by nobody103
Individually, each of the things he'd written were easy to explain. When taken as a whole? He would have to be the best damn spy in the whole city to acquire that kind of information, and it still wouldn't explain how he'd known about some of the more sudden events on the list.
He handed the list to Xvim, who quickly scanned it and then pocketed it with a silent nod. He told Zorian that he would try to verify his claims over the weekend and that Zorian should visit him again on Monday.
And that was that. A decent outcome, all things considered. Zorian halfway expected Xvim to criticize his penmanship and tell him to start over and write properly this time around. He bid Xvim goodbye and left.
He was in the process of walking back home, idly trying to think of a good way to broach the topic of Sudomir's soul well to Kael, when he spotted a green-haired girl waving at him in the distance. Surprised and distracted as he was, it took him several seconds to realize who he was looking at, even though green hair was pretty damn rare and therefore a huge giveaway. It was Kopriva Reid, one of his classmates.
He waved back uncertainly, wondering what that was about. It was common courtesy to greet your classmates when you meet them outside the academy, of course, but this wasn't the first time Zorian had encountered Kopriva outside the academy and she had never reacted like this in the past. She'd give him a nod if they passed each other by or say hello if he did it first, but never try to attract his attention like she just had. Which made sense, really. She was almost a total stranger to him, just like most of his classmates. So why was she…
Oh. Nevermind, he was going to find out what she wanted soon enough. She was crossing the street and making a beeline towards him.
Zorian studied her as she approached, trying to see if he was in some kind of trouble. He felt no hostility or apprehension emanating from her, so probably not, but Kopriva always kind of intimidated him. Less so since he got stuck in the time loop – before he used to actively avoid her whenever possible – but even in his current situation he'd rather not tangle with someone from House Reid. He was still vulnerable to being drugged senseless, and that was kind of their specialty.
He clearly wasn't the only one who found her intimidating, either. She was a tall, shapely girl – something Zorian could attest to at the moment, what with her getting ever closer to his position – but very few people had tried to court her over the years. Even Benisek refrained from making a pass on her, which was pretty damn amazing. Zorian was pretty sure that Akoja was the only other girl in their class who Benisek had never tried to flirt with.
"Zorian, you can't believe how glad I am to see you here," she said once she'd finally gotten close enough. He raised his eyebrows at the statement. "You live together with Kael, right?"
"Yes," he confirmed, curious what that had to do with anything.
"Good. I agreed to meet with him about a business deal today and he gave me the directions to this 'Imaya's place' where you two live, but… I seem to be misremembering something because I can't find it," she said. "Could you give me some directions here?"
"I can do better. I'm on my way there myself, so if you don't mind I can just walk you there," he said.
"Great! I was hoping you would say that," she grinned at him. "Lead the way, then. And don't mention to anyone that I got lost, okay? That was pretty freaking embarrassing, I don't know how I messed up so badly. If Kael asks, we just… met on the way by accident. Kind of true, anyway."
Zorian nodded in acceptance and they both set off towards Imaya's place. He couldn't help but frown at Kopriva slightly, though. Business deal? Was this what he thought it was?
Unfortunately, Kopriva noticed the look and misconstrued its meaning.
"What's that look for?" she asked defensively. "You don't approve of me coming to your place or something?"
"It's not like that," Zorian assured her hurriedly. Man, she was prickly. "It's just that when Kael told me he was going to find someone to buy those 'rare' alchemical ingredients from, I didn't expect this to be the result. I thought he would go to someone… well, older."
When Kael had told Zorian that he had to get ahold of a fair amount of normally restricted alchemical ingredients to continue with his research, Zorian had thought the morlock would go to some shady shop or something, not try to broker a deal with one of their classmates. Then again, Zorian had to admit that that the idea wasn't stupid as such. House Reid, of which Kopriva was a member of, specialized in growing magical plants and processing them into alchemical ingredients. It was also a public secret that they were heavily involved in the sale of drugs and illegal alchemy products in general, and through that maintained deep links with organized crime groups. There was a highly publicized trial against the House a few years back, since several smuggling rings were found to be led by 'exiled' members of the House, but nothing came out of it in the end. House Reid was responsible for a sizeable proportion of Eldemar's herb fields, greenhouses and forest preserves, some of which nobody except House Reid knew how to tend to, so the government wasn't willing to antagonize them too much.
So yes, there was some logic to Kael approaching Kopriva to acquire the needed ingredients, though Zorian was still very surprised it had worked. He would have expected Kopriva to act outraged at the implication that she was engaged in criminal activities, fearing some kind of trick. That's what Zorian would have done in her place. He would have to ask Kael how he had done it later, just in case there was some secret to it that he should know about – he did intend to make use of criminal networks himself in the near future, after all.
"Wait, you're in on that?" she asked, surprised.
"Yeah. We're in a partnership of sorts," Zorian said.
"Huh," she said, giving him a speculative look. "I would have never guessed you were involved in something like this. You just seem so straight-laced, you know? Then again, you're a pretty driven guy, and my grandfather always said that nobody ever got powerful by following the law."
Such sage wisdom from the older generation.
"To tell the truth, I would have never guessed you'd be involved in something like this, either," Zorian said. "I mean, weren't you annoyed when Kael approached you about this? Doesn't it bother you that one of your fellow students automatically assumed you were involved in your family's 'other business' simply because you're part of House Reid?"
She snorted derisively.
"Everyone assumes that anyway," she said. "They're just too polite to say it out loud. At least most of the time. Besides, I made some uncharitable assumptions about him as well. I wouldn't have acknowledged any random offer, you know? If you had been the one to approach me, I would have told you to go to hell. And possibly punched you, if you didn't back off after that. But since Kael is a morlock, I assumed his offer is actually genuine. Morlocks have a reputation of their own, you know…"
Ah. So that's why it had worked so easily.
Kopriva then tried to talk him into telling her what he and Kael needed so much restricted material for and how they had gotten the money to pay for it. Zorian actually answered the first, saying it was for benign medical research (totally true, unless Kael was misleading him) but refused to answer questions about the money. He took the chance to ask her if she was planning on reporting them to someone, reading her surface thoughts to make sure she was telling the truth. She denied that – truthfully, as far as he could tell – and seemed more amused than insulted by the accusation. She didn't really believe they wanted the materials for medical research, though. Zorian didn't bother convincing her he was telling the truth.
After that, the conversation shifted to other, more casual topics. Mostly academy-related, as that was a relatively inoffensive subject, but Kopriva sometimes pried into his private life when she saw a convenient opportunity to do so. It was interesting, as she hadn't been this talkative in the previous restarts when she'd joined his combat magic group.
Eventually they reached their destination, at which point Kopriva met Imay
a. His landlord had either never heard of House Reid or had an even better poker face than Zorian had thought, because she looked positively overjoyed about Kopriva's visit. She insisted that Zorian was rude not to offer Kopriva something to eat and drink before dragging her away to hash out a deal.
"Food before work," Imaya said in a lecturing voice. "That's the rule."
Since Kopriva seemed actually excited at the prospect of eating some homemade cookies, Zorian went along with it. He wasn't in that much of a hurry.
He really shouldn't have been surprised when Kopriva asked Imaya for a glass of beer, or when Imaya gave them both a glass in response. He covertly transmuted the liquid into something non-alcoholic while they weren't looking, but that just made the stuff taste even viler than it usually did, so he may have shot himself in the foot there.
In the end, while the deal was successfully concluded, what was supposed to be a relatively short visit ended up taking most of the afternoon. Kopriva even ended up meeting Kirielle, with whom she got along surprisingly well – he would have to talk to his sister later about what was acceptable for conversation around the green-haired girl, since Kopriva said she would drop by again next week to deliver the materials. He should probably have a talk with Imaya as well, just in case the older woman really had no idea who she was dealing with.
Ultimately, though, Zorian did not worry about the whole thing too much. The deal was largely arranged by Kael, for Kael, with Zorian's role being mainly to pay for it all. As such, he felt it was only proper to let the morlock boy take care of it while Zorian focused on something else.
Gods knew he had too many things vying for his time as it was.
✦ ✧ ✦
Zorian's plan for the weekend consisted of two solid days of aranea fighting and accompanying memory reading to practice for the eventual opening of the matriarch's memory packet. Sadly, the plan didn't survive collision with reality. His first target – the Burning Apex web in the vicinity of Cyoria – turned out to be a rather poor choice for aggression.
They were a martially-inclined web, proficient in both magic and mental combat, and had spent most of their existence in fierce competition with the neighboring webs. The patrol he ambushed seemed like easy targets to him, but they ended up being anything but. They worked together flawlessly, had some sort of mental attack that could partially pass through his mental barriers and had prepared the battlefield beforehand. They ended up maneuvering him into pre-existing explosion trap and detonated a boulder right next to him. He managed to shield himself against the bulk of the blast, but he still ended up with a severely wounded arm and a multitude of minor scrapes. Plus he had a raging headache from when he failed to shield against their telepathic attacks properly.
He activated his recall stone and fled.
The damage was nothing really serious, he later found out, but it would take several days before he was completely healed, even with the healing potions that Kael was supplying him. Since embarking on further campaigns against the aranea while in less than top form struck him as a terrible idea, his plans would have to be delayed. Damn it.
At least Kael was happy. Ever since he had found out that Zorian could teleport all over the country as he pleased, he had been trying to talk Zorian into taking him to the northern wilderness so he could gather herbs, mushrooms and other materials for his research. Zorian had been decidedly against it, considering it too a waste of time… but since his plan was already shot to hell and he couldn't do much at the moment, he figured he would grant Kael's wish just this once.
Accordingly, Sunday found Zorian wandering around the forest with Kael. Zorian had expected his role would be to simply teleport Kael around and protect him from anything that sought to kill them, but Kael was feeling talkative that day and insisted on explaining everything he was doing to Zorian. Every time they encountered one of the plants Kael was looking for, the morlock boy told him why the plant could be found in that particular place, what it was useful for, and how to harvest the plant correctly. All of which was very important information that was not easy to get ahold of – one could not find this sort of thing in most books, as people were reluctant to share this sort of information. It was all too easy to overharvest specific magical plants if too many people were doing it, so there was a tendency among herbalists to guard their secrets tightly and only pass them onto their apprentices. Even so, quite a few magical plants went totally extinct over the centuries due to unchecked exploitation, making potions they were used for impossible to make in modern times.
So yes, it was a good thing to know all this. And yet…
"I still don't see why you wanted to do this so badly," Zorian complained as he used a knife to harvest some sort of river grass. The thing was tricky to harvest correctly, since one had to cut it quickly and in exactly the right place or its alchemical properties would be completely ruined. Not an easy thing to do with one wounded hand. "We could have just bought all of this in a store and saved ourselves so much time. Yes, I know it would have been rather expensive, but I could afford it. Easily. Money is less of a problem for me than time."
"I'm afraid you are wrong," Kael said, shaking his head. The morlock boy was crouching not too far from Zorian, staring at a large boulder like it was the most interesting thing in the world. Zorian felt the urge to ask Kael what the hell was so interesting about that rock, but eventually decided he didn't want to know. "The things we are gathering are very hard to find in a store. They tend to be snapped up by wealthy, influential alchemists who buy them straight from the people who gather them in the wild. They never reach the shelves."
"Really?" Zorian asked, surprised. "Strange. You'd think someone would just start cultivating them if they're in such high demand. You know, like House Reid and so many others are already doing for other useful magical plants."
"Not every plant can be grown in controlled conditions," Kael told him. "Many of them cannot survive outside their natural environment for whatever reason, and that environment is either impossible or uneconomical to mimic artificially. Others will grow just fine, but will lose whatever essence makes them useful if not taken care of in just the right way or exposed to very specific conditions. Some of them can be transplanted into gardens and survive, but will never grow or reproduce afterwards. Some of them grow so slowly that nobody can be actually bothered to wait for them to grow to maturity."
"Okay, I get it," Zorian said, interrupting his lecture. "Magical plants are very hard to domesticate. I actually knew that already but the ones we're gathering just don't seem all that special to me, you know? But if you say otherwise, I will take your word for it. I'm not a botanical expert by any means."
"Neither am I, but I do know a few things about the topic. My adoptive mother insisted I had to know these things if I wanted to be a real alchemist," Kael said, rising to his feet and discarding the clump of moss he had been scrutinizing up until a moment ago. "Are you done with those? Do you need some help?"
"Here," Zorian said, handing Kael the river grass he harvested. "I think I got all of them correctly but you should probably check to make sure."
Kael glanced at the small bundle in Zorian's hands and immediately discarded three of the stalks that Zorian had apparently ruined without realizing it. How Kael could recognize that on first sight, Zorian had no idea.
"We're done here, I think," Kael said, looking around for a second. "I don't think we'll find anything else here without a lot of walking around. Do you think you can teleport us to the next section of the forest now?"
"Sure. My mana reserves were replenished a while ago," Zorian said.
"Let's go then. Deeper into the wilderness this time around. We haven't been attacked by anything truly dangerous the entire day and I want to see if I can find some ghost ivy or moonflowers," Kael said, gesturing northward.
Zorian nodded, unperturbed by the somewhat increased danger. While there were quite a few creatures that could kill them that deep in the forest, he should be
able to notice them in time and teleport them to safety. A minute later they popped over to their new destination and Kael started looking around to assess their surroundings.
"Teleporting is so very convenient," the white-haired boy commented. "I can't wait to learn how to do that. How long do you think it would take me to learn how to teleport like that?"
"I don't know. A year or two?" Zorian speculated. "If you work hard on your shaping skills, that is. As little as a couple of months if you work with me to create a training regimen for you like I'm doing for Taiven."
"Ha. I might take you up on that at some point," he said. "I'm wasting a lot of your time and nerves as it is, though, and I don't want to be greedy."
"You've been a lot of help over the restarts," Zorian assured him. "You've earned some consideration from me, as far as I'm concerned."
"I see," Kael said speculatively. "In that case, I'd like to pester you a little about those disappearances happening around Knyazov Dveri. Many of these people had been my friends and acquaintances, and their fate rests rather heavily on my mind. I know you have been busy in these past few restarts, but did you perhaps look into the matter at some point?"
Well. He hadn't planned on having this talk during this particular outing, but he supposed this was as good a moment as any to tell Kael about Sudomir's soul trap thingy.
"Actually, about that…"
✦ ✧ ✦
Zorian had fully expected Kael to freak out when he heard what Sudomir was doing in his isolated forest mansion, and he was not disappointed in that regard. If anything, Zorian greatly underestimated how furious the morlock boy would be by the end of the story. Kael, in a rather stunning display of recklessness, wanted them to go visit Iasku Mansion immediately so he could inspect Sudomir's soul trap. It took almost an hour for Zorian to convince the other boy that this was a spectacularly bad idea – Zorian was still wounded, Kael was not thinking straight, and neither of them had done any preparations for such an expedition.