by nobody103
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At the end of the session, Zorian was honestly feeling a little overwhelmed by Xvim's program. While the man was less of an asshole in this restart, he was still a very demanding teacher who pulled no punches when he seriously taught people. He had ended up showing Zorian more than twenty exercises aimed at improving his ability to sense mana, both inside and outside of him, and he expected Zorian to work on them for several hours every single day. On top of that, Xvim also showed him several exotic teleportation variants that Zorian was also expected to learn by their next meeting and gave him a deceptively simple shaping exercise related to dimensionalism.
The exercise involved taking a random rock and trying to form a so-called 'dimensional boundary' around it. Apparently, the formation of such a boundary was the first step in just about every piece of magic dealing with time and space – the teleportation spells he loved using so much formed a boundary like that around him every time he used them, and would fail instantly if something prevented the spell from creating it. Like a ward, for instance. Getting better at shaping the boundary could easily improve just about every dimensionalism spell he cared to cast in the future.
The problem was that the dimensional boundary was completely invisible to normal senses, making the exercise really hard to practice. How do you create and shape something you can't see and can only vaguely feel via crude feedback your personal mana gives you? He didn't think he could get a hang of that exercise any time soon.
Of course, if his ability to sense mana – especially his personal mana – was on a higher level, the exercise would have instantly gotten a lot easier. Zorian was pretty sure Xvim had only given him that exercise to drive the point home how important mana sensing was and how much his lack of skill there was holding him back. Ugh.
Days went by quickly. Kael was still working on the Sudomir problem, but Zorian had plenty of things to hold his time, so he left his morlock friend in peace. His attacks on aranea webs were restarted, though this time he was less ambitious and picked a bunch of minor webs instead of a relative juggernaut like the Burning Apex. Accordingly, his attacks went a lot better and his aranea memory reading skills got lots and lots of practice. Since he was already rooting through the memories of defeated araneas, he decided to kill two birds with one stone by searching their minds for interesting mind magic skills. He found nothing really revolutionary, but every minor trick and variation of a known technique he learned from his fallen foes added up to something in the end.
He met with Tinami again, like he agreed to. Like she hinted at in their last meeting, she wanted to ask him for a favor – specifically, she wanted him to give her his family tree. A weird request, but apparently she was collecting that information from all of her classmates for a 'personal project'. His cynical side insisted that this was a code name for 'secret Aope information gathering operation', but who knew really. Maybe she was just really interested in people's lineages in addition to spiders. In any case, Zorian saw no reason not to humor her and promptly cobbled up something for her in his notebook. The execution was a bit lacking, unfortunately, since his knowledge of his family tree was a bit sketchy. Especially on his mother's side, since she hated talking about her witch mother and anything related to her.
Tinami didn't care about how sketchy it was, though. If anything, she seemed to be even more excited about it when she found out Zorian had a witch among his ancestors. Considering the origin of Noble House Aope, he probably shouldn't be surprised about that.
Despite the incident with Kopriva's alchemical supplies, Rea kept coming to Imaya's home and bringing Nochka along with her. If anything, Rea's friendship with Imaya seemed to have only become firmer in the wake of revelations about her shifter nature. Meanwhile, Nochka and Kana were proud owners of their own toy golems – Nochka had asked for her golem to be given a feminine form like Kosjenka's, and named it Rutvica, while Kana was a bit of a surprise in that she wanted her toy golem to look male. And have white hair. Zorian had no idea what she called it, but Kirielle and Nochka seemed to have decided its name was Jaglenac amongst each other.
In other news, Kana seemed to have realized that Zorian had some method of understanding her thoughts, because these days, whenever she wanted to have her desires known, she simply dragged him off from whatever he was doing so he could interpret for her.
And here he'd thought she was a little angel. Turns out he just hadn't had anything she'd wanted up until now.
Finally, as the end of the restart began to approach, Kael finally decided he'd run out of options. He asked Zorian to teleport him in the vicinity of Iasku Mansion so he could try to analyze the soul trap. He didn't think that would accomplish much, but there was little else he could think of.
Zorian agreed, and decided to take Taiven along with them. Mostly because he intended to try to analyze the soul trap himself, from the perspective of a spell formula specialist rather than a soul mage, and he needed someone to defend them against the iron beaks and winter wolves patrolling the wilderness around the place. Taiven had no objections, and even relished the chance to fight something, so they were off.
They only stayed a short while, and Zorian had to break off his analysis to help Taiven defeat the flock of iron beaks that had started to harass them, but it was enough for Kael to decide the whole thing was beyond him.
Kael was very quiet and subdued after that.
The next day he'd made an excuse to drag Zorian out of the house and asked him to teleport them to the north of Knyazov Dveri so he could visit his wife's grave.
"We're here," said Kael, pointing at the small abandoned cottage just ahead of them.
"Finally," Zorian mumbled, breathing heavily. He felt sorry for Kael, he really did, but when Kael said the place was 'not far from the main road', he didn't quite think the morlock boy meant this. An hour-long trek, uphill, along a bumpy, narrow forest path was not what Zorian would describe as 'not far'. Also, how the hell was Kael not affected in the slightest by the journey? The boy didn't look all that fit to him…
Once they reached the cottage, Zorian took a minute to catch some breath and looked around. Kael immediately went to the back of the building to tend to the two simple, earthen graves that stood there.
"Pretty isolated place," Zorian noted, wandering over to help Kael get rid of the grass and weeds that had completely overrun the place. "No offense, but why did you end up burying your wife here, of all places?"
"I didn't have much choice back then," Kael said. "There was only one village in the vicinity, and they're very backwards, superstitious folk. They'd never let a witch and her daughter get buried in their cemetery along with their own dead. And even if I could make them accept it somehow, they'd just vandalize it the moment I wasn't looking."
"Disgusting," Zorian frowned.
"It's fine," Kael said, shaking his head sadly. "This was their home. It somehow feels appropriate for them to be buried here."
"So this other grave…?" began Zorian.
"Fria," said Kael. "My mother-in-law, and also my teacher. She died just before Namira did."
Namira, Zorian learned, was the name of Kael's deceased wife. The crude gravestones (that Kael had presumably made for them) said their last name was Tverinov. Apparently Kael had assumed their family name when he married Namira. That was pretty interesting – it was not unheard of for a husband to take on his wife's name, but it did not happen very often. Usually only civilians who somehow managed to marry into one of the Houses did that.
Then again, maybe it was a witch thing. He knew that one of the reasons his mother and grandmother did not get along was that mother decided to take father's family name instead of the other way around. Considering that mother's choice seemed very conventional in the grand scheme of things, his grandmother's objections had always seemed strange to him.
They both stood there in silence for a while, not saying anything. Finally, after several minutes of comfortable silence, Kael spoke.
> "I'm sorry," Kael said suddenly.
"For what?" Zorian asked curiously.
"I wasted your time," Kael sighed.
"What?" Zorian asked incredulously. "You just wanted to visit your wife's grave, there is nothing wrong with that."
"No, I'm talking about Sudomir and his soul trap," Kael said. "I kept stalling for over two weeks and I have nothing to show for it. I should have given up long ago, but…"
"Ah," said Zorian. He'd kind of figured out that wasn't going anywhere after the first week or so. "That. It's fine, really. Are you sure there is nothing new you can tell me?"
"Nothing," Kael said, shaking his head. He then reached out into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small notebook. He handed it to Zorian. "Here. I wrote down everything relevant I could think of into that notebook. Keep in mind that this is literally just me making wild speculations, though – I have no way to know if anything I wrote there has any basis in reality. "
"Right," said Zorian pocketing it for the moment. There would be time to read it later. "Still, even if it's just speculation, it's clearly not nothing."
"I guess," Kael said. "But I still feel pretty useless."
"Why?" Zorian asked curiously. He had known for a while that Kael was frustrated by his inability to offer help against Sudomir, but he never really understood why Kael felt so deeply about that.
"I don't know," admitted Kael. "Maybe it reminds me of how Fria and Namira contracted the Weeping, and I could do nothing except helplessly watch as they wasted away. Or maybe I'm overthinking things. I heard it's a bad idea to psychoanalyze oneself."
Zorian couldn't help but wince visibly. Kael didn't often refer to his personal tragedy, so sometimes it was hard for Zorian to keep in mind how traumatic these deaths must have been for his morlock friend. He had never lost anyone he personally cared about to the Weeping, but he'd heard that those who fell to the disease suffered horribly before the end.
It was at times like this that Zorian really understood how the specter of that epidemic still hanged over many people's lives. It had only been a handful of years since the Weeping, after all, and many people were still mourning their dead.
"I hope you don't think less of me for asking this," said Zorian. "But how did you end up as a married father at thirteen, anyway?"
Kael burst into laughter.
"What?" he asked, greatly amused. "All these restarts and you never thought to ask me this before?"
"Well, I never seem to find a good opening to-" Zorian fumbled, caught off guard by the rapid change in Kael's demeanor.
"Sometimes, Zorian, you're just too considerate," Kael said, shaking his head with a final chuckle. "I'd have asked by the end of the third restart for sure if I was in your place. And by the way, you're off by two years. I was actually fifteen when I got Kana."
Zorian gave him a strange look.
"I'm older than I look," Kael explained. "I'm two years older than the rest of our class, but Ilsa said that doesn't really matter."
Huh. He'd never have guessed Kael was two years older than him.
"Anyway," Kael said. "There is not much to say. My mother died in childbirth and my father resorted to alcoholism soon afterwards, so I learned to stay away from the house most of the time. The village children didn't want to associate with a morlock, so I ended up wandering the wilderness a lot, looking for things to sell for extra cash. One day I stumbled upon Namira in the forest and she led me to this place to meet her mother. Eventually Fria found out about my situation and offered to take me in. I agreed, of course."
"What, you weren't scared away by rumors of witches making potions out of children's blood?" Zorian asked jokingly.
"Well, the rumors also said morlocks like me ate people, so I didn't put much stock in them," Kael said. "Anyway, I soon found out that Fria's motives weren't entirely motivated by compassion. She wanted an heir, and Namira did not have much talent for magic."
"I thought witch magic was heavy on the potions and very light of anything that would require actual shaping skills?" asked Zorian.
"It is," confirmed Kael. "And Namira was still horrid for it. She didn't have the instincts or the mentality for it. Since Fria really didn't want her secrets to die with her, she needed to teach her magic to someone from outside the family. And she chose me, because… well…"
"Namira fancied you?" Zorian guessed.
"Yes," Kael sighed. "She actually made it an official condition for teaching – if I wanted her magic, I had to marry her daughter. But really, I'd have agreed to marry Namira even if she didn't provide any incentive for me to do so."
Kael spend the next half an hour telling Zorian small, inconsequential stories about his life in the cottage next to them. It seemed to help his mood immensely. Finally, he took a deep breath and signal to Zorian that they should go back to Imaya's place before the inhabitants get worried.
"I have made no mention of Sudomir's soul trap in my research journals," Kael said suddenly, just as they were about to leave. "If I ever ask you about him or the disappearing soul mages in the area, just lie to me. Say you have no idea what is happening or something. It's not like I can do anything about it and it makes it completely impossible for me to focus on my work. I felt horrible these past few weeks, and I failed to get anything done on the alchemical side of things."
Zorian stared at him for a second before nodding in agreement.
"Consider it done."
Chapter 51
Out of Control
The new restart began in the same manner as all of his previous restarts – with Kirielle mercilessly jumping on top of him to wake him up.
"Good morning, brother!" Kirielle yelled on top of him. "Morning, m- Hey!"
With a simple act of will, Zorian seized Kirielle telekinetically and levitated her into the air. She stopped her customary morning greeting with a startled yelp, her hands grasping around her in a panicky attempt to find some sort of purchase and stop her ascent. She struggled in vain. Perhaps if she had been expecting Zorian to levitate her off of him, she could have grabbed onto something in time, but she had been caught completely by surprise and was entirely in his mercy. After a few moments of wild flailing, she seemed to realize this and pouted at him.
"That's not fair," she complained, looking down on him from her vantage point above him. "Since when can you even do that?"
Zorian ignored the question, instead studying the magic he was using to levitate her with his mana perception. He was still a long way from mastering even the most basic forms of mana perception, but an entire month of Xvim's tutelage was definitely showing its results. Even a rudimentary ability to sense his own mana flow helped immensely when performing unstructured magic like he was currently doing, allowing him to notice and correct minute flaws in his technique that would have otherwise destabilized the whole undertaking. It was somewhat embarrassing that he had neglected such a potent skill all this time, but maybe it was fortunate he had done so. It was Xvim's guidance, as much as the shaping exercises themselves, that was responsible for his rapid growth in the skill, and he would have wasted a huge amount of time if he had tried to piece things together on his own.
Taking advantage of his momentary distraction, Kirielle suddenly started struggling again, swiping at him with her hands in an attempt to reel herself back down. Zorian promptly floated her further up in the air, causing her to miss his covers by a few hairs.
"Oh, come on!" she whined. "Zorian, don't be such a jerk! Put me down!"
Zorian gave her an evil smile and started to float her sideways, away from the bed…
"Slowly!" Kirielle quickly clarified, catching on to what he intended to do. "Put me down slowly!"
He thought about letting her fall and then telekinetically catching her in the last moment before she hit the floor, but quickly discarded the idea. He wasn't that confident in his unstructured levitation skills… or his timing, for that matter. He gently floated Kirielle down to the floor and got o
ut of bed.
Unfortunately, Kirielle was rather fascinated by her brief experience with magical levitation, and was instantly upon him, bombarding him with an endless stream of questions. Well. That kind of backfired on him. He just couldn't get her to calm down…
"How long can you keep doing that?" Kirielle asked.
"I don't know," Zorian said. And he really didn't, but he was hoping that if he answered some of her more inconsequential questions, she would eventually give the matter a rest. As such, he tried to give her a more detailed answer. "It would depend heavily on how docile you were being and whether I had something else disrupting my concentration. At least an hour, assuming I had your cooperation."
"Great!" Kirielle said happily. "In that case, I have an idea!"
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Zorian slowly descended down the stairs, trying not to make too much noise. The idea, after all, was to surprise Mother, and he couldn't exactly do that if-
"Zorian, get down here already!" his mother shouted, the sound of her footsteps making it clear she was rapidly approaching the bottom of the stairs. "Your breakfast is getting… cold…"
She entered the main hallway where the stairway was located and then stopped to stare at the spectacle. Zorian himself was fairly unremarkable, but Kirielle was floating in the air beside him instead of using the stairs.
There was a brief moment of silence as the two sides stared at each other, one in surprise and the other in expectation of an eventual reaction. In the end, though, it was Kirielle who eventually broke the standoff. The little imp just didn't have the patience to stick to the plan.
"Mom, I'm flying!" Kirielle announced loudly, waving her hands up and down in mimicry of flapping wings.
Mother opened her mouth for a second to say something but then thought better of it. She silently rolled her eyes and turned her back on them, mumbling something uncharitable about mages and children.