Vex Chronicles 3: Hunt

Mental battlefield

Aes Cognis, Cassilia's quarter

The door slid open and Vex stormed in. Anger swelled in Cassilia. This was her room. And yet she couldn't even lock out anybody.

"Why are you here, inquisitor?"

Mordessa felt her matriarch's distress and put a hand on her shoulder.

"I want you to create mental barriers in my mind," Vex said with forced neutral tone.

Cassilia couldn't believe her ears. She stared at Vex and barely understood what was going on.

"You want me to enter your mind?"

Vex nodded. Cassilia tried to read the inquisitor's expression. But Vex had his mask up. Not his actual featureless mask but his emotional one. All Cassilia got from him was a stoic expression.

"I... I don't know if I can."

"Hasthia thinks you do. She thinks that you have more power at your disposal than you should."

This time Vex allowed Cassilia to hear the warning in his voice. The matriarch shuddered. How could this man do this? How could he change just so little in his voice and still make her feel like a scolded little girl?

"I... You need to relax. Clear your head." Cassilia pointed at the chair in her room. And to her own surprise Vex followed without question.

Soon all three of her hands were on the inquisitor's head. If Kressman would have been here, he would have vehemently protested... That thought let pain swell in Cassilia's stomach and she rubbed it in the futile hope to massage her emotional pains away. Why was she even missing the grumpy old veteran that much? Kressman had only caused her grief...

"Okay, control your breathing, inquisitor," Cassilia recited like a mantra. "Slow and stead. Clean your mind of all thoughts."

Cassilia was going on pure instinct and what little she had learned from Hasthia. And it couldn't hurt to let Vex also use the trance technique the lizard mutant had taught her. And when Vex tried hard not to be tense, Cassilia extended her unique senses into the inquisitor's mind.

What she found was surprising. So much of Vex's mind was cold and dead. There was so much metal in his brain. How many implants actually hid inside him? She shouldn't check... But her curiosity was triggered. It was as if Cassilia heard Kressman's scolding voice as she let her senses flow into the rest of Vex's body. More metal followed Vex's left arm down – hidden cables connected to his data ports in his wrists. Similar cables around Vex spine connected the inquisitor to his power armor. But the true mass of cybernetics was in Vex's brain.

Cassilia could feel that Vex had managed to calm down somewhat. And that meant that his mind no longer felt like a massive superstorm of swirling chaos, rampaging emotions and ice cold calculations. Now it was more like a fractured chaotic mess, shielded by a fortress of willpower that Cassilia could never tear down...

"You have to let me in if you want my help."

Vex gave her a dry chuckle. "I build an armor for my mind throughout my entire life. That can't be torn down so easily. Especially to let someone like you in..."

Cassilia forced a dry smile onto her face. "You want my help or not?"

Vex sighed. And to Cassilia's delight the fortress opened a little window. Not much. But maybe enough.

"I'll see what I can do..."

It was good that Cassilia stood behind the inquisitor or else he would have seen her childish glee. Vex had not only come to her. He had let her in. Cassilia's finger itched, her powers uncoiled in her mind into the shape of the wyrm-wheat of ice.