30: MARK OF THE MUSE
//
9:34 A.M. // 6 - 6 - 2020 // Silverdawn Floor 3 - Training Center
Starring Zendolyn Ato
//
[User input:] ⇒ [Access//Guide]
[User input:] ⇒ [Memory]
[Accessing core memory of Zendolyn Ato] ⇒[Randomizing keyword]
=[System failure!]=
[New user detected] ⇒ [Updating settings]
= [Optimizing user experience]=
=[System updated!]=
=[Attempt 2]=
[Accessing core memory of Zendolyn Ato] ⇒ [Randomizing keyword]
[Keyword chosen!]
SECRET
=[Beginning core memory]=
The elevator door opened with a pleasant chime, and Zendolyn Ato stepped out into the enormous training center followed by a burly man in a stark black suit with the Silverdawn crest on his chest. The training center was three levels tall of full sleek mana-harnessed equipment, mats, nigh unbreakable whitestone on each surface with sleek silver accents around the edge and gold at other places, a marvel of open architectural insanity. There were stairs along with the elevator that led up to each level at the very sides.
“I might be out of touch, haven’t thought too much, ‘bout the way it hurts me.”
Zendolyn's face made it plain that he didn’t want to be there, but he sighed and resigned to observing the new recruits being shown through the building until his required gym time was over. His hand was insecurely wrapped around his wrist as he watched two large men on the bench press and a woman almost effortlessly pull herself up on the bar for the twelfth time.
“Everything feels rushed, feels like there’s too much, maybe it’s just a dream.”
Over to the left near the large windows he could see his twin sister, Reyenal, with a bow in her hand and a large whip on her back, training against one of the newbies. It was almost boring seeing the newcomers underestimating her ability every single time, and then losing miserably every single time in torrents of shock from the pain mitigator bodysuit.
“And I, hoped, there would be some, time, for me to see the change.”
The way that she smartly held her stance as they approached her, almost never making the first move as if she was scared, a tactic she had been taught by her brother: it gave the newbies an unfounded confidence that inevitably led to their guard falling.
“Cause I need to get out of this hell, save me, save me.”
As he prepared to watch the same thing play out, their sword in front ready to parry any arrow and closing the distance fast, she suddenly threw her bow into the air and an arrow at them at the same time. With the man’s attention split in two on the distractions she maneuvered towards him, her hand on the whip. Blocking the arrow and ignoring the bow he dived towards her with her own vigor.
“The only thing that keeping me going: I remember a time when I was free from these chains. I once said to her, ‘Baby don’t you worry!’”
Zendolyn gained a slightly larger sense of interest, seeing this development in character, but characteristically Reyenal dangerously but calculatedly dived beneath the man’s swing with an understandably intense gasp for air, catching the bow and with it knocking aside another swing. At the same time her right hand, closed around the whip’s handle, swung out and caught around the man’s leg, pulling and tripping him forward. The sword clanked out of his hand, and Reyenal yanked the whip out from under his legs. Then, with quick but slowing pants, she stepped forward and tapped him on the shoulder twice as he recovered. The match was over.
“I’m a liar, liar, liar, liar, liar!”
It was clear to everyone that Reyenal was a genius. She caught Zendolyn’s watching eyes and nodded breathlessly. As he returned her gesture her eyes widened, looking somewhere to his right. He followed her line of sight, and ended up on a well dressed woman. Her hair in a tight and clean bun and her oak brown eyes and tutted lips disapproving, Oriana Ato’s presence attracted many eyes. Zendolyn felt a sudden urge to crawl into a hole and disappear as she stopped in front of him and put a strong hand on his shoulder. He quickly pulled both of the AirPods out of his ears, Gemini still faintly singing and barely audible.
“I’m a liar, liar!”
“Zendolyn,” she said. Her voice was authority itself, like unbending and cold steel. “Didn’t I tell you to use your time wisely today?”
He didn’t answer and looked away instead, to all of the people now watching him. Part of him wanted his bodyguard to step in and free him from his mother’s hand, or maybe for Reyenal to convince Mother to lay off. But nothing happened.
“When I speak, you must answer,” Oriana squeezed his shoulder, and Zendolyn winced, trying to pull away but she didn’t let him. “Do you hear me, Zendolyn?”
“Y-yes, Mother.” The slight tremor in his voice only made her squint her eyes.
“Well, what are you going to do now, son?”
He replied with the most safe option. “I’m going to exercise now, Mother.”
Unimpressed with his answer, she let go. He didn’t look back at her as she walked into the elevator, which chimed as it closed.
Now all eyes were on him. “All eyes on me,” he whispered bitterly as small mutters returned Silverdawn back to its usual affairs.
“Poor kid.”
“He’s going to drag down the whole—”
“—Reyenal outdoes him in every—
“Second-in-command is being too easy on him.”
“He needs to put on more muscle.”
“—wouldn’t be surprised if he was kicked out.”
”Let’s just go back to sparring.”
Almost as fast as the biting words had come, they disappeared as Reyenal’s glare swept over all of them. She then walked over to him, and Zendolyn sighed.
“You good, Zen?” Reya asked first.
He let out a fake laugh, “It’s just an average Sunday.”
“Whatever you say, idiot.” She rolled her eyes. “Are you finally gonna work out now? It’s about time.”
Zendolyn shook his head. “Later, I promise. Mother made me go out today, but I just wanted to stay in my room for once to read.”
“Summer break?”
“What else? Gym addict,” he added.
“Stupid idiot bookworm,” she responded.
As she left, Zendolyn motioned to his bodyguard, and said, “I’m gonna go back, Agent Tartarus. You’re dismissed.”
The man grunted, “Young master, you’re—”
“Gonna go back to my room now,” he instinctively cut in, putting his AirPods back into his ears. “Dismissed. If you can spell it you can do it.”
Zendolyn brushed past the baffled agent and stepped into the elevator. He pushed the button for the basement floor, the Silverdawn storage level. Fiddling with his thumbs, he hopped a little bit, feeling the descent downwards. He eyed the camera in the corner of the elevator.
—diiiing doong
The storage room was a large area, managed by just a couple people. The artifacts and equipment towered upwards in boxes and boxes on tall metal shelves that were more like scaffolding. Down there it was cold, and the floor, walls, and ceiling were all made of smooth grey stone. It wasn’t a place that Zendolyn was used to, and it wasn’t his bedroom.
He made his way to the desk with a computer on it and rang the bell.
Not long later a woman with too many eye bags emerged from one of the rows of storage. She was a woman who clearly didn’t bother with makeup and looked like she didn’t get enough sunlight.
“Whaddya want, kid.” Her voice was dry. She needed coffee and a gallon of water.
Was that even a question?
“Uh, hello.” Zendolyn thought for a second, still fully maintaining the awkward eye contact. “Can I get a full face mask artifact… and a MIDI keyboard?”
She scoffed, “I can get you the MIDI, but if you’re not a member it’s gonna cost you. And as for the artifact, what’s your clearance?”
“Oriana’s son.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh. Alright then. Come around then, have a look at the catalog, y-young master.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Zendolyn hid a smirk. “Can you make sure no one hears about this?”
“I’ll do that if you can keep your mask under a B grade, Ato,” she replied, regressing back to her nonchalance and underpaid, overworked self. “Admin will notice if they can’t find something they need.”
As he scrolled through the catalog, with ‘mask’ in the search bar, he made note of a few interesting ones.
[[A+ Accessory]] Impersona - Alters the wearer's appearance. Bonus stats are gained depending on the person impersonated, if applicable.
[[A Accessory]] Gaia’s Visage - Ability: Manipulate earth. Does not affect earth-type abilities. (No cooldown, high mana cost)
[[A Accessory]] Medusa’s Veil - Ability: Paralyze all targets currently looking at the wearer for a few seconds. Gain bonus INT and STR for each paralyzed target until the cooldown resets (8 minute cooldown).
[[A- Accessory]] Screaming Banshee - Terrifies anyone who sees it.
[[B- Accessory]] Pale Stalker - The wearer blends into the background unless focused on.
[[B- Item]] Starry Skin - Single Use. Recovers natural skin barrier and removes all blemishes after being worn for at least 2 hours. Helps fight against acne and mana-inflicted burns. Slightly itchy.
[[C Accessory]] Truant Stoneface - See through. The wearer looks expressionless.
[[D+ Accessory]] Twin Muses - NOT RECOMMENDED. Two forms. Comedy: The wearer gains large amounts of CHR, INT, and DEX, but in turn develops egotism, obsession, etc. Tragedy: The wearer gains large amounts of MP, Mana and situational and emotional awareness, but in turn develops various mental syndromes. A portion of the effects are permanent, increasing the longer the mask is worn.
Zendolyn stopped. He had reached the bottom of the page. There weren’t that many masks, and even less were well suited for what he wanted to do… except one.
“Do any of these interest you, Ato?” The woman asked from behind him.
He nodded and pointed at the screen. “This one.”
“Are you sure?”
Zendolyn nodded again.
“You know that warning isn’t just for show, right?”
“Yes, I’d like it. Thank you.”
With an unenthusiastic sigh, the woman walked off back into the aisles of stuff. There was a sudden noise, like many boxes at once clanging and shuffling around, far too many for the woman to have carried on her own, and worried Zendolyn rushed out and peered into the row to see what had happened.
He was slightly relieved to see her not hurt, but seeing the boxes flying around, bobbing up and down and side to side out of control as if the puppeteer that ran the world in the background sneezed really hard was something he didn’t expect to see. Items and accessories flew in and out of boxes rapidly in a circle pattern like they were doing gravity-defying juggling tricks, making constant banging noises as they fell back onto each other in neat layers and in quick succession.
Moments later everything stopped, and almost as fast as it had begun all of the boxes flew back into place as a mask fell into the woman’s hand and a MIDI gently landed into the other. Before she could see him staring he pulled back and stood waiting just around the corner as if he’d been looking at the catalog the entire time.
“I have your things,” the woman handed Zendolyn the two items and moved beside him to type into the computer. He nearly dropped the MIDI when she put it in his hands, but the three-octave keyboard didn’t fall. He safely put it on the ground and inspected the mask he had pointed out. The mask was white, with clear geometric contours on the face. Its smiling face and the holes for the eyes that were oddly sunken created shadows and made it look eerie, yet intriguing.
He turned it around, and the mask changed in an almost surreal way. Somehow it was like the side he had flipped to was also the front, except it was a dark grey color accentuated by the shadows. The sunken eyes drooped, with a black tear etched into the mask, and the mouth was in a frown. Zendolyn flipped it back over, and it was creepily happy again.
Then he donned the Twin Muses onto his face and immediately felt a difference. He felt like he could overcome anything that came his way and nothing could stop him. He was smart enough. He was charismatic enough. He was a strong person.
Zendolyn was amused already.
//
6:04 A.M. // 11 - 4 - 2023 // Arc - Portal Facility
Starring Dean Harvest
Featuring Leslie, Fanny, Serene Goldwin, Cedrance Manamune, Junseo Park, and Avil Daniase
//
The portal room was cold, and the color of the giant portal in front of us didn’t help to make me think otherwise: it was icy blue.
“Let me brief you a little bit about emergencies beforehand,” the Travel club President, Representative, or whoever he was said loudly.
It was early in the morning, so I was mostly zoned out. Also, last night’s Memory was still so vivid in my head.
“Take out the rulebook I gave you last week.”
I’d seen a cold and snowy night, where the moon was hiding behind the trees all around. A narrow dirt path around the outskirts of the town led me beneath all the powdered branches from above to the crunching leaves at my feet, basking in the faint moonlight. Not mine, Dean’s. Ahead was a spectacular port that gave the town its name, Bar Harbor. That night, the water had sparkled brightly with the Egg Rock Lighthouse active somewhere in the distance, far away that neither Dean nor I could see it. These weren’t my own memories.
The Pres-Rep rambled on, “Page 8 in your rulebook says that Arc students can bring their weapons across state or country borders. Specifics on restrictions and more are there as well. If you have a weapon you’ll be able to respond to emergency scenarios as Arc agents, and you must follow classification guidelines…”
“Your Pappy is flat out there in his swimmers getting dinner,” Nanna had remarked casually as she noticed him on the phone, not really paying attention to her nor the walk we were on. “It’s hard, providing for a family, and you’re here doing what now?” Dean didn’t care to entertain her question, and she let him be.
“If your rank is below the Threat Level, your class isn’t required for the situation, or you’re unawakened, you will be considered a citizen. This means your highest priority will be to run the heck away. Simple, right?”
But it was something that Dean had read on the phone that made him stop in place. Nanna had turned around patiently, noticing the look that had come upon her grandson’s face.
“Nanna.”
“What is it, Sonny?”
“I got accepted into Arc.”
“With all of these guilds around and in Maine, like the disaster relief Bellowing Fires guild and the Preservarium in Portland and the internationally-hired dungeon scouting Team Smokescreen guild in Bangor. You guys have all probably seen the schedule, so I don’t need to explain it to you.”
As I slowly reviewed the schedule in my head, I wondered what that keyword had meant. How could anything have been an Exchange? Was it an exchange of words?
Uhh… the portal led to Portland so we would be staying there first. Tomorrow, Sunday, we’d then drive over to Bangor to visit guilds finally to… Bar Harbor. So we could watch Jun’s choreography.
So I could see Dean’s Nanna, Pappy, Ma, and Pa. The screen glowed in my periphery.
========================
[Visit your home in Maine]
Penalty for failure:
[Death of family members]
Current task(s): [Protect the family, Visit your home in Maine]
========================
“If you brought your weapons today, please scan with the Arc app here to register that you’re on duty.”
I breathed in, pacing behind the person in front of me. There were no time limits, as far as I could see. I hoped…
[Arc student verified: Permission granted]
A small sigh escaped my mouth, Henry calling out final warnings and other things I didn’t care about. Now people were beginning to walk through the portal, the backpack being the last to go to the other side. I caught sight of a small envelope in the hands of a few taller and bigger kids. I yawned—and then stopped halfway, my eyes firmly fixed on the back of the girl in front of me.
Curly blonde, the way she held herself in a casually dignified way as her eyes were wandering over at the left line, a very cute beige puffer coat she’d recently gotten as a gift from her friend for her birthday. As tall and delicate as I remembered, I was too certain that she was “Leslie?”
Startled at her name, she turned, and it took her a short moment to scan me up and down to my embarrassment before she gasped. “Dean? Oh my God, hi… wait a second—”
Leslie grabbed my wrist, yanking me towards her and then put her hand over my mouth. Oh my God was the correct way to describe what was happening. Oh, oh oh oh oh.
Oh dear, save me.
She didn’t seem to notice my huge blush or the uncontrollable squeak I made as she looked off towards another line. Wait, what could she be looking at that wasn’t me…? Her grip loosened and, seeing who it was, I managed, “F-Fan—mmmmph!”
“Quiet, Dean!” Leslie whirled to me again. “Fanny’s not supposed to know I’m here. Let me surprise her, will you?”
Hearing the enthusiasm in her voice it was impossible to say no and I curtly nodded to the best of my ability. I felt as stiff as a robot but as sweaty as an athlete. No longer did I feel cold. Thankfully Fanny didn’t see nor hear us.
Leslie was kind enough to explain to me without any prompting. “It’s a little sad she only kinda mentioned it when it’s such a big deal like this. Like, Junseo Park, Cedrance Manamune, and you all in one room? Sheesh!”
Oh. My. God.
I needed to bring a fire extinguisher next time.
I could hear Serene’s voice ahead of me at the front of my queue as she gave each kid a fat envelope from a shopping bag. Then they’d walk into the portal and disappear to the other side. “—you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you…” Bribe money. At the other queue to the left, Fanny’s line, the same thing was happening with Cedrance Manamune being the one to pass out envelopes, and his line was far less quiet than ours. Not entirely sure what was going on, I tried my best to avert my eyes from Leslie.
Then came Leslie’s turn to receive the money.
“Thank you,” Serene benevolently smiled as Leslie gratefully took the money. “Thank you so much, Serene! I hope you have a good vacation.”
“Yes, yes,” Serene said, “you too.” Her focus changed to me, her hand already pre-emptively in the air with the envelope of money in hand. “And thank you—”
She made eye contact with me, and then froze.
I nodded.
========================
Serene’s suspicion towards you rises.
========================
My eyebrow went up, seeing the screen.
Suspicion?
Was I doing something wrong?
I looked around, now uncomfortable. Other kids were looking at their watches or talking to each other. I saw Avil and Jun casually chatting away with each other. Avil laughed at something Jun said, and Jun’s smile followed making two girls who were also watching them squeal.
[‘YOU HAVE TO GO NOW!’]
Returning my attention to Serene I thanked her with a small nod, taking the envelope from her hands. She wasn’t so frozen anymore and seemed to be scanning me up and down, which I didn’t like.
Leslie, who had been watching me the entire time and who’s hand was still over my wrist, laughed as if she’d seen something funny. “C’mon, you slowpoke. Let’s go already! This backpack isn’t gonna get any lighter, you know? Gah, I’m gonna be so buff after this.”
I chuckled nervously in response, still aware of how Serene squinted at Leslie’s hand over mine. Then she finally turned to the next person, and I released a breath I didn’t know I was holding in.
“Hey, Dean,” she squeezed my hand and I looked at her. “You awake?”
The screen was in his face now. Dean screamed louder.
I nodded.
“Then let’s go.”