the final chains broke, he felt something. It was some sort of foreign energy. As soon as the last chains broke, the power seemed to retreat almost instantly, disappearing so quickly Corvis wasn't even sure if it had really been there at all.
Corvis was both wired and tired at the same time. So many emotions swirled around inside him that he felt like he was being pulled in every direction. His usual calm and insightful attitude was broken as fear, sadness, and all other manner of emotions filled his mind.
Corvis shivered on the floor. He felt like he was lying exposed in a blizzard. His body was cold, and he couldn't muster any strength into his phantom limbs. Then, for the first time in a while, Corvis's mind darkened and he passed out.
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"Maybe I should create some snails since Corvis is out of commission." Starlid thought aloud. The elemental walked back to the core room and touched Corvis's core, feeling the amount of mana he had left. "About half a pool," the elemental said before starting the process of creation, using the template to make seven snails. "that's good, back to what it was before." As Starlid perused the templates, he found another one. This one was different from the rest for a variety of reasons. First, it wasn't there before. Second, it was blank. Third, Starlid couldn't get any information on the creature that the template would make.
Starlid, ever curious, decided to try and make it as a test. He pushed mana into the template, imposing it over an empty spot in the core room, and let free the template. Mana and vitae drained from the core with such speed that it was like a dam had broken. In seconds a massive cocoon of mana and vitae sat in the spot where Starlid had put the template. As it pulsed, it sucked in immense amounts of mana from the dungeon around it, even killing the plants near it. Like a thirsty man in the desert, it drank up all the spare mana and drained the area around it before finally it stopped. Then, as if full, It sat there, unmoving. "Well, that's not normal. Should be powerful, though, since it took almost all the mana he had left." Starlid paused and looked at the core. "Vitae too. It may take a while to recharge, but I'm sure it'll be worth it." The elemental said. "Oh. Wait a second. He was gonna remake Squib, wasn't he? My mistake. Guess he'll have to wait a while. Not like I could make the body while he's gone anyways," Starlid said with a shrug before it settled into a patch of moss and waited for the cocoon to hatch.
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Corvis stirred. After a few moments of shifting, he got up. He rubbed his forehead and looked around. The cabin was the same as when he had passed out. With a sigh of realization, he flopped back to the ground. "Great. I'm still stuck here." Corvis still had a mix of emotions swirling around in his head, but he put them to the back of his mind for now.
Corvis sat there in silence, thinking. There has to be some way to get out of here. What did people do who were affected by mind magic?
He went on for hours once again, trying to find a solution. "Maybe… Maybe I can try and pull my mind out of this place and into my body. The only question is how? How do I do that? And why hadn't that occurred to me before?" Corvis couldn't wrap his mind around it, that is, until he could. He felt something like a whisper in the back of his mind, so quiet and sudden that he almost didn't realize it was there. "That… that actually makes a lot of sense," Corvis said as he relaxed.
Corvis focused his mind on himself, who he was now, or rather, what he was now. He felt his body slowly disappearing. His feeling of touch slowly vanished from his extremities as he felt his mind calm. He felt his form slowly dispersing into his mind. Even his head was gone by the end. All that was left was his heart, his core. Then he pulled at himself.
Corvis pulled with as much mental force as he could but couldn't muster the power. He pulled again with as much mental strength as he could call, but only after Corvis felt a slight nudge did he realize he had succeeded. Corvis felt himself being yanked violently from where he was. Around him was darkness, a veritable void. Slowly he felt the darkness crack and fade away before all at once he was awake again. The whole dungeon was before him, and while it was much the same, several things were different.
