I Am Watching

Maddox simply watched from the sides as the skeleton stepped forward and crouched down to look directly at Jack who was now freaking out more and attempting to break free from his bondage.

"Oh please stop squirming or else it will be more painful for you than it has to be"

With those words, the knife is coated in darkness and soon the knife begins to cut through the flesh of Jack's legs one by one. All the while his muffled screams are heard throughout the chamber as more and more flesh is cut into and a pool of blood forms under Jack as he sits there writhing in pain. Maddox looks at the process and sees something interesting going on in that while the leg is being cut open the miasma is being cauterized making Maddox think that the miasma had some burning properties to it. Most Coalition members were able to cover their weapons in essence which in turn was able to deal more damage to the infected but other than that Maddox did not know what else essence could do since that section of the pdf stated that there were methods developed and were not available to him.

Still, Maddox could try to create his new methods, once he figured out how to create his orbs within his mind space. Maybe he could test it out when he had the time since he was currently preoccupied with trying to help Katherine.

The process of leg removal had been completed and somehow Jack had remained awake through it all which allowed Maddox to see how the skeleton grabbed the legs and tossed them to the orc infected who had been doing nothing this whole time but holding the flashlight and staring dumbly off to the side.

Seeing the legs thrown at him broke him from his stupor as he caught them both in his arms and looked to the skeleton for instructions.

"His legs should be a nice meal for you and some of your lower-ranked comrades to enjoy," Was all the skeleton said as he left the room and the orc followed behind

Darkness envelopes the room and Maddox hit the fast-forward button to see how much is left since the guy was probably awake when his arms were also taken to act as a meal for the infected here. Soon enough once again the door opens again and this time only the skeleton enters the room while he is holding the flashlight.

"Well it looks like we do have some use for you after all"

The chains in the wall suddenly are drawn out and begin to float in mid-air causing Maddox to smile as he is seeing the capabilities of the infected and can find new ways to utilize his own Miasama eventually.

'Maybe I can find more ways to get access to other people's memories to find out new uses in miasma' Maddox thinks to himself as he wants to find a way to gain more knowledge in miasma usage

Curiosity into his miasma manipulation would improve his fighting power but then again essence also held the natural advantage over miasma so maybe he could find some use in both of them. Experiments would need to be conducted once Maddox left Jack's mind and he found someplace where he could train in safety.

The skeleton walked out of the room while Jack was dragged by the floating chains and they both left the room into a dark hallway. Soon after walking down the hallway, there is a large metal door which the skeleton opens with but a wave of his hand, and it swings open without a noise.

"Holy mother of god..." Maddox says out loud as the room is revealed to him

From his view of things, Maddox was able to see that they had just entered a massive cave-like room that had a massive ceiling going up a few hundred feet into darkness but the defining feature though was the amount of infected here in the cavern. Maddox had to pause the scene and get an overhead view to count out how many he was looking at only to come up with around 115 infected of mainly the orc and goblin species with a majority sitting around fires eating meat while some were loading bullets in magazines for modern-day firearms on the other side of the cavern away from the fires.

They had a massive fighting force here that could classify this place like a nest of infected which would require more Coalition members to take care of them rather than just a small recon or strike force. Seeing this though Maddox was beginning to have some doubts about how he would be able to effectively fight this many infected on his own without the help of the Coalition. So coming up with a few plans would take time but a few had formed that may come up with a few holes in them but could be done if he tries a few things out but would put them in the back of his mind for now.

Jack was dragged away and brought to another section of the plain wall that moved after the skeleton waved his hand in front of it just like with the metal door before.

Entering in there was only a staircase that lead up, that passed another floor and lead to another door that lead into a room surrounded by wood. Leaving through a simple wooden door section leads back into the warehouse once more where now it looked to be in the early evening as the sun seemed to be setting soon.

The skeleton dragged Jack outside where there was the old man from before and his assistant standing next to a car parked nearby. There were two other gentlemen next to the car but these guys were carrying some assault weaponry and only just surveying the scene and not paying any heed to the skeleton as he approached the old man and his assistant.

"Ah I am glad to see that he is still alive," The old man says once he sees Jacks condition and his assistant moves forward

"I must thank you for the quality of goods this time," The skeleton says to the old man while moving back away from the woman as the chains holding Jack up fall to the ground now no longer held up in the air

Jack feeling the release of the force that was dragging him around looks up and sees the beautiful lady that was reaching towards him led to him reacting by tearing up while reaching out to grab hold of her.

Plap! plap!

Jack's arms fall to the ground now and that does not register until a few seconds later as he stared numbly at his arms that were now laying on the ground and the pain that soon followed thereafter.

"Jasmine, did you have to do that now?" The old man asks looks at Jasmine who was now holding onto a short blade made of essence that she had just used to cut off Jack's arms

"Ah! I am sorry sir I was just obeying your orders of allowing any man to touch me but you," Jasmine responds while a perverted grin appears on the old man's face

Maddox frows from the response since he finds it sickening to watch this play out while the pain registers to Jack and he begins to scream into the gag.

"Well Jasmine make sure that his arms are cauterized before he bleeds out since I still need him after all," The old man says while turning around to head to the parked car

"Yes sir" Was Jasmine's response as she begins to use her essence sword and cauterize the wounds on Jack's arms before he bleeds to death

After she was done Jack was still awake somehow since any normal person would have fainted from either excessive blood loss or sensory overload from the pain but he was still thrashing his head around like crazy. Jack's arms began to fly off the ground and hover near the skeleton as his blue eyes only stared upon the scene with no feeling or emotion evident in them.

"Excuse me great patron can you please help me by incapacitating him?" Jasmine asks seeing Jack still awake and thrashing about

"Oh but of course my dear, just a moment"

The skeleton moves forward and a bony hand emerges from within the robes and reaches out to Jack with black energy visibly engulfing the hand as if it were the touch of death coming to claim its victim. As soon as it touched Jack the whole world turn dark and Maddox no longer held the remote thus signaling the end of the memory.

[Memories remaining: 1]

"Hold off on playing that memory for now," Maddox states as he sits down right now to process everything that he had just viewed

What he guessed was that the old man in the Coalition had brought Jack back here so that he would have an excuse so he could continue to send in Coalition members but what he would receive is something that Maddox would not be able to glean from Jack's memories. Putting someone down to find on a mental checklist lead to Maddox instead thinking about the uses of miasma and now essence that he was able to view from Jack's perspective. It had helped him see what it was that he was dealing with and how difficult it was going to be to do so, but the greater the risk the greater the rewards.

[Memories remaining: 1]

Those words still stayed in front of Maddox's vision and made him curious as to what it was that was still left from good old Jack's mind.

"Play the next memory"

[Warning: There is currently only one perspective to this memory]

[Do you still wish to proceed?]

"What perspective is it?"

[First person]

"... Fine play the memory," Maddox says accepting that he would have to eventually view memory in the first-person setting

[Loading memory...]

The text soon disappears and once again Maddox feels that his surroundings are different once again.

This time however it was truly different as he had just been viewing everything around him as he pleased but now that he was in the supposed first person he was feeling things around him that were... strange.

The best thing he could say about this experience was that it was similar to how VR works in how your body feels things that are not there and as a result your sense are confused which was how Maddox felt right now. He felt that he was lying down on something while there was a gentle breeze flowing onto his exposed skin but was unable to see as his eyes were closed. Anyone who had claustrophobia would be unable to withstand this feeling as it felt like Maddox was trapped somewhere and could not move.

Eventually, after waiting a bit Maddox was able to hear footsteps coming towards him and he felt some sort of presence of people that was near him now.

"This is him?" A voice calls out within Maddox's ears and he immediately recognizes it as his own

"Yes but as you can see he is in no condition to talk and we don't know when he will wake up so please leave now," The girl from before says

"Fine..." Maddox says and then one presence moves away while the other stays

Then the feeling of his own hands fall upon his head and then all of a sudden a stinging pain assaults Maddox's head and then he is suddenly in Jack's mind space once again but is now looking down at Maddox.

His form was easy to see as there was a grey humanoid figure that was viewing the surrounding area and started messing around with things in the space.

Maddox watched himself pick up an orb of the essence and a feeling of joy and apprehension assaults Maddox out of nowhere at the sight which confuses Maddox since he has no idea why he would be happy about this. Soon though that feeling turns to fear as Maddox tossed the orb away and in the direction of the miasma river and with it coming alive fear assaults Maddox as it starts latching onto the essence orbs. This goes on as Maddox only watches as a few more orbs fall to the miasma until Maddox feels rage and his perspective changes as he begins to look for himself in the memory before finding the tear he had made to leave the space and access the memories.

Surging forward Maddox sees that Jack's memory of things surges forward into the unknown and begins to frantically search for him within the same labyrinth as him but this time he can see ahead of him and not just be walking ahead into the darkness.

Eventually catching up Maddox sees himself holding the remote in hand and seeing the text in front of him saying.

[Memories remaining: 1]