Chapter 4

"The timestream?" Polaris' bottom lip fell, and he remained still in the doorway.

"Was I perhaps wrong?... No, impossible. It's different." He mumbled to himself, before directly speaking to me.

There was restraint in his voice, and I was unable to decipher whether it was due to suspicion, or if he was slowly reciting his response so as not to give away additional information mistakenly.

"You're familiar with the stream? How long have you known about its existence? Is that what brought you here?"

"One at a time! I only know about it because there were piles of papers on the Baeuru. I looked at them for a bit because I couldn't open the drawers."

Polaris faces me entirely. One of his eyebrows forms a sharp arch that draws closer to the hairline framing his forehead.

"You sure read quick," He keenly remarked. This man goes through four hundred emotions within the span of a minute.

"I only skimmed through one of them and looked through who addressed them on the rest. None of them had an actual name, all of them ended with 'timestream.' The paper I looked over had phrases that sounded very similar to what you were describing."

He leaned further into the space, and stepped backward, standing with one shoe across the door's threshold.

"Oh, those were my notes you must've been looking at! I've been studying the outer universe, marking down traits to understand how its nature contributes to the central universe." He says as he returns towards the direction of the study, and walks down.

"When it comes time you will experience it for yourself." Polaris reaches up and pushes on the door that I had forgotten to seal shut in the midst of walking upstairs for something he wanted to show me.

Whatever happened to the box he was holding? I dimly remembered the deep incisions along the covering of it.

"For now, I must be your courier of escape. That is the purpose which defects me from my old life. To get you out here, and set off in the direction to a place that bridges this point in time and infinitely more epochs."

"How come you don't escape?"

He claims to have lived in the manor over the course of near eternity.

It occurred to me that he probably already has tried to leave. Even so, the purpose of my inquiry was intended for his prompt reply on what was keeping him here.

"I've made around three hundred attempts, this issue isn't why so much as it is how. I don't study the time stream out of satisfaction, I am searching for an exit," he says, rubbing his forehead.

"What happens?"

"When I try to leave?" Polaris makes his way to the unhanged painting, leaning against the wall.

I nod my response, following him over to stand on the other side of the red tarp.

"I am brought back. The first time I left through the front door, I couldn't manage past the gate. From the outside that gate wraps around the entire manor, however, when you try leaving through the garden on the other end there is nothing. It's like a sick sense of hope." After a moment of silence, Polaris suddenly spoke with a deep voice;

"You can walk for hours through that field of white tulips, but the only other thing you'll find is yourself turning back."

The momentary hesitation of his tongue seemed like a method of alluding to an alternative meaning.

Unfortunately, he bore no intention of giving me further context. This entire time I've been receiving fragments of information about our circumstances. All of which he hasn't indicated with proper deduction.

Had I lacked my own eyes, I wouldn't believe anything that poured from his lips.

In our present state though, the insight he was selectively giving me was the only thing I could rely on to avert me from hysteria.

"Care to assist me in doing the honors?" Polaris already had his hands clenched tightly on the tarp.

"You have to tug hard because the ends of it are nailed into the frame." Wrinkles are configured in line with my fingers as I adjust a solid grip on the red material.

Polaris' eyes meet my gaze before he gives me the cue to pull.

Something tears from behind the painting, followed by the sound of two metal screws plunging to the floor.

The enormous canvas tilts forward, and I stumble backward, avoiding impact when it completely deflects in our direction.

Polaris narrowly steps away in time. He watches with an unamused expression as a violent crack rips through the room.

Dust lifts off around the sides, strewing like particles of glitter as the linen covering the back droops inward.

Twines of red remain attached to both sides of the middle frame.

"Do you have something to cut this open with?" Polaris looks up from the floor.

Visibly, there is nothing on me that could cut through the linen. I rest a few fingers on the locket beneath my shirt.

The corners were too round, but perhaps breaking the glass inside would work.

Like hell—I would do that! He lives in a place this large, surely there is a suitable artifact lying around.

"Forget it," he indisputably retorts, before walking toward the bureau.

He shaves through the disarray of papers on the top, prizing out a slender copper-colored shaft that was secured by a wooden handle, consisting entirely of the two components.

"This should work," he says, returning.

"Is there something inside of it?" He doesn't respond, conversely kneeling.

The object punctures through the linen with ease. He drives it from the middle of the painting in a diagonal direction.

The shaft appears to hit something lodged against the corner of the frame.

He pulls out the object, tossing it across to his side, and it rolls into the bottom of a bookcase.

"You should be the one to solve the puzzle, I don't want to mess with anything I shouldn't." Polaris rips open the back, and a few staples pop out of the frame, soaring into various directions.

"...What is that thing?"

I tilt my head, curiously observing a roundish box with several edges.

Nine holes formed a circle atop the center, and a metal ring filled a smaller circle that was engraved around a strange pattern of hollow shapes.

An open circle was welded to the inside of the ring, hovering between a spade and a club.

Club, spade, club, diamond, diamond, club, heart, spade, club.

"A puzzle."

"A child could have deduced that. What am I supposed to do," I reply to his wry remarks, observing further as he picks up the box.

Undeterred, he continued speaking, stroking the intricate design with his thumb.

"The center rotates, you need to align the correct order of shapes under the metal crescent to open it." He slightly tilts it to an angle, and something slides to the lower edge inside.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"It's quite unpleasant that the pattern changes every time. I used to write them down in case there was repetition, but after the end of every 90th sequence, the manor resets. All of my notes disappear and the walls are dressed with portraits again." Polaris pauses for a moment, resting the box in front of me on the floor.

"This particular room never changes. It just collects more clutter every hour. That is why I garnered most of it down here. It stays in the room except for this puzzle. It never stays outside of the painting, I don't even understand how it gets stowed inside."

He stands up, gazing vexedly at the wall behind me.

"I suppose the ensemble of this epoch is far from my comprehension as well."

I fold both of my hands on the box. My fingers flattened on the surface of the linear edges.

"So am I supposed to just sit here and tamper with the lid until it opens?" I question, rising from the floor.

Polaris nearly matched my height, but the thick heels on his shoes made him stand just above my forehead.

"You can do that, or… there's a considerably more efficient approach."

"Breaking it?"

Without disassembling, I had planned to smash it onto a sturdy surface the moment he wasn't surveying my presence.

"Nope. That would cause the contents to disappear," he says, with a smug grin.

'Disappear?'

"Do you recognize the symbols on the box?" He questions, tipping his focus toward the box with a hand situated below his shoulder as he crosses his arms.

I glimpse down at the item I was holding.

"Cards… They are the original French suits preserved on a deck of cards."

"Very perceptive," he remarks, with a grin in his voice.

"Have you ever heard of the hierarchy on a deck of cards?"

"Isn't that just the order of numbers printed on the face of a card?"

Polaris drops his arms, and moves in my direction, stepping over the painting rather than around it.

"A deck of 52 cards has ten suits per category. I believe I said the pattern of the box changes, not the order. This puzzle box was invented as a prototype of the first Enigma machine discovered by a German engineer in 1918."

"But, instead of specific letters substituting other letters, the characters on a card's face substitute numbers!"

Polaris smiles, gently patting me on the shoulder.

"How embarrassing, you figured that out much quicker than I could."

"How many numbers are in the enigma?"

Copious thoughts are sailing through my mind. I was confused but resolute.

"Four, the code has always been the year the enigma was broken."

'1941, a man named Alan Turing alongside his colleagues cracked the Enigma machine. Thus, revealing the secrets of the American

opponents during World War I'

Had Jiang Hao been anything other than a history professor, my situation undoubtedly would have been far more ghastly.

"The hierarchy traditionally follows ace, king, queen, Jack, et cetera. Since the first four are not in the puzzle you must replace it with the pattern on the box. It's easier than one might perceive. The shapes that are directly next to each other will always be a nine. Count and go in order, I can only give you so many directions."

I felt a wave of uncertainty wash over me.

There is a sorely high chance that I could make a mistake without knowing.

From what I've gathered, the consequences will dispel whatever is within this intricate instrument.

I am ultimately erasing my odds of escaping this epoch.

"Once you get it open… try not to burn the manor down again," Polaris speaks in a low, serious tone.

Once my thoughts begin to settle down, I distract myself from reading the box and gaze at the young man in front of me.

He had an enigmatic curve on his lips.

"Meet me in the main parlor once you've finished. I have yet to impart the 'compass' to you before you head out."

"Understood," I meekly reply.

Polaris leaves the room without another word.

He is quite pleased with the fact I grasped the nature of the puzzle's prototype.

I had taken the time to read the box as I was inheriting clues from him.

There was only one heart.

1

The diamonds were distinctly the only shapes contiguous to each other.

9

There were four clubs total spread out between other suits.

The club furthest from the others imputed a total of all 4.

The spades were the odd ones out.

My hand recoiled at the final digit.

Is the puzzle designed for all symbols to be used? Do I repeat the heart, or do I rotate the center toward the first spade?

The circle leisurely veers back into place, the mechanism reminded me of the old dial phone from my uncle's collection in his office.

My fingers tremble over the spade, and I rotate the top one more time.

The metal crescent encompasses the heart once more.

1

Instead of shifting back into place the box sounds a click, and the hollow heart stays in place.

"Did I open it?"

Suddenly, the dial-like mechanism jolts, swiftly retracting so that the crescent is between the club and the spade.

The thin line engraved around the entire case pops up, widening enough so that I could pry it open with the tip of my finger.

The corners of my mouth spontaneously pull upwards.

The interior of the box is surprisingly taut, with most of the space being filled by its wooden base.

A folded news article clipping rests atop a very small bronze key.

It appeared exceedingly similar to the one Polaris used to unlock the study. Only much smaller.

I left the key inside, setting the box down to unfold the news clipping.

My eyes loomed over each tiny word in black print.

'Doctor Francis Barret receives a great quantity of donations in pursuit of his compelling research.

Doctor Barret or rather who many folk deem the father of celestial art, St. Francis Barret is receiving funds through taxpayers to conduct further inquiries that can potentially eradicate the doubt toward crowd speculation of recurring 'worldlines.' The possibility of revisiting the past has never been clearer!

Doctor Barret is the first man to acquire a grand public contribution for his science foundation.'

This 'doctor' seemed rather notorious. The information also felt to be rather lacking in credibility.

There was nothing in the clipping to prove that funding could be viable for a theory.

Not only this, but wouldn't there need to be some sort of a catch? Why fund a foundation that does not guarantee merits?

There was another article folded in the crevice.

A grainy black and white photo of the manor was on above a lanky caption with washed-out text.

'St Francis Barrot comes public about an unexpected disaster!

"A ravenous intruder broke into my study and set the work ablaze. Years of my studies thrown into the fire pit of my own home by a community of contests!'

Doctor Barrot makes bold claims about the so-called contests of his research,

'Fret not, I will pursue my work despite these obstacles. Even if I must rewrite years of work, then I will do it for the sake of all the people who have offered me their true-hearted support.'

There were various phrases underlined in smeared ink within the excerpt.

Is there meant to be some sort of message conceived in the clippings?

Polaris' serious remark seeps through the breaches of my shrouding thoughts.

"Once you get it open… try not to burn the manor down again,"

I snatch the key out of the box, pacing over the bureau to kneel in front of the locked drawers.

Pushing the key in the hole and turning it, the drawer clicks.

I grab the handle, pulling it open, files are filled to the brim of the drawer.

The key unlocks the remaining chests.

All of them are drawn open and completely heaped with papers separated by dull yellow dividers.

"He wants me to burn everything!?"

The Memoir Chapter 2

Rule 8

To save the world you must start from the very beginning. This is the only exception to changing the past. Repairing the former alterations within the world's epochs is necessary to avert the decay spreading in the outer universe.

This is not a guide for survival. Your persistence solely depends on the choices you make in the present.

-The Memoir Chapter 2 End-