Chapter 274: Room of Jars

Thousands of Undead soldiers rose to their feet. "No." Cerlius said as he glanced down at his skeletal hands. "This can't be happening." He slapped himself but he felt no pain, nor much of anything really. The only true sense of himself was a result of the burning inferno welling up in his hollow chest. It rose and shrunk like faint heartbeats. His small, blackened heart expanded and contracted.

It beat as fast as lightning, and louder than thunder, enough to make his head throb. Cerlius shut his eyes and, when he opened them, he was looking at his own, human face. His chest rose and shrunk. His rapid breaths fogged up the cracked mirrors of his Meditation Chamber. 'My core!' He thought. He forced his breathing to slow, sat back down, and withdrew into his mind, where upon he found a spherical core bigger than before but undamaged. In addition, there was now a black thread leading out of it.

Momentary panic set in, quickly suppressed by a voice. 'Cerlius?' Larque thought. 'What in the name of the God of Evil happened to you?' A quick flash of red aura and Larque appeared, dressed in a pristine black suit. He strolled up to Cerlius, his tail trailing behind him, and grinned with his pearly-white fangs. "You look like you've seen a ghost, Forbidden One."

"Well," Cerlius looked the demon up and down. "Because I just did." He then proceeded to tell Larque everything about his vision, the anger that welled up, and the destruction.

"Well I'll be," Larque smiled again. "I was wondering where that little morsel of hatred came from." He stroked his chin and frowned. "This is…disturbing."

"Disturbing?" Cerlius asked. "Isn't this what we want? Doevm and I are one in the same. That means that we should restore mine and his…our…my memories. Whatever, you get the point."

"I'm not sure that you get the point," Larque elaborated as he stepped towards the thread. "You are regaining your memories; this is good and all but have you considered why this is occurring. Nothing in life is free. There are thousands of students that have gone through the memory erasing process. No matter how special you are, that does not make you an exception."

"Why do you bring this up now?" Cerlius asked. "I have been regaining my memories for a while now."

"No, you weren't." Larque flicked Cerlius on the forehead. "You were simply figuring out what you had left. Muscle memories are different from memories in your mind. You can take away the memories of a lion, but that does not erase its instincts. Some things are etched into your bones. That memory you experienced, was not one of them. I would have thought you to be the more cautious one between the two of us. I'm disappointed."

Cerlius narrowed his eyes. "So am I." Larque chuckled and went for another flick, but Cerlius caught his finger. "I might not be as knowledgeable as I once was, but I know when someone is hiding from me, especially when their hand is shaking."

Larque yanked his shaking hand back and cursed. "Alright, alright you caught me. I'm concerned for myself." Cerlius rolled his eyes. "Listen, a Lich and a Human are two opposite beings. There is no in-between, no hybrid. It is either one or the other. Doevm was a Lich and became a Human. You were a Human and became a Lich. That means that there are two lives, Cerlius and Doevm. One's memories were erased but other's memories were spared. You're remembering because they are your memories."

"Wait," Cerlius took a step back. "That means I'm the Forbidden One. I killed…no." He shook his head. "I don't remember any of it. I-I was turned into a Lich. I don't know what happened but my father knew. This makes so much sense but then there are so many more questions."

"Well," Larque reached up and plucked the black thread. "I have no idea what this is, but this may be our first real lead."

"What should I do?" Cerlius asked as he approached the string and plucked on it. It twanged, but nothing else happened.

"You tell me," Larque shrugged. "It's yours after all." And with that, he vanished in a flash of red aura.

"Cryptic bastard," Cerlius muttered. He plucked the string again, and one more time just to be safe. He rubbed his chin and tried to command it as if it were his own mana. Nothing. Frustrated, he stared at it with ideas floating through his mind. 'I could cut it but maybe that would destroy it. Pulling it might do the same. It must be made of mana because it is linked to my core. It wouldn't be here otherwise.' After brainstorming for a dozen minutes, just when he was about to leave his mind, an idea struck him, a memory to be precise.

He stood up straight and stretched his hands out wide. The core shifted, pulling out black tendrils of mana that shot outwards. One such tendril caught on the thread and shot forward. Before Cerlius could smile he was pulled out, of his own mind and through solid stone, a world of black.

He appeared in a gigantic cylinder-shaped expanse. Spiraling shelves traveled up the old stone like ribbons, carrying thousands of strange, misty jars. The biggest jar, or maybe it was the closest, lay at the edge of the thread. Images flashed inside the glass, most of a familiar skeletal figure. A small scratch ran along the base of the glass. Small particles flowed out, but it would take a long time for the container to empty.

Cerlius was once again yanked away from his mind as a letter slipped through the cracked wall, landing on his knee. The thread was gone, invisible outside of his mind. He cursed.

'Did you see something?' Larque asked.

'A room of jars.' Cerlius responded.

'That's it,' Larque laughed. 'That's where your memories are stored – in those jars. They've been down in Mage's Shadow, but how are we going to get down there?'

'Something tells me,' Cerlius thought as he read through the letter's contents, pleasantly surprised to find that it was written in Elvish. 'That it isn't going to be a problem.'