Misbegotten Memories

Chapter 63

“How is it you cause such a headache in three days, Ward Harridan? Answer me that?”

Volithur stood at attention before the irate Marshal. “I don’t know, Master Marshal.”

“You asked a member of the family to marry you? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. But then it gets worse. She actually agreed to your proposal. Her guardian consented.” The Marshal loomed o...

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Chapter 62

Volithur spent the night in a state of shock. He was engaged to marry Khana. But why? Obviously the fact that he had backed up the story of a proposal in front of Master Rowan had been a major factor in the outcome. What he wanted to know – needed to know – was why Khana had come up with that lie in the first place.

They had been caught, sure. In the moment, Volithur...

Chapter 61

Volithur had just started enhancing his leg muscles when the time came to leave for the academic competition. As the year before, he met the rest of his party in the library following breakfast. Master Rowan brought vials for all of them, with Volithur and Hazen receiving cosmic water in place of an actual elixir. They raised their glassware in toast of their upcoming victory and then were on t...

Chapter 60

Hector woke with a huge grin on his face. Volithur had made some real progress in his body enhancement. That not only made him happy for the friend he had never met, but also provided him the knowledge of how to copy the feat.

His joy faltered suddenly. He didn’t have the cosmic energy or resources to enhance his body. Sometimes the transition between dream and real world confused his c...

Chapter 59

The silver plasma elixir tasted briny and felt oily as it slid down his throat. His normal senses could easily trace the path of the liquid as it passed through, coating every surface on its way. Its calm energy immediately penetrated his organs and bolstered their strength without his conscious direction.

Volithur began to practice body enhancement, inhaling the energy into his soul and ...

Chapter 58

Volithur hated his digestive system. The throat and stomach had been annoyingly energy intensive to saturate, but he had not begrudged them that outlay. They were organs in his body, not adversaries intent on blocking his progress.

Then he came to the intestines. Those things drank down buckets of cosmic energy with no apparent change in their saturation level. The digestive organs – in...

Chapter 57

Evelyn read from the notebook in front of her. “The stadium, both strip clubs, the courthouse, that bar that does salsa dancing – don’t know what it’s called, and the county jail.”

“Am I supposed to commit a crime to get access to the jail?”

“It’s a jail, not a prison. You could get picked up for public intoxication and out the next day.”

Hector shook his h...

Chapter 56

The classroom was not large. It also had a lot of desks in it. Perhaps if Volithur had been more graceful or less nervous those facts would not have been quite so relevant. But he was not particularly graceful and his sweaty palms attested to how nervous he was.

He stepped on Khana’s toes a lot. And ran into furniture with some degree of regularly.

His partner reacted to his shows...

Chapter 55

His brain did not start working properly again until he reached the safety of the barracks. He’d agreed to dancing lessons the next day. Khana had almost insisted on them. He wanted to be upset that he was being shortchanged mental enhancement training. That was a simple, clean emotion that he knew how to handle.

The other implications of the situation only confused him. He liked Khana ...

Chapter 54

Volithur dropped Little Nero with a knee to the liver. His one-time nemesis held up a hand in an informal request to wait out the rest of the round and Volithur stepped back. Completing his skeleton and starting on his tendons had given him a tremendous advantage in sparring. It really could not be overstated.

He firmly believed now that the Sergeant had been right to encourage him to pra...

Chapter 53

Hector woke slowly from his nap, his mind automatically seizing on any new information to analyze its applicability to his situation. He reached the obvious conclusion before he was fully conscious: he needed to learn how to make a filter realm. If he had a convenient source of power, maybe he could get to level five and still have enough energy to power an aura barrier in a fight.

But ho...

Chapter 52

“Sergeant, could I ask you a question about cultivation?”

The Sergeant glanced at Volithur and gave a curt nod. “I think you have earned the right to impose on my time. Your improvements have not gone unnoticed, Ward Harridan.”

When they were in the Sergeant’s office, Volithur clasped his hands together respectfully. “I have been doing a lot of sensory training.”

Chapter 51

“I guess it’s possible to power up using primordial chaos,” Hector said.

Evelyn pulled the handle of the slot machine. “That sounds promising.”

“Well, it seems like it poisons the soul.”

“Less promising.” She pulled the handle again.

“Yeah. I guess it’s a maximum of five years until you drop dead.”

“Let’s call that Plan B. No, Plan C. Pl...

Chapter 50

Volithur took the two tea powder elixirs together once more. He had used the daily cosmic water elixirs to complete his ribs and was ready to move onto the next. The hand bones seemed too small to waste the potential of the elixirs on. It took some time to identify and target the next bone in sequence, and time lost while using an elixir was energy lost.

Instead, he concentrated on the sp...

Chapter 49

Hector’s shoes stuck to the floor with each step. As he looked around the grungy dive bar at the slovenly appearance of the other patrons, he arrived at the inescapable conclusion that he was overdressed. Khaki pants and a polo shirt were not standard attire for Jimmy’s Watering Hole.

He received a couple of second glances and raised eyebrows, but no one commented on his choice of clo...

Chapter 48

Volithur played the mimic monkey game constantly. Ever since Khana had shown it to him, he had been spying on the techniques used by others and trying to imitate what they did. His ability to discern details with his senses grew rapidly, vastly exceeding his ability to replicate energy movements.

The Sergeant pumped the barest trickle into his body to boost his movements, a feat which rem...

Chapter 47

Hector handed off the bicycle to Evelyn, who stared at it as if she couldn’t understand its function. “Why did I agree to do this again?”

“I have no idea, Evie.”

“Like, I’m not big on bodily coordination. Riding a bike requires balance, if I recall correctly from my younger years.”

“I believe we already established that you can’t be considered old at twenty...

Chapter 46

Volithur drank down the elixir and began to push energy into his shin bones. So far, he had completed his skull, both femur bones, both humerus bones in his arms, and now was working on the tibia bones at the front of his shins. He had grown tired of getting shin splints when they were forced to do too many running or jumping exercises. Once those bones were saturated, he planned on moving to t...

Chapter 45

Hector woke slowly. He wanted to cringe at the new memories that had been uploaded into his brain. Surely he had never been as awkward as Volithur. The two weeks of overly formal interactions between Volithur and Khana almost proved more than he could bear.

He wished he could talk some sense into his dream counterpart. Shake Volithur by the shoulders and give him the facts. First, Khana h...

Chapter 44

Volithur accepted the shot to his ribs from Thassily to give back a chop to the side of the neck. The movement, as silly as it had first appeared to him, had been proven time and again to be effective at inducing an involuntary reaction. The nub of the wrist bone whipping into the neck muscles hurt like hell. As Thassily flinched back from the point of pain, Volithur stepped in on a stiff jab.<...

Chapter 43

“Who the hell is on our couch?”

Hector sat up in bed to make eye contact with his angry wife, who glared at him from the door. “That’s Evelyn. She drank too much last night and couldn’t tell me her address.”

Jen folded her arms. “She claims she is your ‘side chick’.”

Hector sighed. “Yeah. That sounds like Evelyn.”

“You know this Evelyn pretty go...

Chapter 42

Volithur’s breath hissed as he took the strike to his gut. He had been hanging with Little Nero for most of the match, but taking a hit cost him his momentum and put him on pure defense, which he could not afford when facing this particular opponent. Little Nero had not gone easy on him since the day Volithur fought him under the influence of the blood boiling elixir.

The two new guys h...

Chapter 41

“Volithur was abducted from an unempowered world after a Xian invasion and taken back to be a servant. They call him a ward, but so far as I can tell, that just means they have to keep him alive for a couple of years before throwing him to the wolves. He’s not living on Tian and no one is providing him any resources to aid his cultivation efforts. If that wasn’t bad enough, the kid has ne...

Chapter 40

Hector woke to the noon sun in his face. He sat up on the park bench, working his mouth in an attempt to scare up some moisture. Sweat glistened over his skin, drawn forth by the heat of the day. His uncomfortable sleep had left him with a headache and he was without a doubt dehydrated by the hike and sleeping exposed to the elements.

Knowing it would be a two hour hike back to his car, H...

Chapter 39

Volithur sat across from the Sergeant in the otherwise empty dining hall. His lessons had not truly resumed. The Sergeant had set up the meeting to check on Volithur’s progress.

“You estimate you are a third of the way towards level four already?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“You are making excellent time,” the Sergeant said. “We had thought you entirely incompetent, but ...

Chapter 38

A second viewing immediately preceded the funeral service. Attendance was a little lighter than the previous day, but it was still busy. Hector endured the empty platitudes from well-meaning acquaintances. He found himself exhausted by the ordeal. It felt like every new face was stealing a portion of his emotional energy.

By the time the funeral director asked them all to find a seat, Hec...

Chapter 37

The next day, Volithur went through the same routine prior to dinner: breakfast, insane conditioning, hard sparring, cultivate during free time, lunch, hide and cultivate some more. After dinner, he found his way to the library, moving carefully to avoid encountering any of the nobles with a tendency to cause him problems.

He found Khana waiting for him. “I was beginning to think you wo...

Chapter 36

Jasmine’s snuffling brought Hector awake. She stood above him on the bed, of course. For some reason, she seemed interested in the scent of his hair. Since Jen had moved back in, the bar of soap in the shower he used for every cleaning purpose had been displaced by bottles of body lotions, shampoos, and conditions. He used whatever was handy, as he always had, and consequently smelled like fr...