B2 - Chapter 7: To Hitting Walls (Patreon)

[A/N]: Hey all, update from Book 1 - Chapter 64. There was a reward for unlocking all the roses that I deferred. Well, it's relevant in this chapter, so here it is!

New Skill Affixed: Aura Snapshot (D — Upgradeable)

Activate to take a snapshot of the target’s aura. This snapshot can be used in conjunction with [Metaphysical Analysis] to catalog a power.

Note: This is an upgradeable Skill. As caster’s rank increases, so will this Skill.

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There was a fire in Marlon’s eyes that he had never noticed before, a passion that mirrored the genius Terry had come to associate with the man.

“How’d you figure any of this out?” He couldn’t imagine the sheer level of trial and error that must have been involved in reaching this point. A million pieces of seemingly useless pottery was probably just the tip of the iceberg, he mused.

Marlon narrowed his eyes, thoughtfully observing Terry for a moment, as if appraising him. He clicked his teeth and shrugged.

“I was guided along my path, same as you, I imagine.”

“A mentor?” Terry asked.

Marlon snorted derisively. “Hardly. I’m talkin’ about Quests, boy.” His eyes flicked in a strange pattern, one Terry had come to associate with dismissing a System notification.

“Tempting fate a bit there, aren’t you?”

“Screw the Systems.” His words were harsh, but his tone light, more in line with a subtle ribbing between friends. “Always tellin’ us what we can and can’t say. What we should or shouldn’t do. Mine’s been trying to force me out of my shop for years.” His eyes flicked again in that familiar pattern and Terry felt his skin flush in response.

He didn’t know what Marlon’s System would do if he pushed the line, but his own mother had been assigned a Quest to kill his father after a relatively small slip of the tongue. She’d been forced to endure agonizing pain after refusing. Agonizing enough to stage her own murder and resurrection.

“Are you sure you should be antagonizing your System like that?” Though he hesitated to question Marlon, the consequences of defiance had proved to be life altering.

He grunted. “My System knows better than to mess with me. I’ll dig in an rewire my code if it were to try.”

Terry’s eyes went wide at the offhand statement.

“Rewire? You mean like…remove the System entirely?”

Marlon’s eyes hardened. “Why not?” he barked. “Didn’t I just tell you, limits are arbitrary.” He looked up with steel in his eyes, as if defying the heavens itself. “I only tolerate it for convenience.”

Terry settled back on his heels, feeling the paradigm he had come to know rocked by those simple statements.

His mother’s entire existence had been cut short by the pain inflicted by her System. That damned being that had given her a Quest to murder her own husband. And for what?

“My mother was given a Quest,” he said softly.

Marlon tilted his head.

“Hm?”

Terry felt his throat tighten, forced to confront the pain he had buried. Knowing the truth had been one thing, but dealing with it had been entirely another. He’d thrown himself into Topeka, dealing with evading capture, raids on supply depots, navigating the Black Wall. At the time, he’d convinced himself he was too busy to address the emotions of the memories within the roses.

But the truth was, he had simply been avoiding the pain.

“My parents are Awakened.” He looked up to see the confusion drift away in Marlon’s eyes. “My mother found out my father worked for a different Waker.” He spat the word, feeling his unresolved anger toward her System rising from some deep place inside him. “It gave her a Quest to kill him. When she refused, it tortured her…” He trailed off, afraid to tell Marlon the rest, worried he might cry in front of the man.

Marlon pursed his lips, a thoughtful expression on his face.

“She was high ranking, then?”

“Yes. Why?”

He nodded as if that answered everything.

“The Systems are parasites, Terry. Digging their claws in with every rank up. Why’d you think I never advanced past D-rank? Lack of talent?”

“Just thought you were afraid to leave your shop,” Terry muttered.

Marlon scoffed, then canted his head. “Well, there’s that.” He waved dismissively. “But that’s ‘sides the point. If I wanted, I’d be an S-ranker by now.”

“So…you’re saying there’s an unwritten pact between Wakers and their Awakened? More power leads to more control?”

Terry felt uneasy at the question, wondered if it was as black and white as all that, or if Marlon was perhaps a bit jaded.

Marlon sighed. “We’re getting off track, boy.” He wrinkled his nose as if reluctant to continue. “But fine, I’ll give you the short of it so we can move on. You say pact, I say trickery. What sort of pact necessitates so much secrecy that even the stipulations are unspoken? Did you know that choosing to Awaken opens the door for your Waker to claim a stake on you? That completing your Quests gives tacit approval for your System to seep tighter into your being? I don’t mean on an intellectual level. I mean on a spiritual level.”

He considered that question carefully, avoiding a knee-jerk response. Had I known that, even intuitively?

He supposed he had, in a way. When he’d first Awakened, his System had given him a choice. He could have said no to the power, no to the game that outstripped his importance—even the importance of his world. The Weaver, as it had called itself, had been straightforward in one regard.

There is a war, not only for Earth, but for all the rest, too. It had said as much.

Power and agency had been too tempting for him to say no to what was offered. Of course, he knew now that agency was a nebulous concept when taking the Systems into account. But had he possessed any real agency before, as a prince to an Awakened’s kingdom?

“I wouldn’t say I knew,” he eventually replied. “But I’m not sure saying no was an option—not for me.”

Marlon snorted, shaking his head.

“I would’ve. If I knew what I knew now, I’d have told my System to shove it where the sun don’t shine.” He let out a heavy breath, his eyes drifting to the floor, giving the intractable man’s face a softer edge. “Never mind all that. Not trying to make you feel any type of way. And I’m sorry to hear about your mom. Guess my point was, you gonna make a choice, should know the fine print, s’all.”

“I appreciate that, Marlon. Looking back, I’m not sure I’d change a thing. When my System made the offer, it told me I’d be able to accomplish a lot of good—” A familiar notification pinged in his vision, but he ignored it, emboldened by Marlon’s own rebellious streak. “That’s worth inviting whatever this thing is in for a front row seat, in my estimation.”

Marlon turned away to face the rows of pottery, his eyes unfocused, lost in thought.

Terry shifted his weight, feeling an awkward silence begin to form. He broke that silence by changing the subject.

“Why do you do this?” He waved to encompass the pottery, the cats above, and the entire shop. “Why go to all this effort? For pottery that won’t shatter? To give your cats System tags and—admittedly awesome—teleport abilities?”

Marlon flinched, surprising Terry.

“Fight the boredom off, suppose,” he replied a bit too quickly.

Terry wondered why he was deflecting. He considered leaving it, but found himself too curious not to push.

“C’mon, Marlon. There’s more to it than that. I can feel it.”

Marlon’s head whipped around, a snarl forming on his lips. Terry’s eyes widened and he took an unconscious step back.

But just as quick as the anger appeared, it seemed to drain away.

A tense moment passed before Marlon opened his mouth.

“I had a wife once.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “And a…daughter.”

Terry felt the back of his neck heat up, a mortified feeling churning inside his chest.

“Marlon, I’m so sorry…” He trailed off as the man shook his head.

“No, I…I don’t mind.” He glanced up, just a brief flick of his eyes before they cut back to the floor. “Haven’t spoken about them in years. Feels good.” His voice hitched and he cleared his throat. “Twenty years gone now.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Twenty years…”

Marlon’s eyes glazed over as if lost in thought. Terry took a gamble and broke the forming silence.

“What happened?” he asked quietly.

The man blinked as if awakening, glancing up toward Terry in surprise. Then, his eyes cleared and he seemed to come back to himself.

“Car accident. Nobody’s fault. Just a fluke accident. Some reason, that made it worse. Drunk driver would’ve given me someone to hate. Super collateral, I could’ve got revenge. But a tire popping, sending the car soaring off a bridge? No one to hate or blame there.”

Terry’s eyes widened as he connected the dots. Marlon was obsessed with anti-fall pottery because of the way his family had died; had given his cat the ability to teleport in a way that would have saved his own family. It all made a tragic sort of sense, when he thought about it.

“Went on the bender of all benders. Terraform pulled me up from a puddle of my own shit and piss, told me of an idea to create a little utopia underground.” Marlon flashed a wry smile, forced as it was. “No cars here, see.” Then he tilted his head as if in realization. “Lots of bridges though.” He snorted humorlessly. “Anyway, I’m sure he thought I’d develop into some sort of partner. Or at least someone of use. Instead…” He held his hands out wide, encompassing the shop. “Just a useless recluse, tinkering with clay and far too many felines.”

“You’re not useless, Marlon. The implications of your experiments are groundbreaking.” Terry nodded toward the rafters. “I mean, come on! You made your cat a Traveler!”

He shook his head sadly.

“No, Terry. I’ve wasted these twenty years.” He waved a hand to encompass the shop. “None of it works without me, see? Marmalade pulls on my aura when he teleports. The pots need me nearby to function.” He split space without a flicker of movement and a vase dropped into his hands. “My life has been a waste.” He threw the vase away. Terry’s senses were sharper than ever and he felt the slight connection between man and pottery. Then, he felt Marlon reject the pull, sever the connection.

The vase shattered, littering the floor with a thousand pieces of ceramic.

The shock of that sound rooted Terry in place and he struggled to think. What could he say to bring the man back from his melancholy?

Moments passed and Terry felt powerless in the face of Marlon’s mood. For some reason, he couldn’t think of the words he needed. After the silence grew too heavy, Marlon’s wicker chair creaked and he stood up. He walked toward the closet, pulling free a broom and dustpan. Any other time, Terry would have been shocked to see the man physically grab for something, rather than directly portal it into his hands.

But now…all he could do was watch in shocked silence as Marlon began to sweep.

“Let’s take a break,” Marlon said softly without looking up from his task. “Sorry, I know you came for a reason but…I just need to be alone for a bit.”

Terry nodded, feeling tumbled like a leaf in the wind before Marlon’s past. He had felt like he understood loss, but the weight of losing your entire life in an accident pulled at Terry’s heart. Working for the next couple of decades to prevent it from ever happening again, only to hit a wall…that was a tragedy Terry couldn’t imagine.

“Sure thing, Marlon. Just…let me know when…”

He couldn’t find the right words, but Marlon simply waved in reply before turning back to the broken pottery.

Terry cut a portal through space, appearing outside the shop a moment later. He glanced around the alley, feeling lost for some reason. Then, a familiar cat leaped from the shop door, stopping in front of Terry’s ankles, rubbing itself against his skin.

He reached down, a smile forming.

“Hey, Marmalade.” He scratched the cat’s back and it purred against his hand. “I think Marlon needs you more than me.”

A thought struck him suddenly and he activated his Aura Snapshot ability, capturing the mold of Marmalade’s aura in an instant.

The cat gave one more purr, then disappeared with a flash of aura. Terry examined the space the cat had been a moment earlier, marveling at how effortlessly it teleported.

He resolved to figure out that trick, even if Marlon considered it a dead end.

But first, he wanted to link up with his friends. He needed to do something to get his mind off of things and he knew Katie was a Market native and Peter had lived here for years. They’d know all the fun things to do in the Market.