1????????Soul Bound

  1.3??????Making a Splash

  1.3.2????An Allotropic Realignment

  1.3.2.35 The golden key

  Nicolo: “Sure.”

  Kafana: “It might help identify who your mother feared would hunt you, if I could track down who your parents were. Can you tell me anything more about them? What were their names?

  Bungo had said those hunting Nicolo couldn’t be worse than the remaining high level assassins from the Lily, but what if he was wrong? The way Nicolo’s mother treated discovery being an inevitable death sentence reminded her of what Bahrudin and Wellington had both said about the Hexoikos. You don’t fight them. You can’t even flee them. Your only hope of survival is keeping your head down and blending in, leaving no clues to where you are or even that you still exist. If they learn your name, they win.

  Nicolo shook his head, not in negation but as though trying to shake something free. There was a haunted look in his eyes.

  Nicolo: “I. I can’t tell you. I want to, but the words aren’t there. I was only five, but I should remember, right? But I don’t, and Antonio wouldn’t tell me, wouldn’t even let me keep asking him. Said it wasn’t safe, not even to think their names in dreams or prayers. I could see how much it hurt him to not tell me when I begged him, so I eventually stopped.”

  Was that mind magic? It couldn’t be a curse, or she’d have seen it. If only she’d been able to ask Flavio to teach her about mind magic, she might be able to work out what had been done to him, and whether it could be reversed or worked around. She felt frustrated.

  Nicolo: “Could you look in my mind again, using that ring? I mean, if you could find a way to make sure I didn’t read anything about Flavio from you? What if you knocked me out, or put me to sleep? Maybe their names are still in my memories, even if I’m blocked from accessing them?”

  She looked at Nicolo. No matter how bright, there’s no way a kid that young with no modern knowledge came up with that idea, right? That had to be a quest prompt, and that would mean...

  Kafana: “Okay, sure, let’s try it. After all, even if you do pick up the details of the curse affecting Flavio, you won’t tell anyone, and what are the chances the politician who did it will go around scanning the minds of every orphan he meets? I’ll risk it. But just for this, right? No wholesale teaching of songs.”

  Nicolo nodded hurriedly and then lay flat on his back upon the blanket, as rigid as a board.

  Kafana: “We’ll start off with meditation. I want you to visualise your mind as a house containing labeled boxes full of memories, organised into neat rows by age. It doesn’t matter if some boxes are empty or out of reach. Just close your eyes and listen to my voice as you imagine it. The house is a safe place for you, with thick walls and a strong door, a place you can relax.”

  She used her voice as a tool, shaping it with a singer’s skill and projecting mana and intention into her words. His muscles loosened and she guided him through finding a golden key upon a wooden table which he waved to unlock all the boxes, and then him sealing it inside an envelope with her name on before sliding it outside the door. A few minutes more and everything was prepared.

  It was amateur but it worked, perhaps through luck and quest logic, but also because Nicolo truly wanted it to work and trusted her without reservation. She held the purple gem against his forehead and entered his mind as a welcome guest. There was even an amber coloured slab of stone just inside the door, and both of them swore oaths: She to do no harm to her host, and he to take no memories uninvited from his guest.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  She found a box of memories from when he’d been four years old with ease, but the memories were a let down. No noble houses or visitors, just two farmers in humble clothing who’d tended his grazes, read him stories and sung him lullabies. A little more educated than average perhaps, they couldn’t hide that, but they never spoke of the past in Nicolo’s hearing or used House names. Just “Mimi” and “Sebby”. Still, at least she’d seen their faces clearly, and could tell Nicolo how much they’d loved him and each other.

  She left his mind, carefully visualising closing the door behind and locking it, then sliding the key back inside where it would be safe. A minute later and she’d brought him gently out of the magic trance, no worse for wear. So of course he asked The Question.

  Nicolo: “Did it work? Do you know their names?”

  She nodded.

  Nicolo: “Will you tell me?”

  Why did she always end up in this sort of uncomfortable position when talking with Nicolo? She spoke carefully.

  Kafana: “You have a right to know, and I think you’re capable of understanding the risks and accepting the consequences of your decision.”

  Nicolo: “So?”

  Kafana: “So, if you ask me to, I’ll tell you. But I’d like you to spend a while thinking about it carefully before you decide. Your decision might end up affecting others around you, like Vittoria and the rest of the people at the orphanage.”

  Nicolo thought about that. Not happy, but not angry or surprised either.

  Nicolo: “And in the meantime you’ll be searching for the enemy, making it safer for me to know?”

  She nodded. She wouldn’t have been as controlled at that age. Well, probably not. Not unless her music had been at stake. Even then she’d been pretty single minded, much to the despair of her school teachers.

  Nicolo: “I’ve waited this long. I can wait a little bit longer. But just because it will give you a better chance to surprise the bruto who killed them. I’ll risk waiting, but only for that. No wholesale delay for my own protection, ok?”

  He threw her own words back at her, leaving her unable to disagree.

  Kafana: “Agreed. One way or another, it should be over in seven days. Give me that and then I swear I’ll tell you all I know, safe or not, and damn the consequences.”

  [Faction quest update: “The Orphan’s Past” - restriction added: Give Nicolo Sincero a full update on quest progress in time for him to say a prayer on the Day of Gratitude, or gain the title “Oathbreaker”, be cursed for Nemoremy and suffer reputation penalties.]

  She nearly groaned as the update was sent out. The first to react was the expert system who’d taken on the ongoing task of warning her about plot pitfalls in the game.

  Dinah: [Yo gal, you gotta break that habit of swearing formal oaths without thinking. Especially to children who are key plot NPCs. Take off the ring of Francis the Navigator first. That’s your only artifact boosting attunement with Mor, and the other deities don’t care about keeping promises. What if someone kidnaps Nicolo, or teleports you to another city?]

  Kafana: {I know, I know. I just don’t think like that when I’m in role. The information wasn’t even helpful. I’ve never heard of a Mimi or a Sebby.}

  Dinah: [Would you like me to do a face and name match, against data about Covob residents shared publicly by players of Soul Bound, or shared with us on the Burrow?]

  Was that expensive? It must be if Dinah had bothered asking, but she couldn’t think of a good alternative. She crossed her fingers. If only her luck stat affected arlife too.

  Kafana: {Yes please.}

  The final whistle blew.

  Not to be confused with , collected by the Brothers Grimm.

  Memetic Hazard - an idea that is dangerous even to learn. It is a concept that doesn't require magic to exist; in a surveillance society where your every public facial expression and change in behaviour pattern is recorded, just knowing something can affect how you react, and be estimated by expert systems trained to scrutinise how closely a record matches one of someone affected.