He hadn’t seen the Dream that late at night before, and for a moment, the sight that welcomed him stole his breath. The deep lilac of day had been replaced by a murky, dark purple twilight as it did before, but now, it wasn’t dark anymore.

  Nar stepped forward gingerly, his jaw dropped and Era’s sudden request all but forgotten.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked.

  He could only nod.

  Dream aether, for that was what the pink, blue and purple motes of light were, rose from the flower carpeted ground in much stronger intensity now. If anything, it almost looked like a slow, reversed rain, falling upwards from the flowers to the canopy blocking the sky overhead.

  But even that was different. Instead of the dark canopy, his eyes shone brightly as he gazed up to the dream aether gathered above them, shifting and swaying like water currents running in the opposite direction to where they were going, back to the Pond of Tranquility.

  Crystal… It’s like that place with columns and the Pressure, Nar thought. Is that what the Pressure was, back then? Aether? That’s what we assumed, but we never got an answer for that, or for so many other questions. Like the difference between the spiders and the guardians.

  He exhaled gently, his eyes drinking in the spectacle of pulsing light above his head. Thinking back, the spiders at the end of their Climb had been powered by aetherium tubes. But he’d smashed through enough guardians to know without a shred of a doubt that there had been no such tubes inside them. Not even those Pressure coated guardians…

  We’ll probably never understand what in the Pile was going on in that Climb, he thought. And it’s not that it matters anyways, is it? We’re here now. Outside.

  He froze, his mind returning to the present. “Oh! I’m so sorry, I—”

  Era shook her head, the same light smile still adorning her lips.

  “Don’t be. This place is one of contemplation and enlightenment, and you seemed deep in it,” she said, tilting her neck to take in the flowing, gathering of aether above their heads. “True, the Dream’s purpose is to trap and to derive nourishment from you, but if you can resist that side of it, the Dream is a fantastic place to draw deep insights from.”

  Her eyes slowly pivoted back to him, her head remaining tilted upwards. “And you have, haven’t you, Nar?”

  “I…”

  She reached for his arm and gently, but deftly, hooked her hand around his bicep.

  “Uh…” he said. His thoughts became like running water he tried to hold with his hands, and his mouth worked to speak, but was given no material to work with.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” she said.

  And having said so, she pulled him forward and his legs obeyed her.

  “Isn’t it dangerous?” he finally managed, glancing back to the tent.

  “The Dream cannot control me anymore,” she said, her eyes glimmering with the millions of pulsing motes of light and color that surrounded them. “And given your [Ego], I doubt it can control you either.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” Nar muttered.

  Even now, he could glimpse the shifting light and darkness at the edges of his sight, and hear the distant, booming echoes of giant things crashing. And of all that screaming…

  “The Dream has gotten a small foothold in your mind, but it is superficial. I very much doubt it will go anywhere deeper than that,” Era said. “If it somehow does, I’m with you, so everything will be okay.”

  This is superficial? Nar asked himself, having to make a conscious effort to keep his expression neutral.

  “You can… control it now?” Nar asked instead, waving at the lights with his other arm. The dark-alfin was still holding on gently, but firmly to his other one.

  Her laughter ringed across the fields of flowers and lights.

  “Oh, no! I only meant that if the [Dreaming] does affect you, I can call the others to come help us, as it won’t affect me.”

  She shook her head.

  “I wish I could control it!” she said, speaking with an energy that was rare in her. “No one can control pure aether, Nar. Only the Gods and the spirits. Even what you saw when I went into the Pond of Tranquility was commanded by my patron through me. My quest was just to make it here and submerge myself within the waters of the pond without losing myself to its high concentration of dream aether.”

  She raised her free hand to her eyes, and they widened at the sight of something that Nar couldn’t quite see. Her skin seemed to blur, taking on a pearlescent sheen to it, her fingers elongating themselves into sharp edges… But when he blinked, it was gone.

  “Despite that, my gains and rewards were still tremendous,” she whispered, staring at her hand.

  Nar remained quiet at her side, unsure of what to say.

  From what he’d heard, the quest had been a complete and utter success for the dream aethermancer. Amongst other rewards, Era had gained boosts across the board for her 9 Aetheric Attributes, especially her [Channeling], which was the most important attribute to an aethermancer. [Channeling] not only flat out boosted the other eight Aetheric Attributes by an outstanding 0.1% per attribute point, it also further opened the connection of an aethermancer to their spirit patron. This allowed them to better channel their aether through their bodies, and in greater quantity, but also, in essence, it deepened their connection to the patron’s aether and its aspect.

  In auramancer terms, [Channeling] increased one’s affinity and made their “aura” stronger, and gave one more and better access to it.

  It feels like such a cheat attribute, Nar thought, not for the first time, as he glanced at Era walking beside him with wide eyes, still lost at whatever it was that she was seeing.

  Nar glanced back at the tent. Despite Era’s assurances, he wasn’t really willing to go too far.

  “Oh, sorry!” Era said, at last removing her hand from his arm. “I got distracted there…”

  Nar smiled down at her. “Was that your new skill? [Living Dream]?”

  She nodded, and she was unable to keep the corner of her own mouth from twirling upwards.

  “It’s so much more than I had dared to dream of,” she breathed, the pun likely unintended. Her hand jerked upwards, but she pushed it back down before she could succumb to the temptation of trying her new skill again. “Did you see it?”

  “For a split-second,” Nar said. “Your skin changed, and your fingers got longer…”

  “Oh,” she said, looking down at the flowers at her feet. “You only saw that little? That truly is some [Ego]...”

  “Ah, yes”, he said, looking away and rubbing at the back of his neck.

  She shook her head.

  “Sorry! Don’t feel bad! If anything, this is a good thing,” she said, shaking his arm. “Dream manipulation is one the most insidious and hardest to detect forms of mental manipulation that you can encounter. You can dream many things and never be aware or remember any of them, but the effect on your subconscious mind will be significant over time. Radiants! I have my hands full keeping our party safe from it at all times. Especially Leon, given who he is.”

  “Right…” Nar said.

  “That you can resist it so well is really fantastic! And not at all a surprise. You have the highest [Ego] or [Steadfastness] amongst all of us by a long shot, and your huge aura naturally protects you even further, especially since due to your self-healing training you sort of have it running at all times…”

  She glanced up at him, a darker shade of gray coloring her cheeks. “I was just too excited about my new skill. It is an epic skill, you know? The fact that you can resist it so easily just shocked me a little… But you should definitely be proud of it!”

  Nar finally allowed himself to relax and he smiled back. “Got it.”

  He rubbed his chin, blankly staring at a large agglomerate of motes that erupted at his feet.

  “We’ve been warned about mental manipulation, and it’s something we’ve already experienced, but… that was out here, against beasts and monsters,” Nar said, his tone measured. “It sounds like you’re saying that you have to be careful about it in the Nexus too?”

  Her eyebrows shot up, wrinkling the white, silvery markings that lined her forehead and ran down her nose and her temples.

  “The Nexus is… You guys have always wanted us to be candid, so I will. It’s a harsh place, Nar,” Era said. “I don’t want to say that it is cruel, as I don’t think it reaches that level, but maybe that’s naive of me and my upbringing. It was far more sheltered than the others.”

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  “From what everyone says, it’s definitely cruel,” Nar said, eyes lost in the wonder before him.

  “I heard of the criminals that you encountered, just as you managed to escape the B-Nex,” Era said, her tone almost a whisper. As though she didn’t want to be overheard. “Crime is something that we could go on all night debating, so I will leave that aside. For tonight, what you need to understand is that our society is defined by two things, our loyalty and absolute obedience to the Radiant Hierarchy, and our love for XP.”

  She raised her hands together, cupping them before her eyes, and stared dreamily at something that this time, Nar’s [Ego] blocked him from seeing all together.

  “XP is everything back home. Our families only hold onto their prestige because of the near endless quantities of it that we possess… Without it, fame, history, allies, or even powerful combat classes are all meaningless,” she said. “And that need, that despair, to gain ever more and to hold onto greater XP can lead to a lot of unscrupulous actions.”

  She blinked, dispelling her skill and looked back up at him, her frosty eyes almost glaring.

  “So be careful in the Nexus. The bright lights… The beautiful sights… All of it is laced with a little something. Most of it is more or less harmless, targeted at loosening your wallet or your self-control to get you to spend. But there are some with truly hideous intentions,” the aethermancer said. “Someone like Viy, for instance, will likely struggle a lot against that sort of thing.”

  She sighed and dropped her hands. “We’ve already warned Kur and Row of this, of course, and your faculty will too, when the right time comes, so don’t worry too much about it. Calli has been teaching them about what sorts of precautions you will have to take in the Nexus, as yes, your mind will always be under siege. Important scions of rich families like Leon, Calli and Eum are in particular danger of such attacks, but under my watch, their dreams will always be safe from one of the worst forms of mental control out there. As for the rest, we take our precautions.”

  “Crystal. Of all the things I’ve heard of, I think mental manipulation might just be the worst,” Nar said.

  “It’s because it can be so hard to detect and do something about,” Era said. “Jul’s fear path, for instance, is one that I believe will grow to be truly terrifying like that.”

  “She wouldn’t use it against people!” Nar said.

  “You never know what the future holds, Nar. Even for you, who’s to say that your blade will not be drenched in sapient blood again?” she asked him.

  Nar winced at the screams echoing distantly in his mind, and looked away from Era’s penetrating, frosted gaze.

  “I’m curious though, what other forms of mind control are there that are as bad as dreams?” he asked, pushing the conversation forward. “Emotions? Like fear?”

  A shadow glazed her eyes, and the woman looked like she was about to be ill.

  “Not really. Emotions target your brain and body chemistry, and such manipulation is usually not that hard to detect if you have something like a Menti-G upgrade on your implant,” she said.

  “An implant works for that too?” he asked.

  “It does,” she said with a wince. “Most people have such guards in place, with varying effectiveness depending on the cost of the upgrade, of course. The cheaper ones don’t have that great of a coverage, but at least you won’t just be walking down the street and falling in love with every street vendor you walk past…”

  “It’s that bad?”

  She nodded, pursing her lips. “However, there are things that are undetectable. Things like ideals and beliefs. Things like… memories.”

  Ice filled his veins, and for a moment, his breath froze in his throat.

  “No…”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “They can change my memories?” he asked, his tone raising a whole pitch higher.

  “Memorymancers, as they’re usually called, are one of the most terrifying and in-demand classes in the Nexus,” she said, her tone barely a hush. “They are paid a fortune to keep the sanctity of their client’s memories safe.”

  “But-But how can you even trust them?” Nar asked.

  “Hire more than one, so that they can keep each other in check, and have extensive backups of your memories uploaded to secure databases,” she explained. “A powerful family’s second greatest possession after their XP, is their memory backups, and that opens up a whole other Nexus of issues, believe me.”

  Nar shook his head, blinking at that revelation. “Leaving the fact that you can back-up memories aside, that sort of thing can’t be cheap! What about normal people like us?”

  He couldn’t keep his tone from rising higher and higher, as anger bubbled within him, stoking the black and white flashing in his sight.

  “Memorymancers aren’t that common, and altering memories is something that needs to be done very carefully, and very slowly,” she said. “Memorymancers aren’t just going around altering people’s memories for fun as most people aren’t… worth the hassle. Anonymity and normalcy protects you from a lot of things.”

  Anonymity? Did he have to rely on such a thing for survival? There was no way that the disciple of a future Named Few was going to be afforded such. It was also likely that everyone he knew would also become known by association, so he couldn’t hope to be another faceless head in the crowd and pray that problems ignored him.

  While he himself might have a huge amount of [Ego] to protect himself, the others didn’t, and neither did his dad. If he did, somehow, get Bey up to the O-Nex, the thought of someone messing around with his mind, let alone his memories?

  “You can change someone like that,” he whispered, his voice trembling. “You can make them forget everything they’ve been through. Everyone in their lives… You could even make them hate their own children. You could take them away from them!”

  His fists shook at his side. If anyone ever dared to try such a thing, he would… He would…

  “I would kill them,” he whispered. “I would kill anyone that tried that on my family.”

  Era nodded slowly. Without him noticing, her eyes were trained not on him, but the space around them.

  “Which brings us to why I called you out here,” she whispered. “I cannot control aether, but my [Window into Dreams] allows me to see a little of what the Dream is showing you. Even what it’s targeting. Nar… I can’t begin to guess why you bear such hatred towards the Radiants and the Church. I suspect that your life in the B-Nex might be the origin of it, but if any priest, or inquisitor, or knight, or paladin detected what I am detecting now… you would be in a lot of trouble. A lot.”

  Nar looked up sharply, his heart racing to a gallop.

  Era raised her hands. “I know you’re a good guy, Nar. I don’t doubt this is something that will eventually go away, as you live your life out here and you heal from the wounds of the past. But all the same, the faster you make peace with whatever it is, the better.”

  Nar had to force the words out through his teeth.

  “A priest already… tested me,” he said, his tone low. “I’m not going to just up and join the Abyssals if that’s what you’re hinting at!”

  “She’s just concerned, Nar.”

  Nar snapped his head to the side, his hand lowering into position to hold his sword. Leon stood a few steps behind them, leaning against one of the giant tree trunks with his arms fooled. In his shock and rage, Nar had dropped his hold over his [Awareness], and the paladin had also proved himself to be surprisingly quiet.

  “Auramancers have a bad rep in the Nexus. Not only are they blamed for everything from high prices to the decreasing quality of recycled aetherium, they are also most often looked down as traitors in the making,” Leon said, stepping closer.

  “The fact they are treated like that doesn’t make anyone stop and wonder if that’s not the exact reason why they turn to the other side?” Nar asked, almost growling the words. “Are they that blind?”

  “They are,” Leon said, looking away from Nar’s blazing eyes. “They really are…”

  “I asked Leon before approaching you,” Era said, resting a hand on his arm. “We would hate to see anything bad happening to you, Nar. Fair or unfair this is the reality, and not even XP defies the will of the Church. Not in this, at least…”

  Nar had to bite down a retort and take a deep breath.

  Looking from Era to Leon, his hammering heart began to slow. His mind cleared from the shock and the rage at the sudden revelation about the whole memory manipulation, and at once again having his well-deserved feelings landing him in trouble, but he realized that the two aethermancers were, as they said, looking out for him. Especially given that Leon was a paladin.

  Had they actually suspected him of being an Abyssal traitor, Pile bent on the downfall of the Gods and the Nexus, they wouldn’t be here trying to help him. They would wait to get out and then alert the Church. Nar doubted the Church would need more than the word of a paladin to move in on an auramancer.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, sighing. “Thank you, I appreciate it. I really do. And I am working on it.”

  “I know it’s hard, Nar. I’ve heard the stories of what goes down there, and I for one don’t discount them as fabrications by the ‘lazy’ sinners like most do,” Leon said, coming forward to squeeze his shoulder. “But it really is in your best interest to make peace with it. As your friend, even with my family’s backing, I wouldn’t be able to save you from the Inquisition’s clutches.”

  Nar nodded. “I get it. And thank you. I know this conversation could have gone very differently… that you could have done… something else.”

  Leon’s grip tightened. “Never! You hear me? I trust you. I know the kind of person you are.”

  Nar could only nod again, looking down at the crumbled flowers at his feet.

  “Right,” he said, taking a deep breath. “I think I’ll go lay back down. Uh… Thank you. I appreciate it.”

  “Anytime,” Leon said.

  “Yes, anytime,” Era added.

  With a final nod, Nar stepped away from them, heading back to the tent.

  Era stepped forward to come stand besides Leon and reached out her hand for him to take. A moment later she heard a soft chime in her mind, indicating that their secure connection, joined through the very electrical pulses of their bodies, was established.

  “So?” the paladin asked, following Nar’s slow route to the tent.

  “Something family related, for sure,” she told him. “My guess is his father.”

  “Its always family,” Leon said, sighing. “Thank you.”

  “No worries. But Leon, be careful. I’m not saying that he’ll flip, but these sorts of feelings run deep. They’re not easy to change, nor heal… Associating ourselves with him could be risky,” she said.

  Leon nodded.

  “I know that, don’t worry. But I can’t help but see the promise of a Named Few in him, and a Named Few auramancer is someone whose allegiance is still clean! And look at him! He practically screams trustworthy!” Leon said, then he sighed. “I need to get to the bottom of this. Whatever it is, it’s blocking his full potential. I can feel it! And without him breaking through, I won’t be able to get a full picture of his future potential growth, and whether or not it’s worth the risk of bringing him into this.”

  “Got it. I’ll keep peeking in to see what else I can find. But his aura and [Ego] really are something. It’s like as soon as I told him about the power of dream manipulation, his aura started to try and shield him from it right away… And it was already succeeding in closing the gaps. Even this place, with all this dream aether, cannot break through his defenses. If he doesn’t have a hidden skill already that helps him protect his mind, then I think his [Ego] must have upgraded and has a hidden bonus.”

  “Damn! I really, really want him,” Leon muttered.

  Era glanced away from Leon, in time to catch a glimpse of Nar’s back as he entered the tent.

  There was no denying Nar’s combat prowess, and his growth in that jungle domain had been nothing short of prodigious. When they’d first met, she had placed him below Eum, who in turn was somewhat below Leon’s combat capabilities, if one were to ignore his hidden, all-destroying skill. Leon and Eum were in turn undeniably amongst the top ten combatants in their academy.

  But now, I’m not so sure it’s like that, even with Eum’s quest rewards, she pondered. If he and Nar fought for real, who would actually live?

  If Leon was right, then having Nar become his ally, his friend, was exactly the sort of thing the scion of a mighty family should be doing in order to solidify his own position as heir, and in order for their plans to come to fruition. Especially if Nar had the capacity to become a Named Few, something she didn’t doubt Leon’s judgment on either. After all, it was easy for one to recognize their own kind…

  The problem lay in Nar’s feelings and emotions. Loathe as she was to admit it, a memorymancer might just be the thing needed to clear away the issue. But given how powerful Nar’s [Ego] and aura already were at such low levels, it was anyone’s guess whether anyone, or anything, would ever be able to breach Nar’s mind as he grew stronger and stronger.

  Still, an auramancer Named Few like Nar. That would be quite the sight. And an incredible person to call your ally…