It was night in Zindor. I took out the core and almost opened the house, but then stored it away and took to the sky. It was better to process things with friends around. This time, I flew slower, not like all the denizens of hell were on my tail, and regenerated actively. Occasionally, shudders ran through my body, and goosebumps kept breaking out on my skin. This was a dangerous adventure. I suspected that my curiosity would get me in trouble one day, but I was sure it wouldn't be this time.

While flying, I thought about what I saw before the attack. Judging by the level of neglect and decay, it looked as though at least a month had passed between each town’s disappearance. Since the last town had been emptied only a day or two before, I was sure—one hundred percent sure—that I had more time.

That got me thinking. I remembered Mahya telling me in the mushroom valley that with mana levels over thirty, like in Lumis, trees reached maturity in two to three years instead of the tens of years it would typically take. Was it possible that all the weeds, trees, and grass taking over the other towns were because of the high levels of mana that came through the portal? It sounded logical, but I had no way to check it, and it irritated me. I needed to understand. Sometimes my need to analyze and understand everything annoyed me. Well, actually, it wasn’t the need itself. The need to understand was great. What was annoying was the lack of available answers. Either way, I had to let it go and throw it into the pile of unknowns. I had no intention whatsoever of going back there to check that point. Instead, I checked my blinking red light.

Level up

+3 to all Traits

Wizard Battle Master level 14

Yeah, it didn’t surprise me. It was nice, but not a surprise.

I opened the Spell List and went to the Mind Magic category to look for a solution to a more pressing problem. Mind Control. That one shook me like nothing else in my life. Remembering the Spellbinding I had used against my in-laws made me feel slimy and disgusting, like the feeling in the Lord of Lightning dungeon. But this time I was the source of the feeling, not some creepy dungeon effect. Yes, they were Assholes with a capital letter. Yes, I hated them and wanted—no, needed—to punish them for the way they treated Sophie. And yet, I felt like the lowest of the low. Experiencing mind control from the victim’s end was the most awful experience imaginable.

I remembered Lis telling me he had to leave more than one world in a hurry because of the negative reactions to his Psionic Swordsman class. Back then, I didn’t get it. I knew Lis and believed him when he said he used it only on monsters and beasts, so I never really understood. Now, after that horrible experience, I got it. I really, really got it. Maybe not to the level of chasing someone with the intent to kill if they had a Psionic class, but definitely to the level of staying far, far away from them.

Sadly, in the Mind category, I couldn’t find anything. Here too, some spells were grayed out, like I’d seen in other categories. Mesmerizing, Spellbinding, Enthralling, Entrancing, Hypnotizing, and Bewitching were available for purchase. Psychic Bind, Dominate Will, Break Will, Memory Rewrite, Memory Erase, Dream Invasion, Puppet Strings,

and Mind Shatter were grayed out. Yeah, none of them sounded like mind protection. I sighed and crossed my fingers, hoping I’d find something on the subject in Lis’s library. He was a psionic, after all. There was nothing in the magical books on parchment, but I hadn’t learned all the languages of the “regular” books, so there was still hope.

I was also upset about the abrupt end of my vacation. The days I spent in the wilderness were nice and did fill up my reserve of peopling. But I didn’t get the chance to experience that world to the fullest. When I rowed into town, it was already getting dark, so all I managed was to get a room at the inn, eat dinner there, and listen in on a few conversations. From what I heard, they didn’t even know about the attacks on the last two towns, although they were aware of the others and worried. That was my entire experience of that world. A fish dinner and some eavesdropping. Grr.

I reached our clearing in the late morning. Al’s house and the RV were out, but the gang was nowhere to be seen. I activated Malith’s bracelet and felt their direction. So, not in a dungeon. I found them in the fourth town, taking shots at a mud-diver from afar.

Rue felt me first and shot toward me. His tail wagged so hard it threw off his flight path, making him look like a drunk bird wobbling right and left. His head slammed into my chest at full speed, and then I was subjected to a full-force slobber attack. Laughing, I scratched his ears, and when the mud-diver was done, landed and headed to Mahya and Al.

“What are you doing here?” Mahya asked, smiling as she rested a hand on the hilt of her sword.

I wiped Rue’s drool off my face. “My vacation got abruptly cut short. How long was I gone?”

“Four days,” Al said.

“What happened?” Mahya asked.

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I glanced at the empty windows and crumbled walls around us. “I’ll tell you at home. It’s not a conversation for a monster-infested town.”

She and Al exchanged a glance, then both took out their flying swords. Mahya made an inviting gesture toward the sky. “After you.”

At home, with the largest cup of coffee I had, I told them everything that happened. When I got to the part about the mind control and the portal, Al shot up from his chair and let out a long string of curses in a language I didn’t know. The intensity was such that it was obvious those weren’t his usual “polished noble” curses, but standard sailor jargon. I didn’t need to understand the words to know that much.

I froze mid-sip, staring at him with eyes so wide they nearly popped from their sockets.

Mahya wore the same wide-eyed expression, though hers came with a dropped jaw for good measure. When Al finally stopped, she leaned forward, grinning. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

He waved her off with a sharp flick of his hand. “Some circumstances call for drastic measures.” He turned to me, his expression tight. “Tell me, was the person tall, thin, and yellow?”

I blinked at him. “How did you know?”

He let another string of beauties. Sadly, still in an unknown language. When he finally calmed down, he said, “We might need to leave Zindor earlier than planned.”

“Why?” Mahya asked, sitting up straighter.

“Those were Merukians,” he said in a clipped tone. “I did not personally meet them, but I have read about them in my family’s archive. They are slave traders from a very high-mana world. They were mentioned twice in the records. One claimed they come from a world with seventy-eight mana, and another claimed they are from eighty-two. It matters little. What matters is that they can portal, and in both accounts, the writer noted they sometimes locate additional worlds within the same cluster. One account even put forward a theory that they possess a means to sense the Gates themselves in order to gain new coordinates, though the theory could not be proven.”

We sat quietly for a few minutes, the only sound the faint clink of my cup as I set it down.

Finally, Mahya broke the silence. She leaned forward, her elbows on the table. “I don’t think we need to run. They have a whole world to empty, and we’re far enough away from the Gate. I don’t see a reason to run.”

I weighed both opinions and had to agree with Mahya. The chance of them finding us was less than nil. “I agree with Mahya,” I said.

Al studied her for a long moment, his expression unreadable. At last, he exhaled and gave a slight nod. “Yes, you are right. I overreacted.”

“What are you going to do now?” Mahya asked me, tilting her head as she rested her chin on her hand. “Help us with the clearing, or look for a different vacation spot?”

“I’m going to fly to Tatob.”

“Why?” both of them asked together.

“I thought you got fed up with it,” Mahya added, raising an eyebrow.

“I did. But I looked in the Spell List and couldn’t find anything to protect myself from mind control. I can check the library and the books I haven’t gone through yet, but I think a better idea would be to fly to Tatob and check the spells on offer there and inspect all the spell marbles. I stopped at some point because of the price, so they might have something I didn’t see.”

“That is a very good idea,” Al said, and placed a handful of mithril coins on the table in front of me. “If you find anything, please purchase one for me as well.”

Mahya also gave me money. “Me too.”

“Okay, but I’m not flying right away. I need a day or two.”

“Yeah,” Mahya said in a sympathetic tone, giving me a small smile. “I would need a week.”

Over the next two days, I spent my time puttering around the house. I cast Clean and Purify on everything—though definitely NOT in Al’s greenhouse. That lesson was ingrained in my mind, thank you very much. I cooked, shifted things around in my Storage and in the house’s storage hall, and poked through the library, though without much success.

I learned only five new languages a day, saving myself from another headache, but had zero success. Well, maybe not zero. I did find a book about bards, written by a Traveler who compared various Bard abilities between worlds. It was interesting to read, since many of the abilities were the same but carried different names, while others were unique to specific worlds.

But this book got me thinking about the system. It had saved me. I’d been muddled and confused because of the mind control and later its shattering, so in the beginning, I had trouble remembering exactly what happened. But while thinking it through and writing about it in my journal, I managed to recreate the sequence of events in my mind. And yes, the system was the one that ignited the elements while I was “under the influence,” and shattered the control over me.

I tried to convey my gratitude, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find the connection point. It was completely gone. That didn’t stop me. I walked out onto the porch, looked up at the sky, and said, “Thank you. I know I sometimes complain about you and get annoyed, but please ignore it. I’m just being difficult. You’ve never harmed me in any way, and when I needed help—really needed it—you helped me. So thank you from the bottom of my heart.” I bowed deeply, placing my hand over my chest to show my appreciation.

There was no reaction. Not from the connection point, and not the faint general response I used to get in the past, before the expanded channel formed. Still, I hoped it heard me.

That evening, I sat on the porch with a cold beer in hand, the wood beneath me still warm from the sun. I leaned back, watching the sky darken, and hoped one of the dungeons in the towns or the industrial center had carnivorous plants. Al really needed to make that damn potion already.

Rue padded over and flopped down beside me, his heavy frame shaking the porch. He dropped his head into my lap, eyes half-closed in bliss as I scratched behind his ears. A moment later, he lifted his head and demanded, "Rue want beer."

“You have your own stock,” I reminded him, nudging his muzzle away from my mug.

"Rue stock for emergency. Now not emergency."

I laughed, nearly spilling the beer. “And what, do tell, doesn’t constitute an emergency?”

He tilted his head, thinking hard, ears flicking as if that would help. Finally, he declared, "No place to buy beer for Rue."

I shook my head, chuckling. Yeah, that was an argument I didn’t stand a chance of winning. I slid a mug over to him, and he lapped happily at the foam.

Like that, we sat for over an hour, trading beers for ear scratches. In a way, it was its own kind of vacation. I only hoped Tatob would have what I needed.