Drip-Fed
Trauma Monster 6 – Ego Death

A single day was all they needed to reach the boss room.

“After all this time getting here… this feels almost too easy, doesn’t it?” Reysha asked.

“I’m more surprised that we didn’t run into the Atlas party,” Korith confessed.

“By all that we were aware of, we have been ahead.” Aclysia gently knocked on the stone next to the gate. Like all of their surroundings, it was grey rock with crystal veins running through it. There were no decorations nor any meaningful side paths. Every fork in the road eventually lead back to the path that brought them to the door. “It is highly unlikely for us to have met them here.”

There was no healing fountain here, as no injuries were expected to have been incurred. There was only the gate. Two grey stones, sitting tightly against each other.

“Still thought we might,” Korith answered. “Well, boss is open, so… guess that is the confirmation we needed?”

Apexus glanced left to right. The women with him nodded back. He put both of his hands against the gate and pushed. The stones moved slowly at first. Then, the magic that modulated access to the boss kicked in and pulled the gates open for them.

The party stepped into the chamber. It was an absolutely enormous boss room, over fifty metres across in its quadratic shape. Rectangular pillars were scattered around the place, no symmetry or pattern to their locations. The door closed behind the party with a loud thud.

The noise whistled in their ears. Their steps echoed off the walls. Weapons at the ready, the three melees advanced in a loose formation, Aclysia at their centre. ‘The ceiling is too low for me to fly much,’ Aclysia considered. At three metres up, it was not a cramped space. The height simply did not match the width of the chamber.

They had known nothing about the chamber, just as they knew next to nothing about the boss itself.

They made it to the middle of the room.

______________________________________________________________________

Reysha looked at the potion in her hand.

Apotho had given it to her. A simple brew for a simple purpose, so that she could execute her revenge properly. She drank it and all of her thoughts became subservient to the purpose. Her body was no longer her own, not really. She had signed it away to the warlock in exchange for her wish.

Death to those that wronged her.

Death that cascaded out of her hands a thousandfold.

The image of Ctania burning flickered before her mind.

One step at a time, she advanced towards the innards of the cathedral complex. The walls oozed the ichor of the innocent. A trick of her memory. There was a part of her that was aware of that. The rest of her was utterly dominated by the weight of her deed.

She made it to the innermost sanctum.

The Inquisitor waited for her there. Her clothes were ashen, burning still with the fire of her zealotry. She was in the path of Reysha’s revenge. She died for it. Her throat torn out by the teeth of the vengeful woman. Her life beat out of her strike by strike.

Then, the stone.

The core of a fallen angel.

Reysha had grasped it. She had aimed to rip it out of the magical network its power sustained. Her arm had burned for it. Her skin and muscles had been turned into char. Her bones had melted. She remembered that pain clearly. She remembered the moment of clarity that it had caused. She remembered trying to retake control over her own actions and then – the brew won.

Then, the city.

Then, the circle.

Then, screams and fire.

“That is all your fault, isn’t it?” Jolene asked. The auburn-haired woman was an embodiment of grace in an ocean of terrors. Four Deathhounds trailed her, their nightmarish forms supplicant to her shadow. “The city, the screams, it is all on your hands.”

“You wanted revenge,” Apotho added. The redheaded man sat on a throne of skulls, sharpening a dagger with his hands. “Sure, I exploited that desire, but you made the decisions. None of this would have been possible without you.”

“I know.” Reysha was on the floor, looking up at the images of the forces she had unleashed. It was the leg-parted, collapsed kneeling of a woman with no strength left in her legs. “How often do I need to admit that I know?”

Jolene laughed. “Until you die!”

“Until you die!” “Until you die!” “Until you die!”

The flames of the city around her rose into the shapes of ten thousand people. They beheld her. They judged her. They pointed at her. They chanted the guilt she deserved.

There was no one there to help her. Reysha was alone with her guilt.

She put her hands over her ears. She tried to get the noises out of her mind, but they only grew louder. Jolene laughed. The people cried out in anger. Apotho mocked her. “Is it even truly the sacrifices that leave you this traumatized, or is it that you lost control?”

Reysha grit her teeth and cried. The tears rolled unbidden from her face. She was angry and alone and afraid. There were no thoughts in her mind, nothing that was her own anyhow. She was just the battlefield of her impulses. She was…

‘I’m not this weak.’

It was an intrusive thought. It was her own thought. It was the only thing she could hold onto. She grasped it, repeated it, altered it.

‘I’m not this selfish.’

Even if she was alone, she could survive. She had not spent two years trying to be better. So much time, all of it in service of these memories.

‘I’m not the same person. I’m still me.’

The duality of thoughts echoed in her mind while her lungs continued to push air in and out at too quick a pace. Her pulse was racing, her throat was dry, her skin was damp beneath her equipment. When she moved her eyes, there were only the blurred shapes of faces. She clenched them shut.

‘Breathe.’

Reysha inhaled deliberately. She held the air in her lungs for three seconds. She coughed when she exhaled. The hyperventilating impulse was there. She suppressed it harshly and kept her eyes clenched shut.

‘Relax.’

Reysha let her arms drop. She let her guard drop. The wailing voices of the phantoms only grew louder. They hurled all the insults they deserved to say at her.

‘Even your thoughts.’

Reysha completely pulled inside her own mind. There was a calm there that she recoiled from. To not be distracted, to not feel based on what was outside her, it was the worst fate of all. No sweet food on her tongue, no pleasure coursing through her veins, just her holding up a mirror to herself.

The mirror was cracked. She knew it would be. To see it underlined the tragedy of her life all the same. Through the facetted surface looked back a selfish, broken woman that had gotten her wish to burn down a world. The mirror was cracked and it could never be mended. Until her dying day, her choices would remain with her. Nothing could change that. The mirror and the reflection were the product of who she had been.

In that moment, she had a choice. To once more let her emotions overwhelm her, or to do what she ought to do.

Reysha exhaled slowly. She put the mirror aside and considered something else. In her hand, she felt the hard, smooth texture of a vial. She could not see the vial nor its contents, but she knew it was there all the same. The liquid burned on its way down her throat. It burned like her hand had burned. Her whole mind was set alight and then… she felt everything.

_______________________________________________________________________

A tendril of black fluid slammed into Apexus’ chest. The attack catapulted him into a wall. His shoulder blades cracked at the impact. Muscle tissue on top of them kept the broken parts in place.

The body of the Monk reeled from the impact. Another lashing tendril came down a second later and should have struck him. By sheer desperation, Apexus took hold of the fluids inside his right arm and yanked them to the side with telekinesis. It was a crude application of this power, tearing muscle fibres in the process, but it kept him out of harm’s way.

“Reysha!”

Aclysia’s cry caused Apexus to look at the previously collapsed woman. She stood up calmly. There was no emotion on her face at all as she did. Had it not been for the determination in her eyes, Apexus would have suspected her mind controlled in one way or another.

“All desires and functions are laid out before the mind and thus all actions are taken by the mind, the stoic reasons, and the instincts honed by a good life.” A light smirk slowly shaped up on the Rogue’s face. “You were right, Apexus – this is torture.”

Korith leapt backwards, landing next to Reysha. “Glad you’re back with us?”

“Let’s kill that thing and get out of here.”

The blonde glanced at the Rogue, slightly surprised by her tone and the lack of curses. The difference in the body language was immediately apparent to anyone, especially a fellow, seasoned adventurer. There was an eagerness to the relaxed stance of the Rogue, like a freshly sharpened knife awaiting use.

Reysha was taking in the situation she found herself in. Aclysia hovered some space back, hiding behind a pillar. Apexus’ clothes betrayed various cuts on his legs that his biology had already healed. Similarly, there was blood on the ground near where Reysha stood, where she had collapsed moments ago. The armour had healed the blows she had taken for her.

Their enemy was… a thing indeed. A roiling mass of black liquid, manifesting tendrils and animals as it undulated. It lashed at Reysha and Korith, causing the two women to part. In one swift movement, Reysha drew her Runeblade and cut through the liquid. Before she had finished the motion, it had already healed.

“There is a core!” Aclysia shouted. “We have to lay it bare!”

“Time to take the hits…” Korith mumbled to herself, then went on a valiant offensive. Apexus nodded at Reysha, then followed the Warrior into the melee.

Tendrils swiped at the two of them. Korith dodged and leapt through with astounding swiftness for a Warrior in heavy plate. Apexus’ size did not allow him to do the same. Acknowledging that fact, he let the tendrils hit him, then locked as many as he could beneath his arms. With muscle and telekinesis, he kept them in place.

First, Korith struck the mass. When her hammer bounced off like it would from the blubber of a large monster, she leapt atop the creature. Her clawed feet dented the surface, but did not break it. The creature shifted its mass to throw her off. When half-measures did not work, it pulled back, then extended explosively, sending Korith flying.

A bright blue crystal shone through the surface of the monster, where its body was thinnest.

Aclysia lost no time. A duality of rays shot from her left hand and the crystal that hovered above her shoulder. The attacks seared into the membrane, cutting an X-shape into it. Internal pressure and heat from the Sunlight Rays caused the membrane to burst open, properly revealing the core of this black ooze monstrosity.

While the rest of her party fought, Reysha had found her approach. There was still that smile on her lips. As Apexus had said, the Ego Death was the supremacy of the will over emotion, not the killing of one’s personality. She felt her various impulses gnaw at her, vying for acknowledgement. She wanted to feast, she wanted to throw herself into the fray, she wanted to be flashy and deadly – she settled for deadly. The mirth on her features was proof of who she was.

She loved the thrill. She loved fighting. She was good at it.

Reysha scaled the smooth wall of the boss room. The Ring of the Spider made her fingers more adhesive than any glue. Covered by Stealth, she crawled unseen towards the enemy. Then, when Aclysia’s spells exposed the core, she jumped, Runeblade in hand.

She had aimed well. She clenched the weapon with both hands, ready to plunge it into the pulsing, blue, stone-like thing. Her body was coiled in anticipation of the stab, the snapped forwards. The tip of the weapon sank into the surface. Tendrils wrapped around her legs from behind.

Reysha was violently yanked backwards. The suddenness of the forced movement released her grip on the handle of her sword. She was slammed into the ground. Once, twice, thrice, her head meeting the raw stone of the floor with a devastating crunch. A fourth slam was well underway, when Apexus freed her with a well-aimed Rippling Palm. Black liquid splattered, only to crawl back to its origin in rivulets.

Reysha found herself midair. The concussion was mixing the horrid noise of the Influence Zone with the regular high-pitched screech of a damaged eardrum. She would fall, she knew that much. ‘Yeah, being aware of everything hurts,’ the thought was sober. ‘As will hitting the ground.’

A light blue shimmer entered her field of view.

“GO!” Korith yelled.

Reysha let her instincts have at it. Even with all else that was happening, they were sharp. The brick-sized block of energy had been manifested by Korith’s gauntlet and sent flying by a swing of her hammer.

Getting her hand on it, Reysha swung her body around it with all the athleticism of a true Rogue. Momentum launched her forwards. A second energy block gave her something to step on. A third and final quickly followed. Korith’s aim had been immaculate and so Reysha’s needed to be as well.

The monster was surrounded by a frenzied storm of tentacles. Stuck in its core, the sword messed with its body control. A Solar Lance ripped through the wall, creating the gap Reysha needed just as she descended. She landed on the body of the monster and gripped the handle of the Runeblade.

‘Edge.’ Ki flowed into the weapon. A blue, keen aura surrounded the already sharp instrument. ‘Overplay.’ An absolute excess of magical energy surged through her limbs. She could barely see it. Blood ran from lacerations into her eyes. She could her the screeching through her own pulse – both that of the boss monster and of the Edge, as teeth whirled around the weapon at rapid speed.

Biting, cutting, plunging, Reysha forced the weapon deeper into the core. Shrapnel pieces of blue stone sliced the surface of her leather armour and the patchwork additions. The veins of her demonic arm pulsed inhumanely thick. She screamed, through pain, haze, and trauma accepted.

The Runeblade pierced what was most vital to the boss.

A shiver went through the entire creature, then the black mass suddenly lost all surface tension. It flowed away in directions, before beginning to evaporate. Aclysia immediate flew into the gap, to find the Rogue lying in a fading puddle - motionless.

Aclysia instantly pulled out two potions from her back. The first, she poured over Reysha’s face, the other she gulped down in an instant. A Health Potion to provide the first healing and a Mana Potion to make sure she had enough left to fix her up completely.

Apexus and Korith approached as swiftly as they could. The final wave of attacks had broken Apexus’ left leg and Korith was simply exhausted. The two of them recovered quickly, worriedly looking over their healer’s shoulder.

“Ooohhhhh... that hurtssssss,” Reysha groaned, to all of their relief. Her tongue roamed around in her mouth. “Please keep healing me, I’m too pretty to lose any teeth.”

“…You absolute jokester,” Aclysia chastised her.