Weight builds on my mind, piling up little by little as my spells shatter and fail. Slowly but surely I pass over the last limit that did some serious damage to my mind, and that was with Pearl's help. My stats don't look good enough to warrant this kind of improvement, but… maybe a few points are worth more than I thought.

"Options. We need options." I ball my hands into fists and crush my thumbs inside. "We don't have enough time or space for Clutter. I'm assuming neither of you two have any kind of movement magic, or else you would've spoken up by now. So if anyone's got any ideas, throw that shit at me, because right now we're just waiting to get mind-crushed."

I look around. None of them look away, but from their body languages, none of them seem to have anything they're confident in. Not much of a surprise, considering they've probably never been in a magic-less situation like this before.

"Then we need to get ready to do something risky. Vesa, Briony; do you remember anything about whoever's attacking us? Anything at all is helpful."

Vesa shakes his head. "Wherever they got me from, it wasn't anywhere I saw. And considering how much range they seem to have, there's a good chance they weren't close to us at all."

Shit. That's what I expected, but still. "Briony? Anything at all?"

"Sorry." She apologizes with a hint of aggression. "I should've been looking out for… anything, really, but I was just so stupid. They even made us think someone was after Clutter, but now that I'm thinking my own thoughts again, they didn't even give reasons for it. Just put a generic fear in my brain and let that do the work."

"Oh! The… the noise!" Vesa exclaims excitedly. "That had to be them, right? Or if it wasn't them, someone else that might be able to help us!"

Clutter and I share a covert glance. He raises an eyebrow, and I discreetly shake my head telling him to let them come to their own conclusions; it'd be harder to explain that my skill isn't letting me do anything about it than just letting them realize that running into the street is impossible.

So I just sit here. Waiting, listening, and watching as time ticks down. The strain on my awareness grows and grows, and the bubble of it around me shrinks with every shield that breaks. In a few minutes, I'll be down to my normal senses with a screaming headache and potential brain damage. I just… don't know what to do.

I lean back and rest my head against my innermost shield. The vibrations from the magic strum down into my core, and the siren song of utter control it promises is both terrifying and tantalizing. It's strange; even though I'm facing down potential death, I'm pretty damn calm. Maybe that's due to the psychic, or maybe my body just hasn't realized how close we really are.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time to let myself realize. We have to work on assumptions. Things I can kind of take from how the psychic did what they did, why they did it like they did, and why they're doing what they're doing at this very second. None of it makes sense if their only desire was to kill me–they could've done that yesterday. So, for some reason, they waited.

…They controlled Vesa and Briony into meeting with Clutter so they could plant strange memory blocks in him. Then they had him tracked all the way here, and if things had gone perfectly right, Vesa would've dragged me away from here–all the way back to Palastia. At least if I can trust what they said to me, which is probably a lie, so… just trust that they wanted me and Clutter out of here for some reason.

We also know that the psychic can plant or blur out memories, make people completely freeze up, and apply a… field… that can at the very least do damage to other spells. They can also hear thoughts, but since we're sitting here fine, they can't feel through their spell or hear anyone that's being purified. Then there's the needle, which is probably just a needle, and… I feel like I'm forgetting something.

I close my eyes, tune out the conversation, and focus. What am I missing? Nothing from how they controlled Clutter. Nothing from how they controlled Briony, other than the obvious that they can cause mental anguish. And… Vesa. The… he… the handprint. He left a handprint to hold a door shut. Even if the psychic doesn't know exactly where we are in the house, they definitely know which house we're in. So why haven't they come knocking yet?

"Vesa." I say as my eyes snap open. "You put a handprint down to lock a door. Was that your spell, or the psychic's?"

He frowns at the sudden question. "That's… mine. It's called 'mage body', and it lets me create force-based projections of my body parts. Is it still on the wall?"

I motion for everyone to get ready to move. Turns out it's completely unnecessary, as everyone already started to move the second Vesa's question finished. We carefully slink to the edge of the loft and peer down at the door, where there's absolutely nothing holding it closed. No magic, no latch, nothing.

"So why the hell hasn't the psychic come in yet?" I mutter under my breath. "This has to be costing them an insane amount of mana. And if they're so strong that mana doesn't matter to them, why haven't they just burst in and slaughtered us?"

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I steady my breathing and summon a relocation coin. Another shield shatters, and my awareness shrinks even further. All the connections to the relocation coins I left in Dell's apartment strain under the weight of my weakened mind and awareness. The only way I can see getting out of this is on my own.

"Clutter, Vesa, Briony. Is there any way the three of you can safely knock yourselves out for a few minutes?"

Clutter shakes his head. Vesa and Briony exchange a worried look, but Briony slowly nods.

"I can transmute some of the chemicals in our bodies. But to do that, I need my magic–and if I do that, then we're just easy targets for the psychic." She glances down at the needle, still hovering in the air with the promise of violence, and gulps. "Can you at least explain your plan first?"

"Guess I owe you that much." I chuckle nervously. "If all three of you get knocked out–no thoughts at all–the psychic shouldn't know you're here. Then I'll go outside, draw their attention, and teleport out of their range so I actually have more shields to fight with."

Briony slowly nods along. "What happens after that?"

I shrug. "We hope I'm a natural counter to psychics when I can actually see them."

"That's it? You just… hope?" Briony's voice grows quiet. "How can we let you take on all the risk? You're the only one who isn't responsible for us being in this mess."

"Technically, I could be the only reason we're in this mess." I wince as another shield breaks, then plant a hand on Briony's shoulder. "If you come to and the fight isn't over, only help if you're confident you won't get mind controlled again. Can you three do that for me?"

Squirming reluctantce fills the silence. Clutter and Vesa both stare at Briony, who won't take her helmet away from my gaze. She mumbles something that sounds like words of self-encouragement under her breath, squares her shoulders, and nods with as much confidence as she can muster.

Perfect. I send the mist away, then gesture vigorously for her to get on with it. She lunges at Clutter and Vesa, plants a palm on each of their faces, and pours a steady stream of magic that feels like change itself into their bodies. Four eyes roll back within seconds, and she catches the pair before their limp bodies can hit the ground. Then she turns to me, grabs my wrist, and laughs nervously.

"Sorry for all this." She whispers. "Hopefully this helps."

A spike of adrenaline surges from the pit of my stomach. My heart beats faster and faster, spurred on by a roar of magic that rips out of Briony's hand and fills me with unrestrained might. I gasp in surprise as my awareness blossoms, almost like Pearl herself was empowering it, and the connection to my coins becomes razor-sharp.

"What is this?" I wonder aloud as I look at the back of my hands, veins overgorged with blood and throbbing to a heartbeat that has to be at least 200 BPM. "It feels like I'm so alive that I'm about to die."

Briony laughs weakly. Very, very weakly. "You're not going to die. I just gave you almost all the vitality I had left. Goodnight, and good luck."

Without another word, she wraps a hand around her neck and pulses magic into her throat. Her body goes perfectly limp and falls right next to the others. I lick the inside of my teeth, feeling the jagged edges cut slightly into my tongue, and carefully dispel the shield around them. The magic shivers, confused that it no longer pushes against anything, and before it can close in on me I throw up another shield that only protects me.

Like air filling a vacuum, the magic suddenly and violently occupies the space it hadn't before. I grit my teeth and watch as the unconscious bodies are covered in it, but… nothing happens. The magic touches them the same way it touches the floor and stairs. Whatever Briony did, it made them unrecognizable to the magic.

"Thank god." I sigh in relief. "Now all that's left is the hard part."

I pull out my Class Card and swipe over to my buffs to see what the system says Briony did to me.

Vitality Transfer

You have been granted the remaining vitality from (Briony).

Forces your body into overdrive, increasing vitality by 100% and exhaustion rate by 200%.

Duration: 582s

Two times as much energy and three times the exertion. So it isn't going to make my spells any more powerful–it'll just let me control more of them at the same time. And if the psychic keeps pushing me, I'll get closer to a state of zero awareness three times as fast as before. Damn am I glad I checked this before running into the street feeling like I'm invincible.

I turn to Briony's body and give her a nod of thanks, then make my way down the stairs three at a time. The spike of psychic energy wobbles ever so slightly now that I'm not purified, trailing slowly in my direction as the psychic gets a slight static-like buzz from my thoughts. I shudder and look away, pressing my hand to the door as images of the countless possibilities flash before my eyes.

Most of them are horrible. I throw open the door anyway, pressing a projectile coin against my thumb and a relocation coin right on top of it. Before I can see anything I launch the projectile up and over the house, strong and long-lasting, carrying with it the relocation. A metallic taste blossoms at the back of my tongue, like biting down on a rusty dentist's mirror, and my awareness screams danger from the right.

I throw myself from the house and into the street. A mass of magic shears through where I was just standing, screaming and pulsing like a migraine mixed with a drill sergeant's tear-down. My mind prickles in fear as I scramble to my feet, and I scan the streets for any signs of life.

Someone is in the middle of the street. An obviously unhuman man with jet black skin marked with yellow-orange stripes, ears like a cat's, and piercing slit-eyes that shimmer with an inner light. He smiles, revealing pointed teeth and two saber-like fangs that were somehow hidden in his jaw. With no movement from anything below his neck, he starts to speak

"You must be Shelby." He rumbles as actual yellow-orange smoke rises out of the corners of his mouth. "I do apologize for the intensity of our first meeting. Now, would you do me the honours of fighting until one of us dies?"

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