Mother of Learning 2 - Outside World

by nobody103

  "You realize what this means, right?" Kael asked him. It was apparently a rhetorical question because Kael immediately answered it himself. "Every one of those times you died during the invasion, your soul was likely sucked into that thing along with everyone else's."

  "Yeah, so?" asked Zorian. "The time loop mechanism clearly doesn't care about that. It just plucks my soul out of the pillar and goes on to do its thing like usual."

  Though now that Zorian thought about it, that in itself might be a clue as to how the time loop really functioned. It could be that the time loop mechanism was just so powerful that it could casually extract his soul out of a giant soul prison that probably had a million safeguards against someone doing that very thing… but it could also be that the way it all worked just sort of sidestepped the problem. If the time loop really destroyed everything whenever it rolled back time, it might not really matter where his soul ended up in the end, so long as it's still intact.

  "Yes, and the collection process is apparently sufficiently benign that you have suffered no soul damage from being exposed to it multiple times," Kael said. "That's good to know, at least. It definitely puts some of my fears to rest. But Zorian, I… I'm honestly not sure how much I can help you with this. When you really get down to it, I'm really just a dabbler in soul magic, and Sudomir is clearly an expert at the field. He has also delved deep into areas of soul magic that I wouldn't have even touched, so even if I were an expert I might not have been of any help. I'll see what I can find out in the next couple of days, but in all likelihood you're going to have to find someone else to help you deal with Sudomir."

  "I don't suppose you have any recommendations?" Zorian tried.

  "I already gave you a list of people I know who dabbled in soul magic and, well, Sudomir already got most of them," Kael shook his head sadly. "Sorry. Maybe try that warrior priest that Lukav is friends with? He clearly has considerable experience with soul magic and he sounds like he could help. In fact, the priesthood in general might be your best bet. They regularly go after people like Sudomir, and have both the qualified experts and the experience necessary for something like this. I'm pretty sure they won't just dismiss your claims out of hand. They take reports of necromancy very seriously, and your accusations should be easy to prove – just teleport someone in the vicinity of Iasku Mansion and let them see the evidence themselves."

  "That's an interesting idea. I might actually try that in the next restart, if you really end up being unable to help me in any way," Zorian said. "Though I'm worried about that escalating into something huge and attracting Red Robe's attention. Sudomir is connected to the invasion pretty tightly, I don't think the Ibasans would stay secret for long if Iasku Mansion came under attack like that."

  "Honestly, that might actually be a good thing," Kael speculated. "Red Robe thinks you are part of an army of time travelers out to get him, right? If so, it might actually be suspicious if you don't periodically do something big like that."

  "Well, maybe," Zorian said. "But it's still a huge hint to Red Robe, telling him where to look to find out more about his opposition. I feel it's too dangerous to expose myself to danger like that."

  After a while, they ran out of ideas to bounce back between each other and uncomfortable silence descended between them. Kael's inability to help much against Sudomir clearly kept eating away at him, gradually worsening his mood, and Zorian didn't know what to say to cheer him up. He doubted Kael even wanted to be cheered up. Eventually, Kael decided to simply cut their expedition short and asked Zorian to teleport them back home.

  The gathering trip was over.

  ✦ ✧ ✦

  Monday came, and with it his meeting with Xvim. Xvim had never told Zorian when exactly he should drop for their talk, so Zorian decided to come see him once his classes were over and he had no other obligations. Xvim, as it turned out, had other ideas. The man ended up causing a small stir by barging into Zorian's first class of the day to pick him up, evidently impatient to talk to him. He had no idea whether this was a good or bad thing, and Xvim refused to discuss anything until they were safely seated inside his office.

  "So," Zorian asked. "What's your final verdict?"

  Instead of answering, Xvim took out a palm-sized stone orb out of his drawer and handed it to Zorian.

  "Channel some mana into this orb," Xvim told him.

  The moment Zorian did so, the stone sphere lit up in a soft yellow glow. That was very familiar to Zorian. It reminded him of those basic training orbs they were given during their first year at the academy – the ones that helped students learn how to reliably channel their mana into the target. What was the point of making him do something like that again?

  Wait…

  "Is this thing testing my mana signature?" Zorian asked curiously.

  "Yes," Xvim confirmed. "Everyone's personal mana is unique. You can hide or change your mana signature, but you cannot mimic someone else's to the best of my knowledge. The most you could do is trick the orb into giving a false positive, but I'd be able to tell if you were tampering with it in that fashion. It seems you really are who you claim you are, mister Kazinski. I expected as much, but it would be sloppy not to check."

  "First it was a lock keyed in to my mana signature, and now this. How exactly did the academy acquire my mana signature? I don't remember giving it at any point," said Zorian, handing the orb back to Xvim.

  "Every time you used one of these training orbs during your first year," said Xvim, waving the stone orb in front of Zorian's face, "you were effectively giving the academy your mana signature. It was just a matter of locking the orb down to preserve it for future use."

  "And that's legal?" Zorian frowned.

  Xvim nodded. "Required by law, even. The government likes to have everyone's mana signatures on hand for investigations. It greatly simplifies a lot of identity disputes and the like."

  "Right," Zorian sighed. "So now that we've established I'm indeed Zorian Kazinski…"

  "Yes, the 'time loop' problem," Xvim said, putting the orb back into his drawer. "I assume you are aware of the prevalent opinion regarding time travel?"

  Zorian nodded.

  "They say it's impossible," he said. "I know. But that's theory-"

  "And a lot of failed experiments," Xvim interjected.

  "-and my personal experiences say otherwise," continued Zorian, ignoring Xvim's interjection. "Whatever 'prevalent opinion' says, I can clearly see that time travel is possible. It's just a question of whether I've convinced you I'm telling the truth or not."

  "You've convinced me there is something to your story, at least," Xvim said. "But I'm afraid I'm going to need more convincing before I actually accept the idea of a time loop. Do you think you could clarify some things for me?"

  The next hour and a half consisted of Xvim questioning Zorian about the rules that governed the time loop and the events surrounding it. The questioning was detailed enough that Xvim probably realized Zorian was hiding some things from him, but the man never called him out on this. He also never wrote anything down, simply staring at Zorian and listening to his explanations in silence. It was honestly all a little unnerving.

  "The material world has been cut off from the spiritual realms?" Xvim asked, raising an eyebrow at him. "And you didn't feel this merited an inclusion in that list of things you gave me at the end of our Friday meeting?"

  "Well, what would that prove?" Zorian defended himself. "Nothing about that says specifically 'time travel'."

  "No, but it helps ameliorate one of the major issues that has been bothering me about this scenario," Xvim said, staring at him. "Namely, the incredible scale of the event you're describing. You've described the time loop as a cosmic phenomenon – it doesn't just wrench your soul into the past, it literally rolls back time for everything except you and your fellow time travelers. That's an implausible claim. The universe is very big and magic as we understand it has sharp limitations. But if the time loop had to cut off the material r
ealm from the spiritual sphere to do its work, then that means it is somehow limited in scope, and that makes the whole thing a lot more believable to me. Did you speak to an astronomer to see if there were any irregularities in the stars and planetary orbits?"

  "No," Zorian frowned. "Why do you think there would be irregularities?"

  "Because any responsible spell designer tries to minimize the costs of the spell, regardless of how much mana he has on his disposal," Xvim told him. "If I was in charge of building a spell that does what you describe, I wouldn't have bothered extending the effect beyond what I absolutely had to. Why burn resources unnecessarily? No one has ever set foot on the other planets, much less the distant stars. You could simply replace the heavens with an illusionary screen and be done with it. Most people would never know the difference."

  "But astronomers might," Zorian guessed.

  "Yes. Especially if the spell originates from the time of the first Ikosian emperor like you said it might. There were no telescopes back then, and even professional starwatchers relied on their eyes to note the changes in the heavens. An illusion good enough to fool them might not be enough to do the same today," Xvim said.

  "I guess it's worth a try," Zorian said dubiously. "Though I'm honestly kind of skeptical that will go anywhere. I'm pretty sure you can't just isolate our planet from the rest of the celestial bodies without breaking everything horribly and killing us all in the process."

  "There has to be a limit somewhere," Xvim said. "I'll talk to the couple of astronomers I know and see what they tell me. In the meantime, make a note somewhere to include the spirit world severance factoid in your list the next time you try to convince me that the time loop is real. It should do wonders for your credibility. Also, make sure to sign the list with this."

  Xvim took out a slip of paper from his pocket and handed it to him. Written on it in neat, perfect writing was a long string of letters and numbers. The whole thing was completely random and nonsensical as far as Zorian could tell.

  "Some kind of coded message?" Zorian mused out loud.

  "Something similar. I've made a lot of contingencies over the years, including ones for when I expect to have my memories edited against my will and want to send messages to my future self," Xvim said, surprising Zorian. That was… quite paranoid. And also a good idea – he should probably make his own version of that. "You will have to memorize the whole thing perfectly for this to work – if even a single number or letter is out of place, the whole thing is ruined."

  Zorian took several seconds to commit the code to his memory and then immediately created a memory packet around it, permanently preserving it for flawless recall in the future.

  "Done," he said, handing the slip of paper back to Xvim. "What now?"

  Based on the various adventure novels Zorian had read as a child, he kind of expected Xvim to promptly burn the paper slip in his hand to prevent it from coming into the wrong hands. But no, Xvim just put it back into his pocket and gave Zorian a searching look. Disappointing.

  "That, mister Kazinski, is something that I should be asking you," Xvim said. "I was originally worried that you might be an imposter and that you might have been editing my memories. Regardless of whether or not you really are a time traveler, you have effectively put those fears to rest. Truthfully, I have no right to demand anything more from you. What now, indeed."

  "Well, you are technically my mentor and you're supposed to advise me about how to develop my magic," Zorian tried, hoping that Xvim would actually do his job properly for once. He was curious how Xvim's teaching looked like when he was not putting his charges through some messed up dedication test.

  "Unfortunately, this is probably not the best time for that. I would need to thoroughly test your skills to see how I can best help you, and I've kept you away from your morning classes for too long as it is," said Xvim. "I should have something ready for you when we meet again on Friday."

  "Not another batch of shaping exercises, I hope?" Zorian couldn't help but asking.

  "No," Xvim said, smiling slightly at the question. "While I definitely intend to correct any obvious deficiencies in your magic base and raise your shaping skills to acceptable levels, I'm actually thinking of advancing your dimensionalism studies as far as they can go. That is, after all, the magical field that deals with things like time manipulation, which makes it uniquely relevant to your situation. It is a hard and demanding field of study, but if you could endure several years of my trials and keep coming, you doubtlessly have the required patience to succeed at it."

  Huh. That actually sounded kind of nice. The first part sounded a little ominous, but he would reserve judgment until he actually saw what that entailed in practice. He didn't actually mind the idea of being taught some shaping exercises, so long as Xvim didn't resort to the same frustrating grind that he had employed in the past, and actually explained to Zorian how he was supposed to go about performing the exercise.

  At any case, the meeting was very much finished at this point, so Zorian said his goodbyes and left Xvim's office.

  It was probably the first time he had ever left that place feeling better than he had when he entered it.

  ✦ ✧ ✦

  Over the next few days, the aftereffect of Zorian's failed campaign against the Burning Apex web gradually faded away, leaving him completely healed. Kael was still poring over his necromancy books and tinkering with some kind of spell item he was building, and refused to talk to Zorian about Sudomir. He claimed he was pursuing a lead and that he that he would discuss things with him when he was ready. Zorian had a feeling that Kael was a little annoyed with him over his handling of the soul trap reveal, but he really couldn't think of what he could have done so much better. Maybe Kael didn't like that Zorian had waited so long to break the news to him? On the other hand, Taiven had reacted much better when he had told her about the time loop this time. She was a lot more receptive to the idea if he didn't wait for her to have a breakdown before telling her.

  All in all, the recovery period was a bit boring and Zorian found himself searching for something to pass the time with. Just for fun, he recreated Kirielle's drawings that he had stored in his mind and showed them to her. She frowned a lot while inspecting them, especially at the ones that clearly depicted the interior of Imaya's house and its inhabitants, but she did not seem willing to claim them as her own work. Instead, she criticized the technique of whoever drew them and suggested improvement, which amused him. She then asked him where he got them, and was annoyed at him when he insisted that he conjured them fully formed out of his head, which was also amusing.

  Somehow, the resulting argument led to Kirielle giving him an impromptu drawing lesson and Zorian was bored enough at the time to go along with it. According to Kirielle, he was actually decent at drawing, which surprised him. She even claimed he could get as good as she was if he was willing to work on it. Considering how swamped with everything he always was, he doubted he would ever find the time for something like that. Then again, perhaps he could use an actual hobby…

  It was during one of those slow days that Zorian went to the academy library in search of a book that talked about Eldemar's internal politics. Partly because he couldn't shake off the feeling that Sudomir's offhand comment about how he was working with the invaders because of 'politics' wasn't completely false, and partly because his recent musings about House Reid made him realize just how rudimentary his knowledge about Eldemar's power structures really was. He doubted he would really find an answer as to what Sudomir was referring to, but it probably wouldn't hurt to educate himself a little on the issue.

  In theory, Eldemar's internal situation was relatively simple. The country was a monarchy, with the power of the Crown kept in check by a Council of Elders – a gathering of nobles that were ostensibly supposed to advise the monarch and help them govern the country efficiently. The seats were hereditary, each held by a different Noble House. That was why they were 'Noble' – they had a seat on the
Council of Elders, and were thus involved in the direct governing of the country. A regular House, while usually afforded a fair amount of special privileges and autonomy, did not have a say in how the country as a whole was run.

  Of course, reality was far more convoluted than that. The Crown and the Council of Elders clashed all the time, the Houses routinely overstepped their bounds if they thought they could get away with it, organizations like the Mage Guild and the Holy Triumvirate Church wielded considerable influence of their own and powerful independent actors tried to play all sides for their own benefit. And that was not even getting into the issue of semi-autonomous entities like the shifter tribes or the Free Port of Luja.

  Basically, the matter was complicated and Zorian's initiative didn't accomplish all that much. He was just about to give up and go home when he stumbled upon Tinami. Or rather, she stumbled upon him – he was stationary, with his back turned to her, and the only reason he knew she was there was that he could recognize her mind through long exposure to her during previous restarts. He was content to ignore her at first, pretending he didn't know she was there… but since she was sufficiently curious to look over his shoulder to see what he was reading, he decided to say hello in the end.

  "Hello, Tinami," he said, not bothering to turn around. She immediately jerked back in surprise at the words. Ha. Surprise successful. Taking care to wipe the smile off his face, Zorian turned around to face the girl. It was only polite to look at someone when you were talking to them, after all. "Is there something I can help you with?"