Augmented Aspects: Chapter 96 Nyctophobia (Patreon)

Chapter 96

Nyctophobia

“Come on, let’s go!” I say, turning around to Mallory who is just staring at me and the area around me with shock. No wait, not shock, there is a slight fear that seems to permeate her. It only takes a second, but after focusing on her, I can tell that there is something inherently wrong with her. Or at least she thinks there is something inherently wrong with her. “What’s going on?”

“Tha…” Mallory begins, but her voice trails off, as she begins to point off to the blindingly bright room, where our trial is about to take place. She is visibly shaking now, and I can tell that she is frightened of something.

Going over to her, I grab her outstretched hand, and begin to lead her to the entrance. I can already tell that the amount of energy that the two Pegicorns are providing is starting to wane.

“Come on, we only have this one chance.” I say, pulling her along the entire time.

Fortunately for me Mallory follows easily. I have no doubt that if she wished to resist, she could do so easily, especially with how high her Attributes were.

The minute we pass through the barrier, my senses are flooded with an intensely bright light, as the entry way that was created for us by the Pegicorns has been removed. Now it is just Mallory and me.

“We made it, see, it is not that bad.” I say, patting Mallory on the back.

Mallory for her part is just staring around wildly, eyes scanning every surface with a mild look of panic in her gaze.

“It is completely dark…”  Mallory states, her voice cracking slightly when she states the word dark, as if it is some form of curse word.

I make a show of looking around, but I do not see what she sees. I see nothing but a brightly glowing world with many different patterns of magic and cascading energies around us. To me and my Angel’s Sight, the sight is almost beautiful in a way.

“You don’t have a see in the dark sight?” I ask.

“I do, but it requires something, some form of light to be able to see.” Mallory states, as she pulls out a candle, that she lights, or at least tries to light, but the flames used go out almost immediately. The world around us just absorbed the light somehow, I can see it happen, as the cascading waves of energy seem to swirl around the room and then latch onto the flame, before suffocating it entirely. The minute the flames go out, the ambient energy in the room increases.

With the light gone, Mallory visibly begins to tremble, as she the collapses to the ground. I try to catch her, but she is heavy.

Trembling.

“Calm down, calm down. Shh.” I say, gently stroking her hair, as if trying to calm down a small child who is afraid of the dark. Then I realized something about this room, it is likely supposed to be a test, can you brave the dark, or some other such nonsense.

“How can you be so calm in here? The darkness feels like it is permeating my skin, going straight to my soul. I have better sight than even your kind, so I know this has to be affecting you as well.” Mallory states, she is near delirious at this point, her words coming out as being close to mad ramblings, but this is good, her mind is still engaged. Focusing on that, I decide to continue building with that.

“You have better sight than an Arcanist elf?” I ask, trying to pull her mind back to the present. My goal at the moment is to get her to focus on anything other than the fear that is cascading over her.

“You’re an Arcanist elf?” She asked.

I nod.

No response, yep, she really is completely blind in here.

“Yes, I am.” I reply.

“Does your bloodline somehow allow you to see in complete darkness?” Mallory asks.

“Not my bloodline, well maybe it does, but I don’t know. Maybe, but I could see in this type of area long before I had my racial upgrade.” I state, truthfully.

“You could?” She asks, she is still trembling, but seeming to calm down slightly. I can’t say I blame her, going your entire life being able to see even in near dark situations, only to have what appears to be light eating darkness around would make life tough. Fortunately, this is just the entry way, meaning this should be a safe spot for us to get our bearings, thus making it free of monsters, at least for the moment. With everything going on, this safe room was likely very important, as it would dictate how people could progress through this zone.

“Yes.” I say, then thinking to myself about how I can get her to see in perfect darkness. While I am fairly confident, I could mess with her eyes to give her better eyes, I realize that she is right in that there would still need to be some form of light for her eyes to react to. I could try creating a light spell and thinking about that I do.

Holding up my palm, I let a tiny stream of light emit from my palm creating a glow. Then almost instantly the cascading energy of the room goes over and coats my hand and begins Absorbing the energy from my palm.

“Can you see that?” I ask, wondering if my attempt to create a drastically inefficient mana light is a waste.

“See what?” She asks.

Hearing her question, I snuff out my own spell, not wanting to waste energy. Well, I need her to see the way I can. I don’t think there is a way I could correct her eyes to see the world the way I do, but there might be a way I can create a spell that links our minds.

And just as soon as I have that thought, I almost want to face palm. I have gotten complacent, constantly thinking up new ways to try to create spells and use magic to solve all my issues, that I often forget that I have an answer staring me in the face. Rather than create a spell, one that would likely take time to design and be kind of clunky, I could just use my third Trait, Telepathy, to create a mind link with Mallory, where I could hopefully feed her the input, she would need to see the world around her and hopefully be somewhat productive.

“All right, I think I have a plan.” I state, mentally opening my mind and unwinding one of my bound Telepathic tendrils that have been closed off ever since I realized that this power was a two-way street. Back then it had been my advisor who read my mind, well a teacher who later coerced me into becoming my advisor, but that is a separate point. The point is that ever since I realized how my Telepathy could be used as a weapon to gain insight into me, I had completely cut it off and almost pretended like it didn’t exist. This was fine most of the time, until times like this, where I can hopefully link my mind with Mallory, and then share my perceptions of the world around us with her.

“You do?” She asks, she is still frightened, but visibility stops trembling for a moment. Just seeing that brings a sense of shock to me, as I realize that she really must trust me, if that is enough for her to overcome her own sense of panic.

“Yes, I am going to open my mind to you, and I will share my perceptions of the world around us.” I state.

“But I have mental resistances.”

Hearing that, I pause, wondering how high it is, then I ask that exact question.

“I am nearly maxed out.” Mallory answers.

“Nearly, but not completely?” I pose.

“Yes.”

Shrugging to myself, I realize this is likely the only chance we have to do this, so I mentally reach out to her mind with my Telepathy. There is a slight film over her mind, but I am able to use my tendrils to easily punch through the weak point and twist around other defenses. Her mind has a layered defense, and if I went in a straight line, the connection would have been far tougher, as it was, there were many different openings I could use to worm my way into her mind. Connecting to her mind, I try to keep such thoughts out, as I don’t think anyone would appreciate the idea of a long coiling serpentine creature worming their way into their mind.

“No, no they wouldn’t.” Mallory states, a slightly revolted tone filling her words.

“Yeah, hehe, sorry about that. Meant to cut those thoughts off a split second before I did.” I say, dumbly, then do a few things to first solidify the connection, then once it is firmly established, I begin by trying to share my visual information.

“GAHHHH!” Mallory cries out, in pain, as her mind is spiking.

“Right, sorry, that might be too much all at once.” I say, as I can feel her thoughts through our sympathetic link.

Instantly, I stopped the feed, before grabbing her hands and pumping healing energy into her. Immediately the healing energy focuses on the nerve endings within her mind that have ruptured. Focusing on the burst and ruptured blood vessels. I even go one step further, and try to strengthen not just those blood vessels, but all the veins and arteries leading into and from the brain as well. Within minutes, the pain she is feeling is off. Oddly enough, I realize that this game is true to life in that there are no nerve endings within Mallory’s brain, that all the pain she is feeling is from the very sensitive nerves that line the outside of her skull. Realizing that, I also make it a note to dial back the pain those nerves will send to the brain, as this might be a bit trickier than I thought.

“You know, your thinking about turning off the pain receptors, so you don’t send back a constant pain feedback loop would sound a lot better, if I wasn’t reading your mind and realizing your thoughts on the subject.” Mallory states.

At that I pause, and then realize that Mallory has now heard everything I was thinking, when going through my normal thought process on trying to heal someone.

“Oh.” I manage to say, I am almost going to turn off the connection to her mind, but then realize it is a bit late now.

“I’ll say.” Mallory adds.

“Shh, one of us is trying to concentrate, and we have a very short attention span.” I say, getting Mallory to be quiet for five more seconds. I have already tuned out her own thoughts that can also travel through our mental connection, and am double checking everything, when finally I feel confident.

“So we are good? You healed me?” Mallory asks.

Healed, what? No, I am just fairly certain that her mind won’t blow up when I try to link my senses with hers again.

Panic.

I can feel the intense fear that flows through Mallory’s mind to mind, and realize I messed up.

“Oh shoot, you heard all of that. Well, no sense in trying to mask this. I have never done this before, but in theory it should work.” I say, making sure to speak my thoughts as I am having them.

Mallory is just quiet.

I think I broke Mallory.

“No, it’s just that now I realize how odd your mind is.”

“Hey!”

“No, sorry. I didn’t mean that as a bad thing. It’s just that you truly have a gifted mind, one that runs at a thousand miles an hour all the time. The way you see the world, the way you are able to easily traverse complex thoughts and come up with crazy, but functional solutions within seconds, it is impressive.” Mallory states.

I pause, trying to take that all in. Then I realized she might not have spoken those words, but I felt them as if she had.

“I didn’t speak them,” Mallory begins, “my thoughts, that is, but I do mean them. Your mind truly is impressive.”

I feel a slightly warm sensation as I realize she truly means this as a compliment, and not that I am some borderline mad scientist out for world domination.

“Oh, I have not made a judgement call on that, you are still my vote getter for most up and coming mad scientist who will take over the world, but by accident more than anything.” Mallory states.

I almost want to be annoyed at that, but I can see the sense of mirth she has at that, and that the comments come from a place of love, and I can’t be angry.

Finally, after a few minutes, we both seem to decide that it is time to start trying this little experiment again.

“So, to be clear, it is okay to try this process again?” I ask, double checking that I am reading her thoughts correctly.

“Yes, but please try to keep your thoughts to a minimum, while you are pumping me with your perceptions.” Mallory asks.

“My thoughts?”

“Yes, your thoughts are rather loud. Which is odd, as normally you are super silent, but I guess that makes sense with how many thoughts you have going on, all the time, focusing on just one to say might be a bit much for you.” Mallory states, then almost immediately starts to blush, and feel flustered. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

I cut her off. “No, it is okay. And for what it’s worth, you are correct. I do have a hard time focusing on just one thought to state. In fact, before you came. I don’t think I spoke to many people, other than my patients that is. But once they were no longer my patients, I had a really hard time talking to people.”

I feel oddly vulnerable after admitting all of that, and I realize that I can only realize that I truly felt this way, thanks to my mental link with Mallory. In her mind I can see how she speaks all the time and has so many friends and acquaintances that speak to her so much that she almost gets tired of speaking. Then I realized that was why she wanted to go on this expedition with me, or at least part of it, she wanted to get away from others as much as she wanted to get to know more about me.

“It’s okay.” Mallory states, as she lunges forward and hugs me.

Confusion.

I am completely lost for a second, before I realize that Mallory was reacting to my words. The words about having a hard time relating to others. Maybe I do think a little quickly.

“Just a tad.” Mallory states, her words jumping in and stopping me before I can go down another thought trail.

I just stand there, letting the heat from her body envelope me, as I let my racing mind slow down for a moment, and I just take a deep breath and try to relax.

Finally, after a few minutes of this, or what feels like minutes, but is likely just seconds, Mallory loosens her hold slightly.

“There, now let’s try this again. Though, can you do me a huge favor?” Mallory asks.

“No thinking, while channeling my perception.” I state, in a somewhat monotone voice.

“No, I don’t think that is possible for you. Instead, can we just slowly ramp up the amount of input you share?” Mallory asks.

At that, I nod.

“Yes, I don’t think that should be too much of a problem.” I state, then I take a deep breath to center myself. “You ready?”

“No, but anything is better than this darkness.” Mallory begins, but then corrects herself, “well almost anything.”

Nodding to myself, I wait for her mind to slow down slightly, and then I slowly feed in details of my perception to her. At first, I start off with just a meter of space around us, but that proves to be too much, so I dial it back to just a foot. At that point, her mind that had been pushed to a near extreme was able to relax slightly and slowly adjust to that level of view.

“This, this is incredible.” Mallory states, holding up her hands that are within the perception bubble around me, and that is what I have to base it off of, the area around me. While Mallory is within my bubble, she can only see things in the immediate area around me. This is why she takes her hands and begins moving them first right by my head, then slowly moving her shaking hands out until she can’t sense them anymore. “That is so wild, it’s like the world just ends.”

I sit there, letting her get used to seeing everything around her in a bubble, well everything around me in a bubble.

“You ready for more?” I ask, once her mind and vitals seem to taper out.

“Yeah, let’s try some more.” Mallory states.

With that, I slowly start ramping up the distance around us, once again going to the meter around us. This time, her mind rejects the input for a second, before relaxing slightly and allowing the full breath of data through.

“How far out can you see like this?” Mallory asks.

“Father than you could likely handle, at least for now.” I admit.

“No doubt about that.” Mallory states, then I can feel the gears in her mind whirring with thoughts. “This was how you found out that my accountant was embezzling from me?”

I nod.

At that Mallory paused, realizing that she saw my reaction. I can feel the moment a sense of vertigo passes her mind as she tries to realize that she is viewing the two of us from a third person perspective. Seeing her nausea, I instantly cast a slight calming form of Healing magic on her.

Mallory almost jumps when she sees the glowing green energy burst to life from my hand, and flow directly into her.

“Whoa? That is how you see magic?” Mallory asks.

Seeing her thoughts, I can’t help but smile. “Pretty cool right?”

“No wonder you like it so much, I thought you were just some nerd, but this, this is impressive.” Mallory states, as she touches the still green glowing parts of her skin as she tries to touch the magic.

“Hey.” I say, joking back with her, as I can tell she only called me a nerd out of love.

“Oh, come on, you know what I mean.” Mallory states.

Just for that, I increased the radius to two meters.

“Gah!” Mallory cries out, but it is nowhere nearly as painful as the last time. “So you really are blind?” Mallory asks.

At that I pause, but then realize there is likely no point in arguing. “If you are asking if my eyes can see, then no, I cannot.”

Hearing that Mallory just nodded. “I can tell, it wasn’t until I started closing my eyes that I was actually able to deal with these competing inputs.”

“You had your eyes open, knowing they would only show you darkness?” I ask, shaking my head at the thought of having to deal with my Simulacrum’s vision with this, and the times that I did that, well I could do it, but it did require a different mindset.

“Oh, so your Simulacrum sees in colors?” Mallory asks.

“Just getting all of my secrets now, are we?” I ask.

“Hehe. You can do the same, I have no doubt you have likely found some damning information on me.” Mallory states.

I thought about that for a second, but then I decided to hold back, at least for now. Mallory clearly has some thoughts she wants to share, but I somehow think that would be an invasion of privacy, also I do really want to get through this instance of the great tree Yggdraspirit. This is why I opt to increase the radius around us again.

Finally, after what felt like hours, our shared perception covered not only the room we were in, but the adjacent rooms as well.

“You ready?” I ask.

“I guess.” Mallory stated, before taking one wobbly step forward, then the next. “This is still trippy, walking around in the dark while being able to see everything.”

“Stop opening your eyes.” I chastise.

“I am, it’s just hard to stop moving with your eyes open, after so many centuries of doing so.” Mallory states.

“Don’t make me blindfold you.”

“Please do.” Mallory suggests in a languid tone.

And like that, I feel a slight blush come on, as I can tell she sort of means it.

“Right, come on, this dungeon won’t solve itself.” I say, and force those thoughts down as we finally exit the safe zone, and try to finally begin solving the mysteries of this instance.