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Or at least, it felt simple. With how strange this all was, he could only have so much confidence in his own perceptions.

“Are you alright?” said Haqq.

And Hector realized that he’d turned away from Haqq and was clutching his temple. “Yeah,” he said, trying not to sound too disoriented. “I’m fine.”

“Still feeling the aftermath of your battle the other day?”

Well, that wasn’t untrue, so Hector decided to lean into that excuse. “It was a rough one.”

Really, though, Haqq’s guess wasn’t entirely off the mark. There was one thing in particular that Hector couldn’t forget about his fight with Banda Toro, just before getting eaten--arguably the reason he’d gotten eaten.

He’d pushed his mind too far. Tried to force out more thought processes. And his brain had blanked out on him.

True, he’d been pretty desperate at the time, but that didn’t change the fact that it was a mistake that had nearly cost not only his own life but also the lives of everyone in Warrenhold.

And now there was this. Another worryingly weird thing happening with his mind.

The same mind that had been screwed with by two gods and a sentient super-tree.

Honestly, he’d been trying not to dwell on these facts too much, but it was becoming increasingly difficult.

What if his mind was becoming so twisted by all this crazy shit that it eventually just stopped functioning properly altogether? What if it just turned into a knotted mess of perpetual confusion?

When considering the long history of servants going mad, that was an especially troubling notion. And it was paired with another, which was perhaps equally troubling.

What if all this mind-tinkering was turning him into a completely different person? What if he ceased to be himself?

In some sense, that reminded him of what Malast had been trying to do. Offering him “godhood” at the expense of his identity. Maybe this was the same thing, just in a more roundabout way.

Obviously, though, he couldn’t voice any of those concerns to Haqq here.

He felt the sudden urge to go meditate again. To take some time and regather his thought. He tried to excuse himself, but Haqq just kept following him and started steering the conversation back towards heavy machinery.

“If you’re hellbent on frugality,” the man said, “then perhaps you could use your considerable influence in this country to earn me access to the tools I need, free of charge.”