Jacob and Aurelius both walked over to the campfire with Aurelius leading the way. Aurelius sat down onto a tree stump and motioned for Jacob to sit opposite him, after Jacob had settled down. Aurelius began explaining what he would do to get Jacobs’ memories back.
“First, we will go through a breathing exercise. Follow what I am doing with my breathing, afterwards look into my eyes. Afterwards, you will feel like you are slowly slipping into sleep. Your recently lost memories will start returning.”
After Aurelius finished saying his piece, his breathing changed. What was once shallow and undetectable, changed into long deep breaths. Jacob focused his eyes on Aurelius, after one round of breathing. Jacob quickly got the rhythm down, he immediately began shifting his eyes to look at the red eyes of Aurelius.
Before Jacob even realised what happened, images started flashing inside his mind. Not long after sounds accompanied the images, the scenes passed slowly but Jacob recognised nothing from the images and the sounds were foreign to him. As the scenes filtered pass him, Jacob got more and more confused.
Everything was blurry and he could not hear anything, was this what led him to become a weeping mess? That did not make sense to him at all, if there was a way to see what was actually happening. But try as he might, he squinted extra hard, tried willing the blur away, parsing the unintelligible sounds, he even tried flipping the images rushing through his mind upside down.
Aurelius looked at the glazed eyes of Jacob, he was deep into the recollection now. But, Aurelius could not see any big reaction coming from Jacob. He was as still as a statue, only through the signs of breathing could Aurelius identify Jacob as alive.
Aurelius looked up to the sky, the moons had already covered 3 quarters of the sky. That means his shift was ending, but Jacob was still recollecting his memory. It took a few moments before Aurelius decided to wake Jacob from his trance.
Jacob tried interacting with the multiple silhouettes, but it was different from the time when he was upgraded to a Squire. He only had a set viewpoint and he could not move at all, slowly Jacob felt some emotions coming through. It was of pain and anguish, he felt his body collapsed onto the ground. He felt tears streaming down a body he could not control, only follow. Waves of pain started washing over him, the noises got louder. But he still could not understand the images or the noise, he could only grit his teeth and endure the pain refusing to let out any shouts.
‘I refuse to end up the same as the Jacob who cried, even if I die I would die without crying. These tears are not mine, I will see this through to the end.’
His eyes flashed amidst the swarm of images and noises, he blinked once, twice and thrice. Aurelius’ eyes met his, he had been brought out of the recollection. He took a quick survey of the surroundings, no more buzzing and no more incomprehensible scenes. Only Aurelius and the campfire.
“T-thank you Aurelius, how long was I re-experiencing my memories?”
“It was one shift long, I did not want to make it seem too suspicious so I had to get you out of it before, I go wake up Riley for her shift. Was my method of any help?” Aurelius asked with interest clear in his eyes.
“I was able to see various images and hear various noises, but it felt like everything had been edited or muffled. I did not understand a single thing through the recollection, so it kinda did what you advertised. But, I feel that I was only able to experience a fraction of what I had to feel and experience.” After Jacob’s reply, Aurelius's shoulder drooped a little at the news, but he maintained his neutral expression before replying.
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“I did not expect that, would you like to try again tomorrow?”
“It’s alright, I can spend more time solving this mystery after everything has settled a little. I’m still curious, of course. But accomplishments await and if we miss out on them now, we’ll lag behind the other races and especially those fiends.” Jacob gave the most polite rejection he could, the recollection basically amount to nothing. He did not want to throw himself at the same wall slowly chipping away at it.
They bid each other goodbye and Jacob quickly got himself to his own tent, over the night. Aurelius prepared another tent, so there were now enough tents for everyone. After a short amount of time passed, while Jacob still had the scenes in his mind. Riley’s voice could be heard.
“Time for my shift! Have a good sleep, gold giant. Say have you ever woken up to any noise at all?” Jacob could not hear the reply from Aurelius but Jacob decided it was time to catch whatever sleep he could and tried emptying his mind slowly.
As the moons slowly changed for suns, Jacob was waken up together with Riley and Aurelius by Brian. The delightful and enticing smell of a cooking boar tickled his nose as he got out from the tent. Before Jacob could even question why there was a boar being cooked so early, Brian hollered out.
“Don’t worry about it, Riley stayed awake for a few more minutes to keep watch while I went to find a boar for breakfast. Figured it would be a good morale booster before the big battle. So what is the big plan for the kobolds?” Jacob smirked as he answered.
“You guys know the general plan already, but we’ll have to move soon after eating. The kobolds should be asleep for a good while more, with Aurelius we can silence all but one kobold without them making a sound. With us holding the initiative of when to call the kobolds from deeper within, we can setup whatever traps we want from the tunnel they come from. I have some plans about the traps we can place for the horde. I just realised that the boar smells different from before.”
“Lets have a discussion about the concrete details of the plan while eating, the boar is already cooked. Glad you noticed young Jacob, The boar this time will taste even better, I found an insect nest that looked like a cross between scorpions and bees. It even had the fuzzy yellow and black look, I decided to steal some of the liquid within to test if it might taste like honey. Well I won’t spoil the surprise, have a taste of the boar covered with the liquid” Brian gestured over to the seats as he grinned, the seats had one wooden plate each.
The plates had a large amount of boar each, slathered on top of the meats were heaps of a golden liquid. It shimmered as the sunlight hit, advertising to all onlookers how crystal clear it looked. The see-through golden liquid highlighted the meat it was covering, making the boar meat looked even more appetising than yesterday and the day before.
Jacob heard gulps from his right, that cleared his senses a bit. He realised he was salivating from the corner of his mouth, unable to resist the allure of the honeyed meat, he quickly ran to the nearby seat. As he moved, he saw Aurelius appearing right beside one of the seat. No sounds was heard from his left, but he looked to his left to confirm Aurelius was no longer there.
“Hey no fair! Wait for me!” Jacob heard a shout from behind him.
“There really is no need to run, everyone has a share.” Brian tried to slow down Jacob and Riley, however a moan of delight came out from Aurelius who was seated with a wooden fork in his mouth. These incited Jacob and Riley to speed up further.
Jacob quickly arrived at his seat before Riley, his last few steps were fueled with both essence and the moan of delight from Aurelius. He took up the fork placed on the plate and stabbed the fork into the plate, he nearly broke the plate with how much force he used to stab the meat.
As he brought up the honey slathered meat, drops of clear golden liquid dripped down from the meat onto the plate. Jacob chomped the meat with anticipation, boy was his anticipation met.
The liquid had sweetness beyond compare and as he chewed the meat with the liquid still mixing. It brought out even more flavours, it felt like the food was teasing his tongue with a myriad type of sweetness. It was light at first only exciting his taste buds bit by bit, it slowly morphed into a tidal wave of brown sugar sweet and then it turned into the consistency of a chewy chocolate after it mixed with the meat.
Jacob only describe those few tastes before his taste was overwhelmed and he was only able to squeal at the taste, a short distance away. Riley’s face was changing every second, from disbelief to bliss and everything in between.
“Glad to see, I’m not the only one who made stupid moans. I can’t believe I made those faces too. Even Aurelius is showing more facial expressions than usual.” Brian commented on the silly looks that Jacob, Riley and Aurelius had.
Hearing the comment, Aurelius quickly schooled his expression. Turning back into his more graceful self, Jacob and Riley however did not have as much care. Only the taste mattered to them right now and they would enjoy every moment of it, regardless of how silly they look.
'If only the others are here, I would never want to leave this area' Jacob thought as he experienced the highs brought about by the mixture of honey and boar meat