by nobody103
He burst into laughter, like he'd just heard a very amusing joke.
Was it just Zorian or did Sudomir sound just a little bit unhinged this time?
"My dear, foolish, uninvited guest… you have no idea what you have stumbled upon here, do you? Look around you!" said Sudomir, making a sweeping gesture with his hands to indicate at the room they were standing in. "Do you really think this place is just a simple soul storage device? No, no, my friend – what you are looking at is a veritable well of souls containing thousands of spiritual essences, and with enough room for a million more!"
"A million souls?" Zorian asked incredulously. "Come on now, Sudomir… how would you even gather that many souls in a timely manner?"
"Cyoria has almost half a million people," Sudomir said, shrugging lightly. "If the attack on Cyoria goes as planned, most of them are going to die tonight. They will then go here to join the ones I've already gathered."
He knocked on the crystal pillar lightly for emphasis.
"What?" asked Zorian, a horrifying realization dawning on him.
"Oh yes… This place?" began Sudomir, spinning in place with his hands outstretched. "This is the equivalent of an antlion pit for souls. Everyone who dies in the vicinity of Iasku Mansion has their soul drawn here and trapped in the well. Normally, that doesn't mean much, since we're in the middle of nowhere. But now…"
"The gate," Zorian said. "It allows you to extend your soul trap over the city while the Ibasans go about killing people. That's why you haven't closed the gate, even after you realized you were under attack."
"Every moment that the gate spends closed is a moment during which souls are not flowing into the well," Sudomir said. "And, you see, there were no more attackers pouring in by the time I noticed the intrusion. Only you two… or perhaps just one? I can't see a soul on you. You didn't react at all when I flooded the corridor with breath-stealer gas, either. Not to mention how suspiciously passive the mage next to the gate is. You're some kind of fancy projection, aren't you?"
Before Zorian could say anything, Sudomir started laughing again, loudly and hysterically, his hands twitching and clenching in disturbing manner. Zorian was pretty sure at this point that there was something very wrong with Sudomir. He had triggered some pretty radical change in the necromancer with his successful invasion. The laughter, the twitching, the unusual candidness of his responses… Sudomir looked almost drugged. Did he panic in the face of the crisis and take some ill-advised enhancement potion? Or maybe perform some spell with severe side-effects? Whatever the answer, Sudomir was steadily becoming more unstable as the conversation progressed and Zorian didn't think he would get much more out of him.
"Why? Why!?" Sudomir screamed suddenly, instantly transitioning from laughter to overdramatic despair. His skin writhed like snakes were swimming through his flesh and his eyes began to shine with a soft blue glow. Yup, he'd definitely panicked and done something stupid. "Why did you come here!? Everything was going so well, so perfectly! All those years of planning, all the sacrifices I made… I won't let you take it all away from me! I won't, I won't, I won't, I won't!"
Zorian ordered his golems to attack the man, but he had made his move far too late. Before the golems could reach him, Sudomir's body rapidly expanded and twisted, transforming into a huge humanoid monster. It was green, vaguely reptilian and had small, vestigial wings growing out of its back – like a cross between a troll and dragon.
The golems he'd ordered to attack Sudomir kept charging at their target, undaunted by the transformation, but the creature was stronger and more agile than Zorian's creations. It probably was part-troll, too, because it definitely regenerated like one when wounded. It did not take long for the smaller golems to be reduced to scrap, and the big golem wasn't doing so well either.
Zorian was just about to hit it with every spell item he had left when he found out that the troll-dragon thing could breathe fire too. The poor golem he was following didn't last a second under the heat before failing.
The big golem disappeared from his control less than a minute later. Knowing that he had no chance against this transformed, berserk version of Sudomir, Zorian stepped back into the Ibasan base on the other side of the dimensional gate and then tried to analyze the gate to see how it worked.
Predictably, the gate soon detected his tampering and shut itself down. Of course. He kind of figured that would happen. Well, at least that way Sudomir couldn't get to him, and he'd also located one of the traps Quatach-Ichl had placed on the gate to prevent tampering with it. It would take a fair number of restarts, but he felt he could locate and dismantle the protection on the gate with a bit of trial and error.
He didn't have much time to consider things, though, because Quatach-Ichl showed up not soon after the gate closed to see what was happening. Zorian activated his restart switch rather than confront him.
✦ ✧ ✦
At the start of the next restart, once he had a chance to calm down and think about things, Zorian decided that Sudomir had to be dealt with somehow. Originally he'd gone after the man because he had seemed like an easier target than the Ibasan leaders and probably knew a lot of their sensitive secrets, but the revelation about his soul gathering operation really disturbed Zorian. He had no idea what one would need hundreds of thousands of souls for, but it couldn't possibly be good. Politics, he'd said. Hmph.
Still, this soul trap of his… it should be very obvious to someone who knew what to look for. Large-scale magic like that couldn't be hidden easily. Was that why Sudomir had gotten rid of every soul mage in the region? So they couldn't stumble upon his twisted masterpiece and report him to the government? If so, then dealing with Sudomir might simply be a matter of reporting the man to central authorities and having them deal with everything.
He didn't need this kind of distraction at the moment, though – the matriarch's memory package was steadily degrading and he was running out of time. Thus, for the next two restarts he continued doing what he had been doing thus far: visiting aranean webs in order to learn more about memory packets and the aranean mind. He still made two gate assaults at the end of each restart, but he no longer tried to access the soul well in the center of the mansion. He didn't see the point – he completely lacked the expertise to make sense of that thing, so he doubted he would learn anything from studying it. Instead, he simply explored the rest of the mansion, building a map of the place and trying to see if there was anything else interesting about it. He didn't find much, though. Certainly nothing that could compare with the soul trap in the central room.
He also tried to make sense of the teardrop pendants the Ibasans wore around their necks, also without much luck. Analyzing them did not bring down Quatach-Ichl's wrath on him like he had feared, but there was nothing there to indicate he was holding a functional keystone. The only thing he could think of was that the material itself was perhaps the key. Zorian couldn't identify it, and it was totally indestructible to casual efforts. It kind of reminded him of Quatach-Ichl's skeleton, which was also black in color and incredibly resistant to damage.
Although the Luminous Advocates remained his primary aranean teachers in these two restarts, he also checked out the eight webs he was referred to by the Silent Doorway Adepts. Sadly, only three of those were in any way useful to him: The Mind Temple, Perfect Phantasm Crafters and Adherents of Contemplation. Zorian chose to learn from the Mind Temple in the first restart and the Perfect Phantasm Crafters in the second one. The Adherents of Contemplation were too fond of riddles and non-answers for his taste.
The Mind Temple were all about memory, though more focused on honing and organizing their own memories than reading and modifying other people's ones. Still, they had quite a lot of expertise when it came to memory packets, even if what they taught him was centered more about him making his own memory packets than repairing foreign ones. His skills at making memory packets were good enough by now that he would never really forget anything he specifically tried to reme
mber. If nothing else, that should drastically reduce the number of notebooks he had to write and store at the end of each restart – the alteration method was still useful for transferring other people's notes across the restart, such as Kael's research, but most of his own needs were now better served by directly organizing his memories with mind magic.
The Perfect Phantasm Crafters had a very indicative name. They specialized in making illusions – ones made out of real sound and light, as well as simple tricks of the mind. They couldn't really help him with his memory package problem, but Zorian would also have to actually interpret the information inside the package once he opened it, and Perfect Phantasm Crafters knew a lot about the difference between human and aranean minds. They had to, if they wanted their illusions to work on humans.
However, as helpful as the Perfect Phantasm Crafters were in that regard, there was ultimately only one thing that consistently helped him to understand aranean thoughts – beating up aranea unconscious and forcibly rooting through their minds. Even getting Lukav to make him an aranea transformation potion and assuming their shape for a few hours hadn't helped him as much.
At the end of the second restart, he tried repairing the matriarch's memory package again. It was the last time he would be able to extend the deadline, and he was hoping to get four or five extra months before he had to open it.
Instead, he got three.
Damn it.
✦ ✧ ✦
Though he had only three more months until he had to open the matriarch's memory packet, Zorian decided to stop seeking lessons from the aranea and simply go back to Cyoria, taking Kirielle with him as usual. There was no point in seeking the lessons at the moment, since he could no longer repair the packet and the only thing that could really improve his ability to understand it was attacking aranea and reading their minds. He didn't need to set aside an entire restart to do that. Besides, he wanted to ask Kael about his opinion of Sudomir and his operations, since the morlock was the only friendly necromancer that Zorian knew.
He didn't tell Kael about Sudomir and his soul trap immediately, though – that was bound to be rather upsetting to the boy, considering that a lot of Kael's friends and acquaintances were killed by Sudomir and probably ended up in that soul well of his. Not really the best topic to broach just after you told someone all about the time loop and the Ibasan invasion that was going to hit the city in less than a month. He would let Kael browse through his notebooks in peace for now and broach the subject later.
Unfortunately, coming back to Cyoria meant that he had to suffer through Xvim's stupid exercise sessions again. Levitate these marbles, make them glow different colors, assemble them into different shapes… so boring. Wait, fuse two marbles together? What? Xvim usually didn't give him any alteration-based shaping exercises during these sessions. But no matter, he had already tried that shaping exercise on his own, so it was still trivial to perform it.
Xvim frowned at him. Should he be worried or celebrate that he induced that kind of reaction out of the usually imperturbable man?
Worried, it turned out. Xvim's demands immediately became atypical following that. Zorian was told to levitate water, to freeze it solid, to make a perfect cube out of ice and then quickly cut it in half without shattering it, to reshape a coin, to burn images into wooden panels, to make a coin spin, to shape candlewax, to hold his hand over a candle flame without getting burnt, to make dice fall on one specific side Xvim called out, to repair a damaged watch, to wilt a flower, to teleport a snail…
Quite a few exercises were utterly beyond Zorian, especially the latter ones. Others he could do, but not with the surety that he knew Xvim demanded of his charges. And yet, Xvim did not triumphantly stop once he'd found something that Zorian was incapable of and then told him to practice that until he got it right. Instead he just moved onto something else, apparently just testing him to see where his limits were.
"Tell me honestly," Xvim said. "Are you truly Zorian Kazinski?"
"Yes?" Zorian said, baffled. "Why would you ask that?"
"You are too good," Xvim told him bluntly.
What? Now he decided he was too good at this? Bizarre. What did he do to perturb Xvim so much? He couldn't really remember doing anything more impressive than usual.
"I'll take that as a compliment," Zorian said. "I am definitely Zorian Kazinski, though, no doubt about it."
"Then how do you explain your shaping skills?" Xvim asked. "They are completely implausible for your age and known background. No matter how talented you may be, your shaping skills are just too… thorough… to be anything but a product of years of practice."
"I started early," Zorian tried.
Xvim gave him an unamused look.
"I'm going to be perfectly honest with you, mister Kazinski," Xvim said with a sigh. "I know it was me who taught you those shaping skills you are currently displaying. Not all of them, but definitely the ones that you have learned properly. Not only do you display some tells that I don't think anyone other than me would have taught you, but you also seem to know me well enough to anticipate my requests before I even speak them."
Oops. He hadn't even realized he'd been doing that.
"The thing is, mister Kazinski," said Xvim, leaning forward and fixing him with a small glare, "I don't remember ever teaching you. And I assure you that I have very good memory. I would like an explanation, if you don't mind."
Zorian was silent for nearly a minute, thinking of how to answer that. He could just play dumb, but he had a feeling that Xvim wouldn't let this go and the most likely explanation for the confusion was that Zorian had used mind magic on Xvim in the past. Considering that he was, in fact, a highly capable mind mage, and that this would be hard to hide under determined scrutiny, it was in his best interest not to let things degenerate into actual legal investigation.
He could just hit the restart switch and start over, but… that felt a little excessive at this point. He could always do that later if the situation continued to deteriorate. Plus, activating the switch so early in the restart might bring unwanted attention from Zach and Red Robe.
Would it be so bad if he told Xvim the truth? The man knew how to protect his mind, and probably wouldn't go around telling everyone who would listen that his student claimed he was a time traveler. As much as Xvim annoyed him, he was a capable adult mage that clearly knew a lot about limitations of magic and how to go about developing it. He could be quite useful if he could convince him he was telling the truth.
"I'm waiting, mister Kazinski," Xvim said.
"Alright," Zorian relented. "The truth is that we're all trapped in a time loop of sorts. The whole month leading up to the summer festival repeats itself endlessly, but most people forget everything that happened when time resets itself. But some people remember, and I am one of them…"
Xvim listened to Zorian's story in silence, neither asking questions nor professing disbelief. Zorian didn't tell the man everything, of course – he said nothing about the invasion that happened at the end of the restart, for instance, and he kept information about himself and his abilities to a minimum. Definitely not telling the man who suspected him of messing with his mind that he was more than capable of doing just that!
Eventually, Zorian's explanation wound down and silence descended upon the room. Xvim seemed to be lost in thought for the moment and Zorian was content to wait for the man's reaction.
"So," Xvim said eventually. "You are saying that we have been having these practice sessions for several years now, except that I forget all about them every few weeks."
"Yes," Zorian confirmed.
"That must have been a miserable experience for you, then," Xvim observed candidly.
"Err…" Zorian fumbled, unsure how to respond to that.
"I am still not sure whether to believe you about all this," Xvim said. "It seems quite unbelievable. However, assuming you are indeed telling the truth, I feel compelled to apologize for the actions of my… previous selves
. You see, I make it a point to be very demanding with my charges for the first month or two of our mentorship."
What?
"What?" Zorian asked incredulously, scarcely believing what he was hearing.
"It builds character and weeds out the unfit," said Xvim, giving him an unrepentant shrug. "Moreover, most of the students being sent my way need to be humbled somewhat, for their own good. Unfortunately, a 'time loop' does not play well with such ploys. I wouldn't have put you through several years of that kind of treatment if I had any control over the situation."
Zorian was torn between wanting to laugh and slugging the man in the face. He subjected every student for up to two months of being an utter jerk as a test of character? That was so stupid! How could he possibly think that was a reasonable thing to do?
"I cannot possibly put into words how much I want to hit you right now," he told Xvim seriously.
"We'll talk about expanding your vocabulary later," Xvim told him dismissively, before depositing a pen and a piece of paper in front of him. "For now, please list a few things I can check to confirm your story."
Shooting Xvim one last glare, Zorian picked up the pen and started writing. This was going to be one long restart, he could already tell.
Chapter 49
Substitution
Time travel was a hard thing to prove. It was 'known' to be impossible among mages, and proof to the contrary usually boiled down to possession of impossible knowledge and skills. Unfortunately, that often simply wasn't convincing enough. There existed a nigh-infinite number of ways to gather information with magic, none of which required time travel, and impossible skills could just as easily mean you were not who you claimed you were. There was little that Zorian could tell Xvim that couldn't be explained with something more mundane than time travel.
Still. While Zorian had no idea whether Xvim was actually going to accept his story, he was confident that the information he'd written down on the sheet of paper in front of him would at least give the man some pause. The restarts varied greatly in how they developed, but some things always remained the same, which meant that Zorian could give Xvim a multitude of small predictions about the upcoming days. Things like what was going to be written in the newspapers, what magical stores would announce special sales in preparation for the summer festival and what students would end up leaving the academy because of the monster incursions. It helped that it had been less than a week since the restart had begun, so events didn't have the time to diverge too much yet.