Mindworm

"You can call me a parasite. Traveling to worlds, consuming life at its pride."

—The Mindworm

Mullins reacting to the Mindworm speaking to him

A Mindworm is a seemingly invisible entity among the Evils that psychically attacks its victims. Unlike most Evils, they appear to be intelligent and express a desire to leave their dimension and invade other worlds.

Background

Judging by what it says to characters in the few times it talks, it seems to be a type of entity that needs a host to take it back to their world. Upon arrival in the new world it "consumes" life, most likely killing or imprisoning the inhabitants. Why or how it does this currently unknown. It is also unknown how to tell for sure that one is "infected" with/by the Mindworm. It is assumed that if the Mindworm speaks to you directly from inside your head, then you have been infected with it. Using this logic, the only two we know to be "infected" by the Mindworm is Etrius and Mullins. The Mindworm tells Etrius to release him soon after Etrius wakes up from the 2nd castle mission. And Mullins is spoken to briefly before he is shot by Ray. However if Etrius was infected at that moment, it is unclear why the Mindworm did not act since he was in the Human's world. It is likely that asking Etrius to release it was its attempt to begin "consuming" life. Ray himself could be infected due to his encounter with Lloyd but the Mindworm never speaks to him from inside his mind and it is unclear if the vision of Lloyd he had was real or not. It's believed that Ray never heard the Mindworm from "inside his head" like Mullins did since when he is spoken to, Ray demands the Mindworm "show himself" As If the voice was coming from around him but not in his mind. Boomer and Roberts could also be infected but when they heard the voice with Mullins in the drone pit, the voice seemed to be coming from somewhere else in the castle, not inside the characters head. How one becomes infected with the Mindworm is currently unknown. A bite from an Evil would be the more logical reason but Mullins was never bit. In repercussions, Plisskin was the only person to have no incident with the Mindworm.

Infection's Effect

The first and foremost effect of being "infected" is having the Mindworm speak to you. This occurrence can be psychologically and physically harming to the individual. When confronting Mullins for the first time, the very act of the Mindworm beginning to speak caused Mullins to become dazed, fall down, and drop his Rifle. Once the Mindworm actually spoke to him, Mullins appeared to experience a headache causing him to become disoriented and confused. He began running while clawing at his own head and swinging his arms wildly. During this he was also shown to begin bleeding profusely from his mouth which would suggest that the infection harms and could possibly kill the host. When speaking with Ray about it in Repercussions D2, Mullins described the experience as, "it felt like something was crawling under my skin and i started hearing some freaky voices in my head." If Rays' run in with Lloyd was a result of the Mindworm, then hallucinations could also be an effect.

Possible Origination

It is most likely that the Mindworm formed within the evil factions of the Ancients, during the interspecies war, meaning it originated from the Castle Dimension. With the Ancients developing a psychic force (ability to read minds and manipulate the brain). As stated in the Prologue that the psychic force was discovered "springing" within their armies' units. Springing means it suddenly comes out of nowhere, similar to what it did to Etrius and Mullins. Some of these Psychics became corrupted and unleashed an army of demons, wiping out their race. The leaders not knowing that a Psychic force was springing up within some. In theory, this psychic force could be the origination of the Mindworm due to its connection of humanoid like species eons upon eons of evolution of the Ancients. The Mindworm was possibly created due to anger of the Ancients of using their psychic force to fight against the Evils due to them invading their homeworld, but in the end, the Mindworm possibly helps end the Ancients and becoming the weapon that seeks to travel to other dimensions.

Its possible that the Mindworm aided the Evils in wiping out the entire species of the Ancients. As shown in Repercussions C and D1, the Mindworm seems to be using the Enslaved Ancients (now Droners) as a way to keep active even if they are asleep, which could furthermore supports this theory that the Mindworm has originated from the Castle Dimension within the evil factions of the Ancients, when the Ancients fought each other prior to the Evils invading their homeworld.

The Mindworm seems to reside mainly where the Droners are since they were former Ancients, thus originating from their factions eons ago. It did only connected to Etrius due to him being bitten by an Evil, which is how the Mindworm connects to Etrius briefly but not like John Mullins. Etrius is the answer on how the Mindworm found out about the "human world", since Etrius gave the hint away to the Mindworm that humans now settled into the Castle Dimension. The Mindworm also has the ability to connect to the Evils as a hive domain, but do not use them as a vessel to help live longer due to their lack of intelligence and they're easy to crush like Boomer states. So thus, the Mindworm mainly resides in the hibernating Evils also know as the Droners, making Mullins the first ever human host for it, which is why it took time to take Mullins over since human species are completely new to the Mindworm. Since it was adapting to humanoid like species (since Ancients have the same anatomy and cognition as humans) rather than a simple Evil, it made it easier for the Mindworm to understand and takeover simply.

This theory is supported by corroborating evidence via character profiles of the Ancients dying from a mysterious foe, Droners, and even the Evils character profiles which also states that the Mindworm even possibly controls the Evils too. With possible origination from the psychic force that the factions of the Ancients spawned since it started "springing" up within their armies' units as stated at the end of the first minute within Castle Prologue.

Trivia

• The Mindworm (or known as ???) is voiced by Aleksander Vinter,
• Although the Mindworm itself is not considered as a character, but rather than entity, it is the only character in the entire Castle canon to not have a Castle Series Character Profile description according to DeletionQuality Discord and its former website, thus making it more mysterious.