by nobody103
"Really?" Zach asked, looking at him curiously.
"Yes, really!" Zorian huffed. What's with all this disbelief? It's almost as if they didn't expect him to tell the truth or something. "I already told her about the restarts before, and it wasn't a problem."
"You did?" Kirielle frowned. "But I don't remember you telling me anything about any 'restarts'."
"Completely understandable," Zorian said, patting her on the head. "Don't worry, all will become clear later."
He hoped. He glanced at Zach again, wondering why the boy tracked him down now of all time, after spending so many restarts avoiding Cyoria.
He really did hope Zach's arrival would make things clearer instead or just complicating things further.
✦ ✧ ✦
Zorian had originally intended for this restart to be much like the previous ones, but with the sudden inclusion of Zach into his schedule, he decided that plan was untenable and would have to change. Accordingly, he did not bother meeting Nochka this time around, instead taking Kirielle and Zach straight to Imaya's place. Kirielle had a tendency to blab just about anything to Nochka, who was not exactly very good at keeping secrets herself, and that didn't mesh too well with his intention to tell Kirielle about the time loop in this restart.
The first half of the journey was uncomfortably subdued. Well, Zorian himself didn't mind the peace and quiet all that much, but he knew that neither Kirielle nor Zach were predisposed to be that silent for long periods of time. The two did not know how they should act in the presence of the other and thus kept to themselves. That lasted up until it started raining. At that point Kirielle decided she wanted to play around with the rain barrier Zorian set up around them, just like she usually did at the start of the restart, Zach's presence be damned. That turned out to have been the ice breaker, and they both got more talkative all of a sudden. Both towards Zorian and to each other.
Of course, he and Zach could not really discuss the time loop out in the open with Kirielle around, so their conversation mostly took place in the form of discussing their magical skills and occasionally demonstrating a spell or two to Kirielle and each other. Aside from being a useful conversational tool, it also allowed the two of them to compare their abilities against one another to see where they stood in regards to magical ability. Well, somewhat – obviously Zorian wasn't laying bare his entire skillset to Zach's scrutiny, and he doubted the other time traveler was being perfectly forthright either, but still. Just because the comparison wasn't complete did not mean it was worthless.
What Zorian discovered was humbling. While Zach was very combat magic focused, just like the boy had admitted to him in the past, he had made good use of the time loop to turn himself into a well-rounded mage. He was the sort of archmage that made other archmages envious – he had expertise in just about every type of magic, including the notoriously difficult and specialized medical spells. He actually healed the scratch marks Kirielle gave him as a proof of that claim. Even in regards to crafting-oriented magics like alchemy and spell formula, which Zach admitted were his least favorite fields and which Zorian specialized in, the last Noveda still possessed sufficient expertise to debate Zorian in a non-vacuous manner.
Finally, the little demonstrations they did for Kirielle clearly showed that Zach's shaping skills weren't any worse than Zorian's. Despite having huge mana reserves, Zach had excellent shaping skills.
Whatever Zorian could say about Zach's choices in the time loop, he clearly hadn't been standing idle this whole time – he had been steadily working on his skills for decades, and it showed. In retrospect, it was horribly arrogant of Zorian to even think he could have caught up to the guy in little more than 5 years.
"You know, I can't help but notice that your older brother left pretty quickly and didn't even try to talk to me," Zach said. "Not that I'm complaining, since it works out better for me that way, but you'd think he'd be more interested in someone attacking his little brother in public."
"He knows that neither of us can stand him, so he keeps away," Kirielle said casually, doing her best to snatch the little animated water drakes flying around her out of the air. Zorian and Zach had competed earlier to see who can create more realistic-looking drakes out of the surrounding rainwater, so the entire shield bubble was still full of them. Zorian was pretty sure he won, but Kirielle was the judge and she claimed she couldn't tell the difference. The little traitor.
"I don't think he's that considerate," Zorian scowled. "He just didn't feel like spending time on us. He had better things to do than waste time on his younger siblings."
"No, I'm pretty sure he knows you hate him," Kirielle said, shaking her head. "He even said so when we were alone once. It's why he tries to avoid you if he can help it. He thinks he's doing you a favor."
Zorian frowned. He supposed he hadn't been terribly subtle about his opinion about Fortov, so he wasn't really surprised that Fortov knew. He did find it hard to accept that Fortov's behavior was motivated by anything other than his selfishness, though. If he wanted to do Zorian a favor, why was it that he still came to Zorian from time to time to ask for favors? That was the worst reason possible for approaching him – the whole reason why he hated Fortov was because he always had to make up for Fortov's failures to do his job in addition to his own duties.
"So you think I'm being too harsh with him?" Zorian asked curiously. Before he had gotten stuck in the time loop, the mere insinuation that this was the case would have been the equivalent of throwing a lit match in a bowl of lamp fuel. Now he found himself honestly curious about what Kirielle thought about the topic.
"No. Yes. Maybe," Kirielle said. "I mean, he's still a jerk and I don't like him either. So I know how you feel. But maybe us being mean to him back isn't the correct thing to do. Maybe he'd be better if we were more patient with him. I'm not. I try being nice to him sometimes, but he makes it very hard."
"Yeah, I'll bet," Zorian snorted derisively.
"You know, I'm getting the idea that your family is a little messed up," Zach said.
"You have no idea," Zorian said. "And that's probably a good idea. Let's end the subject here, okay?"
"Fine, fine," Zach acquiesced. "So, is this the place?"
Zorian looked at the house Zach was pointing out and nodded.
"That's Imaya's house, yes. Let me just arrange for everything with the landlord and unpack a little and then we can talk. Do you have a place already lined up?"
"I… didn't think that far," Zach admitted.
Zorian sighed. Figures. "Then we'll go to the ruins of the aranean colony in the tunnels below us. There is already a pretty good warding scheme protecting the place."
"Oh, so you know where that is?" Zach said, perking up. "Did any of the spiders survive?"
"Spiders?" Kirielle mumbled, brows furrowed in thought. Zorian could tell she had been analyzing their every word during the entire walk, trying to figure out what they were hiding. It was both commendable and amusing.
"No, none," Zorian shook his head. Zach immediately deflated.
"So it's just the two of us, or…?" he asked hopefully.
Though his empathy could pick nothing from him, Zach wasn't a terribly hard person to read. Zorian realized that Zach really wanted to talk to fellow time travelers. The more of them there were, the better. He must have been very lonely and bored all these years he spent in the time loop.
"Just… let me drop of Kirielle at the house and then we'll talk," Zorian said.
"You better don't forget your promise," Kirielle warned, jabbing him in the ribs with her bony little index finger. Yeah, she was definitely getting her nails clipped when he got back.
"Fine," said Zach. "I'll wait for you to-"
"Oh no," Zorian said, cutting him of. "Do you know what Imaya would do to me if she heard I left a person out here in the rain instead of inviting them inside? And she'd definitely hear, because Kirielle is too much of a tattletale to keep her mouth shut."
"Hey!" said
tattletale protested.
"She won't care that you're a mage and can easily protect yourself against the rain. I'd be hearing lectures and snide comments for days," Zorian said. "You're coming inside and introducing yourself to Imaya."
And so, with Kirielle and Zach in tow, Zorian walked up to Imaya's door and knocked…
✦ ✧ ✦
After an hour or so, once everything had been arranged, Zorian led Zach into the depths of Cyoria's underworld. Along the way, Zorian explained the truth behind what happened to Zach. There had been no large number of time travelers – just him and the araneas piggy-backing on him using memory packets. And in the aftermath of their confrontation with Red Robe, the aranea were all dead – soulkilled, according to Red Robe. While Zorian had some doubts about that, it was undeniable that the aranea started every loop dead from that point on.
Once they had reached the dead aranean settlements and Zach had had the chance to study the place for a while, they sat down and began to talk.
"I tried to find this place immediately after that restart," Zach noted, staring at the nearby aranean corpse. He was surprisingly shaken by the dead settlement, considering aranea were rather inhuman and he had known them for a very short time anyway. "All I found was some isolated aranean corpses like this one."
"Those were basically guard posts," explained Zorian.
"Yeah, I guess. Maybe I'd have tracked it down eventually, but then this… 'Red Robe' tried to ambush me."
Zorian perked up. This was the first clue he had about Red Robe's activities in the wake of Zorian's confrontation with him.
"He attacked you?" Zorian asked, leaning forward with interest.
"Attacked me and lost," Zach grinned proudly. "He's not that hard to beat without Quatach-Ichl to support him."
So Zach was good enough to defeat Red Robe in a straight one-on-one fight. That was good to know.
"I guess he was counting on the advantage of surprise, but I saw his ambush from a mile away," Zach continued. "I knew he was probably stalking me so I was already on guard. Still. He managed to escape in the end, and I didn't really feel safe wandering around these tunnels with someone like that hunting me. I basically left Cyoria and hid for the rest of the restart."
"Did he ever come after you again?" Zorian asked.
"Yes. Once," Zach said. "In the very next restart, he tried to attack me at its very beginning. He teleported straight through the wards on my home and tried to kill me while I was still in the bedroom, getting dressed."
"And he once again fled when you defeated him?" Zorian asked.
"Well, I'm actually the one that fled there," Zach said, coughing uncomfortably. "I was still half-sleep and in my underwear, okay? I didn't expect him to come after me so early. Anyway, from that point on I have been leaving Cyoria at the start of every restart to prevent further surprises like that. Even if Red Robe never came after me again after that one surprise attack."
"Hmm," Zorian hummed thoughtfully. He doubted that Red Robe spent all this time trying to track down Zach, so this still did not explain why he had been quiet all this time… but it was interesting information nonetheless. What did Red Robe want from Zach so badly?
"So… why did you stop hiding now, of all times? And did you really have to punch me in the face like that?" Zorian asked sourly. "My teeth still hurt from that."
"Do you even have to ask?" Zach scoffed. "You have been stuck in this time loop along with me for gods know how long, and you never came to me about it. No, worse than that – when I came to talk to you, you played dumb and did things on your own behind my back. You deserved a good punch in the face just for that."
Zorian fiddled with his glasses awkwardly. Okay, it did sound kind of bad when he said it like that. But he had good reason for behaving like he did! He really did!
"But you know, I understand," Zach continued. "I got played like a drum by that red robed fucker that's looping along with us. He messed with my mind and was probably monitoring me somehow-"
"You're sure he's not doing it right now, right?" Zorian cut in with a question.
"I know how to shield myself from tracking magic, Zorian," Zach said frostily. "Better than you, I imagine. It's just that I usually didn't bother with it, since I thought I was the only person aware of the time loop, so why bother? Ever since that night, though, I've been layering non-detection spells on myself constantly. The asshole hasn't managed to track me down once in all this time. I doubt anyone can."
"I can," Zorian noted. "But then again, I seem to have an advantage that Red Robe does not seem to possess. I'll trust that you know how to protect yourself."
Zach gave him an unreadable look. Almost without thinking, he tried to focus his empathy on to boy to get a better feel for his emotions, only to suddenly remember that Zach was under the effect of mind blank when he felt nothing at all from the boy.
Yes, Zach could definitely protect himself if he wanted to.
"You'll tell me about that later," Zach said, shaking his head. "Anyway, sorry for snapping at you. I'm still kind of angry at myself for getting screwed over by Red Robe. I get a little testy about the subject. But anyway… I understand. It was dangerous to just talk to me directly with Red Robe lurking in the background. I still think you should have talked to me, but I can see why you'd think otherwise. I can even understand why you left that night without bothering to explain anything to me, considering what ended up happening."
Zach gestured towards a nearby aranean corpse for emphasis.
"So I decided to leave you alone for a while. Even once it became obvious that Red Robe was no longer after me, and had essentially disappeared into thin air as far as I could tell, I stayed away so as to not attract attention to you. Just in case Red Robe was somehow watching, despite all my precautions. I figured you knew what you're doing, and once you were ready, you'd come to me so we could tackle the time loop and this Red Robe guy together."
How did he expect Zorian to track him down if he purposely made himself as untraceable as possible? Nevermind, he'd ask that question some other time. Best not to interrupt the boy now.
"And then you pull that crap in the last restart," said Zach, anger leaking into his voice. "You're finally making a move, and in a big way too, triggering the invasion several weeks early, but you made no attempt to involve me in any way. How can I not be angry? How can I not want to punch you in the face? Do you think so little of me? Just because you saw me brought down by two incredibly powerful opponents, one of which is a thousand-year-old lich, you think you can-"
"Zach, Zach, listen, that… that wasn't intentional,"
Zorian said hurriedly, trying to stop Zach from getting too angry. He had a feeling he was going to get another punch in the face if he let the boy get going too much. "I never intended that restart to blow up like that. The whole thing was a mistake, it escalated way beyond what I was comfortable with, but I was curious and-"
"Did you even intend to contact me? Ever?" Zach asked him bluntly.
"Yes. Absolutely," Zorian confirmed. "Probably after this very restart."
Zach leaned back in surprise, giving him a surprised look.
"Oh," he said, anger draining right out of him. "Well, if that's so, then it's probably good I came to you when I did, isn't it?"
"I'm kind of in the middle of something important," Zorian sighed. "I really should be focusing on that. Hell, I should have been focusing on it in the previous restart too, instead of messing around with Iasku Mansion and the invaders, but I can get really stupid sometimes. That's why I only wanted to contact you after this restart."
"If it's so important, why not let me help?" Zach asked curiously.
"It's not something you can help me with," said Zorian. "Remember those memory packets the aranea used to retain awareness between restarts? Well here's the thing…"
He then launched into an explanation about the matriarch's memory packet and how he had been trying to hone his aranea memory interpreting skills to
a high enough level to understand its contents. This also led to a discussion about Zorian's mind magic abilities. Zach was clearly uncomfortable with mind magic, which made sense considering how it was used against him. After some internal debate, Zorian offered to have a look inside Zach's mind to see what exactly Red Robe had done to him… but Zach predictably refused. He admitted that he didn't really trust Zorian that far yet, and maybe never would. Zorian was just glad the other boy didn't take offense at his offer.
"So if I understand you correctly, you're attacking isolated aranean patrols in order to practice memory reading skills on subdued aranea," Zach said.
"Yes," Zorian confirmed.
"And you think I can't help you there?" Zach asked incredulously. "Zorian, you're a total idiot."
"Err," Zorian fumbled, not sure how to respond to that.
"Zorian, with my help you would not need to waste time stalking isolated patrols. We could just walk up to the main aranean settlement and take them all head on," Zach told him. "I've done that before. I didn't just spend all these past months just keeping out of Red Robe's sight – I've also been investigating things on my own, such as searching for other aranean webs around the continent to see if they can help me. Except that I'm not psychic like you and they can be incredibly dismissive and rude to 'flickerminds' like myself. I've been attacked plenty of times, and I know exactly how to fight them. They're no match for me at all. The power disparity is so big I can actually focus on incapacitating them instead of aiming to kill – even when they attack in groups. With my help, you could have had hundreds of aranean practice dummies every week, maybe every day. It largely depends on how fast we can find new webs to target."
Zorian stared at Zach for a few seconds before swallowing heavily. That… that was a good point. He hadn't even considered that.