Ontrem - Detect Thoughts
"We know you are the not the only devotee of the Wandering Shard in Nayora ... which Baron supports your cause?"
"I have nothing to say."
[Detect Thoughts] :
Riga worms her way into Ontrem's mind, and it feels like digging through dirt while running out of air. His mind is iron and rot, waves of crushing malice and strength. Just on the surface, Riga already feels years of built-up resentment almost suffocate her, overtaking the thoughts of everyone else in the room.
She punches through that barrier like many others before.
Clarity. Like a librarian, she feels Ontrem organizing his thoughts. Priorities. Feed false information. Wait for backup. Survive. Survive. Survive. Die? At the right time, perhaps. But survive. They cannot know- should not know, but it will not matter too much. They can always relocate. Melandra Valor can take the fall, for all he ca- attention falls to Riga, not outside, but within. He knows you are here. Like a smoke screen, thoughts begin to flood his mind. Memories that disgust Riga, now seeing them through the eyes of one who does not see the filter over his own appearance.
"Are there still followers of the Mother of Fate embedded in the Disciples and among their allies? Names would be great."
[Detect Thoughts]
Riga catches seven faces and names. Four low-level aides, one researcher librarian, one monk who has begun training in the last year, and a member of the nursing hall.
The man looks down at his feet, and Riga feels it through her link. An immense pressure washing down on her, pushing into her nose and mouth and eyes like saltwater. The room is sealed off from all sound, so the feeling must be some form of illusion, or paranoid impression, but Riga feels like there is rain hitting Liviina's stained glass windows. Some dots of shadow amongst the filtering light indicate she is right. Ontrem's neck and jaw lock, muscles tightened and throbbing as green liquid pours from the nape of his neck, filling the ground.
"Hnng... GAH!"
The undead convulses once, then again. Riga feels the link, faces and names that barely register in her mind before she feels the wave return once again, tens, hundreds of feet tall, composed not of water but of that terrible angel's blood. It's... it feels oh so vaguely familiar. Why does it feel familiar?
Theories:
- Mother's dearest.
- Midràn's memory flow?