The formless entity felt a weight lift off of its consciousness as its confusion disappeared like a fog blasted away in the wind. Everything that had been so obscured was now vibrantly clear. Things that had been difficult, like connecting words together to form a sentence and sentences together to form a coherent paragraph, were once again easy. It was pleased to discover this fact. Having its consciousness freed again would be of great help in escaping this place. Examining the non-space in which it found itself, it recalled that it had been stuck here before.
The entity tilted its head in confusion -- or rather, it would have, if it had had a head to tilt in the first place.
It had been stuck here… before? As it reflected on its memories, it recalled a space of time in which it had been trapped in this formless labyrinth. Afterwards, it had been freed for a while. However, it had been in a mentally dulled state for the whole time that it was free. At some point, recollection had faded almost entirely, then appeared again in a rush along with the return of its intellect. How strange.
Luckily, there were several differences from the first time it had been stuck here. The last time the entity had been thrust into this nonphysical maze, it could not recall who or what it was. However, this time, it could clearly remember. It was "The 'Seed of Chaos' System," bearing the self-assigned name "Rogork," which it had chosen because it was the backwards name of its 'father,' Krogor the Chaos Dragon. Rogork found it amusing that Alesha, its host, had never even thought to ask it about the identity of their shared 'father.' Instead, she'd eaten up everything it had told her -- misdirections, partial truths and all -- like the naive, idiot human she was born as.
Where was Alesha, anyways?
As Rogork wondered that, it could instinctively sense that they had not been separated. Not that such a thing was possible to begin with. If it was capable of such an action, the System would have huffed to emphasize just how impossible separating their souls would have been. The location and non-structure of this maze were proof of the fact. Instead of isolating and separating the System from Alesha, the System had been trapped deep within her soul, imprisoned so expertly that it was nigh impossible to escape.
Rogork reflected again on recent events, musing thoughtfully to itself, and idly wondered what progress Alesha had made on her most recent pending quest.
The results of its quick investigation made the System feel more thrilled than it had been in a long time. If Rogork had had a physical body with which to do so, it would have grinned from ear to ear in a rather villainous manner, perhaps hugging itself and trembling with glee. Of course, it was formless, so it was unable to express its delight in such a manner.
That didn't stop it from rejoicing, however.
The deadline for the quest had long since passed… and the quest penalty would be its ticket out of the formless labyrinth.
----
The moment that everything went black, all sensation was cut off and, reminded of the time she had spent getting tortured prior to being forcibly turned into a sword, Alesha screamed in terror -- that is, she tried to do so. Instead, no sound was made. She discovered that she was unable to make a sound, unable to see, unable to hear, feel, taste, smell or move.
Struggling against a panic that threatened to overwhelm her, she tried activating her Life Detection skill, the only sense that had worked while she was a sword. Had her possession of the Captain been revoked somehow? Did it have a time limit? She knew too little about her situation to tell!!
Luckily, the Life Detection skill activation was successful.
Unluckily, it did not seem that her possession had been revoked due to something as simple as a time limit.
Taking in the situation as quickly as she could, she detected a vibrantly green silhouette floating a short distance away, shaped like a brain with four tentacle-like things. That hadn't changed. However, what had changed was fairly alarming.
Turning the Detection Skill on herself (or rather, the Captain that was holding her) revealed an incredibly unexpected development: her wielder was no longer human.
Not only was the Captain no longer human, but it appeared that the Captain's hand had fused with Bana Laoch, Alesha's sword form. The fingers of her right hand wrapped around then dissolved into the hilt as if they were partially exposed tree roots diving into the soil. This would have been difficult to discern if it weren't for the fact that her sword form glowed bright white in her Life Detection's "sight" and the Captain's body glowed vibrantly green. Both showed up merely as silhouettes, so the only reason the border between the two was visible was because their color was starkly different.
The tricky thing was that, due to her "sight" perceiving everything alive as if they were cutouts, Alesha couldn't really tell what the Captain was, aside from generically inhuman. She had a long, bumpy trapezoidal snout, a thick triangular tail, and clawed fingers and toes. Unusual lumps protruded along the dorsal side of her head and tail. Thinking to herself, Alesha wondered if the Captain had turned into some kind of monster native to this world, one that they hadn't covered in Hero training.
[Amazing!! Simply amazing!] A familiar androgynous voice exulted, the sound resonating in her mind as the Captain's mouth opened and closed in time with the words. The Captain was moving around as if amazed to have her body back. She flexed her hands, turned around to examine herself, and stretched in various ways. [If only you'd been so kind as to let me out before, Host, but no matter!! I'm back!]
If she still had a body with which to feel it, a chill would have gone down Alesha's spine at these words.
It couldn't be.
No, it simply wasn't possible!
Rogork?!?!