Seek an Image

Once the information had fully installed itself into RJ's head, he stretched out his hands towards the array.

The orbs floating around the crystal soon stopped midair and began to fly towards RJ's hands. Once he had firmly grasped them, he began to wave the orbs in a rapid series of movements. Trails of energy began emitting from the orbs as he moved, forming a mysterious pattern.

After doing this for a solid minute, RJ clapped the two orbs together. A clacking noise echoed and the mysterious pattern suddenly shattered into pieces...only to reform into a web browser page with a search engine called [Seek] as the home page.

"Ay dios mio. Witchcraft", Mr. Mariachi said while doing a sign of the cross. Surprisingly, he didn't burn up from the act.

"...I was going to comment about why he had to do that ridiculous dance, did you just realize this entire situation is basically magic?", Tatterhood asked.

"Meeeh!", Bellerophon added.

"Silence from the peanut gallery", RJ said, his focus on the magic web browser, "Skeleton Bard, this thing is basically a massive library that can pull information from anywhere and almost any when".

"Okay...", the skeleton said while feigning to understand.

"So all we need is a few keywords, dates, maybe a location or two, and then we can figure out who you are..or at least get a good lead", RJ added on, "Now then, I know you can't recall who you are specifically, but do you have any memories on anything"?

Mr. Mariachi began to scratch his skull in contemplation, the fire in his eyes dimming as if to signify how deep he was in thought.

"I remember...a name?", the skeleton said in an unsure tone, "It was...Reya".

"Reya"?

"Si. I remember the name Reya. I know it's not mine, but I do remember it belonged to someone who must've been important to me", Mr. Mariachi said, his confidence a bit more firm than before.

"Okay...'Reya' it is", RJ said as he manipulated the orbs in his hands to fill in the name into the search engine's text box. RJ also made sure to specify "humans" and to limit the results to the San Francisco area, to try and limit the sheer scope of profiles that were probably going to get pulled up.

"And here...we...go! ...well shit".

"Ay dios mio".

"Huh... that's a lot of women named Reya".

The [Seek] engine had done it's a job a little too well, pulling up the profiles of at least a ten thousand, two hundred and seventy-seven women who all lived in the San Francisco area and had the name "Reya".

"Yeah, there's no way in hell that we'd be able to look through all these in names in a reasonable time frame, even with the weird time dilation. Is it safe to assume, she would be located in San Francisco city, not area?", RJ asked the skeleton.

"Uhhhh...si".

"Ok and we are now down to...one thousand profiles. Huh, this might go smoother than anticipated", RJ said hopefully, "Do you remember anything else about her? Her occupation? Maybe a birthday"?

"I think she was an artist".

"Alright...hey, were in the double digits! Now all we need is a year and we can-".

"Oh wait", Tatterhood interjected, "Are we sure this Reya lady is even alive? I mean, if Mr. Mariachi is a bag of bones, what stopping her from being one too"?

"..."

"She has a point", Mr. Mariachi agreed.

Making a few gestures, RJ added in the possibility of dead people named Reya...and caused the list to go from sixty-five entries to one hundred-twenty thousand. Evidently, there have been a lot of people named Reya who died since public records had been kept.

"Ok this is gonna get us nowhere even faster. Are you sure you can't remember anything but her name?", RJ asked in exasperation after seeing the absurd amount of names.

Mr. Mariachi was about to shake his head, when he paused and thought for a moment.

"I... remember her face...", he said wistfully.

"Her face?", Tatterhood asked, a tinge of interest in her voice.

"Aye. Her face...her smile...the way her hair fell...", he began to say dreamily.

"Ok this could work. Can you draw a picture or describe in some way"?

"My artistic ability is kinda shit. I don't think I can draw it very well or describe it well either", Mr. Mariachi lamented.

"I...why not?", RJ asked while suppressing the desire to groan. He had a feeling he was about to hear something that would make his teeth rot.

"Words cannot describe such beauty and grace", Mr. Mariachi said with full sincerity, "There can be no comparison to any of her features, for they would fail miserably to match up with her. If only you could see the same images I see within my own empty skull".

Evidently, Mr. Mariachi soon forgot about those round him and began to monologue about the beauty of his Reya.

"Oh great, an amnesiac romantic...", RJ groaned.

"Wait...didn't you pick up a skill that let's you do something like that?", Tatterhood asked after a moment of thought.

"You mean [Spirit Read]? What about it?", RJ asked.

[Spirit Read] is a low level skill in the Conjuration school of magic. As the name states, it allows the user to "read" any spirits they come across, be they elemental or even undead. This reading can be anything from sending intentions, sensing desires or even memories if the power disparity is big enough. If used on something that's not a pure spirit, it at most can pick up aura fluctuations or emotional changes.

"Well technically speaking, Mr. Mariachi there is a spirit", Tatterhood said straightforwardly "can't you just use that skill to peek inside his head"?

"I...huh".

RJ was all set to retort until he paused to think about it.

Technically speaking, most undead have no souls. A good chunk of undead are basically wind-up toys made of dead things and powered by mana. They can technically act and move, but they have no means of learning or growing and once their magic supply is gone, they disappear with it. This same limitation can technically apply to ghosts and phantoms, but they also have a higher chance to become "sentient" than their more solid counterparts.

Mr.Mariachi however, was a skeleton with a soul. While for all intents and purposes he classified as a skeleton-type undead due to...obvious reasons, the fact that he could emote, think and feel implied that he still had a soul, i.e. a spirit, that could be affected. And since he was undead, he fell under the "read minds" category.

"Huh...hey, Mr. Mariachi", RJ called out, "I think I know what we can do".