Vitae Memorandum

77-Thoughtful Intercession

As the three girls continued their battle, a brilliant light flashed from the exit far above them. Mhyl took advantage of the distraction to make a dash for Thanrie's position and started provisioning some healing from her gift.

Yhse did not like where things were going. She knew Thanrie would be pretty injured right now, which was a good thing. If she could have broken through her defenses, it would have left Thanrie in a weakened state, easy to finish off. Mhyl meanwhile should be losing her stamina fairly rapidly, and would just be a matter of draining her the rest of the way before she was in the same state. However, not only was Thanrie getting healing, but Qheria had arrived. Yhse had to do something about this situation, before it got any worse.

Yhse dashed up the exit, finding Qheria standing there waiting almost impatiently. "Oh, Lwyn, nice to finally find a familiar face. I heard some commotion going on, care to give me the story?" "Oh, yeah, seriously outnumbered down there. Thanrie is pretty badly hurt, Mhyl is trying to look after her. We could use you down there too." "Ah, I see. That does sound like some rather rough odds. Why don't you and I go down there and join in on all the fun, Yhse." Qheria smashed into Yhse's head with the blunt side of her shield, taking Yhse completely by surprise. In the same motion, Qheria set a barrier which she used to warp the two of them down to the platform below. Smashing into Yhse once more with the flat of her shield against Yhse's back, Yhse fell to the ground as Qheria warped once again closer to where Thanrie and Mhyl were.

Yhse, in a serious daze, was completely confused how that had gone so poorly. Absolutely nothing she said was even wrong, she was outnumbered two to one, she had described exactly what Thanrie and Mhyl were doing too. As injured as she still was from the fighting so far, she was certain her case would be all to believable. Qheria also had a pretty good fighting and tactical prowess, but had figured out so much with far too little information. Even with Thanrie and Mhyl, she had at least had enough of a chance to employ a surprise attack. Qheria instead had surprised her ever so skillfully. There was only one plausible explanation for her, Qheria was the one who had originally manipulated her. With her father interrupting the control, Qheria was obviously fully aware Yhse was no longer under her control. Of course, she should have compensated for that earlier.

Qheria gave a quick review of the situation, seeing things generally as Yhse had described. She had expected a very carefully woven tale, something designed to mislead her into a false pretense. Instead she found everything exactly as Yhse had told her, which was quite a clever move. She could always depend on Lwyn to be smart when it mattered, that's why she couldn't afford to waste a moment of this opportunity. Yhse's biggest mistake might have been to forget that Lwyn would have never left the side of Thanrie or Mhyl when they were in trouble. "Thanrie, we need to get Yhse here under control so that we can undo this mess. Mhyl, see if you can cure her of whatever it is that is corrupting her mind." "Control? You will not control me anymore, I will not..." Qheria smashed into Yhse's head again with her shield, interrupting her. Mhyl and Thanrie exchanged a glance, Qheria was faster to pick up on these things then they had expected.

Thanrie pondered what she had available to her. With Yhse unable to dodge, she could stop time to provide an opportunity to resolve the matter. However, while time was stopped, only she could then act, Mhyl wouldn't have any opportunity. Instead, Thanrie coiled Yhse with liquid chains, restricting Yhse's movements so much she could hardly twitch. "I saw her in the library, getting a heavy dose of mind control. We just need to erase it." Qheria then set about trying to apply anything with her gift that would help Lwyn in resisting the mind control.

Mhyl blinked in a moment of confusion. So Lwyn wasn't lost to them? Like Thanrie, she had all but given up on finding a way to save Lwyn, but they had been making so little progress not having the heart to make this end quickly. Mhyl looked over Thanrie and pondered the situation. Qheria had misjudged one thing already, just like a poison of the body, Mhyl could do nothing about a poison of the mind. She scoured over Yhse, trying to at least identify details of what was affecting her, but came up with nothing. Much like when Khaexyn had tried a similar check himself the last time they were in the Fortress, identifying mental problems like this just didn't involve the same approach and thus Mhyl's efforts yielded no results. Qheria herself found her gift making little progress on bringing Lwyn back to normal, building resistance might have worked while Lwyn was fighting to resist such influence, but it was too late for such solutions now.