Chapter 20
This will be a strange chapter and it may not be 100% clear
.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
.
I finished my meal at the Hostess of Fertility and gave Ryuu a wave as I left. I noticed the hand I had touched still hanging somewhat awkwardly, but she raised it and waved to me as I left. I was lost in thought as I walked back toward Babel. By this time, the moon was hanging high in the sky, and the stars were twinkling brightly in the sky. The lack of light pollution meant that the night sky was a clear and brilliant portal through which the stars' brilliance seemed to be magnified tenfold.
I slowed my pace but soon arrived back at Babel nonetheless. I climbed the endless flights of stairs before reaching my room and heading inside. I collapsed on my bed, but I wasn't feeling tired. I lay there, staring up at the ceiling for a good while before I rose into a sitting position and closed my eyes. I drew Fateweaver and laid it across my lap as I projected my spirit into the Empyrean. It took a few moments, but I felt my mind punch through the veil between planes.
I arrived in the Warp as a ghostly shadow of my physical form. I looked around but found no apparitions bound the the gods of chaos. I sighed in relief as I began to drift out across the smooth seas of the Immaterium. I looked around at the splashes of colors and the passive energies that made up this realm that ranged as far as my senses showed. I looked down last, trying to peer into the more powerful and unchanging recesses of the Great Ocean. With a single calming breath, I drove my astral form deeper beneath the glassy surface and moved toward unknown depths.
The further down I moved, the more power I felt around me. It was like the taste of latent power in the air before the lightning strikes. My skin began to crawl and tingle due to the sheer amount of power pressing down on me. The pressure mounted as I continued to move deeper. Already it felt like the weight of 10,000 fathoms were pressing down on my astral form. I looked up, trying to gauge how far I had descended, but I couldn't tell where I was. There was no recognizable landmark in sight to mark my location. My mind strained as logic and reason failed me.
I had somehow moved much further down than I had anticipated. It was then that I felt the tug pulling me deeper and deeper. At first, it could easily be mistaken as a simple current lazily flowing through the Great Ocean, but I felt it dragging me down, slowly but surely. I began to fight the pull, but no matter how hard I strained, I was caught. I thought about pulling my mind and astral form out and back into my body, but it was too soon. I needed to go deeper.
What could have been days, hours, minutes, or seconds passed as I was pulled along. I could feel myself jostled along the edge of various realms or biomes of the Great Ocean along my journey. I felt that each contained its own secrets and entities. Eventually, I associated the colors and feel of the energy around me with the various biomes of the Warp. The energy of the glassy calm surface where I started my journey radiated peace and calm. Now, further in the depths, I brushed along the edge of a new realm that radiated a bitter cold that somehow seemed to reek of lies.
The current eventually pulled my body into one of these biomes. This one was full of various grey hues. The energy radiated a feeling of calm contemplation and reflection. I looked around as the pull finally faded. I found myself amid a desert of grey sand and stone that stretched as far as my eyes could see. I blinked rapidly, my brain unable to cope with the instantaneous switches between the various forms the Warp takes. 'I must have drifted into a pocket or sub-biome containing some sort of cosmic desert,' I thought as I moved along the sands.
I didn't think too hard about how this was all possible. Trying to apply logic to a realm of thought and raw energy would never end well for my sanity. As I walked across vast sheets of sand that seemed to be caught in a constant twilight, I couldn't help but think of Sandworms from Dune. Luckily, I encountered no such creature, but I did encounter something else. I eventually came upon an obelisk of black stone rising from the desert. There, I encountered one of the denizens of this realm.
The first impression the creature gave was that of a Lion, but it was roughly humanoid in shape. It had a massive head that seemed to be surrounded by a mane of carefully folded pieces of paper. Its two legs seemed to be modeled in the shape of inverted pyramids, and its arms were like ropes. The rest of its body was like petrified fire. As I looked closer, I noticed that the entire body of the creature seemed to be made out of paper. Tiny words were written in thousands of different languages and scripts across its entire body.
A distinctly feline eye regarded me as I approached, but the creature went back to dragging one ropy arm through the sand beneath its feet. I felt like I was having a bad trip, but my curiosity caused me to stay. I was fascinated by the creature, and the more I studied it and the surrounding area, the more I realized that the creature was not alone. There were dozens of them all around me, but they had somehow been hidden from my senses.
"You are not welcome here," a voice said directly into my mind, causing me to jump.
I turned and found the first creature now looking at me directly. The creature gave off no killing intent or hostile aura, just an air of disappointment. It looked me up and down with an appraising eye and seemed to find me wanting.
"May I enquire as to why?" I asked, instinctually feeling that formality and calmness would serve me best here.
"You may," the creature said, then paused for a long while, eventually turning away.
"Will you answer my inquiry?" I asked curiously.
The creature sighed, "This is a place of reflection, not of answers. That is why you don't belong. You come seeking answers to a realm devoid of them."
"Then will you aid in my rumination of some subjects?"
That finally seemed to interest the creature, "I can only do what I am able to. Whether or not that is enough for you is questionable." it responded, resting its body down on the sand.
"That is all I can ask of you." I replied before asking something to test the waters, "I wonder about the nature of the Great Ocean,"
"That sounds like a question to me," the being said lazily.
"Then how about the nature of my actions since arriving in this world? Are they my own, or are they influenced by an outside power?" I said, a bit more heatedly than I wished to.
"Ahh, you ruminate on the nature of your foreign existence in this world and the effect of higher beings on your actions." The creature said, nodding, "A topic truly worth reflecting on."
"Yes," I said, trying to match the creature's flow as my emotions were forcefully calmed, "I fear for my mind and soul being claimed by others. Though I had no way to know if and to what degree I am affected."
"Hmm," The creature said, kicking up sand that curled and twisted through the air to form images from my memories, "In my humble opinion, it is not that you are being influenced by outside powers, but your perspective is being skewed by one of the 'gifts' you wished for."
"My Gamer's Mind starting trait." I realized, "But it shields my mind and dampens my emotions."
"Yes and no," the creature said, "It does those things, but it has also made you more apathetic and self-serving through the dampening of your emotions, which is not necessarily bad, just different. You apply the morals of your life before to your actions now, ignoring the difference in context between now and then."
As the creature spoke, it showed various actions I took in this life, but most importantly, killing all the bandits and adventurers in the cave earlier.
"These actions were not taken because you are tainted by Chaos. The rune on your blade is to open your mind up to chaotic influences but not anything more. Your new mindset causes you to take actions that you deem as the best course of action, like killing those people to hide your abilities. With this 'Gamer's Mind,' you aren't directly affected by morals. You kill when you wish without caring about what others will say, for example.
You are applying your 'killing is bad' mindset from before you were given this 'Gamer's Mind' so you only see a difference in your actions, not the cause of it that has been sitting in front of you this entire time."
"So I am just applying the mindset from my old life to my actions now? The only change is that I am acting however I wish now due to Gamer's Mind, not that I have been corrupted or influenced by outside forces?" I asked.
"We are all influenced by outside forces, but you are not being influenced in the way you speak of." It confirmed.
I sat down on the sand before the creature and spoke, "Am I in danger of corruption from Chaos?" I asked.
"Another question, however, it is one I have ruminated on as well." the creature said, "You are protected well, but you still remain at risk."
"Thank you," I said to the creature.
"You are free to return for more rumination if you wish," was all it said before it waved an arm and shattered my astral form.
I appeared back in my bed, utterly exhausted and with many more questions swimming in my head. However, I counted my first true journey into the Warp as a success.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
TLDR: MC just hasn't adjusted to the new apathetic and more self-serving mindset Gamer's MInd gives him now. He isn't being corrupted yet.