Pandora Unchained - a Cultivation Progression Fantasy

Gareth's guidance on crazy activities helped Sorin for a time, but eventually, it grew to the point that it began leaking through into his everyday activities.

The first symptom Sorin noticed was visual hallucinations. Not because they were obvious but because there simply couldn't be so much of Melinoë's influence in a single location. Threads of madness covered the city like a web, slowly driving its people toward a self-inflicted apocalypse.

Then, there were the voices. At first, they were whispers that coincided with the occasional chill wind. They grew in volume with time until they became intermixed shouts and dialogue not unlike that of a normal person. Sorin was soon forced to verify and disregard nearly ten percent of what he heard.

Reality became subjective. All facts became suspect. But life continued, and Sorin had work to do, so he decided to spend most of his time in a place with sufficient manpower to restrain him should he lose control: the Mages Guild.

"These poison counter-diagrams are beyond me," said Daphne as they sat in the library, sipping at their coffees. "It's not their complexity but the way they wear away at the spells in question. I just can't wrap my head around how high-level poisons interact with their surroundings. Maybe only a crazy person would stand a chance at understanding them."

"Also, have you tried roasted spotted toad? Astley came over today asking me for recipes. It's wonderful stewed, though I hear it makes one blind for days afterward. Sorin? What's wrong?" His lips broke into a bloody grin, and coffee spilled onto the table, soaking up dozens of priceless books.

Sorin blinked and cleared his throat. The coffee had vanished, and Daphne's smile was not at all bloody. "Could you repeat what you just said, Daphne?"

Daphne looked at him strangely. "Like I was saying, you'll need to see your own way through this. Think of your own approach. My suggestion? Lean into your knack for calculations. Your ability to compute different possibilities is much more impressive than I'd originally thought, skill or no skill."

"I'll keep chipping away at it on my own," said Sorin, yawning loudly. "I'm sure I'll eventually manage to unseal Gareth and Lawrence's bones. I just can't guarantee it'll be before the Shrine Descent."

Daphne eventually left to continue writing her current novel, and as she did, the room's colors deepened. Sorin saw golden chains dancing in the air, fighting off dark tendrils that warped their surroundings and attempted to infect those reading select books with corrupt ideas.

This isn't real, thought Sorin, shutting his eyes. When he opened them, the bookshelves were back to normal, and half the readers he'd originally 'seen' were gone.

Keenly aware that his madness was intensifying to the level of an outbreak, Sorin turned his attention back to two bone diagrams. One diagram was based on wind and storm and mixed in neutral elements. The other was based on minor runes of darkness and light that combined to form moderately powerful runes of shadow.

If I form an inverse rose on the shin bones, I should be able to disrupt its network. But then, mana flow would only be diverted to the kneecap, protecting it against the coil grasp dissolution method I'd planned on using. I could strengthen it, but this would only throw off the entire arrangement's balance, forcing me to iterate five, if not seven, times. But is it even worth pursuing this possibility? It seems my foundational principles are off again. Also, is that a monkey eating a mango? Yes, and it's someone's familiar this time, not some imaginary monkey that's come out to torment me.

"Sorin?" came Percival's voice. "Sorin?!"

Sorin blinked and realized he'd been daydreaming. Percival was standing in front of him, lunch in hand. "You haven't been home in three days, Sorin," continued Percival. "Are you sure you don't want to rest? You look like you could use some shut-eye."

"I'll be fine," Sorin lied, accepting the meal. "You go on ahead, and I'll eat this later." He blinked, and the next thing he knew, Percival was gone. His stomach was also considerably fuller than before, meaning that he'd probably changed his mind and eaten the butler. Eaten with the butler.

"Lorimer?" Sorin called out. "Can you confirm what just happened?" The rat issued a few squeaks and confirmed that he had indeed eaten his lunch and sent off the empty packaging with Percival. The rat had also partaken in the feast and had quite enjoyed it. "Thanks for the double-check. Please wake me up if I do anything strange again."

The next few days passed like a fever dream. He couldn't focus. He didn't dare interact with anyone. Fortunately, such introverted behavior was common in the Mages Guild, which routinely dabbled with unspeakable topics.

Eventually, Sorin caved and informed Gareth of his situation. The archer immediately dropped whatever he was doing and attempted to seal Sorin's corruption—but to no avail.

"I'm… I'm not sure how long I can hold out," said Sorin to Gareth. "Strange as it sounds, I'm a hundred percent certain I'll be doing something crazy soon."

Gareth nodded. "Madness won't necessarily be violent, so I'll watch you and make sure no one gets too close. We'll keep Lorimer around as a backup solution—assuming he isn't affected due to feedback by your episode."

"I won't completely lose my mind after one outbreak, will I?" asked Sorin.

"Statistically speaking? No," said Gareth. "But I won't lie to you; there have been cases."

Unsure of how long he'd be able to remain lucid, Sorin rented one of the Mages Guilds' confidential practice chambers. Gareth was put in charge of access into and out of the chamber.

"You'll want to find a focal point for the madness," Gareth instructed Sorin through an increasingly distorted voice. "At its core, madness is distortion, chaos, and change. It's a departure from the status quo.

"I've heard of some cases where Night Hawks successfully use madness to mutate their mana into something more powerful. Some have even managed to enhance their bodies, though I don't suggest doing so, as the odds of that backfiring are very high.

"There are many options to choose from. Skills. Niche knowledge. Preferences. By changing a lesser part of one's self, it's possible to protect one's core."

Eventually, Sorin could no longer trust his eyes. His temperature climbed to unsafe levels, making Sorin wonder whether Madness was actively corrupted or whether it drew upon physical phenomena to enact change.

Unable to properly focus and recognize that he had to give up something, Sorin made a shortlist of things he could and couldn't do without.

My ethics can't be touched, and most of my skills are too valuable. Cobra's Glare can be sacrificed, but if possible, I'd like to preserve it in case it successfully evolves into a divine skill like Viper's Strike and Python Coil.

Regarding ideas, I can't think of any I'd be willing to sacrifice. Reason is the root of everything, and knowledge is the foundation upon which reason can act. If I sacrifice even a bit of these, I'll be introducing loopholes into my psyche.

As for my body… Violence is screaming at me not to let Madness affect my body at all costs. Is it a conflict between different types of corruption? Or is this survival response since my body is at least partially divine?

Eventually, Sorin decided that Cobra's Glare was on the chopping block. He did as Gareth instructed, focused exclusively on the skill, and allowed madness to infiltrate his eyes.

Serpents emerged around Sorin as his vision transformed. He could feel Cobra's Glare evolving, transforming into something that may or may not be useful.

Currently, he was of the opinion that this was a useless transformation if based solely on the fact that the runes in the experimental chamber were starting to look a lot like snakes.

A thought suddenly hit Sorin like a ton of bricks. Runes. Runes are the key! I'm currently at a bottleneck in my spell breaking—can't I use madness to get a little creative in the hopes that it improves my rune breaking? The consequences of failure might result in the destruction of his runic knowledge, which might, in turn, affect his current spell forms, but if he succeeded, the time he spent relearning his spells would be well spent.

Countless equations filled Sorin's mind as he gradually shifted his focus. Sensing his change in focus, the corruption in his body pounced on the knowledge of spell-breaking he'd memorized and forcefully invaded content like his foundational spell knowledge and Barabbas Abberjay Kepler's research notes.

Once the knowledge was sufficiently infiltrated, Sorin felt a connection to an otherworldly entity. Mad raving filled his mind, causing his eyes and ears to bleed and his teeth to chatter uncontrollably.

Sorin's photographic knowledge twisted bit by bit. The organized library he could draw from at will twisted and shifted until an entire section was filled with chaotic black spires filled with stacks of disorganized scrolls.

Hard-earned knowledge of spell-breaking arts morphed and transformed. Existing spells were corrupted and twisted. Carefully gleaned knowledge evaporated into thin air as though Sorin had never learned it, only to be replaced by a torrent of otherworldly knowledge stemming from the mysterious entity that could only be Madness itself.

Eventually, the torrent died down—but not before leaving its mark on Sorin and investing him with ritualistic knowledge on how to call upon the Evil's great power once again.

Sorin opened his eyes to see an exhausted Gareth choking back an all-purpose antidote. His body was covered in cuts, and the flesh on his arms and legs had begun to rot due to the potent poisons infecting the entire room.

"Are you alright?" asked Sorin, immediately retrieving his poisons and a high-grade healing potion. Necrosis was a little trickier to handle than other types of poison; cutting off pieces of dead flesh was necessary for new flesh to take its place. "I'm impressed you were able to hold on so long, given how much poison is spread throughout this room."

"I've seen better days," Gareth admitted with a groan. "But I've also seen worse. I see you happened upon some inspiration while you were out."

"I guess?" said Sorin, looking about. The spell forms in the room were falling apart, largely due to several serpentine spell circles Sorin had drawn using his own blood. He did not remember having drawn any of them. "I'm going to be honest here: I don't remember a lot. Also, I think a bunch of my spells changed." He cast Patient Viper's Analysis and confirmed it was still in working order but winced as Veridian Spell Blade fizzled out. "I'm going to have to fine-tune that one again. Same with Five Poison Apocalypse"

"Any gains?" asked Gareth.

"Maybe," said Sorin, rummaging through the knowledge in his mind. It was jumbled and in need of reorganizing. "I seem to have forgotten about half my spell-breaking arts. Most of the finer details. That being said, it seems some of the things I wrote down here are useable."

Sorin held out his hand and absorbed one of the spell circles on the floor. The blood he'd used to draw it was filled with heavy corruption and contained a stream of knowledge explaining its use.

Interesting. This spell circle sums up about five other spell circles I've forgotten and can be used in their stead.

The same theme played itself out as he continued to absorb bloody spell circles. Each one was very familiar to Sorin, and it soon became clear why: their source was none other than one of his divine skills, Serpentine Approximation.

But that's impossible. I've tried using Serpentine Approximation for this in the past, but the skill refused to work. Its description was extremely clear: it could only be used to learn actual spells and not on general spell forms. Moreover, this style of approximation had a core weakness in that it had trouble imitating the finer points of a spell.

Yet now, it seemed this wasn't the case at all. It was like his skill had been twisted—no like the rules had been twisted. His divine skill could now be used for spell-breaking, allowing him to solve complex problems using much simpler solutions.

It took Sorin an entire hour to retrieve his blood from every corner of the room. As he did so, he assessed the damage to the room's spell matrices. He shuddered to think of the bill he'd need to pay.

Once he'd fully integrated the knowledge and fixed up his knowledge framework as best he could, Sorin brought up Gareth's bone rune diagram and began formulating a counter-arrangement.

"Is that what I think it is?" asked Gareth.

"It is," said Sorin. "And if you'll be quiet for just a moment… there!" With his winding framework, a key interaction that had been causing him problems was solved using an approximated Manda Framework. "You want your Ruby Unsealing now or later?"

"Are you serious?" asked Gareth. "You literally just had a psychotic episode. Confirming your theories with your supervisor is the more prudent approach."

Sorin frowned as he realized that his inhibitions had also been affected. He didn't seem so averse to trying new things. "That's fine too. Plus, it's probably better to experiment on Lawrence." Gareth raised an eyebrow. "Because it'll affect his self-esteem if you have your bones unsealed first, Gareth. You wouldn't want to see him sulk, would you?"

"Actually, I would," said Gareth. "And since I saw you through this episode, I reserve the right to first treatment."

"Fine," said Sorin. "Also, we'd better go."

"To assess the damage to the chamber and settle the bill?" asked Gareth.

"No, to retrieve Lorimer," said Sorin. "I take it you lost track of him during my episode?"

"He kind of went crazy and started gnawing at a wall a while back," said Gareth. "I figured the walls were tough enough, but now that I think about it, there's a hole in the wall where he used to be."

"Yep," said Sorin. "And according to my senses, the crazed rat is currently holding off no less than five surprised mages and their familiars, all because one of them happens to be carrying his favorite chocolate chip cookies in his storage treasure."

Gareth massaged the space between his eyes. "I sure hope your clan's insurance policy covers the temporary insanity of familiars."

Sorin's eyes lit up as he recalled certain sections of his generous policy as a core clan member. "You know what? I think it just might."