2.1: A Momentary Respite

*Two Years Before the Events of Chimera, at the Dawn Sanctuary

Once we made it safely down the Cathedral of Eternity, we decided to grab ice cream at Jean's Ice Cream Infinitarium.

The Infinitarium was the heart and soul of the Dawn Sanctuary. Located in the dead center of town square, it was always packed to capacity despite the Dawn having less than a thousand residents at any given time. The average wait in line was about twenty minutes on a good day and up to sixty on the holidays since literally everybody at the guild was there, but no one ever seemed to complain. The ice cream was spectacular, after all. Generous samples, buy-ten-get-one-free reward cards, and Free Karaoke Tuesdays ensured that most customers ended up becoming eager regulars.

The interior of the shop was modeled after a famous burger joint once popular in the United States. It was complete with long white plastic benches and dozens of cheap high tops scattered throughout its beautifully paneled floor. Tall glass walls, low-hanging lights, and pristine ceiling fans gave the place a pristine feel that you only found at high-end restaurants and rich people's houses. The sharp scent of cinnamon mingled with the fragrant aroma of freshly brewed coffee, warm caramel, dark chocolate, minced strawberries, diced bananas, hot mochi, and a million other lovely toppings was nostalgic to me, heralding back to the first time my mother brought me here about a week after I had lost Eleanor. Even now, I was amazed at how I always felt a small sense of wonder every time I stepped through its massive double glass doors.

Why they would design an ice cream parlor after a burger parlor was beyond me, but Priscilla couldn't get enough of the clean and simple aesthetic.

“It’s so turn of the century,” she would always say.

What made Jean's truly magical, however, was how expansive its menu was. Jean’s had a long-standing tradition of adding a new, bizarre flavor to their menu every other day despite their polls clearly stating no one wanted more flavors. Still, because of their monopoly over the ice cream industry at the Dawn, they could pretty much do whatever they wanted and people would still buy their products.

Priscilla certainly did.

Over the past decade, we had tried about half of the 1017 flavors in the half a million times we had visited. We made it our quest to try them all, but the parlor seemed to release flavors faster than we could keep up. Of the ones we had tried, half the flavors were misses, a quarter were decent, and about ten were keepers.

Today, we were hoping to discover our eleventh keeper.

While the new green tea flavor was essentially the old one with a pinch of lavender and crushed vanilla bean (as it said on the sign), we had high hopes for this week’s release because nine of the ten keepers we discovered while trying out the new release. Priscilla wasn’t a fan of green tea. In fact, she despised the stuff with a passion, but she was willing to risk the extra money in pursuit of finding her next favorite. Such was the strength of our tradition.

To our luck, the ice cream parlor was unusually empty despite it being the day of a flavor release. There were only a handful of people ahead of us and none of them even bothered with today's special. We were at our seats at the bar with our ice creams in hand a mere five minutes after we had put in our order for a total of twenty credits. Priscilla graciously paid the tab for us. I didn’t mind since she had more in savings than I would make in my lifetime.

We dug into our ice cream at the same time. It wasn't long before Priscilla made a face.

“Tastes like the off-brand stuff you buy at the grocery store on the other side of town," she sighed.

"Food quality drops harder than stocks in a world crisis when it has to go through a portal,” I said. "They must have imported this from Earth."

Priscilla took another bite of her ice cream before dropping her spoon in disgust. Then she shoved the pink paper cup still full of ice cream toward me.

“Want it?”

I took the ice cream without hesitation. I was secretly hoping she would hate the new flavor the moment she suggested we grab ice cream after our climb because that meant more free ice cream for me. Each scoop was worth ten credits, and I was more than happy to save ten credit’s worth of ice cream from the trash can.

“I’m getting a triple sea salt caramel,” she groaned, standing up from her seat, “because apparently salt and butter are the two things the Dawn can't mess up.”

“I'll get it.”

“Sit down! Any ice cream worth eating is worth getting yourself.”

“Okay, you go get it,” I said raising my hands defensively.

Priscilla returned a few minutes later with a triple portion of sea salt caramel ice cream and retook her seat at the bar. She never looked happier than when she had a frozen treat in her hand.

“You’re gonna gain weight eating all that ice cream,” she said, eyeing the cup that she had donated to me.

“With all the magic I burn? I don’t think so,” I said. “Those three scoops, on the other hand, will be hard even on a Seraph.”

“Looks like someone really doesn’t want their bonus check this month.”

“You only play the money card when I’m right.”

“It works every time.”

I gave her my best brave face before almost immediately breaking character.

“Please don’t take my money away. I need to buy groceries tonight.”

“Apologize."

“I am so sorry I can eat all the sweets I want and never worry about it. No, I'm not going to apologize!”

Priscilla zapped me with lightning magic just strong enough to make me yelp. I manage to drop my cup of ice cream on the table and not onto the floor.

Seeing my pain, she laughed.

“Apology accepted,” she cackled, taking the first bite of her ice cream. “Oh, that is good ice cream!”

We ate in silence for the next minute, enjoying the serene ambiance of the vast ice cream parlor. I don't remember it ever being this calm. The few customers that were here had drifted their way toward the exit, laughing as they went. Before long, it was just the two of us sitting at the bar side-by-side.

The ice cream shop seemed even more beautiful now that it was empty. It was as if we were sitting in the halls of a long-forgotten king, in his palace far away from the rest of the world, eating treasures few have ever had the pleasure of trying, seeing sights few had ever seen.

When I finished my double portion of ice cream, I looked over to Priscilla to see how she was faring. I noticed that she was only picking away at her treat despite having her favorite flavor in hand. She wasn’t even half-finished.

“Uh oh," I said lifting my empty cup of ice cream.

She looked a bit startled as she quickly buried her green plastic spoon into the heart of her ice cream. She took another bite from her ice cream before she sighed and set her spoon down completely. Then she leaned back in her chair and looked up at the ceiling. She looked back down at me after a long while, her face expressionless as an over-worked prosecutor.

“Titus, thank you for making the Lifelink,” she said flatly.

“What?”

I looked down at my wrist in alarm. Sure enough, the pale silver thread was there, linking my wrist with hers.

All at once, my memory returned to me. The nightmare, the temple, the talking cat, Charybdis, the castle supposedly ruled by a vampire lord, the Host that had sent me to the afterlife.

“Oh no, I’m in a memory, aren't I?"

"Yep."

"And climbing the Cathedral?"

"I've forgotten how much fun I had that day," she giggled. “Really, I forgot how sweet you were. What happened?”

Then it clicked. The woman sitting before me was not Priscilla, but merely Iris pretending to be her. I hadn't noticed the deception because of how spot-on Iris's impression was.

I buried my face into my hands.

It did not feel good getting tricked a second time.

"Iris, this has got to stop," I said. "I'm already having trouble telling what's real and what's not."

"Iris," she said slowly. "So that's the Seraph's name. She wouldn't tell me for the life of her."

Unlike before, the background around did not fade away, nor did the woman's personal illusion.

"Wait, you're actually Priscilla," I said.

"Who else would I be?" she replied.

It was then that I realized the terrible mistake I had made.