Chapter 8: Mind To Mind To Mind

By the time dusk fell I had a bag of holding stuffed full of enough monster and animal meat to feed the two of us for weeks and enough trophies and materials to get myself, my women and Yume through a cold winter, which was a nice bonus to all the training these kills had given me.

With all the meat we'd just obtained I decided to create a feast. Last I checked foxes preferred meat over any other food. I didn't know whether that held true for Yume but I decided to try it out, so for dinner I took cuts from pretty much every beast I'd killed, cooked them in a pot to kill off any parasites and to soften the meat and then coated them with a sticky glaze made with honey and various spices before searing them over our campfire. The fat dripped out and sizzled and the meat was getting some wonderful color.

Yume was staring at the meat transfixed. She sat on my bedroll, her tails wagging and a thin line of drool running out of the corner of her mouth. I smirked at her and she seemed to realize what she was doing. She blushed, looked away and wiped away the drool.

I'd left the bones in most of the pieces, so after taking the meat off the fire and resting it a bit to cool it down I divided it onto two plates and handed her one, without any sort of silverware.

She thanked me for the food in an oddly formal way and then dug right in, pulling half the meat off a piece of bone and cooing at the taste.

“This is amazing”, she gushed and dug right back in. I smiled.

“Glad to hear it”, I told her. “Though I've been wondering about something.”

“What is it?”, she asked, ripping another huge chunk off with her teeth.

“You seem to have an issue with our silverware. I wondered what that's all about.”

She blinked, then got it. “Is that why you served this without utensils, to make me more comfortable?”

I chuckled. “It's easier to eat it that way, but that's why I prepared it like this, yes. You seemed fine with spoons, but not with forks.”

“Ah, yes. Back where I'm from we use chopsticks, two thin sticks you use to grab food. Everything is either eaten with chopsticks, with spoons or with your fingers like this.”

“What if you've got a piece of meat too big to lift with those sticks?”, I asked, trying to imagine how those sticks would work.

“Then the chef messed up. Everything is cut into bite-sized pieces unless it's meant to be eaten like this”, she said, punctuating her statement by ripping the meat off a piece of rib.

“Ah”, I said, starting to get it.

“To be honest, having your priestess teach me how to use your silverware was mortifying. I felt like a child.”

I smiled and nodded. “Alisha will make a wonderful mother one day.”

She huffed. “I don't really like the idea of being mothered by someone a third my age.”

“It's just how she is, she doesn't mean anything by it. She was gushing about you, actually.”

Her ears pricked up. “Oh?”

“Do you really think I would have slept with you if my women hadn't been fine with the idea?”

She actually blushed. “You mean, they encouraged you to...?”, she trailed off.

“Make a move on you? Yes. I told them it was too early for that, though. Then we... heard what he did to you in that inn...” she shuddered at that “...and decided to help you get away from him. So in a way, us falling down here was a good thing. It gave me all the time I needed to get to know you and find a way to free you.”

She considered that for a moment and I wondered whether I'd shared too much. Then she asked: “So, do you still think it's too early?”

I smiled. “Not anymore.”

She smiled as well. “Then get stronger fast so you can tame me”, she told me, then mused: “I never considered joining a man's harem, but I can't say the idea doesn't hold appeal.”

The image of the three women writhing naked before me flashed through my mind and I let out an excited growl at the idea.

Yume licked her lips as she heard it. “Keep hold of that feeling. That's exactly what I need from you.”

**

Soon we decided on watch shifts. I decided to go first and handed Yume a small purple vial.

“These are sleeping drops”, I explained. “Take a single drop. You'll sleep for four hours but you'll feel as rested as if you've had a full night's sleep.”

She eyed it dubiously. “What if I take too much?”

I shrugged. “They're magical, not alchemical. No matter how much you take, the effect stays the same so long as it's at least one full drop. You can't overdose on them or anything. I'd appreciate it if you didn't use more than a drop, though. They're expensive.”

“Alright”, she said, then opened the bottle with its insanely narrow bottleneck and let a single drop fall onto her outstretched tongue before putting the stopper back on and handing me the vial.

“Hurry to bed, they only take minutes to take effect”, I told her. “And sweet dreams.”

She smiled and went back to the bedroll. She was asleep within minutes.

“She's really cute”, Syr said from beside me.

“She is, isn't she?”, I replied. “Were you gone long?”

“I wasn't gone at all, I just didn't have anything to say.”

“I see. So, how does using Qi feel from your point of view?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Weird. You're way more in tune with your body when you're using it. When you meditated it was even worse. I felt like I could reach out and actually touch you.”

I thought about that for a moment. “Let me try something.” I reached inside myself and pulled forth my Qi, trying to channel it into the phantom Syr had constructed in my mind.

It worked!

I could feel it flowing into her silhouette, giving my life force to this mind construct. She looked shocked as she could clearly feel what I was trying to do. But when I tried to regulate the flow of Qi I found I couldn't affect it at all and I felt a moment of panic as the power kept rushing out of me, threatening to drain me dry. I tried again to shut it off but in the end it was Syr who placed her hand on my middle dantian and sent out a pulse of my own Qi back to me. Finally I could feel the flow slow down and it cut off as I willed it. I took a couple of deep breaths.

“Well that was stupid”, Syr told me.

“Sorry. I thought I...” What had I thought I could accomplish with this? Giving her a real body? Who did I think I was? Prometheus?

“No, you didn't think at all”, Syr said. “But...” she trailed off, looking at her form. She looked a lot less hazy than she had before. “It feels as if you cycled your own power through me.”

“I hope I didn't mess you up or anything”, I said sheepishly.

“Should have thought of that beforehand, shouldn't you?”, she accused but then mellowed out. “But I don't think you did. I feel more in control now, actually.” I must have looked worried because she amended: “Not in control of you, in control of my astral body. It feels as if it's not as much of a strain to stay here, but at the same time I feel like returning to my body might be easier now. So, thank you, but please don't do that again.”

“You sure? If I keep doing that I might make you strong enough to kick your possessor out”, I said.

“You can't know that”, she said. “And if you kill yourself trying to help me I wouldn't really be happy with my freedom. Besides, I don't just want to push her out, I want the bitch to die.”

“That's a lot more aggressive than what you've said so far.”

She looked down. “The things she's doing... they're vile.”

“If you want to talk about it I'm willing to listen”, I told her.

“I... Well, I guess you're the one person who won't judge me for what my body is doing”, she said.

“I won't.”

“She communes with cultists, with necromancers. She's giving them tips, tells them how to stay hidden and how to work their craft. She bathes in blood... And then there's the really messed-up stuff.” She shuddered.

I didn't say anything.

“So turns out my body produces breast milk now”, she said, letting that statement hang in the air for a bit before she added: “Except it's red as blood.”

I still didn't say anything, not because I had nothing to say but because anything I could have said would have been horribly insensitive.

“Yeah, I know, it's disgusting. I hope when I get my body back that I can revert these changes. Who wants a woman who lactates blood?” I didn't answer her. I would take her any way she was, but she had a point. It was kind of disgusting.

“What does she even do with blood red breast milk?”, I finally asked.

“Get this”, she said. “Those cultists? They bring her offerings. Weird shit, like cut-off parts of their own bodies or foul trinkets, and in exchange she gives them bottles of the stuff.”

“When you said you would need to spend three days soaking in a bath once you got your body back, were you talking about that?”, I asked.

“That and the way she goes places. She rides on top of a Dark Young like it's a palanquin, those disgusting tentacles cradling her. Did you know they have suckers and are covered in slime? And did you know that she really doesn't wear a lot of clothes?”

I shuddered. “I mean, we were already planning to take your body back, but now I want to go after her right away.”

“But that's the issue, isn't it?”, she said. “Going after her isn't enough until we find out a way to kick her out.”

“True. Confronting her without a plan would just end up forcing us to kill your body if she attacked us. And I'd rather we didn't do that”, I said.

“What if people want my body dead even after I've gotten it back?”, she asked, very quietly.

“You think I'd let them?”, I asked her.

She smiled. “The worst part is that I know you mean that.” She leaned against me. It was weird because I knew she wasn't physically there but I still felt her soft arm pressing against me.

We kept on chatting until I'd completely lost track of time. I was only pulled out of our conversation when I heard Yume behind me asking:

“Who are you talking to?”

Fuck. I really didn't want her to think I was crazy but I also couldn't pretend I hadn't just been deep in conversation.

“I... uh...”, I explained expertly.

“This isn't the first time I've noticed you talking to someone I can't see or hear. You don't seem insane, so just tell me.”

I relaxed. “Well, see, her name is Syr and she...” I trailed off. “Hold on, does your illusion magic work by messing with the mind or by messing with perception?”, I asked her.

“I can do both. I don't have the fine control to do 'proper' mind magic, though.”

I nodded. “Then how about you link to my mind? Syr is hanging around in my mind, so if you probe my mind with your magic you should be able to sense her, too.” I turned to Syr. “That should work, right?”

“If she can do that, sure”, Syr agreed.

Yume walked up to me, a slight frown on her face. She sat down next to me and I noticed Syr walking around us to stand behind Yume.

“This magic is an invasion of privacy. Do you permit me to do this?”, she asked.

I nodded and she got to work. Instead of a light blue haze, tendrils of light blue streamed out of her. Now that I knew about Qi and Chi I could clearly see the tendrils coming out of her upper dantian and threading along her arm before coming out of her fingertips to probe into my head. It took her a few seconds to find purchase and I could feel when her spell managed to enter my mind. Syr apparently felt it, too and used the opportunity and her position right behind Yume to yell:

“Boo!”

Yume practically jumped out of her skin in response. Her tails went completely rigid and pointed straight up and she jumped a good foot and a half into the air. Syr had fallen to the ground and was laughing, her legs kicking the air and her hands holding her belly as she shook with laughter.

“That was mean”, I told Syr.

“I couldn't resist. But hey, that means she heard me.”

Yume had finally caught herself and turned around. She was clearly looking at Syr. “So, you're Syr.” There was no hint of shock in her voice, as if she was trying really hard to pretend she hadn't just been scared half to death.

“Nice to meet you, Yume”, Syr said. “I would say Felix has told me all about you but he doesn't have to. I share his senses.”

Yume nodded, then considered Syr before saying: “I've seen you before. I thought I had imagined it but now that I can see you again I'm sure. You were in that dream I spun for him, weren't you?”

Syr nodded. “I was. That was quite the working you created there. Hot, too.”

Yume smiled. “Why thank you. And I have to say, I'm impressed by what you've done here. This is astral projection, isn't it?”, she asked.

“Botched astral projection”, Syr corrected. “I was trying to project myself next to him, not into him.”

“Some might say this is even more difficult”, Yume said. “You're self-taught?”

She nodded.

“Very impressive. A technique like this would take a normal wizard years to learn.”

The two kept going for a while longer. They had really hit it off. Only when I started yawning did they realize they were keeping me from sleeping. They promised to talk more in the morning and I went to sleep with assistance from the sleeping drops. I think Yume tried to keep the connection with my mind open when I went to sleep so she could keep talking to Syr but just as I drifted off to sleep I felt something snapping, probably the mental link she'd established. In hindsight, I was pretty sure it was the sleeping drops that cut off the connection, not the act of falling asleep on its own.