Tides of Memory

At night Kael brings out the monster's corpse from his cupboard. He kept it there in case the sacrifice required anything else other than his presence, so he kept it away from his sister, parents and his friends.

He does as the goddess instructed, as well as what he learned from the death worshippers. He lights a candle and draws a symbol on a piece of brown paper, a lantern floating on a illusory lines representing the sea or a body of water.

He places the drawing on the head of the monster and begins chanting in an ancient tongue, which he also learnt from the death worshippers. The language was known as Eeydic.

The chant was for the purpose of stopping any sound, air or even light from leaving the room. He had also made sure to lock his room and he also confirmed his parents were asleep.

He then began another chant, repeating it three times, and suddenly the candle lit up. The monster's body started glowing a dark blue light, and began vanishing gradually before Kael's eyes. And soon, it completely vanished.

After the monster vanishes his ceiling seems to open revealing a dark blue sky, lighting his room with a dark hue.

Then what he can only describe as an angel descends through the 'gate'. It wore a pure white robe, tied at the waist was a deep blue rope, and it wore deep blue sandals. It had a round face with long blue hair. It had a feminine look although Kael couldn't decipher its gender.

It grabs his face gently, and seeps energy into him. As he receives this, he gains knowledge on what it is.

The angel granted him "Tides of Memory". This gives him the ability to manipulate memories, both his own and others'. He opens his eyes and sees the angel slowly vanish.

He ends the ritual and cautiously thanks the goddess and her angel. Kael gets up and attempts to use his newfound power.

The next day, early in the morning he goes up to the attic to test something. He goes over to where his sister's coffin is placed and opens it. He observes her body, seeing that she still hasn't started rotting. He had learnt a spell frome the death worshippers that could slow down the rotting of meat, which he used on his sister. He is extremely glad it actually works on humans too.

He places his hand on her forehead and focuses his energy. He soon drops his hand disappointed, as he cannot sense any memories from her, or at least they are too deep for him to reach, so he gives up and leaves the attic.

After his morning routine he goes to further test his power to know it's limits. He experiments on the villagers, slightly altering some memories he believes to be not too important. After a day's worth of work he returns home and gives his verdict on his new power.

He is capable of altering a person's memory of an event completely, and unless reminded or told about by someone else they will not realize those memories have been altered.

He cannot completely remove or erase a person's memory, he can only alter what they think happened.

He can read a person's thoughts but cannot go too deep when searching for their memory or knowledge, because of he does the person in question will instinctively raise their mental defences.

He cannot cure a person's mental illness only find and understand what directly caused it.

With all this information he learnt he went to sleep and prepared for tomorrow.

The next day, with new found vigour, he gets up and does his usual chores, greets his parents and leaves the house. He makes his way to Rio's place. After their usual greeting they go to Layla's. As usual she opens the door before they knock. They make their way to the orphanage. Neva surprised they arrived before the weekend asks them why they are there. Kael tells her he wanted to check on Elliott.

She leads them to his room, where he lay asleep. Neva then leaves the room.

Confirming Elliott is in a deep sleep, Kael then recounts his earlier two days. Layla starts feeling jealous, "Sigh, you can already do so much in so little time. I guess we really can't help all that much."

Rio feels the same way, "Is there really no way we can help out more?" Kael understands his friends' plea, but even he doesn't know yet. "I'm not sure, but hey, remember there might be some spells in the death cult." Layla interjects, "yeah and if they have it, they've definitely used it already. Besides how do we explain why we need it." Kael tells her, "They don't question the origins or need for a spell or item, they're just there to sell stuff. Besides if anyone asks questions I'll just 'change their minds," He winks as he turns to turns to Rio, "Why don't all three of us go? I don't want to throw anyone into anything I can't handle but, well, I can't even handle... all this." Kael drops his head, feeling disappointed in himself.

Rio looks at him and thinks then speaks, "Eh, why not, I'm willing to help anyway I can." Kael raises his head enthusiastically, "Alright it's settled. in two days we're gonna join a cult." They all laugh.

Kael turns to look at Elliott and tells the others, "It's still too dangerous for me to go back in there." They nod, understanding why.

Kael then tells them, "I'm going to the bar this afternoon." Layla asks with a smirk and a raised eyebrow, "You've started drinking. What happened in those two days." Kael responds, "What no I-" "We get it, you want to continue testing your abilities." Rio interjects him. Layla continues, "Yeah, we'll just, go home and hope for a softer bed to have nightmares on." They all laugh, again. When afternoon comes, Kael makes his way to the local bar.

In the bar, Kael goes and sits at a stool in front of the bartender, "Milk please, with an olive." Kael orders with a smile. The bartender, indifferent to his cheerfulness, just gets him his order.

While the bartender makes his very complicated order, Kael observes the people in the bar.

A drunkard tries to make trouble for a man leisurely sipping his drink. "Hey, you I've never seen you before." The drunkard says to the man with periodic hiccups. The man looks up at the drunkard, "Well hello, can I help you with something?" The drunkard continues, "I've got... a worm in my pants." confused the man asks, "I'm sorry? could you elaborate." He says with a smile. the drunkard continues, "It's... ... ... sleepy." The drunkard falls on his face, leaving the man lost for words.

He looks around and spots Kael who is chuckling under his breath. Kael internally monologues as he gets his order, "So it can work on drunk people, that's good to know." The man at the other end finishes his drink and makes his way to Kael.

He starts a conversation, "Hi there, can I-" Intending to offer him a drink, but sees the cup of milk in Kael's hand, "oh nevermind."

He instead sits next to Kael, "Did you have anything to do with that?" Kael responds, "How could I have done anything?" The man decides not to press further, instead introducing himself, "I'm ..." Kael notices it's not a name from this village. "I'm Kael. first time in a bar." "How could you tell?" The man asks. Kael responds, "You're even more polite than I am." The man chuckles, "Let me guess, unlike everyone else you rest easy."

Kael nearly looked at him suspiciously, but chose to intentionally drink his milk, then when he was done he said, "Yeah, yeah that's pretty accurate." Kael suddenly feels a sense of unease. and starts thinking of ways to get out of the conversation without looking suspicious. "Where's the restroom?" The man asks almost on cue, which relieves Kael. He answers, "To the right, the second door, the first one's usually... pretty awful." "Thank you... I'll see you around." He then goes into the restroom. Kael pays for his very strong drink's and leaves hurriedly.

As Kael walked away from the bar, he kept looking over his shoulder, as if half expecting something to be following him. He wanted to go back home but chose not to, just in case the man follows him, and he chose not to go to his friends houses either for their safety.

He instead went to a 'massage parlor'. as he entered he sees employees enthusiastically pulling patrons and new customers alike to different rooms for their 'massage'.

An employee comes up to him, moving her body invitingly, "Hey honey, you here for a good time?" Kael calmly states, "Sure." The woman was almost shocked as she had recognized him from the moment he entered as Kael, the guy who seemed to always be happy, cheerful and always trying to help others. It was surprising to her that this guy entered a 'massage parlor'.

But she didn't want to question him, instead just asking him, "Anyone in mind, or would you prefer me?" Kael again calmly answers, "Alright let's go."

So she takes him to an empty room and begins trying to undress him. But before she can touch him, he alters her memory, making her think she has something important she needed to go do immediately. The woman apologetically tells, "I'm sorry I have to attend to an urgent matter, could you wait here for 20 minutes?" Kael calm as ever replies, "Sure I'll wait." The woman nods and leaves.

Only after this did Kael finally reveal his true emotions on his face, shock, confusion, fear, if one could enter the room now they will see it all on him. He first, looks out the door, making sure no one is around, the he starts thinking about his interaction with that mysterious man at the bar.

He thinks back to his appearance, he was dressed like everyone else but his hair was pitch black almost unreal looking, his expression never changing, his hands looked like they had never worked a day in his life, but he looked well built. Kael started to question how he even found out he was responsible for the drunkard's sudden actions, "Could he be a powerful mage from the outside world. Is he here to help, or is he just passing by."

Questions raced in his head. "But I just got these powers two days ago, how could he tell, and his name," He hits his head in realization, "I can't even remember it." His eyes widen in shock. He then sits down thinking about how the existence of this man could either be a problem or another blessing.

He chose to be optimistic and decided to wish for the best. After his mental conversation, which last over an hour, he decided to go home, but before he got up the woman came back, this time with a, different attire, now more revealing.

She looks at him provocatively and walks up to him, whispering in his ear, "Thanks for waiting, I'll make it worth your while." And bites his ear softly. Kael responds, "*sigh* fuck it." And they perform some, ahem, exercises for the next two hours.

By the way during this time he learns her name is Mira.

After the, ahem 'exercise session' Mira falls asleep from exhaustion, but Kael due to his special condition only sleeps when he wants to, even when tired unless he is absolutely spent like the time with the faceless monster.

He covers her up and gets out of the bed, puts on his clothes and realizes he is in another dilemma, "Do I wait for her to get up and pay her or do I just put the money on her and leave?" He decides on the latter as it was already late.

He made his way home feeling a little tired. when he made it to his house, when he was about to open the door, he hears a voice from behind him, "Hey." He almost thinks it's the man from the bar, but is relieved from confirming it's a female voice, one he remembers.

He turns around and sees Sara looking at him in a worried expression. "Hey, it's pretty late, what are you doing over here." Sara answer, "I was worried about you." Kael feels touched, almost making him regret his earlier actions. "I'm doing alright, I'm just- *sighs" He remembers the man from the bar, he locks eyes with her telling her seriously, "It's not safe moving around at night, let alone coming to meet me... it's getting too dangerous for you, I'm sorry I included you in my mess." He then slams the door shut, closing his eyes and resting his head on the door until he couldn't hear her thoughts anymore.

After she left, he had an intuition to go check on his sister. when he got to the attic he pauses and stares with wide eyes as he sees someone sitting on a chair next to his sister's coffin. That person looks up and says, "Sorry for the intrusion, but I wanted to ask you something." It was the man from the bar!