Oko - Brainwashes Garruk

He sighed but saw no way around attempting the most draining of his magics. If the hunter really was a Planeswalker, it wasn’t worth taking the chance that he couldn’t track him across the multiverse.

He took a step closer. The hunter strained, trying to reach him. Oko pinioned the thorn-wrapped brute’s gaze with the full force of a magic that long ago had allowed him to escape his persecutors: a meager spoonful of telepathy he’d taught himself to turn another to a better purpose with the aid of a sympathetic smile, a glimmer of comradely hope, a promise of unshakeable loyalty.

“Vendettas are a grievous burden to bear, are they not? I pity you, my friend. There’s so much pain in your heart.”

The man growled hoarsely. “I don’t need your pity.”

He held the hunter’s eyes, didn’t let them shift away. With all the force he had to bear he dug deep past the hostility, the rage, the agonized sense of betrayal. It was so hard to get there, sweat breaking out on his forehead, pulse thundering in his ears. Deep in the man’s mind he discovered a deeply-hoarded grief for a father lost along ago. What an innocent dupe! Fathers always betrayed their sons.

***

For an instant Oko’s control wavered out of sheer astonishment. “Liliana Vess.”

“She cursed me…the darkness…the rot….” Corruption pulsed into the vines with a surge of anger. The vegetation began to weaken as the man struggled again.

Oko drilled down, choking off the man’s emotions, wrapping them in a numbing cage. As magic dulled the clawing edge of animosity, the brute’s shoulders dropped in resignation. His hands opened to hang loose at his side. His lips parted slackly, and not a sound came out.

“I’ll help you. You can trust me. I am your only friend.” As the hunter’s struggles ceased, his mind gave way beneath Oko’s mesmerizing stare, surrendering to the beautiful, dreaming lie of comradeship and compassion.

The spell was complete.

Oko wiped his damp brow. He was shaking with exhaustion, shaken by being thrown back into hideous memory. The same technique had been used on him long ago before he’d turned the tables on his captors. The frightened boy in him hated inflicting this on others. Yet in a cruel Multiverse a person had to use the weapons they possessed to save themselves.

***

Throne of Eldraine: The Wildered Quest, Part One: Harvest