Chapter 122: Chapter 122

I’ll admit that I’m not an expert on Memory Coils or Coils built from the subconscious of a person, even now after all these years, and that was especially true back then, but I could tell almost immediately that there was something wrong with my father’s inner world.

It wasn’t so much a visual or even sensory thing - it was more like an instinctual revulsion, similar to the disturbing feeling you get from nineties 3D animated movies where the humans were pretty real looking but not quite real enough. It was like Artemis’ Coil was mostly like a person’s Coil while not quite meeting the bar.

Speaking of visuals, the place I landed in looked like Mars at sunset with dry, red earth at my feet and an even redder sky up above. The shadows were inky black and there wasn’t even a hint of a breeze. Combined with the swirling red dirt, maybe that’s what made it feel contradictory.

Either way, it was creepy and I thought it best to move fast.

As I saw it, I had two goals: the first, and original, goal was to figure out where Choco was being kept and how to get to her, and the second was to actually find a way out of here that didn’t involve running into Morgan. I was pretty confident I knew how to reopen the portal I’d used to get in here, but all that would do was giftwrap to the enemy, and I didn’t want that, so I had to figure out something else.

Maybe finding out where Choco was would give me enough information about the external space to let me open a portal somewhere else. Here’s to hoping.

There was no feeling of walking on dirt as I made my way through the barren landscape, rather, it felt more like I was walking on carpet with my shoes on - similar but not quite right.

No matter how long I walked for, the sunset remained a sunset and the looks-only breeze continued to blow. I saw no signs of movement, memory, even just variation in the landscape. Nothing.

I’d thought I’d maybe see some indication of me here, maybe a memory of when I was young or maybe when he and I’d moved to Pretan and the rain had been bucketing down, but there was nothing like that. Not even a hint of a personal memory, not even of the people Artemis had been interacting with more recently. No evidence of a job, of likes or dislikes, of a life.

What were the implications of this? You’d taught me a thing or two over the last two years, or rather you’d given me short lectures, but nothing you covered helped here.

A barren landscape. A barren life? Was this what depression looked like? I recalled Coral’s dream Coil. Now I know different people would have different inner landscapes, but hers had still had a sense of life and dynamism to it even as it was clear she was sick of it all and anxious to all hell.

I stopped and turned a full circle to see if there was anything I’d missed.

The ground was flat, still red, and completely monotonous. It hardly seemed to matter which direction I walked in, I thought, then remembered that there was one thing different in the sky: the sun. Maybe I should be walking towards that.

Luckily, like the rest of the place, there was a bit of unreality with the sun, and far from burning my eyes, walking or otherwise looking at it didn’t even make me blink. It was like looking at a photo of a sun, more than anything else.

Was that what was going on? Was this space fake? I knew that it wasn’t an actual real space but a Coil based on a memory or subconscious is still supposed to be representative of the owner.

So what did it mean that this Coil was a facade put up to trick me or whoever tried to enter his mind? Some kind of safety mechanism like the traps in an emperor’s tomb?

Or was there something fundamentally wrong with Artemis?

The more I walked, and the more I stared up at that burning red sun, the more I started to think the latter was true.

When I’d run into him in the lift then afterwards when he was helping me deliver the food, he hadn’t recognised me at all. Usually when you fail to recognise someone you do actually know, you still get a sense that something about the person’s familiar, or at least significant in some way, and that shows on a person’s face. Or in their body language at least.

But Artemis had had none of that. To him, I was a genuine stranger.

Was the key to figuring out what was going on in this barren place? I kind of hoped not. There was just so little to work with...

And as I was thinking this, something glimmered in the distance.

I was shocked to suddenly have something different in that place (I’m not sure how long I’d been in there for, but it felt like ages) and I actually stopped walking for a moment before rushing over to see what it was, bursting with excited curiosity.

The ground was still flat and red and dusty, but from that place that had glimmered in the rays of sun, I discovered a strange box on the ground.

It was square and a deep red colour with a small, white flower in the center.

I crouched and looked at it from all around. I could just make out a thin line all the way round the sides of the box that suggested the top bit of the box was a lid.

I leaned back on my heels and considered my options.

One: try to open the box.

Two: keep continue walking.

It might seem crazy that I even considered that second option considering how much ’nothing’ there was out there, but the uncanny atmosphere of the place was really getting to me at that point and I couldn’t tell if I had a bad feeling about the box as well.

No, I had to at least try opening the box. It was up to me to find out where Choco was and if I failed at that, the whole mission would fail too.

And so, tentatively, I reached out a hand toward the box. Nᴇw novel chapters are publɪshed on novel✶fire.net

Arthur Penn stood on the prow of a small boat in the middle of the perfectly smooth lake. The rest of the lake was covered in a thick, poetic mist though there seemed to be the silhouettes of trees to his right.

He looked toward the aft of the boat and saw that where there should have been a boatman, there was nothing, just a long rod used to propel and steer the boat. This long piece of bamboo seemed to have a mind of its own and moved at a leisurely pace.

Arthur had to admit it. His son showed promise.

One major disadvantage anyone trying to vie for power with The Unity had was the difference in power levels. The Unity had all the strength and ability in the world, while anyone else had to struggle to stay upright. Power in numbers, so to speak.

But Bran had bypassed that problem entirely, taking the enemy’s leader and removing him from the battlefield, all in a way that no one else could anticipate because no one else could do it.

Put simply, it was a matter of blood.

The entrance into the Coil was set on the ground, so in theory anyone standing in the room should have fallen in, except this entrance also had a key, one that required the one entering to fulfill some kind of criteria - in this case, be similar to its creator Bran, or in other worse, his blood relative.

Fifty years ago, Arthur had led the Merlin Club with an iron fist that served both the interests of its members and empire very well, extracting and accumulating resources from all over the world for their pleasure. That had earned him enemies.

A hundred years before that, the man had led the magical end of the assault on Pearl City and it was he, far more than any other contributor on his side, that had made their victory decisive. The history books recorded one name, but anyone who knew anything knew that it was Arthur Penn that should be remembered. That, too, had earned him enemies.

He’d had many adversaries over the years, those that wished him to give up territory or some rot, but to be tricked into a Coil by his own flesh and blood in this way... Now that was a truly marvelous development. Pity the boy was still so far from reason.

Arthur had nursed hopes that his son would, perhaps, over the years since the rise of The Unity, come to his senses or at least come to see the world a little bit more in the way his old man did, but it seemed that hope was for naught. The boy was adamant and stubborn, two traits that Arthur, if he were honest and he was a very honest man, had to admit came both from himself and his mother.

Feisty too, Arthur lamented as he thought of that girl who’d looked at him with such adoring eyes.

Truth be told, he’d met many women, and men for that matter, who’d looked at him like that, such was the price for living such a long and important existence, but it had somehow been different with Bran’s mother.

Or maybe it hadn’t? Existing for so long had a way of playing with one’s memories.

A ripple silently spooled out across the water and lightly brushed against the side of the boat. It hardly made an impact, but Arthur felt it and his eyes narrowed.

A moment later, something sharp and deadly shot out of the mist.