In contrast to Ma'chil', who was having a chaotic time trying to put down an enemy that was leagues above him, another member of his team , Niel's brother, Hin to be precise, was having a relatively more easy time at their camp base.
" la la la la lum lum lum. Ha! What a wonderful day to be alive! What a wonderful world to be in and what a wonderful way to live." Then he sighed dramatically.
"Alas duty calls to those left behind to care for the camp while the troops are away"
Then , with a more dramatic than necessary move, he leapt from the boulder on which he was previously lying on and began to head in the direction of the captives his team had acquired so far.
" Curse that airhead and the way he thinks. Because of his twisted line of thought, I now have to spend my free time watching over them. " Hin grumbled as he made his way towards a group of Elts who were tied in place by the unseen chains of Ma'chil's power. He was not angered at the thought of making slaves of his fellow Elts but at the thought of having to always check up on them while other members of his team were away, a responsibility they assigned to him since they thought that he was weak courtesy of the impression he had fed to them
Hin was a very insidious being, if he said so himself. When he first found himself in this strange place, he was as lost as anyone suddenly finding themselves in a place they never remembered going to would be. But he was quick to adapt. Being conversant with worlds running on game like mechanics back in his home world, he had immediately cooked up the theory of this world being one of such immediately after hearing a disembodied voice speaking about his assigned world, his spawn point, and reading what he believed was his ' status sheet' to him. Even though he was disappointed when the same voice said nothing about an' inventory', a ' system store', system points or ' quests', he held unto the notion that this strange place operated on a game like setting , even when he found his ever serious brother, Niel, who asked him to abandon that belief.
His theory proved correct when they both discovered two strange creatures fighting over what they came to know as fragments. The winner claimed the fragment and had immediately flaunted the fire breathing ability they had acquired by burning their former contender to sooth. That marked the start of their road to dominating their immediate environment.
But Hin was not satisfied with that.
Having gotten evidence that his theory was correct, he pushed for more. He wanted the best fragment that existed. So when his brother found other people he knew and decided that they should team up with them, Hin did not refuse. After all, he needed more guinea pigs for his experiment of determining the best fragment there was. So he passed up many opportunities to claim a fragment for himself, while using other members of the team to determine how the quality of fragments was graded. When he got a satisfactory level of understanding to his experiment, he searched for , found and claimed the best ability fragment he thought they was all by himself without the knowledge of his team mates.
Thus, to his team members , he was Hin the Fragment - less, and thus, was thought to not wield an ability. In truth, even the two abilities he mostly used due to them not leaving any traces were things that would make others cringe.
His first go to ability, << Mind Walker>>, which he got from a tier seven fragment, granted him the ability to alter the mind and memories of any creature that possessed an ethereal part - a general term for the unseen parts of any creature which included, but were not limited to, the spirit, the soul, the mind, reasoning, intellect, emotions, memories and the conscience – to any degree he wanted. He could go as far as planting new memories into the minds of his victims or deleting entire sets of them from their minds with this ability. He could also affect the mind of his targets with varying degrees of success on a case by case basis.
His second go to ability, << Deadly Emotion director>>allowed him to induce any kind of emotion he wanted in any living. It also allowed him to tune any emotion exhibited by his targets up or down and to exchange or replace the objects of that emotion.
And these were abilities from just two of the many fragments he had come to possess so far.
Hin had perfected the art of using others a long time ago. Thus, while they were busy figuring out their so called 'survival plans, which they thought that he was too weak to participate in, since he did not possess any fragment, and , by extension , could not wield an ability, he was busy accumulating and studying fragments, especially when they were away. Now, even if he could not boast about being the most powerful member of the team, he could at least call himself the most learned one of the four men that made up the team.
" A pragmatic rebel strategist, a morally unhinged rebel general, a melee specialist and a scholar. What a match made for perfection`." He mused.
Just as he arrived at his destination, a litany of curses were aimed at his person.
" Curse you brat! We as Elts are supposed to bind together to face whatsoever existential threat this place may be. Yet, here you and your team mates are, turning your fellow Elts into slaves. Ptoi!" A masculine voice, filled with enough venom and bitterness to poison a thousand seas , cursed him before the male behind the voice spat out in spite.
" And he keeps telling us that it was not his idea. Yet he makes no attempt to release us even while the others, who he claimed are responsible for our predicament, are far away from camp. How hypocritical!" Another voice, this time feminine that seemed to be weathered by time and filled with enough hatred to fuel the flames of the underworld for a thousand years, if any existed in this place, spoke.
" Curse you all! May recompense find you all!" a third voice came through with this scathing remark.
These were not the most scathing of the remarks but they were the loudest of the remarks coming from the sixty plus slaves his team members had gathered at the insistence of Ma'chil. These words flipped a switch in Hin. His expression hardened as his mood shifted one hundred and eighty degrees. If anything, Hin hated being the object of outrage - induced - spite. And now that he had the power to change it, he would definitely do so
'It seems I will have to tighten my mystical leash a bit more.'
And so, he activated his first go - to ability, << Mind walker >>. Suddenly the voices of the captives grew silent as their visages turned deathly white.
Hin had gotten to work.
He parsed through the memories of all the captives. First he fished for the most haunting memories the captives had and brought it to the surface of their minds, not before twisting it into something more horrific….
" AHHHHHHH!"
" NOOOOO!"
" MAKE IT STOP!"
"PLEASE!!"
A deafening cacophony of screams and pleas rented the air, replacing the litany of curses that had filled it just a few moments ago.
..... Where there was none horrific enough to his taste, he conjured up one so horrific that those in the first category would seem lightly let off.
" AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"
" NOOOOOO!!!"
"NOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!"
Hin basked in the sweet melody of screams that using his ability on the slaves caused.
After making them to suffer from these memories for a while , he erased their memories of the mind torture he subjected them to and replaced it with the doctored memory of him being a fellow captive captured from a settlement they had formed to increase their chances of survival after having found themselves in this strange place , and who was favored and elevated by their captors just because one of their captors happened to be his biological brother. To make it feel real to them, he used his second ability, << Deadly emotion director>> not to plant doctored feelings of love for him in their minds as that would put a strain on his limits - He wanted to work within his limits so that he could sustain the effects of what he was doing for a long period of time . Rather, he took control of the direction of those feeling, changing the object of their hate and spite from being all the members of his team to being just Zen and Ma'chil. Then, he fanned up these emotions , not directly as that would be easily detected as external influence by anyone with a bit of rationality, but by using his first ability, << Mind walker>> to bring all the memories of the pain, hurt and offences which Zen and Ma'chil caused them to the surface of their minds. Then, he caused the anger and resentment they felt when each of these memories surfaced to grow a little bit higher than usual.
In between these, he planted made up memories of him consoling and treating them when they were hurt by Zen or Ma'chil, of him sneakily bringing them food when they were left to starve by Zen and Ma'chil among a host of other things, just to make them see him as someone who had their wellbeing in mind , but who was powerless to change, or even influence their current state of life beyond what he was already doing behind their torturers back.
Thus, the sum of the resentment for Zen and Ma'chil the captive came to possess after re – experiencing each of the ordeal under the guidance of Hin's touch was , to be conservative, scathing. It was higher than what they should have naturally felt and what he could have ever hoped to achieve while influencing their emotions directly.
When he was done, all the captives had distant, empty looks and pale faces. It took a while for them to come around. When they did, they looked at him in surprise, having not noticed the time he came to them. They scanned the place frantically with their eyes to make sure that he was alone with them. After confirming that he was alone, they almost collectively sighed in relief. Then the same person who had thrown the first and most audible curse at him spoke:
" At last! Thank God you came son. Are those good for nothings anywhere nearby?". Hope colored the facial expressions of the captives at this question
Hin fought the urge to grimace at being called a son by the same person who rained curses on him just minutes ago as he answered the question as politely as was necessary.
" No, they all went on different missions in places that are far away from here."
" Then release us all quickly so that we can make an escape before they arrive son! This might be the only chance ever! Those cursed creatures do not deserve someone like you in their ranks." Expectation flooded the expressions of all but the most insensitive captives at this request.
' Hmph! As though calling me a son will make me more agreeable to his request.'
He still maintained his polite expression though.
" I have told you this sir, trying to escape from them is a futile endeavor. Those evil creatures are too powerful for that. We will all get caught before we can make it far enough, I will then be demoted back to being a slave. And while I am not scared of that prospect, I am scared that the treatment we will then receive will become worse and I will not be able to affect anything while being a slave. I .... I am…..sorry…. " he replied feigning tears for being unable to change anything about their predicament.
At his words, the hope and expectation that once colored their expressions totally drained away. The slaves all bowed their heads in despair as their predicament was made known to them in clear terms.
"Do not blame yourself son, it is our bad luck that we fell into their hands!" another masculine voice spoke.
'There you have it Hin, the leash is tight enough.' He thought to himself as a very sinister smirk found it's way to his face.
...…..Unknown to him, there was a person among the slaves, a female to be precise, that was untouched by his ability...…