The Gestalt guilds got their name from a practice to synchronize their minds to achieve a shared consciousness or, at least, as close to a truly shared consciousness as separated souls could achieve. According to what John was told, the West and East Gestalt had differences in how this unity could be achieved. After the sudden appearance of the Death Zone over ten years ago, those differing approaches lead to the split among the surviving members.

Fundamentally, both went after the goal of sameness by sharing their memories with other members, eliminating as many differences in experience and thus reaching a theoretical overlap of minds.

The east attempted to reach this goal by separating into groups of four. Four people shared their memories in one machine and created their first gestalt consciousness. Four of those gestalts then were channelled into the fifth machine, each of the four people on it standing for one of the lower levels. Four of those then sent the unified gestalt of one Illusion Barrier into a centralized barrier for the area. Four areas combined for the province and so on. The unification happened from the bottom and went up, culminating in one individual that carried the complete experiences of all members in them. A strict hierarchy of who was in what position assured stability.

The west arranged things top-down. One individual channeled their memories into four others, those four channelled into four more and so on. This created a wider spread of things, but everyone had something in common with everyone. By mixing who was in what position regularly, they could further unify their consciousnesses. John got the propaganda version of this explanation, but he understood the gist of it anyway.

John had a number of questions about these practices, morally, pragmatically and safety related. All of this struck him as some sort of cultish pyramid scheme. There was nothing inherently wrong with people deciding to share their memories with each other, but how much of a person was left after the first synchronization? How many memories of dead people swam around inside those minds? How could a person with a strong temperament reconcile the remnants of a meek person inside their mind?

Given how effeminate the men and how masculine the single woman in the car looked, the answer was found in equalizing more than just their memories. By alchemical and biochemical means, a lot of differences between people could be suppressed. John found the idea of surrendering his individuality like that deeply disturbing.

In a pragmatic sense, he couldn’t but ask himself if he could use this memory sharing technology in a way that would allow craftsmen or soldiers to share skills and knowledge with each other. That would be infinitely more effective than teaching people verbally, perhaps even better than drills. That was, however, where the safety concerns kicked in. Because he was pressed for time, that was the only series of questions he raised directly to the group he had saved.

“Run me through what happened,” the Gamer said. “What came first, the sand creature or the Lorylim?”

“”We cannot say with certainty,”” the group answered, only to drift apart and speak over each other. “All we know is..” “With certainty, we can just say…” “What we do know…” “It appears that…”

“Stop,” John interrupted and pointed at the man in the seat next to him. “Only you speak. Continue.”

“All we can say with certainty is that the issues began five days ago. An alchemist was dispatched from the central to refill our mind-fluid tanks. Shortly after that, the gestalt machines started to act up.”

“That alchemist would have been the only additional person in the barrier, right?” John wanted to be clear about his deductions. When he got confirmation, he nodded. “That means the Lorylim likely struck first. I found an independent one in the shed. That would have been the alchemist, in all due likelihood. They could have easily corrupted the fluid tanks and things would go from there.”

“A betrayer…” “…constant mind connection is needed…” “…No…”

John let the car decelerate to make the drive around a corner smooth and relatively safe. Then he floored the gas again. “Continue. What happened after that? I assume you noticed issues but the alchemist assured you he would fix it?”

“Yes. We offered to help. However, in minds we are similar but in magic we are not. It was wisest to leave him to it.”

‘Just another dangerous point of difference,’ John thought. ‘What if you grow so convinced that you are a fire mage that you rely on magic you don’t even have?’ “And then?”

“We synchronized our mind, as we do every day. The gestalts were created. We copied them and created the landscape of our minds for the lower consciousnesses to enjoy. They reported mild issues, but we already had word it would be fixed. The same happened the next day. Then, three days ago, the Sands of Time started to act like they had never done before.”

“Wait, you used the Sands of Time regularly?” the Gamer intercepted. “They didn’t just appear?”

“The Sands of Time are part of the alchemical concoction we use to conjure and share our memories.”

‘Well, that certainly explains why I was thrown so deeply into one when I got it all over me,’ John thought. ‘Might not be the intended way to use it, given that it’s toxic, but exposure is exposure.’ “Alright, so it seems that the Lorylim infecting the concoction stirred some kind of presence inside into motion.” He took a hand off the wheel to stroke his chin. “How long ago did this gestalt praxis start?”

“Twenty years.”

‘So, they’re all first generation,’ John thought, but that was more of a side observation. “It’s a wonder you got away with this for that long. The structure you have created is a perfect breeding ground for the Lorylim and you mess with things you barely understand. If this ends with anything less than the complete annihilation of your guild, then it’s only because two catastrophes cancelled each other out.”

“We do not need your advice, Newman.”

“You do not WANT my advice, but you clearly need it,” John disagreed. “Erasing all differences between each other and hoping you can get anything good out of it. At best you will be left alone forever and stagnate in a labyrinth of memories. At worst, well, I don’t need to describe what is currently happening. You mess with time to relive past experiences most accurately and your machines manipulate the very space you occupy. Typical utopian arrogance.”

“”We cured loneliness!”” The defence came immediately from everyone, a well-studied line shouted with moral indignation. Hard eyes and pale, pressed together lips met the Gamer’s glance.

“No, you just exchanged it for a set of other issues that… haaaah…” John sighed. “This is not the time. So, when did you call me anyway?” The room he had found them in had lacked anything in the way of communication equipment, and since they had been in there for several days, they couldn’t have called him about ten hours ago.

“We did not, we knew only that the contingency would be to call you,” the man answered. “Central would have called you. The true Gestalt would oversee it.”

“The true Gestalt, huh,” John hummed, only to glance at his navigation and pull up to the side of the road. “We’ve arrived.” He stopped the car and, when the Gestalt members made motions to leave, raised a hand. “You’re staying. It would only hinder my progress if I had to drag you around,” he told them and they resumed to just sit in the car. “I’ll have more questions when I’m back. Where you got the Sands of Time from in the first place, for example. Be prepared for that.”

He got out and the three girls immediately surrounded him. “Metra, Beatrice, I want you two to remain here and watch them. Eliza, you’re coming with me.”

“Fantastic, looking at more creepy crawly shit-things,” the blood mage complained, glancing at the car. “Guess I’d rather do that than stay with these collectivist cunts.”

John wasn’t about to argue with Eliza about how to talk to these people. For one, because he himself had so little regard for their way of life and, more importantly, because he knew very well that the pretty little psycho had a great set of reasons to despise collectivism of any variety. “It shouldn’t take us too long to sweep through this barrier. Now we know what we’re looking for, after all.”

They left the car in a regular barrier and then followed the coordinates a hundred metres further west, where they then entered the next Protected Space. They were greeted by the same nightmare landscape as they had been in the last barrier. Time-distorted trees, eyes, mushroom stalks and teeth, the whole set.

John shrugged it off just as easily as last time. “The two things we need to look out for are the Sands of Time goo-monster and any living Lorylim,” he asserted while they advanced. “They seem to be weakened by whatever went wrong here, but I’d rather not risk corruption.”

“I’ve enough voices in my head already, so count me the fuck cautious.”

“I’m not sure that’s a functional sentence,” John joked. “Anyway, Gnome?”

“Yes?” the autumn elemental appeared, ready to track down the tunnels again. John had other plans.

“We don’t need to be as careful in our approach this time around. I want to get to our target as quickly as possible. Just tear us a way in.”

“Wouldn’t that alert the phantom thingy…?” Gnome asked.

“I don’t think that thing reacts much to outside stimuli, honestly,” John answered. “It didn’t seek us out. We were just there when it was angry. Either way, I have control over this barrier. Seems best to me to get in there and just…” he sighed, “…smash their tools again and get them to leave.”

“Are they really so fucking stubborn that they won’t leave unless they can stitch their fucking memories together like Frankenstein’s mind monster?” Eliza wanted to know.

“It might be that the time goo has enough control over barriers to keep them in. There is quite a difference between them and us – especially me,” John hypothesized, as they watched Gnome stomp around and try to locate their target by feeling for hollow spaces under the surface. After only twenty seconds, she stopped and took a visible breath. The disgusting filter on the landscape flickered around her, as the earth began to tremble. Tremble and rise, swinging outwards like a parting trap door, revealing a concrete construction underneath.

Gnome jumped down into the pit she had created and, with a couple of well-placed kicks, created a large hole in the roof. Getting through the concrete was less of an issue than getting through the steel mesh inside. Both technically fell in the domain of earth magic, but Gnome had much less control over them than regular dirt. Metal, especially, was something she could barely control.

They heard the distant, “Rooooooo,” already, but went down regardless.

“Maybe you should send the Mandala Sphere ahead?” Gnome suggested.

John shook his head. “I’d rather not risk one of my greatest combat assets.” The Mandala Sphere was great at scouting above ground. In the corridors, its ability to hover would do fairly little. Whatever threat they faced down here, the Mandala Sphere wouldn’t be able to destroy it on its own. He was more willing to work on limited information than risk an asset, especially if he had to crawl through multiple of these places.

For confirmation, they opened a couple of doors and found the expected sights. Sacks of flesh, robbed of their bones and skin, sitting around empty machines. After seeing that twice, the group decided to just follow Eliza’s nose towards the highest concentration of iron.