An Outcast in Another World 02 - Shared Insanity, page 42
‘IDENTIFY.’
Name: Dreamthief Nepenthes
Level: 39
Status Effects: Feeding
Description: A devourer of the body and mind who has been granted a banquet most bountiful. After all, your forms of flesh that you hold in such high regard are little more than nutrients. A collection of atoms that have bonded together, gaining self-awareness and self-importance. You have dined on plants and animals alike, sacrificing their existence to sustain your own, and now your inevitable turn on the chopping block has come. No hard feelings.
Rob dismissed the message.
In a flash, there was a sword in his hand.
–
Changes
Rob
Level 31 → 33
Berserker Level 27 → 29
Crystal Bearer Level 2 → 3
Learned: Crystal Bearer Class Skill - Waymark
Crystal Bearer Tier 2 Unlocked
Learned: Mind Resistance (LV 4)
Zamira
Level 24 → 26
Swordmaster Level 20 → 22
Chapter 26
Rob was a millisecond away from activating Rampage and cleaving open the nearest Dreamthief when Zamira latched onto his shoulder with an iron grip. “Stop,” she urged, pulling him back. “You’ll kill them.”
Between the sight of his friends being sucked dry by vampire plants, the fading dregs of Leveling High, and the memories of the illusion he’d been put under – so raw and tender they felt like bruised lumps in his mind – he almost shoved Zamira aside and continued his advance. Without Diplomacy screaming in his ear to take five seconds to understand the situation, he probably would have.
Rob snarled as he Stored the longsword back in his Inventory. “You were in one of those things, right?”
“Yes,” she said, wincing.
His fingers twitched. “Then you know what everyone else is being subjected to right fucking now?”
Zamira glanced over at an empty Dreamthief. Its front was split open, and the red-green liquid that used to be inside was coating the floor surrounding its shriveled form. “I do,” she replied, quietly. “I am also aware of what occurred when I tried to free you from your own imprisonment using force.”
She pointed to another empty plant, causing Rob to curse under his breath. Unlike Zamira’s, which had ostensibly been sliced apart from the inside by her sword, Rob’s Dreamthief had wilted and fallen apart. The remnants left standing were dotted with lines of jagged spikes that thrust out from the plant’s interior walls, giving it the appearance of an organic iron maiden. Rob looked down at his clothes, just now noticing the holes in his shirt that hadn’t been there a few hours ago.
“I attempted to cut you free,” Zamira said, hand resting on the hilt of her blade. “The moment my steel touched the abomination, it let out the high-pitched keening of a wailing infant and produced spikes that pierced through your chest and stomach.” Her eyes darkened. “But not your heart. I believe it was warning me. It knew that I valued your life. You were its hostage and its meal all in one.”
Zamira’s grip on the hilt of her sword tightened. “Were I Keira, perhaps I would have been able to release you from your torment with martial prowess alone. But I lacked the Strength to do so in one single blow that would leave the abomination no time to exact its retribution.” Her voice wavered. “I was helpless. Worthless. Useless. So I thought, and planned, and prayed, then out of nowhere your Dreamthief suddenly withered and...”
She looked away, but not before Rob saw shadows of despair flickering beneath her eyes. How long had she been sitting there, alone, desperately thinking of ways to save their friends and coming up blank? If they’d switched places, would he have kept his composure nearly so well as he watched everyone’s life drain away bit by bit on the Party Screen? Both of them were put through their own personal brand of mental torment, but only Zamira had been subjected to its spiritual-successor-sequel right afterwards.
Need to get my shit together, Rob thought. Unfortunately, his shit was scattered all over the place like a tornado had passed through, so he settled for gathering the mess into a nondescript box and taping a sticky note reading ‘For Future-Rob To Deal With’ on top. With his task now completed...sort of...Rob activated Quick Thinking and said the line he should have started with from the beginning.
“I’m glad to see you’re safe, Zamira.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll get them out of there. I promise.”
She offered him a bitter smile. “We have no choice otherwise. Some of them may be able to endure for a time, but Malika’s Stamina is precipitously low. A Dreamthief drains its victim of their HP, Stamina, and MP in equal measure, and Malika has neglected to raise Endurance despite her recent upturn in Levels. I’m unsure of what happens if a person’s Stamina reaches the negatives, as usually one would simply pass out if it fell to zero, but I can’t imagine the result will be good.”
Malika. She’d pushed so hard to be included in the Dungeon Crawl, claiming that she needed Levels more than anyone else, and that if she got stronger she might be able to magic up a solution to the Blight’s encroachment within Esternard City. The rest of Riardin’s Rangers were against the idea, especially Orn’tol, but their judgment had been outvoted. Malika, the other dipshits claimed, would be perfectly safe when surrounded by sixteen other Combat Class users. Rob would see to it that Orn’tol got the opportunity to slap each and every one of them once this was all over.
But that was for later. Malika needed help now.
“Let’s start from the top,” Rob said, feigning confidence. “You were the first to escape. How’d you manage that?”
“I was shown a dream,” Zamira began. “As I assume we all were. Are. It was idyllic; a version of Elatra where The Scouring and The Cataclysm never took place. Of course, I deduced it for the illusion it was in short order, and demanded to be released from its grasp.”
Rob blinked. “And the dream just...let you go?”
“No,” she stated, in a voice of stone. “The specters of my mother and father asked me to prove my conviction by cutting them down. So I did.”
“...Oh.”
A moment of silence passed between them, but only a moment. It was all they could spare.
“And what of you?” Zamira asked. “I regained consciousness inside the Dreamthief and carved my way out. Yours died without either of us having to lift a finger. What transpired within your illusion?”
I wonder why she tried to free me first, Rob thought, as he considered how to answer her question. Not that we aren’t good friends, but she and Keira are thick as thieves these days.
You know what, I can’t even be mad at that.
“My illusion didn’t get the chance to force some soul-wrenching test of resolve onto me,” Rob replied. “Although I think it was working up to that point. I can’t say for certain, but I think your attack scared the Dreamthief. It got put off its game and started giving me the hard sell way too soon, and all that accomplished was pissing me off. The entire dreamworld collapsed soon afterwards, courtesy of the Mind Resistance Level 4 Skill I acquired while I was unconscious.”
Zamira’s eyes widened. “And due to your EXP Share, a portion of that Skill will be transferred to everyone else in the Party. Myself included. That is why I was able to resist the Dreamthief’s seductive call.”
Rob shook his head. “Maybe Mind Resistance helped a little, but I’m pretty sure you escaped well before it hit Level 3, let alone Level 4. I think you’ve just got nerves of steel.”
She shook her head back at him. “I am not so arrogant as to say that I possess a stronger will than any of our comrades. Put simply: I have suffered less hardship than they. An illusion that picks at the wounds in someone’s heart will undoubtedly be more difficult to break for those whose hearts are filled with grief. Unlike the vast majority of Elatrans, I didn’t lose anyone I truly cared about in the last decade. For me, the illusion was a cage of wood. For them, it may very well be a prison cell of wrought iron.”
A hint of self-recrimination entered her tone. “That is why I am here, instead of someone who would actually be useful towards our rescue efforts.”
It made sense, in a grim sort of way. Out of everyone in Riardin’s Rangers, Zamira was the only one who had more friends and family right now than she did before the war broke out. He wasn’t sure about Meyneth or Taleya, but it was clear that – if nothing else – Meyneth had some big-time issues that needed to be addressed, and Taleya would have known some of the Rangers fighting and dying on the front lines. Trauma wasn’t supposed to be a competition, but when it came to having your memories picked apart and laid bare by a vampiric eggplant, the abomination simply had less leverage to torment Zamira with.
Her reasoning was correct – assuming you left out everything that painted her in a good light. They couldn’t afford for her to be plagued with self-doubts, and just as importantly, he hated the sight of her shoulders slumped and her eyes downcast. She deserved better than that.
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Rob stated. “I couldn’t have done what you did, illusion or otherwise. I’m only here because I’m a Human who gets Skills gift-wrapped and handed to him just for existing. You’re the one who called the Dreamthief’s bluff. When we rescue everyone, it’ll be because you stepped up when no one else could.”
Leadership Level Increased! 4 → 5
A bit of the stoniness in Zamira’s expression softened, and watching her disposition improve brightened his own mood in turn. “Thank you,” she said. “But I implore you to save the flattery for later, when we’ve come up with a workable solution. As of now, the few ideas I can envision are too risky to implement without harming the Dreamthief’s prisoner.”
Truth be told, Rob was hoping that the problem would have resolved itself by now, but odds were that sharing a portion of Mind Resistance Level 4 wasn’t going to be enough to free the members of his Party. If so, someone besides him and Zamira would have already escaped the illusion. And even if every single member of his Party was freed within the next minute, that still left the twelve other people who’d been ensnared upon entering the Dungeon. Nine Rangers, two Healers, and Elder Alessia, none of whom seemed remotely closer to waking up, and who would be unable to accept Party Invitations as long as they were unconscious. Neither they nor Malika had time for him to wait around and see if the situation changed.
They needed action. Immediate action.
Rob scanned the room for something, anything. He pointed at several empty Dreamthieves in the corner, one of them hacked to pieces. “Those ones never contained a prisoner?”
“No,” she answered. “Spares, I imagine. I destroyed them in an attempt to level up and increase Strength, but my efforts were futile. They only count as ‘alive’ when feeding.”
He rubbed his chin. An idea struck him, and the notion of implementing it made him shiver like someone had stepped on his grave. But with the limp forms of his friends and allies still fully in view, what the hell else was he supposed to do? He would consider any fucked up plan if it had the slightest chance of saving them.
“What if I hopped in one of the empty Dreamthieves?” He hazarded. “The illusion wasn’t...that...bad. It’ll give you an opportunity to experiment on how to get me out, and I’ve got enough HP to survive a round of backlash. And hey, maybe I’ll level up Mind Resistance more while I’m under.”
Zamira fixed him with a flat glare. “Rob, if you try something that catastrophically foolish, I’ll disable you with Mercy’s Whisper and hear any further suggestions from your weakened form as it lays whimpering on the floor, where you will stay until you’ve thought long and hard about how to treat your life with more care.”
Rob held up his hands in defeat – not that it had taken her much to convince him. “Okay, okay. It was just an idea.” An idea you can’t stop me from implementing if I spam Rampage to move over in a hurry, but we’ll call that Plan C. Plan A is…
“I learned Waymark,” Rob said. “It’s the Crystal Bearer Skill that teleports the Party. Think that would get them out of the Dreamthieves?”
Zamira’s eyes lit up with hope, before dulling a moment later. “It very well might. But we’ve no concept of how quickly Waymark executes its function. If the teleport is not instant, or close to instant, the Dreamthieves will have ample opportunity to skewer those inside.”
Shit. Plan B? “Are there any Skills that increase Stamina over time?” Rob asked. “Or MP? I leveled up twice from escaping my Dreamthief. That’s ten stat points to throw around.”
Zamira frowned. “As far as I’m aware, the only lower-prerequisite Skills that directly recover Stamina are Deep Breathing and Second Wind, neither of which are Passives you would be able to share. Mana Efficiency reduces MP consumption from casting spells, which is ill-suited to our current situation. The others aren’t casting, they’re...” She grimaced. “Being drained.”
“Might be worth a try anyway,” Rob muttered. “What’s the stat prerequisite for Mana Efficiency?”
“30 Magic.”
Rob had 18. Which meant that even if he used up all his unspent stat points, he would be fucking 2 away from getting the Skill. And it wouldn’t solve Malika’s impending Stamina crisis, which took priority over every other consideration.
He almost tried it anyway, just to give himself the illusion that they were making progress.
What else is there? Rob racked his brain, fully aware that each second he wasted was a second where the Elves grew that much closer to flatlining. Panic was building within him like pressure up an overtaxed valve. Fuck, if they didn’t come up with a solution soon enough then he might actually have to let himself be probed by another goddamn Dreamthief. Mind Resistance Level 4 wasn’t cutting it; if the only way to grind the Skill was to subject himself to another fresh hell then he would bite the bullet and hope it didn’t explode in his mouth.
Maybe he was focusing too much on his EXP Share, trying to use a hammer wherever he saw a nail, but neither he nor Zamira were mages. Once you barred them from hitting things really hard, their list of options shrunk dramatically. Inventory wouldn’t work on organic material, and the Firebombs and Potions and extra weapons in his Spatial Storage were all completely useless in this situation. The EXP Share was his one way of affecting his allies without having to touch them. There had to be something he could share-
…
Oh.
“Zamira?” Rob began, keeping the trepidation out of his voice. “You’re pretty sure that the reason the others can’t escape is because the Dreamthieves have got them mentally tied down?”
“It’s the sole conclusion that makes sense to me,” she assented.
It was the sole conclusion that made sense to him too – which is why he’d known what her answer would be before she said it. In truth, the only reason he’d asked at all was so that he could procrastinate from carrying out the decision he’d already made.
Mind Resistance was a step in the right direction. He just needed to take things a step further.
“Rob?” Zamira asked. “What’s the matter?”
Like the coward he’d been told he was, Rob hesitated. Well, there was a way to solve that quickly and painfully. He opened up his mental box full of shit and pulled out a lovely quote that had yet to stop ringing in his ears.
“Would you freely abandon those who’ve put their faith in you?”
And with that fresh guilt burning a hole in his heart, he held it tight and used it to give himself the final push he needed.
You have removed Zamira from the Party!
Her eyes widened. “What are you-”
Melancholy Resistance has been activated!
In an instant, the world was different.
In an instant, the world was better.
Cracks and holes and gouges in his mind – many of them so old and so deep that he’d forgotten they were there – were swept over and repaired, Melancholy Resistance filling the gaps with serene clarity. It was like a dozen shots of morphine interjected straight into his psyche. Aches and pains that had dragged him down in every waking moment of his life were dulled. Not gone, but able to be ignored. Able to be managed.
Jolts of relief shuddered through him as he was made whole again.
“I think this will work,” Rob said. “If they get even a fraction of this, then they’ll be able to no-sell the Dreamthieves with ease.” He smiled brightly at Zamira. “They’re going to be okay. Just like I said.”
She stood very, very still. “Rob, what Skill are you referring to?”
“Melancholy Resistance,” he replied.
No one could have been blamed if, in that moment, they mistook Zamira for a statue. “...at what Level?”
“Level 4.”
Her sword slipped from her grasp. Rob arched an eyebrow at Zamira’s most prized possession, the blade she hadn’t parted with since the day she Altered her Class, carelessly dropped to the ground like a hunk of steel litter. “Is it really that surprising?” he asked. “Somehow I doubt the Skill is as ‘Rare’ as its description claims. After The Scouring and the Cataclysm, I bet everyone has it.”
“At Level 1 or 2,” Zamira mumbled, sounding lost. “Level 3 at the very most.”
Rob shrugged in response. “What can I say? I’m a fast learner.”
Zamira leaned over and grabbed both his shoulders in talon-like grips. She looked desperate, almost as much as when she’d been describing her solitude spent fruitlessly watching her friends and allies slowly die. “I can’t allow this,” she said, more as an order than a statement. “Melancholy Resistance isn’t a Skill to be taken lightly. At Level 2 or 3, it can change you irrevocably, twisting your personality into a pleasant facsimile of who you used to be. I’ve never heard of Level 4, not in books, not in stories, not ever! Deactivate it at once or-”
