Intelligence is not all it's cracked up to be

“So you’re telling me I would be permanently scarred?!” John started panicking immediately.

‘Just the thought of my soul being damaged makes me sick to my stomach… I’m still not sure what exactly it does, but that cannot be good.’

“Not exactly. Your soul being damaged is more of a gradual effect. It will cause your personality to fade away with time, leaving you hollow and emotionless,” Matthew’s expression was grim in a way John had not seen before on him.

“Everyone has seen it in the Abyss at some point, someone pushing themselves just a little too hard. They lose what made them who they are,” Yan continued, her gaze averted from the rest.

“That’s… Worse than anything I could imagine.”

“Yes, yes it is,” Bass summed it up, “now, let’s not dwell on it. We managed to kill the rest of the wolves while you were ****, and from the little exploration we did outside of this area it seems like only the alpha is still alive. Charlotte saw it in one of the caves, but we’re not exactly sure how to get there. The minimap and statuses have been gone since then so we got a bit lost,” she looked briefly to the right of herself, “guess they’re back now, good.”

“I suppose it makes sense that you guys waited for me then…” John shook his head, trying to break out of the slight dizziness he felt. He got up slowly, stretching his limbs, his back still to the wall.

‘I feel stiff…’

“How long was I out?”

“About two hours now, I think?” Bass answered him a second later, quickly walking over to help him up. John took her hand, moving off the wall step by step. Suddenly, he felt his feet buckle under him, and Bass had to grab him to keep him steady.

“Sorry, guess I’m still really out of it.”

“It’s fine,” she grabbed a rock from nearby and gave it to John. It was the one still filled with water, “drink some more, you really need it dude,” and so he did.

The first few sips only made John realize how tired he truly felt. The haziness in his brain only grew stronger, but he fought it off as much as he could. Eventually, though, it became tolerable, somehow.

“Alright, let’s go. We don’t have time to waste on me recovering,” John was determined to finish this mission.

“Fine,” Yan shrugged, and the rest followed the two of them as they slowly exited the cave back into the tunnels.

The walls around the entrance were only halfway up, the right side was pummeled into the ground and the left’s top half was broken off. John wasn’t sure if that was due to the wolves or the rest of his team, but even without bodies the signs of fighting were obvious. The walls and floor were covered by various marks, many among them being claw marks, and copious amounts of blood. Almost every surface was wet with blood, which pooled in the small crevices and holes in the floor like dark red blotches on the gray surface. As they walked south, towards a large open area that was shown on the map, the other signs of the conflict appeared. What seemed to John like hundreds of wolf corpses were strewn about.

‘Jesus Christ…’ John almost retched, turning his gaze and trying to think of happier things, his mind wandered to Alice, ‘I hope she’s doing ok. Whatever she’s up to must be better than this,’ he chuckled to himself in his mind.

“It’s not a pleasant sight, but it was necessary,” Yan grimly said.

“I know, I know…”

“I-I al-always hate seeing it,” Charlotte said, her voice shaking.

Bass put her hand on both John’s and Charlotte’s shoulders, “it’ll be alright, you guys. We’re almost there anyways.”

The rest of the way was passed in utter silence. Though those same horrors repeated themselves, the amount of them lessened as they neared the area.

Once they entered the large open room, they noticed the eerie and incessant noise. The walls were filled with those same vibrant crystals, but no wolves except one were to be found. Yellow dots stared back at John from the edge of the cave, that was the face of the humongous wolf that was before him. All the while, a low growl came from its mouth, as if it was trying to scare them off. Its belly was huge, but that did not impair its movement as its legs struck the ground and pushed it forward. The cave rumbled with each step and the noise grew only louder. The ground under it was crushed and levelled with its movements, and the whole thing seemed ready to collapse.

The five of them stood there, Charlotte and John frozen, Bass looking around, and Matthew and Yan both staring at the creature, their jaws wide open.

“That thing is going to be able to break through the tunnels. If we retreat into them, they will collapse on us,” Matthew said briefly, motioning the others to him as he took a few steps forward, “we need to fight it here and now.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” agreed John.

‘We don’t have much choice, that much he’s right about…’

The low noise suddenly turned to an ear splitting howl, and they all covered their ears as quickly as they could. Even with that measure, John felt his whole body shaking as the thing continued approaching them. Desperately, he summoned barrage after barrage of Arcane Bolts and slung them at the giant wolf. A wave of sound John could barely hear over the noise and a dozen ice spikes were thrown at the monster as well. Most of them bounced off it, and those that didn’t barely scratched it deep enough to cause the wolf to bleed. The blood was a deep almost purple blue.

The beast crouched down, readying its hind legs. In a split second, it lunged. The sheer speed of the jump threw the air like a whip towards the group, John withstood it for a moment before losing his footing, sliding back and falling over himself in an attempt to recover. He couldn’t see the rest, only Bass remained in the corner of his vision, who had found herself in a similar circumstance. She was quickly getting back up about five meters to his right. The sight of the giant black creature covered all of John’s vision in front of him, and it neared him swiftly.

The alpha landed with a gigantic thud, hiding even Bass with its sheer size and proximity. John was now able to examine the creature more closely, it looked like a wolf, but almost four meters tall in all and wider than he thought any creature could be. Its breath and smell was all John could concentrate on as it moved slowly towards him, seemingly unconcerned with anything else. John quickly threw an Observe at it, hoping some help would appear.

That did indeed help, ’If only I could stall that thing for a while… We might have a chance of killing it.’
“Strike at its feet! That’s where it’s weakest!” John shouted as loud as he could, trying to get that message to the others even without seeing them.

’I doubt Arcane Barrier would last against the alpha, and I might just end up like last time,’ it neared with each passing second, the smell of rot, blood, and fresh meat got worse and worse and he could hear its slow steady breathing and the noise that came along with it, ’The bolts did nothing either…’ it was practically on top of him, lowering its head to his face, its eyes were a piercing yellow but everything else about it was terrifying, ’Wait! That said it was intelligent, if it’s intelligent it could have emotions and… Well, that’s a **** move, but,’ he looked around, trying to think of any other options, but came up with none. The moment he felt the skin of its mouth, he decided. He exited his mind, feeling around his own body and soon finding the flickering thoughts of the giant monster, and he entered them.

The giant wolf stopped in its tracks, and more than that, the sound quieted. Only silence was left as Bass stood there, shocked and unsure of what had happened. They had only done minor damage to the creature, there was no way it was already defeated. Yet, it did not move. Carefully, Bass moved around it to check on John, and his body was similarly limp.

“Is everyone still alive?” Bass was surprised to hear Yan’s voice coming from the other side of the creature which Bass guessed was the alpha.

“Yeah, I’m fine, but it looks like both John and the wolf are ****. They’re not moving and he collapsed on the ground,” she said nervously, trying to remain calm.

“We should kill that thing while it’s asleep,” Matthew said, almost immediately.

“No,” Charlotte stated outright, “I-I can see John’s Mana on it… If we did that, we’d be killing him. Be-because I think he entered its M-mindscape,” her voice was so quiet Bass barely heard her.

“Alright, so what do we do?” Yan asked.

“We get ourselves ready to give that thing a hell of a beating when he comes back.”

“So you believe he will? You are far too much of an optimist, Hollmey,” Matthew said, his words cold and distant.

“I know he will, he’s someone we can all rely on, I know it.”

First there was only darkness, filling every crevice. Then, John opened his eyes and saw the moon. It was a shining white with deeper tones and colors than he had seen before, and far larger than the moon on earth. The white sphere seemed to loom above him, as if threatening to fall to the Earth and destroy it. The sky above him contained the same stars as Earth, but they were all far more vivid. His back was to the cold ground, but somehow it was not as hard as he expected. Soft grass covered it all and the individual blades poked at John like a pleasant bed. Around him in every direction was a thick forest, with trees as tall as buildings, but they never hid the sky. At the edges, where they overlapped with one another, their leaves took an ethereal white tinge and let the light go through them. He heard many things around him, crickets chirping, the slow shifting of the leaves in the wind, and from the distance he heard howling.

John slowly got up, shifting uncomfortably as his head ached slightly.

’So it does have a Mindscape. Not that that helps me much as long as I don’t find a way to stop it,’ his goal now was unclear. John didn’t know what he wanted to do like in Frank’s mind, nor was anything guiding him like in Graham’s, ’I’m on my own this time. Bass, Charlotte, Yan, and even Matthew, they’re all depending on me, again. I won’t let them down, not this time,’ he endeavored, ’this is a wolf’s mind, so the howling seems somewhat promising. Maybe I’ll find what I’m looking for there.’

He walked slowly, measuring each step into this foreign world. Hoping that outside it his body was safe and well, `If the wolf is still active and attacks me… Who knows what might happen. I need to find whatever will help us quickly.’

Soon after, he found part of what he was looking for, as he neared a clearing. John heard leaves rustling to the right. A wolf was coming, that much was obvious, it was the ideal setting for them and that would be the most logical protector of the alpha’s mind.

`Fuck. Hope my powers work in here like they did in Graham’s Mindscape,’ the blue bolts around him once he summoned Arcane Bolts told him they did, luckily. What came out into the clearing, however, was absolutely not what John expected.