(II) Loop

326 (II)Loop

"We have to do something. We have to do something. We can't just let them eat the children. We have to do something…" A badly beaten elf to Uva's left muttered those words like a mantra to himself over and over again. His eyes were wild. His mithril plating, once pristine, was cracked and dented, with a good portion of its outer shell lodged into his flesh, piercing the chainmail he wore beneath. His wounds were crudely wrapped, driving the embedded shrapnel in even deeper because of how tightly they were bound. The twin angelic wings the elf possessed were also broken and mangled, pointing in the wrong direction, grounding him for good. Already, his injuries were starting to fester, the foul scent mingling with the ogres’ odors. He was the one who'd prodded Uva's face, tried to rouse her from her subconscious delving.

His name was Mornsong. He claimed to be a member of the Skysworn, a subspecies of elves created by the Fae once to serve as their slaves, but who had now broken free and established a kingdom of their own above the clouds.

During the second cycle, he managed to annoy the ogres so much that they took him out of the cage and ate him right then and there in front of everyone. To her surprise, his end wasn't permanent, nor even gore-stained. Instead, one of the ogres made a loud slurping noise as he swallowed the battered elf whole. Such was where Mornsong remained, screaming from inside the ogre's belly for someone to save him. He remained in such a state for hours. It was almost absurd how long he lasted without suffering any harm, how he kept screaming and screaming, how even more people joined him as the ogres took part in the great feast.

During the fourth and fifth loops, Uva worked alongside Mornsong to free the prisoners and led them on a daring escape into the Fetid Depths. And it was down there that she encountered the Roach Queen and the rest of her kind. The winged elf would have finished off one of the roachlings if Uva hadn't slipped into the creature's mind and realized it was sapient. After that, a sort of peace was established, and Uva almost managed to negotiate a truce.

Unfortunately for her, Evanescia inserted herself in the place of the Roach Queen and decided she wanted to enjoy a spot of violence after all. Mayhem resumed at the Usurper-Narrator's will, but it didn't last very long. Uva cracked the mind of a white-shelled Roach Squire, and ruined his story arc before it could begin. After a moment's deliberation, Evanescia decided to restart the story and provided the roaches with an additional layer of Psychomantic protections.

The very same kind of Psychomantic protections the ogres were wearing right now. Wrapped around their heads were circlets of counter-mind magic. It functionally projected a screen of Psychomancy and made it hard for Uva to pierce beyond that veil, at least at first. She quickly learned how to get around it after spending a few hours experimenting during the last cycle. Though the Sursids were imbued with an unreasonable amount of mana, they weren't exactly smart when reacting to an oncoming threat. As such, if she only used a few strands and cast a spell from one direction, everything in the opposite direction would thin and become vulnerable. But even piercing through the Sursid wouldn't allow her to reliably conquer and control the ogres. They had a very unique skill, the kind one could only gain if they were only stupid enough. It was a sort of anti-intelligence that allowed them to resist the power of a Psychomancer with their raw mental simplicity.

As such, even if she cracked through their mental enchantments, the best Uva could do against one of these ogres would be to crush their mind entirely. They failed to understand suggestions, often getting confused between their own thoughts at baseline and thus frequently ignoring them. There was little purpose in being subtle with them. Aside from that, Uva lacked the authority to command the ogres. They already had masters, the gnomes waiting down at the bottom of the Great Jaw. Said gnomes would be her true target. She suspected they would be mentally reinforced this time, given additional boons by Evanescia so that the story could play out the "proper" way.

From what Uva could tell, the Usurper-Narrator didn't mind if she used her Psychomancy or Eldritch powers; however, she wanted Uva to use them in a very specific way and did everything she could to get the plot back on rails any time Uva got too creative. Fundamentally, this was the story of a slave revolt, and Uva was supposed to take on a central role in leading the uprising. She suspected this was because of her heritage. She was an Umbral, and in ages past, before the Composer freed them from their bondage, the First Blood used Uva’s kin akin to cattle, to be consumed and used for labor.

Something told Uva that Evanescia was trying to be flattering. The entire thing came off as more insensitive and insulting instead.

A heavy thud made the cage tremble. The platform had greeted its final destination, and the ogres disembarked. Whimpers sounded from the human children in the cage. Uva counted three, though she knew one was likely Evanescia herself. At least two loops ended prematurely when Uva reached into the minds of one of the children and encountered her great adversary there. Uva couldn't recall the exact loops anymore—the mental damage she sustained engaging Evanescia caused some information to be lost. Aside from the three children, there were two more Fae warriors, a pig-woman dressed like a grandmother from a human storybook, a peg-legged rat with a tricorn hat, and a random assortment of toon villagers who blubbered with terror and wept tears so fat and heavy they fell like anvils against the bottom of the cage.

“I have to act now. I have to.” Mornsong tried to rise. Uva sent out a tendril and connected her mind with his.

Her thoughts were cold and calculated, and she'd gone through enough loops to know what was to come. Mornsong was a warrior willing to die for his values; however, he was as much an idiot as any of the three ogres carrying them.

As if to remind herself or solidify her opinion of him, he turned to Uva and loudly gasped. “You, you're finally awake! Quick, turn your mind magic on these three creatures! Have them set us free and take us back up. Better yet, use your magic to enchant their wills with your own! Have them serve us instead!”

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Every word he spoke was a line, bluntly delivered and awkwardly phrased. There was no subtlety with Mornsong. He was so blunt and bad at whispering that Squinty stomped up beside the cage again, baring his rotted teeth and hissing latrine-like breath at them through his nostrils. “What did I say? No noise! No noise! No noise! Shut up! No more talk about… mind magic? Twist mind?”

“Mind magic bad,” Fingers said off to the right. “Big danger, her?”

Both of the ogres were studying Uva now. Her biggest advantage was that she looked a little bit spider-like. The few times she dwelled within their minds, they had a hard time separating a large insect from a small insect from a spider that wasn’t actually an insect at all, and as such, they struggled to fully perceive her as a real threat.

They were also very easy to distract using bits of unlogic and casual praise.

“Yes, mind magic bad, very bad. I would be afraid of Mind Magic too!” Uva spoke every sentence with as much dramatic flair as she could muster, even though getting eaten might be preferable over the embarrassment. “If there is mind mage here, I think you should eat them immediately!”

The ogre carrying the cage suddenly stopped. Slowly, he reached up with a large hand and began scratching his head. His other hand reached down at the same moment to scratch his ass. “But, uh, aren't you mind mage?”

“No,” Uva said, lying outright.

“Stop talking to them and use your mind—” Mornsong slumped over mid-sentence as Uva put him to sleep.

“There are no mind mages here, only a very silly, very stupid flying elf,” Uva declared, pointing at the downed Mornsong. The cage-carrying ogre turned his head back as far as it could go, while his two comrades squinted at the winged elf.

“But didn't he call you mind mage?” Fingers asked.

“No, and if he did, he's wrong. Of course he's wrong. How could he know that I'm a mind mage when you all don't? You're all smarter than him. If you weren't, how could you have caught him? How could you have caught me? You would have eaten me already if you knew I was a mind mage. None of you are so careless. Now, since I'm inside this cage, why, I can't be a mind mage at all, can I?” Uva's words were utterly devoid of logic, borderline nonsensical—and the single most convincing argument all three ogres had ever heard.

Rhetoric 20 > 21

Uva quirked an eyebrow as she saw her skill level.

“Spider elf right! We are smart! Too smart! We would have eated mind mage!” Squinty threw his head back and let out a grunting series of laughs. “Stupid winged elf, try to trick us. Make us open the cage. We should eat him.”

“But then you would be ingesting someone really stupid, and do you want your stomachs to be dumb?” Uva’s onslaught of incredible rationality continued.

All three of the ogres gasped in shared horror as they realized the danger. Fingers snarled. “Spider elf right again! Keep him in cage. Actually, throw him in fire later. Don't let anyone eat. Otherwise, everyone get dumb-dumb.”

“Thank again, spider elf,” Squinty said. “Eat you last as reward.”

“I will cherish this reward always,” Uva deadpanned.

“She so nice too,” the cage-carrying ogre moaned. “Feels bad for capturing her now. Maybe ask Longbelly if can give spider elf to us as friend.”

And despite the ogres being a group of horrific people-eating monsters, their stupidity could be strangely endearing under certain circumstances. It was almost enough to make her feel bad about tearing them apart with her Fractals toward the end of the last loop. Almost.

As the ogres lost interest in the happenings inside the cage, Uva found the other prisoners regarding her with wary eyes. The ogres might’ve been stupid enough to be fooled, but they weren’t. They knew what she was and what she could do. From their expressions, they weren’t sure if it was better for them in the cage or out of it. Getting eaten was an ugly way to go, but having your mind flayed apart was to functionally die before your death.

Uva said, speaking to the group with her telepathy, making sure not to dig into their actual thoughts in case Evanescia was indeed among them.

Glares softened and postures went slack, but the wariness among the other captives didn’t truly fade. Her words held a double meaning: one on the surface and one below. She wanted the prisoners to keep quiet and stay silent for now, but additionally, she signaled and taunted Evanescia at the same time.

Uva caught one of the sobbing children breaking into a brief smirk.

Uva thought. Once more, the urge to strike at her enemy and tear her apart passed through Uva—but she choked it down until it went away. It took more effort than she expected.

And as she wondered, as the ogres carried her cage down into the massive skeletal maw of a beast large enough to swallow cities, Uva felt a pang of warmth spread through her. It started at the base of her soul, but then it spread through her nerves. She needed to protect the others. She needed to free not only the prisoners here from their captors, but also the ogres and all the Fae from the constraints of this story. If they were to be vile, then they needed to be vile on their own terms, not because they were moving puppets in someone else’s story.

the shadow of Harkness sprawled.

Uva’s eyes widened. The ogres vanished under the tower-sized teeth of the beast and walked toward the Gnomish tunnels with prisoners in tow. She reached into her own mind again, as she fought not to stare at the girl whom Evanescia used as a cover.

Something slammed into her like a missile, going off inside her soul like a bomb. Uva’s insides suddenly flared bright with a brilliant azure radiance, and a voice familiar though much grander than before boomed thereafter.