Book 3: Chapter 15: Requiem

  The fire had burned down low, only embers glowing red in the dark. The Worldstriders were gathered in a loose circle, blankets thrown over shoulders to fight the chill of the wind, and weapons propped against logs, thoughts of fighting and bloodshed out of mind for the time being. For once, no one was talking.

  Alex sat with his elbows on his knees, staring at the flames, but from the flickering light he couldn’t see anything except the looming presence of yellow reptilian eyes piercing in from the dark. The basilisk’s gaze lingered in his mind like a phantom camera flash. He chewed his lip, debating whether to stay silent, or break the quiet.

  Everyone seemed content enough not to talk about it. But he knew everyone was also thinking the same thing. It was a the kind of topic that sat in the corner of the living room, starring you down until you finally acknowledged it, like a dog silently begging for table scraps at family dinner time.

  Finally, the weight pressed too hard for Alex to bear.

  “We need to talk about the fight,” he said suddenly, it came out sharper than he intended. The others stirred, looking toward him. “About… the basilisk’s gaze. Holly. Devon. Garret. Cole. You all got caught by it.”

  A second silence fell heavier than the first. No one wanted to look at each other, as though eye contact had suddenly become a social taboo from the sheer trauma of it. Or looking back into someone’s eye’s might force them to confirm it, that something had been stolen from them.

  “The bestiary said it outright,” Alex went on, “that her gaze petrifies something other than flesh. That it can take things from you. Memories, pieces of who you are. So it’s important… that we talk about what that might look like for each of you.”

  Garret gave a lopsided grin, raising a hand like he was a grade schooler in the middle of a class. “Well, if she took anything from me, it must’ve been the part that worried about shit like that. I feel great. Lighter than ever.”

  Alex turned to his right, to the woman sitting directly next to him. The person he was perhaps worried about most. Holly’s arms were wrapped around herself, eyes lowered. “I… I don’t know,” she said.

  She sighed heavily, and looked up, seemingly trying to focus on anything but the people around her. “I keep wondering if... I lost something important. Not a memory I can name obviously, just… the shape, the outline of it, missing in my mind somewhere. Like what if there’s a hollow space I can’t reach anymore? A ghost of me, severed from my physical self.”

  Alex couldn’t help but raise a brow at that, a wave of varying emotions splashing over him. It didn’t seem like either Garret or Holly knew what was gone, which made sense. But, that might also make things even a bit scarier for them, even if Garret would refuse to admit it.

  He reached out and took Holly’s hand, holding it gently in his own. He gave her fingers a squeeze, forcing her to finally look his way. Moisture had begun to collect in the corners of her eyes, and Alex quickly gave her a reassuring smile.

  There weren’t any words he could offer to help her feel better, none that came to mind off the top of his head, so he remained silent and present instead.

  “You’re our girl, not matter what.” Allie said from across the campfire. Alex looked up to see she was giving Holly a reassuring smile as well.

  “Our girl?” Holly chuckled, and Allie gave her an exaggerated wink.

  “Hey,” Alex put on his best faux-offended face, making both the girls laugh softly.

  Cole frowned, staring into the fire. “I don’t know what to think. If I don’t remember what I lost, does it matter? Or does it matter even more? Because how would I even know if I’m still me?”

  It looked like Cole was taking the pragmatic approach, a solution to the worry that Alex understood. If he couldn’t do anything about it, then why ruminate on something outside your control? Maybe that was the best perspective to have, but it still didn’t make things any easier.

  “I am worried though,” Devon rubbed his face with both hands, then pushed his glasses back up with trembling fingers. “What if it was something from when I was a kid? What if I had a family pet I loved? A dog. Or a cat. Did I ever… did I ever mention a dog to anyone? Or—” his voice cracked, “—a cat?”

  Everyone exchanged uncertain looks, heads shaking. Alex certainly didn’t remember Devon talking about a family pet before. It seemed no one had heard him mention one either.

  Devon’s shoulders sagged. He stared at the ground. “Then maybe it’s gone. Maybe that’s what she took.”

  The quiet stretched until Alex leaned forward. “There’s no use tearing ourselves apart over it. We can’t interrogate each other for answers we don’t have. What we can do is pay attention. To each other. If something seems off, we say it. We listen. We look out for one another. That’s what matters.”

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  Eric nodded and stood, his broad shoulders straightening. “Alex is right. Teamwork and trust. If any of us starts to slip, the rest pull them back. No hesitation, no questions asked.”

  “Damn right,” Garret chimed in, flashing a goofy smile to everyone in the circle. He leaned across the fire with an outstretched hand. “High five for teamwork, Captain.”

  Eric shot him a flat look, shook his head slowly, and turned back to the fire like Garret wasn’t even there. The rejection was so dramatic, so deliberate, that Garret’s face fell, like he had just learned that he was adopted, and Darth Vader was his father.

  Laughter spilled out of them all, first Holly, then Cole, then even Devon, a shaky sound, but the laugh Alex heard from him was real. Garret frowned and let out an exaggerated huff as everyone laughed.

  “It’s settled then,” Alex finally said. “We will be there for each other… but that leads me to something else.” He began reaching into a pouch on his belt, then hesitated.

  “Being there for your friend, also means accepting their choices. That goes for choices that you don’t agree with either.” He extracted the basilisk mother’s eye from the pouch, the large basketball sized organ sitting almost jello-like in his palm. The thing’s slitted pupil was nearly closed, but it still starred out at all of them.

  “Holy shit, Alex, what the fuck are you doing?” Peter stumbled back, tripping over a log and sprawling into the dirt. Devon recoiled, and Zach simply turned his head away. The others either blocked their eyes with their hands, or closed them quickly, shock apparent on all their faces.

  “It can’t work right now. Its perfectly safe… sorry though, should have warned you all, my bad.” He turned the eye around, looking down directly into the thing. Sure enough, Alex didn’t freeze into a hypnotic trance. He did feel a strange tingle run down his spine though, which was strange. The eyes was still pretty damn creepy after all.

  “Why did you even keep that thing?” Cole asked, peaking through his fingers.

  Alex shrugged. “Pretty sure it’s valuable no matter what. I’m guessing it can be processed into an elixir to increase one’s senses, or give them an extrasensory ability.” He paused then, making sure everyone was paying attention again before he continued. “Or… it might be able to be processed into a potion to selectively remove memories, just like the gaze attack.”

  A realization swept through everyone in the group. Alex had wanted to bring up the conversation regarding the basilisk gaze attack for multiple reasons. One was to make sure Holly and the others were okay. There was also the need to insure everyone was aware of who was affected and help support them. And, getting everyone’s opinion on the matter was also important.

  But lastly, there was the fact that Alex wanted to bring up the possibility of using the effect on purpose. Because he sure as hell thought about it, even now.

  “So you mean, make a potion to get rid of a bad memory, right?” Peter asked.

  Alex nodded, “Yes, imagine there’s a memory, or experience you would like to forget, down the potion and it goes away.”

  He looked out at everyone, gauging their reactions. A few of them leaned in at Alex’s words, obviously interested. Henry, Zach, and Kate, all seemed willing to hear him out. Everyone else, was a range of confusion, to fear, to disgust.

  “Come on, we all have one. That extra painful memory of the time you broke a bone, or the super embarrassing memory that always pops up in your mind right before you fall asleep?” Everyone seemed to be thinking at that point, so Alex finally hit them with the big one. “Or… An extra difficult day in the northern front?”

  He got a few nods at that, everyone’s mind returning to the days in the muddy trenches, spells whistling overhead, the thundering cries of arcane beasts trampling through the lines. He was sure that, just like himself, everyone had something they’d love to just forget.

  “But we don’t know how accurate it will be, or if it can even be done at all.” Allie spoke up then. “I’m sure [Alchemy] has a way to distill that ability in the eye down into a potion or elixir, but… I don’t think it can be controlled like we would want. And even if it could, I don’t think it’s worth it. How many pieces of yourself can you peel off before you’re just not you anymore? Is even one worth it? How many core memories are there was make you, you? Just a handful? Or is it the sum of everything in totality?”

  Allie had a point, and it was the kind of logic that Alex had been avoiding, purposefully ignoring in the hope of being encouraged by the others to follow his crazy plan. As he looked around once more, he could tell the others thought the same thing.

  We all desperately want to forget things in our past, just none of us are willing to risk our identities to do it. He realized.

  Still, now that Alex had brought it up, and showed the eye to everyone, he couldn’t undo that. He had placed the gun on the table in front of them all, and now everyone knew it existed. It was a dangerous place to be, and it was an awkward sort of situation.

  “So, I think we all have come to an agreement without really having to talk.” Alex said, he waved his hand, pulling up the dimensional pouch and shaking it open before depositing the eye inside, out of sight. “No memory potion then. If that’s the case, then I’ll be using the eye for a sense boosting item, if everyone is okay with that.”

  No one spoke up, or argued, Alex took that as tacit acceptance.

  “Henry, Allie,” he nodded to each of them. “Can you get with me first thing tomorrow morning? I’ll need your help with it. And, I have a few other ideas I want your input on.” They both nodded back at him.

  “Alright then.” He gave Holly’s hand another gentle squeeze and then stood. “I’d say everyone should try getting some sleep, but I’m sure you have experience points to spend, and cultivation to do as well.”

  Garret chuckled and gave him a wink, and a few others had guilty looks flash over their faces. Alex wasn’t the only one who was prioritizing progression over sleep. With everyone’s increasing vitality stat, he was pretty sure they all needed a bit less sleep as well. Though, he wasn’t certain.

  Their drastically higher physical stats also seemed to require more recovery and rest, and yet a higher vitality meant a much higher recovery time. The two effects almost evened out at their current level, but when he compared the rest of his team’s sleep habits to Ghrukk’s team, it seemed the worldstriders were just like the locals; in that, they needed at least three or four hours, but not much more, each night.

  This was not at all what Alex personally experienced though. His [Aether Attuned Body] fed him energy through aether, constantly rebuilding and rejuvenating his tissues, including his mind. He still need sleep, but after just an hour or so, he was ready to go again.

  So when he finished his short nap and awoke to find everyone else still asleep, Alex found a cozy patch of dirt to sit down and begin working on some more ideas.

  And he thought the dreaded words:

  Okay Obby, we’re alone now.