Terry reeled in shocked silence for a time, his brain having trouble processing this revelation. Stone whipped past them, but his eyes were unfocused, his mouth dry, his heart threatening to burst from his chest.
How? It’s not possible. Yet…there was the ring of truth in those memories. I…felt them.
Vlad glanced back, somehow sensing his turmoil.
“Terry?” he asked hesitantly. Then he noticed the lost look in Terry’s eyes and the platform screeched to a halt. “Terry! What’s wrong?”
His gaze slowly drifted up toward Vlad’s, a numb feeling washing over his body and mind, like he was lifting up and outside of his body.
A few seconds passed before Terry could process the question.
“She…she was a revenant.” His voice was soft, barely a whisper, and Vlad leaned in, furrowing his brow in confusion.
“What was that?”
He looked down at the rose in between his fingers.
“She was a revenant.”
Vlad squinted, coming over to crouch beside Terry.
“What do you mean? Who?” Then, he seemed to realize the implication and reared back in surprise. “Wait. Your mom?”
Terry looked up slowly, his thoughts mired in mud. Then, he nodded.
“How is that possible?” Vlad asked. “How…” He trailed off, realizing Terry’s state. “Are you…okay?”
Terry considered that question for a moment.
Am I okay?
He felt his mind rebooting at the question, the thoughts beginning to pick up speed as a hunger began to form deep inside.
“No,” he replied with a shake of his head. “I’m not.” He glanced back at the rose, his eyes narrowing. “But I will be—” He cut his gaze back toward Vlad, feeling that fire stoke inside of him. “—once I get some answers.”
The man bit his lip in obvious trepidation, but after a moment, he nodded once.
“Okay, do what you need to do. I’ll…be here if you need someone to talk to.”
Any other time, Terry would have been touched by that sentiment. But right now, he felt laser focused on the rose clutched tightly in his fingers.
He dived back in without a word, feeling his mind sucked back into that colorless void.
The string of memories danced before him and he considered the dozens of beads with a sudden bout of hesitation.
What kind of horrors are trapped in these memories? Can they be worse than watching my mother die right before my eyes?
Did it matter how bad they were? I need to know.
Steeling himself, he moved to the third memory in the line, letting his mind fall into it.
The sounds of yelling hit his ears even before he had completely inhabited younger Terry’s body. He found himself leaning against a door, two familiar voices echoing through the thick wood.
“James!” his mother shouted. “Please!”
“No, dammit! It’s one thing to warp his mind—he’s a kid. But I’m your husband! I love you no matter what—”
The sound of something crashing against the wall made him flinch.
“Bullshit! I see the way you’ve looked at me since. It’s different—”
“Of course it’s different, Pen! You’re dead!”
Silence reigned for a handful of moments and younger Terry held his breath to try and hear better.
“I…I’m sorry, Pen. I didn’t mean that.”
Sobs echoed through the door and Terry felt his heart flutter in pain.
“No, you’re right!” his mother cried out. “I am dead. I should have stayed dead! I’m just prolonging the pain—”
“No. No! I agreed to this knowing what it meant. Your son needs you.” His voice shifted low, so low Terry almost missed the next words. “I need you.”
Another silence followed and Terry pressed tighter to the door. As he moved, his foot scuffed against the floor and he froze in fear.
“Oh my God!” his mother’s voice called out. Footsteps pounded and Terry thought to flee. But before he could muster up the courage, the door was ripped open. “Terry!”
The memory ended and he was pulled back into the void.
He regarded the memories beneath him, a picture beginning to form in his mind. It was obvious now that this wasn’t some farce or mental trap or something he had misinterpreted. His mother had been a revenant and for years, too.
The hunger intensified, taking him over completely. With barely a thought, he dived into the next memory, consuming it entirely. Then the next. And the next.
By the time he had consumed the final memory in the string, he had witnessed himself growing up from a young boy of six or seven, to a teenager. And it was clear that this rose had been reserved entirely for him and his memories, each of them resolving into a scene wherein he had somehow stumbled upon the truth of her in some way.
In one memory, her shirt had slipped down, revealing the bullet hole that still centered on her chest. In another, they stumbled upon the scene of her murder years later and a cold sweat had formed on his skin. She had preemptively taken away those memories and resolved to never bring him back down that trail.
On and on the memories went. Little slips of the tongue, or glimpses of the bullet hole, or Terry asking questions that had been a bit too on the nose.
Years of deception and memory theft, all laid out in the strings of light contained inside this rose.
When he finally pulled up and out of the memories, he felt like a drowning man gasping for air. He cast about, disoriented and unclear where he was or even what age he was.
Then, a hand landed on his shoulder and he clasped onto it desperately.
“I’m here. It’s okay, Terry. You’re safe.”
For a moment, he thought he was trapped inside a memory within the rose, his mother’s phantom comforting him for the hundredth time after he had discovered the truth.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
But then, the surroundings resolved in his eyes and he looked up to see Vlad staring down at him, his face pinched with concern.
Reality came slamming back into focus and he slowed his breathing to reclaim some control over both his body and his mind.
When his heart had settled and his lungs no longer felt like they were being strained dry, he nodded toward Vlad to let him know he was okay.
“Thanks, Vlad. That was…intense.”
“No problem. You…you sure you’re good?”
Terry let out a deep breath. “I’m good. I…” The notification from before flashed inside his vision and he dismissed it with a thought. Disjointed memories streamed into place, scrambling to reclaim their rightful positions within his mind. It was like they had never been taken and his entire life shifted, refocused in a new light.
A realization hit him, sapping his spirit, poisoning the memory of his mother.
“My mother…she was manipulating me the whole time,” he muttered. Glancing up at Vlad, he let out a dark chuckle. “I always loved holding her hand. There was a subtle tingle whenever our skin touched.” That feeling was so familiar to him, so precious in his memories. Now, it was tainted; evidence of the magic she had used to keep him ignorant and in the dark. “I realize now that she was using her powers on me constantly. Altering my perceptions so I never noticed she was actually dead. There were so many tells, but she wiped them all from my mind…every second I was around her.”
Vlad’s eyes went wide.
“That’s…” He trailed off, shaking his head.
“Fucked up?” Terry offered. “Yeah, I know.”
He finally took in his surroundings, realizing that they were stopped in a tunnel.
“How much longer?” he asked Vlad.
“We’re here, actually. I was just waiting for you to come out before…” He shrugged. “Thought maybe you didn’t want the others to see you.”
Terry nodded. “Thanks, Vlad.” He held out a hand. “Can you help me up?”
He rose shakily to his feet with Vlad’s help, trying to force his limbs to wake up.
“Okay, I’m good.” He considered having the Elementalist ferry them into the warehouse, but realized that he really didn’t feel like being around the others. Not right now, at least. “Can you drop me near the palace? I…need some time to think.”
“Sure, Terry.”
Though it was true he didn’t want to be around others right now, it wasn’t because he needed time to think.
No, the only thing on his mind right now, the one thought consuming him entirely, was the Quest that had started this all.
And I know where at least one other White Rose is…
----------------------------------------
As he strode through the palace halls, his mind felt like a tempest, his thoughts never stopping to consider what he was about to do. Only a need existed there, a need for knowledge, for answers.
He didn’t know what he would do if Mesmer was in his office. The idea of having to turn around and wait for the revenant to clear off was unfathomable. He was going to retrieve that rose right now, even if he had to bypass the palace’s spatial restrictions in order to teleport it from right beneath the man’s nose.
When he neared Mesmer’s office, two familiar ghouls were perched outside per usual.
He paused at the sight, finally taking a moment to strategize. There was a distinct possibility that even if Mesmer was not inside his office, the ghouls would still turn him away. But there was a chance he could override their concerns, lean on his status to bluff his way inside.
But first, he needed to determine if Mesmer was out or not.
Hiding around the nearest corner, he began to feel with his senses. He knew from past experience that whatever Artifact blocked Travel within the Palace was strong, but not strong enough to stop Silver. The one time he had tried himself, it had felt like trying to push his hand through a blanket.
But he was stronger now and his Skill was at the E-grade. There was a chance he could penetrate that protective film coating the palace. Transporting himself might be difficult. But creating a tiny peephole to observe the office? That sounded much more doable.
With a flex of aura, he felt the fabric of space around him. Like before, it was thicker than usual, resisting his efforts even to perceive it, let alone penetrate it. But he had observed Marlon for hours and his understanding had improved dramatically since his last attempt.
He didn’t try to force space apart like he usually had before. Rather, he coaxed it open, leaning on the conceptual ideas he had learned from Marlon. Space wasn’t a series of pockets to be split apart and pieced together. It was one and it could be tricked into transposing itself within the framework of his aura.
Reaching across that conceptual plane, he felt the revenant’s office in his mind’s eye. He used his aura to create a sympathetic point in space, one piece of the puzzle that would become the portal entrance. Tracing a line back over that spatial plane, he then coaxed space into a familiar shape—just a small opening, no bigger across then his fist. With a subtle flick, he shifted that switch that would let light through, then solidified both ends of the aura framework.
A quiet whoosh filled the air as it was subtly displaced.
And projecting through the portal before him, was a top-down view of Mesmer’s office. He let out a silent whoop, then began peering through it. The angle was narrow, only revealing the couch and a part of the floor.
Utilizing his aura once more, he altered the two portals, grasping the framework in his mind and extending them outward incrementally. The view grew wider to match, until he had an unobscured portal looking out over the entire office.
Mesmer was nowhere to be seen.
He considered creating a new portal and swapping the entry and exit points so he could simply walk into the man’s office. But he could feel intuitively that even though he could create a portal past the space-restricting Artifact, he was much less confident he could bolster that portal enough to transport the rose, let alone his mass.
Light was one thing, mass something different entirely.
Guess I’ll just have to bluff my way past.
Releasing his aura’s hold on the portals, he steeled himself to talk to the ghoul guards. A few deep breaths helped steady both his heart and his aura, and then he was around the corner, walking at a brisk pace.
The ghouls noticed him quickly, their auras flicking out in greeting, though they didn’t turn visibly. He returned the greeting, then shaped his aura in the form of a polite request.
“Mesmer asked me to wait in his office. We have another session planned.”
The ghouls’ auras fluctuated, though their faces remained impassive. One of them shaped his aura in response—a tentative form of doubt.
“Pardon, my prince. But no visitor when Mesmer gone. Very strict rule.”
Terry very purposefully kept both his breathing and his aura steady. Then, he shaped it into the form of polite insistence.
“I understand. He mentioned you would say that. But he told me to tell you to make an exception this one time.” He forced a good-natured chuckle out. “What am I gonna do? Deface one of his books?” He let his aura shift into a humorous shape, hoping the two ghouls would buy it.
Their auras clearly interacted, a cautious hesitation passing between them. But after a moment, he felt them turn their attention back, their auras shifting back into a casual state.
“Yes, my prince.”
He had to resist the raw panic that tried to infuse his beating heart as he nodded and moved past them. Once he was inside, he fled away from the door, afraid they would feel his panic through his fluctuating aura.
But after a few moments, when it became clear they wouldn’t burst in and yank him out of Mesmer’s office, he let a feeling of triumph settle over him.
I’m in!
He did a slow turn, taking in the familiar office before locking his eyes on the rose resting on the shelf. It looked so mundane beneath its glass covering—a simple memento of Mesmer’s friendly relationship with his mother.
But the secrets contained within that memento pulled at him and he rushed over, his hand resting on the handle of the glass cover. For a moment, he wondered if his nerve would fail him, those tempting secrets also eliciting a feeling of terror deep within his heart.
No, he resolved. I need to decode this rose. The answers to all my questions lie at the end of this Quest and this is just a stepping stone to that end.
The White Rose was in his hand suddenly and he felt its aura sympathize with the other White Rose tucked safely away in his jacket pocket. With a start, he realized that he had been feeling that connection through his aura subconsciously, even from a distance. He had dismissed it, thinking it was just the rose in his pocket. But now he knew that he had been sensing Mesmer’s White Rose from all the way down the hall.
Being able to sense the White Roses would make finding the other two easier…he hoped.
A notification appeared in his vision as he regarded the rose with his aura.
[The White Rose] Quest Updated
2 of 4 White Roses acquired.
Metaphysical cipher recognized.
Decode and enter memory lattice?
He let out a sigh of relief as he realized he wouldn’t have to redo his analysis of the other roses. With a thought, he decoded the rose and entered that familiar colorless void.
Immediately, he recognized stark differences in the string of memories appearing below him. Rather than the golden balls of light forming a string of memories, Mesmer’s appeared as violet vortexes swirling within that void.
But more shocking than that, was how many there were. At first glance, he saw at least a hundred violet vortexes signaling memories.
A confusing mix of trepidation and excitement filled him as he regarded them. Part of him wondered why Mesmer had so many memories stolen on purpose. He remembered the revenant had claimed they were the misdeeds of a previously villainous life. But still, he was overwhelmed by the sheer number.
Another part of him felt excitement. There had to be answers buried somewhere in these dozens and dozens of memories. Otherwise, why would his System Quest guide him to decoding every White Rose?
Realizing he was procrastinating, he focused his mind, targeted the very first memory in the string of violet vortexes, and dove in.