Rilan found himself deep in thought for the nth time today. The king couldn't easily kill him and Wynn but he was the king; he could make things happen. Remember what happened, that shouldn't be too hard right? Ahh, why do things have to be so hard?
Lyxria saw him, his eyes zoned out on the library walls. She felt sorry him, she knew her father – he was a man of his words. So, that was why she was going to help these guys. Besides wasn't that why her dad wanted her with them in the first place.
Wynn was surprisingly taking things well. He was concentrating well on the book he was reading. He seemed invested into this, not forced. That seemed to bother Rilan even more. Rilan expected him to go bonkers over having been dragged down with him, but he seemed calm.
"Wynn, do you have foreknowledge about what is going to happen?" Rilan asked finally.
"What do you mean? Can mages see the future?" Lyxria commented surprised.
"No purple," Wynn smiled, "Mages connect mental energy with rectrix thanks to something called the teleconfrix. This develops our minds allowing us to sense our environment, see things better and do so many more. One of this is to mildly understand timelines and situations. We can even have brief glimpses of the future. I have reassessed the situation and the only safe way out of this new path is to work with Rilan. And he's half decent so I'm not so concerned."
Rilan scoffed at the 'compliment'.
Lyxria chuckled but she still had questions. Couldn't sages do that too?
"What exactly is the difference between a sage and a mage?" she asked wanting clarification.
"A sage and mage are both able to connect with rectrix on a whole new level. Sages basically use that connection to connect with matter and energy wielding it to achieve great wonders. But mages connect with it to manipulate space and time; these basics advanced and specialized them. Sages developed elemental force to control matter easily and have pockets of energy and space at their disposal. But we mages are the best, we developed the teleconfrix." Wynn explained.
"Hey, that's not true. The teleconfrix is great and all, but we've developed even greater stuffs." Rilan tackled.
They both glared at each other and were ready to get into a full blown argument but Lyxria knew better. She wanted the two of them to remain synchronized so she had to stop the banter. Besides, she understands very well now and could delve into details later.
"That's enough for now guys; let's not forget about the matter at hand." She said clearing her throat.
Wynn got back to reading those books while Rilan threw his head back with a sigh. Forget about it, forget about it, the princess' words made him stop and think. Something wasn't right here, the answers weren't here. The answers were in the palace but not here. That familiar tingling sensation from his dream sprung up again, blue aura started cloaking him. It wasn't fiery like normal ones, it was sparky. His hair started dancing around and the blue of his eyes glowed less revealing the other iris. This was his intense concentration mode.
The princess was equally furrowed. She collapsed into a sofa nearby. Her hair was dancing around restless from the stress. She took deep breaths to calm herself down and the comfy sofa soothed her skin. She sank deeper in the material now calm and relaxed but she felt her hair still tingling. That means her defenses were up.
She opened her eyes to see Wynn still focused on the books. He sat still on the chair; the green of his eyes speedily tracing the book on the desk like a laser pointer. Apart from that everything was normal around him. When her eyes trailed to Rilan though, her body hackled up. Blue lights zigzagged around him and a rainbow like glow emitted from his eyes. Though, she couldn't see well because his head was thrown back; so she was pretty happy when he looked up. His eyes were a bright yellow surrounded by slightly glowing blue. Light reflected of the yellow like a rainbow by the face of the bright noon sun. This was also the first time she was seeing his face, it was pretty normal but some features seemed strange. His hair was strange altogether, but his nose seemed to morph ever very slowly. His eyebrows were of a completely different hair texture from his hair and his ears from the little she saw his ear pinnae was completely flat lacking the usual inner curves and his canal was almost nonexistent. She must have gotten lost though, because those blue lights disappeared and now Rilan was looking at her with his brow raised.
"No, no, it's not what your haughty mind thinks. Just that your eyes are …" she started embarrassed but she didn't look away. As a princess, others were to stare away. People may say it's inappropriate but she didn't want to be a weak doll, she wanted to be powerful like her father and the rulers before him.
"His eyes can be pretty fascinating," Wynn commented closing the book in his hands and picking another.
"Yeah, like a rainbow glinting right in front of the sun on a blue day." She said.
Wynn was impressed, a nice way to describe it; poetic. Rilan didn't seem to care as his head was thrown back again and he was deep in thought.
"What a strange way to describe the colour green though." Wynn said.
"It's not green its yellow."
Now, Wynn looked up, he was pretty sure it was green this morning. Rilan almost smiled. His inner iris had no constant colour, it changed with time, emotions and even his own will.
"It changed from this morning, it does that." He dryly said.
Wynn didn't push it farther and barely nodded but Lyxria was shocked, what kind of person was Rilan. She didn't voice her thoughts though and they continued searching in silence for a while. Eventually Wynn stood up to stretch and headed deeper into the shelves looking for more material while Lxyria took some books to her sofa.
The reason they were in this section of the library was because the princess said having coming across a strange old book about memory loss and maybe that might be of help. But it turns out they have an entire library of such tricks. She vaguely remembers the book so they have to go through a lot but Wynn has this feeling that they may find nothing there. So he headed towards an aisle of shelves far off in the room.
He walked slowly his hands on the covers of the books brushing them as he passed by. The library had a conditioned and peaceful air with a delicate smell of books. The different textures along his fingertips gave him a serene feeling that he closed his eyes to take it all in. ignoring the death trap over their heads; the palace was an actually nice place to be. He continued till he felt a weird texture. He stopped and opened his eyes.
The book was dark green with gold straps all over. He picked it out and on the title was equally strange – 'rectrix's reach: the tricks from the book'. He opened it to see dark brown pages with grey ink. The pages were a little bit thicker than normal books and the language was different. His eyes glowed; this was the book they were looking for.
"I wonder where Wynn went off to." Lyxria said her hands too tired to flip another page.
"Probably catching a break or something" A muffled voice replied. Rilan was slumped by ones of the shelves; a dozen or so books scattered over him.
"You should catch a break too, it's almost lunch time and I don't think you guys had breakfast." She urged looking at him.
"Ha, I've barely even done anything." He replied brushing it off.
There was silence for a while, till they heard the muffled footsteps of soft soles.
"Sup Wynny, how was the lunch break?" Rilan greeted.
Wynn rolled his eyes at the greeting and showed them the book. Surprisingly Rilan was able to translate the language to English. The Thranic empire was one of the few English speaking ones.
"Here it is, memory wiping. It's said that this technique was invented by early mages, when the control of rectrix was dwindling. According to 'the book' the user uses rectirx to delve into the victim's mind and selects the memory he wants. He then chips it out with a juice called rectin. To restore the memory, the victim has to drink the juice or get it externally." Rilan said.
"That's pretty weird. This is a really old way of using rectrix."Wynn said.
Lyxria nodded in agreement. Back when rectrix was first discovered; scientists thought that it was a form of pure energy that had some weird radioactive properties to distort matter. Further insights into it showed that it actually directly manipulates the atomic structure and energy composition of materials. It was amazing, so that time, it was mainly used to distort, till some daring ones started to see how it affected life. But the power rectrix gave brought destruction upon the earth and during that time, different attack techniques were devised to conquer. This is how they usually sounded. Using the abilities of rectrix to distort matter and achieve an aim.
"You're missing something Wynn, delving into someone's mind goes beyond juices and other stuffs. Something as powerful as the teleconfrix needs to be used." Rilan said.
"Yeah, so if we can get that juice, we can free him." Lyxria concluded slamming her hands.
"You speak like we're trying to break a spell. No, we can source externally. I will go into his mind and look for that juice." Wynn said raising his wrist and flicking the band.
"How?" Lyxtria asked captivated by the rainbow like jewel that floated above the band revealing tiny emeralds and rubies lined up below it and iron fillings. Light reflected in various colours of it and green energy began to surround them. Then a blue octagonal honey comb cube rose up with golden edges and a bright lighted gear like portal within. It shone brightly and expanded fast. Looking into it was like looking into time, different symbols that reflected events into your eyes.
"You can't do that," Rilan's voice brought her back to life.
"We need to find that juice, I can't let you jump in as you wish." He said backing away from them. The teleconfrix was already intimidating up close. Right now, with this stuff here; Wynn was the most powerful in the room.
"You should know by now that I'm not acting by my normal will. The spiritual has morphed with my mental will and now my actions and predetermined and precise. How do you think I found that book?" Wynn stated matter-of-factly.
Rilan understood that, but still why go through the stress of looking for the book if they weren't going to follow its instructions. His instincts kicked in and he too summoned up a trick of his own. A xerix appeared and its lines separted and extended around, but before he could finish, Wynn countered it with a green xerix that just dissipated the stuff. Now, Rilan was getting agitated. His eyes turned completely blue and bright light zigzagged around him. Water droplets rose up around him and they glowed blue.
"Ah, so you're an elemental sage of water; interesting." Wynn said, not intimidated. Now in elemental state, most matter in this space was subject to Rilan's control.
Lyxria was bothered though, so she faced Wynn with a hard look. Then she started glowing purple and stretched forth her hand to attack Wynn. Wynn scoffed, if the three of them actually fought; she would be the first to get squashed. He advanced unperturbed focused on Rilan then she struck. But the blast didn't hit him, it hit Rilan. He was obviously unprepared for that since he was knocked out.
Then the blue lights dissipitated and a huge silence descending. Wynn was really shocked.
"Why…. How did you do that?" Wynn asked. In that state, Rilan was supposed to be a terror.
"He isn't like you, so he can't anticipate my moves, only my energy. So if I directed my negative energy towards you, he wouldn't see a strike coming." She replied breathing heavily. She knew something small would do no damage to a sage like him, so she used a great amount of power. And she wasn't like them, she couldn't just direct large amounts of rectrix, most of it was willpower. Her knees gave up on her and she fell, but she was cut by coated hands.
"But why," Wynn asked curious. The princess just met them, why would she be taking sides.
She stared back into that bliss of green and she saw Rilan's blue deep down there. Somehow, she knew she had made friends for the first time in a long while.
"I don't want you guys to be killed." She smiled.
Wynn nodded thoughtfully and let her up. In this state, the mage was really calm and perceptive. He dropped her carefully on the rich wood floor. He then stalked towards Rilan. The teleconfrix got bigger with each step swallowing everything in the room. Soon it was all that was around them, Lyxria watched the gear like portals all over with awe. Wynn finally crouched at Rilan slumped on the floor. He carefully cleared his locks and touched his forehead. Bright blue, white, and yellow lights starting zigzagging all around; all the electrons around were getting excited and the room was getting charged. They didn't like Wynn, but he waved his hand, the teleconfrix responded and all became calm. Then he pressed his hand harder till it passed through his forehead. He followed in with his whole body disappearing.
Rilan's mind was as expected – complex. It was all dark with a very bright core. It was like being in outer space with various oddly shaped and coloured planets orbiting that core. It was all black but on those shapes, the core's light reflected and shone. He floated around to the core. It was a straight vertical line of infinite light. Around it were three large rings. He headed to the white one, a hologram floated on top of it. It read memories. He floated in and started looking around. There were various timelines floating around like screens in a straight path. He looked for yesterday's memory. He touched the screen and flipped to the end of the day. That part was locked with some weird runes. He smiled, as expected. He ran back a little, then he jumped in. he met more darkness with the green runes all over. He raised his hand high and the teleconfrix appeared swallowing the runes whole. Then the darkness disappeared and he saw Rilan in the hotel room sleeping. He stayed by the wall and stayed quiet.
His window flew opened and four masked dudes jumped in. the held a strange kind of gun with a long crystal at the end point like a spear. They were about to pull the trigger when those lights came out from Rilan and hyper charged the room. Then everything glowed bright blue, those men were getting shocked hard. Weird, that wasn't plasma or water – that looked like electricity. The screaming men were flung to the wall, but one raised his hand and diected the electricity to the wall in one bolt, destroying it in a loud bang. At this point Rilan opened his eyes and sprang into action. But he was outsmarted and was tranquilized.
Here, Wynn raised his palm and everything stopped. Another weird thing, Rilan's memories were supposed to start from when he was awake, why would he remember what happened when he was asleep. He walked to the man with the needle and took it. Then he jumped backwards out of the screen. He then broke the serum bottle, and brown fumes came out, he directed it over the screen to break the lock completely. Then he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, opened it and met the purple eyes of the princess.
"So?" she asked concerned her purple hair draped over them both.
"It's done." He sighed calmly