More than meets the eye.

‘WHAT THE HELL?’ John shouted in his mind, almost involuntarily. In front of him were a group of normal humans with slightly tanned skins, but also fluffy ears and tails. They almost looked like kemonomimis, and the animal parts themselves were very wolf-like. Each of them had slightly different fur colors and they ranged wildly from yellow to black, the shape and size of the animal parts themselves also seemed to have no consistency.

Apart from that, they seemed entirely like normal hunters, wearing simple human clothes and sporting various bows, swords and knives. John even saw one of them had a spear.

Hoping not to make them aggressive, John quickly dismissed his bolts. If he needed them back, they could be summoned just as quickly, but creating a fight would be worse than preparing for it.

The group approached him slowly, seemingly just as confused and afraid of him as he was. Looks were thrown between them, but they did not speak. Silence prevailed in the forest until they were almost on top of him, about six of them surrounded him. Preparing for the possibility of an attack, John tried to keep them all in sight, but in almost perfect unison they all stopped in their tracks.

“Who are you?” a younger voice asked him, one of the men among the group. Not distinctive in any way except that he was the one John was facing. When he moved his face to look around, the continued speech came from different lips. First, a woman, “tell us now and you will not be harmed. We are the protectors of this place,”

“I am an explorer that found this place. I was walking in the forest and hoping to peacefully map it when I heard you approaching,” he returned, hoping his white lie was sufficient to fool them. Whatever manifestation of the wolf’s mind that these creatures were could obviously be extremely dangerous.

“Well then, I’m sure we can assist you with that. You might even be able to help us in your own way,” the voice now came from an older man. John now noticed their eyes, they were all locked on him. They all had a strange spark and irises the color of the sea.

Once again in perfect sync, they all moved back and turned around. Step by step they walked into the forest in the direction of the moon, which was rising from the east and moving up across the sky in a motion far too fluid and quick to seem real. A few moments later, they stopped and looked back at John, as if expecting him to follow them. Unsure if he had many other options, he did just that and walked after them into the depths of the forest.

John’s body was once again laying on the ground of the cave. In an attempt to make it more comfortable, Bass had put his head on a smooth stone and straightened out his body. His breathing was regular, unlike when he was ****, but it was all still worrying. They all knew how dangerous a Mindscape could be. Quietness had settled in, and that was almost unbearable for all there. It was easy to notice the wolf’s more labored breathing.

“We can’t keep waiting like this… We’re wasting what precious time we have,” Matthew complained suddenly. He was sitting on the ground right next to the wolf, clearly watching it and the others. Constantly shifting, it was clear to Bass that he was unsettled by something. Perhaps the wait or the uncertainty, she wasn’t sure.

“Again… What do you suggest we do?” Yan asked, angrily. She was closer to Bass, waiting impatiently for something to happen, but clearly not as worried as before.

Charlotte was sitting quietly in the corner, her gaze not quite focused on anything but it was clear something was going through her mind.

“Kill the beast, that’s our only option,” the self professed noble stated with an almost authoritative tone.

“No,” Bass quickly refused, “even if we try, how do we know we can take it down before it wakes up? And if we don’t, we’ll have killed John for nothing,” that was her final word, and her tone made that very clear. But something about the still air of the cave was changing, ever so slowly.

The atmosphere there was nerve wracking, something about the forest was wrong, and was getting more wrong by the minute. The shadows got deeper, the sounds more strange, all of it almost seemed like it was heading for a terrible crescendo. The group was utterly silent the whole time and that only got him more concerned. They had essentially asked for his help, but with what, he didn’t know. Whatever it was it must have been dangerous enough that the beast’s own mind was fighting with itself.

Some time later, the group stopped, just as the moon had reached the center of the sky, and it was almost like it found its proper place. The moon had almost paused in its tracks, smoothly, and the stars stopped moving around it. As if the whole darkness of night itself had frozen. Something about that was just as unsettling as it was an amazing sight to behold.

“They’re coming,” they all said at once, their tone utterly serious and their weapons being drawn one by one.

“Who?” John asked, hoping he would finally receive some more information.

“The wolves,” they all responded as a joint howl was sounded from just in front of and behind them. A moment later, tens of shadowy figures jumped out of the bushes, as opposed to the familiarity of the humans as John thought possible. Twisted creatures of shadow only barely shaped like wolves, almost reminiscent of what he had seen in Graham’s mindscape.

Arrows quickly bolted through the air into the shadow creatures, breaking them apart at their base, the same way John had before. He quickly threw two waves of Arcane Bolts at them as well. Only one hit, but it did destroy the shadow. Some of the other humans swung their weapons at the monsters, also destroying them. Soon enough they were all dead, but the humans did not resheath their weapons. There was still danger, John suspected.

There was something else as well, one of them, a young male with brown hair and fur, had collapsed on the ground. When John got closer he found the reason, a gaping black wound was on his stomach. The first sign of individuality he had seen from them came with the man’s screams, they were his alone. The Gamer looked around, hoping to see the others come to help them, but there was no one, they all stood there, silently.

“Why aren’t you helping him?!” John asked, his voice clearly showing his distress.

“He’s already dead, the only mercy we can give him is a swift ****,” they said, one of them stepping forward only to slit the injured one’s throat before John could react.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” his fear turned to anger as he sat down besides the now bleeding man, unsure how to help him. His blood was blue, and in a few seconds he was already gone.

“That’s how they start,” they all pointed towards the darkness of the forest.

“You mean he would have turned into one of these things?” just the thought was disgusting.

“This place is cursed with a plague, we must destroy it before it takes us all,” for the second time, only one person said that. A woman with a blindfold over her eyes and white ears and a tail.

`This place is wrong, none of this should be happening, I know it. How can his Mindscape be tearing itself apart?’ John thought, unable to find the answer, but he did know one thing, ‘I need to help them fight it… Maybe I can still save them, at least.’

“What can I do?”

“You can come with us, the source of this is at the center of our village, our oracle sees it. We must go back there and destroy it before we all become like them,” they all said, as one, like before.

“Then I will, lead the way,”

They gathered outside a small village, it was made up of various thatch and wood huts. Strangely, however, John saw no farms or gardens, only the huts and a large campfire in the middle of the area. Some of the buildings clearly had different purposes, and there was even a fletcher and a blacksmith.

'I wonder if they hunt for food exclusively then… Well, I suppose they are wolves,' the Gamer thought to himself, distracted from their actual business.

“Explorer, our lives are at stake!” the oracle stated, her white ears standing on end in clear anger. She seemed to John as the only one of them that could talk freely on her own. If any of the others could, they hadn’t shown it. He wondered why, but their plan was more important at the minute. The mass of shadowy wolves in the village prevented them from getting to the campfire, where he saw the real cause of the issue.

It was a hole. A hole in the fabric of this world, as black as night and showing the stars beyond it. The center of it showed the moon. When John Observed it all he got was a simple error message.

Tear in Mindscape could not be analyzed

It was disturbing how much and little that told him about that thing at the same time. Whatever had made it was probably not natural, he thought, but the lines of metaphor and truth in a Mindscape were blurry even with the things he could understand.

“Are you even listening?” John heard the oracle say, her tone frustrated.

“Sorry, I am distracted, but yes. Can you repeat that last part though?”

“Fine. As we said before we will split up into two forks. Half of us will distract the shadows in the right flank and the other half will be on the left,” they all spoke together again now, “in the meanwhile you and the oracle will storm the central fire and the source,” that’s all they called it, even after John told them of his Observe error.

"Understood," John was listening this time.

"Alright then explorer, it's time for us all to move," they said, as everyone but the oracle formed two groups and went to their position.

"There's no time to waste," the oracle stated, her tone serious, "we need to get into our position in the center of the village by the time they start their ****,"

"Let's go then," John replied quickly, and they both began heading in the direction of the village as quietly as they could.

It wasn’t long before a noise appeared, something far more sinister than the sounds of their movement through the forest. It was the sound of distant voices, saying something John could not decipher, as he couldn’t make out what was being said. The closer they got to the tear the louder they got, but John could still not understand them. Most mysterious about them was the actual sound, somewhere between snakes whispering and cult chanting.

‘Maybe it’s not distance that’s the problem…’ John thought while he still had time to consider that. He wasn’t even sure the voices had any significance, but they still intrigued him.

A hand was placed in front of him to stop him, he noticed suddenly. The oracle looked to him silently to draw his attention. When he went to look around again he saw they had reached the edge of the forest leading into the village. Almost in front of him the shadows had started to move for some unknown reason; about fifty of them now stood around the campfire and the tear above it.

“We need to wait here,” she said quietly, her hand still stretched in front of John.
“Yeah,” and so they waited, but they did not have to wait for very long.

Something was getting eerie about the cave, a certain sense of dread crept into Bass’ mind and there was also a sound she couldn’t put her finger on. It was almost like it was coming from the wolf. The sound of voices whispering, she thought.

“What is that incessant noise!” Matthew got up and said, his tone showing his anger.

“So you hear it too?” Bass asked calmly.

“Yes, of course,” he responded quickly, and with that came the sound of claws moving across the ground, as the wolf moved one of its feet.

The charge started barely moments later, as the torches the hunters still had them on were lit and carried through the village around them. Arrows flew through the air to the right and left of them, hitting a few of the stray shadows that were still left there, and those at the center moved quickly outwards. They charged out to the humans carrying the torches, but John couldn’t see what happened there as the oracle began moving quickly. He followed suit, they had to hurry as much as they could.

Running in, zigzagging past the walls and buildings, the oracle pulled out her bow and John summoned in his Arcane Bolts. A volley from both were fired into the remaining shadows as they closed their distance and the sounds of fighting grew around them. The monsters were silent but screams and the sound of the arrows and sword told him everything.

’Whatever they are, they’re dying, sacrificing their lives so we can succeed. We have to get there!’ John was determined. He hated even thinking of what was happening to them.

The main fire came into view again not long after, and the sound had quieted somewhat. The oracle was first to move towards the source, as John stood there, watching her, but approaching more cautiously. He saw her walk a few more meters, but he wasn’t sure why. Then she suddenly collapsed to her knees.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH,” he heard her voice screaming out as she was only a few meters from the source. Her body clearly shivering in pain, John rushed to her side, but something stopped him. The closer he got the slower his movements got, and she had started to move again before he could get to her.

“I have to get closer,” she said, her voice showing her pain. Her knees sliding roughly on the ground as she tried to move forwards.

“You’re injured! You should stop, I’ll get there, just tell me what to do!” John said, desperately. He moved forward at a still slower pace, but faster than she did and he had almost reached her.

’No one has to die anymore! I won’t let her die!’ he thought to himself, hoping he was right.

“And what will you do, explorer? This isn’t your fight. I asked you to help me, not do it instead of me!”

“Does that really matter? Who cares whether or not I’m part of this, I’m not just going to sit here and let a person die if I can stop it. NEVER, do you hear me!”

His movements quickened, but so did hers and they both almost raced to the tear. As soon as he got to her, he felt why she had been in pain. The same sort of dull pressure was on his mind as had been in Graham’s mindscape. John tried to help her up, offering his hand, and trying to prevent her from moving forward.

“Take my hand, and tell me what I need to do,” he asked, his tone soft. Not noticing the noise around him had stopped completely.

“Fine... “ she said, taking his hand and barely standing up, “you have to close the source, however you can,” she looked around as well, “and hurry… We’re all that’s left,” the sadness in her voice was clear as John saw what she meant. The shadows were closing in on them quickly. The hunters were all gone, not even their bodies remained.

`Close it? How the hell am I going to do that? Wait… It’s the same pressure that I felt in Graham’s mind, if that’s true then that must mean some mind is the source of that, maybe I can find it if I use Psychic Connection in here…’

Then he felt them, the voices, coming from inside the tear. He reached out to them, unsure of what to do, or how to close it. And then he heard it more clearly.

“Kill him! Kill the explorer! He must not interfere,” the voice said, a clearly human voice.
’So that’s the source, who the fuck is that? Never mind, that’s for later, how do I close it? Focus John…’ he thought of any way to close it, his mind utterly revolving around the word for a few simple moments, ‘can I use one of my abilities to close it? Probably not. Arcane Bolts and Arcane Barrier won’t work. Hell, who knows, they might tear it apart instead of closing it. Closing it, closing it…’

“Whatever you’re doing, keep going! The source is closing!” the oracle grabbed his shoulders with as much **** as she could muster and grunted in pain. He looked to check and she was right, it had become just a tiny bit smaller.

’Wait… If I can affect my own spells with my will and my thoughts, who said I couldn’t affect other spells? CLOSE, YOU DAMNED PIECE OF WHATEVER YOU ARE’ he thought, as strongly as he could, focusing on the tear, and it alone.

Slowly, it closed, and John felt his mind slipping away. The last thing he saw was one of the shadows jumping towards him, and the oracle falling to the ground with a black wound.

When John opened his eyes, he was back in the cave.

“What happened?” John said, slowly, not sure what answer to expect.

“You lose consciousness too much, you know?” Bass said, her tone joking, and laughed, “No idea what happened in the wolf’s Mindscape, but she woke up, and didn’t kill us…” the smile on her face stopped, but the rest of the team were not positive either.

“She died,” Yan said with a grim tone, almost immediately, “a few moments after she woke up, and she gave us a message for you.