The Mind of the Beast

The hours pass by while Angela stares blankly at the wall, her wound slowly knitting itself together. Eventually exhaustion overcomes her and she lapses into sleep.

Birds chirped and leaves rustled, painting an idyllic scene of a forest in autumn. Angela, however, was close to frantic; she had been through this before but was once again unable to influence her actions.

Once again she is forced to walk through the forest, listen to the creepy plea for help and watch the crowd turn into wolves. At this point everything starts to differ as Angela's body begins to change into one similar to the drones she had previously fought, a body much stronger and more vicious.

She watches from her new body as it charges towards the wolves. She is death incarnate, a savage whirlwind of bone blades and spines that rips through the wolves like they are thin sheets of paper. Severed legs and heads are strewn across the ground, some fare better, thin strands of gristle and sinew holding their torn bodies together in one place. The blood soaks her arms, her body all the way up to her head, staining her vision red. All she can think among the screams is to kill, kill,kill!

Killing until nothing was left standing, Angela's body reverts and she regains her control, only to find her sister's head in her arms. She shrieks and drops it, catching sight of her brother as she does.

"M-m-m-monster" he stutters, terror clear in his eyes. "I'm not... its not like that... that wasn't me." Angela tries to defend herself, stepping towards her brother. He scrambles backwards and Angela stops, tears welling up in the corner of her eyes. Charles hastily clambers to his feet and runs, not even looking back.

Left all alone, loneliness crashes into Angela like a tsunami. Leaving behind nothing but a little girl, crying while alone and afraid.

Angela is shaken awake and greeted by Lenara's worried face. "You seemed like you were in pain my liege, are you suffering from backlash due to your new powers."

"No. No its... its nothing." Angela knew that Lenara was just trying to show concern but she seemed so... ignorant of what it was like to lose something, to lose one's sense of self. The fact that Angela, at the most basic level, was no longer human was a massive blow to her. To Lenara on the other hand, this was natural. It was just another means to get stronger.

This conflicting philosophy was something that was built up by the upbringing and social environment and changing it was difficult, but Angela would have to change in order to survive. Coming to this conclusion was a massive help in stabilising Angela's mind; to her, nothing was more important right now than making sure her siblings were safe and happy.

With her priorities straight, Angela brought her attention back to the magika arcanus and in order for her to progress in that regard, Angela would need galladium. Lots of galladium.

"Lenara, do you know where the core of this island is"

"My li-"

"Angela"

"Miss Angela, the 'core' as you call it is probably deeper into the asteroid. My drones have tried to access the depths but most were killed by the creature guarding the path, a rank two slag elemental"

This was a problem, If the drones couldn't take it on in a one vs many situation then the chances of her winning were nearly nonexistent. Angela had a few ideas but without more information she would be unable to form any concrete plans.

"Lenara, what do you know about the elemental, be as specific as you can."

"Yes miss Angela. The slag elemental is about 4m tall and is made out of metallic rocks that are held together by its power core. It seems like it is guarding something as it won't move more than about 20m from where we first found it."

The elementals massive size, along with the restricted area it had gave Angela an idea.

"Lenara, can your drones create a tunnel around the elemental."

"In theory perhaps, it certainly wouldn't be fast though."

Time was fine, Angela had other matters to attend to anyway, such as her shortage of anima. she asked Lenara to send her a message once the tunnel had been dug and had one of the drones guide her back to the surface.

With the estimation of around 3 days (give or take) Angela had plenty of time to start her next endeavour, setting up a farm for anima and cultivation.