1 Re-Link

Chapter 1

What's your favorite fear? - Adeline asked the Djinn.

A deep, resounding voice answered.

- Being burned alive. It's so crispy! But unreturned love is sweet too. It has a unique bitterness.

- Can you extract my fears then?

The Djinn carefully examined the hexagram on the floor. When it saw a charred spot on the mahagony parquet, he began to sweep a little bit of its aura towards it. Adeline had a tiny, playful smile at the edge of her mouth when she noticed this. With a loud thunder, small sparks of electricity started out from the charred spot. The Djinn hissed and retracted its aura in a blink of eye. It looked Adeline deep in her eyes. Its eyes were crimson red, with the exact same colour as the tiny flames sweeping through on the surface of its dark gray body.

- Of course, my master. - answered the Djinn reluctantly.

- Proceed with it then.

- At your command.

A blue halo appeared around the hexagram. The turquoise stripes on it began to recede from each other. The Djinn's crimson aura slowly enveloped the girl. After a few seconds, she started moaning so loud, the boy next door looked up suddenly. He stared at the wall for a while, his eyes lost focus. Luckily he woke up from his daydreaming, and shaked his head. He had to get back to his studies to pass his repeat exam.

The heavy curtains were drawn in front of the sole window. Adeline sat down on the floor panting heavily. A drop of sweat flowed down from her small forehead onto her little retroussé nose. The smell of incenses filled the room, while the Djinn watched her pretty face in the lights of the candles.

- You should be fine in a few minutes. It seems my power rearranges your neural system.

Adeline barely heard the Djinn's voice. Her mind felt dizzy, she couldn't control or hold on to any thoughts in her mind. Pictures of her childhood rushed in front of her closed eyes. Fear, sadness, reluctance twisted her heart she wanted to cry her eyes out, when suddenly her mind became crystal clear.

Adeline stood up and opened her eyes slowly. Her deep blue eyes shone brightly in the dark room. As she stood motionless with her eyes wide open, a sudden gust of wind started hurling around her. On her eyes a little yellow light started to shine, moving through her eyes, as it painted a yellow cross on her black pupil.

- Zarj! - she ordered the Djinn through the hexa binding in a fading voice.

The Djinn bowed and shrunk while a small, peculiar bottle sucked in its figure, while she collapsed on the floor.

It was 2070 in the galactic calendar. As luck would have it, humanity managed to open up various space tunnels into other galactic regions. In the last 50 years through the power of countless artificial intelligences originating from Selena, the first entity gaining awareness. Since then, human life became much more comfortable, at least for a certain layer of society.

Adeline stood before a big, white building. This was the HQ of the adventurer guild in Buda. Since she dropped out from college this was her only way of making a living. Adventurers don't have much to do around here at all. She heard most tasks are little errands for the higher society. Collecting some special ingredients, delivering communication boxes to the neighboring galaxies. Usually it's barely enough to make a living.

Adeline doesn't particularly mind this. When her parents died, she got enough money to live by for a long while. It was a pity she became interested in that pretty wooden chest when she flipped through her heritage. An old book and a peculiar, blue bottle was all she found in the chest.

She didn't take it seriously, but still followed one of the instructions in the book, out of pure curiosity. This specific binding helped her get rid of her fears for a certain amount of time, it was the easiest type of binding according to the book. Whether it was luck, or misfortune, it's still debatable, but due to her constitution, when the Djinn's power entered her body, it repaired her broken neural links, and she felt an unfathomable power in her body. In the next few months she slowly started to remember some weird memories. She started having these memory rushes, as she called them in her mind, when these foggy and unfamiliar pictures flashed before her eyes. She decided these should be some kind of memories, tho she was uncertain where they could originate from, but she felt a certain connection with them. She could pass out for days having these. Unfortunately, this made her unable to continue her study, she couldn't follow the strict curriculum of the Royal College, and as such, she can bind farewell to entering the high-class society.

Luckily the rushes became much rarer after a while, as she started to regain her lost memories, so she could finally start working at the guild. As confusing it was, she seemingly came from a royal line of mages. As the daughter of the sole Djinn sorceress on her planet and the heir of the mystical power of Djinn control, it was not a surprise she was targeted by a lot of people. The situation turned dire, when in fear of losing her the queen sent her to a distant planet. She lived here in this place without ever realizing anything. The royal guards, disguised as her parents, watched out for her for centuries. Their death was not surprising at all. Without the special blood of a royalty their life force was not that strong. It's a pity they never get the order to return to their home planet after all these years of waiting. Most probably another faction took over the throne, it was blind luck in itself, they haven't found the princess' hiding place. After regaining her memories, Adeline concluded there was no point in returning anymore, she's better off staying here in this planet, starting a new life as an ordinary girl she was anyway. There wouldn't be any point going to a distant planet fighting for a throne which came with a who knows what kind of responsibility. She could only imagine. She always liked to keep things as simple as she could.