The only light in the small room was from a single battery-powered lantern that lay on its side, casting warped shadows onto the walls. Mark and Daphne had their backs toward the opening of the tent, while Donny sat in the center of the place clutching his head. He seemed to fluctuate between pain and confusion, his face never resting on any one emotion.
Things were worse than Mark first understood, but it was now his responsibility to see if he could help Donny.
“Alright Donny, I’d like to do an examination, would you be willing to work with me here? Afterward, I’ll personally take you to the admin tent and see what we can do”
Donny dragged his eyes from Daphne and over to Mark.
At first, it looked like he couldn’t remember the question he had asked earlier, but finally, he nodded vigorously. Part of Mark thought Donny could tell something was wrong with him and that was why he relaxed now.
Daphne was right beside Mark and she gave him a reassuring look.
Closing his eyes Mark pulled his Prana down into his hands.
Sending it to Donny, he noticed nothing out of the ordinary until he got to the man’s mind. Donny must have detected his presence then because his will rose to block Mark.
“Donny work with me here, fighting me makes this much harder”
Mark couldn’t tell what Donny’s facial expression was but he felt his will relaxed by a degree.
Pushing closer Mark took a better look at Donny's memories. The last time [Prana pulse] had been able to make out that bits of his memories were missing. Now upon closer inspection, he noticed something new. Without Grace's influence confusing things, there were memories here with a distinct feel to them. They felt watered down, almost as if Donny couldn’t remember them correctly.
“You are doing great man, I’m going to use a spell to check you now, so just relax”
For the first time in a long time, Mark used a spell he’d only allow himself in certain situations.
Bringing the Mana forward Mark attempted to cast [Read memory], There was an immediate reaction from Donny but at the last minute, his will pulled back, allowing the spell to complete.
Mark moved to one of the strange memories and a world opened up to him.
Mark sat in a movie theater with Grace, while they happily munched on popcorn, she turned to him and did that cute thing with her nose that he loved so much. Offering him a sip from her extra-large diet soda. Placing the straw to his lips, she looked at him with such love in her eyes, that he couldn’t help but feel-.
Mark pulled back before he could be dragged too far into the memory. Because of this, he noticed glaring problems. For one, there was no background noise in the room, or, that he couldn’t feel the texture of the cushioned seat below him.
Memories are defined by two things, thoughts and the senses one uses at the time of imprint. The two are permanently tied together in our brains.
This is why the smell of bacon sizzling in a pan elicits memories of breakfast, or the furry texture of a tennis ball allows one to envision its shape in their hand as if they were holding one.
This information lends weight to a memory.
Here though, it was almost like Donny was missing half of his senses. That's when Mark realized what this was, it was a crafted memory. It stood to reason that if Grace could take memories away she could add them.
However, she had done a half-assed job because the memory held some key information but was missing the details that gave it depth.
These were the small pieces of memory bridging the gaps in Donny’s mind.
Retreating from the memory Mark took a step back and looked at the whole picture. The false memories were dotted along his mind. Overlapping the real ones, the problem with this was she hadn’t always removed all shreds of his memory before placing a new one.
The two conflicting events were fighting in his mind.
If the human brain was like a hard drive, then Donny was trying the load up two different save files at the same time, and his mind couldn’t differentiate which was the real one. This caused pain and confusion.
To him, Daphne was simultaneously the betrayer and the victim.
However, the brain was resilient, and over time it would fix itself. The memories would settle and the weaker ones would be removed, even now he could see them fading almost imperceptibly.
The new fabrications would win because the human mind strives for congruency if there are blanks in someone's memory, the brain will fill in the details to complete it and discard what it thought was irrelevant. Meaning the longer Mark left this the more Donny would believe the story Grace had created. And the shreds of what really happened would fade away into nothing.
Right away Mark could tell that the memories she had completely erased were gone for good but maybe Mark would be able to do something with scraps of Donny’s real memory. The problem was as he looked at Donny’s mind, as a whole, only about a third of his old memories may be recoverable.
Then the biggest problem yet, because of how Grace had built her fakes over the real ones, the structure of his memories were fragile at best. If Mark removed the wrong piece the whole thing could come crashing down, turning Donny into a vegetable. Even if Mark could reverse this safely, Donny may lose important parts of what makes him Donny. His earliest memories of his mother, or his chocolate lab he took care of in middle school.
Once more rage directed at Grace surfaced, but Mark pushed it down, that wouldn’t help him here.
Mark didn't know if he could make this decision himself. Mark knew what he wanted and what was right. But making the decision was risky and the equivalent of forcing Donny's hand.
Mark was at a loss as to what to do until Daphne's words just hours ago came back to him: 'Would telling him really be so bad?'
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Time was of the essence here. Mark knew that it would take Donny time to accept the information and right now they just didn’t have it. The longer Mark left him like this the worse things got. He couldn’t just snap his fingers and make him understand.
Mark was struck by an idea. He realized there was another way.
Mark began to pull Mana together to form an entirely new spell. Combining the ideas from Nature Magic and mental bridges, Mark needed a specific type of connection. The usual [Mind spike] had no place in such a delicate situation.
What he needed wasn't violence, but a mutual exchange of information. Pushing it past the threshold he formed the intents that would make up the core of this spell. Connection, Flow, Knowledge, and Exchange. The Mana began to solidify into an information highway and right away Mark could tell he had what he needed.
A ping sounded next to his ear but he disregarded it.
His Mana vibrated as the connection began to form between them. Right away, Donny’s thoughts and memories rushed down the connection. All at once Mark could feel Donny’s desire to find Grace, the migraine throbbing at his temples, and the exhaustion and hunger. Donny’s thoughts came at Mark faster than words, more as sequences of information.
It was as if the spoken word were a barrier, holding them back. This was faster than any language would ever be. As soon as the thought crossed Donny’s mind, Mark knew what he meant, and this was not one way.
Mark wanted to slowly introduce the information but what he didn’t expect was the inability to control what information came through or left.
Unlike conversation with words, this one happened at the speed of thought. As soon as Donny wanted to know he accidentally pulled every connected bit of information all at once and got an unfiltered version of the events.
In less than an instant, Donny knew everything about Grace that Mark did.
The shock from Donny came first, then confusion and annoyance surfaced at the difference in their memories, betrayal, and anger as all those sweet memories of Grace turned to poison, and finally understanding.
At the same moment, Mark could see the world from Donny's memories. Here was a guy he had barely met hours ago, suddenly saying he was his childhood friend, and at the same time the woman he had loved since kindergarten was nothing but a lie.
All the while Mark and Donavan just sat there communicating telepathically. It had been about four seconds since the link was established.
Through the connection they came to an understanding of sorts, but even still, Mark thought he should verbalize it.
Disregarding the fact that he could have asked the same question a hundred times over in the time it took him to get the words out.
“Do you want me to take them away?”
Donny sent back a deluge of thoughts and concerns, but the feeling settled into worry and trust. Whatever happened Donny was willing to try if Mark was, and he trusted that Mark would figure out a way to do it properly and would risk brain ‘death’.
Mark wanted to tell him he hoped his confidence in him was well placed, but when Donny told him he knew it was, Mark realized he already had.
Mark directed the Prana to travel toward Donny’s memories.
The first thing he needed to do was get rid of the false echos and he could do that in the same way he had done for Henry. While it wasn't flesh Mark knew the process was similar. Using the structure of what was left of Donny's memories, he could begin to regrow what had been damaged. Little by little the false ones were burned away only to be replaced by true memories.
Mark didn’t know how long it took out in the real world but in here it felt like hours. The process was not gentle and through their connection, Mark felt all of it. As each false memory went up in flames, Mark felt the screaming of Donny’s weary neurons.
Eventually, all the memories that could be recovered were. That just left the ones that were complete fabrications.
Removing them was a problem, as even when he flooded the area with Prana he knew couldn’t remove them without a spell similar to what Grace used. More importantly, an energy source she had used. Mark wanted to help him and was fully intending to make use of Corruption if he needed to, to fix Donny.
He was just about to do exactly this when he saw another way. A better way.
He had forgotten that the mind on its own was a powerful tool and he was trying to do everything on his own, he could let it fix itself. The equivalent would be when he only partly healed a wound and let their natural regeneration do the rest, but he needed to show it how.
Right now he could show Donny’s mind how to cut through the false memories and perhaps he could keep a good portion of what made him Donny.
Now this had its downsides, Donny would have to work through the remainder of his false memories as his mind fixed itself and this would mean his obsession with Grace wouldn’t just disappear.
Instead, it would gradually fade as the memories burned away but it was better than just removing huge chunks of what made Donny who he was.
The return of Donny's true memories would help a lot but this was something they needed time to fix.
Making his choice Mark opted to go for the safer, but longer treatment.
Using his Prana he built a structure for the brain to follow. It wouldn’t last long but it would help him to identify what was his memories and what were fabrications. His brain would then be able to remove the false memories on its own. This would help Donny further isolate the feelings coming from these memories.
Mark would have to reapply the structure every so often like a changing of bandages but as a whole Mark had done everything he could to help the guy. Now it was up to him to fix the rest.
First Mark broke down the connection and then pulled back what remained of his energies. Which wasn’t much, that whole process had consumed nearly 110 Prana.
When Mark opened his eyes, he saw Daphne had righted the furniture in the room and was sitting on the edge of the once overturned cot, watching them.
When their eyes met Mark saw relief. Something must have shown her that it went well because she smiled.
“You had me worried there. You were out for two hours. How is he?”
Two hours sounded about right.
“He just needs some rest now, with time he will heal”
Donny had not woken up when Mark had but he didn’t blame the guy. That had been a harrowing experience. Now he should rest.
Mark and Daphne left the tent with Donny resting on the cot and headed towards hers.
If Mark felt tried before, now he felt like a mountain was resting on his shoulders. It had not been painless for Mark either. He had needed to use his mind to prop up Donnys so Mark also felt a form of mental fatigue.
Flopping down into the sheets Mark simply sent his armor and clothes into his inventory. Tomorrow was going to be a big day he needed all the rest he could get. With heavy lids, he brought up the blinking prompt.
Spell Acquired: Telepathic link
Through the use of a powerful mental connection, the user has developed a link-based mental network. Capable of connecting to other users and offering benefits depending on the current stage of use. Only the caster may control the stage progression.
Stage 1: Surface information exchange. (Defendable network)
Stage 2: Knowledge and understanding exchange. (Partial assimilation)
Stage 3: Complete neural dive and partial integration. (Full assimilation)
Warning: Extensive use of Stage 3 is not prohibited however may lead to the unlocking of other Prohibited spells.
Multiple links can be created simultaneously at a ratio of 10 Mana /1 link.
Current simultaneous creation limit: 19
Distance and number of links reduce for each stage increase.
Mark’s consciousness was fading but even in his drained state, he knew this was a useful ability. The first stage was probably a way to communicate mentally over distances. The second had to be what he had just experienced with Donny. But if that was the case then what the hell was the third stage? Mark had already thought that was a pretty personal experience and this thing was saying there was another level?
Releasing the last of the tension in his shoulders Mark decided that it could be left for tomorrow. Pulling Daphne to his chest, Mark was asleep in seconds.