The strike did not arrive like a spear's jab. Rather, as a soft creeping wave.
It started with visions. Individuals of the Compact dispersed among communities and the mountain itself experienced oddly alike dreams. They envisioned family members—not as spirits but as lively well people, presenting forgiveness, solace or just a cozy meal, in an immaculate kitchen. The dreams appeared lifelike so true that awakening seemed like a harsh banishment.
Afterward arrived the Wraiths. Not fiends of brutality. Quiet mournful beings of concentrated remembrance and Abyssal phantasm. They showed up at the borders of lands assuming the shapes of those grieved by the sentinels. A son taken by a rift-spawn, observed wandering, from the decay. A sister who perished from starvation in the days calling out from an unexpectedly lush piece of ground. They did not assault. They merely remained, presenting a flawless heartrending substitute for reality.
The mental impact was crushing. Spirits, which had been slowly improving started to fall. The Compact wasn't, under attack; it was longing for a past that had never genuinely existed in such a way.
Within the mountain's command chamber the atmosphere was somber. Accounts of hopelessness, with guards deserting their stations to chase kin came through.
"She's exploiting nostalgia as a weapon " Morgan remarked, massaging his eyes. He had been haunted by visions of his celestial allies inviting him to rejoin a "reformed" heavenly legion. "It's clever and completely despicable."
"We can't combat ghosts using guns " Sierra remarked, her typical practicality beginning to unravel.
Celeste appeared pale. "The emotional intensity is overpowering. My soothing presence... It simply gets drowned out by the distinct yearning they're expressing. It's as if attempting to ease a wound by pointing out the fact that the person is bleeding."
Cassiathon listened, sensing the tension within his spirit. He had not experienced any visions. The Queen had attempted a proposal, with his parents and was unsuccessful. Now she was targeting his people, his supports to determine which burden would cause him to falter.
Kuro Kane, silent, until now broke his silence from his spot atop a crate. "Shes crafting a tragedy. The timeless 'paradise lost' tale. Shes presenting each person with their Eden while portraying reality as the fallen realm. To counter a story you must have an one.. You have to disrupt the narrators focus."
"The mirrors told a tale " Cassiathon expressed in frustration. "We responded with a genuine tale.. This… this represents a million unique stories. We cannot transmit a counter-memory for each persons missing mother or child."
"True " Kuro admitted. "So you don't battle the content. You battle the medium. The Wraiths and the dreams are transmitted from a location. A source. A… lets refer to it as a 'Nostalgia Engine.' Locate it interfere with it. The transmission ceases."
"Locate a transmission tower within a folded dimension?" Sierra inquired, doubt in her tone.
"Not metaphysical " Kuro remarked, a sly sparkle in his gaze. " Energy this strong this focused creates a trace. A resonant feedback. Similar to the link Celeste created. Flipped." He turned to Cassiathon. "You're a resonance capacitor correct? You took in. Rerouted the will of an entire settlement. Can you… track a thread of engineered grief back, to where it originated?"
The concept was bold. To employ his link to emotion as a guiding signal, for the weaponized variant of it.
"I can give it a shot " Cassiathon replied. "However I'll require a distinct example of the effect. Not something, from a dream. It must come from a Wraith encounter."
"It just so happens," Jareth's voice crackled over the comms from his outpost near the mountain's base, "we've got a live one. A Wraith in the form of old Chief Marrok is standing at the treeline, waving at young Fen. The lad's about to bolt. Hurry."