"In my dream." The man huffed, "he was there."
The bearded man pushed the man's hand off of his shoulder. "I've dreamt of the Baron's wife. Doesn't make it mean anything."
"You don't understand .... " the man began, but at that moment, his breaths got heavy and fast. His brow creased as his eyes went to the tent flaps, seemingly seeing past them.
…
Hadrian gritted his teeth and turned to the creature gnawing at his arm. It had the snout of a mouse but the body of a dog and looked to be his knee height standing.
In the next fifty seconds, he turned it into his vessel and used it to restore his arm.
He had no core.
Hadrian thought back to the man.
Why is it more dangerous to turn a sleeping person into a vessel?
He pulled out his short daggers. Back at camp they'd already tied his Alia and the woman vessel with enchanted ropes after the man's pleas.
He'd gotten backlash for entering the man's dream and at the last moment, he'd decided to focus his consciousness on his main body vessel, as it was in direct danger. The rest he resorted to mechanical control.
I don't know what happened, but I have to be careful of being pulled into such a space.
His eyes narrowed, pressing his lips tightly.
Do I keep making the stupid decisions, or is there something preventing me from my goals?
…
Back at the camp, his consciousness descended fully, back onto the woman and Alia vessel.
The only reason they had managed to capture them was because he had focused on his main vessel. They were a superstitious folk, seeing the two of them go through seizure at the same time.
Hadrian was not worried, the ropes might have been enchanted, but he had the mage's heat ability.
He focused his sight back on to the injured man who was now awake, resuming his call of the fog tendrils.
"We head back early tomorrow." The cohort members were discussing what to do with the woman and girl.
"Something's wrong, I can feel it." A woman said.
The injured man's eyes left the circle and went to the tied woman and girl. His brows creased, they both eyed him with a smile.
"She's doing something to me." He muttered and everyone else went silent, turning to him.
"We have to get rid of them both. "
"Kill Aisha? Get rid of the girl? Make this whole hunt pointless?" Someone else argued.
"Look at me." The injured man said, "you know I've never been the superstitious type. And I'm telling you, somethings wrong with both of them." His grip tightened around his sheathed longsword handle that he supported himself on.
"Aisha…. She…. She must have been affected by the girl." His lips quivered, "that's why she attacked the girl."
The bearded man let out a sigh and scratched his glabella. "We are back to this again."
Suddenly, the cool night breeze felt warm on their skin as the heat rose up.
A steamy white fog accompanied it and they all turned their heads to the source, that was where the woman and girl were tied up, though they could not see them anymore.
The mist spread fast. They unsheathed their swords.
The injured man's nostrils flared. He'd never felt this weak and exposed before during a hunt. He held his sword low and began limping to the direction where his soul, body and mind told him he either had to get rid of the disturbance or eliminate it.
The others called from somewhere in the misty fog, close, but he still chose to ignore them.
He felt the source of his unrest get closer, the mist cleared up as a shady form stood before him. He raised his sword but before he swung it down, his injured knee was struck.
He let out a scream.
Staggering and falling to his back with veins popping on his now red face, he saw the girl and woman stand before him with that horrific smile on their faces.
He gritted his teeth. "Over here." He shouted.
The others followed his voice.
Using his heat vision, Hadrian could easily locate them.
He did not let the mist die down. He did not know what method they used, but they also located his vessels.
Luckily, his main vessel hadn't been wasting time in the forest.
Small vermin ran up, with magical essence coursing through them, and biting down on their limbs with hot iron like teeth.
He was consuming a lot of the rank 1 core's essence, but he was mostly using them as a distraction.
The injured man's tendrils were full of bitter emotions. As Hadrian was finding out, once a human had the will not to be taken over, even their essence tendrils fought back. Luckily his target was immobile and stuck within range.
One of the cohort members brought down their sword on the vermin biting on their right leg ankle, exposing burnt and bleeding skin. They gritted their teeth and took out a bag of coloured sand, sprinkling it over the wound.
"What is wrong with you?" The short brown haired man asked the woman, Aisha.
"If we'd just hunted as normal, everything would have been fine." The woman smiled with a shoulder shrug, "instead you robbed me and tried using me as bait."
The short brown haired man's eyes narrowed. "How?" He muttered.
The woman held out her sword and placed her left hand on her hips. "In truth, I would not care that much over what you did. But you see, I need vessels for a plan of mine, and well…. You've given me more than enough good reasons."
The bearded man swung his sword from behind the woman's neck.
Hadrian, who'd been observing his back with another vermin, dodged. They both charged at her.
So much for teammates.
Teenage Hadrian, sitting some distance from the fight, observed. This vessel, weakened by concentrating his power on the other vessels, was focused on grasping the man's tendrils.
The woman vessel dodged another one of the bearded man's slices, coming from above. Seeing this the short brown haired man charged at her, his sword straight forward.
The woman blocked with hers and managed a kick on the short brown haired man. He was sent flying back, his eyes widening.
Hadrian was of course using the muscle state of his lost vessels in that dull white space.
The bearded man, seeing the opportunity created, stabbed her on her side. Hadrian gritted his teeth. He swung with his arm. The man leaned back and avoided it.
Hadrian's right hand went to pull out the sword but the short brown haired man was already back on him. He saw him coming at the woman from the vermin vessel, but with the sword on the woman's side, he was still slow to react.
The short brown haired man landed a stab to the thigh, causing the woman vessel to go down to one knee.
The bearded man, with a turn kick, hit the woman right on the jaw, sending Hadrian backwards.