For a week, Reynold spent nearly every waking moment selling all the items in his home for any copper or silver royals he could get. The people in the slums didn’t have enough, and those in the merchant district didn’t want to do business with someone they considered “unclean.” Well, at least they’re worth stealing from. During the day, Reynold walked through the blistering sun from house to house, marketing the hell out of whatever scraps he found in his home. Something had to sell, right? It was all he—they—had. When evening arose and he could barely keep his eyes open, Reynold stayed with his Mother in the upper medical ward of the religious district.
*****
Once the rooms in their house were barren and everything he could have sold (aside from food and water) was gone, he counted the change in the moneybag he…“happened to find.” Just over 33 silver and 25 copper royals. Not nearly enough.
Opening the last drawer not flipped over and searched through, he spotted an opaque, black metal box sitting in the top-right corner. Cold to the touch, he lifted it onto the thin, ripped mattress that his mother slept on. She will get better, he told himself as he eyed the lock keeping the box shut, but what in the world is this? It was a solid, circular black lock, engraved with gold kaleidoscopic patterns with motes of purple giving the piece a somewhat otherworldly feeling. The craftsmanship was at a level as if made by a masterful artisan, and there was a thin slot for a key built into the front. But Mother’s never carried a key, nor have I seen any sign of a key when I was cleaning out the house.
“What the hell is inside of here?”
With no luck finding a key and already having sold off all the tools that he could have used to open the old, intricate lock, Reynold gave up. I’ll look at this later when my more pressing matters are solved. Tossing the box to the side, the lock flipped onto its back, resting on the edge of the bed. “Huh?” Reynold stared at the box. There was no sound of anything moving inside. How could that be?
He shook it around a few more times, but it seemed empty. Why would it be locked, then? Hmm? He noticed a small divot in the center of a dozen spiraling designs. Maybe 2 centimeters in diameter, it rested directly in the middle of the lock. The spirals started to glow brighter the more he stared at it. His mind emptied until all that was left was the pattern. It’s the only thing that mattered to him. They felt…familiar, like he'd seen it before.
The spiral just wrapped and wrapped and wrapped around his vision. They just kept getting closer and closer to Reynold, but he didn’t care. Before he knew it, his left index finger was hovering just above the divot only for him to press down instinctually, causing a sharp pain to pierce through his finger.
“Ah! What was that?” He recoiled from the box, standing up and holding his finger with his right hand. A bead of blood built up on the tip of his finger as he switched his focus back to the lock.
Click.
“What the—” The lock had lost all color and patterns, resting unlocked on the top of the box. He cautiously took off the lock, looking for any inner mechanism that might tell him what triggered it. Wait, the slot from the key disappeared. It was as if all detail had been stripped away from the lock, leaving it just a piece of metal with a curved top. Reynold put the lock to the side, warily staring at the black box. Before, it seemed like any other crate, but in the waning glow of the evening sun, the box felt...larger, darker, almost as if to say, ‘Open if you dare.’
Reynold took a deep breath and opened the box carefully, expecting some trap or creature to jump out at him. What he instead met face to face with was a photo framed and kept, without a smidge of dust, nicely wrapped by a green ribbon. Thank Sephira. He would much prefer a picture over a trap. A blurry photo of a man sporting tailored black locks with few dark green highlights stared back at me. A dark mustache curled around his upper lip and made him look like he was coming around to sell you something you didn't want. His eyes were brown and his smile gentle. Is that...my father? He'd never met the man, and his mother hardly mentioned him outside the occasional tidbit when we sat together. He'd always respected her choice not to tell him, but he'd always catch her staring out at the brightly lit inner city from their place on the outskirts. It was a lonely endeavor, waiting on someone who never came.
It was only then that she told him in a moment when the strong facade a mother has for their son broke. “He was a charming man, your father. Full of aspirations and dreams with the intelligence and wit to support it.” She smiled sadly as she remembered the past. “Only nine months he remained with me, waiting for you to be born, but those nine months were the best, even at a place like this.” She paused, “Don’t be too angry at him for leaving, however. His dream couldn’t be accomplished by staying here with you and me.” She turned to look directly into Reynold's eyes, her light brown irises reflecting like jewels as the light from the lamp fell on her face. “But be that as it may, the greatest gift I could have ever received from that man was you.” She cupped his face in her rough, work-worn hands, kissing his forehead before turning to the lights shining in the distance.
When Reynold had tried to inquire more about him, she deftly sidestepped the questions, either saying she didn’t know (which might have been true) or that "You could ask him when you meet him!" Never gonna happen. He could be dead in a ditch for all he knew, never to be found again. But still, his mother remained steadfast that he would meet my father at some point.
He will never come back. That's just the type of man he is.
Reynold sighed and opened the frame, folding the picture into his pocket and putting the frame with the last items to be sold. He walked out, ready to spend most of the night in the infirmary, his mind filled with unease about the future.
*****
Shit, this is a problem, he thought as he opened the room where his mother was being treated. The monthly fee for the treatment is 1 gold royal. Along with that, the room and board along with other regular treatment procedures increase the total price up to 1 gold royal and 40 silver royals per month. As he sat next to the bed in the medical room, he overlooked his mother’s pale face as she breathed faintly. Her face conveyed a deathlike pallor, her pain only being alleviated by the golden contraption next to her. Reynold scanned the device with an earnest desire to understand how it works; how it is saving his mother.
The church-commissioned object stood up on a pole of seemingly hollowed gold and copper with magical signals traveling through its various internal wires giving it a feeling of being almost alive, in the same sense that veins and arteries do in the body. The fist-sized turquoise mana gemstone provided most of the mana to her body, with a warm golden wire reaching from the center of the crystal to his mother’s left arm, circulating the mana through...magic? Labeling it an expensive device, Reynold's thoughts turned back to his current predicament. He cupped his head and closed his eyes with one thought running through his head:
How the hell do I make all that money? Maybe if he found another one of these devices and sold it--The hospital guard walking behind in the hallway forced Reynold to "reconsider" his opinion.
The following morning, he found himself meandering along the backstreets, scouring for anything of value that could be fenced or sold. Probably wasn't theirs in the first place if it were found around here. Walking down the shadow of two three-story commercial buildings, Reynold turns to the left for no real reason. Just a feeling. A feeling that something was there, something familiar. He walks closer to the wall, uncapping his lamplight, a small tube capped with glass that emits light when powered by mana. Reynold had found this pricey piece of magical engineering years ago in the noble district "exploring" and it was barely in working condition. It was also one of the only items he still possessed. He pointed one end into the darkness and clicked the button on the other, a dim glow flickering as it struggled to stay on. Reynold whacked the end of it a few times before it stayed solid, encompassing the wall. A wooden oval door, a little too narrow at the bottom with no handle, stood at attention. Like the cross-section of a misshapen vase, it stood with no protruding doorknob and just felt like it was painted on the wall's surface. That’s weird, this wasn’t here before. He had passed by this exact wall numerous times, but he had never once seen this door.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
It was as if the door wasn’t real. Reynold tried to read the writing above the frame but the dim light and his, well, lack of knowledge regarding a significant portion of the Empire’s language obstructed him from doing so.
Should I go in? He stood there, pondering for a second, really considering why this place appeared to him. It seems like this place wasn’t meant to be found, but there might be something inside that I can sell. Let's hope the residents are amicable. Reynold pushed on the door expecting some resistance, but it opened wide, welcoming him in.
He entered slowly, shining his light across the darkness ahead. The ceiling wasn’t too high, maybe 20 feet, but he couldn’t see the ends of the room. Other than the door behind me and my lamplight, it was black. Even the door Reynold just walked through didn’t seem to have any walls attached that he could see. Odd. The ground he walked on was also made of dark wood, with a constant, repetitive, tile system. It was jarring. The only description that could accurately describe that place was the limbo of a room, where everything was static in some ebony prison. There was nothing there. No life, no change, nothing.
In the infinitum of the room stood two doors. The first door was the one he entered through, and the second was the only other door. The door wasn't connected to anything, he seemingly could walk right behind it, and Reynold decided to circle it to verify if he could still see correctly. He moved to walk around to the right side of the door and wrap around counterclockwise to the left side of the door. However, as soon as he got behind the door and turned around, he found himself behind the door again, only now, only the left.
What.
He took two steps back.
Then he took three steps back and ran back towards the door he entered from.
Reynold grabbed the frame to make sure it still existed and turned back to the door. What the hell just happened? It seems he couldn't leave this infinite hallway of sorts. This might be a little problematic, so let's test it out. He now walked forward to the left side of the door, he got behind it, turned around, and voila, he's on the right right side of the door. STILL BEHIND IT. His mind struggled to wrap his mind around the reality of his situation. But still, he wanted to figure it out. It was like an 8 pattern, or infinity symbol for that matter, chopped at each tip by the level of the two doors.
As soon as he tried to go past the right of the door ahead of him, he ended up on the left of the door, facing the opposite direction. He just skipped part of the 8 outright! But more testing seems to be required. Let's see if that system holds for the other half of the circle. He passes backward through the left side of the first door and turns around to find, again, he's on the right-hand side of the first door, STILL BETWEEN THE TWO DOORS.
Reynold realized the insane limitation that the barrier set on him and felt a little proud of himself, secure in just the feeling that he could leave anytime. However, he couldn't figure out how in the world something like this could exist, so he chalked it up to the magic that those powerful people could possess. People like, well, the most powerful person he knew of is the emperor, or maybe the first emperor? Reynold wasn't sure of how the stories went. Plus he only had time to skim those auditory books before the librarian caught him. They have got to make something that makes only me hear that, like something that hangs over your ears and whispers in them. But I digress, the only problem was that he was not a powerful Marked. To be exact, he had NO MARK. One would think that being in the presence of such a powerful being may not be the best for his physical well-being. Especially if it was a noble who might kill him for being dirty or a foreigner who might kill him for...spying on them? Wait, why are we afraid of foreigners again? Or maybe it was a monster who might kill him for...being food? He would die in every scenario, and he didn't want that to happen. He could always back out...but he had anything but hope back there. It was just as that book he read said, with great risk comes great responsibility...no...that's not right...with great risk comes great reward...yeah, that seemed more like it.
"Let's go get a reward." Reynold hyped himself up in his head, reminding himself of how great of a decision-maker he is. He should probably clean himself up too, touch up his hair, and wipe off some grime if he meets someone. All he had to do was be charismatic if he found some rational, you know? A simple, "Good day Mr.--Missus--well, please let me know how you would like to be referred to. I go by Rey, and I have humbly intruded on your place of residency in my travels across the land. Please forgive me, but I have come to offer you extended--"
Reynold had opened the next door and entered during his hype to find a large room with a curved series of small, transparent windows covering the far wall in a semicircle over 100 feet across. A light akin to the sun's shone down, but unlike the sun, it didn't seem to move. The carpets rolled in a deep crimson shade and covered every inch of the floor. Footsteps were met with a faint thud as the carpet muffled the sound of anything hitting it. On all three other sides, including the wall that somehow appeared on the side of the door he just came through, were a series of bookshelves filled with bounds of different sizes and shapes, colors and hues, a single page and a whole foot thick. Every nook on the wall was filled with something or the other, but Reynold couldn't appreciate what they said anyway. He relied on picture books or enchanted audible versions and couldn't read the empire's language, only getting bits and pieces from the newspapers and signs. The slums don't have libraries, and the noble district isn't the safest with all those marked pricks walking around.
Near the far edge of the room was an elevated section of a few steps. On that was a long wooden table occupied by numerous items. A few bound books, one opened and flipping through pages on its own, one doing the same thing but in the air as well. A pen flew from page to page (also floating in the air, to be clear), taking notes on something it gleamed from the books. On the other side of the table, there was a stack of papyrus that could be described as a scroll, having concentric circles and geometric shapes printed upon them. In addition to those, they also had...animals. And plants too? They even have houses and knives printed on a few.
Yet the most unique part of this whole thing was the person seated behind the desk on a long black chair with gold tips and embroidered edges. The person was facing Reynold but was wearing a mask fit to be worn at a masquerade. Their face wasn't visible behind the white surface, but their short, curly hair gave the impression of a masculine figure. So did the suit, but Rey couldn't tell for certain. He couldn't even see past the eyeholes, one of which was fitted with a strange monocle. The figure's back remained straight and at attention as they continued their work. The master of the beautiful chaos occurring at their desk, their right hand was busy flipping magical geometric shapes of pink electricity in the air while their left was scribbling notes at a rate that left their hand a blur on the pages.
Rey took a deep breath of air as his nervousness shot up. Who wouldn't when faced with the unknown? All that practice he did went to waste as he clammed up in fear. It took all he could just to walk over (I did it casually, of course) and stand in front of the desk. Please be nice.
"G-good day...erm...mister? Ehm, uh, what would you like me to call you." He asked the figure.
There was no answer. The figure continued to work with the only sound being the scritch of a pen and the spark of electricity. Writing six pages in mere seconds, not to mention the floating pens doing work, had to be efficient. There was nothing Reynold could do but wait awkwardly. But Reynold, not one to read the mood, continued. "I--my name is Rey--and I, uh, I would like to...learn from you?" Some dumb excuse came to mind, and he blurted it out.
Still nothing.
Feeling a little pissed off at being ignored, Reynold furrowed his brows and turned his head to look at what the figure was doing with his right hand. Every second, a flash of light followed a burst of electricity appearing within the figure's gloved hand. Various intersecting shapes, three-dimensional prisms, fractal patterns, and some objects that didn't even seem physically consistent in three dimensions appeared and disappeared every second. How one could recognize them was beyond the guess of Reynold.
How one couldn't recognize the sentiment of the room was also beyond belief as Reynold kept yapping. "Whoa, is that magic? Are you like a knight or something? You must be rich, huh? How does that pattern even work? Are you as strong as the emperor? I can work for you if you teach me something cool!"
Any lesser being would have already gotten pissed and smacked the bothersome nuisance that lay before them into oblivion, especially because they were working. However, the figure silently finished up their task and began to ask back.
"Rey, is it?" It was a deep, orotund voice, Male, then. I can't even tell when they open their mouth, it's a little disorienting, but score! They're nice...probably.
Remembering to answer back, Rey belatedly gave a "Short for Reynold, sir. Reynold Alwyn."
"Reynold Alwyn, is it? An intriguing name given your current state of affairs." He continued knowingly, not letting Rey cut in. "It appears you have entered my workplace, and you have asked me for an...internship here? Do you have any experience in this field of work? Any degrees? Why should I hire you?" The figure seemed to be smiling evilly behind that mask.
He was royally screwed.