by nobody103
"A few months is too late," he said. "Anything that happens after the summer festival might as well not exist for me."
Silverlake finally stopped fiddling with the herb pile and gave him a hard look, her eyes glowing brightly for a moment.
"You're not dying," she stated. "Not out of sickness, anyway? Someone hunting for you?"
Zorian hesitated, the image of Red Robe dancing before his eyes and opened his mouth to say 'yes'. Silverlake cut him off, though.
"No, not really," she stated, going back to her herbs. "You have an enemy, but then again who doesn't?"
Zorian exhaled in irritation and rose up, deciding to leave before he lost his cool and attacked her. He'd probably get stomped into the ground, anyway. Just before he teleported away, though, a thought struck him.
'To hell with it,' he thought. 'Why not?'
"Hypothetically speaking," he said. "If you were visited by a time traveler who claimed to know your future self, what would you ask of him as proof?"
"Hypothetically speaking," she said, her mouth stretching into a cruel grin, "I would have asked him to retrieve a grey hunter egg sack for me."
Throwing his hands in the air in defeat, Zorian teleported back to his inn in Knyazov Dveri, the cackling of a sadistic old woman echoing behind him.
✦ ✧ ✦
In the safety of the room he rented at the inn, Zorian was sitting on the bed, dismantling a rifle he had bought earlier. It was kind of amusing how easy it was to procure a firearm compared to high-level combat magic aids, despite them being just as lethal, but there you had it. They were especially easy to procure here in Knyazov Dveri, which was so close to the wilderness and its dangers. In any case, he was trying to see how the things worked and, more importantly, how they could be enchanted.
Firearms were notoriously tricky to enhance with magic. Like all ranged weapons, they had the problem that you could only enchant the device to be more accurate and durable, and if you wanted the projectile to have any sort of magical effect upon striking the target you had to enchant the projectile itself. Bullets were unfortunately very hard to enchant, being much smaller than arrows and crossbow bolts and usually made from some very magically unsuitable materials. You also couldn't touch the bullet to channel mana into it once it was already in the gun… though maybe if he installed some crystal mana channels into the gun via alteration…
While he studied the device in front of him, Zorian idly considered ways to off the grey hunter from earlier. He had no intention of actually trying any of them, as they were each more implausible than the last, but there was no harm in coming up with scenarios.
Grey hunters had known weaknesses. First of all, they were purely melee opponents – if you could keep them at distance, there was nothing they could do to you. The trouble was that they were really, really good at closing in on their target. Secondly, they were ultimately just magical animals so they could be lured into prepared traps and kill zones fairly easily. The problem here was that they were fast and tough enough to probably survive such a blunder. The magic sense the grey hunter demonstrated in Zorian's first encounter with it probably also helped it avoid the most blatant of such traps.
He could think of a several ways to trap it, but most of them required knowledge of spells that he didn't have. If he knew how to make a simulacrum and open portals, he could simply send in his simulacrum as bait and then open a portal leading to wherever he set the trap up. Hell, simply knowing how to make a simulacrum would make things a million times easier since he could make test his ideas without endangering himself. If he knew large terrain alteration spells he could simply seal it off in its lair and wait for it to suffocate. If he knew the spells to manipulate large amounts of water he might be able to drown it. And so on, and so on…
He also considered poisoning the thing or putting it to sleep or otherwise using some kind of alchemical concoction that would cripple or kill it… but anything potent enough to kill such a beast was heavily restricted, made out of super-rare ingredients and expensive as all hell. He didn't know how to make anything like that, and couldn't get his hands on something that valuable and forbidden through trade.
He could try for brute force and build a golem to take the spider down. Since they were machines animated by magic, they were immune to poison and could be extremely strong – strong enough to crush the stupid spider in a head-to-head fight. Unfortunately, he didn't know how to build a golem. Any golem at all, let alone one good enough to go toe-to-toe with a grey hunter. The art of golem making was complicated enough that several Houses were dedicated to mastering it, and not something to dabble in for a week or two. Or even months or two.
Furthermore, even if he knew how to build it, the process of building would take at least a week and probably more, require a specialized workshop and consume a lot of expensive materials. He would likely bankrupt himself before he was even halfway finished.
Which brought him to firearms. The revolver worked well enough against Red Robe when his spells had failed him, after all. No regular firearm would do against the grey hunter, though – he needed something stronger than that. Unfortunately, higher calibers were usually reserved for the military and he would need to raid a military base and steal one if he wanted to go down that route. That could end very badly – who knew what kind of defenses a military base had, and being captured and interrogated by military investigators while drugged out of his mind on various truth serums was almost as bad as being discovered by a hostile mind mage or a necromancer. Plus, he was pretty sure they had a couple of mind mages and necromancers on the payroll anyway.
Oh, and even if he did find something suitable under a lax enough security, there was a matter that it would almost certainly still have to be enchanted and he couldn't even figure out how to effectively enchant a simple rifle at the moment. Probably wouldn't by the end of the restart, either.
A knock on his door woke him up from his musings and he quickly put the rifle into its box and hid it under the bed. Him owning the rifle wasn't illegal, but he'd still rather not let whomever was looking for him see him tinkering with it. He made sure his shielding bracelet was on, just in case, and then opened the door.
It was Gurey, which did not surprise Zorian all that much. The man had been dutifully buying off any of the various alchemical ingredients and assorted body parts Zorian had gathered in the forest and allowed Zorian to use his workshop when he needed to make some of the trickier potions and magic items. The man had already commissioned a couple of magic items from Zorian, so he expected Gurey's arrival to be about another commission.
As it turns out, Gurey had another kind of deal in mind. Once the pleasantries were exchanged, he skipped straight to the point.
"I want you to help me rob my rival."
Chapter 30
A Game of Shops
"I want you to help me rob my rival."
Zorian blinked in surprise before giving the man an incredulous look. What?
"And… why the hell would I do that?" he asked the man curiously.
Gurey grinned triumphantly. "I knew I was right about you," he said. "You didn't even pretend to be outraged at the question."
Zorian frowned. "I'm just not a very excitable person, that's all. It doesn't mean I'm going to actually help you rob someone," he shot back crankily. "In fact, I can scarcely imagine a situation where I would agree to such a thing. I was just curious what possessed you to broach the topic at all. This isn't some kind of attempt at blackmail, is it?"
"Oh no, I'd have to be pretty stupid to try and blackmail a man who hunts winter wolves and giant trapdoor spiders for a living," Gurey assured him quickly. "Not that I have anything worthwhile to blackmail you with, anyway. No, I just felt I had an interesting deal for you and that I had nothing to lose by making an offer. You don't seem like the sort that would get all high and mighty on me just because I employ a few shady business practices. I figure the worst you'd do is say no."
Zorian was si
lent for a moment. He supposed that Gurey had him there – even if Zorian actually cared to turn Gurey in, it would still be his word against Gurey's. Proving the man's guilt would be a hassle, Gurey would likely get a mere slap on the wrist even if convicted, and it would lead to far greater scrutiny of Zorian's activities by nearby powers than he was comfortable with. All in all, it would mean an entire restart wasted on a pointless crusade that had no meaning inside the time loop and would quite possibly attract the attention of the academy authorities – previous restarts had made it clear they were very quick to involve themselves when one of their students had a brush with the law or the police, and he was still technically enrolled there. And if the academy found out about his whereabouts and activities, it was entirely possible Red Robe would also find out about it through cranium rats or his other spies…
No, even if Gurey was planning to murder someone, Zorian would not intervene. A simple theft… well, he wasn't sure he would actually care all that much even if he wasn't stuck in the time loop and he certainly didn't care at all now.
"Well, the answer is definitely no," said Zorian finally. "I know that wanderers like me have a reputation of being opportunistic, but I'm afraid my ethics aren't quite as flexible as that. I'm not going to stoop to banditry or burglary or whatever it is that you have in mind for this… 'deal' of yours."
"Ah, I don't think you quite understand what I'm talking about here," Gurey said. "You think I want you to steal something physical and that I'm offering you money in exchange, yes?"
Zorian raised an eyebrow at him.
"Nothing could be further from the truth," Gurey shook his head. "I know better than anyone that you're raking in too much money at the moment to be tempted by petty burglary. Ethics aside, that's too much risk for too little gain. No, if this operation goes off without a hitch – and I think you're capable enough to pull it off – there will be nothing missing and no indication that a crime has occurred at all." He leaned towards Zorian conspiratorially and whispered the next part. " You see, what I'm trying to steal is not material wealth, but secrets."
Oh. Oh! Well that changed things considerably. He still didn't want to have anything to do with Gurey's deal, but he at least understood why the man felt comfortable discussing such an offer with him. Spying on other mages was technically illegal, but everyone knew it was a common and universal practice. Hell, according to some stories every Noble House worth its name has its own division dedicated just to that. You just had to make sure that you weren't caught. Even the academy, which generally tried to give students a very rose-tinted version of mage culture, admitted that such 'professional espionage' occurred all the time. Some of it was entirely legal, such as analyzing a rival's products and spellwork with divination spells, or poring over publically available documents to see if they'd let something sensitive slip by without noticing… but such legal methods were usually very limited and mages often resorted to shadier methods. Bribing assistants and apprentices into selling out their master's secrets, hiring burglars to raid archives and research notes, dedicated scrying campaigns, seduction plots… the possibilities were endless, and new ones were devised every day. As well as countermeasures for such.
Zorian recalled a particular fable that spoke of two mages that spent years devising ways to steal each other's secrets and thwarting the other's attempts to do the same to them. Eventually, after a decade of back-and-forth, they both succeeded in reaching each other's inner sanctum at the same time… only to find out that neither had any secrets worth stealing. They had spent so much time and effort trying to one-up each other that they'd never gotten any actual work done.
Well, that was an obvious exaggeration, but it honestly wouldn't surprise Zorian to find out that every magical business (and probably quite a few non-magical ones) in Knyazov Dveri did do at least a little bit of illegal espionage as a matter of course. The world of business was a cutthroat environment. Zorian knew from his parents' stories that even seemingly simple and honest farmers were willing to renege on their contracts if they thought they could get away with it. To someone like Gurey, this sort of thing was probably just business as usual.
But it wasn't business as usual for Zorian. And frankly, Gurey was completely right when he said that the whole thing was a huge risk for little gain. He opened his mouth of give Gurey a firm (but polite) refusal, but was interrupted when Gurey pushed a brown, leather-bound book in his hands.
Zorian looked at the book in surprise for a second, idly wondering why it had no title, before giving Gurey a searching look. The man motioned him to open it.
Zorian did, and promptly found himself leafing through pages of hand-written notes and complicated diagrams. It was a journal of some sort. That's why the book had no title or markings. A research journal of some mage, if he had to guess.
"What is this?" he asked, giving Gurey a suspicious look.
"A sample," Gurey said with a grin. "As I said, I know it would be foolish of you to do something like this for money – well, for the sums I am able to pay you, at least – so I came up with something that will hopefully be more attractive to you. Feel free to peruse that thing at your leisure and then come see me in my store tomorrow to give me an answer. Just remember, there is more where that came from!"
Gurey then immediately left, leaving Zorian alone with the mysterious journal/thing. Curious, he opened the book at the beginning so he could see if it perhaps had a title written on the first page. The first few pages were blank, but he did reach the title page in the end.
'Breaking and bypassing wards and other magical defenses,' it said. 'By Aldwin Rofoltin.'
Rofoltin? That would be Gurey's deceased business partner, wouldn't it? Intrigued, Zorian sat down on the edge of his bed and began to read.
✦ ✧ ✦
Having read through Rofoltin's book, Zorian had to admit he was feeling a little… underwhelmed? It wasn't a bad book by any means, but by the way Gurey had presented it, he'd expected more. As it was, the most useful thing he found inside was the step-by-step instruction of how to build your very own magic-analysis goggles, complete with a spell formula blueprint. That was convenient, as he had been meaning to build one of those for a while now and there were no publically available creation manuals on the topic that he could find – the spell formula blueprint alone probably saved him a restart-worth of work.
Other than that, there was little of real use in there… but perhaps that was what Gurey had been aiming for. It was a sample, as he said, meant to entice Zorian into cooperation by alluding to the possibility of granting Zorian access to the rest of Rofoltin's books. If Gurey's old partner had 5 other books like that, and each one had just one useful thing like the goggle thing, that was a couple of months of saved time right there. And if Gurey was keeping the good stuff for the end like Zorian suspected… tempting. Far more tempting than he'd thought this would be.
Shaking his head at his own greed, he locked his room behind him and set off in the direction of Gurey's shop. He would have to check with the man what exactly he expected of him, but… chances were he was going to say yes. In truth, this sort of thing wasn't that far off from what he had been planning to do on his own at some point. Chances were that he was going to have to learn how to break into people's homes and spy on mages sooner or later – gathering information about the time loop, Red Robe and soul magic was bound to require it at some point. At least this way he would get some guidance from someone who'd done it before, get a chance to practice his skills on what was probably a far less difficult target, and get paid for it to boot.
Realizing he was in no hurry to actually confront Gurey, Zorian eventually slowed down and decided to take the scenic route to the place. He idly observed the people and buildings as he wondered the town, suddenly aware that he knew very little about the place, despite living in it for a while now. He had been so busy with other things that actually exploring Knyazov Dveri sort of slipped his mind. He didn't even peruse the town's Dungeon
access, though that one was intentional – he had decided to hold back on doing that until he had a chance to judge how much of his time and attention his other tasks in this restart would take, and ultimately decided to leave that for some other restart. The Dungeon wasn't going anywhere. In any case, now that he had taken the time to explore the town a little, he could say with some certainty that he hadn't missed much. He had already visited most of the shops to determine what the best price for the ingredients he was gathering was, and aside from that the town was fairly average. It was similar to Cyoria in the sense that it was clearly a city that had experienced rapid growth in recent times – the old core of the city was easily recognizable by the single-story buildings painted in the traditional yellow color that usually signified Eldemar's native architecture, while subsequent layers radiating from it had newer, multi-story buildings. Other than that, he hadn't noticed anything particularly noteworthy, though he would have to set aside some days for exploration just to be certain.
Finally, he reached the building that proudly proclaimed it housed a business establishment known as Cwili and Rofoltin Equipment and walked inside. The little bell attached to the door rang out as Zorian entered, notifying Gurey of his arrival – a solution surprisingly devoid of magic, for a magic store – and the portly man soon poked his head from the back room he was currently in to see what he was dealing with. His eyes lit up immediately when he recognized Zorian.
"I'll be with you in a second!" the man yelled before getting back to whatever he was working on in the back. Zorian took the chance to study the shop a bit while he waited.
Just like the first time he had been here, he was once again struck by how diverse the products sold by Gurey's store were: he offered everything from wilderness-appropriate attire, various magic items, potions, survival guides, dried herbs and other magical materials used by alchemists and artificers, and so on. And actually, it was even more impressive than it first appeared – Zorian knew from his previous talks with the man that Gurey actually offered a great deal more than what was displayed at the shelves of his store, so long as the costumer seeking them was properly vouched for or knew how to ask the right questions.