'Seed of Chaos' System

An unpleasant buzzing noise sounded in Alesha's mind, like the muted hum of a hundred mosquitoes. It tickled at the edges of her consciousness, slowly dragging it out of obscurity, gradually stretching and pulling it free as if her mind was a kind of sticky, elastic putty clinging to a porous surface. Luckily for her, the viscosity of her consciousness was greater than the pull that threatened to tear it apart, and she woke from her dreamless sleep with her mind intact.

Alesha wanted to open her eyes, but she could not.

She wanted to breathe deeply and stretch as if waking from a long nap, but found that she could not move at all.

She sought to smack her lips to clear away the lingering dryness that came after sleep, then to smell the subtle scents of her bedsheets; but she found that she could not do either.

Her mind snapped into wakefulness and she began to panic. Where was she? What had happened to her, why could she not detect anything? In a world that suddenly had no sight, smells, sounds or any other sensations, her anxiety soared. She desperately attempted to detect something, anything at all.

As she did, she discovered something strange, a new kind of sensation that thrummed with energy; was it life force? If she had to describe it, it reminded her of what she thought electrolocation might feel like. Though it was subtly different from what she might have expected. She could "feel," or perhaps simply detect, the shape and color of living things within a certain range. It came in a rush, too much to process all at once. She slowly sorted through them.

Nearest to her was the shape of a human woman, seeming somehow "green" though she wasn't seeing with her eyes. The human woman had just finished wiping off the surface of a blazing white sword with a cloth. Not far away, a humanoid monster with an octopus-like head and tentacle-like hands was lying on the ground. The monster's "color" was a deep, reddish orange, and as she "watched," its color faded into the surrounding blackness. It wasn't long before Alesha could no longer detect it at all. 

About twenty meters away, she could sense a few other octopus humanoids, their vibrantly green forms sitting leisurely as if around a table; though Alesha could see only blackness where the environment should have been. A hundred meters away, there was a huge cluster of human-shaped life forms in a tight space, in varying shades of green, yellow-green and orange. Other humanoid octopus monsters roamed freely. All around in a large radius, there were also hundreds of smaller green things, which seemed to include insects and rodents. Alesha could also distinguish the shapes of a few small monsters, though she didn't know what they were.

It was a strange experience. For whatever reason, Alesha could detect nothing other than living things, so while she could count how many octopus humanoids there were, she could not distinguish their surroundings. It was as if everything alive was floating, walking on invisible floors, sitting on ghostly chairs, opening see-through doors and leaning against undetectable walls in some three-dimensional virtual space. In some ways, it felt almost like a trippy CT-VR maze or puzzle challenge.

Having mostly sorted out the flood of sensations, Alesha turned her attention to the woman that was holding her. Who was the woman, and why was she here? Where was "here" in the first place?

It was then that Alesha's mind had to backtrack for a moment. The woman was holding her? But the only thing the woman was holding was a sword?

Alesha mentally screamed when she connected the dots. What was this?! How had this happened?! Since when had she become a sword?!

----

A few minutes ago

Captain Edelle woke up in a dirty stone room, which seemed more like a cave than a proper building; the walls looked too natural to have been manmade. The same could not be said of the door, which looked heavy and solid. Her armor and gear, including Bana Laoch, had been confiscated. Still, the Captain wasn't too concerned. She hadn't been bound, after all.

She had fully regenerated her lower half… but, of course, it was bare. Whatever had taken her here didn't seem to have any regard for modesty. 

Upon activating the "Sword Summon" skill, Bana Laoch dropped into her waiting hand. She approached the door, listening carefully, using "Life Detection" as well. There were octopus-headed guards not far away, about 10 meters off. It seemed doable.

Taking a deep breath, she activated "Presence Erase," cleanly sliced through the door's bolt with Bana Laoch (thankful for its ridiculous sharpness), and eased it open. The door's hinges creaked loudly. Alerted by the noise, the two guards turned around, shouting. The Captain used "Quick Dash" to surge forward, instantly closing the distance between them, then severing their heads before they could activate any psychic skills. The fact that she had ended up here without resistance likely meant these monsters had higher-level psychic magic than her "Mental Fortitude" could resist.

That fact was confirmed when one of four golden messages announced, 

*****

Plunder conditions met! New skill acquired: Sleep Lvl 11

Skill description: The possessor of this skill can put other living things to sleep with just a thought. This sleep lasts for up to 5 hours

*****

However, the second golden message came with a skill that Captain Swallow instantly regretted having stolen:

*****

Plunder conditions met! New skill acquired: Hive Mind Lvl 15

Skill description: Connects the possessor of this skill to the Mind's "Hive Mind." The possessor of this skill is susceptible to the surveillance, manipulation, and control of the Mind.

*****

Shit.