Progress. Even if she was still doing her best to be as uncooperative as possible, Sane's smile became an honest one of satisfaction when she relented to explain  that she wasn't going to help him. The carrot was gradually paying off. And she was right about one thing, he didn't need her help, he wanted it. And he planned to get it yet.

Her words revealed many things to him. Firstly, this woman clearly saw herself as holding the moral high ground over him. After all, she could easily have refused to say anything at all but instead she was compelled to explain her reasoning to him through a sense of common decency. He couldn't care less whether he was the percieved 'bad guy' here, his only concern was that it would give him leveridge over her. As long as he acted reasonably, she would feel an obligation to do the same.

"Alright grumpy," he jibed casually. It was not the most polite or sweetening thing to say but her lack of manners indicated to him that she would appreciate honest expressions over carefully constructed, diplomatic ones, "Of course I know what I'm doing. I'm fine. But similarly, you know as well as me that this place is a complete mystery to everyone and most of the things we know about it are mere speculation based on circumstance. My employers are doing their best and so am I," He remembered while in her mind that a recurring thought she had possessed was just how cold she was. She was probably quite keen to leave and get somewhere warm, "So why don't we work towards our mutual benefit and get out of here sooner rather than standing here arguing all day. Besides, I think you'all find me much more palatable as an ally than as an enemy." His final threat was thinly veiled. He hoped it would give her another little nudge in the direction of concession rather than rebellion. He really didn't have all day and he was more than ready for her to give up fighting him already. It was wasting time and energy that could be channeled more usefully elsewhere.

Shiloh at this point was near out of reason to care about his justification for his prior questions. Regardless of the change in tone and attitude on the surface, she didn't forget how rudely he had ordered her around earlier. That smug, self-satisfaction and belief of superiority was still there. By now she had spent enough time in the Vault that her body had gradually begun to adapt to the environment's temperature. It still wasn't ideal, but it was tolerable within certain parameters. What didn't change was the room upstairs where the beam resided–that was beyond what any living being could withstand. She had already learned of which paths led back out of the Vault, however she continued to stay until she ran out of options or the beam was destroyed. She could always leave whenever she wanted to.

When Sane stated his impression that she would prefer to consider him as an ally than an enemy, she simply blinked. No she was pretty sure he wouldn't leave less of a bad taste in her mouth if they were working together as opposed to against each other. He was untrustworthy enough that having him as an ally was no different than if he were an enemy himself. There wasn't much difference between getting stabbed in the back or the front, except for the latter you at least could see it coming. His unnatural insistence in obtaining her cooperation was bothersome, like a fly circling the head of a man trying to pray. She was well aware he was threatening her, and it wasn't a surprise. He was one of those people after all. Mutual benefit? Hah…that was a good one. It was clear that he would be benefiting more from her than she from him.

Motioning towards the general area of the foyer with her head, she replied flatly. "It's a vault. It showed up out of nowhere one day, and there's treasure, traps, and corpses everywhere. Sometimes a dragon's roar can be heard." As if on cue, the mighty bellow of a dragon echoed through the entire structure, shaking the walls. She looked up and waited until it stopped before continuing. "There's also some stairs in the back. One goes up and the other goes down. That's pretty much it." She wanted him to leave soon so he would stop pestering her. Nothing good ever came from associating with his ilk for any period of time.  

Sane sighed and shook his head like a disappointed parent would to a stubborn child. He had hoped for so much better, though he was not at all surprised. She was still acting all high-and-mighty, holier-than-thou and overly practical. She clearly wanted him to leave her alone - badly. He suspected she had some sort of personal issue with him. Probably due to her background; a negative past experience, he mused, which she was now associating with him.

Still, he had made progress. She had relented to tell him all the core information about this place, ninety nine percent of which he already knew, but it was the principal of it that counted. Her final statement also rang true in his mind. When she said "That's pretty much it." he got the impression that she really wasn't privy to much information that he wasn't. All those fast calculations spinning through her mind from earlier suddenly seemed a while lot less important, being demoted in his mind to the usual chatter he witnessed inside people every day. And as a result, his interest in her in any capacity plummeted tenfold instantaneously. Still, he felt he had to assert his dominance over her in some way now, to teach her that it would just have been better to ally herself with his might rather than risk offending it. She had wasted his time, after all. He genuinely could have figured all that she had told him for himself in the time she had spent pointlessly stalling. He thought carefully.

"I suppose…" he quietly pondered to himself so that she could hear. He wanted her to know that she had helped him at least a little, despite her efforts not to, "…that I should go up then. They say then energy beam goes into the sky and I suspect that is the source…" Then he spoke directly to her, "Well, I hope you enjoy making a fool of yourself here in the cold. I'll probably be leaving relatively soon. This won't take me long to figure out, as you say."

He turned to leave, looking towards the ascending staircase the woman had mentioned. As he did so, he noticed another mind nearby, then another, then another. Quite a few people were approaching and the mental noise they created was completely unshielded. Sane broke out into a wide grin. People at last! People who didn't unreasonably block him out, that is. But soon it became apparent to him that there was something wrong with them. Their minds thought only of treasure in an endless loop of greed. He realised for the first time that the passive avarice permeating this area was surely going to be affecting weaker minds. He and the woman sitting beside him were clearly okay but these people approaching weren't. They all thought jealous thoughts. Who had managed to get the most plunder, who might try to take their pretty jewels away, and who they wanted to kill for just looking at their findings in the same way that they looked at the findings of others.

As they came into view, Sane counted a team of five from various races. The Psionic Master could guarantee that a fight was brewing. They would come to blows in the next few minutes for sure. He could easily shield them and prevent such an ordeal, but he had a better idea. He closed his eyes to hide their glow and then proceeded to implant the same thought into each of their minds: The woman beside him was trying to steal their treasure. He made sure to implant the thought deep enough that it couldn't be shaken off easily but not so deep that he couldn't remove it with ease at a moment's notice. He didn't plan for anyone to get hurt here. He watched as they all turned to look at her as one entity, all their eyes alight with rage and murderous intent. They were so easy to manipulate, especially given their already infected minds. Sane quietly stepped out the way and allowed them all to make their way over, pulling out their assortment of weapons as they did so.

" Oh my!" He said, feigning surprise quite convincingly, "I do believe we're in a bit of trouble here - or more, you're in a bit of trouble here. I'll be fine. That this place is quite dangerous, isn't it? Are you sure you don't want me as your ally? I could stop them easily, you know, if you asked me to. The only problem is that I can tell you don't want me around and I was thinking it would be best if I just left you to it. You can clearly take care of yourself."

He was careful to keep his face as one of concern, but didn't bother to hide the smugness from it. It would look too convenient and suspicious if he did. Satisfied that she had got the picture, he watched with interest to see what she would do. He guessed that she would try to fight them or run away. He also wouldn't be surprised if she got angry at him and tried to blame everything on him. But it wasn't his fault that she was so contrary and impudent. She had brought this all on herself. As such, he would deny anything to do with it for now. One thing seemed certain to him, however, and that was that she almost certainly wouldn't ask him for help. She seemed too proud for that and it would be her downfall. He would enjoy watching her struggle because of her resistance to him. She deserved it.

When he gave his obligatory 'last word' in the conversation, she shrugged. If he managed to finish his job quickly then all power to him. She didn't see why he would need to bother bringing it up. Staring vacantly at a wall, she heard lots of footsteps approaching. Turning she saw several treasure hunters and raiders closing in with that telltale light of envy in their eyes. "What gives?" Then she heard Sane, and the sound of his voice was starting to become like the buzzing of a swarm of mosquitoes in her ears. His employers must not be very pressed for time, as he clearly had too much of it on his hands. He just go work on getting his job done already instead of being a gadfly. She figured out that the armed men probably got it in their heads that their chances at striking rich were being threatened, and were just devolving into a flock of vultures. 

Heaving a tired sigh, she leaned her head on her right arm. "…I'll be fine." With the same stone-faced expression as before, she said to the greed-stricken men, "I think it's about time you all sit down and stop acting stupid." The haggard bearded man closest to her snarled and took a swing with his hatchet, only for his body to suddenly lock in place. Then the rest of the group began panicking upon finding themselves completely unable to move, as Shiloh rose from her chair. Cracking her knuckles she whispered calmly, "Don't worry; this will hurt quite a bit." In the blink of an eye she was right beside the man holding the hatchet and forcefully shoved the palm of her hand onto his forehead. A look of terror briefly passed over his face before she pulled her hand back, drawing out faint shadowy wisps from him that dissipated as soon as they appeared. "Ah-AHHHHHHH!!!!!" The man's cries of fear became a bloodcurdling scream as he collapsed to the ground, his eyes glazing over and his body going limp. Several more screams pierced the air as the remaining men fell to the same fate. In a matter minutes, they all were lying on the floor sharing the same thousand-yard stare.

Shiloh was completely unscathed as she stepped over them. It was time for another round through the frozen passages outside again. Unlike most negative emotions and desires she would take, purifying these thoughts were easy. She dispelled the irrationality of such maddening avarice and whatever effects they would have had were negated. In the act of forcibly removing their twisted thoughts she also siphoned some of their energy and stamina, though it couldn't be helped. It was an emergency operation, and she didn't have time to convince them to loosen their hold over their desires to make the process easier. Without further ado, she proceeded to leave through the entrance of the foyer. From Sane's point of view, the minds of the fallen scoundrels were now filled with the sounds of grating static and white noise. Whatever trains of thought that were in progress had been sent to a screeching halt thanks to whatever she did. They were still alive and there were no visible wounds, so it was anyone's guess as to what had taken place. 

A good walk in silence would be just the thing to get her mind on track on working towards figuring out how to disrupt the beam upstairs, but first she had to clear out the clutter. The connection to her mind was sealed off again, and the place returned to its former state of peace and quiet.

Sane was not amused. In fact, he saw red. Perhaps under other circumstances her abilities would have earned her his respect. He might have been interested or inspired by it in a positive way. But this woman had been winding him up for some time now and his patience had finally snapped. He didn't care how worthy she was or how close to being his equal, he wanted her to take back her impudence or suffer the consequences in the worst way possible. Seeing as the former option looked unlikely, he felt she had forced his hand. It was his responsibility to teach her a lesson because there was no one else around who would.

As she was walking away, he stayed where he was and seethed for almost a whole minute. But then he followed at a very swift pace and was soon trailing her through the maze. He trod lightly so she might not have realised he was there. But as soon as he had caught up enough to be within optimum range, he reached out with his mind towards her in a sudden surprise attack.

And this time, he would not hold back. Years of practicing, the honing of his skill, the building of his mental strength, stamina and force of will, were all about to pay off. He pushed forwards with force, using all the tricks of his trade to make the assault as swift and subtle as possible. Of course she would notice straight away anyway but it was a matter of pride that he do this well. Her defences, though they put up a valiant effort, crumbled under his sudden onslaught. He continued to fight them back even as he got to work.

His eyes glowed a bright crimson during the procedure, conveying both the effort he was putting into this offensive and his poorly contained anger. His eyes were unseeing as he stared at her but instead he was aware of the outline of his surroundings and the every breath that every being took throughout most of the Vault. So there are others. He noted absently.

The first think he did was find the place where her brain controled for her legs and take over. He now essentially had control her from the waist down and she wasn't going anywhere. He enjoyed seeing how she could be paralysed just as easily as she had paralysed the means his last punishment attempt. She would still be able to speak if she liked and she would still be able to move her upper half and this would only hurt her if she struggled…

He began sifting roughly through her thoughts. So the woman's name was Shiloh Kyrie. He watched an abridgement of her life, from her early years to her later upbringing by the mountain troll. He didn't care for the details and quickly moved on. He also became aware of the incident with the coffin and paused to witness the fear of being buried alive. She had experienced quite a lot in her time but unfortunately Sane was quite unable to feel pity for her. He was too pissed off.

Fasting forwards through her many other experiences, he quickly came to the here and now. She was here to end the cold just as he was. Those calculations had been an attempt to figure out a way of flinging a projectile at the beam of energy upstairs. That was a good idea but he doubted it would work. Simply throwing a stone at magic wasn't going to stop it. Magic required magic to fight, usually. He also carefully acknowledged the severe temperature upstairs too. In all, she had been very helpful and there was little she could do about it.

Finally, he paid special attention to her thoughts on him. As expected, she didn't like him much at all and he was fine with that. It was her insistence in viewing him as a lesser person - a mere unpleasant nuisance and a bother - that really riled him up further. She thought that she was so much better and worthy and that she could treat him however she liked because he was a 'bad sort'. Well, he wasn't having it. Not at all. It wasn't enough that she viewed him as dangerous in the sense that he was bad luck. He deserved to be taken seriously as a life-threatening foe, if his foe she really wanted to be.

"Now, my dear Shiloh," She grinned sadistically, his eyes still red and blind like fire and rage, "Didn't your dear parents teach you manners? When someone is being polite, you need to respond accordingly, lest you get punished and something unpleasant like this ends up happening. You are not above me. Don't act like you are and don't treat me like I don't deserve your respect. You are bellow me and you will show me the dues I have earned or pay."

As if to punctuate his points, he sent a tiny twinge of pain to different parts of her body for every accentuated word. She would get the message now. There was nowhere she could go and nowhere she could hide. He could see everything going on inside her. Everything. But unfortunately, this display was proving to be a little tiring. He would need to rest after this, perhaps get himself some food. Some of hers would do just fine. He would levitate it over to himself in a minute, when he got to see her response. He sincerely hoped that she would give him some of the satisfaction he craved. Any sort of fear or regret at this point would be like music to his mind.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. Shiloh felt as if a claymore or warhammer had smashed into her mind, destroying the period of silence she had been enjoying. The emotion of anger tinged with hatred was thick in the air. She was soon face-to-face with the source, who was none other than Sane. Shiloh tried to be surprised, but couldn't. Somehow she saw this coming. Probably not in the way it was currently taking place, but it still held to the same idea. As he broke down her mental walls he inadvertently destroyed the mechanisms she had crafted to keep the negative cognitions she had yet to purify under lock and key. Without her to rein them in, they began to rampage and the temporary link he had made to access her mind drew their full attention. She tried to pull them back but without her cognitive wards at full strength, they kept slipping away. Negative emotions often attracted others of their kind, and Sane's fury was like a beacon shouting for them to go over.

Unfortunately for both of them, Sane's work had managed to not only break free the rogue emotions, but it also destroyed any psychological restraint as well. Any mental filters and checks she would have had in place were now gone, leaving them both exposed to Shiloh's thoughts with no reservations. Following up the psychic attack, she felt her body's nervous system being hijacked and the excruciating pain. Her emotions swirled with turbulence, until she made eye contact with the man responsible. Instead of hate, fury, disgust, or outrage–everything on her end fell completely silent. No struggling, no outright defiance. An unnatural calm settled over her as her emotions seemingly left her mind leaving her staring directly into his eyes.

So it's you. I wish I could say I was surprised, but it seems even I'm not allowed the luxury of that. Well, I had an inkling that this would happen sooner or later. I'm sure you can hear me quite clearly in here, so there's no use in going through the motions with feigning surprise. 

She listened placidly as he ranted and raved, trying to make things personal. Even if she had wanted to humor him with feeling insulted, again she couldn't. The damage he had caused on keeping her emotions in check left her emotionally numb. Remaining silent, she continued communicating mentally.

Didn't your dear parents teach you manners? When someone is being impolite, you need to respond accordingly, lest you make a fool out of yourself and something like this ends up happening. And you're right, I'm not above you. You could've just ignored me and gone off on your merry way after finishing the job you were sent here for. But as soon as you struck the first blow you've brought yourself down to my level. You could have stayed up on your high ground content with looking down on me, yet you decided to come down and get yourself involved. Are you happy with that? Probably not. You could've left with your pride intact but for some odd reason you keep coming back. Do you enjoy feeling hurt and upset? Maybe you're a masochist, what do I know? In life, nobody owes you anything and they certainly have no obligations to treat you as you wish. Respect is earned, not given. Do you think people go around, giving respect away for free? 

As time went on, a multitude of other voices echoed in Shiloh's mind speaking in unison. They were the voices of the distorted thoughts she had swallowed, and with the vacuum created in her psyche they manifested simultaneously overpowering her thoughts.

Meaningless, meaningless–everything is meaningless. What do people gain from all their labors under the sun? All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough seeing, and the ear its fill of hearing. To chase after power is meaningless, like chasing after the wind. Like oil and sand it drips through the fingers. What is crooked cannot be straightened, what is lacking cannot be counted. Everything is eventually forgotten, and significance soon loses its value. Yes, that's right. Everything you have done, everything I have done is utterly meaningless. Our state of being, our very existence. You'll forget about this by tomorrow, and it'll be like it never happened. You won't remember, it won't have any lasting impact on you. The same goes for her. Soon she'll forget and the experience will be washed away like writing in the sand. In the end all will return to the void.

With Shiloh's presence diminished, they began encroaching upon Sane through the holes in her defenses. After being suppressed and starved for so long, Sane's mind was like fertile ground in contrast to the barren prison of Shiloh's.   

Both their minds were a mess. It had been quite a long time since he had lost it like this and Shiloh was now privy to the darkest possible version of himself. As such, his consciousness plundering through hers was a highly violent act. And the more she failed to give him the response he wanted, the more forceful he became. Her telepathic words were recieved loud and clear by the enraged human who didn't believe a word. He should have earned her respect by now, for being both powerful and intellegent and reasonable and alive. Also, it was not rude or foolish when a supirior punished his underlings, nor was it for a parent to scold their child. It was right and it was expected. He started shooting larger bursts of pain through her body in anger. There was a point where it was beginning to look like he was going to do some serious irreparable damage to her physically or mentally. Thankfully, it was at this point that he realised some of the anger he was feeling was not his own.

Dark thought patterns, evil feelings, memories full of anguish and intense fear were beginning to swirl around and inside the both of them so that it was difficult to identify what was his and what was not. Soon after, he extracted the reason why from inside her mind. He pulled back from her like she was diseased. What on earth would possess her to pollute and clog her own mind with such foulness!? Was she insane!? Did she want to run the risk of becoming insane!? Rarely before had Sane come face to race with such intense and extensive negativity grouped into one mind.

With their connection severed, her legs were freed. She could even leave if she was able but he didn't care as he set about the process of scanning and purging the whole of his mentality from external influence. His didn't bother to 'store' them, as Shiloh had. He saw no point in that, wasting time and energy 'transmuting' it all into something better. These things were tiny fragments of what had once been people and not truly alive or aware. They were like mere segments of a melody stuck on repeat as opposed to the whole song. It took him some time to finish destroying anything and everything that wasn't his own. He was quite tired after it.

He supposed in his distraction, Shiloh could have tried to make some sort of a getaway without him noticing, but if that was the case, he could easily find her again. And he would need to, because what he had just seen and felt inside Shiloh had been revolting to him on many levels. He hated to think that it existed anywhere else, even if it was not in his own mind any more, so despite the intense dislike he had been nurturing for Shiloh, he turned back to where she had been rooted to the spot, with the intent to going back inside her head to purge her of any more of those evil things, with or without her concent. That didn't mean he was happy about it. He wouldn't be comfortable touching her mentally with a mile long barge pole. So in a way, he was actually doing her a massive favour. He opened his eyes, which were temporarily back to normal, and continued to breath slightly harder than normal so that it just just audiable. His heart also beat a tad faster, though not much. After all, the exertion and strain he had just been under had been mental and not physical, so there was no need for his body to look too tired.

There was no resistance when Sane reentered her mind again, and the remaining foreign fragments of negativity were easy to eliminate. However the further he progressed, the more he began to see fragments which were stronger, taking on more humanoid shapes. Unlike the pieces that merely spouted repeated phrases or gibberish, these ones almost seemed self-aware. As a weaker fragment tried to run, it was impaled by a shadowy being wielding various weapons made from its body. As the lesser shadows were subdued, the mental defenses were starting to reconstruct themselves. Chains and shackles emerged from the ground to restrain the personifications of the remaining negative cognitions and the stronger ones also aided in enforcement. The entire visual layout of her mind started to shift to accommodate the changes that had taken place, as she slowly began to regain control.

A warden keeps their prisoners in check and punishes them accordingly. Get up. Are you going to let them run wild and simply have fate decide what happens to you? 

The thought echoed across her mind, and although the voice which said them was unearthly and distorted, it caused something within her psyche to resonate and ripple outwards as the entire place began to violently shake. Shiloh hadn't heard those words in a long time, and it roused her out of her stupor. No! She wasn't going to let that capricious turning wheel pull her by the strings again. To the circles of Infernos with fate! She would live life on her terms! As her mind was back at full power, the mental wards manifested themselves, forcing out any external influences and suppressing the influences within. Even the strongest of her negative cognitions were wrapped in chains and encapsulated in what resembled stone coffins, and her mental presence radiated from every corner. Outside, her hands began to twitch as her her pupils returned to normal from being dilated. She got up, slowly. Something was different about her however. Unlike the cold, standoffish attitude she had displayed towards him before there was something unsettling about the way her expression was. It wasn't a poker face of disregard for the circumstances of others; something inside was missing. 

Instead of attacking or berating Sane for his invasion of her psyche, she held her hand up before her face and stared at it for an uncomfortably long time. She moved her fingers, and realized something in her senses felt dull. Something had been emptied. She was unaware of what had taken place within her mind before she heard the long-forgotten words that stirred her to action. As the shadows had said, she would not recall it in her memory. The lack of emotion she felt was troubling, a feeling she should be experiencing in this sort of situation. She gave an empty sigh. It would take a while to return to normal again. She then turned her attention to Sane, stating flatly: "You took something from me. You shouldn't have done that." The words had no underlying threat nor implied any deeper meaning. Overall she was oddly tranquil. 

Sane toiled relentlessly to obliterate any negative thought he found, no matter how small or insignificant seeming it was, he would corner it with his own conciousness and use the power of his mind to incinerate, decimate or rip it apart. He enjoyed the activity for the most part, getting a thrill of power and a surge of intense satisfaction with every success. Within a few minutes, he was intimately fimiliar with many parts of Shiloh's brain and felt like it was his own personal training ground and assult course. However, there were always dark areas unexplored and thought forms trying to infect his own sanity with needless envy, hate or depression so the danger was quite real. There was so much sickness that it seemed that it would never end. It was lucky that Sane enjoyed a challance and revelled on this invisible battlefield.

It was quite some time before only the stronger thought forms were left; there were just so many and for every one that fell, two more seemed to present themselves as goading targets.These stronger entities seemed much more complex than the ones before and seemed intellegent. They would wait for openings in his defences while practicing defensive evasion in the meantime. Sane was even a little unsure what to with them. They seemed integrated with the rest of Shiloh's mind, and almost an inherrant part of her. These ones had clearly made themselves at home over the course of what must have been many years inside her.

Sane had only destroyed one of these when he felt the lanscape begin to change at an alarming rate. It was rare that minds were able to adjust to so much trauma so quickly and with all the search and destroy he had been performing, he wouldn't have been surprised if she was unresponsive for hours. However, instead she was rising to the occassion and taking control again. She chained down these revolting parts of herself with secure bonds, herding them like cattle to where she wanted to store them in her consciousness or subconsciousness. Soon, they were quieting as they realised their freedom was over and Shiloh was thinking coherant thoughts again, like a normal person.

The fortifications that she used to keep them contained were a little like mental blocks but Sane by now had learnt his way around them. Plus, he knew what was behind them so he was by no means curious. In fact, there was no need for him to be in her mind at all any more. She was protecting the strange things in her mind again, at the same time as she restrained them. Sane felt he had done a good job at purging the worst of it and allowed himself to retreat, just as she felt her final defences trying to reform. If he wanted to read her mind again, he would quickly and gently break down a small segment of her outer defences, read her surface thoughts and retreat. He didn't think either of them could afford an incident like they had just survived. He still didn't believe it was his fault  that it  had occured, however, and instead blamed Shiloh for taking such poor care of her mind. As he thought about it, he began compare her condition to an unpleasant addition or self harm. It was terrible for her but she couldn't help but do it anyway. He supposed if he really wanted to understand it, he only had to break into her mind again but at this time the cost in effort outweighed the gain in knowledge.

She spoke blankly but Sane would have known even without being inside her that there was no condescension in it any more. She was not putting on a poker face for the purpose of secrets because they both knew she couldn't have any from now on. Sane could have access if he wanted and there was naught she could do about it. Sane replied tiredly to her comment but with a sufficient amount of scorn and revulsion in his tone.

"You're mind is diseased." He wrinkled his nose, "It's so messed up I predict it would take months of work from a professional like myself to fix it. And no, I'm not offering. If you wantedd that sevice you would have to pay for my time like everybody else. You realise that you are polluting it horribly and that going in it just now was like the equivilent of swimming in sewage for me. You should be grateful." He paused to look at Shiloh with something akin to pity. He supposed that she was ill in the head and he should be sympathetic. The only trouble was that she acted so sane and her logic was pretty good most of the time. Therefore, it was easy to blame her when maybe he shouldn't. It was a pesky thing to diagnose, "So are you going to stay around here and finish the job? I know I am not going home until I have stopped that blasted energy beam. We can still cooperate for the added speed and go home quicker if you like, but you would need to treat me as I deserve; with gratitude and respect for everything I have just done for you…" He would have left it at that but then tacked onto the end, "I suppose it is my duty to warn you, as the expert on these things, that you may stuggle to function as well as normal for a while. You might need my help in such an unsafe area as this. Whatever you want, though, I won't force you because I am done with your ridiculous, contrary attitude."

"That it is, I suppose." Continuing she stated, "You're the first person to describe it that way. To be fair, its prior state has been a vast improvement." She would have to remedy her distinct lack of sensation later. Maybe that was how normal people saw the inside of her mind, but she wasn't bothered. The word 'better' was an understatement in how it was before she began to take fragments of people's hearts. There was a time where there had been nothing but a formless void. Now it at least held substance. For a person like her, pain was not the worst thing misfortune could offer. She never gave much thought to how exceptional she was in adapting to new changes physically and mentally. Wasn't that what everyone did? She didn't know.

He was looking  at her with what visually could be recognized as pity. If it had been someone else in her situation, they would react with scorn or become defensive to protect their dignity and pride. But to Shiloh, there weren't any buttons or triggers to press. Ah yes, that wasn't the appropriate response. She was supposed to feel at least a little miffed. However she couldn't give what she didn't have. If she chose not to pretend he would understand–he was smart after all. Sane asked her what she planned to do next. "I have one last round to complete before I go. If I do not find a solution before then, I will consider my time spent here to be over." Technically she wondered if there was any point in repeating what he should have known already by now, but this would only count as the second time. This was the third time he brought up the suggestion of collaboration, and by this point she had no reservations. If he was willing to keep asking despite continued refusal, he either really wanted it or was being persistent for another reason. Shiloh still didn't fully grasp why he had to insist.

"Alright then." Was her terse answer to his thrice-given proposal. The brief reply also covered the rest that he asked for, being ambiguous enough to be counted as agreement. His reminder of the aftereffects of cognitive restructuring wasn't anything new. "I'll be fine." She said. If there was a problem, she'd find a way to fix it–given enough time. The only thing that had been affected was her emotional response, but perception and reasoning were still in working order. The problem involving the Glaciem beam was straightforward: any sort of attempt to disrupt it would have to be conducted within a short time frame and be able to reach said beam directly. Reattempts would need to be done following adequate intervals of recovery back down in the foyer. By now Shiloh was willing to try almost anything, given her options likely would contribute little.