Fear Of The Mind Taken Shape

They didn’t look back when they left the Jade Forest. The last glimpse of green faded and ahead lay only stone and shadow. The path wound southward through rolling hills where the grass grew thin and brittle, then further still until even the scrub gave way to bare rock. The days blurred together. They made camp beneath crumbling ridges, their voices hushed without meaning to be. At night the stars above were dim, so distant they offered no comfort. Even Kivarus grew quieter, his usual stream of mocking remarks replaced by silence, like even he could sense the weight of what they were walking into.

By the fourth day the hills faded, and the first views of the mountain range cut the horizon. The land ahead offered no comfort. The foothills of the mountain range that housed the Silent Pinnacle rose high into the sky. The deeper they pushed into the foothills, the quieter the world became. Baro’s low rumble shattered it. “I don’t like this.” His voice startled even himself. He shifted the greataxe on his shoulder.

“Me either…” Keito said quietly. His hand was pressed to his temple, his eyes half open with strain. “It’s… full. Too full.”

No one understood what he meant until that night. They built a fire with the last of the wood they had carried from the forest. The flames burned bright but they died out quick, the fire going through the stacked logs in less than an hour. What should have lasted them the night was reduced to glowing embers in minutes.

Later, as Heidi cleaned a shallow cut on her arm from a slip on the rocks, she blinked in shock as the wound knitted itself closed before her eyes. The faint line of red faded into smooth skin in moments. The mountain was soaked with time itself, yet unstable.

For Keito, it was a waking nightmare. His moon magic was attuned to clarity, to hidden tides and truths. Here, that sensitivity turned against him. The Pinnacle was flooded with temporal energy, a reservoir overflowing and dragging his senses under. He couldn’t look at the world without seeing it layered in shimmering echoes, as if the mountain itself were haunted not by spirits, but by its own past.

They felt it the next day. Keito stopped them on a narrow ledge. “Hold,” he whispered. His eyes were fixed on a stretch of stone ahead.

The others looked, confused. To them, the path was bare. But to Keito it shimmered with silvery figures, monks from centuries past, walking in silence, their heads bowed in prayer. A moment later, the air wavered, and the others saw them too, before they vanished back into stone. The echoes never ceased. A phantom rockslide tumbled past them with no sound, only to dissolve as though the mountain had swallowed its own memory. Around one bend they found themselves face to face with the afterimage of a battle, warriors locked in endless combat with blades of smoke and moonlight.

Keito was their unwilling guide, calling out warnings before echoes struck. The strain deepened the hollows under his eyes. He muttered under his breath, half in concentration, half in pain, as though the mountain’s voices gnawed at the edges of his mind.

Kivarus watched him with amusement. “Your magic is a liability here, boy,” the demon said, his tone smooth and cruel. “A finely tuned instrument in a hurricane. You’re feeling every stray note.”

“I’m managing,” Keito snapped back through clenched teeth. He wasn’t lying, but the effort was costing him.

By the time they neared the summit, all of them were worn down by the climb. At last, they reached the top.

The Monastery of Stillness was perched on the peak. The structure rose seamlessly from the mountain itself, stairways folding in strange loops… In the largest courtyard, surrounded by a ring of petrified white trees, they found it: the second Beacon.

The Orrery of Moments.

It was a huge device, a sphere of interlocking crystal and silver rings easily thirty feet high. Within its delicate web hung crystalline models of suns, planets, and the twin moons of Tara, all crafted to spin in silent harmony, mirroring the flow of time itself.

But the harmony was broken.

The machine shuddered and groaned, its perfect hum replaced by screeches of crystal grinding against itself. The orange corruption had rooted in its framework, not liquid, but jagged crystalline growths forcing gears apart. Where the machine should have turned in perfect alignment, it stuttered and lurched. The air itself radiating outward in waves that made their stomachs twist.

They drew weapons, instinctive but wary.

That was when the shadow of the trees moved.

It slid from the base of the largest petrified tree. A slender figure emerged, pale as bone, with black hair spilling around his face. He wore shifting robes of gray silk that seemed to drink in the light. His eyes stopped them all cold, they swirling pools of smoke, endless and devoid of warmth.

He carried no weapon.

Kivarus froze, his usual arrogance snapping into something more dangerous. Genuine shock twisted his expression. “You!”

The word tore out of him, filled with loathing. His form crackled with power as he took half a step forward. “Raketh sent you here? To guard this place?” He sneered, though his eyes betrayed unease. “Then he holds you in lower esteem than even I thought.”

The pale figure smiled faintly, his expression cold. His voice was soft and melodic.

“Raketh values results, Kivarus,” the demon said. “Not brute force. Something you never learned.”

Corin’s bowstring drew back, an arrow of pure light forming. “This is the third general,” he murmured.

“Malphas.” Kivarus said.

“Don’t waste your energy, archer,” Malphas said without even glancing at him. His smoky gaze lingered on the Beacon. “This is not a battle of arrows.”

He gestured with a pale hand. “A beautiful machine, isn’t it? Mortals built it to impose their tiny sense of order onto eternity. But every creation has flaws. I am not its guardian… but I can be a surgeon … This corruption…” The orange crystals pulsed at his words. “…is my scalpel.”

Malphas’s eyes gleamed as he spoke.

“I am forcing its core mechanisms apart. Weakening the boundary between what is, what was, and what could be.” His hand lifted, pointing into the very heart of the Orrery. Between the grinding gears, something glimmered.

“And when it is weak enough,” Malphas whispered, his voice curling with triumph, “it will release the prize hidden within.” His eyes slid from Kivarus to Elysia, and his smile widened. “Raketh sends his regards.”

“It’s over, Malphas,” Kivarus growled. Power seethed around him. “You were nothing then, and you are nothing now. Stand aside.”

Malphas laughed softly. “Still convinced power is something you can punch.” He shook his head slowly. “You’re wrong, Kivarus. This battle was over the moment you set foot here.”

He closed his eyes and the world around them dissolved.

Everything melted away like paint washed from glass. The grinding of the Orrery vanished. The silence of the Pinnacle, the bite of the cold wind, all gone. In its place was something else. A psychic blow of unimaginable force had struck them all at once, bypassing every wall of magic or flesh. It was an assault on the soul. Each of them was torn from the courtyard, ripped into a prison crafted from their own deepest fears.

Baro

Sunlight warmed his shoulders. The smell of sweat and sawdust was sharp in the air. Baro stood in the training yard of his childhood, boots grinding against dirt. His hands ached from holding the wooden practice sword. And there was his father. Towering, broad, his beard braided with steel rings, his eyes hard as iron.

“Look at you,” his father said. The voice was deep and scary. “Playing as a hero with children and a pet demon. Did I teach you nothing?”

Baro swallowed hard. His throat felt raw. “I’m protecting them.”

His father’s laugh was filled with contempt. “Protecting them? You lean on them. Without them, you’d fall. And without you, they’d fall. You’re all crutches propping each other up. Weakness pretending at strength.”

Baro lifted the axe in his hands, but it was suddenly heavier than any stone, the weight dragging at his arms. His father didn’t move. He only looked down at him, contempt unwavering.

“You forgot what it means to stand alone,” the voice cut on. “You are not a warrior. You are a nursemaid.”

The words drove deeper than a sword. Under that gaze, he was not the man he thought he’d become. He was still the boy who was never good enough.

Corin

The air was stale. Thick with herbs and decay.

Corin’s heart stopped when he saw the room. The quilt. The cracked plaster on the wall. The shallow rattle of breath.

His mother lay in the bed.

He was small again. His bow was gone, his hands thin and useless. He stumbled forward, falling to his knees at her side. “I’m here, Mother,” he whispered.

Her clouded eyes found him. Weak fingers reached for his cheek. “Corin?”

He clutched her hand, desperate. “I’m here.”

Her lips trembled. “So cold… You read so many books. You were clever. Always clever.” Her gaze became desperate, breaking his soul with the quiet question “Why couldn’t you save me?”

The question he had asked himself a thousand times, whispered in the dark when sleep wouldn’t come. He had begged the old tomes, begged the arcane, begged himself to be more than he was. And he hadn’t been enough. He was forced to kneel again, to hear her voice again, to live the moment where everything he was meant nothing.

Heidi

The warmth hit first. The smell of bread baking, the hum of a tune she knew from childhood.

Heidi froze.

Her mother turned from the stove, eyes clear, smile soft, hair tied back with a ribbon she hadn’t seen in years. “There you are, my sweet girl,” she said. “Come, sit. Tell me about your day.”

Heidi’s breath caught. Her throat closed. “Mama?”

Her mother’s smile faltered. She came closer, cupping Heidi’s cheek, then hesitating as though the strength in her body wained. Tears welled in her eyes. “So strong…” Her voice broke. “What have you become?”

“I…” Heidi’s voice wavered. “I had to fight.”

Her mother’s shoulders shook. She pulled back, grief filling her face. “Fight? You left me. You left your home. That strength isn’t a gift, my love. It’s a curse.” Her words fell to whispers, raw and breaking. “You’re a monster, Heidi. My beautiful daughter is a monster.”

The world around Heidi blurred as her vision took hold. She could tear beasts apart with her bare hands. But one trembling whisper from her mother undid her completely.

Keito

Light poured around him. Golden, blinding.

He knew this place before he looked, the grand hall of Sanctum Luminius. The sigil of the High Priest blazed beneath his feet. High Priest Theron stood before him, smiling. At his side, Minoan, the Hand of Judgment, golden armor gleaming.

“You have served the faith well, Keito,” Theron said. He lifted a medallion of gold. “For your courage, for your loyalty, we honor you.”

Minoan stepped forward, hanging the heavy medal around his neck. “You chose order. You chose faith.”

Keito’s stomach turned to ice. His gaze slid to the side.

Elysia stood in chains.

Her face was pale, streaked with tears. Her eyes locked on him, wide with betrayal so sad it broke him.

“No,” he whispered. “No, this isn’t real.”

He reached for his magic. For the clear light of the moons. For the truth. The silver glow swirled at his hands, then it began to change….. it became twisted, turning into orange corruption. The illusion bent it, feeding on it. The crowd cheered louder, Theron’s smile widened, and Elysia’s eyes shifted from pain to hatred.

His gift, his power, his identity… turned against him.

Kivarus

The air was cold. The balcony stretched out under his feet, a deep violet polished the glass. Above, the sky burned in colors not meant for mortal sight.

And she was there.

Her hair caught the light like a silver thread, and his chest caved with the sight.

“I knew you would come,” she said softly, without turning. Her voice was music. A voice he had buried under centuries of cruelty, drowned in arrogance, but could never truly silence. When she turned, he nearly broke.

Her face was hers. And yet not. It was her, and Elysia. Perfectly fused. A cruelty Malphas alone could devise.

“It’s time for me to go,” she whispered, sorrow heavy in her smile.

“No.” His voice cracked, stripped bare. The great general, the feared commander of the demon lords legions, was begging. “Not again.”

He reached for her, power searing in his hands, but they closed on smoke. She was fading, translucent, colors bleeding through her skin.

“You cannot follow,” she said. “This was your choice.”

“No!” He lunged, desperate. But she was gone, leaving him on his knees, his hand clawing empty air.

Kivarus, the invincible, was broken by a loss he could not fight.

Elysia

Elysia blinked.

The world shifted around everyone.

But for her, the illusion was incomplete. Her gem seemed to help her, it acted as a buffer. The illusions could not take her fully. She saw two worlds at once. The monastery. The corrupted Orrery. The figure of Malphas standing untouched.

And layered over it, the nightmares.

Baro frozen, axe limp at his side, shame carved into his face. Corin on his knees, shoulders trembling with silent sobs. Heidi with her head bowed, tears streaking her cheeks. Keito rigid, eyes wide with horror. Even Kivarus, the untouchable, hunched on one knee, his whole frame shaking.

They were all there. Yet gone. Trapped.

And she was alone.

Malphas had not moved. His eyes were locked on her, almost curious. A faint smile tugged at his lips as though he were watching something fall into place.

Elysia’s pulse quickened. Her friends were broken, their minds bound. Malphas stood, victorious without lifting a hand.

And she was the only one left to face him.