Mother of learning - Female Protagonists Rewrite - BattlerY - Mother of Learning (2024)

Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Good Morning, Sister

Chapter Text

Veronica's eyes abruptly shot open as a sharp pain erupted from her stomach. Her whole body convulsed, buckling against the object that fell on her, and suddenly she was wide awake, not a trace of drowsiness in her mind.

"Good morning, sister!" an annoyingly cheerful voice sounded right on top of her. "Morning, morning, MORNING!"

Veronica glared at her little sister, but she just smiled back at her cheekily, still sprawled across Veronica's stomach. She was humming to herself in obvious satisfaction, kicking her feet playfully in the air as she studied the giant world map Veronica had tacked to the wall next to her bed. Or rather, pretended to study – Veronica could see her watching her intently out of the corner of her eyes for a reaction.

This was what she got for not arcane locking the door and setting up a basic alarm perimeter around her bed.

"Get off," she told her in the calmest voice she could muster.

"Mom said to wake you up," she said matter-of-factly, not budging from her spot.

"Not like this, she didn’t," Veronica grumbled, swallowing her irritation and patiently waiting till she dropped her guard. Predictably, Kirielle grew visibly agitated after only a few moments of this pretend disinterest. Just before she could blow up, Veronica quickly grasped her legs and chest and flipped her over the edge of the bed. She fell to the floor with a thud and an indignant yelp, and Veronica quickly jumped to her feet to better respond to any violence she might decide to retaliate with. She glanced down on her and sniffed disdainfully. "I’ll be sure to remember this the next time I’m asked to wake you up."

"Fat chance of that," she retorted defiantly. "You always sleep longer than I do."

Veronica simply sighed in defeat. Damn the little imp, but she was right about that.

"So…" she began excitedly, jumping to her feet, "are you excited?"

Veronica watched her for a moment as she bounced around her room like a monkey on caffeine. Sometimes she wished she had some of that boundless energy of hers. But only some.

"About what?" Veronica asked innocently, feigning ignorance. She knew what she meant, of course, but constantly asking obvious questions was the fastest way of frustrating her little sister into dropping a conversation she’d rather not have.

"Going back to the academy!" she whined, clearly aware of what Veronica was doing. She needed to learn some new tricks. "Learning magic. Can you show me some magic?"

Veronica let out a long-suffering sigh. Kirielle had always treated her as something of a playmate of hers, despite her doing her best not to encourage her, but usually, she remained within certain unspoken boundaries. She was downright impossible this year, though, and Mother was wholly unsympathetic to her pleas to rein her in. All she did was read all day long, she said, so it wasn’t as if she was doing anything important … Thankfully the summer break was over and she could finally get away from them all.

"Kiri, I have to pack. Why don’t you go pester Fortov for a change?"

She scowled at her unhappily for a second and then perked up, as if remembering something, and quickly ran out of the room. Veronica’s eyes widened when she realized what she was up to a second too late.

"No!" she yelled as she ran after her, only to have the bathroom door slammed into her face. She pounded on the door in frustration. "Damn it, Kiri! You had all the time in the world to go to the bathroom before I woke up!"

"Sucks to be you," was her only answer.

After hurling a few choice curses at the door, Veronica stomped off back to her room to get dressed. She would be inside for ages, she was sure, if only to spite her.

Quickly changing out of her pajamas and putting on her glasses, Veronica took a moment to look around her room. She was pleased to note Kirielle hadn’t rummaged through her stuff before waking her up. She had a very fuzzy notion of (other people’s) privacy.

It didn’t take Veronica long to pack – she had never really unpacked, to be honest, and would have gone back to Cyoria a week ago if she thought Mother would have allowed it. She was just packing her school supplies when she realized with irritation that some of her textbooks were missing. She could try a locator spell, but she was pretty sure she knew where they had ended up – Kirielle had a habit of taking them to her room, no matter how many times Veronica told her to keep her sticky little fingers away from them. Working on a hunch, she double-checked her writing supplies and, sure enough, found they had been greatly depleted.

It always happened – every time she came home, Kirielle would raid her school supplies. Putting aside the ethical problems inherent in breaking into your sister’s room in order to steal her things, what on earth was she doing with all those pencils and erasers? This time she specifically bought extras with her sister in mind, but it still wasn’t enough - she couldn’t find a single eraser in her drawer, and she bought a whole packet of them before coming home. Why Kirielle couldn’t simply ask Mother to buy her some books and pens of her own was never really clear to Veronica. She was the youngest, so Mother was always happy to spoil her - the dolls she talked Mother into buying her were five times more expensive than a couple of books and a stack of pencils.

In any case, while Veronica had no delusions about ever seeing her writing supplies again, she really needed those textbooks. With that in mind, she marched off to her sister’s room, ignoring the Keep out! warning on the door, and quickly found her missing books in their usual location – cunningly hidden under the bed, behind several conveniently placed stuffed animals.

Her packing done, she went downstairs to eat something and see what Mother wanted from her.

Though her family thought she simply liked to sleep in, Veronica actually had a reason for being a late riser. It meant she could eat her food in peace, as everyone else had already had their breakfast by then. Few things annoyed her more than someone trying to strike up a conversation while she was eating, and that was precisely the time when the rest of her family was most talkative. Unfortunately, Mother wasn’t willing to wait for her today, and immediately descended upon her when she saw her coming down. She didn’t even finish her descent down the stairs and she had already found something about her she didn’t like.

"You don’t really intend to go out looking like that, do you?" she asked.

"What’s wrong with this?" asked Veronica. She was wearing a simple skirt and blouse, little different from the ones other girls wore when they were going into the city. It seemed just fine to her.

"You can’t go out looking like that," her mother said with a long-suffering sigh. "What do you think people will say when they see you wearing that?"

"Nothing?" Veronica tried.

"Veronica, don’t be so difficult," she snapped at her. "Our family is one of the pillars of this town. We’re under scrutiny every time we leave the house. I know you don’t care about such things, but appearances are important to a lot of people. You need to realize you’re not an island, and you can’t decide things as if you were alone in the world. You are a member of this family, and your actions inevitably reflect on our reputation. I will not let you embarrass me by looking like a common factory worker. Go back to your room and put on some proper attire."

Veronica restrained herself from rolling her eyes just long enough to turn her back on her. Maybe her guilt trip would have been more effective if this was the first time she tried it on her. Still, it wasn’t worth the argument, so she changed into a pricier set of clothes. It was totally excessive, considering she’d be spending the whole day on the train, but her mother nodded approvingly when she saw her coming down the stairs. She had her turn and pose like a show animal for a while before pronouncing her fairly decent. She went to the kitchen and, to her annoyance, Mother followed after her. No eating in peace today, it seemed.

Father was thankfully on one of his business trips, so she wouldn’t have to deal with him today.

She entered the kitchen and frowned when she saw a bowl of porridge already waiting for her on the table. Usually, she made her own breakfast, and she liked it that way, but she knew her mother never accepted that. This was her idea of a peace gesture, which meant she was going to ask something of her she wouldn’t like.

"I figured I’d prepare something for you today, and I know you’ve always liked porridge," she said. Veronica refrained from mentioning she hadn’t liked it since she was about eight. "You slept longer than I thought you would, though. It’s gone cold while I’ve waited for you."

Veronica rolled her eyes and cast a slightly modified heat water spell on the porridge, which was instantly returned to a pleasant temperature.

She ate her breakfast in silence while Mother talked to her at length about a crop-related dispute one of their suppliers was involved in, dancing around whatever topic she wanted to broach. She effortlessly tuned her out. It was practically a survival skill for every child in the Kazinski family, as both mother and father were prone to protracted lectures on every subject imaginable, but doubly so for Veronica, who was the black sheep of the family and thus subjected to such monologues more frequently than the rest. Thankfully, her mother thought nothing of her silence, because Veronica was always as silent as possible around her family – she had learned many years ago that this was the easiest way of getting along with them.

"Mother," she interrupted her, "I just woke up via Kiri jumping on me, I haven’t had a chance to go to the bathroom, and now you’re pestering me while I’m eating. Either get to the point or wait a couple of minutes while I finish breakfast."

"She did it again?" her mother asked, amusem*nt obvious in her voice.

Veronica rubbed her eyes, not saying anything, before surreptitiously pocketing an apple from the bowl on the table while her mother wasn’t looking. There were a lot of annoying things Kirielle did again and again, but complaining about it to Mother was a waste of time. No one in this family was on her side.

"Oh, don’t be like that," her mother said, noticing her less-than-pleased reaction. "She’s just bored and playing with you. You take things way too seriously, just like your father."

"I am nothing like my father!" Veronica insisted, raising her voice and glaring at her. This was why she hated eating with other people. She returned to her breakfast with renewed vigor, eager to finish this as soon as possible.

"Of course you’re not," Mother said airily, before suddenly switching the subject. "Actually, this reminds me of something. Your father and I are going to Koth to visit Daimen."
Veronica bit the spoon in her mouth to prevent herself from making a snide comment. It was always Daimen this, Daimen that. There were days when Veronica wondered why her parents had three other children when they were clearly so enamored of their eldest son. Really, going to another continent just to visit him? What, were they going to wilt if they didn’t see him for a year?

"What’s that got to do with me?" Veronica asked softly.

"It will be an extended visit," her mother said. "We’ll be there for about six months, most of it spent traveling from one place to another. You and Fortov will be at the academy, of course, but I’m worried about Kirielle. She’s only nine and I don’t feel comfortable bringing her along with us."

Veronica paled, finally catching on to what her mother wanted of her. Nope. Not happening.

"Mother, I’m 15," she protested, trying to find the right words.

"So?" her mother asked. "Your father and I were already married when we were your age."

"Times change. Besides, I spend most of the day at the academy," Veronica responded with a hint of frustration. "Why don’t you ask Fortov to take care of her? He’s a year older and he has his own apartment."

"Fortov is in his fourth year," her mother said sternly. "He’s going to graduate this year so he has to focus on his grades."

"You mean he said no," Veronica concluded out loud, softer but with a touch of defiance in her voice.

"And besides…" her mother continued, ignoring her remark, "I’m sure you’re aware of how irresponsible Fortov can be at times. I don’t think he’s fit to raise a little girl."

"And whose fault is that?" Veronica grumbled quietly, loudly dropping her spoon and gently pushing the plate away from her. Maybe Fortov was irresponsible because he knew their parents would simply turn to Veronica if he just played dumb long enough, didn’t that ever occur to her? Why did it always fall to her to deal with the little imp? Well, she wasn’t going to get saddled with this! If Fortov was too good to take care of Kirielle, then so was Veronica!

Plus, the little tattletale would undoubtedly report everything back to Mother without a second thought. The best thing about attending a school so far from home was that Veronica could do what she pleased without her family being any the wiser, and there was no way she was going to give that up. Really, this was just a transparent ploy by her mother to spy on her, so she could lecture her some more about family pride and proper manners.

"I don’t think I’m fit for that either," Veronica continued, a little louder. "You said only a few minutes ago that I’m an embarrassment to the family. We wouldn’t want to corrupt little Kiri with my uncaring attitude, now would we?"

"I didn’t-"

"No!" Veronica shouted.

"Oh, have it your way," her mother huffed in resignation. "But really, I wasn’t suggesting-"

"What are you talking about?" Kirielle called out from behind her.

"We were discussing what a rotten brat you are," Veronica shot back immediately with a playful smirk.

"No you weren’t!" Kirielle retorted, glaring at her sister.

Veronica just rolled her eyes and rose from her seat, intending to go to the bathroom, only to find an irate little sister blocking her path. There was a knock at the door.

"I’ll get it!" said Veronica quickly, knowing that her mother would demand that one of them open the door and that Kirielle wouldn’t budge from her spot any time soon - she could be very stubborn when she wanted.

That was how Veronica found herself staring at a bespectacled woman dressed in expensive-looking khaki-colored clothes, cradling a thick book in her arm.

The woman gave her an appraising glance, adjusting her glasses. "Veronica Kazinski?"

"Uh, yeah?" she said, unsure how to react to this development.

"I am Ilsa Zileti, from Cyoria’s Royal Academy of Magical Arts. I’m here to discuss the results of your certification."

Color drained from Veronica’s face. They sent an actual mage to talk to her!? What had she done to warrant this!? Mother was going to be furious!

"You aren’t in trouble, Miss Kazinski," Ilsa said, smiling in amusem*nt. "The Academy has a habit of sending a representative to third-year students to discuss various matters of interest. I confess I should have visited you sooner, but I have been a tad busy this year. You have my apologies."

Veronica stared at her for a few seconds, trying to process this unexpected visit.

"May I come in?"

"Huh? Oh!" said Veronica. "Forgive my manners, Miss Zileti. Come in, come in."

"Thank you," Ilsa accepted politely, stepping into the house.

After a quick introduction to her mother and sister, Ilsa asked if there was somewhere they could discuss school matters privately. Her mother quickly decided she had to go to the town market and took Kirielle with her, leaving Veronica alone in the house with the mage, who promptly scattered various papers across the kitchen desk.

"So, Veronica," Ilsa began. "You already know you passed the certification."

"Yes, I got the written notice," Veronica said. "Cirin doesn’t have a mage tower, so I was going to pick up the badge when I got back to Cyoria."

Ilsa simply handed her a sealed scroll. Veronica inspected the scroll for a few seconds and then tried to break the seal so she could read it. Unfortunately, the seal was quite tough to break. Unnaturally so, even.

She frowned. Ilsa wouldn’t have given her the scroll like this if she didn’t think she had the ability to open it. A test of some sort? She wasn’t anyone terribly special, so this would have to be something pretty easy. What skill did every recently-minted mage possess that would…

Oh. Veronica almost rolled her eyes when she realized what this was all about. She channeled some mana into the seal and it promptly snapped itself in half, allowing her to finally unroll the scroll. It was written in very neat calligraphy and appeared to be some kind of proof of her identity as a first circle mage. She glanced back at Ilsa, who nodded approvingly, confirming to Veronica that she had just passed a test of some sort.

"You don’t really have to pick up your badge until you finish school," Ilsa said. "The badge is pretty expensive and nobody is really going to bother you about it unless you plan to open a shop or otherwise sell your magical expertise. If they do bother you for whatever reason, just refer them to the academy and we’ll clear things up."

Veronica shrugged. While she did intend to break away from her family, she’d prefer to wait until graduation, and that was two years away. She motioned for Ilsa to continue.

"Very well, then. The records say you lived in the academy housing for the past two years. I assume you intend to continue?"

Veronica nodded, and Ilsa reached into one of her pockets and handed her a rather strange key. Veronica knew how locks in general worked, and could even pick simpler ones with enough time, but she couldn’t figure out how this key was supposed to work – it had no teeth to fit in with the tumblers inside the lock. On a hunch, she channeled some mana into it, and faint golden lines immediately lit across the surface of the metal. She looked at Ilsa in silent question.

"Housing for third years works differently than you are used to," Ilsa told her. "As you’re likely aware, now that you’re a certified first circle mage, the academy is authorized to teach you spells of the first circle and above. Since you’ll be handling sensitive material, greater security is required, so you’ll be moving into a different building. The lock on your door is keyed to your mana, so you’ll have to channel some of your personal mana into the key like you did just now before it will unlock."

"Ah," said Veronica. Idly she spun the key in her hand, wondering how exactly they got a hold of her mana signature. Something to research later, she supposed.

"Normally I would be explaining to you in detail what it means to be a third-year student at Cyoria's magical academy, but I hear you have a train leaving soon, so why don’t we jump straight to the main reason I’m here: your mentor and electives. You can ask me anything you wish to know afterwards."

Veronica perked up at this, especially the mention of a mentor. Each third year was given a mentor they met with once a week, who was supposed to teach students in ways not possible in a standard class format, and otherwise help them reach their maximum potential. A choice of one’s mentor could make or break one’s magical career and Veronica knew she had to choose carefully. Fortunately, she had asked around among older students to find out which ones were good and which ones were bad, so she figured she would at least be able to get an above-average one.

"So which mentors can I choose from?" Veronica asked.

"Well, actually, I’m afraid you can’t," Ilsa said apologetically. "Like I said, I was supposed to get to you sooner. Unfortunately, all but one of the mentors have filled their quota of students at this point."

Veronica had a bad feeling about this… "And this mentor is?"

"Xvim Chao."

Veronica groaned, burying her face in her hands. Of all the teachers, Xvim was widely agreed upon as the worst mentor you could possibly get. It just had to be him, didn’t it?

"It’s not that bad," Ilsa assured her. "The rumors are mostly exaggerated, and mostly spread by students unwilling to do the kind of work Professor Xvim requires of his charges. I’m sure a talented, hard-working student such as yourself will have no problems with him."

Veronica snorted softly. "I don’t suppose there is any chance to transfer to another mentor, is there?"

"Not really. We’ve had a really good pass rate last year, and all of the mentors are swamped with students as it is. Professor Xvim is the least burdened of the available mentors."

"My, I wonder why," Veronica mumbled softly. "Alright, fine. What about electives?"

Ilsa handed her another scroll, this one unsealed, containing a list of all elective classes offered by the academy. It was long. Very long. You could sign up for practically anything, even things that weren’t of strictly magical nature: things like advanced mathematics, classical literature, and architecture. It was to be expected, really, since Ikosian magical tradition had always been inextricably connected to other intellectual pursuits.

"You can choose up to five, but no less than three electives this year. It would be a lot more convenient for us if you did it now so that we can finalize the schedules over the weekend before the classes start. Don’t be too intimidated by the sheer size of the list. Even if you choose something that doesn’t appeal to you, you can switch to a different elective during the first month of school."

Veronica frowned. There were a lot of electives and she wasn’t quite sure which ones she wanted to take. She’d already gotten shafted in the mentor department, so she really couldn’t afford to mess up here. This would take a while.

"Please don’t take this the wrong way Miss Zileti, but would you mind if we take a short break before we go any further with this?"

"Of course not," she said kindly. "Is something the matter?"

"Not at all," assured Veronica, offering a soft smile. "It’s just that I really need to go to the restroom."

Probably not the best way to make a first impression. Kirielle was so going to pay for putting her in this position.
Veronica trailed after her family in silence as they entered Cirin’s train station, ignoring Fortov’s exuberant greeting of some friends of his. She scanned the crowd at the train station for any familiar faces but, predictably, came out empty. She didn’t really know all that many people in her hometown, as her parents loved reminding her. She felt her mother’s gaze on her as she unsuccessfully searched for an empty bench but refused to look back – that would give her mother the go-ahead to start a conversation, and Veronica already knew what she would say. Why don’t you join Fortov and his friends, Veronica? Because they’re immature jackasses, just like Fortov, that’s why. She sighed, casting a look of annoyance at the empty train tracks. The train was late. She didn’t mind waiting per se, but waiting in the crowds was pure torture. Her family would never understand, but Veronica hated crowds. It wasn’t anything tangible, really – it was more like large gatherings of people projected some kind of presence that weighed down on her constantly. Most of the time, it was annoying, although it had its uses – her parents stopped taking her to church when they realized that dragging her into a small hall packed with people resulted in vertigo and fainting in a matter of minutes. Fortunately, the train station wasn’t currently crowded enough to produce such intense effects, but Veronica knew prolonged exposure would take its toll. She hoped the train wouldn’t take too long because she didn’t relish spending the rest of the day with a headache.

Fortov’s loud laughter broke her out of such gloomy musings. Her older brother didn’t have such problems, that’s for sure. Like always, he was cheerful, sociable, and had a smile that could light up the world. The people he was surrounded with were clearly enthralled with him, and he stood out among them at first glance, despite having the same thin build that Veronica did. He just had that kind of presence around him. He was like Daimen in this way, only Daimen had actual skills to back up his charm.

She scoffed, shaking her head. Veronica didn’t know for sure how Fortov had been accepted into a supposedly elite institution like Cyoria’s magical academy, but she strongly suspected Father had greased a few palms to get Fortov in. It wasn’t that Fortov was stupid, so much as lazy and completely unable to focus on a task, no matter how critical. Not that most people knew that, of course – the boy was charming as hell, and very adept at sweeping his inadequacies under the metaphorical rug.

Her father always joked that Fortov and Veronica each got a half of Daimen in them: Fortov got his charm, and Veronica his competence.

Veronica had never liked her father’s sense of humor.

A whistle pierced the air, and the train entered the station with a high-pitched squeal of metal wheels braking against the tracks. The original trains were steam-powered machines that billowed smoke wherever they went and consumed unholy amounts of coal to keep going, but this one was powered by the newer techno-magic engines that consumed crystallized mana instead. Cleaner, cheaper, and required less maintenance. Veronica could actually feel the mana radiating off the train as she approached, though her ability to sense magic was too underdeveloped to tell her any details. She had always wanted to look around the engine room of one of these things but could never figure out a good way to approach the train operators.

But that was a thought for another time. She gave a brief goodbye to Mother and Kirielle and entered the train to find herself a seat. She intentionally chose an empty compartment, something that was surprisingly easy to find. Apparently, despite the gathered crowd, few of them would be taking this particular train.

Five minutes later, the train gave another ear-splitting whistle and began its long journey toward Cyoria.

* * *

There was a sharp crackling sound, followed by the sound of a bell ringing.

"Now stopping in Korsa," a disembodied voice echoed. A crackling sound again. "I repeat, now stopping in Korsa. Thank you."

The speakers crackled one last time before turning silent.

Veronica released a long sigh of irritation and opened her eyes. She hated trains. The boredom, the heat, and the rhythmic thumping sounds all conspired to make her sleepy, but every time she finally drifted off to sleep, she was rudely awoken by the station announcer. That this was the very purpose of that announcer – to wake up passengers who would sleep through their destination – was not lost on Veronica, but it was no less annoying because of it.

She looked through the window, only to see a train station like any other. In fact, it was completely identical to the previous five, down to the blue outline on the big white tablet saying Korsa. Apparently, the station builders were working off some kind of template these days. Looking at the station platform they were stopping at, she could see a large crowd of people waiting to get on the train. Korsa was a major trading hub, and a lot of newly minted merchant families lived here, sending their children to Cyoria’s prestigious academy to become mages and mingle among children of other influential people. Veronica found herself wishing that none of her fellow students join her in her compartment, but she knew it was an idle dream – there were too many of them, and her compartment was completely empty aside from her. She did all she could to make herself comfortable in her seat and closed her eyes again.

The first person to join her in her compartment was a chubby, glasses-wearing girl in a green turtleneck. She gave Veronica a cursory glance and started reading a book in silence. Veronica would have been ecstatic with such an agreeable traveling companion, but soon enough, a group of four other girls came in and took the remaining four seats for themselves. The newcomers were very loud and prone to giggling fits, and Veronica was sorely tempted to get up and find herself a new compartment to occupy. She spent the rest of the trip alternating between looking through the window at the endless fields they were passing and exchanging annoyed glances with the green-turtleneck girl, who seemed similarly irritated by the other girls' antics.

She knew they were getting close to Cyoria when she could see trees on the horizon. There was only one city on this route that was this close to the great northern forest, and the trains otherwise avoided getting close to so infamous a place. Veronica picked up her bag and went to stand by the exit. The idea was to be among the first to disembark and thus avoid the usual crowding that always occurred once they got to Cyoria, but she was too late – there was already a crowd at the exit when she approached. She leaned on the nearby window and waited, listening to an animated conversation between three first-year students beside her, who were talking excitedly amongst themselves about how they were going to start learning magic and whatnot. Oh, were they going to be disappointed – the first year was all theory, meditation exercises, and learning how to access your mana consistently.

"Hey, you! You’re one of the senior students, aren’t you?"

Veronica looked at the girl talking to her and suppressed a groan of irritation. She so did not want to talk to these people. She had been on the train since early morning, Mother had given her a nasty lecture because she hadn’t offered Ilsa something to drink while she was in the house, and she was in no mood for anything.

"I suppose you could describe me as such," she said cautiously.

"Can you show us any magic?" she asked eagerly.

"No," said Veronica flatly. She wasn't even lying. "The train is warded to disrupt mana shaping. They had problems with people starting fires and vandalizing compartments."

"Oh," the girl said, clearly disappointed. She frowned, like trying to figure something out. "Mana shaping?" she asked cautiously.

Veronica raised an eyebrow. "You don’t know what mana is?" She was first year, yes, but that was elementary. Anyone who went through elementary school should know at least that much.

"Magic?" she tried lamely.

"Ugh," grunted Veronica. "The teachers would so fail you for that. No, it’s not magic. It’s what powers magic – the energy, the power, that a mage shapes into a magical effect. You’ll learn more about it in lectures, I guess. Bottom point is: no mana, no magic. And I can’t use any mana at the moment."

This was misleading, but whatever. There was no way she was explaining things to some random stranger, especially since she should already know this stuff.

"Um, okay. Sorry to bother you then."

With a lot of squealing and steam-letting, the train stopped at Cyoria’s train station, and Veronica disembarked as fast as she could, pushing past the awed first-years staring at the sight before them.

Cyoria’s train station was huge, a fact made obvious by the fact that it was enclosed, making it look more like a giant tunnel. Actually, the station as a whole was even larger because there were four more tunnels like this one, plus all the support facilities. There was nothing like it anywhere in the world, and virtually everyone was stupefied the first time they saw it. Veronica was too, when she first disembarked here. The feeling of disorientation was amplified by the sheer number of people that went through this terminal, whether they were passengers going in and out of Cyoria, workers inspecting the train and unloading luggage, newsboys shouting headlines, or homeless people begging for some change. As far as she knew, this massive flow of people never really ceased, even at night, and this was a particularly busy day.

She looked at the giant clock hanging from the ceiling and, finding out she had plenty of time, bought herself some bread from the nearby bakery and then set course for Cyoria’s central plaza, intending to eat her newly acquired food while sitting on the edge of the fountain there. It was a nice place to relax.

Cyoria was a curious city. It was one of the most developed and largest cities in the world, which was at first glance strange, as Cyoria was dangerously close to a monster-infested wilderness and wasn’t in a favorable trade location. What really catapulted it to prominence was the massive circular hole on the west side of the city – probably the most obvious Dungeon entrance ever and the only Rank 9 mana well known to exist. The absolutely massive quantities of mana gushing out from the underworld had made the spot an irresistible magnet for mages. The presence of such a huge number of mages made Cyoria unlike any other city on the continent, both in the culture of the people living there and, more obviously, in the architecture of the city itself. A lot of things that would be too impractical to build elsewhere were routinely done here, and it made for an inspiring sight if you could find a good spot to watch the city from.

She froze in her tracks when she noticed a swarm of rats staring at her from the bottom of the stairway she was about to descend. Their behavior was strange enough, but her heartbeat really sped up when she took notice of their heads. Was that… were their brains exposed!? She swallowed heavily and stepped back, slowly retreating from the stairwell before turning around and fleeing in a full sprint. She wasn’t sure what they were, but those were definitely not normal rats.
He supposed she shouldn’t have been so shocked, though – a place like Cyoria attracted more than mages – magical creatures of all breeds found such places just as irresistible. Veronica was just glad the rats didn’t pursue her, because she had nothing in the way of combat spells. The only spell she knew that could be used in a situation like this was the spook animals spell, and she had no idea how effective that would have been against such clearly magical creatures. Somewhat shaken but still determined to get to the fountain, she tried to circle the rat gathering by going through the nearby park, but luck just wasn’t on her side today. She promptly ran into a little girl crying her eyes out on the bridge she had to cross, and it took her five minutes just to get her to calm down enough to find out what happened. She supposed she could have just pushed past the girl and left her there to cry, but not even she was that cold-hearted.

“T-the b-bike!” the girl blurted out finally, hiccupping heavily. “It f-fell in!” she wailed.

Veronica blinked, trying to interpret what the girl was trying to tell her. Apparently realizing she wasn’t making any sense, the girl pointed towards the creek running underneath the bridge. Veronica looked over the edge of the bridge, and sure enough, there was a children’s bicycle half-submerged in the muddy waters.

“Huh,” Veronica said. “Wonder how that happened?”

“It fell in!” the girl repeated, looking as if she was going to cry again.

“All right, all right, no need for waterworks, I’ll get it out okay?” Veronica said, eying the bicycle speculatively.

“You’ll get dirty,” the girl warned quietly. Veronica could tell from her tone of voice that she hoped she would get it out anyway.

“Don’t worry, I have no intention of wading through that mud,” Veronica said. “Watch.”

She made a few gestures and cast a levitate object spell, causing the bike to jerkily rise out of the water and into the air. The bike was a lot heavier than the objects she usually practiced with, and she had to levitate the bike a lot higher than she was used to, but it was nothing outside her capabilities. She snatched the bike by its seat when it was close enough and placed it on the bridge.

“There,” Veronica said. “It’s all muddy and wet but I can’t help you there. Don’t know any cleaning spells.”

“O-Okay,” the girl nodded slowly, clutching her bicycle like it was going to fly out of her hand the moment she let go.

Veronica bid her goodbye and left, deciding her relaxing time at the fountain just wasn’t meant to be. The weather seemed to be worsening pretty quickly too – dark clouds were brewing ominously across the horizon, heralding rain. She decided to simply join the diffuse line of students trudging towards the academy and be done with it.

It was a long way from the train station to the academy since the station was on the outskirts of the city and the academy was right next to the Hole. Depending on how physically fit you were and how much luggage you had to drag around, you could get there in an hour or two. Veronica wasn’t particularly fit, what with her slender physique and shut-in ways, but she had purposely packed light in anticipation of this journey. She joined the procession of students that was still streaming from the train station in the direction of the academy, ignoring the occasional first-year struggling with excessive baggage. She empathized with them because her brothers didn’t warn her to keep the luggage at a minimum either, and she was like them the first time she arrived at the train station, but there was nothing she could do to help them.

The threat of rain and bad luck aside, she felt invigorated as she drew closer to the academy grounds. She was drawing on the ambient mana suffusing the area around the Hole, replenishing the mana reserves she spent levitating that girl’s bicycle. Mage academies are almost always built on top of mana wells for the express purpose of exploiting this effect – an area with such high ambient mana levels is a perfect place for inexperienced mages to practice their spellcasting, since anytime they run out of mana, they can supplement their natural mana regeneration by replenishing their mana reserves from their very surroundings.

Veronica took out the apple she still carried in her pocket and levitated it over her palm. It wasn’t really a spell, so much as raw mana manipulation – a mana shaping exercise that was supposed to help mages improve their ability to control and direct magical energies. It looked like such a simple thing, but it took Veronica two years before she mastered it fully. Sometimes she wondered if her family was right and she really was too focused on her studies. She knew for a fact that most of her classmates had much more tenuous control over their magic, and it didn’t appear to be inhibiting them too much.

She dismissed the mana construct holding the apple in the air and let it fall down on her palm. She wished she had some kind of rain protection spell – the first drops of rain were already starting to fall. That, or an umbrella. Either would work just fine, except an umbrella didn’t require several years of training to use.

“Magic can be such a rip-off at times,” said Veronica gloomily.

She took a deep breath and started running.

* * *

“Huh. So there is a rain protection spell,” mumbled Veronica as she watched raindrops splattering upon an invisible barrier in front of her. She extended her hand over the edge of the barrier, and it passed unimpeded. She withdrew her suddenly rather wet hand into the safety of the barrier and followed the boundary as far as her eyes could see. From what she could tell, the barrier encircled the entire academy compound (no small feat, as academy grounds were quite extensive) in a protective bubble that stopped the rain – and only rain - from penetrating it. Apparently the academy upgraded its wards again, because they didn’t have this feature the last time it was raining.

Shrugging, she turned around and continued towards the administration building of the academy. It was too bad the barrier didn’t also dry you out when you passed it, because she was soaking wet. Thankfully, her bag was waterproof, so her clothes and textbooks weren’t in any danger of getting ruined. Slowing down to a leisurely stroll, she studied the collection of buildings that made up the academy. The wards weren’t the only thing that was upgraded; the whole place looked… prettified, for a lack of a better term. Every building was freshly painted, the old brick road was replaced by a much more colorful one, the flower patches were in full bloom, and the small fountain that hadn’t worked for years was suddenly functional.

“Wonder what that’s all about,” she mumbled.

After a few minutes of contemplation, she decided she didn’t care much. She would find out sooner or later if it was of any importance.

The administration building was, predictably, mostly empty of students. Most of them took shelter from the rain instead of pressing on like Veronica, and those that didn’t often didn’t live on academy grounds and thus had no reason to come here today. That was perfect as far as Veronica was concerned, as it meant she could be done here quickly.

Quickly turned out to be a relative term – it took two hours of wrangling with the girl working at the administration desk before she had taken care of all the necessary paperwork. She asked about her class schedule, but was told it wasn’t finalized yet and that she would have to wait until Monday morning. Come to think of it, Ilsa had mentioned the same thing. Before she left, the girl gave her a book of rules with which third-year students were expected to familiarize themselves before sending her on her way. Veronica idly flipped through the rule book while she searched for room 115, before putting it into one of the more obscure compartments in her backpack, never to be looked at again.

Academy-provided housing was pretty terrible, and Veronica had had very unpleasant experiences with it, but it was free and apartment space was severely overpriced in Cyoria. Even children of nobles often lived on academy grounds rather than in their own apartments, so who was she to complain? Besides, living so close to the lecture hall cut down on the travel time each morning and put her close to the biggest library in the city, so there were definitely good sides to it.

An hour later, she smiled to herself as she entered a fairly spacious room. She was even more pleased when she realized she had her own bathroom. With a shower stall, no less! It was a welcome change from having to share a cramped little room with an inconsiderate roommate and sharing a single communal bathroom with the whole floor. As far as furniture went, the room had a bed, a closet, a set of drawers, a work desk, and a chair. Everything Veronica needed, really.

Dropping her luggage on the floor, Veronica changed out of her wet clothes before collapsing on the bed with relief. She had two whole days before the classes started, so she decided to postpone unpacking until tomorrow. Instead, she remained motionless on the bed, wondering for a moment why she couldn’t hear the raindrops hitting the glass plane of the window next to her bed, before remembering the rain barrier.

“I’ve got to learn how to cast that,” she mumbled.

Her spell collection was extremely limited at the moment, consisting of about 20 simple spells, but she had plans to rectify that this year. As a certified first circle mage, she had access to parts of the academy library she didn’t before, and she planned on raiding them for spells contained within. Besides, this year’s classes were supposed to be much more focused on practical spellcasting now that they’d proven themselves capable, so she should be learning plenty of interesting things in class too.

Tired from the long journey, Veronica closed her eyes, intending to take a short nap. She wouldn’t wake up until tomorrow morning.

---

Chapter 2: Chapter 2: Life’s Little Problems

Chapter Text

Although the academy loved saying they were an elite institution thanks to the excellent quality of its teaching staff, the truth was that the main reason for their supremacy was their library. Through contributions of its alumni, generous budget allocations by a number of former headmasters, quirks of local criminal law, and sheer historical accident, the academy had built a library without equal. You could find anything you wanted, regardless of whether the topic was magical or not – there was a whole section reserved for steamy romance novels, for instance. The library was so massive it had actually expanded into the tunnels beneath the city. Many of the lower levels were only accessible to guild mages, so it was only now that Veronica was allowed to browse their contents. Fortunately, the library was open during the weekend, so the very first thing Veronica did when she woke up was descend into these depths to see what she’d been missing these past two years and maybe fill out her spellbook a bit.
Veronica was pleasantly surprised at the sheer number of spells and training manuals available to a first circle mage. There were more books and spells than she could master in a lifetime. Most of the spells were either highly situational or minor variations of each other, so she didn’t feel the need to obsessively learn all of them, but she could already see this place would keep her busy all year round. A lot of them looked surprisingly easy and harmless, and she couldn’t help but wonder why they were kept on the restricted level instead of being available to everyone. She could have used these during her second year. She was right in the middle of trying to find the rain barrier the academy incorporated into its ward scheme when she realized she had skipped breakfast and was getting awfully hungry, and that it was past noon. Reluctantly, she checked out a couple of books to pore over in depth in the safety of her room and went to get something to eat.

There was no kitchen in her room, sadly, but the academy had a pretty good cafeteria available to students–the food they offered was cheap yet surprisingly edible. Still, it was something of a poor woman’s option, and most of the richer kids ate in one of the many restaurants in the vicinity of the academy. That’s why Veronica was a bit shocked when she entered the cafeteria and realized that changes to the academy weren’t only in exterior appearances–the cafeteria was positively sparkling, and all the tables and chairs were brand new. It was weird to see the place so… clean.

Shaking her head, she quickly loaded a couple of plates on her tray, idly noting the cooks were a lot less stingy with the meat and other expensive parts of the dish all of a sudden, and then started scanning the eating students for familiar faces. Clearly something was happening here, and she hated being left outside the loop.

"Veronica! Over here!"

How fortunate. Veronica immediately set off towards the chubby boy gesturing for her to come over. Veronica had learned over the years that her exuberant classmate was firmly plugged into the academy gossip network, and knew pretty much everything and everyone. If anyone would know what was going on, it would be Benisek.

"Hello Ben," Veronica said softly, yet assertively. "I’m surprised to see you in Cyoria so soon. Don’t you usually come with the last train?"

"I should be asking you that!" Benisek half-shouted. Veronica never understood why the boy had to be so loud all the time. "I came here so early but you’re already here!"

"You came back two days before classes start, Ben," Veronica replied, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at him. Only Benisek would think that coming a couple of days early is some great feat worth mentioning. "That’s not all that early. And I just got back yesterday."

"So did I," Benisek said. "Damn. If you had contacted me, we could have arranged to travel together or something. You must have been bored out of your mind here, all alone for a whole day."

"Something like that," agreed Veronica, smiling politely.

"So are you excited?" Benisek asked, suddenly changing the topic.

"About what?" Veronica asked, a playful glint in her gentle eyes. Funny, hadn’t Kirielle asked her the exact same question?

"The start of a new year! We’re third years now, that’s when the real fun starts."

Veronica blinked. To her knowledge, Benisek was one of those people who weren’t terribly concerned about their success in the arcane arts. He already had a guaranteed post in his family business, and was here simply to obtain the prestige of being a licensed mage. Veronica had half expected him to drop out immediately following certification, yet here he was, just as excited as Veronica to finally start delving into the real mysteries of magic. Now she felt pretty bad about writing him off so quickly. She really shouldn’t be so presumptuous…

"Oh, that. Of course I’m excited. Though I must admit I never knew you actually cared about your education."

"What are you talking about?" asked Benisek, eying her suspiciously. "The girls. I’m talking about the girls. The younger ones love uppers like us! The new batch of first years will be all over us."

Veronica groaned softly. She should have known.

"Anyway," said Veronica, recovering quickly, "since I know you’re always gossiping around-"

"Informing myself about the current state of things," Benisek cut in, his voice assuming a mock-lecturing quality.

"Right. What’s with the academy being all sparkly and clean all of a sudden?"

Benisek blinked. "You didn’t know? Gee, people have been talking about this for months! Just which rock do you live under, Veronica?"

"Cirin is a glorified village in the middle of nowhere… as you very well know," Veronica said softly. "Now spill."

"It’s the summer festival," Benisek said. "The whole city is getting ready for it, not just the academy."

"But there’s a summer festival every year," Veronica said, confused.

"Yeah, but this year is special."

"Special?" Veronica asked, her gentle voice filled with curiosity. "How?"

"I don’t know, some astrological bullsh*t," Benisek whined, waving his hand dismissively. "Why does it matter? It’s an excuse to have an even bigger party than usual. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, I say."

"Astro-" began Veronica with a quirked eyebrow when something occurred to her. "Wait, you mean planar alignment?"

"Yeah, that," Benisek agreed. "What’s that anyway?"

"Do you have a couple of hours?"

"On second thought, I don’t want to know," Benisek quickly backpedaled, chuckling nervously.

Veronica snorted softly. So easy to scare. The truth was that Veronica knew very little about planar alignments, and probably couldn’t speak about them longer than 30 seconds. It was a pretty obscure topic. Veronica strongly suspected that Benisek was right, and that it was being used simply as an excuse to have a bigger party.

"So what did you do over the summer?" Benisek asked.

Veronica groaned. "Ben, you sound like my elementary school literature teacher. Now, children, for your homework you will write a short essay about what you did during the summer holidays."

"I’m just being polite," Benisek said defensively. "No need to snap at me because you wasted your summer away."

"Oh, and you spent it productively?" Veronica challenged gently.

"Well, not voluntarily," Benisek admitted sheepishly. "Father decided it was time I start learning the family craft, so I spent all summer helping him and acting as his assistant."

"Oh."

"Yeah," Benisek agreed, clacking his tongue. "He also made me choose estate management as one of my electives. I hear it’s a really tough class too."

"Hm. Can’t say my summer was particularly stressful. I spent most of my time reading fiction and avoiding my family," admitted Veronica. "Mother tried to dump my little sister on me this year, but I managed to talk her out of it."

"I feel for you," Benisek said with a shudder. "I’ve got two younger sisters and I think I’d die if they came to live with me here. They’re both utter nightmares! Anyway, what did you take for your electives?"

"Engineering, Mineral Alchemy, and Advanced Mathematics."

"Eh!?" Benisek blanched. "Wow, you’re really taking this seriously, aren’t you? I guess you’re gunning for a spot in one of the spell forges, huh?"

"Yeah," Veronica said.

"Why?" Benisek asked incredulously. "Designing magic items… that’s a tough, demanding job. Surely your parents could find you a spot in their business?"

Veronica gave him a strained smile. Yes, no doubt her parents already had a spot all planned out for her.

"I’d rather starve out in the streets," Veronica told him honestly.

Benisek raised an eyebrow at her, but then simply shook his head sadly. "I think you’re crazy, personally. Who did you choose as your mentor?"

"I didn’t get to choose," Veronica scoffed softly. "There was only one left by the time it was my turn to do so. I’m mentored under Xvim."

Benisek actually dropped his spoon at this, staring at her in shock. "Xvim!? But that guy’s a nightmare!"

"I know," Veronica said, releasing a long-suffering sigh.

"God, I’d probably transfer if I got assigned to that asshole," Benisek said. "You’re a lot braver than I, that’s for sure."

"So who did you choose?" Veronica asked curiously.

"Carabiera Aope," Benisek said, immediately brightening.

"Please don’t tell me you chose your mentor based on appearance?" begged Veronica, with a gentle smile.

"Well, not just based on appearance," Benisek said defensively. "They say she’s pretty tolerant…"

"You don’t want to do any extra work," Veronica surmised gently.

"This whole thing is like a vacation to me," Benisek admitted sheepishly. "I get to postpone employment for two years and have some fun in the meantime. You’re only young once, you know?"

Veronica shrugged gracefully. Personally she found learning about magic and gathering knowledge in general to be fun all by itself, but she knew all too well that very few people shared this opinion with her.

"I suppose," Veronica said noncommittally. "So is there anything else that everyone knows that I should be familiar with?"

She spent another hour or so conversing with Benisek, touching upon a variety of topics. It was particularly interesting to hear which of their classmates would be joining them this year and which ones wouldn’t. Veronica had thought the certification exam was a bit on the easy side, but apparently she was mistaken, since roughly a quarter of their classmates would not be joining them. She did notice that most of the failed students were civilian-born ones, but this wasn’t terribly unusual – mage-born students had parental support when learning magic, and a reputation to live up to. She was pleasantly surprised that one particular asshole wouldn’t be joining them this year – apparently Veyers Boranova lost his temper on his disciplinary hearing and got himself expelled from the academy. He wouldn’t be missed. Honestly, that boy was a menace and it was a disgrace they hadn’t expelled him sooner. Fortunately, it seemed there were some things that just couldn’t be overlooked, even if you were an heir of Noble House Boranova.

She left when Benisek started discussing pros and cons of various girls in their class, not willing to get dragged into such a discussion, and went back to her room to get some reading done. She hadn’t even opened the first book properly when she was interrupted by a knock on the door. Very few people cared to track her down to her room, so she actually had a pretty good idea of who it was before she even opened the door.

"Hi, Roach!"

Veronica stared at the grinning girl in front of her, contemplating whether to take offense at the insulting nickname before shooing her inside. In the past, while she was still crushing on her, the nickname had kind of hurt… now it was just slightly annoying. Taiven promptly ran inside and jumped on her bed like a little kid. Really, what had she ever seen in her? Beside a beautiful older girl who was fairly nice to her and had a propensity to wear form-fitting clothes, that is.

"I thought you graduated," she said.

"I did," she answered, taking one of the spellbooks Veronica borrowed from the library into her lap to leaf through it. Seeing how she had already taken over her bed, Veronica sat down on the chair in front of her work desk. "But you know how it goes – there’s always too many young mages, never enough masters willing to take them under their wing. I’m working as a class assistant for Nirthak. Hey, if you took nonmagical combat you’re going to see me all the time!"

"Yeah, right," Veronica snorted softly. "Nirthak blacklisted me in advance, just in case I get any ideas."

"Really!?"
"Yeah. Not that I would ever sign up for a class like that anyway," Veronica said, flicking her long ponytail over her shoulder. Except maybe to watch Taiven all sweaty and puffed up in that tight outfit she always wore whenever she trained.

"Pity," Taiven said, seemingly engrossed in Veronica's book. "You really should put on some muscle one of these days. Boys like sporty girls."

"I don’t care what boys like," Veronica snapped softly yet firmly, trying not to sound too cranky as Taiven's words echoed with a familiar nagging tone. "Why are you here anyway?"

"Oh, calm down, it was just a thought," Taiven said with a dramatic sigh. "You and your delicate little sensibilities."

"Taiven, I like you, but you’re really treading on thin ice here," Veronica warned playfully, though her words carried a firm undertone.

"I came here to ask if you would join me and a couple of others on a job tomorrow," Taiven said, throwing the book aside and finally getting to the point of her visit.

"A job?" Veronica asked suspiciously.

"Yeah. Well, more like a mission. You know those job postings people tack onto the big board inside the administrative building?"

Veronica nodded, eyes momentarily flicking to the pile of books she had yet to read. Whenever a mage in the city wanted something done for cheap, a job offer went up there for interested students. The payout was generally miserable, but students had to collect points by doing these, so everyone eventually tackled a few. Most didn’t start before their fourth year, unless they really needed the money, and Veronica planned to follow this tradition.

"There is a pretty nice one there," Taiven said brightly. "It’s actually just a simple find and retrieve in the tunnels below the city that—"

"A sewer run!?" Veronica asked incredulously, cutting her off. "You want me to go on a sewer run?"

"It’s good experience!" Taiven protested, her playful tone never wavering.

"No," Veronica said, crossing her arms delicately. "No way."

"Oh, come on, Vera, I’m begging you!" Taiven whined, resorting to the playful nickname. "We can’t apply until we find a fourth member of the team! Would it kill you to make this tiny sacrifice for your old friend?"

"It very well might!" Veronica countered firmly.

"You’ll have three other people to protect you!" Taiven assured with a wink. "We’ve been there hundreds of times and nothing really dangerous ever happens down there – the rumors are mostly exaggerated."

Veronica snorted softly and looked away. Even if they really did keep her safe, it was still a trek through smelly, disease-ridden tunnels with three people she didn’t really know, who probably resented having to bring her along for the sake of a formality.

Besides, she still hadn’t forgiven Taiven for that fake date she invited her on. She may not have known Veronica was crushing on her at the time, but it was still a pretty insensitive thing she did that evening.

Also, she might feel a little more inclined to help if Taiven stopped calling her "Vera." It was not nearly as cute as she thought it was.

"Okay, how about a bet?" Taiven tried, sounding full of mischief.

"No," Veronica promptly refused, tossing the suggestion aside like an irritating insect.

Taiven let out an affronted cry. "You didn’t even hear me out!"

"You want to fight," Veronica said, anticipating the challenge with a knowing smile. "You always want to fight."

"So?" Taiven pouted playfully. "You backing down? Admitting you’d lose in advance?"

"Absolutely," Veronica deadpanned. Both of Taiven’s parents were martial arts practitioners, and they had taught her how to fight since she could walk. Veronica wouldn’t last five seconds against her in hand-to-hand combat.

Hell, she doubted anyone in school would do much better.

Taiven waved her hands in the air in a frustrated gesture and promptly collapsed on Veronica's bed, and for a moment Veronica thought she was accepting defeat. Then Taiven sat up and folded her legs under her until she was sitting in a lotus position. The smile on her face was giving Veronica a bad feeling.

"So," Taiven began cheerfully. "How have you been?"

Veronica sighed, wishing quietly for a reprieve from her friend's determined persistence. This was not how she intended to spend her weekend.

* * *

Two days later, Veronica was well settled into her new room, and it was Monday morning. Rising early was pure torture after she had gotten into the habit of sleeping in, but she managed. She had many flaws, but a lack of self-discipline wasn’t one of them.

Veronica managed to fend off Taiven after three hours of verbal wrangling, though she was in no mood for anything after that and put off reading for another day after her visit. In the end, she spent the entire weekend lazing around, actually somewhat impatient for the classes to start.

The first class of the day was Essential Invocations, and Veronica wasn’t quite sure what it was supposed to teach. Most of the other classes on her schedule had a clear subject of study visible from the very name of the subject, but invocation was a general term. Invocations were what most people thought about when someone said magic – a few arcane words and strange gestures and poof! Magic effect. It was actually more involved than that – a lot more involved – but that was the visible part, so that’s what people focused on. Clearly the academy felt the class was important, because they had a period scheduled for it every day of the week.

As she approached the classroom, she noticed a familiar person standing in front of the door with a clipboard in her hands. This, at least, was a familiar sight. Akoja Stroze had been the class representative for her group since their first year, and she took her position very seriously. Akoja gave her a harsh look when she noticed her, and Veronica wondered what she had done to annoy her now.

"You’re late," Akoja stated when Veronica got close enough.

Veronica raised an eyebrow at this. "The class doesn’t start for at least 10 more minutes. How can I be late?"

"Students are supposed to be in the classroom and ready for class 15 minutes before the class starts," Akoja stated.

Veronica rolled her eyes softly. This was ridiculous, even for Akoja. "Am I the last person to arrive?"

"No," Akoja conceded after a short silence.

Veronica walked past her and entered the classroom.

You could always tell when you walked into a gathering of mages – their appearance and fashion sense gave them away unerringly, especially in Cyoria where mages from all over the world sent their children. Many of her classmates came from established magical families, if not outright Houses, and many mage lineages produced children with noticeable peculiarities, either because of bloodlines passed down from parents or because of secret enhancement rituals they subjected themselves to… things like having green hair, or always giving birth to soul-bonded twins, or having tattoo-like markings on their cheeks and forehead. And these were real examples exhibited by her classmates.

Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she went towards the front of the classroom, throwing polite greetings to those few classmates she knew a little better than the rest. No one really tried to talk to her – though there was no bad blood between her and anyone in the class, she was not particularly close to any of them either.

She was just about to sit down when frantic hissing interrupted her. She glanced to her left, watching her classmate whisper soothingly to the orange-red lizard in his lap. The animal was staring at her intently with its bright yellow eyes, nervously tasting the air with its tongue, but didn’t hiss again when Veronica carefully lowered herself into the chair.

"Sorry about that," the boy said. "He’s still a little uneasy around strangers."

"Don’t worry about it," Veronica said, waving the apology away with a gentle smile. She didn’t know Briam all that well, but she did know his family bred fire drakes for a living, so it wasn’t that unusual for him to have one. "I see your family has given you a fire drake of your own. Familiar?"

Briam nodded happily, scratching the lizard’s head absent-mindedly and causing the creature to close its eyes in contentment. "I bonded with him over the summer holidays," he said. "Familiar bond is a little strange at first, but I think I’m getting the hang of it. At least I’ve managed to talk him out of breathing fire at people without permission, else I’d have to put a fire-suppressant collar on him, and he hates that thing."

"The school won’t bother you about bringing it to class?" Veronica asked curiously.

"Him," Briam corrected. "And no, they won’t. You can bring a familiar to class if you’ve reported them to the academy and can get them to behave. And, of course, as long as they’re reasonably sized."

"I hear fire drakes can get pretty big," Veronica remarked speculatively.

"They do," Briam agreed. "That’s why I wasn’t allowed to have one till now. In a few years he’ll get way too big to follow me into the classroom, but by that time I’ll already be finished with my education and back at the ranch."

Satisfied the creature wouldn’t try to take a bite out of her during class, Veronica let her attention wander elsewhere. She mostly spent her time studying the girls as covertly as possible. She blamed Benisek for this, since she usually wasn’t in the habit of ogling her classmates. No matter how cute some of them were…

"Hot, isn’t she?"

Veronica jumped in surprise at the voice behind her and cursed herself for being caught so unawares.

"I don’t know what you’re talking about," she said quickly, turning as calmly as possible in her seat to face Shirley. The cheery, smiling face of her classmate told her she wasn’t fooling anyone.

"Don’t be so flustered," Shirley told her happily. "Even girl would occasionally daydream about our resident red-headed goddess."

Veronica snorted softly. Actually, she wasn’t looking at Raynie at all, but at the girl she was talking to. Not that she was going to correct Shirley about that. Or anything, really – Veronica had mixed feelings about Shirley. On the one hand Shirley was charming, confident, and approachable – somewhat reminiscent of her brothers – but on the other hand Shirley was never mean or inconsiderate to Veronica, and would often chat with her when everyone else was content to ignore her. As a result, Veronica was never quite sure how to act around her.

Besides, Veronica never discussed her tastes in classmates with others. The academy rumor mill thrived on whispers of who liked who, and Veronica knew all too well how even relatively innocuous rumors could make one's life miserable for years to come.

"From your wistful tone, I’m guessing she’s still immune to your charm," Veronica said, trying to shift the focus of the conversation away from her own musings.

"She’s tricky," Shirley agreed playfully, her green eyes twinkling with mischief. "But I’ve got all the time in the world."

Veronica raised an eyebrow at that, not sure what the other girl was implying. All the time in the world?

Thankfully, she was saved from further conversation when the door noisily opened and the teacher entered the classroom. Veronica was honestly surprised to see Ilsa walk into class with the huge green book that all teachers carried, though she really shouldn’t have been – she already knew Ilsa was a teacher at the academy, so there was nothing unusual about her teaching this class. Ilsa gave her a warm smile before setting the book down on her desk and clapping her hands together to silence those students who were too engrossed in their own conversations to notice the teacher in the room.

"Settle down everyone, the class has started," Ilsa said, accepting the list of present students from Akoja, who remained standing beside Ilsa at attention, like a soldier in front of a superior officer.
"Welcome, students, to your first class of the new school year. I am Ilsa Zileti and I will be your teacher for this class. You are third-year students now, meaning you have passed your certification and joined us in our… illustrious magi community. You have proven yourself to be intelligent, driven, and capable of bending mana – the lifeblood of magic – to your will. But your journey is just beginning. As all of you have noticed, and many of you have complained about, you have only been taught a handful of spells so far, and all of them are mere cantrips. You’ll be pleased to know this injustice ends now."

A cheer erupted from the students, and Ilsa allowed them to go wild for a second before gesturing them to be silent again. She certainly had a flair for theatrics. Much like the students, really – that cheer certainly wasn’t because they were honestly unable to contain their excitement.

"But what exactly are spells?" she asked. "Can anyone tell me?"

"Oh great," Veronica mumbled softly. "A review session."

Hesitant mumbling erupted in the classroom until Ilsa pointed to one particular girl, who repeated her answer of structured magic.

"Indeed, spells are structured magic. To cast a spell is to invoke a particular mana construct. A construct that is, by its very nature, limited in what it can do. This is why structured spells are also called bounded spells. The shaping exercises you have been doing for the past two years – the ones that you all think are a useless chore – are unstructured magic. In theory, unstructured magic can do anything. Invocations are simply a tool to make your life easier. A crutch, some would say. To cast a bounded spell is to sacrifice flexibility and force mana into a rigid construct that can only be modified in minor ways. So why does everyone prefer invocations?"

She waited for a few moments before continuing. "In an ideal world, you would learn how to perform all your magic in an unstructured manner, bending it to your will as you please. But this is not an ideal world. Unstructured magic is slow and hard to learn, and time is precious. And besides, invocations are good enough for most purposes. They can do amazing things. Many of the things you can accomplish with invocations have never been reproduced using unstructured magic. Others…"

She took out a pen from her pocket and placed it on the table before casting what Veronica recognized as a simple torch spell. The pen erupted in soft light that illuminated the room. Well, at least now she knew why the curtains were closed in the classroom – it was hard to effectively demonstrate light spells in broad daylight. The spell was nothing new to Veronica, though, since they were taught how to cast it last year.

"The torch invocation is one of the simplest spells, and one that you should already know by now. It is comparable to the light-emitting shaping exercise that you should also know by now."

Ilsa then launched into an explanation about the relative advantages and disadvantages of the torch spell compared to the shaping exercise, and how it related to structured vs. unstructured magic in general. For the most part, it was nothing that Veronica hadn’t known from books and lectures already, and Veronica amused herself by drawing various magical creatures in the margins of her notebook while Ilsa talked. From the corner of her eye, she could see Akoja and a number of other people furiously writing everything down, even though this was just a review session and they almost certainly had all of this already written in their last year’s notebooks. She didn’t know whether to be impressed with their dedication or another kind of single-mindedness.

She did notice, however, that some of the students had animated their pens to copy down the entire lecture while they listened. Veronica personally preferred to write notes herself, but she could see how such a spell would be useful, so she quickly jotted down a reminder to find the spell they used to do that.

Ilsa then began discussing dispelling – another topic they had covered exhaustively during the previous year, and also one of the key areas they had to be proficient in to pass the certification process. To be fair, it was a complex and vital topic. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to effectively dispelling a structured spell, and without knowing how to dispel your own spells, experimenting with structured magic could be disastrous. Still, one would think the academy would assume they knew it by now and move on.

Somewhere along the line Ilsa decided to spice up her explanation with examples and performed some kind of summoning spell that resulted in several stacks of ceramic bowls popping into existence on her table. She told Akoja to distribute the bowls to everyone, and then had them use the levitate object spell to make the bowls hover over their tables. Compared to levitating that little girl’s bicycle out of the river, this was insultingly easy.

"I see you’ve all managed to levitate your bowls," Ilsa said. "Very good. Now I want you to cast the de-illuminator spell on it."

Veronica raised her eyebrows at this. What would that achieve?

"Go on," Ilsa urged. "Don’t tell me you have already forgotten how to cast it?"

Veronica quickly made a couple of gestures and whispered a short chant while concentrating on the bowl. The item in question wobbled for a second before finally dropping out of the air like any normal heavier-than-air item. A plethora of clattering sounds informed her that this wasn’t an isolated occurrence. She glanced towards Ilsa for an explanation.

"As you can see, the levitate object spell can be dispelled by the de-illuminator spell. An interesting development, don’t you agree? What does a spell designed to snuff out sources of magical light have to do with hovering objects? The truth, my young students, is that de-illuminator is simply a specialized form of a general-purpose disruptor spell, which breaks down the structure of a spell in order to make it go away. While not designed with levitate object in mind, it is still capable of affecting it if you supply it with enough power."

"Why didn’t you tell us to just dispel it normally, then?" one of the girls asked.

"A topic for another time," Ilsa said without missing a beat. "For now, I want you to take notice of what happened when you dispelled the spell on the bowl – it dropped like a rock, and if it had not been magically strengthened, it would have probably shattered upon impacting the table. This is the main problem inherent in all disruptor spells. Disruptor spells are the simplest form of dispelling, and virtually every spell can be disrupted if you put enough power into the disruptor, but sometimes disrupting the spell can have worse consequences than letting it run its course. This is especially true for higher-order spells, which almost always react explosively to disruption because of the vast amount of mana that goes into their casting. Not to mention that enough power can be far more than any mage can provide. Place your bowls on the table and put a few torn pages from your notebook into it."

Veronica was somewhat surprised by Ilsa’s sudden request, but did as she said. She always found tearing paper to be somewhat cathartic, so she filled the bowl with a bit more paper than necessary, and then waited for further instructions.

"I want you all to cast the ignite spell on the paper, followed immediately by the de-illuminator on the resulting fire to dispel it," Ilsa said.

Veronica sighed. This time she had caught on to what they were doing, and knew the flames would not be dispelled by the de-illuminator, but she did as Ilsa said anyway. The flames didn’t even flicker, and the fire died out on its own when it ran out of fuel.

"I see all of you can cast the ignite spell perfectly," Ilsa said. "I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised – heating things is something that is very easy to do with magic. That and explosions. None of you managed to dispel the flames, though. Why do you suppose that is?"

Veronica softly snorted, listening to several other students trying to guess the answer. Guess being the operative word, because they seemed to be throwing random answers around in hopes of making something stick. Normally she never volunteered for anything in class – she disliked the attention – but she was getting tired of the guessing game and Ilsa didn’t seem willing to supply the answer herself until someone figured it out.

"Because there’s nothing to dispel," Veronica called out, her tone laced with a blend of firmness and softness. "It’s just a regular fire, started by magic but not fueled by it."

"Correct," Ilsa said with a nod. "This is another weakness of disruptor spells. They break down mana constructs, but any fundamentally non-magical effects caused by the spell are unaffected. With that in mind, let us return to our immediate problem…"

Two hours later, Veronica filed out of the classroom with her fellow classmates, actually a bit disappointed. She learned precious little during the lecture, and Ilsa said she would spend an entire month rounding out their basics before moving on to more advanced stuff. Then she gave them an essay on the topic of dispelling. It was shaping up to be a relatively boring class, since Veronica had a pretty good grasp of the basics, and they had essential invocations five times a week – that is to say, every day. Joy.

The rest of the day was uneventful, since the remaining four classes were purely introductory, outlining what material would be covered for each class and other such details. Essential alchemy and operation of magical items looked promising, but the other two classes were just more of the same thing they’d had for the past two years. Veronica wasn’t sure why the academy felt that they needed to continue learning about the history of magic and magical law into the third year of their education, unless they were deliberately trying to annoy everyone. This was especially true because their history teacher, an old man by the name of Zenomir Olgai, was very enthusiastic about his subject and gave them an assignment to read a 200-page history book by the end of the week.

It was a poor way to start the week in Veronica’s opinion.

* * *

The next day opened with combat magic, which was taught in a training hall instead of a classical classroom. Their teacher was an ex-battlemage named Kyron. It only took one look at him for Veronica to realize this was not going to be your average class.

The man standing in front of them was of average height, but he looked as if he was chiseled out of stone – bald, grim-faced, and very, very muscular. He had a rather prominent nose and he was completely shirtless, proudly displaying his rather developed chest muscles. He carried a combat staff in one hand and the ever-present green teacher’s book in the other. Had someone described the man to Veronica, she would have thought it funny, but there was nothing funny about facing this person in the flesh.
**Combat Magic Class**

"Combat magic isn’t really a category of spells as such," Kyron said in a loud, commanding voice, more like a general instructing recruits than a teacher addressing students. It was probably the quietest class Veronica had ever attended – even chatterboxes like Neolu and Jade were silent. "More like a way of casting magic. To use spells in combat, you need to cast them fast, and you need to overcome your opponent’s defenses. This means they inevitably require a lot of power and that you shape the spell in an instant… which means that classical invocations like you learn them in other classes are useless!" He slammed his staff into the floor for emphasis, and his words reverberated throughout the training hall. Veronica could swear the man was empowering his voice with magic somehow. "Chanting a spell takes several seconds, if not longer, and most of your opponents will kill you before you finish. Especially today, in the aftermath of the Splinter Wars, when every fool is armed with a gun and educated in ways to effectively combat mages."

Kyron waved his hand in the air, and the air behind him shimmered, revealing a transparent phantasm of a minotaur over him. The creature looked quite angry, but it was clearly an illusion. "A lot of combat spells used by mages of old relied on people being awed by magic, or unfamiliar with its limitations. Today, every child that went through elementary school knows better than to be scared away by an obvious illusion like this one, much less a professional soldier or a criminal. Most of the spells and tactics you will find in the library are hopelessly obsolete."

Kyron stopped and rubbed his chin in thought. "Also, it is somewhat hard to focus on spellcasting when someone is actively trying to kill you," he remarked offhandedly. He shook his head. "As a consequence of all this, nobody casts combat spells as classical invocations anymore. Instead, people use spell formulas, like the one imprinted on my staff, to cast specific spells quicker and easier. I won’t even be teaching you how to cast combat spells without these items, since teaching you how to use classical invocations effectively in battle would take years. If you’re really curious, you can always browse the library for the right chants and gestures and practice on your own."

Then he handed them each a rod of magic missile and had them practice firing the spell at the clay dolls on the other end of the training hall until their mana ran out. While waiting for the girl in front of her to run out of mana, Veronica studied the spell rod in her hand. It was a perfectly straight piece of wood that fit well into Veronica’s hand and could be grasped at each of the two ends without any change in effect – that being a bolt of force emerging from the tip of the rod pointing away from the caster.

When it was finally her turn, she realized that casting with the aid of a spell formula was almost insultingly easy. She didn’t even have to think about it much, just point the rod in the desired direction and channel mana through it – the spell formula in the rod did almost everything by itself. The real problem was that magic missile took a lot more mana than any other spell that Veronica had encountered, and she had burned through her mana reserves in only eight shots.

Drained of mana and a little disappointed in how quickly she ran out, Veronica observed Shirley as she fired magic missile after magic missile with lazy confidence. Veronica couldn’t help but feel a bit envious of the girl – the amount of mana Shirley had to have used by now was easily three or four times bigger than her maximum. And Shirley didn’t appear to be slowing down at all, either.

"Well, I’m going to let you all go, even though the class isn’t officially over yet," Kyron said. "You’re all out of mana, with the exception of miss Noveda here, and combat magic is all about practice. As parting words, I must caution you to use your newly acquired combat magic with restraint and responsibility. Otherwise, I will personally hunt you down."

If it were any other professor saying this, Veronica would have laughed, but Kyron might just be crazy enough to do it.

**Spell Formula Class**

Then it was time for spell formula class, the very branch of magic used to build the focusing aids they used in their combat magic class. Their teacher, a young woman with gravity-defying orange hair that stood up like the flame of a candle, reminded Veronica of Zenomir Olgai with her enthusiasm for the subject. Veronica actually liked spell formulas, but not quite as much as Nora Boole thought was appropriate. Her recommended reading included 12 different books, and she immediately announced that she would be organizing bonus lectures each week for those interested in learning more. Then she gave them a short test (it had 60 questions) to check how much they remembered from their last two years. She wrapped up the class by telling them to read the first three chapters from one of the books on her recommended reading list for the next class (which was tomorrow).

**Mentor Meeting**

After that, the rest of the day was like a relaxation period in comparison.

Veronica knocked on the door in front of her, nervously fidgeting in place. The first week of school was rather uneventful, aside from finding out that advanced mathematics was also taught by Nora Boole, and she was similarly enthusiastic about that subject as well, giving them another preliminary test and more recommended reading. Still, it was now Friday, and it was time to meet her mentor.

"Come in," a voice sounded from the room, and Veronica swore she could feel the impatience in the voice already, like the man felt she was wasting his time before he even saw her. She opened the door and came face to face with Xvim Chao, the notorious mentor from hell. Veronica could tell straight from his facial expression that Xvim didn’t think much of her.

"Veronica Kazinski? Sit down please," Xvim ordered, not even bothering to wait for an answer. Veronica barely caught the pen the man threw at her the moment she sat down.

"Show me your basic three," her mentor ordered, referring to the shaping exercises they were taught in their second year.

She had heard about this part. No one had ever mastered the basic three enough to impress Xvim. Sure enough, Veronica had barely begun levitating the pen when she was interrupted.

"Slow," Xvim pronounced. "It took you a full second of concentration to snap into a proper mindset. You must be faster. Start over."

Start over. Start over. Start over. He kept saying that, again and again, until Veronica realized it had been a whole hour since they had started with this. She had completely lost track of time in her attempt to focus on the exercise instead of her growing desire to ram the pen into Xvim’s eye socket.

"Start over."

The pen immediately rose into the air before Xvim was even done talking. Really, how could she possibly get any faster than this with the exercise?

She lost focus when a marble collided with her forehead, disrupting her concentration.

"You lost focus," Xvim admonished.

"You threw a marble at me!" protested Veronica, unable to quite accept that Xvim had really done something so childish. "What did you expect would happen!?"

"I expected you to maintain focus on the exercise anyway," Xvim said. "Had you truly mastered the exercise, such a minor disturbance would not have impeded you. It seems I have once again been regretfully proven right: the inadequacy of current academy curricula has stunted the growth of another promising student. It seems we have to start with the very basics of mana shaping. We will go through each of the basic three until you can do them flawlessly."

"Professor, I had those exercises mastered a year ago," Veronica protested. She was not wasting her time with the basic three. She had already spent too much time refining those in her opinion.

"You have not," Xvim said, sounding as if he was affronted Veronica would even suggest such a thing. "Being able to perform the exercise reliably is not the same as mastering it. Besides, doing this will teach you patience and how to control your temper, which is clearly something you are having trouble with. Those are important skills for a mage to have."

Veronica’s lips pressed themselves into a thin line. The man was intentionally provoking her, she was sure of it. Apparently, the rumors were right, and these sessions were going to be one giant exercise in frustration.

"Let us start with the levitation exercise," Xvim said, oblivious to Veronica’s musings. "Start over."

She was starting to hate those two words.

Chapter 3: Chapter 3: The Bitter Truth

Chapter Text

If someone had asked Veronica at the end of the first week what classes she thought she would have the most trouble with, she would have answered Spell Formulas and Advanced Mathematics. Combat magic maybe. Two weeks later, she could safely say the answer was Warding.

Warding, the art of protecting things with magic, was a surprisingly complex field. You had to take into account what the thing you’re trying to protect is made of, what its dimensions and geometry were, how the ward is going to react with the already existing magic… or you could just slap a general-purpose warding invocation on your target and hope for the best. But the professor would fail you for that answer, so that wasn’t an option in the classroom.

But these complexities aside, the class should have been a breeze, or at least not this confusing – Veronica was a patient, methodical person when it came to magecraft and had slogged through worse offenders than warding with decent results. The problem was that their teacher, a stern woman with hair cut so short she might as well have gone all the way and shaved her head completely, didn’t know how to teach. At all. Oh, she clearly knew the subject matter very well, but she simply didn’t know how to translate that knowledge into a proper lecture. She was leaving a lot of things out of her lectures, apparently not realizing that just because they were obvious to her, they were not obvious to her students. The textbook she assigned for the class wasn’t much better, and read more like a manual for a professional warder than a student’s textbook.

**Question 6:**

You are tasked with building a research outpost on a first-degree mana well in the Sarokian Highlands. The building is meant to support a staff of 4 at any particular time, and the prospectors have expressed concerns over the heavy presence of winter wolf packs and an infestation of borer wasps in the surrounding area. You have a budget of 25.000 pieces and are assumed to be a certified second circle warder.

1. Assuming only mana extracted from the mana well is available for powering the wards, which combination of wards do you feel would be the best choice for the outpost? Explain your reasoning.
2. Draw basic floor-plans of the planned outpost and explain how the planned room placement and shape of the building itself affect ward effectiveness.
3. Do you think the issue of the borer wasp infestation is best resolved by using a vermin repellant ward or by careful choice of building materials? Explain your reasoning.

Veronica found these questions challenging, even more so when relying solely on a textbook that seemed to assume years of prior specialized knowledge. But she was determined to prove herself, pushing through the confusion to demonstrate her capability.
Assume that you are commissioned to build not one but five outposts. The budget remains the same. How does this change your answer? Do you believe it is better to make the wards identical for all five outposts or do you feel some amount of difference between them is in order? Explain the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. Veronica rubbed her eyes in frustration. How was she supposed to answer a question like this? She didn’t take the architecture elective and wasn’t aware that you had to take it to do well in your warding class. Not to mention that the question assumed they knew what the market rates were for buying the necessary materials, or that they knew where the Sarokian Highlands were. Veronica was quite good at geography, and she had no idea, though considering the presence of monsters like winter wolves, she suspected they were somewhere in the northern forest.

At the very least she knew how to answer the third part of the question. The correct answer was definitely wards. Even if the outpost was made inedible to borer wasp larvae, it would still make a prime place to build a nest. Considering how territorial those insects were, you didn’t want them living anywhere near you. Theoretically, the careful choice of materials options would free up mana that would otherwise be spent on maintaining vermin repellant wards, but those wards required very little mana flow to stay active. Especially if they were keyed specifically to borer wasps.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a girlish giggle coming from the back of the classroom. Veronica didn’t even have to turn around to know what was happening – Shirley was entertaining the students around her again. She wished the teacher would penalize the girl for the disruption she was causing, especially in the middle of an exam, but Shirley was a bit of a darling to the stern woman because she was the only student acing her exams. No doubt Shirley had already finished her test with 100% accuracy. Which, by the way, made no sense whatsoever – during their first two years, Shirley was a below-average student more distinguished because of her charm than magical talent. Kind of like a nicer version of Fortov, actually. This year, though, she was acing everything. Everything. She had a wealth of knowledge and a work ethic she hadn’t had at the end of their second year, far in excess of what could be gained through the normal passage of time.

How does one get so much better in the span of a single summer?

Fifteen minutes later, Veronica threw her pencil down on the table, calling it quits. She only filled in eight out of ten questions, and she wasn’t sure how correct these eight were, but it would have to do. She would have to set aside a couple of days for warding self-study, because the lectures were making less and less sense with every passing day. The only other student that stayed in the classroom as long as she did was Akoja, and she handed in her paper only a few seconds after Veronica did and followed her outside. Of course, they stayed in the classroom so long for very different reasons. Veronica stayed so she could scrape in a few stray points. Akoja stayed because she was a perfectionist who wanted to triple-check everything to make sure she didn’t forget anything.

"Veronica, wait!"

Veronica slowed down and allowed Akoja to catch up to her. The girl could be insufferable sometimes, but she was a good person overall, and Veronica didn’t want to snap at her just because the test didn’t go the way she wanted.

"How do you think you did back there?" Akoja asked.

"Badly," Veronica answered, not seeing the point in lying.

"Yeah, me too."

Veronica rolled her eyes. Her and Akoja's definition of badly differed greatly.

"Neolu finished in only half an hour," said Akoja after a brief silence. "I bet she’ll get a perfect score again."

"Ako…" Veronica sighed.

"I know everyone thinks I’m jealous, but that’s not normal!" said Akoja in a hushed but agitated voice. "I’m pretty smart, and I study all the time, and I’m still having problems with the curriculum. And we’ve both been in the same class as Neolu for the past two years, and she was never this good. And… and now she’s beating me in every single class!"

"Kind of like Shirley," said Veronica.

"Exactly like Shirley!" Akoja agreed. "They even hang out together, the two of them and one other girl I don’t know, behaving like… like they’re in their own private little world."

"Or like they’re a couple," said Veronica, before frowning. "Triple? What’s the word for a romantic relationship between 3 people?"

Akoja scoffed. "Whatever. The point is the three of them do nothing but waste time together and antagonize the teachers and get perfect scores anyway. They even refused the chance to get transferred to 1st tier groups, can you believe that!?"

"You’re too worked up over this," Veronica warned.

"Aren’t you a little bit curious how they do it?" asked Akoja.

"Of course I am," scoffed Veronica. "It’s hard not to be. But what can I do about it? Besides, Shirley has never done anything to me. I don’t want to cause problems for her just because she has suddenly discovered her inner prodigy."

Veronica felt Benisek join them suddenly, simply popping up from behind a corner so he could walk beside them. Sometimes Veronica wondered if the chubby boy could smell gossip.

"I know what you mean," Benisek said. "I always thought Shirley was no good at anything. You know, like me?"

"Hah. Well there’s no way she got this good at everything over one summer break," Veronica said. "I guess she was pulling the wool over our eyes all this time."

"Gods, that’s so stupid," said Benisek. "If I were that good I’d make sure everyone knew it."

"I don’t think she was faking lack of skill for two years straight," Akoja huffed. "She would have slipped at least occasionally."

"Well, what’s left then?" Veronica asked. She refrained from listing some of the more obscure ways such a rapid growth could be accomplished with magic, because most of them were criminal, and she was sure the academy checked Shirley to make sure she wasn’t a shapeshifting imposter or possessed by the ghost of a long-dead mage.

"Maybe she knows the answers in advance," Akoja suggested.

"Only if she’s an oracle," Benisek said. "Boole gave her an oral exam last Tuesday when you went home early, and she was rattling off answers like she swallowed the textbook."

The conversation died down as all three filed into the alchemy classroom, which was really more of a big alchemy workshop than a typical classroom. There were about 20 tables, each one full of various containers and other equipment. All ingredients for the day’s lesson were already set out in front of them, though some would require additional preparation before they could be used in whatever process they were learning about that day – Veronica was pretty sure they weren’t going to be putting live cave crickets into the boiling solution, for instance.

Alchemy, like warding, was a complicated art, but their alchemy teacher knew her stuff and knew how to teach, so Veronica wasn’t having any issues with the class. Technically they had to work in groups of 2 or 3 students because there were not enough tables and equipment, but Veronica always paired up with Benisek which translated to working alone, in practice. The only problem was getting Benisek to shut up and stop distracting her during class.

"Hey, Veronica," Benisek whispered to her not so quietly. "I never noticed it until now, but our teacher is kind of hot!"

Veronica gritted her teeth. The blasted idiot couldn’t keep his voice down if his life was on the line. There was no way she didn’t hear that.

"Benisek," she whispered back to her partner. "I need good grades in alchemy to get my dream job when I graduate. If you screw this up for me, I will never speak to you again."

Benisek grumbled mutinously before returning to his ogling. Veronica refocused on grinding the borer wasp husks into a fine powder needed for the particular type of glue they were supposed to be making. Admittedly, Azlyn Marivoski did look surprisingly good for a 50-year-old woman. Some kind of cosmetic treatment probably – she was their alchemy teacher, after all. Maybe even a true youth potion, though those were really rare and usually imperfect in some way.

"I don’t see why you like this class so much," grumbled Benisek. "I’m not even sure I’d call it magical. You don’t need mana for it. It’s all searching for herbs this and cutting the roots the right way that… it’s like cooking. Hell, we’re making glue, of all things. Well, I suppose that girls thing."

"Benisek…"

"It’s true!" he protested. "Even our teacher is a girl. A hot girl, but still. I read somewhere that alchemy traces its roots back to witches' covens, with their potions and whatnot. Even now, the best alchemical families are descended from witches. I bet you didn’t know that, huh?"

As a matter of fact, she did know that. She was, after all, tutored in alchemy by an honest-to-gods traditional witch before she went to the academy. She was so traditional, in fact, that she scoffed at the name alchemy and referred to her skill strictly as potion-making.

But that wasn’t the sort of stuff you wanted people to know, for a wide variety of reasons.

"If you don’t shut up right now, I won’t let you partner with me anymore," Veronica told him seriously.

"Hey!" protested Benisek. "Who’s going to help me with that stuff, then? I’m not good at this!"

"I don’t know," said Veronica innocently. "Maybe you should find some girl to help you."

Fortunately, the teacher was currently too busy fawning over Shirley’s newest masterpiece to pay attention to Veronica’s table – somehow the girl managed to make some kind of enhancement potion out of the provided ingredients, and that was apparently very impressive. Azlyn didn’t appear to mind that Shirley completely ignored the assignment to make magical glue and did her own thing.

Veronica shook her head and tried to concentrate on her own work. She wondered whether she would have gotten the same reaction if she did something like that, or if she would be accused of showing off. The few times Veronica tried to wow the teachers she was simply told to work on her basics and not to get co*cky, because arrogance kills. Was it because Shirley was the heir of Noble House Noveda? Or something else?

It was in moments like these that she understood exactly how Akoja felt about all this.

* * *

"And that concludes today’s lesson," said Ilsa. "Before you leave, however, I have an announcement to make. As some of you know, the Academy traditionally organizes a dance on the eve of the summer festival. This year is no exception. The dance will take place in the entrance hall next Saturday. For those of you who are unaware, attendance is mandatory this year."

Veronica groaned, slamming her forehead into the table in front of her, causing the rest of the class to snicker. Ilsa pointedly ignored her reaction.

"For those of you who don’t know how to dance, dance lessons will be held every day at eight in the evening in room six. Those of you who do know how to dance still have to come to at least one of these lessons to prove so – I will not have you embarrass me on the night of the dance. Dismissed. Miss Stroze, Miss Kazinski, stay after class please."
"Oh great," Veronica mumbled softly. She probably should have restrained herself from reacting so strongly to the pronouncement. Truthfully, she intended to skip the dance, regardless of how mandatory it was. Did Ilsa realize that? No, she could detect no disapproval in her posture, and she was pretty sure Ilsa would be rather annoyed if she sensed Veronica's plans. "Now then…" Ilsa began when she and Akoja were the only students left. "I assume you both know how to dance?"

"Sure," said Veronica.

"Umm…" Akoja fidgeted, her eyes darting nervously. "I’m not very good at it."

"No matter," Ilsa said reassuringly. "We’ll iron out any gaps you may have easily enough. The reason I told you to stay behind is that I want you to help me with the dance lessons."

Veronica considered refusing outright – it wasn’t something she wanted to spend her time on – but she figured this could be a favor that would make Ilsa forgive her a transgression or two. Like, say, not showing up to the mandatory dance? Before she could express her tentative agreement, however, Akoja decided in her place.

"How can we help?" she said, clearly pleased they were chosen for this honor. Veronica raised an eyebrow at the way Akoja presumed to speak for her, but let it slide for the moment.

"We only have five days to teach everyone how to dance," Ilsa said. "That’s why we’re going to use magic to help."

"Animation spells," Veronica guessed with quiet confidence.

"Yes," Ilsa confirmed, then quickly moved to explain for Akoja’s benefit. "There is a spell that will guide a person’s limbs and body through whatever dance it is designed for. It’s not really suitable as a substitute for dancing skill, but if you practice dancing while you’re under its effects, you will learn a lot faster than you would otherwise."

"How does that work?" Akoja asked curiously.

"The spell moves you around like a puppet on a string until you learn how to move along with it, if only to make the feeling of something jerking you around go away," explained Veronica. "Eventually you no longer need the spell to dance correctly."

"I see you have personal experience with this method," Ilsa said with a smile.

Veronica resisted the urge to scowl. Getting put under that spell by Daimen was one of her childhood traumas. It wasn’t amusing at all.

"I sincerely hope you intend to give students a choice to refuse," Veronica said, softening her tone a bit.

"Of course," Ilsa agreed. "Though, those who refuse this method will have to attend at least three sessions instead of one, so I expect most will choose this option instead of the traditional one. In any case, I want you two to help me cast the spell on people during the lessons. I expect I’ll have to dispel and recast the spell often, and I could use some help."

"And why did you choose us, specifically?" Veronica inquired.

"You both have decent control over your magic and you seem responsible enough to be taught such a spell. Animation spells targeting people are restricted material, after all, and not something normally available to students."

Huh. So how did Daimen get a hold of it then? In her second year, no less? Well, whatever. At least knowing how to cast the spell will make it easier to counter it in the future.

"Anything else?" Ilsa asked. "Very well, then. Come to my office after the last class and I’ll set up some dummies for you to practice on before moving on to people. Poorly controlled, the spell is intensely uncomfortable. We don’t want to give anyone traumas."

Veronica narrowed her eyes. She didn’t. Not even Daimen would… oh, who is she kidding? Of course he would have. Practicing such a spell on his own little sister was right up Daimen’s alley.

"Miss Stroze, you can leave – I have something else to discuss with Miss Kazinski."

Ilsa began to speak the moment Akoja was gone, catching Veronica somewhat by surprise. She shook her head to clear her thoughts, trying to ignore her annoyance with Daimen in favor of paying attention to what Ilsa was saying.

"So Veronica," she said with a faint smile. "How are you getting along with your mentor?"

"He’s having me work on my basic three," Veronica told her flatly. "We’re still on the levitation exercise."

Yes, even after four weeks, Xvim was still making her levitate a pencil over and over again. Start over. Start over. Start over. The only thing Veronica learned in those sessions was how to dodge marbles that Xvim kept throwing at her. The jerk seemed to have an endless supply of those things.

"Yes, Professor Xvim likes his students to have a firm grasp of the basics before moving on to advanced topics," Ilsa agreed.

That or he hates his students. Veronica personally thought her theory was a lot more plausible.

"Well, I just wanted to tell you that you might be able to change mentors soon," Ilsa said. "One of my students will be dropping out after the summer festival, and I’ll have a vacancy to fill. Unless something comes up, you’re almost certain to be the one I pick. That is, if you’re actually interested in a transfer."

"Of course I’m interested!" Veronica half-shouted, much to Ilsa’s amusem*nt. She frowned for a moment. "Unless you also plan to throw marbles at me? Is that some kind of standard training method?"

"No," Ilsa chuckled. "Xvim is special that way. Well, I just wanted to see how you feel about this before doing anything. Have a nice day."

It was only after she was out of the classroom that she realized this development greatly complicated her plan to skip out on the dance. She couldn’t afford to annoy her (potential) new mentor too much, else she’d be stuck with Xvim for the rest of her education.

Well played, professor. Well played.

* * *

"Why can’t we just cast that spell ourselves once the dancing starts?"

Veronica let out a long-suffering sigh. "You can’t make an animation spell do something you don’t know how to do yourself. You don’t know how to dance, hence you cannot animate anyone to dance either. Also, how are you going to break the spell once the dance ends if you can’t move your arms where you want them to be? This really isn’t the sort of spell you should be casting on yourself."

Really, there were so many problems with that idea that Veronica struggled to put them all into words. Are these people thinking about the questions they’re asking at all?

"So how many dances do we have to learn?"

"Ten," said Veronica, bracing herself for the inevitable cries of outrage.

Sure enough, a rumble of complaints erupted after that statement. Thankfully, Ilsa took over the lesson at this point, instructing everyone to pair up and scatter throughout the spacious room to give everyone enough space. Veronica could already feel a headache coming and cursed herself for letting Ilsa talk her into this. Even though room six was fairly spacious, there were a lot of people and the invisible pressure they gave off was particularly strong today.

"You alright?" Benisek asked, putting his hand on Veronica’s shoulder.

"I’m fine," Veronica said, gently waving his hand off. She didn’t like to be touched much. "I just have a slight headache. Did you need help with something?"

"Nah, you just looked like you could use some company, standing all alone in your little corner," Benisek said. Veronica decided not to tell him that she was intentionally standing on the sidelines unless needed. Benisek wasn’t the sort of person who understood the need for some breathing room. "Say, who is your date for the dance anyway?"

Veronica suppressed a groan. Of course Benisek would want to talk about that.

Relationships weren’t something Veronica thought about often. The chances that one of her classmates would agree to date her were minuscule. For one, such a relationship would quickly be noticed by the rest of their classmates, and the resulting merciless teasing was something few relationships could survive for any appreciable length. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, all teenage girls liked older partners. Dating somebody who was two or three years her senior seemed to be a status symbol for a girl, and a majority of them loudly disparaged the student population their own age as crass and immature. When they were in their first year, all the girls wanted to date third years. Now that they were in their third year, all the girls wanted to date apprenticed graduates. Since there were plenty of those willing to play along, the chances that some girl in her class would give her the time of day was negligible.

And the girls that weren’t her classmates? To most of them, she wasn’t Veronica Kazinski, but that girl who is a sister of Daimen and Fortov Kazinski. They had this image of what she ought to be like, and once it became obvious that the real her didn’t match their expectations, they inevitably became upset.

Besides, all this romantic stuff… well.

"Well?" Benisek prodded.

"I’m not going," Veronica said, her voice firm.

"What do you mean you’re not going?" Benisek asked cautiously.

"Just what I said," Veronica replied. "I’m skipping out on the whole dance thing. Turns out I had an alchemy-related accident and had to stay in my room for the evening."

It was perhaps a bit cliché, but whatever. Veronica had already found a particularly tricky potion that was supposed to make a person more outgoing and sociable – something that was entirely plausible for her to try to make – that would make a person very ill when done wrong but wouldn’t actually kill her. If she does it right, it will seem like an honest mistake instead of a way to weasel out of the dance.

"Oh, come on!" protested Benisek, and Veronica had to pinch him to make him lower his voice. The last thing she needed was to have Ilsa overhear them. "It’s the summer festival! A special summer festival, with the whole… parallel… thingy…"

"Planar alignment," Veronica offered.

"Whatever. The point is that you have to be there. Everyone who is anyone is coming!"

"I’m a nobody," Veronica insisted calmly, though there was a hint of frustration in her voice.

Benisek sighed. "No, Veronica, you’re not. Look, Veronica, we’re both merchant kids, right?"

"I don’t like where this is going," Veronica warned, her eyes narrowing slightly.

Benisek ignored her. "I know you don’t like to hear this but—"

"Don’t. Just don’t."

"—you have a duty to your family to put on a good face. Your behavior reflects on them, you know."

"There is nothing wrong with my behavior," snapped Veronica, aware that she was attracting stares from nearby people but not caring at the moment. "You’re free to go to whatever you want, but leave me out of it. I’m a nobody. A third child of a minor merchant family from the middle of nowhere. People here don’t give a hoot about me. They don’t even know who I am. And I like it that way."

"Okay, okay!" protested Benisek, gesturing wildly. "You’re making a scene…"

"Whatever," scoffed Veronica. "Leave me alone and go away."

She scoffed, trying to calm down. Stupid summer festival and stupid dance. The funny thing is that unlike most people who hate these kinds of events, Veronica wasn’t strictly bad at them. She knew how to dance, she knew how to eat without embarrassing herself, and she knew how to talk to people at these kinds of events. She had to know these things because her parents used to drag her along with them when attending these kinds of affairs, and they made sure she knew how to behave herself properly once there. But she hated it. She had no words to describe how much events like these sickened her. Why should she be forced to attend something she hates when the academy had absolutely no right to demand it of her? No, they had no right at all.

* * *

Hesitantly, Veronica knocked on the door to Ilsa’s office, wondering why she called her here. There was no way…

"Come in." Veronica peeked inside and was promptly told to have a seat while Ilsa calmly sat behind her desk, drinking something out of a cup. Probably tea. Ilsa looked calm and serene, but Veronica could detect an undercurrent of disapproval in her posture. Hmm…

"So Veronica," Ilsa began. "You’ve been doing quite well in my class."

"Err, thank you, professor," said Veronica cautiously. "I try."

"Indeed, one could say you’re one of the best students in your group. A student I intend to take under my wing after this whole festival rush dies down. An example to everyone, and just as much a representative of your class as Miss Stroze."

Oh, this is bad.

"I don’t—"

"So, excited about the dance this Saturday?" asked Ilsa, seemingly changing the topic.

"Yes I am," Veronica lied smoothly. "It sounds like lots of fun."

"That’s good," Ilsa said happily. "Because I heard that you plan to boycott the event. It was rather upsetting, I must say. I was rather clear that attendance is mandatory, I believe."

Note to self: find something horrible to do to Benisek. A spell that causes the target’s tongue to feel like it’s on fire or something… or maybe piercing pain in the genital region…

"Just a bunch of nasty rumors, professor," Veronica said smoothly. "I would never dream of intentionally boycotting the dance. If I am unable to attend—"

"Veronica," Ilsa cut her off.

"Professor, why is it so important that I show up there, anyway?" asked Veronica, a bit of crankiness seeping into her voice. She knew it was a bad idea to blow up on a teacher, but damn this whole thing was pissing her off! "I have a medical condition, you know? Crowds give me headaches."

She snorted. "They give me headaches too, if it makes you feel any better. I can give you a potion for that. The fact is I’m one of the organizers of the dance, and if too many students are absent I’ll end up with a black mark on my record. Especially if someone as prominent as yourself were to not show up."

"Me? Prominent!? I’m just an average student!" Veronica protested.

"Not nearly as average as you think," Ilsa said. "Just getting this far requires extraordinary intelligence and dedication – especially for a civilian-born student like yourself, who wasn’t exposed to magic your entire life. People keep an eye out for people like you. Also, you’re Daimen’s younger sister, and we both know how famous he is."

Veronica’s lips stretched into a thin line. Veronica was sure the last reason was what it all came down to in the end, and all the other arguments were just excuses and attempts to butter her up. Even with her brother on a whole different continent, Veronica still couldn’t escape from his shadow.

"You don’t like to be compared to him," she guessed.

"No," Veronica admitted in a clipped tone.

"Why is that?" she asked curiously.

Veronica considered side-stepping the question – her family was a sore subject for her – but uncharacteristically decided to go for honesty. She knew it wouldn’t do much, but she felt like venting at the moment.

"Everything I do is always compared to Daimen and, to a slightly lesser extent, Fortov. It has been that way since I was a child, before Daimen ever became famous. My parents have never been shy about playing favorites, and since they were always interested chiefly in social achievements, I was always found wanting. My family has no use for a withdrawn bookworm, and made that abundantly clear over the years. Until recently, they ignored me completely, treating me more like I was my sister’s babysitter than their daughter."

"But something happened recently that caused them to take notice of you?" Ilsa surmised.

"Fortov happened," Veronica growled out. "He bombed several exams, had to be bailed out by father’s connections. He has shown himself to be generally unreliable, which is a problem, because he was supposed to be the spare heir for the family business, just in case Daimen dies on one of his escapades. So now I am suddenly taken out of the metaphorical closet so they can groom me for the role."

"But you don’t want to be the spare?" she guessed.

"I don’t want to be involved in Kazinski family politics, period. I'm not a part of that family anyway. Never was. At best, I was only ever a loosely aligned associate. I appreciate them feeding me and funding my education, and I’m willing to reimburse them for that when I get a job, but they have no right to ask something like that of me. I won’t hear it. I have my own life and my own plans, none of which involve playing second fiddle to my older brother and wasting time on insipid social events where people suck up to each other non-stop."

She decided to stop there, because she was just making herself angrier. Plus, she suspected Ilsa didn’t empathize with her much. Most people thought she was simply being overdramatic about her family. They weren’t the ones who had to live with them.

When she realized Veronica wasn’t going to say anything more, Ilsa leaned back and took a deep breath. "I empathize with you, Veronica, but I’m afraid such comparisons are unavoidable. For what it’s worth, I think you’re shaping up to be a fine mage yourself. Not everyone can be a prodigy like Daimen."

"Right," said Veronica, refusing to look at her.

She sighed, running her hand through her hair. "You make me feel like the villain here. Family issues aside, why are you so bothered by this? It’s a party. I thought all teenagers liked parties. Are you concerned about finding a date? Just ask some first-years and they’ll jump at the chance – they can’t attend unless invited by an senior, you know?"

Veronica released a sigh of her own. She wasn’t looking for a way to find a date – she had no doubt that simply dropping her last name would net her some impressionable giggly first year for the evening – she was looking for a way out. Something that Ilsa wasn’t willing to provide her with, it seemed.

"I’m not getting a date," Veronica told her, rising from her seat. "I may have to come to the dance, but I’m pretty sure that bringing a date is not mandatory. Have a nice day."

She was surprised that Ilsa didn’t try to contradict her as she left. Maybe this whole dance thing won’t be such a chore.

* * *

Veronica trudged through the corridors of her residence building wearily, not in any real hurry to get to her room. The teachers had refrained from giving them any substantial homework over the weekend, knowing that everyone would be too preoccupied with the summer festival to get any work done. Normally all that free time would be a godsend to Veronica, but just thinking about what she would have to endure tomorrow was enough to make her lose the will to do anything fun or productive, so she fully intended to go to sleep the moment she arrived at her room.

As she entered her residence building, she noted that someone was already in a celebratory mood, because the walls of the corridor she was passing through were full of colorful splotches in vivid yellow, green, and red.

"Veronica! Just the woman I was looking for!"

Veronica jerked in shock at the loud voice behind her and whirled around to face the person invading her personal space. She scowled at the grinning idiot in front of her.

"Why are you here, Fortov?" she asked.

"What, I can’t visit my little sister?" he protested. "You too good to hang out with big brother?"

"Cut the crap, Fortov. You never come to me when you just want to hang out with someone. What do you need help with now?"

"That’s totally not true," he huffed. "You’re my favorite sibling, you know?"

Veronica stared at him impassively for a few seconds. "Daimen isn’t here, so you’ll settle for me, huh?"

"Daimen is an asshole," Fortov snapped. "Ever since he got famous, he’s always too busy to help out his younger sister. I swear, that guy only thinks about himself."

"The hypocrisy is thick with this one," Veronica mumbled.

"Sorry, I didn’t catch that," Fortov said.

"Nothing, nothing," Veronica waved dismissively. "So what kind of trouble are you in now?"

"Um, I might have promised a friend I’ll make her an anti-rash potion," Fortov said sheepishly.

"There is no such thing as an anti-rash potion," huffed Veronica. "There is, however, an anti-rash salve, which is applied directly to the affected skin instead of being imbibed like a potion is. This just shows what a total dunderhead you are when it comes to alchemy. What the hell were you thinking, promising your friend something like that?"

"I kind of pushed her into a purple creeper patch during our wilderness survival class," Fortov admitted. "Please, you have to help me! I’ll find you a boyfriend if you do! Or girlfriend. Whatever!"

"I don’t want any of that!" snapped Veronica irritably—least of all the kind of person Fortov would set her up with. "Look, why are you bothering me about this? Just go to the apothecary and buy some."

"It’s Friday evening. All stores are closed in preparation for the celebration tomorrow."

"Well, that’s too bad, because I can’t help you," said Veronica. "First two years are all theory and lab safety, and I’m just starting my third year. We haven’t done any serious alchemy in class so far."

So true and yet such a bald-faced lie. She hadn’t done all that much alchemy in class, but she had done quite a bit of private study in her free time. She could make an antidote for the purple creeper rash easily, but why should she spend her expensive alchemical ingredients?

"Oh, come on. You can speak three different languages and you know all the silly shaping exercises they make us learn, but you can’t even do something so basic? What the hell are you doing in your room all day long if not learning how to do stuff like that?"

"You’re one to talk!" Veronica snapped. "You’re a year older than me, you should be perfectly capable of doing this yourself."

"Eh, you know I never cared for alchemy. Too fiddly and boring for me," Fortov said with a dismissive wave. "Besides, I can’t even make vegetable soup without ruining mom’s kitchenware, do you really want me around alchemical equipment?"

Well, when he put it that way…

"I’m tired," Veronica said. "I’ll make it tomorrow."

"Are you crazy!? Tomorrow is too late!"

"Oh come on, it’s not like she’ll die of a goddamn rash!" said Veronica irritably.

"Please, Veronica, I know you don’t care about these kind of things but she’s crushing on this boy and—"
Veronica groaned softly and tuned him out. That’s pretty much all she needed to know about this situation. "—and if my friend’s rash isn’t fixed by then she won’t be able to go and she’ll never forgive me! Please, please, please—"

"Stop it."

"—please, please, please, please—"

"I said stop it! I’ll do it, okay? I’ll make the darn salve, but you owe me big time for this, you hear?"

"Yup!" he said cheerfully. "How much time do you need?"

"Meet me at the fountain in about three hours," Veronica sighed with a gentle determination.

Veronica watched him as he ran away, likely in haste to avoid any change of heart or concrete demands. She shook her head softly and returned to her room to retrieve the necessary alchemical reagents. The academy had an alchemical workshop that students could use for their own projects, but they had to provide their own ingredients. Fortunately, she had everything required for this particular task.

The workshop was totally empty aside from her, but that wasn’t unusual. Most students were preparing for the dance tomorrow and were unlikely to do some last-minute alchemy practice. Unfazed by the eerie silence of the workshop, Veronica spread the reagents across the table and set to work.

Ironically, the main ingredient of the anti-rash salve was the very plant that was the cause of this mess – the purple creeper, or more accurately its leaves. Veronica had already left them to dry in the sun, and now they only had to be ground to powder. This was generally the most annoying part of the procedure, as purple creeper leaves released a cloud of irritating dust into the air if they were simply crushed with a standard mortar and pestle set. The textbooks she read had all sorts of fancy ways to deal with this, usually involving expensive equipment, but Veronica had a much simpler solution: she wrapped the leaves in a slightly damp piece of cloth, then wrapped the whole thing in a piece of leather, and hammered the resulting lump until she felt no resistance. The irritating dust bonded with the cloth, and the leaf pieces wouldn’t.

After mixing the leaf dust with 10 drops of honey and a spoon of oblia berry juice, she put the whole mixture over a low fire, stirring the contents until they achieved uniform color and consistency. Then she removed the bowl from the fire and sat down while she waited for the concoction to cool.

"That was very impressive work," a rather familiar voice sounded behind her. "Nice improvisation with the creeper leaves. I’ll have to remember that trick."

Veronica recognized the voice’s owner though, and Kael wasn’t really female, despite some bothersome rumors. She turned around to face the morlock boy, studying his bone-white hair and intense blue eyes for a moment before returning her attention to cleaning the alchemical equipment she had used. No reason to get barred from using the workshop because she failed to clean up after herself.

She struggled briefly to formulate a response while Kael was inspecting the salve with a practiced eye. The boy was rather mysterious, having only joined their group this year by transferring from gods knows where, and not being very talkative. Plus, you know, he was a morlock. How long had he been watching her? Sadly, she had a tendency to lose track of her surroundings when she worked on something so she couldn’t tell.

"It’s nothing special," Veronica finally said in a soft tone. "Now your work… that’s impressive. I get the notion that you’re on a whole different level from the rest of us when it comes to alchemy. Even Shirley can’t beat you most of the time, and she seems to be acing everything these days."

The white-haired boy smiled mildly. "Shirley doesn’t have the passion for the subject. Alchemy requires a craftsman’s touch and a lot of patience, and no matter how extensive her knowledge is, Shirley just doesn’t have the mentality for it. You do. If you had as much practice with alchemy as Shirley apparently does, you’d surpass her for sure."

"Ah, so you think she has prior experience, too?" Veronica inquired with interest.

"I do not know her as well as yourself and the rest of your peers, having only recently joined your group. Still, one does not get as proficient in this field as Shirley apparently is in a matter of months. She works with the practiced ease of someone who has been doing alchemy for years."

"Like you," tried Veronica gently.

"Like me," Kael confirmed. "I hate to be rude, but are you finished here? I’d like to make something myself today."

Veronica apologized to the boy for the hold-up, which the morlock waved off as something of little importance, and bid him goodbye.

As she walked away, it occurred to Veronica that she should have probably made some kind of sleeping potion for herself while she was at it – she had to get plenty of rest tonight, because she certainly wouldn’t get any tomorrow.

Chapter 4: Chapter 4: Stars Fell

Chapter Text

"I’m coming, I’m coming," Veronica muttered softly, moving towards the door. Really, what’s with all the frantic knocking? Who was so desperate to get into her room? She wrenched the door open and found herself staring at Akoja’s disapproving face. "Ako? What are you doing here?"

"I should be asking you that," she said. "Why are you still at home? The dance is—"

"Two hours away," Veronica interrupted gently. "I can get to the dance hall in 10 minutes."

"Honestly Veronica, why do you always have to wait for the last possible moment to do something? Don’t you realize what a bad example you’re setting?"

"Time is precious," Veronica said softly. "And I will repeat my question: what are you doing here? I don’t think it’s your usual habit to seek people out when they’re not early enough for your tastes."

"Miss Zileti told me to get you," Akoja admitted sheepishly.

Veronica blinked. It seems Ilsa wanted to ensure she didn’t forget. Hah. While the idea had occurred to her, she knew that would never fly.

"She also said you couldn’t find a date, so that will be me for the evening," Akoja continued in a more subdued tone, suddenly finding the doorframe interesting enough to merit examination.

Veronica scowled internally. How did refuse to bring a date become couldn’t find a date? It seemed that Ilsa, like her mother, had a knack for translating her words into whatever was most convenient for her purposes. The two of them would get along quite well, Veronica suspected.

"Anyway, get dressed so we can go already," she said, regaining her confidence. "You might be alright with cutting things close, but I’m not."

Veronica hesitated for a moment, contemplating what to do. She was half-tempted to close the door and refuse to participate in this farce, but she supposed it wasn’t Akoja’s fault that she got roped into this. In all likelihood, she had more pleasant plans for the evening than accompanying a reluctant girl who loathed such experiences. She gently guided her into the room and went into the bathroom to get dressed.

She really had to marvel at Ilsa’s manipulative skills, though – if it were just her going to this thing, she would have come dressed in casual clothes, spent the absolute minimum of time there before leaving, and avoided people like a plague throughout the entire evening. Now? She didn’t want to ruin Akoja’s evening, which meant she would have to make at least a token effort. Yes, Ilsa and her mother would get along like two peas in a pod…

The walk to the dance hall was a quiet one. Veronica refrained from striking up a conversation, despite sensing that Akoja found the silence awkward. The silence suited her just fine, and she knew she would be comfortable with very few things this evening. She would enjoy the peace while it lasted.

Which wasn’t long – the hall that the academy set aside for this event was about 10 minutes away from her residence building. The moment they approached it, they were greeted with the sight of a large gathering in front of the entrance, full of excited students engaged in animated discussions.

Veronica paled a little at the sight of the dense throng – she was getting a headache just by looking at them.

Sadly, no matter how much she pleaded with Akoja, she refused to let them wait on the outskirts of the gathering until the start of the dance. As revenge, Veronica accidentally managed to get separated from Akoja when they were ushered inside and got herself lost in the crowd. She chuckled softly to herself, wondering how long it would take her to find her again. She’d be shocked if it was less than half an hour, since she was quite adept at avoiding the notice of a particular person at a party without drawing attention from the other party-goers.

For a supposedly simple school dance, the entire event was surprisingly lavish. The tables were overflowing with food, much of it so exotic that Veronica couldn’t identify it, and the hall was decorated with high-quality paintings and animated carvings that moved in a pre-programmed manner. Hell, even the tablecloths were full of complicated lace and so soft they had to have been made of something monstrously expensive. Many of her fellow students were openly gaping at their surroundings and even Veronica, who had been at these kinds of events many times before, was a little shocked. Then she shrugged softly and did her best to blend into the crowd so Akoja couldn’t find her.

She meandered through the tables overflowing with food, occasionally sampling one of the dishes when she saw something interesting, observing the other people and painstakingly avoiding notice from anyone who might be inclined to strike up a conversation with her. She could see why Ilsa was so determined to make everything about the dance run smoothly – the sheer expense of the thing aside, it wasn’t just the students that were present. There were also representatives from various guilds, Houses, societies, and organizations. And not just from the Alliance, but also from abroad, even other continents – she could see at least one man in the distinctive light blue Abnasia military uniform, a small delegation from Hsan, and a dark-skinned woman in a garb so colorful Veronica doubted anyone failed to notice her by now. She idly wondered what this dance was really about, since these people wouldn’t be here for a simple school dance, before deciding she didn’t really care. People like this lived in their own world, and had different standards of important from mere mortals like her.

An hour later the first dance was about to start and Veronica made her way to Akoja. She was fuming, and didn’t appear to believe her when she claimed she had honestly gotten lost and couldn’t find her until now, but she managed to restrain herself from blowing up. Veronica led her to the dance floor and didn’t retaliate when she accidentally stepped on her toes a couple of times.

"People were asking for you," she whispered finally, having tired of abusing her toes for the moment.

"Well I was around," Veronica said with a small smirk. "All they had to do was look for me."

"No reason why you can’t seek them out now, though," Akoja remarked, her frustration dissipating.

"But Ako, we’re dancing. There is no way I’d leave a lovely girl like you for anything. I’ve left you unattended for too long as it is," Veronica said, not a trace of mocking in her voice. It was a practiced skill.

She glared at her, but Veronica could see she liked the compliment.
Sadly, it didn’t stop her from dragging Veronica off to meet one group of people after another soon afterward. Veronica hated being put on display like that, but she suspected Akoja was under orders from Ilsa, so she didn’t snap at her. She was surprised her stalling had worked for as long as it did, really. Veronica found herself memorizing various faces, names, and titles, despite not caring much. It was instinctive to her by now, and she did it even when she didn’t mean to – the legacy of her family’s failed attempt to turn her into a socialite.

"Kazinski? Oh, are you by chance related to-"

"Daimen and Fortov Kazinski, yes," Veronica said, doing her best to keep the annoyance out of her voice.

"Oh my, how fortunate," the woman said. "I must say your brother isn’t half bad with the violin." She gestured towards the stage, where the academy music club was playing a slow, relatively quiet song. Fortov was officially an ordinary orchestra member but was obviously the most prominently placed musician on the stage. His presence, as usual, attracted attention and comments. "What instrument do you play?"

"None," Veronica replied with a soft laugh. Her family had tried to teach her how to play an instrument, since it was a fashionable thing to learn among the rich (and those pretending to be), but they were thwarted by the fact that Veronica was almost entirely tone-deaf. She had no ability to play music at all. Truth be told, she wasn’t particularly interested in it either, though she could certainly feign interest when doing so was polite. It was one of her mother’s bigger disappointments that she had no talent in this area, since Daimen and Fortov were both relatively decent at music – Daimen at playing the piano and Fortov at playing the violin. They weren’t prodigies by any means, but they were skilled enough to impress the kind of people that frequented events like this. "I don’t have much of an ear for music, unlike my brothers. Personally, I’m more interested in how the orchestra fills the entire hall evenly with sound, with everyone hearing them at the right volume, regardless of how near or how far they’re sitting in relation to the stage."

Sadly, neither the woman nor anyone else gathered around them could answer that question – apparently, nobody else even noticed it until she mentioned it. In fact, Veronica got the distinct notion that people felt it was an irrelevant detail and that she was odd for even mentioning it. Bah – no appreciation for magic from these people. Why were they attending a dance at a mage academy, anyway?

Thankfully, Akoja decided to have mercy on her at this point and led them to a nearby table to get something substantial to eat. A couple of other students from their class joined them, and a casual conversation settled in around them. Veronica didn’t contribute much, since she found the conversation to be mostly aimless drivel that was of no interest to her. She still nodded and chuckled at appropriate times, of course, brushing off an occasional comment about her being too quiet and needing to lighten up.

She was just about to dig into the piece of cake in front of her when Akoja nudged her with her knee. Veronica glanced at her with an unvoiced question.

"Wrong fork," Akoja mumbled.

Veronica looked down at the fork in her hand and realized she was supposed to use the tiny fork reserved for desserts. She shrugged and stabbed the cake with the giant fork in her hand anyway.

"I know," she murmured back.

That seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

"Veronica," Akoja burst out, her voice carrying a pleading note in it. "Why are you being so difficult? It’s just one night. I know I’m not what you wanted for your date…"

"It’s not that," Veronica interrupted her. "It’s not like I wanted a date, anyway. I was going to come alone to this thing."

She stared at Veronica in shock. She seemed emotionally crushed, and Veronica didn’t understand why.

"Y-You’d rather go alone than with m-me?" she asked.

Aw crap.

All this time she thought Akoja was roped into this to keep an eye on her, but what if she had wanted to go with her? That…

Akoja fled before Veronica could figure out something to say.

Veronica swore softly under her breath and pressed a palm to her forehead. This is why she hated these kinds of events.

* * *

An hour later, she was pretty sure Akoja was no longer in the dance hall and that she wasn’t going to come back. Veronica didn’t really want to chase her through the streets in the middle of the night, so she refrained from following her outside. Besides, what was she supposed to say to her? She wouldn’t know where to even start. She thought about going home herself, but in the end, she simply climbed up onto the roof of the dance hall and gazed at the stars. She wasn’t going to get much sleep tonight, anyway.

To keep her mind occupied, she silently named all the stars and constellations she could see. Due to her interest in the topic as a child and the Astronomy class they had in their first year at the Academy, she knew quite a bit. It was a full hour before she ran out of things to name and describe.

Monday was going to be awkward. Veronica had no doubt their little drama was overheard and would be the topic of conversation for several weeks to come. Considering that Akoja was a bit of a teacher’s pet in most of the subjects, the teachers could very well decide to make her life more difficult in the days to come as well.

Damn it all.

It was the sound of fireworks that broke her out of her thoughts. It was midnight apparently, and the festival had officially started. Veronica relaxed a little as she watched various fireworks blossom against the night sky, each exploding in its own unique way. It was beautiful. Most of them dissolved into quickly fading motes of light after the initial explosion, but a couple of them remained whole and consistently bright, more like flares than fireworks. They arced through the sky before dipping down and falling back to earth like falling stars. She frowned. Weird. Shouldn’t they be exploding by now?

The flare falling closest to her slammed into the nearby academy residence building and detonated. The explosion was so loud and so bright that Veronica was momentarily blinded and deafened, stumbling back and collapsing to her knees as the entire building shook beneath her feet.

Blinking spots out of her vision, her ears still ringing from the sound of the explosion, Veronica scrambled back to her feet. She stared at the spot where the stricken residence building once stood. Virtually the entire building had been leveled to the ground, everything flammable in the vicinity of the impact site was burning, and strange flaming shapes were emerging from the epicenter of the destruction.

Wait a minute… that’s her residence building!

She collapsed to her knees again as the implications of this hit her. If she had opted to stay in her room like she had originally planned, she’d have been dead right now. It was a sobering thought. But what the hell was happening here!? That was no firework, that’s for sure! It looked and sounded more like a high-level artillery spell.

It was hard to tell if it was simply a consequence of her hearing being damaged, but she noticed the faint sounds of celebration had stopped. Looking over the city, she noticed that what happened to the residence building wasn’t an isolated occurrence – wherever one of the flares hit, it left devastation in its wake. She only had a few seconds to ponder this before she noticed another batch of flares start ascending into the sky from the distance. This particular barrage was not masked by fireworks, so it was pretty obvious that they were artillery spells. They were under attack.

As the flares started dropping back to earth, Veronica began to panic. What the hell was she supposed to do!? Running away would be pointless since she didn’t know what the flares were targeting. She could very well be running straight into the area of effect if she ran blindly. Wait a minute, why does she have to do anything? There are a bunch of capable mages in the building, she should just notify them and have them handle it. She rushed down into the dance hall.

She had barely stepped onto the stairway when she ran into Ilsa and Kyron.

"Veronica! What are you doing here?" Ilsa demanded.

"Err, I just went out for some fresh air," Veronica fumbled. "But that’s not important right now!"

"I agree," Kyron said. "Kid, what was that blast? Don’t tell me this is something you did?"

"Hardly," Veronica said. "Some kind of flares are falling all over the city, destroying everything they hit. Looks like some kind of powerful artillery spell."

Ilsa and Kyron shared a look between each other before turning back to her.

"Go join Akoja and the others in the dance hall," Ilsa instructed. "We’ll see what is happening and teleport everyone into the shelters if necessary."

They both pushed past her and rushed to the roof, leaving Veronica to stumble into the dance hall in a daze. Akoja… Akoja wasn’t in the dance hall. She left. Because of her. She was out there, maybe even already dead…

Veronica shook her head and banished such thoughts from her mind. She took out her divination compass and quickly cast a divination spell to locate Akoja. She wasn’t sure if it was going to work, since the spell she used could only find people you were familiar with – in other words, friends and family. Thankfully, it seemed that being classmates with her was enough of a connection for the spell to work.

She took a deep breath to steel her nerves. She was liable to get herself killed, but… well, it was kind of her fault. She didn’t think she could live with herself if Akoja ended up dead because of her.

Like an intangible ghost, she weaved between agitated students and foreign dignitaries, ignored and unhindered, until she was near the exit. She slipped out of the building and then broke into a run in the direction indicated by the needle of her divination compass.

* * *

Trolls were pretty nasty creatures. There were several subspecies, but all of them were large 3-meter tall humanoids with tough leathery skin and supernatural regenerative abilities so strong they were able to reattach severed limbs simply by holding them to the matching stump for a few moments. The most numerous and famous subspecies was the forest troll, which had vivid green skin and roamed throughout the great forested expanse in the north. As Veronica watched a troupe of trolls strut through the streets, smashing windows and howling unintelligibly, she reflected that it was fortunate the acrid smoke wafting from the nearby burning buildings masked her scent. Her textbooks all said a forest troll’s sense of smell was frighteningly good.

Normally she would have wondered what such a large gathering of forest trolls was doing in the middle of a human city, relatively far away from their native lands, but the blades and maces they were holding told her all she needed to know. Those were weapons too advanced to have been produced by the trolls themselves, who were highly primitive and lacked such high metalworking skills. They were war trolls. Somebody armed these creatures and set them loose on the city.
Once they were gone, Veronica relaxed a little and tried to figure out what to do. She felt like such an idiot. Why, oh why did she have to run off without getting some help from the teachers first? Then again, she assumed the flares were the only danger, in which case getting to Akoja wouldn’t be an issue, assuming a stray flare didn’t get her. Instead, she found the city overrun with monsters. This wasn’t some kind of a terrorist attack like she assumed; it was a full-blown invasion! Sadly, the option to return to the dance hall was closed to her—a lot of the invading forces were converging towards the academy, cutting off her retreat path. With that in mind, Veronica set out towards Akoja. She kept herself in the shadows, knowing the invaders would quickly notice anyone caught in the open, such as that person standing… over… there… Is that Shirley?

"Over here!" Shirley shouted, waving her hand in the air. "I’m over here you stupid animals! Come and get me!"

Veronica gaped at the reckless stupidity of what she was witnessing. What in the world was that girl doing!? No matter how talented a student Shirley was, there was no way she could stand up to the sort of monstrosities that were stalking the city at the moment. But it was too late to do anything—attracted by Shirley’s shouting, the trolls came running back, giving a single collective battle cry before charging at the girl foolish enough to attract their attention.

Veronica could tell from Shirley’s posture that she intended to fight the trolls, which she thought was pretty crazy—what could she do against a creature that regenerates from virtually any wound done to it? Only fire and acid could do permanent harm, and they didn’t—

Shirley grasped her staff firmly in her hand, her other hand outstretched in the direction of the charging trolls—a roaring fireball erupted from her hand and exploded right in the middle of the troll formation. When the flames cleared, only charred corpses remained.

Veronica was shocked. A proper fireball like that was a 3rd circle spell and required a sizable amount of mana to cast, much more than any academy student had. Even Daimen could not have cast that spell when he was Shirley’s age. Yet not only had Shirley successfully done it, she didn’t even appear drained from the action. Indeed, when a flock of iron beaks attacked soon after, raining their deadly feathers at her, Shirley simply erected an aegis—a freaking aegis!—around herself and peppered the birds with tiny fireballs that homed in on their targets, like magic missiles made out of fire.

Veronica was transfixed by the sight of her classmate effortlessly fighting off hordes of monsters single-handedly. So much so that she almost failed to notice one of the winter wolves attacking Shirley had stealthily broken off from the main pack and was sneaking up on her. Almost. Thankfully, some primal instinct alerted her to the danger, and she threw herself to the side, narrowly avoiding the creature’s deadly pounce.

Veronica cursed herself as she watched the winter wolf reorient itself with startling ease for something so large, ready for another pounce. She really should have expected to be targeted, considering the amount of attention Shirley was drawing to herself. She should have used Shirley’s fighting as a distraction and fled while she had the chance. Now it was too late—Veronica knew she was not fast enough to outrun a winter wolf, and she had no combat spells with which to defend herself. Or rather, no spell rods and such. If she survived the evening, she would definitely learn a few combat invocations, obsolete as they may be. It was a big if, though.

A shining bolt of force slammed into the winter wolf’s head, causing it to explode in a gory mess of blood and bone fragments. Veronica didn’t know whether to be disgusted that she was showered by some of the bloody mess or relieved she would live for a little while longer. She also noted that the effects of the bolt were a bit strong for a regular magic missile. She supposed this was just another example of Shirley’s baffling proficiency with combat magic.

"Veronica? What are you doing here?" Shirley asked, a hint of surprise in her voice.

Veronica looked at Shirley speculatively. Noticing the trail of corpses left in the other girl's wake, Veronica eyed the staff in her right hand and the belt full of spell rods. For all her seeming recklessness, Shirley certainly came prepared. She was half tempted to ask the girl the very same question but decided that would be needlessly antagonistic. Shirley did just save her life, after all. She decided to go for honesty—maybe the other girl would be willing to help her get to Akoja, considering her awe-inspiring fighting skills.

"Searching for Akoja. She left the dance a while before the attack, and it’s kind of my fault."

Shirley groaned. "Geez, and I even went to the trouble of making sure you go to the dance, too. It’s like you want to get killed or something!"

"You?" asked Veronica incredulously. "You’re the one that told Ilsa I wasn’t planning to go? All this time I’ve blamed Benisek! How did you even know about it?"

"You always stay in your room and get killed in the initial barrage if I don’t do something to stop it. And let me tell you, convincing you not to stay in your room without resorting to violence or getting Ilsa involved is a chore. You can really be a stubborn one when you want to be," Shirley said with a sigh.

Veronica stared at her, confused. The way Shirley was talking, you’d think this kind of thing happens every day or something!

"But enough of that," said Shirley cheerfully. "Let’s go find Akoja before something eats her. You know the way?"

And so they did. They traveled through the burning streets of the city, leaving a trail of dead invaders behind them. Shirley didn’t even try to avoid the monsters, simply plowing through them like an avenging angel. At one point they were even attacked by a horde of skeletons and an enemy mage, but Shirley simply made the earth beneath their feet open up and swallow them. Veronica dutifully kept her mouth shut and never questioned Shirley about her seemingly inexhaustible mana reserves or her knowledge of advanced magic that should be beyond her access level and proficiency, content to enjoy the benefits of Shirley’s skill and talent. She would never have come this far without Shirley’s help, and she was honestly grateful for the girl's assistance. Shirley could keep her secrets, whatever they were.

They eventually found Akoja barricaded on the upper floor of one of the houses. Apparently, she was chased there by a pack of winter wolves and then refused to leave for fear that the creatures were waiting for her to come out. Smart, really. Smarter than what Veronica had done, that’s for sure. Fortunately, there was no trace of winter wolves around the house at this point—not that Shirley was likely to have had any trouble with them if they were present—so they moved to the slightly frustrating task of convincing Akoja that it was safe to unbarricade the door. Apparently, her experience with the winter wolves had shaken her up pretty badly.

Veronica was certain she would blame her for causing her to leave the safety of the dance hall, so she was quite surprised when Akoja immediately latched onto her when she finally opened the door, hugging her and sobbing into her shoulder.

"I thought I was going to die!" she wailed. "There were these huge birds flinging iron feathers everywhere and the winter wolves and…"

Veronica opened her mouth in confusion, unsure how to deal with such an emotional outburst. She shot Shirley a pleading look, but the girl merely grinned at her cheekily, apparently amused by the reaction.

"Ah, young love," Shirley nodded to herself knowingly. "But I’m afraid you’ll have to continue your heartfelt reunion back in the shelters."

"Yes!" Akoja shouted immediately, raising her face out of Veronica’s shoulder. She totally ignored Shirley’s jab about them being in love, though Veronica suspected it was because she hadn’t even heard that part. She was still clutching her torso with an iron grip, as if afraid she’d disappear if she let go. It was kind of painful, but she refrained from telling her so. "The shelters! We’ll be safe there!"

Shirley flinched back for a moment before catching herself. It was so quick Akoja didn’t appear to have noticed, but Veronica did. So the shelters weren’t safe either? But apparently, they were still safer than where they were right now, because Shirley appeared determined to go through with it.

"Great!" said Shirley cheerily, clapping her hands in satisfaction. She took one of the spell rods out of her belt and handed it to Akoja. "You hold on too, Veronica."

"What is that?" Veronica asked suspiciously. The rod had none of the markings that might identify what it was for, which made Veronica a bit leery of it. Using unknown magical objects without identifying what they’re for was a big no-no if you wanted to remain healthy and alive into your old age.

"It’s a teleport rod," Shirley said. "It’s programmed to transport whoever is holding it to the shelters. I’ve set it to a 30-second delay, so hold it before you’re left behind."

"But what about you?" Akoja asked. "You need to hold on too before it activates!"

"Ah, no," Shirley said, waving her off. "I still have unfinished business here."

"Unfinished business!?" Akoja protested. "Shirley, this isn’t a game! These things are going to kill you!"

"I’m perfectly capable—"

Veronica wasn’t sure what tipped her off, exactly—she just got a vague feeling of dread and knew she had to react immediately, much like what happened when the winter wolf tried to get a jump on her earlier. Wrenching herself free from Akoja’s grip with a sudden jerk, she pushed Shirley out of the way of the incoming spell. An angry red ray surged through the air in front of them, passing right where Shirley’s head was only a few moments ago, and hit the wall behind them. The jagged beam of red light bit deep into the wall, gouging a deep trench in it and shrouding the area in a cloud of fine dust.

"Crap," Shirley said. "He found me. Quick, hold the rod before—"

Akoja winked out of existence as the rod teleported her away to safety.

"—it activates," finished Shirley in a long-suffering tone. "Damn it, Veronica, why didn’t you hold on?!"

"You’d be dead, then!" Veronica protested. She wasn’t going to let a person who helped her so much tonight die from a stray spell if she could help it. Besides, whoever had cast it would surely fall to Shirley’s magical might, just like the rest of the creatures and enemy mages they had encountered so far. Just how bad could this enemy caster be, really?

A sudden gust of air blew the dust away, and a gaunt humanoid figure stepped into view. Veronica actually gasped in surprise as she took in the appearance of the thing in front of them. It was a skeleton wreathed in sickly green light. Its bones were black with a strange metallic sheen, as if they were not bones at all, but rather a facsimile of a skeleton made out of some kind of black metal. Encased in gold-decorated armor, with a scepter held tightly in one of its skeletal hands and a crown full of purple gemstones, the creature looked like some long-dead king risen from the dead.
It was a lich. A thrice-damned lich! Oh, they were so doomed… The lich swept its empty eye sockets over them. As Veronica's eyes met the black pits that once held the lich’s eyes, an uncomfortable feeling washed over her, like the lich was peering into her very soul. After less than a second, the lich lazily shifted its attention to Shirley, apparently dismissing Veronica as something of no consequence.

"So…" the lich spoke, its voice resonant with power, "You’re the one that has been killing my minions."

"Veronica, run away while I deal with this guy," Shirley said, clutching the staff in her hand.

Without waiting for a response, Shirley launched a barrage of magic missiles towards the lich, who retaliated with a trio of purple beams as it erected an aegis around itself with a single wave of its bony hand. Two of them were aimed at Shirley, but unfortunately, the lich aimed one towards Veronica’s retreating form. While it failed to hit Veronica directly, the beam’s impact with the nearby ground created a sizeable explosion that drove stone shrapnel into her legs. The pain was immense, and Veronica collapsed on the ground in an instant, unable to take a single step further.

Over the next five minutes, Veronica painfully dragged herself behind a nearby cart, hoping that it would shield her from at least some of the destructive power being thrown around in the battle. Shirley was keeping the lich occupied enough that it didn’t send any more spells after Veronica, which was fortunate because she was no longer in any state to evade them. She watched with growing unease as Shirley and the lich exchanged various destructive spells that Veronica couldn’t even identify, realizing with rising dread that her prediction of their grisly fate was well founded – no matter how skilled Shirley was, she was not even in the same league as the lich. The thing was toying with her, and was bound to tire of the game sooner or later.

Veronica winced as a spear-like red bolt punched straight through Shirley's aegis and impaled her through the flank. She suspected the hit was in a non-vital spot only because the lich wished to gloat a little more, and her suspicions were all but confirmed when the creature didn’t finish Shirley off with anything destructive, opting instead to hurl Shirley into the air with a single casual gesture. Shirley collided with the wall near where Veronica was taking cover and groaned in pain.

Apparently not in any sort of hurry, the lich approached slowly. It seemed unconcerned that Shirley was rising shakily to her feet, a spell rod clenched tightly in her left hand. Veronica could see that Shirley's right hand was pressed tightly against the bleeding wound on her flank.

"You put up quite a fight, child," the lich said. "Impressive for someone who is supposed to be a mere academy student."

"Not… impressive enough," Shirley gasped out, the spell rod dropping from her hand as she clutched the wound on her flank with both hands, apparently in great pain. "I guess… I’ll have to… try harder… next time."

The lich chuckled. It was a strange sound, hardly fitting the creature. "Next time? Silly child, there will be no next time. There is no way I’m letting you live; surely you know that?"

"Bah," Shirley spat, straightening with a grimace. "Enough talking, just get it over with."

"You seem surprisingly unconcerned considering you’re about to die," the lich remarked conversationally.

"Ah, whatever," said Shirley, rolling her eyes. "It’s not like I’ll be dead for good."

Veronica looked at Shirley incredulously, not really understanding what Shirley was getting at. The lich seemed to understand, though.

"Aaah, I see," the lich said. "You must be new to soul magic if you think this makes you invulnerable. I could just trap your soul in a soul jar, but I have a much better idea."

The lich casually gestured towards Veronica, and she suddenly felt her entire body freeze up as if it was encased in some alien force. Another wave and Veronica was hurled with great speed towards the shocked Shirley, where she painfully slammed into her. They both ended up on the ground in a tangle of limbs, and Veronica was relieved that at least the unknown force paralyzing her was gone.

"It doesn’t matter if your soul can be reincarnated elsewhere if someone mutilates it beyond recognition before it gets there," the lich said. "After all, the soul may be immortal, but no one said it cannot be altered or added to."

Dimly, Veronica could hear the lich chanting in some strange language that definitely wasn’t standard Ikosian used in traditional invocations, but any curiosity about this was washed away by a wave of pain and unidentifiable wrongness that suddenly slammed into her. She opened her mouth to scream, but then her world suddenly erupted into bright light before suddenly going completely black.

Chapter 5: Chapter 5: Start Over

Chapter Text

Veronica’s eyes abruptly shot open as sharp pain erupted from her stomach. Her whole body convulsed, buckling against the object that fell on her, and suddenly she was wide awake, not a trace of drowsiness in her mind.

"Good morning, sister!" an annoyingly cheerful voice sounded right on top of her. "Morning, morning, MORNING!"

Veronica stared at Kirielle in shock, trying to understand what happened. The last thing she remembered was the lich casting that spell at her and Shirley, and then blackness. Her eyes darted left and right, taking in her surroundings and confirming her suspicions – she was in her room, back in Cirin. That didn’t make any sense, though. She was pleased that she survived the whole experience, but at the very least she expected to wake up in a hospital or something. And Kirielle shouldn’t be this casual with her after she went through such a harrowing experience – not even she was this inconsiderate. Besides, this entire scene was… eerily familiar.

"Kiri?"

"Um, yes?"

"What day is it?" Veronica asked, already dreading the answer.

"Thursday."

She scowled. "I meant the date, Kiri."

"First of Chariot. You’re going to the academy today. Don’t tell me you forgot," Kirielle prodded, literally – she accompanied her words with a well-placed jab at Veronica's flank, sticking her bony little index finger in between her ribs. Veronica slapped her hand away, hissing in pain.

"I did not forget!" Veronica snapped. "I just…"

She stopped there. What was she supposed to tell her? Frankly, she had no idea what was going on herself!

"You know what?" she said after a moment of silence. "Never mind that, I think it’s high time you got off of me."

Before Kirielle could answer, Veronica unceremoniously flipped her over the edge of the bed before jumping up herself.

She snatched her glasses from the set of drawers next to her bed and her eyes swept through her room with more attention to detail this time, seeking anything out of place, anything that might unmask this as a giant (if rather tasteless) prank. While her memory wasn’t flawless, she had a habit of arranging her belongings in very specific ways to detect nosy family members rummaging through her belongings. She found nothing massively out of place, so unless her mysterious re-enactor knew her system inside and out (unlikely) or Kiri finally decided she’d respect the sanctity of her room while she was away (hell would sooner freeze over), this really was her room like she left it when she went to Cyoria.

Was it all a dream, then? It seemed altogether too real for a dream. Her dreams had always been vague, nonsensical, and prone to evaporate out of her memory soon after she woke up. These felt exactly like her normal memories – no talking birds, floating pyramids, three-eyed wolves, and other surreal scenes her dreams usually contained. And there was so much of it, too – surely a whole month worth of experiences is too much for a mere dream?

"Mom wants to talk to you," Kirielle told her from the floor, apparently not in any great hurry to get up. "But hey, can you show me some magic before you get down? Please? Pretty please?"

Veronica frowned. Magic, huh? Come to think of it, she learned quite a bit of magic. Surely if this was all a particularly elaborate dream all the magic she learned there would be completely bogus, right?

She made a couple of sweeping gestures and words before cupping her hands in front of her. A floating orb of light promptly materialized above her palms.

Huh. Not just an elaborate dream, then.

"That’s amazing!" Kirielle gushed, poking the orb with her finger only to have it pass straight through it. Not surprising, really, since it was just light. She withdrew her finger and curiously stared at it, as if expecting to find it changed somehow. Veronica mentally directed the orb to fly around the room and circle Kirielle a few times. Yep, she definitely knew the spell – she retained not just the memory of the casting procedure, but also the fine control she developed with repeated practice with it. You don’t get things like that from a mere vision, even a prophetic one.

"More! More!" demanded Kirielle.

"Oh come on, Kiri," sighed Veronica. She really wasn’t in the mood for her antics at the moment. "I indulged you, didn’t I? Go find something else to amuse yourself now."

She pouted at Veronica, but Veronica was thoroughly immune to such things by now. Then she frowned for a moment and suddenly straightened as if remembering something.

Wait…

"No!" Veronica shouted, but she was already too late. Kiri had already run into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her. "Damn it, Kiri, why now? Why not before I woke up?"

"Sucks to be you," she answered.

Veronica leaned forward until her forehead collided with the door. "I had forewarning, and I still fell for it."

She frowned. Forewarning, indeed. Whatever her future memories were, they seemed to be fairly reliable. Was Cyoria really going to get invaded during the summer festival, then? What should she do about that? What could she do about that? She shook her head and marched back to her room. She would not even contemplate that sort of question until she found out more about what had happened to her. She locked the door so she would have some privacy and sat on her bed. She needed to think.

Okay. So she lived through a whole month of school before… something happened… and then she woke up in her room back in Cirin, as if the entire month never happened. Even with magic factored in, that was preposterous. Time travel was impossible. She didn’t have any books in her room that discussed the topic at any appreciable length, but all of the passages that dealt with time travel agreed that it couldn’t be done. Even dimensional magic could only warp time, speeding it up or slowing it. It was one of the few things mages agreed was beyond the ability of magic to accomplish.

So how, then, was she living through it?

She was just in the process of consulting the books in her room for any type of magic that could fake time travel in some way when a knock on her door interrupted her thoughts, and she suddenly realized she was still in her nightgown and that her mother wanted to talk to her quite a while ago. She quickly changed and opened the door, only to find herself under the scrutiny of two women, only one of which was her mother.

She almost greeted Ilsa by name, but she caught herself in time.
"A teacher from the academy has come to talk to you," her mother said, her disapproving stare hinting that she would give Veronica an earful once Ilsa left.

"Greetings," Ilsa said. "I am Ilsa Zileti, from Cyoria’s Royal Academy of Magical Arts. I was hoping to speak to you about some matters before you leave. It won’t take long."

"Of course," said Veronica, settling her skirt as she stood. "Um, where do you…"

"Your room shall suffice," Ilsa said.

"I’ll bring you something to drink," her mother said, excusing herself.

Veronica watched Ilsa as she unpacked various papers and placed them on her desk (what was she doing with those, anyway?), trying to decide how to proceed with this. If her future memories were valid, she should be handing her the scroll right about…

Yeah, there it is. Knowing what’s going to happen in advance is weird.

For the sake of appearances, Veronica gave the scroll a cursory examination before channeling mana into it. It was exactly how she remembered it – the calligraphy, the flowery official-sounding phrases, the elaborate crest at the bottom of the document – and Veronica felt a wave of dread wash over her. What on earth had she gotten herself involved in? She had no idea what was happening to her, but it was big. Very big.

She had the urge to tell Ilsa about her predicament and seek her advice, but she restrained herself. It sounded like the most sensible thing to do – surely a fully trained mage like her was far more qualified for tackling this than she was – but what could she possibly tell her? That she was remembering things that hadn’t happened yet? Yeah, that would go over well. Besides, considering the nature of her future memories, she could easily see herself arrested if a conspiracy to invade Cyoria was really discovered thanks to her warnings. After all, it’s far more likely her shocking knowledge comes from being a defector of the conspiracy than her being some kind of weird time traveler. An image of a couple of government agents torturing her for information briefly flittered through her mind and she shuddered.

No, best to keep all this to herself for now.

So for the next 10 minutes, Veronica basically reenacted her memories of her initial interaction with Ilsa, not seeing the point in choosing differently this time – all of her choices were made for reasons that were currently every bit as valid as they were in her future memories. She didn’t argue with Ilsa about Xvim this time around, though, since she already knew arguing over that topic was pointless, and she didn’t request a bathroom break, since she already knew what electives she wished to take. Ilsa seemed completely indifferent to her strange decisiveness, apparently just as eager as Veronica was to get this whole thing out of the way. Then again, why would she be surprised at Veronica’s decisiveness? She had no future memories to compare this entire encounter to, unlike Veronica. Hell, she didn’t even know her up until now.

Veronica sighed and shook her head. They really did feel just like normal memories, and it was hard to ignore them. This is going to be one long month.

"Are you alright, Ms. Kazinski?"

Veronica glanced at Ilsa curiously, trying to divine why she asked her that. Ilsa glanced towards Veronica’s hands – only for a moment, but Veronica caught it. Her hands were shaking. She balled them into fists and took a deep breath.

"I’m fine," she said. A second or so of uncomfortable silence ensued, Ilsa apparently unwilling to continue with her closing speech while she continued to study her. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course," Ilsa said. "That’s why I’m here."

"What do you think about time travel?"

She was clearly taken aback by the question – it was probably the last thing she expected Veronica to ask, or at least close to the bottom of the list. She composed herself very quickly though.

"Time travel is impossible," Ilsa said firmly. "Time can only be dilated or compressed. Never skipped or reversed."

"Why?" asked Veronica, honestly curious. She had never actually seen an explanation for the impossibility of time travel, though that might be because she wasn’t terribly interested in the topic up until now.

Ilsa sighed. "I admit I’m not particularly knowledgeable about the details, but our best theories indicate that going against temporal currents is utterly impossible. As in draw a square circle impossible, not leap over the ocean impossible. The river of time flows only in one direction. Beyond that, innumerable attempts have been made in the recorded past, all ending in failure." She gave her a sharp look. "I sincerely hope you won’t waste your talents on such a fool’s quest."

"I was just curious," Veronica said defensively. "I was just reading a chapter discussing limitations of magic and wondered why the author was so certain time travel is impossible."

"Well now you know," Ilsa said, getting up. "Now if that’s all, I really should be going. I’ll be happy to answer any further questions on Monday after class. Have a nice day."

Veronica watched her leave and shut the door behind her before collapsing back on her bed. Definitely a long month.

* * *

For once the train ride didn’t put Veronica to sleep. She had subtly prodded her mother with some sensitive topics when she tried to scold her and she was pretty sure this wasn’t some kind of elaborate illusion, unless the illusionist was aware of some very closely kept family secrets. And she seemed far too lucid for this to be some kind of induced hallucination. As far as she could tell at the moment, she really did travel back in time. She had spent most of the train ride writing down everything of importance she could think of in one of her notebooks. She didn’t really think the memories were going to fade any time soon, but it helped her organize her thoughts and notice details she might have otherwise missed.

She noted that she forgot to retrieve her books from under Kiri’s bed in all the confusion, but decided it didn’t matter. If the classes were anything like they were the last time around, she wouldn’t need them for the duration of the first month.

It was that last spell the lich performed on her and Shirley, Veronica was sure of it. The trouble was, Veronica had no idea what the spell was. Even the words were unfamiliar. Standard incantations used Ikosian words as their base, and Veronica knew enough of Ikosian to get a general feel of a spell just by listening to what the caster’s chanting, but the lich used a different language for his incantation. Fortunately, Veronica had a really good memory and remembered most of the chant, so she wrote it down in her trusty notebook in phonetic form. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t find the spell itself anywhere within her clearance level, as the spell was probably highly restricted and kept out of reach of first circle mages like her, but she would see about identifying the language and finding a proper dictionary in the academy library.

The other clue to this whole thing was Shirley herself. The girl was capable of fighting a lich – a freaking lich! – for several minutes before succumbing to it. Even though the lich had been toying with her, it was still pretty impressive. Veronica would put Shirley on par with a 3rd circle mage, and probably more. What the hell was that girl doing with academy students then? Something was definitely strange about Shirley, though Veronica had no intention of confronting her directly until she found out more about what’s going on. For all she knew, it could be one of those you know about us, so now we have to kill you sort of things. She would have to tread carefully around the Noveda heir.

Veronica slammed the notebook shut and ran her hand through her cascading hair. No matter how she looked at it, this whole situation seemed utterly crazy. Did she really have memories from the future, or was she simply going insane? Both possibilities were terrifying. She was in no way qualified to tackle something like this on her own, but she didn’t know how to get other people to help her without being carted off either to a madhouse or an interrogation chamber.

She resolved to think about it later. As in, tomorrow later. This whole thing was simply too weird, and she needed to sleep on it before she decides anything.

"Excuse me, is this seat free?"

Veronica glanced at the speaker, recognizing her after a second of recollection. The nameless green turtleneck girl that joined her in the compartment when they took a stop at Korsa. Of course, the last time she didn’t bother to ask for permission before taking a seat. What changed? Ah, it didn’t matter – what did matter is that last time she was soon followed by four other girls. Very loud, very obnoxious girls. No way she’d be spending the rest of the train ride listening to their banter… again.

"Yeah," she nodded. "In fact, I was just leaving. We’re stopping at Korsa, right? Good day, miss."

And then she quickly grabbed her luggage and went to search for another compartment, abandoning the girl to her fate.

Maybe these future memories are good for something, after all.

* * *

Bam!

"Roach!"

Bam! Bam! Bam!

"Roach, open the thrice damned door! I know you’re in here!"

Veronica rolled over in her bed and groaned. What the hell was Taiven doing here this early? No wait… She snatched the clock from her dresser and brought it in front of her face… she wasn’t early, Veronica had just slept past noon. Huh. She distinctly remembered going straight to the academy from the train station and falling asleep minutes after reaching her room, yet she still overslept like this. Apparently dying and then awakening in the past is tiresome business.

Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

"I’m coming, I’m coming!" shouted Veronica. "Stop banging on my door, already!"

Naturally, Taiven just kept banging on it with more enthusiasm. Veronica rushed to make herself presentable and stomped towards the door. Wrenching the door open, she gave Taiven a withering look…

…which she promptly ignored.

"Finally!" Taiven said. "What the hell took you so long!?"

"I was sleeping," Veronica growled.

"Really?"

"Yes," she ground out.

"But-"

"I was tired," Veronica snapped. "Very tired. And what the hell are you waiting for? Get inside."

Taiven rushed inside and Veronica took a moment to collect herself before confronting her. In her future memories, Taiven never visited her once after she refused to go along with her mission to the sewers, which spoke volumes about her true feelings about this friendship of theirs. Then again, she hardly even thought about Taiven herself until now, so she probably shouldn’t judge. In any case, she was even less inclined to join her on this mission now than she was in her future memories – she actually had more pressing matters to attend to this time, in addition to the general apprehensiveness that was still as valid now as it was then. Accordingly, she felt a lot less reluctance in simply blowing her off, and it only took her an hour to convince Taiven to leave her alone.

That done, she immediately set out for the library, making a short detour to a nearby bakery for a quick bite to tide her over. Once in the library, she started searching for books on the topic of time travel and trying to identify the language the lich used in its spell.
To call it disappointing would be calling it mild. For one thing, there were no books on time travel. The topic was not considered a serious field of study, what with it being impossible and all. What little was written about it was scattered across innumerable volumes, hidden in unmarked sections and paragraphs of otherwise unrelated books. Piecing together these scattered mentions was an absolute chore, and not all that rewarding either – none of it was useful in solving the mystery of her future memories. Finding the language the lich used in his spell was even more frustrating, since she failed to even identify the language, much less translate the chant. Veronica spent the entire weekend fruitlessly sifting through library texts, finally abandoning that avenue of research when it became obvious it wasn’t producing any results. Plus, the library workers were starting to give her weird looks at her choice of literature, and she didn’t want to create any unfortunate rumors. Hopefully, she would be able to trick Shirley into revealing what the hell was going on when school started.

* * *

"You’re late."

Veronica stared at Akoja’s stern face in quiet contemplation. She was glad she wouldn’t have to deal with any drama because of her disastrous evening with her – almost as glad as she was about the fact that she wasn’t dead – but she couldn’t help but wonder what Akoja's outburst had been about. She didn’t really look like she had a crush on Veronica, so why did her comment hit so heavily?

"What?" Akoja asked, and Veronica realized she had been staring at her a little too long. Oops.

"Ako, why are you telling me this when more than half the class isn’t even here yet?" Veronica asked.

"Because there is at least a chance you will listen, unlike them," Akoja admitted. "Also, someone like you should be an example to other students, not descend to their level."

"Someone like me?" Veronica inquired.

"Just get inside," she snapped irritably.

Veronica sighed and went inside. It was probably for the best to leave things be – she had other problems to deal with, and Akoja was far too rule-bound for her tastes anyway.

She didn’t know what she was expecting to happen when she walked into the class. Everyone to stop what they were doing and stare at her, maybe? At least then she would have a reason for feeling so unnerved at attending her first class of the year for the second time. But of course, they did no such thing. It wasn’t a second time for them, and there was nothing visibly irregular about her for them to take notice. She quashed her unease and sat down in the back of the class, discreetly scanning new arrivals for signs of Shirley. She was sure the other girl was connected to this somehow, and the mysterious girl appeared to be Veronica’s best chance at understanding what was happening to her.

There was a brief commotion when Briam’s fire drake familiar hissed up a storm and started chasing Briam’s terrified neighbor across the classroom before Briam calmed it down. Apparently, the magical reptile liked the unfortunate boy even less than it did Veronica. In any case, Ilsa came in soon after and started the class.

Shirley never showed up.

Veronica spent the entire class in a daze, shocked at this turn of events. Where the hell was Shirley? Everything happened almost exactly as it did in her future memories so far, with Shirley’s absence being the first major deviation. This firmly cemented Shirley as somehow connected to this madness, but it also put the girl out of Veronica’s reach for the moment.

The lecture was even more annoying now than it was the first time she listened to it since, from her perspective, she went through these review sessions less than a month ago. Apparently, Ilsa worked off some kind of a script, because the lecture was virtually identical to the one from her memory, the only difference being that Shirley wasn’t there to compete with Akoja for answering Ilsa’s questions to the class.

Funny how things seem clearer in retrospect. Shirley was acting strange right from the start, in that very first lecture, but Veronica thought nothing of it. Sure, Shirley volunteering to answer the teacher’s questions was out of character for the girl, but not completely implausible. It was just a review session anyway, and they had to know these things to pass the certification. It took two weeks before people really began to take notice of the extent of Shirley's sudden improvement.

So many questions, so few answers. She could only hope that Shirley would show up soon.

* * *

Shirley didn’t come to class that day, or the next, or the day after that. By Friday, Veronica was pretty sure the other girl wouldn’t be showing up at all. According to Benisek, Shirley simply disappeared from her family mansion on the very same day that Veronica took the train to Cyoria, and nobody had seen a hint of her ever since. Veronica didn’t think she could cook up anything the investigators hired by the girl’s guardian hadn’t thought of doing, and she didn’t want to attract attention to herself by asking around, so she reluctantly put the mystery of Shirley aside for the moment.

Her schoolwork was going well, at least. Thanks to her foreknowledge, she aced Nora Boole’s surprise tests and didn’t really have to study for any subject – a small refresher was sufficient to coast her through pretty much anything. Once her warding class really gets going, that’s probably going to change, but for now, she had all the free time she wanted to deliberate on what she should do about the rapidly approaching summer festival and the accompanying assault.

Sadly, with Shirley absent, Veronica had hit dead ends in all the clues she had and was now at a loss as to how to proceed.

"Come in."

Veronica opened the door to Xvim’s office and defiantly met the man’s gaze. She was pretty confident in the accuracy of her future memories by now, Shirley’s mysterious absence aside, so she knew this was going to be another exercise in frustration. She was tempted to boycott the meetings, but she suspected it was her stoic perseverance in the face of the man’s antagonism that eventually convinced Ilsa to take her under her wing. And besides, she felt that she would be doing Xvim a favor if she quit – Veronica had a distinct feeling that the man was trying to get her to quit the last time around – and she was far too spiteful to do that. She sat down without prompting, a little disappointed that the man hadn’t remarked upon her intentionally rude gesture.

"Veronica Kazinski?" Xvim asked. Veronica nodded and expertly snatched the pen that the man had thrown at her out of the air, having expected it this time.

"Show me your basic three," the man ordered, not in the least bit surprised at the feat of coordination.

Instantly, without even an extra deep breath, Veronica opened her palm, the pen practically jumping out of her palm and into the air.

"Make it spin," Xvim said.

Veronica’s eyes widened. What happened to start over? Her current attempt wasn’t any worse than what she displayed during their last session before that fateful dance, and Xvim’s only response that night had been to start over, just like any other time. What changed now?

"Are you having problems with hearing?" Xvim asked. "Make it spin!"

Veronica blinked, finally realizing she should be focusing on the current session instead of her memories. "What? What do you mean make it spin? That’s not part of the basic three…"

Xvim sighed dramatically and slowly took another pen and levitated it over his own palm. Instead of just hanging in the air like Veronica's, however, Xvim’s pen was spinning like a fan.

"I… have no idea how to do that," Veronica admitted. "We weren’t taught how to do that in classes."

"Yes, it is criminal how badly the classes are failing our students," Xvim said. "Such a simple variation of a levitation exercise should not be beyond the grasp of a certified mage. No matter, we shall correct this deficiency before we move on to other matters."

Veronica sighed. Great. No wonder no one ever mastered the basic three to Xvim’s liking if the man keeps redefining what mastered means. There were probably hundreds of small variations of each of the basic three, enough to spend decades learning them all, so little wonder no one could exhaust them all in two measly years. Especially considering Xvim’s standards for labeling the skill mastered.

"Go on," Xvim urged. "Start."

Veronica focused intensely on the pen hanging above her palm, trying to figure out how to do that. It should be relatively simple. She just had to affix a stabilization point in the middle of the pen and put pressure on the ends, right? At least, that’s the first think that popped into her head. She had just managed to get the pen to move a bit when she felt a familiar object impact into her forehead.

Veronica glared at Xvim, cursing herself for forgetting about the man’s damnable marbles. Xvim glanced at the pen that was still hovering over Veronica’s palm.

"You didn’t lose focus," Xvim remarked. "Good."

"You threw a marble at me," Veronica accused.

"I was hurrying you up," Xvim said, unrepentant. "You’re too slow. You must be faster. Faster, faster, faster! Start over."

Veronica sighed and returned to her task. Yup, definitely an exercise in frustration.

* * *

Between her unfamiliarity with the exercise and Xvim’s constant interruptions, Veronica only managed to get the pen to wobble by the end of the session, which was… a little humiliating, actually. Her above-average shaping skills were one of the few things that set her aside from her fellow mages, and she felt she should have done much better, despite Xvim’s repeated sabotage attempts. Fortunately, a book describing the exercise in detail was easy to find in the academy library, so she would hopefully master it by next week. Well, not master it – not in the sense that Xvim wanted her to – but she at least wanted to know what she was doing before she tackled her next session with Xvim.

Of course, normally she wouldn’t be willing to pour that much effort into a lousy shaping exercise, but she needed a distraction. At the beginning, the entire time travel situation was so patently ridiculous that she found it easy to remain calm and collected. Some part of her kept expecting that the whole thing was a double dream or something, and that she would wake up one day and not remember a thing. That part was becoming panicked and agitated now that it became obvious that the situation she faced was real. What the hell was she supposed to do? Shirley's mysterious absence weighed heavily upon her, inflaming her paranoia and making her reluctant to tell anyone about the invasion. Veronica was not a fundamentally selfless person and didn’t want to save people only to screw herself over in the end. Whatever her future memories really were, they were in essence her second chance at life – she was pretty sure she died at the end of her future memories – and she had no intention to squander it. She did consider it her ethical duty to warn people of the danger threatening the city, but there had to be a way to do it without destroying her life or reputation.
The simplest idea would be to warn as many people as possible (thus ensuring that at least some of them take the warnings seriously) and do so face-to-face, since written communications can be ignored in a way that is not really possible in personal interactions. Unfortunately, that would almost certainly paint her as a madwoman until she’s eventually vindicated by the actual assault. If there is an assault, that is – what if the conspirators decide to lay low upon having their plans unmasked and the invasion doesn’t happen? What if nobody takes her seriously until it’s too late and then decide to turn her into a scapegoat in order to shift responsibility away from themselves? What if one of the people she tries to warn is part of the conspiracy and has her killed before she can tell anyone else? What if, what if… way too many what ifs. And she had a sneaking suspicion that one of those what ifs was responsible for Shirley’s disappearance. As a result of these musings, the idea of staying anonymous appealed to her more and more with each passing day. The problem was that sending a message to a bunch of people without having it traced back to her was not at all simple when magic got involved. Divinations weren’t all-powerful, but Veronica had only academic understanding of their limitations, and her precautions probably wouldn’t hold against a motivated search by a skilled diviner. Veronica sighed and started outlining a tentative plan into her notebook, completely ignoring their history teacher’s enthusiastic lecture. She had to figure out who to contact, what to put into the letters, and how to ensure they couldn’t be traced back to her. She somehow doubted the government would allow authors to publish instructions on how to evade detection from law enforcement, but she would still check the library to see what they have on the topic. She was so caught up in her self-appointed task she barely noticed when the class ended, furiously scribbling away while everyone else packed and filed out of the classroom. She definitely didn’t notice Benisek peering over her shoulder.

"What are you doing?" Veronica slammed her notebook shut in a reflexive maneuver as soon as Benisek started talking and gave him a nasty glare.

"It’s impolite to look over other people’s shoulders," Veronica remarked.

"Jumpy, aren’t we?" smiled Benisek, loudly dragging a chair from the nearby table so he could sit on the other side of Veronica’s table. "Relax, I didn’t see anything."

"Not for the lack of trying," remarked Veronica. Benisek only grinned wider. "What do you want, anyway?"

"Just wanted to talk for a bit," Benisek shrugged. "You’re been really withdrawn this year. You’ve got this frustrated look on your face all the time, and you’re always busy even though it’s the start of the school year. Wanted to know what was bothering you, you know?"

Veronica sighed. "This isn’t something you can help me with, Ben…"

Benisek made a strangled noise, apparently outraged by her remark. "What do you mean I can’t help you!? I’ll have you know I’m an expert on girl trouble."

Now it was Veronica’s turn to make a strangled noise. "Girl trouble!?"

"Oh come on," Benisek laughed. "Constantly distracted? Spacing out in the middle of the class? Making plans for sending anonymous letters? It’s obvious, Vera! Who’s the lucky girl?"

"There is no lucky girl," Veronica growled. "And I thought you didn’t see anything?"

"Listen, I don’t think sending anonymous letters is a good idea," Benisek said, completely ignoring her remarks. "That’s so… first year, you know? You should just walk up to her and tell her how you feel."

"I don’t have time for this," Veronica sighed, getting up from her seat.

"Hey, come on…" protested Benisek, trailing after her. "Vera, you’re one touchy girl, did anybody tell you that? I was just…" Veronica ignored him. She really didn’t need this right now.

In retrospect, Veronica should have known that simply ignoring Benisek wasn’t such a good idea. It only took 2 days for most of the class to know that Veronica has a crush on someone, and their loud speculation was annoying as hell. Not to mention distracting. Still, her displeasure at the rumors evaporated when Neolu approached her one day and gave her a short list of books she might find useful. She had half a mind to set the list on fire, especially since the list was decorated with dozens of little hearts, but in the end her natural curiosity won over and she went to the library to check them out. She figured that at the very least she’d get a good laugh out of them.

She got more than a good laugh, though – instead of silly love advice like she expected, the books Neolu recommended were all about making sure your letters, gifts, and such couldn’t be traced back to you with divinations and other magic. Apparently, if you call such advice Forbidden Love: Mysteries of Scarlet Letters Revealed and phrase it as relationship advice, you can get straight past the usual censorship such topics would normally be subjected to.

Of course, she had no idea how reliable the advice in those books really was, and the librarian looked at her funny when she checked out books like that, but she was still pleased to have found them. If this whole thing worked out in the end she’d have to do something nice for Neolu.

So as the summer festival approached, Veronica prepared and plotted. She bought a whole stack of generic paper sheets, pens, and envelopes in one of the stores that looked too poor and disorganized to track their customers purchases. She worded the letters carefully to avoid revealing any personal details. She made sure not to touch the paper with her bare hands at any point, and that none of her sweat, hair, or blood ended up in the envelope. She deliberately wrote in a blocky, formal script that looked nothing like her normal handwriting. She destroyed the pens, the excess paper, and envelopes she didn’t use in the end.

And then, a week before the festival, she put the letters in different public postal boxes all over Cyoria and waited.

It was… nerve-wracking, to say the least. Nothing happened, though – no one came to confront her about the letters, which was good, but also nothing out of the ordinary seemed to be happening. Did no one believe her? Did she mess up somehow and the letters ended up not reaching their intended recipients? Are they being so subtle in their reaction that no disturbance is being made? The wait was killing her.

Finally, she had enough. On the evening before the dance, she decided she’d done everything she could and took the first train out of the city. Her letters may or may not have worked, but this way she’d be alright regardless. If anyone asked (though she doubted they would), she’d use her trusty alchemical accident excuse. She messed up a potion and breathed in some hallucinogenic fumes, only coming to her senses when she was already outside of Cyoria. Yes, that’s exactly what happened.

As the train sped away from Cyoria in the dead of a night, Veronica suppressed her unease and feelings of guilt for doing so little to warn anyone of the approaching attack. What else could she have done? Nothing, that’s what. Nothing at all.

After a while she fell into uneasy sleep, the rhythmic thumping of the train her lullaby, visions of falling stars and skeletons wreathed in green light haunting her dreams.

Veronica’s eyes abruptly shot open as sharp pain erupted from her stomach. Her whole body convulsed, buckling against the object that fell on her, and suddenly she was wide awake, not a trace of drowsiness in her mind.

"Good morning, sister!" an annoyingly cheerful voice sounded right on top of her. "Morning, morning, MORNING!"

Veronica gaped at her little sister incredulously, her mouth opening and closing periodically. What, again?

"Oh you’ve got to be kidding me!" Veronica growled, and Kirielle quickly got off of her and scooted away fearfully. Apparently, she thought her ire was directed at her. "Not you, Kiri, I… I just had a nightmare, that’s all."

She couldn’t believe it, it happened again!? What the hell? She was glad it happened last time since it meant she wasn’t… you know, dead. But now? Now it was just freaky. Why was this happening to her?

Oh, and while she was lamenting her fate internally, Kirielle barricaded herself in the bathroom again. God damn it all!

Chapter 6: Chapter 6: Concentrate and Try Again

Chapter Text

Veronica stared at the endless fields blurring past her, the silence of the otherwise empty compartment only broken by the rhythmic thumping of the train’s machinery. She looked calm and relaxed, but it was only a practiced façade and nothing more.

Her mask of stoicism might have seemed silly, as there was no one around to judge her, but over the years Veronica had found that acting calm on the outside helped her achieve calm more easily on the inside as well. She needed any help she could get in achieving inner peace now, because she was about to start panicking like a headless chicken.

Why was this happening again? The first time it had happened, she was dead sure the lich was responsible. The spell had hit her, and then she woke up in the past. Cause and effect. She hadn’t been hit by some mysterious spell this time, though – not unless someone had snuck into the train compartment while she was sleeping, which she found very unlikely. No, she had just dozed off and woke up in the past again, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

Then again, it did highlight some things that had been bothering her until now. After all, why had the lich cast a time travel spell on her? It seemed rather counterproductive to the whole secret invasion plot. Time travel seemed too purposeful and complex to be an accidental side effect, and she seriously doubted the lich had used a spell whose effects it did not understand. Even a neophyte like her knew what a horrible idea it was to use a spell you don’t understand in an uncontrolled environment, and the undead spellcaster wouldn’t have reached the level it did if it was willing to do something so foolish for the sake of a couple of brats it had already defeated anyway. No, there was a simpler explanation: the lich wasn’t responsible for her time-traveling problems. It really had been trying to kill them. Them, plural, because Shirley had also been the target. The same Shirley that had been shockingly good in all her classes all of a sudden. The same Shirley that was wandering around the city armed to the teeth with combat magic that should be beyond any academy student. The same Shirley that had been making very curious offhand comments all month long… Perhaps it was Shirley, not the lich, who had cast the time travel spell?

Shirley being a time traveler would explain her vast abilities and inexplicable academic improvement quite nicely. Since this particular method of time travel seems to just send a person’s mind into their younger body, she could be of an arbitrarily large age, and what Veronica remembered of Shirley’s various comments led her to believe she had lived through this particular time period many times over. A mage with decades of experience and detailed foreknowledge would no doubt find 3rd year curriculum laughably easy.
Though even if Shirley had been the one to cast the time travel spell, there was still left the question of why Veronica was thrown back too. It could have easily been an accident – she knew that grabbing a mage while they’re in the process of casting a teleport spell could pull you along for the ride, and they were basically tangled with one another – but that didn’t explain why Veronica was repeating this month for the second time. Shirley had been absent all month long, and thus hadn’t had the opportunity to cast anything at Veronica. She didn’t know what to think. Hopefully Shirley would be present for questioning this time around.

"Now stopping in Korsa," a disembodied voice echoed, the faulty speakers crackling with signal noise every once in a while. "I repeat, now stopping in Korsa. Thank you."

What, already? A glance through the window revealed the familiar white tablet confirming her arrival at the trading hub. She was half-tempted to get off the train and spend the entire month fooling around and trying to forget this whole time travel business, but quickly dismissed it. Blowing off the beginning of the school year like that would be really irresponsible and self-destructive, even if going through another identical month of classes was anything but appealing. There was a possibility that she would be flung back into the past for the third time, of course, but that wasn’t something she should be relying on. There was no way the spell could keep sending her back indefinitely, after all – it was bound to run out of mana sooner or later. Probably sooner, since time travel must be pretty high level.…right?

"Um…"

Veronica snapped out of her thoughts and finally noticed the boy peering into her compartment. She frowned. She specifically chose this compartment because it was completely empty during her… second attempt at life. After she had left the green turtleneck girl to her giggling fate, she had come here for some peace, so this time she decided to be proactive and went here right from the start. Apparently, it wasn’t that simple. She supposed that her very presence attracted the boy – some people just plainly liked company, and would avoid empty compartments.

"Yes?" Veronica said politely, hoping the boy just wanted to ask her something instead of trying to find a seat.

She was mistaken.

"Do you mind if I sit here?"

"No, go right ahead," said Veronica, giving the boy a forced smile. Damn.

The boy smiled brightly at her and quickly dragged his luggage in. A lot of luggage.

"First year, right?" Veronica asked, unable to help herself.

So much for her plan to remain silent and creep the boy out into leaving the compartment. Oh well.

"Yeah," the boy agreed. "How did you know?"

"Your luggage," Veronica remarked. "You do realize the academy grounds are pretty far from the main station? Your arms are going to fall off by the time you get there."

The boy blinked. Apparently, he didn’t know.

"Um, it’s really not that bad, right?"

Veronica shrugged. "You better hope it doesn’t rain."

"Ha ha," the boy laughed nervously. "I’m sure I’m not that unlucky."

Veronica smirked. Ah, the benefits of foresight. Or was it hindsight? Language really wasn’t designed with the possibility of time travel in mind.

"Ah! I didn’t introduce myself!" The boy suddenly blurted out. "I’m Byrn Ivarin."

"Veronica Kazinski."

The boy’s eyes lit up immediately. "Like-"

"Like Daimen Kazinski, yes," Veronica said, suddenly finding the window incredibly interesting.

The boy stared at her expectantly, but if he had expected further elaboration from Veronica on the subject, he was about to be sorely disappointed. The last thing Veronica wanted to do was talk about her eldest brother.

"So, um, are you related to Daimen Kazinski or is your last name just a coincidence?" asked the boy after a lengthy pause.

Veronica pretended she couldn’t hear him, and instead retrieved her notebook from the neighboring seat and studied it intently. It was almost completely empty, since all her previous notes about the invasion and the mystery of her future memories were now gone, lost in a future she left behind. It wasn’t much of a loss since the vast majority of those notes had been worthless – hollow speculations and dead-end leads that hadn’t got her any closer to solving this mystery. Still, she had written down a few things she remembered from her previous notes, like the spell chant the lich had uttered before killing her. Yes, Shirley was likely responsible for all of this, but she couldn’t be sure …

After judging the silence to have lasted for a fittingly awkward amount of time, Veronica looked up from her notebook to fixate a look of confusion at the waiting boy.

"Huh? Did you say something?" Veronica pretended, frowning slightly as if she honestly hadn’t heard a word of the question she was asked.

"Err, never mind," the boy backpedaled. "It’s not important."

Veronica gave the boy a genuine smile. At least he could take a hint.

She talked to the boy for a while, mostly just answering the boy’s questions about the first year curriculum, before growing bored with it and starting to feign interest in her notebook again, hoping he will take the hint.

"What’s so interesting about that notebook, anyway?" He asked, either oblivious to Veronica’s disinterest in continued conversation or deliberately ignoring it. "Don’t tell me you’re studying already?"

"No, these are just notes on some personal research," said Veronica. "It’s not going too well, so I’m a little frustrated with it. My mind keeps drifting to it." Especially when the alternative was talking to an overly inquisitive first year.

"The academy library-"

"First thing I tried," Veronica sighed. "I’m not stupid, you know?"

The boy rolled his eyes at her. "Did you search for the books yourself or did you ask the librarian to help you? Mother works as a librarian, and they have these special divination spells that let them find things in minutes that would take you decades if you search by title and skimming alone."

Veronica opened her mouth before closing it. Ask the librarian for help, huh? Okay, maybe she is stupid.

"Well… it’s not really a topic I want to bother the librarian with," Veronica tried. Which was true, but she knew she’d end up trying it anyway. "Maybe I could find the spells themselves in the spell repository? But no, if they are anything like other divination spells it’s using them correctly and interpreting the results that’s the problem, not casting them…"

"You could always get a job in the library," the boy offered. "If the academy library is anything like the one my mother works in, they’re always desperate for help. They teach their employees how to use those spells as a matter of course."

"Really?" Veronica asked, rather intrigued by the idea.

"It’s worth a try," he said, shrugging.

For the rest of the ride, Veronica stopped trying to evade conversation. Byrn had definitely earned some respect from her.

* * *

"Of course! We’re always looking for help!"

Well… that was easy.

"We can’t pay you much, understand – that miserable gnome of a headmaster cut our budget again! – but we’re very flexible about work time and we’ve got a pretty friendly atmosphere here…"

Veronica waited patiently for the librarian to run out of steam. She was an unassuming middle-aged woman at first glance, but the moment she had begun speaking, Veronica realized her looks were rather deceiving – she was cheerful and had a sort of indescribable energy about her. Just standing around her made Veronica feel the same sort of pressure she felt when stuck in a crowd of people, and she had to rein in her instinct to step back as if from a raging fire.

"I’m guessing you don’t get many work offers, then?" Veronica tried. "Why is that? Shouldn’t people be fighting tooth and nail to work in a place like this? It’s a pretty famous library."

She snorted, and Veronica could swear she could feel the derision and a touch of bitterness in the seemingly innocuous sound. "Academy regulations require us to only hire employees who are first circle mages or higher. Most graduates have better-paying and more glamorous options than this," she waved her hand toward the rows of bookshelves around them, "reducing us to hiring students. Who are…"

She suddenly stopped and blinked, as if remembering something. "But anyway, enough of that!" she said, clapping her hands and beaming at her. "From this day on, you’re one of the library assistants. Congratulations! If you have any questions, I’ll be glad to answer them."

It was only through superhuman willpower that Veronica stopped herself from rolling her eyes at her. She never agreed to anything, merely inquired about the possibility of employment… and she undoubtedly knew that. But oh well, she did want the job, and not just because she was hoping to learn some nifty new spells and translate the lich’s chant – she suspected that library employees got to access parts of the library that would normally be restricted to her as a first circle mage, and that was just too much of a temptation to pass up.

"Question one," said Veronica, "How often do I come to work?"

She blinked, surprised for a moment. No doubt she expected her to protest her presumptuousness. "Well… when can you come? Between the classes, and the need for study time and other commitments, most of our student employees work once or twice a week. How much time can you set aside for this?"

"The classes are pretty easy at this point," Veronica said. "We’re mostly doing the review of our second year, which I know like the back of my hand. Setting aside one day for unexpected developments, I could be here 4 times a week. My weekends are mostly free too, if you need any help then."

Veronica mentally berated herself for talking like that – the classes hadn’t even started yet, so how would she know what they consisted of? Luckily, the librarian didn’t call her out on it. Instead, her eyes immediately lit up upon hearing this, and she started shouting.

"Ibery!" she called out. "I’ve got a new partner for you!"

A bespectacled girl carrying an armload of books popped out of the small room adjacent to the information desk to see what was going on. Oh. It was the green turtleneck girl (she was wearing it even now) that she shared a compartment with…

…except she had chosen a seat on the other side of the train this time, so they never met on the train. Oh well, probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

"Anyway, I believe some introductions are in order," the librarian said. "I am Kirithishli Korisova, one of the few actual librarians in this place. This pretty lady," she gestured towards the turtleneck girl, who blushed at the praise and shifted uncomfortably, clutching the stack of books tighter in her arms, "is our resident busy little bee, Ibery Ambercomb. Ibery has been working here since last year, and I don’t know what I’d do without her. Ibery, this is Veronica Kazinski."

The girl suddenly perked up at this. "Kazinski? As in…"

"As in, younger sister of Daimen Kazinski," Veronica said, unable to suppress a small sigh.

"Um…"

"Actually, I’m pretty sure she meant your other brother," Kirithishli said with a sly smile. "She’s in class with Fortov and has a bit of a crush…"

She and a dozen other girls. Fortov never had a shortage of women throwing themselves at him.

"Miss Korisova!" Ibery protested.

"Oh, lighten up," Kirithishli said. "Anyway, Veronica here will be working with us pretty heavily for the foreseeable future. Go show her what to do."
And just like that, Veronica was employed at the library. Only time would tell if she was wasting hers.* * *Much like the last time, Shirley hadn’t come to class. Veronica was half-expecting it, but it was no less annoying because of it. It cemented Veronica’s suspicion that Shirley was heavily involved in this mess, but the other woman's absence made it impossible for Veronica to confront her about it. What was she supposed to do now?For that matter, was she supposed to do anything at all? Last time she had been operating on the belief that if she didn’t do something about the invasion, no one would. No one else had the strange future memories she did, after all. If her speculations were correct, though, Shirley had probably traveled through time specifically to stop the invasion – what other reason did she have to frequent this particular time period? Besides, she had been wandering the city during the attack, picking off attackers. So all in all, there just might be an experienced time-traveling mage on the job already, and she would only get in the way.The problem with that idea was that she was ultimately just guessing, and had no idea if it was true or not. She could be dooming herself and the city through inaction, relying on someone who didn’t inspire too much confidence in her. Shirley reminded her of her brothers a little too much. And besides, didn’t Shirley lose against the lich? Yeah.

Not knowing how to unravel the mystery presented to her, or even where to start, Veronica had thrown herself into schoolwork and her job at the library. Of course, thanks to going through this for the third time, the only issue she had with schoolwork was Xvim’s grating insistence that her grasp on the pen-spinning (as Veronica affectionately called it) exercise was abominable and that she had to do it over and over and over again. Her time at the library, on the other hand, was… interesting, though not really in the way she hoped it would be.She hadn’t learned any spells yet, though she suspected this was because there were so many other, more pressing things she had to learn before Kirithishli and Ibery decided to invest that kind of effort in her. Simply put, she wasn’t very good at her job. The seemingly simple job of shuffling some books around was made immensely more complicated by the various library protocols and the all-important book classification scheme. Veronica had hoped to demonstrate basic proficiency with her duties before asking for favors, but it had been two weeks and she was beginning to understand that it would take her at least a couple of months to reach that level, and she didn’t have that. The summer festival was getting closer.

That’s why she proceeded to corner Kirithishli after she had dismissed her for the day to ask her about the coveted book divinations. Ibery lingered, pretending to be busy so she could eavesdrop. She was certainly nosy for such a shy girl.

"Say, I’ve been meaning to ask a small favor of you," Veronica began.

"Go ahead," Kirithishli said. "You’ve helped us a lot, so I’ll be happy to help if I can. It’s not often we get such a competent worker."

"Eh!?" balked Veronica. "Competent? I barely know what I’m doing – if it weren’t for you and Ibery’s help I would wander around like a headless chicken."

"That’s why I paired you with Ibery – to learn. And girl, are you learning fast! Faster than I did when I first started at this job, that’s for sure. To be honest I usually give only the simplest and most tedious jobs to student employees, but since you’re more dedicated than them I’ve given you the advanced course."

"Ah," Veronica said after a short silence. "I’m flattered." And she really was. "Anyway, I was wondering about book-finding divinations. I’ve been searching for a pretty obscure topic and I’m not going anywhere with it."

"Ah!" Kirithishli said, slapping her forehead. "How could I forget about that!? Of course I’ll teach you, we teach all our long-term workers those. They’re a bit tricky to use, though, so it will take a while to learn how to use them properly. Ibery will show you how. Though you can always tell me what exactly you’re looking for and I’ll do my best to help you out. I know this library like the back of my hand, you know?"

Veronica debated the merit of showing her the lich’s chant, since she suspected it was something that could get her into a lot of trouble just for asking about it, but saw no other way. No doubt learning how to use those divinations took months – months she didn’t have. She took out her notebook and ripped out the corresponding page, handing it to her.

Kirithishli arched her eyebrow at the text, and Ibery gave up on all pretenses of not paying attention and peered over her shoulder to see what was on the slip of paper.

"It’s an unknown language," Veronica clarified. "I don’t even know which one, really."

"Hm, tricky," Kirithishli remarked. "Finding a written reference based on a phonetic pronunciation of a word you don’t even understand is a tall order, even with divinations. You should just find an expert in languages to help you if it’s so important."

"You should try Zenomir," piped in Ibery.

"Our history teacher?" asked Veronica incredulously.

"He also teaches linguistics," Ibery said. "He’s a polyglot. Speaks 37 languages."

"Woah."

"Yeah," Ibery agreed. "He should at least know what language that is, even if he can’t read it. He’s pretty helpful if you approach him nicely, I doubt he’ll turn you away."

Interesting.* * *

"Ah, Miss Kazinski, what can I do for you?"

Zenomir Olgai was old. Really old. He wore blue robes – actual robes, like the magi of old – and had a carefully sculpted white beard. Despite his advanced age, he moved with a spring in his step and his eyes had sharpness that most people half his age lacked. Veronica hadn’t taken the linguistics elective, but she knew from her history class that Zenomir cared about his subject almost as much as Nora Boole did about runes and mathematics – though he at least understood that most students didn’t share his passion for the subject.

"I was told you can help me about some translation," Veronica said. "I have a pretty fragmentary recording of an unknown language in phonetic form, and I was hoping you could at least tell me what kind of language it is. It’s nothing like any language I’ve encountered so far."

Zenomir perked up at the notion of an unknown language and gingerly took the paper slip with the lich’s chant from Veronica’s hand. His eyes widened barely a second afterward.

"Where did you get this?" he asked quietly.

Veronica debated internally what to do and then settled for a measure of truth.

"I was attacked by someone a while ago. They used a spell with that chant as the incantation. I just wanted to know what it does."

Zenomir took a deep breath and leaned back. "You’re lucky it didn’t hit. It’s some kind of soul magic spell."

"Soul magic?"

"Necromancy," clarified Zenomir.

Veronica blinked. Necromancy? Well, it sort of made sense for the lich to use that sort of spells, but what did necromancy have to do with time travel? Nothing. This was pretty much a definite confirmation of Shirley as a primary cause of her predicament.

"So, wait, what is that language anyway?" asked Veronica.

"Hm? Oh! Yes, the language… it’s old Majara language, spoken by many of the cultures that shared the continent of Miasina with Ikosians before their rise to prominence. Many of the ruins in Koth are written in it and, sadly, it is the language in which many of the blackest rituals and necromantic spells are formulated. You won’t find any books about it available in public circulations, I’m afraid. But let’s return to the matter of this assailant. This is the darkest of magic they used, and they can be up to no good if they’re throwing spells like that on academy students."

Deciding she couldn’t just backpedal now, Veronica nonetheless decided against mentioning time travel in any way and settled for making something up. She told Zenomir about her overhearing a plan to invade the city during the summer festival. At first, she dismissed it as some kind of prank because of its ludicrous nature, but when the two cloaked figures noticed her eavesdropping and started throwing spells she didn’t recognize at her, she grew concerned. Zenomir took her a lot more seriously than Veronica thought he would, and told her to go home and leave everything up to him from now on.

Huh. That went surprisingly well – at least Zenomir hadn’t dragged her off to the police station to give a statement right away, though she suspected something like that might be in her near future. She paced nervously around in her room, unable to sleep and steadily losing the fight to keep her growing apprehension in check. Smart or not, the deed was done, and now the only thing she could do was wait and see what the consequences of her decision would be. For her and for everyone.

A knock on the door interrupted her. Strong, confident knocking that nonetheless only lasted for a second or two – completely unlike the knocking of anyone she knew.

"Coming!" Veronica called out, suspecting it was someone coming to talk to her about the story she told Zenomir. "What can I- urk!"

Veronica stared dumbly at the blade sticking out of her chest, her mouth opening in an unvoiced scream. She had just enough time to look at her assailant – a short figure dressed in loose black clothes and a faceless white mask – before the blade was painfully wrenched out of her body and then immediately inserted again into her chest cavity. Again and again and again…

When darkness consumed her vision she was actually glad she was dying. Being repeatedly stabbed in the chest hurts.* * *

Veronica’s eyes abruptly shot open as sharp pain erupted from her stomach. Her whole body convulsed, buckling against the object that fell on her, and suddenly she was wide awake, not a trace of drowsiness in her mind.

"Good m-!"

Kirielle was cut off as Veronica shot upright, eyes wide in fright, gasping for breath. She was killed! They killed her! She told someone about the attack and she was killed that very evening! How the hell had they even found out that fast!? Was Zenomir in on the attack or were they just that well-informed!?

"Nightmare?" Kirielle asked.

Veronica breathed deeply, ignoring the phantom pain in her chest as she did so. "Yeah. Definitely a nightmare."* * *

Veronica knew she should focus on what Ilsa was saying, but for the life of her, her mind wouldn’t stop dwelling on what had happened. In retrospect, she shouldn’t be so surprised at that particular turn of events – an invasion of that scale cannot be kept secret without some hefty inside help, so of course, they’d find out about anyone raising an alarm about them! And besides, if stopping the invasion had as simple a solution as notifying law enforcement, surely Shirley would have already done it and Veronica wouldn’t be repeating this month for the third time.

Although, she was starting to develop a healthy dose of respect for these… restarts. This was the second time she died and she only went through this month thrice. She seemed prone to dying. Didn’t Shirley say something about her always getting blown up in that initial barrage unless she did something about it?
He snapped back into the real world when he realized Ilsa had stopped talking and was looking at him intently. Veronica gave her a questioning look.

"Are you quite alright?" she asked, and Veronica noticed her glancing at her hands. Why would she—Oh.

Her hands were shaking. She was probably quite pale too, if the skin on her hands was any indication. She rubbed her hands together a few times and then balled them up into fists to reassert control over them.

"Not quite," Veronica admitted softly. "But I will be. You don’t have to worry about it."

Ilsa stared at her for a second longer and then nodded.

"Very well," she said kindly. "Do you want me to teleport you to the Academy? I can’t imagine riding the train in the state you’re in is going to be very pleasant for you."

Veronica blinked, at a loss what to say. She disdained train travel at the best of times, so an offer like this was a godsend at the moment, but… why?

"I don’t want to inconvenience you…" she tried in a gentle tone.

"Don’t worry, I was going there anyway," Ilsa assured softly. "It’s the least I could do for getting to you so late and taking the choice of your mentor away from you."

Well, that much was true. Xvim really was a horrible, useless mentor.

Veronica excused herself to tell her mother she was leaving – which took way too long in her opinion, since her mother wouldn’t stop bombarding her with questions about teleportation, suddenly concerned about her safety – before picking up her luggage and following Ilsa outside. She was actually a little excited, since she’d never teleported before. She’d have been even more excited, but the memory of being stabbed to death was still uncomfortably fresh, dampening her enthusiasm somewhat.

"Ready?" Ilsa asked.

She nodded.

"Don’t worry, the rumors about the dangers of teleporting are mostly exaggerated," Ilsa said patiently. "You can’t get stuck inside solid objects – the spell doesn’t work that way – and if something goes wrong I’ll immediately know it and collapse the spell before dimensional ripples tear us apart."

Veronica scowled, a small frown creasing her soft features. She already knew that, but saw no point in pointing that out – Ilsa obviously overheard her little exchange with her mother.

Ilsa started chanting and Veronica stood straighter, not wanting to miss—

The world rippled, then changed. Suddenly they were both standing in a well-lit circular room, a large magical circle carved into the marble floor they stood on. There was no disorientation, no flash of colors, no nothing – almost disappointing. She studied the room they were in a little more closely, trying to understand where they were.

"This is the teleport redirection point," Ilsa explained. "The academy wards shunt every incoming teleport into this place for security reasons. Of course, that’s assuming you’re properly keyed in and have sufficient authorization to teleport in at all." She fixed Veronica with a penetrating gaze. "Teleporting into a warded space is just one of the many dangers of the spell. Don’t experiment with it on your own."

"Err… I’m pretty sure teleport is far above my access level," pointed out Veronica, her voice gentle but firm.

Ilsa shrugged. "Some students are capable of reconstructing a spell after seeing it performed only once. Once you know the chant and gestures, 80% of the work has already been done for you."

Veronica blinked. Now why didn’t she think of that?

"Would you mind casting that spell one more time?" she asked innocently with a playful glint in her eyes. "Strictly for academic purposes, you see…"

Ilsa chuckled. "No. If it makes you feel any better, I doubt you have enough mana reserves to cast the spell even once."

As a point of fact, it didn’t make her feel any better. She didn’t care how dangerous it was, she’d learn the teleport spell as soon as she was able. She just shaved off an entire day of train travel from her journey in an instant – the ability to do that kind of thing at will would be worth quite a lot of trouble to acquire. She let out a delicate sigh and left Ilsa to her own devices to get settled in.

"I could get used to this kind of travel," Veronica mumbled to herself as she unlocked the door to her room and dropped her luggage to the floor in relief. "Too bad I could never fake distress convincingly enough, or else I’d convince Ilsa to take me along at the beginning of every restart."

She froze mid-step. She shouldn’t be thinking like that. That was dangerous thinking. She had no proof that the restarts would keep happening indefinitely. In fact, everything she knew about magic told her it couldn’t be true – whatever spell had been put on her was going to run out of mana at some point and then there’d be no restart, no second chances… no return from the dead. She had to treat every restart as if it were her last, because it might very well be.

Though she had to admit that, despite it ending with her getting stabbed to death, the previous restart wasn’t a complete disaster – at least she had all but confirmed it was Shirley, and not the lich, that was responsible for this. Instead of researching unknown languages and time travel, it would probably be wiser to find out where Shirley keeps disappearing to every time.

But not right now. She deserved a little rest after being brought back from the dead.

* * *

She really should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. The moment she tried to track down Shirley, she was reminded of why she didn’t do that in her very first restart. Shirley was not only an heir of Noble House Noveda – she was the only still living member of that House, the rest of her family having been killed in the Splinter Wars. Shirley stood to inherit a sizeable financial empire and a legacy of several generations of mages once she came of age, so everything about her was scrutinized closely by a great number of interested parties. Consequently, her disappearance was a Big Deal, and a lot of people wanted to know where she went. Veronica was just one of these people, and if those people (and the people they hired) hadn’t managed to track her down, she had very little chance to do so.

Needless to say, she didn’t get anywhere. Like she suspected, the two girls Shirley hung out with during Veronica’s original month were nothing special without the Noveda heir there to help them out and hang out with them (and asking people about them led to some pretty annoying rumors being spread around; honestly, can’t a girl ask about another girl without everyone assuming she’s got a romantic interest in her?), her house was sealed with some pretty heavy ward-work, her legal guardian could not be reached, and if she had any close friends they weren’t among her classmates.

Veronica wasn’t a detective, and had no idea what else to look for. And considering that many professional detectives had already failed (and continued to fail) to track the girl down, she suspected it wouldn’t help even if she did know a thing or two about tracking people down.

A month went by with little to show for it. Summer festival came, and Veronica once again boarded a train out of Cyoria, awake and alert as the night deepened and minutes ticked away. She brought a pocket watch with her this time, and kept glancing at it every once in a while, silently praying that she wouldn’t have to start over once again but wanting to know exactly when she got thrown back in case she did. Sure enough, her prayers wouldn’t be answered. Somewhere around 2 past midnight she blacked out and woke up with Kiri on top of her, wishing her a good morning.

She probably should have admitted it to herself right then and there. She was a fairly smart person, after all, and not prone to deluding herself. Instead, it took 4 more restarts before she accepted the truth of her predicament: she was stuck in some kind of a time loop, and it wasn’t going to end any time soon.

She didn’t know how it was possible. Maybe the spell was powered by Shirley’s seemingly inexhaustible mana reserves instead of being limited to a fixed amount at the moment of casting. Maybe it was one of those rare self-sustaining spells. Hell, maybe it reached into the Heart of the World and drew power from the Dragon Below itself! It didn’t really matter how it did it, only that it did.

But that’s retrospect – at the time she just refused to accept it and instead tried to live like she normally would. It was rather boring, yes, but what if this particular restart was the one where it ended? The restart where the consequences of her choices would not magically disappear at 2 past midnight on the night of the festival (She checked and yes, it was consistent across all 4 restarts).

She was through with that though - she couldn’t go on like this. Excluding the invasion bit, the month had been a bore even the first time around, and she had lived through it 8 times already. She knew the first month curriculum well enough by now to get near-perfect scores in all subjects, even warding. It had little effect on how people treated her, as she found out. She was known to be capable, and her grades had always been very good, so people weren’t really surprised if she aced all the exams or effortlessly performed a perfect magic missile on their very first combat magic class. It was within the realm of people’s expectations, unlike Shirley’s sudden improvement. The only people whose behavior changed in response to her improvement were Akoja and Xvim. Akoja had gotten twice as annoying now that she apparently found a kindred soul, always insisting that they check each other’s work and asking her for help whenever she didn’t understand something. Veronica had thought she’d be green with jealousy that she was beating her scores, but it seemed she was a lot less bothered to be outdone by her, as opposed to by the likes of Shirley and Neolu. Xvim took her superb scores as an indication that she should be held to an even higher standard. As such, not only did he not declare her pen-spinning good enough to move on to something else, he had demoted her back to the regular levitation exercise. In all honesty, Veronica wasn’t terribly bothered by that – even if she did master the pen-spinning exercise to Xvim’s satisfaction, no doubt she’d get nothing more than another minor variation of the basic three to practice.

So all in all, going through another boring month like that was out of the question. She took different electives this time – Astronomy, Architecture, and Geography of the Global Mana Flow – and she fully intended to bring down her academic scores back to normal so Xvim and Akoja would remain their normal, more tolerable selves. She also intended to skip quite a few time-consuming homework projects to focus on her own personal studies, and she was going to spend a sizeable portion of her savings on alchemical supplies. Should this restart be the final one, she was going to be seriously inconvenienced, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world, and she suspected the disruptions following in the wake of the invasion would render many of the normal concerns moot.

Then she walked into the essential invocations classroom on the first day of school and realized her plans would have to be adjusted.

Shirley was finally back in class.

Chapter 7: Chapter 7: Of Gaps And Pretending

Chapter Text

At first, Veronica hadn’t even noticed her. That was noteworthy by itself, as Shirley wasn’t an easy person to overlook. Shirley loved attention and seemed to have trouble staying still and quiet, something that remained consistent even after Shirley suddenly turned into some kind of a weirdo time traveler. Today, however, the normally loud and exuberant girl remained eerily silent. She also eschewed her typical tactic of sitting in the back of the classroom to occupy a seat near the front. If her out of character behavior hadn’t caused people to glance at her a bit too often, Veronica would have probably overlooked her.

She was so shocked to see Shirley finally present in class that she momentarily halted in her tracks, standing like an idiot in the middle of the classroom. Then, after a moment’s thought, she set off towards the likely cause of her predicament. Her first instinct was to immediately march up to Shirley and drag her away into some forgotten corner to clear everything up, but Shirley’s subdued appearance gave her pause. Shirley’s skin was pale and bloodless, and she was breathing a little too quickly and shallowly for a healthy person. She looked sick. Thinking about it a little more carefully, approaching Shirley so directly would be a reckless and possibly dangerous course of action. Her loss to the lich aside, Shirley was vastly more powerful than Veronica, and Veronica had no idea how the other girl would react if she knew there was another person tagging along in her time traveling adventure. She’d need to confront her sooner or later, though, so she fully intended to make at least tentative contact with Shirley. She scanned the front of the classroom, looking for a free seat near Shirley that would allow her to study the girl during the lecture.

She didn’t have to look hard – Shirley was sitting very close to Briam, and every seat around Briam was empty. The cause was easy to divine: people were reluctant to get close to the angry-looking fire drake he was holding. As someone with future knowledge, Veronica knew their fears were well founded. While the young fire drake didn’t torch anyone (and sometimes Veronica wondered how much of that was thanks to the drake’s youth and lack of ability, as opposed to having self-restraint) it didn’t hesitate to bite and scratch, and it was hard to tell what would set it off. Fortunately, it seemed to tolerate Veronica better than most people, so she simply plopped down into the seat next to Briam, silencing the lizard’s hissing with an annoyed glare. She stared at the fire drake’s slitted yellow eyes until the reptile turned its head and left her alone.

"Wow, you shut him down in an instant," remarked Briam. "I wish I could control him that easily." The fire drake snapped its jaws at the air in front of Briam’s face, causing the boy to flinch back. Briam huffed in annoyance and apparently let the matter drop. Not for the first time, Veronica wondered just how smart that creature really was.

Then, doing her best to appear natural, Veronica turned to Shirley sitting a bit further away from her. "You look like hell," Veronica remarked.

Shirley groaned and buried her face into her hands. "I feel like hell," she moaned. "What did that pile of bones do to me?"

Veronica’s heart quickened. Shirley no doubt expected her comment to be disregarded as a weird metaphor, but to Veronica it was definite confirmation that Shirley was also a time traveler. No points for guessing who or what the mysterious pile of bones was.

Now… how could she get Shirley to talk more without revealing that she knew more than she should? "Pile of bones?" Veronica asked, her voice curious.

Shirley opened her mouth to respond but Ilsa chose that exact moment to walk into the classroom and Shirley dropped the issue.

Veronica had to restrain herself from glaring at Ilsa as she smiled at her. Couldn’t she have waited a few more minutes?

Ignorant and uncaring of Veronica’s internal grumbling, Ilsa accepted the list of present students from Akoja and began introducing herself and her class. It wasn’t anything that Veronica hadn’t heard eight times already, so she mostly ignored her in favor of keeping an eye on Shirley and plotting how to extract time travel related information out of her.

Suddenly she realized that Ilsa had stopped talking and was looking in her direction. After a few moments she realized she was looking at Shirley.

"Ms. Noveda, you look quite ill. Please tell me you didn’t come to my class with a hangover."

The class erupted into laughter and Shirley winced, either because loud noises bothered her in the state she was in or because she noticed the undercurrent of agitation in Ilsa’s question. Either way, she recovered quickly.

"It’s not a hangover," protested Shirley. "I just woke up like this, I swear."

"And you thought that coming to class like this was a good idea… why?" Ilsa prodded.

"Err… I honestly didn’t think it would last this long. I figured it would pass in an hour or two," said Shirley sheepishly.

Veronica frowned. If the sickness was a consequence of the spell the lich had targeted them with that evening (and Shirley certainly seemed to think so, if her previous comment was any indication), that would mean Shirley had been suffering its effects for the past 8 months or so, as Shirley had been absent for that long. Why would Shirley expect a condition that serious to pass in an hour or two?

Why couldn’t there be any simple answers in all this?

"Well it didn’t," Ilsa concluded. "While I appreciate your dedication to your studies," Veronica distinctly heard Ako snorting derisively in the background, "I must insist you go home or, better yet, visit a healer. You look like you’re going to collapse any moment."

Before Shirley could say anything, Veronica rose from her seat. "I’ll get her home, teacher," she said. Shirley gave her a surprised look, but Ilsa just nodded and shooed them away.

Veronica picked up her bag and left with Shirley in tow, very pleased with herself. She got a legitimate excuse to talk to Shirley in private and permission to skip a class she had already attended 8 times by now. Could a victory be more complete?

"You didn’t have to do that, you know?" Shirley remarked, trailing behind her. "I can get back home on my own. I don’t feel that sick."

"But if I hadn’t done that, I would’ve had to sit through 2 hours of boring review," countered Veronica.

Shirley laughed, but her laughter quickly collapsed into a painful sounding cough. "Damn," she wheezed. "He really did a number on me."

"Who is this someone you keep mentioning?" prodded Veronica.

"It’s not important," Shirley mumbled. She took a deep breath and fixed Veronica with a speculative look. "Hey. Want to go to the cafeteria and grab something to eat?"

"You think your stomach can handle it?" Veronica asked.

"You bet," Shirley nodded. "I’m starving!"

Veronica shrugged and gestured for Shirley to lead the way.

That was how Veronica found herself sharing a table with the cause of her time traveling problems, trying to think of a good opening for a conversation she wanted to have with the girl. Or should she wait for a few days to make Shirley get used to her presence? Hmm…

"You know, I find this whole situation very amusing," Shirley said between mouthfuls, shoveling noodles into her mouth and attempting to talk at the same time. Now that was very amusing. Veronica's mother always insisted she should aspire to behave like a noble. She would have a heart attack if Veronica ever adopted Shirley’s eating manners. "A good little student like you, skipping class to have lunch with a class delinquent… what is the world coming to? What would your mother say if she saw you now?"

"First of all, I’m not skipping class – I’m escorting you home," Veronica pointed out, ignoring a snort from Shirley. "We just stopped for a meal so you wouldn’t collapse from starvation before we get there." Another snort. "And my mother would go all sparkly-eyed at who I’m having lunch with and promptly forget I’m supposed to be in class."

"Ah. A social climber," Shirley said, a sour expression on her face. "Say no more. At least you’re female, so she wouldn’t try to pair us."

"Well, I do have a 9-year-old sister…" Veronica teased.

"Don’t go there," Shirley warned.

"Fine," agreed Veronica. She didn’t particularly want to continue in that avenue, anyway. "So are you going to tell me who roughed you up or what?"

"You’re a lot nosier than I remember," Shirley huffed. "What makes you think someone roughed me up?"

"Your offhand comments aren’t as oblique as you imagine them to be," Veronica said.

"Whatever," Shirley scoffed. "I just breathed in some weird fumes while I was messing with my alchemy set yesterday, that’s all."

Ah, the trusty alchemical accident excuse. So cliché, yet so effective. Veronica had used it quite a few times herself. In any case, she wasn’t willing to let go so easily. She decided to risk it and try to provoke a reaction from Shirley.

"Must have been some really weird fumes – the aftereffects almost look like soul magic exposure," Veronica speculated loudly.

Veronica had expected some kind of reaction from Shirley, but what she got was quite a bit stronger than what she had imagined. Shirley immediately sat straighter in her seat, eyes wide in realization. "Of course! That’s why I’m still suffering the effects, even after the revert! The son of a bitch targeted the very thing that gets sent back – my soul!"

There was an eerie silence in the cafeteria as everyone stared at the crazy girl shouting nonsense in a crowded dining hall. Shirley slowly lowered her hands (she had been gesticulating wildly during her little speech) and mumbled an apology that was too quiet for anyone but Veronica to hear. Scattered laughter rippled through the gathered students for a few moments before everything finally returned to normal.

"Err…" started Shirley. "Maybe we should continue this at the fountain, yeah?"

"I don’t know," remarked Veronica carefully. "If you intend to be this loud, I don’t think it will do much."

"Oh ha ha," grumbled Shirley. "So I got a little excited… not everyone is an ice cube like you, Veronica."

"Ice cube?" asked Veronica, an undercurrent of warning in her voice.

But Shirley was already packing, and Veronica could do nothing but huff in annoyance and follow after her. Still, Shirley’s little outburst answered a few of her questions. So it wasn’t her memories, or even her mind that got sent back – it was her soul. That would certainly explain why her spellwork and shaping skills didn’t disappear every time she started over. It was common knowledge that magic was heavily connected to the soul, even if no one really knew the exact mechanism of their interaction.

When they finally reached the fountain, Shirley seemed to be in a contemplative mood so Veronica took a moment to study the schools of colorful fish swimming in the basin of the fountain. She actually pitied the poor things, since they were unlikely to last long. For years the fountain had been in disrepair, and it was only due to the grander-than-usual summer festival that it was renovated. How likely was it that the Academy would continue to maintain it after the occasion passed? Not very. And it was even less likely it would be kept in a good enough condition for the fish to survive. Their days were numbered.

"Veronica…" Shirley prodded.

"Hm?"

"Tell me… what do you know about time travel?"

Veronica blinked. Well. That was direct.
"Time travel?" Veronica asked, a delicate wave of confusion rippling through her voice, though she was faking most of it. "Not something I'm particularly familiar with. What's it got to do with anything?"

"Ugh, well…" Shirley fumbled with her words, a slight crease of nervousness gracing her brow as she scratched her chin. "You’ll probably think I’m insane, but I’m a time traveler of sorts."

Veronica raised an eyebrow, her slender figure leaning slightly closer, intrigued. Shirley really didn't have a subtle bone in her body, did she?

"You don’t look very aged," Veronica remarked softly, her tone laced with playful curiosity. "If you come from the future, it must not be a very distant one."

"No, no, it’s more like… the whole world resets itself on the night of the summer festival, and I’m the only one who remembers what happened," Shirley explained, a casual flip of her slightly messy hair punctuating her words.

That was an intriguing way of putting it, though the idea of a spell impacting the entire world seemed even more whimsical than the notion of crafting time travel magic.

"I’ve lived through this month… goodness, at least 200 times by now," Shirley continued, her playful eyes betraying a hint of fatigue. "Honestly, I’m starting to lose count."

"Wait, you’re talking about it like you can’t stop it," Veronica said, a sliver of alarm threading through her soft voice. Fortunately, Shirley appeared too agitated to pick up on it.

"That’s just it, I don’t know if I can stop it!" Shirley exclaimed, before catching herself and softening her tone, careful to avoid drawing unwanted attention. "I was hit by this spell in the prior loop, and its effects didn’t completely disappear when I looped back into the past."

Veronica frowned, her mind whirling. Prior loop? What about the other seven? Had Shirley somehow skipped those, or had she simply lost those memories? The possibility that the lich's spell might be more severe crossed Veronica's mind – what if Shirley had spent the past seven restarts in a coma? That raised the question of why her guardian reported her as missing instead of summoning a healer.

"I guess it really was a soul magic spell like you said," Shirley continued, her cheeky grin faded for a brief moment. "I need to be careful about those from now on. Initially, I thought it was just some nasty sickness that’d pass, and to some extent, I was right. I feel much better than I did this morning. It’s just that it wasn’t only my body that was affected – my mind has been a bit spotty since I woke up."

Oh dear…

"I don’t remember how I initiated this time loop," Shirley concluded, confirming Veronica’s fears. "Or whether it was me who even started it. My memory is full of blanks at the moment. I’m hoping it will all return to me, but…"

Veronica regarded Shirley, her gaze steady but thoughtful. They were in a precarious situation, both of them.

Shirley seemed to misinterpret Veronica’s serious demeanor.

"You don’t believe me," she stated.

"It’s quite a stretch," Veronica conceded gently, her eyes sparkling with a mixture of skepticism and intrigue. If she hadn’t lived through it herself, she wouldn't have believed it, no. "But I can be open-minded. Let’s pretend you’re right for a moment. How does that involve me?"

Shirley raised an eyebrow, a hint of surprise flickering in her sharp green eyes. "Huh," she murmured. "You’re really different from your other self."

"My other self?" Veronica inquired with curiosity.

"Yeah," Shirley nodded, a playful grin forming. "My memory might be patchy about some things, but I definitely remember you. Mostly because you kept dying at the start of the attack…"

She mumbled the last part quietly, perhaps not realizing it would carry. Veronica pretended not to hear it.

"You’ve changed," Shirley elaborated. "You were more irritable, always preoccupied with something or other. You never believed me when I tried to tell you about the time travel thing – you thought I was trying to pull your leg."

Well… that did sound like the kind of tale her brothers would concoct to trick her. And Shirley did share a fair amount of similarities with them.

"You’ve changed," Shirley reiterated. "You’re more relaxed. Calmer, I guess."

Veronica frowned slightly, pondering. She didn’t think she had changed significantly, but perhaps it was inevitable when experiencing something like this. Not to mention the fact that over eight months had passed since her restarts began.

"So, wait… why did I change then?" Veronica asked. "Didn’t you say the whole world resets itself?"

"Don’t know," Shirley shrugged, casting her a speculative glint. "Come to think of it, you were there too, weren't you?"

Veronica gave her a perplexed look. She wasn’t going to get baited that easily.

"No, of course you don’t remember," Shirley sighed. "Do you at least feel a little different lately or something?"

"Come to think of it… yes," Veronica acknowledged. "I chose different electives than I intended to, without any real reason, and I’ve been doing a number of peculiar things since I arrived in Cyoria."

Veronica’s motivation for saying that was twofold. Firstly, she wanted to gauge how Shirley would react to the prospect of another person being caught in the time loop with her. Secondly, she wanted to establish a basis for why she might act differently in every restart, in case she decided not to divulge her own experience to Shirley.

She was surprised by how readily Shirley believed her, though. Even after all this time (nearly 17 years, if Shirley was to be believed), Shirley hadn’t honed the ability to read people well. Either that or Veronica genuinely was that adept at acting.

"Strange," was all Shirley said.

"Yeah," Veronica agreed. "So… any pearls of wisdom a time traveler can offer to a mortal like me? A secret spell of magnificence, perhaps?"

"To be honest, most spells I know are combat-related," Shirley confessed, a hint of playfulness returning to her eyes. "I’m really good at combat magic, which is fortunate because I need to be proficient in it. There is… something I’m trying to stop."

Something involving the mysterious adversary that messed Shirley up? Veronica wanted to weave in the invasion but struggled with justifying her knowledge of it. "Do you remember how that happened, at least?" she inquired.

"Ugh," Shirley grunted. "Mostly. I distinctly recall you being there, though you probably perished at the start of the battle – no offense, Veronica, but you’re not much of a combatant – and then I foolishly charged in, presuming myself invulnerable."

"Why would you ever assume that?" Veronica asked, genuinely baffled. "That you’re invulnerable, I mean. Doesn’t it seem dangerously arrogant to deem yourself invincible?"

"Do you know how many times I’ve died in these loops?" Shirley countered. "My memory is failing me again, but it’s been a lot. You tend to become less serious about it after a while. And it’s not like I was entirely wrong – I just have to be wary of necromancy next time, right?"

"Not just necromancy," Veronica replied with a delicate sigh. "There’s mind magic to worry about, too. Besides the obvious risk of becoming a mind thrall, there’s the chance of succumbing to memory gaps – you might have your entire memory erased. Then there’s the potential of a geas being forced upon you if you’re too reckless, which also binds to the soul, to the best of my knowledge. Some creatures, like wraiths, devour souls – that’s another concern. And there are various methods of sealing away a mage’s ability to perform magic, which might persist even after you… loop back."

Shirley was silent, but Veronica could sense her growing pallor as she absorbed Veronica’s words.

"And those are just a few points off the top of my head," Veronica concluded. "I’m only a student at the academy, lacking extensive knowledge. It’s apparent w- err, you aren't invulnerable. Okay?"

Veronica swallowed softly. That had been close. Luckily, Shirley was so blissfully unaware, because had their roles been reversed, Veronica would have confronted Shirley about it long ago.

"Wow, you almost sound like you care," Shirley finally said with a nervous chuckle. "You really do believe I’m a time traveler now, huh?"

Veronica shrugged, her expression gently inscrutable. "I’m not fully convinced, but in my opinion, it’s not something worth arguing over. If you declare yourself a time traveler, then let’s pretend you are."

Indeed. Until she got a clearer insight into Shirley’s character and understood more about the time loop, she would pretend.

* * *

When Veronica returned to school, having missed both the remainder of essential invocations and the following lecture on magical law, she was swarmed by curious classmates and Akoja. Akoja was simple to handle, as she merely wanted to chide Veronica for taking too long and to warn her that she recorded her absence. Veronica was fairly certain the only person, teachers included, who bothered about what was listed in that attendance record was Akoja. The ones curious about Shirley's situation were easily appeased. It was an alchemical mishap.

What? It was the excuse Shirley used!

Unfortunately, many persistently questioned why she’d suddenly volunteered to escort Shirley home or what had delayed her. Nosy, nosy people. They were relentless, refusing to leave her in peace for the rest of the day. When Veronica finally reached her room, she promptly locked the door and exhaled a deep sigh of relief. At last, she had sufficient time to muse over what she discovered today.

Shirley was confident she’d be fine by tomorrow, her memory returning. Veronica wasn’t as assured. Shirley’s seven-month memory gap (and possibly more) hinted at something profoundly serious. Why hadn’t Veronica encountered something similar? Well… maybe she had. She’d felt unusually fatigued during her first restart, but attributed it to mental stress. Perhaps she’d only been caught at the spell’s periphery and hence only suffered minor damage, or maybe her first restart was simply the earliest one she recalled.

It was a troubling potentiality, yet there was scant purpose in dwelling on it.

In hindsight, it wasn't all that surprising. The peculiar time-loop effect intertwining her and Shirley had essentially transformed them into soul entities. A lich, at its fundamental core, was also a soul entity. Mages who ritually ended their lives, tethering their souls to an object – their phylactery – before drifting into the afterlife. If their form was ever annihilated, they’d snap back to their phylactery and seize possession of someone. It would be understandable for a lich to comprehend how to combat another lich. And a method that worked against a lich would be equally effective against her and Shirley.

And Shirley had foolishly remarked something similar to the lich at the conclusion of their battle! It’s not like I’ll be dead for good, indeed! The lich might not have comprehended what Shirley truly was, but a statement like that suggested she was either a lich herself or some possessor entity, and from a practical standpoint, she wasn’t too far off.
But that was all neither here nor there. The real question was: what was she going to do now? Even if Shirley regained her memories (doubtful), she would no doubt want to keep the time loop going until she found a way to defeat the lich. If the girl's previous altercation with the undead mage was of any indication, that could take a while. And that was assuming Shirley was the originator of the spell in the first place. If it happened once, it could have happened twice. Veronica had a sneaking suspicion that Shirley might be as much of a stowaway as she was. Was there a third looping person running around?

Suddenly, Veronica didn’t feel as desperate to get out of this thing as she was at the start of it. Getting out might not necessarily mean going back to normal. The invasion was clearly more than a random terrorist attack, and she somehow doubted that stopping it would be the end of it. Something very big was happening, and she was a very small fish. A roach, as Taiven would charmingly say. Inside the time loop, she had a chance to secure her future. Outside of it, she was just another victim.

Besides, if Shirley was to be believed, normal for Veronica meant getting killed at the start of the invasion. She didn’t care much for that kind of normal. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed to her this whole thing was a giant opportunity rather than an annoyance. Once upon a time, when Veronica was younger, she dreamt of being a great mage. The sort legends were made of, the kind that revolutionized whole fields of magic all by themselves. In time this dream died as it became clear she didn’t have the talent, the work ethic, or the right connections to make that happen. She was just a slightly above average civilian-born student with no special advantages to her name. But now? She had all the time she needed to build up an advantage over her peers and become truly great. Greater than Daimen.

She shook her head, abandoning that train of thought. She was getting ahead of herself. She needed something more concrete than a fuzzy notion of greatness to guide her – a clear set of goals to achieve, and courses of action to pursue. Right now, the only thing she could think of was harassing Shirley for some tips, raiding the library for more spells, and leveraging her curious monetary situation to improve her alchemical skills.

She was leery about relying on Shirley for help. Even if the girl would be cooperative, there was only so much she could learn from the other time traveler without revealing that she too retained her memories each time they reverted to the past.

The library was full of spells, of course, but anything serious (that is, that could be used for combat, crime, or spying) was restricted, and she knew from talking to older students that teachers were really stingy with permission slips. Not even Fortov succeeded in getting one, and he could charm a troll into not eating him.

Honing her alchemy skills was definitely an option. The only reason she focused more heavily on invocation thus far was because she had to buy any ingredients she wished to work with, and she was trying to save money. Any serious study of alchemy required a lot of funds – alchemical ingredients were expensive. With her saving account spontaneously refilling after each restart, however, monetary concerns didn’t limit her as much as they did before.

It wasn’t much, to be honest. She needed a better plan. With another sigh, Veronica pulled out her trusty notebook and began to plot and write.

* * *

"Something I can do for you, my dear?" asked Kyron. "The class has been dismissed, in case you didn’t notice."

"Err, I noticed. I just wanted to talk to you about something," Veronica said. Kyron gestured for her to keep talking. "I hope you don’t find it insulting, but your stated program seems a bit… easy. Practicing magic missile for a whole month seems rather pointless to me since I already have a pretty good grasp on it."

Kyron stared at her for a few seconds. Veronica suppressed the instinct to shuffle nervously in place and returned the man’s stare. Kyron seemed like a sort of person who would be impressed by that.

"I hope you don’t find it insulting, my dear, but you just don’t have enough power to be a proper battle mage," Kyron finally said. "Your shaping skills are rather impressive for your age, but you tire after only 10 shots from the rod. And that just won’t do in any serious combat."

"Well, I kind of know that," admitted Veronica. Her reserves had increased slightly from what they were when she first tackled this class, so 10 shots was actually an improvement. "Incidentally, is there anything I can do about that?"

"Nothing I would recommend," Kyron said, shaking his head. "Your mana reserves will grow as your proficiency in magic grows, of course, but so will everyone else's. You will always be at a disadvantage against naturally powerful opponents, which would be most of the professional battle mages. Of course, I cannot forbid you from pursuing a career as a battle mage, but I definitely advise you against it. There are plenty of magical disciplines where great shaping skills are an asset, but combat magic is mostly about power."

"I see," said Veronica. She didn’t intend to become a battle mage, but she had a feeling she was going to need some combat magic, whether she liked it or not. At the very least, she wanted to be able to deal with any stray winter wolves or trolls she might encounter during the invasion. "Though my point still stands. Since I can already do the spell well enough, and that’s the only thing you intend to instruct us in for the foreseeable future, I can see little point in attending the class for the foreseeable future."

"Hmph," Kyron snorted. "Trying blackmail on me, my dear?"

"Er…"

"It’s fine, I don’t mind. And I do understand your point of view here…" Kyron rubbed his chin for a second, mulling something over in his head. "Wait here."

Fifteen minutes later, Kyron returned with another spell rod, a small booklet, and four ceramic plates. He threw the plates towards Veronica, who hastily caught them before they shattered upon the ground.

"Good reflexes," Kyron complimented. "They’re actually reinforced, so you don’t have to worry about dropping them too much." He took one of the spell rods they used in class and grasped it firmly in his hand. "Let me demonstrate something to you. Throw one of the plates to my left."

Veronica immediately complied, and Kyron wordlessly pointed the rod in the plate’s general direction and fired. He was wide of the mark, but the bolt of force actually homed in on the plate anyway, curving through the air to intercept it. The plate shattered into dust and sharp fragments.

"Again," Kyron snapped.

Veronica threw another plate, and another bolt of force sped towards it. This one was different, however – it was longer and thinner, like an oversized needle. It hit the plate, but instead of smashing it to pieces, it went right through it, punching a hole through the center before dissipating.

"Throw the last two together," Kyron instructed.

Two plates flew into the air, and Kyron once again pointed the rod in their general direction. Veronica waited for the bolt of force, but none was forthcoming. Instead, both plates were suddenly cut in half by some unseen blades.

Kyron lowered his hand and began to speak.

"The reason I’ll be spending so much time on magic missile is because it’s a very versatile spell," Kyron spoke. "In its simplest form, it takes the form of a shining bolt of force that travels in a straight line, delivering concussive blasts of force to whatever it impacts. This variant is often called the smasher, and it is a very simple and effective spell. A skilled mage can do so much more with it, however. You can use animation magic to make it home in on a target. You can sharpen it into a point that will pierce things instead of batter them, or a line to cut them – the piercer and cutter, respectively. You can fire multiple missiles instead of one – a swarm, even, if you have the reserves and skill to pull it off. And, of course, you can make the projectile invisible."

"Invisible?" asked Veronica.

"Yes," Kyron agreed. "A perfectly cast force spell is completely transparent. The lightshow you usually see is magical leakage resulting from an imperfect spell boundary. The speed with which combat magic is cast virtually guarantees that some mistakes in constructing the spell boundary will be made, and even if no mistakes are made, the large amounts of mana pumped into the constructs can easily distort or unravel some of the pieces."

"So I’m messing the spell up?" summarized Veronica, thinking of the brightly shining projectiles she always got when she used the rod. "Wait, your missiles normally shine too. Is that-"

Kyron chuckled. "Like I said at the start – there are plenty of magical disciplines where great shaping skills are an asset, but combat magic is mostly about power. Most battle mages can’t even make a simple magic missile transparent, much less one of the higher-level force spells. It doesn’t hold them back any. Even I usually don’t bother, since the benefits are so marginal. You, on the other hand, need every advantage you can get."

Kyron pushed the spell rod and the accompanying booklet into Veronica’s hands.

"You are right that you won’t learn much in class in the next month or so. The smasher may be simple, but more than half of your classmates are having trouble with it as it is, and you’re the only one that truly has a good grasp on it. So read the booklet, find some targets to practice on, and make sure there is a friend nearby while you practice to get help if you screw up big. Oh, and don’t hurt anyone with the rod I’m loaning you or I’ll be mad. Come back to me in two weeks so I can see how you’re progressing."

"Right," agreed Veronica enthusiastically. This went a lot better than she thought it would.

"Now get lost," Kyron gestured towards the door. "You’ve wasted my entire coffee break already."

* * *

Veronica dropped the stack of books on a nearby table and surveyed the shelves. She had decided to try her luck as a library employee again, hoping she would find a way to get around spell restrictions as an employee. Shirley had been absent from class for a couple of days at this point, probably still suffering from the aftereffects of the soul spell, so she couldn’t simply trick the answer out of her fellow time traveler. And besides, she wanted to learn those book divinations she was promised before being brutally murdered, and all.
Veronica wasn't in a hurry to get Kirithishli to teach her those divination spells, though – the magic missile variations Kyron gave her to practice were giving her enough problems as it was. Like Kyron had said at the beginning of the lecture, the problem was that shaping had to be done in an instant and involved shoving a great deal of her mana reserves into a hastily constructed spell boundary. That was easy enough when you just wanted a bolt that traveled in a straight line and smashed things, but trying to weave, say, a homing function into the spell was a chore to do in a fraction of a second. To say nothing of trying to eliminate all the little imperfections and make the bolt transparent.Which is not to say she made no progress! She could make the bolt curve towards a target even if her aim was a little off, and she managed to make a flawless piercer yesterday. Progress!

"You’re pretty good at this stuff," Ibery remarked beside her, putting a book on the shelf. "I’m surprised. Usually it takes a while for people to really understand the system we use here. I guess you worked in a library before, huh?"

"Uh, yeah," agreed Veronica. It was technically true. "It was… surprisingly similar to this one in organization."

"It’s not really surprising," Kirithishli said behind her, causing Veronica to jump in surprise. "All state libraries use the same organizing system. It’s a standard enforced by the Society of Librarians. Hell, even the systems of other Splinter Nations are pretty similar."

"Because they all used to be part of the same country?" guessed Veronica.

"It is debatable whether or not the Old Alliance could be considered a unified state," Kirithishli said. "The name says it all, really – it was an alliance more than anything. Arguably it was the attempt to turn it into a state that led to the Splinter Wars. But yes, being once part of the Old Alliance, the Splinter Nations inherited much of its administrative legacy, including library organization."

Veronica was starting to understand why Kirithishli had such strained relations with the current headmaster. She knew very little about the man, but what she did suggested he was very politically involved and… well, patriotic. And the country they were living in made its official position clear – there was no Old Alliance, because the Alliance of Eldemar never ended. It simply shrank. That this was a completely ridiculous claim was self-evident to citizens domestic and foreigner alike, but most found it easier to humor the politicians. Kirithishli apparently went a step further and denied there was a predecessor state to be an inheritor of in the first place. A fiery, opinionated woman that she was, she probably said something of the sort within the headmaster’s earshot. That must have been a fun conversation.

"Hey!" called a familiar voice. "Is Veronica here? I heard-"

"Don’t shout in the library, Shirley," Veronica sighed. "Since you’re back to your usual exuberance, I’m guessing you’re alright now?"

"Yup!" Shirley said happily, thumping her chest a few times. "Healthy like an oak. Got an hour to grab something to eat?"

"In case you haven’t noticed, I’m working at the moment," Veronica protested.

"It’s not an issue, Veronica, we’re mostly done for the day," Kirithishli pointed out. Then she leaned towards her and whispered into her ear. "Unless you wanted to get rid of her and I’m interfering?"

Veronica waved her concerns away and followed Shirley outside. As amusing as it would be to see what Kirithishli would say to Shirley to get rid of her, she actually wanted to talk to the girl.

"So how come you sought me out?" Veronica asked. She thought she’d have to hound the girl to get more information, but it seemed Shirley had taken a liking to her. She didn’t know whether to be pleased or annoyed by that. It was convenient, but it increased the chances that she’d realize something was off with Veronica.

"You’re the most interesting person I know of at the moment, and the only other person who believes me about time travel except Neolu," Shirley said.

"Neolu?" asked Veronica incredulously.

"She’s an avid reader of speculative fiction and mysteries and is very imaginative and open-minded," said Shirley. "A naïve dreamer, her father would say. It was surprisingly easy to convince her I’m really a time traveler. I guess she wants to believe it’s true."

"Ah," said Veronica. She supposed that she knew now why Shirley involved Neolu so much the first time she went through this month. She still didn’t know who the other girl was, though, and didn’t know how she might work her into the conversation. "How many people did you try to convince, anyway?" asked Veronica.

"All of our classmates and teachers, the headmaster, and the heads of every police department in the city. A couple of nobles and other influential people."

How… persistent.

"Not very successful, I imagine," Veronica guessed.

"That’s putting it mildly," Shirley sighed.

Veronica frowned, suddenly realizing something. Why did Shirley try to convince all those people she was a time traveler? That didn’t sound like something a time traveler that came specifically to stop the invasion would do. It sounded more like something Veronica briefly considered when she realized how utterly over the head she was, but ultimately decided to scrap the idea because she expected the results to be more or less identical to what Shirley got.

"Shirley," began Veronica carefully, "what about those gaps in your memory? Are they…"

"They’re still there," Shirley scowled. "I’m pretty sure they’re not increasing anymore though, thank the gods."

"Hmm," agreed Veronica. "So you don’t know how you achieved this time travel magic, then? I looked it up, and it’s supposed to be impossible, you know? As impossible as drawing a square triangle, in fact."

"Well it’s clearly not that impossible, is it?" Shirley countered. "But no, I have no idea how I did that. If I did that."

"If you did that," agreed Veronica. "From your comments I’m getting a feeling you started these reverts as a common academy student. And I mean no offense, but the Shirley I remember wasn’t really the kind of person capable of inventing any spell, much less something as concept-breaking as time travel."

"Eh heh…" Shirley chuckled nervously. "You’re probably right. I used to be really bad at this whole mage business, didn’t I? But enough of such depressing topics, because I’ve got good news for you!"

"Oh?" Veronica asked curiously.

"Yes," Shirley confirmed. "I heard you’ve been trying to learn combat magic."

"Eh!? Where did you hear that?" protested Veronica.

"Kyron told the rest of the teachers, the teachers told the administrative staff, the administrative staff told the janitors and other low paying workers, they told the students, and the students told me," finished Shirley. "What does it matter? What matters is that I’m very good at combat magic thanks to the reverts, and that I’ve decided to teach you. Think of it as a reward for believing me."

Veronica gave Shirley an incredulous look. She was going to help her out on her own free will? Just like that? No need for any plotting or subtle maneuvering?

Almost disappointing.

"What?" Shirley protested. "It’s true, I really am good at combat magic! In fact, that’s the field I’m most talented at!"

Oh, now that’s a wonderful opening…

"Not that I don’t believe you, but how exactly did you get so good at combat magic?" asked Veronica. "I mean, mages are really stingy about sharing combat magic. Even with these… reverts… why would they share them with an academy student like you? Especially since you’re… uh…"

"Known to be irresponsible," Shirley finished for her. "To be honest, I didn’t get the spells I know legally. I wouldn’t recommend my methods of acquiring combat magic to anyone who isn’t a time traveler. You tend to die a lot."

"Oh."

"Yeah. But you have me, so there’s that."

Quietly wondering what she was getting herself into, Veronica followed after her.

Chapter 8: Chapter 8: Perspective

Chapter Text

"Here we are!" said Shirley happily, twirling around with her hands outstretched. "What do you think?"

Veronica studied the meadow in front of her, her eyes darting back and forth with suspicion. At first glance the area was just a large patch of grass surrounded by a ring of trees, but Veronica couldn’t help but notice signs of obvious neglect. The grass was too wild and tall, and the space between trees was full of young saplings fighting for their own place under the sun. It was a good place to practice combat magic at, but also a good place to hide a body in. In an even remotely normal situation, Veronica wouldn’t be caught dead following a complete stranger into a creepy, isolated place like this one. Oh how far her perspective had shifted…

"I wonder what’s keeping the saplings confined to that ring of trees," wondered Veronica aloud. "This meadow should be a copse of trees by now."

Shirley blinked. "I never thought about that," she admitted. "You notice the strangest things, Veronica."

"I also wonder how a place like this can exist at all," Veronica continued. "I mean, we’re in Cyoria. Land is very expensive here. Why is someone letting this place deteriorate like this instead of selling it?"

"Oh, that’s easy," Shirley said. "It’s my land. Or rather, it’s part of the Noveda family estates. It’s supposed to be a private garden for the Head of House, or something like that, so no one could do anything with it unless they had my explicit permission. But since I hadn’t even known this place existed before the reverts… yeah."

"Hm," Veronica agreed. "I guess I should have expected something like that. Your home is pretty close from here, isn’t it?"

"You know where I live?" Shirley asked, surprise evident in her voice.

Crap. What to say, what to say…

"Of course I know where you live," Veronica said, looking at Shirley like the girl was an idiot for asking. "Who doesn’t know where the Noveda estate is located?"

A lot of people, probably. Veronica herself certainly hadn’t known, not until she tried to track Shirley down in one of the restarts.

"Heh. I’m pretty famous, aren’t I?" Shirley said, grinning widely.

Note to self: Shirley is easy to distract by appealing to her pride.

"Yeah, yeah," sighed Veronica. "So is the great Noveda going to help me learn combat magic like she promised or not? Daylight’s burning."

Shirley snapped her fingers, apparently remembering just why they came here in the first place. Her hands blurred into a sequence of gestures, and several humanoids made of earth rose from the ground on the other side of the clearing.

Veronica gaped. Now that was impressive. Shirley didn’t even have to chant anything to cast that spell, and she went through the gestures with such speed Veronica had trouble remembering what they even were. Plus, those earthen constructs weren’t just immobile statues – they moved. It was in times like this that Veronica remembered she was dealing with a vastly superior mage that had her beat in virtually every conceivable way. It was humbling, to say the least.

"Wow," she said out loud.

"It’s not as impressive as it looks," Shirley said. "They’re nearly useless in actual battle. They make good targets though, since they’re pretty resilient and reform each time you mess them up."

Shirley fired a quick magic missile at one of the statues to demonstrate, hitting it square in the chest. The earthen construct took a step back from the force of the bolt, and a web of cracks erupted from the impact point, but the cracks quickly sealed themselves shut and the construct otherwise completely ignored the attack.

"I don’t believe this," Veronica stated incredulously.

"What do you mean?" Shirley asked. "They’re just animated earth so it’s-"
"Not them," Veronica protested gently. "The magic missile! No chant, no gestures, no spell formula, no nothing! You just pointed your finger at the target and produced a magic missile!" Which, she had to admit, was a gesture. Just not one that should be sufficient to produce a magic missile.

"Oh, that," Shirley said with a playful wave of her hand. "That’s not terribly special either. That’s just reflexive magic. When you cast a spell enough times—"

"Mana shaping becomes instinctive and you can start leaving out spell components," finished Veronica for her. Any serious mage had at least a couple of spells they knew so intimately they could leave out a couple of words and gestures and still get it working. "But getting a spell to work with something as simple as pointing a finger would take years!"

Shirley simply grinned from ear to ear.

"Which, uh, I guess you had," Veronica concluded softly, feeling a bit overwhelmed. "This time travel thing is really convenient, isn’t it? How many reflexive spells do you have, anyway?"

"You mean, how many are as reflexive as the magic missile I just showed you? Shield, hurl, recall, flamethrower, and a couple of other easy combat spells. There are a lot of spells I’m familiar with, but I can’t exactly throw fireballs by pointing my fingers."

"Right," said Veronica, trying to avoid feeling too inadequate. Better steer the conversation back to the lesson before Shirley completely demoralized her. "So where do we start?"

"Kyron gave you a spell rod and told you to practice magic missile, didn’t he?" asked Shirley.

"Yeah," confirmed Veronica.

"Well, let’s see how that’s working out for you first," said Shirley, gesturing towards the earthen constructs. "Fire a couple of missiles at the mud people."

"Mud people?" asked Veronica incredulously. "Is that—"

"Probably not," Shirley admitted with a teasing smile. "I kind of forgot the official name of the spell, so I just refer to it as Create Mud People. It doesn’t matter all that much since the spell is obscure and obsolete, and virtually no one except me uses it."

"I guess," agreed Veronica, deciding not to push further for now. She pointed the spell rod Kyron gave her at the closest 'mud person' and fired. She was a bit surprised when the construct tried to sidestep her magic missile instead of soaking the spell like it did when Shirley targeted it, but that didn’t save it – she had enough control of the spell to alter the missile’s flight path accordingly, even if she couldn’t get the bolt to home in on the target on its own.

Of course, the bolt did very little actual damage to the construct, and even that repaired itself quickly. Undeterred, Veronica kept firing. Her next shot was a piercer aimed at the head of the construct, which succeeded in hitting it squarely in the forehead but failed to actually punch through the animated earth. She tried to shape the next bolt into a cutter, but all she got was a diffuse blob of multicolored light that popped like a soap bubble halfway to the target. The next two were regular smashers, one of which missed when its target leaned to the side at the last moment before the bolt hit him.

Veronica stopped at this point, not wanting to completely deplete her mana reserves. She had demonstrated pretty much everything she had achieved so far, anyway.

Shirley clapped overdramatically, completely ignoring the mild glare Veronica sent her way. "You’ve only been practicing, what, for a couple of days?" asked Shirley. Veronica nodded. "And you can direct your bolts already? You’re a lot better than I thought you’d be."

"Oh?" asked Veronica, a hint of warning in her voice. "And why is that?"

"Let me ask you this instead: how many magic missiles can you cast before you run out of mana?" asked Shirley.

"10," answered Veronica. Then she paused, realizing the point Shirley was making. "Ah. Normally learning time corresponds to mana capacity, doesn’t it?"

"Yup! The bigger your mana reserves, the longer you can train each day," confirmed Shirley. "It means mages with larger reserves tend to learn faster than their less gifted compatriots."

"Assuming everyone is equally dedicated and equally good at shaping mana," noted Veronica.

"Assuming that," agreed Shirley. "Though the difference in mana reserves tends to overshadow almost everything else. Do you know how many magic missiles I can cast before I run out of mana?"

Veronica hadn’t forgotten Shirley’s seemingly inexhaustible mana reserves that she demonstrated during the invasion, and was aware that the number must be pretty high. Still, there was a limit to how big your mana reserves could get. The booklet Kyron gave her said average mages can fire somewhere between 8 to 12 magic missiles before running out of mana, while very gifted ones could manage as much as 20 or 30. Furthermore, while mana reserves increased with age and practice, they were not unlimited in potential – most people’s maximum was roughly 4 times the amount of mana reserves they started with, and usually less. Assuming Shirley was in the above average range (something her comments and attitude strongly suggested), and that she achieved her maximum due to the time loop…

"50?" she tried.

"232," said Shirley smugly.

Veronica almost dropped the spell rod in shock, but in the end, settled for staring at Shirley like she just swallowed a live chicken. 232? What the hell!?

"Admittedly I’m at the extreme high end when it comes to mana reserves," Shirley said. Understatement of the century! "And unlike you, I’ve spent years building them up, so they’re as high as they’re ever going to be. Still, even if you had a lifetime of practice, you’d probably never go over 40. That would make my reserves almost 6 times larger than yours. Quite a disadvantage to make up for."

"No kidding," agreed Veronica. "I’m guessing that’s where you come in. Unless you’ve brought me here just to tell me how much I fall short compared to you?"

"Hah! I admit the look on your face when you realized how awesome I am was absolutely priceless, but that’s just a bonus," said Shirley with a grin.

She beckoned for Veronica to come closer and Veronica complied, allowing Shirley to cast a completely unfamiliar spell on her.

Veronica felt the spell seep into her eyes, foreign mana straining against the innate magical resistance possessed by every living creature, and briefly considered snuffing the spell out before it took root. Not because she thought the spell was harmful, mind you, but out of principle. Shirley just cast a spell on her without asking for permission or explaining what the spell did, which was a major breach of magical etiquette no matter how you looked at it. In the end, she decided not to be that spiteful and simply reeled in her magical resistance, allowing the spell to do its work unopposed.

"You already have control over your magical resistance?" asked Shirley. "Sweet! I usually have to teach people how to do that, first. Hell, I didn’t know how to do that before the reverts."

Veronica frowned, ignoring Shirley’s comments in favor of trying to figure out what the spell actually did. It was concentrated in her eyes, so she should… see…

Oh.

A glowing, mind-bogglingly huge pillar rose into the sky, warping and undulating like a living being, occasionally spawning short-lived whorls of glowing matter along its length. It only took Veronica a moment to realize what she was looking at.

"That’s how the Hole looks like under mage sight?" she asked, focusing back on Shirley.

"Magnificent, isn’t it?" Shirley said. "Watching that huge geyser of mana rising into the sky always puts things into perspective for me."

"Mage sight shouldn’t work in Cyoria, though," remarked Veronica. "Too much ambient mana saturating everything. Why aren’t I blinded by the painful glow emanating from everything in sight?"

"It’s an experimental variation that tries to filter out such noise, showing only the important stuff," said Shirley. "It’s not terribly reliable, but it will do for our purposes."

"Those being?" asked Veronica.

"I’ll cast magic missile repeatedly and you’ll watch what I’m doing for a while before trying to copy me," Shirley said. "I’ll be using the proper invocation this time, and go at it as slowly as I can. Try to memorize the words and gestures, because you’ll be using them instead of the rod Kyron gave you. A spell rod is more useful in combat, but for training purposes, it’s better to work with actual invocations."

Veronica was completely on board with the idea – she had been trying to find invocations for combat spells for a while now, anyway. Shirley was underestimating her, though. "Try to memorize?" Veronica thought, amused. She might not have Shirley’s absurd mana reserves, but her memory was quite good. It took only one proper casting from Shirley and Veronica had already burned the casting procedure into her memory.

Unfortunately, the rest of the session was a lot less impressive. Shirley kept performing the spell a few more times before instructing Veronica to give it a try, upon which she found out that performing combat magic with classical invocations wasn’t only slower than using a spell rod – it was a lot harder too. Thankfully, the fact that she actually saw how the mana was supposed to be shaped during Shirley’s demonstration drastically improved her learning speed, so she managed to fire off a passable magic missile in the end. She was completely out of mana by then, however, and Shirley decided that was a good time to stop for the day.

Walking back to her apartment, Veronica was lost in thought. Shirley’s comment about the giant pillar of mana putting things into perspective for her seemed oddly applicable to her situation as well. Time loop or not, she would never beat Shirley and people like her at their own game. Clearly, Veronica couldn’t bulldoze her way through with combat magic, like Shirley intended to do. No, if she was going to get out of this in a favorable manner, she had to forge her own path.

If only she knew what that path was, though. At the moment, getting to the bottom of what caused this time loop and how the damn thing worked seemed to be just about the only thing she could do to help herself. Which was unfortunate, because she just didn’t have the skills to unravel the mystery. Apparently, she had to spend some time improving her magical abilities. Time, at least, she had in spades. Probably. She could never be sure the time loop would continue happening, but Shirley certainly didn’t behave like it would end any time soon, and Veronica decided to follow Shirley’s lead in that regard.

She really wished she had someone other than Shirley to ask for advice on how to proceed in her quest to improve herself. Typically, this was what a student’s mentor was for, but she already knew what Xvim would tell her: more shaping exercises. Then he’d throw marbles at her.

Although… Ilsa did offer to take over her mentorship in a couple of restarts, didn’t she? Hmm.

* * *
Despite her desire for some additional help, Veronica delayed approaching Ilsa until she actually had a few sessions with Xvim. That would require a lengthy wait, but it would make it easier to complain about Xvim’s mentoring methods, since she wouldn’t have to explain how she knew so much about the man already. It wasn’t like she didn’t have anything to amuse herself in the meantime – Shirley was, if anything, even more enthusiastic about their combat magic practice sessions than Veronica was, insisting they meet up every day after classes.

After two weeks of such practice, Veronica was not only able to weave a proper homing function into the magic missile spell, but also learned how to cast shield and flamethrower spells as well. She was keenly aware that her ability to cast such spells would amount to exactly zero against a human battlemage, but she also knew they weren’t the only threats she faced. Those spells might buy her a second or two against a winter wolf or a troll, which could be the difference between life and death.

Shirley returned to classes the day after their first practice session, apparently completely recovered. For a girl that lost a good chunk of her memory, she was surprisingly exuberant. Veronica admired her fellow time traveler for her ability to maintain good cheer in poor circ*mstances, but Shirley’s attention-grabbing behavior only made her inexplicable improvement in skill that much more noticeable. It was almost a repeat of the very first time she lived through this month, only instead of hanging out with Neolu and that other mystery girl, Shirley was hanging out with her. Which, of course, made Veronica a target for every curious classmate that wanted to know how Shirley suddenly got so good all of a sudden.

"What am I supposed to tell them?" she asked Shirley. They were both in the cafeteria, and she had noticed a couple of students glancing at her a bit too often, doubtlessly waiting for the chance to talk to her when Shirley left. "I can’t exactly tell them you’re a time traveler."

"Why not?" Shirley asked. "Time travel. It’s what I say every time they ask me how I got this good."

"You actually tell them you’re a time traveler?" asked Veronica incredulously. She didn’t know whether to laugh or place her head gently on the table in disbelief.

"Yeah," confirmed Shirley with a playful grin. "What’s the worst that could happen?"

Veronica felt a wave of concern at the thought of how risky that could be. Did Shirley honestly never experience consequences like that when trying to convince people of her story? Then again, she said she tried to convince them she was a time traveler, not that she told them about the other critical events she knew. In fact, she didn’t actually tell Veronica about that either – she danced around the topic whenever Veronica tried to lead the conversation in that particular direction.

"This could have all been avoided if you just held back a little in classes," Veronica sighed, trying to understand her approach.

"I kind of like the attention," Shirley admitted with a mischievous smile.

"Really?" asked Veronica. "I’m only going through this once and I’m already tired of it. You’re saying the novelty of all that attention still hasn’t worn off after, what, more than a decade?"

"Oh come on, do you really think I spend these reverts attending classes, of all things?" scoffed Shirley, leaning back in her chair. "That got seriously old after the third revert or so. I spend most of the time doing my own thing. Hell, usually I’m not even near Cyoria! I only attend the classes when I want to relax or when I am feeling nostalgic. The only reason why I’m here right now is because I got kind of roughed up in my last revert and I’m still trying to sort out the holes in my memory. Oh, and because you’ve kind of caught my interest."

"Why did I catch your interest, though?" asked Veronica. "Not that I’m complaining or anything, but how come you’re willing to invest so much time in me? Isn’t it all going to be useless in the next revert?"

"That’s a pretty cold way of thinking about things," Shirley said softly. "I don’t really think like that. I’ve tried to get to know all of our classmates in these reverts, even though some of them were pretty uncooperative with the idea, and I’ve never thought of it as a waste of time. This is the first time I’ve gotten you this friendly, and I have no idea what exactly I did to cause that. It’s best to make use of it while I can."

The realization made Veronica reflect. Not only had she never tried to get to know any of her classmates during the reverts, the idea had never even occurred to her. And this wasn’t the first time Shirley had insinuated that Veronica was kind of distant in the past. Just what had happened between Shirley and past-Veronica to leave that much of an impression?

"I see," said Veronica uncertainly, not quite sure how to respond to the revelation.

"I really do wonder about you, though," Shirley continued with curiosity. "You’re so different from the Veronica I knew, I’m starting to wonder if you’re really the same person."

Who else would I be?" asked Veronica, genuinely puzzled by where Shirley was going with this. Shirley didn’t seem to have figured out that Veronica was reverting, as she would say, so what was she getting at?

"I think I may have shifted timelines, or something," Shirley said, her tone thoughtful.

Veronica gave her an incredulous look. Shifted timelines? That’s her explanation? Really? Really really? She almost revealed herself right then and there, just so she could tell her how outlandish that was. Almost.

"Or something," Veronica replied dryly.

"Whaaat?" protested Shirley, green eyes twinkling with mischief. "It could happen. Do you know how temporal mechanics work? No? Didn’t think so."

"I did look up a couple of books about time travel after our first meeting," said Veronica. It was a small lie, of course, but based on curious diving into forbidden topics, just not in this particular restart.

"And learned nothing," concluded Shirley with a grin. "It’s a total wasteland. All they write about are various ethical dilemmas and time paradoxes and whatnot. That was the first and last time I set foot in the academy library, let me tell you."

Veronica gave her a strange look, a gentle smirk on her lips. "That was a joke, right?"

"Which part?" Shirley asked, feigning ignorance.

"The part where you only visited the academy library once," clarified Veronica.

"Err, well…" tried Shirley, chuckling nervously. "What can I say? I don’t really like to read…"

Veronica stared at Shirley, amused yet surprised. She would totally understand if the old Shirley, the one she knew before the time loop, told her she never set foot in the library. She wouldn’t be terribly unique in that regard – many students avoided the library early on, since they couldn’t access the spell repository before their certification anyway. But this Shirley had lived through this month numerous times, and had access to the spells buried within its depths. And she never tried to search through it. Because she didn’t like to read? The mind boggled.

"You’ve clearly read our textbooks," Veronica noted. "There’s no way you’d excel as well as you do otherwise."

"Yeah, well, I didn’t say I don’t read at all," Shirley countered. "Just that I’d rather avoid it if I can. I learn much better by example anyway."

Funny, it was just the opposite with Veronica – she tended to learn much better when she had the chance to study the topic on her own before trying. She still thought it was a pretty serious flaw for a mage to avoid books, but Veronica had to remind herself that Shirley was clearly achieving results somehow. Come to think of it, there was a serious shortage of anything dangerous in the academy spell collection, so a mage that was chiefly interested in the more restricted areas of magic might find the library of limited usefulness.

"So you learn primarily by mentorship?" guessed Veronica, contemplating the advantages. "I’m surprised you can convince mages to teach you in less than a month. Don’t they all require apprenticeships lasting for several years before they’ll agree to teach you anything useful?"

"Well, usually," said Shirley. "But I’m the last Noveda, don’t you know? I had highly respectable mages tripping over themselves to teach me my whole life. Usually, I just have to show up and tell them who I am and they’re all too happy to help me out."

Veronica suppressed a wave of emotion that surfaced, a mix of envy and understanding. Shirley was just making the most of her unique situation, just like Veronica would have in her place. It still bothered her, though, reminding her of how Daimen and Fortov could ask and get all sorts of help and concessions from their teachers, only for Veronica to struggle to secure the same. Her parents had often lectured her endlessly that the difference was in their attitudes – that if only Veronica was more sociable, more polite, more everything… she too could enjoy the same benefits. To Veronica, it always seemed like her brothers had some sort of invisible tattoo on their foreheads that marked them as somehow more special than her.

Shirley wasn’t her brothers, though, and didn’t deserve to be the target for Veronica’s personal frustrations.

"Convenient," said Veronica out loud, giving her fellow time traveler a smile that was slightly more genuine. Shirley didn’t appear to notice any strain.

Her jealousy aside, she was really starting to wonder if her assumption about Shirley being an accidental stowaway like her had any merit at all. Shirley had absurdly large mana reserves, likely the largest of any student currently attending the academy. She was the last member of a famous Noble House, enjoying all the prestige that comes from that without having to deal with nosy parents who might be freaked out by Shirley's sudden transformation. In addition to the power inherent in her name, the girl was also fairly charming and outgoing, further improving her chances of getting help from otherwise unapproachable high-circle mages. She was not your average spoiled noble, by any means – there was a lot of potential in the girl, if only she would get enough time to bring it out. Time that Shirley now had. It was… convenient. A bit too convenient, in Veronica’s opinion.

That is why, despite Shirley’s seeming friendliness, Veronica just didn’t feel at ease with the girl. Not enough to reveal herself as a stowaway, in any case. Right now, her main advantage was that she was an unaccounted variable in this game Shirley was playing. An unpredicted element. She intended to use and explore that for all it was worth.

Whatever force was backing Shirley, Veronica had no intention of revealing herself to it any time soon.

* * *

"Take a seat, Miss Kazinski," Ilsa said. "I sort of suspected I’d be seeing you soon."

"You did?" asked Veronica, surprised.

"Oh yes," Ilsa said with a knowing look. "Usually students come knocking at my door immediately after a single session with Xvim. You actually waited until the second one, so points for patience."

"Right," said Veronica, a bit sourly as she settled into the chair.

"I can’t transfer you to another mentor at this time, though, so I’m afraid you’ll just have to endure his methods for now," she said sympathetically.

"I sort of expected that," Veronica admitted. Why should her answer be any different than it was the last time she asked her? "It’s not what I’m here for."

"No?" asked Ilsa, raising an eyebrow with interest.
"No," confirmed Veronica, adjusting her skirt. "Since everything I’ve heard and experienced about Xvim suggests we’ll never progress beyond the basic three, I’ve decided to be proactive about self-study. I’ve been hoping for some pointers from you – where I should start, what I should watch out for, that sort of thing."

Ilsa sighed heavily. "It’s hard to give that sort of advice, Miss Kazinski. That’s why the academy gives students mentors – because there is no one-size-fits-all solution. I suppose I could give you advice about my own subject, though. How good are you at the basic three?"

"Depends on who you ask," said Veronica with a playful shrug. "Most of the teachers from my second year told me I had them mastered. Xvim says I’m a shame to mages everywhere."

Ilsa snorted and handed Veronica a pen. Actually handed it to her, not threw it at her like Xvim would have. Ah, the joy of interacting with sane teachers…

"Levitate that," Ilsa directed.

She wasn’t even finished talking and the pen was already spinning above Veronica's outstretched palm, her fingers gracefully poised.

"Oh, so you can already spin the levitated object?" Ilsa said, sounding pleased. "I bet Xvim was very happy with that."

No, not really.

"Do you know any other variation?"

"No," said Veronica with a soft sigh. "Don’t tell me learning those is standard procedure?"

"Not like Xvim is teaching them," Ilsa said with a touch of sympathy. "But yes, most mentors will give students variations of the basic three to improve their shaping skills."

"And how many of those variations are there?" asked Veronica, her gentle eyes narrowing in curiosity.

"Oh, thousands," said Ilsa, confirming Veronica’s suspicions. "But most students only learn six or so by the end of their third year. Here."

She pushed a rather heavy book into Veronica's hands, patiently waiting for her to leaf through it. It was apparently a book describing fifteen particularly interesting variations of the basic three, five for each exercise.

"Let me guess: you want me to learn everything inside this book," Veronica sighed, her slender shoulders slumping slightly.

"That would be a pretty neat trick," Ilsa snorted softly. "Didn’t you hear what I said? Most people learn six or less… in a year. You’ll probably be finished with the academy by the time you’ve learned everything inside that book. Assuming you want to, of course – I’m not making you do anything."

"Six in a year, huh?" asked Veronica carefully, an idea forming in her mind.

"That’s right," Ilsa confirmed.

"So what if I could master all fifteen before this month is done?" asked Veronica, her tone filled with playful confidence.

Ilsa stared at her for a second before bursting into laughter. It took her a few seconds to calm down.

"My, aren’t you the confident one?" Ilsa said, chuckling softly. "If you were really that good, I’d fill out the transfer forms right now, regulations be damned, and take you as my apprentice. I’d never pass up an opportunity to teach such a legend in the making. Not that I think you could do it, mind you."

Veronica just gave her a wicked smile.

* * *

Of course, there was absolutely no chance for Veronica to master all fifteen exercises in this particular restart, but that was beside the point. Thanks to the wonder of the time loop, she had far more than a few measly weeks to learn the contents of the book. It was even available in the academy library, so she didn’t have to go to Ilsa in the next restart to acquire it. And who knew, maybe if she learned those she could get Xvim to cut her some slack too. A girl could dream.

Besides, the book was actually fairly interesting. Not only did it explain how to perform each variation in great detail, it also explained the reasons for including each particular exercise, as well as providing a background for understanding why the basic three were being taught to students in the first place. Veronica briefly familiarized herself with each of the variations before starting to read earnestly from the start.

Making an object glow, levitating it, or setting it aflame… these were very simple effects, requiring only rudimentary shaping skills. The levitation exercise, for instance, was just repelling force emanating from the mage’s palm. It doesn’t get much simpler than that. There were actually a lot of these simple effects, certainly more than the three they were taught, but these three were deemed a priority. Production of light, heat, or kinetic force was a common component of many spells, giving the basic three the sort of general usefulness that most other simple exercises lacked.

The variations listed in the book were not in the same category as these simple, or starter exercises. Although Xvim, Ilsa, and the book itself referred to them as variations, Veronica realized they were more like upgrades, or perhaps advanced versions. She hadn’t realized it at the time, but the pen spinning exercise – which was the very first variation outlined in the book, albeit under a fancier name – was a whole other category of difficulty from simply levitating the pen above her palm. Not only did she have to maintain the levitation effect on the pen, she also had to shape an additional effect to make the pen spin. The variation was supposed to teach mages how to multitask, by making them maintain two effects at once.

Though Xvim would have disagreed, Veronica considered her pen spinning exercise mastered, and the guidelines in the book seemed to agree with her. As such, she started poring over the other four variations of the levitation exercise, trying to figure out which one was the easiest. She quickly realized they were not only arranged in an ascending order of difficulty, but that mastering the later variations probably required mastering the preceding ones first.

Vertical levitation required her to make an object stick to her palm with attractive force, position her palm vertically and then make the object separate from her palm without falling down. The sticking part was easy, and something Veronica could already do, but making the object float off the palm without falling required that she balance the attractive force binding the object to her palm and the repelling force that made it separate from it. Without the ability to multitask she acquired from the pen spinning exercise, it probably would have taken forever to master this one.

Next was fixed position levitation, which required an ability to maintain the levitated object’s position in space despite disruptions and changes in initial conditions. In other words, she had to be able to move her hand up and down, left and right, while keeping the levitated object static in space. It required the ability to balance attractive and repelling force she presumably acquired from the vertical levitation exercise, but this time she had to continually adjust the balance in response to changes.

And so on. Seeing how there was only one correct order in which these exercises could be learned, Veronica started practicing vertical levitation. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t accomplish much in this particular restart.

The summer festival was approaching.

Chapter 9: Chapter 9: Cheaters

Chapter Text

"Majara," intoned Veronica, finishing the spell with the word she wanted the spell to search for. She felt the spell reach out around her, scanning the books on the surrounding shelves for any mention of the word in question, and poured some more mana into the spell to expand its radius. Her efforts to overcharge the spell almost unraveled it, forcing her to spend several seconds stabilizing the spell boundary, but in the end, the mana flow snapped into its proper place and the spell finished its task as planned. Seven golden threads flickered into existence, seemingly growing out of her chest and connecting her to various books in this particular section of the library.

Veronica smiled. The spell was one of the book divinations Ibery had taught her, one that sought out books containing a specified word or string of words. It was a somewhat fragile spell, failing if the number of positive matches exceeded a certain number – the exact number depending on the caster’s skill. It was mostly used to search for quotes or really exotic terms.

Exotic terms like, say, the dead language of Majara. Zenomir hadn’t been kidding when he had told Veronica that she wouldn’t be able to find any books about it – there were no books specifically about the Majara language, and very few books even mentioned it. Up until now, she had only found thirteen other books that contained the word, and most of them only in the form of a throwaway comment or two. It was possible that the knowledge she sought existed somewhere in the library, only in a format that was invisible to the divinations she was using – Ibery had only taught her the very basics of library magic, as she called it, so her searches were painfully crude in the grand scheme of things – but if that was the case, there was little she could do about it.

She glanced down at the threads growing out of her chest and waved her hand through them, watching it pass through them without effect. She never got tired of doing that. Well, she probably would, in time, but the novelty hadn’t worn off yet. The threads were an illusion, existing only in the privacy of her own mind. Every divination spell needed a medium through which it could present information to the caster, since it was impossible for human minds to process the raw output of a divination spell. A self-imposed illusion like the threads she was currently looking at was actually fairly advanced as divination mediums go, or so Ibery had claimed when she had tried to tell her she got the spell working within 30 minutes of being shown how to do it. She had a distinct impression Ibery thought she was lying. She didn’t really understand what was supposed to be so difficult about it, to be honest – the threads were a purely mental construct that didn’t even require much in the way of shaping skills… just visualization. It seemed pretty simple to her. Natural, even.

She shook her head and followed after one of the golden threads till she reached a book it was attached to. It was a huge, intimidating, 400-page book about the history of Miasina, and Veronica had absolutely no intention of poring over it until she reached the tiny part that actually interested her, so she cast another divination Ibery had taught her. This one highlighted every mention of the chosen word (in this case, Majara) in shining green, so she simply flipped through the book till she caught a flash of green.

"Veronica? What are you doing here?"

Veronica immediately snapped the book shut and stuffed it back on the shelf. While she wasn’t doing anything forbidden, she really didn’t want to explain to Ibery what Majara was, and why she was searching the library for any mention of it.

The retort she planned to use died on her lips when she finally turned to get a good look at her visitor. Ibery was a mess. Her eyes and nose were red, as if she had been crying recently, and there was an ugly purple splotch covering her right cheek and neck. It didn’t look like a bruise, not exactly, more like...

Oh hell no.

"Ibery…" Veronica started hesitantly. "You wouldn’t happen to go into the same class as my brother, would you?"

Ibery flinched back and looked away. Veronica sighed heavily. Just great.

"How did you know?" she asked after a second of silence.

"My brother dearest came to me earlier today," said Veronica, a note of exasperation in her voice. "Said he pushed a girl into a purple creeper patch and wanted me to make an anti-rash potion. I wasn’t in the mood, so I kind of blew him off."
That was a lie, actually. She had discovered, during the last three reverts, that Fortov was either unable or unwilling to track her down if she failed to return to her room after class. That was actually the main reason why Veronica spent the entire day in the library instead of inside her room. Still, due to her rather unique situation, she knew what would have happened had she been present.

"Oh," she said quietly. "That… That’s alright."

"No," disagreed Veronica. "No, it’s not. If I had known he was talking about you, I would have helped him out. Well… helped you out. He can go die in a fire as far as I’m concerned." She paused for a moment, considering things. "You know, there is no reason why I can’t do it now. I’ll just have to stop by my room to pick up the ingredients and—"

"You don’t have to do that," Ibery quickly interrupted. "It’s… not that important."

Veronica took in her appearance one more time. Yup, she had definitely been crying before coming here. Besides, her choice of words was conspicuous – she said that she didn’t have to do it, not that she shouldn’t, and that it wasn’t that important, not that it wasn’t.

"It’s not really a problem," she assured her. "The main reason I refused in the first place is because it was Fortov who asked, not because it was so difficult to do. Just tell me where to find you when I’m done."

"Um, I’d like to come with you, if it’s not a problem," she said hesitantly. "I’d like to see how the cure is made. Just in case."

Veronica paused. That was… potentially problematic. After all, the alchemical workshop would be closed down this late in the evening, and she would have to employ some, uh, unorthodox methods of gaining access. But what the hell, it wasn’t like she would remember this in the next restart.

Thus, they set off towards Veronica’s apartment. Of course, having Ibery looking over her shoulder wasn’t enough, so when she had finally reached her room, she found another familiar person waiting for her. Specifically, Shirley.

Veronica wasn’t terribly surprised to see Shirley waiting for her, to be honest. The girl had been getting steadily more nervous during their practice sessions as the summer festival approached, no doubt unnerved by the impeding invasion. Not that she ever told Veronica about the invasion – Shirley was stubbornly tight-lipped about that, regardless of how much Veronica tried to goad her into blurting out something. Over the last few days, her fellow time traveler had questioned her about her plans for the summer festival several times, not-so-subtly implying that staying inside her room would be a bad idea. As Veronica still remembered quite vividly how one of the flares flattened her entire apartment building when the invasion started, she was inclined to agree with Shirley on that one. Unfortunately, Shirley seemed to have trouble believing that Veronica was in agreement with her on that point. No doubt she came specifically to make sure (again) that Veronica was going to attend the dance. Veronica wondered, for god knows what time, just what happened between Shirley and her previous incarnations to produce this kind of impression. Had she really been that stubborn before the time loop?

She walked up to Shirley, who was sitting on the floor next to her door, completely oblivious to her surroundings while she concentrated on something on her palm. No, now that she got closer, she could see it was actually something above her palm. A pencil, lazily spinning in the air above Shirley’s palm. Apparently, Shirley knew the pen spinning exercise too and was currently practicing it while she waited. Veronica had a strong urge to throw a marble at Shirley’s forehead and demand that she starts over, but decided against it.

Mostly because she didn’t have any marbles on her person at the moment.

"Hello Shirley," Veronica said, startling Shirley out of her reverie. "Are you waiting for me?"

"Yeah," confirmed Shirley. She opened her mouth to say something else but then noticed Ibery trailing behind Veronica and snapped her mouth shut. "Err, am I interrupting something?"

"No, not really," Veronica sighed. "I just came to grab some alchemical supplies and then I’ll go make something for Miss Ambercomb here. What did you want with me?"

"Eh, it can wait a while," Shirley said dismissively. "What are you making? Maybe I can help – I’m pretty good at alchemy."

"Is there anything you’re not good at?" asked Veronica with a playful snort.

"You’d be surprised," mumbled Shirley.

Ibery watched their interaction in silence, but Shirley was a fairly sociable person, so by the time Veronica returned from her room with a box of supplies, the two of them were engaged in a lively conversation. Mostly about Ibery’s current condition.

" Geez, I didn’t know your brother is such a jerk, Veronica," Shirley remarked. "No wonder you turned out to be such a… uh…"

She trailed off when Veronica raised her eyebrow at her, daring her to finish that sentence. Ibery’s reaction was more vocal.

"He’s not a jerk!" she protested. "He didn’t mean for this to happen."

"He should have fixed it, though," Shirley insisted. "Intentionally or not, it was his fault. He shouldn’t have dumped his responsibility on his little sister like this."

"Nobody forced Veronica to do anything," Ibery said. "She’s doing this out of her own free will. Right, Veronica?"

"Right," agreed Veronica, though silently aligning more with Shirley's perspective. But she knew better than to voice it. Speaking ill of Fortov in front of Ibery, who had quite the crush on him, wouldn’t lead anywhere good.

Thankfully, the two of them quickly agreed to disagree on the topic, and a comfortable silence descended on the group. Well, it was comfortable for Veronica – apparently Shirley didn’t agree.

"Hey Veronica," Shirley said. "Why are we going towards the academy proper?"

"So I can access the alchemical workshop, of course," said Veronica. She knew what Shirley was getting at, of course, but she was still hoping to get away without revealing one of her most closely guarded tricks.

No such luck.

"But all the workshops are closed this late in the evening," remarked Shirley.

"Ah!" Ibery exclaimed. "She’s right! They closed down two hours ago!"

"It won’t be a problem," Veronica assured them. "So long as we clean up after ourselves, no one will know we were there."

"But the door is locked," pointed out Shirley.

Veronica sighed. "Not to magic, it isn’t."

"You know unlocking spells?" asked Shirley in a surprised tone.

Veronica understood her surprise – unlocking spells were restricted magic, due to their obvious abuse potential. Unless you possessed a special license, even knowing how to cast them was a crime. Not a particularly serious crime, but a crime nonetheless.

Perhaps it was good, then, that Veronica didn’t know a single unlocking spell.

"No, I don’t," said Veronica. "But it’s just a simple mechanical lock. I’ll just manipulate the tumblers telekinetically. Piece of cake."

They gave her a blank look. Like most people, they had no idea how locks actually worked, and how easy it was to bypass most of them. Veronica, due to her somewhat colorful childhood, did. In fact, she could pick your average lock without using magic at all – it was just a lot slower than her little magic trick and required her to carry around a set of lock picks.

She stopped in front of the door leading into the alchemical workshop and tried the handle. Like Shirley said, it was locked. Shrugging, Veronica placed her palm over the keyhole and closed her eyes. She could feel Shirley and Ibery cluster around her to get a better look at what she was doing, and did her best to block them out. She needed total concentration for this.

She had developed this particular trick back in her second year, after she got bored of refining the standard shaping exercises they were given. It involved flooding the locking mechanism with her mana, using the resulting mana field as a sort of touch sight to get a feel for the lock, and then carefully moving the tumblers into the proper position so she could neutralize the lock. It took her months of stubborn practice, but by now she was good enough at it to unlock most doors in 30 seconds or less.

Even warded ones. She didn’t say this to Shirley and Ibery, but the door she was trying to open was actually warded. Anything even remotely important in the academy was, including most of the doors. However, as Veronica quickly discovered when she experimented with the newly-developed skill, low-level wards were very specific – they countered a handful of common unlocking spells and nothing else. Veronica’s little trick was not a structured spell and thus didn’t trip these rudimentary wards at all.

The door clicked and Veronica tried the door handle again. This time the door opened without resistance.

"Wow," said Shirley as they all filed into the workshop. "You can open a lock just by pressing your hand against it for a few seconds!"

Veronica gave her a sour look. "It’s a lot more complicated than that – that’s just the visible part."

"Oh, I don’t doubt that for a second," assured Shirley.

Still, while Shirley seemed very impressed with Veronica’s achievement, Ibery remained strangely quiet and kept giving her funny looks. This was why she hated telling people about her lock-picking prowess – most immediately assumed she was some kind of a thief. Well, that and she didn’t want the academy authorities to find out about her achievement. They would no doubt change their warding scheme and then she wouldn’t be able to do what she just did.

Fortunately, Ibery wasn’t as condemning as some people Veronica met in her life and got over her suspicions quickly once she started to prepare the salve. Strangely enough, Shirley didn’t know how to make one, even though it was a fairly simple thing to make and Shirley had demonstrated some mightily impressive alchemical work in class. She didn’t appear all that interested in learning, either – apparently, the anti-rash salve was too mundane for her tastes, and she was only interested in things like strength potions and wound closing elixirs. That sounded like trying to build a house without bothering to set up proper foundations, but it wasn’t Veronica who was a decade-old time traveler. Yet.

"Aren’t those purple creeper leaves?" Ibery asked, pointing at the small pile Veronica had placed on a wet piece of cloth.

"Yes," confirmed Veronica, wrapping the leaves into the cloth. "They’re the main ingredient, though they have to be crushed first. Alchemical manuals usually claim you have to reduce the leaves into powder but it’s not really necessary to go that far. You just have to use more leaves otherwise, but it’s not like purple creepers are in short supply…"

An hour later, the salve was done, and Shirley was kind enough to conjure some kind of illusionary mirror so Ibery could apply the salve on herself right then and there. Kind and sneaky, because while Ibery was busy with applying the salve on herself, Shirley dragged Veronica away in the corner so she could talk to her in private.

"So?" Veronica prompted. "What is it?"

Shirley reached into her pocket and pulled out a ring, which she promptly handed to Veronica. It was a featureless band of gold that reacted strangely when Veronica channeled some mana into it.

"It’s a spell formula," Shirley said.

"Magic missile?" guessed Veronica.
"That, plus shield and flamethrower," Shirley said. "Now you can use all three in actual combat." Veronica looked at the ring with newfound respect. There was only so much one could cram into a spell formula, and it was mostly dependent on the size of the item used as a base. Transforming something as small as a ring into a spell formula for three different spells was a pretty impressive feat, even if they were relatively low-level ones.

"Must have been pretty expensive," Veronica remarked in her soft, yet curious voice.

"Made it myself, actually," Shirley said with a playful grin, her tomboyish elegance evident.

"Still, that’s a pretty valuable thing to give away to someone you’ve met less than a month ago," said Veronica. Her words were more of gentle teasing than skepticism. "Why do I get the feeling I’ll be needing this in the near future?"

Shirley's smile faded slightly, and she suddenly became more subdued. "Maybe. I’m just making sure, you know. You never know when an angry troll might get a jump on you or something."

"How… oddly specific," noted Veronica with an amused tilt of her head. "You know, you’ve been getting steadily more nervous as the summer festival approaches. And you seem oddly interested in making sure I attend the dance."

"You will, right?" Shirley prompted, her green eyes glinting with playful insistence.

"Yes, yes, I told you I will half a dozen times already," huffed Veronica with a graceful roll of her eyes. "What’s so important about the dance, anyway? What’s going to happen there, oh great traveler from the future?"

"You have to see it to believe it," Shirley sighed, a hint of seriousness slipping through her usually confident demeanor. "It’s possibly even more implausible than time travel being real."

"That bad?" asked Veronica, privately agreeing that an invasion of that scale was something she would have had trouble believing in if she had not lived through it.

"Just… try to survive, okay?" Shirley sighed. Before Veronica could say anything else, Shirley suddenly donned a mask of fake cheerfulness and spoke in a voice loud enough to be heard by Ibery. "Wow, Veronica, I’m sure glad we’ve had this talk, but I should really get going now! Have to be well-rested for tomorrow! Bye, Veronica! Bye, Ibery! I’ll see you both at the dance!"

And then she left. Veronica shook her head at the other girl’s exit and walked up to Ibery, who was now free of the purple rash that once covered her face and neck.

"Well, I guess we should go too," Veronica said. "The academy normally doesn’t have anyone patrolling after dark, but that idiot’s shouting may have alerted someone to our presence."

"Oh. Um, right."

Veronica observed Ibery as they exited the workshop, using her magic to relock the door. Ibery seemed strangely subdued for someone who got what they wanted.

"What’s wrong?" Veronica finally asked, her voice gentle but curious.

"Err, nothing’s wrong," Ibery said. "Why do you ask?"

"You don’t seem very happy to be cured," Veronica noted, concern softening her features.

"I am!" Ibery protested. "It’s just…"

"Yes?" Veronica prompted patiently.

"I don’t have anyone to go to the dance with," Ibery said, a hint of despair in her voice. "The boy I was hoping to go with already has someone by now."

If her unnamed boy was Fortov (probably, considering her obvious crush on him), then yes, he most certainly did. In fact, he probably had one weeks in advance, so there was never much chance of her going with him in the first place, but Veronica didn’t feel the need to crush her dreams like that.

"Then you’ll just have to do the same thing I will and go to the dance all by yourself, won’t you?" suggested Veronica with a gentle smile.

Ibery suddenly stopped and gave her an appraising glance.

"You don’t have anyone to go with, either?" she asked.

Veronica closed her eyes and sighed internally. She really walked into this one, didn’t she?

* * *

Veronica was nervous. Ever since her very first restart, she had been studiously avoiding the city on the day of the festival, not willing to get caught up in the invasion again. Being present within city limits could easily result in her grisly death, after all, and back then she wasn’t sure whether her current restart would be her last. That wasn’t an option anymore, unless she wanted to clue Shirley in that there was something wrong with her (she didn’t).

Bottom line was, she was stuck attending the dance, with the unexpected addition of Ibery as her companion for the evening. She wasn’t exactly thrilled. She didn’t really have much of a plan for the evening, except to wait and see what would happen, but Ibery’s presence at her side would no doubt limit her. Not to mention that she still remembered her disastrous evening with Akoja, and had very little desire to live through a repeat performance, consequences-erasing time loop or not.

Speaking of her evening with Akoja, Veronica had to admit one thing about Ibery: she was a lot more reasonable and considerate than Akoja was. She didn’t drag her out of her room 2 hours before the event, or make her wait smack in the middle of the huge throng of people gathered at the entrance, or drag her off to chat with a bunch of people who only cared about her being Daimen’s and Fortov’s sister… She was also more interested in scanning the crowd for any trace of Fortov than paying attention to her, but that was okay – Veronica was under no illusion that Ibery had asked her out because she was actually interested in her. After a while, she decided to have mercy on Ibery and informed her that Fortov was already inside, preparing for tonight’s performance along with the other members of the academy music club.

Naturally, Shirley's entrance was in her usual flamboyant style. She had caught everyone’s attention when she had shown up with not one, but two dates for the evening (Veronica didn’t recognize either girl), and then further wooed people by demonstrating some very impressive – and attention-grabbing – dancing. Apparently Shirley had learned more than magic during these restarts. Veronica clapped with the others when Shirley finally finished showing off, and considered the merits of sinking some time into a non-magical skill. Not dancing, though. Or any other high society skill, for that matter – honing those beyond the elementary level she had already grasped would require her to construct a mask so thorough she wasn’t sure she’d be able to take it off afterwards. The benefits weren’t worth selling her soul over, even metaphorically.

"This is a lot fancier than I thought it would be," Ibery noted, fingering the lacy tablecloth in front of her.

"It’s obviously more than just a school dance," agreed Veronica. "I’m guessing the Academy was organizing some kind of event for foreign dignitaries this year and then decided to simply merge it with the school dance for whatever reason."

"I guess," Ibery said. "They did invest a lot into making everything look good this year, and I doubt they did it for our sake." Ibery looked at the far end of the table, where Shirley was entertaining a small crowd around her, her two escorts nowhere to be seen. After a few seconds of this observation, she turned to Veronica and stared at her strangely.

"What?" Veronica said, a little unnerved by her stare.

"I’ve been meaning to ask you…" she began hesitantly. "What is it between you and Shirley? I mean, I know you’re friends with her, but how did that come about? You seem very different from one another."

"It’s a recent thing," said Veronica. "And it was mostly Shirley’s doing, to be honest. All I did was escort her home after she got sick in class one day, and she decided we were best friends after that. I sort of went along with the flow."

"So you don’t know about… um…"

"Her sudden growth in skill?" guessed Veronica. She was actually surprised Ibery hadn’t questioned her about that sooner. Almost everyone else did. Of course, Ibery would get the same shameless lie that Veronica fed to everyone who questioned her about it. "I have no idea how that happened, but I can tell you it’s real and not some kind of a trick like many people have been suggesting. She has been tutoring me in combat magic for a while now, and she really knows her stuff."

"Yeah, I heard you were doing that," Ibery said, causing Veronica to frown. Being associated with Shirley had made people disturbingly interested in her activities, no matter how mundane or irrelevant they may be. Having people scrutinize her every action like they had been doing for this past month was a novel experience. Novel and unwelcome. "Kyron has been kind of impressed with your growth, you know?"

"Impressed, right," said Veronica sourly. So what do you think is behind Shirley’s amazingness?"

"Err, well… it’s kind of silly," Ibery said.

Veronica gestured for her to go on. She always loved to hear the explanations people thought up to explain the mystery that was Shirley. Much of the speculation wasn’t serious, so much as attempts to think up the most imaginative (or the funniest) solution to the problem, so she doubted Ibery’s explanation was any sillier than some of the stuff she had been hearing all month long. Her personal favorite was that Shirley performed an ancient ritual where you eat another person’s brain in order to get their knowledge.

"Time dilation," Ibery said after a brief moment of hesitation.

Veronica blinked. Oh Ibery… So close, and yet so far away…

"I don’t think any hasting spell is that effective, to be honest," said Veronica. "Shirley isn’t just a little better than she was – I’d personally put her around 3rd circle at least. I actually don’t think she has any reason to attend the classes anymore, except that she finds it amusing to do so and flaunt her knowledge to everybody."

"I kind of noticed that," Ibery said, glancing momentarily at the small group surrounding Shirley. "But I wasn’t thinking of hasting magic. Do you know what the Black Rooms are?" Veronica shook her head in negative. "There are rumors that powerful nations like ours have special training facilities that use extreme levels of time dilation. You go inside the facility, spend a couple of months, or even years inside, and when you get out only a day or two have passed outside."

Veronica’s eyebrows rose at the description. If one of the major powers had something like that, why weren’t the effects more keenly felt? None of the Successor States were shy about using their power, and would have surely used such a tool to churn out trained mages on a mass scale by now.

"It’s just a rumor," Ibery quickly added. "Something between a conspiracy theory and an urban legend. I only know about it because one of my friends loves those kinds of things, and she keeps insisting there is one such facility in the tunnels beneath the city. Supposedly they consume massive amounts of mana, so they must be located at mana wells."

"And the Hole is the biggest mana well there is," Veronica noted. "What’s the explanation for such secrecy surrounding them? You’d think they’d be using it pretty intensively."

"They can’t," Ibery said. "Or at least that’s how the story goes. They have some kind of severe limitations on their use. Exactly how countries pick who gets to use the Black Rooms is where the conspiracy theory part comes in. The more conventional theories suggest they’re simply fancy facilities for training Black Ops super-agents. The wilder ones are… well, wild."
“It’s a neat theory,” Veronica hummed with a thoughtful smile, her fingers playing idly with the hem of her simple skirt. Far closer to reality than anything else she’d heard, though she’d never say that aloud, even as a joke. If she could take such a farfetched rumor seriously, there was a good chance she might actually believe Shirley upon hearing the truth, and that would be very awkward at the moment. Maybe she should try to convince her in one of the next restarts? Something to think about, at least. “But if Shirley had spent years in one of those Black Rooms, why hasn’t she visibly aged? And why exactly would they let her use one of those?”

“Well, she didn’t have to literally spend years,” Ibery said. “It’s not that anything she’s done is that advanced. A couple of months of intense tutoring could probably produce the effects we’re looking at. And even if she spent years, there are potions that can halt your aging for a year or two. They actually work better on young people.”

Veronica resisted the urge to frown as she realized something. As much as Shirley liked to show off, she never really went wild with her abilities for all to see. If Shirley had shown the sort of magic she did during the invasion, neither Ibery nor anyone else would be dismissing her prowess as not advanced so easily. Then again, perhaps that was the whole point. Extremely skilled Shirley was surprising, maybe even shocking to those who knew her before the change. Instant archmage Shirley would probably be alarming in the extreme and inspire a matching attitude in people around her. Perhaps Shirley’s behavior was a lot more calculated than she thought it was?

“As for why her?” Ibery continued. “Well, she’s a Noveda. They were quite influential before their eventual fall, and I don’t just mean in the sense of being rich. They had their fingers everywhere. I could easily see some of that old influence surviving to this very day. Shirley is the last of her line, and the fate of her House rests upon her shoulders. Perhaps this was simply a desperate maneuver by Shirley’s guardians, trying to turn her into a worthy successor capable of returning Noveda to their former glory.”

The ground shook, followed by a deafening explosion less than a second later. Windows rattled, but didn’t break. An uneasy silence descended upon the dance hall, only broken by the periodic rumble of more distant explosions.

“What… what was that?” Ibery asked fearfully.

She wasn’t the only one asking that kind of questions. Agitated murmurs started traveling through the gathered crowd, steadily growing in volume and alarm. The ever-present pressure Veronica always felt from being inside crowds intensified and… changed. What was usually just an annoyance pushing on the edges of her consciousness suddenly became a suffocating blanket of fear. She struggled not to faint as foreign feelings invaded her mind. What the hell was happening to her? She didn’t remember anything about an attack like this from her previous experience of the invasion.

A minute ticked away. Then ten. Veronica could practically feel the anxiety and agitation of the crowd steadily rising. The last (and first) time she had lived through the invasion she was standing on the roof when that first barrage descended to earth, and was momentarily incapacitated as a result. At least, that’s what she had thought. Apparently, she had been knocked out for quite a bit longer than she realized because by her reckoning Ilsa and Kyron should have been rushing to the roof to see what was happening by now. She could see them arguing about something in a nearby corner, and neither made the slightest move towards the roof.

“Veronica?” Ibery tried for either the fifth or sixth time, Veronica wasn’t sure. “Are you sure you’re alright? Maybe I should go find someone—”

“I’m fine,” Veronica said, somehow managing to shove the oppressive feelings aside for the moment. The explosions had finally stopped but that hadn’t led to people calming down. If anything, now that the situation had calmed down somewhat, they wanted answers, and they wanted them now. They were getting restless. Thankfully, the academy staff seemed to realize this as well. “Look, Ilsa is trying to say something.”

“Please remain calm!” Ilsa said from the music stage, using the same magic that carried music evenly across the dance hall to make herself heard by everyone present. “My colleague and I will go to the roof now and open communications with the city authorities to find out what is going on. Please don’t go anywhere until we return.”

Well… that didn’t do much to calm people down. If anything, they got even more unruly than they were before Ilsa’s speech, and some outright ignored her warnings and left the dance hall the moment she went up the stairs and out of sight. Veronica couldn’t judge them too harshly, since in another timeline she had done the exact same thing. On the positive side, the oppressive feeling lifted and reverted back to the familiar headache-inducing pressure. She breathed a giant sigh of relief.

“Hello Veronica,” greeted Shirley, approaching Veronica. Of course she’d come to talk to her now… “Quite a commotion, huh? And I see you talked Miss Ambercomb into being your date for the evening! Congratulations! I never knew you liked older girls.”

“I’m only a year older than her,” Ibery protested. She glanced briefly at Veronica to see if she would point out that it was her who asked her out and relaxed when she realized she wouldn’t. Veronica had to restrain herself from rolling her eyes. “And how come you’re here all by yourself? Why don’t you introduce us to your dates?”

If Ibery thought to fluster Shirley by pointing out the plural nature of her partners for the evening, she was going to be sorely disappointed. And indeed, Shirley only smiled at her, completely unaffected by the jab.

“They decided to leave for home early,” Shirley shrugged. “Probably for the best, considering what happened.”

“What did happen, though?” asked Veronica. She didn’t expect to get a straight answer out of Shirley, of course, but it was worth a try.

“I guess we’ll find out soon,” said Shirley, pointing to the bottom of the stairs leading to the roof, where Ilsa was talking to a bunch of students. After a couple of seconds Veronica realized that Akoja was among them, and recognized several other faces as well.

“Who is she talking to?” asked Ibery.

“Class representatives, I think,” Veronica said. “At least, the ones I recognize are all class representatives for their groups.”

It was so frustratingly slow. Maybe Veronica was expecting a little too much from a mere educational institution, but their response to the invasion was pretty underwhelming. At the very least, she had expected them to start evacuating people to the shelters by now, or organize some kind of a defense force, or… well, anything, really. She was getting an impression that Ilsa and Kyron didn’t even realize the severity of the situation yet.

Finally, Ilsa seemed to finish with her instructions and the crowd of class representatives dispersed into the crowd. It only took Veronica a minute to realize what they were doing—each one was gathering their own classmates into a single group. She bid Ibery goodbye and left towards her own group together with Shirley.

Once everyone was present, Akoja told them what the plan was. The academy was going to use their limited teleportation capabilities to get foreign dignitaries and other important people out of the city, and the students were going to descend into the tunnels beneath the city to reach the shelters on foot—with no teachers present to guide and defend them, because they had other duties currently and class representatives had to know the evacuation routes to get the job anyway.

Veronica looked at Shirley to gauge her reaction and saw that her friend’s expression was grim and focused.

“All right,” Shirley mumbled. “Showtime.”

Veronica had a bad feeling about this.

* * *

Surprisingly, it wasn’t Shirley who raised the alarm—it was Raynie, of all people. How exactly she detected the winter wolves five minutes before they showed up, Veronica had no idea, but notice them she did and she immediately raised the alarm. A lot of students didn’t believe her, but most weren’t willing to risk it. The entire procession of students started to move faster towards the small cylindrical building that marked the staircase leading down into the shelters.

They never made it there before the winter wolves reached them.

Veronica wasn’t a soldier, and would never call herself an expert on tactics, but what the throng of students did upon sighting the horde of winter wolves coming after them still struck her as monumentally stupid. They scattered. The ones closest to the dungeon entrance rushed towards it, but the others immediately sought the closest shelter. She could hear Shirley’s frantic shouting, telling people not to separate from the main group, but it was in vain.

Cursing, Veronica snatched Akoja by the wrist before she could bolt towards the nearby apartment building and wordlessly pointed towards the dungeon entrance. For a moment, she thought about explaining her reasoning in more detail, but she knew she didn’t have enough time for that. She let go of her and started running, hoping she would have the presence of mind to follow.

Thankfully, she did follow her, as did several other students that witnessed the silent exchange and realized the importance of it. As they ran, more people joined them, seeking safety in numbers.

Around her, chaos reigned. The winter wolves were pouring in by the hundreds, and unlike the fleeing students, they were frighteningly well coordinated. Small groups of 3 to 4 wolves detached themselves periodically from the main body to intercept lone targets before rejoining the horde, using their superior numbers to flank and outmaneuver their opponents. Their white fur and the surprising silence with which they moved made them seem like an army of ghosts risen from the underworld to punish the living. Screams. Shouting. Flashes of light and canine howls of pain too—not every student was helpless. Up ahead, Shirley was defending the entrance to the tunnels viciously, sending swarm after swarm of force projectiles that hit far harder than your run-of-the-mill magic missile, felling scores of winter wolves with each volley. A number of people reached the safety of a nearby building and promptly barricaded themselves inside, ignoring the pleas of those outside to let them in.

Just as Veronica thought they would make it to the entrance without incident, her luck ran out. A large group of 30 or so winter wolves noticed them and moved to intercept. The group halted immediately, unsure what to do as the pack continued to get closer. They had to go through it to reach the shelters, but fighting the wolves was suicide. Shirley was busy incinerating a group of war trolls that finally made their appearance and wouldn’t be able to help for a while.

“I told you I should have brought my sword,” one of the boys groused. “But noooo, it’s not suitable for a school dance, you said. You’re too paranoid for your own good, you said.”

“Oh shut up,” a female voice snapped back.

Veronica resisted the urge to fire off a couple of missiles at the approaching winter wolves. Even shaped as piercers, they weren’t guaranteed to kill in one shot something as resilient as a winter wolf, and she still tended to fail quite often when she tried to weave a homing function in them, so there was no guarantee she would even hit anything. She had to use her mana intelligently.
Not everyone shared her confidence, however. A number of people had a spell formula hidden on them in the form of a ring or a necklace, much like she did, and they threw missile after magic missile into the advancing wolves. Only one girl was capable of casting a proper homing bolt, so most of them missed, and when they did hit, they were just smashers, so they didn’t kill any of them. They did, however, slow the pack down and force it to cluster together, as the girl that could fire homing bolts targeted any wolf that tried to detach from the pack to flank them. And that gave Vera an idea. The moment the pack got close enough, Veronica fired an overpowered flamethrower straight into their front lines. Clustered together as they were, most of them were caught in the blast. The winter wolves, notoriously weak to fire, howled in fear and agony. That’s when someone else fired another flamethrower into their ranks, this one much bigger and hotter than Veronica’s, and the winter wolves promptly turned and fled. The ones that still lived, that is.Veronica turned to see who cast the other flamethrower and was surprised to see Briam there, staring smugly at the charred corpses in front of him. He was holding his fire drake in his arms like a living weapon, and the little lizard was licking its chops like it wanted to eat its kills. So much for her theory that the drake was too young to breathe fire.

After a moment of shock at the sudden reversal, they all scrambled into the building housing the dungeon entrance and immediately descended into the tunnels below. Veronica was immediately intercepted by a worried Ibery, who seemed extremely relieved that she was alive. Even though she knew her death wouldn’t be permanent, Veronica had to admit she was glad Ibery survived as well. Though, now that she could sit down and think about it a little, it wasn’t that unusual she had survived. She was a fourth year student, and they were at the front of the procession for some reason. That was very unfortunate, because fourth year students were, presumably, much more capable of defending themselves than third year ones… and they were the ones who reached the safety of the shelters first, leaving their younger compatriots to fend for themselves.

"I didn’t know you had any fire spells," Briam noted from Vera’s left, stroking his familiar affectionately. "I guess that’s one of the things Shirley has been teaching you this past month, huh?"

"Yeah," Veronica admitted. She gave the fire lizard a dubious look, and the reptile stared back at her challengingly. "Did you really bring your familiar to the school dance?"

"Oh, no way," Briam laughed. "I’m not that attached to him. No, I used a recall spell to summon him to my side when the winter wolves started pouring in."

"Isn’t summoning pretty mana intensive, though?" Veronica asked.

"Not if you’re summoning your familiar," Briam said. "We’re bound together, he and I. Connected through the soul. It’s a lot easier and a lot less taxing to cast certain spells where they concern him."

"Huh," Veronica hummed.

An hour went by, with little to show for it. Veronica listened to stories of people around her, trying to make sense of what had transpired and thinking what she could change in the next restart to make this evacuation thing less of a fiasco. Her thoughts were interrupted when a group of teachers finally stumbled into the shelters.

There were six of them and they looked tired and frightened, much like the students who had gathered around them for explanations and assurances. The only one among them that inspired confidence in Veronica was Kyron, who remained as stoic as always. He was no longer bare-chested, opting to wear full body armor that sort of resembled the chitinous shell of a saint bug, and had a plethora of spell rods hanging off his belt in addition to the combat staff he was firmly gripping in one hand.

Kyron had bad news – the attack on the academy was just one piece in an all-out invasion targeting the entire city. Veronica already knew this, of course, but everyone else was suitably shocked. The invasion was well prepared, and most of the defenders had been overpowered right at the start. The city was about to fall. Once that happened, the shelters would become just a giant death trap. They would have to go outside and fight their way out of the city before the invaders could secure everything of critical importance and turn their attention to them.

People were taking it pretty badly.

"Why don’t you just teleport us out!?" someone called. "You’re supposed to be able to do that!"

"Academy ward control has been subverted," Kyron said calmly. "The invaders have turned our own teleportation wards against us. We can’t teleport in or out."

Veronica groaned. The enemy had control of the wards? How on earth did they do that? The academy wasn’t just some random house with a generic warding scheme – it was supposed to be too secure and sophisticated for that!

The questions continued for a minute or so before Kyron got enough of it and started to bark out orders. They needed to get moving.

Veronica was paying attention to something else though. The student next to her had been acting strangely ever since Kyron and his cohort entered the shelters. Veronica could practically feel the boy’s eagerness and anticipation. For what, she couldn’t say, but she had a feeling it was nothing good.

That is why, when the boy threw a vial full of sickly green liquid on the floor and smashed it with his foot, Veronica held her breath and fired a smasher straight into the boy’s chest. Foul smelling green smoke erupted from the broken vial, and the shelters erupted into chaos.

Veronica couldn’t see anything through the no doubt poisonous smoke, but the sounds of fighting were unmistakable. She stumbled through the smoke, trying to find an end to it and failing. She could tell from the hacking students around her that breathing in would be a bad idea. Thank god it didn’t also irritate the eyes or she’d never be able to cast a shield in time to stop a magic missile from smashing into her face. A circular plane of force flickered into existence in front of her, soaking the hit. The shield wavered for a second but held.

And then Veronica heard Kyron shout a series of words, and all the smoke around her rushed towards the source of Kyron’s voice, as if caught in some sort of vacuum. Veronica had just enough time to see Kyron holding his left hand in the air, a smoky green ball compacting itself above it, before she was forced to erect a shield again.

At least she could breathe now. Thank the gods for small favors.

Before the attackers – who had probably teleported in under the cover of smoke, because Veronica would remember a bunch of middle-aged men in brown robes if they had been present when she got into the shelters – could regain initiative, Kyron snapped one of his hands and a shining whip flashed through the air. The invaders promptly fell apart, the upper half of their bodies sliding off the lower half like they were never attached to one another at all.

Veronica stared at Kyron in shock. She knew the retired battle-mage was capable, but seeing it was something else. The man had assessed the situation within moments and solved it with a total of two spells. She wondered what would have happened during the initial evacuation if Kyron had been leading the students. She couldn’t help but think that Kyron would have found a way to repel the initial winter wolf rush without losing anyone. Certainly, the students would be more inclined to listen to Kyron than their class representatives – the man had a certain aura of command around him.

"How… the hell… are you… still standing?" wheezed Shirley not far from her. Apparently, she had breathed in some of the smoke and was affected just like everyone else. Even decades-old time travelers could be brought down by some tricks, it seemed.

Veronica was about to answer when the ground exploded next to her, showering her with stone fragments and knocking her on her back. She heard Kyron chanting something, but it was too late for her – the giant brown worm that emerged from the ground was far faster than it should have been and Veronica was in too much pain to move. She saw a huge toothy maw closing around her, and then she knew only blackness.

Her last thoughts were that it wasn’t fair. Just how many contingencies did these people have? These invaders were freaking cheaters!

Chapter 10: Chapter 10: Overlooked Details

Chapter Text

Veronica's eyes abruptly shot open as sharp pain erupted from her stomach. Her whole body convulsed, buckling against the object that fell on her, and suddenly she was wide awake, not a trace of drowsiness in her mind.

"Good m-"

"No, it’s not," Veronica interrupted. "How could it possibly be a good morning? I got killed again! Eaten by a giant worm this time. And waking up like this is really starting to get on my nerves! Couldn’t the time loop have started a day later or something?"

She stared at her little sister expectantly. She stared back at her, confused out of her mind and probably a little frightened.

"Um, what?" she asked hesitantly.

Veronica wordlessly flipped her over the edge of the bed. Her sister fell to the floor with a thud and an indignant yelp, and Veronica quickly jumped to her feet to better respond to any violence her sister might decide to retaliate with. Having learned her lesson during previous restarts, Veronica immediately set out towards the bathroom before her sister could get her bearings.

Her sister realized what she was doing quickly, but by then Veronica had already locked the door behind her. Her sister's screams of outrage were music to Veronica's ears, especially since they eventually caused their mother to come after her sister and give her a scolding.

Maybe it was a good morning, after all.

* * *

Trains… Veronica hadn’t really liked them to start with, but she was starting to develop an intense dislike of them ever since she was caught in this time loop thing. Traveling via train on a regular basis was almost as annoying as her sister jumping on her at the start of every restart. She had toyed with the idea of striking up a conversation with Ibery, so she’d be familiar with her when she got a job at the library, but scrapped the notion after a while. Mostly because she decided not to apply for the job in this restart. Working at the library like she had been doing was fairly time-consuming, and she had a much more promising project to work on – mastering all the shaping exercises in Ilsa’s book so she could woo her into taking her as her apprentice. Library magic was useful, but getting rid of Xvim would be absolutely priceless.
She wouldn’t be present in Cyoria when the invasion came either. Not in this restart, nor in any near future one. Even if she had to reveal her secret to Shirley because of it, she'd take the first train out of town on the eve of the summer festival. She knew that the smart, responsible thing to do would be to stay in the city and note what was happening – how the invasion was progressing and what could be done to stop it. She knew it, but… it was too much for her. And not just because getting herself involved in that mess seemed to invariably lead to her death, either. The emotional rollercoaster of the evacuation was very hard on her nerves, but that was just a symptom of the real problem. She struggled with her thoughts for a moment, trying to identify the root of the problem. Every reason she could think of felt… not right. And then it clicked. It was the helplessness. Every time her thoughts strayed towards the topic of the invasion, she couldn’t shake the notion that the forces arrayed against her were vastly beyond her ability to handle, and that the only reason she survived as long as she had was through sheer dumb luck. It occurred to her that the manner of her most recent death could easily be an allegory for this entire invasion. So you repelled a murderous pack of winter wolves and reached safety, helped foil a traitorous ambush, and now you think the worst is over? No, foolish girl, a giant worm suddenly jumps out of the ground and bites your head off! How was she supposed to fight something like that?

Maybe she shouldn’t. A lot of things about the invasion seemed… implausible. About as implausible as Shirley becoming a super-prodigy over the span of a single summer, Veronica learning all 15 shaping exercises in Ilsa’s book within the span of a month, or time travel being real. What if her theory of there being a third time traveler was correct, and that someone was the mastermind behind the invasion? It would explain a lot. Then again, it would also pose a lot of questions on its own… like why hadn’t this hostile time traveler dealt with Shirley already? The lich had already proved it was very much possible to hurt people like Shirley and Veronica, and was working for the invading forces already.

Regardless, she intended to involve herself again with the invasion only after she acquired some serious magic or after she calmed down somewhat and felt emotionally capable of facing the situation. Whichever came first. It’s not like she could study the invasion in any great detail if she kept dying at the very start of it, anyway.

Eventually, the train arrived in Cyoria, and Veronica began her long trek towards the academy. She wasn’t in a hurry this time because she had finally found a spell to protect herself from rain in the last restart and was eager to try it. Well, she had actually found several protective spells meant to deal with rain and other adverse weather, but only one was within her ability to actually cast. That was okay, though, since the rain barrier spell was the one best suited for her purposes anyway – it offered the most complete protection, at the cost of being horribly draining to maintain. She could see why the mana drain would be a serious problem for people who wanted to use the spell extensively, but Veronica only needed it to last for an hour or two in an exceptionally mana-rich area of Cyoria.

Also, being encased in an invisible sphere that repelled water was just plain more impressive than the more subtle, sophisticated wards. The barrier actually worked on water in general, not just raindrops, so she didn’t even have to worry about stepping into puddles and soaking her footwear. Seeing water on the road part before her like in front of some kind of celestial emissary was mightily amusing. Also a bit of an ego boost, which is something she sorely needed after being so thoroughly outmatched during the invasion of the previous restart.

She’d probably never use the spell after getting out of the time loop, since an umbrella was good enough for most occasions and didn’t consume any mana, but finding a store that sold them along her usual route from the train station had proved surprisingly difficult. Which, now that she thought about it, suggested that she probably would use the spell from time to time, since she doubted this would be the only time in her life she’d find herself without an easily acquired umbrella.

She shook her head. She really shouldn’t be fantasizing about what she’d do after getting out of the time loop, since it didn’t appear that would happen any time soon. She had to concentrate on the present… and boy did that sound weird, considering her situation. Like what was she going to do with Shirley? She was sorely tempted to just admit everything to the girl and have them try to figure out this mess together – surely two heads are better than one? Impulsive she may be, but Shirley couldn’t have gotten as far as she did without having a good head on her shoulders. She didn’t feel entirely comfortable with that idea, though – she strongly suspected there was more to Shirley than it appeared, and she hated to charge in without knowing what she was getting herself into.

She decided to see how Shirley interacted with her in this restart before deciding.

* * *

"Veronica! Over here!"

Veronica glanced towards the happy-looking Benisek waving at her like a lunatic and wondered what she should do. She didn’t really want to talk to him. Benisek might be her closest friend among the student body, but he was also rather irritating at times, and it’s not like he could tell Veronica something she didn’t already know at this point. In the end, she sighed in defeat and trudged over to the grinning boy. Time loop or no, it felt wrong to blatantly snub someone so visibly happy to see her, especially since she shared so much history with Benisek.

She did find it interesting that Benisek was present in the cafeteria at this time, since that wasn’t his usual behavior in the restarts Veronica experienced so far. These kinds of unexplained divergences happened all the time, which was to be expected – there were at least two time travelers wandering around the time loop, changing things both inconsequential and crucial – but it was surprising to see a change this soon into the time loop. It had only been a day since she arrived in Cyoria. Usually, it took at least a week until everything went off the rails, and even then a lot of things repeated themselves. Most teachers followed some kind of a fixed teaching plan, for example, and rarely deviated from it. As far as she knew, Fortov always came looking for her for help with the purple creeper salve, even though his accident with Ibery only happened near the very end of the time loop. Which, now that she thought about it, suggested the accident wasn’t so accidental after all. Kind of suspicious for an accident to be so insensitive to changes…

"You just got to Cyoria, didn’t you?" Benisek prompted excitedly the moment Veronica sat down beside him.

Veronica nodded hesitantly. Benisek was only ever this excited when talking about a particularly hot girl or when he got hold of particularly juicy gossip material. Hopefully, it was the latter because there was no way Veronica would be staying otherwise.

"You’re so not going to believe this!" Benisek said excitedly. "You know Shirley? You know, Shirley Noveda, last scion of the Noble House Noveda? She went to class with us these last two years."

Of course, it’s Shirley. She really should have known.

"Of course I know her," Veronica said. "She is… very memorable."

"She is?" blinked Benisek. He shook his head. "I mean, of course she is. I kind of didn’t expect you to know, though, since she’s kind of a failure as a mage and you never interacted with her much."

Veronica shrugged. Truth be told, it was very rare for her to forget someone’s name, regardless of how often she had interacted with them or how long it had been since she last saw them. Even before the time loop, Veronica would have instantly known who Benisek was referring to.

"Anyway," Benisek continued, "Shirley escaped from her family mansion yesterday."

"Err, what?" asked Veronica incredulously. "What do you mean escaped? Why would she need to escape from her own mansion?"

"Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?" Benisek said. "Apparently she had an argument with her guardian that eventually descended into a full-blown magical duel. A duel which, get this, Shirley won! Half the mansion was trashed, and Shirley fled into the city and has yet to be found. They’re searching for her everywhere!"

"Um, wow," Veronica said, honestly at a loss for words. What the hell was that about?

"You said it," Benisek agreed. "I’m not sure I believe the official story, though. I mean, there’s no way Shirley could have taken on her guardian in a magical duel! Tesen Zveri is a 7th circle mage or something, and Shirley barely passed her own certification! Then again, something sure demolished Noveda mansion…"

"How do you know this?" asked Veronica.

"It’s all over the newspapers," said Benisek. "Besides, everyone is talking about it. I can’t believe one of our classmates would be involved in something like that. What do you think, Veronica?"

"Ben… I honestly don’t know what to think about that," said Veronica.

And she really meant it. She didn’t doubt for a second that Shirley could beat the stuffing out of her guardian, 7th circle or not – the man was a politician, as far as Veronica knew, not a battlemage – but why would she want to do that?

"I suppose she won’t be coming to class this time, then," mused Veronica out loud. Then again, she would not have put it past Shirley to just walk into class one of these days as if nothing was wrong.

"I doubt it," Benisek laughed.

"Did she hurt anyone?" asked Veronica. Benisek shook his head in the negative. "So basically she didn’t do anything that serious. What’s the worst that can happen to her if she simply turns herself in?"

"Well, Tesen must not be too happy with her now, and he’s too influential to brush off, even for someone like Shirley," said Benisek. "Attacking one of the Elders of Eldemar is actually a fairly serious crime, and Tesen could really ruin Shirley’s day if he was inclined to pursue satisfaction. Not that I think he would, since that would just draw even more attention to what happened. This whole thing is a giant political scandal for him. I’m guessing Shirley will come back after a month or so, after she cools off a bit, and Tesen will magnanimously forgive her everything."
Veronica was silent. Shirley had told her that it was rare for her to spend a restart in Cyoria, and even rarer for her to attend classes. In light of that, it had been foolish of her to expect Shirley to be around in this restart. Shirley may have found Veronica interesting in the previous restart, but probably not that interesting. Still, this was more than a little strange. If she had wanted to leave and do her own thing, couldn’t she have just walked out of her mansion one day and kept going? Who would have stopped her? Her guardian? Why would Tesen do that? The man was clearly very hands-off in his dealings with his charge, as evidenced by Shirley’s frequent absences from school during the last two years, as well as Shirley’s abysmal performance prior to the time loop. There was no obvious answer, and Veronica didn’t feel like trying to track down Shirley. She probably couldn’t find her, even if she tried, and she had more attainable goals to pursue. Like getting out of Xvim’s merciless clutches. What could be more important than that?

The rest of the restart was pleasantly uneventful. There was no Shirley, since she never showed up in school and couldn’t be found by anyone. After a week or so, the newspapers stopped covering the story because there were no new developments to justify the articles, and the rumors making rounds across the student body died down soon after. For her part, Veronica threw herself completely into mastering the exercises in Ilsa’s book. She neglected virtually everything else, often skipping classes when she thought she could get away with it. Akoja was furious, since she was apparently ruining the attendance record of the class, and got Ilsa to corner her one day about it. Fortunately, Veronica’s ability to get top grades on every exam, despite her spotty attendance, blunted the impact of Akoja’s criticism, and Veronica managed to convince Ilsa she was working on a personal project that was taking most of her time… not skipping classes for the heck of it as Akoja claimed. She assured her the project would be finished within a month, and that she would resume attending classes regularly after the summer festival. Ilsa made her promise that she would show her what she was working on when she was done, and she enthusiastically agreed with her.

Her single-minded focus gave results quickly – she mastered both vertical and fixed position levitation by the end of the restart. She didn’t bother showing these advanced skills to Xvim, who was still having her work on the pen-spinning exercise, since she doubted she’d get a worthwhile reaction. Nothing seemed to please that guy.

She hadn’t been present in the city when the invasion came, of course. Without Shirley’s ring, she was even more useless in combat than she was in the last restart, so it was doubtful she could have lasted for very long in the midst of it all. She did make sure to practice with combat invocations she learned from Shirley each day, hoping to hone them into the same reflexive state that Shirley displayed. That would take years of practice, of course, but that just meant she’d better start as soon as possible. She also didn’t just leave via train like she usually did – she traveled by foot to one of the hills overlooking the city and observed the city from there.

Watching the invasion unfold from such a high vantage point was not only a lot easier on Veronica’s nerves than being in the thick of it – it was also rather informative. It was interesting to see how the invasion played out in broad terms. It seemed to have several stages, the first of which was, of course, the disguised artillery magic barrage. The explosive flares mostly targeted three crucial areas – the city hall, the local military base, and one cluster of buildings that Veronica didn’t recognize. The academy didn’t appear to be a primary target, possibly because the invaders wanted it reasonably intact. Aside from the initial blast, the impact zones seemed to spawn scores of fire elementals that had to be dealt with. Fortunately, a lot of buildings in Cyoria were at least moderately warded against fire, because Veronica didn’t doubt for a second that the entire city would’ve been aflame within minutes otherwise. Once the fire elementals had a few minutes to make a nuisance of themselves, monsters poured out of the sewers, and after they rampaged across the city a bit, the spellcasters finally arrived.

The battle was still raging when the clock finally hit two past midnight and everything went suddenly black.

All things considered, the army of monsters was the least destructive part of the invasion – if she could somehow prevent the initial barrage from crippling the city defense right from the start, or take out a lot of the attacking mages that followed in the monsters' wake… well, it was worth a shot when she finally got some skills under her belt.

The next three restarts were essentially the same, right down to Shirley dueling her guardian and escaping into the night. Apparently, that wasn’t just a one-time thing, but a rather routine occurrence. The exact details varied, but every time she roughed Tesen up before setting off, who knows where. Unfortunately, Veronica couldn’t find out anything substantial about Tesen – the man was a high-ranking politician and thus not exactly approachable, and nothing in publicly available sources explained Shirley’s apparent hostility towards the man.

Her work with Ilsa’s book progressed steadily, but she was frankly getting a bit sick of it. There was only so much of incessant shaping practice she could stand before she lost all enthusiasm. Besides, Ilsa said most students go through them at a rate of 6 per year, and she was already more effective than that – something that she attributed to her unusual focus on the matter. How many people could afford to focus all their energies on shaping exercises? There were so many things vying for the typical student’s attention that shaping exercises no doubt ended up near the bottom of their priorities.

That was why she was currently in Ilsa’s office, trying to see if she could get something out of her without mastering quite the entire book.

"What can I do for you, miss Kazinski?" Ilsa asked.

"Well, I’m a bit concerned about the program you outlined in your first class," said Veronica. "I’m not sure I’ll get anything out of it, since I already have a solid grasp on all the topics you mentioned."

Ilsa raised an eyebrow at her. Hey, it worked on Kyron, why wouldn’t it work on Ilsa too?

"I see," she said after a second of silence. "Would you mind if I gave you a couple of quick tests to confirm that?"

Confident she could deal with anything she was tested with, she agreed. Ilsa proceeded to rummage through her drawers and took out 2 different tests. One was an exact copy of the same test Ilsa gave to the whole class just before the summer festival, and Veronica proceeded to fill it out in 10 minutes flat by sheer memory. The other was unfairly hard because it covered advanced topics that didn’t turn up in class at all. Veronica only managed to fill out a quarter of the questions before time was up, and she was fairly sure not all of her answers were correct.

Ilsa skimmed through them quickly and then nodded to herself.

"Your theoretical knowledge is pretty spotty," Ilsa said with a theatrical sigh, and Veronica had to stop herself from scowling. That was such nonsense! She gave her that second test just to make sure she failed! "Here… I’ll give you a list of additional reading to study in your free time."

Two minutes later Veronica found herself practically pushed out of the door, a piece of paper with hastily scribbled writing in her hand. She glared at the list of book titles, very much tempted to incinerate it on the spot. She was supposed to start on the variations of flame-producing exercises, anyway. But she didn’t. She would not be defeated that easily! If she could survive Xvim’s mentoring methods this long, she could definitely read a couple of theoretical manuals. She would be back. Ilsa could be sure of that.

"Good morning, sister! Morning, morning, MORNING!"

"Good morning, Kiri," said Veronica pleasantly. "Thank you for waking me up."

Kirielle stared at her for a couple of seconds and then huffed in disappointment at her lack of reaction and got off of her all on her own. Well, damn – she should have tried that ages ago.

"You’re no fun," she accused.

Veronica simply nodded in agreement.

"Mom wants to talk to you," Kirielle said. "Could you show me some magic before you go, though? Pleeeeease?"

Well… why not? She quickly cast the floating lantern spell, causing an orb of light to spring into existence above her palm. She had the orb fly around the room while she repeated the spell two more times, producing a different colored orb each time.

The books Ilsa had told her to read were mostly boring, but they did tell her something rather interesting. All those variations she had been practicing had more uses than just improving her shaping skills, apparently – they also allowed her to adjust certain spells more to her liking. The same variation of the light-emitting exercise that allowed her to produce colored light also enabled her to change the color of the glowing orb produced by the floating lantern spell. Mastering a whole bunch of light-related exercises would apparently also make light-based invocations more powerful and less mana-intensive, and the same principle applied to other groups of spells as well… such as fire-related exercises improving invocations based around fire and heat, and levitation-based ones improving spells relying on telekinetic forces. She was a lot less annoyed at having to go through all those shaping exercises when she found that out. Hell, if they were that useful, she’d probably see if she could find more of them when she ran out of the ones in Ilsa’s book.

"More! More!" Kiri demanded.

Distracting Kiri with a few more orbs, Veronica quietly slipped out of the room and went to the bathroom before Kiri could realize what was happening. Why was she always so intent on getting there first anyway? That was horribly petty, even for Kirielle. She’d have to ask her in one of the restarts.

Unfortunately, she sort of forgot she filled her entire room with multi-colored orbs of light by the time Ilsa came around to visit, so she thought nothing of inviting her into her room. She hastily swept her hand in front of her, causing them all to wink out of existence, but it was too late – Ilsa had already seen them and was looking at her curiously.

"That’s not really a second year spell," Ilsa remarked, her eyes boring into her own.

"Daimen can be a pretty good teacher when he wants to be," said Veronica with a cheeky smile, shamelessly relying on Daimen’s fame to deflect any concerns. Teaching first circle spells like that one to uncertified mages was illegal, but if Veronica ever learned something in her life, it was that Daimen could get away with anything.

"And you know how to produce something other than white light," Ilsa noted. "Impressive. I guess this should be easy for you, then."
She handed Shirley a very familiar scroll, and Veronica was just about to flood it with mana to break the seal when she realized something was amiss. Ilsa was studying her like a hawk, expectant and alert. Ilsa had never shown this much interest in her scroll-opening before, so what made this one special? Veronica stared at the scroll for a couple of seconds, unable to see any difference from the scroll she was used to. Even the symbols on the seal were the same. Wait… A few moments later, Veronica remembered where she had seen the symbols inscribed on the seal and promptly felt like banging her head against the wall or something. How… why… those sneaky little... She had been doing it wrong! All this time she had been simply pouring mana into the seal to break it, when instead she had to channel mana into it in very specific ways to peel it off intact! It said so, right at the god damn seal! It required more mana control than simply flooding the seal with mana, but it was nothing she hadn’t already been capable of, even before the time loop. All this time, she had thought the symbols on the seal were purely ornamental in nature, but no, they were instructions. Instructions written in a somewhat obscure form, but still. How could she have missed that? She directed her mana to flow along the sides of the seal, causing it to pop off without resistance.

"Well done," Ilsa said with a smile. "Not many students have such a firm grasp on their magic at this stage. I see someone is continuing in Daimen’s footsteps."

Veronica smiled back politely, allowing the warmth of the compliment to settle. It was important to maintain that balance and not scowl as she often felt tempted to do.

"Unfortunately, I’m in a bit of a hurry, so we’ll have to continue this conversation later," Ilsa said. "Visit me in my office when you get to Cyoria. Now about your electives…"

* * *

Ilsa stared at Veronica. Veronica returned the gaze. Ilsa glanced towards the two completely filled-out tests on her desk and then returned her gaze towards Veronica, this time with a speculative look. Veronica remained silent.

It actually felt good to baffle someone like this, Veronica decided. Apparently, Ilsa wasn’t as cold-blooded about improbable skills as Xvim was.

"I must admit, I didn’t quite expect this level of knowledge and shaping skill when I told you to come and see me," Ilsa said thoughtfully. "That second exam I gave you is the one I give to students at the end of their third year, and you only got 2 of the questions wrong. On top of that, you know 10 different variations of the basic three, which is astronomical for a 3rd-year student."

She tapped her pen against the table, lost in thought.

"You may be a bit too advanced for what I intend to teach your group this year," Ilsa finally admitted. "My class is mostly there to make sure the students don’t have any obvious holes in their shaping skills and theoretical knowledge, and to teach them a few miscellaneous spells that are of general utility to most mages. You’re way beyond that. What am I going to do with you?"

"Transfer me away from Xvim so you could teach such a promising student?" Veronica tried softly, her voice laced with gentle humor.

Ilsa laughed. "Sorry," she said. "You’re good, but not that good. Besides… you should have it easier than most of Xvim’s vi- err, charges. What with your amazing shaping skills and all."

"You’d be surprised how little difference that makes to him," Veronica sighed softly, brushing a strand of hair away from her face.

"Oh come on, Miss Kazinski, you didn’t even have a single session with him," Ilsa chided, her tone gentle but firm. "I’m sure that whatever rumors you heard were greatly exaggerated."

"Right," said Veronica, unable to keep herself from rolling her eyes with a playful hint. "Can you at least give me a written permit to skip your lectures? You said yourself I have nothing to learn there, anyway."

That wasn’t quite what Veronica was after, but she supposed it was better than nothing. It would give her a bunch of free periods throughout the week, which wasn’t terribly useful while she was inside the time loop (where she could just skip classes if she needed more free time) but would come in handy when and if she got out of it. And besides, a written permit would cut down on Akoja’s whining, if nothing else.

"No," Ilsa said, her resolve clear. "I need you in class, if only to motivate the rest of your classmates to try harder. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you’re not bored during class."

Crap. Maybe she shouldn’t have asked her that…

"In the meantime, I’m going to do you a favor," Ilsa continued with a hint of kindness. "While I am personally too busy to teach you, I will see if I can find a teacher willing to give you some private instruction. Do you have an area of magic you’re particularly interested in? Personally, I would recommend you look into either divination or alteration, but it’s your choice."

"Spell formulas," Veronica said firmly, her determination shining through.

"Oh? Ambitious," noted Ilsa, her interest piqued. "It’s a hard subject. Not something your shaping skills can help you with, either."

"I’m certain," Veronica confirmed. Spell formulas had fascinated her ever since she started to learn magic, so there was no way she was wasting this kind of opportunity.

"Very well," Ilsa shrugged slightly. "I don’t foresee any problems, in that case. I’m sure Miss Boole will be ecstatic to have such a talented and determined student."

Miss Boole? As in, Nora Boole, the orange-haired maniac who expected them to read 12 books within a week and gave them 60-question progress tests every other lecture? Veronica resisted the urge to sigh. Why couldn’t she have a normal mentor for once?

Chapter 11: Chapter 11: Limiters

Chapter Text

"Why is your test longer than mine?" Benisek whispered to her hurriedly. "Did I lose a page or something?"

"You didn’t," Veronica whispered back gently. "Nora is just testing me because… well, it doesn’t matter. I’ll tell you later."

Veronica sighed softly and continued pondering the advanced spell formula questions in front of her. As if the original 60-question test hadn’t been enough! Worse, Nora took a page out of Ilsa’s book and decided to test her on knowledge that she technically shouldn’t even have because the additional questions had nothing to do with second-year curriculum. Thankfully, she had actually read all 12 of her recommended books over the course of several previous restarts, so she wasn’t completely stumped while looking at the piece of paper in front of her.

Still, the additional questions were encouraging since they suggested Nora was taking her more seriously than usual. In the handful of restarts she had tried, the results were underwhelming – while enthusiastic about her subject, Nora Boole never seemed to believe she was as advanced as she claimed. All of her teachers were like that, as far as she could tell from her initial attempts, with Kyron being the biggest exception. Though now that she thought about it, that probably had more to do with the ease with which her proficiency with the magic missile spell could be demonstrated, rather than Kyron’s inclination to believe her claims. In any case, the sheer speed with which things were happening gave her hope – it was only yesterday that she and Ilsa had talked in her office, and already Nora was testing her. That was absurdly fast since teachers liked to take their time about things like this. Apparently, she had left an even bigger impression on Ilsa than she thought she had.

Good. It was nice to have a confirmation that she was actually going somewhere, rather than just wasting her time.

A few minutes later, her peace was once again broken by Benisek. She gritted her teeth as the boy started to pester her for answers. Veronica had always found Benisek to be somewhat annoying, despite him being Veronica’s best friend (or at least the closest she had), but Veronica found herself steadily losing her patience with the boy as restart after restart went by. It wasn’t really fair to Benisek – the chubby boy was behaving no worse than usual fare – but the time loop made Benisek’s antics annoyingly repetitive. She quickly scribbled answers to a handful of questions on a piece of paper and thrust it at Benisek. He looked like he would say something to her in his not-whisper (Benisek whispered far too loudly for it to be called a real whisper), but she silenced him with a quick glare.

As annoying as Benisek might be, Veronica wasn’t ready to give up on him just yet. Whether that resolve would hold throughout the entire time loop remained to be seen, however.

"All right, time’s up. Pencils down, everyone," Nora said, earning her a wave of protests from the student body. "Except for Miss Kazinski, that is. She can keep working on that special second test I gave her."

Veronica cursed internally as all eyes momentarily shifted towards her. Nora just had to tell them that in front of the whole class, didn’t she? She made a note to herself to watch what she said in front of Nora since discretion wasn’t her strong suit.

Akoja hurriedly collected all the tests, lingering slightly longer near her desk so she could see what her special test was all about. After that, the class continued as normal. It was the exact same thing she had already listened to countless times before in the previous restarts, so she did her best to block it out and continue solving the test. Even with her massively unfair advantage, the test was rather hard. Spell formula in general involved a lot of mathematics and geometry, as the very name of the discipline hinted at, and that automatically made it hard for a lot of people… her included.

Eventually, the class came to an end, and Nora asked her to stay behind while everyone else filed out of the classroom. She immediately started to look over her tests when the last of her classmates left, and Veronica watched her intently for a reaction.

Unlike Xvim, or even Ilsa, Nora Boole was a very expressive woman. By the time she had reached the end of the first test, Veronica could see she was pleasantly surprised. She damn well should be, considering it was 100% correct. When she started inspecting the second test, though, her face quickly morphed first into shock, and then barely restrained glee. Evidently, she liked what she saw. Finally, she set the test aside and met Veronica’s eyes, giving her a penetrating gaze that actually caused Veronica to flinch a little. She reminded her of Shirley and Kirithishli, because she seemed to radiate a similar sort of… vibrancy, for lack of a better word. It was always a bit uncomfortable being around people like that, especially when they were focused solely on her like Nora currently was.

"Well…" she began. "I didn’t expect that. Do you know why I gave you the second test?"

"Uh, no," said Veronica. "To scare me off?"

"Exactly!" Nora exclaimed. "Exactly!"

Veronica blinked, unable to believe she actually admitted that to her face.

"Spell formulas require bravery! They require passion!" continued Nora animatedly. Funny. Everyone else said they required patience and meticulousness. "They require determination! Anyone who is scared off by this little thing here," she waved the second test in front of her face, "will surely give up when we delve into the truly difficult parts of the discipline. I had to make sure you wouldn’t bail out on me somewhere along the line."

Looking at the enthusiasm in Nora’s eyes, Veronica wondered if she was signing up for spell formula tutoring or cult membership.
"Of course, I didn’t actually expect you to solve any of the questions correctly," Nora said. "I just wanted to see if you’d leave it completely blank. Not that I’m complaining, far from it! Let’s see…" She went back to her desk and pulled out a stack of papers from a drawer. She frowned as she leafed through them, apparently unhappy about their contents, before finally setting them aside with a sigh. After an entire minute of silence, she glanced towards Veronica and shook her head, as if suddenly remembering she was still there.

"Tell me, what are spell formulas?" she asked Veronica. "And I don’t want to hear a textbook definition. I want to hear it in your words."

Veronica opened her mouth for a moment and then quickly closed it as she considered what to say.

"Come on," Nora encouraged. "Bravery, remember? Besides, I just want to know your opinion. There is no right answer."

Hah. There might be no right answer, but Veronica knew from experience that there was always a wrong answer. Always. But she supposed that, in this particular instance, silence was the wrongest answer of them all.

"It’s the practice of using geometric shapes and various sigils to modify spells, usually to strengthen wards or amplify spellcasting," said Veronica.

"Really? How do they do that?" asked Nora in mock curiosity.

"Err… they limit mana flow along pre-determined pathways?" tried Veronica.

"Yes!" agreed Nora. "They limit, that’s exactly what they do! I can’t tell you how many mages think they’re some kind of inherent amplifier or something. Drives me crazy, I tell you. Of course, most modern crafters use special materials that are inherent amplifiers, but that’s something else entirely. Anyway, you know the point behind structured spellcasting, right?"

"The narrower the effect of the spell is, the more mana-efficient it becomes. Structured magic creates a spell boundary to forcibly narrow down effect space into something manageable for a human spellcaster."

"And spell formulas are the exact same thing, only with more pronounced benefits and drawbacks," said Nora. "Since mages can take their time when crafting the spell formula, they limit the mana flow much more tightly than your typical invocation. This means bigger potential benefits but also makes the spell even more inflexible. And, of course, the tighter spell boundary means there is less margin for errors, so designing a working spell formula is a lot harder than designing a working invocation."

Veronica waited patiently until she was finished, not really sure why she was telling her these things – this was all basic theory that she had heard and read a thousand times – but unwilling to interrupt. Unfortunately, it appeared she would have to wait to hear what the point of her little questioning was, because Nora suddenly looked at the clock hanging by the door and blanched when she realized how much time had passed.

"Sorry, Miss Kazinski, I guess I got carried away. You better go to the next class before I get you in trouble," Nora said apologetically. Veronica shrugged – she had intended to skip the next class one way or another, but it probably wouldn’t impress her much if she told her that. "I’ll need a few days to set up a schedule, so I’ll tell you the details via Ilsa. We’ll have a blast working together, I can already tell."

She was just about to leave when Nora suddenly started talking again.

"Oh! I almost forgot. Go see Ilsa sometime today – she has something she wants to talk to you about. Something about you returning a favor you owe her for setting this up…"

Now why did that sound kind of ominous?

* * *

Cyoria’s main train station was always busy. There was a sort of hurried feeling suffusing the entire area that Veronica found either annoying or invigorating, depending on her current mood. When she was disembarking from the train, it served as a metaphorical bucket of cold water to wake her up from the long sleepy journey, and she welcomed it. When she was simply standing on platform number 6, waiting for the train to arrive, it was oppressive and unwelcome, and she desperately wished she knew how to suppress it. Especially since the damned train was 2 hours late!

In order to amuse herself and pass the time, she had taken to harassing the numerous pigeons and sparrows milling around the place. Not physically, of course – that would be not only childish, but would also cause people to stare at her – she was instead pushing her mana at them, trying to control them mentally. Of course, simply pushing mana at something and wishing for it to happen wasn’t enough to do real magic, but it did seem to agitate them a lot. Typically, whatever bird she was concentrating on became increasingly erratic as seconds went by before fleeing away from the area after a minute or so.

Finally, finally, the shrill whistle of the incoming train broke her out of her concentration, and the local wildlife was spared further indignation. Veronica scanned the crowd of people disembarking from the train, searching for her target. She was technically supposed to hold a sign and wait, but she was confident she could spot the person without a problem. It’s not like there’d be many white-haired teenagers on the train platform, after all.

It actually wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it would be, this favor Ilsa had asked of her. Admittedly, helping a transfer student carry their luggage and showing them around the city would waste an entire day… but on the bright side, she was excused from attending today’s classes! Besides, it would give her a legitimate excuse to approach Kael, the transfer student in question – the morlock boy was a bit unapproachable even at the best of days, and Veronica had been thinking of trying to befriend him. She really ought to find some friends beside Benisek, and Kael seemed like someone she could get along well with. If she turned out to be wrong… well, it’s not like the morlock would remember any awkwardness between them once the time loop reset itself again, would he?

Finally, she spotted Kael disembarking and moved towards him to help him with his luggage. It wasn’t just an empty gesture of goodwill on Veronica’s part, either – Kael was clearly having problems with his burden, probably because he could only use one arm to manipulate the heavy bags. The other hand was currently supporting a little girl that clung to Kael’s side like a barnacle, observing everything around her with childlike intensity.

Kael was momentarily surprised when Veronica wordlessly started helping him, but quickly went along with it. The little girl clutching his side was now staring at Veronica with undisguised curiosity, and Veronica wondered who she was. Was this his little sister? Her vivid blue eyes certainly reminded Veronica of Kael, since the morlock had eyes of the exact same shade, but her hair was jet black, and she didn’t look very much like a morlock to Veronica. And in any case, surely the boy wouldn’t bring a child this young with him? Veronica kept expecting her mother to step out of the train and take the little girl out of Kael’s hands, but somehow that never happened.

Finally, the last of the bags was standing on the floor, and Kael finally turned towards her.

"Thank you," the boy said politely. For all his aloofness, Kael was never actually rude. "I’m Kael Tverinov. I’m not normally this inept, but it’s hard to handle the luggage with one hand. Kana has been rather clingy today, and I didn’t have the heart to pry her off. The move was too stressful for her, I’m afraid."

"It’s no problem," Veronica said. "I’m here to help, after all – that’s what Ilsa sent me here for. I’m Veronica Kazinski, one of your classmates. Ilsa Zileti sent me here to help you with your luggage and show you around the city."

Kael gave her a startled look, clutching the little girl attached to his hip like Veronica was about to snatch her away.

"What?" Veronica asked, surprised at the alarm in the boy’s posture. "Was it something I said? I didn’t mean to offend."

Kael gave her a long, suspicious look, before finally reaching a decision of some sort.

"You didn’t do anything, Miss Kazinski, and it is I who should apologize," Kael said finally. "Allow me to introduce myself again: I am Kael Tverinov, and this is my daughter, Kana."

Veronica stared at the morlock for a moment, before glancing at his… daughter. Kana gave her a shy wave, but otherwise remained silent. She was very young, probably around 3 years of age, but Kael wasn’t much older than Veronica. That would mean Kael was 13 or so at the time she was born. Huh. Talk about being a young parent.

"I see," she said finally. And she really did, too. Kael probably got enough grief from people around him over being a morlock without adding this sort of fuel to the fire. If Veronica was in his place, she would have done everything she could to keep this sort of thing from her classmates as well. "If you’re afraid I’ll go around telling all our classmates about you having a daughter, you don’t have to worry – I understand the need for discretion in matters like this."

Kael breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you."

"Don’t mention it," Veronica said, waving him off. Considering the child’s mother wasn’t here with them, there was probably a very stressful story there somewhere. She would have to be a total jackass to set the academy rumor mill on the poor guy by telling them about this. She was a little curious as to how the boy intended to watch over his daughter while attending the academy, but supposed he had already arranged for a nanny of some sort for the child. "I’ll just cast a quick spell to carry your luggage, and then we’ll be off."

Veronica quickly cast the floating disc spell, and a ghostly horizontal circle flickered into existence in front of them. It was a very useful spell that they were supposed to learn in Ilsa’s class somewhere in the middle of the third year, but Veronica had been proactive enough to track it down in one of the restarts. It was similar to the shield spell in mechanics, but this particular force construct was mobile and optimized for supporting weight as opposed to absorbing blows. It dutifully floated after them as they started walking out of the train station.

"Interesting," Kael said. "I must admit that, when Ilsa told me my education is severely lacking in many areas, I thought she was exaggerating. Is this what an average third-year student is like?"

"Well, no," said Veronica. "I’m actually way beyond what a third-year student should be. Though I’m hardly unique in my skill…"

Kael hummed thoughtfully.

"Why would your education be lacking, anyway?" asked Veronica.

Kael remained silent for a few seconds, and Veronica was just about to conclude the morlock wasn’t interested in talking when the boy finally decided to answer.

"My education was… unconventional," said Kael. "I was a sort of unofficial apprentice to a village mage. One that wasn’t a member of the guild. Her skills were somewhat specialized, so much of my proficiency with magic is a product of my own personal efforts. In other words, I’m largely self-taught."

Veronica’s respect for the boy rose a few notches after hearing this. Magic was hard enough to learn with proper instruction. For a young boy to go at it all by himself and get far enough to join a third-year class… though if he’s such a genius…

"I hope I’m not being too nosy, but-"
"But why am I going into Cyoria, now?" guessed Kael. "I got a pretty good offer from the academy, and it wasn’t like I had anyone stopping me from leaving. My parents died when I was young, and my teacher… she got sick during the Weeping. As did my wife. Kana is the only family I have left."

Veronica flinched. "Oh gods, I didn’t mean—"

Kael shook his head. "Don’t worry about it, miss Kazinski. If I was to fall apart every time someone broached that topic, I would have to become a hermit and avoid people completely. It is natural to be curious about these things."

Veronica still felt pretty terrible. She had pretty much assumed Kael had gotten some girl pregnant and later had to take responsibility for the child. But no, the guy had been married and everything. A bit shocking to marry and have children so young in this day and age, but hardly unheard of. She studied Kael out of the corner of her eyes in the resulting silence. The boy looked very delicate, with a pale, willowy physique and gentle facial lines. Coupled with his shoulder-length white hair, it gave him a rather… feminine appearance. Nonetheless, the boy clearly had no shortage of inner strength if he could move on after losing so many people to the horrible sickness. Back in Cirin, there was a woman who had lost a husband and both sons to the bloody tears fever, and never managed to move past that. She had actually blamed the entire Kazinski family for her tragedy, claiming they had used their magic powers to curse her loved ones because of some petty disagreement. Veronica would be the first person to admit she and her family were no angels, but that was just absurd. And kind of sad.

"There is no need to pity me, miss Kazinski," said Kael, breaking her out of her thoughts.

"Oh, I don’t pity you," Veronica said softly. "I think you’re very inspiring, actually. You’re a single parent who somehow managed to find the time to teach yourself magic to such a degree that a world-renowned institution like the academy in Cyoria acknowledged your potential. They gave you a scholarship, didn’t they?"

Kael nodded. "I wouldn’t be able to attend otherwise."

"They rarely give out scholarships, you know?" Veronica said. "About 5 to 6 of them each year. You must be pretty amazing to have caught their attention like that."

"It’s mostly my medical expertise," Kael sighed. "I made a vow to myself after… well, you know. I swore to myself I would become the best healer of the age and make sure a tragedy such as the Weeping can never happen again."

Uh… wow. Veronica didn’t know what to say to something like that.

"I made quite a lot of progress on that front, if you permit me to be a little immodest here," Kael said. "But… well, it’s complicated. We can talk later, if you’re still interested. Me and Kana are rather tired from the journey and I’d like to retire for the day. Kana especially."

Veronica suddenly noticed Kana was starting to doze off on Kael’s shoulder. She had been so quiet throughout his entire interaction with Kael that she had almost forgotten she was there. If only Kirielle could be that docile.

"Yes, sorry about that," Veronica apologized, a hint of warmth in her voice. "I got carried away, I guess. I’ll have to give you a tour of the city some other time, then."

They spent the rest of the walk in comfortable silence.

* * *

"You were absent yesterday."

Veronica gave Akoja an annoyed look. She wasn’t going to give her grief over that, was she?

"I was excused," she noted calmly.

"I know," Akoja said. "I was just wondering where you were."

Veronica was about to tell her it wasn’t her business where she went in her free time, but then she reconsidered. She was getting strange vibes off Akoja, almost as if she was… concerned about her. Very strange. Normally she would write it off as just another weird thing Akoja did from time to time – the girl seemed to have logic all of her own sometimes, one that not even her obsession with rules could explain – but her recent conversation with Kael stopped her. Was she too dismissive of other people? Up until yesterday, Kael was simply that morlock transfer student to Veronica… It brought back memories of her conversations with Shirley, and the other girl's remarks about her behavior in previous restarts, before she became aware of the time loop.

"I was doing a favor for Ilsa," Veronica said, her voice gentle but firm. "Showing our newest transfer student around the city and such."

"Oh," Akoja said, glancing at Kael for a moment. The white-haired boy was sitting several rows behind Veronica, silent and aloof as always. He gave virtually no indication that he knew Veronica was in the classroom, but Veronica could feel the morlock’s eyes on her from time to time. "Who is he anyway?"

"Kael Tverinov," Veronica answered.

"I didn’t mean his name," Akoja huffed, realizing, after a few seconds of silence, that she wasn’t going to get more information.

"Not sure what else to tell you," Veronica shrugged. "He seemed like a good person to me."

"He looks kind of arrogant," Akoja remarked. "And girly."

"Well how judgmental of you," Veronica remarked with a frown. "You come off as a bit arrogant yourself, you know?"

Well, so much for being nice to Akoja! She stomped off soon after that, shooting her a nasty glare.

Resolving to be more understanding towards people was hard.

* * *

It took Nora Boole only two days to organize their first lesson, and the moment Veronica stepped into the classroom Nora had reserved for them, she realized Nora was taking this very seriously. It was a professional-looking workshop, the sort that students normally couldn’t access without special permission from the teachers. Nora beckoned her forward, positively radiating excitement and enthusiasm. Suddenly she remembered why she had been pensive about getting instruction from her. Considering the amount of homework and additional reading Nora assigned as a matter of course during her classes, Veronica dreaded finding out what she considered an appropriate workload for an actually talented student.

"Ah, you’re too quiet!" Nora complained. "Courage, Veronica, courage!"

"Right," agreed Veronica half-heartedly.

"We’ll make a proper crafter out of you yet, just you see!" huffed Nora. "But first, let me just wrap up our discussion from last time. I was a little long-winded, but what I had been trying to build up to was that spell formula are… support magic. Magic affecting other magic. By itself, even the most elegant spell formula is merely a theoretical exercise. You need to actually cast the spells and anchor them to the spell formula before it’s of any use. I note this because Ilsa seemed to think your skill in invocations would do you no good in my subject, which annoyed me because it revealed a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of the discipline. Which is very disappointing, coming from her, since she is… well, you know…"

"A teacher," finished Veronica.

"Yeah," Nora agreed, a little awkwardly. Teachers rarely spoke ill of one another, in Veronica’s experience, so it was no wonder why she was uncomfortable criticizing Ilsa in front of a student. They did have to work with one another on a regular basis, after all, and undermining other teacher’s authority like that could get ugly very quickly. Fortunately, only Veronica was present in this case, and she didn’t intend to make trouble for her. She seemed to realize it too, after a moment, because she smiled and continued as if nothing had happened. "Anyway, I guess we should get you started on the beginner’s cube."

As it turned out, the beginner’s cube was a perfectly cubical block of grey stone, each side roughly 10 centimeters long. The one Veronica was given was completely blank and smooth, but Nora showed her a couple of finished ones as a demonstration. They did things like heat up, shed light, or float in the air when activated, or when certain conditions were met. Basically, each finished cube was a crude magic item that used a couple of simple spells and a whole lot of spell formula to produce a neat little toy. They were a standard training tool, according to Nora.

Veronica wanted one the moment she had laid her eyes on them. Giving such a blatantly magical toy to Kirielle would probably keep her out of her hair for hours. It would be her secret weapon against her! Besides, a small floating cube would make a much more challenging target for her magic missile practice than the boulders and tree trunks she usually practiced on. Especially if she could somehow get it to dodge…

She wouldn’t have to wait long to acquire one, as it turned out – crafting one was the idea behind today’s lesson. And not just any beginner’s cube, either. Veronica had expected Nora to give her something easy for a start, but apparently she had something a little more… ambitious… in mind.

"But those ones are too easy for you," Nora concluded. "No, I have something much more fun for you to work on. Here."

She handed her another cube, though this one was positively covered with spell formula. Veronica noted with rising dread that she couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Hell, many of the sections looked like mere placeholders instead of working spell formula, being little more than stylized pictograms. Wait…

"As you may have noticed, I compressed the spell formula somewhat," Nora said. "Partially it’s because there wasn’t enough space on the cube to represent it fully in its raw form, and partially to stop you from simply copying the entire thing line by line on the blank one I gave you earlier."

"Isn’t that the whole point?" Veronica asked. "For me to study a working example to see how it’s done, that is?"

"Absolutely. But I’m afraid blindly copying the spell formula from one cube to another won’t teach you what I want you to learn. If I thought you needed to practice memorization and precision, I’d have you copy a dozen or so easy ones to start with, but I’m sure you’re already beyond that. No one spends as much time on spell formula theory as you have without trying out some practical examples."

"Err, I never encountered anything like those cubes in the texts I read," said Veronica. "But yes, I have been using spell formulas from time to time. Mostly to establish an alarm perimeter around my bed during my second year – I had a really nosy roommate – and also to make some free lamps and heating plates."

Invocations didn’t last long. Even if a mage poured more mana into them than absolutely necessary – and there was only so much you could overpower a spell before it shattered from the strain – they inevitably degraded after a couple of hours at most. The spell boundary degraded with time and eventually fell apart, regardless of whether the spell had enough mana left or not. As a consequence, if Veronica wanted her alarm spell to last throughout the entire night, or her makeshift lamp not to wink out every hour or so, she had to stabilize the spell boundary somehow. Spell formulas were the easiest and most reliable way to do that, so long as someone already crafted a stabilization formula for that particular spell and made it available to the public.
"It's not very surprising you never encountered beginner’s cubes in your reading," Nora said. "They’re mostly used for theoretical exercises. Not very useful. Most mages don’t really care how spell formulas work – only that they do. They memorize the well-documented formulas and some quick-and-dirty methods of modifying existing ones, and then they only have to know when to apply which one. Then they say spell formulas are dry and boring. Hah! If only they knew the true mysteries of the Art, the hidden beauty of numbers and geometry…"

Veronica listened patiently as Nora mumbled to herself about unimaginative rabble and sleeping in the bed they made for themselves for a while. After a while she took a deep breath and plastered a pleasant smile on her face before turning her attention to her again.

There was no sane teacher in this school, it seemed. Veronica wondered whether it was the stress of teaching itself that was producing these kind of effects, or if you simply had to be a little unconventional to accept a teaching position here.

"But I digress," Nora said cheerfully. "I guess I should stop wasting our time and tell you what I want you to do. Here, let me demonstrate…"

* * *

The cube Nora wanted Veronica to recreate was quite complicated. At its core, it was a glorified lamp using a simple torch spell as its base. It could be activated and deactivated verbally, by saying one of the several command words, and it had to be able to tell when someone was referring to it specifically, as opposed to using the command word in some other context. It had three different brightness settings. It conserved mana by not shedding light from any side that was covered by something – the side resting on the floor didn’t shine, for example, and wrapping it in a blanket would cause it to turn itself off. Each individual side could be turned on and off by tapping on it twice in quick succession. It could be keyed in to a specific person, taking orders from her alone.

Nora had told her not to worry if she couldn’t duplicate it exactly – she only wanted to see how far she’d get on her own by the next time they met. That was good, because this assignment was far more complex than anything spell formula related she had done up until now. Their next session was on Monday, so she had an entire weekend to work with, but she doubted she could fully rise to the challenge.

Veronica had mixed feelings about Nora’s teaching methods. On one hand, she was taking her seriously, and that was good. On the other hand, she seemed to think that throwing a person overboard was a perfectly valid way of teaching people how to swim, metaphorically speaking.

"Come in."

Veronica sighed before stepping into Xvim’s office. What a wonderful way to end a week. For all her faults, she infinitely preferred Nora’s way of teaching compared to that of Xvim.

"Veronica Kazinski? Sit down, please," Xvim ordered, not even bothering to wait for an answer. Veronica caught the pen the man had thrown at her with practiced ease, and then promptly caused it to float off the palm of her hand, gently spinning in the air. Woops. She hadn’t meant to do that. Oh well, let’s see what the man will say about that.

"Make it glow," Xvim barked out without skipping a beat, completely unfazed by Veronica’s skill.

Veronica wasn’t even surprised anymore. The pen promptly snapped back to her hand and erupted in soft ghostly glow. She cycled through various colors without prompting from Xvim, occasionally changing the intensity of the light just to prove she could.

Xvim arched his eyebrow at her. "I didn’t say you could stop levitating the pen."

Veronica’s lips twitched in an aborted smile. If Xvim thought he would stump her with that, he was very much mistaken – combining two different shaping exercises was an obvious thing to do, and Veronica had already tried it. Moments later, the pen was spinning in the air in front of her, glowing.

Xvim tapped his finger on the desk thoughtfully. Was it possible? Had she really managed to give the man pause? The world was coming to an end! Veronica watched in anticipation, wondering what the crazy man would think up next.

"I suppose there is no point in testing your ability to burn things. That was always the easiest exercise of the three," Xvim mused. As a point of fact, Veronica was a bit deficient in the burning exercise… at least compared to the other two. Not that she was going to tell that to Xvim, of course. "Your essentials are… adequate. Almost decent, though not quite. Your attitude could use some work, but I suppose you at least have more tact than most of the unfortunates that haunt these halls. Plus, Miss Zileti has appealed to me on your behalf, asking me to be not such a hardass towards you. As such, as much as I’d like to shake up your woefully shaky foundations, I’m going to reluctantly move on to something slightly more advanced."

To Veronica’s great confusion, Xvim handed her a strip of cloth. What was she supposed to do what that?

"Err…"

"It’s a blindfold," Xvim explained. "You put it over your eyes so you can’t see."

"And… why do I need a blindfold again?" Veronica asked.

"We’re going to train your ability to sense mana," said Xvim. "You’re going to put the blindfold on, and then I’m going to throw these mana-charged marbles at you."

Veronica stared at the man incredulously. Had she really heard him right?

"I’m either going to throw them over your left shoulder, over your right shoulder, or straight at your head. If you get hit by a marble, you lose a point. If you move when you don’t have to, you lose a point. Otherwise you receive a point. We’ll stop when you accrue 10 points or our time runs out."

Yes, she really had heard him right. Thank you so much for your help Ilsa, thank you so much!

* * *

The next two weeks were busy, but routine. She directed most of her efforts towards mastering spell formulas, largely because Nora was very willing to indulge her – the harder she tried in their lessons, the more enthusiastic she became about teaching her. She even suggested they meet on Sundays for additional instruction, apparently not having any private obligations to distract her. She had learned much, but Nora set a grueling pace, and she was glad the restart was fast approaching. She doubted she could last much more than a month of Nora’s teaching.

Interestingly, she seemed to be attracting attention from the teachers and students alike in this particular restart. Maybe it was her impressing Ilsa as much as she did, maybe it was the way she quietly went with the insane workload Nora gave her, or maybe Xvim said something nice about her to the other teachers. Well, probably not that last part, since she had made little progress in mastering Xvim’s current exercise. In any case, she was getting a lot of attention for her efforts, which was rather curious. Most of the time, no matter how hard she tried in class, everyone was pretty flat about it. She thought about trying to leverage all that attention into something useful, but she was too exhausted by her studies to plot properly. Some other restart perhaps.

The attention had the unfortunate side-effect of wrecking any chance she had of befriending Kael. Associating with Veronica would surely bring great scrutiny on the morlock, something the boy was understandably concerned about, so Veronica wasn’t surprised he never sought her out. Frankly, she wasn’t sure she could befriend the boy even in normal circ*mstances – the morlock had a daughter waiting for him at home, and thus probably wouldn’t want to spend his time after class socializing with friends.

Akoja was extremely pleased with her, though. Veronica couldn’t really understand why, but she was.

And then it happened. Suddenly, without any warning, there was a wrenching sensation and everything went black. She woke up, as usual, with Kirielle lying on top of her, looking smug.

There were two possibilities that Veronica could think of to explain this occurrence. The first one was that something or someone had killed her so fast she was dead before she realized it. She was skeptical of this, as she had done nothing to warrant an assassination, and she couldn’t think of any natural force that could kill so suddenly and thoroughly. She hadn’t even felt any pain before she died.

The second possibility was much more likely, and also much more worrying. While she was minding her business, learning spell formulas in Cyoria, Shirley was off somewhere in the world, doing insanely dangerous things. Shirley died. When she did, her soul was dragged into the past to start over… and it dragged Veronica’s soul back with it.

Which would make Veronica soul-bonded to Shirley.

Damn it.

Chapter 12: Chapter 12: Soul Web

Chapter Text

Veronica stomped into her room, closing the door behind her with way more force than necessary. She should have known she wouldn’t find out anything about soul bonds that she hadn’t already known, but it was still annoying to come back empty-handed after spending an entire day in the library.

The books all repeated the same warnings she received back in her first year: soul bonds were a dangerous and poorly understood branch of magic, capable of causing some pretty horrifying side-effects if used recklessly. Every once in a while, some ill-informed couple decide that soul-bonding themselves together would be the most romantic thing ever, only for everything to end up in tears and lawsuits a few months later when complications surface. The main issue was that one of the participants usually started to mentally and spiritually dominate the other, making them more like themselves in mind and soul, not to mention disturbingly obedient and deferential. This was a good thing when binding animals as familiars, since it was almost always the animal that got dominated by the human, and animals actually tended to benefit from such domination by developing higher intelligence and better control over their magical abilities (if they had any). Sentient beings usually had issues with someone magically subverting their entire personality and worldview, however. At least until the soul bond finished, turning them into a servile clone, that is.

Veronica ran a trembling hand through her hair and started to clean her glasses with the hem of her blouse to calm herself down. She really, really hoped she was wrong and that there was no soul bond between her and Shirley. Shirley had six times larger mana reserves than Veronica’s theoretical maximum, was naturally more outgoing and confident, and – thanks to being in the time loop far longer than Veronica – was probably decades older than her too. No points for guessing who’d be the dominant one between the two of them!

The worst thing about it was that she couldn’t even go to someone for help. She was pretty sure the soul bond, or whatever it was, was responsible for her looping around along with Shirley. If she asked someone for help, they’d insist on severing the bond (an understandable sentiment and something she’d eagerly agree to in normal circ*mstances), which would cause her to lose everything she had gained inside the time loop, memories included, once Shirley started over at the end of the month.

Yeah, she was totally screwed.
Veronica took a couple of deep breaths and put her glasses back on, her long hair cascading over her shoulder. Maybe she was looking at things too fatalistically. Considering the sheer size of disparity between her and Shirley, she should have experienced some pretty massive personality shifts by now, and she didn’t notice anything of the sort. She certainly wasn’t feeling submissive towards anyone, least of all Shirley. Obviously, things weren’t as bad as they seemed. She could very well be overreacting and overlooking some other, perfectly reasonable explanation for the unscheduled restart…

Someone was knocking. Who could possibly—Oh. Right. Taiven.

She sighed deeply. Just what she needed right now. The knocking turned into banging, prompting her to finally open the door.

"Hi Roach!"

"Hi Taiven," Veronica said in a slightly suffering tone, her voice softening. "How nice of you to visit me. Do you want to come in?"

Taiven promptly did what she always did once Veronica let her inside—she jumped on her bed and made herself comfortable. Veronica shrugged gracefully and followed after her. Best to get it over with quickly.

"Didn’t you graduate?" she asked. "You said you were going to go into exploration after you graduate. What happened to that?"

Taiven gave her a sour look. "It’s not that simple. No expedition is going to take a complete beginner like me with them. I need an established explorer to take me as an apprentice. I’m working on it."

"Funny, I heard you’re working as a class assistant to Nirthak," Veronica remarked with a playful tilt. "Isn’t that going to interfere with searching for another master?"

"Well, sort of," Taiven admitted. "But I’m not literally searching for another job at this point. I’m actually trying to build up my reputation and get people to notice me by doing missions and such. In fact, that’s what I came to talk to you about—I’d like you to join me and a couple of others on a job tomorrow."

"Sounds suspicious," Veronica said, her lips curving into a slight smile. "What could a measly third year help you with?"

"Um, fill out our numbers?" Taiven answered. "We can’t take the job until there are four or more of us, and we’re one short of that."

"Well, why does the job require four people?" asked Veronica, knowing from previous restarts that this was a direct way to shut down Taiven’s excuses. "Surely the employer didn’t put that there just to be mean to groups like yours."

"It’s supposedly dangerous," Taiven huffed, folding her arms across her chest. "The old man is overreacting. The spiders aren’t even that big from what he told us."

"Spiders?" prodded Veronica.

"Yeah," Taiven said hesitantly, apparently realizing she probably shouldn’t have mentioned that. "Spiders. You know, hairy eight-legged—"

"Taiven," Veronica warned gently.

"Oh come on Roach, I’m begging you!" Taiven whined. "I swear it's not as dangerous as it sounds! We’ve been in the tunnels hundreds of times and it wasn’t that dangerous at all! We can protect you easily!"

"Hundreds of times?" asked Veronica dubiously.

"Well, a dozen times at least," she relented.

Veronica was just about to tell her no, like she usually did at this point, but then she stopped herself. She probably wouldn’t be able to do anything remotely productive for at least a week, what with the possibility of a soul bond between her and Shirley weighing heavily on her mind and all. A nice distracting stroll through the sewers might be just what the doctor ordered, so to speak.

"Sure," she said.

"Really?!" Taiven squealed.

"Yes, really," confirmed Veronica with a resigned smile. "Just tell me where to meet you tomorrow before I change my mind."

A few minutes later, Taiven left, thanking Veronica profusely and kissing her on the cheek for being a friend before running off to wherever she had been going, Veronica supposed. She didn’t ask, being too shocked by Taiven’s kiss, innocuous as it may have been. She was a bit angry at herself for being so affected by a silly kiss on the cheek, but she supposed she shouldn’t be too hard on her subconscious. Taiven was her former crush, after all.

She decided she had had enough of everything for the day and drank one of the sleeping potions she kept in her stash. Hopefully, things would seem clearer after a good night’s rest.

* * *

The next morning, Veronica woke up feeling a bit more level-headed than she had after her visit to the library, and things didn’t seem as hopeless as they had the day before. She had been jumping to conclusions and needed more information. She was tempted to skip classes for the day to have another go at the library, but she suspected that she lacked both the research skills and the access level to properly tackle a restricted topic like soul bonds. And besides, there was someone in her class she absolutely had to talk to—Briam, the guy with a fire drake familiar. Surely, someone who is already soul-bonded to another, even if it was to a magical animal instead of another human, could tell her more about those blasted things.

"I see your family has given you a fire drake of your own," she said conversationally, sitting down beside Briam and ignoring the threatening hissing of the fire drake. For some reason, the ill-tempered beast never saw fit to attack her in previous restarts, so she didn’t think it would start now. "Is he your familiar already?"

"Yes," Briam confirmed, clearly pleased with that. "I bonded with him just this summer, actually. A bit strange, at first, but I think I’m getting the hang of it."

"Strange?" asked Veronica. "How so?"

"Well, it’s mostly the bond being there, you know?" Briam said.

"So the bond can be felt?" Veronica said speculatively, trying not to let her excitement show. She didn’t feel anything. "Is that normal? Can everyone who is soul-bonded feel their bond?"

"No, not everyone," Briam chuckled. "Only a tiny minority can, and nobody is sure why. I can, though. I guess I’m lucky that way."

Veronica suppressed a scowl. She had been hoping that her not being able to sense any bonds meant there was none, but apparently, that was no proof. Damn.

"You know," Veronica tried, "I’ve always had an… academic interest in familiars and soul bonds…"

Thankfully, Briam didn’t find Veronica’s interest in any way suspicious and was happy to indulge Veronica’s curiosity. What Briam told her was interesting, to say the least. According to Briam, the soul bond spell was actually a ritual of some sort, one that took at least 10 minutes to properly cast, and usually more. Not something you cast as a regular invocation. Also, even the most oblivious of participants tended to feel something after a few weeks, after the bond had properly anchored itself to the participants.

There were a lot of things Veronica had experienced so far in the time loop that could qualify as signs of a developing soul bond, but it was hard to say how much of that was simply a consequence of the crazy situation she had found herself in. The effects were just too weak compared to what Briam told her should happen. Her mana reserves were slightly larger than they had been at the start of the time loop, for instance, but the increase was nothing special. It could just as easily be a consequence of her regular combat magic practice instead of being caused by the soul bond trying to twist her soul to be more in line with Shirley’s. The spell that the lich cast on them definitely wasn’t a ritual either… but then again, it was a lich. Who knew what kind of magic a creature like that had at its disposal?

All in all, it would appear she was lucky—the link between her and Shirley was either very weak or of a different type. Or perhaps it was only half-formed? According to Briam, the bond required physical proximity and a lot of personal interaction between participants to fully mature. It was why he carried his fire drake everywhere he went at this point in time. Considering she only interacted with Shirley in one of the restarts so far, and that the girl spent virtually all of the restarts away from Cyoria, the bond may have never gotten the chance to solidify. If so, she must never allow it to fully form—she would avoid contact with the other time traveler from now on until she could figure out more about what was happening.

Which, admittedly, could take a while. Hopefully, her idea of avoiding Shirley as much as possible would keep her from being overwhelmed by the bond in the meantime. She really ought to make a learning plan for herself. So far, she had been learning things rather haphazardly. There was no hurry, as far as she knew, and she didn’t know where to begin anyway. Also, she had wanted to grow a little as a mage before breaking out of the time loop, since she would never get an opportunity like this again. That kind of disorganized approach was no longer appropriate, however—she wanted the soul bond broken as soon as possible, and that meant finding a way out of the time loop as quickly as possible.

But that would have to wait for another time, because she had a meeting with Taiven and her friends scheduled for the evening. Why did she agree to this again? Oh yes, Taiven picked a really inconvenient moment, and she had a momentary bout of insanity. She should have at least gotten some favor out of Taiven for doing this. Oh well, live and learn.

Taiven had chosen an annoyingly distant meeting place, so Veronica had a long trek across in front of her. Apparently, there was a meeting spot for chess players in one of Cyoria’s parks, and one of Taiven’s friends was a regular visitor. She never actually visited that particular park, but the path towards it was somewhat familiar and she couldn’t figure out why.

She realized why it was familiar a few minutes later when she stumbled on a small bridge just inside the park. This was where she had met that crying little girl whose bicycle fell into the stream, back before she was aware of the time loop. Come to think of it, she never visited this place after that, did she? There just wasn’t any reason to, since she knew in advance there were obstacles blocking her path if she went this way. She peered curiously at the section of the creek beneath the bridge, trying to see if the bike was still there. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t. Yesterday’s heavy rain had swelled the creek into a raging torrent, and the bicycle was, no doubt, picked up by the currents and swept along.

The little girl wasn’t there this time, of course, but that didn’t mean she was alone on the bridge. There was a small-ish cat, probably a very young one, looking forlornly at the raging waters of the stream. Veronica didn’t generally stress herself about the plight of animals, but when the cat turned to look at her and their eyes met, she was assaulted by an intense feeling of sadness and loss. Unnerved by the experience, she picked up her pace, hurriedly leaving the strange cat behind her.

Finally, after nearly 30 minutes of wandering the park, she found the meeting place. Taiven should really learn how to give proper directions one of these days. It was a rather peaceful place, though populated almost entirely by old people. As in, really old people. Taiven’s group of teenagers stuck out like a sore thumb, but none of the old geezers surrounding them seemed to mind, so Veronica decided not to let it bother her and cautiously approached.

Taiven’s other friends were a pair of gruff, muscular boys that looked more at home in the boxing ring than in a mage school. One of them was currently frowning at the chess board in front of him, contemplating his next move, while Taiven and the other boy sat on each side of him. Taiven was clearly impatient and bored out of her skull, at one point actually trying to snatch a figurine from the board to pass the time with, only to get foiled by the players. The other boy was more relaxed, lazily observing everything around him like a guard dog. It was this other boy who noticed Veronica and pointed her out to the other two.

"Roach!" Taiven waved. "Thank the gods, I was starting to fear you’d never show up!"

"I wasn’t late," Veronica protested softly.

"Well you sure developed a habit of cutting it close since the last time we saw each other," she accused. "But anyway. Roach, I’d like you to meet my two minions, Grunt and Mumble. Grunt, Mumble, this is my good friend Roach."

Veronica rolled her eyes, a gentle hint of exasperation in her expression. At least it’s not just her who gets a silly nickname.

"Damn it, I told you not to introduce us like that!" One of the boys protested. It was more out of force of habit than because he honestly expected Taiven to change, if Veronica was reading things correctly. He sighed and turned towards Veronica. "Hi, kid. I’m Urik, and the guy playing chess is Oran. Thanks for helping us out like this. We’ll make sure nothing happens to you, so don’t worry about anything."

The chess player grunted, possibly in agreement. That must be Grunt, then.

"I’m Veronica," she spoke gently, not offering her last name since neither had they.

"Right!" said Taiven enthusiastically. "Introductions are over, so let’s get going, shall we?"

"Not until I finish this round," the chess player said flatly.

Taiven’s shoulders slumped in defeat. "I hate that game," Taiven whined. "Find yourself a seat, Roach. This could take a while."

Veronica clacked her tongue in mild annoyance. For once Veronica empathized with Taiven’s impatience. She wasn’t a big fan of chess either.

* * *

The Dungeon was an extremely dangerous place. Also known as the Underworld, the Labyrinth, and a million other names, it was a staggeringly extensive network of caves and tunnels that ran beneath the surface of the world. At first glance, the place seemed like every mage’s dream come true – ambient mana levels increased the deeper one descended into the endless depths of the Dungeon cave system, and the lower levels were practically swimming with useful minerals with fantastic magical properties. Unfortunately, mages were just one of the many creatures that thrived in such an environment. Monsters of all sorts lived in the tunnels, and the deeper one went the stronger and more alien they became. Even the greatest of archmages had to take care not to go too deep when exploring the Dungeon, lest they come face to face with something they had no hope of defeating.

Cyoria, like many other cities, took advantage of the Dungeon beneath it when the city was being built. The topmost portion of the Dungeon was cleared of anything aggressive or particularly dangerous and then systematically walled off from the deeper levels. These tunnels were then modified into shelters, storage spaces, flood-control systems… and the city sewer system. Human settlements had used the Dungeon as a sewer for so long that several species of oozes and other monsters adapted specifically to take advantage of this unique ecological niche, and humans often transplanted them from one city to the next when they built new settlements. Of course, the separation of this topmost layer from the deeper parts of the Dungeon was never 100% effective – especially since many Dungeon denizens were very capable diggers. Regular maintenance was required to keep the whole thing functioning properly.

Cyoria’s Dungeon boundary was widely known to have more holes than a sponge. It was a fairly young city, and the local Dungeon was particularly extensive. It grew too big, too fast, and a proper separation between layers was never finalized. That was probably why the invaders managed to smuggle an entire army of monsters into the city by having them pour straight out of the tunnels – though how exactly the invaders mapped out the Deep Dungeon well enough to find a route big enough for an army to pass through is anyone’s guess. Just one more example of how ridiculously well prepared the enemy was, Veronica supposed.

Despite the obvious danger, Veronica wasn’t too worried about following Taiven into the tunnels. Cyoria’s underground wasn’t the safest place in the world, but it was by no means a certain death sentence either. And she doubted the invaders were currently in there, since a giant army of monsters living just beneath the city was absolutely impossible to hide, regardless of how good the invasion organizers were – they would have to navigate their route on the day of the invasion to avoid detection. She would feel better if she had a focusing item for her combat magic, of course, but that was beyond her reach at this point. Nora’s tutoring aside, she still wasn’t good enough with spell formulas to make one from scratch, and she couldn’t buy one without a permit.

Unfortunately, their employer didn’t seem to share Veronica’s confidence.

"This is the fourth member you found?" the old man demanded incredulously. "Did she even graduate yet?"

Veronica looked at the scowling man waving towards her in a dismissive manner and promptly decided she could understand Taiven’s irritation with the guy. If the guy was so worried about their ability to deliver results, why didn’t he hire an actual professional to recover his damn watch? Oh, that’s right – he didn’t want to pay a professional’s wage! Frankly, Taiven and her group were probably the best he could hope to get, considering where he looked for help.

The job itself was simple enough – the old man lost a pocket watch in the tunnels while fleeing from a duo of giant spiders, and now they had to get it back. The old man tried to retrieve it, but when he came back to the spot where he had dropped it, it was no longer there. Personally, Veronica was sure it was eaten by an ooze or some other metal-eating scavenger living in the tunnels, but the old man insisted it was still intact and in the spiders' possession. How he knew that was anyone’s guess. What would a bunch of spiders, giant or otherwise, do with a watch? Were they like magpies, collecting shiny items just because?

"Nope," Veronica said, completely unrepentant. "I’m a third year."

"A third year!" the man squawked. "And you think you can survive down there? Do you even know any combat magic?"

"Sure do," confirmed Veronica immediately. "Magic missile, shield, and flamethrower."

"That’s all?"

"You get what you pay for," Veronica shrugged.

"Look, what’s your problem?" Taiven interrupted. "It's four of us versus two large-ish spiders. I alone would be enough for that!"

"Just because I only encountered two doesn’t mean there isn’t more of them," the man grunted. "I don’t want you to stumble on a whole hive of those things and get slaughtered. Those things are fast. And stealthy – I didn’t even notice them until they were right on top of me. I’m lucky to be alive, talking to you four."

"Well there’s four pairs of eyes among us," Taiven reasoned. "We’ll watch each other’s backs, so good luck on them sneaking up on us. I don’t suppose you’ll finally tell us what’s so important about that watch you lost?"

"It’s none of your business," the man shot back. "It’s not valuable or anything, I just have sentimental reasons for wanting it back." He shook his head. "I suppose the kid is right. I got what I could, considering the reward I’m offering. Just… don’t get careless. I don’t want the lives of a bunch of children weighing on my soul when I finally die."

A few minutes and a whole lot of pointless bickering later, Taiven finally led them all towards the nearby Dungeon entrance. There were guards stationed there but Taiven had a permit to go in and could bring people with her, so they were free to pass. That was reassuring at least – it meant someone in the permit office considered Taiven capable enough to keep relative non-combatants like herself safe down there. Apparently, she hadn’t been talking completely out of her head when she had said she could protect her.

The tunnels themselves were a lot less sinister than Veronica imagined, or at least this particular section was – smooth stone walls and nothing more threatening than rats wandering around. The stone covering the corridors reflected light pretty well, so the four floating lanterns they had hovering above them (Taiven insisted they all cast one and space them away from each other, so they wouldn’t be immediately plunged into darkness on the off chance they encountered something that could dispel them) illuminated the tunnels quite nicely. Unfortunately, there was no sign of either the missing watch or the giant spiders. Taiven seemed to think it would be easy to track down the spiders with a simple locate creature spell and was stumped when the spell – and all other divinations she tried, for that matter – came out empty.

As it turned out, Taiven and her two friends were more than a little specialized in combat magic and didn’t have the faintest idea how to go about tracking down either the watch or the spiders once their rudimentary divination attempts failed. Eventually, they settled on just wandering around, hoping they’d stumble on the spider’s lair, occasionally repeating the divinations with no effect. After about 2 hours of that, Veronica was ready to call it quits. She was just about to suggest they give up and come back tomorrow when she suddenly felt very, very sleepy.

Being a mage required a great deal of mental discipline – shaping mana correctly required focus and the ability to visualize the desired result with crystal clarity. As such, all mages were, to an extent, resistant to mind magic and other effects targeting the mind. It was the only reason why Veronica was still awake and desperately fighting the sleep spell, instead of collapsing on the ground in a deep slumber. In front of her, she saw Taiven and one of her friends sway on the spot as they tried to resist the spell as well, while the other boy already lay sprawled on the floor.

She struggled with the spell for a second or two, and then the sleep effect just… withdrew. Before she could do anything, she was forced on her knees by a stream of memories and images that bored themselves directly into her mind.

Confusion. A memory of her staring at a particularly baffling spell formula problem, tapping her pen against the table in frustration. An image of two floating balls of water connected by a collection of ever-shifting streams of water flowing from one orb to another. An alien memory of a war troll tearing through delicate white walls that seemed to be made solely out of cobwebs. A question.

[Are you-] the voice boomed in her mind, before collapsing into another psychedelic collection of images and alien memories. The deluge lessened for a moment, as if waiting for a response. Then it started again. Frustration. [I thought -] Brotherhood. Webs stretching across lightless chasms, orbs of light trapped within them. [-don’t understand me, do you?] Sadness. Pity. More frustration. Resignation.
The flow of images abruptly stopped assaulting her mind. Veronica clutched her head, trying to soothe the raging headache that pulsed within, and looked around. Taiven and her two friends were unconscious, but appeared unharmed. There was no trace of their attacker anywhere. She gently attempted to wake them, but they wouldn't budge. Deciding it best to get back to the surface before something decided to finish them off, Veronica promptly cast the floating disc spell and carefully arranged her three unconscious teammates on top before heading towards the dungeon entrance. She just hoped her head would stop throbbing by tomorrow.

* * *

Veronica awoke in a state of confusion. One part of her mind questioned why she was in a hospital, of all places, while another part marveled that she hadn't woken up back in Cirin with Kirielle wishing her a good morning, as she did every time she started over. A few moments later, clarity returned, and she remembered what had happened the day before. She hadn't reset because she hadn't died in the tunnels—her mind had simply been scrambled. This revelation was far more troubling than merely dying, because any damage to her mind carried over across restarts, but it seemed she hadn’t suffered any permanent damage.

Faint memories surfaced of the doctor reaching a similar conclusion when she was brought in yesterday, before unceremoniously ushering her into this room and instructing her to sleep it off. Some doctor, she thought. She didn’t need a hospital for that. She wondered how Taiven and her two friends were faring—they were still completely comatose when she had staggered out of the Dungeon entrance, prompting the guards to rush them all to the nearest hospital.

"Finally awake, I see," Ilsa said, appearing in the doorway. "Do you feel up to talking, or should I come back later?"

"Miss Zileti?" Veronica asked, mildly surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"As our student, the Academy is obliged to represent you in legal matters," Ilsa explained, approaching Veronica's bedside. "This situation qualifies. How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine," Veronica replied with a shrug, noting that her headache had mercifully vanished. "I might as well go home once you finish questioning me."

"Questioning you?" Ilsa asked with a bemused smile. "That sounds almost sinister, the way you say it. Why would I be questioning you?"

"Err, well…" Veronica stumbled, "The police can be rather tough on witnesses, in my experience. Just in case they’re hiding something and all that."

For a moment, Veronica thought Ilsa might inquire how she had garnered such experience with the police, but instead, Ilsa simply shook her head with a light chuckle.

"Well, I’m not the police," Ilsa assured her. "Though I did come to ask you what happened. Your friends don’t remember anything substantial, having been hit with that sleep spell right at the start of the attack."

"Are they alright?" Veronica asked, concern lacing her voice.

"Yes," Ilsa confirmed. "They woke up yesterday without any ill effects. Medically speaking, your injuries were far more serious." She gave Veronica a wry smile. "I suspect it was their pride that suffered the most. A third year student resisted a spell they could not and saved their lives. Cyoria’s Dungeon boundary is infamously… porous. If it weren’t for you, they would probably have been dead by morning."

Veronica looked away, discomfort evident. Is that why Taiven had never contacted her after that initial invitation to join her at the start of each restart? She had assumed Taiven was being callous.

How had she resisted that sleep spell if Taiven and her two friends couldn’t? And what followed was perplexing; it hurt and was unpleasant, yet she sensed it wasn't an attack. Her attacker could have eliminated her at any point but chose not to. The words, the images—it was as though something was trying to communicate without knowing how to interact with humans correctly.

Considering the proliferation of webs in the alien memories she had been bombarded with, it was likely the spiders. Yet, she had never heard of sentient spiders capable of mind magic.

"I’m not really sure what happened," Veronica admitted. "After the sleep spell failed, I was immediately overwhelmed by a barrage of images that nearly made me black out. It was immensely painful and disorienting. When it ceased, I tried to regain my senses for any further attacks, but after a minute or so, I realized none were forthcoming and decided to retreat. I have no clue why the attackers halted."

"Hmm," Ilsa mused. "There are many possibilities. Perhaps, instead of entering a deliberate ambush, you simply encountered someone who wished to remain unseen and they moved to incapacitate you to escape unnoticed. Perhaps someone set a spell trap in that tunnel section for reasons unknown, and you triggered it. Or maybe your resistance to two spells in a row intimidated them into pulling back. We may never know, I suppose."

Yes, all viable possibilities. It certainly wasn't giant sentient telepathic spiders, no sir!

"Oh, and Veronica?" Ilsa continued. "You're forbidden from going down in the tunnels until further notice. I understand you wanted to help a friend, but it was an ill-advised move."

"Err, yes, Professor," Veronica agreed readily. "Understood."

Ten minutes after Ilsa’s departure, the nurse informed her she could go home.

* * *

"This is boring!" Taiven complained.

Veronica cracked one eye open, directing a glare at her.

"You said you wanted to make it up to me," Veronica reminded her.

"But I meant teaching you some kickass spells, not…" Taiven gestured at the bowl full of marbles before her, ". . . throwing marbles over your shoulders. Shouldn’t I at least aim a couple at your forehead? I bet you’d be a lot more motivated to get it right that way."

"If you do that, I'll find a way to suffocate you in your sleep," Veronica warned playfully. The whole reason she had Taiven doing this was so she could practice the trick without enduring Xvim's methods again.

She closed her eyes, taking a calming breath. A few seconds later, she felt a mana-charged marble pass near her face but couldn't precisely pinpoint over which shoulder it flew.

"Left," she guessed.

"No, right," Taiven corrected. "You’re just guessing now, aren’t you? Give it a rest for today; you won't get anywhere once you’re frustrated."

"No, I just need a couple of minutes to calm down," Veronica sighed softly. Taiven groaned in response, prompting Veronica to open both eyes to fully glare at her. "Why are you being so difficult about this, anyway? You realize I can't ask anyone else to do this for me, right? I don't know anyone else who can aim their throws accurately enough, and nobody else could keep charging marbles for more than half an hour without depleting their reserves."

"I know, I know," Taiven conceded, exhaling gently. "I'm glad you asked me for help. It's the least I could do after… well, you know. But you’re not taking advantage of me properly!"

Veronica raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

"Err, that came out wrong," Taiven chuckled awkwardly. "What I meant was: I can offer more than just accurate marble throwing. My talents extend further, you know! I know I must seem pretty pathetic for getting knocked out by a single spell, but come on!"

"I never thought of you as pathetic because of that, Taiven," Veronica assured her with a soft sigh. "But alright. What can the great Taiven do for me?"

"Teach you how to fight, naturally!" Taiven proclaimed with a bright grin.

"Magically, I hope?" Veronica remarked with a hint of warning.

"Never underestimate a fist to the face, even in a magical battle," Taiven countered with a determined nod. "But yes, I meant magically. Were you serious when you told the old guy who hired us that you can cast magic missile, shield, and flamethrower?"

"Of course," Veronica answered confidently.

“Then let's see them," Taiven said, motioning to a pair of dummies across the room.

"Err, won't your parents mind if I damage their training dummies?" Veronica asked, slightly worried.

Taiven rolled her eyes. "The entire reason I invited you here was so we could train in peace. The room is warded, and those dummies are specifically reinforced. Trust me, you won't even scratch them."

With a shrug, Veronica cast a magic missile, forming it into a piercing attack and adding a homing function so it struck the dummy's head. The force bolt zipped across the room, striking the dummy squarely on the forehead. The faceless wooden head snapped back with such force, modeling the movement that would snap a human's neck in multiple spots, but it promptly returned to its original position, unfazed.

"Decent magic missile," Taiven praised, nodding approvingly. "I'm impressed you can manage that without a spell focus—I thought I’d have to teach you that first."

Her hands blurred with skilled precision, the chant nearly whispered. A swarm of magic missiles erupted from her fingertips, speeding towards the dummy with much more speed than Veronica’s piercer had, impacting it powerfully enough to lift it off its feet and slam it into the wall. Though they were mere smashers, Veronica knew they were far more perilous than her piercer, even individually.

Taiven showed no sign of exertion from the display.

"So was there a point to that other than showcasing how superior you are?" Veronica inquired with a teasing tone. "Duplicating that feat would drain my reserves dry. I can’t see myself replicating your display anytime soon."

"Err, really?" Taiven queried, feigning surprise. "I kind of assumed your mana reserves were large, like your brothers'. How many magic missiles can you cast at once?"

"Eleven," Veronica stated, carefully sidestepping the initial comment. "It started at eight, but I've increased it somewhat."

"Eight!?" Taiven gaped incredulously. "That's practically below average!"

Veronica knew exploding in response would achieve nothing positive. It was Taiven, after all. She rarely censored her thoughts, and if one couldn’t handle that, one had no business interacting with her.

“Does that mean you concede and we return to marbles?” she asked sweetly.

"No!" Taiven cried out, momentarily flustered. "No, I was… just surprised, I suppose. I thought of teaching you how to cast multiple magic missiles at once, but that wouldn’t help given your limited reserves. Your focus should be on making each spell count, rather than mass casting. Show me your shield and flamethrower while I ponder."

After a failed attempt to incinerate a dummy to dust, Veronica cast a quick shield, believing its mere formation would suffice as proof for Taiven. Apparently not, as Taiven promptly withdrew a spell rod from her belt and fired a modest purple projectile at the barrier. Veronica’s eyes widened in shock at the unexpected assault, but the projectile harmlessly deflected against the semi-transparent shield, dissipating into a harmless purple puff before vanishing completely.

"What was that!?" Veronica demanded, more startled than angry.

"Just checking if your shield holds," Taiven replied nonchalantly. "The spell is harmless—a simple coloration bolt with a touch of force."
Veronica wanted to tell her that her shield held against a hostile mage actually trying to harm her, but she couldn’t really do that. She settled on giving her an annoyed look. Eventually, Taiven admitted she couldn’t think of anything at the moment and reluctantly started throwing marbles over Veronica's shoulder again. She made it clear, however, that she would enlist help from her parents in the coming days and that this way of training was a one-time thing. Veronica managed to negotiate at least an hour of marble throwing each session, in addition to whatever wild scheme Taiven might eventually concoct.

Truthfully, combat magic was only a side interest at the moment. Veronica was starting to realize she couldn’t keep blundering blindly through this. Her desire to advance her magical studies notwithstanding, she couldn’t simply ignore the danger posed by the possibility of a soul bond – the longer she stayed inside, the bigger the chance of the bond activating in full force and devouring her will and personality. The mental assault she recently went through highlighted that the time loop had its own dangers, and it was irresponsible to take them lightly.

A rough plan was forming in her mind. She needed to find out everything she could about the time loop – how it came to be, how it functioned, and how she could get out of it. Additionally, what was the nature of her connection to Shirley? And what was the deal with the invasion – it seemed too conveniently timed to be a coincidence, so what was its connection with the time loop? Finding answers to those questions would require skills in divination, information gathering, and infiltration, so that’s where the bulk of her efforts should focus on. She still intended to learn other things too, of course, but these three things were a must and a priority.

Veronica would have to finish her semi-apprenticeship in the library and learn all the tricks of that trade within the constraints of the time loop. The Academy library was an incredible resource to have, and she was sure she would have to use it extensively if she was to find answers to the questions plaguing her. So far, her attempts to use it had not yielded much in the way of results, but that was probably a consequence of insufficient authorization and lack of research skill on her part rather than an actual void of information on the topics in question. She needed to know how to bypass the protections on the secure sections of the library, and how to search them efficiently once she got through, with Kirithishli and Ibery being her best bet in getting there. She would apply for the job in the library first thing tomorrow morning.

And, though it was too late for that in this particular restart, Veronica should impress Ilsa again and choose divination as her interest this time. If Ilsa’s choice was even halfway as motivated as Nora Boole's was, she would have a particularly easy avenue for learning that otherwise tricky subject.

As she was climbing the stairs inside her apartment building, everything went black, and she woke up with Kiri jumping on her and wishing her good morning. Apparently, Shirley died again. Only a few days into the restart this time, too. Hopefully, Shirley would get the hang of whatever she was attempting very soon, because being wrenched without warning into another restart could get old really fast.

Veronica would soon learn she should really stop tempting fate with such thoughts.

Chapter 13: Chapter 13: Any Second Now

Chapter Text

Veronica’s eyes abruptly shot open as a sharp pain erupted from her stomach. Her whole body convulsed, buckling against the object that fell on her, and suddenly she was wide awake, not a trace of drowsiness in her mind.

"Good morning, sister!" an annoyingly cheerful voice sounded right on top of her. "Morning, morning, MORNING!"

Veronica growled as she gently but firmly pushed Kirielle away from her. Fifth time! This was the fifth time the restart terminated after only a handful of days! How many times would Shirley need to die before realizing she should back off for a while and try again later? Honestly, Veronica would have reconsidered her approach after the second attempt…

She snatched her glasses from her bedside and wandered off towards the bathroom before Kirielle could gather her wits. The short, irregular restarts were ruining every plan she cared to make, not to mention disrupting her concentration. She really couldn’t do anything substantial while this was going on, other than browsing the library for helpful texts and hoping Shirley would quit killing herself on a regular basis. What in the world was she trying to do anyway?

She shouldn’t get so worked up over it, though – after all, how much longer could this possibly go on for? 10, 15 restarts?

Yeah. Yeah, that sounded about right…

"Hi Roach!"

Veronica wordlessly gestured for Taiven to come inside before slowly closing the door and moving after her. She could feel Taiven's impatience at her sluggish pace, but paid it no heed. Veronica was deliberately stalling, trying to decide what to do.

She fully intended to have a chat with the weird telepathic spiders that inhabited the sewers, but it would be lunacy to go there at this point. There was no guarantee they would be as friendly as they were the last time, and their mind magic made them dangerous even within a time loop. Veronica needed a way to protect her mind before venturing into Cyoria’s underworld, and so far she had only found one ward that protected the caster’s mind in the academy archives. Unfortunately, that particular ward blocked everything related to the mind, mind-based communication spells included. She needed something more selective than that.

But just because she was unwilling to descend into the Dungeon didn’t mean she was content to let Taiven get herself killed by going there either. She wasn't sure why she cared, exactly – pragmatically speaking, she shouldn’t be bothered, since everything would be reset in a couple of days and Taiven would be fine again. Still, Veronica was bothered, and since she was forced to have this conversation repeatedly every few days, she could as well find a way to talk Taiven out of going.

She didn’t think for a moment it was going to be easy. Taiven was possibly even more stubborn than Shirley.

"So, Taiven, how is life treating you?" Veronica began.

"Eh, so-so," she sighed. "I am trying to secure an apprenticeship but it’s not going all that well. You know how it goes. I got Nirthak to take me as his class assistant this year, so there is that. You wouldn’t happen to have taken non-magical combat as one of your electives?"

"Nope," Veronica answered cheerfully.

"Figures," Taiven rolled her eyes. "You really should have, you know? Everybody-"

"…love muscles, yes, yes," nodded Veronica sagely. "Why are you here, Taiven? You tracked me down here even though I only moved in yesterday and never told anyone which room here is mine. I suppose you used a divination to find me?"

"Uh, yeah," Taiven confirmed. "Pretty easy thing to do, really."

"Aren’t these rooms supposed to have some sort of basic warding scheme placed on them?" Veronica inquired.

"I’m pretty sure it’s just rudimentary stuff like fire prevention and basic detection fields to warn the staff about fighting in the hallway and attempted demon summonings and whatnot," Taiven shrugged. "Anyway, I’m here to ask you to join me and a couple of others on a job tomorrow."

Veronica said nothing, patiently listening as she gave her sales pitch. It was actually on Monday, not tomorrow – Taiven’s definition of tomorrow differed greatly from the standard definition – but other than that, she was actually fairly honest in her explanation of the situation. She even mentioned that there was a small chance they might encounter something very nasty in there, but emphasized that she and her friends were totally capable of confronting anything they may find there. Right.

"Anything?" Veronica asked suspiciously. "You know, I happen to have read up on magical spider breeds, and they can be pretty powerful. A single grey hunter has been known to wipe out entire hunting parties of mages, and they’re no larger than a human at their biggest. Phase spiders can literally jump on you out of nowhere and drag you off into their own private pocket dimension. Some of the breeds are even sentient and have mind magic at their disposal."

The last one was a joke in more ways than one. Dungeon ecology was a giant mystery, even to mages that specialized in it, and information about monsters that made their home there was very scarce. As such, it was probably not surprising that she could find nothing on sentient telepathic spiders in the academy library, even after conscripting Ibery and Kirithishli on the effort.

Was it just Veronica, or was the academy library a lot less useful than she had imagined it to be? Every time she tried to find something there, she got disappointed. Then again, the things she was trying to find information on lately tended to be obscure, borderline illegal, or both.

"Oh please," Taiven snorted dismissively. "Don’t be so paranoid. As if something like that could be right below Cyoria. We won’t be delving into the Dungeon’s depths, for the Gods' sake."

"I don’t think you should go at all," Veronica insisted. "I’m getting a really bad feeling about this."

Taiven rolled her eyes, an undercurrent of annoyance in her voice. "Funny. I never took you for a superstitious girl."

"Time changes people," Veronica said solemnly, smiling at her private joke before straightening her features into a serious expression. "But seriously: I’m getting a really bad feeling about this. Is this really worth getting yourself killed over?"

Apparently, this was the wrong approach to take, as Taiven’s temper flared immediately. Veronica supposed she perceived the comment as an insult towards her skills as a mage. Before she could apologize and rephrase her argument, Taiven was already shouting.

"I’m not going to die!" Taiven shouted irritably. "Gods, you sound just like my father! I’m not a little girl and I don’t need to be protected! If you didn’t want to come, you should have just said so instead of lecturing me!" She stomped off angrily, muttering to herself about conceited brats and wasted time.

Veronica winced as Taiven slammed the door behind her. She wasn’t sure why Taiven had reacted so strongly to her words, but apparently pointing out the potential danger of the job was ineffective and only pissed her off.

Oh well, Veronica didn’t expect to succeed on the first try anyway.

"Hi Roach!"

"It is a good thing you came, Taiven," Veronica said with a grave expression. "Come in, we have much to talk about."

Taiven raised an eyebrow at her behavior before shrugging and sauntering inside. Veronica tried to project a serious, ominous presence about herself, but it seemed to amuse Taiven more than anything.

"So… I gather you wanted to see me then?" Taiven asked. "I guess you’re lucky I decided to drop by, then?"

"Not quite," Veronica said. "I knew you would come today, just as I know you’re here to conscript me into joining you for a sewer run."

"It’s not a-" Taiven began, only to get interrupted by Veronica before she could gather steam.

"A sewer run," Veronica repeated. "Retrieving a pocket watch guarded by some very dangerous spiders from the top layer of the Dungeon under the city."

"Who told you that?" asked Taiven after several seconds of bewildered pause. "How could they possibly know? I told nobody where I’m going or why I’m visiting you."
"Nobody told me," Veronica said with a soft determination. "I had a vision about this meeting… and about what will happen should you descend into the tunnels." Her expression was earnest, underlined by a sense of urgency.

"A vision?" Taiven said incredulously, disbelief evident in her wide eyes.

Veronica nodded, her long ponytail swaying gently with the motion. "I have never told you this before, but I have prophetic powers. I receive visions of the future from time to time, seeing glimpses of important events that will affect me personally in the days ahead." It wasn’t completely implausible – people like that did exist in the world, though their powers were quite a bit more limited than what she had at her disposal thanks to the time loop. From what she understood, their visions were less of a detailed recording of the future and more of a general outline of some upcoming event. The future was always changing, always uncertain, and trying to get a clear image of it was like trying to grasp a fistful of sand – the more you squeeze, the more things slip past your fingers.

Unfortunately, while being prophetic was not impossible, Taiven clearly wasn’t buying her claim.

"Oh really?" Taiven said challengingly, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "And what did this vision of yours tell you about the job?"

"That it will be the death of you," said Veronica bluntly, her gentle eyes leveling a serious look at her friend. "And me as well, should I choose to follow you down there. Please, Taiven, I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’m serious about this. The visions are rarely as clear as they were this time around. I won’t go down into the sewers and you shouldn’t either."

As seconds ticked past in silence, Veronica began to think she would actually listen to her. This impression was destroyed when she suddenly burst into laughter.

"Oh, Vera, you almost had me there!" Taiven wheezed, breaking into uncontrollable chuckles after every couple of words. "Visions from the future… Vera, you have the funniest jokes. You know, I missed that quirky sense of humor of yours. Remember… remember that one time you pretended you were asking me out?"

Veronica managed to keep her expression neutral, though her cheeks flushed slightly. She pushed away the memories of that particular evening, determined not to dwell on it.

"Yeah," Veronica said evenly. "What a funny woman I am."

Why was she trying to save her again?

"So…" Taiven said, finally getting her giggles under control, mischief twinkling in her eyes. "How did you know I was coming?"

* * *

"Hi V—" Taiven began, only to stop when she saw Veronica’s vacant, hollow expression. "Whoa, Vera, what the hell happened to you?"

Veronica kept staring off into space for a few more moments before shaking her head, as if to clear her thoughts a little. She wore a skirt and a simple blouse that day, practical yet fitting.

"Sorry," she said softly, motioning for Taiven to come inside. "I just had an extremely vivid nightmare tonight and I didn’t get much sleep."

"Oh?" Taiven said, collapsing on the armchair like usual. "What about?"

Veronica gave her a long look. "Actually, you were in it."

Taiven stopped fooling around and gave her a shocked look. "Me!? Why the hell would I be in your nightmare? You’d think a beautiful girl like me would automatically make for a pleasant dream! Now I got to know what it was about."

"I was walking through the sewers with you and some other two people I never met," Veronica began in a haunted tone, "when we were suddenly set upon by a swarm of giant spiders. There… there were so many of them… They just swarmed over us and started biting and…"

She took a couple of deep breaths, pretending to be on the verge of hyperventilating, before finally calming down.

"I’m sorry, it’s just… it was so real, you know?" she said, giving Taiven the most vacant stare she had. After a few moments, she looked down on her trembling hands and balled them up into fists in a very visible motion. "I’m sorry, it’s just… it was so real, you know? The feeling of their fangs sinking into my skin, the poison coursing through my veins like liquid fire… they didn’t even kill us in the end, they just wrapped us in spider silk and dragged our paralyzed bodies off to their lairs to feed upon later. Such a horrid, vivid vision – I don’t think I’ll ever look at a spider in the same light again."

Taiven shifted nervously where she sat, looking extremely uncomfortable and vaguely ill.

"But it was just a nightmare," Veronica said in forced cheer. "To what do I owe this visit, anyway? Is there something you wanted to talk to me about?"

"N-No!" Taiven blurted out, a nervous laugh escaping her lips. "I just… I just stopped by to have a chat with one of my friends, that’s all! How has life been treating you, anyway? Aside from the whole… nightmare… thingy…"

She found an excuse to leave in a matter of minutes. Veronica would later find out she went into the sewers anyway and never came back.

* * *

"Spiders?" asked Veronica, doing her best to appear alarmed. "Taiven, don’t you listen to rumors from time to time?"

"Umm… I’ve been pretty busy lately," Taiven chuckled awkwardly. "Why, what do the rumors say?"

"That there are some mind magic using spiders prowling the city sewers," Veronica said. "Word is the city is trying to root them out, but the creatures are evading them thus far. They’ve been trying to suppress the information since it would make them look incompetent and all that."

"Wow, good thing I talked to you then," Taiven said. "I never would have thought to put a mind ward on myself before going down otherwise."

"You’re still going down there!?" Veronica asked incredulously. "What makes you think this mind ward of yours is enough?"

"Mind magic is a subtle thing," Taiven said. "It uses tiny amounts of mana in very sophisticated ways, which makes it easy to counter with brute force. So long as you know in advance you’re going to face a mind mage, it’s easy to make yourself effectively immune. Trust me, now that I know what to expect from those crawlies, I won’t fall for their tricks."

Veronica opened her mouth to protest but then reconsidered. Was Taiven right? Maybe she was looking at things from the wrong perspective. She was trying to get Taiven to survive, which didn’t necessarily mean stopping her from going into the sewers.

"I guess," she finally conceded. "But I won’t be going with you."

"Oh, come on!" Taiven protested. "I can totally keep you safe!"

"Nope," Veronica insisted. "Not happening. Find someone else to go with you."

"How about—"

"No fighting," Veronica interrupted with a calm firmness. "Look, there is no way to talk me into going along with this. Do tell me how the whole thing turns out afterward, though. I don’t want to have to check to see if you survived."

She actually did visit her a few days later, telling her the sewer run was a failure as far as finding the watch went, but that nothing attacked them either.

Huh. Maybe Benisek was onto something when he spoke so highly about the power of rumors and gossip.

* * *

Veronica’s eyes abruptly shot open as a sharp pain erupted from her stomach. Her whole body convulsed, buckling against the object that fell on her, and suddenly she was wide awake, not a trace of drowsiness in her mind.

"Good morning, sister!" an annoyingly cheerful voice sounded right on top of her.

"Good morning, Kiri!" Veronica yelled back with a playful enthusiasm, engulfing the shocked Kirielle into a warm hug. "Oh what a wonderful, wonderful day this is! Thank you for waking me up, Kiri, I really appreciate it! I don’t know what I would do without my wonderful little sister."

Kiri wriggled uncomfortably in her embrace, not used to receiving such a gesture from her and unsure how to react.

"Who are you and what did you do to my bis sis!?" she finally demanded.

Veronica just hugged her tighter, smiling warmly.

* * *

"Something I can do for you, young lady?" asked Kyron. "The class has been dismissed, in case you haven’t noticed."

"Yes, I’ve noticed," Veronica confirmed with a hint of assertiveness. "I just wanted your advice about something, if you can spare the time."

Kyron impatiently gestured her to get to the point.

"I was wondering if you knew any means of countering mind magic," Veronica said, every word careful and considered.

"Well, there is your basic mind shield spell," Kyron said carefully. "Most mages agree that’s all you need as far as mind magic protection goes."

"Yes, but that spell is a bit… crude," Veronica said, seeking more nuance. "I’m looking for something more flexible than that."

"Crude, yes," Kyron agreed, showing increased interest. "Often useless, too. A simple dispel is enough to strip the protection off the target, and a proper mind mage will ensnare your mind before you even realize you’re being targeted."

"Then why do most mages think it suffices?" asked Veronica.

"You know why most mind magic is restricted or forbidden?" Kyron asked, rhetorically. "It’s because it’s most commonly used to target civilians and other mostly defenseless targets. Most mind mages are petty criminals that use their powers on the weak-willed and cannot be called a master of anything, let alone mind magic. It’s rare for mages to encounter mind mages that know how to use their powers properly. Still, even a moderately talented mind mage can easily ruin your life, to say nothing of magical creatures with mind-affecting powers at their disposal. There are methods of dealing with mind magic without resorting to warding spells, but most find it easier to practice mind shield until it’s completely reflexive and they can cast it at a moment’s notice. Or just carry a spell formula for the spell on their person at all times."

"And these other methods are?" Veronica prodded after realizing Kyron wouldn’t say anything more.

Kyron gave her a crafty smile. "I’m glad you asked, young lady. See, not too long ago, the combat magic class had a much more demanding curriculum, including what was called resistance training. Basically, the combat magic instructor would repeatedly cast various mind spells at students while they tried to fight off the effects. It was quite effective at making students innately resistant to common mind-affecting spells like sleep, paralyze, and dominate. Unfortunately, there were a lot of complaints from students who reacted particularly badly to it, and after a number of scandals where teachers and student assistants were discovered to have been using the training exercise as an excuse to punish students outside of proper channels, the practice was discontinued. An overreaction in my opinion, but I was overruled."

Veronica stood in silence for a moment, absorbing this information. Was that really the best way to deal with mind magic? She understood the idea – it worked on the same principle that shaping exercises and reflexive magic did, burning the defense procedures into her mind the same way repetitive movements burned certain reactions into muscle memory. It just sounded so… mindless. And probably very painful.

That’s when she noticed Kyron was giving her a very predatorial look.

"How about it, young lady?" Kyron asked. "You think you have what it takes to go through it? I’ve been wanting to revive the practice for some time now, to be honest. I promise I’ll go easy on you."

He lied. The very first spell he cast on Veronica was the Nightmare Vision spell. Whatever the spiders had to say, it better be worth it.

* * *

Veronica’s eyes abruptly shot open as a sharp pain erupted from her stomach. Her whole body convulsed, buckling against the object that fell on her, and suddenly she was wide awake, not a trace of drowsiness in her mind.

"Good morning, sister!" an annoyingly cheerful voice sounded right on top of her. "Morning, morning, MORNING!" Veronica took a deep breath, focusing on the image of what she wanted to achieve until it was so real she felt she could almost touch it. Billowing streams of mana erupted from her hands, invisible to the naked eye but easily felt by her senses – a mage could always feel her own mana, especially while in the process of shaping it. In little more than a second, everything was ready, and she set the effect loose on the little pest lying atop her.

Nothing happened.

Veronica opened her eyes and let out a long, frustrated sigh. This was no structured spell she had been attempting, but pure unstructured magic – specifically, she had been trying to levitate Kirielle off of her by using the basic levitation exercise. She knew such an attempt would be much harder to accomplish than levitating a simple pen over her palm, but nothing?

"That tickled," Kirielle said. "Were you trying to do something?"

Veronica narrowed her eyes at her sister. Okay, that? That was a challenge.

* * *

"What can I do for you, Miss Kazinski?" Ilsa asked. "Normally, I’d assume you are here to complain about Xvim, but you haven’t even had a single session with him yet."

Veronica smiled brightly. That was the one bright spot in this series of short restarts – they always happened before Friday, so she didn’t have to deal with Xvim while they lasted.

"Actually, I’m here to ask for advice on a personal project," Veronica said. "Do you know a training regimen that will allow me to lift a person telekinetically without casting a structured spell?"

Ilsa blinked in surprise. "As in, using pure shaping skill? Why would you ever have a need for that?"

"I sort of ran out of shaping exercises after mastering everything in Empatin’s Expanded Basics," said Veronica. "It seemed like an interesting project."

"All 15 of them?" Ilsa asked incredulously.

Instead of answering, Veronica decided to demonstrate. She picked up a particularly large and heavy book from Ilsa’s table and made it spin in the air above her palm. Spinning a book like that was actually much harder than spinning a pen, because a book was much heavier than a pen and had a tendency to snap open unless a mage used magic to force the covers shut while it was being levitated. That particular trick was something she was taught by Ibery, of all people – she claimed that being able to keep a book shut while levitating it was a must-have for some of the spells she intended to teach Veronica. Unfortunately, it took a couple of weeks for Ibery to warm up to her and decide to teach her seriously, and she didn’t have that in these short restarts.

She made the book glow an ominous red after a while. Using pure shaping skills to spin a book in the air while keeping it shut and making it glow with colored light was a pretty impressive showing from a third year, and it should be ample evidence of her skills.

Ilsa took a deep breath and leaned back in her chair, obviously impressed.

"Well…" she said. "Your shaping skills certainly aren’t lacking. Still, hovering a person without a spell is… not really something there is a manual on. Nobody does it, as far as I know. If they have a need for on-the-spot levitation, they just carry an appropriate focus on their person at all times. Rings, usually, since they’re small and unobtrusive. I’d really recommend you focus on something else if you want to hone your shaping skills further. The number of shaping exercises in existence is virtually endless, and the academy library has quite a collection of them. Stone crumbling and north finding exercises are extremely useful, for instance, but they’re typically not taught to most students due to time constraints."

"Stone crumbling and north finding?" asked Veronica.

"Stone crumbling consists of placing a pebble on your palm and then causing it to disintegrate into dust. That’s a flawless result, however, and most people are satisfied if they can get it to fall apart into sand-like grains. It’s a useful exercise for those who plan to heavily focus on alteration spells, since the first step when restructuring matter is nearly always to break apart the existing state. North finding is an exercise for diviners, involving the use of a dummy compass to locate magnetic north. Those of sufficient skill don’t even need the compass – they simply feel where the north is at all times."

"Those do sound useful," agreed Veronica. "I’ll definitely try to learn those. Still, are you sure you can’t help me with my people-levitating problem?"

Ilsa gave her an annoyed look. "You’re still not ready to give up on that? Why are so many talented students so intent on wasting their time on useless pranks?"

Veronica was about to object but then realized Ilsa was right. She was essentially trying to prank Kirielle. Ilsa reached out and snatched the book out of the air, causing Veronica to blink in surprise. She was still levitating it? After a second of introspection, she realized that yes, she kept the book in the air throughout the entire exchange. She stopped spinning it and it no longer glowed, but apparently levitating an object over her palm was so easy for her now that she barely registered doing it. Huh.

Her pondering was cut off when Ilsa threw the book on the table where it hit the wood with a deafening boom. She smirked at Veronica's surprise and gestured for her to pay attention.

"Like I said, there is no manual for this," Ilsa said. "And I never tried something so foolish, either. So keep in mind that this is all pure speculation on my part, alright?"

Veronica nodded eagerly.

"The first thing I would do if I were in your place would be to stop relying on hands to levitate things," Ilsa said. "Focusing the magic through your hands makes the process way easier, yes, but only for a certain category of tasks. In a very real way, levitating an object over your palm isn’t true non-structured magic – the palm provides a reference point for the effect, which both guides it and limits it. If you mastered everything in Empatin’s book, you are familiar with fixed position levitation?"

Veronica took a pen from a box full of them next to her and made it float above her palm. After a second, she moved her hand left and right, but the pen remained hovering in the exact same spot in the air she left it in, stubbornly refusing to follow the movements of her hand.

"A flawless demonstration," Ilsa praised. "But let me ask you this: does it not appear to you that fixed position levitation achieves its goal in a kind of convoluted, roundabout way? Why do you need an advanced shaping exercise to achieve something a simple levitate object spell can do as a matter of routine?"

Before she could answer, Ilsa reached out and twisted her palm sideways. The pen instantly fell to the table.

"Because using your hand as a reference point limits what you can do with the mana you’re shaping," Ilsa said, leaning back. "Even though the pen appeared independent of your hand, it was only an illusion. A pretty baffling one too. Why would you bother? You basically put a limiter on the mana flow – making it dependent on the position of your palm – and then tried to subvert that very same limiter to decouple it from your palm."

The book Ilsa threw on the table to catch her attention suddenly rose into the air. Ilsa didn’t make a single movement, but Veronica knew she was responsible.

Not the least because she was grinning at Veronica.

"Look," she said. "No hands. Of course, this is just about the limit of what I can do without using any sort of gesture to help me out with the shaping. It's a hard skill to learn, but you probably won’t need it in its pure form simply for the sake of this project of yours. You just need to reduce the degree to which your shaping depends on your hands and make it more flexible. Twisting your hand sideways shouldn’t have caused the pen to plummet down like a rock."

"You just surprised me," Veronica huffed indignantly. "I don’t usually lose control of my mana that easily."

"I stand by my words," Ilsa said with a good-natured smile. "You are very impressive for a student, or even a regular mage, but you have a long way to go if you want to join the ranks of the truly great. But anyway, if and when you get some progress on that, you should try levitating some living being smaller than a human. Much smaller. Try insects for a start, then progress on mice and so on. All in all, it should only take you.. oh, about 4 years or so."

If she thought Veronica would be discouraged by that, she was sorely mistaken. Not only did she have her doubts about the accuracy of Ilsa's predicted timetable, she really didn’t have anything better to do at the moment.

"I guess I better get started then," was all she said.

* * *

Veronica’s eyes abruptly shot open as a sharp pain erupted from her stomach. Her whole body convulsed, buckling against the object that fell on her, and suddenly she was wide awake, not a trace of drowsiness in her mind.

"Good morning, sister!" an annoyingly cheerful voice sounded right on top of her. "Morning, morning, MORNING!"

Veronica stared blankly at the ceiling above her, at a loss for words. That prediction she had made? She lost track of how many restarts had passed in the meantime, but the number was way bigger than 15. And nothing had changed since then – rare was a restart that lasted more than 3 days, and none of them went on for more than 5. Whatever Shirley was doing, it was lethally hard and Shirley was too much of a stubborn person to give up any time soon.

"Veronica? Are you alright? Come on, I didn’t hit you that hard. Up, up."

Veronica ignored Kirielle, who was currently pinching her side with ever-increasing vigor, staring at the ceiling while suppressing so much as a twitch. The pain was negligible compared to a couple of particularly nasty pain spells Kyron used on her during one of their resistance training sessions. Thankfully, Kyron never used any of them more than once per restart. Kirielle slapped her a few times and then pretended she was going to punch her in the face. When Veronica didn’t react to that, Kirielle's fist stopped just before it would impact her face.

"Umm… Veronica?" Kirielle said, actually sounding somewhat concerned. "Seriously, are you okay?"

Slowly, mechanically, Veronica turned her head to meet Kirielle’s eyes, keeping her expression as blank as possible. After a few seconds of silent staring, she slowly opened her mouth… and screamed at her. Kirielle recoiled at the sudden outburst and let out a girlish scream of her own as her retreat caused her to tumble off the bed.

Veronica watched for a few moments as Kirielle began to turn red from rage, and then she could no longer restrain herself. She started laughing.

She kept laughing even as Kirielle’s little fists started to rain down blows on her.

* * *

Veronica’s eyes abruptly shot open as a sharp pain erupted from her stomach. Her whole body convulsed, buckling against the object that fell on her, and suddenly she was wide awake, not a trace of drowsiness in her mind.

"Good m-"
With an inarticulate yell, Veronica flipped Kirielle on her back and mercilessly started tickling her. Her shrieks reverberated through the entire house until Mother came up to her room and made her stop. * * *

"Good morning, sister! Morning, morning, MORNING!"

A short silence ensued, broken only by the rustling of Veronica’s blankets as Kirielle shifted impatiently on top of them.

"Kiri," Veronica finally said in a softer, teasing voice. "I think I’m starting to hate you."

She was exaggerating, of course, but gods was this becoming annoying as hell. Amusingly, Kirielle actually appeared concerned by her proclamation.

"I’m sorry!" she said, hurriedly wriggling herself off the bed. "I was just—"

"Woah, woah, woah," interrupted Veronica, fixing Kirielle with a mock glare. "My little sister apologizing? That doesn’t happen. Who are you, and what did you do to Kirielle?"

Kirielle appeared dumbfounded for a moment, but her expression quickly grew stormy as she realized what Veronica was implying.

"Jerk!" She huffed, childishly stomping her foot for emphasis. "I do too apologize! When I’m wrong!"

"When you’re backed into a corner," corrected Veronica, a playful grin gracing her soft features. "You must want some pretty big favor out of me if you’re this desperate to remain in my good graces. What’s the story?"

She really did want to know, too. Kirielle gave no indication she wanted something from Veronica all those times she had been through this, yet it must be pretty important if Kirielle was willing to apologize to get it. That didn’t make much sense—Kirielle wasn’t really a shy girl, and had no problems with making her wishes known in the past. For a moment, Veronica was tempted to conclude she misinterpreted the situation, but then Kirielle looked away and started mumbling something intelligibly.

"What was that?" Veronica prodded gently.

"Mother wants to talk to you," Kirielle said, still avoiding her eyes.

"Yeah, well, Mother can wait," said Veronica, her voice firm yet kind. "I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what you want from me."

Kirielle pouted at her for a moment before taking a big breath in preparation.

"Please take me with you to Cyoria!" She said, folding her hands in front of her in a pleading gesture. "I’ve always wanted to go there, and I don’t want to go to Koth with Mother and…"

Veronica tuned her out, shocked at the revelation. How could she have been so blind? She knew there was something strange about the ease with which she could convince Mother not to make her take Kirielle with her, but she didn't want to question a favorable outcome and so ignored it. Of course it was easy… she didn’t want her to take Kirielle either! It was Kirielle who wanted to go. Mother was just making a token attempt so she could tell Kirielle she tried and failed. No wonder Kirielle always seemed so sullen on the way to the train station.

"Veronica? Please?"

Veronica shook her head to clear her thoughts and smiled at Kirielle, who was looking at her with bated breath and hope in her eyes. Now how could she say no to that? That it would ruin Mother’s schemes was simply a bonus.

"Of course I’ll take you with me," she said softly.

"Really!?"

"So long as you behave y—"

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" Kirielle yelled happily, jumping around in excitement. Veronica could never understand this boundless energy she had. She was never that exuberant, even as a child. "I knew you’d say yes! Mother said you’d refuse for sure."

Veronica looked away in slight embarrassment.

"Right," she said lamely. "Shows what she knows. Shall I assume then that you already have mother’s permission for this plan?"

"Yeah," Kirielle confirmed. "She said she was fine with it so long as you agree."

Oh, that diabolical woman… saying no but making Veronica take the blame for it. Looking back at it, the plan was almost magnificent in execution—she even gave her a lecture on proper attire and family honor to put her in a foul mood before springing the question.

With a sigh, Veronica put on her glasses and got out of bed. "I’m going to the bathroom."

A second later, her brain caught up with what she said and she froze. Looking back at Kirielle, she was surprised to see she wasn’t trying to race her to the destination and was instead looking at her in confusion.

"What?" Kirielle asked.

"Nothing," Veronica said, before walking out of the room. She supposed the only reason Kirielle did that in your average restart was to make her confront Mother as soon as possible. A poor move, since it only made her more annoyed at Kirielle, but she was only a kid and probably didn’t think things through all that well.

It was going to be an interesting restart.

Chapter 14: Chapter 14: The Sister Effect

Chapter Text

After telling Kirielle to pack her things for the trip (a task she immediately set off to accomplish), Veronica filled her room with multicolored orbs of light and went down to the kitchen to face Mother. The lightshow was something she did in every restart, since she wasn’t sure Ilsa would agree to arrange additional tutoring for her unless she stumbled on it. Not that it did her much good, since these short loops she was stuck in ceased too soon for her to gain anything from it, but she kept doing it regardless. Just in case. Who knew, maybe this particular restart would be the one where Shirley stopped dying so soon.

Mother studied her like a hawk as Veronica descended down the stairs, looking for any flaw in her appearance she could criticize. Veronica knew from experience that she would find something to complain about, but didn’t really care. She was dressed well enough to avoid a protracted lecture about family honor, and that was all that mattered. For a while, she had tried to use her time loop given foreknowledge to appear perfect, but that hadn’t worked on Mother. Talk about high standards. Maybe she really was deliberately trying to annoy Veronica to make sure she’d refuse to take Kirielle with her?

Sitting at the table, Veronica pushed the cold porridge to the side and started eating apples instead, ignoring Mother’s annoyance at spurning her food. After Mother realized Veronica wasn’t going to say anything, she released a dramatic sigh and launched into one of her long-winded monologues, dancing around the real issue she wanted to talk to Veronica about—the possibility of her taking Kirielle with her to Cyoria.

"Now that I think about it," Mother said, finally deciding to get to the point, "I never told you I’m going to Koth with your father to visit Daimen, did I?"

"You want me to take Kiri with me to Cyoria," Veronica guessed.

"I… what?" Mother blinked, surprised for a second. Then she shook her head slightly and sighed. "She told you," she concluded.

"Yup," Veronica confirmed.

"So much for picking the right moment like we agreed upon," Mother said. "I guess I should go and comfort her."

"Why would she need comforting?" Veronica asked softly. "I said yes. She was ecstatic. She’s in her room right now, packing her things."

Mother looked at her like she had suddenly started reciting classical poetry. Veronica didn’t know whether to feel guilty or annoyed. Was it really that weird for her to agree to this? Before she had enrolled into the academy she had spent more time with the little imp than anyone else in the family, Mother included. Veronica was more of a parent to Kirielle than Mother and Father ever were! Really, if Kirielle had just told her she wanted to go herself instead of having Mother speak for her, she probably would have agreed to it after some arguing, even before the time loop.

Annoyed. She was definitely feeling annoyed with Mother. Veronica leveled a challenging glare at Mother, daring her to say something.

"What?" Veronica snapped after a few seconds of mutual staring.

"Nothing," Mother said, schooling her expression into something unreadable. "I’m just surprised, that’s all. I’m glad you’re finally starting to think about someone other than yourself. Have you thought about housing?"

"I have," confirmed Veronica. "It depends on whether I’ll have to pay for the arrangements from my own pocket or if you’ll give me extra money for rent."

"Now you’re just being insulting," Mother snapped. "Of course we’ll give you rent money. When did we ever make you pay for essential living expenses by yourself? How much do you need?"

As if Mother’s own remark about her finally thinking about someone other than herself wasn’t just as insulting. Veronica grudgingly admitted she was right—her parents had many flaws, but they would never let her go hungry or homeless unless they were completely bankrupt themselves. She was the disfavored daughter, but a daughter nonetheless. They spent the next several minutes discussing living expenses in Cyoria, arguing back and forth about how much money she would need to rent some place and feed Kirielle. She, of course, favored larger sums, and she knew enough about Cyoria’s economy to give weight to her arguments. Mother made no secret about her surprise at Veronica’s knowledge of rent prices in various districts of Cyoria—apparently, she was under the impression such down-to-earth knowledge didn’t interest her. Veronica decided not to explain she was keeping track of rent prices so she could move away from home at a moment’s notice, instead trying to change the subject. She was not very effective in that regard—Mother was stubbornly fixated on that little factoid—but Ilsa’s arrival saved her from Mother’s interrogation. Mother quickly excused herself, saying she was going to help Kirielle pack, but Veronica still led Ilsa back to her room when she asked her where they could have some privacy. She had to show Ilsa all those lights she accidentally forgot to dispel, after all.

At first the talk proceeded in a fairly standard fashion, but the usual routine Veronica was used to was quickly shattered when they reached the topic of habitation.

"According to this," began Ilsa, momentarily shaking a piece of paper she was holding, "you lived in academy housing for the past two years. I assume you intend to do the same this year, too?"

"Err, actually, no," answered Veronica. "I’m taking my younger sister with me this year, so I can’t do that. Unless the academy makes allowances for such things?"

"It doesn’t," Ilsa said with a slight frown.

"I figured," Veronica said, not really surprised by that. "We’ll just stay in a hotel for a few days until I find a place to rent."

Ilsa gave her a strange look that Veronica had trouble deciphering.

"You don’t have a place reserved already?" she asked.

"No," Veronica said. "The decision was a bit abrupt so I didn’t have any time to make proper preparations. Why?"

"I may have a solution for you in regards to that," Ilsa said, straightening her posture into a slightly more serious stance.

"You mean you know a place I could rent?" Veronica asked. Ilsa nodded. "That’s… fortunate, I guess. What do you have in mind?"

"First of all, I want to emphasize that what I’m about to offer you has nothing to do with the Cyoria Royal Academy of Magical Arts," Ilsa cautioned. "This is something strictly between the two of us, understand?"

"Okay," said Veronica cautiously. She was getting slightly concerned now, but sensed no deception or ill intent from Ilsa. Veronica waited to hear what she was offering.

"A friend of mine is renting rooms at very reasonable rates…" Ilsa began.
After several minutes of questioning and reading between the lines, Veronica decided she would give Ilsa’s friend a chance. Her reasonable rates were a tad expensive, but it was manageable. Ilsa also suggested her friend loved children and would be all too happy to take care of Kirielle while Veronica was at class, which would be worth every piece Veronica paid for the place if actually true.

After that, the topic shifted to her choice of mentor (or rather, the fact that she wasn’t allowed to choose one), and her choice of electives. Since she had pretty much tried out every elective she was even remotely interested in by now, her choices were pretty constant at this point: botany, astronomy, and human anatomy. She chose them solely because she knew for a fact that teachers of those particular subjects didn’t care in the slightest if she chose not to come to class, and because Akoja didn’t choose any of them as her electives (and thus wasn’t aware she was skipping them).

The moment Ilsa went back to the academy, Kirielle came barreling down the stairs like a herd of elephants, ignoring mother’s admonishments about running inside the house. No doubt she had finished packing a while ago and had been simply waiting for Ilsa to leave so she could come out.

"I’m ready!" she grinned happily.

"So you have everything packed?" asked Veronica with a gentle smile.

"Yup!" she nodded.

"What about my books?" asked Veronica softly.

"Why would I pack your books?" she scowled. "You can do that yourself, lazy ass!"

“Well, you did take them from my room and hide them under your bed," Veronica remarked with a playful glint in her eyes.

"Oh!" Her eyes widened in understanding. "Those books! Umm… I guess I kind of forgot to give those back to you. I’ll put them back in your room, okay?"

"What are you two talking about?" mother asked as she approached.

"Nothing!" Kirielle said in a slightly panicky voice, whirring quickly to face mother. "I just forgot something, that’s all! I’ll be right back!"

She quickly bolted up the stairs, ignoring mother’s repeated admonishment about not running in the house. Veronica looked at her retreating form with narrowed eyes. Why was Kirielle so frightened about mother finding out she had been taking books out of her room? It was hardly the first time she helped herself to Veronica's things, and mother never cared before. There was something of significance hidden in that seemingly innocuous reaction, she just knew it.

She was starting to think she didn’t know Kirielle half as well as she thought she did.

* * *

"I’m bored."

Veronica opened her eyes and gave her little sister a gentle look. She couldn’t close her eyes for more than a minute without her saying something or accidentally kicking her in the knees with her pointy little shoes. And she had thought the station announcer was annoying.

"I can tell," she said, rolling her eyes. "What do you want me to do about it?"

"Play a game with me?" she said hopefully.

"Haven’t we done enough of that already?" she sighed. "There are only so many times I can beat you at hangman before it gets boring."

"You were cheating!" she protested. "Asphyxiation isn’t even a real word!"

"What!? Of course it is!" she shot back, a hint of amusem*nt in her tone. "You’re just—"

"Liar!" she interrupted with a teasing grin.

"Whatever," Veronica scoffed playfully. "It’s not like that was the only game where I won."

"So you admit you cheated in that one!" she concluded triumphantly.

Veronica opened her mouth to retort before she closed it again.

"Why am I arguing about this?" she asked out loud, though it was directed more towards herself than Kirielle.

A sharp crackling sound that always heralded the voice of the station announcer stopped any further argument they may have had.

"Now stopping in Korsa," a disembodied voice echoed. A crackling sound again. "I repeat, now stopping in Korsa. Thank you."

"Oh thank the gods," Veronica mumbled. Not only did arriving in Korsa mean three quarters of the journey was over, it also meant someone was going to join them in their compartment, thus giving Kirielle someone else to annoy.

Someone other than Ibery, though – she purposely avoided her usual compartment to ensure Kirielle and she would never meet, since she had a suspicion a conversation between them wouldn’t end well. Kirielle didn’t like Fortov any more than Veronica did, and she was a lot less tactful about it.

"So many people," Kirielle remarked, watching the throng at the train station through the window. "Are those all students like you?"

"Most of them, yeah," Veronica said. "Though not all of them go to the same school as I do. There is more than one academy in Cyoria."

"I thought mages were rarer than this," she said. "Mom says you need to be really smart to be one. Do you think I could be a mage too one day?"

"Sure," Veronica shrugged gracefully.

"Really?" she asked, a mixture of excitement and suspicion radiating from her voice and posture. Veronica supposed she half-expected her to use her agreement as a set-up for a mean-spirited joke or something along those lines.

"Yes," she confirmed. "I don’t see why you couldn’t. You seem to be doing well enough in school from what I heard, so I don’t see why your intelligence would be a problem. And it’s not like our parents can’t afford to send you somewhere, even if it isn’t Cyoria."

Kirielle didn’t answer, choosing instead to look through the window in silence and pointedly refusing to meet her gaze. Veronica was just about to ask her what’s wrong when the door to the compartment slid open, distracting her.

"Byrn Ivarin," the boy introduced himself. "Can I sit here?"

Veronica waved him in without a word. This was the guy who inspired her to seek employment in the library the last time they had spoken with each other. The boy had been quite talkative back then, so he should be perfect! Even if he was disinclined to talk to someone so young, she doubted Kirielle would let him ignore her, and he seemed too polite to just plain snub her to her face. Hopefully he would keep Kirielle busy till the rest of the journey.

"I’m Kirielle Kazinski," her sister promptly introduced herself, "and that’s my bis sister Veronica. Are you a student like Veronica? Can you do magic?"

"Err, well… yes," Byrn said, torn between desire to ask about the surname and a desire to be polite and answer Kirielle’s question. Politeness won in the end. "I’m only a first year, though, so it’s not like I have anything to brag with."

Sadly for Byrn, he would have to wait for a while before he could ask about the surname – Kirielle was on a roll, and promptly assaulted the poor kid with every question imaginable. Veronica soon found out that Byrn was an only child of two first-generation mages from Korsa, and that his family had pretty high expectations of him. Byrn was as excited to be away from his overbearing parents as he was about learning magic. That, at least, was something Veronica could empathize with.

"3 older brothers, huh?" Byrn laughed. "Poor you. Though… I kind of wish I had a few older brothers myself. My parents could have someone else to focus on every once in a while."

"I know what you mean," Kirielle said. "Ever since Veronica started going to the academy, mother has no one but me to pay attention to. It sucks."

Veronica flinched in sympathy. She hadn’t thought of that, but it shed a great deal of light on Kirielle’s behavior for the past two years. Without Veronica there to act like a figurative lightning rod for mother’s criticism, Kirielle’s time at home probably took a sharp turn for the worse in her absence. A part of her was pleased that the little imp was forced to experience some of what she went through in her daily interactions with their family, but she mostly thought she didn’t deserve something like that.

"So, I’ve been meaning to ask," said Byrn. "Your last name is pretty distinctive. Not that many Kazinskis walking around. Are you related to Daimen Kazinski by any chance?"

"He’s our brother," Kirielle said.

"Really?" asked Byrn excitedly. "You know, I haven’t heard anything about him in a while. What is he up to currently?"

"He’s in Koth," Kirielle said. "I think he found something in the jungle but… I don’t know. I don’t really talk to him all that often. He’s always traveling. You’re more likely to find out about him in the newspapers than by talking to me. Veronica knows him better than I do."

Veronica shot Kirielle a quick glare for putting her on the spot like that, and on the topic of Daimen no less! The little imp just stuck her tongue at her. Hmph.

"Daimen and I don’t get along," Veronica said bluntly. "There is not much I can tell you about him that Kiri hasn’t already."

"Oh," Byrn said, obviously disappointed. He let out a slightly strained laugh, trying to dispel the somewhat awkward atmosphere that descended on the compartment. "And here I thought I would get some inside stories about one of my heroes. Though I suppose in a way I did, didn’t I? It’s a bit sad that he doesn’t have time for his family."

"Hmm," hummed Veronica noncommittally.

The rest of the journey was uneventful, except that Byrn decided to tag along with them for a while after they disembarked. Both Byrn and Kirielle were awed (and more than a little intimidated) by the sheer size and activity of Cyoria’s train station, and Veronica decided to be nice and give them a brief tour around the place. The tour turned out to be not as brief as she had intended, however, because Kirielle insisted on browsing the stores. She tried to tell her that every shop in and around the train station sold massively overpriced merchandise (because they could, thanks to their favorable location) and that she wouldn’t be buying her anything, but that didn’t deter her in the slightest. She was just looking. Byrn, for some unfathomable reason, sided with Kiri. He liked browsing stores too, apparently. Madness.

Since they had wasted so much time, however, the rain had already started falling by the time they were ready to depart. Byrn had no umbrella, of course, and even if he had, the amount of luggage he carried would make a trek through the rain a problematic endeavor. Veronica reluctantly offered to help – the boy looked so miserable at this sudden turn of events that Veronica didn’t have the heart to just walk away.

Besides, Kirielle wouldn’t let her do that, and she didn’t want to make a scene by dragging Kirielle away so they could be on their way.

"I really appreciate this, you know?" Byrn said, curiously brushing his fingers against the dome of the rain barrier spell surrounding them. "I don’t know what I would have done if it weren’t for you. It doesn’t seem like the rain is going to stop any time soon."

"For the last time, it’s alright," Veronica sighed, her voice a mix of exasperation and warmth. "Really, I live to help."

Byrn covertly mouthed thank you to Kirielle, who was unabashedly playing with the rain barrier by sticking her arms and legs outside the protective dome and then drawing them back in, causing her to give him a thumbs up. Apparently, the boy knew whom to thank for his good fortune. Hmph. If she ran out of mana halfway to their new home after getting Byrn to the academy, it would be on her head. Rain barrier was quite draining, and she had to enlarge it so it would cover all three of them plus the floating disk that carried their combined luggage.
"This spell is awesome," Kirielle declared. "How hard is it? Do you think you could teach me how to cast this one? I won’t tell anyone!"

"Oh please," Veronica snorted softly. "You can’t even feel your mana, much less shape it. It’s not a question of legality, it’s a question of skill. It would take months if you’re some kind of genius, a year or two otherwise. Just wait until you enroll in a magic school yourself, okay?"

Kirielle immediately deflated, her enthusiasm waning in the face of Veronica's gentle but firm logic.

In the end, they managed to deposit Byrn to the safety of the academy’s own rain wards without issues before going their own way. In fact, they nearly made it to their destination before Veronica ran out of mana, causing the rain barrier to wink out of existence. Emphasis on nearly. She hoped Ilsa’s friend wasn’t sensitive about people bringing water into the house.

* * *

"You should have waited! Honestly, what possessed you to walk around in this horrid weather? Kids these days think they’re invincible…”

Veronica rolled her eyes at her host’s scolding, not hiding her reaction in the slightest since the woman was busy rummaging through a set of drawers and wasn’t really facing her. The rain would have continued throughout the entire night – though she couldn’t exactly tell her how she knew that – so waiting it out hadn’t been an option. Besides, they would have made it just fine if Kirielle hadn’t been so stubborn about getting Byrn to the academy grounds first. And also, it’s not like their brief run through the rain was all that traumatic. So really, why was she getting so worked up about it?

Her thoughts were interrupted by a towel hitting her in the face.

"There. You can use that to dry your hair," she said. "I’ll go see if your sister needs any help. You just hope she doesn’t get sick from this or you’ll be hearing from me about this, you hear?"

"She’s not a sugar cube," Veronica mumbled gently. "She’s not going to fall apart just because she got a little wet."

Either that was spoken too softly for her to hear or she decided to ignore her, but either way, she just walked past Veronica and left the room. Unconcerned, Veronica sat down on a nearby chair, studying the place they were in.

Their landlord, one Imaya Kuroshka, was a lively middle-aged woman that quickly ushered them in when she found them, soaking-wet, on her doorstep. She hadn’t even asked for their identities before she had done that – it took an introduction by Veronica until she realized they actually had a reason beyond getting out of the rain when they knocked on her door. Veronica was tempted to deliver her own scolding to the woman about naiveté and letting strangers into the house, but unlike some people, she chose not to be difficult. She seemed nice enough, all things considered. At the very least, she didn’t appear to be one of those landlords that tried to bleed their tenants of everything they could part with, though it was hard to be sure this soon.

The part that irked her a little was that Imaya seemed to consider them living at her place a done deal already. She only agreed to check the place out, nothing more!

Once Imaya returned with Kirielle (who had changed her clothes and mostly dried her hair at this point, and seemed completely unaffected by the fact she had been running through the pouring rain less than an hour ago) they started talking. Veronica had to steer the conversation back to the topic of their stay every once in a while, since both Imaya and Kirielle were content to let the conversation wander if she let them. She also had to nudge Kirielle under the table a few times to get her to quiet down – Ilsa had told her never to broach the topic of marriage and husbands in front of Imaya for… some unspecified reason. Veronica liked it when people respected her privacy, so she was content to do the same of Imaya, and had warned Kirielle to abide by the rule as well. Something she evidently had problems with, due to her tendency to babble.

Their arrangement was not exactly to her liking, in all honesty. Imaya’s house clearly hadn’t been designed for rent – it was a normal, if large, family home that had a bunch of empty sleeping rooms on the second floor. Veronica and Kirielle would be getting one of them, and they would be sharing the rest of the house facilities with Imaya and two other tenants that were scheduled to arrive in the next few days. That was a lot less privacy than she was comfortable with. Not to mention that their room only had one bed, meaning she would have to sleep together with Kirielle. Veronica had actually spent a few nights with Kirielle when she had been younger and knew for a fact that Kirielle was a restless sleeper and a cover hog, so she had big issues with that. Thankfully, they were the only tenants at the moment, so Imaya allowed her to claim an additional room for herself at no extra charge, with the stipulation that she move back in with Kirielle when she found a proper tenant for it.

Veronica decided to quietly look into other places to rent tomorrow. Just in case.

* * *

Despite her novel living arrangements and Kirielle’s presence, the next few days were fairly standard. She applied for the job at the library. She went to talk to Ilsa about advanced instruction and chose divination as a discipline she was interested in. She practiced various shaping exercises whenever she had some free time, concentrating mostly on the north finding one since that exercise was supposed to help with divinations. Taiven tracked her down, despite her change of residence, and she notified her about the rumors about mind magic using giant spiders running around the sewers to make sure she’d survive the encounter. Despite her misgivings, she decided not to leave Imaya’s place, since Imaya did a masterful job of keeping Kirielle happy and off her back. For her part, Kirielle was remarkably well behaved. She spent a lot of her time drawing things. She didn’t even know Kirielle liked to draw. She never did it at home as far as she knew. Maybe the trip had inspired her to take up a hobby?

In any case, once those first couple of days had passed, everything just… went off the rails. For one thing, the restart hadn’t ended at that point and instead just kept going, which was noteworthy by itself. More importantly, however, she was once again asked by Ilsa to greet Kael and his daughter at Cyoria’s main train station… only to find out that Kael had also rented a room at Imaya’s place. For pretty much the same reason she had, too – Ilsa had recommended the place.

So now she was living in the same house with her little sister, a teenage morlock and his daughter, and a landlord that didn’t really act like a landlord. She was finally going to meet her divination instructor, Xvim would be throwing marbles at her again come next Friday, Ilsa apparently visited her friend’s house on a regular basis, and Imaya invited Taiven to eat with them next Sunday while she was trying to talk Veronica into following her into the sewers. Clearly, this was not going to be the average restart.

"I still feel like I’m taking advantage of you," Kael said, pouring a fist-full of blue powder into a transparent glass container.

"And I still can’t imagine why," Veronica said softly, not taking her eyes off the tiny blue mushrooms she was currently grinding into more powder. "I stock your lab with ingredients, and you let me be your assistant while you do your work. You get to save a little money on reagents and I get some practical alchemical experience. What on earth is predatorial about that? Here."

She thrust the powdered mushrooms to the white-haired boy, who sighed in defeat and went back to work. Veronica took the time to look around the workshop without being too blatant about it.

Kael’s workshop was pretty amazing considering it was really just a basem*nt that Imaya donated to the boy so he could convert it to his purposes. Setting it up was the first thing Kael did after moving into the place, with Imaya being surprisingly unconcerned about a mere academy student working with dangerous magical concoctions right under her home. Ilsa assured me Kael knows what he’s doing, she said. Well, he probably did, but still. As for equipment, it was loaned to Kael by the academy authorities. According to Kael, it was rather outdated, but the morlock couldn’t afford to be picky and was lucky to get anything at all.

"I just don’t think the price of restocking my workshop is worth whatever experience you’re going to get," Kael said, pouring boiling water into the powder-filled container and adding some weird little black balls that Veronica didn’t recognize. "In fact, considering how good you are at this I should probably be paying you for the help."

"Don’t worry about it," Veronica repeated, hoping this time it would stick. She couldn’t exactly tell the boy that her savings account would spontaneously refill when the loop restarted, so it was hard to explain why money wasn’t too important for her.

Overall, her interaction with Kael was a lot friendlier this time around. Grudgingly, she had to admit Kirielle had a lot to do with it – she hit it off with Kana pretty quickly, despite the other girl being practically a baby, which seemed to put Kael at ease with both of them. After that, the two of them discovered they got along pretty well and Veronica decided to help the morlock with his alchemy and learn something at the same time. Which led to their current situation.

"This whole situation is terribly strange," Kael said after a minute of silence. "Not in a bad way, though. Kana is the happiest I have seen her in a while. I really am grateful to your sister for everything she has done for her, by the way."

"To be honest, I’m not sure how long it’s going to last," Veronica admitted with a gentle smile. "For now she finds Kana cute, and probably finds it pleasing to have someone pay attention to her with such rapt attention. She tends to get bored really quickly, though. And in any case, she’s only in Cyoria temporarily while my family is off visiting my brother in Koth."

"Well that’s too bad," Kael sighed. Then he smirked at Veronica. "Though I supposed you’ll be relieved when she finally leaves."

"Well, who knows," Veronica said with a playful shrug. "We’ll see how things go. She’s not so bad right now, so maybe she won’t be a total pest like she usually is. I’m hoping some of your daughter’s attitude will rub off on her in time."

"Oh, that would be such a pity," Kael said with a playful tone. "It would be a shame for such a lively girl to lose her spark of life. I myself wish Kana had some of that boundless enthusiasm."

"Shall we trade, then?" offered Veronica with a teasing smile.

"No," Kael snorted playfully. "Fetch me the water celery and be quiet for a while. I need to concentrate on this part."

And so Veronica stood in silence and watched Kael work, and thought about what the rest of the month would bring.

Chapter 15: Chapter 15: Busy Friday

Chapter Text

Veronica felt the mana-charged marble approaching her, but didn’t move. She couldn’t tell whether it was aimed to the left or to the right, but she knew it wasn’t aimed at her forehead. She could always tell when it was. Always. She wasn’t sure how she could tell that with absolute certainty when she could not actually pinpoint where the marble was going, but she was grateful for it. She just wished she could replicate that success to the exercise in general.

The marble whizzed past her, and Veronica struggled to identify on which side it passed her by. "Left," she tried.

"Wrong," Xvim said in a disinterested tone. "Again."

Another marble was thrown towards her. This one wasn’t aimed at her forehead either. Not that surprising, really – Xvim stopped doing that when he realized Veronica could identify those with perfect accuracy. It wouldn’t do to give her free points, after all.

"Right," she said.

"Wrong," Xvim immediately responded. "Again."

Veronica frowned behind the blindfold. Did it just seem that way, or was she actually getting worse at this as time went by? Something was very wrong here. At the beginning of the session, she was getting more than half of them correctly, but now she was constantly getting it wrong. She’d have thought she’d guess correctly every once in a while, through statistical inevitability if nothing else. There were only two possibilities!

That’s why, when Xvim threw the next marble, Veronica quickly wrenched the blindfold off to see what the deal was.

The marble flew straight over her head.

That son of a—

"I didn’t say you could take the blindfold off," Xvim calmly said, as if Veronica didn’t just catch him red-handed.

"That’s cheating!" Veronica protested, completely ignoring Xvim’s remark. "Of course I couldn’t guess correctly if you’re not even going to abide by your own rules!"

"You’re not supposed to guess, Miss Kazinski," Xvim said unapologetically. "You’re supposed to sense."

"I was sensing," Veronica ground out.

"If you were, you would have realized what was happening far sooner, and you would not have needed to take off the blindfold to identify the problem," Xvim said. "Now stop wasting your time and put the blindfold back on so we can continue."

Veronica cursed Xvim mentally but did as she was told. As much as she hated to admit it, Veronica had to concede there was a lot of truth in Xvim’s words. She had been mostly guessing over which shoulder the marbles were going, relying on gut instinct instead of a clear perception of its location. But it was hardly her fault she couldn’t reliably track a fast-moving object through its faint mana emissions – according to books, that was a highly advanced skill that took years to master! Honestly, asking a student to master this sort of thing in their third year was completely unreasonable. But completely in character for Xvim, she supposed. At least she no longer had to worry about being hit in the head anymore.

The rest of the session was typical, which is to say repetitive and boring. Then again, what part of school wasn’t boring at this point? She had been stuck in the time loop for little over a year now, and feigning attention during classes was starting to get hard. She was tempted to take a page out of Shirley’s book and go wander somewhere else for a few restarts, but she couldn’t. For one thing, it would be irresponsible to waste time like that when she could be working on skills she needed to get to the bottom of this. For another, she didn’t want to attract attention to herself. The memory of their interaction was probably still fresh in Shirley’s mind, and there was a possible third party to consider. Completely blowing off classes would be completely out of character for her, and would raise a lot of eyebrows. She was already playing it close by taking Kirielle with her and skipping almost a quarter of her classes to do her own thing, but those changes were at least easily explainable. If her current course of action didn’t produce results, she’d have to drop the masquerade to preserve her sanity, but that wasn’t an immediate concern. She had more pressing problems to worry about, so she put off that issue for later, when and if it became relevant.

Her session with Xvim done, she went to the library to report to Kirithishli. Normally she didn’t go to work on Fridays, since dealing with Xvim tended to kill her mood very fast, but she was feeling just fine today. She was getting used to the irritating man’s antics, it seemed.

"Veronica!" Kirithishli greeted. "Good timing! We just got a new shipment today, and Ibery had to go home early."

"Uh, okay," Veronica said slowly. She was about to ask what kind of shipment arrived but then decided it was a stupid question. It was a shipment of books, of course. "What do you want me to do?"

"Just unpack the books out of their boxes and separate them into rough categories," answered Kirithishli, pointing in the direction of a small mountain of boxes. "I’ll inspect them in more detail later to see what to do with them."

"You don’t know what to do with them?" asked Veronica, baffled. "Why did you order them, then?"

"I didn’t," Kirithishli said, shaking her head. "Someone donated their personal library to the academy. It happens from time to time. Sometimes people leave their books to us in their wills, or people who inherit them don’t have a use for them and can’t sell them. A lot of old books are only useful as historical curiosities and sometimes not even that. Most of the books in these boxes will be disposed of, to be honest."

"Oh?" asked Veronica, opening one of the boxes and pulling out one of the books stacked inside of it. It was a manual about cultivation of plums. The cover said it was published 20 years ago. "I’m surprised by that. I distinctly remember you saying that librarians should preserve everything they can rather than pick and choose what they think is good or useful."

"Oh shut up," Kirithishli grouched, taking a half-hearted swipe at her that she dodged. "It’s an ideal to be followed, not an unbreakable law. There is only so much space in the library, no matter how big it appears. And besides, most of these books are duplicates of ones we already have. Stop being a wiseass and get to work."

Veronica threw herself to the task, unpacking box after box. Kirithishli gave her a huge book that contained list after list of the most common books they received in these sort of deliveries and told her to use it to separate the obvious duplicates from the rest. Using the book manually to find the matches would be a total nightmare, of course, especially since the letters were in really tiny print in order to cram as many words as possible on every page, but Veronica knew it was designed with something else in mind. One of the spells she learned from Ibery in the previous restarts involved making a list of terms you wanted to search for and then connecting the list via divination spell to a target book you wanted to search. It sounded a little pointless to her back then, but now she realized it was made with precisely this sort of thing in mind. And the huge, densely-packed reference book was probably made with the spell in mind, in turn.

Nearly 2 hours and 20 hastily scribbled lists later, she had separated the duplicates from the rest of the books and was in the process of leafing through one of the spellbooks she had found in the boxes when Kirithishli finally returned from wherever she had disappeared after giving her assignment. Her rapid progress surprised Kirithishli, seeing how she had no idea Veronica was so well-versed in library magic, and she apparently also found it a little disappointing.

"You’re no fun," she sighed dramatically. "I wanted to show you that trick when I came back, after you spent 2 hours painstakingly searching for matches in that monster of a book. The expression on your face would have been priceless."

Veronica simply raised an eyebrow at her, but otherwise stayed silent. Kirithishli showed her maturity by sticking her tongue at her like a 5-year-old, before eyeing the book she was leafing through.

"Found something interesting?" she asked.

"Not really," Veronica said, snapping the book shut. There was nothing particularly interesting in it anyway. "I sort of hoped I would find a book on powerful ancient magic and the like, but no such luck."

Kirithishli snorted. "Even if you did find something like that, it would do you little good. Contrary to what various adventure novels may have led you to believe, ancient magic is almost always inferior to what we have available now. Those spells that are lost are usually lost for a good reason – generally for being too impractical, requiring ingredients or conditions that no longer exist, or because they would be considered massively unethical in the modern age. For example, you’d be hard pressed to find participants for orgy ritual magic these days, and Heruan volcanic spells relied on conditions present in one particular volcano that hasn’t been active for more than 200 years."

Veronica blinked. "Oh. Well that's disappointing."

"Quite," Kirithishli agreed. "And even when those spells can be cast without issue, they tend to be infuriatingly inflexible and long to cast. Mages of old didn’t have the sort of shaping skills modern mages have, so they compensated by making their spells long and hyperspecialized. There were hundreds of color-changing spells, for instance, but most of them differed only in which color the spell changed the affected objects into. It has been a persistent trend in modern times to generalize spells, since better training methods allow modern mages to make up for the spells' lack of precision with the sheer control they have over their magic."

"Making a lot of old spells obsolete to a properly trained mage," finished Veronica. She had always known that most history books presented a heavily idealized image of their ancestors – their portrayal of the desertification of northern Miasina (she refused to call it Cataclysm, as if it was some natural occurrence beyond Ikosian control) and subsequent exodus to Altazia was proof enough that they were given a sugar-coated version of history – but she hadn’t realized Ikosians were also crappy mages in addition to being shortsighted. "And you have to be one if you plan to get certified. You know, I’ve always wondered why so many really easy spells are classified as first circle ones. I thought it might be a deliberate policy by the Guild to encourage certification, but I guess a lot of those were not nearly as trivial when they were first rated."

"That, but you also have to consider things from the perspective of the spell’s maker," Kirithishli said. "It’s a lot more prestigious and profitable to make a 1st circle spell than a 0th circle one. So they almost never classify a spell as anything less than 1st circle, and the guild allows them to get away with it, probably for the very reason you stated. A determined person could probably get the guild to lower the classification on a lot of those spells, but you’d make a lot of enemies, especially the spell crafter interest groups. It would be a thankless task, and you’d constantly have to watch out for people trying to roll back the changes."
Veronica digested this information in silence. She had no intention of involving herself in such high-level politics, of course, either in the time loop or outside of it. If there was one thing her parents had driven into her consciousness with their endless sermons, it was that her strengths did not lie in that area. Granted, that probably wasn’t what those sermons were designed to do, but that wasn’t her problem. Still, things like these were useful to know. She’d have to prod Kirithishli for more stories in the future.

* * *

When Kirithishli told her to go home, Veronica was all too happy to oblige. It had been a long (and boring) day, what with the regular classes, her session with Xvim, and working in the library, and all she really wanted was to go back to Imaya’s place and relax. Sadly, it was not to be, because the moment she stepped out of the library she was accosted by a shady-looking man that had been waiting for her just outside the entrance.

Well, maybe "accosted" was too strong a word — technically, the man in question was just leaning on a pillar next to the entrance, not blocking her path or even speaking to her. Nonetheless, the moment the man glanced up and their eyes met, Veronica knew the man had been waiting for her, and her alone. Middle aged, dressed in a cheap, rumpled suit and unshaven, he almost looked like one of Cyoria’s many homeless people, but there was a confidence in his posture that didn’t fit that image.

She halted in her tracks instantly, and an uneasy silence descended on the scene as they both analyzed one another. Veronica had no idea who the man was or what he wanted with her, but she wasn’t inclined to be charitable. She had not forgotten the way she was assassinated in one of the initial restarts, and had no wish to repeat the experience.

"Veronica Kazinski?" the man finally asked.

"That’s me," confirmed Veronica. She didn’t think lying would work, and it would be better to have a confrontation close to the library than to get ambushed on an empty street on the way home.

"Detective Haslush Ikzeteri, Cyoria’s police department," the man said. "Ilsa sent me to be your divination instructor."

Veronica didn’t know what to say. Ilsa picked a detective as her instructor? So much for her idea of talking her new divination instructor into teaching her the restricted divination skills she needed to actually investigate this time loop business. Why did it have to be law enforcement, of all things?

"That’s great," Veronica said flatly. "I was wondering when Ilsa would find someone."

If her lack of enthusiasm bothered the man any, he didn’t show it. He turned and walked away, gesturing Veronica to follow after him.

"Come on, kid, let’s go find a tavern to sit in," he said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

Oh yes, a tavern – the perfect learning environment. Gods, not only was the man a detective, he was unprofessional as well. His unkempt appearance sort of suggested it right from the start, but Veronica always tried to not judge too harshly on appearances alone – too many people did it to her, and she always found it very annoying.

Her thoughts must have been more visible in her demeanor than she thought they were, because the man quickly started to justify himself.

"Come now, don’t look at me like that," the man said. "It’s not like we’ll be doing anything too serious today. It’s been a long day for both of us, I think – you’re tired, I’m tired, we don’t know each other, and we’ll accomplish nothing if we just jump straight into lessons right away. Hell, maybe we’ll decide we don’t like each other and call this whole thing off. So today, we’re just going to share a drink and talk."

Okay, so maybe Haslush was smarter and more capable than Veronica gave him credit for. She had to stop judging people so quickly. Though…

"I don’t drink alcohol," Veronica warned.

Haslush gave her a curious look. "Religious taboo?"

Veronica shook her head. She was never very religious – the gods had been silent for centuries, and as far as she was concerned that meant they either killed each other off or abandoned their creations to fend for themselves. Hell, listening to some of the stories from the age of gods, she couldn’t help but think humanity was better off without them – they had a disturbing tendency to throw around plagues and curse entire cities on the flimsiest of pretexts. She didn’t think it was a coincidence that humanity only started to advance, both socially and technologically, after the gods had fallen silent.

"Bad experiences," she simply said, not wanting to discuss that topic any further.

"Ah," Haslush said, content with her answer. "That’s okay, you can order some fruit juice or something. Hell, I can even show you a spell I use when I’m on duty but don’t want to offend people by refusing an offered drink."

Now that sounded useful! Veronica looked at Haslush, and the man correctly interpreted that as permission to go on.

"It’s a neat little alteration spell that converts alcohol into sugar," Haslush said, raising his right hand to show a plain metal ring on his middle finger. "I have it imprinted into this ring so I don’t have to visibly cast it – visibly casting a spell on your drink is often resented even more than outright refusing it, believe it or not. The moment I touch the glass the deed is done."

"Convenient," Veronica said appreciatively. That spell would have saved her so much trouble over the years. "But I thought organic matter cannot be restructured through alteration spells?"

"Usually not, but that’s because most of them are impossibly complex and poorly understood, not because organic compounds are somehow impossible to replicate," Haslush said, studying various tavern signs as they walked. Apparently he wasn’t merely looking for the closest one. "Both ethanol and glucose are fairly simple molecules, and quite well understood, so there is no difficulty in converting one into the other." He suddenly stopped in front of a nearby sign, studying it for a moment before turning to face Veronica again. "I think this is a nice place. What do you think?"

Veronica’s experiences with taverns were very limited and generally unpleasant, so she simply gestured for Haslush to go in before following after him.

It wasn’t as bad as Veronica had feared: the insides of the tavern were dark and the air was a bit stale, but the tables were clean and the noise was manageable. Haslush picked an out-of-the-way table in the corner and cast a long, complicated spell on it after they both ordered a drink. Probably a privacy ward of some kind.

Veronica expected the man to start interrogating her the moment the spell snapped into place, but it didn’t play out like that. If Haslush was interrogating her, he was doing it too subtly for Veronica to notice. Hell, the man didn’t even ask her about Daimen, which was always nice. Gradually, Veronica began to relax and started asking questions of her own. Questions like how come a detective has time and inclination to tutor a third-year student in divination magic?

"Hah," snorted Haslush. "A good question. Usually something like this would be the last thing on my mind, but yesterday my commander dumped a really silly case on my lap. Apparently there is a rumor circulating around the city about mentalist spiders lurking in the sewers, and I’m supposed to check it out." He rolled his eyes with a sigh. "Mentalist spiders, honestly…" he mumbled.

Veronica struggled not to let her surprise show and somehow succeeded – largely because Haslush was paying more attention to his drink than to her at the moment. She started a rumor without even realizing it? She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised, since she had told Taiven about the spiders right in front of Imaya and her sister – between Taiven and those two, they probably blathered about it to a dozen people at least.

"Anyway, after work I went to meet with my good friend Ilsa so we could complain about our problems to each other over a drink or two, when she told me she was having problems finding a divination tutor for you. And at that point I realized I have a perfect solution for my problem. I could pawn off the case to some other poor schmuck, help a friend in need, and settle a long-standing argument between me and my commander in one fell swoop. See, a couple of years ago the bureaucrats in Eldemar decided to launch an initiative for getting more mages interested in a career in law enforcement. Only, instead of doing something concrete to attract new talent they asked mages already working inside the police force to go introduce the profession to mages in training on their own initiative."

"Ah," said Veronica. "So you’re supposed to do things like this anyway?"

"Yeah, but I’ve been kind of slacking off in that regard, so my commander is constantly nagging me about missing my quota. Can you blame me though? We get paid extra for doing it, but it’s a pittance considering the hassle."

"You know better than I do," Veronica shrugged. "How does, err, introducing me to the profession get you off the spider case, though?"

"I don’t have time to do both," Haslush said. He frowned for a second and then shook his head, as if to clear it. "Yup. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it."

The discussion petered out after that, and Haslush promised to meet her again on Monday. Veronica was lost in thought as she went back to Imaya’s house, wondering whether anything would come out of the whole spider investigation. Probably not, considering how seriously it was taken by Haslush, but still. She’d have to prod the man for additional details after a week or so.

* * *

Veronica tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for Imaya to open the door. She had the key to the front door, but that was no help – Imaya had an annoying habit of leaving the key in the lock, and today was no exception. She couldn’t enter without her help.

She probably liked it that way.

The sound of unlocking brought her attention back to the door itself, which flung open to reveal a concerned-looking Imaya staring at her.

"Umm… did something happen?" she asked. Did Kirielle do something stupid while she was gone?

"I should be the one asking that," she said. "Where were you? You were supposed to be back hours ago."

"Uh…" Veronica floundered. "What’s the problem? It’s not like I’m coming in the middle of the night or anything…"

The annoyed look she was giving her told her she shouldn’t have said that. Not that she understood why – it’s not like there was a rule saying she had to rush back home after class, after all. Back in Cirin, her parents never cared what she did in her free time, so long as she didn’t neglect her duties or embarrass them in process. It was an alien feeling to have someone concerned for her just because she didn’t come home on time.

"Look, I’m sorry but I had to meet with my divination instructor after class and the meeting sort of dragged on," she said. "Really Miss Kuroshka, you’re going to lose your nerves if you freak out every time I’m late from classes. It’s not the first time I’ve been held up after class, and it’s certainly not going to be the last."

She sighed and shooed her inside, apparently somewhat mollified by her speech.
"In the future, try to notify me when you’re going to be late," Imaya said in a calm voice. "Surely there is some piece of magic that can transfer messages within city limits, yes?"

That was a good idea, Veronica had to admit. "I’ll see what I can find," she promised.

"Good," Imaya said. "Your sister has been asking for you for a while now, you know?"

Veronica sighed softly. "She hasn’t been a bother, has she?"

"No, she’s a little angel," Imaya assured, waving away her concerns. Veronica rolled her eyes gently at the idea of Kirielle being an angel. If Kirielle was so nice then why did Imaya want Veronica to come home so badly? "She spent most of the day drawing, playing with the magic cube you gave her, and talking with Kana. Or should that be talking at Kana? I swear, that child is far too quiet. I have to talk to Kael about it one of these days. It’s not normal for a child to be so withdrawn…"

Veronica nodded quietly, pleased that the cube she made was such a success. It was nothing special, just a simple stone cube with a bunch of light-emitting sigils arranged into a childish puzzle. She found the design in one of the books Nora recommended to her back when she had been tutoring Veronica in spell formulas, and decided making one would be doubly useful: it would give her some practical experience using spell formula and give Kirielle something to pass the time with.

"Sounds like she had fun today," Veronica remarked. "What did she need me for, then?"

Imaya gave her a strange look. "You’re her big sister. She doesn’t need a special reason to miss you."

"And the real reason?" Veronica pressed gently.

"Kana dozed off and your toy ran out of mana and went inert," Imaya finally admitted after a moment of silence.

"Ah," Veronica nodded. She noticed the design had very little in the way of mana storage, but she wasn’t confident enough to redesign it while creating the cube. There was a reason why the cube had such rudimentary mana reserves, after all – large concentrations of mana tended to explode if handled inappropriately, and the cube was meant to be practice for beginners. Beginners that could totally botch things during the first couple of tries. Considering how many problems she had with simply recreating the design on the stone cube, she felt she had made the right choice when she had decided not to mess with the base design. She would simply make more of them if Kirielle still wanted to play with one – it was good practice, anyway. "She’s in her room, I guess?"

"No, she’s in your room, reading your books," Imaya said casually.

Veronica’s eye twitched, resisting the urge to march straight into her room and escort Kirielle out gently. In reality, she was lucky to have a room to call her own at all. Imaya still hadn’t found anyone willing to rent the other room in the house, and Veronica was grateful for it, since it meant she could keep the room for herself. Unfortunately, her ability to keep Kirielle out of it was completely nonexistent. Kirielle had no inhibitions about coming and going there whenever she pleased, and Imaya was even less inclined to stop her than their mother had been back in Cirin. She seemed to find Kirielle’s behavior natural.

And the little imp knew it! She knew she could get away with just about everything, since Imaya liked her better than she did Veronica, and she exploited it to the hilt. That’s why, when Veronica entered the room, Kirielle completely ignored her. She was lying on her bed with an open book in front of her, her feet comfortably resting on Veronica's pillow. As Veronica watched her, she reached towards the plate of biscuits Imaya had brought her, intent on scattering even more crumbs over her bed sheets.

"Hey!" Kirielle protested. "Those are mine! Get your own biscuits!"

Veronica ignored her and studied the plate full of biscuits she had snatched away from her mischievous little sister. "You know, originally I just wanted to get your attention and stop you from making an even bigger mess than you already have, but they do look kind of tasty…"

"Nooooo!" Kirielle wailed as Veronica opened her mouth, threatening to swallow a handful of biscuits at once. She seemed reluctant to leave her spot to get them back, though. She probably knew Veronica wouldn’t allow her to reclaim her spot easily should she ever relinquish it, clever little imp that she was.

"Tell you what," Veronica said, closing her mouth and putting the biscuits back on the plate. "I’ll give you your biscuits if you get rid of all the crumbs you put on my bed."

Kirielle immediately swept her hands over the sheets a couple of times, pushing all the crumbs to the floor in front of the bed. Her task done, she flashed Veronica a cheeky smile.

"Ha ha," said Veronica humorlessly. "Now go get a broom and do it properly. I’ll eat a biscuit for every minute this mess remains in my room."

She punctuated her words by taking one of the biscuits and popping it into her mouth. They were quite good, actually.

Kirielle let out a cry of protest and jumped off the bed in a huff. She unsuccessfully tried to retrieve her plate of biscuits, but when she realized she couldn’t make Veronica give it back (and when she ate a second one), Kirielle instead ran off to get a broom and a dustpan. Apparently, she also complained to Imaya, because several minutes later she showed up with another plate of biscuits, so Veronica didn’t have to ‘borrow’ from her little sister. Whatever.

Sadly, even after Veronica recovered her bed from Kirielle’s clutches, she still returned to her room. Currently, she was sprawled over her chest, having collapsed atop of her when she closed her eyes for a second.

"Why are you still here, Kiri?" Veronica sighed.

Kirielle didn’t answer at first, being too busy clambering over Veronica’s body like she was an inanimate object. Once Kirielle lay firmly on the bed with her, having wriggled sufficient free space for herself, she spoke.

"I’m bored," she said. "Your puzzle broke, by the way."

"It didn’t break," Veronica said. "It just ran out of mana. I can make you a new one tomorrow if you want."

"Okay."

A short silence descended between them, and Veronica closed her eyes to take a little nap.

"Vera?" Kirielle suddenly prompted.

"Yes?" Veronica asked.

"What’s a morlock?"

Veronica opened her eyes and looked to the side, fixing Kirielle with a curious expression.

"You don’t know what a morlock is?" she asked incredulously.

"I just know they’re these white-haired blue-eyed people," Kirielle said. "And that people don’t like them very much. And Kael is one. But Mother never wanted to tell me what the deal with them is."

"She didn’t, huh?" murmured Veronica.

"No," confirmed Kirielle. "She said a young lady like me shouldn’t talk about those kinds of things."

In the interest of avoiding an argument, Veronica refrained from making a snide comment about whether or not Kirielle qualified as a lady. Not even a derisive snort. Someone should give her a medal for self-control.

"Basically," Veronica said, "they’re a race of underground humans. Though most of them don’t live underground anymore. The disappearance of the gods hit their civilization hard, and the other denizens of the Dungeon have largely driven them out to the surface. Ikosian settlers sort of helped the process along by kicking them while they were down and burning down a couple of their more prominent settlements."

"Oh," Kirielle said. "But that doesn’t explain why people don’t like them. Sounds like they should be angry at us more than we should be at them. And Kael doesn’t look like he hates us."

"Kael is probably totally ignorant of his ancestral culture. I understand a lot of morlocks are. And the reason people don’t like them is that the old morlocks had some pretty barbaric customs. They liked sacrificing people to their gods and seemed to have been cannibals," said Veronica.

"Cannibals!?" Kirielle squealed. "They ate people!? Why!?"

"Hard to say," Veronica shrugged. "Ikosian settlers were more interested in condemning them for their practices than understanding why they did what they did."

"Well, yeah, they ate people," Kirielle said. "That’s evil and disgusting. Don’t tell me they’re still doing that?"

"Don’t be ridiculous," Veronica scoffed softly. "The authorities would never let them get away with something like that."

"Oh," said Kirielle. "That’s good. Is that why people don’t like them? They’re afraid the morlocks are going to eat them?"

"It contributes," Veronica sighed. "I lost count of the number of rumors I’ve heard about morlocks supposedly kidnapping children off the street to eat them or whatnot. But there’s more to it. The morlocks had their own brand of magic, which is currently banned just about everywhere, but a lot of morlocks still practice it. The guild calls it blood magic."

"Sounds sinister," Kirielle remarked.

"It does, doesn’t it?" Veronica said. "There is no official information about what blood magic actually is, but most people think it has something to do with sacrifice. The story is that morlocks could use a ritual killing of a person or animal to power their spells. Modern morlocks can’t exactly kill a bunch of people at whim, but supposedly they still engage in animal sacrifice, both for magical and religious reasons."

Kirielle snuggled in closer to her, shuddering.

"I’m glad Kael and Kana aren’t like that," she said.

"Me too, Kiri," said Veronica, patting her gently on the head. "Me too."

Chapter 16: Chapter 16: We Need To Talk

Chapter Text

Tearing out a piece of paper from one of her notebooks, Veronica wrote down a short message for Imaya, explaining that she had another of her divination lessons with Haslush and would thus be late today. She still didn’t see what the big deal about being late was, but she really didn’t want to argue about it.

Of course, writing the message was one thing and getting it to Imaya was another – she was at the Academy currently, and it was a long way from there to Imaya’s place. She was pretty sure she had a solution, though. She had found plenty of spells for long-range communication, and although not many were within her ability to cast or suitable for her purposes, one of the spell combinations seemed promising. Basically, she was going to make a paper airplane and animate it to fly under its own power. A simple locator spell should guide it towards Imaya. The method worked when she tested it with Kirielle, but that was over considerably smaller distances.

Undeterred by the somewhat experimental nature of her actions, she folded the piece of paper into a paper plane and cast her spells on it before flinging it out of the nearest window. It sailed away out of sight soon enough, tracking its target.

Well… classes were over, and the message sent. Time to find Haslush.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, Veronica discovered Haslush had arranged their second meeting in another tavern. Of course. Undeterred, Veronica walked into the place and tried to ignore the stares of the other patrons as she scanned for Haslush among them.

Haslush wasn’t there. Did Veronica find the right place, or had Haslush simply decided not to show up? She did have a bit of trouble finding the place, since Haslush had given very vague directions to it, but Veronica was sure this was it. She was just about to leave the tavern to see if she had missed something when she realized it.
Something was wrong. Veronica felt an almost unnatural desire to leave this place. If she hadn’t spent the dozen or so restarts suffering through Kyron’s resistance training she probably wouldn’t have noticed it, but there was a compulsion effect targeting her. She pulled out her divination compass and murmured a quick locator spell, seeking out Haslush. The needle immediately pointed towards an unassuming brown-haired man in factory worker attire sitting in the left corner. Sighing, Veronica gracefully moved over to the man and sat on one of the chairs facing his table.

"Can I help you?" the man asked in a painfully scratchy voice, staring at Veronica with hollow, bloodshot eyes. Very creepy. Very uninviting.

Instead of answering, Veronica muttered a quick dispel. A wave of dispelling force rushed towards the man, disrupting the illusion. The creepy man melted away to show Haslush pouting at her like a little child.

"I must say, I didn’t expect that," Haslush said. "I figured you’d enter and leave the tavern at least three times before you figured it out. I dare say you just broke the betting pool – only two people voted for you getting it right away."

Out of the corner of her eye, Veronica saw two of the bar patrons giving her a thumbs up.

"Can you drop the compulsion spell now?" Veronica sighed softly, her voice laced with gentle firmness. "I don’t think I’ll be able to pay attention to you with this constantly hanging over my head."

"Oh. Right," said Haslush, snapping his fingers. Veronica’s head cleared immediately and the desire to bolt out of the tavern evaporated.

"So what exactly was the point of that?" Veronica asked, her eyes reflecting a mix of curiosity and slight amusem*nt.

"I wanted to see where your observation skills stand," Haslush said, taking a sip from his glass. "Divination is one of the trickier magical disciplines because failure is not obvious. You could perform a divination flawlessly and still get nothing out of it. Experience can help you minimize those issues, but it helps to be naturally perceptive."

"I guess getting it right immediately means I scored really well?" Veronica teased lightly.

"It means you’re off to a good start," Haslush said. "We’re not done yet." And with that, Haslush reached out across the table and caught her softly by the wrist before she could pull her arm away. All sights and sounds around Veronica instantly disappeared, her surroundings replaced by an inky silent void. The only things she could see and hear were her own body and Haslush, who seemed to be sitting on thin air, what with his chair being replaced by the same darkness that consumed everything else.

"Don’t," Haslush warned when Veronica tried to gently pull her hand free of Haslush’s grasp. "It’s a harmless spell, and it will disappear the moment we break skin contact. If it makes you feel any better, I’m suffering the same effects while it lasts."

"What’s the point of this, then?" asked Veronica.

"How many people were present in the tavern when I used this spell on you?" Haslush said.

"What?" Veronica tried to look around her and immediately realized what the darkness was supposed to accomplish. "Oh. You want to see how much I noticed about the state of the tavern."

"How many people?" repeated Haslush.

Veronica wracked her brains for a moment. She did get a pretty good look at the patrons of the tavern when she was scanning them, trying to spot Haslush, but she never actually counted them. And it’s possible someone left the tavern while she was talking to Haslush without her noticing it.

"Twenty… three?" she tried.

"Close. How many trophies are lined up on the wall next to our table?"

Unfortunately, while Veronica had noticed the trophies she didn’t give them more than a single glance. Fifteen more questions from Haslush in that vein, and Veronica was no longer feeling so confident about this. Haslush finally let go of her hand and the rest of the tavern immediately appeared again.

"Oh don’t feel so down," Haslush said. "You’re not half-bad, really. And honestly, I wouldn’t have canceled our lessons just because you did badly in something like this. How are you standing with divination, anyway? Standard second-year graduate or do you have something extra?"

"I know a bunch of library divinations and I have mastered the north-finding shaping exercise," Veronica confessed.

"What, north finding exercise already?" asked Haslush in surprise. Personally, Veronica felt that exercise was very easy. "Well, there goes the homework I intended to give you after today’s session. Anyway, today I’ll teach you how to analyze objects."

He reached into the pockets of his long coat and placed a number of objects on the table in front of them: a sealed envelope, an old pocket watch, a locked box, some kind of giant nut, a spell rod, and a fancy-looking glove.

"Analyzing objects is something I do a lot, so I figure it’s a good thing to start with. Identifying what the object does, finding out who handled it last, what kind of magics and protections are placed on it… you could make an entire career out of it, and some do," Haslush said. "I hear you’re interested in a job at the spell forges so this is bound to be rather useful for you."

"So what do I do?" asked Veronica.

"Now I teach you the spells you’ll need and you practice on these," Haslush said, pointing at the various objects on the table.

It was a very productive session after that, and it got Veronica thinking. Based on the man’s various comments, Haslush was clearly somewhat high in Cyoria’s police hierarchy. Maybe she could do something useful with the information about the invasion without tipping off the organizers? It might be worth dying once or twice to find out.

"I really must thank you, Mister Ikzeteri," Veronica said. "You are a lot better at this than I initially gave you credit for."

"It’s fine," Haslush said. "I actively cultivate a somewhat unflattering façade. It helps people relax around me. So what are you trying to butter me up for, anyway?"

Veronica sighed softly. How should she put this, then?

"Could you put up some privacy wards first?" Veronica asked.

Haslush raised an eyebrow at the request but nodded in agreement soon afterward. He quickly set up some sort of spells over their table and then waited expectantly. She would have to get the man to teach her some of those protective spells in one of the restarts.

"I have heard there is a plot to smuggle war trolls into the city during the summer festival, after bombarding the city with artillery magic during the fireworks launches," Veronica said.

Haslush immediately sat up straighter, so at least it seemed she wasn’t going to get dismissed out of hand. Now she just had to ensure she doesn’t get carted off to the police station.

"And I don’t suppose you’ll tell me where you heard that?" asked Haslush suspiciously.

"Can’t," Veronica confirmed. "It seemed reliable to me, though."

"I see," Haslush sighed. He poured some more alcohol into his glass and took a sip. "I hate the summer festival, you know? Virtually all buildings have their warding schemes loosened while it lasts, the huge amount of visitors makes it hard to spot troublemakers in time, and the mayor and other bigheads want all sorts of stupid things done in preparation for it. It’s a perfect time for criminals and terrorists of all stripes to go wild in the city."

Huh. Veronica didn’t actually know that until now.

"So how are these people going to smuggle in goddamn war trolls of all things, and what are they trying to accomplish?"

"Through the Dungeon," said Veronica. "As for the purpose, I honestly don’t know."

"Anything else you can tell me?" Haslush asked.

"Not really, no."

"Then I have just one more question," Haslush said. "Why are you telling this to me, of all people?"

"There are some very high placed people involved in this, and I’m not sure who I can trust," Veronica said. "You seem like a fairly influential person who is unlikely to be involved. Also, I’m hoping you won’t drag me off to a cell for questioning."

She didn’t actually know whether high-placed people were involved or not, of course, but she felt it was a good bet they were. She failed to see how an invasion of this kind of magnitude could be organized without the cooperation of some very influential person inside city administration.

"I’m tempted," Haslush admitted. "But all you’d really have to do is claim it was all a prank and I’d pretty much have to let you go. The mage guild was founded because mages didn’t trust civilian law enforcement to judge them fairly, and they guard their privileges jealously. They would get you out within days and perform their own investigation. You’d get a slap on the wrist for being foolish and I’d spend the next year being punished by my bosses for falling for a childish trick and getting the mage guild angry at us."

"Um," Veronica fumbled. Haslush sounded more than a little bit bitter. She didn’t know Cyoria’s police force harbored such resentment towards the mage guild.

"It’s fine," Haslush said. "I’m not angry at you. I guess I’ll do some investigating and we’ll talk more about it after our next session. You try finding out more from these mysterious sources of yours."

Veronica left the tavern in a good mood, though it was somewhat dampened by fear of assassins. Hopefully, Haslush would be discreet in his investigation.

When she got to Imaya’s place she was told by Imaya that she got her message, but she was still fairly unhappy with her – apparently the paper plane rammed straight into the back of her head when delivering her message, and that was dangerous. What if it had rammed into her face and poked out her eye? Some people were never happy.

* * *

The house was calm, the only two occupants currently present being Veronica and Kirielle… and thankfully, Kirielle was amusing herself with doodling in her notebook instead of pestering her. That was good, because trying to levitate a snail, like Veronica was currently doing, was not at all easy. Not only was the snail alive and thus inherently resistant to magic, but it was also actively fighting the levitation effect, twisting and bending in the air in an attempt to break free of the unseen force holding it aloft.

She was cheating a little – she was actually levitating the shell, which was largely immobile and much more solid than the actual snail. The real test of skill would be levitating a slug or something, but… well, she was having enough trouble with the damn snail at the moment.

"Poor snail," Kirielle remarked from the sidelines. "Why don’t you let this one go and find another one to torture? It’s going to end up traumatized if you keep this up."

"I’m not torturing it," Veronica protested gently, trying to split her attention between holding the snail in the air and talking with Kirielle. "It’s completely unharmed. I’m not even sure if snail brains are complex enough to be traumatized. The damn thing is as enthusiastic about escaping as it was when I started this."

Kirielle looked as if she was about to argue but then just grunted and melted back into her chair.

"Where is he?" she said after a minute of silence.

"I don’t know, Kiri," sighed Veronica softly. "Be patient. He isn’t even late yet."

"Maybe we should start without him?" she tried.
"No, we should not!" snapped Veronica. The snail wobbled in the air, its eyestalks swinging wildly as it sensed its bonds weakening and redoubled its efforts. "Honestly, Kiri, you can be so callous sometimes. The only reason I’m even doing this is because Kael asked me to. You should be thanking him for letting you participate."

"You’re the one to talk about callousness," Kirielle grumbled. "You’d rather help a stranger you met a week ago than your own little sister. And I am grateful, I just—"

"Then be nice and wait," Veronica interrupted her, softly yet firmly, while gently lowering the snail into her hand. She clearly wasn’t going to get any more work done today. "He’ll be here soon enough. If you want something to do, go release the snail back into the garden."

"What? No way!"

Veronica raised an eyebrow with a playful smile. "Weren’t you just advocating its freedom?"

"Well yeah, but I’m not gonna touch it or anything. It’s slimy and disgusting and eww."

Veronica rolled her eyes with a light, empathetic chuckle and put the snail into a small box by her side. She would release it outside later. A sound of the door opening signaled Kael's arrival.

"I’m here," Kael said. "I’m not late, I hope?"

"How did you know he was coming?" Kirielle asked suspiciously, turning to Veronica.

"Alarm spells," Veronica said dismissively. "And no, Kael, you’re not late. Though Kirielle was impatient as usual. Anyway, you said you need my help to catch up with the 3rd-year curriculum, right? Which part do you need help with?"

"I really don’t know," Kael said. "As I said, my education was somewhat spotty so even though I know a lot of things, there are things that formally trained mages take for granted that I’m not even aware of. Why don’t you give me a brief overview of your first two years and we’ll see where to go from there? Ilsa said she would test me three months from now, so there is plenty of time to work with."

Veronica gave her sister a knowing look, but she was avoiding her eyes. Veronica was sure that Kael knew exactly where he was deficient knowledge-wise, but Kiri had probably asked him to play along for her, being largely ignorant about magic herself. She really didn’t know why her sister was so adamant to learn magic Right Now, as opposed to later, in a proper school environment.

Honestly, as much as she cared for her sister and liked Kael, Veronica probably wouldn’t be taking Kirielle with her to Cyoria too often. She spent most of her time in the house dealing with Kirielle, Imaya, or Kael (and occasionally Kana), leaving little time for her personal study. Relatively speaking, of course—Kirielle already complained that she spent too much time studying and not enough having fun or paying attention to her.

But all things considered, she could take it easy every once in a while. She could set aside a few hours on helping Kael study for his test, even if she would never actually live to take it during the time loop, and if Kirielle wanted to listen in then so what?

She gave them both a brief explanation of the first two years at the academy. Magic-wise, most of the first year was spent teaching students how to consciously and consistently draw on their magical core, primarily by making them activate various magical objects. There was even a first-year class called Operation of Magic Items, which was exactly what it said in the title. They also worked on their memorization by doing increasingly complex strings of gestures and chants shown to them by teachers, practicing for later study of invocations. The rest was theory: introductions to various magical traditions and disciplines, learning how to understand the basics of the Ikosian language, biology, history, geography, law, and mathematics. Not all of it was strictly related to magic, but—wait, who’s that?

"We’ll have to postpone that for the moment," she said, looking at the door. "Someone is—"

Before she could say anything, the door slammed open and Taiven barged into her room in her usual aggressive manner. She scanned the room quickly and immediately stalked toward her when she noticed her.

"…coming here," Veronica finished with a long-suffering sigh.

"Roach!" Taiven exclaimed excitedly. "You’re just the woman I… wait, am I interrupting something?"

"Yes?" Veronica tried.

"Never mind, it will only take a minute." Taiven shoved a newspaper into her face. "Did you see this?"

Veronica sighed and snatched the newspapers out of her hand so she could put them on the table. There, now she could actually see what Taiven was talking about. Let’s see… Academy Student Kills Oganj! Yesterday morning Shirley Noveda shocked the world when she announced in front of gathered reporters that she had slain Oganj, the feared dragon that had terrorized northern Altazia for more than a century. Naturally, such a bold claim requires suitable proof, and the young Noveda heir had certainly delivered when she summoned the dragon’s corpse for inspection. Alliance officials invited in for the occasion have confirmed the body almost certainly belongs to the infamous Terror of the North, although further examination is necessary before they are willing to present Shirley with the promised bounty for killing the beast… Veronica read the article in stony silence. She was dimly aware of Kirielle and Kael staring over her shoulder so they could see what had captivated her attention like that, but she didn’t let that distract her.

Was this the reason for all those short restarts? Because Shirley wanted to kill a dragon? Veronica wasn’t sure what to think about that. On one hand, the mage dragon was a menace, and killing him was an impressive feat. On the other hand, it seemed like a waste of time and effort—what did Shirley really gain from this, other than combat experience? Dragon magics were of no use to humans, and Shirley was already so rich that she wouldn’t gain much from Oganj’s hoard.

Whatever game Shirley was playing, Veronica couldn’t figure it out. Or did the other time traveler just do whatever popped into her head at any particular moment?

"Hey, Roach, you went to class with this gal, right?" Taiven prodded after a while.

"Yeah," Veronica confirmed. "She was supposed to be in my class this year too, but failed to show up when the classes started."

"She ran away from home," Taiven said. "There was a recent scandal about that a week ago. They asked her about it in the article but she kind of dodged the question there."

Veronica nodded. Shirley simply told the reporters she had a great number of disagreements with her former guardian and refused to elaborate. There was an interesting story in there, Veronica was sure, but if the newspapers hadn’t managed to dig something up on the whole thing then she definitely wasn’t going to accomplish much by poking her nose where it didn’t belong.

Shirley also told the newspapers she intends to go back to school for a few months when she was prompted for her immediate plans. Great. She would have to lay low during the next few restarts until Shirley got tired of the academy again.

"Isn’t Oganj the dragon that annihilated an army sent to kill him?" Kirielle asked. "Or was that mother just trying to scare me?"

"A small army, and Oganj lured it into a trap," Kael said. "The general seemed to think Oganj would wait in his lair while the army approached. He instead decided to do something about it before it reached him. He carved exploding runes into the walls of a canyon and lured the army inside. The only reason anyone survived is that some of the mages teleported out before the whole thing collapsed on top of them."

"And I heard he killed two of the Immortal Eleven, too," Taiven said. "So how the heck did this Shirley gal kill the thing?" Taiven said. "Is she some kind of legend or what? Why didn’t you tell me you had that kind of gal in your class?"

Veronica sighed. What the heck was she supposed to tell her?

"Let me put it like this," she said carefully. "During the first two years, Shirley had trouble with just about everything. She was such a poor mage that people weren’t sure if she would pass her certification, and you know how easy that thing is."

"That… doesn’t make sense," Taiven said. "Even if the whole killing Oganj thing is a trick of some sort, she still summoned a corpse of a fully grown dragon. Even I can’t summon something that big yet."

"I guess everything changed during the school break," Veronica shrugged. "Somehow she went from a borderline failure to amazing genius between year 2 and three."

"That’s totally ridiculous," Taiven huffed. "How would that even work?"

"Time travel?" suggested Veronica shamelessly.

"Like I said, ridiculous," Taiven countered immediately. "Are you sure she wasn’t faking incompetence?"

"I’m not sure of anything, Taiven," Veronica said. And she really wasn’t—even after a whole year of being trapped inside the time loop she still felt the entire situation was all kinds of crazy. "And the few things I do know are so insane you wouldn’t believe a word of it."

"Oh, now I just have to hear them," said Taiven, crossing her arms in front of her chest defiantly. "Go on, just try me."

"Tell, tell!" agreed Kirielle. Kael didn’t say anything, but Veronica could tell he was curious as well.

Hm. She could tell them about the time loop, but even if they believed her, what would that accomplish? They were no more qualified to solve this mystery than she was, and if they went around telling that story to people they could blow her cover to Shirley or possible third parties. Then again, she already told Haslush about the invasion, so she was already playing with fire in this restart…

Oh to hell with it, as if they’d ever believe her anyway.

"If I told you that Shirley and I are time travelers perpetually reliving this first month of school, and that a giant army of monsters and hostile mages invades the city during the summer festival, what would you say?"

Taiven raised her eyebrow at her.

"Well, go on," Veronica prompted.

"You’re right," Taiven sighed. "I don’t believe a word of it. So you’re saying the things you know are that insane?"

"At the very least," Veronica confirmed.

"Huh," Taiven said speculatively. "Sounds interesting, but you’ll have to tell me those stories some other time. I’ve kept you long enough, I think. See you around, Roach!"

Veronica watched as Taiven left before turning back to Kael and Kirielle. "So. Shall we continue where we left off?"

They both remained silent, staring at her.

"Um," she said. "Why are you staring at me like that?"

"Is it true?" Kirielle asked fearfully. "Are you really a time traveler?"

Veronica opened her mouth and closed it again. What?

"Your friend may be too oblivious to recognize an answer couched as a hypothetical, but we’re not," Kael elaborated. "You really do believe that, don’t you? That you’re a time traveler?"

"I… yes. If it’s a delusion, it’s a very convincing one," Veronica said carefully. "The magics I learn in each iteration of this month transfer over into the next one. Insanity doesn’t give the victim spells and shaping skills."

"I don’t understand," Kirielle complained.

"You and me both, Kiri," Veronica sighed. "You and me both."

"Perhaps you should explain from the start?" Kael suggested patiently. "Tell us what you do understand."

"I lived through this month before," Veronica said after taking a moment to collect her thoughts. "The first time, before I knew about the time loop, I did not bring Kirielle with me to Cyoria."

"What!?" protested Kirielle. "Veronica, you jerk!"
"I lived in one of the academy-provided apartments and I went to classes like normal," said Veronica, her voice gentle yet firm, ignoring her. She glanced at Kael. "You did too, but I didn’t know you then. However, we had an extra classmate."

"Shirley?" Kael guessed.

"Yes," Veronica confirmed with a slight nod, her long ponytail cascading over her shoulder. "Unlike the previous two years I shared a class with her, this time she was amazing. She solved every test perfectly, had mastered hundreds of spells, and was impressive enough at alchemy to catch your attention, of all people."

Kael raised an eyebrow at her, taking in her intensely serious demeanor.

"Yes," Veronica assured with a soft, knowing smile. "It was like she was completely transformed during the summer break. At the time I didn’t care very much – I was curious as to how she accomplished it, but it wasn’t my place to pry. And then the Summer Festival came, and everything went to chaos. Artillery spells descended from the sky on the city, and an army of monsters followed in their wake. As I was running through the burning city, I witnessed Shirley fighting the invaders. She was casting high-level spells as if they were mere child's play, wielding skills no third-year student could possibly possess. She fared well at first, but then a lich appeared and overpowered her."

She paused to collect her thoughts, glancing away with a deep sigh, only to be interrupted by Kirielle's eager curiosity.

"And then what?" Kirielle asked. "What happened next?"

"What else?" Veronica responded, her voice laced with sardonic amusem*nt. "We died. The lich cast some kind of weird spell at us – a necromantic spell, I am told – and we were instantly killed."

"So how did you go back in time then?" Kirielle asked, suspicion etching her voice.

"I have no idea, really," Veronica admitted. "All I know is that I was suddenly back in my bed in Cyoria, with you wishing me a good morning in your uniquely charming way. At first, I thought it was something the lich did, until I realized this was a recurring event. Each time I die, or at the end of the Summer Festival if I don’t, I find myself back in that same morning in Cirin before I take a train to Cyoria."

They stared at her, processing the incredibility of her tale. Veronica braced herself for laughter and skepticism, but Kirielle spoke up first.

"So you are a time traveler, but you can only go one month into the past and only to a specific day," said Kirielle thoughtfully. Veronica nodded, slightly surprised by how quickly she understood.

"And you have no control over it, except by deliberately killing yourself," Kirielle concluded.

"Yes," Veronica confirmed.

"You are the lamest time traveler ever," Kirielle declared, her candid opinion breaking the tension with surprising ease.

* * *

It had been three days since Veronica had confided in Kirielle and Kael about the time loop, and she was somewhat disappointed by their responses. Both seemed to believe her, but neither appeared drastically affected. They continued to conduct themselves as usual, still probing her for answers when they caught her alone. She knew Kael was researching the matter, yet they weren't giving her strange looks when they thought she wasn’t watching.

"I’ve only been in the time loop for just over a year," Veronica explained to Kirielle. "I’m not this all-knowing being you think I am, and I can’t answer all your questions."

"I can’t believe you’ve continued going to school under these conditions," Kirielle grumbled. "I’d have given up after the second time."

"You’d have ended up mind-wiped or under Shirley’s thumb in no time," Veronica retorted, a slight tease in her voice. "There’s a reason I’m taking a cautious approach."

A soft knock on the door ended their back-and-forth. Veronica’s nerves concerning visitors had been heightened ever since confiding in Haslush about the invasion, and sharing the information with Kael and Kirielle only compounded that anxiety. Despite instructing them to keep the festival invasion to themselves, she couldn’t shake off the fear of their discretion lapsing. Especially not Kirielle’s. She tensed, expecting an unexpected intrusion, but was relieved by the soft knock, characteristic of Kael.

"Come in," Veronica called gently.

Rather than entering, Kael lingered at the doorway.

"We need to talk," Kael said, his voice carrying a nervous edge. "Can you come to my room for a moment?"

"Is it about time travel?" Kirielle inquired excitedly.

Kael sighed lightly, "Kirielle, I know you might not like this, but could you stay put in your room while I discuss something with your sister? It's related to time travel, but it's rather private."

For a moment, Kirielle seemed on the brink of protesting, but then she regarded her sister with a speculative look before nodding in agreement. As she returned to her room, grumbling lightly, Veronica realized she was a bit envious of Kael's ability to manage Kirielle. Her sister never listened so obediently to her attempts at authority.

Having shrugged off her thoughts, Veronica followed Kael into his room, where he promptly extracted a chest from under his bed and procured a mysterious black book, devoid of any title.

"I’ve been delving into your predicament these past few days," Kael began, hesitantly. "I may have found something."

"You did?" Veronica asked, genuine excitement tingling in her voice.

Kael opened the book and shuffled through its pages momentarily before directing her attention to a particular section.

"Based on the chant you recollect from the lich, and all you’ve shared with me, this seems to be the most plausible spell he might have used," Kael explained, pointing.

"Soul Meld," Veronica read aloud, her voice barely above a whisper. "Requires at least two targets. Causes target souls to merge and blend into one. Typically used as part of more elaborate rituals, which extensively modify the outcomes. If executed alone, the entity often becomes insane or impaired due to the merger’s strain. Often employed in… establishing familiar bonds and soul bonds generally…"

That certainly sounded plausible. But where on earth had Kael uncovered this? Frowning slightly, Veronica examined the rest of the book. It was filled with soul magic spells, much of it inscribed in several unfamiliar scripts that she couldn’t comprehend. This wasn’t something that would be available at the Academy library, especially not with just a student clearance.

Which indicated this was likely Kael’s personal book.

"Kael, are you a necromancer?" Veronica asked cautiously, her tone soft yet probing.

"A complex enquiry," Kael confessed after a slight hesitation. "I do not enslave the dead or curse individuals. There is more to soul magic than malevolent deeds."

Well, this was unexpected – she had entrusted her secret to one of the few people who could indeed compound her troubles. And she had just been reprimanding Kirielle about recklessness mere minutes ago. Perhaps she truly was a colossal fool at times.

Nonetheless, what was done was done, and Kael didn’t seem hostile at present. If anything, he appeared more apprehensive of her.

"I won’t report you, if that's your concern," Veronica assured. Part of her fear stemmed from the potential retaliation if she did. A necromancer, of all things... "You honored my privacy when I confided in you, so it would be hypocritical to betray yours without cause. Still, necromancy? Err, I mean, soul magic?"

Kael offered a weak smile. "It’s a fascinating field, albeit unfairly stigmatized. My mentor was intrigued by it, and I opted to continue the tradition."

Tradition, indeed. Veronica considered probing further but decided against it. Mistake or not, she might glean useful information from this connection. It wasn’t every day you encountered a seemingly decent soul magic practitioner willing to provide answers.

"So, if the lich executed a soul meld on me, why am I still… well, myself?" Veronica inquired. "From what I understand, a spell like this should have completely fused my soul with Shirley’s. We’d cease to exist as distinct individuals."

"Well, I must confess, I am more a student of alchemy and medicine, with only a peripheral interest in soul magic," Kael began. "That said, it’s conceivable the spell was interrupted before reaching full effect. Quite possible Shirley committed suicide upon realizing her soul was being targeted."

"It would have been a prudent move on her part," Veronica agreed softly. "Although she didn’t give me the impression she was aware of the peril when I spoke with her. Perhaps it was the amnesia clouding her judgment."

"Or she might carry a contingency spell triggered to end her life if it detects unsanctioned tampering with her soul. You mentioned she may not be the time loop’s architect. Whoever administered the magic was undoubtedly mindful of such perils, as the time loop is clearly crafted by a skilled soul mage."

"Indeed. So since the spell functioned only briefly, we escaped the most dire effects," Veronica speculated. "And now I am tethered by some kind of soul bond that ensnares me into this loop. Possibly. Surely some soul melding occurred, in any measure. Could you discern what the spell precisely did?"

"Perhaps," Kael replied slowly. "Though this entails casting spells. Specifically, soul magic spells. Are you completely comfortable with entrusting an ominous necromancer with this?"

"Yes," Veronica confirmed, rolling her eyes subtly at his theatrics. Though it might not be the wisest course, she craved some clarity and sincerely trusted Kael’s honesty. She prided herself on her discerning judgment. "While I remain wary of soul magic, it doesn’t mean I harbor animosity towards you. Cast whatever spells you need."

After 15 minutes of quiet spellcasting – which had no visible impact on her, nor did it elicit any discomfort – Kael had to concede he didn’t uncover much. The sole insight he could offer was that she didn’t possess a classic soul bond with Shirley; if connected to the time traveler, it was through something more exotic and subtle.

"I’m sorry," Kael said, his tone tinted with disappointment. "I assumed soul magic as grand as this would be glaringly obvious, but evidently, I was wrong. Perhaps if I tried it on Shirley…?"

"There's no feasible way to examine her without sharing the truth explicitly," Veronica said. "I’m not sure I’m prepared to disclose that just yet."

"Naturally," Kael acknowledged with a nod. "Though I’m not quite certain what alternative measures I can pursue. I’d need far more proficiency in soul magic to assist you with this, and if your timing is correct, I simply lack the opportunity to achieve that expertise. Even from the onset of the time loop – assuming you could persuade me initially – one month scarcely suffices to make any progress in a sophisticated field like soul magic."
"Uh," fumbled Veronica after a few seconds of silence. "Maybe you could teach me soul magic?"

"You would be willing to do that?" Kael asked in mild amusem*nt.

"You said there is more to soul magic than cursing people and enslaving the dead," Veronica said, with a hint of determination behind her words. "And I really do need answers that only soul magic can provide."

Also, if she learned soul magic personally she would no longer have to trust strangers to meddle with her soul. If someone had to cast soul magic, she’d rather it was her.

"Though I’m flattered you are willing to set aside your prejudices, the truth is you would never be good enough for what you want to do with it," Kael said. "Although most soul magic can be performed by normal mages like you, the really sophisticated spells require a certain amount of soul perception – a skill that can only be gained by drinking a special potion made from a properly harvested dirge moth chrysalis."

"And is the potion rare?" Veronica inquired, curiosity piqued.

"Dirge moths spend most of their lives in the ground," Kael explained. "For 23 years they live their lives as larvae before emerging from the soil en masse as swarms of poisonous dirge moths. The moths live for exactly one day before laying their eggs and dying. In case you’re curious, the last emergence of the moth swarms was less than a decade ago."

"There will be no dirge moth chrysalises for at least another decade," realized Veronica, her tone carrying a note of disappointment.

Kael nodded. "And the potion requires a fresh chrysalis – they cannot be preserved."

"And there is no other way to gain soul perception?" Veronica asked, a hint of hope in her voice.

"Maybe there is, but I only know of this one," Kael said. "There are some rituals involving human sacrifice that claim to provide the same benefit to the mage, but I have never tried them and I suspect you would not want to either."

"Definitely not," Veronica agreed, her expression one of distaste.

After a few more minutes of discussion, Veronica left Kael’s room, her mind swirling with thoughts.

She wasn’t quite willing to give up on the idea of learning soul magic, but she had more than enough on her plate right now so she wouldn’t push it. There were plenty of other restarts in which to try that later.

The moment she had entered her room and closed the door behind her, she felt a very familiar touch on her mind. It was not unlike the time she had ventured with Taiven into the sewers, yet a lot subtler and less alien, like cobwebs brushing against the edges of her thoughts.

She immediately panicked, her eyes swinging from one corner of the room to another in search of her assailant while she tried to mentally block the presence from her mind. Despite her practice with Kyron, she found herself unable to do so.

[So you are Open?] a clear, confident voice resonated through her mind. Unlike the last time, there was no pain or confusing images involved… but that was somehow even more terrifying. In her last encounter, her opponent was obviously unused to dealing with humans. This one knew exactly what it was doing. [Interesting. You have met one of us before? This will be easier than I thought then.]

There! Did the shadows in that corner move? She was about to cast a magic missile at the spot when her whole body suddenly froze and refused to listen to her.

A dark shadow suddenly jumped from the patch of darkness in the corner of Veronica's room and landed on her bed – right in front of her. It was a spider, like she suspected, but it looked nothing like what she expected. The spider was relatively small for a giant spider breed, no bigger than Veronica’s chest, and a lot more compact than the spindly, long-legged varieties that people usually associated with spiders. Wracking her brain, Veronica identified it as a type of jumping spider.

As the creature turned around to face her, Veronica suddenly found herself staring at a pair of giant, solid black eyes that gave the spider a surprisingly human-like face. There was another pair of smaller eyes on its forehead, for the lack of a better word, but the two big ones kept drawing Veronica’s attention. The other thing she noticed, of course, was a pair of giant fangs that looked like they could pierce her skull with ease.

[Greetings, Veronica Kazinski,] the spider spoke telepathically. [I have been wanting to meet you for a while now. You and I need to have a long, looong talk…]

Chapter 17: Chapter 17: Sympathy for the Spider

Chapter Text

For a moment, silence reigned (both literal and mental), as Veronica stared into the unblinking eyes of her adversary. Veronica wasn’t one of those people who had a phobia of spiders, but it was hard not to be intimidated by a creature that could read your thoughts and have you completely at its mercy due to induced paralysis. She couldn’t even try to physically overpower the effect, since the paralysis was a purely mental one – she was quite literally locked out of controlling her own body.

The situation wasn’t completely hopeless. As a mage, Veronica was resistant to mind reading almost by default. The ability to clear away stray thoughts and emotions, and otherwise discipline their mind, was a must for any aspiring mage. That said, controlling your thoughts for long periods of time was tiresome. It was only a matter of time until a stray thought escaped her and she slipped… an important secret to the blasted spider. And resistance to mind reading would do her no good if the creature grew frustrated with her resistance and decided to take a metaphorical sledgehammer to her mind.

In the end, the spider decided to speak first. Or rather, communicate telepathically to her first, as that appeared to be its only method of talking to her. It made sense, really – the spider had no recognizable mouth from which to speak out of.

[You’re untrained,] the spider opinionated. [It’s a pity. I would have loved to trade techniques with a human psychic. I suppose it’s to be expected, though, considering the unhealthy attitude towards mind magic your species has.]

…What?

[Why the confusion? You cannot possibly be ignorant of the Gift,] the spider said, torn between bafflement and amusem*nt at the thought. [See, right there! You just sensed my emotions. What do you think that is, if not empathy?]

Veronica’s brain froze for a moment. Her, an empath? That… that was ridiculous! She was neither social nor pleasant enough to be empathic!

[What a strange chain of thought,] the spider mused. [Aranea like me are all Open, yet there are plenty of loners and unpleasant individuals among us. I’m sad to say that some even use their empathy to purposely promote discord within the Web.]

Veronica’s mind was momentarily aflame with possibilities before she forcibly reined herself in and shoved those trains of thought into the back of her mind. Focus! This was a horrible time for getting distracted. She had a far more serious issue to think about.

[You must be mistaken,] Veronica thought back, knowing that the spider would pick up on her thought. [It’s far more likely you accidentally attached some of your emotions to the telepathic message you sent me.]

[There is no need to be insulting,] the spider immediately sent back. [I am an aranea matriarch. If I had attached something other than speech to our communication, it wouldn’t have been by accident. But never mind – if you want to deny the obvious truth of your empathic abilities, I’ll play along for now. What I want to know is what your quarrel is with my Web. As far as I know we’ve never done anything to you, so I’m baffled as to why you felt the need to sic the enforcers at us.]

What was she- Oh. The warning she gave Taiven to watch out for telepathic spiders and the subsequent search for the creatures by the enforcers. Right. Of all the things she had been worried about during this past week, having the spiders track her down for setting enforcers at them had never even entered her mind. Funny how these things worked…

[I’m not sure if you’ll believe me, but I never intended to send the enforcers after you,] Veronica sent. [All I did was warn a friend to watch out for you when she went to the sewers. It all seems to have spiraled away from there.]

[Why wouldn’t I believe you? I am literally reading your mind as we speak,] the spider noted. [But that still doesn’t explain how you even knew about us. We tend to be a tad secretive. Or, for that matter, why you felt the need to warn your friend to watch out for us, since we don’t really attack humans without provocation.]

Well crap. How can she possibly explain that without revealing anything sensitive?

[I suppose this is something related to this time loop you’re trapped in, then?] the spider asked innocently.

Veronica would have grit her teeth if she could. Damn it, how!? She pointedly didn’t think about that!

[Your ability to control your train of thought is fairly impressive for an amateur, but it is a form of mental defense that only works if you know your mind is being read. I observed you and your group for quite a while before I executed this ambush. And while you are Open, and thus hard to read covertly, your friend and sister are virtually defenseless against my powers. They didn’t even notice while I was trawling through their memories, much less when I skimmed their surface thoughts.]

Veronica felt like slapping herself for such an obvious oversight. Of course sharing her secrets with the likes of Kirielle would come back to haunt her – a secret is only as secure as its weakest link. She considered the situation for a moment before giving a mental sigh. It was hopeless. The spider had completely outmaneuvered her, and currently had her over the barrel. The creature seemed reasonable enough, but she would have almost preferred that it was murderous – she could recover from death easily enough, but the things a skilled mind mage could do to her would linger with her on subsequent restarts.

[Your insistence on viewing me as an uncompromising threat despite no hostile moves on my part is honestly getting rather tiresome,] the spider sent, and Veronica detected a distinct note of annoyance in her bearing. Veronica idly wondered how the esteemed matriarch would describe her current ambush and her gross violation of her friends' privacy if not as hostile. [I came here to talk, not fight. The enforcers hadn’t even managed to track us down, much less dispatch any of us, so there is no reason for hard feelings on my part. This isn’t a revenge run – it’s an attempt to defuse a situation before it spirals out of control. I know our kind looks frightening to your eyes, but please stop thinking of me as some slavering beast out to eat you or some sad*st intending to torture you into insanity for absolutely no reason. We’re no worse than humans, really.]

[I’m not sure that sets me at ease. Humans can be pretty horrible,] Veronica noted to herself. [But I see your point. So what now? The enforcers will get tired of their search quickly enough and leave you alone, and I have no intention of taking any further action against you and your… Web. Problem solved, then?]

[Well yes,] the spider agreed. [But in the process of confronting you I found something a hundred times more interesting than a human kid with a grudge. You don’t really think I’m going to just ignore the whole time loop business, do you?]

[I was kind of hoping you would, actually,] admitted Veronica, with a touch of sarcasm. [It’s not really your concern-]
[Oh, I beg to differ,] the spider interjected. [I just found out I’m being effectively memory wiped in regular intervals. I am greatly concerned.] Veronica wracked her brain for a response that could dissuade her from getting involved but gave up after a couple of seconds. She was getting an impression of resolve and stubbornness from the spider, and had a feeling all of the arguments she could marshal were doomed to fall on deaf ears. She didn’t know how she could read a giant spider’s body language, but apparently she could. Maybe there was something to her claim of being empathic.

[Look,] Veronica tried, [if we’re going to have a serious conversation about this I would really appreciate if you released me from paralysis. This is very uncomfortable and I’d be a lot friendlier if I weren’t frozen like this.]

[I don’t trust you that much,] the spider told her bluntly. [All you have to do is scream and things could get uncomfortably messy.]

[I’m not going to do that,] Veronica assured. [That would just put my sister and friends in danger. I’m sure you could handle anything anyone in this house could throw at you.]

[Well, I’m not. I’ve lived too long to underestimate mages,] the spider said. [Tell you what, though. Why don’t I simply let you go for now and leave? Later, when you calm down a little, you can descend into the city tunnels and track me down for a nice friendly chat in neutral territory where we both feel a lot safer.]

That… sounded like a great idea, actually. Well, except for the question of why—

[Why would you bother tracking me down when you can just pretend this never happened and ignore my existence entirely?] the spider surmised. [Well for one thing, I can tell you’re interested in what I mean by you being Open, no matter how hard you try to hide it. You will never get a satisfactory answer unless you seek me out. Secondly, there is a reason why I accepted the idea that you’re trapped in a time loop without dismissing you as crazy. I have important clues that could help you solve this puzzle and break out of the loop, but I’m not sharing them until I get something in return. I’m sure we can agree on a fair price. And finally, working with me isn’t just going to be an unnecessary chore like you seem to think. I am a leader of a shadowy group of mind-reading spiders that have their feelers throughout the entire city—surely you can see how a group like that could be useful in making sense of this event?]

Veronica swallowed heavily as she finally realized the seriousness of the situation she was dealing with. Her group was that big and organized? She knew the spider before her was a representative of a larger group since she introduced herself as an aranea matriarch, but she thought it was just a loose pack consisting of a dozen spiders or so at best. Suddenly the pitch-black eyes staring at her seemed a lot more threatening than they were just a moment ago. Gods, what had she gotten herself into?

[I’m glad we were finally able to understand one another, Veronica Kazinski. Rest now, and we will talk when you’re less tense.]

Veronica suddenly felt a smothering blanket of telepathic force press itself gently but firmly against her mind. She tried to resist, but the mental attack seemed to ignore her mental defenses entirely. Despite valiant efforts, Veronica soon blacked out. When she woke up a few minutes later, she was alone in the room and there was no trace of the giant spider anywhere in the house.

* * *

Afterwards, Veronica thought long and hard about the matriarch’s offer and ultimately decided she really didn’t have much choice. She somehow doubted the spider would patiently wait for her if she ignored her for too long, and raising a fuss about the matriarch's actions would attract unwanted attention to her and might cause the matriarch to retaliate out of spite. And since she knew about the time loop, she was bound to pick something that would haunt her beyond the confines of this particular restart. Of course, there was also the fact that some of the things she said during their brief exchange interested her greatly. The potential benefits of hashing out a deal with her were simply too great to ignore.

That said, Veronica had absolutely no intention of rushing to the damn spider at the earliest opportunity—that would just make her seem desperate. Let her wait for a while. It was a good idea to do some preparations before confronting the matriarch, anyway.

First of all, she needed to know more about these aranea she would be meeting with. Her previous searches for information about the spiders left her empty-handed, but now she was armed with an actual name of the species and her search was much more successful. She found plenty of descriptions, though they were of much poorer quality than she had hoped. Apparently aranea were considered semi-mythical due to their rarity and there were many conflicting reports circulating about them. Everyone agreed they were sentient and magical in nature, but from there the details diverged wildly. Depending on the author, all sorts of powers were attributed to them, from the ability to assume human form to the ability to manipulate shadows and other, crazier abilities. Veronica could see three possible explanations for this. One, the aranea had a dizzying number of subspecies, all with a wildly different appearance and abilities. Two, the authors were making stuff up. And three, the aranea were mages in the human sense, armed with a flexible spellcasting system capable of producing a wide variety of effects. Knowing her luck, it was definitely number three—the most worrying of possibilities. A group of one-trick ponies limited to mind magic was a dangerous foe, but one that could be countered with enough preparation. A group of mages utilizing a completely novel spellcasting system whose limitations she was unfamiliar with? That was practically the definition of unpredictability.

Still, the aranea she had met never gave any indication of knowing any magic beyond the mind-based one, so maybe this group specialized in the field or something. Having a way to deal with their mind-affecting abilities was certainly a must before going off to confront them. One of the books also suggested aranea were vulnerable to light-based attacks, being nocturnal in nature and lacking eyelids. It sounded plausible to Veronica, and she was pretty sure her spell formula skills were sufficient to cobble together some flash grenades. A few more general defensive measures and she should be set. Well, as set as a mage of her own caliber and resources could possibly be—it wasn’t much, but it would hopefully buy her enough time to flee if things turned sour.

The other thing she was trying to puzzle out was the matriarch’s claim that she was an empath. The idea seemed so wrong to her. The stories she’d heard about empaths painted an image of a compassionate, sociable person possessing great wisdom, respect for tradition, and lots of friends. Veronica didn’t really fit this mold. Did that prove anything, though? Empaths were so rare—among humans, at any rate—that any sort of fact about them was suspect. As strange as it may sound, she rated the opinion of a giant telepathic spider higher than those of human authors. If she really was an empath, however, why didn’t she… well, know it? You’d think the ability to sense other people’s emotions would be very obvious. She supposed it was possible that her abilities were too weak and erratic to manifest themselves in an unambiguous fashion. Which raised the question—how to discern the truth, then?

Fortunately, empathy wasn’t a particularly sensitive topic so nothing stopped her from asking Ilsa or other teachers for help and information. Before she did that, however, she decided to try looking for help closer to home. She had noticed their landlord had an interest in esoteric branches of magic, even though she wasn’t a mage herself. She had enough books in her house to stock a small library. It wouldn’t hurt to ask, she supposed, and Imaya was a lot more approachable than anyone else she could reach.

She approached her while she was washing the dishes one evening.

"Miss Kuroshka, could you spare a minute?" she asked. "I’d like to talk to you about something."

"I told you to call me Imaya," she said, halting her task long enough to give Veronica a mild glare. "And of course I can talk to you, but I have to finish this first. Pull up a chair and wait till I’m done."

Instead of doing that, however, Veronica moved to help her with her task. She’d be done quicker with Veronica helping out, and it was a cheap way to score some points with her before asking for help. Imaya seemed momentarily surprised by her gesture, but recovered her composure quickly and continued on as if her action was totally expected.

Once they were done, Imaya sat down at the kitchen table and motioned for Veronica to join her.

"So…" she began. "What exactly is weighing so heavily on the mind of my grumpiest tenant that she would come to me for counsel? The way you’ve been avoiding me this whole time, I almost thought you hated me."

"I don’t hate you, Miss K… uh, Imaya," finished Veronica, correcting herself after seeing her cross look. "I’ve just been pretty busy, that's all. Kirielle kind of monopolizes all of my free time here."

"She is quite a handful, isn't she?" Imaya said speculatively. "Still, I can’t see what a busy girl like you would want from me. You aren’t trying to seduce me, are you?"

"What!? No!" sputtered Veronica. She was at least twice Veronica’s age, for heaven’s sake! "I am not—"

She stopped herself when she saw the barely restrained mirth emanating from Imaya.

"Very funny, Miss Kuroshka," she deadpanned, deliberately not calling her Imaya to spite her. "Very, very funny…"

"It was from my perspective," Imaya said, laughter dancing in her voice. "But I can see you don’t take jokes at your expense too well, so let’s just move onto the reason you sought me out."

"Well…" started Veronica, pointedly ignoring her remark about being too sensitive about jokes. "It’s actually magic related. I noticed you have a lot of books about esoteric magic in your home."

"It’s a hobby of mine," Imaya said. "I always did have an interest in magic, especially the rare kind. I even went to a mage academy as a teenager, much like you did. That’s how I met Ilsa, actually—we were classmates back then. But… that was a long time ago."

Veronica nodded, accepting her last statement for what it was—a request not to pursue that topic further. She was fine with that.

"So I assume you read all these books then?" she asked.

"Each and every one of them," she confirmed.

"Did any of them perhaps relate to empathy?" Veronica asked. "Specifically, how can you tell if you’re an empath yourself?"

"I did read something about that topic, though I don’t have the book in question here with me." She gave Veronica a curious look. "Why? Fancy yourself an empath?"

"Well… maybe," admitted Veronica. "I mean, it doesn’t sound very likely to me, but I met an actual empath recently, and she seemed sure I was one too. So I don’t feel comfortable with just dismissing the possibility."

"Hmm," Imaya hummed. "And why do you think it’s so unlikely if you’ve been told that you’re one by another empath?"
"Shouldn’t empathy be pretty obvious to the one who has it?" Veronica asked, her voice carrying a soft, inquisitive tone. "Well, it’s not obvious to me. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of anything that would indicate I am one."

"Nothing?" Imaya asked curiously. "I find that hard to believe – the indicators of being an empath are so common and mundane that false positives tend to be a major problem. In fact, a lot of experts insist that there is nothing supernatural about empaths – that some people are simply a lot better at reading people’s body language and environmental cues than most of humanity. It’s far more likely that you’re just ignoring the signs. For instance, can you honestly say that you’ve never had an instinctive feel about a person you just met?"

"Well no, I can’t say that," Veronica admitted. She twirled a strand of hair absentmindedly as she spoke. "I get feelings like that all the time. That isn’t anything unusual, though."

"It might be," Imaya said thoughtfully. "Just how often do you get such hunches, and how reliable are they overall?"

Veronica hesitated, brushing her hand over her simple skirt. "I… I get those feelings pretty much every time I talk to someone. They tend to be pretty accurate from what I can tell. Why? Is that so unusual?"

Imaya gave her a speculative look. "A bit, yes. Every time you talk to someone, you say? How about random strangers minding their own business? Do you get these… feelings about them too?"

"Uh, sometimes?" admitted Veronica, shifting nervously in her seat. Her eyes settled thoughtfully on her surroundings. "Some people have really intense personalities, you know? You can pick them out of a crowd from the other side of the room without even trying."

"Interesting. How about groups of people? Can you make a spot judgment about the mood of a group without speaking to anyone?"

Veronica shook her head. "Well, no," she said with a quiet sigh. "Frankly, the pressure crowds out all other sensations when I’m in a large enough group. If I’m subjected to it long enough, I lose even the ability to make judgments about individuals, much less the group as a whole."

"The pressure?" Imaya asked, giving her a baffled look.

"It’s a… ah, a personal problem," fumbled Veronica, glancing away. "Every time I enter a big enough crowd, I feel this weird mental pressure that gives me a headache if I stay inside long enough."

Veronica shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She hated talking about the pressure, worried others might assume she was either delusional or lying. Her family, for instance, had never believed her when she tried to explain the phenomenon as a child, dismissing her claims as excuses to avoid attending social events. Eventually, they grew tired of her claims and threatened to send her to a madhouse if she didn’t admit she was lying, so she stopped bringing it up.

"That’s… an interesting problem," Imaya said carefully, almost gently. "Tell me, is the pressure constant, or does it vary according to some criteria?"

"It varies," said Veronica, furrowing her brow in contemplation. "The more people there are in a crowd and the more densely they’re packed, the stronger it is. It’s also stronger if the crowd is…"

She trailed off as a realization dawned on her. Gods, how had she missed it?

"Yes?" Imaya prodded. "If the crowd is what?"

"…emotionally charged for some reason," finished Veronica, her voice barely above a whisper.

A short silence descended on the scene, before Veronica rose from her seat, pacing the room with graceful strides, her thoughts turbulent.

"Your empathic abilities are so strong that you literally feel the emotions of a crowd as tangible mental pressure bearing down on you," Imaya noted after watching her for a while, "and you think there is nothing to indicate that you’re an empath?"

"It’s not that easy! How was I supposed to know what the pressure was?" Veronica protested, gently smoothing her skirt. "It’s just… there. It has always been there, a constant annoyance that was with me ever since I was a child. Do you know the sheer amount of trouble this thing has caused me? Isn’t empathy supposed to be a boon? Most of the time I did my best to ignore it, hoping it would go away in time."

"Well, yes," Imaya agreed with a thoughtful nod. "Empathy is usually depicted as a great gift to the person who has it. But there are plenty of reports of empaths whose powers are so strong or volatile that they are crippled by them instead. Considering some of the horror stories I’ve read about, your case is relatively mild. It could have been worse."

It could have been worse—that could easily serve as a summary of her entire life so far. Oh well—there had to be a way to rein in her errant empathic abilities somehow, and she had plenty of time to figure it out. The aranea probably knew how, though she suspected she wouldn’t like what they would ask in return.

"Veronica?" Imaya asked after a few moments of silence, her voice tinged with curiosity. "I can see this is a somewhat sensitive topic for you, but can I ask you a question? Well, two questions really."

"Sure," agreed Veronica. Imaya had helped her, even if not in the way she had imagined. The least she could do was satisfy her curiosity.

"I get the feeling that you didn’t like the idea of being an empath, even before you knew what you do now," she said. "Why is that? Maybe I am projecting somewhat, but I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t want to possess an inborn magical ability. I hope you don’t think you’re a freak just because—"

"No, no, it’s nothing like that," Veronica quickly assured, her voice gentle but firm. "I know a lot of civilian-born students react badly to anything that may make them… abnormal… but I’m not like that. No, the real reason I didn’t like the idea of being an empath is… far more stupid than that. Actually, I’m kind of embarrassed to even admit it, so can we just move on?"

"No," Imaya said, a playful smirk on her face. "This I definitely got to hear."

Veronica rolled her eyes, the hint of a smile tugging at her lips. Served her right for admitting it was embarrassing. Oh well, it’s not like Imaya would remember this conversation once the loop reset.

"All right, but you can’t tell this to anyone, okay?"

Imaya mimicked sealing her mouth shut, her eyes sparkling with amusem*nt.

"It’s because empathy is usually portrayed as a fully feminine ability," admitted Veronica, her cheeks tinged with a faint blush.

"Ahhh," nodded Imaya understandingly. "Of course..."

"It’s not about being against something traditionally feminine," Veronica hastily added, her voice soft but firm. "But I already receive a lot of comments about my supposed lack of assertiveness, and they’re annoying enough as it is. I really don’t want to see how bad they would get if they had this sort of proof."

Her family was the worst offender in that regard, especially her father, but she preferred to keep that tidbit to herself.

"I won’t tell anyone," Imaya promised. "And I also think those people have no idea what they’re talking about," Imaya said with a mischievous glint in her eyes. "I think you’re a very talented young woman who will someday make someone very happy indeed."

"T-thanks. What was the other question you wanted to ask, again?" said Veronica, trying to steer the conversation to less embarrassing territory. Imaya had her fun; no need to torture her further.

"I assume you will try to develop your ability further?" Imaya asked. Veronica nodded. "In that case, I’d like you to keep me informed about your progress. I find stuff like this incredibly interesting."

Veronica agreed, though it was essentially an empty promise. Imaya would remember none of this after the next restart. Their conversation done, Imaya returned to her household chores, and Veronica went back to her room to plan her visit to the aranea. She really didn’t want to find out what the matriarch would do to her if she didn’t show up soon.

* * *

"Well, this is it," Veronica said out loud, standing in front of the entrance to the sewers. The matriarch hadn’t specified where in the sewers she hoped to meet with her, but Veronica knew where she had encountered the spiders the last time, so she planned to start from there. "The point of no return. I once again offer you the chance to turn back. You don’t have to risk your life with me, Kael."

She gave a pointed look to the morlock following after her, trying to use her newly recognized empathic abilities to gauge his mood. Sadly, the boy’s emotions were too well-controlled at the moment, and her control over her empathy was lacking. Regardless of how Kael truly felt about this trip, he was clearly determined to see it through. Why, Veronica didn’t know. When she told Kael about the aranea matriarch’s ambush and the resulting conversation, she did it because she wanted someone to bounce ideas off of, and Kael seemed like the best choice (he already knew about the time loop and was clearly very intelligent), not because she wanted Kael to join her. Kael, on the other hand, insisted that going alone on such a meeting was foolish and that Veronica needed a partner to cover her. Veronica reluctantly agreed, not entirely comfortable with risking someone else’s life in this venture, no matter how logical it seemed. Kael seemed amused that Veronica cared more about his safety than her own, considering that Kael would be restored to normal once the loop restarted and Veronica might not be, but Veronica’s moral sense had yet to adapt to the implications of the time loop, and she was horribly bothered by the idea of leading Kael to his death in the tunnels and leaving his daughter all alone in the world… even if it was only for a week or so.

"I told you to drop it," Kael sighed, a gentle patience in his tone. "I’m definitely going with you. If nothing else, then so this aranea matriarch and I can have a conversation about ethical uses of mind magic."

Oh right – Kael was still kind of bitter that the spider searched through his memories in her quest to piece together what Veronica’s motives were.

Finally, they descended into the tunnels, Veronica leading the way. She chose her path with careful consideration, occasionally leaving a magical trap behind them in the form of stone cubes covered in spell formula. If they needed to flee, the traps should be able to surprise any pursuers by retracing their steps. Most of them simply erected a forcefield to delay their attackers, but a few had more… aggressive effects. At the very least, it should force the pursuers to slow down and deal with the cubes, buying them enough time to reach the surface.
Kael, meanwhile, was their anti-mentalist support. He had put a mind shield spell on himself and would remain under the spell’s effects constantly. If the meeting turned sour, Kael would immediately cast the spell on Veronica as well. Kael seemed sure the spiders had a method of communicating with humans other than telepathy and suggested they both use the spell from the start, but Veronica knew she had to keep her mind open to make these talks productive. Her instincts, which she now recognized as her uncontrolled empathic abilities, were telling her that aranea placed great significance on mind-to-mind communication. Shutting them out completely would be seen as an insult, even if they happened to have alternative methods of communicating.

As they approached the spot where Veronica had first met the aranea during her romp through the sewers with Taiven and her group, she felt a telepathic contact brush against her mind. Like the first time she had met the sentient spiders, this one was cruder, more forceful than the feather-light touch the matriarch had displayed during her visit to Imaya’s home. A stream of psychedelic images and alien emotions hit her mind like a sledgehammer, causing her to stumble back in shock. Kael immediately shifted into a defensive posture, but Veronica signaled him to stand down. She was pretty sure at this point that the aranea she was in contact with had no hostile intentions. Apparently, the minds of humans and aranea were different enough that telepathic communication was difficult, and this particular one never learned how to do it correctly.

As suddenly as it came, the communication stopped. The presence remained, however, and Veronica soon felt another aranea connect with her, using the first one as a telepathic relay.

[Ah, so you’ve managed to find us in the end,] the distinctive mental voice of the matriarch spoke in her mind. [Good, I was beginning to fear I should have left instructions on how to find us. Stay where you are, please; I will be with you shortly.]

"She’s coming," said Veronica to Kael, who nodded gravely.

They didn’t have to wait long. The matriarch soon skittered into view, flanked by two other aranea guards. The fact that Veronica was able to pick out the matriarch among the three aranea, despite them being fairly identical to her eyes, was probably just another proof of her empathic abilities. These things made her wonder why she had needed a talking spider to point it out to her before figuring it out.

[I originally intended this to be a private talk between just the two of us,] the matriarch spoke to her mind. [But since you saw fit to bring a guard, I decided to do likewise. Oh well, at least you didn’t shut me out of your mind like your friend did, so you’re still better than most humans I converse with.]

"Kael isn’t here just as a guard," Veronica said, speaking out loud for Kael’s benefit. "He is involved in this thing as surely as you are, and I’d like him to participate fully in the discussion. Do you perhaps have a way to communicate vocally for his benefit?"

The matriarch seemed to consider it for a moment before she suddenly started waving four of her front legs in front of her, tracing some complex gesture in the air. Veronica tried to decipher what she was trying to communicate before realizing she wasn’t trying to talk to her. She was casting a spell.

"There," a feminine voice declared from the direction of the matriarch, though her mandibles didn’t move at all. "This is the aranea equivalent of the magic mouth spell that you are no doubt familiar with. It’s just a sonic illusion, but it should be enough."

Huh. So they did have more than just mind magic in their arsenal.

"I thank you for your consideration," Kael said guardedly, obviously threatened by the spiders but trying to stay polite.

"Far from me to refuse such a simple request," the matriarch said guardedly. She was obviously a little suspicious about Kael herself, probably because his mind was protected behind a mind shield spell. The spell made him immune to her abilities, but it also seemed to paint him as a threat to the aranea.

"Please, child," the matriarch scoffed. Veronica heard the words with her flesh and blood ears, but she also felt them broadcasted to her mind – she might be vocalizing her words for Kael’s benefit, but she clearly wasn’t going to give up communicating with Veronica the proper way. "I could get past your silly human mind magic any time I wanted to. No, the reason I’m bothered by his mind ward is that it blocks me off from his mind completely. How am I supposed to trust him if he won’t even let me read his emotions and surface thoughts? It’s rude."

Veronica’s mind boggled at the mindset that considered putting your surface thoughts up for scrutiny as being basic courtesy, but she supposed that’s species differences for you. Kael didn’t appear to be as understanding.

"Rude!?" he demanded, indignant at the accusation. "You think you have a right to just barge into people’s minds as you please, no permission given or asked, and you call me rude!? You spied on my personal memories, damn it, I have every reason to protect myself!"

The matriarch sent him a telepathic equivalent of a sigh, though no sound was vocalized for Kael’s benefit. "So did I," she said calmly. "Your friend was a possible enemy that I needed to know more about, and you were one of the weak points I could target in order to get the needed information. Your mind was completely unprotected, after all."

"So why didn’t you sift through Veronica’s memories, then? Wouldn’t that be quicker and more relevant to your quest?" Kael asked.

"Hey!" Veronica protested.

"I have limited myself to skimming her surface thoughts as a courtesy, because she is Open," the matriarch said. "Among Aranea there is an unofficial custom to ask for permission before delving deeper into the minds of non-enemy psychics, regardless of species."

Kael narrowed his eyes. "And if a person isn’t… ' psychic'?"

"Flickerminds are fair game," the aranea matriarch said dismissively.

"All right, let’s stop trying to piss each other off now and get back to business!" said Veronica with a clap of her hands, hoping to halt the argument before it got out of hand. "We were talking about the time loop and how you can help me with that. Before we get to that, though, I really have to ask – when you say I’m open, are you referring to my empathy?"

Kael gave her a surprised look at that since Veronica never told him anything about being empathic.

"Being Open implies being empathic, but they are not the same thing. Empathy is just one of the powers available to you, and a bit of a low-hanging fruit at that – that’s why you can use it, despite being completely untrained in the psychic arts. Openness often manifests itself as a low, uncontrolled empathy in the beginning, coupled with a gift for divinations and an occasional prophetic dream."

"I… what?" fumbled Veronica, trying to wrap her head around this new information. Just when she had thought she had things a little figured out, something like this happened. What the hell is being open or psychic, then? Was she saying she was a full-blown telepath or something?

"You could be that with enough training, yes," confirmed the matriarch. "I can teach you more about it… provided we come to some kind of mutually acceptable agreement about this time loop business."

"And what exactly do you want from Veronica in that regard?" asked Kael suspiciously.

"Why, my dear Kael, the same thing you want from her as well," the matriarch said with a hint of mockery. "I want in on this time loop."

For a moment Veronica wondered what she was talking about, but then her eyes widened as she understood what she meant.

"You want to keep your memories with each restart? To loop around with me and Shirley?" asked Veronica incredulously.

Kael shifted uncomfortably in his spot, refusing to look at her in the eye, while the aranea matriarch stared straight back at her without a hint of shame on her face.

"I… I guess I can see why you would want that," said Veronica hesitantly. "I mean, I’m not too happy about my situation, but even I can see that I’m benefiting massively from it. But you seem to have gotten the wrong idea – both of you." She glanced at Kael, but the morlock was still avoiding her eyes. He probably thought Veronica would be angry at him for wanting to take advantage of her, but Veronica wasn’t really angry. Just confused. "The thing is, I don’t know how to bring anyone into this loop. I don’t even know how the details of how I got sucked into it, much less how to replicate it. I can’t bring you into it."

"We didn’t get the wrong idea, Veronica," Kael sighed. "We’re not stupid. We know you can’t do it now. We know you won’t be able to do it by the time this time loop ends." He gave the matriarch a weak glare. "Or at least I know. Maybe the great aranea matriarch knows something this poor flickermind doesn’t."

"I agree with the morlock," the matriarch said, refusing to rise to Kael’s provocation. "It is highly implausible that you’d be able to bring us into the time loop as you are now."

"You’ve completely lost me at this point," Veronica complained. "What do you want, then?"

"My idea was to store memory packets in your mind, allowing your soul to ferry them when the time resets itself," the matriarch said nonchalantly. "It’s not quite as good as having your entire soul sent back, but it would be good enough for my purposes."

"And I would agree to that… why?" asked Veronica suspiciously. That sounded like it would require some serious messing with her mind. Far more than she was comfortable with, in any case.

"I’m sure I can find something to tempt you with," the matriarch said, punctuating her message with a mental shrug. "You need information about the loop that I have. You want to learn how to control your empathy. You need my help in countering the invaders. Need I go on?"

Veronica sighed and turned to Kael instead of answering her.

"I wanted to connect you with some people and have you figure out, with their help, how your connection with Shirley works. Then you could apply that knowledge to bring me into the time loop," said Kael. "It would probably take quite a few restarts, and I don’t have anything nearly as tempting as our esteemed matriarch over there, but on the other hand, it is something that will definitely help you learn more about this time loop in the process."

Left unsaid was that those people Kael wanted to connect her with were probably all necromancers and that having them mess around with her soul was as dangerous as letting the aranea screw around with her mind, and possibly more so.

"I see," sighed Veronica. "Well, I’ll set aside Kael’s proposal for now, since that’s not what we came here to discuss."

"That’s fine with me," Kael said quickly. "I still have a lot to think about in that regard."

"Right," said Veronica. "Then let’s move on to the details of the matriarch’s proposal. Just out of curiosity, do you have a name? If we’re going to do business, especially so sensitive, I’d like to know who exactly I’m talking to."
The matriarch didn’t answer verbally. Instead, she sent a short burst of telepathy containing the same sort of psychedelic jumble of images and concepts that the less-skilled aranea bombarded Veronica with in the initial greeting. Thankfully, this particular burst wasn’t painful, just confusing – probably because it was so relatively short. After mentally dissecting the chaotic message in her head, Veronica realized this was the name she asked for. Translating the concepts into something appropriate for human communication proved a bit of a challenge, however.

"Spear of Resolve Striking Straight at the Heart of the Matter?" questioned Veronica curiously.

"As good an approximation of my real name as any," said the matriarch. "And yes, I know that’s too unwieldy to use in human conversation. Your language is very crude, so it’s hard to translate aranea names into it without ending up with such overdramatic-sounding drivel. You can just continue calling me matriarch, and I won’t hold it against you."

Kael snorted derisively at the matriarch’s swipe against human speech but didn’t say anything. Veronica, for her part, was considering how to proceed.

"Alright then," said Veronica. "You told me that there is a reason why you took the time loop seriously. Why don’t you tell us what you mean by that."

Before the matriarch could answer, a loud roar pierced through the relative silence of the tunnel, quickly followed by several more similar ones. Color drained out of Veronica’s face as she realized the identity of the creatures that produced the roar.

A band of war trolls were coming their way.

Chapter 18: Chapter 18: The Pact is Sealed

Chapter Text

She should have known, really – every time she got even slightly closer to getting to the bottom of this mess, some complication sprang up to hamper her progress. It was uncanny. She was half-tempted to conclude the (as of yet unconfirmed) third time-traveler was messing with her, but she would have expected something far more decisive than a pack of war trolls if that were the case.

…and now that she thought about it, it was kind of scary how radically her perspective must have shifted during the last year if she started considering troll war bands a nuisance rather than an existential threat.

[Not this again,] the aranea matriarch complained telepathically. [How do those things keep finding us? I had the whole web warded against divinations and everything…]

Veronica filed in the back of her mind the fact that this wasn’t the first time the matriarch encountered the war trolls, but at the moment she didn’t really have enough time to consider that little tidbit in any appreciable detail. She exchanged a knowing look with Kael, and then they both turned around and started running in the direction they came from. Veronica motioned for the aranea to follow after them, and received a thought of assent from the matriarch in turn.

[We can’t outrun them,] the matriarch noted as they ran. [Especially us aranea – aside from short bursts of speed, we’re actually a lot slower than humans.]

[It’s fine,] Veronica thought, certain that the aranea would pick up on it. [Me and Kael prepared a couple of surprises for pursuers behind us. They should slow the trolls down enough for us to reach the surface.]

[Ah. An insurance against me in case the talks turned sour?] the matriarch surmised. [You hid it well from my surface scans. I would have been caught totally off-guard if I had truly planned to double-cross you. Then again, I don’t think I could have caught up to you if you decided to run anyway, so it was mostly a wasted effort. Or would have been, had there been no war trolls.]

[Information on aranea running speed is a tad hard to come by in human books,] Veronica thought irritably, slowing down to let the aranea overtake her. They were just about to pass the first trap, and she didn’t want to seal the aranea on the other side of the forcefield along with the trolls. [Can’t you use your mind magic to pacify those things?]

The war trolls rounded a corner in a tightly-packed mass of green flesh, howling like lunatics and waving their huge swords and maces around like they were twigs, but Veronica was ready at that point. She sent a pulse of mana into the pair of nearby cubes covered with sigils, and a sheet of force sealed the corridor. It wouldn’t last long if a bunch of trolls kept beating at it, but she never counted on it being an insurmountable obstacle in the first place.

[Sadly, whoever is controlling them has learned to shield their minds against us after the first few conflicts,] the matriarch said. [It’s not foolproof, but we won’t be able to pick their defenses apart before they smash us into pulp.]

There was a terrible racket behind them, and Veronica chanced a glance back to the barrier to see what was happening. The sight that greeted her brought a pleased smile to her lips – the trolls had apparently failed to arrest their momentum properly and ended up crashing head-first into the barrier. Probably because the relatively narrow corridor didn’t allow the trolls to advance in a single line and the ones in the back didn’t let the ones in the front break up the mad charge. Or maybe they just didn’t recognize the forcefield for what it was? No matter, the point was that they were currently all tangled on the floor in a great big confused mass, and would take some time to reorganize. That should give them enough of a lead to escape cleanly, even with the slowpoke aranea weighing them down.

Just to make sure, she activated the next two barrier traps as well, but the two cubes holding explosive traps she simply scooped up and took with her. They were weapons of desperation, truth be told, and she wasn’t sure if she could activate them without blowing herself up along with the target. Besides, she was pretty sure they didn’t have enough power to seriously damage a troll, being designed to handle much squishier targets.

Veronica was worried about how they were going to smuggle a trio of giant spiders past the entrance guards, but she needn’t have worried – the aranea seemed to be able to edit other people’s senses in real time, effectively erasing their presence to the victim. Veronica had to admit she hadn’t thought the aranea’s mind magic was quite so… subtle. It would appear she was still taking them far too lightly.

But anyway, they were back on the surface and totally safe. Huh. She hadn’t expected the whole thing to end so… favorably. When she realized a pack of trolls was coming after them, she fully expected she was heading for an early restart. It seemed good things did happen to good people occasionally. Still, as happy as she was at her current fortune, her talk with the aranea wasn’t finished yet, so the four of them quickly relocated themselves in a deserted alley to continue their conversation.

"We should be safe enough to talk here," the matriarch said in her magically-assisted voice. "I can’t sense the presence of any minds that don’t belong here. Not even those blasted cranium rats."

"The what?" asked Veronica.

"Another psychic creature we’ve recently come to share this city with," the matriarch groused. "They look much like regular rats, except the top of their head looks like it has been sawn off, leaving their brains visible."

"Oh," Veronica said. "I actually saw something like that once, back in my original live-through of this month. I never went down that street in any of the subsequent restarts, though."

"Probably for the best," the matriarch said. "It is likely they are working for the invasion forces. They only appeared recently, and the trolls started harassing us when we tried to exterminate them."

"Are the rats intelligent?" asked Kael. "You seem to be implying they’re some kind of spies, yes?"

"They are psychic, like us," the matriarch said. "Their minds are telepathically linked to one another, forming a collective intelligence. Individually, they are little more than particularly cunning rats, but the more of them group together, the smarter they get. And the stronger their telepathic abilities become. They’re small enough to get anywhere, and the death of any particular rat is inconsequential. Each one acts as a relay for the full power and intelligence of the entire swarm. They’re almost perfect spies, better than even us aranea. As I said, we tried to get rid of them before they could muscle in on our territory… but we failed to account for the fact they weren’t working alone."

"Crap," Veronica said. "With those things running around the city, it’s no wonder the invaders are so well-informed. They could be pulling information straight out of people’s minds without anybody realizing it. All they need is to find one person that is privy to sensitive information and whose mind is unprotected, and they can blow a hole in the whole system."

"Yes," the matriarch confirmed. "Aranea can do something similar, but not nearly to the same extent. We’re too big to move as freely through human settlements as cranium rats do, and our individual members are not as expendable as individual cranium rats. They can get into many places where we can’t, especially warded ones – giant spiders trip defensive wards in ways that a couple of funny-looking rats do not."

Veronica frowned as she suddenly realized something. With these cranium rats on the loose in the city and working with the invaders, there was no way the invasion organizers remained ignorant of the time loop in every single restart. She herself had not advertised her situation much, but Shirley did. Sometimes very visibly and explicitly, if Shirley hadn’t been speaking in hyperbole when Veronica talked to her. So whoever was controlling the cranium rats knew about Shirley being a time traveler in at least some of the restarts… and never did anything about it. Veronica found that difficult to explain. Did they just refuse to believe what their agents on the ground were telling them? That sounded uncharacteristically sloppy considering how well the invaders seemed to be organized otherwise.

"An interesting point," the matriarch said, breaking Veronica out of her thoughts. "I’m beginning to understand why you’re so reluctant to deal openly with this Shirley. But we’re getting distracted here, dancing around the real issue. You heard my offer, Veronica. I have been very generous about my information thus far, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to put my foot down now. I want a straight answer – will you let me send a memory packet through you or not?"

Veronica sighed. What a difficult question. She wanted – no, needed – what the matriarch was offering… but she really didn’t trust her with this. And really, how could she? Mind magic was only a hair’s breadth better than soul magic in terms of abuse potential, and that was only because mind magic had well-established counters whereas soul magic did not.

"You’re asking a lot," Veronica complained.

"I offer a lot," the matriarch countered. "And besides, I’m taking as big of a risk here as you do. I have no guarantee that you will actually track me down in each restart and alert me to the memories I stored inside your mind. What stops you from playing along for a few restarts, until you’ve gotten everything you wanted from me, and then meticulously avoiding contact with me for the rest of the time loop? Nothing. I have taken a leap of faith and decided to trust you. Is it so wrong to expect a similar commitment from you in turn?"
A short silence descended on the scene as Veronica digested her words in her head. She supposed there was some merit in what she was saying, though she wasn’t quite buying the idea that she was risking as much as Veronica was. Her risk was more final and immediate than hers. Oh well. No pain, no gain. "Fine," she said softly, "I agree to your terms."

* * *

"You are a braver than I," Kael told her as they slowly walked back to Imaya’s place. Veronica absent-mindedly rubbed her forehead instead of giving him a proper answer. She didn’t feel noticeably different after the aranea was finished with the procedure, to be honest. Kael was worried about possible dormant command spells that the matriarch may have implanted along with the memory packet, but…

"I actually had a reason to think it might not be as dangerous as it sounded," Veronica finally said.

"Oh?" Kael prompted.

"Yeah. I researched the limitations of mind magic before we went to talk to the matriarch, both the classical spellcasting type and the telepathic abilities of magical creatures known to use them. I even asked Ilsa and our combat magic instructor for advice. I probably made them really suspicious of what the hell I’m doing but whatever. Anyway, everyone seems to agree that even expert mind mages can’t just rewrite someone’s brain on a whim, or in a stealthy manner. It takes a great deal of time and you basically have to knock the victim unconscious or they will be fully aware of what you’re trying to do to them and fight it with everything they got – physically and mentally. If the matriarch tried to do something truly terrible to me, we would have known so quickly enough."

"I’m not really sure I could have done much for you, even if I noticed the deal had gone bad," Kael said. "I do have some modest combat skills, but I doubt they’d be enough to fight off three giant spiders that are all within jumping distance of me."

"It doesn’t matter," said Veronica, reaching into her pocket to retrieve one of her two unspent explosive cubes. She held the stone cube in her palm so Kael could see it. "All I had to do was send a pulse of mana into these and both me and the matriarch would have ended up in pieces. I very much doubt the matriarch could have incapacitated me faster than I can pulse my mana."

"Suicide?" Kael asked, sounding surprised. He shook his head. "I stand by what I said. You are a braver than I."

"As Shirley once told me, the time loop skews your perspective on dying," said Veronica, putting the cube back in her pocket. Now that she thought about it, her impromptu security system reminded her of the similar system that protected Shirley from the lich’s soul meld spell. She should probably start carrying something like this all the time, just in case. Something way lighter and less noticeable than two big stone cubes, though.

"It’s still possible she used something less comprehensive than a full personality rewrite on you, though," Kael said after a few seconds.

"I know," Veronica said. "But you heard what she said at the end. The memory packet should last for a year, at minimum. I plan to avoid the aranea in the next several restarts while I look for a way to examine my mind for such things. Even if the magical expertise is beyond me, I’m sure I can find an expert to hire so they can take a look at me."

"Ah. Good idea," Kael nodded. "Of course, that means it will be a while before you can question the matriarch again. She did say she wasn’t saying anything until you deliver the memories to her reborn self in the next restart."

"An acceptable delay," Veronica shrugged gracefully. It wasn’t like she had nothing to do while she waited, and Shirley had indicated she would be spending the next several restarts in Cyoria as well. Hell, even in this particular restart she had to see what Haslush would do about the invasion and what Veronica could do to help him. If she ended up staying in Cyoria during the summer festival at all, that is. She wasn’t sure she wanted to do that, all things considered. "So… do you want to tell me your master plan for getting yourself into this time loop now or later?"

"Later," Kael grumbled. "I haven’t even ironed out all the details in my head yet. Stupid spider and her big mandibles…"

"I’m pretty sure her speech didn’t involve mandibles in any way, actually," Veronica said softly. "It was a pure sound illusion."

"Really? Wasn’t my mind shield spell supposed to protect me from mind effects like illusions, even if they’re beneficial?" asked Kael, frowning in confusion.

"The matriarch’s spell wasn’t targeting your mind. It created actual sound waves," said Veronica.

"But then it’s a sound spell, not an illusion no?" Kael stated more than asked.

"Officially, any spell that creates fake scenery is an illusion, regardless of the means it uses to do so. Many illusions are made primarily out of actual light and sound, but they’re still illusions."

"That’s… surprisingly imprecise," Kael said.

"I understand it’s because a lot of actual structured spells from illusionary disciplines combine mental illusions with… well, let’s call them physical ones. Theoretically, you could separate the two into different categories, and many tried, but in the end, the Eldemar mage guild decided to just admit defeat and lump them together."

"How surprisingly practical of the Guild, then," Kael said. "I guess even they get an attack of common sense from time to time."

Veronica said nothing. She didn’t need empathy to deduce that her morlock companion had a bit of a grudge against the Guild for some reason. Personally, Veronica thought the mage guild was doing a pretty good job overall, but she wasn’t so impressed with them that she would defend them in front of others.

The rest of the walk passed in relative silence.

* * *

As the start of the summer festival approached, Veronica became more and more certain that Haslush wasn’t going to do much about the invasion. She wasn’t sure whether the man had decided Veronica’s suspicions were merely a rumor or whether he was ordered to drop the issue, but he no longer seemed very interested in the whole matter. For Veronica, this was a sign that she should take Kirielle and get out of the city before the invasion starts – she had no interest in getting murdered by the invaders again, and even less in having Kirielle die alongside her.

She would have to see whether she could talk Kael and Imaya into leaving with them.

But although the date was fast approaching, such problems weren’t a pressing concern yet. Currently, she just wanted to have something to eat and lie down a little. Kirithishli had given her some truly mind-numbing tasks to perform today, and she wasn’t in the mood for plotting. Conveniently, the moment she walked into the house she was assaulted by the smell of food wafting from the kitchen. Imaya’s insistence on keeping her informed of her comings and goings was somewhat annoying, but Veronica had to admit it was convenient how she timed her meals to match her and Kael’s schedule.

She entered the kitchen and was immediately tackled by Kirielle.

"Sister, I hurt my hand!" she wailed, waving her hand in front of her face. "Hurry, you have to heal it!"

Veronica gently snatched her wrist to stop her from moving her hand so much and inspected the grievous injury. It was a shallow cut – a scratch really – that would probably heal on its own by the end of the day. Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see Imaya trying not to laugh.

Veronica suppressed the urge to sigh. She knew her family would make fun of her if they knew she was an empath, but she honestly didn’t expect Kirielle to descend to this level. She knew Veronica wasn’t a healer, association between empathy and the healing arts notwithstanding. Though considering her excellent mana shaping skills, she would probably make a good healer with enough training… something to consider, at least.

Schooling her face into a serious expression, she slowly turned Kirielle’s injured hand this way or that, pretending to study it in detail. Finally, after a thoughtful hum, she looked Kirielle straight in the eye.

"I’m afraid there’s nothing to be done, Miss. We will have to cut it off," she concluded gravely. She then turned towards Kana, who was sitting at the table but studiously watching the entire exchange, and gave her a deep, meaningful look. "Fetch the saw."

Kana nodded seriously at her and motioned to leave the table, only to get stopped by a laughing Imaya who assured her that she was just joking. Veronica was pretty sure the little girl understood that all too well and was just playing along. Did they even have a saw in the house?

In any case, Kirielle wrenched her wrist out of her grasp at her declaration and pouted at her.

"Jerk," she declared, sticking her tongue out at her.

The meal was relatively quiet, except for occasional outbursts from Kirielle. But that was Kirielle for you – she was a loud person by nature, though Veronica was pleased to say she did have calm periods from time to time. Mostly when she was reading or drawing. It still surprised her a little every time she saw her do that, since it seemed rather out of character for someone like Kirielle to be so absorbed into a book or a drawing. Doubly so because she knew from personal experience that mother and father didn’t think much of hobbies like that and tried to discourage them as much as possible.

After the meal, Veronica retreated back to her room, Kirielle following after her. Veronica didn’t feel in the mood to chase her off and let her, but she seemed to be in a fairly agreeable mood today and left her largely at peace. She was currently sitting cross-legged while practicing her shaping skills, while Kirielle was lying on her stomach and drawing something on the floor, a small pile of papers scattered around her. Eventually, though, her pen stopped moving and she spent the next several minutes nervously chewing on the tip of it. Veronica was versed well enough in her tics by now to know her peace and quiet would end soon after.

"Veronica?" she suddenly asked.

"Yeah?" she sighed softly.

"Why do you study so hard?" she asked, giving her a curious look. "Even though nothing really matters in this time loop you’re stuck in, you still keep working all the time. Don’t you want to have fun from time to time?"

"You’re wrong," Veronica said softly. "First of all, everything matters. You are what you do, and if I were to start doing stupid things just because there is seemingly no consequence for them, those actions would eventually come to define me. Secondly… I actually find studying fun. Well, maybe not all of it, but you get the idea." There was a short silence, but Kirielle seemed reluctant to continue the conversation, even though she clearly wanted to say something. Veronica decided to help her out. "Why do you ask? Is there something you would rather be doing?"

Kirielle’s eyes darted between her and the pile of drawings on the floor several times before she finally reached a decision. She scooped up the papers into a neat stack and promptly plopped into Veronica’s lap.

"Can you look at my drawings and tell me what you think?" she asked excitedly.
Oh. Well, that wasn’t too bad. She had never paid much attention to Kirielle's drawings, especially since Kirielle tended to hide them whenever Veronica tried to get a better look. But from what she had glimpsed, they were pretty good. Feeling in a good mood, Veronica decided she wouldn’t even mock Kirielle too much. Damn.

Veronica watched and listened in silence as Kirielle animatedly showed off the fruits of her labor, explaining what the drawings represented. Not that Kirielle needed to do so, because the drawings were frighteningly realistic. She wasn’t just good – she was freaking amazing. Veronica could swear she was looking at drawings of a professional artist rather than the childish drawings of her little sister. One of the drawings was a very detailed scene of Cyoria’s cityscape, so chock-full of little details that Veronica was shocked Kirielle actually had the patience to put them down on paper, never mind draw them properly.

"Kirielle, those are absolutely amazing," she said honestly. She had intended to make a few teasing remarks about her skill at first, but she honestly couldn’t see anything remotely worth mocking in these. "Why on earth is mother not bragging to everyone about having a budding little artist for a daughter?"

Kirielle shifted uncomfortably in her lap. "Mother doesn’t approve of me drawing. She won’t buy me any supplies and yells at me whenever she catches me doing that."

Veronica gave her a baffled look. What? Why on earth would she do that? Mother was close-minded and status-obsessed, but not actively malicious or anything. She picked up Kirielle’s stack of drawings and leafed through it again, stopping at a very nice portrait of Bryn, the boy she and Kirielle interacted with on the train to Cyoria. Kirielle had never even seen the boy after that day, yet she was able to create a very faithful rendition of him, presumably by working from memory alone.

"Wait," she said suddenly. "Is that why you keep borrowing my notebooks and writing supplies?"

"Ah! I thought you didn’t even notice," Kirielle admitted. "Since you never complained about it to mother. Thanks for that, by the way."

Well, she never said anything because she thought mother wouldn’t do anything about it, even if she knew. But hey, all was well that ended well, and she certainly wasn’t going to tell Kirielle the truth and destroy whatever gratitude she just earned.

"What about the books, then? I suppose she disapproved of those too?" Veronica guessed.

"Yeah," Kirielle said, clutching her drawings close to her chest. "She won’t buy me any. She says a lady shouldn’t waste time with such things."

That Veronica actually expected, truth be told. Mother didn’t like it when she spent her time reading, so she imagined she would be none too happy to see her darling daughter picking up such a hobby. Still didn’t explain why she didn’t want Kirielle to draw, though.

"Well, that’s mother for you," said Veronica. She seemed to be getting rather upset, and Veronica could totally understand. It would appear her situation had more similarities to her own than she had ever dreamed about. "Don’t worry about it. It was the same with me at first. She’ll lay off once she sees she can’t bully you into submission."

"It’s not the same!" Kirielle suddenly snapped at her.

Now what?

"Kiri…"

"You don’t get it! It’s not the same because you’re away from home most of the year and she can’t do anything to you while you’re away! You and Daimen and Fortov are here, learning magic and doing whatever you want, and I’ll never get to do that!" She buried her head in Veronica’s chest, her tiny little fingers digging painfully into her arms. "It’s not the same because I’m a girl…"

Veronica wrapped her arms around Kirielle, rocking her gently to calm her down while she digested what she was telling her. Finally, a realization hit her. Traditionalists in Cirin often held the view that educating female children was a waste of time and money. Hell, some of them even went against the law and refused to send their daughters to elementary school to learn how to read and write! It didn’t help that mage academies tended to be rather expensive, even lower-quality ones…

"They aren’t going to send you to a mage academy…" Veronica concluded out loud.

Kirielle shook her head, her face still buried in her chest.

"They say I don’t need it," she said, sniffing sadly. "They already have a marriage arranged for me for when I turn 15."

"Well isn’t that nice for them," said Veronica coldly. "You know what, Kiri? You’re right. It’s not the same. I had to defy mother and father all by myself… you, on the other hand, have me."

Kirielle peeled her face from Veronica’s chest and gave her a searching look.

"You never wanted to help me before," she accused. "Every time I asked you to teach me magic you blew me off."

"I didn’t know what you were dealing with," Veronica shrugged. "I thought you were just impatient and didn’t want to waste my time on something you were going to learn in due time anyway. But rest assured, if mother and father don’t change their minds over the years, you will always have a teacher in me."

She stared at her for a few seconds before she snatched one of Veronica's hands by the wrist and gripped it in an oath-making position.

"Promise?" she asked.

Veronica squeezed her hand tighter, eliciting a yelp from her.

"Promise," she confirmed.

* * *

Two days before the summer festival, Kael finally laid out his plan to Veronica. It was a lot less concrete than the matriarch’s one and basically involved talking to a number of individuals that Kael thought might know something about soul magic or time travel. None of them were in Cyoria, though, and would require Veronica to basically blow off school in order to travel across the country (and in some cases even across borders). The morlock also hinted that he knew a couple of individuals living in the Great Northern Forest, but he admitted it might be a bad idea to visit those until he could actually defend himself properly. Veronica memorized the names and locations, but it would be a while until she could visit any of them.

The end of the restart was totally uneventful – She, Kirielle, Kael, and Kana boarded the train heading out of Cyoria on the night of the festival and spent the last remaining hours playing card games to pass the time. Imaya refused to go with them, which was fairly unsurprising, given the suddenness of their request and the sketchy nature of their warnings.

And then, like always, Veronica woke up in Cirin, Kirielle wishing her a good morning. She didn’t take Kirielle with her this time, which turned out to be a good idea, as Shirley did indeed come to class in that particular restart. The other time traveler tried to strike up a conversation with her, but Veronica was determined to avoid her and gave her a cold shoulder. After a few days, Shirley seemed to admit defeat and gave up, but Veronica could see that the other girl was watching her way more closely than she did most people. Veronica’s freedom to act as she saw fit was consequently somewhat limited, and she mostly amused herself with honing her shaping skills, combat magic, divinations, and spell formula. Taiven was not informed of the rumors behind giant telepathic spiders in the sewers, as she didn’t want to meet the matriarch just yet.

An entire restart passed in this fashion. And the next one. And the next. In total, it took six restarts before Shirley stopped approaching her at the start of each restart and otherwise paid attention to her. Despite this, Veronica was pleased with what she had accomplished.

She had spent three of the six restarts learning from the ever-enthusiastic Nora Boole (the other three restarts were spent learning from Haslush) and had gotten skilled enough at spell formula to create a lighter, more inconspicuous version of her explosive suicide switch. It was still a cube, though a much smaller one made of a combination of wood and stone – she made two of them in each restart now and attached them to her key, so they would appear as an ornament.

She had also found a mage specializing in mind magic and had him inspect her mind for implanted compulsions and other nasty surprises. Sadly, the man was rather baffled by the memory packet and couldn’t confirm it only contained memories. He did confirm, however, that it was currently dormant, and also that no other magical effect was currently active in her mind. If there was some kind of trap in the memory packet, it had yet to activate.

The seventh restart saw Shirley still in class, but she appeared to have finally given up on Veronica as a lost cause. It was time to get down to business.

Chapter 19: Chapter 19: Tangled Webs

Chapter Text

One thing Veronica found interesting about the restarts was that small, seemingly inconsequential choices exerted incredible influence on what happened in the restart. Conversely, actions that she felt should throw everything out of whack often tended to have muted or even non-existent effects. Case in point, the last time she had gone into the sewers to meet the matriarch, convincing Ilsa to grant her an access permit to enter the sewers had been trivial. Thus, when Veronica marched into Ilsa’s office a few days after the beginning of classes, after she realized Shirley had decided to give up on befriending her in this particular restart, she expected the request to be easily granted.

She was wrong. No matter how much she reasoned and pleaded, Ilsa refused to allow a newly-minted mage like her to risk her life in the underworld. She tried to demonstrate her (at this point rather advanced) combat magic skills, but Ilsa wasn’t interested and simply shooed her out of her office. It took nearly an hour for Veronica to calm down and realize what the difference was.

Last time she came with Kael. A self-taught genius mage who was also a single parent and had probably dealt with danger before in his life. If Kael thought Veronica was ready to go down into the tunnels beneath the city and was willing to accompany her to boot to make sure she was safe, then that was good enough for Ilsa. This time she came alone, though. No Kael, no permit.

Not that Veronica was going to be deterred by such a minor setback, of course. She knew at least one person who already had a permit to go down there and might be persuaded to help her.

"Roach, I hate you. You do know that, right?"

Veronica released a long-suffering sigh, opting to keep an eye on the tunnel in front of her instead of turning around to look at Taiven. She didn’t need to turn around to know Taiven was making faces at her. "No, Taiven, I don’t. After all, you only told me so five times already. Maybe I’ll remember it if you say it a few times more?"

"I just don’t get it," Taiven complained, ignoring her sarcasm. "You refused to follow me down here when I asked you, saying it’s too dangerous. And then you come back to me a few days later, asking me to take you into the tunnels."
Yes, and she was very much regretting it. Why couldn’t Taiven have waited by the entrance like Veronica had asked her to? Veronica still didn’t know how she was going to explain aranea to Taiven when they found the damn spiders. Hopefully, the aranea would be savvy enough to hide in the shadows while she talked to them telepathically – kind of a hassle, but it should be enough to arrange a proper meeting in the future somewhere more accessible.

"I mean, were you trying to piss me off?" Taiven continued, undeterred by Veronica's lack of response. "Because I’m feeling pretty angry right now, let me tell you…"

"Taiven, please," Veronica pleaded softly. "I said I was sorry! How many times do I have to apologize? You of all people should understand, considering how many times you pulled stuff like this on me."

"Not quite like this," Taiven grumbled. "At least tell me where we’re going."

"I actually don’t know," admitted Veronica, her graceful features masking a hint of frustration. She was relying on one of the aranea scouts inadvertently contacting her by trying to read her mind, since she had no real idea where their home territory was. "I’ll know it when I see it, though."

"Vera, I swear, if this is your idea of a prank—"

"I’m totally serious," Veronica assured her, her voice calm but firm. "I’m pretty sure we’re getting close, it shouldn’t take too—"

An alien presence skittered across the surface of her mind, withdrawing immediately when it realized its intrusion was detected. Its telepathic touch wasn’t as subtle as that of the matriarch, but Veronica definitely received an aranea feel from it.

"Wait!" she protested, hoping that the aranea hadn’t physically fled already. "I want to talk to you, aranea! I have important information for your matriarch!"

"Veronica, what the hell are you talking about?" Taiven asked, thoroughly baffled at her actions. "And who are you talking to, anyway? There is no one here."

Veronica said nothing, choosing to wait in silence for a while. Seconds passed in utter silence as she patiently waited for a response from the spider. Taiven seemed torn between irritation and agitation at the potentially dangerous situation.

Eventually, the aranea decided to re-initiate contact… by stepping into the open right in front of her and Taiven.

Taiven gasped in shock at the appearance of the huge hairy spider and immediately moved to draw her spell rod, only for Veronica to gently grasp her wrist and motion her to stand down. Taiven gave her a baffled look before glancing at the spider in front of them. The aranea stood motionless, observing them silently with its huge pitch black eyes but not making any threatening gestures. Taiven seemed to realize that the spider was no threat at the moment and relaxed, moving her hand away from the spell rod attached to her hip.

"Veronica…" she began, radiating a mixture of anger and worry at her friend.

"I’ll explain later, I promise," Veronica said with a sigh before turning to deal with the aranea. "And you! Couldn’t you have been a little more discreet? Why couldn’t you have stayed in the shadows and contacted me telepathically?"

The aranea reconnected to her mind and sent a burst of amusem*nt. [If you wanted to speak to me telepathically, why haven’t you called out to me telepathically to begin with? Aren’t you psychic yourself?]

Veronica grimaced, her gentle eyes reflecting her frustration. If only it were that easy. Finding information about mind magic from her fellow mages was like pulling teeth, since the mage guild took a very dim view on mind magic of any sort, no matter how benign. Nobody could tell her what being psychic meant, much less teach her how to telepathically contact someone. She did track down a spell that allowed a mage to establish a telepathic connection with someone, but the spell was painfully crude – it worked only on other humans, the target had to be willing and able to lower their spell resistance, and the link only allowed word communication devoid of emotional and other connotations.

[I am untrained,] admitted Veronica. [I don’t know how to contact someone telepathically. I only know how to piggyback answers on a connection someone else made.]

She wondered about that, actually. Nobody taught her how to do that, yet the concept seemed to come naturally to her. Is this what it meant to be psychic? Perhaps being psychic simply meant she was some sort of instinctive mind mage with inborn skills in the field.

[That’s so sad,] the aranea said. [You are incomplete. But I suppose it could always be worse. You could be a flickermind like your friend there.]

Veronica glanced at Taiven, suppressing a soft smile. It was a good thing she was talking to the aranea telepathically, because she could just imagine how Taiven would react if someone called her a flickermind.

"What?" Taiven asked, apparently having noticed her look.

"Nothing," Veronica mumbled, shaking her head. [Miss aranea, I—err, you are a miss, right?]

It was hard to tell, but Veronica was pretty sure the aranea she was talking to had a feminine feel to her. Plus, the aranea were led by a matriarch, so it would make sense for outsiders like her to mostly meet the female members of the species.

[All aranea are female,] the spider said.

[What, really?] Veronica asked. [How on earth does that work? Do you just divide like microbes or spontaneously get pregnant or what?]

[Nothing that exotic. It’s just that our species is extremely sexually dimorphic, and the males are both smaller in stature and pretty much subsentient. We don’t consider them real aranea,] the spider explained. [If you talk to one of us and they’re smart enough to talk back, they’re female. The males would probably attack you in lieu of conversation, though you’re unlikely to ever meet one unless you somehow gain access to one of our settlements.]

Veronica digested that information for a few moments and then decided not to ask any further questions on the topic. It was interesting, but not really relevant at the moment, and she didn’t know how long she had before Taiven snapped from the pressure and started throwing around spells and demanding answers. She wasn’t exactly a paragon of patience.

[I’m sorry to be inconsiderate, but I really need to speak to the matriarch,] Veronica said, doing her best to reproduce and send the weird aranea spear of resolve concept that the matriarch said was her name instead of calling her the matriarch. Hopefully, this would help convince the aranea to take her seriously when she told them about memory packets from another timeline.

[I have been listening to your conversation with Watchful Eyes That Miss Nothing of Importance for a while now, Veronica Kazinski,] the familiar presence of the matriarch announced.

Having the ability to throw your mind to any location inhabited by one of your subordinates must be really convenient.

[It is,] confirmed the matriarch. [Now. How about you introduce yourself and tell me how you know my real name? Then we can move on to this important information you have for me…]

[I am Veronica Kazinski, mage in training,] Veronica said. [And the reason I know your real name is that you told it to me yourself… right before you shoved a memory packet into my mind and told me to give it to you later.]

[I… don’t remember that,] the matriarch said hesitantly.

[I know,] Veronica said. [If you had been able to retain the memory of that encounter, you would not have bothered with putting the memory packet inside my mind.]

[That’s quite a claim,] the matriarch said after a short silence. [How do I know that you’re telling the truth? This could be a trap. You could be related to the people that have been sending trolls at us all this time.]

[Honestly, I have no idea how to prove the truth of my words to you,] Veronica said. [Your other self was sure you would have a way to prove the authenticity of the memory packet, even without additional proof, and didn’t tell me anything I could convince you with.]

[I see,] the matriarch said. She was silent for a few seconds as she thought it over. [Give me access to your mind so I can see this memory packet for myself.]

[Of course,] Veronica replied, offering no resistance when the matriarch delved deeper into her mind. She turned to her companion, who seemed to be at the end of her wits as she watched Veronica’s silent staredown with the giant spider. "Taiven, I’m communicating with the spider telepathically. Everything should be fine, but if I fall to the floor and start screaming in the next few minutes, feel free to blast it to oblivion."

She still had her suicide cubes with her, but it never hurt to have precautions. Taiven immediately nodded at her words, and Veronica saw the aranea in front of her twitch her legs uncomfortably at the implied death threat. The matriarch said nothing, too absorbed in her work.

Several minutes later, the matriarch’s presence retreated from her mind.

[I… I need to think about this,] the matriarch said in a daze. [Come back in three days and we’ll talk.]

[Wait!] protested Veronica. [I need a way to get down here without going through any of the official entrances. Otherwise, I will need to bring Taiven here every time I want to come down here, and I’m not sure she’ll want to talk to me after this.]

Veronica was immediately blasted with a mental image of the local section of the tunnel system, along with eight different ways to access it from the surface without going through any checkpoints. Wow, people weren’t kidding when they said the local underworld had more holes than a sponge. In any case, that was apparently the end of her conversation with the aranea, because the spider in front of her promptly leaped into the darkness and disappeared, leaving Veronica alone with Taiven.

She cast a weary glance at her friend, only to flinch at the frown Taiven was giving her.

"Okay, now that the spider is gone, I guess you can explain to me what on earth I just took part in. Start talking," she commanded, her tone holding both curiosity and a hint of exasperation.

Stupid aranea and their indiscretion… what the hell was she going to tell Taiven now? Hmm…

"Before we get to that, I would like to point out that if you had waited for me at the entrance like I asked you to—"

"Veronica!"

"Just saying," said Veronica lightly, smoothing her simple skirt and blouse. "Okay, here’s the thing. I’m an empath. Do you know what that means?"

"Not… really…" Taiven said slowly, her shoulders relaxing slightly.

"It means I can sense other people’s emotions," explained Veronica, her voice gentle yet firm. "And sadly, the ability is currently an instinctive one. I have no conscious control over it, and it often causes problems for me, so I have been looking for help in mastering it. Sadly, I have found no one willing to help me on the human side, so I… broadened my horizons. The spider you saw was an aranea – a sentient, telepathic species of spiders that I hoped to talk into teaching me how to control my powers."

Taiven stared at her for a few moments, opening her mouth at one point only to simply close it soon afterwards. "And what did they say?" she finally asked, her eyes narrowing slightly out of disbelief.

"They’ll think about it," Veronica shrugged, her cascading hair shifting slightly with the movement.

Taiven shook her head in disbelief and started walking toward the exit, motioning for Veronica to follow.

"Let’s get out of here, monster charmer," she said with a teasing grin. "We should discuss things somewhere else. Somewhere I can sit down and have a drink."

Veronica followed her, a soft smile playing on her lips.
True to her words, Taiven led her into an open-air tavern so they could sit down and relax while they talked. Well, so she could sit down and relax – Veronica didn’t find the experience all that fun, especially since she made her pay for her drinks out of her own pocket. Strangely enough, Taiven accepted most of her explanation without complaints, finding her decision to seek help from a species of monstrous spiders gutsy rather than reckless and foolish, but things degraded from there. She was displeased that Veronica had originally planned to meet with the aranea without backup and wanted to know whether she had done things like that before, and who had watched her back if she had. That kick-started a heated argument about the wisdom and necessity of going solo and her ability to fight her way out should things ever go sour. Veronica honestly didn’t know whether Taiven was upset because she was putting herself in danger, or that she hadn’t invited her along for the ride. Probably the latter, since Taiven quickly started insisting she should take her with her next time she went into the sewers to meet the aranea matriarch. She’d only get in the way and try to get her to spill her secrets, so Veronica refused. Taiven didn’t like that at all, but seemed to realize nothing would be gained by pressing the issue directly. Instead, she switched tracks and suggested she should help Veronica develop her combat magic. Veronica knew this was a trap – that Taiven simply wanted to show her superiority in a friendly spar to highlight how outmatched Veronica was against a serious opponent (and thus be more amenable to taking her along as asked) – but she agreed anyway. She was curious about how long she would last against Taiven, and she had nothing to lose except perhaps her pride.

That was how Veronica found herself facing Taiven in her family training hall, nervously adjusting her elegant skirt and blouse while trying to decide how to approach this… practice spar. The training hall was, according to Taiven, heavily warded to protect people inside from spell damage, but the use of lethal spells was still not recommended. Sadly, while the ban on lethal spells was totally sensible for a spar, it completely eliminated a lot of her arsenal. She never really put much thought into battles that weren’t the kill-or-be-killed sort, so her spell choices tended towards the destructive end of the scale.

"I see you invested in a spell rod," Taiven said with a confident smile. "Must have cost you quite a few pieces." Left unsaid (but heard loud and clear) was the implication that the money was wasted. Veronica had no chance in overwhelming Taiven’s defenses with magic missiles, and they both knew it. That’s why she didn’t even intend to try – getting into a battle of attrition with someone who had bigger mana reserves than she did was a fool’s game. The prominently displayed spell rod was a deception, intended to give Taiven the wrong idea about her opening moves. Her real ace in the hole was the shielding bracelet hidden under her right sleeve.

"I made it myself," Veronica said. "So it didn’t cost me anything."

"Really?" Taiven said, surprised. "I had no idea you were that good at spell formula. I mean, I knew you were interested in them, but…"

"You have your talent for combat and I have mine," Veronica said smugly. She was quite pleased with herself for getting so good at spell formula – not only was this something she had been interested in since before the time loop, it was also something that could easily ensure her financial independence once she found a way out of the time loop. Spell formula was widely known to be a difficult field to master, and experts in the field were well paid for their services. Veronica was already good enough that she could start taking commissions today if she was so inclined and would only get better as she went through the restarts.

"Whatever. In the end, you are overmatched even in the equipment department, despite your fancy self-made spell rod," said Taiven, stretching her hand to the side of her and causing a staff mounted on the nearby wall to fly straight into her palm. She knew it was a spell staff even before Taiven channeled a burst of mana into it and caused a series of glowing yellow lines to light up across its surface.

"Show-off," she said. She was definitely learning how to do that herself one of these days.

"Ready?" Taiven asked, pointing the staff threateningly towards her.

"Ready," confirmed Veronica, twirling the spell rod in her hand.

Taiven reacted immediately, sending a small missile swarm consisting of 5 magic missiles at her. She was fast, far faster than Veronica, and Veronica could see in her face that she considered herself already victorious.

You are way too presumptuous, Taiven, she thought, raising the hand that held the spell rod in order to erect a shield in front of her while throwing a vial full of white liquid at her with her other hand.

The missile swarm crashed into Veronica’s shield like a hammer. If Taiven had been facing old Veronica, the one that existed before the time loop, then this would have been the end – any shield she may have erected to defend herself would have been sloppily done and would have broken like glass under the onslaught. But she wasn’t. She was facing Veronica the time traveler, who had spent quite a lot of time repeating this month. Almost two years, by her count.

In the great scheme of things, two years was not a huge amount of time. Nonetheless, that was still two years of continual combat magic practice, most of it focused on a handful of spells - including shield. Her shield spell was nearly flawless. The plane of force was practically invisible when not under strain, and Veronica could overcharge it a great deal to strengthen it further.

The shield held. The missile swarm crashed against it ineffectually, causing the nigh-invisible surface to turn opaque under the strain but doing little else of note.

Before Taiven could collect her wits and try another attack, Veronica sent a mana pulse at the vial flying towards her. The vial shattered in midair, as if crushed by some unseen fist, and a thick white smoke billowed forth from the spot as the liquid turned to gas.

The vial wasn’t anything special, just a simple alchemical mixture that caused coughing fits in whomever inhaled it, but it was enough to incapacitate Taiven, who stumbled out of the smoke dazed and off guard. Veronica mercilessly used her moment of weakness to send a smasher straight into her torso, hoping that was the end of the fight but half-expecting Taiven to throw a shield at the last second to save herself.

Something, perhaps her empathy, warned her to dodge when Taiven suddenly thrust her staff towards the incoming missile (and by extension, her). It was a good thing she did, because Taiven didn’t cast a shield – she launched a massive battering ram of force that batted Veronica's attack aside like a snowflake and continued towards her unimpeded. Sadly, her dodge was only partial, and while she avoided the main thrust of the attack she was still caught in the outer area of effect. The attack sent her spinning like a rag doll and she soon found herself crashing head-first into the cold, unforgiving floor of the training hall. It was probably only because of the cushioning wards in the room that she didn’t end up with a cracked head or a concussion at the end of it.

Since Taiven seemed to be more interested in coughing her lungs out than trying to finish the fight, she remained on the floor for a while, waiting for her head to stop spinning. Apparently, she made the coughing gas a bit stronger than she intended. She laboriously climbed back to her feet and walked towards the recovering Taiven.

"You have a very strange definition of non-lethal," she told her.

"Serves you right, you cough cheater!" she growled.

"I got you good though, didn’t I?" Veronica smiled.

Taiven huffed and swung her staff at her lightly, obviously expecting her to dodge the slow-moving object. In the interest of showing off, Veronica erected a shield instead, causing the staff to bounce off and wrench itself out of her hand.

Taiven looked at the shield curiously and gave it a couple of good hard knocks. The plane of force didn’t even turn opaque, much less give way to her hits.

"What the hell is that shield of yours made of, anyway?" Taiven asked. "It took five missiles without breaking and it looks… different. It’s almost entirely transparent; I can see it only because I’m standing so close to you at the moment. Back when we were fighting, I didn’t even see it until my attack hit. I thought you were trying to shield yourself with your hand or something at first."

"It’s just a shield spell, just greatly overcharged and superbly executed," said Veronica. "I spent a lot of time practicing that spell."

"Still wouldn’t have helped you without that stupid trick you pulled," Taiven scoffed. "This was supposed to be a spell battle, dammit!"

"You said you wanted to see how I fight," Veronica shrugged. "By the way, how did you know where to fire that attack of yours? You had your eyes shut pretty tight from what I could see."

"Oh. That’s just a little trick one of my teachers taught me," Taiven said. "I doubt it would help you much, though – it’s pretty wasteful in terms of mana usage."

"What do you mean?" Veronica asked.

"Well, it’s a pretty simple move that involves expelling a large quantity of mana and saturating the area around you with it. You can then sort of sense your surroundings through the resulting mana cloud. The information you gain is very rudimentary, but you can easily spot concentrated mana constructs like that magic missile you threw at me. I actually didn’t know where you were, even with the aid of the mana cloud, but I figured that if I aimed in the direction from which the attack came from I’d probably catch you as well."

That sounded… awfully familiar. Veronica was pretty sure she used the exact same thing for her secret unlocking trick, except that she focused more on using the mana cloud as an extension of her tactile sense rather than perceiving mana sources. Of course, there was quite the difference in scale from flooding a lock with her mana to saturating the entire greater area around her. She simply couldn’t afford to be that wasteful with her mana.

However…

"Taiven," she began, "let’s say for a moment that I saturate a large-ish bubble of air around my head with this method. Would I be able to sense mana-charged marbles within that volume with this method?"

Taiven blinked and gave her a curious look. "I… suppose. You’d probably have to spend some time mastering the skill to get a cloud sensitive enough to detect such low-powered sources, though."

"But it would be easier than trying to sense mana-charged marbles with my inborn mana sense alone, right?" Veronica pressed.

"Way easier," Taiven confirmed. "Actually, just about any method would have been easier than that. Gods, you’d have to be, I don’t know, archmage-level good or something to sense a mana source that weak with no spells or other aids."
Veronica suddenly felt incredibly foolish. Of course, Master Xvim’s task seemed impossibly difficult—it was because she was approaching it all wrong! Xvim likely expected her to use a method like this to sense the marbles. The man just couldn’t be bothered to provide her with proper instructions on how to go about doing it. Or any instructions, for that matter. Gods, she loathed that man.

* * *

Following a spirited debate over who won their little spar (Veronica claimed it was a draw, while Taiven insisted she had clinched victory in the end), Taiven demanded more fights to resolve the issue, and Veronica saw no reason to refuse. She lost all subsequent fights, of course – Taiven was strong enough to simply overpower her if she so chose and Veronica no longer had the element of surprise on her side. Still, she felt she had performed admirably since Taiven actually had to work to bring her down. Even Taiven admitted that if Veronica caught her opponent off-guard and was ruthless enough in her opening moves, she could bring down even professional battlemages, though she warned that such actions could easily land her in legal trouble. The mage guild viewed very dimly upon individuals who escalated fights into the lethal realm, even in self-defense.

And anyway, uncovering what exactly Xvim expected of her made the whole ordeal worthwhile. Most of the skill was already familiar to her, so it only took a few hours until Veronica was able to create a diffuse mana cloud around her head. Granted, she couldn’t really feel mana sources as such, but a marble was still a physical object. Thus, when Friday arrived and Xvim unveiled his clever training method to her, Veronica calmly identified where the marbles were heading as they zipped around (and occasionally at) her head. Xvim wasn’t impressed, of course. He simply started throwing a quick succession of marbles at her and demanded that she sort them by the magnitude of mana emissions. Which she couldn’t do, of course, since she was sensing them by more rudimentary means. Oh well, she wasn’t overly concerned—now that she knew what to do, she fully expected to master the skill properly soon enough. Possibly by the end of the restart, unless Shirley decided to tackle another dragon or something similarly insane.

Fortunately, Shirley’s primary interest at the moment was trying to organize the ultimate party, involving inviting the entire class to her mansion during the summer festival. Being aware of the time loop, Veronica was one of the few people who understood what Shirley was doing. She was trying to get as many students as possible out of harm’s way without having to explain anything to them. Veronica had no idea what Shirley planned to do with all those people when the attack commenced, nor how she intended to deal with Ilsa and her insistence that everyone must attend the school dance.

Three days passed, and Veronica found herself back in the sewers. Locating the aranea proved very straightforward since they were expecting her this time. Any doubts about whether or not she would be taken seriously were dispelled when the forward scout she met escorted her to a recognizable figure. The matriarch had decided to converse with her in person, rather than simply project her mind through one of her subordinates.

[Well, I have had time to digest the memories my… other self sent me,] the matriarch began. [The story is… not as implausible as you might think, and the memories contained some pretty damning proof. I suppose we should swap stories now, no? Of your experiences, I only know the basics you told your friends, and you know precious little of why I’m not scoffing at the idea of time travel.]

[I suppose that would make sense…] Veronica said gently.

[But you want me to go first,] the matriarch surmised. [Very well. First thing you should know is that my web has been in a conflict with your so-called invaders for several months now. They were an infuriating but manageable opponent… up until a week ago, when they suddenly developed a disturbing amount of precognition about our tactics and abilities. They had counters for secret skills that have been passed on from matriarch to matriarch for generations and have never been used within living memory up until that moment. They had counters for personal abilities that were unique to a single aranea. They even seemed to know how we would react in response to their increased threat and aggressive moves. In short, the amount of insight they possessed about us was downright implausible. Believe it or not, time travel was seriously discussed as a possible method they were using to obtain their information.]

[Not divinations?] Veronica asked softly.

[We know divinations, child,] the matriarch replied. [If there is a field of magic beside the mind arts that we excel at, it is that. It is good that you mention divinations, though, because they hold a piece of the puzzle as well. You see, our web routinely tries to forecast the future with divination, with varying amounts of success – highly disruptive events tend to make any future forecasts useless. What do you think happened when we tried to forecast the future during the past week?]

[It didn’t work?] guessed Veronica.

[Oh, it worked. It gave wildly different results every time we repeated the forecast, no matter how little time passed between one forecast to the next, but it worked. So long as we didn’t try to extend the forecast beyond the day of the summer festival. Beyond that date, the forecast returns a blank. Each and every time. It is as if everything beyond that date simply ceases to exist.]

Veronica swallowed heavily. She often wondered what happened to everything when the time loop restarted itself, but had ultimately dismissed the question as unknowable. She didn’t know whether to feel relieved that she had no need to worry about leaving a soulless corpse in some alternate reality or disturbed that everything was literally being deleted when the time loop reset.

[I’m surprised I hadn’t heard about that,] she remarked softly. [You’d think that some of the human oracles would have noticed something like that.]

[You underestimate the difficulty of future forecasting,] the matriarch said. [It takes quite a bit of skill to read the future, and the process is time-consuming and tedious. It doesn’t help that the results are often useless… or worse, misleading. And even if you do bother to forecast the future, odds are that you’re only doing it for a few days at a time, since the predictions get more and more unreliable the further you try to extend the predictions. I hear complaints that such forecasts are a waste of time all the time from my fellow aranea, and our oracles can actually achieve a small measure of accuracy in their predictions. Still, I imagine you’re right – there are probably human organizations that have run the forecasts and encountered the same thing, but are keeping quiet for a variety of reasons. Nobody likes a doomsayer… well, nobody of any authority, in any case. It would be nice to have independent confirmation of our findings, but I suspect few diviners would feel comfortable sharing their secrets with a bunch of giant spiders. Perhaps if a certain young mage with an interest in divinations were to talk to them?]

[I’ll see what I can do,] Veronica replied thoughtfully.

[I’ll give you a list of names,] the matriarch said. [Now how about you give us some details about the time loop and your experiences in it?]

Veronica provided a basic rundown of the situation, leaving out many of the details she considered irrelevant and a tad too personal. The matriarch had only given her the bare-bones version of their story as well, so she didn’t feel too bad about that.

[That bond between you and Shirley is really inconvenient,] the matriarch remarked. [I don’t blame you for not taking a chance with it, but are you sure you can’t talk to Shirley without triggering it? Who knows what useful things the girl knows about this whole thing? Surely if you inform her of your fears, she will agree to keep her distance.]

Veronica wasn’t nearly so sure. She knew Shirley meant well, but she always did have problems with patience and self-control, and none of her previous encounters with Shirley convinced her the girl had changed all that much in that regard. Shirley would probably find another time traveler immensely fascinating and would keep pushing at the boundaries until the bond either activated fully or was shown to be harmless.

[I’m surprised you haven’t already extracted the knowledge from her mind,] Veronica remarked. [Isn’t she a… err, 'flickermind'?]

[She isn’t psychic, but she does have some skill in shielding her mind,] the matriarch said, not at all ashamed to admit she had already tried to steal her memories. [Not well, but enough that I can’t do more than read her surface thoughts. Now stop dodging the question.]

Veronica sighed softly. [Everything I found out about soul bonds suggests that there probably isn’t any bond between me and Shirley. Soul bonds tend to be really obvious, even to basic detection spells. My divination instructor in one of the previous restarts showed me a spell for detecting soul bonds, and I used it in school a few times—every student with a familiar is clearly connected to their partner, and the two soul-bonded twins are also clearly bonded to each other. There is absolutely no link between me and Shirley that I can see. There is no way an accidental side-effect of an offensive soul mutilation spell has such sophisticated effects when even properly created soul bonds light up easily on detection spells.]

[Curious,] the matriarch said with interest. [What is it, if not a soul bond, though?]

[Kael thinks that when the soul merge was terminated by our deaths, the link between us was cut rather than carefully untangled. As a consequence, a piece of Shirley’s soul ended up fused to mine, and the reverse is probably true for Shirley. The control function of the time loop probably got confused at that point, and rather than decide which one of us is the real Shirley, it decided to simply loop both of us.]

[That would explain why Shirley was absent during the first few restarts and why she was so very sick when she finally did appear,] the matriarch noted. [You probably both spent a number of restarts in a coma while your souls healed and integrated all the foreign bits, but she probably drew the short end of the straw when the spell was cut and ended up with far more soul damage than you did.]

[It would,] agreed Veronica. [And honestly, it’s the most plausible explanation I’ve got.]

[So why don’t you want to talk to Shirley, then?] the matriarch asked. [Oh, I see… the third time traveler.]

[Yes. It’s pretty clear at this point that there is at least one more person inside the time loop besides Shirley and me. That someone is aiding the invaders and has, gods know, how big of a lead on me in terms of time spent in the time loop, so I definitely don’t want to catch their attention. And they know of Shirley. I mean, they have to—she really isn’t all that secretive about her status as a time traveler and her activities. But they aren’t doing anything about it. Shirley is clearly trying to fight the invaders, so why leave her unmolested?]
[Because her actions don’t matter in the long run,] the matriarch guessed. [From what you told me, she’s trying to become strong enough to personally contest the entire invasion force. There is not much chance of that happening, even if she has all the time in the world to prepare.] [That, and he’s possibly already been neutralized,] Veronica said softly. [I’m pretty sure that Shirley is the key figure in this time travel business - the original time traveler. She has too much potential in terms of money, family legacy, mana reserves, and so on – she could benefit from the whole time loop setup better than virtually anyone else, and I don’t think it’s accidental. Furthermore, if I am indeed in this time loop because I have a piece of Shirley’s soul fused to mine, that means it’s her the time loop recognizes as the legitimate focus of the spell. The thing is, her past actions indicate ignorance of any sort of purpose or master plan, as if she had simply been dumped into the loop with no warning or information.] [You think her memories have been edited,] surmised the aranea. [I think Shirley entrusted her secret to the wrong person,] Veronica continued, her voice carrying a hint of concern. [They couldn’t just get rid of Shirley – as I said, she is the key to this spell – but they could eliminate her as a threat. Shift her attention to harmless directions and such. But I’m not Shirley. I am not integral to this time loop in any way and can be disposed of at whim. If I talk to Shirley, and she’s being watched, or if Shirley is unable to keep her mouth shut in front of the wrong people, I could end up being… deleted.] [Well…] the matriarch said, [You’re certainly one paranoid human. Then again, that might be the only reason why you’re still in possession of your entire memory, so maybe I shouldn’t talk. You do realize you’re going to have to talk to Shirley at some point, right?] [Hopefully not before I identify the third time traveler,] Veronica replied firmly. [Then we should make it a priority to track her down,] the matriarch insisted. [How?] Veronica asked, feeling a bit overwhelmed. [I don’t even know where to start. It could be anyone.] [Considering you said Shirley managed to kill old Oganj single-handedly, it is clearly not anyone.] [She wasn’t always that strong, though,] Veronica pointed out thoughtfully. [In the first few restarts, any decent mage could have overpowered her, even some of our classmates. For that matter, it could be a matter of backstabbing rather than losing in combat – someone could have drugged her or lured her into a heavily warded trap area.] [Even a classmate, you say?] the matriarch asked speculatively. [That’s interesting. Didn’t you say Shirley is fairly obsessed with learning more about the rest of your class? She would probably think nothing of sharing a secret with one of them, especially since they’re just students… How well do you know them as a whole? Are any of them acting strange?] [I’m… not really very close to any of them,] Veronica admitted with a slight frown. [I don’t think I would know if they started to behave strangely, so long as they didn’t go completely out of character. I can think of a few that I’m sure aren’t time travelers but…] [Try to investigate,] the matriarch said gently. [It would be terribly embarrassing if it turns out the third one was hiding in plain sight all along, no? Try to see if you can connect any of them with the invaders as well.]

The matriarch gave Veronica a list of human diviners who might know more about the irregularities related to future forecasting, and they both agreed to meet in another three days. Veronica was slightly annoyed that the topic of her empathy and getting it under control never came up, but she supposed the matriarch wanted to see how useful she was before investing their time to teach her their (possibly secret) mind arts. It was nice having someone on her side in this whole tangled mess. She just hoped she wasn’t making the same mistake with the aranea that Shirley did with the person behind the invasion.

Chapter 20: Chapter 20: A Matter of Faith

Chapter Text

Veronica didn’t like temples. Partially, it was due to her bad experiences with them as a child, but mostly because she couldn’t quite grasp the reverence with which the priesthood spoke of the vanished gods they were supposed to be venerating. Virtually every story she had read or heard about the age of gods made the divinities sound like gigantic jerks, so why would anyone want them back? Nobody could ever give her a satisfactory answer to that question, least of all her parents, who were religious only when the neighbors were watching.

The temple in front of her did nothing to dispel that unease. The large, dome-like building on the outskirts of Cyoria was larger and far more imposing than any other temple she had previously been in, despite being described as one of the smaller ones in Cyoria. Still, the aranea matriarch had claimed this temple housed the best (human) future forecaster in the city, so her unease would have to be set aside for the sake of accomplishing the mission.

She hesitantly stepped towards the heavy wooden doors that served as an entrance to the temple, warily glancing at the huge stone angels that flanked the doorway. Lifelike and grim-faced, the angels appeared to gaze down on her as she approached, judging her and finding her lacking. Try as she might, Veronica couldn’t completely dismiss her unease with the statues, since there was a very real possibility they were guardian golems or some other sort of security. She was just about to open the door and walk inside when she noticed a series of images carved into the door and paused to study them.

Although the carvings on the door were fairly stylized and disjointed, she recognized instantly what they were about. They formed a crude sort of comic, depicting a familiar story of how the world was created according to Ikosians (and by extension, most religions drawing their traditions from them). According to Ikosians, the world was originally a swirling, shapeless chaos, inhabited only by the seven primordial dragons. One day, the gods descended from the higher planes of existence and killed all of them save one. This last one they refashioned into the material world that humans now inhabit, turning her body into dirt and stone, her blood into water, her breath into air, and her fire into magic. The vast networks of tunnels stretching beneath the surface of the world are dragon veins, now empty of blood that had been turned into the seas but still flooded with magic emanating from the Heart of the World – the fiery, still-beating heart of the primordial dragon that rests somewhere deep underground. Far from being content with her fate, the Dragon Below still rages against her bounds, giving birth to natural disasters like volcanoes and earthquakes. Unable to strike back against the gods themselves, the dragon takes her anger out on their favored creations – humans – by utilizing her heart, the one thing the gods have not seen fit to take away from her. Pieces of it continually flake off from the main mass, giving birth to horrifying monsters whenever they hit the ground, at which point said monsters begin their ascent to the surface to terrorize mankind…

And so on. Veronica didn’t believe there was much truth in the old story, but the whole thing was pretty horrifying if one took it at face value. With gods like that, it was no wonder the Old Faiths were steadily losing converts to new religions that popped up after the gods disappeared.

"Can I help you with something, young lady?" Veronica was startled out of her musings by a young, green-haired man in priestly robes. His relaxed posture and friendly smile set her at ease, though she couldn’t help but wonder about that green hair. As far as she knew, the only people who naturally had green hair were members of House Reid, and it seemed rather out of character for one of them to join the clergy. That particular house was infamous for their links to crime syndicates.

"Maybe," Veronica allowed with a small smile. "I am Veronica Kazinski, mage in training. I was wondering whether Priestess Kylae was around and willing to talk to me? Oh, and sorry about worrying you. I suppose I had been staring at the entrance a little too long."

"Junior Priest Batak," the man introduced himself, his smile widening. "And don’t worry, a lot of people are intimidated by the gates. It’s why I like to greet newcomers personally like this. As for Kylae… well, she is currently in the middle of a ritual, but if you’re willing to wait an hour or so, I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear you out."

"Sure," Veronica agreed, relieved. This was far better than she expected, to be honest – she half-expected him to put her through some kind of religious test before allowing her to see the head priestess. Waiting an hour or two was a minor price to pay, really. "Err, so should I come back later or…?"

"Nonsense," the man scoffed playfully. "Come inside and I’ll make us something to drink while we wait. It’ll be nice to have someone new to chat with for a change. We get so few visitors these days…"

Uh oh, it seemed that she might still end up being subjected to some sort of test, only this one in the form of casual conversation instead of something overt.

"Slow week?" Veronica asked cautiously as they entered the temple. The interior was pleasantly cool and fairly dark, with rays of multicolored light streaming down from several high-placed stained glass windows, as well as totally empty. She was grateful for the lack of crowds, but it was unusual to see a temple completely deserted like this.

"I wish," Batak sighed. He led Veronica through rows and rows of wooden benches that filled the temple’s main hall, his steps echoing hauntingly behind him. "More like a slow decade. The aftermath of the Weeping has not been kind to this place."

"What do you mean?" Veronica asked, genuinely curious. "What does the Weeping have to do with this place?"

Batak gave her a judging glance before sighing heavily. "Though the gods have gone silent, the priesthood has never been completely powerless. Most priests have some skill with magic, and higher ranks can usually call upon the aid of angels and other lesser spiritual entities, but our real claim to authority came from various hidden mysteries that were entrusted to us before the gods departed to the unknown. Over time, a lot of those were stolen or otherwise lost, but the one thing where we were always unmatched was the healing arts. As such, when the Weeping Plague started spreading across the lands like wildfire, we were expected to do something about it. Sadly, not only were we as powerless against it as anyone else, our close contact with the infected quickly resulted in massive casualties within our ranks. With the subsequent shortage of qualified priests, peripheral temples like this one were all but abandoned, both by believers and by the Holy Triumvirate."
Veronica looked around her, but failed to see any evidence of decay in the interior of the temple. The temple was clean and intact, and the altar – made out of white marble and framed with silk or some other expensive cloth – looked practically brand new. Plenty of stone statues were scattered throughout the building, seamlessly melding into the walls or support beams, and most of the remaining unadorned space was taken up by wooden panels that had various religious imagery carved into their surface, much like the main doors. In short, it was an absurdly luxurious building by the standards of rural temples such as the one in Cirin, and better maintained to boot. Veronica was almost afraid to ask what Cyoria’s main temple looked like if this one was not considered important enough to keep running.

Batak led her to a small, unassuming door next to the altar and ushered her to what was apparently a more informal setting. Rather than being a classical office, it was instead a combination of a kitchen and a living room, far messier than and not nearly as lifeless as the main temple had been. Batak immediately started preparing some tea and began peppering her with questions. The questions were fairly standard – who she was, what she did, where she was from, who her family was, that sort of stuff – so Veronica felt comfortable answering them honestly. Strangely enough, Batak didn’t ask her a single question about her religiosity, something Veronica was glad for. Veronica, in turn, asked a couple of questions about Batak and Kylae, trying to understand what they were even doing here if the temple was abandoned.

Batak was all too happy to enlighten her. Apparently, the church leadership didn’t feel comfortable with simply demolishing the temple… or worse, leaving it to the mercy of the elements and looters. A perfectly understandable sentiment, in Veronica’s opinion – not only would it be a shame to consign such a majestic building to oblivion, it would also be a blatant admission of weakness from the church. In the end, Batak and Kylae were assigned to the temple, ostensibly to keep the temple running, but in reality more to keep it presentable and ward off thieves and squatters.

Finally, after she finished her cup of tea, Batak finally decided he had danced around the issue long enough.

"So," said Batak. "You never did tell me why you’re here, miss Kazinski. Do you think you could perhaps tell me what you need to speak with Kylae about or is this too sensitive for the ears of a mere junior priest?"

Veronica thought about it for a second before deciding it probably wouldn’t hurt to tell the man why she came. Future forecasting wasn’t illegal or anything, after all.

"Well…" began Veronica. "For a start, I heard that Priestess Kylae is skilled at forecasting the future through divinations."

Batak stiffened slightly, but quickly forced himself to relax. His smile did slip off his face, however.

"She is," he said. "It is a difficult field to practice and I doubt anyone could claim mastery of it in any real sense, but she is as close to an expert as you’re likely ever going to get."

"But there are other people who dabble in it regardless, one of which has sent me to speak with Kylae about her findings," said Veronica, privately enjoying the mental image of the aranea matriarch hissing at her for calling her a dabbler in the field. "Some of the results she had gotten out of her predictions have been very… irregular."

All pretenses of good cheer had left Batak’s face by the time she finished talking. Silence stretched into uncomfortable seconds. Veronica was starting to wonder if talking about the topic was somehow taboo or if she had otherwise insulted the man somehow when the junior priest spoke again.

"And these… irregularities… when exactly do they appear? How far did your mysterious backer project her predictions before they went haywire?"

It was at this point that Veronica realized: Batak already knew. He was no more a mere junior priest than she was just an innocent messenger.

"There is only one real irregularity, and it appears on the day of the summer festival. Specifically, the prediction returns a blank beyond that date… almost as if the whole world disappears after that point. But you already knew that, didn’t you?" asked Veronica rhetorically.

Instead of answering her, Batak spat out a very unpriestly curse and started pacing around the cramped room in agitation.

"I’ll take that as a yes," Veronica sighed.

Batak stopped pacing to give her a wary look. After a few moments, the priest visibly forced himself to relax.

"I’m sorry," said Batak, "I didn’t mean to be rude, it’s just… well, it’s probably best if I go and fetch Kylae now so we can discuss this together."

"Isn’t she doing a ritual at the moment?" Veronica pointed out curiously. She knew it was a very bad idea to stop magical rituals halfway through, but maybe the ritual Kylae was performing was purely religious in nature?

"Well, sort of," Batak said sheepishly. "I don’t think she’ll be terribly bothered if I interrupt her. Not for this, in any case. Please wait here while I go get her."

As Veronica watched Batak hurriedly leave, she couldn’t help but wonder why Batak was so spooked out by the termination date they uncovered. Veronica was certainly spooked, but that was because she knew exactly what was causing it, but to Batak and Kylae it shouldn’t look terribly unusual. Much like soul-related magics, the field of future prediction was very poorly understood, and strange never-encountered events probably weren’t unheard of. Veronica sincerely hoped that Batak’s agitation meant they knew something important about the anomaly that she and the aranea matriarch had missed.

It wasn’t long before Batak came back with a middle-aged woman in tow. Veronica’s first thought was that she was surprisingly young for a high priestess, but she supposed with the manpower shortage among the priesthood they couldn’t afford to be too picky about such things. For her part, the priestess gave her a long, searching look upon entering the room before giving her a strained smile and sitting down next to Batak, so that both of them were facing her.

"Hello miss Kazinski," she said. "I am Kylae Kuosi, the high priestess of this temple. I hear you’ve wanted to speak to me. Specifically, that you wanted to speak to me about future prediction?"

"About the termination date on the day of the summer festival, yes," Veronica confirmed.

A short exchange followed where they both confirmed they were indeed talking about the same thing and then the priestess leaned back on her chair and gave Batak a mild glare.

"I told you it was not a mistake," she said.

"And I told you it wasn’t you who was the problem," Batak shot back. "I guess we were both right."

Kylae sighed before refocusing on Veronica. "I don’t suppose you could introduce me to your master so I can discuss this directly with her? Not that I have anything against you, but you just don’t have the necessary expertise and all your information is by necessity second-hand…"

"Sorry," Veronica said. "I’m afraid my master definitely wishes to stay hidden. I agree she could help you better in person, but this is how things are at the moment."

And it was vanishingly unlikely that would change any time soon. According to current church dogma, aranea were classified as monsters – servants of the Dragon Below, to be precise – and therefore not to be dealt with. Kylae and Batak seemed fairly liberal as priests go, but probably not that liberal. Admitting she was speaking on behalf of a giant sentient spider would have led to her being forcibly expelled from the temple at best.

"If I may ask, though, why has this gotten you so spooked?" Veronica asked curiously. "I mean, I know why me and my, ah, master are concerned, but why do you have a problem with it?"

The priestess looked at her curiously. "And why are you concerned, if I may ask?"

"Trade?" offered Veronica, suppressing a smile in favor of the most innocent expression she could manage. Hook, line, and sinker.

The priestess shared a silent look with Batak, somehow communicating without words with her fellow priest. Apparently, they knew each other quite well if they could manage that. Maybe they were lovers? If Veronica remembered correctly, priests were forbidden to have relationships with each other and thus had to look for romantic options outside the church hierarchy, but it wouldn’t be the first time such rules were ignored. In any case, after a few seconds, they seemed to reach a decision and turned again toward her.

"We will share our concerns with you, but only if you go first," the priestess said. "And be warned – I can tell when people lie to me. It is a supernatural ability and has never failed me before, so please don’t waste my time with lies and half-truths."

Well. That was kind of inconvenient. Veronica didn’t detect any attempt at barging into her mind, so whatever ability she had probably wasn’t mind-based in nature. Was she instinctively divining the truth of her statements? Peering into her soul? She supposed she could be bluffing, but she somehow doubted it.

In the end, she decided to take a risk. She fired off a couple of divinations to make sure they weren’t being scried and that there were no cranium rats around and then started to speak when they returned negative.

"Let’s see if this will be a sufficient price for your help, then," Veronica sighed. "The reason we’re concerned is that there is a well-funded, well-organized group of terrorists planning to take advantage of the summer festival to cause trouble. Some parts of their plan – like their usage of artillery spells and war trolls smuggled through the Dungeon – was fairly pedestrian. But there is a more exotic component to their plans, one that wreaks havoc with future prediction by its very nature."

There was a brief moment of silence as the two priests stared at her incredulously.

"That… is not what I expected to hear," the priestess said. "Gods and Goddesses, this is way above my pay grade. I… don’t think I want to know more, to be honest. I don’t want to get involved in such things."

"Probably for the best," Veronica agreed.

"If that is indeed the true cause of the irregularity, though, then my own reasons to panic about it are largely misplaced," the priestess mused.

"I’d still like to hear about it, if it’s not a problem," Veronica said.

"It’s about the angels," Batak interjected. "Ever since the gods have gone silent, angels have sort of taken their place. They can’t grant magical powers to the priesthood or work miracles the way gods could, but they can be summoned in order to provide advice or give aid with their considerable personal abilities."

"And what did they say about the anomaly that got you so spooked?" Veronica asked curiously.

"That’s the thing," the priestess sighed. "We can’t ask them because no one has been able to summon them since about a week ago. We’ve been in contact with churches as far as Koth, and they report the same thing – even the most approachable of celestials are ignoring us. Hell, I’ve even heard rumors that demon worshipers cannot contact their vile masters anymore. It is as if something has cut the entire material plane off from the spiritual realms."

Veronica swallowed heavily. A week ago… the start of the time loop, obviously.
"Quite disturbing, isn’t it?" said Kylae. "Coupled with the timeline simply cutting off a few weeks from now, well, I must admit it had really gotten me spooked. Finding out the two are basically unrelated certainly makes me rest easier." There was further conversation after this, but none of it was terribly productive. Veronica promised Batak and Kylae to be discreet about their troubles with contacting the spirit world and left. Unlike the priestess, Veronica didn’t feel like the conversation had eased her worries.

* * *

Following her visit to the temple, Veronica decided to sit down in one of the many restaurants scattered throughout the city and consider this new information with a bit of food and drink. There was no doubt in her mind that the severing of the link between the spiritual planes and the material one was caused by the time loop, but what that meant was less clear. Was the material plane the only one experiencing the time loop, isolated from everything else within some kind of time bubble? The fact that her current timeline seemed to literally end when the time loop restarted strongly suggested this. Apparently, the spell wasn’t snatching up a bunch of souls and putting them into their past bodies like she initially assumed – it was literally rewinding time itself in the targeted area while leaving a couple of souls intact in the process. No wonder the spell was so easily transmissible – compared to reverting everything one month into the past, the cost of looping an additional soul or two was probably utterly inconsequential.

And that, if true, was very disturbing. That was not human magic. A hundred or so mages in possession of a mana well and a whole lot of time to prepare could affect a medium-sized country at most. The time loop must have enveloped the whole continent, at least, for the boundary to have not been noticed after a day or two. News spread fast these days. And frankly, Veronica had a hunch the time loop enveloped the entire planet. This was like something straight out of the age of gods… but if higher beings were involved, why was the time loop allowed to go off its intended course so severely?

Her musings were interrupted by the scraping of a nearby chair. Someone had decided to join her.

"Oh," she said. "It’s you."

"Is that the way to greet a friend, Roach?" Taiven complained.

Veronica rolled her eyes at her.

"Hi, Taiven," she said softly. "Fancy seeing you here. I mean, this place is pretty far from your usual haunts. It’s almost as if you decided to track me down to this place..."

"That’s because I did," Taiven said with a teasing grin. "What are you doing on the edge of the city, anyway?"

"I was visiting a temple nearby," Veronica answered, a hint of playfulness in her voice. "Lovely architecture."

"You, visiting temples?" Taiven scoffed. Veronica said nothing. "Fine, be that way. I won’t pry. In case you’re wondering, I’m here because I asked around to see if I could find a human empath that could help you control your powers."

"You did?" asked Veronica, suddenly a lot more alert and enthusiastic about this conversation.

Taiven smiled sheepishly. "I kind of did find someone willing to help you, but I’m not sure whether it’s something you’re willing to go for. The woman in question is a healer in one of Cyoria’s big hospitals and she’s only willing to teach you if you agree to an apprentice contract with her and become a full-blown healer."

Veronica clacked her tongue in disappointment. She did intend to learn the basics of magical healing at some point in the future, but that was a long way off. Learning medicine wasn’t something you do in your spare time and would doubtlessly require her to dedicate most of the restart on mastering that one field. She had too many things on her plate as it was.

"No, that doesn’t work for me at all," Veronica sighed. "I have nothing against healers but that’s not the career I’m aiming for."

"Yeah, I kind of figured," Taiven said with a supportive smile. "It really would be kind of a shame to let all that work you sank into spell formulas go to waste. I guess the spiders are still your best bet, huh?"

"Yeah," agreed Veronica. "Although… to tell the truth, they have been dragging their many feet in regard to teaching me. Maybe if they thought I actually had valid alternatives to their help, they’d hurry up a little? What was the healer’s name, anyway?"

Taiven narrowed her eyes. "You’ve been down there alone again?"

Uh oh.

"Maaaaaybe…"

She reached across the table and playfully nudged her in the shoulder, though the message was clear.

"Veronica, you moron," she said affectionately. "I told you not to do these things alone! Even if you trust the freaky giant spiders that much – and I don’t really think you should – there are other things down there! No matter how capable you are, it’s always smart to have another set of hands and eyes with you. Unless you think I couldn’t keep up with you?"

"I don’t think that at all," Veronica said gently. "I just didn’t want to be a bother and…"

"I already said I don’t mind helping," Taiven cut her off. "You can’t use that as an excuse."

"...and the Aranea are kind of prejudiced against non-psychic people," finished Veronica with a sigh.

"Non-what?" asked Taiven incredulously.

"Psychic. People who are like me and them. I don’t quite have a comprehensive explanation of what being psychic entails, but it seems to be some kind of instinctive affinity for mind magic. That’s where my empathy apparently comes from – the aranea claim it’s a weak form of mind reading, and that I could actually do more once they actually deign to teach me."

Taiven seemed at a loss for words for a moment.

"You’re reading my mind?" she finally said. "I didn’t give you permission to do that!"

"I’m only getting vague impressions of your emotions, and not even that consistently," Veronica said with a long-suffering sigh. "Besides, that’s why I’m meeting with the aranea – to learn how to not do that unless I want to. How did you think empathy works, anyway?"

"I guess I didn’t," admitted Taiven. "But we’re getting off track – why does me not being psychic matter to your new spidery friends?"

"How should I know? Prejudices rarely make much sense."

"Well, go ahead and ask them the next time you see them!" Taiven insisted. "Because if you can’t give me a proper answer the next time I ask, I’m going down there to ask them myself, with or without your permission. It’s total nonsense!"

* * *

Aside from her visit to the temple, none of the other future forecasters were in any way helpful to Veronica. A fair number of them didn’t even want to talk to her, and those that did hadn’t made long-term predictions and hadn’t noticed anything strange. Well, one of them did claim to have done so and found nothing of note, but he was an obvious fraud and spent most of the talk trying to get Veronica to part with her money in exchange for a more detailed reading of the future.

So Veronica turned to the matter of her classmates and the possibility that one of them was the third time traveler. Veronica didn’t think there was much chance of that, but better safe than sorry. Besides, it was a good way to look for clues as far as she was concerned, and she had been thinking of getting to know her classmates better anyway.

Including her, there were exactly 20 people in Veronica’s class – 12 girls and 8 boys. Of those, there were three people she was almost certain weren’t the third time traveler – Akoja, Benisek, and Kael. The first two because she actually knew what their normal behavior and personality were before the time loop and had interacted extensively enough with both of them in various restarts to judge them unchanged, and Kael because of the events that took place in the previous restart. Trying to write down everything she knew about the rest, she quickly found two classmates that were very suspicious: Tinami Aope and Estin Grier.

Noble House Aope had a very shady reputation. The House began its existence during the Witch Wars when one of the major witch clans agreed to defect to the Ikosians' side if they were given the status of a formal House in return. The Ikosians, ever pragmatic, agreed. No doubt they thought they could milk the renegades for their magical secrets and then quietly sideline them until they could be officially removed, but that never happened. Instead, the Aope rose through the ranks of the Ikosian political system, leaving a trail of broken rivals in their wake, until they eventually stood on top as one of the more prestigious Noble Houses in all of Altazia. This extreme success wasn’t a result of just being very competent politicians, though – Aope were rumored to practice all sorts of dark, forbidden magic stemming from their witchy roots. Necromancy. Demon summoning. Mind magic.

Of course, this was all just a rumor. Certainly no one who valued their life and career would ever suggest that Tinami Aope, the first-born daughter of the current head of the Aope household, was practicing forbidden magics. Perish the thought. And in fact, the girl was painfully shy and withdrawn and, in general, looked like she wouldn’t hurt a fly.

That didn’t prove anything, though. Beware of the quiet ones and all that. If there was one person in the class who had easy access to magics that could screw Shirley over and hijack the time loop for their own ends, it was probably Tinami. Even better, her withdrawn nature would ensure that very few people knew her enough to realize she was acting strangely unless she did something totally crazy.

Estin Grier, the second suspect, was primarily suspicious because of where he came from. He and his family had immigrated to Altazia from Ulquaan Ibasa – the infamous Island of the Exiles. Since the island was populated mostly by mages exiled there in the wake of the Necromancer’s War, that made Estin the second person who could plausibly have access to forbidden magics without too much trouble.

Also, Veronica was fairly certain that the mages leading the invasion force came primarily from Ulquaan Ibasa. The island was one of the few places where one could find enough necromancers and war trolls to explain the numbers of them present at the invasion. It was also the last recorded home of Quatach-Ichl – the lich general that fought the Old Alliance in the Necromancer’s War and whose physical description matched almost exactly with the lich that had so thoroughly trounced Shirley in that fateful battle where Veronica was dragged into the time loop.

Of course, those two were only the obvious suspects, and the third time traveler, if indeed present among her classmates, was no doubt far more cunningly hidden. Realizing she didn’t know enough about people in her class to really make a judgment, Veronica decided to seek the aid of the one person who could no doubt tell her something about everyone.

"Hello, Benisek," Veronica said, sitting next to the chubby, talkative boy. "Can I ask you to do me a favor?"

"Sure," Benisek said. "What do you need?"

"I need basic information about everyone in our class. What’s the latest gossip about them and so forth."
[Well, that is certainly an interesting turn of events,] the matriarch remarked. [A confirmation of the cut-off point in the timeline and another clue as to the true nature of this time loop is far more than I had hoped for. I must admit I hadn’t actually expected you to find anything useful among human diviners, but there you go. I don’t suppose you have anything on your classmates yet?]

[Not really,] Veronica responded softly, her voice carrying a gentle, yet determined undertone. [I’m only starting with the investigation. Truthfully, this is bound to be a task spanning numerous restarts, so you shouldn’t expect quick results.]

[Yes, of course. Well, I have nothing else to add, so unless you have any additional questions, we can meet each other next week to check on each other’s progress?]

[Actually, I have two questions,] said Veronica.

[Ask away, then.]

[First question: Can you explain to me what exactly you mean by flickermind, and why you disdain them so much?] Veronica asked, her eyes widening with curiosity. [You keep saying that word, and it sounded terribly insulting and bigoted.]

The matriarch twitched her legs, emitting some complex emotion that Veronica couldn’t decode with her limited empathic abilities. That tended to happen a lot, actually, since the aranea were so thoroughly different from humans in both body and mind.

[I apologize if we offend,] she finally said. [It had been quite a while since we had a real, sustained contact with a human, and there are bound to be misunderstandings and points of contention.]

[I notice you didn’t actually answer my question,] pointed out Veronica with a slight smile.

[It is like you suspect: a flickermind is a creature that isn’t psychic like you and me. I’m sure they can be wonderful people, but I – as well as most of my fellow aranea – find it hard to truly take them seriously. It’s like meeting a society of people that are born blind… they can obviously manage without sight, but you’d probably still consider them fundamentally crippled.]

[You never did tell me what being psychic entails, you know?] Veronica gently pressed.

[Everything, from the smallest grain of sand to the very gods themselves, is connected through the great invisible web that suffuses all creation,] the matriarch explained. [Psychic people are open to these connections and contact the minds of others, or even the universe itself, to perform what you humans call magic.]

[That explanation sounds… almost religious,] said Veronica thoughtfully.

[The great invisible web does feature prominently in our spirituality,] the matriarch admitted. [What was the other question you wanted to ask me about?]

[Ah, yes. I had found a human empath that might be willing to teach me some of her skills. I wanted to ask you for your opinion-]

[No!] the matriarch interrupted, her tone firm and slightly distressed. [That’s a terrible idea! Your human empaths are bad teachers! Their training consists of nothing but showing people how to shut off their link to the Great Web and keep it closed most of the time! They brainwash their students into believing that sensing emotions is all there is to their powers and that the rest of the mind arts are immoral! They make a mockery of the great gift!]

Veronica blinked in surprise, trying to remain composed. She had intended to provoke a reaction by broaching the topic in question, but she had no idea the matriarch would be so vehement! Anger and outrage simply poured off the matriarch, making it clear that she cared about this issue very, very much. For the first time since her first encounter with her, Veronica remembered that she was actually quite a terrifying creature.

[That’s a lot stronger denunciation than I expected,] Veronica admitted softly, a touch of awe in her voice. [Care to suggest an alternative, then? I really want to get this ability under control.]

[Have I not promised to help you with that?] the matriarch asked gently.

[And then you ignored the issue completely,] Veronica gently chided.

[I thought you needed time to come to terms with it. You didn’t exactly act thrilled when I first informed you of your gifts. Maybe if you hadn’t waited six months before contacting me we would have been on the same wavelength?]

Ouch.

[But no matter,] the matriarch said, her tone more composed, [this whole argument is pointless. If you want to learn how to use your gift effectively, I’ll be happy to help. Come back tomorrow at this time, and we can begin with your lessons.]

She turned to leave before pausing and sending her a final parting burst of communication.

[And then, once you experience the Great Web in its full glory, you can go to that human empath and see for yourself who is right.]

Chapter 21: Chapter 21: Wheel of Fortune

Chapter Text

In the tunnels beneath Cyoria, Veronica sat cross-legged, her long hair cascading down her back in a neat ponytail, with her eyes closed, trying to sense the minds of nearby aranea with her own. That was the task she had been given by the matriarch as her first lesson, and it reminded her uncomfortably of Xvim’s mana sensing exercise.

It wasn’t going too well. That was another thing it shared with Xvim’s arduous lessons.

[It has only been three days,] the disembodied voice of the matriarch encouraged gently. [You’ve barely even started. Don’t be impatient.]

"There’s got to be a better way of learning this," Veronica murmured softly. This kind of trial and error method was something she could have done without help. As far as she could see, the only way the matriarch was really helping at the moment was by being an experienced practitioner ready to step in if something went wrong. Which, now that she thought about it, was quite valuable when messing around with something like mind magic. Or any magic, for that matter.

[That, and there is also the little fact that it’s easier to sense and contact Open minds than those of… non-psychics,] the matriarch remarked, fumbling a little towards the end. [I somehow doubt you would find many Open individuals to practice on back on the surface. Fewer still would be willing to let you connect to them. Anyway. I realize that these initial stages are tedious and boring, but they are necessary. And if I have not explained things satisfactorily, I apologize, but I do not know how to do it any better. This ability is not something I learnt, it is something I do. Aranea learn how to do this as very young children, much like human children learn how to walk and talk. Can you explain to someone who has been paralyzed all their life how to move their legs?]

Veronica frowned, her slender figure tensing with frustration. So she wasn’t even able to master telepathic baby skills? Wonderful. Just wonderful. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she tried to consider the task in front of her and how to solve it. Yes, yes, the matriarch insisted she should just keep trying until she eventually succeeded by sheer weight of effort, but she was a mage, after all! Mages did things smarter, not harder.

Being psychic meant being a natural mind mage. For all that the matriarch kept bringing in her unique aranea spirituality, that’s what it all boiled down to. A psychic could read thoughts and emotions, trawl through people’s memories, hijack their senses and motor control, communicate with them telepathically, and gods know what else, but all of it was mind-related. Even the matriarch admitted that aranea used modified human magic for things like her speech spell and the rest of their non-mentalist magical arsenal.

Divinations were the key, she felt. If psychic powers were mind-based, why did they also enhance divinations?

[Not all divinations,] the matriarch remarked from the sidelines, apparently following her train of thought. [Only the ones that put information directly into your mind. The Gift helps you interpret the results of such spells more easily, and since most high-level divinations pour at least a part of the information straight into your mind… well, you can imagine how useful that can be.]

Suddenly, something clicked in Veronica’s mind. According to the books she read about the mind arts in the academy library, spells that were meant to read people’s thoughts were not terribly difficult in principle. The problem was that the result was totally incomprehensible to most users, unless they spent years training themselves how to interpret the results. Spells that aimed to establish telepathic communication also suffered this problem, though to a lesser extent – so long as the people in question spoke the same language, they could at least exchange verbal communication in such a fashion. In other words, human mind spells were remarkably like a divination that tried to simply dump its output into the mind of the caster… which wasn’t something most mages were equipped to handle.

Taking it all together, it seemed obvious to Veronica that one of the defining powers of a psychic was their ability to make sense of information entering the mind directly – whether it was other people’s thoughts or something more exotic like divination results. The immediately interesting part was that it was a passive skill. Using it wasn’t something she had to specifically activate; it was a state of being, so if she wanted to sense the minds of nearby aranea, perhaps she should stop trying to push her power out towards her surroundings and concentrate inward. She took a deep breath, visualized the results as motes of light around her, and then just… opened her mind.

Blazing suns erupted all around her, including a couple in places where she hadn’t expected there would be any aranea to begin with. Apparently, the matriarch brought more guards with her than she had openly displayed to her.

[Your first success,] the matriarch remarked, her telepathic probe interrupting Veronica's concentration and causing the entire vision to burst like a dream. [Well done. Things should go a lot faster from now on. I’d congratulate you on your fast progress, but I have to be honest and admit I have no idea how fast humans usually progress in this.]

"Perhaps things would have gone faster if you had actually told me I was doing things wrong," Veronica said with a hint of annoyance. "Why didn’t you tell me I was supposed to concentrate inward instead of outward?"

[I did; it’s not my fault if you dismissed it as pointless aranean superstition,] the matriarch said airily. [And I actually didn’t know that the problem lay there in particular. I suppose my tendency to respond to your thoughts makes you think I can understand them in totality, yes? The truth is less impressive, I’m afraid. Telepaths like you and me labor under many of the same limitations that plague human mind magic; it’s just that we advance much faster in the field and don’t need a structured spell to use our abilities. Unless you structure your thoughts into actual speech, the most I get from you from my surface scans is a very fuzzy image of your current emotional state and your general intentions. This is doubly true because you’re human and I’m an aranea, two radically different species that don’t even share the same general body plan, much less mentality.]

"Huh, so language and species do matter to a psychic," Veronica remarked softly. "I was wondering about that."

[It’s usually not a big problem since most creatures tend to think in words when they engage in conscious thought,] the matriarch explained. [So long as two creatures speak the same language, they can freely engage in telepathic conversation, no matter how different their underlying thoughts. If they don’t share a language… well, admittedly, not all is lost. Psychics can potentially communicate with completely alien minds. It involves structuring your thoughts into general concepts that are hopefully broad enough to be understood by the recipient but not so broad as to be meaningless. Unfortunately, this method is very crude and tends to be both painful and disorienting to the target. I believe you experienced it already when you met one of the less human-savvy araneas in one of the previous restarts.]

Veronica nodded, her eyes reflecting a mix of intrigue and determination, ready to delve deeper into the mysteries of the Great Web.
"So it’s not just because you’re more powerful that you speak with me so easily?" asked Veronica, her voice soft yet curious.

[No. I took the time to learn human language, mentality, and culture. As did a number of other aranea that occasionally interact with humans. However, our web is extensive enough that most aranea can remain largely ignorant of human ways while they go on about their business, which is why most of my guards are silent around you. Trust me, they aren’t usually this withdrawn, but if they tried to talk to you they’d just give you a headache.]

"Does that mean that mental attacks are easier than communication?" Veronica asked, tilting her head slightly, the question enveloped in a gentle curiosity. "I mean, if botched telepathic communication is practically a mental assault to begin with, it shouldn’t take much to simply fry a creature’s brain and be done with it."

[It’s called a mind blast, and it’s the simplest telepathic attack there is,] the matriarch explained patiently. [It’s also the simplest one to defend against. You should really stop worrying about me attacking you. Aren’t the explosives you constantly carry in your pocket enough to reassure you?]

"They help," Veronica admitted, a subtle smile playing on her lips. "But in this particular case, I wasn’t alluding to the possibility of hostilities between us. I was just curious."

[Well, good. Anyway, we should get back to developing your mind sense before we get too off-track,] the matriarch said, her tone encouraging. [You made your first successful stab at it, but it is far too shaky to be usable at the moment. You need to be able to sense minds around you instantly, without having to sit still with your eyes closed, and preferably while doing something else entirely.]

Veronica sighed softly, reminiscent of her earlier training experiences with Xvim.

* * *

The rest of the month was fairly unremarkable, mostly spent honing her mind sense and trying to gauge the intensity of magical sources through a mana cloud. Though the matriarch refused to teach her anything further until she had (relatively) mastered her mind sense, Veronica already noticed her lessons gave her rudimentary control over her empathy – enough to keep it in check with concentration, but not enough to focus on specific people or refine it. This alone made the lessons invaluable, as it would make social events infinitely more bearable for her.

And speaking of social events, Shirley had been increasingly pushy about bringing her to the summer festival party. After the insistence continued, Veronica relented. Yes, it would bring her uncomfortably close to the other time traveler for the evening, but she was curious about testing her empathy suppression in a live situation and also curious about how Shirley’s mansion looked from the inside. Besides, she was trying to get to know her classmates better, and this was a good opportunity to chat without looking completely out of character.

"Is it really okay for me to come with you?" Taiven asked as she walked beside Veronica, her tone laced with a touch of excitement.

"For the last time, Taiven, yes. Shirley made it clear the more people we invite, the better," Veronica replied with a playful reassurance. "Look, if you don’t want to come—"

"Oh no, I totally do. It’s not every day you get a chance to attend a party at the Noveda mansion. It’s just that I find it a bit strange, that’s all. I’m kind of surprised you agreed to come, though – isn’t this sort of thing an anathema to you?"

"It’s either this or attending the official dance organized by the academy," Veronica said with a playful roll of her eyes. "My only real choice is to pick my poison."

"Ah, I see," Taiven nodded, understanding. "I guess in that case, this does seem the better option."

Veronica glanced at Taiven from the corner of her eye, feeling slightly guilty. The truth was, her main reason for inviting Taiven along was to personally see how she would fare against the invaders. She knew Taiven was a lot better than her at combat magic, though perhaps not excessively so, and she wanted a comparison point that wasn’t as towering as Shirley or as experienced as Kyron.

Then again, this was Taiven - she likely faced the invaders in every restart anyway, just not where Veronica could see her. At least this time, she would have the advantage of fighting alongside a combatant as skilled as Shirley.

They barely knocked on the door before Shirley came along and welcomed them inside, her sharp green eyes sparkling with warmth. She had probably known they were coming the moment they stepped through the outer gate, Veronica thought. It would make sense to have some detection field woven into the ward scheme protecting the place.

"I’m glad you decided to come," Shirley said with a wink as she led them toward the dining hall, where the party was to be held. "Considering how you’ve behaved toward me lately, I half-expected you to ignore your promise to come and stay in your room."

"I don’t know what you’re talking about," Veronica said with a slight, enigmatic smile. For one thing, Shirley hadn’t bothered her all that much in this particular restart. Was the other time traveler trying to bait her into revealing herself, or had she simply spent so much time in this loop that it was hard to keep events straight?

"Uh, what’s going on here?" Taiven asked, looking between them with a quizzical expression. "Is there something I should know or…"

Shirley glanced at her before turning to Veronica, offering a cheeky thumbs up. "New girl, huh? Gee, you have a new one every time I see you. I wouldn’t have guessed you were that kind of girl."

"What?" asked Veronica and Taiven simultaneously, their incredulity mutual.

Veronica was honestly baffled for a moment but then realized that Shirley was mixing up her restarts again. Akoja, Ibery, and Taiven: Shirley had seen her with all three of them in various restarts. But that… that was totally different! None of them were even interested in her!

"Veronica is a heartbreaker?" Taiven asked, her voice worryingly calm, but with a playful glint in her eyes.

"I am not!" Veronica denied, her cheeks tinged with a hint of color before turning her focus to the amused Shirley. "And you! Stop spreading silly rumors about me! I know for a fact you’ve never seen me with anyone until this evening! And you wonder why I’ve been avoiding you this whole month…"

Shirley winced theatrically. "Sorry, sorry, I was just teasing. Don’t worry, I’m sure your 'friend' here won’t leave you over a couple of silly remarks by me. Or if she does, she wasn’t worth the fuss in the first place."

"Oh really?" Taiven said with a teasing smile. "You don’t think she’d be devastated to lose a friend as powerful, smart, and charming as—"

"Taiven, don’t you start too," sighed Veronica, her tone somewhere between exasperation and amusem*nt. "Shirley, she’s just a friend."

"Who happens to be a pretty girl," Shirley quipped with a mischievous grin.

"Yes," Veronica replied, gnashing her teeth in irritation.

"Ah well, at least you already have someone to dance with for the evening," said Shirley lightly.

Veronica kind of doubted that. Taiven was a very attractive girl, with a nice athletic figure and a bright, lively face, and she liked to be around people who were similarly vibrant. Chances were high that Taiven would find someone else to dance with once they hit the crowd. Shirley maybe, if the way she was checking her out was any indication.

"You know, this place is pretty empty," Taiven whispered to Veronica as they walked. "I know she’s the last of her House and all, but I can’t even see any servants around."

"Most of the servants were dismissed from service by my guardian while I was still a small child," Shirley said, not the least surprised at the poor whispering attempt. "Since my parents died while I was still a baby, he had free reign to do what he felt was necessary to keep House Noveda standing until I was old enough to take over. As part of that, most of the maintenance staff and other contractors were deemed unnecessary and let go."

"And you don’t agree with his actions?" Veronica guessed, sensing an undercurrent of tension when Shirley discussed her guardian, which matched her actions of regularly brutalizing the man at the beginning of many restarts.

Shirley gave Veronica a thoughtful look before sighing.

"Let’s just say he and I have our disagreements and leave it at that," she said, the statement layered with unspoken history.

"You know, I never did find out what happened to your family," Taiven said boldly. "How come you ended up being the last of your House?"

Veronica gave Taiven a gentle nudge, casting a firm yet playful glance Taiven’s way when she shot back a scandalized look. Was she surprised, or did she not realize how inappropriate her question was?

"Oh leave her alone, she’s just being upfront about her curiosity," said Shirley, her playful grin not wavering, even though her back was turned when the exchange happened. "I kind of like her attitude, to be honest."

Figures, Veronica thought. Now that she considered it, Taiven and Shirley both had similarly bold and carefree attitudes about things, so maybe it hadn't been the best idea to have them meet each other...

And with that, Shirley launched into a detailed account of the Noveda House’s fall… most of which Veronica tuned out in favor of studying various paintings and portraits along the way. Truth be told, Veronica had already tracked down all information about Shirley and House Noveda she could get her hands on, so very little of what was said was new to her.

While tragic, Shirley’s story was not particularly unique, summarizing into two main causes: the Splinter Wars and the Weeping.

The Old Alliance was a complicated construct, a patchwork empire made out of bickering, semi-independent states that only sometimes listened to orders emanating from Eldemar. But for all its faults, it was quite successful at suppressing outright warfare between its member states. Armed conflict was rare and highly limited in scale, especially since the Alliance had no major outside enemies to defend against. Thus, when the Old Alliance shattered and its component states started mobilizing their forces for war, it was the first time in nearly a century that actual war would be waged in the region, and it would be a rude awakening for every battlemage in Altazia. For it would be the first time ever that firearms were used in warfare on a mass scale.
Firearms were known to Altazia for centuries at this point, but they were not held in very high regard by the generals and decision makers of Eldemar and other powerful countries. Initial attempts to make use of them had shown them to be unwieldy and almost as dangerous to the user as they were to the target. Artillery mages were a lot more mobile and effective than any cannon, and the less said about hand-held firearms the better. Still, enough people remained interested in them that the technology never died and gradually improved as time went by. However, even after naval powers started arming their ships with cannons, even when a couple of mercenary groups began using rifles successfully, handheld firearms were still ultimately seen as a dead end. There was nothing that riflemen could do that a properly trained archer couldn’t do better, and bows and arrows were a lot easier to enhance with magic than rifles and their ammunition. The one advantage rifles had over alternatives was that they required almost no training before they could be used effectively, and countries of the Old Alliance had no use for barely trained conscripts. Until the Splinter Wars, that is. With the dissolution of the Old Alliance, every state suddenly scrambled to arm itself for the coming conflict, and having a passable army immediately was more important than having a proper one a decade from now. Smaller countries, inherently unable to compete with the likes of Eldemar when it came to magical might, invested particularly heavily into firearms as an alternative to combat magic. Eldemar, being one of the few countries with a fully functional traditional army, felt no need to play around with these 'commoners' toys'.

No one really expected firearms to be as devastatingly effective as they ended up being. Even the countries that made heavy use of them expected them to do little except stall the advance of classical armies and perhaps motivate them to look elsewhere for easier prey. Instead, massed rifleman armies absolutely savaged traditional ones, catching established powers completely off-guard. Instead of larger powers gobbling up every minor power and city-state around them and then duking it out among themselves (the outcome everyone had been expecting), the larger powers ended up weakening themselves instead, often splintering into their component parts as their internal enemies smelled weakness. Although nations eventually adapted their forces and battle doctrines to firearms technology, the damage had been done, and every subsequent Splinter War only made Altazia’s political fragmentation worse. This was especially true because the Splinter Wars caused immense casualties to the mage Houses that were the intellectual and political elite of Altazia’s nations. The reason was simple – being a battlemage was a highly prestigious occupation and many Houses used their military involvement as a way to gather influence and reputation, which they then used as leverage in furthering their political and mercantile interests. With the advent of the Splinter Wars, the demand for battlemages only increased, causing many more mages to enlist in the various armies in search for glory and wealth. This backfired spectacularly as casualties began to mount. Unfamiliar with the strengths and limitations of firearms, and often outright dismissive of them, many mages fell prey to snipers, artillery strikes and massed rifle fire. Many noble houses were thoroughly crippled by the losses they sustained, House Noveda being one of them.

House Noveda had been fundamentally a military house, even if they were active in a lot of other fields as well. According to Shirley, House leadership considered military service to build character, and every male member was expected to serve at least a few years in their youth. Quite a lot of female members enlisted as well. Very closely connected to the Eldemar royal family and very traditionalist in attitude, the Noveda supported Eldemar’s military ambitions whole-heartedly, conscripting every available battle-ready member into the war effort. All this meant that when Eldemar began the Splinter Wars by launching a massive, multi-pronged assault on its smaller neighbors, House Noveda members were right there at the forefront of the offensive.

And they paid dearly for it. Still, while House Noveda was heavily diminished in the immediate aftermath of the Splinter War, they were not yet done for. Given a few more decades, the House could have recovered somewhat and reclaimed its former glory and political influence. Sadly, that’s when the Weeping came and ruined everything.

Nobody knew where the Weeping came from. It simply started to spread among the soldiers one day, a deadly, incurable disease that struck down everyone who contracted it, heedless of age, health or even magic. Once a person contracted it, their death was all but certain – they would first collapse into fever and delirium, then become blind, and then start to leak blood out of their eyes before finally expiring. Regular healers were useless, no magic could cure it, and even the church and its lost mysteries of the gods failed to halt its spread. In the end, nobody could do anything except wait for the disease to burn itself out, which it eventually did. As mysteriously as it appeared, the Weeping disappeared after blazing across the entire continent.

The exact number of deaths from the Weeping was still debated, but most writers agreed that somewhere between 8 and 10 percent of Altazia’s population perished in the epidemic. Some groups suffered more, while others were completely unscathed, seemingly without rhyme or reason. Veronica's family was completely untouched, for instance – both of her parents and all of her siblings survived the epidemic completely unscathed, which made them all very, very lucky. Conversely, Shirley lost absolutely everyone to the Weeping. The few Noveda that survived the Splinter Wars all contracted the sickness and died, leaving a hollowed-out shell of a House whose only surviving member was a small child, too young to even care for herself.

"…which is how the whole sad story ends," finished Shirley with a slightly defiant smile. "If nothing else, the Weeping finally put an end to the Splinter Wars. But that’s enough of such depressing topics. We’re here!"

Indeed they were, and boy was Veronica happy for her rudimentary control over her empathy – Shirley’s chosen meeting hall was a lot smaller than the academy dancing hall and the mood was a lot more informal and unrestrained, making crowds denser and rowdier. This would have been pure hell in her normal state.

Just as she was contemplating the best way to go mingle with the other students (hopefully giving her an opportunity to dig for personal information while they chatted), the choice was taken from her. Taiven also wanted to mingle, though her reasons were almost certainly more benign than Veronica's, and she decided that the best way to do that was to have Veronica introduce her. Convenient.

After talking to a couple of people she was reasonably familiar with and knew she could talk to, mostly Kael and Benisek, Veronica moved onto people that seemed like they wouldn’t mind getting interrupted. Of course, in a group of this size, it was silly to expect it would only be them approaching others.

"Alright, who else do you know here?" Taiven asked.

"Well, that tall, green-haired girl having a heated argument with those two guys is Kopriva Reid."

"Wait, she’s that Reid?" Taiven asked. "One of those gangsters goes to the same class as you do?"

"Why, Taiven, are you suggesting that House Reid has something to do with organized crime?" Veronica asked with a small smile. "That’s quite a serious accusation, you know. Nothing was ever proven, after all."

"Whatever. The bottom point is that I’m not going anywhere near the gangster princess. Anyone else?"

Veronica scanned the crowd again. To be honest, she always found Kopriva to be a pleasant enough person to talk to, at least in the small number of times they actually interacted. She was a bit blunt and had a habit of swearing like a sailor when things didn’t go her way, but she never did anything… well, gangster-y. A small group of girls glancing her way suddenly caught her eye.

"See that group of five girls over there?" she said to Taiven. "That would be Jade, Neolu, Maya, Kiana and Elsie."

"They look… giggly," said Taiven with a sour expression. "Pass."

"Oh it’s too late for that," said Veronica. "See how they’re glancing in our direction? They’ve already noticed us and are debating how best to approach and interrogate us."

"Veronica, don’t tempt fate," Taiven warned her.

"It’s not tempting fate, it’s knowing your enemy. They just saw one of their classmates walking around with a girl they know nothing about – there is no way those five would let that go without investigating," said Veronica, even as the group of girls she spoke of shared a nod and marched over in their direction. "See, what did I tell you? They’re already coming this way."

Taiven gave her a quiet groan, but then quickly schooled her face into a pleasant façade as the girls approached. Veronica understood her perfectly – she wasn’t particularly looking forward to the upcoming conversation, but she knew it was coming the moment she had entered the room so she was prepared for it. And, while she didn’t really think any of those five was the third time traveler, she had promised to herself she wouldn’t skip over any candidates without giving them at least a cursory scrutiny. This was going to be a long evening.

* * *

True to her prediction, once the introductions were done and the actual dancing had started, Taiven found herself some tall, handsome older student and left her to find someone else on her own. Whatever, she didn’t like dancing anyway. She promptly used her expert skills at avoiding attention to retreat to the periphery of the dancing throng, seeking some out of the way corner where no one would bother her. She quickly noticed she wasn’t the only one who had that idea. Tinami Aope seemed to have already found one such corner and was… looking pretty awkward, actually. Ho-hum. Somehow Veronica doubted she really wanted to be left alone, with a face like that.

"Hello, Tinami," she greeted, causing her to jerk in shock at being addressed.

"Um…" she fumbled. "Veronica, right?"

"That’s me," confirmed Veronica. "Care for a dance?"

"Oh. Oh! But didn’t you already come with a girlfriend? Won’t she mind?" Tinami asked.

Veronica pointed towards the spot where Taiven was dancing with her partner. "Also, Taiven is just a friend."

"Ah," she said, fidgeting uncomfortably. Veronica wordlessly offered her hand to her. "Um, okay then…" she said, grabbing Veronica’s offered hand with surprising forcefulness and dutifully following her onto the dance floor.

In the next 30 minutes, Veronica tried to engage Tinami in conversation with only mild success, and she suspected it was only because of these highly specific circ*mstances Tinami was willing to open up even a little to her. Tinami really was a very shy girl, and Veronica somehow doubted she was secretly the third time traveler pretending. Her awkwardness seemed quite real, and surely a time traveler as experienced as Shirley would have grown out of that by now?

"So as a hobby, you raise… spiders?" asked Veronica curiously.

"Tarantulas," she corrected insistently. "But, um, I kind of like spiders of all sorts. I know it’s weird, but…"

"Nonsense," countered Veronica good-naturedly. What could possibly be weird about a shy, delicate-looking girl breeding big, hairy arachnids the size of a human hand? "Spiders are really quite amazing creatures. Though I prefer jumping spiders myself – those two giant eyes at the front somehow make them more human-like and relatable for me."

Tinami gave her an incredulous look before frowning. "You’re making fun of me," she accused.
"Nope," Veronica countered with an easy smile. "In fact, there is a particularly large colony of jumping spiders that I visit on a regular basis. It’s amazing what you can learn by observing the natural world." Tinami narrowed her eyes at her and launched into a series of increasingly esoteric questions about spiders. Since Veronica had spent a great deal of time investigating various spider species as part of her research into aranea, she actually knew how to answer most of her questions. She then tried to turn the tables on her by asking her about magical varieties of larger, more monstrous varieties of spiders, gambling that her interest mainly extended to the smaller, cuddlier breeds. She gambled wrong. Not only did Tinami know more about spider monsters than she did, she also knew a great deal about monster species that only looked like a spider (such as various kinds of spider demons), and about monsters with spider-derived traits. Veronica wondered what would happen if she introduced her to the aranea and decided she would definitely do so in one of the restarts. It was bound to be amusing, if nothing else.

"I see it didn’t take you long to find a new girl once your lovely date for the evening left you," Shirley said behind her, causing her to jerk in surprise. Veronica turned to glare at the girl in response, wondering why she didn’t sense her coming – she usually always… oh, right, she’d shut off her mind for the evening so the combined feelings of the throng wouldn’t overwhelm her. The fact she managed to keep it closed with no conscious effort while being absorbed in her conversation with Tinami was an encouraging sign for her developing mental abilities.

"Why are you here, Shirley?" Veronica sighed softly.

"I’m the host," Shirley replied with a playful grin. "It’s my job to check up on the guests and see if they’re having any issues with the service and whatnot. Though in this case, I just wondered if you wanted to see the fireworks or not."

Oh yes, Veronica definitely wanted to see the fireworks and immediately said so. Thus, she and Tinami joined a sizeable group of people in the garden where they would have an unobstructed view of the sky. Veronica paid more attention to Shirley than to the sky, though. If the matriarch’s plan went along as planned, Shirley was bound to have an interesting reaction.

Veronica had shied away from acting against the invaders, and not just because she was too weak to contribute much. The fact was that trying to sabotage the invasion was bound to get the attention of the third time traveler leading it, and Veronica didn’t want to advertise her existence. So instead, she limited herself to gathering information about the invaders and waiting until she was strong enough to survive hostile attention. The aranea had no intention of doing the same, however – the invasion forces seemed to spend most of the month leading up to the invasion wiping out the aranea as a coherent force, and the matriarch had no intention of sitting on critical information for the sake of deception. Fortunately, there was no way for the invasion leaders to connect the aranea to Veronica, and the matriarch agreed with her that she shouldn’t get involved, arguing that she was far too useful as a scout and memory carrier to risk revealing herself recklessly.

So three days ago, Veronica and the matriarch sat down to discuss a plan of action. Veronica had observed the progress of the invasion from various points in the city during the last few restarts, and she was convinced that the best and easiest way of derailing the invasion was to prevent the initial artillery barrage that preceded the invasion proper. This was especially true because she knew exactly where they were firing from – triangulating the location of their firing positions was absolutely trivial when you were tracking a brightly shining projectile moving relatively slowly across the sky. Unfortunately, she never managed to get close to one of those firing points to see what kind of defenses they had, since she was killed both times she attempted the feat. The matriarch agreed that assaulting those positions before they could fire was likely to be the best way to strike a critical blow to the invaders, and the plan was put in motion.

The fireworks started… and not a single artillery spell accompanied them. The look of increasing bafflement on Shirley’s face was priceless.

"What’s wrong, Shirley?" Veronica asked innocently. "You act like you’ve never seen fireworks before."

"Err, no, I mean I did, it’s just… never mind," Shirley sighed, her playful demeanor momentarily slipping.

Veronica shrugged and turned to Tinami, offering her a hand. "What do you think about going back inside for another dance?"

"Um, yes!" she agreed enthusiastically. "Let’s!"

Slowly, the people got tired of exploding lights in the sky and streamed back inside, leaving a frowning Shirley staring alone at the sky.

* * *

Veronica’s good mood was short-lived. While the invaders were indeed hard-hit by the lack of their initial bombardment, the invasion wasn't called off, and they appeared to have made Shirley’s mansion one of their primary targets, probably because that’s where Shirley was and they were specifically targeting her. Perhaps if the students had witnessed the artillery spells hitting the city, Shirley could have used that to assume control and organize some kind of proper defense, but as it was, the attack caught them all completely unprepared. Not even Shirley, with all her mighty magic, could stop the flood of invaders gaining entry into the mansion, after which several groups of students were isolated from the main group containing Shirley. Veronica was in one such group.

She, Tinami, Taiven, Briam, and four other students she didn't know had ended up barricading themselves in one of the few untouched rooms in the mansion, desperately trying to keep the invading forces at bay. The four unknown students were almost entirely useless, but the other three were worth their weight in gold. Briam had summoned his trusty fire drake to his side the moment he realized they were under attack, Taiven knew how to cast some kind of incredibly destructive fire vortex that actually made the invaders reluctant to continue their attack for ten whole minutes, and Tinami… well, she was clearly no stranger to fighting and behaved completely differently in a combat situation than she did in normal interaction. She didn’t know any fire spells, but she did know how to fire some kind of purple beams that caused even the biggest of war trolls to collapse on the ground screaming. The beams did no obvious damage, so Veronica assumed they were simply pain spells, but that was useful enough on its own – Tinami didn’t spam those beams mindlessly, instead concentrating on causing pileups, breaking up charges, and interrupting enemy spellcasters.

"Veronica, I really hope you’ll be done soon, because this position is rapidly becoming untenable," Taiven shouted over the noise.

Veronica ignored her, carefully inscribing the last set of explosive runes on the walls of the corridor behind them. You didn’t rush this sort of task unless you fancied blowing yourself up before the enemies even got to you. A minute later, she finished the set and rose to her feet, her knees cracking painfully from the long period spent crouching.

"Done!" she shouted. "Everyone retreat through the corridor!"

Just as Briam, Taiven, and Tinami covered her while she set up the explosive runes, she now focused on covering them while they fled deeper into the mansion. Technically, one of the unknown boys helped her in this endeavor, but he wasn’t very good at it – his only offensive spell was magic missile, and he was firing them at the war trolls charging on them (who could soak such hits easily and keep going) instead of at the robed mages supporting them (who were a lot more vulnerable and had to concentrate on spellcasting). Veronica, aware that she didn’t have the mana reserves to tank the entire enemy assault force, decided to take the mages out of the equation first. Thus, she raised the spell rod she smuggled into the mansion and fired a weak disintegration beam towards them. She didn’t aim at the mages themselves – that wouldn’t have done much – but at the floor in front of them, which had no spell resistance to protect it. The beam gouged a jagged line in the floor, sending billowing, irritating clouds of dust into the air. That should at least mess up their aiming.

She then turned her attention to the rapidly approaching war trolls. There were very few tricks she could do to stop a war troll charge, and none of them could be done on a moment’s notice. Thus, she decided to simply sacrifice a good portion of her mana reserves and hit them with an overpowered flamethrower.

It didn’t kill them – Veronica’s flamethrower wasn’t strong enough, and these particular war trolls seemed to be particularly tough ones, brought to deal with them after Taiven cast that flaming vortex spell – but it broke their charge, and Veronica used that momentary reprieve to conjure another cloud of dust with her spell rod and fled down the corridor after the rest of the students. But boy had broken his position and run ages ago, the useless coward, so she really hoped their confusion would last long enough for her to gain some distance. She wasn’t fast enough to outrun a war troll.

A furious screech erupted around her, and she could suddenly hear one of the war trolls rapidly gaining on her. Damn it, she hated dying.

A sinister purple beam suddenly cut through the air next to her head, hitting the war troll behind her. The monster screeched again, this time in pain, and collapsed to the floor. Veronica gouged another line in the floor with her spell rod, cloaking the corridor in more dust, and then she was inside their newest sanctuary.

"Thanks," she said, breathing heavily.

"Um, you’re welcome," Tinami said, fiddling with the silver amulet she was wearing and watching the dust cloud covering the corridor for any sign of movement. The amulet seemed to be the spell formula she was using to cast the purple beams.

"Here they come," Briam said.

"Remember the plan," Taiven said. "Let them all advance into the corridor before triggering the explosive runes."

"What if they notice the trap?" one of the unknown girls asked.

"Then at least they’ll be hesitant to push forward so insistently," Taiven said.

They didn’t bother closing the door – that would just result in them being pelted by wooden splinters and shrapnel when the mages forcibly broke down the door. They had lost two students before they learned that lesson.

Sure enough, there was a barrage of concussive beams and battering rams preceding the war troll charge. After Briam and Taiven repelled the initial charge with a fairly anemic defense, the mages moved into the corridor to provide support, sensing that victory was near. That’s when Veronica released a mana pulse towards the nearest cluster of explosive runes and the entire corridor collapsed in a deafening explosion. A huge plume of dust and gravel rushed into the tiny room they currently occupied, but Taiven was ready and immediately created a large-ish bubble of clear air to stop them from choking to death.

"Well," Taiven coughed, having been too slow to shield them from all the dust that was obscuring the room. "That should stop the attacks for a while. Still, we have a bit of a problem. This room is a dead end. The only exit is this corridor and the window to the outside."

"The outside is swarming with enemies," Veronica noted with a frustrated sigh.

"We don’t have much choice, though, do we?" Briam asked rhetorically. "We can’t stay here."

Veronica nodded, understanding the gravity of their situation.
"How are we going to get down?" one of the unknown girls asked. "We’re on the second floor, we can’t just jump out of the window."

"Hmm… alright, how many of you know how to cast the floating disc spell?" asked Taiven, raising her own hand.

Veronica was the only one who raised her own hand to match.

"Ugh. Fine, that will have to do, I suppose. Okay, Veronica, I’m going to go first and get these four down, and you follow after me with those two."

"Hey!" one of the girls complained.

"Sorry, but I call it like I see it," Taiven said with a firm but not unkind tone. "Let’s go before even more of these people converge on our position to see what the explosion was all about."

And so, Veronica gracefully created a large floating disc of force outside the window and stepped onto it, her skirt fluttering gently around her ankles, followed closely by Briam and Tinami. At first, it seemed like everything would go flawlessly—there were no enemies waiting for them at the bottom, Taiven had successfully touched down, and her disk was not giving any indication of failing under the combined weight of people standing on it. Then a flock of iron beaks suddenly appeared from around the corner, and Veronica muttered a soft curse under her breath.

There was really nothing she could do to deal with a flock of iron beaks, and Briam and Tinami weren’t much better. There were about 50 of them, so even if she could snipe a couple off the sky, it wouldn’t mean a thing. Tinami probably couldn’t make that pain beam of hers home in on a target, and iron beaks were very agile flyers. As for Briam, his attack options seemed to be strictly limited to his fire drake, and there was no reason for the flock to approach close enough to be caught in its fire breath when they could just rain their iron feathers on them from distance.

Veronica launched a homing piercer anyway, and noticed out of the corner of her eye that Taiven had launched a small swarm of 7 homing magic missiles. Eight iron beaks fell, but it was a drop in the bucket, and then it was the iron beaks' turn. The air in front of them blurred, and a cloud of glittering feathers was launched at them.

Faced with the choice of trying to withstand several hundred magical iron feathers or trying to survive a fairly dangerous fall, Veronica knew which one she wanted to chance. She immediately dismissed the floating disc and all three of them promptly plunged towards the ground.

This would probably be the end of this particular restart—knowing her luck, she was going to break her neck when she hit the ground—but on the bright side, she managed to evade the deadly feathers! As she tumbled through the air, her eyes briefly met with those of Briam’s fire drake, and she couldn’t help but think it was glaring at her. It was hard to tell when that thing was angry, though, since it always looked pretty fierce to her.

Suddenly, just before they were about to hit the ground, their fall was halted and they touched down on the ground as gently as a feather. Before Veronica could ask what happened, a huge swarm of flaming missiles erupted from somewhere behind her, annihilating the entire iron beak flock.

"You know, Veronica," Shirley said behind her, a touch of playfulness in her voice, "sometimes I wonder if you have a death wish. How do you get yourself into these kinds of situations? You’re almost as bad as me!"

"I don’t know what you’re talking about," mumbled Veronica, climbing to her feet and helping Briam and Tinami rise as well. Strangely enough, they didn’t seem angry at her for what she’d done. Shaken by the experience, but not angry. Maybe they didn’t know she dismissed the disk on purpose?

"Well then, I’m glad to see another group of survivors, but we should really get going," Shirley said with her usual confidence. "It’s not safe staying out in the open like this. Come, I know a place where we’ll be reasonably safe."

Veronica looked around her. A surprising number of students had survived the attack and were dutifully following after Shirley. Actually, they probably survived precisely because they were following after Shirley. In any case, Veronica and her group decided there was no harm in joining the group—it’s not like they had a better idea anyway.

They didn’t get far before the attackers returned in force. Veronica heard Shirley swearing playfully about her usual luck and rolled her eyes. This was no simple coincidence—the attackers were clearly tracking their movements and targeting them directly. Did Shirley even take any precautions to make sure it took something more than a couple of easy divinations to track her down? Knowing Shirley, probably not.

But Veronica had other things to worry about, because while Shirley was occupied with another flock of iron beaks, a giant brown worm erupted from the ground and started wreaking havoc right in the middle of the student throng. Veronica had only met those things four times so far in the various restarts, and she already hated them—they could move through earth almost as if it was water, and their hide was utterly impervious to physical force. They weren’t particularly vulnerable to fire, either. Veronica watched impotently as the worm single-handedly shattered student formations, sending them scattering in panic so they could be picked off one by one by the winter wolves circling the throng.

Tinami apparently didn’t want to just watch. She fired one of her purple beams at the worm and finally achieved some results. Namely, she got the worm to scream out in pain before immediately swinging its toothy maw in her direction, its murderous attention now firmly focused on her. Uh oh.

With a roar that promised revenge, the worm dived back into the ground. Veronica immediately closed her eyes and tried to block out the sounds of battle, focusing on her mind sense, trying to track its movements. It wasn’t too hard—even if the worm wasn’t psychic, it was the only mind that was below ground, and thus easy to pick out from all the rest. She opened her mind, keeping track of the worm’s mind as it swam underground. Tinami seemed rooted to the spot, aware that she couldn’t separate too far from the group lest she be picked off like the rest of the students that made that mistake… and therefore couldn’t really escape the worm.

Just before the worm was about to surface, Veronica reached for Tinami, gently pulling her to the side and dropped an explosive cube where she was just a fraction of a second before. The worm erupted from the spot only a moment afterwards, its toothy maw snapping shut around the clump of earth… as well as the explosive cube. Even as it swung its head in their direction, Veronica activated the cube and the worm shuddered and started screeching and thrashing like mad before violently vomiting some of its pulped innards. Tinami was hit by its tail as it thrashed around and was thrown to the outer periphery of the battlefield, where she lay unmoving. Veronica quickly ran up to her and was relieved to see she was still breathing and had no obvious wounds. She shifted her attention back towards the worm, hoping that it had finally died while she had not been paying attention to it.

The worm swayed in the air as if drunk, and for one sweet moment Veronica thought she’d won… but then the worm swung its toothy maw straight towards her and roared out a challenge. This time it didn’t bother to dive into the ground, stretching out to an impressive length far faster than a creature of such size should be able to.

She didn’t suffer its wrath. The worm stopped a hair’s breadth away from her face, straining against some invisible bonds before suddenly turning to the side and biting down on the winter wolf that had been trying to sneak up on her while she was distracted.

[I was just in time, I see,] the voice of the matriarch spoke into her mind, and then she physically appeared, jumping out of the shadow of a nearby tree like it was the most normal thing in the world.

"Thanks," Veronica said, a hint of appreciation in her voice. "But I’m not sure why you’re here. I thought we agreed there should be as little contact as possible between us during the invasion."

[I decided that updating your memory packet with the information we found out today is more important.]

Veronica sighed softly and glanced around. Everyone was too busy fighting for their life to pay much attention to them, and it wasn’t like the aranea was easy to spot in the gloom of the night.

"Make it quick," Veronica said, and the matriarch immediately set to work. Anything that tried to sneak up to them was dealt with by the giant worm, which was apparently still under the matriarch’s control.

And then, after five minutes, she was gone again, and Veronica gently picked up Tinami and tried to rejoin Shirley again, but she had barely made five steps before a jagged red beam filled her vision, plunging her world into darkness.

Chapter 22: Chapter 22: Complications

Chapter Text

Veronica woke up in her bed in Cirin, Kirielle wishing her a pleasant morning in that charming manner of hers. She was annoyed both at herself for not paying more attention to her surroundings and at the unknown attacker that did her in. It figured that she would survive all those close calls and near-death situations, only to be caught by a simple sneak attack.

She passed the train ride sketching magic item blueprints in her notebook. Most of them were trivial things, like plates that kept the temperature of a meal constant or explosive traps that triggered on their own when certain conditions had been met, but she was toying with the idea of designing a practice dummy. She had found a combination of alteration spells that should allow her to construct a dummy out of wooden scraps and soil, but making the animation core was no simple task. And then, even if she managed that, she would have to design a warding scheme to etch into the dummy’s surface, lest it disintegrate when she started hurling spells at it… possibly in an explosive manner, showering her with wooden splinters and shrapnel. She should probably also add at least a weak self-repair function, to prevent the dummy from falling apart from micro-fractures and such…

She didn’t expect to finish this project in the current restart.

In any case, this time Veronica didn’t wait much before contacting the aranea. Upon entering her room, she spent an hour crafting a rod of magic missiles for basic self-defense and then promptly marched off in the direction of the nearest Dungeon entrance.

Unlike her previous attempts to look for aranea, she wasn’t simply walking around, waiting to stumble upon their scouts—she was trying to sense their minds with her brand new mind sense. Sadly, she sensed nothing except an occasional rat and—

She stopped, sensing a mind of unusual strength from one of the rats ahead. She mentally ordered her floating light to intensify for a moment and was rewarded with a disquieting sight of a rat missing the top of its head.
For a full second, Veronica and the cranium rat stood still, watching one another in indecision, trying to decide on a course of action. Then—gently, hesitantly—the rat extended a telepathic probe at her, trying to worm into her mind. For one small moment, Veronica considered attempting to take it on telepathically, but discarded the thought as reckless and risky. She was completely untrained in telepathic combat, and that one rat was merely a conduit for the entire cranium rat collective. So instead, she drew her brand new spell rod and fired a magic missile at it.

The moment she reached for her spell rod, the rat immediately dropped its telepathic probe and tried to run. It was too slow. The bolt of concussive force slammed into the tiny creature with a loud crack, pulverizing its bones and crushing it into paste. Well, so much for that. Veronica extended her mind sense as far as she could, trying to sense the rest of the collective, but found nothing. Either this one was an isolated scout or the rest had some method of hiding from her scans.

By the time she had decided to move on, the pulped body of the cranium rat was already being enveloped by a green, translucent mass of crawling gel. The oozes that patrolled these walled-off sections of the dungeon were artificially engineered to be less dangerous and aggressive than their wild counterparts, but Veronica was never a fan of tempting fate and did her best to sidestep the things as she moved past them. Acid burns were hard to heal, even with magic.

When she finally did find the aranea, the meeting was pretty disappointing. The aranea she met was one of those that didn’t know how to talk to humans, so it took her 10 minutes of telepathic pantomime that left her with a raging headache, and once the matriarch finally showed up, she basically told Veronica to get lost for a few days until she came to terms with the contents of the memory packet.

Not an unexpected turn of events, but Veronica had been hoping that the matriarch had refined her memory packet into something that could convince her past-self a bit faster than last time. The matriarch was a bit pushy and conceited, but it was nice to talk to someone about the time loop. Also, the truth was that there was little she could do to unravel the mystery of the time loop without aranea help other than steadily gathering magical skills and keeping her eyes open.

As she walked back to her room to sleep off her newly acquired headache, Veronica tried to think of a way to advance faster in her magical studies. She needed a teacher. One willing to teach her spells most instructors would consider too dangerous for the likes of a freshly certified student. Who did she know that would… oh. That just might work.

* * *

The next day, when Taiven came to recruit her into her little sewer expedition, she found Veronica practicing combat spells on one of the Academy training grounds instead of sleeping in her room. Veronica could have easily warded herself against Taiven’s divination spells at this point, but having her track her down was part of the plan: Veronica was hoping to recruit Taiven as a sparring partner, and possibly a teacher.

Veronica had always thought she had gotten over Taiven’s (oblivious) rejection of her, but apparently there was still some lingering resentment remaining because she noticed something very important in the previous restart. Something she should have noticed way sooner, had she not been unconsciously ignoring Taiven and pushing her away. Taiven was not at all opposed to helping her out, especially if the help was somehow related to combat. Why was she insisting on learning combat magic alone, without an instructor, when she was friends with someone who specialized in that very field of magic?

So here she was, carefully casting magic missiles at the target in front of her, trying to make them as mana efficient as possible. She was hoping that Taiven would offer to help on her own when she saw her practicing, and she wasn’t disappointed. Taiven did, however, attach a condition to her offer.

"So, in conclusion, I get a month of instruction from you, free of charge, in exchange for joining you on this sewer run of yours?" Veronica asked.

"Yup!" Taiven said happily, looking very satisfied with herself. Veronica could guess why—she just found a way to pressure her into accompanying her, and all it took was promising to do something she was inclined to do anyway.

"I suppose that’s okay," said Veronica, mentally considering how she should approach this. She could, of course, simply trail after them and let them fumble around for a while—it’s what Taiven expected her to do, and she was pretty sure the aranea wouldn’t attack while she was present. However, after some thought, she decided to go for a different path. "I have a request though. I am on speaking terms with a colony of sentient spiders living in the sewers, and I have a sneaking suspicion they’re the ones that supposedly took the watch. I’d like to try actually talking to them before you go in and start burning things."

Taiven gave her a curious look. "You are friends with a bunch of giant, sewer-dwelling spiders?"

"Pretty much," Veronica agreed with her. She would describe the aranea as acquaintances and allies of convenience instead of friends, but Taiven didn’t need to know that. "I trust you and your friends can keep that a secret? I’m sure you can see why spreading that around might cause problems for me and the spiders both."

"Don’t worry, I’m not a tattletale," Taiven said dismissively. "And I’ve yet to see Grunt and Mumble engage in any kind of gossip, so your secret is safe with us, oh great monster charmer. You think they’ll just hand us the watch if we ask?"

"If the client’s story is not made up, then yes. I don’t see what use they would have for a pocket watch. But anyway, I have a request for you before you run off to do your thing."

"Oh? And what’s that?"

"Teach me a fire spell more destructive than flamethrower," Veronica said.

"How big are your mana reserves?" Taiven immediately asked, not at all disturbed by the request.

"Magnitude 12," Veronica said.

"Hmm, a little lower than I thought, but decent enough, I guess," Taiven said. Veronica decided to keep quiet about the underwhelming nature of her natural reserves. "What kind of spells are you looking for, anyway?"

"Preferably something that can one-shot a troll," Veronica said.

Taiven looked at her like she was crazy. "What? Vera, you’re far too green to go around picking fights with trolls. What the hell are you on?"

"Just humor me, Taiven," Veronica sighed. "Besides, this is pure self-defense—I won’t be picking fights with anything."

"Hmph," Taiven shrugged. "Says a girl who goes around meeting giant spiders in the sewers in her free time. But alright, I guess if you’re going to do stuff like that you’ll need some stronger spells under your belt. I expect an explanation about that soon, though."

"After the summer festival," agreed Veronica smoothly.

"I’ll hold you to that," Taiven said, poking her playfully in the chest. "Now, there are two spells that kind of fit your criteria, although they will only kill a troll if you can hit the troll in the face with them—fire bolt and incinerating ray. The bolt can home in on the target and is cheaper in terms of mana use. The ray is far more damaging, but also far more of a mana hog and you need to worry about your aim."

"Teach me both," said Veronica. The bolt seemed like something that would be more generally useful for someone like her, but she needed the raw power as well.

"You sure you have the shaping skills for this, Vera?" Taiven asked. "'Cause this kind of spell isn’t going to fizzle out if you fail—it will blow up in your face."

Veronica snorted derisively. "Trust me, shaping skills are not something I’m lacking in," she said. She raised her arm into the air, palm pointed towards the earth, and willed some of the dust and dirt to rise towards it. The dry, loose material that covered the training ground slowly rose towards her hand in a diffuse pillar, coalescing into a rough sphere once they reached her palm.

Once she was satisfied with the size of the sphere, she pointed her palm towards one of the targets and willed the mass of dirt rapidly forward, catapulting it towards the target. Sadly, the impromptu construct was too structurally unsound and disintegrated into dust halfway towards the target, so some of the effect was ruined.

It didn’t make the feat any less impressive to Taiven, though.

"Damn, that was impressive as hell," Taiven said. "How can you do that? I don’t think I could do that… Lift a rock off the ground, sure, but diffuse material like soil? That’s a pretty advanced exercise. Hmm, if your shaping skills are that good, I guess there are a few more spells I could teach you..."

Veronica smiled. This had definitely been a good idea.

* * *

During the next several days, while she waited for Taiven to gather her team for the journey into the city’s sewers, Veronica got a crash course in combat magic from her friend. Taiven took a surprisingly broad approach to the topic, opting to teach her as many different spells as she could manage instead of having her practice a few until she had a firm hold over them. She claimed that Veronica already had a core of spells she was properly proficient in, and that she needed variety and breadth of possible options more than she needed a new ace in the hole, but she later admitted she was testing Veronica, trying to discover the limits of her shaping skills. Something she didn’t end up finding—Veronica’s shaping skills were better than hers; every spell Taiven could cast, Veronica could as well.

Not all of the spells Taiven taught her were of the typical offensive sort she expected from Taiven. Some of them, like the spider climb spell that allowed her to cling to sheer walls and other stable surfaces, the featherfall that allowed her to survive high falls, or the various comfort spells that blunted temperature extremes and other environmental conditions, could be more properly classified as survival spells. Nonetheless, Taiven insisted that sometimes the environment itself was just as big of a danger to a mage as her living opponents, and that she needed to know these spells if she was going to waltz around the dungeon and similar places.
She was also quite horrified by his lack of defensive spells. Not just a lack of any defensive barriers more substantive than the basic shield, though she wasn’t pleased about that either – no, she was talking about wards. Wards were fairly useless once the fight started, since they were slow to cast, and few opponents would give a mage the time needed to cast them during a battle, but Taiven claimed they were absolutely essential for a mage who expected to get into a fight. So long as you weren’t ambushed or otherwise surprised, and actually knew you were going to be in a fight soon, you could at least cast some basic wards to improve your spell resistance and counter some of the more common spells. And if you actually knew something about your opponent’s spell repertoire and specialties? Then you could really ruin their day with a few choice wards. This was the reason why humanity had been steadily encroaching on monster-held territory with every passing year – most magical creatures only had a handful of inborn magical tricks and abilities on their side, and once you knew what they were, you could devise a perfect counter for them in advance. Unfortunately, you could only stack so many wards on top of each other before they started to interfere with each other and the whole edifice collapsed, and some of them inherently interfered with each other’s operation, so knowing how to combine them effectively was a bit of a specialist skill. Taiven was not very proficient with wards herself, being more offensively focused, so she would need to find somebody else for anything except the basics.

However, most of the spells she taught her were various offensive and defensive energy projections, largely ones revolving around fire and force, but also some spells based on cold and electricity. Among other things, Veronica could now cast the ever-famous fireball spell… exactly twice before she ran out of mana. So not very useful, honestly, but Taiven claimed that any mage worth their name should be able to cast a fireball, and that the utility of such spells would naturally increase along with her mana reserves.

"Actually, I’m curious… is there some way to speed up the growth of mana reserves?" asked Veronica. "I know that artificially increasing them has bad side effects, but is there some kind of training method that would speed up natural growth?"

Taiven looked at her, looking apprehensive. "Technically, yes," admitted Taiven reluctantly. "It’s as simple as using mana-intensive spells to constantly exhaust your reserves. It would kick the growth of your reserves into overdrive. However, that kind of unnatural growth would completely wreck your current shaping skills – your normal growth of reserves is so slow because your soul is making sure your control over mana doesn’t slip. Wrecking your shaping skills just to speed up the growth of your reserves is really short-sighted, Vera. Please don’t do it. I never would, and you know I’m not exactly the most responsible girl. Surely you can wait for a few years for them to grow on their own?"

Well, she certainly wasn’t pressed for time at the moment, Veronica had to admit. "I suppose that makes sense," she said. "I guess the reason why mana reserves plateau after a while is that there is only so much power a soul can safely handle. Increasing the cap artificially after that point messes up the mage’s shaping skills with no hope of ever regaining them. No wonder everyone recommends against doing it – no matter how benign the enhancement process, the result is still more power and less control over it."

"There is always a trade-off between control and power," said Taiven. "It’s just not apparent most of the time since very few people try to develop their shaping skills to their limits. Many mages think that having more mana is always better since you can always work harder on your shaping skills, but increasing your mana reserves without bad side effects is essentially impossible. It’s not true, though. No matter how much time they spend honing their shaping skills, people with huge mana reserves are outright incapable of performing some particularly finesse-focused spells – things like advanced mind magic, detailed illusions, and complex alteration constructs."

"Wait, you’re saying that I’ll lose the ability to cast finesse-based spells as my mana reserves increase?" asked Veronica in alarm.

"No, no, I’m talking about your natural mana reserves – your inborn capacity before you start to increase it through regular spellcasting. About magnitude. Most spells, even highly sophisticated ones, are designed for average mages – magnitude 8 to 12, in other words. You’re 12, so still comfortably within the intended range. Hell, I’ve heard of one particular 15-magnitude mage that became a damn good illusionist, so even if you tip over a little it will hardly matter."

Considering Veronica's real magnitude was 8, she apparently had nothing to worry about. Still, it did make her wonder about Shirley, who seemed to have a magnitude in the low 60s. How did that kind of monstrous power factor into Taiven’s scheme?

"How about people with really high magnitude?" asked Veronica. "How high can you go before finesse-based spells become impossible?"

"I’ve never seen hard numbers, but I’d guess around magnitude 20 or so," Taiven shrugged.

"How about the really high numbers?" Veronica asked. "Something like magnitude 60?"

Taiven blinked, seemingly baffled by the question. "Well, that would be downright inhuman!" she said finally. "Is that even possible? Anyway, I’m not sure whether that would even be a good thing, even for a battlemage like me. Anyone with such mana reserves would have to spend years longer than their peers just to gain a basic level of proficiency expected of a certified mage. Maybe as much as a decade even, I don’t know."

Veronica thought about what a relative failure Shirley was before the time loop and frowned. She had thought that Shirley had simply been a lazy slacker, but maybe there was more to it than that? Then again, she had a feeling Shirley was a special case. Those inhuman mana reserves were just that – completely outside the human range. She found absolutely no records of people like that in any of the books, and most of the experts she asked flat out told her such people didn’t exist outside of myths. Also, while Shirley had been a crappy mage, she did succeed in getting certified so her huge mana reserves clearly weren’t as crippling as they should have been.

Maybe it was a Noveda House bloodline? One that gave their family huge reserves without the crippling loss of control, perhaps. Of course, the Noveda publicly claimed they had no bloodline, but it wouldn’t be the first time a House had lied.

"I hesitate to even bring this up," Taiven said, breaking her out of her thoughts, "but if you’re really desperate for a short-term mana boost, you can always absorb ambient mana faster than you can assimilate it. I’m sure you’re aware of the drawbacks, though…"

Veronica nodded. There were two main forms of mana available to the mage: her personal mana and the ambient one that emanated from the underworld. Personal mana was something that all things with a soul possessed in varying amounts, and it was attuned to the person producing it – it bent easily to its creator’s will, and was innately more malleable and controllable than anything else they might use to power their magic since it never resisted the caster’s efforts to shape it. Ambient mana, on the other hand, was both harder to control and toxic to living beings. Not enough to kill a mage just for using it once, but any substantial, prolonged use resulted in sickness and insanity. The mages of old believed that ambient mana was tainted by the World Dragon’s hate for humanity and shunned its use, but modern mages had discovered a few tricks to making use of it. One was by using it to power items, which had no minds to corrupt or bodies to sicken. The other was to assimilate the ambient mana into their personal reserves, negating its toxic properties. While the process of assimilation was too slow to power actual spells, being able to regenerate personal reserves faster was useful enough that the skill spread far and wide. These days, every student of magic was taught how to do it along with the other basics of spellcasting.

"I’ll get sick," Veronica said. "And possibly mad, if I keep using it constantly."

"Right," Taiven said. "Using raw mana on a regular basis is pretty stupid, but if you’re in a real bind… well, it’s better to spend a few days bedridden with a fever than end up dead."

"You’ve used it before," guessed Veronica.

Taiven gave her a surprised look, like it was unexpected she figured it out. "Uh, maybe once? Or twice?" She shifted her stance, looking uncomfortable. "But keep quiet about that, will you? Most combat mages have done it a couple of times in their life, but Guild inspectors don’t accept everybody’s doing it as an excuse."

Veronica made a gesture over her mouth, indicating that her lips were sealed. It’s not like Taiven didn’t know plenty of things to get her in trouble with, anyway.

"Let’s just get back to the lesson, oh great teacher," Veronica said. "Since you’re so intent on teaching me mana-intensive fire spells, how about that fire vortex I heard you can cast…"

* * *

When the time came, Taiven and her two friends let Veronica take point as she led them towards aranea territory. They had already tried and failed to divine the location of the watch, which wasn’t terribly unusual if it really was taken by the aranea – the aranea had been engaged in a shadow war with the invaders for a while now, even before the time loop started, and their anti-divination wards were top-notch.

[We meet again, Veronica Kazinski,] the matriarch spoke telepathically to her. She was surrounded by 6 honor guards, though only 2 were actually visible while the other four hung from the ceiling under some kind of invisibility spell. Veronica only knew they were there because she could sense their minds. [And once again you bring additional guests with you. Three of them this time. If this pattern continues, we’ll have to find a more spacious area to house them all after a few more restarts.]

[Funny,] Veronica sent back. [But actually, this is the group I was a part of when I first met the aranea. We were looking for a watch supposedly in your possession then, same as we are now. Sounds familiar?]

"What’s going on?" asked Taiven. She and her two friends were hanging in the back, looking apprehensively at the three spiders in front of them. "Why are you just staring at them?"

Before Veronica could say anything, the matriarch started waving her front four legs in the air for a while and then spoke.

"What’s this about a watch I hear?" she asked, turning her two biggest, forward-facing eyes at Taiven.

It took a few minutes of explaining and clarifications, but in the end, the matriarch finally seemed to remember the event in question.

"Oh, now I remember," she said. "Though the man in question certainly wasn’t any kind of innocent passerby, and the watch is no simple time-keeping device – he had assaulted our web with a couple of other thugs and ended up dropping his bauble when we chased them off."
[She’s one of the invaders,] the matriarch told her telepathically, so only Veronica could hear. [Or at least she works for them. You say you saw her? Excellent, we finally have an entry point into the organization. A face, a name and face-to-face contact should be enough to divine where she lives… you know her name, don’t you? Excellent. Hopefully she gave away her real one. Did you shake hands with her when you accepted the job? No? Try to shake hands with her when you give her the device. Maybe put a tracking spell on it if you know how…] Somehow, the matriarch was able to participate in two separate conversations at once, speaking out loud to Taiven and her two friends as she spoke telepathically to Veronica. Veronica herself was not similarly blessed, and mostly tuned out her explanation to Taiven in order to absorb what she was telling her mentally. Finally, she seemed to realize this and cut her telepathic communication with her short, allowing Veronica to pay attention to what she had been saying to Taiven.

"…so I’m not sure what the device is for, but it’s clearly a magical item of some sort," the matriarch said out loud. "It’s useless for us aranea, but we are well familiar with the concept of trade. We were hoping to trade it to some of our human contacts for something we can actually use, but since it’s our dear friend Veronica that’s asking for it, I guess we’ll give it to you as a favor. I’m sure Veronica will make it up to us… eventually."

"Uhh…" fumbled Taiven, looking at her uncertainly. "Is… that okay, Roach? Are you…?"

"Yeah, I’m fine with that," Veronica shrugged, with an air of graceful nonchalance. Although as far as she was concerned she didn’t really owe any favors to the matriarch for this.

[I only said that for appearances sake,] the matriarch told her telepathically. [It would be weird if we just gave it up for no reason. Besides, as far as I’m concerned, you will repay my generosity by helping me track down your employer so we can wring her for information.]

"Fang of Victory will go and retrieve the bauble," the matriarch announced out loud, causing one of the two visible honor guards to suddenly skitter off into the darkness. "I’d ask you to warn your employer against further aggression against us, but it’s probably best if you keep quiet about talking to us."

"Why did she attack you anyway?" asked Taiven. "You seem nice enough to me."

"Most places will kill sentient monsters as a matter of course, if they find them within their borders," Grunt said. He and Mumble were both pretty quiet thus far, so it was a bit startling to hear him speak up all of the sudden. Taiven gave him a dirty look for his remark. "What? I’m just saying she didn’t need a reason. Their presence would be offense enough for some people."

"It’s a little more complex than that," the matriarch said. "Humans clash with other sentient races, that is true, but that’s because most of them are highly territorial, murderous, view humans as food or all three. On occasions where that wasn’t the case, humans have shown themselves willing to make exceptions and take a more… nuanced approach. There are several dragons that deal with humans in a peaceful manner, the lizardmen of Blantyrre have long been a trading partner for human nations, and many of the splinter states bordering the wilderness have made secret or not so secret pacts with various spirits and monster clans living within their nominal borders."

"You’ve thought about this a lot," Veronica remarked, her tone gentle yet curious.

"Though not well known, we have been peacefully interacting with humanity for quite a long time now", the matriarch said. "The aranea have been living in the deeper levels of the dungeon for as long as this city has existed. When the foundations were being laid, several campaigns were launched into the local sections of the dungeon to clear out the threats lurking inside it. However, this power vacuum also allowed weaker races like aranea to move into the place. The dungeon around the Hole is prime real estate for magical creatures of all breeds, as you probably know, and the competition was fierce. Fortunately, while we aranea lacked the brute strength or destructive magical abilities of some of our competitors, we were far more willing to cooperate with humans to our mutual benefit. We contacted some of the humans that were willing to cooperate with us and gave them information about our mutual enemies – their strengths and weaknesses, where they lived, the timing of their attacks and movements… everything they needed to wipe them out, or at least weaken them to the point where we could finish the job. Information gathering has always been our specialty."

Veronica found herself fascinated by the story, her gentle eyes widening slightly, more than a little surprised that the matriarch was willing to say all this in front of Taiven and her friends. Then again, Veronica never told them that aranea were mind readers, so their minds were completely unshielded - the matriarch probably had a pretty good picture of how likely they were to cause trouble for her. And they weren’t going to remember anything about this when this loop ended, either.

"Although giving information to humans helped us as well as them, we rarely did it for free – in return for our secrets, we demanded some of your own. Our human allies used the information we provided to make a name for themselves and further their careers, and in return they taught us some of your magic and helped us adapt it for our own use. Armed with our very own system of structured magic, the aranea grew in strength and versatility, solidifying their hold over this region and making the web that lived beneath Cyoria the most prestigious of aranean webs. The resulting prosperity caused their numbers to swell, and they sent a never-ending stream of colonists and breakaway webs to the surrounding region, where they proceeded to evict or subjugate every lesser aranean web they encountered. But although these aranea left Cyoria in search of their own destiny, no place had the prestige or opportunities that Cyoria offered, and thus viewed their mother web with envy and resentment. Soon, a number of these breakaways banded together and, armed with the experience of fighting the lesser webs for territory, drove the original web out of their homeland. It would not be the last time Cyoria changed hands. The conquerors were soon evicted by another group of invaders, and this group was evicted by another, and then they were evicted by us. We are the fifth web to hold this place and while our position is secure at the moment, any sort of weakness could cause the neighboring webs to get… restless."

"Huh," Veronica said softly. "So if you were, hypothetically speaking, absolutely decimated by someone and had your numbers severely reduced?"

"Our neighbors would launch a few probing raids at the very least," the matriarch said. "But anyway, my point is that humans and aranea are not, nor have they ever been enemies. Well, barring some… isolated incidents. On both sides. In fact, it has been my explicit policy to encourage closer links between this web and humans living in Cyoria. I hope the day will come when aranea will be able to walk the street above in open daylight, just like any other citizen."

"And I suppose you hope the humans will defend you from outside threats, like any other citizens," Grunt said. "Like, say, from those rival webs that want to take your territory?"

"I confess that possibility does factor rather heavily into my thinking," the matriarch admitted. "The city authorities would be a lot less inclined to stand by and watch if we had an established, formal relationship with them."

"So is this your recruiting pitch?" asked Taiven. "Are you trying to turn us into your agents?"

"More contacts is always good," the matriarch said. "But no, I’m not trying to recruit you. I just sensed you were worried about Veronica’s association with us and wanted to assuage your fears somewhat. Anyway, Fang of Victory is coming back with the bauble so we’ll have to cut this short here. Talk to Veronica if you ever want to chat with us again."

Sure enough, the matriarch's honor guard soon returned with the watch. Veronica half-expected her to return with the watch gripped in her fangs, but it actually came back carrying some kind of leather harness full of pouches across its body, one of which held the watch. For a moment Veronica wondered how they made that, what with them lacking hands and all, but then realized she was being a bit foolish. The matriarch had already said they traded with humans for a lot of things – this must be one of them.

They quickly said goodbye to the aranea and were on their way back to their employer, prize in hand.

"I don’t know what to think," Taiven said when they put some distance between themselves and the aranea. "They seemed nice enough, but it’s a bit disquieting to find out we have an entire colony of these things living beneath the city, pulling their strings over gods know how many people."

"Yeah," agreed Mumble quietly. Veronica could definitely see why Taiven called him the way she did – he tended to talk really softly, making his speech very hard to understand sometimes. "Did you know Cyoria is kind of famous for its spider silk? The merchants who sell it are really cagy about where they get it in such quantities and have declared their source a trade secret. Most people think they have managed to create a spider species that can be farmed effectively and have a giant farm hidden somewhere, but I think it’s pretty obvious now where they get it…"

Veronica mostly kept out of the conversation, her thoughts turning inward as she alternated between listening to their conversation (when they were saying something interesting) and studying the device they retrieved from the aranea (when they weren’t). It was, as the matriarch said, a magical item of some sort – shaped like a pocket watch, but not one. The hands didn’t move, and the screw that should have allowed a person to wind it was fused with the casing and seemed to be simply an ornamental bump put there to make the illusion superficially convincing. She tried to channel mana into it, but that resulted in nothing substantial – the device probably required the user to channel mana in a very specific manner. Many complex magical items did.

The lessons in divining the secrets of magical items that Haslush gave her really paid off here. Considering its purpose, the device yielded its purpose surprisingly easily – to put it bluntly, it was equipment for burglary. More specifically, it was a ward scanner, designed to guide and enhance divination spells meant to seek out weaknesses in complicated warding schemes so they could be broken or bypassed more easily. Their employer had probably been trying to identify a hole in aranean defenses.

Still, while the purpose of the device was readily apparent to her divination spells, its method of operation stubbornly remained a mystery. After several unsuccessful attempts to pry the casing open without damaging the device, she finally decided to try something… experimental. She extruded a mana cloud from her hands, much like when picking locks, and directed it to trickle into the device’s insides through the gaps and misaligned seams. The resulting information was fuzzy but told her that the insides were filled with brass gears and crystals. They were probably not meant to be pried open. How then…
Ah, so that was the trick! The hands of the clock weren’t just static – they were nothing more than an image painted over a glass cover. Veronica pressed her finger against the glass cover and pushed it into the casing. There was a soft click from the inside, and when Veronica released the pressure, the cover immediately flew open, revealing a complicated interface full of dials and sigils. Very complicated interface… she wasn't going to figure this out in the hour or so they had until they reached the client. She was definitely planning to take this thing apart in one of the future restarts to see how it worked.

* * *

Finishing the job was done without complications. Veronica opted not to put a tracking spell on the device since she didn't know how sensitive the device was and didn't want to ruin it. That turned out to be a good choice, as the man immediately cast several diagnostic spells on the device once Veronica handed it over, one of which Veronica knew to be a spell designed to detect simple tracking spells. Once the transaction was done, Veronica insisted they shake hands, claiming it was traditional in her village to do so after a successful business deal. The man rolled his eyes and mumbled something about yokels but humored her anyway. Mission accomplished.

After they all shared a drink in a nearby tavern (Taiven insisted and wouldn’t hear no from anyone), the group separated. Veronica immediately descended to the sewers again and went back to the aranea.

[A ward reader, you say?] the matriarch asked. [It makes sense. He and his friends had been hanging out at the edge of our territory for a while, trying to stay hidden. I’m surprised he hired a bunch of students to get it, though.]

"Yeah, I’m not sure what he was thinking," Veronica said, her tone a mix of curiosity and bemusem*nt. "Seems like a questionable idea to me."

[We’ll find out in a few days, if all goes well,] the matriarch said. [That said, there are other things we must discuss. I believe I told you in the previous restart that I happened upon some pretty important information.]

"You did," Veronica agreed gently. "I was wondering what that was about."

[It’s about the invaders. First of all, your guess was right – they are indeed from Ulquaan Ibasa.]

"I knew it," Veronica said, a mix of frustration and certainty in her voice. "What was it? Are they out for revenge or is this just sheer opportunism?"

[A bit of both,] the matriarch said. [They resent you for their exile and they think you’re weak, now that the Splinter Wars and The Weeping wiped out most of your battlemages. But that’s not the important part. The important part concerns a question so basic I’m honestly not sure why neither of us thought of it. Namely, why exactly did the invasion think they could conquer Cyoria in the first place?]

Veronica opened her mouth to answer with the aid of the time loop, duh, but then quickly closed it again. According to the matriarch, this invasion had been in the works far before the start of the time loop. Clearly, someone associated with the invasion got brought into the time loop eventually and started feeding information to them to make the whole endeavor scarily effective, but what about before that? Without knowing exact locations of Cyoria’s defenses, their initial bombardment would have been a lot less damaging than it was. Without knowing the Academy’s exact ward scheme and how to bypass it, their assault at the place would be practically doomed from the start. And on top of all that, the matriarch claimed the aranea were successfully keeping the invaders out of Cyoria’s underworld before the time loop. So really, the invasion never really had the chance to take control of the place.

"Perhaps they didn’t," Veronica said thoughtfully. "Intend to conquer it, I mean. Cyoria is pretty important to Eldemar, but it’s not the capital, nor its industrial heartland. It’s the seat of Eldemar’s Mage Guild and the home of the world’s most prestigious mage academy, neither of which is likely to cooperate with the invaders. Most likely, they just intended to do as much damage as possible. Keep Eldemar’s magical might busy while they invade with the bulk of their forces elsewhere."

[You’re very close,] the matriarch said. [They were indeed trying to cause as much damage to the city as possible, but it was to be much more than a simple distraction. Apparently, the date of the summer festival is very magically significant. It is the day of the year when the barriers between planes of existence are the weakest. In fact, the weakening starts exactly one month before the date, gradually reaching its peak on the day of the festival. And this year’s summer festival is even more special than usual. I’m afraid that us aranea don’t know much about astronomy, seeing as we live largely underground, but apparently this year’s summer festival includes some kind of… planetary alignment?]

Veronica took a deep breath, a shiver running down her spine. Of course! How could she have missed it till now? This year’s planar alignment, signified by several planets aligning with their own, an event that took place once every 400 years or so. The last time such an event happened, a city of mages took advantage of it to teleport their entire city all the way from Miasina to the southern coast of Altazia, performing the largest feat of trans-continental teleportation to ever be recorded. If someone wanted to mess around with space and time on a grand scale, this was the time to do it.

"Yeah, that would explain a lot," Veronica finally said. "Like why the time loop was initiated now, of all times. But wait, how does that help them to do more damage to the city? Did they intend to teleport the city into the sea or something?"

[No. First of all, they intended to summon a large amount of high-level demons to help with the invasion. This was why they were willing to go through with the attack, despite their lack of success against us and their inability to do much to the academy and its wards. Demons, especially high-level ones, are virtually immune to mental attacks and highly resistant to magic. The aranea would be massacred in no time at all, and the mages would be too busy fighting for their lives to help out the city’s mundane defenders. Those same defenders would be up against trolls and fire elementals, who are immune to firearms, with winter wolves and iron beaks acting as support. ]

"That… that’s terrifying," Veronica said after digesting that for a second. "Why aren’t they doing that now?"

[They can’t, remember? No summoning anything while in the time loop. The whole material plane has been cut off from the spiritual ones,] the matriarch reminded her.

"Oh yeah," Veronica said. "I guess that would throw a serious wrench in the works. I wonder if they actually went through with the invasion during the initial restart when they had no agent inside the time loop. They would have surely known their plan was doomed without demonic support."

[They probably would,] the matriarch said. [The demons were ultimately a distraction, same as the rest of their forces. The invasion leadership didn’t actually think they were enough to do more than cripple Cyoria and they wanted it completely wiped off the map. No, the real target lies with the area around the Hole. While the defenders were busy fighting for their lives, a group of mages would secure the place and enact a grand summoning ritual.]

"Ugh," Veronica grunted. "Let me guess: a really big demon."

[No. They wanted to summon a primordial.]

Color instantly drained from Veronica's face. "What!? But… that would leave the whole city a lifeless crater! What about their own forces!?"

[Expendable,] the matriarch told her bluntly. [Everyone high enough to matter was ready to teleport away at the first hint that the summoning was successful, the rest were disposable pawns that were never actually expected to survive. Besides, you’ll notice that the actual invasion force is really light on human mages. Only a minimum of Ibasan mages was necessary to maintain some control over the various demons and monsters. And you’re actually rather optimistic in your damage predictions. The Ibasan leadership hoped that being summoned with the help of the biggest mana well on the continent would give the primordial enough power to linger on this plane for weeks. If so, it would rampage across large swathes of Altazia before finally running out of power or until the Altazians managed to organize a group of mages big enough to banish it back to its realm. Then Ulquaan Ibasa could just swoop in once it’s gone and mop up the demoralized survivors.]

Veronica was honestly at a loss for words. On one hand, the plan was utterly reckless, and a large part of her wanted to say it would never work. Where did they even find a ritual to summon a goddamn primordial of all things? But still, she’d watched the invaders bulldoze through Cyoria’s defenses far too many times to discount them like that. If they thought the plan could work, it probably could.

"Where did they find mages willing to do the summoning?" Veronica asked. "They must have known they’d be killed by the primordial’s rampage before they can escape, being so close to it and all. And do you happen to know which primordial it was?"

[The summoning would be done by the Esoteric Order of the Celestial Dragon… probably known to you by the name Cult of the Dragon Below. Apparently, they are fully willing to die in order to summon one of the Great Mother’s children. Those of their members not involved with the summoning are helping the invasion forces as regular mage support or simple saboteurs, in case of more mundane members. Actually, now that I think about it, they are probably acting as the invaders' inside agents in general; we’ll have to infiltrate their group deeper for more information. Anyway, no, I don’t know which primordial. Just that it was one of the land-bound ones – the Ibasans didn’t want to risk it suddenly deciding it wanted to visit their little island and flying over.]

"I’ll bet," Veronica said. "Of course, all this means we have a problem on our hands. No matter how formidable the invasion is while we’re trapped inside the time loop, it will be even more fearsome outside of it. They will have additional demon support on top of everything they already have, and we’ll have to spend some of our time thwarting the primordial summoning. I want to say those cultists are just totally crazy and couldn’t summon a crippled imp, much less a thrice-damned primordial, but the possibility is just so catastrophic we can’t afford to risk it."

[Yes, this indeed complicates the matter considerably,] the matriarch agreed. [My original plan was to keep thwarting the flow of the invasion until the third time traveler is forced to reveal themselves, either through sloppiness or frustration; lure them into an ambush and mindrape them into catatonia; find a perfect counter for an invasion over several restarts; and finally, find a way to break the time loop and deal with the invaders for real. The part about dealing with the third time traveler still seems workable, but finding a perfect counter will clearly be impossible with such a large variable missing while we’re inside the time loop…]

Veronica was a tad queasy about how matter-of-factly the matriarch spoke of destroying a person’s mind, but she had to admit she knew of no other way to deal with the third time traveler. The only other way involved destroying their soul, and that was arguably even more morally reprehensible. Plus, she didn’t actually know how to destroy someone’s soul. And hopefully never would.
"Right," Veronica sighed softly, brushing a strand of her long hair behind her ear. "What a day. Do you have any more surprises for me?"

[Well… not as such, no. However, these recent developments mean that I will not have much time to teach you this month. Fortunately, you are at the level where you don’t really need a high-level user like me to guide you, so I have found you a suitable replacement. Veronica, say hello to Enthusiastic Seeker of Novelty.]

One of the aranea that had accompanied the matriarch, a rather small and twitchy individual that seemed unable to stay still, suddenly jumped down from the ceiling and landed gracefully in front of her.

[Hi! I am Enthusiastic Seeker of Novelty and I will totally be your teacher this month! I know you humans have trouble with our names so you can just call me Novelty. I don’t mind!] She circled around Veronica as she spoke to her telepathically, looking like some kind of curious creature inviting her to play. [Anyway, when the matriarch asked for volunteers to teach you, I was like: this is your chance, Novelty. I was totally game! They won’t let me help with defense because I’m supposedly too young, but they told me you’re a baby at this psychic stuff and I can totally take care of babies! And hey, you can teach me stuff too! I was always curious about you humans, like how you can walk on your hind legs without tipping over all the time or…]

Veronica tuned out her chatter in favor of giving the matriarch a knowing smile.

[Does she come with an off button?] she asked telepathically.

The matriarch simply projected a mixture of amusem*nt and satisfaction in response.

Chapter 23: Chapter 23: Lighting the Fuse

Chapter Text

On the surface, getting saddled with Novelty seemed like a recipe for endless frustration and annoyance – she was an impatient, impulsive chatterbox that seemed to have no concept of personal space, always hovering uncomfortably near and occasionally poking Veronica with her front legs. Veronica was not afraid of spiders, but that kind of close physical contact was simply too much.

Basically, she was a spider version of Kirielle. And Veronica only tolerated Kirielle’s antics as much as she did because she was her little sister.

Despite this, Veronica was actually glad to have met her. Novelty’s personality certainly left a lot to be desired, and she often had to gently steer her back on track during their lessons instead of going off on wild tangents about various topics. Yet, Novelty was a treasure trove of information on both psionics and aranea. Unlike the matriarch, whose every explanation seemed like a thinly-veiled manipulation attempt to Veronica, Novelty didn’t have a single deceptive bone in her body. Most of the time, she said what she meant, and it was painfully obvious when she tried to shift the subject or fudge the truth. It was a refreshing change of pace from her previous interactions with the aranea.

Novelty remained blissfully unaware of Veronica’s thoughts, too engrossed in her inspection of Veronica’s alchemy equipment. That was another difference between Novelty and the matriarch – Novelty couldn’t read Veronica’s surface thoughts unless she structured her thoughts very slowly and clearly aimed them at her. It made Veronica much more relaxed about her presence than she would have otherwise been.

[Humans build so many strange things,] Novelty declared after inspecting the glass vials by sight and touch. Veronica didn’t know whether aranea were usually this fond of touching things and Novelty was simply unrestrained in her interactions, or if the spider in front of her was just a hands-on sort of girl, but Novelty certainly liked to touch the things she was studying. Annoyingly, this included Veronica as well as random inanimate objects, but at least she seemed to have finally internalized the idea that Veronica didn’t like her climbing into her lap by now. [How did you even make this? It’s the same kind of transparent rock you use for those window things, but I have no idea how you managed to carve it out in this kind of shape. And it’s so smooth, too… I know those branching upper limbs of yours are better at manipulating things than our legs, but this is crazy. You know, the aranea once tried to keep human thralls to create things for us, but it was a huge hassle and it turned out it’s much easier to just trade with humans for what we need. You humans don’t seem to fare too well underground, and kidnapping humans always seemed to anger the rest of the human communities a lot, even when they weren’t of the same clan or anything. And… uh, that was a really long time ago and we totally don’t do stuff like that anymore and you should forget everything I said about that, okay?]

"Uh-huh," said Veronica with a gentle curiosity before deciding not to pursue the issue. "For what it’s worth, the transparent rock is called glass, and it’s not really carved. It’s made from sand, which is heated until it turns molten and therefore malleable and then shaped by sticking long tubes into the resulting molten mass and blowing air into it."

Novelty turned around to focus all of her eyes on her. [How, in the name of grandmother’s shriveled egg-sack, did it occur to one of you to do that? Do humans have some sort of magical stone sense or something?]

"Err, no," said Veronica patiently. Explaining stuff like this to Novelty was perhaps a bit tiring, but it made Novelty much more willing to share things with her in turn, so she would labor on. "Humans have always been mucking around with tools of various sorts. We’re pretty fragile in our natural forms, so building things is a matter of survival. We use crude tools to fashion better tools, and then those better tools to fashion more precise tools, and so on. I don’t really know how glassblowing came into existence, but it didn’t just magically pop into someone’s head all of a sudden…"

[I don’t really think you can be considered fragile,] Novelty said dubiously. [You wield incredible magic, and you pretty much conquered the surface world with it.]

"Not all humans wield magic," said Veronica. "Only a small number of people are mages, and the number was even smaller the further you go back in time."

[Most of your tools sound a lot like magic to me, to be honest,] Novelty said. [You take rocks and stuff and perform complicated rituals on them to turn them into these wondrous creations that no amount of web-weaving can duplicate. It’s the part that fascinates me most about you humans – this weird building magic of yours. I was kind of hoping I could learn some of your secrets while I teach you, but it looks like that will be pretty difficult because, you know,] she waved her front legs in the air for emphasis, [I haven’t got these hands you humans use for everything. Not that I’m giving up or anything! I’m definitely going to figure something out!]

"Well, you already told me you are learning to be a mage, so you could always resort to actual magic," said Veronica. "Fabrication spells are a thing, after all. Granted, you’d have to understand the properties of materials you’re working with and the engineering principles of the things you’re trying to create, but if you’re serious about being a crafter that’s pretty much a must anyway."

[I’ll be honest and admit I have no idea what you just said,] Novelty said after a brief silence. [But I’m guessing you were trying to be encouraging so thanks!]

"Right," Veronica smiled softly. "We’ve gone on a tangent again. Let’s focus on the lessons again."

[But those lessons are so boring!] Novelty complained. [You already know most of this stuff; it’s just a matter of practicing, and you can’t do that here, anyway. You are practicing, right?]

"Sure am," Veronica agreed. "I spend most of my classes trying to sense my classmates and other students in the building. Not like I get anything else useful out of classes these days. It’s going pretty well, but I still have to concentrate pretty heavily to achieve any kind of range. I’ve also tried sensing their emotions, but that is still pretty hit and miss. Are you sure no one is going to detect me doing that? Because I’m going to land in pretty hot water if somebody detects me messing with people’s minds."

[I keep telling you, no one is going to detect anything without invading your mind first,] Novelty assured her. [I totally went and asked other aranea about that since you keep asking about it, and they confirmed it. Basically, sensing minds and basic empathy doesn’t involve any delving into other people’s minds. I know you don’t believe in the Great Web and all, but imagine a kind of mental plane that permeates everything. Minds create ripples on this mental plane, like stones thrown into a pool of stagnant water, and those who are Open can use these ripples to locate other minds around them and divine some basic facts about them. Stuff like species and their general mood.]

"Huh. That does make sense," Veronica mused. "So sensing minds and empathy are really two aspects of a single ability – that being an ability to perceive this mental plane of yours and interpret the ripples propagating through it? Do you know if mental shielding spells have an effect on this?"

[Oh, definitely,] confirmed Novelty. [The basic shielding spells that mages like to use will pretty much ruin your ability to use empathy on them. Too much interference. Detecting them, on the other hand, becomes even easier. Any mind-affecting spells make a mind noisier to a psychic, even defensive ones. Especially defensive ones, now that I think of it. Well, except for that one infamous spell called Mind Blank that actually causes a mind to disconnect from the Great Web, making a person completely undetectable to mind sensing and utterly immune to mind-affecting magic. Pretty terrifying stuff, that.]

Veronica knew of the spell she was talking about. Mind Blank was well known as a kind of ultimate defense against mind magic, but the spell was infamous for causing psychological problems if miscast or used too extensively. A number of mages paranoid about people invading their minds had gone insane after leaving it permanently on, giving it a somewhat poor reputation among mages. There were other, less drastic protections that were sufficient in most cases.

"That’s strange," Veronica said with a hint of playful innocence. "The matriarch told me that no flimsy human magic could shield me against her if she was determined to get me, but here you’re telling me there is a spell I could learn to make myself completely immune to psychic powers."

[Ah, well, you see…] Novelty fumbled. [She was actually right because, because those are totally different things, yes? A shield is one thing – we can totally batter it down or bypass it. If you take yourself off the Great Web, though, it’s like you aren’t there at all! You first need to sense a mind to connect to it, and if you can’t connect to it-]

"I get it," Veronica interrupted softly. "No telepathic link, no aranean mind magic. And you can’t connect to something you can’t sense telepathically. Hmm, clearly the creator of Mind Blank knew a thing or two about psychic powers – it sounds like the spell is designed specifically to defeat them."
[The idea isn’t that revolutionary,] Novelty grumbled. [A sufficiently skilled psychic can disconnect from the Great Web with some effort. It’s called going dark. It’s a pretty shady skill, though, mostly used by assassins, thieves and saboteurs. Anyway, the problem isn’t just the Mind Blank – it’s the fact that any mage powerful enough to cast it is also powerful enough to take on the entire aranean Web all on their lonesome. We have ways of dealing with people like that, but I totally can’t tell you because the others would have me dismembered if I said anything about it – since, you know, secret defenses and stuff.]

"Right," Veronica said softly. She had no intention of creating problems at home for Novelty, so she wouldn’t pursue that topic further. Their super-secret defense plans probably boiled down to collapsing the entire tunnel on top of them, anyway. "So Mind Blank is a psychic skill translated into a spell. Not that surprising, I guess – mages love taking abilities of magical creatures and turning them into spells for their own use."

[Really?] Novelty asked. [But I thought human magic is so good that there is nothing you can learn from others. The matriarch is always talking about how amazing your magic is and how no one can match it…]

"No, that’s completely wrong," Veronica said, with an understanding nod. "Mages of Ikosian tradition – which is virtually every mage you’re going to encounter – are pretty much all about taking other people’s magic and making it your own. The entire system of structured magic is specifically designed to be expanded upon as needed. It’s true that we rarely find something worth learning among other magical traditions these days, but that’s mostly because we already stole and traded for everything that was worth taking."

[That’s… not quite the story I was told,] Novelty admitted.

"Don’t feel too bad – most humans also think our entire magical tradition sprang fully-formed in the early days of the Ikosian Empire," Veronica said, a touch of humor in her voice. "But back to our conversation about mental defenses. You said an aranea could batter down or bypass defensive magic other than Mind Blank. Does that include you personally?"

[Of course! Who do you take me for?] Novelty protested. [If I couldn’t fight telepathically, I’d have been devoured while still at the hatchery!]

Veronica blinked, her eyes widening slightly in surprise. "What, seriously? As in, actually get eaten or…?"

[Err, no, not literally eaten. We haven’t let the hatchlings eat each other ever since… err, actually, let’s not talk about that. It was just a figure of speech, that’s the important bit. Anyway!] Novelty hastened to change the subject. [I don’t know how it works among humans, but newborn aranea are confined to the hatchery during the first few months of their existence. There are usually a lot of us, and we’re all cooped up in this tiny boring room with nothing to do but pester the caretakers for stories and pick fights amongst each other, and the caretakers don’t like it when the hatchlings fight physically with each other. They are a lot more lenient about… experimenting … with our psychic powers, though. A bit of telepathic roughhousing is to be expected, so you pretty quickly learn the basics of defending your mind.]

Veronica tried to imagine the scenario Novelty just described and abandoned that train of thought with a gentle shudder. She made a mental note to avoid being near aranean hatcheries at all costs, just in case the issue ever popped up in the future.

"That’s… interesting… but not quite what I was asking. I asked about countering defenses, not defending yourself," she said finally, her tone more curious than reprimanding.

[You can’t win a fight by only defending,] Novelty scoffed. [I don’t really understand this weird divide between mental attacks and defenses you insist on. Striking back is a crucial part of any worthwhile defense. Even a weak counter-attack forces your opponent to spend some time and focus on their defenses and weakens their own attack.]

"I guess I keep forgetting that psychic powers aren’t discrete spells, but more of a manifold manifestation of a single holistic ability," Veronica admitted thoughtfully. "Still, retaliation doesn’t have to be mental – if I could stop your mental attacks long enough, I could just cast a spell on you to make you stop. Considering I know nothing about telepathic combat, that’s probably the smartest option for me anyway. And that brings me to my proposition – I want to see how my magical defenses fare against your capabilities. I’m going to cast a few mind shields and you’re going to do your best to take them apart. What do you say?"

[Honored matriarch gave me strict instructions about when I can progress with your lessons,] Novelty said hesitantly.

No doubt accompanied by strict instruction about what she wasn’t allowed to teach her at all. Veronica was under no illusion that the aranea intended to teach her anything but a small fraction of their psychic skills. While the aranea seemed to worship their ability in some sense, and sought to encourage its spread among humanity, they clearly regarded most of it as personal secrets. Hell, some of the things the matriarch told her heavily implied they kept some things secret even from each other, never mind from outsiders. Not to mention it would be rather foolish of the matriarch to teach Veronica how to do some things, since she could promptly use those skills against her interests. For instance, she was quite sure that Novelty got strongly worded instructions not to tell her anything about memory manipulation, since that would allow her to mess around with the matriarch’s memory packet and potentially feed her forged information.

Still, Veronica was fine with that. She already got more out of the aranea than she thought she would have, and in case she ever got greedy for more than the matriarch was willing to provide? Well, there were more aranea than the ones beneath Cyoria, and Novelty made it clear they didn’t really talk to each other much. If she traded for a single secret with ten different groups, she could easily amass far more knowledge than any one group would be comfortable with her having… for additional irony, she might even trade them a secret she got from one of the other groups she traded with. It was a classical trick that Ikosians used when dealing with tribal groups, and the time loop only made it easier.

But if she ever wanted to do such a thing, she needed to have some way of defending her mind. She got the impression that aranean tribes outside of Cyoria weren’t nearly as friendly as the matriarch and her tribe, and mind effects transferred across restarts. The matriarch promised to teach her the basics of telepathic combat, which she translated as inadequate to threaten us, but good enough to ward off cranium rats and random mind mages, so she needed to know how human mind magic fared against your average aranea.

"We aren’t progressing my lessons, because you’re not going to teach me anything," Veronica insisted. "It’s just an experiment. I want to see how my spells fare against you."

[Alright, I’m totally game, then!] Novelty agreed, suddenly enthusiastic. [But, uh, you’re not allowed to attack me physically in response, okay?]

"That would kind of defeat the purpose of the experiment," Veronica agreed, a small smile gracing her lips.

[Right. So are we assuming I’m attacking from an ambush or that I’m pressed for time?] Novelty asked.

"The difference being?" Veronica inquired, her curiosity piqued.

[Well, if I was attacking from an ambush, I would try to simply bypass your shield entirely through superior skill. It’s very effective when it works, but slow to set up, so it doesn’t work if the target isn’t either too busy with something to deal with me or unaware of the attempt. On the other hand, if time is of the essence I’d just batter down the shields with brute force. It’s faster but more mana expensive. Oh, and it’s kind of hard to judge the exact amount of force needed to break through a defense without also damaging the mind it was defending so, uh… let’s just assume I’m attacking from ambush, okay?]

"Yes, let’s," Veronica said, bemused.

The next hour was as frustrating as it was instructive. Novelty took the whole thing as a game, improving as time went on, despite Veronica’s futile attempts to refine her defenses through repeated castings and spell combinations. It was rather embarrassing to see the over-excitable, scatterbrained aranea go through her spells like they didn’t exist in 30 seconds flat. Granted, those 30 seconds would be enough for her to incinerate Novelty in real life, but that presumed she was in a position to do so, and that might be an unwarranted assumption. What if Novelty was hidden from her? What if she was behind some kind of wards? What if she wasn’t the only attacker?

But a little embarrassment was worth it. She now knew that her best defense against aranea (and other psychics, she supposed) was actually the basic mind shield spell. Other, more sophisticated spells couldn’t seem to cope against Novelty’s telepathic attacks.

[Most of the spells you used were really easy to trick and bypass with a few feints and a bit of careful timing,] Novelty explained. [They were all based on simple defense patterns and always reacted the same to my attacks. That magic shell you used to surround your mind with, though… it’s such a crude thing, but I have to admit it gave me trouble. No patterns or anything fancy, just a solid, unyielding mental barrier. I don’t think I’d be able to bypass it at all if you hadn’t kept messing up the spell every time you cast it.]

"I was messing it up?" asked Veronica in surprise, her brows furrowing slightly.

[Yeah. The shell had these minute imperfections in it that I used to slip past it. I don’t think those were supposed to be there,] Novelty said.

Hmm, minute imperfections, she said? Sounded like a normal result of a usual spell boundary. Very few mages could cast a spell flawlessly, and they rarely needed to – minute imperfections rarely mattered unless you were dealing with very special circ*mstances.

Apparently, this was one of those special circ*mstances. Veronica suppressed a sigh – she could already hear the ghostly voice of Xvim in her head lecturing her about the failures of today’s mages and the need to practice until you could do the spells right instead of good enough.

In retrospect, she was just asking for trouble with that line of thought.

When Veronica arrived at her weekly session with Xvim, she fully expected to get an hour of his usual meticulous training… which in this particular restart meant taking a bundle of thin sticks and trying to incinerate one of the sticks without singeing the rest of them or burning her hand in the process. Admittedly, Xvim was staring at her pretty hard when she came in, but Xvim did a lot of really weird things during their sessions.

Veronica hadn’t even taken a seat before Xvim decided to speak to her.

"I have heard you have been casting fireballs," Xvim said. "Is that true?"

Veronica forcibly stopped herself from scowling at the man. Him making a comment like that was never a good sign – Xvim was never impressed with anything Veronica did, so no doubt he found something objectionable in her combat practice with Taiven. How the hell did the man even find out about that?

Xvim’s face told her nothing, and she had already tried to use her rudimentary empathy on him to no avail, trying to see what made the annoying man tick. Xvim had an incredible control over his emotions, and virtually nothing fazed him or truly set him off.
"I can cast the spell, yes," Veronica said carefully, as if speaking in a softer, more measured tone might help her evade whatever trap Professor Xvim set with his question. "Admittedly only at minimum power, but-"

"So that’s a no, then," Xvim responded dryly, his eyes fixed on her with a challenging gleam. Veronica was far too wise to rise to Xvim’s bait, so they simply met each other’s eyes in silence for a few moments. Eventually, Xvim broke the stalemate with an exaggerated sigh. "Mages these days, forever rushing into matters half-cooked. I expected better from you. There is nothing inherently wrong with interest in combat magic, but immediately opting for the flashiest, highest-rated spell accessible to you is unwise. A half-powered fireball is no fireball at all. You ought to concentrate on constructing a sturdy foundation until you can perform it properly."

"Well," Veronica said with a playful assertiveness, "why not demonstrate how it’s done, then?"

Without a word, Xvim drew a stack of cards from his drawer and casually tossed them to Veronica. She caught them instinctively, long accustomed to his unpredictable teaching style.

"Cards?" she asked, examining them in her slender hands. They looked like ordinary playing cards, except they featured squares, lines, circles, and other geometric shapes.

"Cards," Xvim affirmed. "Specifically, cards fabricated from mana-absorbing material. The ornamental sigils on the corners discharge any mana the cards accumulate, dispersing it into the surroundings. It takes a significant amount of mana to affect them in any manner."

"And I’ll need to affect them?" Veronica guessed, a curious tilt to her head.

"You'll attempt to, I’m sure," Xvim replied dismissively, busily rearranging the pens on his desk instead of meeting Veronica’s gaze. "They’re exceedingly difficult to influence for mages with skills as meager as yours. To be succinct, you’ll aim to burn the shapes painted on the cards—and only the shapes. You may begin whenever you feel prepared."

Veronica studied the cards intently for a moment. She suspected she understood the underlying lesson of this exercise—she needed to command a great deal of mana quickly or the corner glyphs would merely dissipate her mana. That was essentially the fundamental challenge of all combat magic: shaping a large amount of mana swiftly without disrupting the spell boundary excessively.

Taking a steadying breath, she selected a card that appeared the simplest to her (a solitary circle) and infused it with a generous dose of mana for her initial attempt.

Aside from a slight glow in the corner glyphs, nothing transpired.

Drat. It seemed this task would prove more formidable than she initially thought.

* * *

After several unsuccessful attempts to influence the cards and then overexerting her efforts, causing a few cards to ignite and scorch her fingertips, Veronica finally succeeded in burning some indistinct shapes that vaguely resembled those depicted on them.

Predictably, Xvim had much to say about that, none of it flattering.

Eventually, Veronica's reservoir of mana depleted, compelling her to pause. What kind of shaping exercise was so mana-draining that she could deplete her reserves during practice? Apparently, Xvim's kind.

Rather than dismiss her for the day, Xvim proceeded to instruct her on the correct method for absorbing ambient mana. Apparently, there existed a technique to assimilate ambient mana more rapidly if one sat utterly still and focused on nothing else. While not particularly practical, it was likely crucial for completing Xvim’s latest exercise within a reasonable timeframe.

As a parting note, Xvim casually mentioned that they would continue their lesson tomorrow. The fact that tomorrow wasn’t even a scheduled school day seemed irrelevant to Xvim.

"Excellent," Xvim concluded. "We have an entire day, then. We will require the time based on today’s performance."

This wasn’t an isolated incident. From that day forward, Xvim insisted on practice sessions daily, monopolizing all of Veronica’s free time. Why Xvim suddenly decided to do this, when he usually never interacted with her outside their scheduled sessions, was beyond Veronica’s understanding. It was certainly vexing, though.

Meanwhile, the aranea were experiencing their frustrations. Tracing the ward-breaker who hired Taiven’s group to recover the watch was relatively easy, but gaining access to him was quite another matter. In addition to being skilled at dismantling and analyzing wards, the man was adept at building them, and he was a formidable mage as well. The aranea lost two members attempting to corner him and eventually abandoned that pursuit for the particular restart, shifting focus to other leads for the moment.

They continued their efforts to counter the invaders during the summer festival, of course.

The subsequent two restarts mirrored the initial attempts—the aranea gathered intelligence on the invaders, occasionally asking Veronica to serve as their emissary when they needed to interact openly, and initiated limited assassination missions against cultists and other collaborators in the invasion they managed to identify.

Veronica delved into combat magic, honed the aranean mind arts, and endeavored to endure Xvim’s lessons without succumbing to the urge to punch him senseless. Their actions gradually bore fruit, with the invasion unraveling increasingly with each restart, and the matriarch hoped that their enigmatic third time traveler would soon emerge.

The greatest surprise for Veronica was discovering that Novelty retained memories of their interactions in previous restarts. It appeared the matriarch wasn’t monopolizing the memory transfer as Veronica initially assumed, and was instead providing her with memories from six different araneas in that memory packet. Novelty, who had become something of a personal trainer for Veronica, was deemed important enough to merit inclusion in that elite circle, a fact that the young spider relished.

Yet, Veronica felt it was time for a shift in focus. Two restarts brimming with Xvim’s tutelage were sufficient, and Taiven had imparted most of her combat magic knowledge.

She knocked gently on the door to Ilsa’s office and waited for permission to enter.

* * *

"Good morning, Miss Kazinski," Ilsa greeted her with a hint of amusem*nt in her voice. "I hadn’t expected to see you until Friday. I suppose you’ve heard some tales concerning your mentor?"

"No, I’m already familiar with Xvim’s character. That’s not the reason I’m here," Veronica replied, her voice steady but demure. "No, I’m here because I wish to learn how to teleport."

Ilsa blinked, surprise flickering across her features. "That’s… quite ambitious. Putting aside the question of why I should invest time in teaching you, what makes you believe you are even capable of performing such a spell? Even the simplest teleportation spells are exceedingly challenging."

"A valid question," Veronica conceded with a soft smile. "How about a demonstration?"

Ilsa gestured for her to proceed, a skeptical grin playing on her lips. Veronica didn’t require empathy to sense her disbelief in her capabilities.

Very well—challenge accepted.

Veronica showcased every difficult shaping exercise, every intricate spell she had mastered over the past two years in the time loop. She countered every written test or theoretical inquiry Ilsa posed with flawless answers—sometimes because she genuinely understood the topic, and other times because Ilsa tended to ask the same questions each time Veronica sought to impress her. And then, as Ilsa reeled from realizing Veronica possessed the skills to graduate from the academy then and there if she so desired, Veronica presented several magical objects from her bag and began explaining her spell formula experiments to Ilsa. Though not an official spell formula instructor, Veronica knew from past restarts that Ilsa had excellent knowledge in the field and could appreciate the complexity of what she was demonstrating.

"I’m surprised you haven’t applied for a transfer to a tier 1 group with abilities such as these," Ilsa remarked when Veronica finally concluded her display.

Ah yes, the tier 1 groups—the academy’s solution for students too advanced for the standard curriculum. Sadly, the prestige associated with belonging to such groups provoked many to do anything necessary to secure a place for their child, meaning the actual lessons couldn’t be much more advanced than the standard ones, lest those who had bought or otherwise orchestrated their presence there couldn’t keep pace. Veronica had heard myriad opinions about those groups, both good and bad, but the general consensus seemed to be of a clique of social climbers who looked down on others. Nothing that interested Veronica.

"I believe I can accomplish more through independent study," Veronica explained. "If I truly felt my classes offered nothing of value, I’d merely test out."

"Don’t rush into decisions," Ilsa cautioned. "I’m certain you can still find value in the academy’s resources for another year or so. You haven’t surpassed it by such a large margin."

The academy disfavored early graduation. They prided themselves publicly on being capable of assisting even adult mages, not to mention gifted youth. Graduating prematurely implied the student felt they had exhausted the academy’s offerings, which was perceived as an affront by the institution. One also didn’t receive any monetary refunds for completing the program early.

All in all, Veronica didn’t genuinely intend to graduate early—it wouldn’t yield her much except foster resentment between herself and the academy. Nonetheless, she found that subtle threats during negotiation often prompted the other party to regard her more seriously.

Ilsa pondered in silence for a period, her pencil tapping rhythmically against a folder brimming with written tests Veronica had filled at astonishing speed earlier during the meeting. Veronica refrained from interrupting, though she considered the prolonged silence an ominous sign. In all likelihood, this approach was futile, and she would need to strategize differently in the next "resta-"

"Alright, here’s my offer," Ilsa declared abruptly. "I will transfer your mentorship from Xvim to myself. I will impart instruction in advanced aspects of illusionism, alteration, animation, and conjuration. If you impress me with your dedication, I will then include minor dimensionalism spells, and if you prove adept with those... then I will teach you the basic teleport spell."

Veronica blinked. What? That exceeded her expectations! Not that she would complain, but...

"That exceeds what I had hoped for," Veronica admitted, her expression cautious. "What’s the catch?"

"First of all, I expect you to serve as my personal assistant," Ilsa replied. "I’ve been pursuing one for the past two years, but the headmaster refuses to fund their salary, and finding someone skilled willing to volunteer is surprisingly difficult. Anyway, your responsibilities will primarily involve managing the deluge of tests and homework I receive daily, and I might also ask you to take on some of my teaching duties with first-year classes. Or any other menial tasks I deem beneath me, really."

Annoying perhaps, but a reasonable exchange for what she was offering. In fact, this arrangement sounded strangely akin to-

"You’ll officially become my apprentice," Ilsa continued. "If I am to teach you advanced magic and trust you with my work, I desire some legal connection to you."
…like that. Normally Veronica would be very cautious about signing an apprentice contract with someone she barely knew, considering their main purpose was to bind the apprentice legally to their mentor, but this contract was only going to last until the end of the restart, so she thought why not. "Oh, and you’ll be taking over the position of class representative for your group," Ilsa suddenly said.

Veronica winced. Not only was that a thankless, burdensome role, it was also already taken. "Akoja is going to be devastated," Veronica murmured. She felt kind of bad about taking her position, especially since she didn’t want it in the first place, but there was no way she was passing up this opportunity.

Ilsa laughed. "Veronica, the reason I’m giving you the position is that Akoja doesn’t want it anymore. She says she hates the position – that everyone shuns her because of it and that I should give it to someone else. Unfortunately, I haven’t received any offers to switch with her. Not from anyone I trust, anyway." She gave Veronica a knowing look. "You were one of the people she recommended for the position, but I didn’t even bother asking you about it. Everything I heard about you suggested you wouldn’t accept the position."

"And you were absolutely right," Veronica agreed, still in a little shock. Akoja didn’t want to be the class representative? But the girl lived for that stuff! And anyway, if she didn’t want to do it, then why did she perform it with such dedication? If Veronica was stuck in a role she hated, she would do as little as possible, or even intentionally botch it so Ilsa would feel compelled to replace her as soon as possible. Why couldn’t Akoja do the same? "The only reason I’m accepting this now is because your offer is so good."

"So we have a deal, then?" Ilsa asked for confirmation.

"Yes, but I have a question and a demand," said Veronica. "First, why do you want to teach me those particular subjects? And second, I want to learn the teleport spell before the summer festival."

"I somehow doubt you’ll manage to master the prerequisites for the teleportation spell in little less than a month," Ilsa said. "But in the highly theoretical case you actually do so, I have no problem fulfilling your demand. Why are you so determined about that spell?"

"It’s a bit of a dream of mine to be able to do that," Veronica shrugged gently. "In my mind, teleportation has always been one of the quintessential examples of what a proficient mage can achieve, should be capable of."

"Interesting. Out of curiosity, what else do you think a skilled mage should do?" asked Ilsa.

"Create a force field, make a magic item, produce a fireball, repair broken objects and turn invisible," Veronica said. "I can already do the first four, and the fifth one is illegal without special permits."

She was already working on acquiring an invisibility spell anyway, but Ilsa didn’t have to know that.

Ilsa gave her a knowing look and Veronica would have been afraid she was reading her thoughts if she weren’t sure she could detect any casual intrusion into her own mind.

"To answer your first question, I chose those disciplines because they’re my own specialty," Ilsa said. "It’s only proper for an apprentice to learn her master’s specialty, is it not?"

"Sure," Veronica agreed. "I’m not sure what all of those things have in common though. Aren’t specialties supposed to be more focused?"

"Well, when I was a young mage, I too had a bit of a dream," Ilsa said. "Specifically, I wanted to master true conjuration."

Veronica blinked. "As in, creation of real matter out of thin air? Isn’t that a myth?"

"That’s the current Academy stance, yes," Ilsa agreed. "Pre-Cataclysm sources claimed that powerful mages could manage the feat, but all the spells to do so have been lost and no one has been able to recreate them in modern times. Many mages think they never existed and the old records are making things up or describing something other than actual matter creation. Anyway, as a young mage, it had been my dream to recreate those spells, so I studied anything I thought could be a path towards that goal. Modern conjuration basically involves making solid illusions, so it was somewhat natural to start with illusionism and then progress to conjuration. And then, since true conjuration involves working with real matter, I moved onto alteration spells dealing with fabrication of items."

"And… did you have any success?" asked Veronica curiously.

"Depends on your definition of success," Ilsa shrugged. "My ultimate goal was to design a spell that would summon material from somewhere else, without the caster having to know exactly where the materials are coming from. That was how I imagined ancient Ikosians could fake matter creation. I sort of succeeded, but the spell I made only works in a specially prepared room and the mana cost of the spell varies wildly from casting to casting, depending on what I’m trying to conjure. And there was that embarrassing incident with the gold creation part of the experiment swiping these ancient coins from a nearby museum…"

She shook her head. "A story for another time. I have to get to class soon, anyway. I’ll prepare an apprentice contract for you to sign tomorrow so be sure to drop by when you get the time."

* * *

The next five restarts were both hectic and monotonous. Hectic in that there was always something that needed to be done, and monotonous in the sense that little of it was truly novel. She steadily improved her various skills, the aranea were getting highly adept at countering the invaders in various ways, and Shirley seemed to have finally accepted that something highly unusual was going on in the background, and it wasn’t caused by her.

There was little chance of Shirley identifying Veronica as the cause of the changes, since the sheer magnitude of them tended to drown out everything Veronica personally did. The aranea always started each restart very aggressively, giving anonymous tips to Cyoria’s police department, assassinating a few people, and even spreading a few rumors around. The result was that by the time Veronica entered her first class, the changes had already propagated throughout the whole city, affecting academy teachers and students alike. Shirley didn’t appear to suspect Veronica as the ultimate cause, or any other classmate for that matter.

Veronica was starting to agree with Shirley in that regard – whoever the third time traveler was, she certainly wasn’t in their class. Veronica had, through various excuses, talked to all of them – it helped that she spent the past five restarts as the new class representative, so she had plenty of excuses for such – using her slowly improving empathy to see whether they reacted with shock or surprise when she dropped some of the more suggestive sentences that would only make sense to a time-looping person. She found nothing to implicate any of them.

All in all, things were going pretty well in Veronica’s opinion. The last restart was especially good as far as Veronica was concerned – she had finally managed to learn the teleport spell from Ilsa, Shirley was actually starting to get smart about countering the invaders instead of simply trying to take them all on through her combat skills, and the last invasion attempt failed to conquer the main academy building or the student shelters because the aranea somehow managed to influence academy leadership into adjusting their warding scheme.

But the matriarch was getting impatient. Something was making her more and more nervous with each passing restart, and she refused to tell Veronica what, giving flimsy excuses every time she asked. She seemed to be focusing most of her energies on some kind of personal project, which she described as information gathering and following a hunch, and whatever results she was getting were clearly disturbing her. Veronica strongly suspected she had discovered some kind of vital information about the nature of the time loop, and she refused to share it with her for whatever reason. Veronica was honestly kind of bitter about that. What could possibly be more disturbing than what they already knew about the phenomenon?

Regardless, the matriarch was insistent that the third time traveler had to be found, and the sooner the better. Once Veronica confirmed that they weren’t in her class, she became convinced they, like Shirley, weren’t even present in the city most of the time. In all likelihood they simply gave critical information to the invaders at the start of the restart and then went to do their own thing. If they wanted to get their attention, the invasion would probably have to be a spectacular flop.

Accordingly, the matriarch laid out her plan for the next restart, one that would definitely be impossible to ignore...

Chapter 24: Chapter 24: Smoke and Mirrors

Chapter Text

Veronica would be the first to admit she wasn’t the easiest person to get along with. She was unsociable, irritable, and tended to assume the worst of people. She had always known that, even before she had died and gotten stuck in a mysterious time loop, but she had also always felt she was justified in her behavior. Indeed, if anyone had been foolish enough to criticize her about it before the time loop, she would have reacted with all the subtlety and grace of a disturbed hornet.

Now… well, she still felt she had good reasons to behave the way she did, and she wasn’t going to win any friendliness contests anytime soon, but the time loop had changed her. Made her calmer, and perhaps a tad bit more considerate to people around her. She hadn’t had an argument with her family in years, her financial independence was all but ensured once the time loop was over, her growing magical prowess had done wonders for her confidence, and the sheer scale of her current problem made all her previous frustrations seem rather petty in comparison.

Thus, when Kirielle nudged her in the side for the third time in as many minutes, she pointedly didn’t snap at her. She didn’t even sigh in exasperation. She just continued staring out of the window, watching the fields fly by as the train sped ever closer towards Korsa.

"I’m bored," Kirielle complained.

Veronica gave her a curious look. While the wards protecting the train disrupted mana shaping, they had only a rudimentary effect on her empathy, and what she was detecting from Kirielle wasn’t boredom – it was a mix of excitement, anticipation, and apprehension. As far as Veronica could tell, such complex mixtures of emotions appeared to be the most common emotion that people experienced, and they were almost entirely indecipherable at Veronica’s current level of skill.

"What’s really bothering you?" she tried. Her mind immediately burst into a flurry of activity, and she opened her mouth to say something before losing her courage and lamely disguising her attempt to speak as a particularly deep breath. Huh, so she wasn’t just being restless…

"Nothin'," she muttered, averting her gaze and despondently picking at the hem of her simple dress.

Veronica rolled her eyes and lightly tapped her gently on the knee with her foot. Despite doing the exact same thing to her only a few moments ago, Kirielle proceeded to send her a playful glare. Unsurprisingly, her attempt at intimidation failed utterly – she was about as frightening as an annoyed kitten.

"Tell me," Veronica insisted.

She gave her a long, suspicious look before relenting. "Will you teach me some magic when we get to Cyoria?" she asked hopefully.
How troublesome. The smart, reasonable response would be no – there was no way Veronica would get anywhere in a mere month. This particular restart was going to be extremely busy as it was, and she would forget everything she learned at the end of the month anyway. "…I’ll see what I can do," Veronica said softly after a few seconds of tense silence. Well, tense for Kirielle – she was pretty sure her sister literally stopped breathing while waiting for an answer.

"Yessss!" Kirielle crowed, pumping her fists in the air in triumph.

"But in exchange, I’ll need your help with something," Veronica added.

"Fine," Kirielle immediately agreed, not even asking what exactly Veronica had in mind. "Hey, can you-"

"No," Veronica immediately said, her tone gentle yet firm. "The train is warded to disrupt mana shaping. No one can cast spells in here."

"Oh," Kirielle deflated.

Truthfully, Veronica was bending the truth a little. The ward on the train that disrupted mana shaping was very weak and rudimentary, meant to deter overeager students and casual vandalism, and was little more than an annoyance to a proper mage like Veronica. She could overpower the ward with ease, but she had analyzed it in detail during the previous restart and knew it reported any significant spellcasting to some remote location. She’d rather not get chucked out of the train before reaching Cyoria just because Kirielle wanted a free show.

Kirielle opened her mouth to say something else but was promptly interrupted by a sharp crackling sound that heralded the voice of the station announcer.

"Now stopping in Korsa," a disembodied voice echoed. "I repeat, now stopping in Korsa. Thank you."

Well, at least Kirielle would soon get someone else to bother in their compartment.

"So many people," Kiri remarked, watching the throng at the train station through the window. "I didn’t know there were so many people going to that school of yours."

Veronica, who was amusing herself by trying to count the number of people on the train station using her mind sense, made an absent-minded sound of agreement. While she was no longer totally oblivious to the world while using her mind sense, it still took most of her attention to get anything useful out of it. After half a minute of trying to separate the tightly-packed mass of people into discrete individuals that could be counted, however, she decided the task was beyond her at her current level of skill and refocused back on Kirielle.

"Why are mages so rare if there are so many people studying to become one?" she asked.

"They aren’t terribly rare," Veronica said softly. "It’s just that most mages coming from rural areas don’t stay there once they finish their studies. I totally understand them too – I know I have no intention of coming back to Cirin when I graduate."

"What!? Why!?" Kirielle protested.

Veronica raised an eyebrow at her. "Do I really have to answer that question?"

Kirielle huffed and crossed her arms over her chest in obvious annoyance. "I guess not. But that means I’ll be all alone with Mother and Father then. That sucks."

"Just pester Mother to let you visit me often," Veronica shrugged with a smile. "She’ll cave in eventually, especially since you’ll be the only means through which they can maintain contact with me. Father doesn’t care about either of us, so he’ll follow Mother’s lead on this."

Kirielle gave her a weird look. "I can come and visit you?"

"Any time you want," Veronica confirmed.

"You don’t think I’m annoying?" she asked.

"Oh no, you’re definitely annoying," Veronica said, smiling at her mutinous expression. "But you’re still the only part of our family I actually like. And I bet you find me annoying too."

"Damn right," Kirielle huffed, kicking her knee gently for good measure.

They watched in silence as people boarded the train and sought out empty compartments for themselves and their groups. But soon enough such empty compartments dwindled in number and their compartment soon got additional passengers: Ibery, Byrn, and two other girls she had never met up until this restart. That was a bit unexpected – Veronica really only expected Ibery to be there. But no matter, maybe it was better this way. The more audience she had for this, the better.

Now all she needed was an opening.

She didn’t have to wait long.

"Well, your sister is far better than mine," one of the new girls said to Kirielle after her sister was done explaining who she was and why she was going to Cyoria. "I’m pretty sure mine would have done just about anything in order to avoid taking her little sister along with her."

"I almost decided not to bring her, what with the whole Cult of the Dragon Below incident," Veronica interjected with a playful smile. "But then I figured they’re probably just a bunch of crazy idiots anyway. I mean, if it was so easy to summon an army of demons, all of Altazia would have been a burning wreck by now, wouldn’t it?"

All conversation stopped as everyone turned to stare at her like she had grown another head. Veronica feigned confusion and gave them all a blank look.

"What?" she asked finally.

"What… exactly are you talking about?" Byrn asked carefully.

"You didn’t hear?" Veronica frowned, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. "The Cult of the Dragon Below issued a threat… well, technically a proclamation of intent but whatever… that they intend to summon an army of demons on the day of the summer festival. The planar convergence scheduled to occur on that day will be the most powerful one in centuries, so this is apparently a once in a lifetime opportunity for them."

"You’re serious," Ibery half asked, half stated.

"It’s what they said," Veronica shrugged. "And Cyoria has a lot of those crazies running around, so I think I’m justified in being a little concerned."

"Cyoria has a lot of Dragon Cultists?" Byrn asked incredulously.

"It’s the Hole," Ibery said with a sigh. "It’s something of a holy location for them, being a huge gaping hole in the ground of uncertain depth that continually spews mana into the air. They think it’s a direct conduit to the Heart of the World."

Wow, good thing Ibery was here – Veronica didn’t know that and would have had to make something up. She should probably read up on the Cult’s actual beliefs one of these days instead of simply thinking of them as a bunch of crazies. Know your enemy and all that.

The conversation didn’t linger on the cultists and their goals for long, and soon shifted to other topics. Veronica allowed it, not interested in pushing the issue. She had no idea if this exchange was going to have any sort of meaningful effect on the restart, but it cost her nothing to try and start the rumor mill a little early.

The first domino was set.

* * *

Much like the last time Veronica had taken Kirielle to Cyoria, Byrn and Kirielle decided to tour the train station for a while before they moved on to the city proper. By that time, of course, it was heavily raining. Unlike last time, Veronica was now in possession of a warding necklace that she had made while waiting for the departure time in Cirin, so keeping the rain barrier up around the group didn’t strain her mana reserves in the slightest. Consequently, she decided to be nice and didn’t argue at all when Kirielle insisted they accompany Byrn to the academy.

That’s probably why Byrn asked about keeping in touch when they reached his destination and were about to separate. Veronica gave him directions to Imaya’s place and told him to drop by when he had the time. She was pretty sure Imaya wouldn’t mind in the slightest and, while Veronica herself didn’t care much for the boy, she could see that Kirielle got along pretty well with the first year.

And speaking of Imaya, their initial meeting went a lot better than it did last time. The fact they hadn’t introduced themselves by frantically banging on the door and dragging water into the house probably helped with first impressions. Hell, Imaya didn’t even protest much when Veronica insisted she had something important to take care of and went out into the rain again.

The important thing she had to do was speaking to the aranea to give them back their memories, but this time she bore additional gifts – five stone discs that acted as telepathic relays, drastically improving the ability of aranea to coordinate their actions across large distances. Naturally, the 6th disc remained in Veronica’s possession, so she didn’t have to descend into the sewers every time she wanted to speak with the matriarch.

[You know, when I told you to contact me as soon as possible, I didn’t really mean you should call me in the middle of the freaking night,] Veronica sent to the matriarch, putting as much of her annoyance and crankiness as she could manage into the message. She still wasn’t very good at attaching emotions and images to her communication, but she was confident the matriarch would get the general picture of what she was trying to convey. [I’m not sure about aranea, but we humans actually have to sleep during the night to function properly.]

[My apologies,] the matriarch sent back. She didn’t sound sorry at all. [It’s a fascinating device you’ve gifted me with. Most impressive.]

[Not really. It’s pretty shoddy as far as magic items go. I took a lot of shortcuts in order to make so many and it shows. It’s a fairly large, heavy disc made out of solid stone, so not very inconspicuous or portable, and it has a lifespan of only 2 and a half months.]

[That’s still a month and a half longer than needed,] the matriarch remarked.

[True,] Veronica agreed.

[I assume you can make long-lasting versions?]

[Yes, of course,] Veronica said softly.

[Could other artificers duplicate your work?] she asked. [Or is this something you came up with yourself?]

Veronica frowned. Why would the matriarch need other artificers when she had Veronica? Did she plan to ditch her after they left the time loop or something?

[It’s something I came up with,] Veronica said. [Other artificers would have to design a blueprint first. That could take a while.]

True, but misleading. Veronica did design the relays on her own, basically from scratch, but it honestly hadn’t been that difficult. She suspected any good magic item maker could design one within a month or two… provided they were either psychic themselves or had a psychic on hand for testing purposes. The matriarch could figure out that little detail on her own as far as Veronica was concerned.

[I see,] the matriarch said. [Well, I guess I shouldn’t keep you awake any longer. I just wanted to tell you I’ve reviewed the memory packet and am convinced it is genuine.]

Veronica rolled her eyes. As if there was any doubt. Apparently having gotten what she contacted her for, the matriarch cut the connection and left Veronica alone in her bed again. Well, alone in her head at least – Kirielle was very much in the room with her, a fact she immediately reminded Veronica of by taking advantage of her momentary distraction to appropriate the last bit of bed covering she had managed to keep away from her sister thus far. Veronica gave Kirielle a gentle look for that, but her sister just snuggled deeper into her cocoon of stolen blankets, blissfully unaware of her ire in her realm of dreams.

Veronica sighed softly. There was no way she was going to be able to go back to sleep now. She quickly cast a silencing ward on the room and then slowly extricated herself from the bed, taking care not to wake up Kirielle. Her sister was annoying, yes, but it wasn’t her fault Veronica's sleep was ruined.
Note to self: the next generation relay needs an off button.

* * *

After surprising Imaya by being already awake when she woke up, Veronica went out into the city to hit the stores. The plan she and the matriarch had hashed out during the last restart involved creating a lot of magic items, which meant buying material components and specialist tools. Not to mention, there were a few things she had to buy if she wanted to start teaching Kirielle how to be a mage seriously. She really hoped Kirielle charmed Kana in this restart like she had the last time around – while Veronica herself was decently skilled in alchemy and could manage on her own if she had to, Kael’s help would be invaluable in some of the projects she had planned for this restart…

"Veronica! Over here!"

Veronica snapped out of her thoughts and quickly made her way towards the person calling her. Benisek was exactly the person she was looking for. She quickly sat down next to the chubby boy and exchanged a bunch of pleasantries before getting to the reason she had tracked him down today.

"Ben, my friend, you won’t believe what I found out during our school break," Veronica said. "I still don’t understand what they were thinking when they came up with that stuff. It’s like something out of a bad adventure novel."

"Do tell," Benisek leaned forward.

"Well…" Veronica began, suddenly feigning reluctance. "It’s kind of confidential, you know. I’m telling you this in strict confidence because we’re friends, so don’t go spreading this around, okay?"

Noting that she was about to tell him something confidential and warning him to keep it to himself was crucial – it meant Benisek was going to spread the story around twice as fast as he normally would.

"Of course," Benisek said pleasantly. "You know me, Veronica. I would never betray your trust like that."

Veronica couldn’t help but smile. "Thanks, Ben. I knew I could count on you."

* * *

Having told Benisek all about the nasty terrorist plot to bomb Cyoria during the summer festival, Veronica went back to Imaya’s place to wait for Taiven and her offer of joining the sewer run. She amused herself by creating one of those practice cards that Xvim had her hone her shaping skills on. She had planned to simply buy a stack of them from one of the stores she visited this morning, but they were a lot more expensive than she had figured they would be – her respect for Xvim rose slightly when she realized how much money Xvim effectively spent on her training during that restart. Veronica’s list of complaints about the man was several pages long, but it seemed that being cheap wasn’t among them.

She was still impressing Ilsa into taking her on as her apprentice, of course. Cheap or not cheap, the man was incredibly frustrating and only tolerable in small doses.

She finished painting the glyphs on the corners of the card she was making and started binding the necessary spell combination. Kirielle, who was in the process of drawing a nearby vase of flowers, briefly looked up from her sheet of paper when she noticed her sister casting spells, but quickly went back to her work when she saw the lack of lightshows or other impressive visual effects.

She hoped that Benisek would keep silent about the source of the rumor she had told him. He probably would – Ben never revealed his sources if he could help it, since he liked to pretend he had some super-secret sources to draw information from rather than just spreading rumors from his fellow students – but Veronica had a contingency plan to follow even if someone with official authority came to confront her about the story. The fact that the aranea were currently spreading the same story in several different places should also help mask where exactly the whole thing had originated in the first place.

She was just putting the finishing touches on the card when Taiven burst into the kitchen and locked onto her position.

"Hey Roach, nice place you got here," she said, plopping down to a seat next to Veronica and peering closer to look at her work. "Ooh, I know what that is. I’ve been meaning to get some, one of these days, but I always end up spending my money elsewhere. How many did you buy?"

"None," Veronica said. "They were too expensive for my taste, so I decided to make my own. This is the only one I made so far."

Taiven raised her eyebrow at Veronica, looking amused at her claim. Veronica frowned, not liking the expression – she didn’t believe she could make a card like this? This was nothing! She thrust the finished card into Taiven's face with a playful scowl.

"Try it out," she told her.

Sighing dramatically, Taiven took a deep breath and… frowned. Veronica felt a mixture of surprise and frustration burst from her and realized she had tried to activate the circle she drew onto the card and failed.

"You couldn’t do it, could you?" Veronica grinned.

"You made it wrong!" Taiven huffed.

"Did not!" Veronica protested. "You just suck!"

"Do not!" she shot back. "Why don’t you do it if you’re so special, huh?"

"Hmph," Veronica scoffed, snatching the card back. She positioned the card so that Taiven could see the results of what she was about to do (and in the back of her mind, she noted that Kirielle had decided to see what the fuss was all about and was studying the card as well) and then flashed her mana into the card in a practiced manner.

The circle – and only the circle – momentarily shone red from the heat before collapsing into ash. Veronica blew a gust of air into the hole to scatter the remains across the table and then smugly handed the spent card to Taiven. She crossed her arms and waited for her reply.

"Ahem," a mature female voice interrupted the scene from behind her. "You will, of course, clean up this mess you’ve made on my table, won’t you, Miss Kazinski? Oh, and I would like to warn you that I will bill you for any property damage you inflict on my material possessions with your… experiments."

Veronica turned and gave Imaya a big, friendly smile. She rolled her eyes at the young mage and gestured towards the ashes on the table. Hanging her head in defeat, Veronica went to get a rag from the bathroom, ignoring Taiven’s soft laughter behind her. Just for that, she was tempted to blow her off when she asked her to accompany her to the sewers.

Briefly. The fact was, she definitely needed to go with her this time.

"So what was it that you needed from me anyway?" Veronica asked, sitting down next to Taiven again.

"Ah, well, I was wondering if you’d join me on a little expedition…"

Veronica patiently listened to her explanation before revealing she had contacts with the aranea and requesting that they try talking to them first before barging in, spells blazing. Much like in previous restarts where she had brought the issue up, Taiven accepted her hanging out with giant sewer-dwelling spiders easily enough, but this time she also had an additional request.

"Since you apparently think you’re good enough to walk around the Dungeon all by your lonesome, meeting sentient monsters and gods know what else, I would like to test your skills a little," Taiven told her. "Plus, it doesn’t hurt to know what your actual combat skills are if you’re going to accompany me and my team into a potentially dangerous situation. You do know some combat skills, don’t you?"

"Plenty," Veronica assured her.

"Good, so come to my place tomorrow at noon so I can test you," Taiven said. "You’re sure they’re going to hand us the clock if we ask nicely?"

"If they have it," said Veronica. "That guy who gave you the job doesn’t sound all that reliable to me. I don’t believe for a second that he didn’t know what the aranea are, yet he still sent you to get a pocket watch from them. Either he’s trying to get you all killed or… hell, I don’t know what his game is there."

"If the watch is something very valuable or very illegal he might not want to send someone who could recognize what they are holding," Taiven frowned. "Just how dangerous are these spiders of yours? I mean, even if sentient, they’re still bound to be vulnerable to burning and such. Maybe he thought we would just bulldoze through them without talking?"

"Aranea are all mages," Veronica said. It wasn’t strictly true, as only a small minority of aranea was armed with a true spellcasting system, but psychic powers were versatile enough to count as a sort of specialized spellcasting system. "They are especially fond of mind magic, illusions, and stealth. And they have a telepathic link to one another, so they will know and remember you if you massacre some of their outposts. And then you’d have a bunch of magical spiders with a grudge looking to ambush you or lure you into a trap the next time you descend into the dungeon."

"sh*t," Taiven said. Veronica felt a spike of anger from her before she reined it in and forced herself to calm down. "That asshole better have been ignorant of the danger or I’m reporting him to the nearest police station I find. That’s practically a murder attempt!"

"Let’s talk to the aranea first and see what they have to say," Veronica quickly said. She didn’t want Taiven to confront the man and then cancel the whole thing. "I guarantee they won’t attack you so long as you have me with you."

Taiven gave her a long, unreadable look.

"What?" Veronica asked.

"Nothing," Taiven said. "It’s just that… I thought I knew you, but now it turns out you have this whole secret life I’ve never known about until now. It’s a bit unreal."

"Yeah!" Kirielle suddenly piped in. She had been silent throughout their discussion, but apparently, she had been listening to everything with rapt attention. "How come you never told your own sister any of this!?"

"Oh, that one is easy," Veronica replied smoothly. "I didn’t want mother and father to find out, so telling you would have been foolish. Do you have any idea how many times you’ve gotten me in trouble by spilling my secrets in front of our parents?"

"Oh come on!" Kirielle whined. "I was a little baby! I didn’t know anything! You can’t possibly still be angry about that?"

"No, of course not," Veronica mumbled uncomfortably. "I did just tell Taiven about the aranea right in front of you, didn’t I?"

Taiven shook her head sadly, rising from her seat. "You keep too many secrets, Roach. I feel a little hurt that you felt you couldn’t confide in me, but I was never one to hold a grudge so I’ll let it go. Just don’t expect this to be the end of it – I’m going to pester you endlessly until I get the whole story. See you tomorrow."

"Wait," Veronica said. "Actually… yeah, there is something I need to tell you. All of you. Miss Kuroshka, I know you’ve been eavesdropping on us for a while now, so you might as well sit down for this."

Imaya whirled around from where she was fiddling with the cutlery and placed her hands on her hips, giving Veronica an angry look.

"I was not doing any such thing," she told her, "I was simply minding my own business, and in my own kitchen no less. If you didn’t want me overhearing your conversation you should have taken it elsewhere."
"My mistake," Veronica agreed softly. She was quite certain Imaya had completed her task in the kitchen a while ago but lingered out of curiosity about their conversation. But it didn't matter much. "Kiri, do you remember how I promised to teach you spellcasting in exchange for a favor back on the train?"

"Yeah?" Kirielle confirmed hesitantly.

"Right, a little background first. I am what is commonly known as an empath – a person who can sense other people’s emotions. Unfortunately, up until recently, my powers have been kind of running amok. There was nobody I could turn to for help… at least not on the human side of things."

"The spiders," Imaya surmised.

"Yes," Veronica nodded gracefully. "Aranea are all empathic as part of their innate nature. Thanks to them, I now have more or less gained control over my empathic abilities, though it will take years of practice to truly refine them into something reliable. Follow me so far?"

"What am I feeling right now?" Kirielle asked eagerly.

"I actually don’t know," Veronica admitted. "People’s feelings are rarely simple, and unless they are feeling one emotion very strongly, I’m reduced to educated guesses based on my previous interactions with the person. The more time I spend around someone, the easier I can read them."

"But isn’t she your sister?" Imaya asked, frowning in confusion. "You’d think that if anyone was familiar enough for your ability to work it would be family."

"Our family is…" Veronica hesitated, searching for the right words. "A bit complicated, I guess. I try to stay away most of the time, so I haven’t interacted with Kirielle too often. And I’m not the only one keeping secrets around here – Kirielle is also keeping a lot of things close to her chest. I guess we don’t really know each other all that well, sibling bonds notwithstanding."

There was a brief silence as everyone processed that admission, but the awkward atmosphere was quickly broken by Imaya clearing her throat with a polite cough.

"Well," she said, "I guess it’s a good thing you’re both here now to reconnect."

"Yeah!" Kirielle agreed with enthusiasm. "Hey, do you think I could be an empath too?"

"Sorry, Kiri, but I’m pretty sure you aren’t," Veronica said gently. "I would have been able to sense it if you were."

"You can sense other empaths?" Taiven asked curiously.

"I can sense all minds around me, empath or otherwise," Veronica explained. "I also get some basic information about each mind – how complex their thoughts are, their species, their gender, stuff like that. Empaths light up like little suns on my mind sense, so… sorry, Kiri."

"It’s fine," she said dejectedly but quickly perked up.

"You can sense people all around you, regardless of obstacles?" Taiven asked. Veronica nodded. "And the range on that ability is…?"

"If I’m busy with something else and just running my mind sense in the background? About ten meters," said Veronica. "If I’m specifically concentrating on scanning the environment? Easily ten times that. However, if there are a lot of minds around me, I have trouble processing the information, and they all sort of start to blend together in a confusing, headache-inducing mass. I mostly just shut my empathy off when I’m around big crowds."

"Vera, I am so recruiting you for my team," Taiven said with a grin. "I’ve been trying to find a tracker for my team for a while now! Now all we need is to teach you some divination spells and—"

"Already done, thank you," Veronica said. "I am quite proficient in divination."

"Even better!" Taiven said. "You’re hired."

"We’ll see," Veronica sighed.

"Fascinating," Imaya murmured. "I’ve never heard of that aspect of empathy, though I guess it makes sense that someone who can sense emotions can locate other people through it. But that’s not what you wanted to talk about, is it?"

"No, it’s not," Veronica nodded. "It’s not common knowledge, but empathy is just an initial expression of a much more… dangerous ability. A sufficiently skilled empath can bridge the gap between minds and connect with any person in range to talk to them telepathically, read their thoughts, fool their senses or mess with their memories. And the aranea have been teaching me how to do that."

She paused to gauge their reactions. Well, none of them were panicking or burning with outrage, so that was encouraging.

"I have no intention of doing that to any of you without permission," Veronica assured them. "But at the same time, I need someone to practice on. The aranea aren’t very suitable for this – their minds are too alien for a beginner like me to understand. I need a human volunteer, and I’m hoping for you to help me out, oh sister of mine."

"You want to read my mind?" Kirielle asked, wide-eyed.

"To put it bluntly, yes," Veronica said.

"And if I say no, will you still teach me magic?"

"Absolutely," Veronica said tenderly. "It’s a request, not blackmail. I’ll just have to find someone else to help me if you refuse."

"Well, okay," she said with a small smile. "I guess I’ll help you. But you can’t talk to anyone… about the stuff in my head. And you have to tell me all about your secrets in exchange!"

"Sure," Veronica promised with a warm smile. "Sounds like a fair deal to me."

* * *

The whole confrontation went off surprisingly well, Veronica reflected. Sure, Imaya had been avoiding her ever since, and Kirielle was giving her these odd looks, but none of them were terrified of her—just mildly uncomfortable. They were taking the revelation much better than she'd predicted they would.

And then, of course, was Taiven, who was apparently not bothered at all by her admission that she was learning how to read people’s thoughts.

"You ready, Vera?" Taiven asked, twirling her combat staff in her hand with a confident grin.

"I’m ready, yeah," Veronica said, gripping her spell rod tighter.

If she knew anything about how Taiven thought – and she did – Taiven would immediately go on the offensive. Her battle philosophy boiled down to "attack hard, and you won’t have to defend to begin with," though she could defend too if pressed. Veronica had no way to win a protracted fight with her, even if she was technically a better mage, so she would have to resort to trickery if she wanted to prevail here.

It would be nice if she could eke out a win against Taiven – her face when she lost against little old Vera was bound to be absolutely glorious to behold.

In the blink of an eye, there were five magic missiles homing in on her. She let them crash uselessly against her shield and responded with a somewhat exotic electrical spell. A beam of electricity shot towards Taiven, who erected a basic shield of her own to tank it.

Halfway towards its target, the beam split into three smaller beams – one pivoted to the left of Taiven, the other to the right, and the third one straight above it. And then they all changed their paths again and crashed against her from three different directions, completely bypassing the shield in front of her.

It wasn’t enough. Somehow, Taiven managed to smoothly transition from a single-direction shield to a full aegis before the beams reached her. Veronica threw a couple of smoke bombs around the training hall to blind her, relying on her mind sense to tell her where Taiven was, and started casting a complicated spell that wasn’t etched into her spell rod as her location got obscured by the smoke.

Taiven responded by casting several gusts of wind to disperse the smoke and hopefully catch Veronica in the area of effect as well. She had just about stripped Veronica of her smokescreen when Veronica finished the spell and felt her mana reserves drain almost completely dry.

If this doesn’t work, then that’s it for this fight, she thought.

A bright beam of concentrated force shot out from her hand and slammed into Taiven’s shield. The shield flared at the point of impact, shattering almost instantly, and Taiven was lifted off her feet by the impact and thrown violently against the floor. She didn’t get up, rendered unconscious by the impact.

"Oops," Veronica said quietly. "I think I overdid it just a little – that could have easily hurt her if the wards hadn’t worked properly."

After casting a few divinations to ensure Taiven was mostly okay and not bleeding internally or something like that, Veronica allowed herself to smile. She would have to work on her restraint, but it was a victory. And Taiven hadn’t been any gentler towards her in their previous fights, so she hardly had any right to complain about excessive force. She couldn’t wait to see Taiven’s face when she woke up.

* * *

"Come on, Vera," Taiven growled. "Find those spiders of yours so we can be done with this mission. I’m getting sick of this place already."

Veronica sighed and refocused on scanning her surroundings. This would be going faster if Taiven stopped snapping at her every so often – talk about being a sore loser.

"Hey," a male voice whispered into Veronica’s ear, breaking her out of her thoughts. "What happened between you and Taiven to get her so bothered, anyway?"

Veronica glanced at Grunt and considered how to answer for a second. She decided to be blunt and truthful.

"I beat her in a spar," she said simply. "She thinks I cheated."

Grunt gave her a considering look. "You beat Taiven in a spar? Aren’t you a third year?"

"Sure am," Veronica agreed, before noticing a familiar presence on her mental map. "Oh hey, there they are."

After the initial introductions were done, Taiven immediately moved onto the reason they were down in the tunnels in the first place, only to get disappointed.

"So you don’t have the watch?" Taiven asked.

"Alas, I’m afraid the next group of attackers managed to break into our treasury and escaped with a great many of our artifacts… the watch we claimed from the thief being among them," the matriarch said regretfully. "I do know where their base is, however."

This was all a bunch of nonsense, Veronica knew. The watch was indeed somewhere else—specifically in one of the forward outposts that the invaders used to launch attacks on the aranea—but it was there because the aranea had put it there. The idea was for Taiven and her group to stumble onto the outpost, realize they had stumbled onto something big—bigger than they could handle—and then report it to the authorities.

It was Veronica’s job to make sure Taiven and her group survived the encounter with the invaders.

"How convenient," Veronica scoffed, "that getting the watch involves taking out one of your enemies in the process."

"A happy coincidence," the matriarch said easily. "We both get something out of it, after all – you get the location of the watch for free, and I get to deal with one of my problems without risking my Web. Now… do you want the location of the base or not?"

"Just who are these enemies of yours, anyway?" Taiven asked.

"I don’t know exactly," the matriarch said. "The attackers consisted of a mage controlling two war trolls, but the base is guaranteed to have more forces than that."

"War trolls!?" Taiven blanched. "Hell, that is way more than we signed up for!"

"The guy is definitely not paying us enough to confront a couple of war trolls with mage support," Mumble said quietly.

"Maybe check it out anyway?" Veronica suggested gently. "Like, from a distance? I may be able to tell how many forces there are in the place."
"Yeah," Taiven considered for a moment. "Yeah, we should check it out, at least. No offense to the matriarch here, but a bunch of guys running around the sewers with tamed war trolls sounds a bit… implausible. Maybe she saw something else."

"I suppose it’s possible," the matriarch allowed. "I haven’t actually seen trolls before, and wasn’t personally present when the incident occurred, but they sounded very much like the trolls humans speak of."

"Right," Taiven nodded. "Where did you say this base was again?"

* * *

The base wasn’t actually in the city sewers. That part of the Dungeon was somewhat patrolled and monitored, and it would have been impossible to hide a large mass of soldiers there for an appreciable length of time. For that matter, the aranea didn’t actually live in the sewers either, although they considered them part of their territory. Instead, both the aranean home base and the various invader outposts were situated in what was known to Cyoria authorities as the intermediary layer.

It was not particularly rare for mages to descend into the intermediary layer, but it was not a common occurrence either. The intermediary layer was too dangerous for a casual stroll by an unarmed civilian, but mostly devoid of anything valuable that would attract dungeon delvers and other adventurers. The city hired mercenaries to sweep through the place every few years and get rid of any obvious threats that had set up residence, and they usually also picked the place clean of anything valuable, leaving a great expanse of little value. For those who wanted to challenge themselves against the denizens of the Underworld and search the place for riches, there was the Hole and its direct access to deeper levels that hadn’t been picked clean over the decades. Most of the visitors from the city consisted of an occasional thrill-seeking student and an occasional patrol to keep an eye on things.

The invaders chose the timing of their invasion well. The city was so focused on the summer festival and its associated problems that it didn’t pay attention to what was happening in the dungeon at all. This would normally not be such a problem, as very few problems could spring out of nothing in a couple of measly months – especially with little to no indication that something big was happening – but now…

"Holy sh*t," Taiven whispered, peering from behind their cover to look at the camp again. "They’ve got a freaking army there!"

"Get down, you idiot," Grunt growled at her, pulling her down behind the rock they were using as cover. "Do you want them to see you? If they notice us, we’re dead. There must be at least a hundred trolls down there and at least 20 handlers."

"Sorry," Taiven said. "It’s just… so unreal."

Veronica had to agree. She was expecting it, and she was still surprised at the scale of what they were seeing. Then again, this was why the matriarch had chosen this particular base out of the 12 or so she knew of. The others were smaller and much better hidden, but this particular base was situated in a large open cavern and had enough artificial illumination that a human observer could see the whole camp easily from a sufficiently high vantage… like the one they were using, for example. In fact, the vantage point they were using was pretty much perfect for observing the camp. Hmm, I wonder… She silently ran her fingers against the walls of the tunnel that brought them here. It was bumpy but smooth. Far too smooth to be natural. The rock they were hiding behind was the same.

Apparently, this was even more of a set-up than I thought it was, Veronica thought. 'I bet one of the aranean mages made this tunnel specifically so we could find it. It would explain why no one seemed to be paying any attention to this particular entrance, even though the other two are both guarded – they don’t even know it exists.'

Well, whatever – time to do her part in this charade. She pulled out a mirror from her backpack and silently cast a scrying spell on it. The base had a divination ward, of course, but it was based on the idea of stopping people from realizing that the base was there to begin with. Since Veronica knew that the camp existed and where it was, and was, in fact, right next to it, the entire ward was pretty much useless against her.

After 5 minutes of watching the camp through the mirror, Taiven decided she had seen enough and motioned her to cancel the spell.

"Let’s go," she said. "I want to get out of here before our luck runs out."

They almost made it out without complications. Almost.

As the four of them approached one of the seals between the sewers and the deeper layers of the dungeon, they suddenly came face to face with a duo of hooded mages flanked by 4 trolls. For a moment, both groups halted and tried to make sense of what they were seeing, neither group really expecting to stumble upon each other. Veronica noted with annoyance that their mental presence was somehow muted – no doubt a countermeasure against the aranea – and cursed herself for thinking that her opponents wouldn’t have some way of dealing with mind sense.

The impasse was broken when one of the mages ordered the trolls to charge.

Neither Taiven nor her two teammates hesitated when faced with four war trolls charging at them, raising their staffs to blast the attackers before they could overrun them. Veronica decided to keep the mages busy instead and fired a small missile swarm of four piercers, two for each mage.

Several things happened simultaneously. One of the mages dropped whatever spell she was casting and raised a shield to successfully tank the missiles coming towards her. The other was less skilled and fumbled her shield – both piercers hit her straight in the chest and she went down in a shower of blood. Grunt and Mumble used quick flamethrowers to halt the charge of the trolls, but while three of the trolls did flinch away from the flames, the largest, best-armored troll lurched forward, a little dazed but unharmed.

Taiven hit them all with a battering ram of force, intending to knock the whole group down and give them some space, and for the most part succeeded – the three recovering trolls and the surviving mage were hurled deeper into the tunnel and away from them, but that one troll at the front kept its ground.

It raised its huge iron mace for an overhead strike and screamed out a challenge, its shout staggering them like a physical blow, acting almost like a lesser version of the battering ram that Taiven just cast. Strange, Veronica had always thought trolls had no magic other than their absurd regenerative capabilities.

She had no time to consider this, however, as the troll immediately capitalized on the distraction it caused and surged forward.

Frantically, Veronica erected a large shield in front of the group, trying to buy time. Sadly, unlike the other trolls Veronica had battled in the previous restarts, this one was too smart to just crash into the shield. It smashed its mace into the shield with great force – once, twice, three times. The shield broke and the troll kicked her in the chest, catapulting her backwards where she collided with Grunt and Mumble and interrupted whatever they were about to cast.

Taiven, on the other hand, managed to finish hers. A vortex of fire surged forward, finishing off the surviving mage and the three other trolls that were moving to aid their comrade but leaving the lead troll merely singed.

And very, very angry.

"sh*t," Taiven said quietly, as the troll raised its mace for a killing strike.

Even though she knew her death wouldn’t be permanent, even though she had known there was a chance for this to happen when she had agreed to participate in this plan, Veronica found herself completely horrified at the idea of watching Taiven get crushed to death. Killed because of her and her plots and schemes…

She reached out to the troll’s mind and noticed it was no longer being muted – while Taiven’s spell failed to incinerate the troll, it seemed to have burned out whatever protected it from mind magic. Rather than try any sort of sophisticated attack, she simply flooded it with meaningless drivel, blasting its mind with random telepathy.

The troll flinched in shock and spasmed, halting its attack and dropping the mace it was holding. Veronica immediately threw two explosive cubes at its feet.

"Taiven, get back!"

She didn’t have to be told twice, immediately snapping out of her daze and scrambling backwards out of the troll’s reach. Veronica activated the bombs as soon as she judged her out of reach and the troll was enveloped in a deafening explosion.

Somehow, it still survived. It was kneeling and clutching its leg in pain, and bleeding all over, but Veronica could already see its flesh knitting together.

Damn it, what was it with this one troll!? Was it a super-troll or something?

And then two ice blue beams impacted directly into the troll’s chest, courtesy of Grunt and Mumble, and the creature immediately froze over and went still.

"Is it finally dead?" she asked.

"I don’t know and don’t care," Taiven said. "Let’s get lost before we meet another one."

Veronica took a deep, shuddering breath and nodded in assent. Then she tried to take a step and winced at the pain in her leg. She could walk, but she just knew she was going to be hurting for the rest of the week.

This better be worth it, you damn manipulative spider, she inwardly thought.

* * *

[So it’s all done?] the matriarch asked.

Veronica gripped the stone disk in her hand tighter. [Yes. I just said so, didn’t I? Thankfully, there were no actual casualties, though it was close. In many ways, our close brush with death works in favor of your plan, since Taiven is really pissed about these people now and determined to bring them to justice. She is going to report the whole thing tomorrow to the city authorities. I sincerely hope it wasn’t you who arranged for us to stumble onto that group, miss Spear of Resolve, or I’ll be very angry at you.]

[Don’t worry, I had nothing to do with it,] the matriarch assured her.

[Right,] Veronica sighed. Maybe she was being paranoid, but the matriarch’s behavior had grown ever more secretive over the past few restarts and she wouldn’t put it past her to pull something like that. [How about you? Is your task done?]

[Yes,] the matriarch confirmed. [I have contacted Shirley and told her that the aranea are aware of the time loop.]

Chapter 25: Chapter 25: The Unexpected

Chapter Text

Veronica stared at the stone disc in her hand in silent contemplation. It was done. Shirley finally knew she wasn’t alone in the time loop. True, Shirley didn’t know about Veronica being one of the time travelers – the matriarch had presented herself as the time traveler and made no mention of Veronica – but it was only a matter of time now. There was no way that Veronica could fool Shirley for more than a couple of restarts now that the idea of there being other time travelers was no longer totally ridiculous in Shirley’s mind. Assuming she even wanted to. After all, if this plan of theirs worked and the third time traveler was neutralized, there would be no reason not to introduce herself to Shirley immediately afterwards.

[So,] Veronica said. [How did Shirley react to your… introduction?]
[Confusion, surprise, and outrage,] the matriarch responded. [She had pretty much figured out there was someone else looping besides her – it was the only way to explain all the wide-scale changes that had been happening in the last handful of restarts. She was very confused about how they came to be and why they didn’t come to talk to her, though, and was considering doing something eye-catching to get our attention. The idea that the other time traveler is a giant talking spider caught her off guard, but I don’t think it will be a problem in the long term – she didn’t seem to be arachnophobic or a human supremacist. Anyway, she was pretty angry when I told her there was a third time traveler and that she had been mind-wiped by them, so I cut our meeting short so she can cool off a little.]

[Understandable,] Veronica said. [I know that aranea consider memory editing to be business as usual, but humans tend to flip out over such things. Do you think she bought your story about you being the other time traveler?]

[Actually, I said there are several aranea time travelers. That I had a way to bring other people into the time loop. Technically true, and makes us look like a bigger threat.]

[Not sure if that was really necessary,] Veronica mused, her voice gentle but firm. [Or even wise. What we have planned already should be sufficient to annoy the third time traveler into confronting you. Making yourself look more dangerous than you already are is just going to make them more cautious and dangerous.]

[You’re overthinking things,] the matriarch said. [We’re trying to set a trap, not engage the enemy in battle. Given that our enemy hasn’t responded to our provocations so far, I think that getting them to take the bait is a bigger priority than worrying about what happens once they do. As you have yourself stated, and as Shirley has learned so painfully over the course of this time loop, there is only so much a single mage can tackle on her own. However capable our opponent is, she’s not walking off from a well-prepared ambush.]

[Right,] Veronica said dubiously, her slender fingers tapping lightly on the stone disc. She was far less certain than the matriarch about that plan, but it wasn’t like she had a better idea. And besides, maybe having one of the matriarch's plans blow up in her face would make her more forthcoming with information in the next restart. [So, do we have Shirley’s support on this?]

[She will help, yes,] the matriarch confirmed. [I didn’t really have to offer anything to make her cooperate. She even asked for a list of targets so she can help us soften up the invading forces before the actual invasion date. Very earnest and straightforward, that girl. Quite unlike you and your rampant paranoia, I might add.]

Veronica narrowed her eyes, gripping the stone disc in her hand a little tighter. Was that it? Was the matriarch trying to replace her with Shirley? Someone more trusting and easier to manipulate? Was Veronica going to be next on the chopping block once the threat of the third time traveler was gone?

That settled it – she was going to reveal herself to Shirley sometime soon, regardless of how this ambush turned out. There was an advantage to anonymity, yes, but it was massively outweighed by the danger of allowing the aranean matriarch exclusive access to Shirley. That could end up very badly for Veronica.

[You’ve been silent for a while,] the matriarch noted. [You do know I was just teasing you, right?]

[I was just thinking,] Veronica said, thinking about how glad she was they were communicating through the relays at the moment – it made it next to impossible for the matriarch to read her thoughts unless she specifically sent them to her. It wasn’t really a safeguard she consciously installed, more like a consequence of their shoddy construction, but Veronica was pleased with the end result all the same. [What about the money? I’ll be running out of savings soon, you know.]

[I’ll be able to get you about 20,000 pieces by the end of the week. Will that be enough?]

[For the ingredients? Sure,] confirmed Veronica, her voice carrying a note of uncertainty. [If we have to hire experts, though? I’m not so sure. Good experts are expensive, especially if you’re hiring them on a tight schedule or expect them to be discreet. Hopefully, Kael will agree to help us, or else I’ll probably have to hire an alchemist.]

[I’ll leave that to you,] the matriarch said. [You understand the problem far better than I do.]

There was a brief silence as both Veronica and the matriarch considered what to say next, if anything.

[Listen,] the matriarch suddenly said. [Did you know that the aranea sometimes scatter small memory packets into the minds of their males?]

Veronica blinked. What? What did that have to do with anything?

[No,] said Veronica hesitantly. [I can’t say that I did.]

[Well they do,] the matriarch said. [It’s a pretty good way to leave secret messages if you know what you’re doing. If you break the message into sufficiently small chunks and embed it carefully enough into the targets, it’s virtually impossible for anyone without a key to even find them, let alone piece them together into a coherent whole.]

[Why are you telling me this?] Veronica asked, her voice tinged with curiosity.

[Just in case,] the matriarch responded. [Aranea males are far smaller than female ones and very, very cowardly. They’re frightened by fire and loud noises just like any other animal, and most divination spells designed to track aranea do not register them as the same type of creature. Most of the time when an aranean settlement is destroyed, a lot of males will survive the destruction. Leaving messages encoded in their minds is a good way to leave messages from beyond the grave.]

Veronica frowned. So the matriarch did acknowledge that the ambush could go wrong… but why would she leave a message for her in such a roundabout, complicated way?

[Why not just tell me?] she asked.

[It’s probably nothing,] the matriarch said, dismissively. [And you worry too much as it is. This is really just a precaution in case of the worst outcome. Novelty will give you the key when you see each other next time.]

Before Veronica could continue the discussion, the matriarch cut the connection.

"Very mature," Veronica mumbled, throwing the disc on the bed beside her. Still, as annoying as the matriarch was right now, she had been nothing but helpful so far, so she would give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she really did have good reasons for her secrecy.

Still, after this restart, maybe she should start making her own precautions. Just in case.

* * *

At Cyoria’s train station, Veronica waited, her slender frame leaning gracefully against one of the stone pillars. It would be a while until Kael and his daughter arrived, and in the meantime, Veronica amused herself by observing the pigeons milling about on the platforms.

Animal minds were paradoxically both harder and easier to affect with psychic powers than human minds. Harder because simpler minds were harder to sense and pin-point, easier because their thoughts were easier to discern and subvert once a psychic finally managed to connect to them.

The pigeons weren’t that hard to sense – not if she had a direct line of sight on one and could devote all her attention to the task – so there was little the birds could do to defend themselves against Veronica’s experimentation. She simply sat on her bench, her simple skirt and blouse swaying gently in the breeze, and systematically targeted pigeon after pigeon, practicing her skills. Sometimes she simply tried to make sense of their rudimentary minds without alerting them to her intrusion, other times she tried to flat-out hijack their senses or puppeteer their body. Neither task was going terribly well, but it was something to pass the time with, and she did have some success. After the 50th pigeon or so, she could distinguish a pigeon that was hungry, sick, or in pain from those that weren’t. She could make a pigeon stumble or freeze up for a second, or frighten them until they fled as far away from her as possible.

Actually, that last one was extremely easy. Considering the effect was almost identical to the Spook Animal cantrip she had learned back in their second year, she shouldn’t have been surprised. Though that did give her an idea… mind spells that affected animals weren’t restricted as heavily as spells that targeted humans. Hell, some of them were freely available in the academy library! It might be a good idea to try some in one of the future restarts and compare the results with what she could achieve with psychic powers.

For now, though, she concentrated on another idea – rather than flat-out puppeteer the pigeon, she was trying to simply dampen its fear and influence it into approaching her on its own. It was a lot harder than scaring the bird away. The pigeons were already inclined to bolt at the slightest provocation, so it didn’t take much to send them running, but having them approach a strange woman with no food who kept staring at them went against their instincts.

It took her over twenty tries, but she gradually learned how to steer the pigeons towards her. Finally, on her 24th attempt, she found a pigeon fearless enough to play along with her game. It slowly meandered close and then briefly took flight in order to land on the same bench Veronica was occupying.

It cooed and stared at her, and when Veronica reached out with her hand and scooped it up, it did not resist in the slightest.

Success! Veronica reached into her pocket and offered the docile pigeon in her hand some bread. It was only proper to reward such a cooperative experiment subject.

And her achievement was just in time too, since Kael’s train was arriving at the station. She put the pigeon down on the bench and left to help Kael disembark.

"Kael Tverinov? I’m Veronica Kazinski, one of your classmates. Miss Zileti sent me to help you settle down and show you around the city. Don’t worry about your daughter, I know the value of being discreet."

Kael gave her a searching look before nodding, his demeanor cautious yet grateful. "I appreciate the help, Miss Kazinski. As well as your silence. Lead the way, if you will."

"It’s no problem at all," Veronica said with a soft smile, creating a floating disc of force and loading Kael’s luggage onto the platform. "We live at the same place, after all."

"We do?" Kael asked curiously, adjusting his daughter, who observed everything around with her bright blue eyes but remained resolutely quiet.

"Well yes. Or at least we will if you have rented a room at the place Miss Zileti had recommended to you. She recommended the same place to me when I told her I’m bringing my little sister with me this year and sought alternatives to academy housing."

"Your little sister?" asked Kael, shifting Kana in his hands with a gentle motion. "How come you brought her with you, if you don’t mind me asking?"

"Our parents went on a trip to Koth, and someone has to take care of her. And, well, that someone has always been me in cases like this. I don’t mind all that much really, and the owner of the place seems to be good with kids."

"Well that’s a relief," Kael said, visibly relaxing. "To be honest, I had great reservations about coming here, and I was kind of worried Miss Zileti overstated her friend’s fondness for children in order to get me on board with the enrollment."

"I don’t think you have a lot to worry about. Imaya, the owner of the place, seems honest and friendly enough. And I’m an empath, so I can usually tell," Veronica said, her eyes twinkling with warmth.

Kael gave her a sharp, questioning look, intrigued by her confession.
"Too sudden?" Veronica asked with a gentle smile. "I'm sorry, but I wanted to get it out of the way first. I know some people can't stand the idea of someone knowing their private emotions, but I don’t think I can keep it a secret from someone that I’m going to share a roof with on a permanent basis."

"If you aren't worried about living with a morlock, I don't think I have the right to complain about you being an empath," Kael replied, shaking his head. He gave his daughter a tender look. "Truthfully, I am sort of jealous. Kana is so quiet most days, I sometimes wish I could peer into her head and see what she's thinking about."

Kana immediately wrapped her little hands around Kael's face and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. Kael chuckled softly and ruffled her hair, a smile touching his lips.

Kana 1, Kael 0, Veronica thought to herself. Quiet she might be, but Kana clearly knew how to deal with her father effectively.

A few moments later, when the moment had passed, the two continued their conversation in a much more relaxed manner, the ice having been successfully broken.

* * *

Imaya's kitchen was bustling. Between Veronica, Kirielle, Kael and his daughter, visiting Ilsa and Taiven, and finally Imaya herself, the room was as full as it could be, and there were constantly at least two simultaneous conversations going on at any particular moment. Surprisingly, Veronica felt comfortable being there. In the past, these gatherings had annoyed her terribly, and she would find some reason to excuse herself and leave as soon as possible. The difference, she realized, was that she was no longer in a gathering of strangers. This was the first time she actually felt she belonged in one of these things, instead of being a barely-tolerated outsider constantly scrutinized for weakness and misbehavior.

She remained mostly quiet, enjoying a comfortable silence.

"…and then Grunt and Mumble hit it with polar beams and froze it solid," recounted Taiven animatedly. "I don't know whether that really killed it, but it put it out of the fight long enough for us to run for it. Most harrowing experience of my life, let me tell you. I'm really glad Veronica was there – if I had chosen any other third-year student as filler, I don't think I'd have survived that encounter."

Veronica fidgeted in her seat, a bit uncomfortable with the praise. If it weren't for her, Taiven wouldn't have encountered that troll in the first place, so she didn’t feel like she had done Taiven any favors.

"While it's indeed impressive that Veronica can contribute in such a fight, I'm going to have to insist you refrain from bringing her along to your dungeon delving in the future," Ilsa said with an amused smile. "She's my apprentice now, and it would look absolutely terrible on my record if I let my apprentice be killed by a rampaging troll or some other monsters immediately after signing the contract."

"Err, yeah…" Taiven fumbled. "Well, I have no intention of going down there for a while. I reported the incident to the police, but the cleanup will probably take months, and the place is too dangerous for me and my group at the moment."

"A wise decision," Ilsa nodded. She then shifted her attention to Veronica. "And the same principle holds for you. I don't want you taking such risks in the future. I will ignore the issue this once, since you were helping a friend and the situation escalated beyond anything that could reasonably be expected, but from now on consider all excursions into the Dungeon forbidden until further notice."

"Of course," Veronica immediately agreed, having no intention of actually honoring the restriction.

"And I want you to consult me before doing anything similarly dangerous in the future," Ilsa warned. "Is there anything else I should know about?"

"Not really," Veronica said. Ilsa gave her a hard stare. Hmm, maybe she should throw her a bone to distract her before Ilsa starts actually monitoring her. "Well, I'll be meeting my aranea tutor on a regular basis, but she's totally harmless. Wouldn't hurt a fly, despite being a giant spider."

"Ah yes, the spiders," Ilsa said with obvious distaste. "Don't worry, Imaya has already told me about your... condition. I wanted to speak to you about that, but I'll wait until we can meet in a more private setting."

Veronica nodded, appreciating Ilsa's discretion. Kael still didn’t know about the full extent of her mental abilities and Veronica didn't believe this was the time to reveal them. She was kind of disappointed that Imaya had told Ilsa about her condition without asking for her permission. It was by no means unexpected, but still disappointing.

"I'm curious," Kael said. "If your teacher wouldn't hurt a fly, what does she eat? I'm pretty sure all spiders are strict carnivores."

"Mostly rats and stray dogs," Veronica said.

"Rats?" Kirielle asked in disgust.

"I'm told rats can get pretty big in Cyoria," Veronica said.

"Gee, can they ever," Taiven confirmed. "I swear I once saw one of them stalking a cat instead of the other way around…"

"She’s just telling fisherman’s tales," Imaya quickly assured the disturbed-looking Kirielle. "I've lived here my whole life and have never seen anything like it."

"How do you know that stray humans aren’t also on their diet?" Ilsa asked.

"According to Novelty, the idea is about as likely as a group of humans hunting an occasional dragon in order to put some meat on the table – that is to say, not very. There is almost always easier prey around," Veronica answered. "Not that aranea are harmless, far from it, but if they kill me it's not going to be because they want to eat me."

"Novelty?" Kael asked.

"That's the name of the aranea tutoring me," Veronica shrugged. "Well, technically her name is Enthusiastic Seeker of Novelty, but that's unwieldy and she doesn't mind if I shorten it."

"That name sounds stupid," Kirielle said.

Veronica opened her mouth to tell her that Kirielle was also a foolish name when she thought better of it. For one thing, it was best to reserve immature bickering with her sister when they were alone. For another, she had just thought up a much more amusing and diabolical idea.

"Want to meet her?" Veronica asked.

"What?" Kirielle asked.

"Novelty. Want to meet her?"

Kirielle stayed silent, mulling it over. "I don’t know. I don’t like spiders. They're disgusting."

"Well okay," Veronica shrugged. "I just figured you’d jump at the chance to meet with a member of a reclusive race of magical creatures that very few humans can boast speaking to. Once in a lifetime opportunity and all that. But I guess I understand–"

"Umm, well…" Kirielle fumbled. "Actually, I changed my mind. She’s not going to try to touch me, is she?"

Of course she was going to try and touch her. Novelty wanted to touch everything. By her own admission she once stuck one of her legs into an open flame in order to see what would happen.

"I'm sure she'll keep her distance if you ask politely," Veronica told her.

How she kept a straight face after telling her that she’d never know. Sometimes she surprised even herself.

The conversation continued for a while after that, but eventually began to peter out. Ilsa and Taiven excused themselves and left, while Kirielle amused herself with trying to teach Kana how to draw. Of course, unlike Kirielle, Kana was a typical child with age-appropriate (that is to say, appalling) drawing aptitude, but neither Kirielle nor Kana seemed discouraged by that. Veronica excused herself and went to her room to see if she could get some work done before Kirielle came looking for her.

It was not to be, though – barely a minute after she had sat on her bed Kael showed up and knocked on the doorframe to get her attention.

"Am I interrupting something?" he asked.

"No, I was just considering what to do with myself. Did you need something?" asked Veronica.

"Sort of," Kael said. "I just came to tell you that you don’t have to dance around the issue of your mind magic anymore. I already figured out you’re not just an empath."

"Kirielle told you, didn’t she?" Veronica sighed.

"Not so much told me as gave me enough clues to figure it out. She's a chatty kid. But there is no need to be angry at her, it’s not like I’m going to turn on you just because you’re learning how to read people's thoughts."

"Thanks," Veronica said. "Although quite frankly, it would be kind of hypocritical of you to shun me for dabbling in forbidden magics, mister junior necromancer."

Kael immediately flinched back in shock and gave her a wide-eyed look. "W-What!? There is no way…"

Veronica gestured him to quiet down and Kael immediately checked down the corridor to make sure no one had been listening. Veronica knew they hadn’t been; she sensed that all the other residents were still back in the kitchen. His scrutiny done, Kael quickly stepped into the room and closed the door, leaning heavily on it.

"How?" he asked. He sounded more panicked than menacing, but Veronica knew that could change at any moment if he didn’t get a satisfactory answer.

"Do you know the arcane lock spell?" Veronica asked.

"I… yes," Kael said, still sounding rather dazed.

"Lock the door, then, and I’ll make sure we’re safe from any stray divinations," Veronica said, and immediately started casting a temporary divination ward at the room. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it would ward off simple scrying attempts and hopefully notify her if anything more complex targeted them. Not that she really thought they would need it, but it was good practice and you could never be careful enough.

Five minutes later, the room was as secure as Veronica could make it on such quick notice, and Kael looked increasingly impatient. Veronica decided to get on with it. She opened her mouth and began to speak.

"Let me tell you a story of lost time and a month that refuses to end…"

* * *

Unpaid teenage labor was an age-old tradition among mages. While the ancient apprentice system had largely been replaced with specialized magical academies, and the quality of young mages had improved drastically as a consequence, there were some things that simply couldn’t be learned in the classroom. For things like that, a mage needed a mentor – someone to show them the tricks of the trade, teach them unique skills and spells they had developed and did not share lightly with others, or just plain connect them with the right people. Said mentors usually had plenty of work they considered beneath them, ideally of a sort that took advantage of their student’s magical ability and prepared them for their future vocation.

Ideally.

As Veronica trudged towards her classroom, half an hour before any of her fellow classmates, she reflected on the fact that life was rarely ideal. In practice, a lot of work given to apprentices consisted of chores that their mentor thought beneath them or various busywork. The duties of the class representative, for instance, were largely one giant waste of time. In previous restarts, this fact didn’t bother her all that much – the job was fairly easy so long as you didn’t take it as seriously as Akoja did – but this time she had so many things vying for her attention that she resented this additional duty being piled up on top of it all. Maybe she shouldn’t have talked Ilsa into taking her as her apprentice this restart but, well, what’s done is done.
He yawned. Veronica supposed she was just cranky today since she had gotten very little sleep last night. Her conversation with Kael literally took hours since he wanted to know absolutely everything and kept asking for details. While Veronica didn’t begrudge him for wanting answers and considered the time well spent, she had planned to use that time to read through the research assignments she had collected from her classmates on behalf of Ilsa. Assignments she had to give to Ilsa today, complete with corrections and grade recommendations. She had thought her knowledge from previous restarts would make the task a child’s game, but apparently something about their massive changes to this restart caused Ilsa to give out completely different topics for research and she had to actually read everything from scratch. She ended up spending most of the night dealing with those stupid things and then had to get up half an hour earlier than usual too because she was class representative to boot.

Peering into the classroom, she saw that Akoja was already inside. Veronica rolled her eyes at Akoja's excessive punctuality and marked her down as present on her little attendance sheet. The blackboard was full of horrible drawings, love confessions, and other garbage, but she knew better than to wipe it clean right now—some of the class idiots wouldn't resist making a mess again by the time the teacher finally showed up. Who knew, maybe if she left it alone long enough Akoja would take care of it on her own initiative, as she sometimes liked to do.

The first to arrive were, surprisingly since they weren’t normally early birds, Aneka and Armie—the (in)famous Ashirai twins. The Ashirai family consistently produced soul-bonded twins as their descendants, and the two sisters Veronica shared her class with were no different. Veronica had thought about asking them for help back when she thought she was soul-bonded to Shirley, or at least questioning them about the mechanics of soul bonds, but ultimately decided it would be a bad idea. For one thing, mage families tended to jealously guard their family magics, and it was obvious that the Ashirai family was trying to become an official House with their own magical specialty centered around their soul bonds. Asking too closely about their family style could have ended up blowing up in her face spectacularly, and Veronica hadn’t been willing to risk it, time loop or not. A second concern was that the twins were unreliable. Benisek-level unreliable. They were giggly little twits who took nothing seriously and wouldn’t keep quiet even if she paid them. No, it had definitely been smart of her to stay away from them.

Next to arrive was Kael, who apparently couldn’t sleep very well after yesterday’s revelations, and eventually decided to just come early. They didn’t talk much before the morlock boy decided to retire to his seat, but Veronica could already see there would be more questioning in the near future. Lovely. She had forgotten how inquisitive and interested in the time loop Kael had been the last time he had been aware of it.

Briam, Naim, and Edwin were marked down as present next. Briam gave her a wave as he passed by her, his other hand holding his fire drake familiar close, while Naim and Edwin were too absorbed in their conversation to take notice of her. Veronica didn’t really mind; it wasn’t like she knew either of them all that well. Naim was a first-generation mage, much like Veronica and Akoja—a child of some soldier that rose to the rank of general in the wake of the disruptions caused by the Splinter Wars. Edwin had golem makers as his parents, and they clearly passed on their enthusiasm for the craft to Edwin—he was always tinkering with various mechanisms and making blueprints, even during lectures or other times during which he should have been concentrating on something else.

The next to come was Raynie—the red-headed mystery that transferred into their class the previous year. She was reserved, polite, extremely attractive, a good student, and absolutely refused to tell anyone about her family or origins. The only one who knew anything concrete about Raynie was Kiana, another of her female classmates, and she was resolute in her silence.

And so it went, student after student, until the list was complete and she could finally slip inside and try to rest for a bit before class started. She absent-mindedly erased the blackboard with a single alteration spell, causing the chalk to simply peel off the surface and fall to the floor, and sat down to wait.

* * *

"No, Ben, you cannot turn in your assignment a week from now," Veronica said softly yet firmly. "The deadline was yesterday. I have to hand them over to Ilsa today. Don’t you see the problem here?"

"Come on, Veronica, this is what friends are for," Benisek complained. "What good is having your best bud as the class rep if you can’t ask her to cut you some slack?"

"You’re not asking for a favor; you’re asking for the moon," Veronica told him, giving him a flat stare. "I cannot help you in this regard."

"But I really, really can’t get another demerit," Benisek said, giving her a hopeful smile.

"Tough," Veronica said. "I guess you should have thought about that before you decided to completely blow off another assignment from Ilsa. You already know she can’t stand students boycotting her homework."

"She’s completely ridiculous!" Benisek said. "What kind of teacher gives out three assignments during the first week of the year?"

"Umm," a new voice cut in. Veronica silently offered a prayer to whosoever was still listening on the spirit planes for the interruption. She was seriously ready to strangle Benisek to get him to shut up. This wasn’t the first time she was suffering through this conversation, but she usually wasn’t so tired when dealing with her… sort-of friend. She was honestly rethinking her connection with the boy at this point.

As it turned out, the interruption was by Neolu, though Kiana and Jade were also hanging behind her. All three were holding a sheet of paper.

"I know the deadline for the assignment was yesterday, but I was sort of wondering—"

"If you could turn it in now?" Veronica finished.

Neolu nodded furiously and extended the paper toward her.

"No," Veronica deadpanned.

"Seriously?" Jade piped in. "You’re going to make a big deal out of this?"

"Yes," Veronica asked rhetorically.

"Why don’t we just leave this here," Kiana said, placing her assignment on the desk, "and you can decide whether you want to bother with them when Benisek is done annoying you and you cool down a little."

"Hey!" Benisek protested.

"Sure," Veronica shrugged. "You do that."

Veronica patiently watched as the three of them left their assignments on her desk and filed out of the classroom, waited until Benisek finally gave up on convincing her to… write Benisek’s assignment for him, she supposed? And then she calmly fished out a pen from her backpack and wrote did not turn in assignment within the deadline at the top of each sheet of paper before unceremoniously shoving them into her backpack along with the other assignments. There, let Ilsa decide what to do with them.

"Why are you still here, Ako?" Veronica sighed, turning to the last person remaining in the room. "Your assignment was flawless, if that’s what’s worrying you."

"I’m glad you decided to take the position from me," Akoja said. "I don’t think I could have gone through another year of it. When I accepted the position back in our first year, the teachers said it was a privilege. That there were benefits for the class representative. That it commands respect. But it was all a sham and by the time I realized that nobody was stupid enough to take the position from me."

"Hey…" Veronica protested lightly.

"I’m not saying you’re stupid for taking it," she immediately clarified. "You accepted it because it was bundled along with the apprenticeship with Ilsa. You were far smarter about it than I had been."

"More like less naïve," Veronica said. She flinched at Veronica's remark; apparently, she hit too close for comfort. "Why did you sink so much effort into it if you hated it? Why not just boycott the whole thing?"

"Because it would be wrong," Akoja said vehemently. "You shouldn’t shirk your responsibilities. And I had accepted the class representative duties as my responsibility."

Veronica gave her an incredulous look.

"What?" she challenged. Defiant. Daring Veronica to tell her she was wrong.

"Nothing," Veronica said. She didn’t want to argue with Akoja. Ever since she had started to develop her empathy, she became increasingly sure Akoja had a crush on her. A small one, but it was there. And while she didn’t return her feelings at all, she also didn’t want to hurt her emotionally. And she would have hurt her if she started talking to her honestly—they were two very different people, with different worldviews and ideals, for all that Akoja seemed to think they were alike.

"Listen, Ako," Veronica said, rising from her seat. "I spent most of last night reading through the assignments and I’m not the best person to hold a philosophical discussion with right now. Can we table this for another day?"

"You shouldn’t have procrastinated until the very last day," Akoja said. "That’s almost as bad as what those three did."

"No, it isn’t," Veronica disagreed. She hefted her backpack in one arm and rose from her seat. "And it’s impolite to preach like that. See you around, Ako."

"Wait!" she said. Veronica could suddenly feel a wave of nervousness emanating from her, and the fact she was wringing her hands under her desk and looking anywhere but in Veronica's direction completed the impression. "I… can we talk? Not now, but… I’d like your opinion on something."

Crap. This had never happened before in any of the restarts. What set her off? Veronica really hoped this wasn’t a love confession; she couldn’t afford that kind of drama right now.

"Can it wait until next week?" she asked. "I will be really busy the next few days."

"Yes," she immediately agreed. "That’s perfect. I need to gather my thoughts on the subject anyway. I’ll… I’ll tell you when I’m ready."

* * *

"You wanted to see me?" Veronica asked as she peered into Ilsa’s office.

Ilsa gestured her to come inside, too busy sipping on her tea to give a verbal response. Veronica sank into the visitor’s chair and promptly handed her all assignments she had collected from the students. Ilsa took a glance at them before setting them aside and taking another sip from her cup.

For a minute or so, she just kept silently scrutinizing Veronica. Finally, she put down her cup and sighed.

"I wanted to talk to you about your experimentation with mind magic," Ilsa said, drumming her fingers on the table. "I’m sure you’re aware of the rather illegal nature of most mind-affecting magic, but since it’s the product of an inborn ability rather than access to restricted spells and literature, some allowances can be made. The Empath Association goes to great pains to make a distinction between empathy and mind reading, and to claim one is just a logical extension of the other is… novel. And more than a little controversial. Nonetheless, my discreet inquiries into the subject have discovered there is indeed a known link between the two abilities, so your story holds water."
"Technically, empathy and mind reading are indeed different. Empathy is a passive skill with no mental intrusion involved, while mind reading requires one to actively invade the mind of another," explained Veronica. "It’s just that every empath is capable of mind reading with the right training."

"Oh? Interesting," said Ilsa. "I’m surprised more mages haven’t stumbled upon the fact, then."

"I thought about that, actually," Veronica said, her tone soft but assertive. "The aranea are born with the ability. They speak to each other telepathically as their normal mode of communication, have telepathic scuffles as kids, and use it to hunt their prey, for just about anything. It’s natural that they would refine and build upon the ability, exploiting it to its logical extreme. Human empaths, on the other hand, are rare and isolated, so most of them have to rediscover the wheel alone, so to speak. It doesn’t help that few people are willing to let someone read their mind, so any training is almost certainly illegal. So most people who discover their latent telepathic abilities are either going to keep mum about it or become outright criminals. There probably is a fair number of empaths who have discovered the fact, but they certainly aren’t going to admit it to anyone."

"Excellent reasoning," Ilsa praised. "And actually, it is the issue of training partners in particular that I wanted to talk to you about. I understand your sister has already agreed to help you with your training, but I am given to understand that having a wide variety of targets to practice on would be preferable, yes?"

"Yes," agreed Veronica.

"Believe it or not, one of the students has issued a request for someone to help them train their mind magic expertise. Understandably, none of the teachers are eager to have a student mess around with their heads. But simply refusing it is… politically unfeasible."

"You want me to step in and take a teacher’s place," Veronica surmised, a playful smirk on her lips.

"It would benefit both of you," Ilsa said. "You both want a target to practice on, and you’re both more qualified to help one another when it comes to mind magic than any of the teachers the academy has at its disposal."

"And if the other student protests this?" asked Veronica. "I mean, they may have wanted someone to practice on, but that doesn’t mean they’re willing to let someone else practice on them in turn."

"Then it wasn’t a simple case of the academy refusing a request out of hand, now was it?" Ilsa said, giving her a conspiratorial grin. "But I very much doubt the student in question would make a fuss about that. What do you say?"

Veronica hummed thoughtfully, gently playing with the strand of her hair, cascading gracefully over her shoulder. While there was a risk that the other side might find out about the time loop from her thoughts, she did possess some rudimentary mental defenses and was familiar with the limitations of mind reading. So long as she didn’t let the other student trawl through her long-term memories, she should be fine. And she was curious about this other student dabbling in mind magic.

"Alright, I’ll give it a try. Who am I going to be working with?"

"One of your classmates. Tinami Aope," Ilsa said.

Veronica blinked. Tinami was… wait, of course it would be her. The Aope were rumored to dabble in mind magic, among other things. Not all rumors were malicious nonsense. And it would explain why Ilsa knew about the request in the first place, come to think of it. Besides, didn’t she promise to introduce her to the aranea at some point to see what would happen? Yeah, she was totally fine with this.

* * *

"Hello, Tinami," Veronica said, walking into the empty classroom Ilsa had reserved for their lessons. Her attire—a simple skirt and blouse—balanced practicality with subtle elegance. "Am I interrupting anything?"

"Umm," Tinami fidgeted. "I’m actually waiting to meet someone…"

"For mind magic practice, right?" she asked, her gentle eyes twinkling mischievously. Tinami's eyes widened in response. "That would be me. I will be your partner today, if you would have me."

"Umm, ah, I was… I don’t want to be rude but I was kind of hoping for an expert…"

Huh, so Ilsa didn’t tell her who was going to teach her? Strange.

"I’m a natural mind mage," Veronica said, her tone friendly yet firm. "I’m the closest thing the academy has to an expert on the topic. Why don’t we try this and you can leave in a huff if I can’t satisfy you, okay?"

Tinami immediately flushed scarlet and looked away, her feelings cycling between embarrassment and outrage. Uh, maybe she should have worded that better…

"Bad choice of words, let’s pretend I said something else," Veronica said quickly. "Anyway, I’m surprised you didn’t know who would be teaching you. How much did Ilsa tell you about me?"

"Just that you need someone to practice on, too," Tinami said quietly. "I don’t really mind. I have enough mental discipline to keep sensitive things from my surface thoughts most of the time."

"Likewise," Veronica said. "And I won’t allow you to look into my memories."

"R-Right," she agreed. "I mostly just wanted to practice telepathy and mind reading. The spells are not hard to cast, but actually using them takes a lot of practice."

"Well, feel free to go first," offered Veronica, her voice light and encouraging.

Just for the occasion, Veronica had memorized portions of a biology book describing various forms of wild plants, and simply recited them in her head while Tinami tried to read her thoughts. Not only did this ensure she wouldn’t reveal any sensitive details to Tinami, but it also actually made her job easier. It was a lot simpler to read someone’s thoughts when they thought in concrete words and sentences, as opposed to a confusing stream of consciousness that composed the vast majority of people’s thoughts. In fact, the matriarch explained to Veronica that it was simply not possible to read people like a book unless they were literally reciting text in their heads like she was doing at the moment—there was always a large amount of guessing and extrapolation involved, and no mind reader could completely understand another sentient being. But they could get pretty damn close.

"Why are your thoughts full of information on plants?" Tinami asked with a frown.

Apparently, Tinami didn’t know that. Aope's style of mind magic training was very crude, and boiled down to throwing a kid into the swimming pool and hoping they didn’t drown. A bit disappointing, really. Veronica eventually shifted to reciting sequences of numbers and imagining simple geometric shapes.

"I guess I owe you an apology for doubting you," Tinami said. "You really do know your stuff. Do you want to try now?"

Veronica nodded and then focused on her, homing in on the glittering star she saw in front of her through her mind sense and connecting with Tinami's mind.

[Are you sure you’re ready?] she asked telepathically.

Tinami yelped and jumped in her seat. "W-What?"

[Telepathic communication,] Veronica explained gently, maintaining her composed demeanor.

"But… you didn’t cast a spell," Tinami frowned.

[I don’t have to. As I said, I’m a natural mind mage. I can sense all minds in my vicinity and I can connect to them if I want to. Right now I am talking to you telepathically, but if you’re ready I will expand my awareness to your surface thoughts.]

Tinami closed her eyes for a second but then frowned and opened them again.

"Wait," she said. "I don’t understand. If you made a telepathic link between us, why can’t I use it to talk to you telepathically?"

[I suppose that’s how it works if you use a structured spell for it?] Veronica mused.

"Well yes. I mean, there are various sending spells that simply send a mental message to someone, but you need to cast them again and again every time you want to send something to the target. If you want a proper mental conversation with someone, you create a telepathic link between them and yourself. The main issue being that people often don’t know how to filter their thoughts well and end up sending inappropriate things over the link."

[Hmm, I guess you could say I continually send messages over the link I established between us. I don’t know how to establish a two-way link yet, I’m afraid,] Veronica said contemplatively. The aranea never mentioned anything about two-way telepathic links, and in retrospect, it was obvious why—a psychic could use an established link to reply telepathically regardless of who the maker of the link was. Every aranea was psychic, so why would they bother with two-way links? It was something she would have to figure out on her own, probably. [Anyway. Are you ready?]

"Yes," she nodded. "Feel free to start."

Unlike her, Tinami didn’t resort to text or numbers, and instead did her best to imagine a random scene out of her life in as much detail as she could make it. The scenes were wholly unexceptional—one of Ilsa’s lectures, an inconsequential conversation between Jade and Neolu as they talked next to Tinami, a walk down the street… it was all very visual, but still very challenging. Her little sister was still much harder to read, ironically because she wasn’t trying to hide anything from Veronica—her disjointed, stream-of-consciousness succession of thoughts was next to impossible to figure out unless Veronica engaged her in conversation and made her focus on one particular issue.

"Okay, I’m officially jealous," Tinami huffed. "I’ve been practicing this for three years with my mother and her friends, and I’m nowhere near this good."

"Don’t feel too bad," Veronica said, "I have… an unfair advantage."

"So do I," Tinami said. "My family has been dabbling in mind magic for generations, and I have their advice. It’s frustrating to realize just how much raw talent can mean in a field like this."

"Ah, it’s not just raw talent," Veronica said with a slight smile. "I too have a teacher with generations of mind magic practice."

Tinami raised her eyebrow at her. "There aren’t very many of those," she remarked. "I’m pretty sure my mother would know if any of our rivals adopted a new student."

"Not many human ones you mean," Veronica smiled. "Your mother definitely wouldn’t know, not unless she keeps tabs on the many colonies of telepathic spiders scattered throughout Altazia."

Tinami stared at her in silence for a few seconds before leaning towards her excitedly.

"Telepathic spiders? You mean… you have actually met one of the legendary aranea?"

Legendary? Veronica almost scoffed, but supposed that the spiders were very good at hiding themselves. While there were humans who knew about them, very few seemed to be willing to advertise their connections to the aranea colonies. Veronica didn’t think it was because of intimidation on behalf of the aranea (or at least not just because of that)—in all likelihood, the mages that were in the know simply wanted to preserve their monopoly on business with the aranea and didn’t want rival mages butting in and demanding their piece of the pie.

"Her name is Enthusiastic Seeker of Novelty," Veronica said, adjusting a stray lock of her long ponytail. "Would you like to meet her?"

Chapter 26: Chapter 26: Soulkill

Chapter Text

The temple was just as imposing as it had been the last time Veronica had visited it—the same guardian angels glaring down at her, the same deserted feel to the building, and the same creation story carved into the heavy wooden doors. This time she studied the carvings on the door with more interest than she had done the last time, however, since some of the images were rather interesting in light of things she had discovered after her first visit. Specifically, some of the bottom carvings depicted monsters that sprang up from the World Dragon’s flaking heart, and these monsters were clearly primordials. They had the whole impossible patchwork creature look that seemed to be the primordial’s one defining feature, and they matched the descriptions of well-known primordials she had read about in the books.

The unholy cross between scorpion, dragonfly, and a centipede was clearly Hynth, the Locust Lord, whose bronze carapace was impervious to just about everything but divinely-forged weaponry and whose four pincers could tear steel like paper. The ability to release clouds of biting, devouring insects from pores on his body that devastated the countryside for kilometers around the thing, all while the primordial tackled anyone strong enough to stop them completed the image of a living natural disaster.

The cluster of wings hanging above Hynth was probably Ghatess, who was allegedly a ball made out of multicolored bird wings – and only bird wings – and created storms and tornadoes wherever it went, funneling matter into the center of its sphere where it seemed to just disappear without a trace. The boar/crocodile/porcupine thing was Ushkechko, a beast made out of indestructible black glass that poisoned anyone who so much as scratched themselves on one of its numerous bladed protrusions and could fire said protrusions like arrows at opponents. The slug-like entity covered in eyes and mouths was-

"Can I help you with something, young lady?" Veronica wrenched herself from her scrutiny of the door to look at Batak. The last time she had been here she had asked to speak with Kylae, but this time the man in front of her would suffice. He might even be preferable, considering Kylae was supposed to be a master diviner. She gave the man a nervous smile and spoke.

"I… wanted to have a talk with you, if it’s not too much of a problem."

"Of course!" the man said happily, quickly ushering Veronica inside. Veronica recalled from last time that the temple didn’t receive many visitors. It must be a pretty lonely existence to serve as custodian of this place. Before long they were both seated in front of a small table in the kitchen-like room that Batak used to receive visitors, a prepared tea pot steaming in front of them.

"So… What did you want to talk to me about?" Batak said after some small talk, raising his cup to his mouth and taking a long sip.

"I wanted to ask about primordials," Veronica said.

Batak promptly choked on his tea and spent the next few seconds coughing.

"Why... cough would you want to know about them?" Batak asked incredulously.

"I’m… not sure I should tell you. I don’t want any trouble."

Batak gave her a curious, impassive look, but Veronica sensed a note of worry in his mind.

"Well, I’m not sure whether you know or not, but there is a rumor spreading around that some people are going to try to disrupt the summer festival," Veronica began.

"I’ve heard about that, yes," Batak sighed.

"Well, a few days ago I went with some friends into the upper levels of the Dungeon to do a job for a client. A simple find and retrieve job, but we ended up running into an underground base full of war trolls and nearly died in the process. The police are keeping it very hush-hush at the moment, but I understand their investigation revealed it wasn’t the only base down there. Somebody had spent months preparing a beachhead for this attack and they have a lot of assets to burn…"

After more than an hour of explanations and clarifications, Batak seemed to accept that the attack was something a lot more serious than he had thought and (more importantly) that it was just a distraction for an attempt at primordial summoning. Thankfully, everything Veronica was telling him was totally true so whatever method of truth detection the man was using returned her explanations as genuine. The fact that Kylae had a prediction blackout around that time probably did a lot to legitimize the claim in the priest’s eyes, since the successful summoning of a primordial could be the reason for her divinations failing. Which was actually why Veronica came to this temple in particular, rather than, say, the main temple of the city.

"I’ll notify the church hierarchy; they should be able to spare a squad or two of investigators to check it out," Batak said. "Especially if they have solid proof rather than just an anonymous tip. Do you have anything in writing, perhaps?"

"Here," Veronica said, retrieving a stack of documents and notebooks from her bag and handing them over to Batak. "This is everything I have about the invasion. I tried to be as thorough and methodical as possible. I’d really prefer if my name was not mentioned anywhere, though."

Batak eyed the stack speculatively. "I cannot guarantee that. If your name comes up during the investigation—"

"It won’t," Veronica interrupted.

"Well, then I don’t foresee any problems," Batak shrugged. "A bit odd of you to have so much information on this group if you’re not a defector from their ranks."

Veronica said nothing.

"Alright," Batak said, perking up and shaking his head slightly as if to clear it. "Are you still interested in hearing about the primordials or was that just a ploy to get my attention?"

"I’m still interested, yeah," Veronica said. "I’m really curious why they felt the need to organize all this just to summon one."

"To be fair, I don’t think knowing more about the primordials will satiate your curiosity in that regard," Batak said. "Anyone who wants to summon one of these things is clearly insane. But no matter – tell me, what do you know about the primordials in the first place?"

"They’re some kind of powerful spirit hailing from ancient times," Veronica tried. "Like fey or elementals, only older, weirder, and far more dangerous."

Batak sighed. "I knew you were going to say that. In the future, when you’re interested in some aspect of the spiritual world, please consult religious texts first before delving into mage-written works. I know the church can be a little biased about a lot of things, but we really do know our stuff when it comes to the spirits and everything related to them. Ever since the gods fell silent, spirits are the only thing we have left, so we have done some extensive work on them. And we don’t hide it much either."

Veronica nodded sheepishly. It never even occurred to her to look at religious texts on the topic. She blamed her town priest back in Cirin, who was a bigoted old hypocrite that kept making problems for her whenever they crossed paths and consequently soured the Church as a whole for her.

Batak drummed his fingers on the table for a few seconds, gathering his thoughts.

"Alright. First, let me tell you something about actual spirits. I’m sorry if this is already familiar to you, but I need to get it out there to explain why primordials absolutely cannot be spirits."

Veronica motioned for him to continue.

"Spirits are, from a practical standpoint, divided into two main groups: outsider spirits and native ones. Outsiders spend most of their time in their own spiritual worlds and can only ever enter ours if summoned by someone from this side. Demons and angels are the most famous of outsider spirits, though lumping all demons into a single group is mostly done by humans for human convenience – there is no demonic equivalent to the angelic hierarchy and two demons are as likely to fight each other as they are to cooperate on a common goal. Native spirits are a multitude of spirits that exist on the material plane by default – you already mentioned elementals and fey, which are the two most common types of native spirits. It is likely that native spirits were once outsider spirits that gradually adapted to life on the material world, as they share the key feature that all spirits have. Namely, that they don’t really have bodies the way humans and animals do: they are disembodied souls that need some type of vessel to contain them and allow them to interact with the world around them."

"So spirits are soul entities," Veronica mused. "Like liches or body snatchers."

"Yes, very much like that," Batak agreed. "In fact, some spirits are very much body snatchers and prefer inhabiting bodies of humans and animals. And it’s likely that the process of transformation into a lich has been developed by studying spirits and the way they interact with their vessels. Anyway, primordials. Primordials have bodies. Actual, flesh, and blood bodies. Most people, even mages, assume they’re spirits because of their strange forms and great resistance to damage, but they really have more in common with dragons and other magical creatures than with spiritual entities. Spirits tend to be weird because their bodies are usually just ectoplasmic shells, which they can twist into whatever unnatural form they feel like taking. Primordials are creatures of the material world, just like you and me."

"But wait," Veronica said. "If primordials are not spirits, but some kind of strange magical creature, how are the attackers planning to summon one?" asked Veronica.

"They don’t," Batak said. "I didn’t want to interrupt you while you were talking, but you almost certainly misunderstood something there. Primordials can’t be summoned, since they’re down here with us already. Bound, forced into sleep, and locked away, but still with us. What they can be is set loose."

Veronica felt a shiver run down her spine. The primordial wouldn’t disappear, she realized. The Ibasan invaders thought they were summoning a fancy demon to go romp over their enemies, but that thing was never going back to its home plane on its own. It didn’t have one.

"Why were they sealed away?" Veronica asked. "Why not just kill them?"

"Primordials don’t die the way most things do," Batak said. "They are a remnant, a relic of the age when the world was still fresh and the World Dragon had only just been bound at the center of our world. They are her original children, the purest expression of her rage and hate, and they have found ways to strike out at humanity and the gods even in their death. They spawn smaller, weaker primordials in their death throes, and often inflict corrupting effects on the area in which they died. Even the gods found the aftermath of one of them dying to be difficult to deal with, so they eventually just contained the lot of them and trapped them in far corners of the earth."

"And the attackers believe one of them is in Cyoria," Veronica stated.

"Apparently," Batak said. "I wouldn’t know personally – no one has ever seen one of these prisons within living memory and written records are deliberately vague about their locations. Still, Cyoria had effectively been a far corner of the world up until relatively recently, historically speaking, so I suppose it’s possible. Strange that no one had ever found any indication of it all this time, though, considering how many mages delve into the depths of the Hole on a regular basis…"

"I see," Veronica said. She excused herself soon afterward. While interesting, this truthfully didn’t change much and her task had already been done.

* * *
Veronica was feeling pretty pleased with herself for organizing this little event. While setting up Kirielle for a meeting with Novelty was done purely for amusem*nt and sheer curiosity at how Kirielle would react to Novelty's antics, introducing Tinami to Novelty was… well okay, it was also mostly done for the sake of her curiosity and amusem*nt. But that didn’t mean she didn’t take advantage of it to gain something from little miss forbidden magics Aope. Like, say, getting her to teach her the invisibility spell. She knew, just knew that Tinami had been taught how to cast that spell, restricted magic or not, and she was totally right! So now she had finally completed her list of spells every proper mage should be able to cast, and all it took was promising to do something she had intended to do for free, anyway. And the cherry on top? Novelty loved her for promising to bring her two new humans to meet. She didn’t need to make it up to her in any way, because she thought she was doing her a favor!

Yes, Veronica was feeling very pleased with herself. Now all she had to do was wait with Kirielle until their two guests showed up and then stand back and watch the fireworks. Novelty would come first and meet with Kirielle to start with, since that meeting was bound to be shorter and more casual, and would then remain to greet Tinami when her classmate eventually showed up at Imaya’s place. There shouldn’t be any problems, but just in case there were problems and they somehow degenerated beyond her ability to handle, Veronica had arranged for a bit of insurance...

"So aranea are about the size of a dog?" Kirielle asked.

"A big dog," Veronica said, smoothing down her simple skirt and blouse. "But Novelty’s not scary at all, and I’m sure you’ll get along splendidly. She reminds me of you, actually."

"A giant spider reminds you of me?" Kirielle asked her, sounding surprisingly threatening for a 9-year-old.

"You’ll find out why soon enough," Veronica said, more amused than anything. "She’s coming over as we speak."

She had been devoting only half of her attention to her conversation with Kirielle, trying to train herself to pay attention to her mind sense and talk at the same time, and had thus immediately noticed Novelty when she came in range, despite the fact that she had tried to dim her mental presence to surprise her. She immediately launched a telepathic attack on Novelty and was promptly booted out of her mind. Despite her poor showing, Veronica was pleased. She had been doing such greetings for a few days, ever since she realized that Novelty didn’t consider such telepathic play-fights hostile, and compared to her initial results, this was absolutely amazing.

It was kind of amusing how Novelty refused to actually teach her telepathic combat due to the matriarch’s orders, but had no problems helping her practice in such a fashion. In fact, after her first few attempts, Novelty sometimes even initiated such impromptu telepathic combat herself, or tried to stalk and surprise Veronica like she did today. She supposed Novelty didn’t think of it as teaching – it was just a game as far as Novelty was concerned. Novelty would be rather cross with her if she ever caught her thinking it, but she really was still a child in many respects.

[That was barely any better than yesterday,] Novelty complained, apparently not sharing Veronica’s optimistic self-assessment. [This is why I think we should have gone with my idea for teaching you. It would have been a million times faster than our lessons so far.]

[You are not locking me in one of your hatcheries,] Veronica told her.

[But you’d have left a master of telepathic combat within a week!] Novelty protested. [Well, master by human standards, anyway.]

[No,] Veronica responded. She suddenly became aware that Kirielle was tugging on her shirt. "What is it, Kiri?"

"You drifted off," she said.

"I was just talking to Novelty," Veronica said gently. She looked at Kirielle. "Telepathically, I mean."

"Oh," Kirielle said, her eyes widening in realization. "I’m so jealous you can do that. I wish I could talk to people without being overheard. It would have been so helpful around mom."

"Don’t I know it," Veronica sighed, brushing a strand of hair back, highlighting her graceful, yet understated appearance. "So many things would have been easier if I could have done that earlier. Though maybe it was a blessing in disguise – a lot of people back in Cirin would have freaked out if they started hearing voices in their head and mind magic abuse is punished very harshly by the mage guild. Anyway, let’s go introduce you to Novelty."

To her credit, Novelty hadn’t immediately rushed in towards Kirielle and started to crawl all over her. To Kirielle’s credit, she didn’t immediately scream in fear and try to hide behind Veronica upon seeing a huge black spider hop into the room. Instead, the two of them faced each other square on, standing a good deal of distance from each other, and carefully scrutinized one another.

[A mini human!] yelled Novelty telepathically, breaking the stand-off. [Great Web, she’s so much smaller than you! Can she even talk yet?]

"W-What!?" Kirielle protested. "Of course I can talk! I even learned how to read and count last year! What do you think I am, a baby!?"

[Oh, you can talk, that’s excellent! Excellent! I actually was afraid you were a baby,] Novelty admitted, skittering left and right to take in Kirielle from different angles. [Not that there is anything wrong with being a baby, but I got assigned as a babysitter for soooo long and it gets soooo boring after a while you know? They’re all so needy and grabby and they never know anything interesting…]

"Um, yeah," Kirielle said. She shot Veronica a suspicious look, but Veronica was maintaining her impassive facade through superhuman will. Her lips only twitched into a smirk once Kirielle returned her attention back to Novelty. "I guess I can understand that. But I’m definitely not a baby anymore! I’m nine years old, and that’s a lot!"

[Wow, that is a lot!] agreed Novelty. [You’re only a year younger than me! How come your sister is so much bigger than you, then?]

"She’s… older than me?" Kirielle tried. "Wait, if you’re ten, aren’t you just a kid like me?"

[No way!] Novelty protested. [I went through the maturation ceremony last year, so I’m totally an adult of the tribe and no one can say otherwise!]

Veronica watched as Novelty and Kirielle went through a clash of cultures in miniature, gradually coming to an understanding of sorts. They both complained about not being taken seriously by people around them (it was a mystery as to why; no, really) and exchanged some information about their respective species. Veronica actually learned a few new things about the aranea that she had never really thought to ask about. Apparently, aranea had a lot shorter lifespan than humans did, with 55 years being considered positively ancient. She knew they could spin webs from before, but apparently the webs weren’t at all involved with hunting prey and were instead used exclusively as construction material to make walls, bridges, etc. She had also thought they were fully subterranean in nature, with only Cyoria’s colony interacting with the surface so heavily, but it turned out they all preferred to hunt on the surface and only used the Dungeon to build their settlements in.

Eventually, Novelty decided to try her luck and approached Kirielle, which resulted in her brave little sister immediately backpedaling and cutting the meeting short. Not that Veronica was very surprised by this turn of events at all – if anything, this went a lot better than she thought it would. Hell, Kirielle even indicated she might not be averse to the idea of another meeting in the future.

[Aww,] Novelty wilted, drooping pitifully over the couch she was currently occupying. [I scared her away.]

"She did say you could meet her again in a few days," Veronica pointed out softly.

[But I wanted to talk some more,] Novelty telepathically pouted.

"Just give her some time to digest the whole thing. And don’t try to hug her next time."

[But humans love hugs! I totally read so in one of your books!] Novelty protested.

Veronica thought about explaining to her that that wasn’t universally true among humans – her family was never really big on physical contact, with any of their siblings, really, and Veronica didn’t remember the last time she was hugged by anyone other than Kirielle. Not that she was particularly crazy for hugs herself, mind you. She decided against it.

"I’m afraid that aranea just don’t have what it takes to give a proper hug," Veronica nodded sagely. "Sad but true."

[Do we really look so ugly to you humans?]

"Scary," Veronica corrected. "The word you’re looking for is scary. You probably shouldn’t have spent so much time lovingly describing how your fangs can easily punch through bone and hardened leather or how you kill your prey by driving said fangs into your victim’s neck and severing the spine."

[But cats do the same thing, and cats are cute! You explained so yourself!]

"And then you butted in to note that cats are yummy, thus completely invalidating my attempt to make you seem less threatening," Veronica noted.

Novelty sent her an unintelligible telepathic message accompanied by a note of annoyance. Veronica just shrugged and went back to her book while they waited for Tinami to show up.
___

"Oh. My. Goddess," Tinami said, staring at Novelty like she was the best thing ever. "She’s beautiful!"

[Well yes, I don’t want to sound arrogant but I have been told I’m quite a looker,] Novelty preened, standing a little straighter and trying to look more dignified.

"And she really does talk telepathically, just like the stories say!" Tinami exclaimed. She turned towards Veronica. "Wherever did you meet one of them? How did you befriend her? Can I touch her? Do you think she’d teach me her ways if I ask? Do you-"

"I don’t think I’m capable of pulling off the yes, yes, no, yes routine so one question at a time, please," Veronica said gently. "Also, most of those questions you should be asking Novelty here instead of me."

"Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be disrespectful and ignore you," Tinami said, turning back to Novelty. "I was just excited and it felt natural to talk to the girl who brought me here. To be honest, I was half-convinced this was her idea of a prank and already had a little curse prepared-"

"Hey!" Veronica protested. "That’s totally illegal!"

"-but I guess it won’t be necessary now, and that’s probably for the best," Tinami continued blithely, like she was not interrupted at all. She took a deep breath. "I’m Tinami Aope, by the way."

30 minutes later, Veronica found herself unceremoniously booted out of the room so they could have some privacy. Ungrateful scum, the both of them. She considered spying on them with a scrying spell but considering their conversation mostly consisted of Tinami fawning over Novelty and the young aranea feeling very smug about the attention, she really wasn’t losing much. She remained close by for another half an hour, in case of possible problems springing about, but after a while, it became obvious she wasn’t needed (nor much wanted) and entered the room to tell them she was going for a walk.

The moment she was far enough from Tinami that she could no longer feel her on the very edge of her mind sense, she found a quiet corner and shrouded it in some basic anti-divination wards.
"You can come out now," Veronica said softly to the seemingly empty air. The matriarch promptly stepped out of the nearby shadowed corner, fading into visibility. The trick was less impressive now that Veronica could duplicate the feat herself. "So?" she asked delicately.

[She is neither a time traveler nor is she connected to the invasion in any way,] the matriarch said. [And as far as she knows, neither is her family.]

Veronica nodded, her cascade of soft hair gently moving with the action. She had expected that – the Aope were part of Eldemar’s ruling elite and tied far too tightly into its power-structure to participate in a wild stunt like this invasion, and Tinami was too genuine to her senses to be constantly pretending - but it was nice to have a confirmation. "You had no problems with her mental defenses?"

[She had them, but they were of the wrong sort, much like the advanced ones you demonstrated to Novelty,] the matriarch said. [I’m certain she hadn’t noticed my intrusion, and I’ve done nothing except look so there should be no traces left for anyone to find.]

"There is no way for her to have fooled you?" Veronica asked with gentle curiosity. "I’ve read plenty of stories where people are pretending to be dominated by a spell cast by the villain, and then surprise him by a stab in the back once they let their guard down."

[Must be a human mind magic thing. I can’t see that sort of thing happening to a psychic. Well, unless the target has constructed a fake mind on top of their real one and fooled the attacker into thinking it was the target’s actual mind. But that almost never happens. Constructing a fake mind that is actually convincing is really, really hard.]

Veronica blinked, her expressive eyes widening slightly. She hadn’t even known that constructing fake minds was possible. "Well, sorry I bothered you with this, I guess," she said, her voice filled with sincerity.

[Nonsense, it was a reasonable suspicion and I actually found a number of useful details by trawling through her mind. Not only is her family not at all friendly towards the invaders, they are likely to be quite annoyed about their plans. Cyoria is their powerbase and they don’t want it ruined. And since Novelty is back there, charming the young Aope heir, we will have an easy way to get in contact with the Head of House. Getting such a prominent Noble House on our side will guarantee that the evidence of an invasion plot is taken seriously. Have you spoken to the priest?]

"Yes," Veronica confirmed gently. "He said the church would send someone to look into it."

[Yet another proof of our legitimacy,] the matriarch stated with satisfaction.

"Hopefully, I won’t get pulled in for questioning," Veronica said, softly expressing her concern. "I don’t think my careful phrasing could stand up to professional investigators."

[My web is trying to divert any ongoing investigations away from you, so it shouldn’t be much of a problem,] the matriarch said. [We’ve already ambushed and killed three different investigation groups by the Cult of the Dragon Below, and we’ve been subtly redirecting official Cyorian investigations towards us.]

"You?" asked Veronica, her delicate eyebrows lifting in surprise.

[It has been decided to turn this restart into something of a testing run,] the matriarch explained. [As I’ve told you before, my web’s goal is to eventually reveal ourselves to the city at large and join the population as rightful citizens. While full disclosure would be too disruptive for what we’re currently trying to achieve in this restart, we’ve decided to reveal ourselves to a number of prominent people in Cyoria during this restart – both to coordinate the response to the invasion better and to sound out their reaction.]

"And?" asked Veronica, honestly curious.

[It’s a mixed reaction, and the fact we’re bringing news of an impending invasion doesn’t help calm people down. We’ve overheard several secret meetings that discussed how to deal with us in a hostile manner, thankfully with the conclusion that they should wait until after the summer festival before doing anything, but also a couple of meetings that discuss how to profit from our presence.]

"Which you have no problems with," Veronica surmised, with a slight smile.

[Nobody wants to kill the goose that laid golden eggs,] the matriarch said. [No offense to your kind, but I trust your greed more than I trust your compassion. I talked to Shirley about that issue you wanted to talk about, by the way. You were right. She doesn’t remember any restarts being cut short for any reason whatsoever – you dying doesn’t seem to reset the time loop.]

"I knew it," Veronica said, with a note of triumph. "Even Shirley would have realized something was wrong if she kept restarting every time I was killed before she was. This is more proof that Shirley is the anchor of the loop."

Veronica had at one point toyed with the idea that there was an actual mind behind the time loop – a god that decided to break the Silence, perhaps, or some kind of very powerful spirit. However, there were a lot of little ways in which the situation matched better with the idea of the time loop being a spell of some sort, and none was so clear as the way the spell was treating time traveler detection. Clearly, on some level, the spell knew it was Shirley who was the anchor of the time loop and that everyone else was a tagalong. However, at the same time, it could get easily confused (via a little soul blending) into including multiple people in the awareness of the loop. That sounded more like a dumb spell function trying to reconcile incompatible directives with each other than a willful, intelligent mind making a judgment call.

The trouble was, a spell implied a human caster. And a human caster shouldn’t be able to roll back time once, much less repeatedly.

[If we managed to provoke the third time traveler into revealing themselves, most of the questions about the time loop should be answered easily enough,] the matriarch noted. [I suspect they know what the time loop is and how it functions.]

"Yes," agreed Veronica softly. "Let’s hope so."

* * *

Days passed. When Veronica was not attending to one of her numerous obligations (she’d never try to do so many things at once in the future!) she alternated between creating the various traps and items needed for the ambush of the third time traveler and helping the aranea root out the cranium rats from the city.

Picking the ambush site and preparing it had fallen mostly on Veronica’s shoulders in the end. The aranea knew how to make traps and ambushes, of course, but most of them were based around lethal force or mind magic assaults. Considering that the third time traveler almost certainly knew how to counter aranean mind magic and that they wanted them alive, little of it was useful for their purposes. Thus it fell to Veronica to design something that would contain and disable their target, or at least distract them until the aranea could strip them of their mental defenses and do their thing. Kael contributed by helping Veronica make a mixture of powerful alchemical sedatives for disabling purposes and the matriarch served as her assistant since she was the most capable aranea when it came to structured magic and knew a lot about the local mana flow of the settlement. She would also be the one to lead the execution of the actual ambush with her fellow aranea, so she had to be extremely familiar with how the trap was going to work.

In the end, Veronica decided upon a three-part trap, set in the middle of the aranea settlement. The first part was a fairly exotic effect on the floor that turned stone temporarily to liquid. The effect would only activate for a moment, immediately shutting off and turning the stone back into a normal solid state once the target sunk to their knees into the rock floor. As far as Veronica could tell, there was no easy way for a mage to get themselves out of the rock once the effect ended. The spell couldn’t be dispelled any more than the ashes of a fireball-destroyed book could be dispelled back into a pristine state, and trying to blast the rock off was liable to blow the caster’s legs along with it. The only convenient way of getting out was to phase or teleport out, which is why the second part of the trap was a dimensional lock that would shut down most dimensional shenanigans. Finally, the last part involved dousing the combat area with smoke infused with the powerful sedatives Veronica made with Kael’s help.

It was a bit simple, but Veronica had read that the best plans are always simple. Just in case, though, she had built backup traps in several other aranean caverns. These were a lot less sophisticated ones, though, and boiled down to explosions. A whole lot of explosions.

Aside from that, Veronica had made a great deal of combat equipment for the aranea participating in the ambush: shielding discs that they could strap on to their body to shrug off some of the weaker attack spells, stone cubes and alchemical vials that produced a variety of effects when set off, and some equipment for herself and a handful of mercenary mages that the matriarch discreetly hired as additional muscle during the ambush. Of course, in an ideal scenario, Veronica wouldn’t have to fight anyone at all and the equipment she made for herself would be a useless waste of time… but really, what are the chances of an ideal scenario? Things had been going a little too well for her as it was.

As for the hunt for the cranium rats, that had actually been her own idea, and she had been pleased that she had thought of something the aranea, with all their connections and psychic might, hadn’t. The basic idea was to capture one of the rats and then use that specimen as a connection for divining the location of the rest of the rats. Not quite a novel idea to the aranea, but they thought heavily in terms of mind magic and tried to follow the telepathic links connecting the captured rat to the rest of the hive mind – something that quickly failed, since the main collective promptly cut the connection with any captured rats. Veronica, on the other hand, used good old locator spells – divinations meant to find and keep track of all sorts of things, so long as the caster had something connected with what you’re trying to find. A cranium rat, even if disconnected from the collective, was sufficient for those divinations to work. Veronica ended up following the connections until she located the main bodies of the cranium rat swarms (there had been 4 of them, as it turned out) and then, with a handful of aranea acting as support and psychic powers suppressant, herded them into tight formations that could be wiped out with a single fireball spell. By the end of the month, the cranium rats had been effectively wiped out.

When she was finished torching the fourth rat swarm, one of the aranea assigned as her bodyguard during the operation told her she finally understood why humans were supposed to be so scary and dangerous.
Veronica wasn’t the only one who was busy. Kirielle persisted in trying to learn magic, more stubbornly and diligently than Veronica had ever seen her. She was doing very well for a complete beginner, but the sad fact was that she was closer to her in talent than, say, Daimen or some other child prodigy. Novelty had become something of an unofficial liaison between the aranea and House Aope, and was as a consequence subjected to a crash course in diplomacy and proper conduct by the matriarch – something she constantly complained about to Veronica whenever they met. Tinami, for her part, was much more interested in her lessons with Veronica once she found out some details about what being psychic means, and appeared to be working on some kind of personal project that consumed most of her free time. Veronica suspected, from the snippets of thoughts that briefly bubbled into her consciousness during their lessons, that she was trying to somehow artificially make herself psychic. This struck her as crazy dangerous, since it meant messing with your own mind and all, but that was House Aope for you. Kael was also pursuing some kind of personal project that he refused to elaborate on to Veronica – though it apparently had something to do with spell formula because he kept borrowing Veronica’s books on the topic. Veronica left him to his work – Kael had been incredibly helpful throughout the month, taking it upon himself to help Veronica as much as she could for some reason. Veronica didn’t think it was just generosity and hadn’t forgotten just how fascinated with the time loop he was last time, so she wondered when he would approach her about what he really wanted from Veronica.

Apparently, the answer was just before the summer festival.

"Hello Veronica," Kael said. "Are you doing something?"

"Not really. I’m just waiting for Akoja to show up so that I can go to the dance," Veronica said, adjusting her simple skirt and blouse. "There is no point in starting anything since she’s bound to show up absurdly early. What is it?"

Ah, Akoja. She still wasn’t sure why she had asked her to be her date for the evening. Probably because Akoja gave every indication she wanted to and Veronica didn’t want to make her sad for no reason. Not that she had actually come out and said it, though – she even chickened out on the meeting she had arranged with her and made it look like she wanted some school advice instead of… well, whatever it was she had really wanted to talk about. Hopefully, she would be a little less pushy this time around and the evening wouldn’t end in as big of a catastrophe as it had the last time they went out for the evening.

"I have… a gift and a request," Kael said. Veronica mentally translated it as a bribe and a demand. "First, I have been thinking about your stories of previous restarts and couldn’t help but notice the presence of a powerful lich on the side of the invaders. Those are… very hard to deal with, especially with classical magics."

"But not with soul magic?" surmised Veronica, her gentle eyes narrowing slightly.

"Well, sort of. It’s not easy, even with soul magic, but there are some tricks you could pull on a lich if you knew how to mess with souls. The thing you need to remember is that a lich’s soul is automatically pulled back into their phylactery when their physical form is destroyed. This is because destroying their body severs the link between their soul and their body… obviously, since there is no body to speak of anymore. Still, if you could sever the link between the soul and the body – something that is a lot easier to do with creatures whose soul is artificially connected to the body through magic – then their souls would immediately be wrenched back to their phylactery, even if their body is technically intact."

"They’d be effectively banished," Veronica mused. "It wouldn’t kill them, but…"

"The process of possessing a new body is not that fast for a lich – they need a whole day at the minimum, and that’s assuming they already have a new body ready to go. Banishing the lich back to its phylactery is as good as killing it, at least for your needs."

"You’re telling me you can teach me a spell to do that?" asked Veronica, her voice filled with a mix of hope and disbelief.

"Well no," said Kael, promptly popping Veronica’s bubble. "And it would be of dubious value even if I could. The spell requires you to touch the target."

Veronica winced, brushing a stray strand of her ponytail from her face. "Yeah, I don’t see myself getting within touching range of the lich."

"So I got you this, instead," Kael said, handing her a small silver disc, reminiscent of a particularly large silver coin. Closer scrutiny, however, quickly made it clear it was some kind of a spell tool, being covered in spell formula instead of typical imagery common to currency.

"I don’t have to touch the lich!" Veronica realized after thinking about the coin for a few moments. "I just have to make sure the coin touches him!"

"Yes," Kael said. "I noticed your fighting style seems to be based around items, so I’ve imbued the spell into that disc… it should work but I make no guarantees so use it at your own risk. I tried to make it as small and non-threatening as possible, but…"

"But there is no way to be sure the lich will let it touch him," Veronica finished for him with a thoughtful sigh. "Trying to keep a strange item thrown by your enemy from touching you is common sense. I don’t suppose that hitting the target’s shields is sufficient, is it?"

"I’m afraid not."

"Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of. Thanks anyway. What about your… request?" Veronica’s tone was curious yet cautious.

"Well… the truth is I want a favor in exchange for helping you. I know you’re almost certainly going to make further use of me in future restarts, and I have no problems with it… except I want to get something out of it too."

"I’m not sure what I can do for you that won’t be rendered hollow by the restart, but okay," shrugged Veronica, folding her arms with a playful smirk. "What is your wish, oh great Kael?"

"I want the same thing you’re already doing – to use the time loop to improve my skills," said Kael. "In case of magics that require shaping skills and the like, this is clearly next to impossible without being brought into the time loop, but there is a magical discipline that is far less dependent on shaping skills. One that I happen to be quite good in."

"Alchemy," said Veronica.

"Exactly. Now, practicing alchemy on my level involves a lot of experimentation – testing the effects of your brews, improving them and designing original concoctions. These things take a lot of funds and a lot of time, but once you have a recipe for a potion…"

"You want me to help you design finished potion recipes and then give you the result in subsequent restarts, thus allowing you to refine your recipes further and then take those results and—"

"Exactly!" Kael said. "And then, when the time loop ends, you’re going to give me the fruits of this labor and I will have saved myself months, possibly years of my work! It will require you to delve more deeply into the intricacies of alchemy than you did currently, but I don’t see that as being a big problem for you – you’re clearly going to need it if you intend to rely on items so much."

As it turned out, Kael had spent most of the month running various experiments and promptly brought her a notebook with the results. There was a lot of text there, but Kael explained he only really needed her to memorize the last two pages, which listed which avenues of research were dead ends and outlined a partially finished recipe for some kind of anti-fever potion. Kael explained that giving her those results in the following restarts wouldn’t just help Kael improve his craft, but would also allow Veronica to convince boy she was really a time traveler far faster than would otherwise be possible. And would also make Kael more willing to help, sooner (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, do you get it yet?). Not seeing the harm, Veronica spent the rest of the wait memorizing the results and then leafing through the rest of Kael’s research notebook. It wasn’t every day that a mage got to scrutinize another mage’s research methodology, after all, and Veronica could use some pointers for the future.

"Veronica, your girlfriend is here!" Kirielle called, trying to sound teasing but just ended up mocking and annoying in the process.

"Coming," said Veronica, closing the notebook and going out to greet Akoja, who was trying not to look too awkward in front of Imaya and Kirielle. And failing miserably, as she seemed completely at a loss how to deal with her sister’s light-hearted teasing and Imaya’s advice on what to do if Veronica got too grabby during the evening (kick her in the shin seemed to be the gist of it). After a few minutes, she decided to have mercy on Akoja and gently guided her away from those two so they could be on their way.

It was time to get this show on the road.

* * *

The evening had been going splendidly. Akoja was still rather frustrating, but with the date not being a mission from Ilsa this time around she wasn’t nearly as insistent on dragging her along to pointless introductions and the like and instead settled for criticizing her every 5 minutes and in general being far too self-conscious and high-strung for what was ostensibly a casual dance. As for the invaders, they were doing incredibly poorly. Veronica kept monitoring the situation through the telepathic relays she had left with the aranea and it was obvious that the whole invasion had unraveled at the seams. While the city didn’t believe the invasion was of the scale described by the aranea and vastly understaffed their response forces (though as far as Veronica understood the city’s reaction was considered a huge overreaction by a large portion of the leadership), they were prepared to respond to some kind of invasion… and the attackers were a mere shell of their usual strength, due to the lack of forward bases and a whole lot of assassinated leadership. There was no initial bombardment because the artillery mages had been ambushed before they could do their thing, the academy had opted to change their warding scheme so the attackers couldn’t just teleport wherever they wanted to go, and their invasion routes were being actively contested by defending forces that continually swelled as the city realized the scope of the invasion and drew on all the combat assets available to it.

So saying that Veronica was surprised when the door to the dancing hall was suddenly and violently blown into bits, showering the unfortunate guests who stood too close to the entrance with a rain of splinters and concussive force, would be a vast understatement. A few moments later, before the dust had a chance to settle and screams died down, three people strode into the hall.
At the center of the three-person formation was the lich. It was just as Veronica remembered it: an imposing skeletal figure, its bones black and vaguely metallic-looking, wearing a crown and a suit of metal armor. In its skeletal hands, it held a scepter, completing the royal-like appearance. To the left of the lich strode forth a woman clad in black clothing reminiscent of a military uniform—simple pants, a plain jacket with some kind of crest sewn onto it (it was too far for Veronica to see clearly, but it seemed to feature a skull as a prominent motif; who actually puts a skull on their crest, really?), and heavy leather boots. All very bland and utilitarian, if somewhat sinister-looking due to its black color. She strode purposefully forward, gripping a sword strapped to her belt, her expression stony and severe, and Veronica couldn’t help but notice that her pale skin and coal-black hair (currently tied into a tight ponytail) made her seem somewhat vampire-like… she was a vampire, wasn’t she? Gods, every time Veronica thought the Ibasan force couldn’t possibly look any more sinister, they pulled something out of their closet to show her that they totally could.

The final part of the triumvirate was a person in a blood red robe which covered them from head to toe. Their face was invisible behind a patch of darkness that seemed to fill every open portion of the robe, obscuring the wearer’s features. Unlike the lich and the vampire girl, who did their best to look dignified and imposing, Red Robe (which is how Veronica promptly named them in her head) walked carefully and scanned the shocked crowd with interest, their cowled head swinging left and right in search of something. Or someone, as it turned out: the moment their eyes locked onto Shirley they immediately stopped and spoke.

"Her," Red Robe intoned, their voice magically distorted and resonant, pointing their staff at Shirley.

As if to punctuate the statement, a small stream of war trolls and (brown) robed mages suddenly poured into the dance hall through the broken door, and everyone snapped out of their daze and realized they were under attack.

All chaos broke loose.

* * *

The plan Veronica and the aranea matriarch had made assumed that the third time traveler would attack Shirley, overpower her and then pull the information about the aranea out of her mind. Veronica was not sure about a lot of these steps, but a big one was the idea that Shirley could lose against the third time traveler so easily. For all her flaws, the other time traveler seemed to be a capable combatant.

It did not take long for Veronica to understand that Red Robe was the third time traveler, and the way they intended to beat Shirley was immediately obvious—by not coming alone. Shirley seemed to have problems tackling the lich on its own, and with Red Robe and the vampire girl joining the undead mage, the outcome was never in question.

Admittedly, Shirley was in a room full of mages who also fought against the three attackers, but the other forces they had brought with them served their purpose as distractions and tied down most of them. Kyron tried to help, as did a couple of others, but they just weren’t on the level of their opponents.

But they certainly tried. Kyron summoned some kind of glowing whip of force that severed the arm of the vampire girl at the shoulder and then used the same whip to fling her sword (which was clearly magical, burning with strange purple fire that ate through forcefields) out of her reach. It was this that finally confirmed his suspicions that she was some kind of undead, as her severed stump didn’t bleed at all and the sudden loss of an arm only seemed to inconvenience her—she promptly pulled out a knife with the other arm and returned to attacking people again. Red Robe was actually bloodied by one of the students when they managed to overpower their aegis with a coordinated barrage of magic missiles, but sadly enough that stunt just about wiped them all out and they were sufficiently well after it ceased to take them down in response. As for the lich, it was utterly unfair—nothing seemed to scratch those bones of its in the slightest. Shirley actually managed to blow its shiny armor to bits with some kind of black bolts and even knocked the thing’s crown off its skull, but nothing ever made a mark on the bones. What the hell was that thing made of?

Veronica reluctantly didn’t involve herself. The plan didn’t call for it, and quite frankly she was likely to end up dead if she tried. She did help put down a couple of war trolls and disposable mages that ventured too close to her position, but other than that she just watched uneasily as Shirley was slowly taken apart by her three opponents.

But things never go as planned. Eventually Kyron finally got tired of the one-armed vampire girl butting in on his fight with the lich and blasted her away. She landed next to Akoja.

Veronica had gotten separated from Akoja earlier in the attack and decided not to go after her, since she was clearly terrified and would want Veronica to stay away from any danger while she personally didn’t intend to completely stand on the sidelines while people died. Now, however, the vampire girl suddenly decided to go after Akoja instead of rushing back into her original fight. Why? Hell if Veronica knew—maybe she wanted a hostage? In any case, Veronica immediately threw a low-yield explosive cube under the vampire’s feet to halt her in her tracks and then poured most of her mana into an incineration beam aimed straight at her chest.

Beam spells weren’t Veronica’s ideal form of combat magic: they dealt a lot of damage, but they were also very mana intensive and it was easy to waste most of the beam’s power on the surroundings if you couldn’t keep the beam constantly on target. And in a room packed this tightly with panicky civilians, surroundings often meant innocent bystanders. Veronica knew that she needed to kill the vampire girl quickly, however, as she was extremely fast and her blades could cut through force fields with ease, meaning she’d get her throat slit the moment the vampire got close to her, so she had to use the most damaging spell in her repertoire. Thankfully, the vampire was sufficiently dazed by the explosion that Veronica didn’t have any problems keeping the beam on target and knew from watching her fight against Shirley and Kyron that she was vulnerable enough to fire.

She kept the beam on the vampire for a full five seconds, reducing her to little more than a heavily charred skeleton and a pile of ash.

Akoja seemed to be in shock, both at the sudden lunge towards her by a crazed undead woman and the brutal method of her destruction. The other students around Veronica were watching her with a mixture of fear and awe, and Red Robe continued their fight against Shirley without reacting. The lich, though…

Oh crap, the lich was staring at her.

Indeed, the lich took one look at the smoking corpse of the vampire girl and then locked its hollow eye sockets on Veronica, its gaze seeming to look right through her. Kyron used the moment of distraction to launch another one of those glowing whip-things that severed the arm of the vampire girl like it was paper, but instead of moving out of the way the lich simply snatched the whip out of the air with one of its skeletal hands, its finger bones closing around the thread of severing light with no ill effects that Veronica could see, and pulled. Kyron let the whip dissipate almost immediately, but not fast enough to maintain balance. The lich promptly fired an angry red beam of jagged light and drew a line between Kyron and Shirley. They both went down in a spray of blood.

"Watch it!" Red Robe yelled. "That could have killed her! I told you I need her alive!"

"I grow tired of this," the lich responded. "She is alive enough for your purposes, and this way she’ll struggle less. And you should watch your tone, little whelp—you’re not in charge here and I could kill you whenever I want without anyone batting an eye. Enough of your information has turned out to be incorrect that your value is being questioned."

"I told you, we have a leak," Red Robe said. "That’s why I need Shirley intact."

"You don’t need her intact to rip the information from her mind," the lich said. "Do your thing and be quick. There are already reinforcements from the city on the way here."

Red Robe seemed to want to say something, but the lich had already returned to scrutinizing Veronica some more and eventually they simply bent down to Shirley’s motionless form and started casting some complicated spell before placing a hand on Shirley’s head.

Shirley’s motionless form suddenly blurred into action, as she revealed herself to have just been pretending to be unconscious and tried to punch Red Robe in the face. Sadly, while Shirley wasn’t totally unconscious, she wasn’t in top form either, and Red Robe deflected the attack before slamming Shirley’s head into the floor several times until she went limp and then repeating the spell.

The lich chuckled hollowly. "Now who’s being too rough? You could’ve cracked her skull with that stunt, you know? Living beings are such fragile things…"

"The aranea?" Red Robe exclaimed after a while. "I can’t believe it, I’d never have thought those thrice-damned bugs would be… no matter, I have to go. Time to go tie some loose ends."

"The aranea were never part of the—" began the lich, but Red Robe already teleported away. "Hmph. I am killing that fool when I meet them later. They’re more trouble than they’re worth."

It turned back to Veronica after a few moments, and people around her edged away from her.

"I hated her, you know?" the lich said conversationally, pointing at the smoking remains of the vampire girl. "She thought she was so much better than little old Quatach-Ichl. I was a relic, she said, while she was the next generation of undead or some bilge like that. Now look at her, killed by a precocious student with a simple fire spell. Still, while I find the situation amusing, I can’t exactly let you get away with it, you know? She was kind of important, much as it rankles me, and I can’t just go back home and say, Remember that Zoltan House heir you told me to take care of? I kind of lost her, oops. The head of house will at the very least want your head for this, if not your soul."

Crap, crap, crap. So she ended up killing some kind of House heir now? On the other hand, it was nice to have confirmation that the lich was Quatach-Ichl. Quatach-Ichl was male, wasn’t he? She could stop referring to the lich as an it now. Now if only she could get out of this with her soul intact…

"I don’t suppose you would accept a bribe to pretend you couldn’t catch me?" asked Veronica with as much calm as she could muster, taking out the silver disc Kael gave her and flinging it towards the lich.
Thankfully, amazingly, the lich reacted just as Veronica expected him to: he extended his hand and snatched the coin out of the air. Veronica had figured the lich would do that instead of knocking it aside with a shield or something, as he seemed to consider himself invulnerable—not an unwarranted assumption considering those weird bones of his. In any case, the moment the lich’s skeletal hand closed around the silver disk he froze in place for a moment before collapsing to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.

"What?" one of the students behind her asked, his voice tinged with disbelief. "What happened? What the hell did you do to him?"

Veronica ignored him. Instead, she rushed towards Kyron and Shirley and started examining their injuries. Her touch was gentle yet firm, reflecting her determination yet moderated by empathy. A few seconds later, she was pulled away by a girl who looked a few years older than her and claimed to be a trained medical professional, so Veronica let her do her thing.

Instead, Veronica pulled a telepathic relay out of her pocket and closed her eyes to contact the aranea, her heart heavy with the knowledge that the fight was far from over.

* * *

It had started so well. The red-robed intruder, presumably the third time traveler, walked blithely into the trap, his confidence buoyed by the familiar layout of aranean defenses near the entrance, as well as several victories against the sentries that the matriarch had purposely sacrificed in order to lull the enemy into a false sense of security. The moment he was near the center of the room, the floor turned to liquid, and he sank into it before it froze solid again.

The aranea and the human mercenaries the matriarch had hired for the evening attacked immediately, dousing the area in sedatives and disabling spells.

But something was wrong. The sedatives didn’t seem to have any effect on the robed man and many spells also failed to have any effect. Even stricken immobile, the man somehow managed to defend himself effectively, exploiting any openings to fire off strange purple beams that slew anyone they hit instantly. They were slow to cast and only targeted single opponents, so their losses were light, but it was still frustrating. Finally, one of the purple beams hit one of the human mercenaries and his companions lost their nerve, responding with a barrage of glowing lances that tore straight through the robed man’s shield and impacted his chest.

For a moment, the matriarch was afraid that they had killed the man, making all her preparations and plotting meaningless… but the reality turned out to be far worse than that. Instead of erupting into a shower of blood and gore, the robed man simply… turned into smoke.

The opponent they had been fighting hadn’t been the third time traveler in person. It had been merely an ectoplasmic shell infused with some of his skill and magic. A simulacrum, meant to test the waters and distract them.

A cone of purple light washed over the room, instantly slaying all of the human mercenaries and scores of her loyal aranea. Damnation – their opponent had taken advantage of the distraction their simulacrum had provided and set up an ambush of his own. She turned to sound a retreat to—

* * *

Veronica jolted awake from her trance as her connection to the matriarch had been violently severed at the end. Watching the events unfold from her perspective had been strange and mildly unpleasant, and Veronica would have to talk to the matriarch later about doing stuff like that without asking for permission, but considering the sudden end of the transmission? The matriarch was probably dead. And the rest of the aranea would probably soon be as well.

They failed. All that preparation and they had still failed. Damn it.

"Veronica?" a raspy voice from the floor near her broke her out of her thoughts. It was Shirley, who was apparently conscious again, a heavy bandage wrapped around her head. "You with us again? You kind of drifted off for a while."

"Yeah," Veronica breathed out, trying to calm her racing heart. "I’m… fine."

"They say you killed the lich," Shirley said, pointing weakly towards a pile of black bones some distance away from them. A couple of braver students were clustered around the fallen body of the lich, whispering and pointing. "How the hell did you manage to do that?"

"I severed the connection between his soul and his physical vessel, thereby causing it to snap back into his phylactery. He’s not really dead, just banished."

"Oh," Shirley said. "Still, that’s… I never managed to do anything even close to that. How… how is it that you knew how to do that? You… are you…"

"I need to go," said Veronica, rising to her feet, determination etched in her features.

"Hey wait!" Shirley said, trying to rise before wincing in pain and giving up on that idea. "You can’t just ignore me and go—Veronica! Veronica!"

Veronica ignored Shirley, as well as Akoja’s questions about where she was going. She just continued towards the exit, mentally plotting the path to the nearest sewer entrance. Nobody moved to stop her.

"Veronica, you ass! I swear I’m going to punch you in the face the next time I see you!" Shirley shouted behind her.

"Sorry, Shirley," Veronica whispered to herself. "But this takes precedence."

* * *

By the time Veronica had arrived at the aranean settlement, the whole place was dead, and Red Robe had moved on somewhere. Probably to hunt down any fleeing aranea that had scattered into the city—she knew that a number of aranea were above ground at the time the ambush had been taking place. Whatever the reason, Veronica thanked her good fortune and started examining the place for additional clues about what had happened and for any surviving male aranea.

The fight had been fierce, but Veronica couldn’t help but notice that most of the damage to the settlement had been inflicted by the aranea themselves, as they futilely tried to halt Red Robe’s advance through the use of the spell cubes she had gifted them and their own traps. Red Robe killed incredibly cleanly, leaving no mark of damage on the bodies of the fallen—it was those strange purple spells obviously, but why was he taking such pains to kill all the aranea so bloodlessly when he could just chuck a fireball and fry the lot of them?

He was thorough, though. Veronica didn’t know whether the man was unaware that the aranea males were not intelligent or simply didn’t care, but quite a lot of males ran afoul of his desire to kill as many aranea as possible. This thoroughness was another strange thing—the man hadn’t seemed hysterical or furious back in the dance hall, so why was he so insistent on getting every last aranea before the time loop was done? He even wiped out the children’s crèche, for gods' sake! Yes, obviously killing them all would ensure that he got any time travelers amongst them for sure, but still—they would all be back in the next restart anyway.

Disturbing. Even though the emotional impact of seeing an entire settlement butchered down to the last child was blunted somewhat by their obvious non-human anatomy, Veronica was still sickened and disturbed by the cold-hearted brutality of the third time traveler.

Well. Maybe the matriarch’s message from beyond the grave would provide some answers. With the help of her divination compass and her mind sense, she slowly tracked down the surviving males one by one and extracted the pieces of the message they held.

There were two parts of the message, Veronica soon realized. The first was a simple narration—a voice message left to her by the matriarch explaining her actions. The second was a detailed map of Cyoria’s underworld, with several locations marked as important. Both messages were incomplete, due to the thoroughness with which Red Robes hunted down the aranea, and the matriarch seemed to prioritize the map as more important, since several males had redundant copies of some of the sections of the map.

As the time loop inexorably inched towards its end, Veronica took stock of what she had managed to piece together.

[Missing] …mean things went awry. I know you think I had it coming by rushing into this but… [Missing] …simple: the time loop is degrading. I can’t tell how long it will be before… [Missing] …can leave at any time. Thus, stopping him was… [Missing] …can only ever be one winner in this game. I am truly… [Missing] …hope it won’t be necessary, but just in case I put in a map to… [Missing] …whole other continent. I didn’t think it was possible, even with the help of… [Missing]

That was it. The map was also full of holes, although Veronica noted she still currently had what was an incredibly accurate map of Cyoria’s underworld by commercially-available standards.

Before she could really consider the message at length, the loop ended, and everything went dark.

* * *

Veronica’s eyes abruptly shot open as a sharp pain erupted from her stomach. Her whole body convulsed, buckling against the object that fell on her, and suddenly she was wide awake, not a trace of drowsiness in her mind.

"Good m-!" Kirielle began, only to get cut off as Veronica immediately shot upright into a sitting position, sweeping Kirielle into a gentle yet firm hug. The suddenness of the motion shocked Kirielle into a few seconds of silence as Veronica took several deep breaths to calm herself down.

"What’s wrong?" Kirielle asked, wriggling inside Veronica's grip but not really trying to break free. Veronica promptly let her go and tried to think of a good answer. She failed to think of any.

"N-Nothing," she exhaled. "It’s just a nightmare. I’m sorry for worrying you."

And it really was a nightmare. All their manipulation and preparations, all her combat practice, all the tricks she had thought of, and they still lost. They lost miserably. The aranea… they had been hunted down like stray dogs and massacred. Why? What could the third time traveler hope to accomplish with such pointless brutality? And the message the matriarch had left her didn’t explain much of anything, either.

"Like I was really worried," Kirielle huffed, giving Veronica a sharp poke and jumping away from her. "Mother wants to talk to you, so you better hurry down."

"Right," Veronica said, getting up and making a motion towards the door. Predictably, Kirielle sped away to occupy the bathroom, and Veronica immediately locked the door to her room once she was gone and started pacing around like a caged tiger.

She needed to warn the aranea, and she needed to warn them as soon as possible. She wasn’t going to bring Kirielle with her this time, and the moment the train disembarked in Cyoria she was… no, no, no. That was too slow. Far too slow. Considering Red Robe’s actions in the previous restart, and the fact that he knew they were time travelers now, Veronica wouldn’t put it past him to butcher them all at the start of the restart this time.

The aranea needed to be warned right now, not by the end of the day. She would have to teleport directly to Cyoria. Veronica mentally apologized to her mother and Kirielle, since they were going to have a fit when they realized she had gone missing from her locked room, and started casting.
She couldn’t teleport straight to the Aranean settlement. The araneas had actually warded most of their settlement against teleportation, and in any case, the aranea lived deep underground. Teleporting underground was a bad idea – between the sheer amount of rock in the way and the magical interference created by heightened levels of ambient mana (which only got worse on a mana well like Cyoria), there was a good chance she’d end up killing herself. As much of in a hurry as Veronica was, killing herself in a teleportation accident was even worse than being late, and she had no mana to waste either. Teleporting to Cyoria’s teleport beacon was going to be hard enough on its own for a mage of her meager capabilities in the field.

Teleportation had a reputation of being dangerous among most mages. This was because, at its core, the classical teleportation spell wasn’t a pure dimensionalism spell – it had a substantial divination component that divined the exact coordinates of the location the caster was trying to reach, and if the caster set up the divination wrong… well, all sorts of weird and unpleasant things could happen. Then there was the fact that some people really didn’t like others teleporting into their home and territory and set up wards that didn’t just cause teleportation to fail, but to fail catastrophically. Such wards were illegal, but used by a certain type of people anyway.

Other than that, though, teleportation was a fairly safe and convenient method of transportation. So long as your destination wasn’t behind wards. Or underground. Or somewhere you’ve never set foot in. Yeah.

Ah, whatever, the point was that it could get her to Cyoria in mere moments. Cyoria thankfully had a teleport beacon in the city that funneled travelers into a central location and simultaneously made teleportation easier (and less mana intensive) for the mage doing the teleporting. That meant that Veronica wasn’t going to spend most of her mana on the teleport, which was a very good thing.

Her world shifted unpleasantly – she still wasn’t good enough with the spell to produce a smooth transition like Ilsa could manage – and suddenly she was at Cyoria’s teleport redirection point. She promptly ran into the city proper and went about preparing herself. As tempting as it was to immediately descend into the Dungeon to seek out the aranea, she had to think of her own safety first. The aranea could be saved in some other restart, but if she got captured by the third time traveler, all would be lost. She had to wait half an hour or so until her mana reserves regenerated enough that she would feel safe descending into the Dungeon, so she set off in search of a store to buy some equipment, as there wasn’t enough time to make her own.

Finding a magical store in Cyoria wasn’t too difficult. Unfortunately, their selection of spell rods legally available to someone like her had been very underwhelming. She bought a shielding bracelet and a rod of magic missiles, but everything else required permits she didn’t have.

"I hate to sound like a crazed killer or something, but don’t you have something… more lethal in your selection?" Veronica asked, trying to infuse a light-hearted tone into her voice.

"Well sure, but I can’t really sell them to you without getting into trouble, can I?" the merchant said with a radiant smile, not at all disturbed by her question. "The mage guild keeps a close eye on the sale of spell rods and such, and I don’t really want to get into trouble for a handful of coins. Sorry."

He then gave her a shrewd look. "But you know, if it’s lethality you’re worried about, may I suggest a somewhat… unorthodox choice?"

He reached beneath the counter and withdrew a plain wooden box, placing it on the counter. With great fanfare, he opened the box and showed its contents to Veronica.

Veronica stared at the contents for a few seconds, thinking it over. It was unorthodox yes, but…

"I’ll take it," she said.

The man gave her a knowing smile and started to write up a bill.

---

She knew something was wrong the moment she approached the Aranean settlement without being intercepted by the sentries. She should have been intercepted by now, especially since she had been deliberately inflating her telepathic presence to be as noticeable as possible. But no one came to confront her, and no one answered her vocal greetings. It was unnerving, and as Veronica got nearer and nearer to the Aranea settlement, an undercurrent of dread began to seep into her mind.

Was she too late? But she came here as fast as reasonably possible!

She finally encountered one of the aranea after a few minutes, followed by another one thirty seconds later. Dead, both of them. There was no sign of physical damage Veronica could see, either on the dead aranea or the environment, and she could detect no magical residue to indicate heavy spellwork. It looked eerily like the aftermath of Red Robe’s attack in the previous restart. She promptly stopped to cast three protective spells on herself: non-detection to stop simple divination, invisibility to hide from sight, and a spell to increase her natural spell resistance. She didn’t know what those purple spells were, but they looked like direct effect spells rather than simple projection attacks, so spell resistance should work against them. Finally, she took out a cheap scarf she had bought back on the surface for this very purpose and wrapped it around her head to hide her identity. She was currently invisible, yes, but that was going to get disrupted the moment she cast a spell and it wasn’t something to rely on.

Then she proceeded more carefully into the settlement proper.

It was a graveyard. Everywhere she looked there were dead aranea, silent and motionless, legs curved inward and glassy black eyes staring at nothing in particular. The terrifying thing was that there was absolutely no sign of struggle anywhere she looked – no spell damage, lingering mana concentrations or groups of corpses piled together as they attempted to delay the attacker at some chokepoint. In fact, most of the aranea seemed to have simply dropped dead in the middle of some mundane activity, such as feeding on a rat corpse or making some kind of sculpture out of webbing.

After thirty minutes of trying to piece together what happened, Veronica was tempted to conclude that the third time traveler enacted some kind of wide-scale area of effect ritual that duplicated the effect of those purple beams of his and killed every aranea in the settlement in a single moment, before they even realized what was happening. The problem was not every aranea had died. Some of the males had survived whatever spell wiped out all of the females and roughly half of the males. And them being simply outside of the settlement when the spell took effect didn’t sound relevant, since the forward guards she passed earlier on the way to the settlement had also been dead and they were pretty far from the settlement proper.

After capturing several males and delving into their minds, she was starting to notice something. All of the males she captured felt… familiar to her. She had delved into their minds before, in the previous restart when she was retrieving the matriarch’s message from them.

No. It couldn’t be. The aranea weren’t time travelers so why would—

A sizzling sound accompanied by a flash of light heralded the opening of a magical portal somewhere behind her, and she immediately whirled around to confront the newcomer. Hopefully it would be Shirley and—

Of course it was the third time traveler.

For two whole seconds, the two mages stood in silence, staring at each other in surprise. The third time traveler was in the exact same getup he had used in the previous restart – a blood-red cloak that covered every inch of his body and wreathed in some kind of protective spell that left his face as an empty, featureless patch of darkness beneath the hood. Veronica was technically invisible and the other mage shouldn’t be able to see her, but she knew from the way the other mage was looking straight at her that the spell was not having any effect on the other mage.

The moment was broken when the Red Robe whipped out a spell rod in a fast, practiced motion and fired a swarm of five magic missiles at Veronica. Caught off guard, she could do little except soak the hit with her shielding bracelet. Thankfully the shield held, but she knew she wasn’t going to win any fights with a guy that bested Shirley. She managed to set off a disintegration spell at the floor of the cave between them, throwing clouds of dust into the air and allowing her to disengage from battle.

She ran.

---

She didn’t get far.

"You are shielding yourself from divinations," Red Robe said in his distorted voice. "Good. At least you’re smarter than that fool Shirley. Can you believe that even after all these decades in the time loop she still hasn’t learned how to hide herself from the most childish of locator spells? You, on the other hand, have been in the time loop for, what? Three, four years? And you already know how to shield yourself from my soul perception."

Veronica said nothing, trying to sink further into the crack she was hiding in and wracking her brains for a way to lose the man. It was fortunate that Kael had taught her how to shield herself from soul sight, because Red Robes was apparently a motherf*cking necromancer!

She was just fortunate she figured out how the man was seeing her, or else she’d be already dead by now.

"They’re permanently dead, if you’re wondering," Red Robe continued. He didn’t seem to be able to pinpoint her with her soul protection active, but he clearly could tell she was around. And he was slowly getting closer to Veronica. "When I killed them in the last restart, I didn’t just kill their bodies. No matter how many times the time loop repeats itself, the aranea will always start the time loop dead, their bodies present but their souls forever gone. Soul magic is so fascinating, isn’t it?"

Even though she had been suspecting it, Veronica still felt her heart drop at the admission. The aranea… were dead permanently? That’s… She felt a storm of outrage and guilt building up in her and ruthlessly crushed it. Now was not the time. There would be time for breakdowns and self-recriminations later, but now she had to make sure that there would be a later.

"But I’m not as violent and unreasonable as I might first appear, you know?" Red Robe said conversationally. "If you tell me the names of other people the aranea have brought into the time loop, I promise I will leave you alone. I might even teach you a thing or two."

Veronica blinked. Is that why Red Robe hadn’t flooded the whole room in fire to flush her out? Because he thought there might be more time travelers besides her? Huh. In retrospect, that seemed like a reasonable conclusion: the matriarch did claim such to Shirley, after all.

Suddenly Red Robe surged forward and snatched her by the shirt. Before Veronica could do much, the other mage slammed her into the rough wall of the aranea cavern several times, causing Veronica to see spots and hover on the edge of unconsciousness. She tried to break free, but she was never particularly gifted in physical areas and Red Robe’s strength was utterly superhuman and completely out of proportion with his size and build.

"How many others have the aranea brought into the time loop?" Red Robe asked menacingly, dropping all pretenses of politeness and friendliness.
Someone else might have been tempted to try and lie, but Veronica knew it was best to stay quiet. A statement could be divined for hidden meanings and veracity. You could not divine the meaning of silence.

"Oh fine, have it your way," Red Robe said with a dramatic sigh. "I guess I’ll just have to rip it out of your mind like I did with Shirley. Regardless of what those arrogant bugs told you, the aranea aren’t the only ones capable of mind magic."

Veronica felt the other mage trying to connect with her mind, but she immediately realized the attempt was incredibly crude and simplistic. Veronica was better and she knew it. Not willing to let this mistake on the part of her opponent go to waste, she promptly clamped down on the connection and blew Red Robe’s telepathic attack to bits before counter-invading his mind. Knowing she had no experience with subtle attacks, she simply proceeded to blast the Red Robe’s mind with an undirected telepathic scream. Red Robe flinched back and tried to terminate the connection. When that failed, he reached for his spell rod, but Veronica caused his hand to spasm and it promptly slipped between his fingers and clattered to the floor of the cave.

After several seconds Veronica realized that, while the other mage was no match for her when it came to telepathic combat, he wasn’t defenseless either. She couldn’t overpower Red Robe mentally, and the moment her concentration dropped, the other mage was going to sever the connection and beat her to a pulp in the physical world. She tried to commandeer the Red Robe’s limb to release its grip on her so she could flee but the hand remained resolutely wrapped around her neck.

Well fine then. Veronica reached to her belt and retrieved the small pouch she had bought from the merchant, feeling the cool metal of the revolver inside. She emptied the entire wheel into Red Robe at point blank range.

She lost concentration as the gun fired, the bang surprising her with its volume, but as the first two bullets impacted Red Robe’s chest he immediately released Veronica in favor of erecting a hasty shield around himself. The last four bullets splashed uselessly against the plane of force the other mage had managed to raise in front of him, but the damage was already done, as the first two bullets had already struck true, tearing through whatever protections the other mage had on his robe and drawing blood.

Veronica took advantage of the aftermath to flee, hoping that Red Robe’s fresh wounds would inhibit his pursuits. The lack of footsteps following her told her she was correct.

A disintegration beam narrowly missing her head also told her that her opponent wasn’t out of the fight yet.

"You shot me!" the Red Robe’s voice yelled hysterically behind her. "What kind of mage uses a gun!?"

Veronica didn’t grace this with a response and instead opted to keep running. The idea of simply activating her bombs (the only item she bothered to make before coming down here) and killing herself was tempting, but she realized that would be a horrible idea. Her opponent was a necromancer – suicide wasn’t going to protect her from Red Robe, not in any way that mattered. It wasn’t like the time loop was going to reset itself when she died – it only did that for Shirley.

No, she had to find a way to kill herself in such a way that Red Robe could not recover her body afterwards. After wracking her brains for a second, she accessed the map of the underworld the matriarch had left for her and searched for something… there! That tunnel led to a long vertical shaft that ended in a giant underground lake marked as dangerous. That probably meant there was something living there, ready to eat anyone who ventured into the waters. Her body would likely be eaten long before Red Robe could recover it. She sped off towards her destination.

She narrowly avoided the next two spells, Red Robe constantly on her toes, not nearly as crippled by his wounds as he should have been. She shot him in the chest, for gods' sake! Twice! What the hell did he do to himself to get that kind of resilience? Some kind of forbidden ritual, maybe?

Red Robe seemed to finally lose patience with her and flooded the entire corridor in a vortex of crackling blue lightning that immediately caused Veronica’s muscles to lock up and washed all her thoughts in a sea of pain. He was too late, though, because Veronica had already stepped over the edge of the hole leading into the vertical shaft and inertia caused her to promptly tip over and fall in.

Veronica tumbled through the air, for some reason thinking it was funny she was doing her damnedest to kill herself while the third time traveler was trying to stop her. She had the presence of mind to activate the explosives in her pocket just before she hit the surface of the water and her world ended in light and pain.

End of Arc 1

Arc 2

Chapter 27: Chapter 27: Cast Adrift

Chapter Text

Veronica’s eyes abruptly shot open as a sharp pain erupted from her stomach. Her whole body convulsed, buckling against the object that fell on her, and suddenly she was wide awake, not a trace of drowsiness in her mind.

"Good morning, sister!" an annoyingly cheerful voice sounded right on top of her. "Morning, morning, MORNING!"

Relief immediately flooded her mind, closely followed by despair. She did it – she kept her soul safe from the third time traveler and survived the encounter entirely unscathed. But her allies…

"Veronica? Are you alright?"

Veronica stared at her sister for several long seconds, a million thoughts racing through her mind. She looked uncomfortable with her blank stare and silence, but Veronica couldn’t really bring herself to care at the moment. Her mind was still stuck on her desperate escape from Red Robe. On the fact that she almost got captured by a mass murdering psychotic necromancer with an untold amount of time looping experience. On the fact that said necromancer now knew there were other human time travelers running around and could be coming after her this very moment.

On the fact that the aranea were dead. Dead and never coming back.

She absent-mindedly pushed Kirielle off of her, put on her glasses and started pacing around the room.

Killing a soul was impossible. They could not be destroyed, only modified. Everyone said so – the teachers, all the books she had read discussing the topic, Kael the amateur necromancer… hell, even the goddamn lich had said so in one of his offhand comments back when Veronica was first brought into the time loop. How, then, did Red Robe manage to kill the souls of the aranea?

She supposed the simplest explanation would be that Red Robe simply found out something that normal mages hadn’t. He was a necromancer with a huge amount of time and an easy way to avoid the usual consequences of various grisly experiments. Perhaps he succeeded where other necromancers had failed. Veronica didn’t think this was likely – the lich seemed to be a better mage than anyone she had met thus far, Red Robe included, and he certainly considered a soul-killing spell impossible – but that just might all be wishful thinking on her part. She didn’t want the aranea to be gone for good. Dammit, she had grown to like the stupid spiders! Sure they’d had their disagreements, but she had really never wished them ill and she didn’t think they had wished her ill either. Novelty certainly hadn’t, and she couldn’t lie to save her life. If… if she was being perfectly honest with herself, she had practically thought of Novelty as a second little sister. But now she was gone, just like the rest of the aranea beneath Cyoria.

And the worst thing? She let it happen. She had spent the whole evening gathering the matriarch’s last message, oblivious and uncaring to what was really happening, while Red Robe was hunting down the aranea across the city. She had known she was dealing with another time traveler and she had never once considered that the man might have developed countermeasures against others of their kind. Gods, she felt so stupid now.

Although it was strange… First of all, if Red Robe could permanently get rid of anyone who bothered him with a spell like that, why hadn’t he used it more often? Surely the invasion would be a lot easier if he got rid of a couple of key stumbling blocks. Yet Veronica never heard of any notable people waking up dead at the start of each restart, and she had access to the extensive information network maintained by the aranea. There was an obvious answer to that, of course: there could be a significant cost associated with the spell which Red Robe was unwilling to pay. But the fact that he had gone out of the way to remove every single aranea in Cyoria made Veronica doubt that. If there was a serious cost associated with it, he would have made sure to investigate more thoroughly and soulkill only those he had to.

Secondly, the aranea weren’t actually time travelers, so the spell shouldn’t have worked! Veronica was quite sure that the time loop didn’t pull every soul back in time – if that was the case, every mage would feel the difference after a dozen or so restarts as their shaping skills miraculously increased overnight. Plus, there are normal necromantic killing spells that forcibly banish the soul from the body to kill people and Veronica had occasionally seen them in use during the invasion. If every person whose soul was banished from their body ended up dead at the start of the time loop, the number of inexplicable corpses showing up at the start of the time loop would have started to pile up quickly and everyone would have realized something was very wrong by the time Veronica was brought in. So all in all, clearly the souls of regular people who were not time travelers weren’t affected by anything that happened to them in previous time loops. The fact that Red Robe’s spell affected normal people in future time loops was strange, to say the least.

Veronica stopped pacing and frowned, idly noting that Kirielle had left the room at some point. She was getting the feeling that Red Robe was exploiting the very nature of the time loop to somehow get the desired effect. Veronica herself had no idea how the time loop really functioned, but presumably Red Robe did. Without that knowledge, she was probably never going to figure it out. Like always, she needed more information.

…except her main source of information – the aranea – had been utterly wiped out by the enemy, leaving her with nothing except a cryptic, incomplete dying message.

Damn it.

* * *

Over the next few hours, Veronica simply went through the motions, trying to hide the frustration, shame and panic she was feeling and to appear as normal as possible. She had failed to keep her inner turmoil strictly to herself, if mother’s worried questions were any indication, but in the end, she accepted her explanation of being slightly shaken from a recent nightmare and stopped bothering her so she took that as a win.

And what a nightmare it was! Aside from losing the aranea, there was a non-negligible chance that Red Robe managed to figure out her identity and was going to assault the house at any moment now. True, she had managed to hide her face behind a scarf and had never spoken, but there were ways nonetheless…
She didn’t even think about trying to immediately leave the house in panic, though. The first and main reason for that was that if Red Robe had identified her and was coming to Cirin, then her family was in danger of being permanently killed, just like the aranea, and she wasn’t willing to let that happen. Kiri had grown on her over the course of the time loop, and while she didn’t like her mother very much, she wouldn’t let some psycho murder her. No, it was bad enough that the aranea had paid the ultimate price for her mistakes - she’d be damned if she’d leave her family to save her own hide.

The second reason was that while it was certainly possible that her identity had been compromised, it was just that – a possibility, not a certainty. Yes, it would be easy to track her down by noting which students from Shirley’s class were missing and then checking them out one by one, but it was entirely possible that Red Robe wouldn’t think of it. After all, as far as Red Robe was concerned, the mysterious human time traveler was associated with the aranea, not Shirley. There was no reason to search for her among Shirley’s classmates. And while Shirley probably knew that Veronica was a time traveler by now, Veronica strongly suspected Shirley would be out of Cyoria when Red Robe came knocking. If Shirley had even a smidgen of common sense (not a certainty, admittedly), she would skip town first thing in the morning upon starting a new restart. Considering Red Robe thoroughly trounced Shirley during the invasion by bringing the lich as backup, and that Shirley actually remembered it happening this time, Veronica felt that even Shirley wouldn’t be crazy enough to stay where the clearly superior enemy could find her.

That was a lot of assumptions to rely on, but what else did she have left? She was backed into a corner. All she could do was wait and hope Red Robe wasn’t a master detective on top of being a scarily good necromancer and gods know what else.

In any case, her plan was quite simple at the moment - go board the train as normal, then promptly disembark upon leaving Cirin. She had no intention of going back to Cyoria in the near future. Red Robe was bound to pay attention to Cyoria for a while, trying to catch any time travelers the aranea may have brought in, so going there so soon would be just begging for trouble. Any minor misstep could blow her cover, and she didn’t trust herself to be able to lay low for multiple restarts at a time. No, best if she avoided the city for a while. She would have to return there at some point, of course, but she had to be a lot stronger and a lot better informed before she could show herself in the city again.

Aside from her determination to avoid Cyoria at all costs, her plans were virtually nonexistent. She was feeling rather lost at the moment. All emotional attachment aside, the aranea were also her best allies in this messed-up event, and losing them effectively pulled the rug from under her feet. What the hell was she supposed to do now?

The conclusion she settled on was that she needed some time to calm down and come to terms with what happened. Think up a new way forward. She would probably end up just wandering around the country for a restart or two. Or maybe a dozen restarts. Yes, now that she thought about it, the time loop was the perfect time to go on a country-wide, maybe even a continent-wide tour. Just… exploring and sightseeing. Very relaxing. Admittedly, the matriarch’s last message mentioned something about the time loop gradually decaying, but she named no concrete deadlines in the fragments Veronica had managed to piece together, and she believed the matriarch would have put greater emphasis on that part if the timetable was particularly tight. No, that statement was there just to let her know she did not have an infinite amount of time to work with – she had some fairly large, but very much finite number to look forward to, and time was steadily ticking.

At least she hoped. She was quite doomed otherwise. Large but finite she could work with, but if she had only a handful of restarts left? It didn’t bear thinking about.

"Miss Kazinski?" Ilsa said, breaking her out of her thoughts. Just as well, her thoughts had taken a dark turn again, and she was tired of feeling depressed. "Are you listening to me?"

"I’m listening," Veronica lied. She wasn’t really listening, of course, but that was because she’d had this conversation with Ilsa a million times by now.

"Right," Ilsa said dubiously. "As I was saying, you can pick up your badge when you finish school since it’s so expensive and-"

"What if I want to pick it up now?" Veronica interrupted. Her savings should be enough to fund a month of aimless wandering so she probably didn’t need the badge for work, but she didn’t like the idea of keeping her spellcasting abilities a secret lest some overzealous policeman report her to the guild and ultimately bring the academy in. Having a badge to prove her certification and membership would allow her to do as she pleased for the most part.

"You can pick one up at any of the mage guild offices scattered around Eldemar," Ilsa said. "Most large cities and regional centers have one."

Oh good. She had feared she could only pick one up at the Academy or something.

Eventually, Ilsa left, her parting words being that she looked forward to seeing her in class. Huh, that was new. Did she suspect Veronica intended to blow off school to do her own thing? Well whatever, even if she did, it did not matter much – the academy always had a rather anemic response to students who didn’t show up for class. They would send a letter to her parents informing them that she wasn’t attending her classes, and that was it. And fortunately for Veronica, no one would be at home to read the mail by the time the letter arrived, since her parents were going to Koth to visit their precious Daimen.

Satisfied that her course had been set for the moment, she picked up her things and set off towards the train station.

* * *

As the train departed from Cirin and started its journey towards Cyoria, Veronica began to relax somewhat. Part of that was that train rides always made her kind of sleepy and therefore sapped the tension straight out of her body and mind, but a great deal of it came from the fact that Red Robe was nowhere to be seen. Hours had passed – enough time to prepare and mount an attack on the Kazinski household several times over for someone of Red Robe’s abilities – and no hostile force had struck against her or her family, so chances were that Red Robe wasn’t coming at all. That meant her identity was probably safe for now, which was a major relief. If he hadn’t discovered Veronica’s identity in the previous restart, he probably wouldn’t discover it at all – a month was ample time to track her down if Red Robe knew where to look. She wouldn’t really relax fully until several restarts passed as peacefully as this one, but this was an encouraging sign.

She just had to make sure she didn’t make any more stupid mistakes in the future.

The train stopped for a moment and then continued onward towards Cyoria. Veronica opted to stay on the train for now, despite her initial intention of getting off the train on the very first station after Cirin. The first stop after Cirin was an even smaller village that gravitated towards Cirin and had nothing notable to recommend it to anyone. Her disembarking there would be noted and remarked upon by the inhabitants, and there was a chance that someone might recognize her and report her to her family before they could leave for Koth. And that was the kind of drama she really didn’t need at the moment. And besides, what the hell would she do in a tiny, unfamiliar village like that? No, it was far better to wait until Nigelvar and then travel on foot to Teshingrad. Nigelvar was also a small town of little note, but it was an important enough transport junction that no one would find a traveler who disembarked there on the way particularly strange. Teshingrad was a regional capital. It couldn’t hold a candle to Eldemar, Korsa, or Cyoria, but it was big and influential enough that newcomers were normal.

Teshingrad also had a mage guild office, so she could pick up her badge there.

She disembarked at Nigelvar without complications and immediately set out towards Teshingrad. Unfortunately for her, the storm that invariably hit Cyoria on the first day of every restart was apparently a more wide-scale phenomenon than she first thought, because she found herself in the middle of a raging rainstorm halfway there. Her rain shield thankfully held out long enough for her to reach one of the roadside inns and take shelter there. She ended up spending the night there, slightly annoyed at the delay despite not having any concrete plans for the restart. It did not help that the food was terrible and the people kept giving her funny looks. It was probably her clothes – the ones her mother made her wear were clearly a bit fancy and out of the price range of most commoners, and she didn’t have the chance to change before entering the inn. She made sure to put a basic warding scheme on her room to deter would-be thieves and attackers, but thankfully no one tried anything while she slept.

Having survived the night at the inn without incident, Veronica departed the place early in the morning and reached Teshingrad a few hours later… only to get unpleasantly surprised when she tried to pick up her badge. As it turned out, Ilsa had not been exaggerating when she said the badge was expensive. It would cost her half of her savings to have one of those made! It was a highway robbery, in Veronica’s opinion, but the man she spoke with in the mage guild office wouldn’t hear anything about lowering the price. Instead, he pointed Veronica at a nearby wall where a job panel stood. It was similar to the job panel posted at the academy in Cyoria, only the jobs were much more reasonably priced, since the town did not have the same glut of amateur mages that Cyoria did. It would take two days for Veronica’s badge to be ready for pickup, so she figured she may as well earn some money while she waited to replenish her money stash. It wasn’t like she had something better to do.
The job list was… rather more eclectic than Veronica hoped. She was sure that 2 chickens and a bag of flour was a fair price for fixing up a broken wall, but it was of no use to her personally. And the couple of job postings that did not define any concrete payment sounded very suspicious to her. Even so, she still found plenty of things to occupy her time with. Thus, for the next three days, Veronica helped with a bunch of repairs, tracked down a missing goat, carried a stack of stone blocks from one end of the town to the other on one of her floating discs, helped the local alchemist harvest her herbs, and eradicated a particularly nasty rat infestation in one of the private granaries on the edge of town. None of it was particularly difficult, but Veronica would be lying if she said she didn’t learn anything in the process. It was a lot different knowing a spell academically and trying to use it to solve concrete problems.

"Well, there you go," the man behind the counter said, handing Veronica her badge. It was quite unexceptional in appearance, though Veronica could feel a complex spell formula embedded in it when her fingers touched the surface. She would have to take one of these things apart someday to see what that was about. "You can apply to any job you want with that, not just unofficial ones like the ones on the job board. Nice work, by the way. It’s been a while since someone went through the town and helped out the townsfolk like that."

"I didn’t really do it out of charity," Veronica grumbled gently.

"Oh, I know," the man said. "But there are a lot of mages who would consider such petty jobs to be beneath them and refuse to do them out of principle."

"A lot of them look like something the civilians could do on their own," Veronica admitted. "And no offense, but why don’t you help if it’s something that so desperately needs doing? I kind of doubt the guild would place a non-mage as their representative for the area."

"Ha!" the man laughed, not at all insulted by the question. "I do in fact help… when I find the time. This position is a lot busier than it appears, trust me on that. And while those jobs are admittedly not very desperate, most of them would take great effort and a lot of time to accomplish without magic, whereas even a beginner mage like yourself can solve them in less than an hour with a handful of spells. So yeah, maybe you didn’t save the world in the past few days or whatever, but the people you helped are certainly glad you made their lives a little easier. The townsfolk saved some time, you got some easy cash to spend, and I got rid of some of my more annoying obligations. Everyone’s a winner, no?"

"Hmm," said Veronica noncommittally, with a slight nod.

"So… do you have a specific job already waiting for you or are you in search of one?" the man asked.

"Nothing specific," Veronica said. "I was going to wander around for a while and see what catches my eye."

"Ah, I see. Well, I can recommend a few neighboring sites if you’re interested in checking them out."

"Sure," shrugged Veronica lightly. "It can’t hurt to check things out, I guess."

"Alternatively, if you’re looking for a better paying version of the sort of one-off jobs you’ve been doing for the past few days, I recommend you go north, towards the Sarokian Highlands. Always plenty of work at the frontier, whether it’s in infrastructure building or hunting monsters and whatnot. Much more dangerous than hunting overgrown rats, of course, but also a lot more profitable."

"An interesting idea," Veronica said thoughtfully. The only problem was that Cyoria was the main springboard for the expansion efforts into the Highlands. From what she could figure out from the maps, it was very hard to bypass Cyoria when going that far north, and she didn’t want to be anywhere near the city for the foreseeable future. "You know, I can’t help but notice that the mage guild is pushing the settlement of the Sarokian Highlands pretty aggressively. What’s up with that?"

"Ah, well, it’s the whole thing with the Splintering, you see? Successor States are always looking to one-up each other and searching for advantages that could let them overcome their enemies. Eldemar has a nice big access to untamed wilderness to the north, so it would be a bit silly not to take advantage of it. It’s a place rich in natural resources, I hear, both magical and mundane."

Veronica spent an hour with the man, discussing the region and her options. She didn’t really want to settle down in any place in this particular restart, but she supposed she might want to try out some of the options presented by the man in the future, and in that case it might be convenient to have visited the location already and thus be capable of teleporting there directly.

So for the next two weeks, Veronica walked around the region, visiting various workshops, libraries, alchemists, herbalists and so on. Or just plain sight-seeing and doing odd jobs for the villagers and townsfolk she encountered along the way. She did not stop her magical training, but in the absence of any sort of clear goal or a convenient repository of spells like the academy library had been, Veronica defaulted to the most basic of advancement methods – shaping exercises. It helped that most of the rural mages she met on her journey had some private shaping exercise they were willing to show her… and unlike Xvim, who simply told her the end result he wanted and refused to elaborate, they actually had detailed instructions about what to do and in what order.

By the end of the time loop, Veronica had learned how to peel the surface of a marble away, layer by layer; how to do the same to an apple and other fruit; how to cut paper by dragging her finger along the cutting line; how to induce a gentle ripple in a pool of water without touching it; how to levitate a blob of water and shape it into a perfect sphere; then freeze that sphere; and finally, how to telekinetically draw geometric shapes in the dust. None of those were really mastered in the Xvim sense of the word, but luckily Xvim wasn’t anywhere near her this time so she could simply move on to the next exercise when she felt she had absorbed it to her liking. Shaping exercises were a lot less annoying when she didn’t have to keep doing them until they could be done flawlessly, she found.

She also continued practicing her mind powers. They were extremely important, she felt – if it weren’t for them, she would have never survived her altercation with Red Robe intact. At some point she planned to seek out other aranean colonies and execute her exploit the time loop to slowly leech aranean magic from them plan, but right now she couldn’t do it. It was too soon, her memories of aranea and their demise (and the role her obliviousness and carelessness played in it) too fresh in her mind. So instead she simply used her empathy on every person she spoke to and practiced connecting to the minds of various animals. She particularly liked walking near streams and ponds and taking control of the dragonflies flitting about in order to make them perform dizzying acrobatics around her. Insects had such rudimentary minds that taking total control over them was exceedingly easy, though figuring out how to puppeteer them effectively took some doing and she still couldn’t keep control over more than 3 dragonflies at the same time.

Time passed. For the most part she managed to keep herself busy enough that she didn’t have enough time to be depressed, but all her worries and feelings of powerlessness returned in full force every evening as she prepared herself for sleep. Every plan she tried to make seemed hollow, doomed to failure. She wasn’t powerful enough. She didn’t know enough. Red Robe had years and years of experience over her, and that was never going to change.

As the end of the restart approached, her mood only turned darker. She had avoided another confrontation in this restart, but what about the next? Would she wake up next time to eerie silence, only to find out that Red Robe got to her family after she had left and left them lifeless, soulless husks for her to find?

On the last night of the restart, Veronica didn’t sleep at all, simply watching the night sky from a small, isolated hill she had found in her travels, idly using her mind powers to deflect mosquitos away from her as she stood consumed in her own thoughts.

* * *

Veronica’s eyes abruptly shot open as a sharp pain erupted from her stomach. Her whole body convulsed, buckling against the object that fell on her, and suddenly she was wide awake, not a trace of drowsiness in her mind.

"Good mor- Hey!" Kirielle yelped as Veronica enveloped her into a strong hug. "What the hell, Veronica!? Let me go, you brute!"

"Still the same Kirielle as ever," Veronica sighed dramatically, a weak smile on her face. "Now get off of me before I hug you some more."

Her family was alright and, just like in the previous restart, Red Robe was nowhere to be seen. Thus, a much happier Veronica once again boarded the train and disembarked at Nigelvar. She didn’t bother picking up her badge this time, though – it really was very expensive, and no one had actually asked to see it anyway. Instead she simply teleported herself to the last place she’d been at in the previous restart and continued her wanderings.

Being a mage out there in the periphery was a lot different than being a mage in Cyoria, Veronica mused. Without the massive quantities of ambient mana gushing out of the Hole, conserving mana was actually a noticeable issue – even shaping exercises tended to deplete her reserves after a couple of hours, whereas back in Cyoria her main limitation had been her patience and existing obligations eating into her free time. That was another reason why Veronica focused on shaping exercises in preference to any actual spellcasting while traveling.

She was also starting to miss the academy library. She had thought its reputation was way overblown for a while now, but now that she could no longer hit its vast shelves every time she ran into some issue she realized just how damn convenient it really was. It had a lot of holes where really exotic topics were concerned, but its selection of basic spells and books on common topics was second to none. Out here in the periphery, finding a spellbook that had the exact spell you needed was damn hard. They existed, but they had only the most basic of things and if you wanted anything exotic you were directed to some other settlement or private collection or what not.

She also found out that magic detection spells were a lot more useful than she had first realized. Outside of Cyoria, magical items and creatures actually stood out when exposed to such scrutiny. Back in Cyoria, most general magic detection spells just returned false positives all the time – you had to narrow your divination criteria down to something specific to get results.

All in all, she was starting to understand why mages tended to flock towards Cyoria and other cities situated on top of mana wells. Those kinds of places provided a whole lot of resources that were hard to acquire elsewhere in one convenient location.
But Veronica’s journey continued. She was determined to visit every large city in the country, if nothing else than so she could teleport to any of them as she pleased, and she was seriously considering a journey around the continent as well. The only thing stopping her was that international travel was bound to be a hassle, and she was doing all this traveling to relax, not argue with border officials about authorization. When another restart passed and Red Robe still failed to show up, Veronica finally allowed herself to more fully relax. It had been three restarts, and Red Robe still hadn’t tracked her down – she was pretty sure that meant he never would, then. Not a master detective then, that was good to know. Buoyed by the knowledge that she dodged the bullet this time, Veronica seriously considered what to do next.

She needed to contact Shirley, but it wasn’t a priority. Shirley likely didn’t have any crucial information that would help Veronica figure out how the time loop functioned, and Veronica didn’t know how to find the other time traveler anyway. They were bound to meet again at some point, and Veronica wasn’t going to play dumb again when they finally encountered one another, but she saw no need to waste her time on looking for a girl who probably didn’t want to be found right now. It wasn’t like she didn’t have anything to do in the meantime. She absolutely needed to master a number of skills before she considered going back to Cyoria and looking for Shirley: she needed to find out more about soul magic, she needed to hone her mind magic into a proper tool and weapon like the aranea had done, and she needed to raise her combat skills to a level where she could meaningfully counter Red Robe in open combat.

The first priority was pretty obvious: she needed to know how to at least counter soul magic if she wasn’t going to get blindsided again when dealing with Red Robe. Preferably she also wanted to figure out what Red Robe really did to the aranea and – if possible – reverse it. She still had Kael’s list of people who could help her in that regard, and all of them were conveniently outside of Cyoria.

The second was just as crucial. Whatever knowledge about the time loop the matriarch gained behind her back, she almost certainly did it by ripping it out of someone’s mind. Someone who wasn’t Red Robe - probably a handful of normal people not aware of the time loop but still holding a small part of the puzzle. If she could identify these key people and read their minds she could find out what the big secret was. In other words, she needed to develop her mind magic, ethics be damned. She didn’t think she could do this on her own, so she would have to seek out other aranea webs for this.

Lastly, she was embarrassingly powerless against Red Robe in their last encounter, and if the other mage hadn’t made some big mistakes when handling her she would have lost utterly. She needed better traps and ambush tactics, better combat skills in order to not be utterly doomed when said ambushes fail, and better movement magic to retreat and escape when said combat skills prove insufficient. As far as she could tell, the only effective way to improve here was simple practice – in other words, going around and looking for trouble. The only problem with this was that this went against pretty much every instinct she had.

It would have to be done, though. She figured that delving into the Dungeon and taking a few restarts to visit the untamed wilderness to the north should do for a start, and she would figure out later where to go from there.

In line with those goals, she decided that her third post-aranea restart was going to be a bit more systematic than her previous wanderings. After marking down the locations of Kael’s associates on a map, she chose a medium-sized town called Knyazov Dveri as her next destination. The town was close to the northern wilderness and had a notable dungeon access, so there should be plenty of opportunities to practice her combat skills; it was situated on top of a Rank 2 mana well, which was fairly anemic as far as mana wells went but was nonetheless better than nothing; and finally, it was roughly in the center of a diffuse cloud of Kael’s associates scattered throughout the region, so she would have easy access to the rest of them should the one in the city prove to be a dead end. It was, as far as Veronica could tell, an ideal place to start at.

The next day she teleported to the nearest town she could reach with her teleport spell and set off towards her target.

Chapter 28: Chapter 28: Cauldron

Chapter Text

Life takes you to all sorts of unexpected places, Veronica mused, once again taking the knife to the winter wolf’s corpse. If someone had told me, back in my first year at the academy, that I would need to know what the best way to skin a winter wolf was, I would not have believed them.

Then again, she technically didn’t need to skin the animal – she just felt it would be a horrid waste not to, since winter wolf pelts fetched a pretty high price back in Knyazov Dveri. If she was going to venture into the wilderness, looking for monsters and dangerous animals to fight, she might as well earn some money doing it.

Finally, the bloody work was done. She was sure a real hunter could have done it in a quarter of the time and hassle, but she didn’t care – a success was a success. She placed the pelt in her bag and went off in the direction of the stream she had encountered earlier, intent on washing the blood and grime off her hands and clothes. At some point she intended to use spells to do these sorts of things, but since harvesting spells were based on animation they were sort of useless to her right now. Animation spells worked by embedding a portion of the caster’s mind into the spell, so until Veronica knew how to properly skin an animal the old-fashioned way, she couldn’t hand it off to an animation spell.

As she walked towards the stream, she kept an eye out for the reason she was in this particular section of the forest in the first place – a small cottage of an old witch called Silverlake, who was one of the possible sources Kael had named in his list. So far, Kael’s prediction that she wouldn’t be able to find the place on her own and that she would have to loiter around the area until the witch approached her herself had been entirely correct – no divination could track the cottage down, and she hadn’t stumbled onto it by simply wandering around the place. If she didn’t have Kael’s assurance that someone lived here she would have given up long ago. The only reason she even managed to pinpoint the area as well as she had was because the old witch had a habit of harvesting all of the alchemically-useful plants and mushrooms in the area and Kael warned her to be on the lookout for suspiciously picked-clean areas like this one.

With a sigh, she plunged her hands into the stream. The recent rains had caused it to swell into a small muddy river, but the water was good enough for washing her hands in and cooling off. That done, she crouched next to the water and idly studied her reflection. She looked like a mess. She felt like a mess too. While she wasn’t entirely out of shape, and this wasn’t the first time she ventured into a forest, there was a difference between taking a two-hour stroll through the semi-tame forest near her town and spending most of the week in the great northern wilderness, hunting winter wolves and dodging snakes and other dangerous wildlife. Thank the gods she had the foresight to put that anti-vermin ward on herself or else she would have been covered in ticks and leeches by the end of day one… and that was assuming the mosquitos hadn’t driven her mad before that.

And the worst thing about it all? She would never get used to it, because any muscle growth and body adaptation would be wiped out when this restart ended. She made a note to herself to look into the possibility of getting enhancement potions or rituals to improve strength and stamina, because spending the first week of every restart with every inch of her body tense and hurting wasn’t a fun prospect at all. Or at least a potion to ease the—wait, was the bottom of the stream moving?

She managed to throw herself back just in time to avoid the huge brown shape that jumped out of the muddy water and tried to envelop her head with its massive jaws. She quickly backpedaled as the huge lizard-like creature tried to haul itself onto the shore and sent a small missile swarm consisting of three piercers straight at its head. Thankfully, the lizard thing was actually pretty slow, its surprise attack notwithstanding, so all three missiles found their mark. The creature’s skull promptly exploded from the impact, showering bits of tissue everywhere, and it immediately slumped dead where it stood, its lower half still submerged in the stream.

Veronica immediately turned on her mind sense and scanned the creek for the possible presence of more such monsters and then, having discovered none, slowly approached the corpse to inspect it.

It was a salamander. A huge brown salamander with a massive triangular head and beady black eyes that probably couldn’t actually see anything. It was a miracle that something that big could actually hide in a stream this shallow, but the muddy water provided it with just what it needed to surprise her. Damn, that would have been humiliating – killed less than a week in by a giant salamander. Then again, she nearly fell into a ravine on her first day here, and there was that assassin vine that tried to choke her yesterday...

"Is there anything here in this forest that isn’t going to try and kill me the moment I take my eyes off of it?" Veronica asked out loud.

She didn’t expect anyone to answer, since she was alone and all, but she did receive an answer. Sort of.

"What do you think you’re doing, feeling all sorry for yourself?" a harsh female voice answered her.

There was no one present as far as Veronica could see, and her mind sense detected only animals, but she still managed to detect fairly quickly where the voice was coming from – the source of the speech was the raven perched on a nearby branch.

"Well don’t just stand there and stare at my familiar, girl," the voice said, cutting in through the silence. "Quickly, haul it out of the creek before the stream washes it away! Do you have any idea how valuable giant salamanders of that size are? This is the find of a century!"
Veronica was tempted to point out that this find of the century nearly killed her, but decided not to. If this was who she suspected, she needed to stay on Silverlake's good side. According to Kael, asking for the old witch's help was a bit of a long shot, but likely to achieve very good results if she could convince her to seriously try and help. Silverlake was very powerful and skilled, but dealing with her was often quite tedious. She wouldn’t kill Veronica or do anything overtly hostile without provocation, but she was capricious and prone to wasting people’s time. Veronica figured it was at least worth a try to approach Silverlake for help.

"You would be Miss Silverlake, I presume?" guessed Veronica.

The raven answered with a burst of laughter. It was really strange to see a bird laugh like that.

"'Miss, am I? Well, aren’t you a polite one… don’t get too many of those, these days. Why, maybe I’ll even listen to whatever silly request you came here for!" the bird finally said. "Now why are you just standing around? Didn’t I give you a task to accomplish?"

With a soft sigh, Veronica turned away from the bird and started casting a levitation spell to haul the giant amphibian out of the water.

* * *

Silverlake (no last name, and Veronica shouldn’t ask about how she ended up without one – Kael was very firm on that part) was not exactly what Veronica had expected. She was old, yes, but for a woman of 90 years, she was incredibly lively and spry. In fact, Veronica had a feeling she had an easier time moving through the forest than herself. She wasn’t particularly unkempt, either, despite living in the middle of the wilderness – her pitch-black hair was devoid of a single white strand (she probably dyed it regularly), and the simple brown dress she was wearing was unremarkable but immaculate. If it weren’t for the wrinkles, Veronica would have pegged her as less than half her age. Was this a consequence of some sort of potion regimen or was she just lucky that way?

Well, no matter. Veronica followed her back to her cottage, the giant salamander floating behind on a disc of force, where Silverlake promptly started to butcher the beast with practiced ease. Her hands didn’t tremble at all as she handled the various knives and heavy jars in her workspace, and Veronica became even more certain she put herself through some kind of enhancement regimen to ward off the effects of aging. She was a potion master according to Kael, and alchemy had always been one of the best ways to prolong your life and keep yourself healthy.

"Don’t think I didn’t notice you faffing around the area for the past few days," she suddenly said, never taking her eyes off the salamander corpse. "Rather annoying, that. Also worrying. Means that someone told you where to find me. I don’t suppose you could shed some light on that, could you?"

"Kael told me where to find you," Veronica readily admitted. It wasn’t a secret, really.

"Kael?" she asked, before frowning. "No, wait, don’t tell me. I’m sure I heard that name som- oh! Now I remember – he’s the little rascal that knocked up Fria’s granddaughter! But I heard he ended up marrying her afterwards, so I guess that’s not so bad. Actually, I recall that Fria had been quite happy about that. She had been afraid the girl would never find herself a husband."

"Why?" asked Veronica curiously. Silverlake shot her a judging look, her brown eyes boring into Veronica's own, before returning to her work. "I mean, if it isn’t impertinent to ask. You don’t have to-"

"Relax, girl," Silverlake snorted derisively. "I am a lot of things, but I was never very tactful. If I’m bothered by something you say, I will tell you. If you ask something impertinent, I will tell you to go screw yourself. I’m just thinking. Let’s see… as you probably suspect by now, Fria, Kael’s mother-in-law, is a witch like me. There are some nasty rumors circulating about witches and their daughters – about how they sacrifice male children, have orgies with summoned demons, poison their husbands for inheritance, how they’re too lazy to work around the house and other ridiculous bilge. It makes a lot of men reluctant to marry the daughter of a witch."

"I see," said Veronica. She had never heard about that particular issue, but it sounded plausible enough – witches had a really bad reputation for dabbling in various unethical and forbidden magics.

"It’s been years since I last seen Kael and his wife," Silverlake said. "Or Fria, for that matter. I guess I should have been a little less harsh the last time they visited, but… well, what’s done is done. It’s strange the morlock saw fit to send you here when he himself dares not show his face to me."

Veronica frowned softly. "I… think you’re misinterpreting the situation somewhat. I don’t know what happened between you and them, but the reason they haven’t visited you is because they’re dead. Fria and Kael’s wife both contracted the Weeping and died. As for Kael, he had been too busy grieving and taking care of his daughter to go on a trip like this. You are rather isolated."

For the first time since she met her, Silverlake seemed taken aback by her answer.

"Dead? Fria is… and all this time I thought…" she mumbled, before halting and giving Veronica a considering look. "Wait. You said Kael and his daughter. I see… hmm…"

Silverlake spent the next few minutes considering something. Veronica took the time to observe and study the cottage next to them. It looked rather flimsy and old, but it shone like a lighthouse to her senses when she discreetly cast a magic detection spell on it. How had she missed noticing the thing earlier when searching for it? Those must be some powerful divination wards she placed on it. She couldn’t figure out how Silverlake was powering them, though – wards that strong required a powerful source of magic, and this place wasn’t a mana well. Surely, Silverlake couldn’t be powerful enough to provide enough mana for the entire edifice, could she? Kael had mentioned that Silverlake was extremely strong and skilled in magic of both Ikosian and witch origin, and that she should never underestimate her, but this was still beyond what Veronica had been expecting.

Aside from the impossibly complex and powerful warding scheme, though, the cottage looked unremarkable. There were several racks next to it where various herbs and mushrooms dried in the sun, but it wasn’t uncommon for hunters and lumberjacks to have a side business of gathering herbs to sell in the nearby city so hardly something that would raise warning flags all by itself.

Silverlake snapped her fingers in front of Veronica's face, spraying droplets of salamander blood and other bodily fluids all over her glasses and breaking her inspection. Despite her resolve to remain polite, Veronica couldn’t help but glare at her in response. Silverlake just grinned, showing off two rows of gleaming white teeth. Apparently, she hadn't lost a single tooth in all of her 90 years of life.

Yes, definitely magic.

"If you’re done gawking at my home, we can continue our discussion," Silverlake said. "I have a request for you. You have a way to get in contact with Kael, yes?"

"Of course," said Veronica. "We’re friends, he and I." Or they would be, once she returned to Cyoria in one of the future restarts.

"Then I would like you to deliver a message to him," she said. "It’s nothing urgent, but I want him to know… that I regret how our last meeting ended and that I would very much like it if he came to visit me with his daughter sometime in the future. Oh, and that I want to teach his daughter the secrets of my magic. She is a descendant of a proud line of witches stretching back to time immemorial, and it is her birthright to continue it… should she want to. Got all that?"

"Sounds simple enough to remember," Veronica said. "And… could I now trouble you with the reason I came here for?"

"No," she snorted. "What, you think that just because you know a couple of people close to me and agreed to help me with a simple request like this that I’ll jump into whatever crazy problem you need help with?"

"You don’t even know why I’m here," Veronica pointed out.

"Nobody ever comes to me for help with the little things," she said with a grin. "If Kael sent you to me, that means he’s truly stumped for a solution."

"I… suppose I can’t argue with that," Veronica admitted. "You see, I-"

"I don’t want to hear it," Silverlake said, pointing her bloody palm towards Veronica to silence her. "Until you make it worth my time, I don’t want to listen to your sob story. If you want my help, you’re going to have to earn it."

"How do I even know you can help me at all, then?" asked Veronica. "I could end up paying you for nothing in the end."

"You could," Silverlake grinned. "You will have to risk it."

Damn witch. She was probably just wasting Veronica's time, but…

"Fine," Veronica sighed softly. "What do you want from me?"

If anything, Silverlake's grin just got wider.

* * *

Space blurred around Veronica, and then she was back in Knyazov Dveri, in one of the less traversed streets where she was fairly sure no one would see her teleporting in and out. It wouldn’t be a huge problem if it got out that she could teleport, but at the same time it would be notable and would attract attention to her. Few mages would be willing to teach the spell to a 15-year-old, and even fewer 15-year-olds would be capable of learning it. It would be best if she were discreet about it for now.

Seeing how her arrival appeared to have gone unnoticed, she promptly exited the street and went towards the town square to grab something to eat, only to get distracted by the newspaper boy’s shouting.

"Shocking news!" the boy yelled. "A Cyoria mercenary company found dead to a man in their homes! Monsters stalk the streets of the city! Coincidence or conspiracy, read all about it in today’s edition! Shocking news, shocking news!"

Well… that sounded interesting. Veronica wordlessly shifted her course towards the boy and bought the newspaper in question. She then found a quiet corner to lean on and started to read.

Like she suspected, the mercenary company that was found dead was the one she and the aranea hired to participate in the ambush – there was a picture of the man who led the group next to the article and she would recognize the man anywhere thanks to the distinctive scar he had above his right eye. Apparently, they were all found dead at the start of the restart, with little clue as to who killed them and why. Naturally, that immediately produced a lot of interest from anyone since it clearly wasn’t natural. The obvious conclusion – that someone managed to off an entire group of experienced battlemages in the span of a single night, not all of which were asleep at the time of death and some of whom were under heavy wards – was highly disturbing, but there were very few alternatives.

Another complication was that immediately after that discovery, there had been a stream of incidents involving various monsters moving out of the Dungeon and into the sewers… and sometimes then even emerging into the streets of the city. The experts were baffled as to why this was happening now, and the city leadership was hastily organizing an operation to descend into the Dungeon in order to bring the situation under control before the summer festival. Well, that certainly put a damper on the invader’s plans. Veronica wondered how they would deal with that. In retrospect, it wasn’t hard to explain why monsters were invading the sewers and the streets of the city – the invaders were putting pressure on them from below, so they went upwards as a response. In the past restarts, the aranea were there to act as an unwilling anvil to the invaders' hammer, preventing the inhabitants of the Dungeon from breaking into the upper levels. But the aranea were dead now, and with them gone, a whole layer of Cyoria’s defense that most people hadn’t even known about had collapsed. Veronica couldn’t suppress a sly grin at the thought that maybe Red Robe ended up shooting himself in the foot when he enacted his soul-killing tantrum.

Interestingly, the mysterious murders and the monster attacks seemed to have had an effect on the academy too. There was a short sub-article next to the main one about the families who withdrew their children from schools in Cyoria, including her own academy. Jade, one of her classmates, had been pulled by her parents from the academy. She was listed among the names of notable students who opted to leave the city for their own safety – her father was a high-ranking member of House Witelsin – while the other notable names included… her? Yes, there was no mistaking it – Veronica Kazinski, younger sister of Daimen Kazinski, was listed in the article as one of the students pulled from school by her parents. She wondered what that was based on – she was certain no one had managed to contact her parents before they left for Koth, so either the academy or the newspaper had decided to interpret her absence in light of current events and trends. Veronica shook her head and closed the newspaper before continuing on her way.

* * *

After spending a week in Knyazov Dveri, Veronica had decided she kind of liked the town. It was a busy, lively place where the arrival of a newly-minted mage like her was unremarkable and raised no eyebrows, yet not so large and prosperous that people like her were common and underappreciated. Thanks to the town’s position as a regional center and the presence of both a notable mana well and a dungeon access attractive to dungeon delvers, the town was full of shops catering to mages or requiring mage employees, and thus offered plenty of employment opportunities for a young mage… enough so that people sometimes offered her employment without her even asking about it.

She didn’t accept any offers, since a regular job would eat up a lot of time and would just distract her from her real quest, but it was something to keep in mind if she ever got out of the time loop.

"Why hello there. Mind if I join you for a bit?" Veronica peered up from the map of the surrounding region she was studying and took a good look at the man who interrupted her. He was middle-aged, had a prominent mustache and a pot belly, and had a wide smile plastered on his face. Despite the fact that Veronica took several seconds to study him in silence, the man’s smile never faltered. Judging by the clothes he was wearing, he seemed to be one of the more well-off residents – a small-time merchant, perhaps, or one of the craftsman-mages that had stores in the town. He was probably going to get another job offer, then.

"Sure," Veronica said, gesturing towards the empty chair on the other end of the table. "Help yourself."

She thought for a moment whether she should get rid of the map while she talked to the man, but then decided not to bother. There was nothing incriminating on it anyway – a couple of marked-down locations that would mean nothing to the man without some kind of context and some equally unhelpful notes scribbled on the margins. Silverlake had given her a task of gathering rare magical plants all over the damn forest, but gave her only the vaguest clues about where they could be found, so she was reduced to deciphering her statements and consulting the local herbalists for more information. And the local herbalists weren’t terribly cooperative. She had a feeling this was only the start of her demands, so she was trying to finish it quickly.

"Don’t mind if I do, don’t mind if I do," the man said happily, plopping down onto the offered spot. "These old bones just aren’t what they once were, I’m afraid. Standing around does terrible things to my knees. I guess the years caught up to me, eh?"

The pot belly probably doesn’t help, Veronica thought inside her head, though outwardly she remained silent, waiting for the man to tell her what he wanted of her.

"I have to say, this looks like a nice place to relax in," the man said, idly looking at the sheet of paper that listed the prices of some of the meals and beverages. "A little pricy, but quiet and out of the way. Private. Anyway, you don’t mind if I order us a drink, do you?"

"I don’t drink alcohol," said Veronica with a shake of her head. And she didn’t trust any of the non-alcoholic beverages in a place like this, either – it wasn’t that upscale of an establishment, regardless of what the man said. "I’m going to have to decline."

"Now that’s just unfair," the man said. "Oh well, I guess I’ll have to drink alone then. Forgive the impoliteness but I’m rather parched and it just feels wrong, having a conversation in a tavern without a mug of beer to sip on occasionally."

A few minutes later, the man took a swig from his mug and got to the point.

"Ah, that hits the spot," he said. "With that out of the way, allow me to introduce myself: I am Gurey Cwili, of Cwili and Rofoltin Equipment. Though I’m sad to say old Rofoltin passed away two years ago, so I’m the only owner now. I kept the name as it is, though. Tradition."

Veronica resisted the urge to tell him to get on with it.

"Anyway, I see you’re a busy woman so I’ll get straight to the point – I’ve heard you’ve been going out into the forest to gather alchemical ingredients and hunting winter wolves. And also that you’ve been selling magic items on the side, too."

"Yes, what of it?" asked Veronica. Nothing she did was in any way illegal. The winter wolves had sizeable bounties for every pelt brought to the nearest guild station for the express purpose of encouraging people to hunt them, as they tended to prey on the livestock, children, and lone travelers, and selling magic items and alchemical ingredients was hardly a crime. Some places had arcane restrictions about what could and could not be sold and by whom, but those were usually the consequence of regional monopolies granted to someone and Knyazov Dveri was under no one’s monopoly. She’d checked. "I’m a certified mage, if that’s what’s bothering you."

She even had a badge to prove it. It was pricy, but she interacted too often with mages in the town to risk getting caught doing business without a license. Especially since she had gotten an impression that a couple of shop owners resented the competition she represented and would love to report her to the guild if they could find an excuse.

"To put it bluntly, I want you to sell your alchemical ingredients and magic items to me instead of my competitors," the man said. "Don’t think this is some kind of threat or blackmail, though – I’m willing to pay you extra for the privilege."

Veronica blinked. She didn’t expect that.

An hour later, the man had hashed out some sort of agreement with Veronica. The extra money didn’t mean all that much to Veronica, but the man did have something she wanted – a fully-equipped alchemical workshop that he wasn’t using all the time. In exchange for the right to use said workshop from time to time and the right to consult the man’s private library for botanical books, Veronica agreed to offer all her products to the man before she did to anyone else. The man seemed pretty pleased with himself at having closed such a deal. Honestly, so was Veronica – the local library had a miserable selection of books on plants and herbs, but Gurey claimed his own private library was not nearly so limited. Having access to a proper alchemical workshop was also convenient, and not something she could easily get elsewhere unless she was willing to teleport to Korsa every time she wanted to make something. And she really didn’t have that much mana to burn.

"How come there is such a demand for potions and magic items here, anyway?" asked Veronica. "This city seems a little too small for the amount of magic shops. I understand the workshops since they can always export their products elsewhere, but how do shops like yours achieve such volume on the local market?"

"Oh, that’s easy," Gurey said. "Travelers. Or more accurately, settlers and adventurers. You see, this city is one of the last stops for settlers going further north as part of the Great Northern Push, as the government likes to call it. As one of the last centers of real civilization on their journey, we get a lot of demand for critical supplies of all sorts."

"Great Northern Push?" asked Veronica.

"Not a regular reader of the newspapers, I take it? It’s the whole thing with colonizing the Sarokian Highlands that the government has been pushing so hard lately. You must have noticed the posters around advertising free land and tax exemptions and what not. It’s part of Eldemar’s current strategy for achieving supremacy over Sulamnon and Falkrinea. The idea is that by taming the northern wilderness the country will get a major population and resource boost. All countries that have a border with the wilderness do this to a greater or lesser degree, but Eldemar has really invested a lot into this endeavor. Not sure whether it will be really worth it in the end, but I sure don’t mind the traffic it gives me!"

Hmm, now that she thought about it, there were traces of that even back at the academy – it was nothing horribly blatant, but textbooks and class assignments often worked in mentions of the Sarokian Highlands far more than one would expect, considering their low population and current importance.

In any case, the man soon left and Veronica returned to staring at her map. Goddamn witch.

* * *

"I don’t suppose that now that I have brought you the plants you asked for-"

"Don’t be silly, girl," Silverlake said, snatching the bundle of plants from her hands. "You don’t really think a silly little fetch quest like this is all it takes to get my help? Think of this as an… elimination round. You were horribly slow, anyway."

"Slow…" Veronica repeated incredulously. "It took me only 3 days. The only reason I could get them all so quickly at all was that I could teleport from place to place. Not to mention the danger involved – you never even told me those redbell mushrooms of yours exploded into clouds of paralyzing dust if handled improperly."
"Well, that's just common knowledge," she said, waving her hand with a gentle dismissiveness. "Everyone knows that. Here, grind these snail shells for me, please." Veronica looked at the small leather bag full of colorful red-and-blue snail shells and frowned. She recognized that species of snail. They were used in the production of certain drugs and were very much illegal to harvest. More importantly, their ground-up shells were a powerful hallucinogen, and inhaling even a handful of dust would leave her delirious and incapacitated. She threw the annoying old woman a brief glare before simply casting a dust shield spell on herself—the same one she used to protect herself against paralyzing mushrooms—before grabbing a mortar and pestle and getting down to work.

After she was done with that, the old witch promptly handed her the very bundle of plants she had spent three days gathering, rattled off a series of brief instructions, and pointed her towards an old cauldron leaning against the wall of her cottage. Wonderful—apparently, she was going to be making a potion the old way. She had been tutored by another witch as a child, so she wasn’t totally lost here, but the potion the woman wanted her to make now was unfamiliar to her. Not to mention there was a reason why traditional potion-making was considered obsolete compared to modern alchemy—it was harder, less safe, and usually gave worse results to boot.

Hopefully, the potion she was having her make wasn’t the sort to explode in her face or poison her with fumes if she didn’t get it right. Oh, who was she kidding, of course it was. Frankly, if it weren’t for the time loop and the resulting immunity to simple death, she would be leaving at this point.

As she suspected, she botched that potion. Thankfully, every time she was about to make a particularly disastrous misstep, Silverlake stopped her. Veronica just wished she found a better way to warn her she was about to make a mistake than hitting her with a willow branch. She could have poked her eye out with that thing!

She never thought she would say this, but she was starting to miss Xvim and his marbles. Her old mentor was a saint compared to this crazy old woman.

"Well that’s no good," said Silverlake, peering into the cauldron and idly stirring the foul-smelling purple gunk that Veronica ended up producing (it was supposed to be a viscous, sweet-smelling, totally transparent liquid). She gave Veronica a bright smile. "I guess you’ll have to go gather a whole new batch of ingredients before you can try again, won’t you?"

Veronica stared blankly at the grinning woman, feeling her anticipation through her empathy. Silverlake fully expected her to explode at this and was looking forward to it! sad*stic woman. Unfortunately for her, she was about to get disappointed. Veronica wordlessly reached into her backpack and withdrew a fresh bundle of ingredients.

Her smile never faltered, but Veronica could feel her disappointment regardless. It made her smile inside, though she maintained her poker face.

"You gathered extra, huh?" she asked rhetorically.

"I have plenty of experience with abrasive teachers," Veronica said simply. "I have another bundle besides this one, too."

"Good. You’ll need it," Silverlake said, knocking on the rim of the cauldron. "This was terrible. I don’t think two attempts will be enough. Hell, I’m skeptical you can get it in three! Go empty this concoction you’ve made in the neutralization pit over there and start over."

Veronica sighed and levitated the cauldron onto a disc of force before marching off in the direction of the neutralization pit. It was really just an open pit lined with stones and painted over with alchemical resin so that alchemical compounds poured into it didn’t seep into the ground or nearby water supply. Her alchemy teacher back at the academy would have been horrified at the mishandling of alchemical waste, but if the great Silverlake thought an open pit was sufficient for disposal of alchemical sludge, then who was Veronica to disagree?

That done, she placed the cauldron back over by the fireplace and started over. Silverlake was probably right that she wouldn’t get it right the next two times either, though—the potion clearly required fairly delicate temperature management, but that was a very hard variable to control when using wood burning and a regular fireplace. An old witch with lots of experience like Silverlake probably knew by instinct how to control the fire, but Veronica didn’t have the faintest idea of how to do it.

That was generally the main problem with traditional alchemy, as it was sometimes called. It relied heavily on the ability of the practitioner to adjust their methods on the fly to produce a usable product. Unlike modern alchemy, which relied on standardized equipment and exact measurements, traditional alchemy was all about eyeballing it and improvisation. Expressions like a handful of leaves, a slow fire, and a moderate amount of time were extremely common in traditional alchemical recipes. Veronica knew because she once snuck into her grandmother’s recipe cabinet to see if she could learn something from them. A pinch of salt apparently meant very different things to her and her grandmother, if the results of her secret potion attempts were any indication.

A further problem for her was that she was only really proficient in producing potions one by one, and the cauldron method was designed for producing batches of potions. There were some very important differences between production methods for single potions and for batches, but hell if Veronica could remember what they were at the moment.

"Who taught you?" Silverlake asked suddenly.

"Huh?" Veronica mumbled. "What do you mean? You want to know my alchemy teacher?"

"I want to know your potions teacher," she corrected. "You’re still pretty terrible, but you’re not nearly as clueless around the cauldron as I thought you would be. Who taught you?"

"Err, that would be my grandmother, I guess," Veronica said.

"A witch or just a housewife that picked up a few recipes?" Silverlake asked.

"A witch," said Veronica. "Though not a particularly dedicated one, I think. She gave me some lessons when I was a kid, but it didn’t last very long. My mother didn’t really like her teaching me."

Actually, Veronica was pretty sure her mother didn’t like her grandmother, period. Mother and daughter did not get along, in their case. Veronica always found it kind of hypocritical that her mother spent so much time preaching to her about the value of family when she herself couldn’t stand her own mother if her life depended on it.

"Huh. Interesting. Don’t expect to get any fuzzy feelings out of me just because of that, though," Silverlake said.

"Wouldn’t dream of it," Veronica said lightly.

"Good. You’ll be happy to know I’ve decided on the price of my help for you."

"Oh?" said Veronica, suddenly perking up.

"Yes. You see, a little birdy told me you’ve been wandering around the forest, picking fights with the wildlife. So this should be something right up your alley. Tell me… have you heard of something called the grey hunter?"

Chapter 29: Chapter 29: The Hunters and the Hunted

Chapter Text

Considering the reputation the Great Northern Forest had among people living in more southern, civilized territories, one would expect the place to be a giant death trap, with every animal and a good portion of the plants trying to kill you at every turn. The truth, Veronica had found, was a little more complex. While yes, the forest was full of dangerous creatures—even the deer were kind of aggressive and had tried to gore her a couple of times instead of fleeing from her approach—it was entirely possible to spend an entire day without endangering your life if you knew what you were doing. Granted, Veronica had a somewhat unfair advantage in the form of her mind sense, which let her sense many of the dangers before they had the chance to detect her in turn. Furthermore, the region she was frequenting was a border area—thus a little friendlier to humans than the deep, untouched wilderness in the far north. Still, she was confident that even a skilled civilian could move through the forest unmolested, much less a mage. Hell, she was doing just fine at the moment, despite having less than a month of experience.

Usually, Veronica wouldn’t have wanted to move through the forest undetected. The whole point of going there was to get combat experience, so avoiding danger was kind of missing the point. This time, however, sneaking around was more or less mandatory. She really didn’t want to get distracted by a threat on the level of a grey hunter, and she definitely didn’t want to alert the monster that she was coming by engaging in a loud, flashy fight right next to its lair. She slowly circled the area around the grey hunter’s lair, checking it for threats and hostile terrain that might inhibit her should she choose to retreat in any particular direction. In several places, she carved clusters of explosive glyphs into the trees and exposed rocks—she doubted they were powerful enough to seriously hurt a grey hunter, but they might buy her a few seconds she needed to teleport away to safety.

She almost succeeded in reaching the lair without a fight. Thankfully, the trio of fly-mosquito-whatever things that tried to ambush her were very easy to dispatch (they burned beautifully), and the fight didn’t raise enough ruckus to attract the monstrous spider’s attention. Veronica picked out a rather tall tree close (but not too close) to the grey hunter’s lair and levitated herself to the upper branches, where she promptly took out the binoculars she enchanted earlier for the purpose and started studying her target.

The location was actually kind of picturesque—a small rocky gully surrounded by forest, with some pretty sediment lines crisscrossing the stone and a few strategically placed clumps of grass growing between the cracks. On one of the walls stood a perfectly circular hole that served as the entrance to the cave. It was pitch black and surprisingly unremarkable and unthreatening—if Silverlake hadn’t told her it was there, it was entirely possible that Veronica would have missed it entirely if she had ever stumbled into the place in one of the restarts.

It would have been the last mistake she ever made, at least in that hypothetical restart—grey hunters were crazy good jumpers and possessed downright surreal speed. Veronica would bet anything that the one inside that cave could jump straight from the cave entrance to the other side of the gully in a single leap and close in before she could so much as realize what was happening.

The grey hunter was fundamentally a very simple monster. It was a grey, furry spider the size of an adult woman… and it also happened to be incredibly fast, strong, durable, and spell-resistant. It could run faster than a hasted mage, jump incredible distances, shrug off regular firearms and lower-level attack spells like a duck shrugging off water, outright ignore most direct-effect spells, and bite through steel. Oh, and it had a very nasty poison that, instead of destroying tissue or wrecking the nervous system like most poisons, utterly disrupted a mage’s ability to shape and control their mana instead. Once bitten, you wouldn’t be casting anything for a while, and it would take weeks for the poison to fully flush out of your system. Apparently, it was a type of poison adapted specifically to bring down magical beings that were the grey hunter’s typical prey, but it was just as effective against human mages. Basically, if you were fighting against a grey hunter alone and got bitten, you were done for.
These creatures were notorious for decimating entire groups of battlemages sent specifically to eliminate them. Quite an accomplishment for what is ostensibly an animal-level entity – most non-sapient monsters, no matter how impressive, were too easy to lure into traps to pose such a significant threat to a prepared hunting party. Naturally, Silverlake wanted Veronica to tangle with this mage-killing super-spider as the price for her assistance. The good news was that Silverlake hadn’t asked her to kill the creature, something Veronica suspected might be beyond her at the moment. The bad news was that her request was only slightly easier than that. She wanted Veronica to confront the female grey hunter inhabiting the cave she was currently observing and steal some of her eggs.

The lifecycle of grey hunters was a total enigma, as they were considered too formidable to study through anything other than post-battle reports and vivisection, but Veronica was willing to bet that grey hunter mothers were fiercely protective of their offspring. Acquiring even a single egg was likely to be quite a challenge. It was highly likely that the mother would be reluctant to stray far from her egg sack for any reason, making the idea of waiting for an opportunity to simply swipe some impractical, or even futile. For all she knew, the female stayed on her egg sack all day long, living off her fat reserves until the young hatched.

Veronica placed the binoculars back into her bag and began jotting down notes in one of the notebooks she carried with her. The question of how to acquire the eggs without getting horribly murdered in the process was ultimately a problem for another time – she was currently here just to scout out the situation and assess if the task was even feasible. As much as she wanted to prove the shriveled old witch wrong by completing her impossible quest, getting killed here would be incredibly foolish. She was on a time limit. A long time limit, but repeatedly dying because she decided to take on opponents way over her level would be an unforgivable waste. Every restart cut short was a restart she wasn’t utilizing to its full potential. If she couldn’t devise a way to get the eggs that she was absolutely confident would work, she wouldn’t attempt it. And even if she could devise a way, she would only try it out near the end of the restart, when the most she stood to lose was a couple of days.

"Alright," she murmured, snapping the notebook shut. "Let’s see what I’m dealing with."

The first thing she did was try to locate the grey hunter female to make sure she wasn’t outside her lair at that moment. Veronica had no way of tracking down grey hunters specifically through divination, as she had never seen one before and lacked any grey hunter body parts, but a simple locator spell searching for a giant spider pointed her straight at the cave. Since the other two giant spider species that lived in the region – giant tree spider and giant trapdoor spider respectively – didn’t inhabit caves, the conclusion was obvious. She then attempted to scry the spider, which immediately failed. Well, the spell technically worked… but the cave was totally dark. There were no glowing crystals or ember moss that occasionally illuminated natural caverns – just an ordinary cave full of impenetrable darkness that concealed everything.

Blast, she hadn’t anticipated that. Wracking her brain for a spell combination that would allow her to scout out the lair without having to return to the city and consult her books, she decided to combine two different spells. First, she cast the arcane eye spell, creating a floating ectoplasmic eyeball through which she could see remotely. She then conjured a floating ball of light, functionally identical to the simple floating lantern spell, except she altered the spell parameters so it would follow the ectoplasmic eye around instead of herself. She then sent the eye into the cave, closing her real eyes and connecting her sight to her remote sensor. There was a chance that the light might aggravate the grey hunter mother, but she doubted the spider would charge out to confront her just for that, or that it could track her down on her tree for that matter.

As it happened, the grey hunter was either very, very bothered by her floating lantern or perhaps perceived it as prey, because the eye had barely ventured into the cave, floating lantern in tow, when a grey blur slammed into it, and Veronica’s awareness was violently wrenched back into her body. Blinking in surprise at her sudden perspective shift, Veronica was then treated to the sight of the grey hunter leaping out of the cave and skittering around the area in search of something.

After 10 seconds or so of observation, Veronica noted two things. First, the grey hunter female didn’t need to sit on her egg sack all day long because she was carrying it on the underside of her abdomen! That was so frustratingly unfair. She retracted everything she said about Silverlake’s task being easier than killing the creature – this was actually way harder, since she was only going to get the eggs by taking them from the hunter’s cooling corpse but had to be cautious when killing her not to damage the (likely much frailer) egg sack.

The second thing she noticed was that the spider was steadily getting closer to her location.

It wasn’t immediately noticeable. Rather than immediately making a beeline towards her, the spider shot off in a random direction for a second, paused for a moment as if reorienting herself, and then shot off in a seemingly random direction again. It would repeat the same stop-and-skitter routine every second, and though the movements seemed random at first, Veronica noted with dread that it was steadily getting closer to her tree as time passed.

So the murder-spider also had hypersensitive senses, now? This was such folly. How on earth had it detected her anyway? She’d even taken the time to set up some camouflage spells and silencing wards around herself just to prevent this exact kind of situation. True, they were fairly weak, to conserve mana, but that shouldn’t have-

She frowned. That was it, wasn’t it? The grey hunter was tracking her through the wards. Its natural prey was said to be other magical creatures. It had a poison specifically designed to counter magic. It probably had some kind of innate magic sense that let it sense its prey over great distances. Rather than shielding her from the grey hunter, the wards she had set up were revealing her location to it. The fact they were so weak was probably the only reason it hadn’t divined her location instantly and was instead reduced to stumbling all over the place in an attempt to locate her.

If so, she was in trouble. She couldn’t do nothing, as the monster would eventually sniff her out. On the other hand, the moment she tried to teleport away, her location would almost certainly be completely blown.

10 seconds later, with the spider getting ever closer and no solution in sight, Veronica decided she would just have to work fast and pray for the best. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she started casting the teleport spell as quickly as she could.

As she feared, the grey hunter reacted immediately. The moment the first word of the chant left her lips, the spider surged towards her, abandoning its previous jerky, uncertain advance. As it sprinted towards her, it angled away from the explosive glyph cluster Veronica had placed on one of the rocks in its path, somehow aware of its existence and function, and launched itself sideways into the air. It landed vertically on the trunk of a nearby tree and immediately launched itself sideways again, bouncing from tree to tree and gaining altitude with each jump, until at last it was both close and high enough to reach Veronica’s location.

Veronica finished the teleport spell and was whisked away in the nick of time. The terrifying vision of a giant spider sailing through the air towards her, front legs extended and huge black fangs poised for a strike, would haunt her nightmares for days to come.

* * *

Following her almost-lethal encounter with the grey hunter, Veronica decided to put Silverlake’s quest on indefinite hold. There were plenty of other people that Kael listed as possible help, after all, and perhaps if she approached her in some other restart and tried again, she’d send her on a less suicidal quest.

It was very frustrating, though. The thought of how thoroughly she had been outclassed by what was fundamentally a dumb beast brought to mind the memory of that final restart in Cyoria when she clashed with Red Robe in the ruins of the aranean settlement. The fact that the grey hunter was a giant spider, just like the aranea, further brought to mind uncomfortable parallels. Despite knowing intellectually that there was no shame in losing to a creature that even famous mages would balk at facing, and that she should be pleased to be even alive, she found herself deeply troubled by her ineffectiveness.

She spent the next day tracking down giant trapdoor spiders, which were similar in size to grey hunters but brown-colored and a great deal less dangerous, before smoking them out of their holes and then killing them in a variety of painful fashions. Their eyes and venom glands sold much better than winter wolf pelts, too. She should do that more often.

Still somewhat in a foul mood, she set out to see if any of Kael’s other contacts were able and willing to assist her. When she arrived in the village where her first candidate lived and was informed by the locals that the man hadn’t been seen in the past two months, she was unconcerned. The man was a retired mage fascinated with familiars – he had six of them as well as a great number of more mundane pets, and was always looking to add another exotic creature to his menagerie. An absence of two months was a bit unusual, but not something to immediately raise an alarm about.

But then other disappearances started accumulating. The old herbalist lady who also sometimes removed curses had simply vanished, and her neighbors had no idea where she went. The two brothers that lived in a tower they built away from civilization and secretly studied soul magic were not present at their home, the gate to their tower broken and the insides stripped bare of anything worthwhile. The priest in the nearby town dedicated to studying the undead and ways to fight them had been found dead in his home four days ago, cause of death unknown. He was young and had no known medical problems or addictions, so foul play was suspected. An alchemist specializing in transformation magic was torn apart outside his village by a pack of unusually aggressive boars. And so on. Only the priest and the alchemist were actually confirmed dead, the others having gone on sudden business trips or just plain gone missing one day, and the disappearances were in a sufficiently large area that no one seemed to have connected them in a single pattern, but Veronica knew this was not accidental.

Someone was deliberately targeting anyone who had some sort of knowledge on soul magic. The only question was whether the missing people were dead or just kidnapped for some purpose.
Thankfully, she finally managed to locate one of the people Kael mentioned to her. Unfortunately, the man in question didn’t actually know any soul magic. Vani was just a scholar, and according to Kael, could probably point her towards someone who does. Probably. The only trick was that Vani liked to talk, meandering from topic to topic as he pleased, and he would refuse to help anyone who was in any way impolite with him. Thus, anyone seeking him out for advice had to be very patient and ready for frequent digressions. Veronica could do patient. She knocked on the door to the man’s home and was promptly ushered inside by Vani, a cheerful older man with a receding hairline who was not at all surprised that someone sought him out for advice.

The inside was… packed. That was the only word that fit, really. Almost every inch of the house was filled with boxes, shelves, and pedestals that held books, statues big and small, plants, and animals preserved in bottles, glass cases that held tiny models or buildings, and other such things. Where the walls were visible, they were usually filled with paintings and drawings. As Vani led them both into his study, Veronica’s view fell on a particularly large and lifelike statue of a naked woman with some rather… bountiful… assets, and she quirked an amused eyebrow at the man.

"It’s a, err, goddess of fertility sort of thing," the man hastened to explain. "Just a temporary thing, a friend of mine sent it to me for safekeeping and you know how it goes. Fascinating stuff. Anyway! Don’t think I don’t know who you are, young lady – you’re the one who has been dealing with all the winter wolves in the region lately!"

"Err, is that a problem?" Veronica asked with a soft yet clear curiosity.

"Problem?" the man laughed. "Just the opposite! Finally someone did something to cull those awful beasts a little. They’re not too bad right now, but come winter they get aggressive and start assaulting travelers and outlying communities. There’s been a number of child disappearances the last few winters, and everyone knows it’s probably the winter wolves at fault. Damn things get bolder with every passing year…"

"How come nobody organized a hunting party yet, then?" asked Veronica gently. The mage guild was pretty much founded to respond to situations like this, after all.

"It snows pretty heavily here in winter, and whole towns can sometimes get cut off from the rest of the world for days, so it’s hard to marshal a response in time. Most of the time no one even finds out there was a crisis until days afterwards, when nothing can be done," Vani tapped the table with his fingers contemplatively, as if considering something. "Or at least, that’s what the hunters and the authorities like to say. Personally, I just think they’re afraid of the Silver One."

"Silver One?" asked Veronica curiously, her interest piqued.

"It’s a rumor. A few years back, when the winter wolves first started acting up, there was an attempt to organize a wide-scale cull and a large hunting party was organized. It ended… poorly. According to stories, several winter wolf packs worked together to lure the hunters into traps, separating them into smaller groups that were then defeated in detail. They acted more like an army than a group of wild animals, and survivors claimed they were led by a huge winter wolf with a shiny silver pelt. The Silver One – an alpha of alphas, as smart as any man and with the power to direct his lesser brothers against humans. There was an official attempt by the Eldemar’s mage guild to locate and eliminate this winter wolf, but they found nothing – neither the silver wolf nor any evidence of multiple packs working together. A lot of the locals are still convinced he exists, though – they say that anyone who goes after the wolves ends up getting confronted by it sooner or later."

"I see," frowned Veronica delicately. "And what do you think?"

"It’s possible, I suppose," admitted Vani. "We live in a crazy world, and you can never really say that something is impossible. It could be a runaway experiment made by some crazy mage in the forest. It could be a new species originating from the Heart of Winter. It could even be a polymorphed mage on some deranged crusade to protect the bloodthirsty monsters from those terrible humans. All I know is that I’m glad someone is not getting intimidated by all the scaremongering floating around…"

It took another 15 minutes until Vani decided to even ask what Veronica came to him for.

"Kael sent me," Veronica said softly. "Or rather, she listed your name as a possible source of advice."

"Kael!" Vani said happily. "Oh, I remember her… shame about what happened to her wife and mother-in-law. The Weeping took so many great people from us. She still has her daughter, though, doesn’t she?" Veronica nodded. "Good. Children are the greatest treasure. Tell her I said that. She helped me write a book, you know? Did she tell you that?"

"She did," Veronica confirmed. Kael had warned her that Vani was a little vain and loved discussing his books, and that it might be a good idea to read one or two. Veronica took this advice and read two of them. The first one, the one that Kael had helped the man write by gathering the accounts of various people in the region, was about the recent history of the region and was mostly a collection of anecdotes, some interesting and amusing and some of them mind-numbingly boring. If it weren’t for Kael’s advice, she never would have gone past the first chapter. "I even read it, as well as one other book."

"Oh?"

"It was titled History of Pre-Ikosian Altazia," Veronica said, considering whether to tell the man the truth or to simply flatter him. She decided to go with the truth for now. "I… it was kind of interesting, but I don’t really agree with a lot of it. My principal complaint is that you keep talking about pre-Ikosian tribes living on Altazia as if they had lived in total vacuum, when the reality was that the entire southern coast of Altazia was dotted with Ikosian colonies and forts stretching back for at least a thousand years. Ikosians were hardly the total aliens to Altazia that you portray them as in your work."

"Ah, but the historical evidence clearly shows that the cultural influence of those coastal states didn’t extend very far inland," pointed out Vani triumphantly.

"That may be strictly true, but Ikosians were vastly more technologically advanced than Altazian tribes in most areas, and I think you’re greatly underestimating the effect of simple technological diffusion on people’s culture…"

Yeah. This was probably going to take a while.

* * *

"Ah, thank you for that," Vani said. They had been talking for several hours at that point, and Vani seemed surprisingly pleased to have met someone who disagreed with his conclusions and was willing to talk about it. Veronica also found out that the man was incredibly well-read and seemed to have memorized half a dozen encyclopedias because he was a font of various trivia. Whatever she thought about the man’s conclusions, he clearly hadn’t arrived at them on a whim. "It’s been a while since I had this kind of discussion with someone. Usually, the kind of people willing to talk to me don’t know enough to challenge me, and the ones that do know enough aren’t interested in talking."

"You flatter me. I don’t really think my opinions have the same weight as yours. I certainly haven’t done even a hundredth of the research you did," Veronica said, her playful smile softening her words. Never hurt to butter people up a little. "But I really shouldn’t waste your time for much longer. I came to you because I wanted your advice on how to find an expert in soul magic."

"Soul magic?" the man asked with a frown.

"It’s a personal issue that I’d rather not talk about," Veronica said, her voice gentle but firm. "Suffice to say I have been hit by a soul magic spell of unknown effects and want to talk to someone about finding out what exactly has been done to me and how to protect myself against any further such events."

"Hmm," Vani hummed. "And Kael sent you to me?"

"You were on the list of people she said could help me. However, you were the only one I could actually locate. The others were… well, it’s very disturbing. Let me tell you about my last couple of days…"

Vani listened to Veronica’s description of disappearances with growing unease, writing down the names and facts that she uncovered on a piece of paper.

"That is indeed very disturbing," Vani agreed when Veronica was finished. "To think that such a thing could happen without everyone realizing it for so long… I will bring this matter to the attention of proper authorities, have no worry about that. It does make me wonder who I can recommend to you when so many of the obvious choices have become, err, unavailable. Let me think about this a little."

Five minutes later, Vani managed to think up a solution.

"Tell me," he asked. "What do you know about shifters?"

"That they’re people who have the ability to turn into animals?" Veronica tried.

"Shifters are people with two souls," Vani said. "Long in the past, the ancestors of the shifters enacted rituals that fused their souls with the souls of their chosen animals, allowing them to take the forms of the animals in question and even access some of the abilities of said animals in their human form. It is a very old form of magic that predates the Ikosian invasion of Altazia, and I’m sad to say that most shifter tribes have lost the knowledge of the original rituals they used to create their kind. These days, they grow in numbers purely through mundane reproduction, with children of shifters inheriting their parents’ dual soul. There exist, however, tribes that retain the knowledge of ritual magic and soul mechanics necessary to perform the ritual in the modern age. While the purpose of such expertise is to turn regular humans into new members of the tribe, it may very well be general enough to help you with your issue."

"I see. And where can I find these shifters?" Veronica asked, her voice calm but curious.

"That," Vani said, spreading his arms in a helpless gesture, "I do not know. Shifter tribes have a checkered history with the, shall we say, civilized communities. They rarely want to be found. But! I do know that there is a fairly powerful wolf shifter tribe living in this region – a tribe that definitely has the expertise you seek. I do not know who you need to talk to in order to meet with their leadership, but I do know that the leader of the tribe sent his daughter to Cyoria to get an education in more modern forms of magic. Raynie is her name, I think. A redhead. Quite the looker, I’m told. Perhaps you can start there?"

Veronica blinked. Raynie is a wolf shifter? That… wow. Yeah, now that she thought about it, there were some things that could point that way.

"Well," said Veronica, rising from her seat with a graceful nod. "You gave me a lot to think about. Thank you for your time."

"Think nothing of it," Vani smiled warmly. "Go deal with a few more winter wolves for me, is all I ask for."

"Wouldn’t a tribe of wolf shifters kind of dislike me for dealing with so many wolves?" Veronica asked with a slight tilt of her head.

"They’re wolf shifters, not winter wolf shifters," Vani said. "I’m pretty sure they don’t like each other much. Winter wolves have a habit of killing their more mundane relatives and invading their territory."

Veronica left after that, her mind buzzing with possibilities as she contemplated her next steps in the restart.
"Back already?" Silverlake asked Veronica, not bothering to look up from her bundle of herbs while addressing her. "I’m not seeing any egg sack on you, though."

"That’s because spider-mommy is carrying her eggs on her underbelly," Veronica replied softly. "The task is impossible. Why would you even send me on such a fool’s errand? Kael said you were eccentric, but ultimately harmless. This isn’t harmless. I almost died."

"If I thought you were the sort to rush in half-co*cked and get your fool self killed by something like that, I never would have sent you on that errand," Silverlake scoffed. "And anyway, isn’t it a bit premature to declare failure after less than a week? I’m patient. I waited for years, I sure as hell can wait for a few months more till you think of something. You’re a smart girl, I’m sure you’ll figure out a way."

Veronica opened her mouth and then closed it. Suddenly, Silverlake's logic sounded a lot more reasonable to her. She didn’t know Veronica was on a month-long time limit, after all. As far as Silverlake was concerned, giving her a task that would take several months to complete was perfectly logical. Where was the hurry? As for the suicidal nature of the task she gave her… apparently, she had more faith in Veronica's skills than she herself did. Did she really give up too soon?

"A few months is too late," Veronica said gently. "Anything that happens after the summer festival might as well not exist for me."

Silverlake finally stopped fiddling with the herb pile and gave Veronica a hard look, her eyes glowing brightly for a moment.

"You’re not dying," she stated. "Not out of sickness, anyway? Someone hunting for you?"

Veronica hesitated, the image of Red Robe dancing before her eyes, and opened her mouth to say yes. Silverlake cut her off, though.

"No, not really," she stated, going back to her herbs. "You have an enemy, but then again who doesn’t?"

Veronica exhaled in irritation and rose up, deciding to leave before she lost her cool and said something regrettable. She’d probably get stomped into the ground, anyway. Just before she teleported away, though, a thought struck her.

To hell with it, she thought. Why not?

"Hypothetically speaking," she said with a touch of mischief. "If you were visited by a time traveler who claimed to know your future self, what would you ask of him as proof?"

"Hypothetically speaking," Silverlake said, her mouth stretching into a cruel grin, "I would have asked him to retrieve a grey hunter egg sack for me."

Throwing her hands in the air in defeat, Veronica teleported back to her inn in Knyazov Dveri, the cackling of a sad*stic old woman echoing behind her.

* * *

In the safety of the room she rented at the inn, Veronica was sitting on the bed, dismantling a rifle she had bought earlier. It was kind of amusing how easy it was to procure a firearm compared to high-level combat magic aids, despite them being just as lethal, but there you had it. They were especially easy to procure here in Knyazov Dveri, which was so close to the wilderness and its dangers. In any case, she was trying to see how the things worked and, more importantly, how they could be enchanted.

Firearms were notoriously tricky to enhance with magic. Like all ranged weapons, they had the problem that you could only enchant the device to be more accurate and durable, and if you wanted the projectile to have any sort of magical effect upon striking the target you had to enchant the projectile itself. Bullets were unfortunately very hard to enchant, being much smaller than arrows and crossbow bolts and usually made from some very magically unsuitable materials. You also couldn’t touch the bullet to channel mana into it once it was already in the gun… though maybe if she installed some crystal mana channels into the gun via alteration…

While she studied the device in front of her, Veronica idly considered ways to rid herself of the grey hunter from earlier. She had no intention of actually trying any of them, as they were more implausible than not, but there was no harm in coming up with scenarios.

Grey hunters had known weaknesses. First of all, they were purely melee opponents—if you could keep them at a distance, there was nothing they could do to you. The trouble was that they were really, really good at closing in on their target. Secondly, they were ultimately just magical animals, so they could be lured into prepared traps and kill zones fairly easily. The problem here was that they were fast and tough enough to probably survive such a blunder. The magic sense the grey hunter demonstrated in Veronica’s first encounter with it probably also helped it avoid the most blatant of such traps.

She could think of several ways to trap it, but most of them required knowledge of spells that she didn’t have. If she knew how to make a simulacrum and open portals, she could simply send in her simulacrum as bait and then open a portal leading to wherever she set the trap up. Hell, simply knowing how to make a simulacrum would make things a million times easier since she could test her ideas without endangering herself. If she knew large terrain alteration spells, she could simply seal it off in its lair and wait for it to suffocate. If she knew spells to manipulate large amounts of water, she might be able to drown it. And so on, and so on…

She also considered poisoning the thing or putting it to sleep or otherwise using some kind of alchemical concoction that would cripple or kill it, but anything potent enough to kill such a beast was heavily restricted and made out of super-rare ingredients and expensive as all hell. She didn’t know how to make anything like that and couldn’t get her hands on something that valuable and forbidden through trade.

She could try brute force and build a golem to take the spider down. Since they were machines animated by magic, they were immune to poison and could be extremely strong—strong enough to crush the stupid spider in a head-to-head fight. Unfortunately, she didn’t know how to build a golem. Any golem at all, let alone one good enough to go toe-to-toe with a grey hunter. The art of golem-making was complicated enough that several Houses were dedicated to mastering it and not something to dabble in for a week or two. Or even a month or two.

Furthermore, even if she knew how to build it, the process of building would take at least a week and probably more, require a specialized workshop, and consume a lot of expensive materials. She would likely bankrupt herself before she was even halfway finished.

Which brought her to firearms. The revolver had worked well against Red Robe when her spells had failed her, after all. No regular firearm would do against the grey hunter, though—she needed something stronger than that. Unfortunately, higher calibers were usually reserved for the military, and she would need to raid a military base and steal one if she wanted to go down that route. That could end very badly—who knew what kind of defenses a military base had, and being captured and interrogated by military investigators while drugged out of her mind on various truth serums was almost as bad as being discovered by a hostile mind mage or a necromancer. Plus, she was pretty sure they had a couple of mind mages and necromancers on the payroll anyway.

Oh, and even if she did find something suitable under lax enough security, there was the matter that it would almost certainly still have to be enchanted, and she couldn’t even figure out how to effectively enchant a simple rifle at the moment. Probably wouldn’t by the end of the restart, either.

A knock on her door woke her up from her musings, and she quickly put the rifle into its box and hid it under the bed. Owning the rifle wasn’t illegal, but she’d still rather not let whomever was looking for her see her tinkering with it. She made sure her shielding bracelet was on, just in case, and then opened the door.

It was Gurey, which did not surprise Veronica all that much. The man had been dutifully buying off any of the various alchemical ingredients and assorted body parts Veronica had gathered in the forest and allowed her to use his workshop when she needed to make some of the trickier potions and magic items. The man had already commissioned a couple of magic items from her, so she expected Gurey’s arrival to be about another commission.

As it turned out, Gurey had another kind of deal in mind. Once the pleasantries were exchanged, he skipped straight to the point.

"I want you to help me rob my rival."

Chapter 30: Chapter 30: A Game of Shops

Chapter Text

"I want you to help me rob my rival."

Veronica blinked in surprise before giving the man an incredulous look. What?

"And… why the heck would I do that?" she asked the man curiously.

Gurey grinned triumphantly. "I knew I was right about you," he said. "You didn’t even pretend to be outraged at the question."

Veronica frowned. "I’m just not a very excitable person, that’s all. It doesn’t mean I’m going to actually help you rob someone," she shot back with a slight edge. "In fact, I can scarcely imagine a situation where I would agree to such a thing. I was just curious what possessed you to broach the topic at all. This isn’t some kind of attempt at blackmail, is it?"

"Oh no, I’d have to be pretty stupid to try and blackmail a woman who hunts winter wolves and giant trapdoor spiders for a living," Gurey assured her quickly. "Not that I have anything worthwhile to blackmail you with, anyway. No, I just felt I had an interesting deal for you and that I had nothing to lose by making an offer. You don’t seem like the sort that would get all high and mighty on me just because I employ a few shady business practices. I figure the worst you’d do is say no."

Veronica was silent for a moment. She supposed that Gurey had her there—even if Veronica actually cared to turn Gurey in, it would still be her word against his. Proving the man’s guilt would be a hassle, Gurey would likely get a mere slap on the wrist even if convicted, and it would lead to far greater scrutiny of Veronica’s activities by nearby powers than she was comfortable with. All in all, it would mean an entire restart wasted on a pointless crusade that had no meaning inside the time loop and would quite possibly attract the attention of the academy authorities—previous restarts had made it clear they were very quick to involve themselves when one of their students had a brush with the law or the police, and she was still technically enrolled there. And if the academy found out about her whereabouts and activities, it was entirely possible Red Robe would also find out about it through cranium rats or his other spies…

No, even if Gurey was planning to murder someone, Veronica would not intervene. A simple theft… well, she wasn’t sure she would actually care all that much even if she wasn’t stuck in the time loop, and she certainly didn’t care at all now.
"Well, the answer is definitely no," said Veronica finally, her voice gentle yet firm. "I know that wanderers like me have a reputation for being opportunistic, but I’m afraid my ethics aren’t quite as flexible as that. I’m not going to stoop to banditry or burglary or whatever it is that you have in mind for this… deal of yours."

"Oh, I don’t think you quite understand what I’m talking about here," Gurey said. "You think I want you to steal something physical and that I’m offering you money in exchange, yes?"

Veronica raised an eyebrow in curiosity.

"Nothing could be further from the truth," Gurey shook his head. "I know better than anyone that you’re raking in too much money at the moment to be tempted by petty burglary. Ethics aside, that’s too much risk for too little gain. No, if this operation goes off without a hitch – and I think you’re capable enough to pull it off – there will be nothing missing and no indication that a crime has occurred at all." He leaned towards Veronica conspiratorially and whispered the next part. "You see, what I’m trying to steal is not material wealth, but secrets."

Oh. Oh! That changed things considerably. While Veronica still wasn’t keen on getting involved in Gurey’s deal, she at least understood why he seemed so comfortable discussing such an offer with her. Spying on other mages was technically illegal, but everyone knew it was a widespread and universal practice. Some stories even suggested every Noble House worth its name had a division dedicated to such espionage. You just had to ensure you weren’t caught. Even the academy, which generally tried to paint a rosy picture of mage culture, admitted that professional espionage occurred all the time. Some of it was entirely legal, such as analyzing a rival’s products and spellwork with divination spells, or examining publicly available documents to see if they’d inadvertently let something sensitive slip by... but such legal methods were usually very limited, and mages often resorted to more underhanded means. Bribing assistants and apprentices into divulging their master’s secrets, hiring burglars to raid archives and research notes, dedicated scrying campaigns, seduction plots... the possibilities were endless, and new ones were devised every day, along with countermeasures for such.

Veronica recalled a particular fable that spoke of two mages who spent years devising ways to steal each other’s secrets and thwart the other’s attempts to do the same. Eventually, after a decade of back-and-forth, they both succeeded in reaching each other’s inner sanctum at the same time... only to find out that neither had any secrets worth stealing. They had spent so much time and effort trying to one-up each other that they’d never gotten any actual work done.

Well, that was an obvious exaggeration, but it honestly wouldn’t surprise Veronica to find out that every magical business (and quite a few non-magical ones) in Knyazov Dveri engaged in at least a little bit of illegal espionage as a matter of course. The business world was a cutthroat environment. Veronica knew from her parents' stories that even seemingly simple and honest farmers were willing to renege on their contracts if they thought they could get away with it. To someone like Gurey, this sort of thing was probably just business as usual.

But it wasn’t business as usual for Veronica. And frankly, Gurey was completely right when he said that the whole thing was a huge risk for little gain. She opened her mouth to give Gurey a firm (but polite) refusal, but was interrupted when Gurey pushed a brown, leather-bound book into her hands.

Veronica looked at the book in surprise for a second, idly wondering why it had no title, before giving Gurey a searching look. The man motioned her to open it.

Veronica did, and promptly found herself leafing through pages of handwritten notes and complicated diagrams. It was a journal of some sort. That’s why the book had no title or markings. A research journal of some mage, if she had to guess.

"What is this?" she asked, giving Gurey a suspicious look.

"A sample," Gurey said with a grin. "As I said, I know it would be foolish of you to do something like this for money – well, for the sums I am able to pay you, at least – so I came up with something that will hopefully be more attractive to you. Feel free to peruse that thing at your leisure and then come see me in my store tomorrow to give me an answer. Just remember, there is more where that came from!"

Gurey then immediately left, leaving Veronica alone with the mysterious journal. Curious, she opened the book at the beginning to see if it perhaps had a title written on the first page. The first few pages were blank, but she did reach the title page in the end.

Breaking and bypassing wards and other magical defenses, it said. By Aldwin Rofoltin.

Rofoltin? That would be Gurey’s deceased business partner, wouldn’t it? Intrigued, Veronica sat down on the edge of her bed and began to read.

* * *

Having read through Rofoltin’s book, Veronica had to admit she was feeling a little… underwhelmed? It wasn’t a bad book by any means, but by the way Gurey had presented it, she’d expected more. As it was, the most useful thing she found inside was the step-by-step instruction of how to build your very own magic-analysis goggles, complete with a spell formula blueprint. That was convenient, as she had been meaning to build one of those for a while now, and there were no publicly available creation manuals on the topic that she could find – the spell formula blueprint alone probably saved her a restart-worth of work.

Other than that, there was little of real use in there… but perhaps that was what Gurey had been aiming for. It was a sample, as he said, meant to entice Veronica into cooperation by alluding to the possibility of granting her access to the rest of Rofoltin’s books. If Gurey’s old partner had five other books like that, and each one had just one useful thing like the goggle thing, that was a couple of months of saved time right there. And if Gurey was keeping the good stuff for the end, like Veronica suspected… tempting. Far more tempting than she’d thought this would be.

Shaking her head at her own greed, she locked her room behind her and set off in the direction of Gurey’s shop. She would have to check with the man what exactly he expected of her, but… chances were she was going to say yes. In truth, this sort of thing wasn’t that far off from what she had been planning to do on her own at some point. Chances were that she was going to have to learn how to break into people’s homes and spy on mages sooner or later – gathering information about the time loop, Red Robe, and soul magic was bound to require it at some point. At least this way she would get some guidance from someone who’d done it before, get a chance to practice her skills on what was probably a far less difficult target, and get paid for it to boot.

Realizing she was in no hurry to actually confront Gurey, Veronica eventually slowed down and decided to take the scenic route to the place. She idly observed the people and buildings as she wandered the town, suddenly aware that she knew very little about the place, despite living in it for a while now. She had been so busy with other things that actually exploring Knyazov Dveri sort of slipped her mind. She hadn’t even perused the town’s Dungeon access, though that one was intentional – she had decided to hold back on doing that until she had a chance to judge how much of her time and attention her other tasks in this restart would take and ultimately decided to leave that for some other restart. The Dungeon wasn’t going anywhere. In any case, now that she had taken the time to explore the town a little, she could say with some certainty that she hadn’t missed much. She had already visited most of the shops to determine what the best price for the ingredients she was gathering was, and aside from that, the town was fairly average. It was similar to Cyoria in the sense that it was clearly a city that had experienced rapid growth in recent times – the old core of the city was easily recognizable by the single-story buildings painted in the traditional yellow color that usually signified Eldemar’s native architecture, while subsequent layers radiating from it had newer, multi-story buildings. Other than that, she hadn’t noticed anything particularly noteworthy, though she would have to set aside some days for exploration just to be certain.

Finally, she reached the building that proudly proclaimed it housed a business establishment known as Cwili and Rofoltin Equipment and walked inside. The little bell attached to the door rang out as Veronica entered, notifying Gurey of her arrival – a solution surprisingly devoid of magic for a magic store – and the portly man soon poked his head from the back room he was currently in to see what he was dealing with. His eyes lit up immediately when he recognized Veronica.

"I’ll be with you in a second!" the man yelled before getting back to whatever he was working on in the back. Veronica took the chance to study the shop a bit while she waited.

Just like the first time she had been here, she was once again struck by how diverse the products sold by Gurey’s store were: he offered everything from wilderness-appropriate attire to various magic items, potions, survival guides, dried herbs, and other magical materials used by alchemists and artificers, and so on. And actually, it was even more impressive than it first appeared – Veronica knew from her previous talks with the man that Gurey actually offered a great deal more than what was displayed on the shelves of his store, so long as the customer seeking them was properly vouched for or knew how to ask the right questions.

Gurey once told a story about a customer who tried to buy the decorative potted plants he strategically placed around the shop to liven up the place, and while Veronica understood Gurey’s mirth at the incident, she also understood how someone might have decided they were for sale. With all the other things Gurey was selling, it really wouldn’t have surprised Veronica to find out that he dealt in potted plants as well.

"Ah, Veronica, my friend..." said Gurey, walking out from the back and approaching her. "Did you read it? An interesting book, isn’t it?" he prodded.

"It was... somewhat useful," said Veronica noncommittally. "Not much on its own, but if there really are a couple more where that came from, it might actually be worthwhile for me to work with you on your... problem."

Gurey frowned, apparently expecting her to be more impressed with his partner’s work. He opened his mouth to speak, but Veronica interrupted him.

"Before we discuss this any further, I’d prefer if we move to somewhere more private. Do you have a room I could set up some basic privacy wards in?"

"I have better," Gurey said smugly, quickly shaking off his previous disappointment. "I have a room with privacy wards already present… and not just the basic ones, either. Follow me."
He led Veronica to a small, inconspicuous room with a single desk and two chairs… a room whose walls, floor, and ceiling were full of magical glyphs and geometric shapes made out of crystallized mana. Gurey placed his hand on one of the circles, and the whole complicated spell formula pulsed twice in bright blue light before becoming seemingly inert. Veronica wasn’t fooled, though – those pulses signified the more mana-intensive portions of the ward scheme becoming active. Much like many powerful warding schemes, the one she was looking at had two modes – the normal, mana-conserving one powered indefinitely from its mana source and the advanced, super-charged one that burned through mana faster than the ambient mana levels could provide, but was far more effective for the time it was active. The sound of Gurey clearing his throat jolted her out of her thoughts, and she realized she had been studying the wards for quite a while now. Oops.

"Is this one also somewhat useful?" asked Gurey with a smirk when he realized he had Veronica’s attention again.

"No, this is quite impressive," Veronica admitted in a gentle tone. "Is this also made by your former partner?"

"Yes," Gurey nodded. "He was quite good at this. Setting up wards, I mean. Also breaking and bypassing them, but I understand those two are related. Learn how to make a ward and you’re 90% there to figuring out how to defeat it."

"That’s the conventional wisdom, yes," agreed Veronica. She decided not to dance around the issue any longer. "So… I’m guessing your former partner was your go-to person for these kinds of deals in the past, and now that he’s dead, you need to find someone else to do your dirty work."

"My, you’re direct," Gurey laughed nervously. "But you’ve hit the nail on the head, more or less. You see… magic was never my thing, as strange as that may sound from an owner of a magic shop. That was always Aldwin’s thing – he was the one that worried about the spellcasting part of the business, while I was always more comfortable on the more mundane, civilian side of things. Making contacts, closing deals, finding new business partners, that kind of thing. I’m a really terrible mage when it comes down to it. I can barely cast anything at all."

Veronica gave him a curious look, her gentle eyes assessing. "I’m pretty sure I saw you manipulate mana plenty of times, and activating the greater privacy mode of this room couldn’t have possibly been a matter of just channeling mana into that circle."

"Oh, I was always very good at using magic items," Gurey said. "You don’t need to be a proper mage to do that. Lots of practice and some specialized shaping exercises, and you’re set. If you’re fairly wealthy like me and live on a mana well, you can even commission items that draw power from the ambient mana instead of from my reserves… but we both know there are severe drawbacks to such items, and this sort of job really needs a proper spellcaster."

Veronica nodded thoughtfully. She had been considering the possibility of using self-casting magic items to make up for her below-average mana reserves for a while now, but there were a lot of problems with it. The core, inescapable issue was that souls of spellcasters were pretty damn good at spellcasting, while even the best-made magic items… weren’t. Making an item that allowed the caster to skip some of the steps during spellcasting was simple enough, but creating something that was capable of casting a spell entirely on its own upon command? Hard. Possibly very hard, or even impossible, depending on what spell you were trying to imprint into the item. Warding schemes and one-use magic items like her suicide explosive cubes got around the issue by having the maker cast the spell during creation, after which the spell formula simply stabilized it and kept it from degrading, but that workaround wasn’t very useful for the majority of spells.

And then there was the issue of powering said items. Not every place had much in the way of ambient mana, and even places that did often couldn’t provide the amount necessary for the spell at once. That meant that most self-casting items needed an internal mana battery, which brought a whole host of problems of its own. No battery was totally efficient and reliable – they all leaked mana in varying amounts, and could easily blow up if overcharged or poorly constructed. And that was without even getting into the number of actual combat spells that were specifically designed to make mana batteries blow up from internal pressure.

All in all, the creation of self-casting items was something that Veronica put squarely into the probably not worth it category. She wasn’t nearly good enough with spell formula currently to pull it off, and even if she were, it was still a very difficult sub-field of magic item creation that gave very dubious gains. Though she did eventually intend to track down a blueprint for a blasting rod – probably the simplest of self-casting items that blasted whatever it was pointed at with a torrent of barely-constrained energy, usually fire. A fittingly named item, and one of the few self-casting items that was known to be reliable and effective in actual combat, at least at close range. It was not a priority, however – such an item would be more of a last resort, side-arm sort of weapon than something to build her skills around.

"I’m not as useless at this sort of cloak-and-dagger stuff as you might think, though," Gurey said. "As I said, Aldwin was the spellcaster, but I was the one who identified the targets. You can’t spy on a threat unless you know they are a threat, after all. And I was always very good at spotting who our competition was and keeping an eye on their activities. People underestimate how much information you can get simply by being well-connected and giving a few expensive gifts to people."

"You mean bribes," said Veronica.

"Veronica, my friend, you have much to learn," Gurey said, shaking his head. "Bribes are illegal. There is no law against generosity. Giving that bottle of expensive wine to your drinking buddy or inviting someone to that fancy annual dance that they’ve always wanted to attend is just being nice and no one can prove otherwise."

"Right," Veronica sighed, a slight smile playing on her lips. "I guess I shouldn’t talk, since I’m willing to go along with your plans. And speaking of which, why don’t we get back to the reason we’re here in the first place. What exactly do you want from me and what are you offering?"

"Very well. I presume you know about Vazen’s General Store?"

"The biggest magic-related shop in town?" asked Veronica.

"That one, yes. Cwili and Rofoltin Equipment was once bigger and able to compete with them on a more equal footing, but since the death of my partner two years ago, those days have passed. Recently they have closed a deal with another company from Cyoria, but they have been silent about the contents of the deal. Everyone knows they have bought a bunch of spell formula schematics, alchemical recipes, and production licenses, so it’s obvious they intend to seriously branch out into the production side of the business, but the exact details have been successfully kept secret. That is a problem. Depending on what Vazen intends to produce, some things are going to decline sharply in value, while the price of the raw materials used to make them goes up to a similar degree."

"I see. You need to see what your rival will release so that you can prepare for the impact it will have on the market," mused Veronica.

"Well, that and so that I can see if it is possible to counter his move in some fashion," Gurey said.

"I suppose you know where I can find that information?" Veronica asked. "Not in the shop itself, I hope. That place is bound to be heavily warded."

"It’s not nearly as warded as you might think – some basic counters to stop teleportation and divination, and that’s about it. But the place is always manned, even during the night, so you’re right that they’re not something you’d want to tangle with. Fortunately, you don’t have to. In the end, Vazen’s own paranoia is his undoing – I have found out that instead of keeping the documents in his heavily guarded shop, he has brought them into his much less protected home. Apparently, he doesn’t even trust his own employees."

"How protected is his home?" asked Veronica.

"Well, my information might be a little outdated since I got it two and a half years ago, from my then-living partner who scouted the entire building, but I doubt much has changed. It has an anti-divination ward and all the doors and windows have intruder alarms, and that’s it. The documents themselves are kept in a safe, though, and that is bound to have much more serious defenses."

"Not too bad of a setup, to be honest," Veronica said after thinking about it for a minute. "The divination ward stops casual espionage and makes it impossible to just scry-and-teleport inside, while the alarms on entrances make it impossible to simply sneak inside without magic."

Covering only the entrances with the wards was a common mana-conserving measure. True, it made the wards useless if the attackers could phase through walls or were willing to make their entrance by blowing a hole in the building, but thieves capable of phasing through solid matter had bigger fish to fry than robbing small-time shop owners, and blasting holes in the walls would defeat the point of trying to acquire the information undetected.

"You can teleport, though, right?" asked Gurey. "I mean, I’m sure you can – the speed of movement over large distances you’ve demonstrated pretty much requires it – but how good are you at it?"

"I can teleport," Veronica said hesitantly. She didn’t think she was making it that obvious, though she supposed she couldn’t keep leaving in the morning and coming back before the sun set with things only found deep in the forest without someone questioning just how she was doing it. "I’m getting pretty good at it, in my opinion. It takes me a while to shape the spell, but I can consistently pull it off."

"Excellent. The intruder alarms shouldn’t be much of a problem, then," Gurey said with a grin. "Aldwin had this neat trick where he could turn an item into a teleport beacon of sorts, and then simply teleport himself to its location without having to have been there in the past. I’m sure I can get some innocuous-seeming thing through the door, you just have to cast the spell on it. I don’t know how to cast the spell myself, but Aldwin did write it down in one of his journals…"

"Spell, you say? No spell formula involved?" asked Veronica curiously.

"No. Spell of recall, I think it’s called. It’s a two-part spell – you first cast a personal teleport beacon on an item, and it immediately forges a connection between you and it. You can then cast the second spell at any time, causing yourself to be recalled at the location of the item. According to Aldwin, it was meant to be used for rapid escape – you cast the first spell on a retreat point and then use the second spell to teleport there if you end up in a bind."

"Why not use a regular teleport for that?" frowned Veronica. "Sounds like a lot of trouble when a normal teleport will suffice. After all, you’ve already been to the location you’re teleporting to if you’re setting it up as a retreat point."
"I really don’t know. You will have to find that out yourself if you’re interested," Gurey said.

"Hm. So assuming this spell works as advertised and you can smuggle something in like you said you would, I just have to defeat the protection on the safe to get to the documents."

"Yes. That part will be all you, since I have no idea where it is or what protections it has," confirmed Gurey.

Veronica stared at the man for a while before taking a deep breath. Her slender, graceful build seemed even more elegant in the dim light, as her long ponytail swayed slightly with her movements.

"Lovely. Unfortunately for you, I am not the professional ward breaker you seem to think I am," she told Gurey with a soft, but firm tone. "When you said you wanted my help with this, I had thought I would just play support or something. Something like this is, to put it bluntly, out of my league. I’m sorry, but unless there is something you’re not telling me, there is no way I’d be able to pull this off."

Gurey leaned forward and gave her a conspiratorial grin. "Even if I gave you Aldwin’s spellbook and his notes on how the spells are meant to be used?"

Veronica blinked, surprised by the unexpected offer. "What?"

Two hours later, Veronica left Gurey’s shop with three new books under her arm. They had agreed to make the attempt at the documents three days before the summer festival. This was to give Veronica time to practice the spells in Aldwin’s spellbook and, should the whole thing go awry, Veronica would only lose three days of the restart.

Veronica hummed to herself in satisfaction as she walked back to the inn, her long skirt swishing softly with each step. It was nice to catch a windfall from time to time. After the whole annoyance with Silverlake and the mysterious disappearance of soul magic practitioners, she had begun to think that this whole restart had been a giant waste of time. Now… well, at least she’d gotten some shiny new spells out of it, ones of the sort that she could never have acquired through any legal avenue. Things were looking up.

* * *

After her talk with Gurey, time passed quickly. It was challenging to practice the spells found in Aldwin’s spellbook, as most of them only interacted with wards and required an actual warding scheme as a target. Thankfully, Veronica had managed to find a warded house whose owner had left on a trip, allowing her to practice on it to her heart’s content, provided she kept out of sight of the main road. She also occasionally warded objects herself for practice purposes, usually when practicing the more destructive spells, but that just wasn’t the same as interacting with an unknown ward.

Surprisingly, Gurey was also willing to have Veronica practice the spells on his shop’s warding scheme, so long as she didn’t do anything permanent. Veronica wondered about that. All things considered, Gurey was being far too accommodating to her. She suspected that the portly man thought of her as an investment and hoped to turn her into a more long-term asset, and as such was rather more generous to Veronica than he otherwise would have been, but she had no way to be sure. There did not seem to be anything malicious about it, so she mostly ignored it and tried to be simply grateful for her good fortune.

There were essentially three ways of dealing with wards. The first one was to starve the ward out, depriving it of mana until it simply fell apart. The second was to identify a way to disrupt its structure, causing it to fail on the spot. And finally, the third one was to trick it into not activating in the first place. Siphoning, breaking, and bypassing were the terms used in literature for the three methods. Each one had its advantages and disadvantages, but for the task Gurey entrusted her with, she would have to rely on bypassing the wards on the safe.

Siphoning had the advantage that it always worked – every ward could be siphoned to death with enough time and effort, it was just a question if the attacker was willing to devote the necessary resources for the task. Some wards could last for months after being isolated from their power sources, even when actively drained of mana during the isolation. Unfortunately, it required that the attacker have complete control of the area around the ward, as siphoning operations were difficult to set up and maintain – anything less than total control made it too easy for the defender to wreck the setup. It was mostly used for sieges and bringing down legacy wards that had outlived their usefulness.

Breaking was the fastest method of neutralizing wards – just disrupt the structure of the ward and let it collapse on itself. Unfortunately, many wards collapsed explosively or had other unpleasant side effects if simply broken, often resulting in the destruction of the warded thing and sometimes the one doing the breaking as well. A lot of wards were also simply too powerful to be broken by a single mage, or even a group of mages, unless the attacker had identified a particularly glaring weakness. So all in all, breaking a ward was often not possible, and, even more often, not desirable even if the possibility existed. Still, if one wanted to get rid of a ward quickly and had power to spare, breaking the ward was the way to go.

Finally, there was bypassing the wards – the preferred way of dealing with them, if at all possible. If the attacker knew how the ward functioned, either because they had been given access to the schematics of the warding scheme or because they had analyzed its structure via divination spells, they could take care not to activate any of the triggers that made the ward recognize there was a problem to be countered. Depending on how the ward functioned, it might even be possible to put additional layers on top of it to neutralize it completely. If an attacker wanted to keep their intrusion secret, bypassing the wards was a must, as it was the only method that left the wards intact after they were done.

Since the idea was to leave no trace of her home invasion, she obviously couldn’t break or siphon the wards on the safe – she had to trick her way past them and leave them intact. There were lots of ways to do that in the books Gurey had given her, since Aldwin was primarily interested in that sort of solution to the wards himself, but until Veronica took an actual look at the safe she couldn’t tell which ones she should use. So she settled on simply practicing all of them.

As the date of the summer festival approached, Veronica decided to visit Vani one more time to see if the man had any news on the missing soul mages. He didn’t, though he admitted he hadn’t tried to find out anything about that very hard. It was a matter for law enforcement, Vani had claimed, and getting involved would just paint them as suspects. He was probably right, and Veronica knew there was no point in snooping around now that the case was being investigated by the police, but she definitely intended to launch a personal investigation in future restarts to see what was going on there.

Vani had asked her whether she had found the shifter tribe, but Veronica admitted that she sort of gave up on that. She couldn’t go to Raynie, as she was in Cyoria, and nobody else could direct her where to go. Or maybe they could, but didn’t want to – the result was the same in either case. Besides, she was skeptical in regard to how much they could actually help with her issue.

Finally, the day had come. Gurey had managed to get a small plaque inside Vazen’s house by stuffing it inside an envelope and mailing it to the man along with some ridiculous advertisem*nt. Veronica couldn’t believe that had actually worked, but it had, and now they just had to wait for the man to go to work before she could teleport inside and search for the safe. Vazen was a 40-year-old bachelor, so there was supposed to be no one in the house with him gone, but Veronica had prepared a set of concealing clothes for herself anyway (that she intended to throw away immediately after the operation) and was willing to teleport out at the first sign of trouble.

After an hour of waiting, Vazen left the house, and Veronica teleported inside. Gurey remained outside under an invisibility field, acting as a lookout – if he spotted Vazen coming back, he would press a button on the stopwatch Veronica had given him, which would cause a ring on Veronica’s hand to heat up.

The house was, thankfully, completely empty… but also completely lacking in safes, warded or otherwise. Even after she’d added an additional layer to the wards in order to exclude the inside of the house from the anti-divination ward, her spells still gave no results… probably because the safe was itself warded against divinations. Frustrating. It was obviously hidden behind something, but Veronica couldn’t figure out where. There were no hollow walls, secret hatches beneath the carpet, places where the floor was scraped due to constant movement of furniture, and so on. Just as Veronica was about to give up and hit the books for an exotic divination spell that could work despite the ward, she finally found it. It was in the fireplace, of all things – if she hadn’t noticed how relatively clean it was (and reminisced about how much she hated cleaning the one back home in Cirin), it would have never occurred to her to look there.

The fireplace was not built for convenient access, so interacting with it was rather annoying – the safe was positioned to the left, making it impossible to actually see the lock without the use of a mirror. Still, that was just an inconvenience, not a real obstacle. She began casting analysis spells at the ward that protected the safe, trying to find a way past them.

She had just enough time to register that there was a very weak, localized ward present in the fireplace before she was forced to jump back and erect a shield in front of her. A deafening explosion erupted from the fireplace, enveloping the whole room in blinding, choking ash as the ward triggered the explosive trap in response to detecting her analysis spell. Her shield protected her from the blast, but the ash cloud was hell on her lungs.

She teleported out, grabbed Gurey and then teleported again – this time away from Vazen’s house. The operation was a bust.

* * *

In the aftermath of the botched operation, the whole idea had been scrapped. Security was bound to go up now that Vazen knew there was someone after the documents, and Veronica didn’t fancy going against the new and improved defenses when even the old ones nearly killed her. Gurey was, if anything, even more shaken about the whole thing than Veronica was. He apologized profusely for the whole episode and ranted about how such lethal traps were illegal and how he couldn’t believe Vazen would employ such a thing, which Veronica found more than a little amusing. It helped explain why Vazen seemingly didn’t bother to report the break-in to the police, though.

Personally, Veronica was feeling pretty annoyed with herself. Despite what Gurey seemed to think, this was all on her. She really should have checked the fireplace for traps. Hell, she should have checked the whole house for those! Just because Gurey had said there were no other defenses didn’t mean she should have taken it for granted. The man had even said his information was outdated…
Well, no matter – Veronica got some nifty spells out of the whole thing and she knew what to watch out for in subsequent restarts. She thought about confronting the grey hunter at the end of the restart, but then decided against it. She would have just died messily, and she’d had enough brushes with death in this particular restart. She went to sleep and woke up with her sister wishing her a good morning.

Chapter 31: Chapter 31: Marked

Chapter Text

Veronica stared at the grinning face of her opponent, her own face a blank, expressionless mask. This was it. This last round would decide who the victor was, no question about it. Her opponent thought he had Veronica backed into a corner, but Veronica had a secret weapon – she had already peered into the man’s thoughts and knew that she had already won. The rules of the card game were pretty clear, after all.

"Twelve of pumpkins," Veronica said, placing her last card on the table. The man’s face instantly lost its grin. Veronica tried to keep a cool façade, but she probably smiled at least a little.

"Motherf- How are you this lucky!?" the man cursed, slapping down his own card on top of the stack – a measly seven of oaks, not nearly enough to win – and taking a swig from the glass of hard liquor next to him. He drank way too much in Veronica’s opinion, his thoughts steadily growing more and more muddied to her mental probes as time went by… and while that did make him harder to read via psychic powers, it also made him progressively worse at playing the game. She probably didn’t even need to cheat to win the last two games, but cheating was kind of the whole point – she joined the card game to practice her mind reading skills in a real environment, not to win money off hapless victims.

"Well, this is it for me," Veronica said, standing up. "It was fun and all, but I really have to get going now."

"Hey, you can’t just leave now," the man protested, frowning at her. "That’s not how it’s done! You have to give me a chance to win my money back!"

"Orinus, you’re drunk," one of the other men at the table said. The two of them had dropped out three games ago, but they still stuck around to talk, drink, and act as judges and money holders. "You didn’t lose anything. It’s the kid who just got back the money she lost to you in the previous game. Nobody has to pay anyone anything."

"Yeah, the last five games have basically been for nothing," the other man piped in.

Veronica nodded. Even with mind reading on her side, some hands were just unwinnable. Besides, she purposely threw a couple of games so as to not arouse suspicions of cheating in her partners. "We’re both even at this point, and I really have to get going, so it’s a perfect place to stop," she said. "Still, if you’re that desperate for a rematch, I can always relieve you of your money some other day. I’ll be staying in the town for a whole month anyway."

"You relieve me of my money, ha! The only reason you haven’t ended up in your underwear is that you’re immune to my secret technique!" Orinus half-shouted.

The other man snorted in amusem*nt. "Getting the newbie drunk is a secret technique, now?"

"Hey man, don’t reveal all my tricks to outsiders… what kind of friend are you?" Orinus protested.

After a few more minutes of bickering and refused offers of alcoholic beverages, Veronica finally managed to excuse herself. Ignoring Orinus’s muttered questioning of Veronica’s femininity due to her refusal to drink anything remotely alcoholic, she left the inn and started searching the streets of Knyazov Dveri for an out-of-the-way corner she could teleport from without being seen. The game had been both unexpectedly fun and useful for her mind magic training, but she hadn’t been lying when she had said she had to get going. Timing was crucial for what she intended to do.

In the previous restart, she learned that most of the soul mages on Kael’s list had disappeared or died recently. That was, of course, highly suspicious – there was a good chance the whole thing was somehow connected to the time loop, which meant she had to know more about it. Sadly, during the last restart, she had made the mistake of telling Vani about the disappearances, and she had raised enough of an alarm to have the police crawling everywhere around potential clue-sites. Consequently, Veronica had been forced to set the issue aside and wait for the next restart to conduct her own investigation.

Which is exactly what she did, the moment she woke up in Cirin and could leave without making Mother and Kirielle throw a fit. As she suspected, virtually all of the soul mages had been already gone, even on that very first day. Whatever had happened to them had been going on for far longer than the time loop existed, it seemed. There were only two exceptions: the two mages that were confirmed dead in the previous restart were alive and well at the start of the new one. The first one, a priest named Alanic Zosk specializing in fighting undead, had simply been found dead with no obvious cause a few days into the restart. The second one was Lukav Teklo, an alchemist specializing in transformation magic. He had been killed by boars not far from his home, on the evening of the second day of the restart.

Naturally, Veronica intended to talk with both of them, which necessitated saving their lives. The alchemist was a priority, as he died sooner and the cause of death was known and easily preventable. Thus her hurry to leave the game – if she timed things correctly, she would arrive at the man’s home an hour or two before his fateful stroll outside the village. If she mistimed things or her actions somehow caused the alchemist to accelerate his schedule… well, there were always future restarts. It’s not like the man would die for good.

She could have contacted the man sooner to warn him, she supposed, but how would she explain her knowledge of the attack? She’d just make herself look suspicious. And besides, she actually wanted the attack to happen. She doubted those were regular boars that attacked him, so she wanted to examine them up close… and also, the man was bound to be a lot more helpful if he met Veronica as a savior who protected him from a vicious pack of boars than if she just showed up at the man’s door with no warning.

After teleporting just outside the man’s house and making sure the alchemist was still in his house, Veronica settled in for a wait, making sure to keep out of sight of any windows. If there was anything that tiny villages like this one never had a shortage of, it was nosy old people who had nothing better to do except watch the streets for anything out of the ordinary. Honestly, some of the old women back in Cirin spent practically every waking moment glued to their window sills, making note of everyone that passed through their domain… she lost count of the number of times they got her into trouble with her parents when she had foolishly forgotten to account for their presence.

She didn’t have to wait long. Barely half an hour after she had settled in to wait, the alchemist left his house. It was a good thing she had come early, then. Veronica promptly cast an invisibility spell on herself and then started following after the man some distance away. Hopefully, she remained far enough that the man would not find it suspicious when Veronica burst onto the scene at the first sign of trouble, but that couldn’t be helped. She didn’t feel comfortable putting even more distance between the two of them, lest the man be killed before she could come to his aid. Depending on how oblivious and combat-capable the man was, he could get overwhelmed in seconds.

And the attack itself was bound to happen any moment now. The report she saw in the last restart said the man was killed just outside the village, and Lukav had immediately made a beeline towards the main road leading to the next settlement. Cautiously, Veronica drew her spell rod and strained her mind sense to the limit in order to find the attackers before they could strike.

She found nothing out of the ordinary and was thus just as shocked as the alchemist when a bunch of boars burst out of the tree line and charged the man. They both froze for a second, and before either could react, the boars had already closed half of the distance to the alchemist.

Embarrassingly enough, the alchemist reacted first. With a practiced movement, he threw a bottle of some sort into the path of the approaching horde and immediately dropped on the ground. Lacking the alchemist’s reflexes and thinking herself too far to be affected by the bomb, Veronica opted to simply drop invisibility and erect a shield in front of her as a precaution. That turned out to be a mistake, as the deafening explosion of light and sound left her dazed and blinking spots out of her vision for the next few seconds.

When she did recover, she saw that the bomb’s effect on the boars themselves had been underwhelming – they had been thrown about by the blast (as had the alchemist himself, having misjudged the distance somewhat in his panic), and the leading boar that had been caught in the center of the blast had been blown to bits, but the others were already up on their feet and converging on their target. Even the one with a broken leg was stubbornly stumbling towards the dazed, bleeding alchemist, undeterred by what should have been excruciating pain.

They made no sounds, they were unafraid of loud sounds and bright lights, and completely ignored severe injuries like they were nothing. So much for the idea that they were ordinary animals. Oh well, she kind of suspected it was something like this. Acting quickly to stop them from killing the other man, she cast a swarm of 5 magic missiles at the boars closest to the downed alchemist. Smashers instead of piercers; if she was right about what these things really were, holes in their bodies wouldn’t even slow them down. The missiles were there just to knock them away from their target and give Veronica time to cast another, more unorthodox spell that she didn’t put in her spell rod. Oh, and possibly shift their attention towards her instead, though she didn’t think anything could make them switch targets. They were clearly sent to kill a specific man.

The smashers hit the boars in their flanks, sending them tumbling. As she suspected, they immediately scrambled to get up as if nothing happened, and the other four kept running towards the alchemist. She had finished her spell before they could reach him, however, causing a large shining disc of force to materialize between her hands.

The severing disc was a powerful cutting spell that was surprisingly mana efficient and allowed the caster to pilot the disc, changing its flight path at will. Taiven had not thought much of it, as it was not a fire-and-forget sort of combat spell, requiring constant concentration from the mage to keep existing. And it moved pretty slowly for a magical projectile, too. According to Taiven, competent mages would dispel the disc before it could reach them or otherwise evade it, and the caster is something of a sitting duck while directing the disc.
But the boars couldn’t dispel it, and had no ranged attacks to take advantage of her lack of shields. At Veronica’s direction, the disc shot forward, flying close to the ground – at the height that Veronica judged to be around knee-height for the boars. Veronica’s fears that she had overestimated the power of the disc and that it would not be able to cut through the bones of tough animals like the boars proved completely unfounded – the disc encountered the legs of the first boar and simply passed through with no visible resistance. In its wake, the boar fell apart, its legs separated from its torso. Directed by Veronica, the disc continued towards the rest of them.

In the end, it was a close thing. On one hand, the boars didn’t even try to dodge, charging in straight lines that made them easy to intercept with the disc. On the other hand, Veronica had not practiced the spell in question particularly heavily, so she missed two boars on her first pass. Thankfully, the alchemist had recovered by this point and helpfully dealt with the two stragglers by causing an arc of spear-like spikes to erupt from the ground in front of him with some kind of alteration spell. The boars were so insistent on getting to him as fast as possible that they impaled themselves on the makeshift rampart and got stuck.

Veronica let the disc dissipate with a gentle sigh. That was a win, yes, but she wasn’t satisfied with her performance. She’d frozen at the start, and her mastery of the severing disc spell left much to be desired. But what was done was done, and at least she achieved what she came here to do. Time to face the music. She set off towards the alchemist, who was kneeling on the ground and alternating between staring at approaching Veronica and at the still twitching, legless boars not far from him.

She frowned at them as she approached. They had no minds, she realized. That was why she didn’t detect them until they attacked – as far as her mind sense was concerned, they didn’t exist. Coupled with the fact they were still alive with their limbs cut off and that their wounds didn’t bleed at all, the conclusion was obvious.

Her hunch had been right: they were definitely undead. As far as she knew, the only beings that counted as mindless for the purposes of mind magic were oozes, golems, creatures under the Mind Blank spell, and the so-called mindless undead. The boars were clearly neither golems nor oozes, and she doubted Mind Blank was involved. It would also explain why they seemed to have no blood and felt no pain or hesitation.

"Are you alright there? You kind of took the worst of that blast," said Veronica, shifting her attention towards the man she came here to save. Now that she was close to the man, she could see that Lukav Teklo was a fairly handsome middle-aged man, sporting long black hair, a carefully sculpted beard and a rather muscular physique. Veronica was a little surprised by this, as she had expected someone… wilder. After all, his fellow villagers had told her that the man disdained human contact and preferred to spend his time in the wilderness.

"Yeah. Yeah, I’m alright," the man said, rising to his feet before swaying dangerously. Veronica quickly caught him and helped him regain his balance. "Dammit. Hoisted on my own petard, literally. Didn’t even accomplish anything with it. Totally ignored my patented animal repellent. That’s some compulsion they were under…"

"I’m pretty sure they’re undead," Veronica said.

"What, really?" Lukav said, squinting at the closest boar. "My vision is a little blurry right now. Is it… is it really trying to wriggle towards me still?"

"I think so, yeah," Veronica confirmed.

Lukav barked out a stream of words in some Khusky language that Veronica didn’t recognize. She was pretty sure they were swear words, though, so maybe it was better that way.

"I’m sorry," the man said after a few calming breaths. "I don’t mean to be rude. I want to thank you, young lady. I was lucky you happened upon me when you did. I surely would have died otherwise."

"Well, it wasn’t entirely luck," Veronica said, causing the man to give her a harder look. "You are Lukav Teklo, yes?" The man nodded. "I have been looking for you based on the recommendation you received from one of my friends, one Kael Tverinov."

"Ah, Kael!" Lukav immediately brightened. "Great kid, shame he stopped coming when he got engaged to that witch girl. I was hoping to recruit him as an apprentice, but I’m afraid Fria got to him first and unlike her, I didn’t have a cute daughter of my own to tempt him away with. Talented alchemist, that boy. I’d ask you how he’s doing, but we can do that in my house, when I calm down a little."

"That would be fine," Veronica said. "Though I want to take a look at these undead boars that attacked you, first. I’m pretty sure someone just tried to murder you. I don’t think undead boars arise on their own."

"Oh no, definitely not," Lukav agreed. "Minor undead like that are basically flesh golems, only with an enslaved soul or spirit placed inside instead of an automation core. The only naturally arising undead are ghosts and other soul entities. Alanic was always very clear on that. Not sure who would try to kill me, of all people, but apparently I pissed off a necromancer somewhere. Just my luck. I’ll report this to the guild and have them deal with this, but feel free to examine these things as much as you want in the meantime. I’m kind of curious myself, but divinations were never my thing so…"

Veronica nodded and got to work, using an alteration spell to bind the legless torso of the nearest boar so it wouldn’t thrash and move around before moving to analyze it.

As she feared, she didn’t find out anything particularly useful and was forced to leave the scene to the guild investigators. At Lukav’s advice she re-summoned the severing disk and chopped all of the downed boars except one into smaller pieces that no longer moved. Lukav claimed that one undead boar was enough for the guild investigators and he didn’t want to risk the attacker picking them up, sewing the legs back on and sending them after him again.

The last intact boar was buried deep into the soil via another alteration spell from Lukav, there to wait for guild investigators to arrive.

"Zombies, skeletons and other undead are not nearly as easy to make as stories make them out to be," Lukav explained as they made way towards his house. "Easier and cheaper to make than golems, sure, but still a significant expenditure of alchemical ingredients and time. Losing a dozen zombies like that has got to be a major loss for whoever is targeting me. No sense in letting them recuperate losses by leaving the zombie boars in fixable condition. Alanic told me to always destroy any disabled undead after the battle, just in case their maker is around to fix them back up. I didn’t think I’d ever be in a position where that advice would be useful but there you go."

"Forgive me, but is the Alanic you’re talking about Alanic Zosk?" Veronica asked.

"Why yes," Lukav confirmed. "I suppose Kael recommended him too?"

"Yes. He actually gave me a pretty long list of soul mages – you were just the first name on the list." She wasn’t really, but it hardly mattered. The man motioned her to continue. "I need your help with a piece of soul magic I got hit with. I don’t feel comfortable talking about it here in the open. I hope you’ll hear me out when we get to your home."

"Fair enough. But unless you got hit by a transformation curse, I don’t think there is much I can do for you. Alanic is actually a better bet – he’s no curse-breaking specialist, but he knows the basics of the field at least. Of course, it would have been even better to seek the help of the guild, but I’m guessing you have a good reason for not wanting to get them involved."

"I do," confirmed Veronica. "And while I realize that the chance of you being able to help me is slim-"

"Hey now, those are fighting words," Lukav warned.

"-I still hope you will hear me out and try to help me. It’s entirely possible that you hold a crucial key to solving my problem, even if you are unable to give me a total solution. My problem is not a curse, exactly. It is exotic enough that Kael recommended Silverlake as a possible solution if all else fails."

"Say what?" Lukav asked incredulously. "He recommended that crazy old witch as a solution for something?"

"I know," Veronica sighed. "I heard from a reputable source that she asked for a grey hunter egg sack from the last guy who asked her for help."

"Now that’s just ridiculous," Lukav snorted derisively. "Someone is pulling your leg. Not even Silverlake would do that. Anyway, I’ll see what I can do. It’s the least I can do for someone who saved my life."

* * *

After they had reached Lukav’s house, the man penned a quick report to the nearest Mage Guild representative and paid one of the village boys to deliver it to Knyazov Dveri while they talked. Apparently the kid was a very good runner and had done such things for Lukav in the past. Regardless, it took a full hour for Lukav to tackle Veronica’s problem, during which Veronica explained Kael’s rather tragic situation to the man and Lukav gradually calmed down and waited for the potion he ingested to take care of his concussion.

"Horrible. I thought that hearing about Kael would cheer me up after this whole ordeal, but it only makes me feel even more depressed," Lukav said. Veronica stayed silent, content to wait for Lukav to continue. After a few seconds of being lost in his thoughts, the man shook his head with a sigh. "Well, I think the potion did its work by now, since staring into the lamp no longer hurts my eyes and my head no longer feels like it’s been stuffed with wool. Do you think you could tell me more about your problem now? The house has some basic wards to shut down scrying but it’s not professional work, just something I had a friend make for me. The village doesn’t have enough ambient mana to support anything substantial in terms of permanent wards, anyway. I guess we could go to Knyazov Dveri and hire a private room in one of the more expensive inns, but that would cost a pretty penny and I’m kind of averse to spending money like that."

"It’s fine," said Veronica. She had already analyzed the man’s warding scheme as practice and found it adequate. Slightly worse than she could manage with a full day’s work or so, but far better than a hastily erected privacy scheme that had been her original plan.
After taking a few deep breaths to gather her thoughts, Veronica began to speak. Revealing the time loop to the man was absolutely out of the question, of course, but that didn’t mean she had to be completely vague about her situation. She explained how she stumbled upon a battle between a lich and an unknown mage, and was caught in the crossfire, struck by an unknown soul magic spell in the process. The other mage dispelled it, but the damage had already been done. After spending several weeks ill, she seemingly recovered, only to find out later that the spell had indeed left its mark on her. Here Veronica became a little hesitant, refusing to disclose what the consequences she noticed were, simply insisting that the issue was private.

"Difficult," Lukav said unhappily when Veronica was finished. "Knowing what the consequences were is a crucial clue as to what the spell actually was, you know? Are you sure it has nothing to do with transformation?"

"Absolutely," Veronica confirmed softly.

"Not even partial transformations?" the man asked. "Remember, not all transformations are total or involve obvious physical changes. The vast majority of magical enhancements are actually transformations, even if they only do things like increase your strength and agility – they all call upon attributes of some other creature to do their thing, transforming the user in some non-obvious way."

"I didn’t know that," Veronica admitted. "But no, it’s still not a transformation effect. It’s more of an out-of-body experience, with my soul periodically leaving the body and then snapping back to it. So magical augmentations are generally transformation magic? Is that why they always seem to ask for animal parts and the like?"

"Astral projection?" Lukav asked. "Hmm, makes sense. Some soul magic spells definitely weaken the links between the soul and the body if used incorrectly, and you said the spell the lich cast on you was botched. Not that letting the spell run its course was a good idea, mind you, but some of the necromantic arts are just as dangerous if dismissed incorrectly as they are in their raw form. You’re right to seek help for this. And yes, the parts of animals and magical creatures provide an example of what you want to the transformation spell. Eagle Eye spell literally gives you the eyes of an eagle, for instance. Transformation magic is useful for such augmentation because it is easy to reverse."

"It is? I thought transformation was dangerous," said Veronica, her voice tinged with curiosity. That was what they were taught at the academy.

"Well… maybe a little," the man admitted. "But compared to the alternatives, it is incredibly safe. You see, when you cast a regular transformation spell on yourself you are essentially putting clothes on your soul. Don’t look at me like that, it’s what it is. Yes, the official term is transformation shell, but they’re basically like soul clothes. You can put them on, and you can take them off. Even if you mess up the spell and can’t turn back or you get locked into an alternate form by a malicious opponent, you are still just a dispel or a curse-breaking session away from returning to normal. Your soul is intact and unchanged beneath the transformation shell, and once the spell is gone you revert to your base form. The problem is that sometimes people overreach and end up transforming too far, so you end up with a mage, say, transforming into a troll in both mind and body and harming their entire family before the spell runs out of mana and they revert back to normal. Or they attach the transformation shell too firmly to their soul and can’t change back, and are then stuck in the form of a sparrow or something and can’t talk to people or meaningfully interact with their environment. That’s why a lot of people don’t do transformation via invocations and rituals anymore, and just buy transformation potions from people like me who know what they’re doing – no chance of messing up, just drink a potion made by an expert and you’re golden."

"Ah."

"On the other hand, when you’re literally messing with your body chemistry and using alteration on your flesh, you’re usually doing something totally irreversible," Lukav continued. "The human body is a complex thing, and I don’t think anyone really understands enough about it to meaningfully improve it. Most potions that aim to enhance the real body with some exotic concoction are basically stimulant drugs with addictive properties or cause hard-to-cure damage if used often. And alteration spells that aim to alter the flesh directly have heavy drawbacks that make them hardly worth the effort and are often challenging to undo. I should know, I get called in often to help out with the fallout created by such magic. But we’re getting off track. Come with me and I’ll see if I can do something about your problem."

Lukav led her into his basem*nt, past several locked doors, until they reached a spacious underground chamber. The huge spell formula on the floor in the form of two circles, one large and one small, each ringed by numerous magical glyphs, was a dead giveaway that this was a ritual room. The fact that the room was perfectly cubical, with identical dimensions in all directions, was further confirmation – flawless geometric shapes were always better for holding magic than anything remotely irregular, which was why Ikosian artifice featured a lot of circles, triangles, cubes, pyramids, cylinders, domes, and so on.

Other than the ritual circle on the floor, the room was empty and featureless – likely to minimize magical interference from anything else. Veronica hoped she would not have to remove her clothing for this – she had heard some delicate magical scans were bothered by clothes and the like, and she was not enthusiastic about that possibility.

Thankfully, Lukav’s instructions didn’t turn out to be that invasive.

"Alright, leave any magical items on your person outside the room and then step into the center of the big circle, right into that big empty space," he told her.

Veronica was more than a little apprehensive about leaving her magic items behind, since that would leave her totally defenseless. Especially the three innocuous-looking steel rings hanging on a necklace tucked into her blouse. Those rings were the latest iteration of her explosive suicide device that she had been steadily refining throughout the restarts. Anyone could make an explosive device with a bit of spell formula knowledge, of course, but making them stable enough not to go off by themselves yet capable of going off on a moment’s notice whenever she gives a signal? Shrouding the explosive mana core with enough divination blockers to make the bombs invisible to wards designed to detect those very kinds of devices, thus allowing her to take those things literally everywhere she went, including the tightly warded academy facilities? Making them small and convenient enough that they weren’t a chore to carry around? Not everyone could do that, she was sure.

In the end, she decided to remove everything except the necklace. Getting killed by betrayal would be awful but ultimately just an annoyance, whereas getting trapped in some kind of soul mutilation ritual without means of escape would be irreparably catastrophic. She just didn’t trust Lukav that much, even if her empathy was telling her the man was honest enough and harbored no hostile feelings towards her.

She quickly put her spell rod, shielding bracelet, bag of small explosive cubes (kept for offensive purposes), and the experimental automation core she had been fiddling with in her spare time into a small pile next to the door and walked inside. Lukav was already seated inside the smaller circle, which also had an empty space in the center to accommodate him easily. Veronica copied the man and promptly sat down on the stone floor inside the larger circle. She had a feeling this could take a while.

Apparently, Veronica’s necklace went undetected by Lukav’s magic, because he said nothing about it.

"You don’t have any kind of soul shell on top of your soul," Lukav decreed after 15 minutes of examination. "I kind of expected that. The sickness you said followed the spell that hit you strongly hints that part of your actual soul was affected. Let’s see if I can detect any foreign bits in your soul then…"

This was the part Veronica cared about. She had been wondering for quite some time how big of a chunk of Shirley’s soul she ended up with and whether it was having some kind of effect on her that she was unaware of. Hopefully, Lukav would be able to shed some light on that issue.

After more than half an hour of spellcasting and lots of frowning, Lukav was finally ready to give his report.

"Weird. You definitely have something woven into your soul, but it’s not like anything I’ve ever seen. Actually, you have two somethings. One is some kind of complicated bit of spellwork woven incredibly tightly into your soul, definitely not soul-stuff but not something I recognize either. Very weird that something so complex could result from a botched spell. Not calling you a liar but it doesn’t make sense to me. The other something… well, it’s definitely a piece of foreign soul material fused into your own soul, but I don’t think you have to worry much about it. It’s not a spirit or some soul parasite, and it seems to have all but dissolved into your soul. In a year or two, it will be gone entirely, completely assimilated."

"What kind of consequences will that have?" Veronica asked, a hint of worry in her voice.

"None, I think. Your soul appears to be converting it into just another piece of itself rather than trying to keep it distinct. So there shouldn’t be any major personality shifts and you probably won’t gain any nifty abilities from whomever or whatever contributed a part of their soul to you. Though, I guess it is possible that the fragment affected your personality to an extent when you first got it, before your soul had the chance to assimilate it sufficiently, and such influences may linger. Do you think and act radically different ever since the incident?"

Veronica frowned thoughtfully. "To be perfectly honest, yes, I am quite different from how I used to be. But I’m not sure how much significance to attach to that. The incident was very traumatic, and so much has happened since then…"

"I understand," Lukav nodded empathetically. "Your life has taken a completely different course after your fateful encounter with the darker side of magic. You would have changed anyway, and any changes caused by the soul fragment would have been lost in the noise. If you want my advice, you should not worry about it. You are who you are now, and the fragment is almost gone. If shifters can claim to be the same person after stapling an animal soul to their own, then I’m not sure why a slight nudge from a soul fragment should concern you."

"It’s in my nature to worry," Veronica admitted with a gentle smile. "Though admittedly the fact that the fragment will soon be gone does make me feel better."
"Well," said Lukav, rising to his feet with an audible pop of his joints, "I’m glad to have allayed at least some of your fears, but this is as much as I can personally help you, I’m afraid. For the strange spellwork in your soul, you will have to talk to Alanic. He tends to be very suspicious of strangers and unannounced visitors, but I’ll accompany you to smooth things over since you did save my life and all. Is there anything else you wanted my help with?"

"Well, not really," said Veronica. Her voice, calm and collected, was marked by a hint of curiosity. "But if I can trouble you a bit more, what can you tell me about shifters? You mentioned them several times while we talked today. Are you in contact with the local wolf shifter tribe by any chance?"

"No, not really," said Lukav, shaking his head. "I mean, I could locate them if I had a week or so, but I’d really rather not. Talking to them is annoying, and they don’t like me very much ever since I tried to buy the shifter ritual off of them that one time."

"Ah," said Veronica with some disappointment, her gentle eyes showing a flicker of hope that was quickly dashed. "It’s just that I also talked to Vani, the local scholar in Knyazov Dveri, and he recommended I try to contact the local wolf shifters for help. Do you think the idea has any merit?"

"In terms of whether their soul magic expertise could have helped you? Maybe, though I wouldn’t bet on it," said Lukav. "But I really, really doubt they would agree to help you. The shifter tribe he speaks of, the Red Fang tribe, is fiercely protective of their special magic and suspicious of anyone who takes an interest in it. Having near-exclusive access to shifter magic is very prestigious for them, and they don’t want to share it with anyone."

"Then why did you offer to buy it off them?" Veronica asked curiously.

"Well, I didn’t know that then, did I? How was I supposed to know these things when they barely talk to anyone in the mage community?" Lukav groused. "Okay, yeah, I may have been a little too insistent, but they could have explained things to me politely instead of making such a big deal out of it."

"I see," said Veronica carefully. Lukav probably wasn’t the best person to help her contact the shifters, it seemed. Just as well, since she had a much likelier lead right now in the form of Alanic.

She agreed she would drop by tomorrow evening to pick up Lukav, and they would then go meet Alanic together. The two were old friends according to Lukav, and Alanic would be easier to deal with if he was there to vouch for Veronica’s character and honesty.

Veronica hoped that the priest would be as useful as Lukav claimed he would be.

* * *

The next day Veronica spent an entire morning practicing the severing disc to ensure she could control it properly the next time she used it, switching to various levitation exercises when she got bored or ran low on mana. As evening approached, Veronica teleported to Lukav’s village and spent an hour or so in idle chit-chat with the man. It seemed to her that the man had hinted at the possibility of teaching her some of his secrets. Of course, there would probably be an apprenticeship contract involved if she wanted to take Lukav up on that offer, but with the time loop in place, such entanglements wouldn’t be permanent. Perhaps she should set aside a future restart or two to see what the man had to offer, but transformation magic simply wasn’t a priority right now. She needed information and defenses against soul magic before anything else.

Eventually, they both got on their way. Lukav wanted to walk to Alanic’s residence, but Veronica vetoed the idea, arguing that it would be a waste of time when she could just teleport them next to the man’s house instead. Admittedly her only experience in teleporting others had been when she retreated from Vazen’s house with Gurey in tow, but she was confident she could replicate that success. And as it turned out, she was right about that.

"I’m surprised someone as young as you can teleport," Lukav said conversationally, looking at their new surroundings to determine where they ended up. They were not far from the temple that Alanic worked at and which also served as his home, but Veronica opted not to teleport too close, as Lukav indicated that the man could be somewhat trigger-happy about such things. "You’re, what, 16? I guess I finally met one of those kid geniuses people talk about. You’re not that Kazinski, are you?"

"No, I just happen to have the same last name as Daimen," Veronica lied smoothly.

"Figures," the man said. "You must get that question a lot."

"You have no idea," Veronica sighed softly. Thankfully, Kazinski wasn’t that rare of a last name, and no one had accused her of lying when she denied any connections.

Whatever Lukav had been trying to say next was promptly drowned out by the unmistakable sounds of explosions coming from the house in front of them, immediately followed by angry shouting in an unknown language and the sounds of gunshots.

Veronica quickly drew her spell rod and scowled, cascading hair brushing her shoulders. She had been afraid of this. Whoever was behind the disappearance of the soul mages had noticed their assassination of Lukav had failed and decided to throw subtlety out the window and move fast to eliminate their remaining target. They no doubt knew that Lukav and Alanic were friends and that Alanic would soon know all about the assassination attempt.

She cautiously advanced forward, Lukav trailing after her with determination.

There were no undead this time, probably because the target was a well-known undead-hunter and was thus bound to be good against them. Instead, the attackers consisted of 15 men armed with rifles – probably non-magical mercenaries – and 2 mages acting like spell support. They were hesitant to storm Alanic’s house for some reason, instead waiting outside for something to happen. Unwilling to charge into a group of riflemen like idiots, both Veronica and Lukav settled in behind some trees to observe the group.

"They’re trying to bring down the wards before they move in," Veronica realized after a few seconds, her voice soft but firm. "The mage on the right is trying to collapse the entire warding scheme, the one on the left is protecting him from all reprisals while he’s busy, and the riflemen are periodically shooting at the windows to keep Alanic from raining down offensive spells on them at will."

A ray of fire punctuated her whispered statement by erupting from one of the second-story windows, aiming for the mage who was dismantling the wards. The other mage immediately shielded his companion from the attack, and the riflemen responded with a withering barrage of bullets at the offending opening.

"We have to help him," Lukav said firmly, a slight edge of urgency in his voice.

"The only option I see is waiting for a good opening," Veronica said. "I don’t see a way to get involved right now that wouldn’t immediately get us both killed."

"Can you deal with the two mages if I take care of the gun-toting idiots?" Lukav asked, his voice carrying a confident resolve.

Veronica gave him a curious look, wondering how he intended to do that. Was he one of those who underestimated the effectiveness of guns even after the huge death toll they racked up against combat mages in the Splinter Wars?

"Well?" Lukav asked, his tone a bit more forceful.

Deciding to take some risk, Veronica skimmed the man’s surface thoughts for a moment. She promptly realized that Lukav cared deeply about Alanic and couldn’t bear to see him killed if he could do something about it. He was ready to move in with or without her, but he honestly thought he could prevail against the riflemen. He was far less sure whether he could survive against them if he had to deal with the mage support as well, though.

"I can deal with them, yeah," said Veronica, her voice soft but confident. "Wait for two minutes before you charge in."

She then promptly cast invisibility on herself and walked off in the direction of the two mages.

She wasn’t walking for the sake of being dramatic; the invisibility spell she was using was a very delicate optical illusion that required her conscious attention to maintain. Any distracting activity, such as fighting or casting spells, immediately unraveled it. She couldn’t even run without turning into a shimmering humanoid outline that was far more attention-grabbing than simply walking up to the mages with no cloaking attempts.

But a fast walk turned out to be sufficient. She was practically on top of the two mages when Lukav finally grew sick of waiting and charged into the fray with a battle cry.

At least she thought the creature charging in was Lukav. The huge bull covered in dark green, fishlike scales, its eyes glowing with malevolent red light, seemed like something a transformation expert would use, and it sure as hell wasn’t aligned with the attackers. The beast let loose a loud bellow that was laced with some kind of magical fear effect. Veronica ignored the mental attack easily enough, but three of the riflemen weren’t as fearless and immediately fled screaming. The rest were shaken enough by the fear effect that they gave the bull a few crucial moments to close in before they started firing.

As Veronica expected, those scales weren’t just for show, and the bullets didn’t do much. The two hostile mages beside her seemed to realize their forces weren’t going to fare well against this new threat because the defender suddenly started to cast a spell, and the ward breaker sped up his work. Deciding that the defender was the bigger threat, Veronica decided to forgo any fancy spellwork and simply pulled out a knife from her belt, ramming it harshly into the man’s neck, dropping her own invisibility in the process.

The other mage didn’t react fast enough, too shocked at Veronica’s sudden appearance, and received a swift kick in the groin a moment later. He immediately collapsed on the ground with a keening wail. After checking to see if any of the riflemen were gunning for her (they weren’t, as they were too busy being trampled by the bull beast that Lukav had transformed into), Veronica reached into the mage’s mind and blasted it with a crude telepathic assault. The man went unconscious like Veronica had hoped he would, out of the fight.

Before Veronica could decide whether she should get involved in the fight against the riflemen (it seemed unnecessary, and she wasn’t largely immune to gunfire like Lukav was), a trio of flaming projectiles rained down from the second floor and incinerated three of the riflemen that had been trying to rally the others. The bull-beast let loose another fear-laced bellow at this, and the survivors promptly fled.

Veronica watched them go, ready to erect a shield around herself if one of them decided to let loose a few parting shots. None of them did.

The bull beast let out a derisive snort and kicked the ground a few times before suddenly… folding upon itself, for lack of a better word, and becoming a man. Specifically, Lukav.

Hm, transformation was more useful than she had figured it was. She understood why Lukav had been reluctant to engage the attackers without someone to take out the mages though – without hands, the alchemist could not cast any defensive spells himself and was very vulnerable to hostile magic.
Any conversation was postponed when a short, bald, muscular man literally dropped out of the sky in front of them. It took Veronica almost a second to realize that this was probably Alanic Zosk and that he had jumped down from the freaking two-story window! He looked unaffected by the fall, but still!

"Al, you idiot, I told you not to do that!" Lukav yelled. "I almost firebombed you before I realized it was you!"

"You there," Alanic said to Veronica, completely ignoring Lukav’s anger. "Why did you let those men go? You could have picked them off as they fled."

"I… didn’t think it was okay to kill fleeing opponents?" Veronica said, surprised at being put on the spot like that. "I don’t know, it just seemed too bloodthirsty to just shoot them in the back while they ran."

A short silence ensued as Alanic gave her a blank look. His mind, though unshielded, was incredibly disciplined, giving Veronica no insight into the man’s personality and mood. She idly noted that one of the man’s eyes was blue, while the other was brown, with a horrid vertical scar over his blue eye, which really looked like it should have destroyed it as well when it was made.

"I see," he said finally. "You’re young."

"What has that got to do with anything?" Veronica protested, her tone slightly softer but firm, annoyed at the man’s attitude. They just saved the man’s life, for heaven’s sake!

"You haven’t been fighting for long," he simply said. "You’re inexperienced."

Yeah, well, you’re an unpleasant person, thought Veronica. But outwardly she just frowned instead.

Yeah, Veronica could already see Alanic would be one of those people. She really had the damnedest luck.

* * *

Alanic Zosk turned out to be pretty calm about the full-blown assault on his temple by two dozen gun-wielding mercenaries, refusing Lukav’s demand that they go and report the thing to the nearest Guild station right away with a dismissive statement that it was too soon to involve them. He even had the unconscious mage that Veronica had disabled transferred to the dungeon in the temple’s basem*nt (why exactly did a temple have a dungeon, Veronica wondered but was afraid to ask), openly admitting he intended to have the man interrogated later.

In the meantime, he wanted to know what Veronica and Lukav came to him for. No, he didn’t need time to calm down, why do you ask?

Veronica had to admit she admired the man’s composure, even if he was a bit rude.

"Interesting," Alanic said after Veronica repeated the story she told Lukav. "Very well, I will see what has been done to you. Lukav, please leave the room while I examine Miss Kazinski here."

Just like that? Apparently yes. Unlike Lukav, Alanic didn’t use any fancy ritual rooms, and the examination took all of five minutes before the man had pronounced his verdict.

"You have a marker stamped into your soul," Alanic told her bluntly.

"A what?" Veronica asked, her voice carrying a trace of curiosity and confusion.

"A marker is a combination of a beacon and an identification tag. It allows certain spells to find the marker very easily across great distances and unambiguously identifies whatever is tagged by the marker. They are often used by shopkeepers in fancier shops to track stolen wares, by high-security prisons and spies to track movements of marked individuals, and in the construction of certain wards that allow people to be keyed in and therefore free of some or all of the restrictions that all other visitors labor under. Among other things. They are usually placed on items, as placing permanent markers on people is iffy and requires tattoos and such. Yours though, is stamped directly into your soul."

Veronica remained quiet, her thoughts churning. A marker. That was why she ended up caught in the time loop along with Shirley, wasn’t it? The spell wasn’t keyed into the originator’s soul or some such, since those things were ambiguous and could fail – the original looper could end up with his soul damaged or slightly altered, much like what happened to her and Shirley in the end, and then the spell could glitch and fail to loop them back like it’s supposed to. No, the makers of the loop instead stamped Shirley’s soul with something unchangeable and unmistakable.

And then Red Robe and Veronica inherited it because the makers of the loop were a little too smart for their own good…

"Removing the marker-" Alanic began, oblivious to or uncaring about Veronica’s obvious state of deep thought.

"I don’t want it removed!" Veronica immediately protested, breaking out of her thoughts.

Alanic gave her a considering look.

"I suppose you are fortunate then because I do not think I could remove it even if I wanted to," Alanic said. "It is unlike anything I have ever seen. The marker is woven incredibly tightly into your soul, suffusing every corner of it. It is as if a chunk of your soul was replaced with it and it then grew to fill every nook and cranny it could find to root itself in as firmly as possible."

Oh hell…

She rose from her seat in agitation, pacing around the room. Alanic watched her impassively, silent and expressionless, until Veronica calmed down a little and sat back down.

"I need more information," she said, a hint of determination in her voice. "And I need a way to protect myself from things like this in the future. Can you help me?"

Alanic nodded.

"But tomorrow," he added. "For now I have a prisoner to interrogate."

Chapter 32: Chapter 32: Alternatives

Chapter Text

Despite Alanic’s proclamation that he was going to interrogate the prisoner, he did not immediately descend into the temple dungeon. Instead, he started rummaging through a nearby cabinet full of potion bottles while Veronica slowly absorbed today’s newest revelations, opting to remain in the room for the moment. She was not in the mood for answering questions that Lukav would have for her once she got outside, and Alanic seemed like the sort of person who would warn her if she was being bothersome. Since Alanic said nothing about her continued presence, Veronica felt she had tacit permission to stay.

She had a piece of propagating, self-repairing magic lodged in her soul. Part of her marveled at the magical expertise of the person or thing that created the time loop system, but the greater part of her couldn’t help but wonder what exactly was crammed into said wonder of magical spell design. Alanic’s description, as well as Lukav’s inability to identify the spell despite his advanced-looking ritual, painted a picture of something far too complex and lifelike to be a mere identification tag.

This was important, she could feel it – she needed to know how the marker functioned as soon as possible. For one thing, if there was some kind of hostile contingency woven inside it, ready to affect her once she tripped over some esoteric activation condition, she wanted to know about it. Not to mention that this particular piece of magic could very well be a key clue to understanding the time loop. What kind of secrets were locked inside of it? Kael had speculated that whatever spell had been placed on Shirley to initiate the time loop had all sorts of safeguards and contingencies woven into it, and while the marker clearly wasn’t the source of the looping magic itself, it sounded like the perfect place to put those safeguards in. Maybe it had the time loop instructions manual encoded somewhere in its structure? Well, probably nothing so convenient, but still.

There was one thing that still bothered her greatly – if she had a marker in her soul that uniquely identified her as a time looper, why the hell hadn’t Red Robe tracked her down by now? Her enemy was a proficient soul mage, after all. Veronica found it difficult to believe he was ignorant of the marker mechanism. With that in mind, he should have had little trouble locating every single time looper, Veronica included. But he didn’t. Why was that?

"Mister Zosk?" Veronica spoke up. "Could you spare a moment, please?"

"Call me Alanic," the priest said, stopping his inspection of the cabinet with an annoyed huff. Veronica got the impression the annoyance was directed more at the cabinet than at her, though. "What is it?"

"I know you said we’d speak tomorrow, but I’d just like to know how difficult it is to locate a marker like mine. How hard would it be for you to track me down with the best magic at your disposal?"

"By tracking your marker? Almost impossible," Alanic immediately stated. "I’d need the original keystone from the maker of the spell to define the search criteria properly. That thing is far too complex for anything else."

Veronica frowned. "Wouldn’t having my own copy of the marker sidestep that?" she asked.

"Well yes, but that would require you to be right beside me and serve as a willing focus of the spell. A tracking spell that requires you to be right next to the target is functionally useless, wouldn’t you think?" He suddenly gave Veronica a shrewd look. "But what you’re really wondering about is not you tracking down the person whose soul fragment gave you the marker, but them tracking you, aren’t you, Miss Kazinski?"

"Call me Veronica," she said. If the man wanted her to be casual with him, he should show the same courtesy. "And yes, that is basically what I’m worried about. How easy would it be for another holder of the marker to track me down?"

Alanic quickly walked over to a nearby bookshelf, plucked a plain brown book from its shelf, and handed it to Veronica.

"The spell you want is on page 43," Alanic told her.

Veronica quickly leafed through the book until she reached the indicated page. The spell in question was not an invocation, but rather a 10-minute ritual. It allowed the caster to locate a specified marker based on the copy of the marker in the caster’s possession, and it had a downright jaw-dropping range. If Veronica was reading this correctly, it could locate any and all copies of the marker over a circular area that extended well beyond Eldemar’s borders!

Yeah, it was not cheap in terms of mana use – it required enough mana that Veronica wouldn’t have been able to cast it at all before the time loop, and even now, after 3 years of restarts, it would take a sizeable chunk of her reserves. But still, for a nation-wide search spell it was shockingly accessible. She supposed its very narrow search focus allowed it to be hyper-efficient about mana use. Really, the only possible deal-breaker was that the spell assumed the caster had a keystone imprinted with the copy of the marker, and would have to be slightly modified to switch the reference target of the spell from a stone held in the caster’s hand to a marker stamped on their soul.

Veronica sincerely doubted Red Robe was incapable of making such minor alterations to spells, though.

"I could be tracked from one end of the country to another," Veronica mumbled disbelievingly to herself.

"Yes," Alanic agreed. "Possibly even further. I don’t claim to have comprehensive knowledge of tracking spells so there may be a version with even greater range. Your insistence that the marker must stay on was quite surprising. I hope you have a good reason for leaving a giant target painted on your soul."

"Ugh. I’m not happy about the situation, but I do. I really, really do. I’d also like to cast this tracking spell myself to see how many other people turn up in results, but we can deal with that tomorrow. I’ve already kept you from your interrogation long enough."
"Unfortunately, I seem to have run out of truth potions," the priest said unhappily, throwing a glare at his potion cabinet. "Annoying. You can’t buy those on the open market and it takes days for Lukav to make a batch. It seems I won’t be interrogating anyone today…"

Oh. Veronica agreed with Alanic, that really was annoying – she wanted to know who the guy was working for just as much as the priest did. She thought about offering her services as a mind reader to the priest but quickly shelved that idea. Aside from the very likely possibility she would make Alanic too suspicious of her to help with her soul magic problems, there was the fact that she wasn’t sure how much help she would be anyway. Her mind reading skills were still very unreliable at this point. She’d feel pretty foolish if she outed herself as a mind mage and then failed to achieve anything of note – better try that in some later restart, after she gave her telepathic abilities some polish.

"No matter. I will figure something out. I’m afraid I’ll have to postpone our meeting for a day or two because of this, though. I’ll send a message through Lukav once I have sorted my business in order. Agreeable?"

"Sure," Veronica shrugged, adjusting the strap of her simple yet practical dress. "Just don’t get into any trouble before we meet again. Whoever wants you and Lukav gone can clearly throw a lot of resources at the problem, so they’re unlikely to stop now."

"The same goes for you, young lady," Alanic scoffed with a wry smile. "You seem to have an uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time. Suspicious, that. If I were in the attacker’s place, I would definitely make sure to get rid of you before trying again. And no offense, but you look like a much softer target than me."

Not having much to say to that, Veronica simply bid the man goodbye, had a brief conversation with Lukav outside the room to inform him of everything, and then went back to her room at the inn. She would sleep on things before making any decisions.

* * *

With the next several days freed up for her own activities, Veronica decided to go visit Silverlake to see if the capricious old witch was in a better mood to help this time. The trouble was, she could no longer find her cottage. Veronica’s memory was extremely good, and she remembered exactly where it was in relation to surrounding natural landmarks, but when she physically got to the location, there was nothing there. No cottage, no witch, no nothing. As far as Veronica could tell, it wasn’t an illusion and there was no ward in place messing with her mind to stop her from noticing it – she detected no mental tampering, her area-wide dispels revealed no optical flickering, and she physically passed through the area that the cottage stood on in the previous restart and met no resistance whatsoever.

How had Silverlake managed that? Dimensional shenanigans, maybe? Like a pocket dimension that can intersect with reality under some circ*mstance or something?

Whatever the exact mechanics, she clearly wasn’t going to reach Silverlake’s place without an invitation first. Considering that last time it took Veronica several days of wandering around and almost dying to get her attention, she decided not to bother with that and find something else to do.

Namely, investigating the rest of the disappeared soul mages. While it was true that Alanic seemed to be her best clue at the moment, it wouldn’t hurt to check the other locations as well. Thus, while waiting for Alanic to contact her again, Veronica proceeded to break into the homes of each of her targets before combing through them with every divination spell in her arsenal. The knowledge she picked up from Gurey’s little escapade was quite useful here, as a number of those homes were warded against entry and divinations, and that would have given her quite a bit of trouble in the past.

What she found out wasn’t much, but it did put at least one question to rest – the attackers had indeed been active long before the time loop started. Two of the houses showed signs of a struggle, and forensic spells dated those signs about a month to a month and a half before the start of the time loop. In addition, the house of the old curse-breaking herbalist lady looked pristine on first glance, but Veronica easily detected evidence of repair magic used on furniture and sloppily erased blood splatter on the walls – both dated three days before the start of the loop.

Veronica silently thanked Haslush for his divination instructions – without them, she would have never been able to tell such things with any degree of certainty.

She also made sure to search the houses for anything personally interesting while she was at it, and here she had greater success. The herbalist lady had intact notes about her curse-breaking side-business – Veronica pocketed those, even if she couldn’t use them at the moment. She also had a pretty extensive journal that listed where to find rare plants in the nearby forest as well as detailed some of her rare recipes. Veronica left that alone for now, but made a mental note to show it to Kael at some point and see if it was worth something. The ransacked tower turned out to have been imperfectly ransacked, and Veronica managed to find two different secret compartments that the attackers missed. One held a trio of high-quality combat staffs and a stack of blasting rods. The other held a bunch of spellbooks containing combat spells – specifically, the sort of combat spells you couldn’t buy legally anywhere because they were far too effective and lethal for the Mage Guild’s tastes. Naturally, Veronica swiped all of it for her personal use. She found more interesting stuff in other houses, but nothing she felt like taking at the moment. The familiar-obsessed guy, for instance, had mountains and mountains of books and journals dedicated to soul bonds, magical creatures, and familiar-related magics. It was interesting, but not something she needed at the moment.

In the end, it was five days before Alanic finally contacted Veronica again. If Lukav didn’t insist that his friend was alive and well, just unusually occupied with something, Veronica would have feared the attackers got him.

Regardless, Veronica soon found herself seated in front of Alanic, ready to finally discuss things.

"I apologize for the wait," Alanic said. "I’m afraid that the confessions I managed to force out of the prisoner had far more far-reaching consequences than I had initially suspected."

"Oh? I don’t suppose you could tell me what those are?" asked Veronica, her slender fingers sifting through the pages of a spellbook she brought along.

"I’m afraid not. It’s not something you should concern yourself with," Alanic said, leveling her a mild glare.

"Fine, fine, I get it," Veronica said, raising her hands in a placating gesture. Truthfully, it did not matter much because she already knew what Alanic had found out. While the priest seemed to have some sort of natural mental defense, his friend Lukav didn’t. Veronica had simply pestered the transformation expert about the prisoner and read the man’s thoughts wherever he refused to answer.

Basically, the mage Veronica incapacitated was hired by none other than Vazen – the man who Gurey wanted her to rob (well, spy on) in the previous restart. Worse, the man appeared to be just an underling himself, with the real ringleader being someone more highly placed in the local hierarchy. Someone capable of interfering with the police and guild investigations.

It was certainly an interesting piece of information, and Veronica had some suspicions of her own about Vazen now. The man had concluded some kind of deal with a company in Cyoria, so it was entirely possible he was connected to the invaders somehow. She had intended to have another go at those documents anyway, but now they acquired a whole new importance.

"Good," Alanic nodded. "What did you want to start with?"

"Well, first of all, I’d like to know if you could help me defend myself against soul magic in the future," said Veronica, her gentle voice tinged with determination.

"Why wouldn’t I be able to help you with that?" asked Alanic curiously, co*cking his head to the side slightly.

"I was told that spellcasters without some measure of soul perception can only cast the most rudimentary of soul magic," said Veronica. And from her attempts to replicate Kael’s spells, she knew that to be largely true – the only spell she managed to learn from Kael was the one that cloaked her from the soul perception of other necromancers, and Kael claimed that was basic stuff.

"Ah. You’ve been talking to a necromancer, I see," Alanic said.

Veronica winced. "It… seemed like a logical course of action. I had a soul magic problem, and he was a soul mage."

"Hmph. Necromancers," began Alanic, taking pains to stress the word, "have a habit of targeting others with their spells, so of course, they consider soul perception to be absolutely essential for their craft. If you just want to cloak your soul in some protective effect, it is hardly necessary to go to such lengths."

Oh, is that why she could cast Kael’s soul sight invisibility spell but not the rest of his arsenal?

"Even for other things, it is possible to use lengthy rituals to get around that requirement. I believe you’ve already experienced an example of such a ritual when Lukav tried to determine what is wrong with you. Don’t be fooled by his lack of skill – Lukav is but a dabbler in this branch of magic, and if you dedicate yourself to the discipline, you could end up much more impressive than he is."

"But I’m never going to progress beyond unwieldy ritual setups without soul sight, am I?" guessed Veronica, her gentle eyes meeting Alanic's.

Alanic sighed. "Yes. But soul sight is too much of a temptation. It makes soul magic too easy. For the sake of your immortal soul, I implore you to turn away from that path. It is not necessary to go that far just to protect yourself."

"I see," said Veronica. "Out of curiosity, do you have soul perception?"

For the first time since Veronica met him, Alanic looked uncomfortable. "Yes. But that’s… different."

Of course, it is, Veronica thought. Do as I say, not as I do, just like it always was.

But she didn’t say that. Instead, she asked Alanic what exactly he was willing to teach her.

"There are two ways I can see this going," said Alanic, quickly regaining his composure. "Option one is that I teach you how to perform a plethora of protective rituals to foil hostile soul magic. They are, as you say, cumbersome – casting times can be up to two hours long in some cases, and setting up a ritual isn’t easy. They last a long time, though. Weeks if you perform them correctly. The advantage of this path is that you get a way to defend yourself right away – I’m fairly certain you could do the beginning rituals as you are now. Also, some of the rituals will allow you to affect souls other than yours, though none of the rituals I’m willing to teach you can be used on an unwilling target."

"And the disadvantage is that if I’m ever caught unaware by the enemy, I’m in trouble because there’s no way to shield myself on a moment’s notice," finished Veronica, thoughtfully tapping her chin.

"Exactly. That’s where option number two comes in. With the help of some meditation exercises and special potions, I can teach you how to feel your own soul. If you hone the skill to a required level, this skill will allow you to cast any soul magic that has you as its target. You’ll be able to shield and analyze your soul with invocation spells, and it might even allow you to passively notice when someone is messing with your soul in some fashion."

"I like that option," Veronica said, her gentle voice laced with interest.

"I figured you might," Alanic scoffed. "The problem is that this option isn’t some quick power up. It will take you months to reach useable levels in this skill, and that’s assuming you have the patience and willpower required to perform the exercises every single day for months on end."

"I do," said Veronica curtly but with a determined undertone.

"We’ll see. I should also mention that until you master the skill of sensing your own soul, this option will leave you just as helpless to soul magic as you are currently."

"Yeah, that’s a little dangerous," Veronica admitted with a slight nod. Still, the second option sounded way more useful and functional than the first one. Maybe if she wasn’t stuck in the time loop she would blanch at the idea of spending months of her life like that, but right now it was looking like a bargain. "I suppose there is a reason why I can’t learn both at the same time?"

"They’re both demanding skills in their own way, and I don’t trust you to be capable of juggling them both effectively," Alanic said, his tone brooking no disagreement.

"Fair enough," Veronica conceded, gracefully flipping her long ponytail over her shoulder. She was going to visit the man in future restarts anyway, so she could potentially just pick different options on different restarts. "How about this: you teach me the very basics of the soul rituals, the things I can pick up well enough as I am now, and then we immediately switch to the personal soul awareness project."

"I suppose I can live with that. You should note that the basics of soul rituals won’t do much for you," Alanic noted.

"That’s fine. I’m mostly interested in option number two anyway. The reason I want the basics of soul rituals is because I still want to cast that marker tracking ritual you showed me, and modifying it to work with the thing attached to my soul is probably going to require some working knowledge of soul magic."

"Probably," Alanic agreed.

"Well. Now we come to the make it or break it question," Veronica sighed, fixing a weary gaze at Alanic. "What exactly are you asking of me in exchange for all this?"

Alanic rolled his eyes. "Don’t be so dramatic, girl. Teaching people how to defend themselves against necromancers and hostile spirits is a part of my calling, as far as I’m concerned. I’d take a whole class to teach if people were actually interested. Unfortunately, such threats are considered something of a minor issue in the aftermath of the Necromancer’s War. So, while yes, I do intend to send you on an errand or two, it isn’t going to be anything too onerous. Lukav tells me you can teleport?"

"I can, yes," Veronica replied, her eyes sparkling with curiosity.

"Excellent. I was thinking of sending you out as a courier from time to time to some of my more distant contacts. Nothing difficult or dangerous – just delivering some letters and packages for free."

Half an hour later, Veronica had managed to hammer out some kind of agreement with Alanic.

Overall, Veronica felt the priest had been quite generous in his terms – his principal demand was that she had to show dedication, or else Alanic would unceremoniously terminate the lessons and kick her out. Specifically, she had to show up at the temple every evening like clockwork and show diligence and enthusiasm for the lessons. Right. Oh, and there was the whole business with her being a courier from the priest on occasion, which was of little concern to Veronica – she thought of it as teleportation practice more than anything.

"Well then," Alanic said, leaning back in his chair. "Now that this is all done, we can begin with our first lesson."

"What, now?" Veronica asked in surprise, raising an eyebrow.

"Is there a reason to postpone things?"

"No, no, I’m just surprised. Most of my previous teachers have been… well, no matter. What are we starting with?"

* * *

Over the next two weeks, Veronica continued studying the other disappearances while attending Alanic’s lessons. She absorbed the basics of soul protection rituals in a few days and then moved onto the meditation exercises needed for personal soul sight, only to find out two things. First, the meditation exercises were incredibly, mind-numbingly boring. No wonder the man was worried about her dedication; she could easily imagine someone dropping that after only a few days. But no, Veronica was stronger than that… and besides, she really needed that skill.

Secondly, those special potions Alanic mentioned? What the priest hadn’t clarified at the time – and indeed, hadn’t explained before Veronica actually drank one – was that they were extremely powerful hallucinogens. Almost immediately after downing one, Veronica was assaulted with a cacophony of strange, incomprehensible sights and smells, sounds become distorted and unrecognizable, and her thoughts degenerated into a chaotic mess. It was a profoundly unpleasant experience, and once Veronica finally came to her senses and stopped drooling all over the floor of the temple (the jerk could have at least put a pillow under her!) she felt a powerful desire to punch Alanic in the face. The man had effectively drugged her helpless and was completely unrepentant about it too, claiming that without the help of those potions the entire process could take years. She would have to drink one of those once a week, apparently.

Which was all well and good, but it still didn’t explain why the man hadn’t warned her what would happen when she drank that potion. Personally, Veronica suspected schadenfreude.

Aside from the whole potion incident thing, there was one tiny little detail she had failed to consider when she decided to accept Alanic as her newest personal tutor.

Alanic was a priest. Priests were, generally speaking, very religious people. It stood to reason, then, that they’d be very bothered by people who don’t care much about their own religion or have some gaping holes in their understanding of religious dogma. And with Veronica spending every evening in the temple, it really was too much to expect that Alanic wouldn’t notice just how… lacking… Veronica’s religious credentials were.

The good news was that Alanic wasn’t going to get rid of her because of this. The bad news was that he took it upon himself to correct this glaring deficiency. Thus, not only did Veronica have to suffer through boring meditation sessions every evening, they were now interspersed with longwinded lectures about the gods, angels, spirits, and humanity’s place in the natural order.

Heaven help her. Or not, she supposed. She doubted the angels would have a lot of compassion for someone in her position.

"…and thus, with the evidence that the gods have fallen silent no longer possible to ignore, and the unescapable fact that no more miracles would be forthcoming, the Holy Triumvirate decided to loosen the limitations on soul magic – a decision that did much to soften the blow of the Silence, but one that would have far-reaching negative consequences. But I can see that you are starting to lose focus so we will continue this tomorrow."

Thank the gods. Veronica quickly vacated the temple before the man could have a chance to change his mind.

She was barely out of the temple gates when she realized she was walking into an ambush.

It was a crow that tipped her off. It looked normal enough, though it was curiously brave in not fleeing at her approach. She had, however, gotten into a habit of automatically scanning the minds of every animal she saw as telepathic practice, and the crow in question didn’t have any. That immediately raised an alarm in her head and she stopped, expanding her mind sense to maximum range.

In the next second, she threw herself to the side, narrowly avoiding a hail of bullets that ripped through her previous location. Almost reflexively, she fired two force missiles in quick succession: one at the undead crow that had taken flight while she dodged – she didn’t need that thing pecking her eyes out while she was busy elsewhere – and another one straight into the air, seemingly at nothing. That one was what Taiven called a screamer – a missile that produced a loud, shrill scream as it flew through the air. Veronica hoped that the noise would give pause to the ambushers, at least for a moment, but the real purpose of it was to attract Alanic’s attention and tell him there was a fight going on outside of his temple.

You know, just in case the gunshots weren’t clear enough on that.

The first bolt collided with the crow, causing it to erupt into a shower of feathers and fleshy bits (but no blood), but the second one didn’t have much effect on the attackers. Veronica was forced to immediately erect a shield in front of herself to tank a powerful beam of shining force and was then pinned in place by a withering hail of bullets. She had to pour half of her mana reserves into strengthening the shield, but it thankfully held.

Also thankfully, the attackers had a piss-poor sense of tactics – apparently, the entire force wasted their ammo on the initial barrage, and thus couldn’t provide any further fire to keep her pinned in place while they reloaded. Veronica promptly took advantage of this to take cover behind a nearby tree, become invisible and then vacate the area as fast as she could without breaking the optical cloak.

It was a good thing she did, because the tree she had been hiding behind soon became a target of a massive fireball that reduced it to charcoal and did horrible things to everything around it.

These people really didn’t pull any punches, did they?

Tracking her attackers' movements with her mind sense, Veronica could tell they weren’t fooled with her maneuver. They knew she wasn’t dead, and they were coming after her. Well, time to exercise the better part of valor and teleport away to safety!

A few seconds later, she sighed in resignation. Of course, they erected a teleport ward around the area. Well, if that’s how they wanted to play then so be it! Closing her eyes, she located the nearest gunman with her mind sense, connected with his mind, and then hit him with the best telepathic attack she could manage.

She felt the target stop immediately, but apparently, she’d failed to knock the man out. No matter. She disconnected from the man’s mind and moved on to the next one and repeated the procedure. She grinned nastily when she felt the man’s mind shut down from the strain, the gunman falling unconscious.

Then she moved onto the rest of the ambushing force, attacking their minds one by one. Two thirds of them were strong enough to weather the attack, though they would likely be dazed for a while and suffer a nasty headache for the rest of the day, but a full third found Veronica’s telepathic attack too much for them. Sadly, the mage that supported them figured out what was happening and shielded his own mind against the tactic. Still, even if she didn’t get them all, she succeeded in taking away their momentum and slowing them down.
It cost her, though. Her telepathic powers, exotic as they may be, were still magic… and like all magic, they used mana to power themselves. Her empathy and mind sense didn’t seem to cost her anything that she could detect, and establishing a telepathic link with another was trivial in terms of mana expenditure – even for her, it was so minute as to be unnoticeable. But these telepathic attacks she had been doing? They were incredibly cheap, especially considering their effectiveness, but she had performed a lot of them in quick succession. She was almost spent. Veronica sure hoped Alanic got off his ass sometime soon, preferably before the mage could rally his forces and come after her again.

Suddenly, just as Veronica was about to start booby-trapping the place like crazy, another group of people teleported in, and her heart sank. Well, that just wasn’t f– wait, they were fighting the first group. Huh. It seemed Alanic had called for the cavalry.

The sound of gunshots and flashes of spellfire filled the air again, but this time Veronica wasn’t the target. She wisely decided to sit this one out, being mostly out of mana and not wanting for one of the newcomers to confuse her for an enemy and put a bullet in her head before she had a chance to explain.

Ten minutes later, the noise quieted down and Veronica made her way back to the temple. There she found Alanic talking with a mixed group composed of a four-man group of Guild battlemages and a small contingent of Eldemar soldiers. She was questioned on her role in the battle, but the fact that Alanic vouched for her kept the man in charge of the group from dragging her back to the Guild station for questioning. Apparently, Alanic had quite a lot of pull with the Mage Guild.

She was worried the attackers would blab about her telepathic abilities, but apparently, they were under the impression she cast some kind of area-wide knockout spell rather than assaulting their minds directly. The leader of the Guild force even commended her on her restraint when faced with deadly force. Alanic gave her a severe look though. Veronica wasn’t sure if he did that because he figured out there was something fishy about the whole story or because he disapproved of her soft approach. She knew from previous conversations with him that Alanic firmly believed in tough justice and striking back at threats as effectively as possible, so he might just be annoyed that she had not used something more lethal.

Eventually, she was given permission to leave (though warned not to leave her current accommodations in Knyazov Dveri for the foreseeable future) and beat a hasty retreat back to her room.

* * *

When Veronica reached her room, she felt totally drained and wanted to do nothing more than to crawl into her bed and sleep until tomorrow. That had been… intense. She thought she’d have gotten used to having her life targeted and being in life-and-death situations, but she apparently wasn’t anywhere near that mindset yet. The questioning that followed wasn’t really pleasant either, and she suspected she had overextended her mind a bit with her last stunt because her thoughts felt slightly more sluggish and fuzzy than they should, even taking her tiredness into account.

But no, she couldn’t go to sleep yet. Today was significant in that she had finally finished modifying the marker tracking spell with Alanic’s help, and she wanted to test it right away. Her mana reserves had recovered by now, so she was good for a try. She quickly fished out one of the wakefulness potions she had made over the last week and downed it in one go. Her head cleared out almost immediately, and so she promptly started creating the ritual circle with the handful of salt and powdered quartz.

After the circle was made and triple-checked for faults, she slowly went through the ritual, mindful not to mess it up since it would take a large chunk of her mana reserves whether it succeeded or failed.

The moment she spoke the last line of the ritual, Veronica was suddenly given a sense of the location and distance of all markers within the range of the spell.

All two of them. One was in the very center of the search area – that was her, obviously – and the other was far to the south, somewhere along Eldemar’s southern border.

Veronica freely admitted she had not expected that. She had expected the ritual to locate either three markers or just one (herself). How can there be just two? Was one of the other time travelers out of range? Did she misunderstand something?

She would have to repeat the ritual at different intervals to see if another marker popped up at some point. On the very beginning of the next restart, certainly. But if the number of markers remained stubbornly at two, then that would mean that at least one of the time travelers didn’t have the marker. Probably Red Robe, because Veronica was sure that Shirley had one. It would explain why Red Robe didn’t just make a beeline for Veronica when he realized she existed, and why he felt the need to ask her how many other time travelers there were and who they were.

But that would mean that Red Robe became a time looper through some other mechanism than Veronica did, wouldn’t it?

"Nothing can ever be simple about this, can it?" she sighed, rubbing her eyes.

No matter. Her immediate goals remained unchanged by this new complication – learn how to protect her soul, become a better fighter, and polish her mind magic into something usable and reliable. Her mind drifted to the battle she was caught in today and she nodded to herself. Her performance wasn’t flawless, but she got out of it alive and the growth of her skills was undeniable.

Despite all the issues she encountered, she seemed well on her way to achieving her goals.

Chapter 33: Chapter 33: Gateways

Chapter Text

Standing still in the empty living room inside Vazen’s house, Veronica stared unhappily at the splatter of green gunk in front of her that was currently eating through the floor with an audible sizzle. One could hardly tell that, not too long ago, the acid slime in front of her used to be a stack of important documents stored in Vazen’s safe. The merchant really didn’t want anyone to take a look at these, it seemed.

The operation started well. Everything started well. Not seeing the point of reinventing the wheel, Veronica used her past method of entering Vazen’s home, then began dismantling the protections on the safe. Aside from the already familiar explosion trap, she also found a sleep trap which aimed to knock any prospective thieves unconscious the moment they touched the safe. She disabled both traps and, having found no further spellwork protecting the safe, immediately tried to remove the documents.

She promptly triggered a mechanical mechanism that dumped some kind of powerful acidic mixture on top of the safe’s contents. The good news was that she managed to avoid getting any of the gunk on her hands – considering what the stuff was doing to the floor at the moment, it would have probably eaten right through her bones before she managed to get it off of her. The bad news was that she failed to salvage any of the safe’s contents before the gunk ruined it. She managed to levitate the contents out of the safe, yes, but the gunk was almost like glue in the way it clung to the papers. She was unable to separate it from the surviving documents before it ate through them all and then happily continued to dissolve the floor beneath them.

She shuddered. She was really, really glad she managed to yank her hands away in time to avoid getting any of that stuff on them.

Once again, Veronica was forced to leave Vazen’s place empty-handed. She was sorely tempted to rig the entire place to explode in Vazen’s face the moment he came back home as revenge, but that would be petty and stupid. A murder of such an influential man would attract a lot of attention, plus Alanic was probably paying very close attention to the man. And she had tried to rob the man after all, so she had no right to be particularly outraged anyway.

Still… Veronica was now absolutely certain that Vazen was involved in some very shady things, and she wasn’t talking about tax fraud or industrial espionage. There was no way that Vazen would rig his safe to destroy things like business contracts and production blueprints in the event of discovery – the sheer amount of money he’d lost doing that must have been exorbitant. There had to be something more in there among those papers. Something incredibly illegal and incriminating, to the point where Vazen would rather lose everything than be discovered possessing it.

She was definitely coming back in the next restart. Maybe the man’s misdeeds were unconnected to the Ibasan invaders gunning after Cyoria or the group targeting soul mages around Knyazov Dveri, but somehow Veronica doubted it. It cost her nothing to check, in any case.

Well, unless Vazen had even more horrifying surprises waiting for her should she overcome the second layer of his defenses. Next time she was bringing a 10-foot pole with her, because there was no way she was putting her hands into that safe anymore.

* * *

The day after she had survived the failed ambush just outside Alanic’s temple, Veronica arrived at her next meditation session feeling more than a little bit apprehensive. And not just about the possibility of another ambush – she did not like the looks Alanic had been giving her when she was giving her statement, and Veronica was worried about what that meant for her. However, the lesson that day had been wholly unremarkable – there had been no second ambush, and Alanic gave no indication he was upset or suspicious of her. Thus, she put it out of her mind and decided to follow Alanic’s example by carrying on as if nothing happened.

Now, three days later, Veronica could safely say that had been a mistake. Being dragged into the temple courtyard for a test of her combat skills sounded suspiciously like punishment to her ears.

As an aside, why did a temple have a battle arena in its courtyard instead of a nice, peaceful garden or something? Between that and the dungeons in the basem*nt she was starting to get really dubious about this building’s spiritual credentials.

"Err, not that I don’t appreciate your help in shoring up my modest combat capabilities, but we really should be focusing on getting my inner soul sight functioning," said Veronica, shuffling uncomfortably in place. "You told me yourself that this skill requires total focus from me to master correctly."

Alanic simply continued staring at her, silent and impassive, from his corner of the arena.

And then he gestured with his staff at Veronica and threw a fireball at her.

Veronica was not surprised at the attack. She had been expecting something like that, to be honest. What did throw her for a loop was that he chose that particular spell to open combat with. Fireball wasn’t something you threw at a junior mage to test them – it was far too lethal for that! Even a stunted one was capable of killing a human on a direct hit, and a regular shield spell could not protect against it. No matter how powerful, it was still just a disc of force in front of the caster – the expanding sphere of fiery energy would just flow around it and envelop the caster behind it.
The shock lasted for but a moment for Veronica, and then she immediately erected a dome of force around herself – not just a shield, but a full-blown aegis that protected her from all sides at once. The fireball hit the dome not long after, and Veronica’s view was momentarily blanked out by a blanket of fire. When the fire cleared, she found herself standing in front of Alanic again, the priest as silent and unmoving as he had ever been. Her apprehension at the situation dropped slightly. The fireball had been a very weak one. She knew because one of the retired mages she'd helped in her aimless wanderings prior to her arrival in Knyazov Dveri had taught her how to get feedback from her defensive spells, and her aegis had held strong against a spell that should have taxed it to its limit. Veronica was sure the man in front of her could have done much better than that if he had wanted to. The fact he hadn’t immediately followed up on his fireball with something to finish her off reinforced the idea that this really was some kind of test. A very messed up, dangerous test, but she was kind of used to such things at this point.

She sent a single magic missile towards Alanic. She could see the man scoff as he lazily raised his arm to block the puny attack and suppressed a smile. Though it looked like a magic missile spell, the projectile was anything but – it didn’t so much smash into things as erupt into a spherical wave of force, much like a fireball that used force instead of fire. A forceball, if you will. Alanic would almost certainly use a regular shield instead of a full aegis against a puny magic missile, and then the forceball would—

The space in front of Alanic suddenly warped and shimmered, and Veronica’s forceball promptly winked out of existence. A dispelling wave of some sort, if she guessed correctly. Dammit. Then Alanic decided it was his turn again, and Veronica was too busy dodging bolts of fire and incineration rays to focus on internal cursing.

Veronica quickly learned that Alanic loved fire spells. Even after she switched from all-purpose shields to variants specifically designed to tank fire magic at the expense of performance against other damage types, he persisted in using them. After his initial barrage of weak, fast-casting, numerous fire projectiles failed to overwhelm Veronica, he switched to trying to steamroll her with gigantic, slow-moving spheres of fire that didn’t explode and instead simply tried to envelop her in their flames. After Veronica managed to dispel them, he responded with more fireballs – and this time he wasn’t holding back.

Veronica tried to counter-attack whenever she spotted an opening, but all of her attacks were neutralized with contemptuous ease. Trying to kick up dust and other visibility obstacles failed because Alanic could somehow cause a gust of wind to disperse such attacks away from him without making a single gesture or visibly exerting himself. Items were useless because he could telekinetically hurl all projectiles away from him with a simple sweeping gesture, and any magical projectiles were blocked, intercepted, or dispelled. Even after Veronica started launching projectiles in complicated parabolic, zigzagging, or spiral trajectories, the priest seemed to have no problems tracking them and responding.

Finally, Veronica was nearly out of mana and decided to go out with a bang. She put most of her remaining mana into a ray of force that she promptly fired at Alanic’s face. The attack would have killed the priest had it really connected, though Veronica knew it would never connect. Sure enough, the man simply sidestepped it, and Veronica collapsed on the ground in exhaustion, her arms raised in surrender.

"I give up," she panted, her voice carrying a hint of frustration. "Whatever point you wanted to make to me, you’ve done it. Though if this was all for the sake of showing me I’m not the biggest fish in the pond, you needn’t have bothered – I’m well aware how screwed I’d be in a face-off against a veteran battle mage."

"The point was seeing how long it would take before you started resorting to lethal moves," Alanic said, walking up to her and offering her a hand. Veronica internally debated the merits of casting a spell to shock the jerk with a surge of magic, but in the end decided to refrain and simply accepted his help in getting up. It probably wouldn’t have worked, anyway. "I’m rather disappointed it took until you were on your last legs to go for the killing blow."

"Oh, screw you, Alanic!" snapped Veronica, her usually soft tone laced with irritation. "What kind of nutjob tries to kill their opponent in a freaking spar!?"

"You?" Alanic tried, a smirk dancing on his lips. "You did try to kill me at the end, didn’t you?"

"That’s… I knew it had no chance of actually succeeding."

"Yes, and I’m certain you realized that a minute or two into the test. You should have stopped holding back at that point, or at least followed my lead in what is an acceptable level of force."

"Actually, let’s refocus on that issue instead," Veronica said. "What if you had ended up killing me? Some of those spells you tried to hit me with would have put me into a hospital for months if I hadn’t tanked them. Possibly kill me outright! The skills I used to survive your test aren’t something you had any right to expect of me!"

"I can control what my fires burn," Alanic said matter-of-factly. Veronica was honestly stumped at that. That kind of thing was possible? "I also have a divine artifact that can heal any burns so long as the victim is still alive. Regardless of how things looked to you, you were in very little danger. Still, you clearly thought I was being excessively aggressive and you still held back against me. That kind of hesitation will get you killed someday. As it almost did a few days ago."

"I knew this was about those riflemen I disabled," Veronica mumbled.

"Yes. Disabled. They tried to kill you, with an ambush, no less, and you went out of the way to simply knock them out. There is being merciful and there is being stupid."

"Are you sure you’re a priest?" grumbled Veronica.

"A warrior-priest," Alanic clarified. "Not every religious order is about peace and forgiveness. And even those that are usually make exceptions for self-defense, in practice if not in theory."

"Fine, fair enough," Veronica conceded. "But why do you care? Why is this so upsetting to you?"

"That’s a stupid question. I don’t want you to die, that’s why."

"Um," Veronica paused, momentarily stumped for a response. What the hell was that supposed to mean? She really wished Alanic wasn’t so utterly unreadable to her empathy. "Look, I’ll be honest with you – I wasn’t really being merciful. You’re misreading the whole thing. I simply attacked them in the best manner I had available."

"Please," Alanic scoffed. "I know very well how difficult it would be to take down a group that large non-lethally. Do you really expect me to believe that was the method of attack least dangerous for yourself that you had available?"

"Well, yes," Veronica said softly, determined yet truthful. "I guess it would help to know that I’m a natural mind mage. I sense all minds around me, regardless of physical obstacles or line of sight, and I can launch a crude mental assault on them if I so wish. Using that, I could knock them out outside of their shooting range, before they could pinpoint my position. Actually killing them would have entailed entering their attack range so I could cast something more deadly at them. Which I felt was rather suicidal at the time."

Alanic gave her a curious look. "An interesting ability. I note that not all of the attackers had been disabled by the time the Guild taskforce had arrived. Did you simply not have time to go through them all or…?"

"It’s a weak attack," said Veronica. "It’s not hard to resist."

Alanic nodded. Veronica hoped the priest would not question her on the exact mechanics of her ability, as she was not sure she could deceive the man convincingly. Thankfully, it did not seem he would push the issue at the moment.

"What would you have done if no reinforcements had arrived?" Alanic asked.

"Tried to lure them into a minefield," Veronica shrugged, a touch of nonchalance in her tone. "So yeah. I was fully prepared to blow them up into tiny pieces if they continued to go after me. There’s a lot you can accuse me of, but being suicidally merciful isn’t one of them. You don’t have to worry about me."

"I’m not so sure about that," Alanic grouched. "But it does seem I have misjudged you somewhat. Walk with me."

Alanic walked back into the temple proper and Veronica followed him. She soon found herself sitting in a small kitchen that she had never seen before, though that wasn’t saying much. She had never really explored the site, fearful of drawing Alanic’s ire if she stepped foot in some private sanctum that non-clergy were supposed to never witness. Most temples had at least a couple of those as far as Veronica knew.

"Misunderstandings aside, the test was quite real," said Alanic once they were seated. "I really did want to see what you were capable of combat-wise."

"And?" asked Veronica curiously, her gentle yet firm gaze meeting his.

"You are better than I thought you’d be," said Alanic. Veronica preened at the praise. Alanic didn’t seem like the sort to hand it out lightly. "But it’s clear to me you’re no legend in the making. I estimate that your natural mana reserves are average at best, perhaps even below average, and your spells have the feel of a mage who has practiced a lot rather than those of a talented beginner."

Veronica scowled, her earlier pride forgotten.

"A mage as young as you should not have experience in fighting that extensive," continued Alanic. Uh oh. "I had suspected it for a while now and now I am certain – you are not some recent graduate going for a round of wandering before settling down. Or a traveling mage who stumbled onto something way over her head. You are someone who actively looks for trouble. Had been looking for trouble for a while now…"

Veronica said nothing. She was about to claim that it was trouble that looked for her, not the other way around… but when she really thought about it, that wasn’t really true at the moment. She really was looking for trouble right now. It was one of her core goals in Knyazov Dveri. She had a good reason for it, but still.

"I’m not going to ask you to tell me who you are. People who start fighting as young as you must have started to get as good as you are aren’t usually the trusting sort. You’d never tell me, and truthfully I have no reason to push you in that regard. No, what I want to know is what your immediate goal is here. I don’t believe that you really stumbled upon Lukav’s encounter with the boars accidentally, or that the soul marker stamped on your soul is really unconnected to the enemies after our heads. Considering how helpful both me and Lukav have been to you in this past several weeks, I believe we both deserve a little more honesty from you. What is really going on here, Veronica?"

"Regardless of what you may think, my reasons for coming here were exactly as I told them to you," Veronica said. "I really did get caught in the aftermath of a soul magic spell. I really did come to Lukav, and by extension you, because I wanted to understand what had happened to me. None of those were fabrications. But…"

"Yes?" Alanic prompted, his eyes fixed on her, waiting for honesty.
"I had done some research on the people behind my attack – the original attack that resulted in the marker on my soul, I mean – and uncovered some pretty heavy stuff. They are connected to Cyoria’s leadership somehow, and have links to the local branch of the Cult of Dragon. As far as I can see, they are Ibasan in origin. One of the reasons I had for coming here, aside from seeking out your help, was that I wanted to get out of their territory."

"And you think our attackers belong to that group?" surmised Alanic.

"Considering how large and organized the Ibasan group was, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had some kind of organization branch here. And the fact both groups make use of undead and soul magic is kind of indicative to my eyes. But I don’t actually have any proof, and I’m far from certain."

Veronica wasn’t comfortable about sharing everything with Alanic. For instance, telling him about the invasion or the primordial summoning plot was out of the question, as Alanic would no doubt insist on notifying the Cyoria authorities about those and that could alert Red Robe about Veronica’s whereabouts. She did, however, tell him about a lot of other things… like the other disappearances in the area. Her own investigation into them had pretty much stalled for the moment, so she had little to lose by telling him about them at this point.

After several exhausting hours of back and forth, Alanic all but threw her out of the temple, claiming he had to think about things. Veronica was glad for that, as she was thoroughly sick of the entire conversation by that point… even if there was a good chance Alanic would want to have nothing to do with her by tomorrow.

Oh well, even if the man refused to see her after this, there was always the next restart. There wasn’t that much time left in this restart anyway.

---

Veronica was in the process of affixing a left arm to the wooden golem she was building when a human mind suddenly appeared in her room. She would like to say that she reacted immediately and decisively, but the truth was that she was momentarily paralyzed by surprise and fear, spent several moments fumbling for a response, and then realized that her mysterious attacker was actually Alanic.

She glared at the priest that had just teleported into her room without warning, trying to set him on fire with her eyes. Sadly, that ability wasn’t one of the things in her repertoire, and Alanic was completely unfazed at her glare. Note to self: find a spell that lets you set whatever you’re looking at on fire.

"What the hell do you think you’re doing, Alanic?" Veronica snapped. "I could have shot you if I hadn’t realized who you were in time."

Alanic glanced at the half-disassembled rifle on Veronica’s bed and raised an eyebrow at her.

"Well not with that, obviously," Veronica groused.

"You didn’t turn up for your evening lesson," Alanic said with disapproval. "I felt it prudent to check up on you."

"I kind of thought I should give you some time," Veronica said defensively. "You seemed pretty annoyed yesterday."

"I was disturbed, not angry," Alanic said. "I needed some time to think. If I wanted you to skip on your lesson I would have said so." He looked at the half-finished golem and raised his eyebrow at Veronica. "A curious choice of materials for a golem."

"It’s a prototype," Veronica said. "I don’t expect much from my first golem, so I wanted to make it out of something cheap and easy to work with."

Alanic shook his head. "It doesn’t matter, really. I suppose I can give you a day off from lessons for one day. Tell me, though – is there anything else you forgot to mention to me yesterday?"

"Not really, no," said Veronica. Nothing except things she had purposely kept to herself, anyway. "Although I’d like to ask you a question, if I may. As a soul magic expert, do you think it’s possible to kill a soul?"

"No," Alanic said immediately. "What kind of question is that? Do I need to read you passages from the Book of Zikiel again?"

"No!" Veronica protested. "No, that will not be necessary. Yes, I know that’s what the books say, but… the necromancer I told you about, the one who killed my informants?"

Alanic nodded, indicating he knew what Veronica was talking about. In truth he didn’t know the half of it. For one thing, Veronica had never explained to the priest that those informants had been giant talking spiders. Still, Veronica had told enough of the story for Alanic to follow along.

"He claimed to have done more than just kill them. He said he killed their very souls to ensure they were never coming back."

"An empty boast. He was just trying to demoralize you," Alanic scoffed. "Souls are unkillable. Corruptible certainly, but you can’t destroy them."

"Even if he had effectively unlimited time to figure something out?" Veronica pressed. "He did mention he spent decades within a time dilation field while he was ranting at me."

"Necromancers have been trying to destroy a soul for a millennium without much luck," Alanic said. "Finding a way to crack open the indestructible core of the soul to see what makes them tick and if it can be manipulated and duplicated has been the goal of many a necromancer over the ages. And many of those necromancers spent centuries pursuing their grisly work with little regards to morality or pity for the people they experimented upon. I sincerely doubt this one mage can do what a thousand years of necromantic tradition has failed at just because he spent a couple of months in a time dilation chamber. Provided he made use of such facilities at all, that is. Personally, I find it much more likely he’s making things up."

"What if it’s more than just months, though?" Veronica pressed. "Years, even decades?"

"You mean like that old drivel about Black Rooms that various organizations supposedly have?" asked Alanic. "Those rumors are almost certainly false. They are not impossible in theory, but much harder than they sound in practice. The logistics of time dilation chambers is very complex and requires more than just capability to speed up the passage of time in an area. And that’s especially true for things like necromantic experiments, which require a constant stream of victims to serve as experiment subjects. Unless your boasting necromancer has access to something like the Sovereign Gate, his claims are laughable."

"Sovereign Gate?" asked Veronica.

"Never heard of that story?" Alanic asked. Veronica shook her head in negative. "Well, do you at least know who Shutur-Tarana Ihilkush was?"

"How could I not?" Veronica scowled. "My history teacher made us all memorize the first three chapters of The 13 Cities of Salaw by heart. That would be the last king of Ikos, yes? The man who conquered all of the city states around the Umani-Re river and created the Ikosian Empire. What does he have to do with anything?"

"The Sovereign Gate is an artifact supposedly dating back from his time," Alanic said. "Like many great rulers, Shutur-Tarana has a great many fanciful stories and grandiose claims associated with him, and this particular one claims he either made or found a doorway into another world. Having found he did not age at all while on the other side, he spent 11 lifetimes there, learning their secrets and honing his skills. Eventually, he grew homesick and decided to go back home. Once he was back in his own world, however, he found the doors forever barred to him. He stored the Sovereign Gate in his royal vault, there to wait for a worthy successor who would repeat his feat and usher the empire into a new age with the wisdom gained from the other side. Or, well, resurrect it… since it is thoroughly dead at this point."

"An interesting story," Veronica said.

"But probably just that – a story," said Alanic. "It would have probably remained half-forgotten in some decaying tome as one of the many obscure tales surrounding the first emperor, but Eldemar’s royal family is very fond of it, since they claim to have the Sovereign Gate in their possession."

"Oh?"

"Yes, though in all honesty I’m not the best person to ask about that topic. Personally, I think the whole thing is fabricated drivel which Eldemar royals thought up to give themselves some additional legitimacy. They never mentioned the Gate or any of the other Ikosian artifacts they apparently had until they had their ambitions and reputation dashed in the Splinter Wars. They probably just swiped one of the Bakora gates from somewhere and are trying to pass it off as a genuine Ikosian artifact with fanciful stories. You should probably find an actual historian for a proper discussion on the subject."

"Fair enough," said Veronica. "I was just curious. What are Bakora gates, though?"

"Also something you should ask a historian about," said Alanic. "To put it simply, they are some kind of ancient teleportation network that predates Ikosian civilization by a fair margin. No one knows much about the Bakora, since they only left their gate network and a handful of other artifacts behind, but their reach was vast – the gates can be found all over Miasina, Altazia and even Blantyrre. Sadly, the art of actually activating the gates has been lost to the sands of time… or maybe their magic simply broke down a long time ago and they no longer work. Regardless of the truth, they are mostly just historical curiosities now – modern mages have their own teleportation network up and functioning, so most of the interest in the Bakora gates has dried up, at least on the mage side."

After reminding Veronica not to skip the lesson tomorrow as well, Alanic decided to leave in the same manner he arrived – by teleporting out. Veronica shook her head to clear it of fanciful tales of ancient artifacts and continued working on her golem prototype. She would go ask Vani about the Sovereign Gate and the Bakora gate network tomorrow, though she didn’t expect that to go anywhere. While the story about the first emperor of Ikosia could be sort of interpreted as an account of the time loop, it made no sense that an artifact that was supposedly stored in the capital would cause an effect centered around Shirley and Cyoria. Oh well, it hurt her nothing to ask.

It was only half an hour later that Veronica realized that Alanic had teleported inside her room despite the fact she had warded it against teleportation.

Frowning, Veronica wrote down a reminder for herself to tear down her current ward scheme in the coming days and put up something stronger. And a second reminder to ask Alanic how the hell he had done that.

---

Veronica had been worried that Vani might not welcome her into his home the way he had the last time they’d spoken in the previous restart. After all, she hadn’t spent the month visibly culling the winter wolf population like she had last time, and that seemed to have had great influence on him.

As it turned out, she need not have worried. The man was as friendly and helpful as ever, though also just as talkative and prone to digressions.

"Ah, Ulquaan Ibasa, the isle of the exiles," said Vani. "A fascinating place and a fascinating topic. I wrote a book on the Necromancer’s War, you know? Not an easy topic to write about in an objective manner, since so many are ready to dismiss them as monsters and criminals out of hand…"
Veronica made a sound that could possibly be interpreted as agreement, though truly, her opinion of Ibasans couldn’t possibly be lower. Perhaps if she hadn’t repeatedly witnessed all the killings and destruction in Cyoria, she might have felt some pity for them, but as it was? They really were dangerous scum in her eyes. Unaware of Veronica’s inner musings, Vani launched into a protracted explanation of the causes behind the Necromancer’s War. He spoke of succession disputes in several prominent Houses and royal families that developed when their leaders turned into liches and vampires, and their heirs realized they would never inherit their birthright because their parents would never die of age alone. He also spoke of the common people, who hated necromancers with a passion and resented being ruled by the undead. Finally, he discussed Eldemar’s desire for supremacy and how they were too happy to intervene in disputes to place people more sympathetic to them in leadership positions.

Finally, everything came to a head when the kingdom of Sulamnon, at that time in a personal union with Eldemar, rose in rebellion against their king, supported by Reya and Namassar. When they lost said rebellion, they were forced to issue a blanket ban on necromancy by the king of Eldemar, or else forfeit their lands to the crown. The ban, if enacted, would gut the entire military of Sulamnon, which made great use of undead in their army at the time, as well as force a number of prominent aristocrats to hand over their titles to their children and go into exile.

The necromancers in Sulamnon refused to accept the treaty and raised an army, bolstered by the part of the Sulamnonian military that still felt they had a chance to win if they continued fighting. Soon, they were joined by other forces that resented Eldemar’s growing power – the remaining Khusky tribes that still retained some military might, the remnants of witch covens, the undead aristocracy of other countries that saw the way the wind was blowing and wanted to overrule the precedent that would see them similarly disposed of, as well as a number of opportunistic actors that felt they had more to gain by siding with the necromancers than with the king of Eldemar. Thus, the Necromancer’s War had begun.

The necromancers soon showed themselves to be cruel and merciless opponents, and the atrocities they committed against captured villages and defeated soldiers shocked the continent. Any sympathies or support they had from neutral parties who wanted to see Eldemar humbled quickly evaporated. Instead of serving as a rallying force against Eldemar domination, they handed the growing kingdom exactly the sort of war they needed to cement their authority and legitimacy. When Eldemar’s general Fert Oroklo defeated the necromancer’s army led by Quatach-Ichl, thereby destroying them as a coherent force, the continent sighed in relief. The kingdom of Eldemar rewrote the map in their favor, and were seen as heroes for it instead of tyrannical aggressors, and the surviving parts of the necromancer’s army fled to the frozen island north, now known as the isle of the exiles - Ulquaan Ibasa.

The king of Eldemar graciously agreed not to pursue them to their new home. No doubt that was because of his great mercy, rather than an unwillingness to send soldiers to some worthless ice-swept land to pursue a broken enemy.

Then again, considering it took more than a hundred years before the exiles started making trouble again, Veronica supposed she couldn’t blame him for his reasoning. Hell, she still wasn’t certain what the Ibasans hoped to gain with their destruction of Cyoria. She supposed if their leadership was composed of immortal undead, they might have personally participated in the Necromancer’s War and were still bitter about it.

"Well, I hate to interrupt such a fascinating story, but I was really hoping to ask you about some historical artifacts," Veronica said when she finally spotted a lull in Vani’s discussion.

"Oh?" Vani said, perking up.

"Yes, I’d like to know if you have some sources about the Bakora gates and the Sovereign Gate."

"The Sovereign Gate is nothing," Vani said dismissively. "The royals won’t even let anyone see it, much less examine it. I have doubts whether it exists at all. The Bakora gates, though…"

Vani promptly started digging through his stacks of books and continued to do so for another fifteen minutes or so. Finally, he found what he was looking for in some forgotten corner. He leafed through the book until he found the correct page and then handed it to Veronica while pointing at the illustration stamped on it.

The Bakora gates did not look anything like Veronica had imagined. When Alanic had described them to her, she figured they were something like stone arches or rings. Instead, they looked like hollow icosahedrons assembled out of some kind of black bars. Not very gate-like in Veronica’s opinion.

"It’s hard to study the gates since no one has witnessed one in actual operation for quite some time, but from the writings found inscribed into their pedestals and preserved written records, we know they function similarly to a teleport platform," Vani explained, waving his finger over the illustration for… some reason. "Only they open a dimensional hole that connects one gate to another instead of teleporting people standing inside. It is probably not a good idea to stand inside the gate while it activates."

Veronica gave the man an incredulous look.

"Well, I mean, it could have some kind of safety feature to abort the activation procedure if someone is standing inside," Vani defended himself. "Anyway, the bars are likely stabilizers, making sure the rift stays open long enough for people to step through."

"Hmm. They sound really powerful and exotic. I’m surprised there’s so little interest in them," said Veronica.

"Most people think they were not nearly as efficient as modern teleport platforms are, and they are bound to be exorbitantly expensive and difficult to make. The gate spell is almost certainly reverse-engineered from Bakora gates, back when people still knew how to activate them, and it is pretty much the pinnacle of dimensional magic that very few mages can cast safely. Teleportation magic, on the other hand, is relatively accessible and cheap. In the end, it all comes down to the fact they are currently inert and nobody knows how to use them. If, indeed, they can be used at all in modern times. They are the oldest magical artifacts that we are aware of – it is possible they broke down a long time ago."

"How many of them are there?" Veronica asked.

"Hundreds are known," Vani said. "Only gods know how many more remain undiscovered in some distant jungle or mountain peak. The Bakora really loved placing those gates all over the place, it seems. Hmm… I actually think I have a map of all the recorded gates in Altazia."

It took more than half an hour for Vani to find the map in the mess that was his house, but he did produce it in the end. Veronica studied it curiously, immediately noting one particular location.

"Cyoria has a Bakora gate?" she asked incredulously. "How? Where? I’ve never heard anything about that."

"Oh, that." Vani snorted. "I almost forgot about that. That gate is deep within the lower levels of the Dungeon beneath Cyoria, very far into the dangerous levels. It would be suicide to go there for most mages, so nobody studies that one to my knowledge. Researchers interested in the gates have safer locations to set up camp at."

After studying the map for a while and failing to find anything really notable, Veronica thanked Vani for his time and left. The Bakora gates were kind of interesting, but she didn’t see how they could be connected with the time loop.

Another dead end as far as she was concerned, but at least she didn’t waste too much time on this one.

* * *

Veronica's eyes abruptly shot open as a sharp pain erupted from her stomach. Her whole body convulsed, buckling against the object that fell on her, and suddenly she was wide awake, not a trace of drowsiness in her mind.

"Good morning, sister!" an annoyingly cheerful voice sounded right on top of her. "Morning, morning, MORNING!"

Veronica gave Kirielle an incredulous look. What? Why was she here? The summer festival was still days away, and the last thing she remembered was peacefully falling to sleep. Did Shirley die prematurely again, or was she killed in her sleep without even realizing it?

She was broken out of her thoughts when Kirielle nudged her, apparently unhappy that she was ignoring her. Veronica gently guided Kirielle aside and rose to her feet.

"I need to cast a spell," she said softly, looking at her. "Please give me some time alone."

"Can I watch?" Kirielle asked, eyes wide with curiosity.

Veronica raised an eyebrow at her sister. "Do you think you can keep quiet for ten minutes?"

Kirielle placed her palm over her mouth, mimicking the sign of silence.

"Right. Go lock the door then so mother won’t be disturbing us," Veronica instructed gently. "I need utmost concentration for this."

Also, their mother would be quite upset if she found Veronica pouring salt and quartz dust on the floor, so it was best if she were kept out until Veronica was done. Thankfully, she had both materials available in sufficient quantities, so she would be able to perform the marker tracking spell without delay.

Ten minutes later, Veronica was once again given a sense of where all the marked individuals were in relation to herself. Two of them again – one representing herself, and the other one in the direction of Cyoria. Less than a minute later, the other marker abruptly shifted positions to the southeast of where it had originally been, and then shifted south again not long afterwards. Teleportation. The owner of the marker seemed to be in quite a hurry to get away from Cyoria.

There was no third marker.

The other marker was almost certainly Shirley, Veronica felt – her classmate definitely began restarts in Cyoria, and it made sense for her to have the marker since Veronica had to have got it from somewhere. That left Red Robe, then – either Red Robe did not start the time loop in the vicinity of Cirin, managed to teleport outside Veronica’s detection radius in the 15 minutes or so it took her to set up the tracking ritual… or flat out didn’t have a marker.

She would repeat the detection ritual every couple of days and see if the third marker ever popped up.

"That spell is boring," Kirielle complained, gently poking Veronica in the side and disrupting her concentration. Apparently this was as far as her patience went. "There is nothing to see at all!"

"Here, have a swarm of butterflies," sighed Veronica, conjuring a tiny swarm of glittery, colorful butterflies. It was actually a pretty difficult spell to pull off, despite the seemingly simple effect – it took a lot of skill and practice to create that many animated, solid illusions and make them convincing. Still, the spell’s ability to distract and fascinate Kirielle was every bit as effective as Veronica had hoped it would be – it took her sister a full minute to realize Veronica had slipped out of the room.

Worth every minute she had spent on learning it.
"All right," murmured Veronica to herself, taking a deep breath to steady herself. "I have temporarily shut down the house’s warding scheme, neutralized both the explosion trap and the sleep one, blocked the acid mechanism, and destroyed the alarm beacon disguised as the document seal. This is it. Third time’s the charm." And with that, Veronica commanded the small wooden golem in front of her to go fetch the papers for her. No way was she going near that safe personally.

The wood golem, version two, slowly stepped forward. Its movements were awkward and jerky, but it did not stumble or sway drunkenly, which was a vast improvement over the wood golem version one. It would be useless in battle, but this task was something she felt her creation might actually pull off. If not, she had a collapsible 10-foot pole in reserve.

Amazingly, the whole thing went off without a hitch – the golem reached into the safe and pulled out a stack of documents without some horrid trap mangling it in the process, then walked up to her and presented her with her prize.

It was only when she tried to take the documents from the golem’s hands that disaster struck – she foolishly assumed the golem would automatically let go of the paper stack when Veronica tried to yank them out of its hands, but of course, the wooden doll had no such instincts. It was too slow to release its grip and ended unbalanced when Veronica unwittingly yanked it forward. Before she knew it, the entire stack of papers was sent tumbling through the air and ended up strewn all across the floor of Vazen’s living room.

Veronica half-expected the papers to suddenly burst into flames out of sheer spite, but they thankfully remained intact. Just… completely scrambled out of order, probably requiring her to spend hours sorting them out.

"Ah, bother," Veronica said, quickly scooping up papers into an unruly pile and stuffing it into her bag. "I’ll just take the whole thing with me and sort it later."

She picked up her clumsy golem and teleported out of the house. Minor annoyances aside, the mission was a success, and she could finally find out what was so important about these documents.

Chapter 34: Chapter 34: Unreasonable Things

Chapter Text

She didn’t bring the papers to her room, of course. Veronica was confident that there was no tracking spell on anything in the stack, but she was also confident that Vazen would try to divine the location of the papers the hard way once he noticed the theft. He might even succeed, in which case Veronica didn’t want them to be near anything that would automatically implicate her in the theft. No sense in taking that risk when she could simply store the papers elsewhere.

Elsewhere, in this case, meant outside Knyazov Dveri – that way, the papers would be out of range of virtually every divination spell cast from inside the city. Thus, after teleporting around randomly a couple of times to confuse any theoretical trackers, Veronica’s last jump took her deep into the forested wilderness to the north of the city, to a location that had a small, convenient cave nearby. She had found the place in an earlier restart, while tracking down ingredients for Silverlake, and she had felt even then that it would be a nice place to set up camp at. It just needed some touch-ups here and there to make it suitable for her purposes.

She conjured a glowing lantern to light her way in the gloom of the cave and got to work. After a quick casting of an area-wide spook animals spell to drive away all the bats and vermin that had taken residence in the cave, she set about using alteration magic to clean the place up and make some shelves and reading surfaces out of the rock. A while later, after testing things for comfort and stability, she decided that stone chairs perhaps weren’t the best idea and instead constructed some basic furniture out of the fallen branches she found in the surrounding forest. There – good enough for her purposes.

"Now comes the hard part," she spoke to herself.

It was time to start constructing the warding scheme for the place.

Three hours later, Veronica had layered every single divination ward that she felt could be useful and a few that she didn’t and had rechecked the whole thing twice to make sure everything was stable and worked correctly. Truthfully… she wasn’t satisfied. She had an insufficient collection of different anti-divination spells to set up a proper, iron-tight warding scheme, and too little experience to properly judge what was crucial and what was not. In addition, if it took her this long to set up even this mediocre thing, how long would something more complex take? She really needed to get better at warding…

She shook her head to clear her thoughts. She needed to get better at a lot of things, but she had to prioritize. Defense against soul magic, then combat skills, then aranean mind arts. Those three things were urgent and couldn’t be put off. Everything else was secondary for now, even the mystery surrounding Vazen and the documents. If stealing the documents resulted in her early death, despite the many precautions she took… well, she would just have to set the whole thing aside until she was done with her current main goal, wouldn’t she?

No, her current defenses would have to be enough for now. She placed the papers she stole from Vazen on the nearby stone table she’d made from the cavern floor, sat down on a chair she’d fabricated from wooden detritus she’d dragged into the cave, and began to read…

Hours later, when she was finally done reading and organizing the whole thing, she seriously contemplated burning the whole stack down and scattering the ashes in the wind. Safer that way, and probably more than a little cathartic. She had expected to find something heavily incriminating, but this was something else entirely. Why did the man keep all of his incriminating correspondence in one convenient place, anyway? If it had been Veronica in his shoes, she would have destroyed all the letters once she read them so they couldn’t be used against her. Was Vazen keeping them as possible blackmail material or something? If so, that was kind of bold of him, considering what kind of person the man was dealing with.

Said person being Sudomir Kandrei, the mayor of Knyazov Dveri. Because of course, it was the goddamn mayor that was behind everything. No wonder that telling the police about the disappearances never went anywhere – even if somebody had seriously looked into it, they would have been told pretty quickly to drop the case by their superiors. Local governors in peripheral areas such as these were basically tiny tyrants that could do as they pleased, so long as they made sure not to upset the wrong person or stir up trouble.

Not that knowing who was responsible for the disappearances shed any light on the man’s motives. When all was said and done, Vazen was merely the guy supplying Sudomir with various illegal materials and occasionally hiring shady people in Sudomir’s place so the mayor couldn’t be implicated in the deal. The merchant didn’t even know about most of the disappearances as far as Veronica could see. In fact, Vazen’s shady dealings with the mayor seemed to have been much more benign until about three months ago, when the man suddenly upped the game and started demanding much riskier merchandise, in far greater quantities, as well as started arranging full-blown assassinations like the ones directed against her and Alanic. One could tell from the letters that Vazen was getting progressively more disturbed and annoyed at his customer for escalating things like that, especially since Sudomir refused to elaborate on what had caused this sudden change. The deal that Vazen made with a company in Cyoria, the one that Gurey was so interested in, was basically a bribe that Sudomir had arranged for Vazen to calm him down and keep him cooperative.

The blueprints and recipes contained in the documents looked kind of interesting, but there was nothing there that Veronica found really notable or sinister. The names of the three businesses that provided the documentation were something she recognized, however – they were run by people that the aranea had identified as members of the Cult of the Dragon.

So. The mayor of Knyazov Dveri had some kind of connection to the Cult of the Dragon Below. Significant enough that he could arrange for them to hand over extremely valuable documentation to one of his agents for a mere pittance.

Well, the idea that this whole thing was connected to Ibasan invaders just got a lot more credible with this, though it was not Vazen that had links to them like she originally suspected. Still, the question of why he was after the soul mages around Knyazov Dveri remained. Why bother? What did the Ibasans get by doing that? Some of these people could only loosely be described as soul mages to begin with, and most of them weren’t a serious threat to the Ibasan force… or anyone really.

She sighed. Like always, every answer she found seemed to bring up two more questions in its wake. She placed the papers on a nearby shelf carved into the walls of the cave, opting not to destroy them just yet, and then went back to her room to get some sleep.

* * *

After she had gotten some sleep and had a chance to think about things, she decided to put off the investigation of Sudomir’s activities for some other time. No sense in stirring up the hornet’s nest further when she could just wait for some future restart in which she never stole Vazen’s documents and nobody knew they were even being threatened by someone.

However, as days passed without incident and nobody ever tracked down the documents to her little forest hideout, she began to relax. She didn’t restart the investigation or change any of her plans, but she figured this would be a nice, relaxing restart where nothing of real note happened. She slowly absorbed Alanic’s lessons in personal soul sight, fiddled with her wood golem (version three) in her free time, and made sure to cast the marker detection spell at least once per day (no change; the spell never showed anything except two markers).

And then, two weeks into the restart, she woke up in the middle of the night to see a black-clad figure with an obscured face and a knife in their hand standing over her bed.

Later on, she would wonder what had tipped her off that she was in danger, but in that moment, she simply reacted. Without bothering to structure the magic into any real spell, she reached out to the blanket covering her and flung it at the assassin in a crude burst of telekinetic force. The person (probably; the build suggested a male) stumbled back as the blanket collided with them, not really hurt but surprised at the maneuver and disoriented by the sudden blindness.
Veronica scrambled to her feet, barely managing to get upright before the assassin succeeded in throwing the flimsy fabric off of her and lunged towards her. Three knife swipes later and Veronica was sporting a deep gash on her arm and a bleeding scratch on her cheek. She knew for a fact that she had no chance against the man in a physical confrontation. Frantically searching the room with her eyes, she tried to spot something to help herself with and admitted to herself that sound-proofing the room may have been a slight mistake. Only slight, though, because even if she could scream for help she doubted anyone would be able to reach her before the assassin was done with her. No, the bigger mistake was that she opted to sleep with her rod of magic missiles and shielding bracelets in her desk drawer instead of taking them with her to sleep. It was official: after this battle, regardless of outcome, she was going to cast magic missile non-stop whenever she had free time and mana to make it fully reflexive. She couldn’t afford to be this defenseless when deprived of her tools.

"If I die, I will blow us both up!" Veronica yelled, and meant it. The suicide necklace, at least, was always with her. Maybe she should put something other than explosives there for situations like this.

The man hesitated for a second at the proclamation, but then moved to attack again. That second was enough, though – suddenly given a moment to concentrate, Veronica blasted the man’s mind with telepathic noise. The assassin flinched, aborting his attack, but he didn’t go down.

Not yet, anyway. When Veronica took advantage of his momentary dizziness to smash a nearby paperweight into his face, though, he went down in a spray of blood and didn’t get up again.

A minute later, after she had calmed down a little (and confirmed that the assassin, while still alive, wasn’t going to get up any time soon) she decided she couldn’t go to the police with this. They were effectively the mayor’s underlings, and Sudomir was likely the one who ordered the man bleeding on the floor of her room to kill her. Or had someone else arrange it for him, more likely, considering his behavior from Vazen’s letters. The fact that the assassin apparently had a key to her room, which was how he had bypassed her intruder alarm, didn’t help her paranoia any. Regardless, she only really knew one person she could go to with this.

Already wincing at the lecture she was going to get, Veronica picked up the assassin’s unconscious body and teleported to Alanic’s temple.

* * *

Like Veronica hoped, Alanic readily accepted her explanation that the bleeding man she was carrying was an assassin sent to kill her and agreed to take him off her hands. He even gave Veronica a fast-acting healing potion to deal with the cuts and gashes the man inflicted upon her in their brief life-and-death struggle, and those weren’t exactly cheap.

Unfortunately, he also decided that Veronica was now going to move permanently into the temple with him. According to Alanic, he had been expecting something like this to happen ever since Veronica stopped his and Lukav’s killings earlier in the month and this was all the proof he needed that she wasn’t safe out there. Who’s to say the attackers won’t try again and succeed? No, as far as the warrior priest was concerned, Veronica had to be under constant guard until the situation was resolved.

Veronica really hated that idea, as it meant being effectively under house arrest for the remainder of the restart, but Alanic made it clear there was no way to blow him off without also losing his help in mastering personal soul perception. So that was that.

Despite her misgivings, however, it turned out to be something of a blessing in disguise. Since there was not much to do in a small, boring temple, Veronica found herself spending most of her time endlessly casting magic missile in an effort to make it faster and more reflexive. She did make a promise to herself, after all. In any case, those efforts attracted Alanic’s attention, and he agreed to give Veronica advice on how to improve her combat magic. Admittedly, Alanic couldn’t help her much in her self-imposed goal of making magic missile reflexive – that was just a matter of sufficient repetition. Instead, most of his help centered around squeezing the most out of fire spells, which appeared to be his specialty.

Thus, whenever Veronica got sick of repeatedly casting magic missile, she worked on mastering the plethora of minor fire spells whose mastery Alanic claimed would increase her ability to wield fire in combat. One made a thin ring of fire around the caster, making the prospect of melee difficult for enemies unless they were willing to get burned; Alanic claimed a skilled caster could increase and decrease the radius of the ring from moment to moment, cause it to split into several weaker rings for better coverage, as well as move the center of the ring’s alignment up and down along the caster’s body. The second conjured a small flock of fully autonomous, sparrow-sized birds made out of fire to harass the enemy; that one was supposed to be practice for weaving animation magic into fire spells, as the usefulness of the spell depended entirely on how well animated the birds were. And so on, and on, and on. Alanic knew a lot of minor fire spells.

"Only twenty?" Alanic asked. "Come on, Veronica, I know you can do better…"

Veronica ignored him, patiently herding the twenty marble-sized fire orbs into gentle orbits around herself. Casting the spell itself was super-easy. Controlling the 20 conjured fire orbs simultaneously was not.

"I don’t want to tire myself out too quickly," Veronica said, testing her control over the orbs by having a couple of them fly out of formation. She had already given herself a nasty burn the last time she used the spell by accidentally slamming one of the fire orbs into the back of her hand and was not looking forward to a repeat performance. The ability to direct the orbs as you wish was an interesting advantage, but that also meant there was little in the way of safety features inherent in the spell. "I’ll run out of mana too quickly if I start summoning 50 fire orbs all at once."

"You shouldn’t be casting the spell a lot anyway," Alanic said. "Sustaining the orbs is by far cheaper than constantly recreating them. The point is to take control of them, and recasting the spell doesn’t help you with that. You’re just letting your fear of getting burnt control you."

"Well yeah, I don’t want to accidentally burn my eyes off or something," protested Veronica.

Alanic sighed and shook his head. "You’re too tense for this. Take a break and we’ll continue this tomorrow."

Veronica immediately dropped the spell in relief. No matter what Alanic said, she did not like that spell. Still, Alanic was the fire magic expert here.

"Can I ask you something?" Veronica asked. Alanic casually waved his hand, telling her to get on with it. "Is it true you can selectively burn targets with your spells? That is, flat out exclude people from being damaged by your fireballs and the like?"

"Ah. I suppose Lukav told you about that," Alanic mused. Yeah, sure, let’s go with that. "Yes, that is something I can do. More than that, actually. It is nothing you would care to learn, however – it is a difficult skill that requires a lot of specialized training. Years of it. Unless you intend to specialize in fire magic – and you strike me as a generalist mage, to be frank – I would not recommend worrying about it." He smiled. "Besides, by the time you mastered something like that, the pocket meteors spell you are currently struggling with would be a joke to you, so it’s hardly a shortcut to not getting hurt with that."

"Figures," Veronica said. "But you know, a simple fire ward would make that spell a lot safer to practice. Why can’t I use it on myself before casting the spell again?"

"Danger sharpens the spirit," Alanic said airily. "You’ll learn faster and take things more seriously with the threat of horrific burns hanging over your head. But mostly I just wanted to see how long it would take you to remember you can do that."

"Ugh," Veronica grunted. "You’re evil."

There were no further attacks for the rest of the restart, and this particular one ended right on schedule instead of being cut short like the previous one was.

The marker detection spell never displayed a third marker in its detection radius, despite Veronica casting it several times a day towards the end.

* * *

For the next three restarts, Veronica deliberately avoided making any ripples and focused on growing her skills. Not a very exciting time, but by the end of it she was finally able to cast magic missile quickly and easily without any external aid. She had also mastered personal soul sensing well enough that Alanic started teaching her his arsenal of protective soul magic. In addition to that, she learned a plethora of new fire spells, made some improvements to the wooden golem design she was exploring, and practiced the rest of her combat arsenal on the monstrous wildlife living in the wilderness.

Unfortunately, Alanic had been becoming ever more suspicious of Veronica as her skills rose with each restart – no doubt the fact that he recognized quite a few of those skills as his own had a big hand in it – and had almost refused to teach Veronica at all in the latest restart. Veronica had eventually managed to talk the man into helping her by promising to tell him everything after the summer festival, but she suspected that pretty soon even that was not going to fly. By her estimation, she had at most two more restarts before Alanic refused to teach her anything without a damn good explanation, which she would be unable to provide.

But that was fine – by the time that happened, Veronica would no longer be defenseless in the face of hostile soul magic so the first of her goals would be achieved. She never really expected Alanic to teach her everything, anyway.

In the next restart, Veronica decided to lift her self-imposed ban of snooping around Sudomir and his activities. As cautiously as possible, she tried to find out more about the man. Sudomir being a well-known and public person, it wasn’t hard to get people to talk about him… but most of the information she got was either useless or highly suspect. The most interesting piece of information she found was that the man was often absent from Knyazov Dveri on various official errands, and that those errands had become especially frequent in the last few months. This was in line with Vazen’s letters, which also claimed the man had changed his patterns radically in the last few months.
When simple questioning failed to produce any new results, Veronica decided to be a little bolder and investigate the link between Vazen and the mayor. She didn’t want to deal with Vazen himself, but fortunately there was no need to. Vazen wasn’t a one-man operation like Gurey – he had other employees, and those other employees didn’t have the same paranoia and level of security that Vazen did. They brought stuff home from work to look over later, left their keys cunningly hidden behind nearby flowerpots, and rarely had any sort of magical defenses. One of them even kept a detailed daily journal with all sorts of interesting tidbits and remarks. Probably the most interesting thing she found out from Vazen’s employees was that he regularly sent mysterious packages to a place called Iasku Mansion – a place that his employees were pretty sure didn’t actually exist. The place the packages were delivered to didn’t exist on the maps, save as a random section of the uninhabited forest far to the north of the city. Further into the wilderness than Veronica ever got, in any case.

After consulting some maps, Veronica realized that she had no idea how long it would take her to reach the spot in question. Weeks? Months? Damn, those two really picked an out-of-the-way spot for their exchanges, didn’t they? This was going to be such a chore…

She went to Lukav for help. The transformation specialist was noted to be an outdoorsman type, so he should have some advice on reaching out-of-the-way places like that one. Maybe there was some kind of enhancement potion that could help?

"No, I don’t think enhancement potions would be of much help in this," Lukav told her while staring at the map Veronica provided. "They don’t last long enough, and it would take you at least two weeks to reach the place on foot. Tricky. Maybe it’s just my bias showing, but have you considered simply shapeshifting into a bird and flying there?"

"I haven’t," said Veronica, surprised. "The idea never occurred to me. How complicated would that be?"

"Not complicated at all, but perhaps a bit pricy," Lukav admitted. "You would probably need to waste a potion or two to grow accustomed to flying and moving in your new form. Maybe more, depending on how fast of a learner you are. Birds are very different from humans."

He handed Veronica his price chart, and quickly pointed out the bird section.

"I recommend the eagle, personally," Lukav said. "Good flier, excellent eyesight, and big enough that few things will dare attack you. Plus, it’s an eagle, what’s not to like? Not like you need to be inconspicuous where you’re going."

Veronica looked at the price tag attached to the eagle transformation potion. It was… doable. She could buy three of those if she had to, though she hated using up most of her savings like that. Even though she knew they would be back at the beginning of her next restart, it just felt wrong to fritter them away. She spent years saving that money, dammit! Besides, what if she needed those savings later in the restart for some reason?

"I guess I could try that," Veronica said. "Incidentally, do you pay money for some rare animal that can be found deep in the forest?"

"Ha, no. If it can be found in forests around here, I’m more than capable of getting it myself," Lukav said. "Sorry. Though if you are willing to risk your life in the local dungeon, there are a few things I would be interested in paying good money for…"

* * *

Gliding upward on an updraft of warm air, Veronica surveyed the landscape around her with impossibly sharp eyes. The experience was impossible to describe – everything was full of color and detail, like a veil she didn’t know she labored under had been lifted off her eyes. It reminded her of the time her parents had brought her to the doctor for an eye checkup and she was told she had to wear glasses. Her father had been so disappointed about that, but the moment Veronica had donned the little pieces of glass on her face she knew she never wanted to take them off. This was just like that time, only even more extreme. If she tried, she could discern individual leaves on a tree from a mile away. The houses in the distance that would have been nothing but blurry blocks to her human self were instead rendered with perfect clarity, right down to that old tomcat hiding in the shadow of a chimney on that one house.

Being an eagle, Veronica decided, was awesome. Weird, but awesome.

She flapped her wings a couple of times to change directions, wobbling dangerously for a moment. She still wasn’t much of a flier, truth be told, and the less told about her landings the better. Thankfully, big birds like eagles spent most of their time in the air gliding and catching air currents, so she could get by. She fixed her eyes forward, in the direction of where Iasku Mansion was supposed to be, and set off into the wilderness.

Flying over trees got boring pretty fast, though, even with ridiculously enhanced eyesight – the leafy canopy of the forest obscured the surface from scrutiny pretty effectively, so there was nothing to see for the most part. She could see snow-capped mountains in the distance – the infamous Winter Mountains that dominated the landscape of central Altazia, which were said to be the source of all ice and snow by some – an icy, merciless heart of winter that woke up once a year to cover the land in frost until it was inevitably beaten back by the forces of summer, winter giving way to spring.

Veronica would like to call that superstition, but for all she knew there could actually be a kernel of truth in that, like an insanely-powerful ice elemental living there or something. There was very little known about the mountains, largely because of how dangerous they were – exploring them was about as safe as trying to map lower reaches of the Dungeon, and not nearly as rewarding.

Finally, Veronica approached her destination. She had been worried she would miss the spot, since she didn’t have a map and everything sort of looked the same to her from her vantage point, but she needn’t have worried. Iasku Mansion was very obvious and easy to spot. It wasn’t, like she suspected, some inconspicuous clearing or standing stone that Vazen and Sudomir used as a drop-off point. It was, in fact, an actual mansion.

Veronica circled around the building a few times, trying to comprehend what she was seeing. The mansion gleamed white in a sea of green, somewhat worn down by the ravages of age and nature but clearly livable and cared for. Aside from the mansion, there was also a small warehouse attached. The warehouse appeared to be of much more recent construction, however – it had no moss on the roof, there were no cracks on the walls that her enhanced eyes could see, and it was far blockier and utilitarian in construction.

Veronica had no idea why somebody would build this thing here. If it was a fort or an observation tower, she could understand… but who would want to build a luxury dwelling this isolated and exposed to the dangers of the north? Sadly, her contemplation was interrupted when the crows that dotted the trees around the mansion took exception to her presence and a hundred angry caws filled the air.

Veronica focused on them momentarily. Though the birds were small and distant, the eyes she currently possessed had no problem in discerning their features. They weren’t crows. They were larger, and their pitch black feathers had small red decorations and an almost metallic sheen to them.

Iron beaks. The hell-birds of the north. Veronica didn’t fancy her chances against one of those in this form, much less against the huge flock stationed around the mansion. Though now that she thought about it, she could probably cast magic missile in this form now, couldn’t she? She might be able to bring down a couple of them before the rest tore her apart. That wouldn’t get her anything, though, so she stopped circling around the mansion and put some distance between herself and the iron beaks until they finally stopped making noise and threatening gestures.

She wondered what she had done to upset them so much. She supposed they just didn’t like a large predator circling menacingly around them.

Well no matter. Landing right next to the mansion would have been a poor idea anyway. Very exposed, and probably warded too.

She searched the surrounding area for an open space she could land at without breaking her neck (transfer of injuries between real and shapeshifted forms was weird and inconsistent, but Lukav assured her that being killed in one form means you’re definitely dead in the other as well) and finally found a clearing some distance to the west of the mansion. A little bit farther than she had hoped for, but beggars can’t be choosers.

After a frankly embarrassing landing that saw her face-plant into the grass, Veronica transformed back into human form and spent several minutes memorizing the place so she could use it as an arrival point for future teleports.

That done, she set off towards the mansion, hoping to get a closer look. She already missed the eagle’s awesome eyesight, but some things were better done from the ground and this way she would actually be able to teleport away from danger and make herself invisible. As far as she knew, iron beaks had no magical senses, so an optical cloak should be enough to evade their attention.

She was right – the iron beaks took no notice of her while she inched closer to the mansion, cloaked in an optical illusion and an aura of silence. Before actually scouting the place, however, a pack of winter wolves burst onto the scene, led by a particularly huge specimen. Unlike the rest of the pack, the alpha didn’t have a white pelt. His was silver and shiny, and his mind felt different from the rest. Stronger, deeper, more complex. Sapient.

Veronica stood frozen, watching the group with dread. Twenty-two winter wolves led by an unknown super-special sapient variant. Damn, she just had to push her luck, didn’t she? No way would they be fooled by her spells, considering how sensitive canine noses were…

Except… they kind of were fooled. At one point the Silver One suddenly stopped and started scanning the tree line, and Veronica’s heart skipped when its eyes briefly passed over her location, but then the moment was gone and the pack moved on and disappeared somewhere on the other side of the mansion.

A minute later, when she was sure they were gone, Veronica slowly retreated into the surrounding forest and teleported away.

* * *

Veronica decided to leave the Iasku Mansion alone for the moment. She was virtually certain they were connected to the Ibasan invaders now, and definitely intended to get to the bottom of that place at some point. However, she had a feeling that investigating the mansion as she was now would probably involve a lot of dying. Plus, she had a hunch that the mayor was a necromancer, and definitely had one under employ even if he wasn’t, so losing a battle there might have more serious consequences than a premature restart. No, if she wanted to go there she had to finish Alanic’s lessons first and greatly increase her combat skills, at minimum.
Instead, now that her time with Alanic was coming to an end, Veronica had to step up her efforts to improve her combat magic so she could go talk to the other aranea tribes and learn the secrets of their mind arts. There were many reasons why that was important, but the one that drove her the most was the possibility of unlocking the matriarch’s memory packet that still remained in her mind. The memory packet wouldn’t last forever, Veronica knew. It was stable for now, the matriarch having pulled out all the stops to make it as resilient and durable as possible, but it would unravel and fail in time, and all the memories locked within would be gone. If Veronica wanted to fill in the blanks left in the matriarch’s last message and understand what made her reach the decisions she did, she had to gain access to that knowledge.

She had no illusions it was going to be easy. For one thing, the other aranean tribes were in no way guaranteed to be friendly, and even if they were, there was no reason for them to actually teach a random human their secrets. And even if she could secure their cooperation, the memories of something as alien as the aranea were bound to be a chore to interpret. And even if she could master that, she still only had one shot at unraveling the memory packet without ruining the content or triggering whatever defenses the matriarch installed to prevent her from doing just that.

But that was a matter for the future – right now she didn’t feel very confident walking into a possibly unfriendly aranean hive. Since she didn’t feel like testing her mind magic against the masters of the craft, her current plan for dealing with hostile or treacherous aranea basically boiled down to quick-casting mind shield and burning everything in sight via more conventional magic. Better combat skills were a must for that plan to work, though.

As it happened, she had something that should advance her combat skills, as well as make up for the money she lost to Lukav when she bought those two eagle transformation potions – dungeon delving! She had basically ignored the dungeon entrance at Knyazov Dveri due to being sidetracked by the disappearance of local soul mages and Alanic’s lessons, but there was no reason to continue to do so anymore. Most of the wildlife around Knyazov Dveri had ceased to be a challenge at this point, anyway.

Thus, two days after her hasty retreat from the Iasku Mansion, Veronica walked over to the official entrance to the dungeons beneath Knyazov Dveri and requested a permit to descend into its depths. It didn’t cost any money, thankfully, and it was really nothing more than a formality to make sure she understood what she was getting into.

"Just remember, this part of the dungeon has never been pacified properly," the man behind the counter told her, handing her a permit card that she had to show to the guards to be let through. "It means there are greater riches to be found down there, but also that things are much more dangerous. People disappear down there all the time. Nobody is going to look for you unless you join one of the local delver guilds. Which I personally recommend to young mages such as yourself."

Veronica gave the man a non-committal hum and left, descending below on a long spiral staircase until she reached a small natural cavern that housed a small town. The inhabitants of the city above called it Delver Village, though officially it was just an extension of Knyazov Dveri. Not many people actually lived here – the buildings consisted mostly of guildhouses and businesses catering to dungeon delvers.

She had no intention of joining any of the guilds. Last time she checked they didn’t let new members like her out in the field for at least several months after they joined, which made them pretty much useless to someone in her situation. She understood the logic of it – you didn’t want your new, inexperienced members to get horribly murdered out in the tunnels, and very few mages were particularly capable at her age – but that didn’t make them any less useless to her. She also didn’t have any money to buy anything from the shops, so she didn’t remain in the settlement for long. The people there were jerks anyway, asking for money just to answer basic questions or demanding that she join their guild before they would divulge any secrets. Thank the gods she could just read the answers out of their mind anyway.

* * *

Veronica stared at the patch of glowing mushrooms at the corner of a largish cave she encountered in her wanderings through the cave system under Knyazov Dveri. It appeared to be a normal patch of giant glowing mushrooms, little different from the ones she encountered elsewhere around here, but she knew better. She wasn’t fooled. Her mind sense clearly told her there was an animal mind behind that mushroom… no, wait, the mushroom itself had a mind? An illusion? Or some weird intelligent mushroom?

Deciding that it didn’t matter, Veronica leveled the combat staff she’d made for herself and fired an incineration ray at the mushroom. If she had learned anything in the two weeks she had spent down here, it was that absolutely everything wanted to kill and eat her – and not necessarily in that order. The rock mites, for instance, wanted to paralyze you and lay their eggs into your still-living body so their larvae could eat you alive from the inside out. Anyway, the point was that striking first was common sense with these things, and she had no intention of getting closer to the mushroom impersonator.

Sure enough, the moment it was hit by the ray of fire, the mushroom immediately unraveled into a large tentacled form of the tunnel octopus. Figures. The ability of those things to mimic both the color and texture of their surroundings was as impressive as it was annoying to deal with. This one was out of luck, though. Caught off guard by the devastating fire attack, it flailed its tentacles about briefly in panic before collapsing dead on the floor of the cave.

Veronica threw a rock at it to make sure it was not faking it, and then relaxed. She would have probably died to one of those by now if she didn’t have her mind sense – it was, without a doubt, her main advantage compared to the other dungeon delvers. Thanks to it, she was able to evade the javelin worm ambush sites, tunnel octopuses and other hidden dangers to reach the richer, less exploited lower areas like this one. No wonder Taiven had been so excited about having someone with that ability in her team, back when she had first found out about it.

She instructed the floating spheres of light around her to scatter around the cavern and slowly inspected the walls for any sign of crystal and strange minerals. In general, crystalized mana seemed to be a much better money-maker than hunting creatures for parts, at least if you could access virgin areas like this one. Crystallized mana also had the benefit of being, well, static. If she found some in a particular place on this restart, it stood to reason that it should also be there for every subsequent one as well. That meant that, if she could map out where they were over several restarts, she should be able to blitz through a bunch of known sites in just a few hours and get an enormous cash infusion at the beginning of every new restart. Especially if she learned how to filter through Dungeon interference and became able to teleport while inside it.

Sadly, her inspection found nothing in this cavern. Looking at the charred tunnel octopus corpse, Veronica considered the possibility of just harvesting its brain and beak (the most valuable parts of it by far) and returning to the surface. She had already found two large lumps of crystalized mana and several small ones, so this trip was already a smashing success, and continuing further would mean going deeper into the dungeon, with all the danger that implied.

She continued on – not like she was ever really in danger thus far so even if the danger jumped up a notch she should… be…

Veronica rounded a corner and came face-to-face, so to speak, with some kind of floating pink ooze covered with eyes. It glowed, threads of light dancing throughout its smoky, translucent bulk, and its form writhed and shifted chaotically, ripples and pseudopods growing and retracting from moment to moment. For a moment it appeared to have not noticed her, its countless eyes – each its own color and shade – blinking and swiveling in their sockets with no rhyme or reason. But that moment passed quickly and its many eyes turned towards her, some of them extending on pseudopods so the creature could focus them on Veronica properly…

Veronica’s eyes abruptly shot open as a sharp pain erupted from her stomach. Her whole body convulsed, buckling against the object that fell on her, and suddenly she was wide awake, not a trace of drowsiness in her mind.

"Good morning, sister!" an annoyingly cheerful voice sounded right on top of her. "Morning, morning, MORNING!"

Veronica looked at her grinning little sister incredulously. What? But she was just-

"Oh come on!" Veronica groaned, burying her face in her hands. "That’s it!? It just looked at me and I died? What kind of absurd ability is that!?"

"Umm…" Kirielle said.

"Forget I said anything," Veronica said, giving Kirielle a brief hug before rising to her feet. Kirielle refused to let go, clinging to her like a barnacle, so she just carried her around as she walked to her bookshelf and retrieved her Compendium of Dungeon Denizens, volume four, and began leafing through it. "I was just having a dream, that’s all."

"What kind of dream?" Kirielle asked curiously.

"I was going to be rich, and then I got killed by an… eyebeast?" Veronica said, as she looked at the description in the book. Even the name was stupid. Ugh.

"Oh," Kirielle said. "A nice dream that ends in a nightmare. I hate those."

"Me too, Kirielle. Me too," Veronica said, snapping the book shut and placing it back on the shelf. The description in the book told her nothing useful about the damn thing. Beware its deadly eyes indeed.

She thought about casting the marker detection spell again, but what would be the point? It never detected more than two markers in existence. Or less for that matter. At this point it was obvious that this was all it was ever going to show. Whatever way Red Robe used to get into the time loop obviously wasn’t identical to the one used by Shirley and Veronica.

As for Shirley, her movements indicated that she always opened the time loop by hightailing out of Cyoria. The direction was not consistent, though, and she seemed to wander around randomly around Eldemar during each time loop. She wondered what that was about. Clearly the girl was avoiding Cyoria, just like Veronica was, but beyond that she could not figure out what Shirley’s goal was – Veronica had tried placing the locations Shirley visited on a map and found no pattern she could see in it.

Whatever. Shirley will be Shirley. She had her own, more pressing problems to worry about at the moment.

"Right. Kiri, could you perhaps let go of me now?"

Chapter 35: Chapter 35: Mistakes Have Been Made

Chapter Text

The beginning of the restart was always the most annoying part of the time loop, Veronica mused quietly, standing on one of the arrival platforms in Cirin’s train station. She pulled a watch out of her pocket and inspected it for a minute before tucking it back with a sigh. The train was late. The train was always late, because this was less than a day into the restart and nothing significant had diverged yet. It was during moments like these that she wondered why she bothered with this charade at each restart when she could simply teleport out of her room at the start and be done with it. It would save her hours of frustration, and she knew from earlier restarts that nobody initiated a search for her if she chose that route. She’d effectively get an extra half a day each restart – that amount would add up pretty quickly, wouldn’t it?

Yet, just as they always did when she considered that option, her thoughts turned to what the reaction of her mother and Kirielle might be. She never eavesdropped during those restarts where she vanished from the house as soon as possible, but she couldn’t imagine either of them taking it well. She didn’t get along with her mother all that well, but she knew that in her own infuriating way, her mother cared for her. And Kirielle…

She glanced toward Kirielle, standing sullenly some distance away. The downside of her increasing empathy skills was that she could feel just how devastated Kirielle was at not being able to come with her to Cyoria. If being left behind was upsetting, she couldn’t even fathom how Kirielle would react if she vanished immediately after ushering her out of her room. There was no way she could do that to her, no matter how much sense it made. She already felt guilty enough about Kirielle as it was.

Veronica walked up to her sister and gently ruffled her hair, causing Kirielle to snap out of her funk temporarily to swat Veronica’s hand away with what she imagined was a fierce glare.

“Don’t be so gloomy, Kiri,” Veronica said gently. Kirielle remained silent, but the surge of anger and resentment Veronica sensed was answer enough.

Damn it…

“Look,” Veronica told her, striving for a soothing tone, “I’ll bring you with me the next time I go to Cyoria, okay?”

Kirielle gave her a startled look, her mind processing what Veronica had just promised, then looked away, pouting. For a moment, Veronica thought she wouldn’t say anything, but then Kirielle’s mind settled on faint, suppressed hope.

“You promise?” she mumbled softly.

“Yes,” Veronica replied seriously. “I promise.”

In the back of her mind, Veronica realized she truly meant it. When she finally decided to return to Cyoria, she would bring Kirielle with her. It wasn’t the sensible choice by any means – it would demand considerable time and attention to watch over her, and Kirielle would be in far greater danger than if left alone at home – but she was determined to do it anyway. Not solely for Kirielle's sake either. Veronica kind of missed living at Imaya's place with Kirielle, Kael, and Kana…

She took a step back to steady herself when Kirielle hurled herself at her, wrapping her arms around Veronica’s waist and burying her face into her stomach.

“You better not lie,” Kirielle declared, her voice muffled as she looked up at Veronica with suspicious, narrowed eyes. “I’ll never forgive you!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Veronica scoffed playfully, gently pinching Kirielle’s nose until she released her. A loud whistle pierced the air, signaling the train’s arrival at the station. “I have to go now. We’ll talk about this when I come back.”

Fifteen minutes later, Veronica was aboard the train, watching a now much happier Kirielle waving enthusiastically at her as the train pulled away from the station. Veronica responded with a more restrained wave and smiled. Maybe it wasn’t the smartest decision to make, but it was undoubtedly the right one.

* * *

Veronica spent the entire train ride to Teshingrad attempting to perform a headcount of her fellow passengers using her mind sense – a surprisingly challenging task given the anti-shaping ward placed on the train. While the ward didn’t prevent her from sensing minds, the minor magical static it generated compounded quickly over distance, effectively halving her range. It was uncannily similar to the magical static that suffused the dungeon, which had the same effect.

Hmm… thinking about it, that might have been the inspiration behind the ward in the first place. Did this mean that practicing magic inside such a ward could help her learn to filter out the Dungeon static? Something to ponder, certainly. Creating a series of progressively stronger disruption wards to practice on seemed like a far better idea than her original plan – which consisted mostly of brute-forcing it by practicing teleportation in the Dungeon until she mastered it.

Once she disembarked from the train, Veronica teleported to Knyazov Dveri and immediately descended into the local Dungeon. There, she proceeded to collect every single piece of crystallized mana she had discovered in the previous restart before her unfortunate encounter with the eyebeast. When she tried to cash them in at a Delver Village shop she frequented, however, she ran into… issues.

Apparently, there was a significant difference between engaging in a few Dungeon excursions and returning with a modest collection of crystals each time (what she had done in the previous restart) and embarking on a single expedition and emerging with an entire bag of crystallized mana after a few hours. Not only did the shop lack sufficient funds on hand to purchase the entire batch, but her achievement also aroused far more attention than Veronica had anticipated. You simply did not accomplish such feats without possessing either a secret method superior to everyone else’s or experiencing unparalleled luck in striking a motherlode. Either scenario automatically made her a person of interest to every dungeon delver in Knyazov Dveri and quite a few other individuals as well.

All of her plans for the restart immediately crumbled. The prevalent focus on her made it impossible to carry out tasks discreetly or engage people as a relative unknown. Her divination wards underwent an extensive field test due to the ceaseless magical surveillance she had been subjected to since, and while Veronica believed they held up admirably against foreign invasions, she couldn’t be certain they remained unbreached. One enterprising spy even transformed living moths by painting spell formulae on them, turning them into semi-autonomous voice recorders – if Veronica hadn’t tried to chase them away with telepathy and found it curious that they kept returning to her, she might have never noticed. How many others had employed similar tactics without her uncovering their methods?

Moreover, not everyone resorted to cloak-and-dagger methods. Numerous people simply wanted to discuss their amazing offers with her and few accepted her refusals with grace. At least one group outright attacked her when she told them to leave her alone, although thankfully they weren’t adept at actual combat and fled with relative ease. Additionally, there was at least one attempt to breach her room, resulting in a would-be thief being electrocuted for their trouble and earning Veronica a stern lecture from law enforcement about employing excessively lethal security measures.

Ultimately, after a week of evading aggressive recruitment efforts and deflecting the myriad magical probes directed her way, Veronica decided to admit defeat and leave Knyazov Dveri. She failed to save Lukav and Alanic anyway, due to all the scrutiny directed at her, so there was little justification for remaining in the town and every reason to leave. She simply packed up all of her belongings, including a handful of larger mana crystals she never managed to sell, and teleported as far south as she could manage.

Live and learn, Veronica supposed. The next time she attempted that trick, she should sell the crystals outside of Knyazov Dveri and probably not attempt to sell them all at once in the same shop. It made the most sense to head to Korsa and Eldemar, as they were large cities likely to see far more mana crystal traffic and had plenty of shops to sell to. Though Cyoria would probably prove even better in that regard, once she was ready to return there – it was not only significant, but also the magical center of the entire continent.

But no matter, the restart remained salvageable – there were plenty of tasks to accomplish outside of Knyazov Dveri. For instance, finding the aranean webs to trade with. Veronica knew they existed all over the continent, but besides the destroyed one under Cyoria, she wasn’t privy to the exact location of any others. Even if she wasn’t prepared to engage with them properly yet, it wouldn’t hurt to spend a restart or two locating every single web she could find and determining how friendly and receptive to trade each of them was. If Spear of Resolve was to be trusted, they were unlikely to attack her simply for contacting them. Modern aranea were descendants of aranea who had grown in power after trading with humans, after all, so most should be at least mildly receptive to the idea of doing it again.

With a new goal set, Veronica teleported to Eldemar, the kingdom’s capital, to visit the Cartographer’s Society library. As far as map collections went, theirs was without equal, and it was largely free for perusal – provided nothing was destroyed, you only had to pay for maps if you wanted the library to copy them for you. Veronica had spent a few days there during her last visit to the capital, just browsing the shelves for any maps that caught her interest, and she had vowed to return when she had the time. This seemed as good an excuse as any.

“I dearly hope that’s not one of our maps you are writing on, young lady,” the voice behind Veronica’s shoulder remarked. “As far as the library is concerned, that would indisputably be destruction of our property.”

Veronica jumped in surprise at the voice, too absorbed in her research to notice the librarian sneaking up on her. She looked at the map in front of her, heavily annotated and competing for desk space with several stacks of map cases, travel journals, and atlases, then shifted her attention to the old, bearded librarian behind her.

“It’s not,” she assured the man. “It’s the cheapest map of Eldemar I could find in a store I came across on the way.”

“Hmm. Would you object if I ask you what you are working on? It is rare to see someone so young here, especially one so engrossed in their research.”

“I’m trying to find an aranean colony,” said Veronica, seeing no need to lie.

“And those are?”

“Magical talking spiders.”
"Ah. Sounds like an intriguing project," said the old librarian. "I’ll leave you to it. As friendly advice, I will note that it would have probably been cheaper to just have the library make a few copies of the maps you were interested in. The Cartographer’s Society is not a profit-seeking organization and we try to keep the prices down as much as possible."

"I’ll keep that in mind," said Veronica. "Say, since we’re on the subject of copies… do you think I could learn how to copy documents like that from someone? Or is it some big secret of yours?"

"It is no secret," the librarian said. "The official policy of the Society is that maps should be as widely disseminated as possible, and we do not have a monopoly on that type of magic."

"Oh good," said Veronica. She knew a few ways to magically copy documents, but they relied on animating writing instruments to transcribe the contents. That didn’t work all that well on non-textual content, and was slow even for written works. The spell used by the Cartographer’s Society made perfect duplicates of any given map, down to every detail and shade, with only a single spell. "So does that mean you’re open to teaching me how to cast the spell?"

"I’m afraid that isn’t one of the services offered by this library. However, if you visit the main offices of the Cartographer’s Society, you can sign up for some basic classes in map-related magic, map making, map handling, and map-related research like you’re doing right now," the librarian said. "The prices are very affordable and it would probably help you in your quest to find these aranea as well."

Veronica hummed speculatively. "I guess I’ll check it out," she said. She certainly had no shortage of money, thanks to her ill-considered stunt at the start of the restart, and she was going to have to spend a few days in Eldemar one way or the other.

The librarian soon left Veronica to her own devices again, and she considered the map in front of her. She didn’t have anything concrete yet, but she had several likely places to look for an aranean web. Korsa, Jatnik, Gozd and Padina were all large cities that had dungeon access and would be easy to reach from Cyoria, the source of the aranean expansion wave. One of them was bound to have the aranea living close by, and they might be willing to give her the location of nearby webs if she asked nicely (or bribed them sufficiently). Korsa was especially suspicious, since the city had an extensive textile industry, including one dealing in special clothes made out of spider silk. They got most of their raw material from Cyoria – unsurprising, as it produced the lion’s share of the stuff – but at least some of it was gathered locally… from a mostly harmless breed of giant spiders native to the region.

Yeah. Totally not an aranean colony.

Veronica made a small note in her notebook to track down every settlement that produced spider silk in any significant amount and decided to end the search for the day.

* * *

Veronica spent five days in Eldemar, though in all honesty she got everything she could about possible aranean sites on day three. The other two days were mostly so she could relax a bit and mentally prepare herself for what was to come. The idea of an impending meeting with another group of aranea left her in a somber mood, since it reminded her of what happened to the previous group of aranea that had gotten involved with her, and that wasn’t exactly the best mindset with which to go and meet a bunch of telepaths. She did her best to distract herself by sight-seeing around the capital and browsing various magical stores she encountered.

She only browsed, though, never actually bought anything - Eldemar was a terribly expensive place to live in, she’d found. Everything, from room and board to already expensive magical reagents had higher prices in the capital than anywhere else Veronica had stayed at. Higher quality demands higher payments, the merchants assured her. What a load of nonsense. She suspected the average citizen in Eldemar was simply richer than those in the rest of the country and could thus pay more. The large number of theaters, art houses, and music halls present in the city certainly indicated that the inhabitants had plenty of money to burn.

That aside, the city was nice. Orderly. The royal quarter was walled in and off-limits to uninvited commoners like her, but that didn’t mean that the government left the rest of the city outside their little bubble to rot. There were no obvious slums that Veronica could find – all of the buildings were well cared for and the streets free of trash and decay. Police patrolled everywhere and were even joined by a group of well-armed soldiers at one point.

Asking around, she found that security was always tight. Eldemar had been a favorite target for saboteurs during the Splinter Wars, at least one of which managed to set the entire city ablaze. The fire consumed many important buildings, including both of Eldemar’s magical academies and its central library. By the time the city had recovered and rebuilt, most of the mages and their attendant facilities had already moved to Cyoria, cementing its rise as a magical nexus of the continent. Eldemar’s citizens still seemed bitter about that, harboring a fair amount of resentment over the fact. In any case, security was upgraded immensely in the aftermath of the fire, and never really went away. Even their underworld was thoroughly purged and sculpted into something more manageable. Dungeon delving was forbidden within city limits – instead, the royal family sent the army into the depths several times a year to get rid of anything remotely dangerous they could find.

Basically, she could cross Eldemar from the list of possible candidates to have an aranean colony. If it ever existed, it was almost certainly wiped out or chased away at this point. It also helped explain why the invaders targeted Cyoria instead of Eldemar, even though Eldemar contained the royal palace, treasury and most of the government buildings - much juicier targets if one intended to collapse a country and destabilize the continent. The city was too well guarded for such a large-scale attack to take them by surprise.

She ended up taking the classes offered by the Cartographer’s Society. More accurately, she paid extra to have an instructor assigned to her for individual lessons, so she could save some time. Veronica was pleasantly surprised by the mage they sent her in response – the young man assigned to her was polite and straightforward in his teaching methods. A welcome reprieve from her usual luck with teachers. She only attended three sessions with the man, but that was enough to give her a plethora of mapping spells, not all of which dealt with classical paper maps. Veronica’s personal favorite in that bunch was a spell that created a miniature illusionary replica of the caster’s surroundings above their palm – that had been fun to play with.

It was tempting to just spend the rest of the restart goofing around with maps and visiting various curiosities in the capital, but she didn’t. She had a task to do, and an invisible time limit counting in the background. At the end of the fifth day, she gathered up her things and set off for Korsa to find the aranea.

* * *

Korsa was a big city – the third biggest city in the kingdom, to be precise, right after Cyoria and Eldemar. Even though Veronica was certain the aranea were in there somewhere, she knew it would take her ages to find them if she searched for them by exploring the local Dungeon. So she didn’t even try. Instead she approached the textile manufacturer that produced spider silk products and flat out asked him to introduce her to the aranea.

The man refused, claiming he had no idea what Veronica was talking about before throwing her out of his store with a warning to never come back again. Harsh. Still, Veronica never actually expected her request to be granted. She just wanted the man to inform his aranea trading partners that there was this strange girl going around town asking people about them. If the local aranea were anything like those in Cyoria, that would get their attention in a flash. She wouldn’t have to look for them because they would be looking for her.

It took less than two days for the aranea to track her down.

It was late in the evening of her second day in Korsa when Veronica felt an aranean signature enter her radius. Considering she was currently sitting on a small hill on the outskirts of Korsa, surrounded with a lot of grass and fields and nothing of any importance whatsoever, she felt confident that it was here for her.

[Greetings,] Veronica sent telepathically. [I am Veronica Kazinski. I have come to trade.]

Aranean minds were still too strange for her to recognize their emotions easily, but she felt sure the aranea was thoroughly shocked when she spoke to her.

[You are Open?] the aranea asked after a few seconds.

[Yes,] Veronica confirmed. She decided not to mention the Cyorian aranea and her connection to them for now – for all she knew they might have been mortal enemies or something. [May I know who I am talking to?]

[I am Seeker of the Eight Universal Paths, of the Sword Divers Web,] the aranea sent. [You can simply call me Seeker.]

[Seeker then. I would like to start by apologizing for the way I attracted your attention, but I didn’t know how else to contact you. I hope I haven’t caused too much of a stir,] Veronica said. [I hope we can work with each other despite this somewhat rough start.]

[I’m afraid I am not qualified to negotiate on behalf of my web, so I cannot make any firm promises. My task was only to find you and report my findings to the web,] Seeker responded. Translation: she was supposed to trawl through Veronica’s memories to see what her deal was, but her being psychic kind of made that impractical. [That said, I’m sure a small incident like this one can be easily smoothed over if you refrain from scaring us like this in the future. Just so I know what to report to the matriarch, what kind of trade are you proposing?]

[I want to trade for knowledge and training,] said Veronica. [Specifically, I want your help in learning how to wield my psychic abilities.]

[You already seem fairly proficient in them, though,] Seeker pointed out. She sent a weak psychic probe to worm its way through Veronica’s defenses but promptly retracted it when Veronica firmly brushed it aside. [Not many humans can use telepathy so smoothly, and even fewer would have noticed that probe.]

[You flatter me, but we both know I am but a rank beginner when it comes to mind arts,] Veronica said. [I wish to move beyond bare basics in the field. At the very least I want to get a better grasp on telepathic combat and develop memory manipulation abilities.]

Seeker produced a burst of uncertainty and surprise over the link that Veronica didn’t quite know how to interpret. Some kind of aranean curse, maybe?

[You are certainly ambitious, young human,] Seeker said. [I hope you realize that this is not really a small thing you are asking for. I don’t believe the leadership will be happy with that idea. What exactly do you offer in return?]
Veronica had a number of magical items that she believed would be very useful to the aranea, including one that allowed telepathic communication over vast distances. Since she was the inventor and maker of such devices, she was open to requests in regard to their modification to suit their needs better. As a capable mage in general, Veronica offered her assistance in any task that would benefit from human-style magic. Furthermore, she had access to important news that she preferred to keep undisclosed at this time, suspecting it would greatly interest the aranea.

There was a short pause as the aranea absorbed this, after which it responded with a note of tentative acceptance. [I see,] said Seeker. [As I said, I am not in a position to agree to any deals, but I shall present your case to the matriarch and we’ll see the result. Is there anything else you wish for me to note?]

[Not really, no. I would like to know how I can contact you properly in the future, if you don’t mind.] Veronica requested.

Seeker was silent for a few moments before sending her a mental map of Korsa’s lower sewers with three distinct locations marked with a tiny blue sun. [You can contact us by going to any one of these three places, but please don’t be impatient. It will probably take a couple of days before we’re prepared to talk to you again and impatience isn’t going to endear you to us.]

[Fair enough,] Veronica replied. She had no intention of staying inside Korsa for days while they deliberated on whether to give her the time of the day or not, but fortunately, she didn’t have to. She could kill two birds with one stone by giving them means of contacting her wherever she may be, while also providing a tangible example of what she was offering them.

Veronica removed a large wooden disc from her purse and placed it on the ground before her. [This is a telepathic relay,] she told Seeker. [Anyone touching it will be able to get ahold of the person holding the matching pair, regardless of distance. In this particular case, that someone is me. I’m not going to be in Korsa for long, so use this to contact me when you’ve reached your decision.]

[I’m not bringing a possible bomb into the settlement,] Seeker said. [But I guess there is no harm in dragging it off to some forgotten corner where no one will stumble upon it until we come back for it again. Farewell, Veronica Kazinski. Events permitting, we shall meet again in a few days.]

* * *

Veronica wasn’t idle while the Sword Divers deliberated whether to accept her offer or not – she left Korsa to continue searching for more aranean colonies. Sadly, none of the other colonies were as easy to find as theirs, despite living beneath much smaller settlements. By the time the Sword Divers contacted her again eight days later, she only found one more colony. The Illustrious Gem Collectors lived under a small village near Ticlin and, although perfectly friendly and polite, immediately informed her that they had an exclusive contract with the leaders of the village to only engage in trade with them and none else. Unfortunate. That said, they were perfectly willing to tell Veronica the locations of five other webs in their vicinity that might be more open to the idea, so that was still a win in her book.

Before Veronica had the chance to check out any of them, however, she finally received a call from the Sword Divers that they were ready to make a deal. At this point, the restart only had a week and a half left in it, so Veronica doubted she would get much out of the agreement, but she went to meet with them regardless.

When she reached the designated meeting place, however, she found only two aranea waiting for her, which was very suspicious. Her experience with the aranea, limited as it may be, told her there should have been a minimum of three – one negotiator and two guards. More realistically, it should have been even more of them. The Cyorian matriarch had been fond of carting at least four honor guards along with her, and that was when meeting with little old her that she knew for a fact was no threat. The Illustrious Gem Collectors sent a total of eight aranea in their greeting party.

Her suspicions were confirmed when the two aranea revealed they were just guides, meant to take her where the real meeting was to take place. Veronica was instantly alarmed, and her paranoia was not assuaged in the least when the two aranea proceeded to lead her deep, deep into the Dungeon beneath Korsa. Too deep for her liking.

"Okay, we’re stopping here. This is as far as I’m willing to go," Veronica said out loud, purposely not bothering to communicate with her guides telepathically. Her voice resonated unnervingly in the large cavern they were in, and the two aranea flinched at the sudden sound.

[Please, be patient,] one of them said nervously. [We’re not far from the meeting place. It will only take a little while to reach it.]

"Well, then it shouldn’t be too big of a problem for you to go fetch them and tell them to come here," Veronica said. "The exact place shouldn’t matter much unless you are trying to lead me into an ambush."

The sudden stiffening of their bodies told Veronica everything she needed to know. She had just enough time to channel mana into the mind shield spell inscribed on the medallion she wore under her dress before two mental attacks slammed into her newly-erected barrier like a pair of sledgehammers. Instantly, she fired an overpowered magic missile at one of the aranea in front of them, crushing her like a grape. Her mind instantly winked out and disappeared from her mind sense.

The other aranea, realizing it would never batter down her mental shield fast enough, jumped straight at her, fangs bared. However, the aranea bounced back harmlessly off the shield she erected in front of herself. Veronica drew her spell rod out of her belt and pointed it at the aranea.

"Why do this?" Veronica asked her. "Tell me and maybe I won’t just incinerate you on the spot."

The aranea didn’t answer. After a second, Veronica realized with some embarrassment she couldn’t, seeing how her mind was totally shielded from telepathy at the moment. She dismissed the shield for the moment, but kept the spell rod trained on her.

[Please, I don’t know anything!] she mentally cried. Veronica remained alert for any surprises the aranea might send over the telepathic link, but she didn’t even try. She seemed completely overtaken by terror. [I was just supposed to lead you there, nobody told me the reasons! Please don’t kill me, I don’t want to die!]

Veronica growled before shoving the suddenly glowing spell rod at her. Her fear spiked for a moment as she let out a terrified screech, curling upon herself in preparation for her demise… and then suddenly stopped when all that happened was a bubble of force springing into existence around her.

Just then, Veronica felt two additional aranean signatures speeding towards her from the direction her two guides had been leading her to. Then another, and another…

Oh no. The two must have sent a warning to the main ambush force. She gave the surviving guide a brief glare, causing her to curl up inside her force cage, and then started running towards the surface. Humans were way faster than aranea, so it should be possible to simply outrun the pursuers and-

There were eight more aranean minds in front of her, blocking off her path of retreat.

Veronica cursed her rotten luck as she skidded to a halt, trying to think of a way out of this. Her mind shield wasn’t going to last long against… sixteen araneas!? No, eighteen—two were just slow runners, apparently.

Six telepathic attacks slammed into her mind shield, failing to break it but causing her to stagger drunkenly as her vision swam and her balance went haywire. She wondered for a moment why only six of them had attacked her mind when so many more were in range before she remembered her talks with Novelty about telepathic combat. Battering down mental shields too vigorously could easily destroy the mind underneath.

Seven attacks this time. Her mind shield still held, but only just barely, and she collapsed on her knees in response regardless.

They weren’t trying to kill her. Of course not – what would be the point of that? No, they were aiming to capture her…

Veronica almost lost consciousness as nine attacks slammed into her mental shield, crushed it like an egg, and then tore straight into her unprotected mind. The pain was excruciating, blanking out all thought and making it impossible to concentrate on anything. There was something she needed to do, she was sure, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember what exactly it was…

She felt her muscles lock up as an alien mind seized her motor control away from her and started rooting in her head for facts and memories. She had to do… something… had to…

Suddenly an image flashed before her, of two necklaces hanging from her neck, one of them inscribed with the defensive spell that ultimately failed her and the other that contained…

Her mind suddenly snapped back into place, her course of action clear. Activate the suicide rings, that’s what she had to do. She felt the alien mind panic as it realized what she was going to do, and felt three more attacks rip through her thoughts. They were far weaker than the ones that broke through her shield, but her mind was unprotected now, and they felt like hot knives driven into her brain. She held onto the thought, though, the idea that she had to activate those rings no matter what. She forgot what the rings really did when the mental knives hit, forgot why they mattered or where she was and what she was doing, but she still knew what she had to do. Had to… had to…

A weak, gentle pulse of mana poured into the rings around her neck and the world suddenly became awash in light and heat.

Then there was only darkness.

* * *

Like many times before, Veronica woke up in her room back in Cirin. However, there was no Kirielle jumping on her to wake her up this time, and it was late in the evening instead of early in the morning.

Also, she had a blinding headache. Couldn’t forget about that part.

Suddenly, the door cracked open and a familiar head peeked inside tentatively, as if afraid of what it would find inside. Veronica squinted, her vision blurry without her glasses, and gave Kirielle a searching look.

Her eyes immediately widened in surprise for some reason. Veronica attempted to reach out to her mind in order to understand what was going on and—

"Ow," she croaked painfully. Okay, apparently she wasn’t supposed to do that.

"Mother! She’s awake! She woke up! She woke up!" Kirielle shouted, thundering down the stairs. Veronica winced at the sound and tried to remember what happened. How the hell did she mess herself up this badly so early in the restart? The last thing she remembered was…

Suddenly her memories came rushing back in, along with a fresh wave of pain, and she remembered everything. Well, not literally everything – her memories of everything after she confronted the guides were fuzzy and jumbled out of order – but enough of it to understand what happened to her.

Those treacherous, motherf*cking slimes!

"Veronica?"
Veronica jerked in surprise at her mother’s voice, broken out of her recollection. "Uh… I’m… sort of fine?" Veronica mumbled, her voice carrying a softer tone. "My head is killing me, but I don’t think it’s anything serious. Could you hand me my glasses?"

Her vision cleared immensely with her glasses on, allowing her to see just how worried her mother looked as she stared at her. She winced internally. She was pretty sure she knew what the problem was, but better feign ignorance…

"What happened to me?" she asked, her voice laced with curiosity.

"You wouldn’t wake up," Mother said, concern evident in her tone. "You scared Kirielle like you wouldn’t believe – she came running down this morning, bawling her eyes out, saying she killed you. Well, you obviously weren’t dead but nothing we did could shock you awake either. We summoned a doctor, but he couldn’t find anything wrong with you. As far as he could tell, you just suddenly fell into a coma for no reason."

Veronica nodded slowly. That sounded about right. The Sword Divers really did a number on her - wait, what was that first part?

"Killed me?" she asked incredulously, her voice rising slightly in disbelief.

"I didn’t say that!" Kirielle protested, suddenly entering the room and carrying a bowl of soup in her hands. "Mother is just making things up! It’s just that I… um…"

"Relax, Kiri," Veronica sighed gently, her voice calming. "There is no way you jumping on top of me could have caused this."

The silence that followed clued her in that she’d made some sort of mistake. What did she…?

Oh. Oh dear.

"How’d you know I did that?" asked Kirielle with a raised eyebrow.

"Because… that’s what you always do?" Veronica tried, her mind still a little fuzzy and unresponsive. Probably why she made that kind of silly mistake in the first place. "Hey, how about that soup, huh? Is that for me?"

"Not always," Kirielle huffed sullenly, thrusting the bowl at her. Whew, one bullet dodged. Mother was still giving her suspicious looks, though…

Veronica considered things as she practically inhaled the bowl of soup in front of her (the aranea may have scoured her mind, but there was nothing wrong with her stomach and she had not eaten for an entire day). This whole restart was probably a bust. The headache was bound to stay with her for weeks, only gradually going away, and she would be pretty useless while it lasted. On top of that, she wasn’t sure if mother would even let her go to the Academy after an episode like that, so it might be impossible to leave the house without flat out running away. It might be best to just spend the entire month recovering and making sure her attackers didn’t saddle her with any nasty surprises or permanent consequences.

She glanced at mother and Kirielle, who were both still giving her concerned looks, as if expecting her to fall apart at any particular moment, and then the empty soup bowl in her hand.

"So," she said softly, "You wouldn’t happen to have more of this stuff, would you?"

* * *

Like she expected, mother didn’t want to even hear about her going back to the academy so soon after her inexplicable coma and insisted she remain at home to recover. However, she and father had arranged for their trip to Koth in three days' time, and she was clearly loath to delay it. Since the last thing Veronica wanted was to spend any more time around her parents than necessary (even though mother had been surprisingly nice to her at the moment, she knew the effect would wear off after a few days), she was fully on board with her going through with their original plans and leaving her alone at home to recover.

In the end, mother and father did not need too much convincing to leave for their extended visit to Daimen. Veronica just had to promise to stay home for at least a month before heading back to the academy, with neighbors occasionally checking up on her to make sure she was keeping to her end of the bargain. Oh, and take Kirielle off their hands, but she no longer considered that such a chore as she once did.

Interestingly, this was the first time since she got stuck in the time loop that she had spoken to her father again. It only took a single snide comment about his weak, fainting daughter for her to remember why. If she was lucky, this would be the last restart she had to interact with the man.

The month passed in quiet recovery. Kirielle was initially enthusiastic about nursing her back to health, but it took her all of two days before she got bored of playing nurse and dumped all of the cooking and household chores in her sister's lap. Veronica was fine with it, really – Kirielle meant well, but she wasn’t a big fan of burned steak and half-cooked eggs, which was just about the only thing she knew how to make. That seemed to signify to her that Veronica was okay, though, because she began pestering her for magic lessons soon after. Not having anything better to do with her time, Veronica agreed. Kirielle showed much more patience for that than she did for cooking, at least.

As the restart gradually dragged to its close, Veronica breathed a sigh of relief. The attack had no lasting consequences she could detect. The headaches were annoying, but thankfully subsided quickly. By the end of the third week, they were completely gone. She had no problems using her powers after the second week or so, and she noticed no holes in her memory – even the memories of the final attack had gradually un-jumbled themselves into a proper timeline by the end of the first week, although the very end was hard to interpret due to her less than coherent state at the time. The matriarch’s memory package was thankfully still whole and intact, waiting for the day she was good enough to open it properly.

She had been lucky. That could have gone far worse for her than it had in the end. Far, far worse. If she hadn’t managed to activate her suicide rings in time…

But no matter – live and learn. She would just have to make sure she came better prepared when she visited the other aranea communities in the next restart. She had five other candidates from the Illustrious Gem Collectors, and they can’t all be treacherous jackasses like the Sword Divers, right? Still, she had every intention of taking better precautions in the future to make sure something like the previous restart could never happen again.

If another group of aranea tried to betray her in the future, she would be ready to show them just how big of a mistake they made in attacking her.

Chapter 36: Chapter 36: A Battle of Minds

Chapter Text

Eventually, the month-long recuperation period came to an end. Veronica spent the last few hours of that restart with Kirielle, attending Cirin’s own celebration of the summer festival. Kirielle was very happy with her, because apparently she was never allowed to wander around or stay up so late during the previous festivals. She didn’t really reciprocate her excitement, to be honest – Cirin’s summer festival was the same as it was every year: incredibly dull. She found herself almost wishing for Ibasan invaders to make an appearance, just to liven the place up a bit.

Okay, no. No, she didn’t. The whole thing was still very boring – that’s what she meant.

Regardless, with the beginning of the new restart (initiated by the familiar feeling of Kirielle jumping on top of her to wake her up), Veronica was ready to once again tackle the problem of contacting the aranea and getting them to teach her mind magic. It didn’t work all too well last time, but she had a whole month to consider what went wrong and how to fix it and she was willing to give it another go. Though not immediately, of course – teleporting to the nearest aranean web right from the start would be stupid. She had no intention of getting anywhere near one until she had already tested some tactics and equipped herself accordingly. Consequently, she started the restart in the same way she had started most of the previous ones: by going to Knyazov Dveri.

She did two things before anything else after entering the town. First, she descended into the local dungeon to pick up all the mana crystals she knew the location of… though she didn’t sell a single one in the Delver Village, or even the town above, so hopefully there would be no uproar and spying attempts on her this time around. Secondly, she saved both Alanic and Lukav from the assassins - even though she had no intention of pursuing lessons from Alanic in this restart. One of her reasons was purely emotional – both men had helped her a lot, and it felt wrong to let them die when she was already there, capable of preventing their deaths, even if it was meaningless in the long term – but the other reason was that saving them gave her some relatively non-threatening combat practice. She knew she could defeat the undead boars trying to ambush Lukav and the attack party assaulting Alanic’s temple without dying, but they were still life-and-death battles that she had to take seriously.

One of these days, when she finally got some mind magic expertise from the aranea, she was going to capture the two mages involved in the assault on Alanic’s temple and trawl through their memories to see if they knew anything important. Maybe some of the gunmen too…

But she was getting ahead of herself. No counting her chickens before they hatch – better worry about actually learning said mind magic before thinking about what she would do once she had it.

The first and most obvious problem she had to tackle was what to do if things went wrong again. No matter what precautions she decided to take, there was always a possibility she would bite off more than she could chew or end up caught off-guard. Technically, she had her suicide rings for that, but there was one thing that struck her about her altercation with the Sword Divers – how slow she had been about activating them. She should have blown herself up the moment it became obvious that the situation had become hopeless, instead of waiting for the last possible moment like she had. She could think up a lot of excuses for herself, but at the end it all came down to one simple fact: she didn’t want to die. She had a powerful survival instinct, and it was not easy for her to consciously kill herself… even if she knew, on an intellectual level, that it wouldn’t be permanent. Thus, she had waited until she was absolutely sure she wasn’t getting out of that situation alive and intact, and it had almost cost her everything.

All things considered, Veronica didn’t want to become jaded, accustomed to dying and suicide – that seemed a bad attitude to have, especially once she left the time loop. That left two main ways she could see to deal with the problem. One was to set up a bunch of contingencies into her suicide rings, allowing them to activate automatically in certain cases. Another was to have more options to choose from when faced with disaster – something other than fight to the death or kill yourself. A retreat option.
Contingencies sounded like a good idea, and Veronica even had some experience making them thanks to her studying of warding – a discipline that made heavy use of contingencies to determine when it should activate particular defenses. Unfortunately, most warding schemes used relatively easy-to-define triggers such as 'a human touches the object' or 'a living being not keyed into the wards enters the area'… defining a trigger for a contingency that would kill her should her mind be tampered with but wouldn’t activate the moment she engaged in telepathic communication of any sort or bumped her head or became dizzy or a million other things which were beyond her at the moment. Even if she could make such a thing, she would still have to exhaustively test it to make sure it was reliable… by working with a friendly aranea. Which, uh, kind of made it useless for her current needs. So she cheated. Instead of creating a nuanced, sophisticated contingency, she made the metaphorical equivalent of a sledgehammer. Specifically, she made a contingency that would kill her the moment she lost consciousness or suffered a sufficiently strong headache… but only if she turned it on. It would normally stay dormant, to cut down on unwanted activations, but she could activate it on a moment’s notice if she found herself in a dangerous situation. She wasn’t terribly happy with that solution, but it would do for now. She just had to remember to turn it off once the danger passed, lest she explode the next time she went to sleep. That would be so very embarrassing…

That being done, she turned her attention to the retreat option. She had considered everything from talking to Lukav about transforming into a rock worm or some other tunneling creature, alteration spells that would allow her to create her own paths and sanctuaries underground, phasing magic, haste spells, and more. But ultimately, her mind kept going back to teleportation. It was the ultimate form of mobility magic, and everything else was just a poor substitute. If she could somehow bypass Dungeon interference to teleport away, she could simply avoid ambushes like the ones the Sword Divers had used against her instead of resorting to suicide in order to evade capture.

Fortunately, during the month-long recuperation, Veronica had come up with an idea of how she could side-step her current limitation as far as teleportation was concerned. Which was why, before descending into the dungeon, she turned one of the large stones she found on the outskirts of Knyazov Dveri into a recall anchor.

The recall spell was outright made specifically for quick retreats, and the link forged between the caster and the anchor ensured they could teleport out even from areas warded against teleportation. Well, so long as the wards were basic ones, since those protections simply disrupted the targeting part of the teleport rather than inhibiting dimensional warping as such. Consequently, Veronica had a feeling the spell would work to yank her back to the anchor, even through the Dungeon interference.

She was right… sort of. She found that past a certain depth, the strain on the link became too much and it snapped. Before that happened, however, the spell worked flawlessly, allowing Veronica to quickly teleport away to the surface. The depth past which it ceased to work was too shallow for her liking, but she was confident she could strengthen the link. Over the next couple of days, she worked to combine several marking spells and her knowledge of spell formula in order to create a stronger anchor for the recall spell – one that would allow it to power through any amount of rock and Dungeon interference. She was largely successful in this, though the anchor object had to be pretty large to contain the final spell formula she designed. No matter, there was no need to make the anchor particularly portable for what she had in mind.

Satisfied that both of her projects bore fruit, Veronica spent the rest of the week creating various portable traps and magic items… including a more combat-worthy version of her wooden golem. Golems, having no minds, were almost entirely immune to aranean mind magic, and Veronica intended to bring one with her under the explanation that it was her helper and luggage carrier. Partially true, since the golem she’d made wasn’t exactly the mobile wardstone and murder statue that professional war golems were… but in the end it was still a painfully obvious bodyguard construct and Veronica fully expected the aranea to recognize it as such. Having such a guardian trailing behind her was bound to make even the most opportunistic aranea think twice about going after her.

Or at least she hoped so. She also hoped they wouldn’t feel too threatened by the construct, since they might simply refuse to talk to her at all if it made them too nervous around her…

Well, no matter. She would risk it. Gathering all of her equipment, she teleported herself and her golem to the one aranean colony that had been friendly to her the last time around. It was time to pay the Illustrious Gem Collectors a visit.

* * *

The last time Veronica had visited the aranean web that called itself Illustrious Gem Collectors, she found a colony that specialized in harvesting various precious stones that were abundant in their local underworld and traded them to the nearby human village in exchange for various human-produced goods. They were miners, essentially. They informed her straight away that they had agreed not to trade with any humans except the ones at the village, but gave her the locations of five other webs that might be more willing to help her. Since her main goal had been to locate as many aranean webs as possible and sound them out, Veronica had accepted this explanation at face value and moved on. However, after thinking about it for a while, she realized she had been kind of stupid. Just because they couldn’t trade with her didn’t mean they couldn’t receive gifts. She should have given them one – aside from the fact they may have been even more helpful if she had done so, there was also a chance they immediately alerted the webs they sent her to about her coming. In which case she definitely wanted them to put in a good word for her, which would be far more likely if she were handing out gifts to every group she visited.

Hell, she even had a perfect gift for them. Although she cashed in on a lot of the crystallized mana she found in Knyazov Dveri’s local underworld, she left a fair amount for her own tinkering and for situations like this. She was pretty sure the Illustrious Gem Collectors would have no problems accepting a gift of crystallized mana, since they traded similar items to the village all the time and it would not be in the least bit suspicious of them to have a couple of mana crystals in their possession.

Veronica entered the tunnels that held the Gem Collectors' colony and contacted the nearest sentry in the manner shown to her by the web’s matriarch during her last visit. If the web found it in any way unusual that a human knew how to properly greet them and ask for an audience, they never mentioned it. Instead, she was soon presented with the web’s matriarch, She Who Eats Fire and Sees Gold, and her escort of 10 other aranea. Huh, two more guards than the last time… apparently having her golem trail after her did have an effect. Still, while the matriarch was noticeably more nervous around her this time, she did not act outraged at her addition and she gave her essentially the same speech she had the last time around. They were honored by the visit, but they had prior commitments and agreements and couldn’t deal with her so here’s a bunch of other webs she could pester for help instead. Only this time they gave her eight names instead of five. Aside from the Rose Labyrinth Dwellers, Yellow Cavern Guardians, Filigree Sages, River Navigators and Luminous Advocates that she’d already known about, she also gave her the location of the Talisman Bearers, Ghost Serpent Acolytes and Silent Doorway Adepts. Strange. Why the extra information this time around?

[Is there something special about those last three webs?] she asked.

[Ah, so you have heard of them then?] the matriarch said, making her own conclusions about her question. [Yes, they are a bit… shady in their dealings with others, human and aranea alike. I wouldn’t normally send a young mage like you to webs like theirs, but you seem like someone who can take care of herself.]

She gave her golem a significant look.

[He’s just my luggage carrier,] Veronica said.

[Of course he is,] the matriarch said, a touch of amusem*nt embedded in her telepathic message. [I’m sure those glyphs on its surface are purely aesthetic too. Leaving that aside, is there anything else we could do for you?]

[You have done more than I could have possibly hoped for, honored matriarch,] Veronica answered honestly.

She beckoned the golem to come closer and pulled out a box from the backpack it was carrying, pointedly ignoring the wave of tension that rippled throughout the assembled aranea at the action. She then opened the box, revealing several pieces of crystalized mana and placed it in front of the matriarch.

[Please,] she said. [Take this as a small token of my appreciation for your help.]

The matriarch stared at the box without a word for several seconds before becoming agitated. No, wait, she was just trying to mimic shaking her head with her entire body.

[I cannot accept this,] she protested.

Veronica frowned. [Surely the village leadership isn’t so insistent about your trade agreement as to keep you from accepting gifts?]

[It is not that! Your gift – it is simply too generous,] the matriarch said. [It’s too much.]

[I respectfully disagree,] said Veronica firmly. [You were amicable and honest with me, and you told me where to go even if you could not help me yourself. You’ve most likely saved me months of searching by telling me where I can find more webs. I feel this is the least I can do for wasting your time with this meeting.]

The matriarch remained silent after that. After a while, Veronica figured she was not going to say anything and that this was effectively the end of their meeting.

[In any case, I suppose it’s time for me to leave,] Veronica said. [Until we meet a-]

[Wait,] the matriarch said, interrupting her farewell. [One of the webs I told you about. The Luminous Advocates.]

[Yes?] asked Veronica curiously.

[They are a web dedicated to honing our psychic abilities as much as possible, even by aranean standards. Among other things, that means they are intensely interested in studying rare cases, such as aranea with unique talents… or human psychics. They will want to work with you every bit as much as you want to work with them. Always keep that in mind, because they’re liable to pretend otherwise when you deal with them.]

[I… see,] Veronica responded. [That is a very useful thing to know about. I thank you for your advice, wise matriarch.]
[Oh, there is no need to flatter me,] she said with a knowing smile. [I’m just helping a good, generous soul get forward in life. Besides, the Luminous Advocates are snotty and arrogant, always looking down on us as mere miners and thinking their mastery of the mind arts makes them so much better than everyone else… in my opinion, they deserve to be taken down a bit. But never mind that, I’ve just realized I’ve been a terrible host. If you would be willing to follow me deeper into the tunnels, I would love to give you a brief tour of our humble home. We can talk some more while we walk.]

Veronica agreed, but quietly turned on the suicide contingencies before following after her. Just in case.

* * *

Despite Veronica's concerns, the brief tour of the place offered by the matriarch turned out to be just that. There was no sudden ambush or sinister reveals, just a stroll through the tunnels accompanied by a running commentary. Veronica could tell she was only being shown the less interesting, outer parts of the settlement… but the tour was really more of an excuse to have a conversation and exchange some information, so she didn’t mention it.

The matriarch gave her a little more information about the other webs. The Rose Labyrinth Dwellers were somewhat unique in the sense that they never visited the surface. Most aranea webs lived underground but were heavily dependent on the surface for their survival. Not so for the Rose Labyrinth Dwellers – they were only active underground, and were rather mysterious even to other aranea. The matriarch didn’t know how they would feel about teaching her, but she seemed sure they wouldn’t attack.

The Yellow Cavern Guardians had apparently found one of the rare underground fungal forests and made it their home – they were fiercely protective of their home, knowing just how tempting a target it was for just about anyone, but the matriarch felt they were worth the visit. The Filigree Sages specialized in webcraft, which was basically the aranea equivalent of spell formulas – instead of carving glyphs onto items, they anchored their spells into web constructs for some reason. Veronica didn’t understand why they would do that, since web constructs were bound to be far more fragile than glyphs carved into stone and metals, but it seemed to be a thing among the aranea. It was probably a convenience thing – aranean limbs weren’t exactly made for carving and chiseling things, so they probably had to use alteration magic any time they wanted to do such things. Easier to just spin some webs.

The River Navigators made their homes on the banks of an underground river, and had mastered the skill of making boats and using them to travel down its length and back. This allowed them to range a lot further than most aranea could manage, and thus gather more resources. They were very active in trading with humans, but mostly for material possessions rather than psychic instruction.

Finally, there were the Luminous Advocates. Their territory had little in the way of natural resources, so they mostly traded their mind magic expertise to other aranean webs instead of dealing with humans much, but that was due to lack of means rather than wants. The matriarch insisted that the Luminous Advocates were clearly jealous of the Illustrious Gem Collectors' wealth, and otherwise made some snide comments about their character and even sexual potency. She did admit, albeit grudgingly, that they were Veronica's best bet if approached correctly.

Veronica was somewhat surprised how relatively advanced the aranea in the local region were with regards to their crafting abilities. The Cyorian web mostly traded with the surface for all their crafting needs and didn’t produce anything except silk and processed monster parts. It reminded her of Novelty and her desire to learn 'human construction magic'… and thinking of Novelty promptly made her feel guilty and angry, so she dropped that trail of thought soon enough.

Of the last three webs, the matriarch knew little beyond generalities. The Talisman Bearers were apparently heavily magic-focused, most of them carrying large metal discs full of spell formulas strapped to their bodies. The Ghost Serpent Acolytes had abandoned the aranean Great Web belief in order to worship some kind of native spirit they found. The Silent Doorway Adepts had either some kind of stealth magic or great teleportation skills, or maybe both, because they had a reputation for getting into inaccessible places and disappearing from them just as easily.

All three had a bit of a shady reputation. The Talisman Bearers were known to be very greedy for magic they could use, especially magic items, which could be either very good or very bad for Veronica. The Ghost Serpent Acolytes slavishly followed the guidance of their guardian spirit, and the Ghost Serpent was known to be a little… erratic at times. The Silent Doorway Adepts were thieves, or at least had a reputation for such.

Veronica decided to put all three of them firmly at the bottom of her list of aranean webs to visit.

For her part, Veronica told a little bit about herself to the matriarch - how she was studying magic in Cyoria, and how she had met the aranea there. How they had helped her make sense of her abilities and learn how to control them. How they are all dead now, wiped out in totality.

[So Cyoria changes hands once again, does it?] the matriarch asked rhetorically. [I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Do you happen to know which web took over?]

[None at the moment,] Veronica said softly. [It wasn’t a rival web that destroyed them. It was… something else. Most likely some monster rising from the deeper section of the dungeon. Cyoria has had a bit of a problem with that recently.]

[I have heard something about that from the night runners,] the matriarch said. [But I didn’t know it was that bad. Still, expect a new web to move in soon enough. Cyoria is a tempting prize. Not for us, mind you, the Illustrious Gem Collectors are happy enough with their lot, but plenty of ambitious webs would jump at the chance to claim the place for themselves.]

[Night runners?] asked Veronica.

[A name for aranea that go between different webs to bring news and conduct trade. Don’t go looking for them. Night runners generally don’t like humans. Their whole existence revolves around crossing over vast stretches of human-controlled land. Many die to mages and guns in the process. They wouldn’t appreciate some random human tracking them down, regardless of the reason. The whole point of being a night runner is evading humans, after all, and especially mages.]

[Got it. Don’t bother the night runners unless I want a fight,] said Veronica calmly.

[Have you ever gotten in an actual fight with an aranea?] the matriarch asked curiously.

[Um. Sort of,] said Veronica, a bit sheepishly. [It didn’t end all that well for me. While we are on that topic, have you ever heard of the Sword Divers web?]

[Can’t say that I have. Where are they from?]

[They live under Korsa,] Veronica answered.

[Oh, no wonder, then! Korsa is really far from us. I’m afraid that aranean webs have very little contact with webs outside of our immediate vicinity. Other than the news we get from the night runners and the occasional aranean explorer, we know little of what happens in distant webs. It may be strange to hear this, but we actually have a better picture of what humans are doing at any given point than our own kind. What did you want to know about the Sword Divers anyway?]

[They arranged for a meeting with me and then tried to ambush me when I got there,] Veronica said, a hint of anger in her voice.

[Ah,] the matriarch said quietly. [I am sorry to hear that. Treacherous webs like that bring a bad name to our kind.]

[So you can’t tell me why they did that?] Veronica asked, her curiosity evident.

[It could be any number of things,] the matriarch said, adding a mental equivalent of a shrug. [Aranea are not nearly as hom*ogenous as humans in terms of culture-] Veronica silently boggled at the notion of humans being culturally hom*ogenous. [-since the relative isolation of each web quickly causes webs to develop their own… peculiarities. Perhaps you insulted them somehow. Perhaps it was how they test anyone wanting to meet with their leaders. Perhaps they were simply greedy and decided you would be an easy target. I’d personally assume the latter, but who could possibly tell?]

Soon after that, the conversation died down and she parted ways with the Illustrious Gem Collectors. The matriarch told her to drop by for another chat when she was done scouting out the other webs to tell her how it went, which Veronica interpreted as a subtle invitation to bring more expensive gifts, but agreed to it anyway. She meant it too – this visit had turned out to be far more productive than she had been hoping, and who knew what else she might learn from the matriarch if she could get her talking again. Stopping by before the restart ended shouldn’t be too much of a hassle.

The next day she set off towards the Rose Labyrinth Dwellers to begin her task in earnest.

* * *

Despite having detailed instructions about where they lived, it took Veronica an entire day of searching before she encountered any of their sentries. An entire day of wandering the lightless tunnels, constantly doubling back after taking wrong turns and fighting the denizens of the Dungeon. That black, fire-breathing beetle whose carapace shrugged off both kinetic force and fire really gave her a scare, but thankfully it was rather slow, and freezing it solid finally allowed her to kill it.

The Rose Labyrinth Dwellers really lived up to the Labyrinth part of their name.

[Veronica Kazinski of Cyoria,] the aranean spokesperson began. The local matriarch declined going out to meet her, sending a small greeting party of four aranea instead. They had taken their sweet time considering her offer, silently communicating between themselves for nearly two hours, but it seemed they had finally reached their decision. [We have discussed your request and reached a decision. We agree to teach you in the ways of our Gift, but only if you accept our terms.]

[Those being?] asked Veronica, her curiosity piqued.

[You will live with us for the duration of your lessons. You will eat and sleep in our settlement, hunt with our hunters, patrol our territory with our scouts, and otherwise act as a member of our web.]

Veronica balked at the terms. How did they expect her to agree to that?! She knew for a fact that the aranean idea of food was vastly different from the human one, for one thing. But frankly, even ignoring the sheer logistical problems of that idea, it required her to trust them far more than she did. She’d be at their complete mercy all day, every day…

…which, now that she thought about it, was probably what they were going for. That, or they were trying to get rid of her via unreasonable terms.

[There is no negotiating these terms?] Veronica asked.

[No,] the spokesperson responded. [If you are not willing to commit yourself, how can you expect the same of us?]

[…I will have to think about it,] Veronica said. It was a polite deflection since she had already thought about it and rejected the idea with extreme prejudice. But there was no sense in being impolite. For all she knew, they thought they were being extremely reasonable.

[Take your time,] the spokesperson said. [It is not something to decide on quickly. You know where to find us if you’re interested.]

* * *
[I'm sorry, but we are going to have to refuse your request,] the aranea said. [Perhaps if you are still interested in a couple of months from now, we might be able to help you, but we are currently busy with… the renovation of our settlement and cannot help you. I hope you understand.]

Veronica stared at the two aranea in front of her. That the matriarch of the Yellow Cavern Guardians came to greet her with only one guard was already pretty strange, but her nervous, twitchy behavior did nothing to ease Veronica’s worries. Thankfully, it didn’t seem the matriarch was planning to harm her; rather, she just seemed generally stressed and frightened. In fact, her guard was just as nervous, and so was the sentry she initially contacted. The entire web seemed to be on edge for some reason.

The matriarch returned her stare with one of her own, her body shifting from time to time to switch focus between Veronica and her golem, trying to divine something about them through intense scrutiny.

[I'm sorry if I'm making you nervous,] Veronica said, with a gentle approach. [I assure you that the golem is—]

[We are not threatened by your silly construct!] She snapped. [We have far more pressing—]

She suddenly cut herself off and remained silent for a second before reestablishing telepathic communication.

[I'm sorry. I let my temper get the better of me. Please, just leave. It is dangerous for you to remain here.]

[You are being threatened by someone,] Veronica guessed. A spike of emotion and images came from the link, hard to interpret but not totally incomprehensible. [Correction, something. A monster. A thing from the depths?]

[This talk is over,] the matriarch said icily. [If you don’t go away, I will attack you.]

[Perhaps I could help?] Veronica offered gently.

[No, you cannot,] she said. [You are unwanted here. Leave. Now.]

What else could she do? Veronica left.

* * *

[Yes.]

[Yes?] Veronica repeated in surprise. [Just like that?]

Bridge of Moonlight Connecting Ten Thousand Shores, the matriarch of the River Navigators, gave her a searching look. [Was I not supposed to agree? You gave a convincing offer. I could really use those telepathic relays to connect all our outposts together. I’ve been trying to buy some of those from the Filigree Sages for ages now, but the greedy bastards keep increasing the price.]

Honestly, considering how her previous visits had gone, she’d half-expected the River Navigators to consult the river currents about whether or not they should teach her and then inform her that the river said no. That was just about how her luck worked, apparently. But no, they just patiently listened to her offer and promptly agreed. It was almost anticlimactic, but Veronica wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

[The Filigree Sages have telepathic relays? And here I thought I was being original when I made them…] she complained. Though it kind of did make sense that some of the aranea would try to make something like that. It was probably more unusual that no one else had them…

[If it makes you feel any better, they are the only web I know of that have them, and they refuse to share them with the rest of us,] Bridge of Moonlight said. [They won’t even sell the finished product to us, lest we figure out how to make them from live examples.]

Ah, of course—the tendency of spellcasters everywhere to jealously hoard their knowledge and share bare scraps with others. A major part of why Ikosian magical tradition was so successful was that it had mechanisms for overcoming that – widely-accessible schools to teach everyone proper basics, state-sponsored libraries to preserve spellbooks and make them available to aspiring mages, legal frameworks for apprenticeships and magical monopolies, and so on. Even with that, there were a lot of cases of mages taking priceless magical knowledge with them to their graves because they had never entrusted anyone with their secrets.

Veronica decided that if she ever managed to escape from the time loop alive, she was going to write a book about psychic powers to make sure people like her don’t have to jump through the same hoops she had to in order to master their abilities. She wasn’t sure how much of her knowledge would be transmissible through a simple written medium, but she would try.

Three days later, when Veronica provided the first shipment of telepathic relays and proved they worked as advertised (plus warded one of their storage caves against various vermin), they introduced her to Mind Like Fire, her new mind magic teacher.

[Your name is surprisingly short by aranean standards,] she told her.

[The names you hear are simply approximations of their original meaning in aranean mind-speak,] she said. [Our names are all of similar length, but since our languages are so different, it is often hard to translate certain concepts without ending up rather verbose. Though in my opinion, many aranea also enjoy making the translation as grandiose-sounding as possible. Are you ready for your lesson?]

[Yes.]

[Excellent. First, let me tell you what I mean to teach you. Feel free to stop me if you already know something I included in my lesson plan or have any objections.]

Veronica nodded, settling down on the small chair provided for her and glancing at her surroundings. The room they were in was pretty well done for something built and furnished deep in the dungeon by a bunch of giant telepathic spiders – it had a proper table and some chairs, a pair of decorative cabinets (they were completely empty; Veronica got curious and checked when she was left alone at one point), and even a couple of landscape paintings hanging on the walls. Only the lack of any windows and an expensive, clearly magical lamp perched on the table indicated that she was not in some medium-grade hotel on the surface.

She found it interesting that the River Navigators had a room in their settlements that was clearly intended for humans—it meant they received human visitors often enough they felt the need to make a guest room for them. She should probably ask them about that later.

[The first thing I intend to teach you is how to encase your mind in a defensive mental shell. It is one of the simplest and most effective means of mental defense, but also one of the most effective ones. The name is indicative; much like your exoskeleton protects your soft, squishy insides—] Lady, I don’t think you understand how human anatomy works… [—so too does this technique create a form of mental exoskeleton to protect your vulnerable thoughts.]

[So, basically, it is the psychic equivalent of a mind shield spell?] asked Veronica.

[Show me,] she demanded.

Veronica complied. She channeled mana through the amulet hanging around her neck and her mind was instantly encased in a protective magical shell that repelled all mental intrusion.

For a full minute, her teacher remained silent and still, unable to establish telepathic communication with her but also not giving any indication that she should drop the spell. Veronica decided to keep it up until she signaled her somehow, but that moment never arrived. Instead, after about two minutes of nothing happening, her telepathic voice rang in her head again.

Despite the fact the mind shield was still on.

[As I thought,] she said smugly. [The spell is neat in its simplicity, but it ultimately suffers from the same drawbacks common to nearly all human mind magic. Namely, it gives you no feedback whatsoever when attacks start interacting with your defenses. You didn’t even feel it when I slipped past it, did you?]

[I do feel it when sufficiently powerful attacks interact with it,] Veronica protested.

[That’s not feedback, that’s damage leaking through without totally collapsing the whole thing,] she scoffed. [No, while this thing may have served you in the past, it is thoroughly inadequate for my purposes. A real mind shell, the sort I will teach you to produce, will be far better than this. It will be many times stronger than what your spell can manage, and infinitely more adaptive and responsive. You will be able to sense probing attacks, too subtle to actually damage your defenses but indicative of what your opponent is planning. You will be able to repair and reinforce your defenses without tearing the whole thing down and starting from scratch. You will be able to strike back without dropping your whole mental shield to do so…]

[Sounds wonderful,] Veronica said. She collapsed the spell since it clearly wasn’t doing anything at the moment. [Though if I may be so rude, I do think there is one thing where human magics generally beat your psychic powers.]

[Oh?]

[They generally require no attention from the caster to keep affecting the target, and they expose the caster to far less risk of mental retaliation by their victims. From what I can tell, that is not true for psychic powers.]

[True,] she acknowledged. [But I think the inflexible nature of those spells is too much of a weakness to make up for those advantages. But we’ve digressed enough – after you learn how to defend your mind a bit we will move onto attack and retaliation…]

It did not take long for Veronica to realize that Mind Like Fire was very serious about her job. Far from teaching her only the bare minimum and meeting her once a week or so like she had assumed she would, she scheduled lessons every single day and demanded every shred of effort and patience Veronica could spare. The lessons basically consisted of Veronica lovingly constructing a mental shell around her mind before Mind Like Fire mercilessly took it apart, only backing off when her defenses collapsed from the strain. It was a good thing she had decided not to turn on her suicide contingencies before going into her lessons because they would have gone off at the end of the very first day due to all the headaches she had suffered in the process.

Still, Veronica couldn’t complain. This was basically what she was searching for all this time, wasn’t it? True, it was a lot more painful than she had imagined, leaving her bedridden for hours after the lessons ended, but it was also a lot more effective than she had thought it would be. Her ability to shield her mind was improving fast, and after the first week, Mind Like Fire started bringing guest teachers to give her experience with attacks different from her own.

Not that everything was perfect. For one thing, Mind Like Fire had a Xvim-like obsession with getting the basics right and refused to teach her anything else until she mastered the mind shell technique to her liking, and she had some pretty high standards. For another, the River Navigators spontaneously raised the price of their cooperation twice, first demanding of her another ten relays if she wanted to continue the lessons, and then urging her to help them kill some kind of giant mole monster that was threatening one of their outposts. The mole-thing didn’t look particularly dangerous to Veronica, but apparently, it was resistant to mind magic and too tough to bring down with their meager magical skills. Though annoyed at the sudden and completely unwarranted demands, Veronica decided to play things their way, easily producing another ten relays and luring the giant mole into a minefield she had set up for it. As tempted as she was to break the whole arrangement on principle, the fact was that Mind Like Fire was simply too good of a teacher to lose.
Before the restart ended, Veronica had once again visited the Illustrious Gem Collectors, gifted them some more crystallized mana (to the matriarch’s continued protests that she was being too generous) and told them a little about her experiences. They had nothing new to tell her, however, so her visit was largely pointless in the end. Upon the start of the next restart, she once again teleported to Knyazov Dveri to perform her preparations and then promptly contacted the River Navigators with the offer, deciding not to contact the Illustrious Gem Collectors this time. The River Navigators were just as quick to accept her offer as they had been in the previous restart, and they once again assigned Mind Like Fire as her teacher.

Not particularly surprising, as she soon found out. Now that she showed some pre-existing skill, Mind Like Fire actually allowed her to have some breaks during the lessons where she would tell her a little about herself and her web. She was literally their mind magic teacher and thus the most logical person for the job. Although she usually taught aranean children, rather than adults… Maybe Veronica was a little too prideful, but the fact that they had sent their elementary school teacher to conduct her lessons kind of burned.

[Prepare yourself,] Mind Like Fire suddenly stated, and Veronica knew the break was over.

She quickly erected the shell around her mind, a simple blast of telepathic noise washing over it harmlessly. Mind blasts like that one were the simplest form of telepathic attack, one that even Veronica could produce, and they had no chance in hell of punching through a solid defense like she was currently sporting. It was the fastest attack most telepaths could manage, though, and Mind Like Fire always started a battle with one of those to see if she could catch her unprepared with it. That used to actually happen, back when she was still starting and was struggling to call up the mental shell on a moment’s notice, but even after it stopped working on her, she persisted in doing that at the start of every battle.

Immediately after the blast subsided, she felt pinpricks skittering across her shell, looking for flaws and weaknesses. She had tried to be clever in the past by deliberately creating weak spots and then quickly shoring them up when Mind Like Fire committed to an attack, but she quickly learned that was a risky tactic to employ at her level of skill, so these days, she was more passive and reactive.

Soon enough, once Mind Like Fire was convinced there were no obvious flaws in Veronica's defense, she tried to create some. Sudden, concentrated mental bursts slammed into her mental shell, seeking to crack it by concentrating all their energy against a specific portion of the shell. She recognized that attack as the one that the Sword Divers had used to smash her mind shield spell and ravage her mind. Not surprising they had used that, she was informed, since that type of attack was specifically designed to punch through mental barriers. Mind spike, the aranea called it. Unlike the last time she was faced with this attack mode, however, she had a shiny new mental defense and was facing only one attacker. She felt the spikes hit her shield, but it held, and she quickly repaired all the damage and reinforced that part of the shell to withstand future attacks.

Mind Like Fire promptly switched targets, bombarding another, different portion of her mental shell. And when that didn’t work, she moved on to the next, and the next, steadily speeding up her attacks until Veronica was straining to hold her mental shell intact. She began mixing in low-powered probing attacks between mind spikes, masking the tiny pinpricks among the sheer intensity of her barrage and looking for any cracks created by her assault. Veronica frantically worked to patch up damage and reinforce the shell in places where she detected Mind Like Fire's probes, and somehow held on until her attack attenuated.

Success. Her shell usually cracked during that last phase. Maybe now she would—

A massive vise of telepathic pressure closed around her mind from all sides, crushing and grinding without mercy or end. The attack, the unimaginatively but appropriately named mind crush, closed around her mental shell like an armored fist around a soap bubble. And, weakened as it was from the previous barrage, the shell promptly broke like one too. Veronica experienced a brief flash of blinding pain in her head before Mind Like Fire realized she’d won and let the attack dissipate.

"Motherfudger," Veronica swore loudly, massaging her temples and not even bothering with telepathy to express her displeasure. "Did you really have to finish things off with that attack?"

[Yes,] Mind Like Fire said simply.

"Ugh," Veronica groaned.

[I’ll give you five minutes before we go for round two,] she said.

"I take back everything nice I’ve ever thought about you," Veronica told her. "You’re pure evil."

[My other students agree with you. There is a reason why I was named Mind Like Fire, you see,] she said. [Four more minutes left.]

Damn it.

Chapter 37: Chapter 37: Slow Burn

Chapter Text

As the weeks went by, Veronica became increasingly bored with Mind Like Fire’s lessons. While they continued to pay results in terms of her increasing mental combat proficiency, they were also very repetitive and had increasingly marginal results. It didn’t help that her mental defenses were now too good to be casually collapsed by her teacher, which meant that she no longer ended the lessons with a raging headache and an urge to lay down for a few hours. The lessons mostly just taxed her patience now, leaving her a bit tired and frustrated but otherwise ready to do something else.

She decided to do just that. She had never really finished sounding out the rest of the aranea, wanting to get some basics of mental combat from the River Navigators first, but she was becoming increasingly certain that Mind Like Fire was stalling her with demands of mastery in order to avoid teaching her anything more advanced. Her mental defenses were already good enough, in her opinion, so there was no harm in giving the other webs a visit to see what their offer was.

The Luminous Advocates were her first destination. They were, after all, supposed to be very interested in teaching someone like her, as well as hungry for resources she could provide. Unfortunately, that didn’t quite work out. Their initial offer was utterly ridiculous, calling for Veronica to pay a simply staggering amount of money and magical artifacts. She didn’t agree to that, of course—couldn't, actually, even if she wanted to, since the whole thing would cost twice as much as she had on her person. Even if she gathered all of her savings and sold every single mana crystal she’d found under Knyazov Dveri, it still wouldn’t be enough. It took more than three weeks to talk them into a more reasonable price, since they seemed to finally realize she was in a hurry. By that time, the restart was already near its end. Undeterred, she tried to approach them again over the next four restarts, varying her approach, but in the end, only managed to reduce the negotiation period by a couple of days.

Admittedly, the few lessons she actually managed to finagle out of them really were top-notch. Not only did they give her some crucial advice in regards to strengthening her mental shell that really sped up her progress in Mind Like Fire’s lessons, but they also helped her hone other aspects of her psychic abilities. For instance, she was now capable of forming two-way telepathic links that allowed non-psychics to talk back to her mentally, as well as form links with multiple people at once. They even taught her how to better handle the information from divination spells which dumped their results directly into the mind of the caster. Some useful information, that. Nonetheless, Veronica decided to give up on seeking their help after the fourth restart. While their help was useful, the sheer amount of time and nerves she lost arranging for said help to actually materialize made the whole thing a poor deal in her mind. It didn’t help that they categorically refused to teach her memory manipulation unless she subjected herself to a total memory probe, courtesy of their elders, which made their web a bit of a dead end as far as she was concerned. Because that was basically never going to happen.

Since negotiation with the Luminous Advocates involved a whole lot of waiting for the web to respond to her offers, Veronica had time to approach the Filigree Sages at the same time. They too took a lot of time to convince, although in their case it was because they were a suspicious bunch and also more than a little bit unhappy about her selling telepathic relays to the River Navigators. Thankfully, the first time she managed to convince them to teach her, she immediately found a shortcut that allowed her to drastically cut down on the negotiation time necessary to convince them. All she had to do was demonstrate her proficiency with spell formulas and promise to help them adapt human techniques to their own webcraft. They cared about that a lot more than about any material trade goods, and so long as she did so, it only took a week of negotiation before they agreed to teach her.

Veronica was more than a little shocked when she was first shown an example of the Filigree Sage’s webcraft. She had expected something relatively simple and crude, like a piece of spider silk cloth with familiar Ikosian symbology embedded into it, or perhaps even individual threads woven into the glyphs. Instead, the Filigree Sage crafter she was to work with led her to a rectangular formation of stone pillars, in the middle of which was suspended a complex, multi-layered sphere made out of spider silk. The sphere glowed with pale white light in the darkness of the room, points of brighter lights constantly racing along this or that thread in a complicated dance that Veronica couldn’t decipher. Every inch of its surface (as well as every inch of the inner layers too, she would later find out) was covered in glyphs. Unfamiliar, non-Ikosian glyphs. And her guide claimed this was just one of the lesser practice spheres, since they weren’t going to bring a potentially untrustworthy outsider anywhere near the real thing.

She had realized at that point that she had bitten off far more than she could chew. Helping the Filigree Sages refine their webcraft basically required becoming adept in a whole different tradition of making spell formulas. A tradition that descended from the Ikosian one, thus making the job much easier, but still. This was a task that could take years. Not something that you could do on the side while focusing on something else.
Veronica still gave it an honest try, completely giving up on rest and free time for several restarts, and the Filigree Sages seemed pleased by her work. However, in the end, she decided that she simply couldn’t justify the effort to herself. While the topic itself was extremely interesting—many researchers would have quite literally killed to be in her place, studying an otherwise unknown magical tradition—it was ultimately a distraction she didn't need at the moment. The actual mind magic instruction she was receiving in exchange for her work was little different from what the River Navigators were offering. Admittedly, she experienced a slightly different style of mental combat from the one practiced by the River Navigators and most other aranean webs, as the Filigree Sages used methods centered around group combat. Not very useful to her, given that she didn’t have a fellow telepath to use it with, but she did learn some tricks to deal with multiple attackers.

Originally, the Filigree Sages were completely unwilling to teach Veronica any form of memory manipulation. However, after two restarts studying their webcraft, it became impossible to pretend she was starting from scratch. The next time around, she used an excuse that she’d learned the bare basics from the Cyorian web. She was promptly taken to their matriarch, who had mostly ignored her up until then, preferring to have her underlings interact with her. The matriarch seemed very keen on sending an expedition to Cyoria with Veronica’s help to establish contact with the Cyorian web. Not even finding out they had all been killed dampened her enthusiasm; it just meant the focus of the expedition shifted from establishing contact to looting the place down to bedrock. Lovely.

Regardless, in exchange for transporting the expedition to Cyoria, protecting them from any threats, and transporting them back, Veronica was promised… just about anything, really. Even memory manipulation was on the table.

Aside from the fact that agreeing to such a thing would require Veronica to go back to Cyoria—and the fact that she would be helping a group of aranea loot the remains of her friends—there was the little matter of her not being actually sure that the Cyorian web used any webcraft. She suspected they did, and many things the matriarch had mentioned in her stories and off-hand comments seemed to indicate so in retrospect, but she wasn’t certain. It was just an excuse she made up to explain her otherwise inexplicable knowledge. She should definitely go down into the ruins of Cyoria’s web and check what's in there before agreeing to any such expeditions.

With the Luminous Advocates and the Filigree Sages essentially eliminated from the list of options, at least for the time being, Veronica was left with only three options to serve as an alternative to the River Navigators. The three shady webs that the Illustrious Gem Collectors had warned her about. Veronica was about to start approaching them when Mind Like Fire finally decided to move on from basic telepathic combat drills.

* * *

When Mind Like Fire declared that Veronica’s mental defenses were passable and that they would switch over to honing her offensive arsenal, she was cautiously optimistic but didn’t expect much. Practice would probably become less painful since Mind Like Fire would be on the receiving end of attacks this time, but she didn’t think her attacks would be very effective. Her mental defenses were bound to be excellent.

But then Mind Like Fire told her to hit with her best shot and simply stood there, content to passively weather the attack, and Veronica decided to oblige. She dumped a positively huge amount of mana into her next attack, the most she could manage without the entire thing losing cohesion, and slammed it straight into the mental shell.

The results were beyond all her expectations. Rather than simply bouncing off the mental shell like she expected, the attack effortlessly blew the defenses away and slammed into the unprotected mind like a battering ram. Mind Like Fire screeched in pain, spasming and flailing with her whole body. For a brief while, there was pandemonium as nearby aranea burst into the room to see what the fuss was about. Veronica tried to explain what had happened without it devolving into a fight. For a moment, she was clutching the recall rod in her hand to teleport away, but Mind Like Fire recovered in time to defuse the situation.

She also insisted on continuing the lessons as if nothing notable had happened and proceeded to shoo away all the other aranea that had come to her defense.

[Damnation,] Mind Like Fire grumbled once they were alone again. [Not only did I get taken down by a human rookie, but everyone saw it too. I won’t live this one down for a long while.]

[Uh, sorry?] tried Veronica. She wasn’t sure what to even tell her, in all honesty.

[Don’t be,] she said. [It’s my fault, really—your inexperience has automatically put me in the mind of one of our young, and I foolishly assumed your attack would be like one of theirs. But while your skills at mental combat leave much to be desired, you are still a qualified mage with plenty of mana to burn and considerable experience in managing it. I should have let you face my best defenses and then lowered the strength afterward. I should have waited to see what your strongest attack was like instead of making assumptions about how strong my shield needed to be. Let that be a lesson to you as well, should you ever teach someone—it is always unwise to be arrogant and carelessly presumptuous, lest you get taken down by some precocious hatchling.]

She was not a freaking hatchling! She was only a year away from being legally recognized as an adult, and was already one if the time spent in the time loop was factored in.

[I didn’t do anything permanent, did I?] Veronica asked instead.

[No, of course not. Why do you think—Ah. I see that in my haste to bring your practical skills to a workable level, I have neglected some crucial bits of theory. Like what happens when an attacker manages to break through the defender’s defenses.]

[Bad things?] tried Veronica.

[Yes, but perhaps not quite as bad as you’d think,] she countered. [To grossly simplify things, there are four main things one can do to an unshielded target. The first is to simply assault their mind telepathically, seeking to damage it. This is, in almost every case, simply a way to incapacitate the target for a while. It is very difficult to actually kill people through purely mental attacks—usually such attacks simply cause a lot of pain and make the target lose consciousness for a while. Maybe quite a while, and they may suffer from headaches, confusion, and amnesia for a time, but even then they are almost guaranteed to eventually recover.]

[Oh. I didn’t know that,] Veronica admitted. She honestly thought that getting hit by a sufficiently powerful telepathic barrage could cripple you permanently. Then again, "for a while" could perhaps mean months or years, so still not something to take lightly. And she was pretty sure a pain-inducing attack could be easily adapted to an instrument of torture. [So you were never in any permanent danger, then, but you’ll probably be hurting for a while.]

[Yes, that is the short of it.]

[And the other three things the attacker could do to the target?] Veronica asked.

[Well, the second possibility is that the attacker extracts information out of the target, either by reading their thoughts or probing their memories. Reading thoughts is the easiest option, of course, but often ineffective. Aranea, mages, and quite a few human civilians as well, have learned to maintain certain discipline over their surface thoughts, making it hard to pluck information out of their minds that way. That leaves deep memory reading, and this is not nearly as easy as it sounds, as most people have quite a lot of memories to sift through and can sense when someone is rooting through their heads and resist. Even non-psychics can resist deep memory scans if they’re strong-willed and the psychic isn’t very practiced in the skill…]

Veronica remained silent. She had raised the possibility of being taught memory manipulation plenty of times in the past, and Mind Like Fire had always told her she wasn’t ready yet. She couldn’t imagine the answer would be any different now. At least it wasn’t a flat-out no, she supposed.

[The third and fourth options are what we aranea call deep and surface manipulations. Surface manipulations consist of temporary manipulations, such as fooling the senses or amplifying a particular emotion in the victim to produce a desired reaction. Deep manipulations, on the other hand, are more… permanent. They consist of things such as modifying someone’s memories, blanking out entire sections of their life, instilling lasting compulsions or turning them into unaware sleeper agents. Deep techniques are what a lot of humans associate mind magic with, but they are actually rarely used. Such lasting mental alterations require the attacker to dive deep into the victim’s mind and spend a lot of time tweaking things, making them hard and time-consuming to use. This is not something you use in a fight—this is something you do to a foe that has been decisively defeated and cannot strike back at you at all. Even among us aranea, it is considered something of a dark art. Few of us are proficient in its use.]

Veronica sighed. “This is all leading up to an explanation about why you don’t want to teach me any memory manipulation, isn’t it?” she said out loud.

[Yes and no,] Mind Like Fire said carefully.

“So a no couched in flowery language,” said Veronica derisively. “Damn, that’s the third refusal in a row. I’m going to have to find more webs to investigate…”

[Oh, have you gone to other webs with this?] she asked, not in the least bothered by the outburst. [Sounds like quite a story, you’ll have to tell me about it later. But don’t write us off yet. While it’s true that we are not ready to let you root through our minds, even as practice, that doesn’t mean we can’t help prepare you for when you do eventually find an aranea brave enough to let you read her memories.]

“And you’re going to do that by…?”

[The main problem you are facing when trying to read aranean minds is that our ways of perceiving the world are very different from yours. Our many eyes allow us to see the world in three different ways, only one of which—the one provided by our pair of big, forward-facing eyes—is in any way analogous to human vision. We can also sense vibrations through our legs, and our sense of touch is much more sophisticated than yours. It’s how we can navigate through the tunnels so easily with no light to see by.]

“You can’t see in the dark?” asked Veronica. Most Dungeon-dwellers could.
[No, we need at least a little light to see,] she said. [We do have excellent low-light vision though. But we’re getting off track. What I’m trying to say is that even if you received access to an aranean memory, you probably would not be able to parse it. If you want to be able to read aranean memories, you first need to learn how to process the way we perceive the world. And that is where I can help you. I can let you tap into my senses and let you adjust to them. I can even package some of my more inconsequential memories into little packets and send them to you over the telepathic link to help you understand how to deal with memory packages.]

"Oh," Veronica said softly. That did sound useful. Somewhat mollified by her response, she switched back to telepathic communication. [So can we perhaps switch to that right now? I must admit I am getting thoroughly sick of combat drills. I know it’s important to practice my mental shields, believe me, but I’m going to go crazy if this continues for much longer.]

[As a matter of fact, yes. I had wanted to wait with such instruction until you could actually break through my mental shields before starting you on that path, but you did succeed with that. Not in a way I had expected or planned for, but fair is fair. We shall start with surface manipulations, since you will need some proficiency with them before you can tap into someone’s senses. How much did your other aranean teachers tell you about them?]

[Very little, other than the fact that they exist,] Veronica said. [But surface manipulations are basically mind control, yes? We covered those back in my mage academy. Only theoretically, with an emphasis on identifying the type of mind control and how to fight it, but still.]

[Summarize those lessons for me, please,] Mind Like Fire ordered. [I’d like to see what I’m working with.]

With a graceful wave of her hand, Veronica created a glowing geometric diagram that was informally known as the mind control rectangle among the students. Its official name escaped her at the moment, but it was far too complicated for what were basically four words arranged into a simple two-by-two grid – a rectangle divided into four smaller ones, each of the four major methods of manipulating people through mind magic assigned its own corner.

Domination, Suggestion Puppeteering, Illusion

[Pretty,] Mind Like Fire deadpanned. [But I must confess I have never learned how to read human script, so you’ll have to explain to me what that means.]

Ah. Right. Sometimes Veronica forgot that for all that aranea interacted with humans, they were still alien beings with a completely different culture. Ikosians had possessed an almost religious reverence for the written word, and had spread literacy to every place that had fallen under their domination, so literacy was near universal in places they’d once ruled over. Universal literacy most likely made it much easier to train as many people as possible into mages as well, thus providing tangible benefits for the policy. The aranea, on the other hand, had no such tradition, and probably couldn’t use human-style writing effectively anyway. She knew that the Cyorian web had a number of aranea that could read and write, but most aranea probably had no need to master such skills.

[Domination and suggestion represent spells that enforce the caster’s will upon the target,] said Veronica, pointing at the upper row of the rectangle. [Domination spells involve the caster outright ordering the target to do something and compelling them to do so against their will. Suggestion attempts to present the order as something the target wants on their own. They are will and situation based; depending on the sort of person you cast such spells at and the circ*mstances they are in, it might be completely impossible to affect them with this sort of mind magic. Most people will resist orders to kill themselves or their loved ones, for instance, and it is next to impossible to convince a patrolling soldier that you are not the person they are looking for if they had been given your picture or someone singled you out to them.] She pointed at the lower row of the rectangle. [Puppeteering and illusions, on the other hand, are not directly affected by the target’s personality and circ*mstances. Puppeteering flat out usurps the target’s control over their body and pilots it like a… well, puppet. Illusions manipulate the target’s senses in some fashion. Neither can be resisted as such, although puppeteering has to overcome the target’s magic resistance first and illusions can be detected and dispelled.]

Veronica waved her hand again and the illusion split in half, separating the rectangle into left and right halves – domination and puppeteering on the left side, suggestion and illusion on the right side.

[Domination and puppeteering are forceful methods,] she said. [The target knows they are being targeted by a spell, and will usually be furious at the caster when it ends. As such, they are usually used in combat situations, against people who are clear enemies to you. Suggestion and illusion are subtle methods. The target doesn’t automatically become aware they have been affected, and in fact the goal is for them to remain unaware as long as possible. They are generally used for criminal and espionage purposes.]

Compulsion spells on the top, hijacking spells on the bottom, forceful spells on the left and subtle spells on the right. Yup, she’d covered everything. She let the illusion evaporate into smoke and settled down to wait for Mind Like Fire’s response.

[An interesting breakdown,] she said. [It has a sort of simplistic beauty to it. I’ll have to remember that one. The reality is far more complex and less sharply defined… but we’ll get to that later, when it’s actually relevant. I was never very big on spending time on theory, truth be told. We’ve wasted enough time on it today and I’d like to get started on something productive.]

The resulting lesson was exceptionally painful, reminding Veronica of her initial lessons with her, several restarts in the past… and despite her insistence she was being no harder on Veronica than she was on any of her other students, Veronica knew the sudden ferocity of her lessons was her revenge for catching her off guard.

On the bright side, she calmed down after a week of that. On the less bright side, she would have to piss her off like that on every subsequent restart as well, so she was looking at a week of painful headaches at the start of every restart.

Sometimes you just couldn’t win.

* * *

As it turned out, Mind Like Fire’s statement about her being unable to understand aranean senses turned out to be not just correct, but a vast understatement. Even after a full month of practice, she couldn’t make heads or tails of aranean senses. Even trying to limit her sensory tap into their vision alone left her dizzy and confused, and the less said of their sense of touch, the better. They had a rudimentary sense of taste on their leg hairs! They tasted the ground they walked on! Why for the love of all that was holy would a species need to have an ability like that!?

It also put Novelty’s habit of touching everything, her included, in an entirely new and unsettling light…

Not that she’d learned nothing during the entire month. Mind Like Fire did manage to teach her how to affect the minds of others in minor ways. Some of these, like the ability to induce spasms and limb failure, she already knew how to produce - but not very consistently before she’d been lectured on the proper way of hijacking other people’s nervous systems. Others, like inducing full body paralysis, lightly dampening or amplifying their emotions, subtly redirecting their attention away from things, or inducing failure of one or more of their senses were wholly new to her. But while these things were all unquestionably useful, the total lack of progress on the one thing that she really had to master hit her hard.

In the end, Veronica reluctantly decided to consult the Luminous Advocates for help. As much as they annoyed her, they probably had an answer to her problem. She managed to short-circuit the negotiations with them only two weeks into the restart by simply paying their ridiculous price. It required spending day after day on exploration of the lower levels of Knyazov Dveri’s dungeon and selling everything of worth she had found there, but she did manage to talk them down to something halfway reasonable and then just pay them off.

According to the Luminous Advocates, her main problem was that she was basically trying to take on too big of a challenge at once. For one thing, she was trying to tap into the senses of another while still retaining her own, forcing her mind to process different perspectives at once. And no, sitting still with her eyes closed was not nearly enough to get around that. In order to deal with that issue, the Luminous Advocates taught her how to turn her mental abilities inwards and shut off one or more of her senses, leaving only the foreign sensory stream for her mind to process.

Their second suggestion was that she had to practice sensory tap on something easier first. Preferably her fellow humans, as their senses were closest to her own, but some of the more similar animals might also suffice. Only once she’d mastered the art of tapping into the senses of her fellow humans should she bother trying to tap into something as alien as an aranea.

When Veronica tried to do just that by tapping into the senses of a random passerby in a nearby town, she realized they were completely correct. She nearly collapsed from disorientation, even though she was only tapping into familiar human senses this time. It would be a long time before she could move on to something more exotic than a human, it seemed.

Which presented her with something of a problem. While Veronica’s mental abilities were currently good enough that she didn’t fear discovery every time she used them on some random civilian, she could hardly guarantee that she would never mess up and reveal to her target that she was messing with their heads. And frankly, you could never really be sure that your target really was a random civilian – it was all too possible to step into the mind of some high-ranking mage good at blending in with the crowd, or to encounter a civilian trained to detect such intrusions. And the response of the mage guild to rogue mind mages was harsh. She didn’t want a guild hunter team after her, even if the time loop would probably shield her from the worst of the consequences.

And that was without even considering the moral dimension of the whole thing. Picking on innocent people for the sake of personal training was not the road she wanted to go on, and dismissing their plight as irrelevant due to the time loop struck her as an unhealthy attitude to have. She might have justified the whole thing to herself if it was just a matter of tapping into their senses, since that was mostly harmless, but the Luminous Advocates made it clear this wasn’t the only skill she would have to practice on her fellow humans to get right. She would encounter the exact same issues when she tried to master memory manipulation – even after accounting for their different senses, aranean minds were sufficiently different that she would need to practice on something more similar to herself before she tried to interpret their memories. And practicing memory probes was neither safe, harmless nor inconspicuous.
Veronica needed an acceptable target.* * *Veronica walked gracefully through the streets of Cyoria, scanning the crowds for any signs of hostility with every sense she had available. Her long ponytail swayed gently with each step, and she felt her tension and nervousness might be very obvious to people around her, but then again she was hardly the only person who was anxious. The random monsters welling up from the dungeon had spooked many a native, and there was a sense of tension in the city that hadn’t been there the last time she’d been in the city. This was her second recent visit to Cyoria, and it was just as uneventful as her first. She had even deliberately walked into some back alleys and more isolated parts of the city to see if Red Robe or one of his agents would confront her once she was out of the public eye, but no such things happened. She wasn’t even confronted by a band of rough-looking men trying to steal her belongings, like it usually happened in the trashy adventure novels she read from time to time. Sighing, she twisted the top of the recall rod hanging off her belt and was promptly teleported to the outskirts of the city. The location was totally unremarkable – it wasn’t lived in, and had been trapped to hell and back over the course of several weeks – Veronica could come and go as she pleased, but if the ward surrounding the area detected anyone other than her appearing inside, it would unleash a plethora of traps on the interloper – the nastiest and most lethal of traps that she had the capacity to make and install. She repeated the action three times in quick succession, recalling herself to three additional, similar spots, walked off in a random direction for an hour or so and then finally teleported herself to her real destination. Two days later, when no one tried to track her down to a small, remote village she’d chosen for her current base (mostly because it was in the middle of nowhere with nothing but fields of wheat for miles in any direction), she finally breathed a sigh of relief… and promptly started planning her next foray into the city. Next time she was checking out the aranea ruins to see if Red Robe had put any tripwires there to alert him of intruders coming there. When Veronica first got the idea of going back to Cyoria, she had immediately dismissed it as madness. She wasn’t ready, and acting prematurely could potentially ruin everything. However, the more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea. Red Robe clearly wasn’t trying to locate her anymore – if he had been doing so, Veronica wouldn’t have lasted nearly as long as she had, she was quite sure of that. Why Red Robe felt no need to locate her, when he clearly wanted to get rid of any rival time travelers, Veronica did not know. She’d feared that the other time traveler had maybe placed tripwires in Cyoria to alert him when she came back, but even that seemed increasingly unlikely at this point – Veronica had been all over Cyoria during her two brief forays into the city, even in parts of the Academy, and nothing of note happened. That was important, partly because Veronica felt like she was going a little crazy and desperately wanted to see some familiar faces, at least for a short while, but also because Cyoria held some perfect targets for her to practice her growing mind magic skills on. The matriarch solved at least a part of the time loop’s mystery by ferreting out information out of the heads of Ibasan invaders and their supporters. Why couldn’t Veronica do the same? She would not only be advancing her abilities in preparations of opening the matriarch’s memory package, she would also be tackling the mystery of the time loop from another direction. Two birds with one stone. She wasn’t going to move back into the city yet. She would continue testing the place for a while still. Try to spend a whole week in there, show up for a class or two. But if Red Robe’s response turned out to be as non-existent as this? Her long exile from the city was about to end.* * *Veronica spent the next three restarts alternating between Mind Like Fire’s lessons and making forays into Cyoria. She was never attacked while in Cyoria, not even when she combed through the aranean corpse-filled settlement in one of the restarts. A part of her felt that was highly suspicious, but ultimately it didn’t keep her away from the place. Especially since she was starting to reach the limits of what Mind Like Fire was willing to teach her. Her mental defenses were top-notch, and her ability to strike back at hostile minds was nothing to scoff at either – even Mind Like Fire admitted she actually had to take her seriously these days. She had taught her all of the simple tricks and basic techniques she dared give her access to, and she was even getting the hang of tapping into aranean senses – the Luminous Advocates were right, it went a whole lot easier after she had mastered the art of tapping into purely human senses first. If she wanted to get any benefit from her teachings, she would have to spend a few restarts practicing deep memory scans on humans first. Of course, that would require finding an aranea that was willing to teach her even the basics of such memory scans. Mind Like Fire’s reaction to that was a firm refusal, since that would involve lowering all of her defenses and letting Veronica dive deep into her private memories. Even among themselves, the aranea considered such an act to be one of great trust and significance. It didn’t help that when Mind Like Fire challenged Veronica to provide similar access to her own memories to her, she had little choice but to say no. She did know that the Filigree Sages were willing to play along if she let them loot the Cyoria settlement, but Veronica had been unable to find much in the way of webcraft when she searched the settlement in one of her brief forays, so she wasn’t sure whether that would actually work out at all. Then, near the end of the last restart, something interesting happened. Veronica had gotten permission from Bridge of Moonlight to stay in the River Navigators' main settlement for a while after she helped them dig up a brand new cavern with alteration spells, and was present in the matriarch’s chamber when a messenger from the Yellow Cavern Guardians arrived to plead with the River Navigators' matriarch for help. The Yellow Cavern Guardians, she had found, were on the verge of extinction. A few days before the start of the time loop, the caverns from which they got their name – and which their survival and prosperity depended on – had been taken over by some huge monster from the deeper levels of the dungeon. The creature was too magic-resistant to be affected with mind magic, extremely tough, and also regenerated. Roughly a week and a half into the restart, the Yellow Cavern Guardians were starting to get desperate. In an attempt to retake their cavern, they had decided to launch an all-out attack, seeking to drive the monster off. It was an utter disaster, and the Yellow Cavern Guardians lost both their matriarch and her two successors/assistants/somethings. Now leaderless as well as desperate, the Yellow Cavern Guardians went into a panic (well, they claimed they deliberated things, but Veronica knew how to read between the lines) before begging for help from anyone they thought would listen. Sadly for them, the River Navigators had no intention of messing around with a creature capable of taking on an entire aranean web and winning. Fortunately for them, Veronica was not nearly so intimidated. The last time she’d offered aid, she’d been rudely refused. But last time, she’d asked at the start of the restart, when their leadership had still been alive and believed they could handle things. They had probably been more worried about her taking advantage of their momentary weakness and had not felt they needed all the help they could get. Now that their leadership was dead, however, they were not in a position to be nearly as picky. She didn’t even have to ask – the messenger approached her with a plea for help on her own, after Bridge of Moonlight blew the messenger off and she’d realized that Veronica was there. After hammering out some basic agreement (which could be summarized as we’ll agree to anything, just give us back our cavern!) Veronica recalled herself and the messenger to the recall stone she had left on the surface and then immediately teleported them to where she knew the Yellow Cavern Guardians were. The messenger seemed shocked she knew where to find them without her guidance, and a bit disoriented from the rapid succession of teleporting, but she recovered quickly and led her to what passed as leadership of their web for the moment. Several hours later, she found herself at the entrance to a vast cave overgrown with a fungal forest, a pair of Yellow Cavern Guardians guards watching her from deeper into the access tunnel. Supposedly they were ready to intervene if she ran into trouble at any point, but she was pretty sure they were just going to stay on their asses if she got attacked and then, if she lost, mournfully report she had tragically ended up as monster chow before they could do anything. They seemed terrified even to be there. Veronica created a floating eye out of ectoplasm and sent it deeper into the cave to get some basic sense of its contents and layout. Her recent practice with tapping into other people’s senses made processing what the eye was sending her child’s play, and she no longer had to close her eyes to use it. She had to admit one thing - the cavern was simply breathtaking. It was huge, and almost entirely covered with a dizzying variety of giant mushrooms. The more familiar umbrella-mushrooms existed between ones that resembled leafless trees and long, fleshy spikes and berries. Looking over them, Veronica even spotted several that appeared to be whitish plants rather than mushrooms, complete with small flowers and atrophied leaves. The largest of them glowed with a faint blue light that suffused the entire cavern with weak, shadowy light. Underground forests like this one were treasure troves of information and interesting alchemical ingredients, and were highly sought after by both humans and dungeon denizens. And this one was both huge and largely unspoiled. No wonder the Yellow Cavern Guardians were so protective of it. Her appreciation of the view was quickly interrupted, however – the monster wasn’t hard to find. It was right in the center of the cave, sitting like a queen in a small, shallow lake situated there. Well, shallow in a relative sense. Veronica could have submerged herself easily in its center, but it was barely a puddle for the monster who towered over the waters. It looked like a giant frog, albeit one whose mother had mated with a troll and which was then raised solely on muscle-growth potions from the day it was born. Knobby, dark green skin covered a creature that was at least five meters tall, even while crouching, and its limbs were thick and practically bursting at the seams from the sheer muscles it was sporting. Oh, and they ended in huge, sharp claws rather than suction cups.
One of the frog-thing’s eyes swiveled in its socket to focus on Veronica’s ectoplasmic eye, noticing the intruder, but the creature remained motionless and eventually returned to its silent vigil, ignoring the sensor. The monster had knocked down all the fungus surrounding the lake, probably to give itself a better view of its new domain, and was now just standing in the lake in the center, periodically shifting in place so it could stare at the different parts of the cavern. Veronica dismissed the sensor and turned to the two guards behind her.

"I’m going to need a few days to prepare," she said softly but resolutely.

* * *

Three days before the end of the restart, Veronica was ready to try and kill the giant frog monster that had driven the Yellow Cavern Guardians out of their home. Her plan was simple: fire. Lots and lots of fire.

When she finally arrived at the cavern entrance, she first made sure the frog-thing was still where she had last left it (it was) and then carefully lowered an ignition stone into the crate full of highly flammable alchemical bricks she had been levitating behind her. Once that was done, she created an illusion around the crate to make it look like an aranea and sent it floating along the ground towards the monster. She trailed after the crate under the guise of invisibility, a huge, solid steel golem trailing beside her. The golem was fully visible, mostly serving as a big, visible target for the creature’s ire if this whole thing went south.

Veronica had considered a number of methods to trick the monster into eating the decoy, but none of them turned out to be necessary. It seemed that the claims of the Yellow Cavern Guardians about how the creature loved eating aranea were spot on because the creature barely even looked at the disguised crate before attacking. A long, ropy, blood-red tongue lashed out at the crate with dizzying speed, reeling it into its wide-open maw in the blink of an eye.

The moment the frog thing’s mouth snapped shut, Veronica sent a mana burst at the ignition stone in the crate, causing the whole thing to blow up in its mouth.

The resulting scream was quite possibly the most disturbing sound she’d ever heard in her entire life. It wasn’t a croak or anything even remotely froglike. It sounded like a whole herd of pigs being slaughtered messily, over and over and over again. The frog thing vomited a stream of fire, blood, and bile, trying to expel the offending substance to no avail – Veronica had specifically chosen an alchemical product whose fire clung to the surface like glue, and no matter how hard it tried, it could not remove the burning gunk that covered its insides. Truthfully, its attempt to vomit out the compound was only making things worse. It would have had more luck by keeping its mouth shut and trying to starve the fire of oxygen.

Sadly, after a few more futile attempts, the monster suddenly stopped struggling, noticed Veronica and her golem, and immediately charged towards them.

Veronica silently motioned for her golem to meet the creature’s charge with one of its own, not even questioning how the creature knew she was there. Dungeon denizens had all kinds of ridiculous abilities and senses, especially powerful ones like these. She sent a wave of force at the creature’s feet, managing to trip it up a bit and allowing her golem to slam its metal fist straight into its face. Though much bigger than her creation, the creature seemed momentarily stunned at the hit and didn’t have enough time to dodge when Veronica hit it with a massive fireball.

Annoyingly, it still wasn’t dead. It screamed again, scorched from both inside and outside, its eyes reduced to ruined husks by the fireball. But it still found enough strength to tear apart her golem (which she had spent ages crafting and reinforcing) in a flurry of violence. It ripped both of its arms out of their sockets, snapped the main body in half, and flung the pieces into the distance. The armless remains of the upper torso impacted the ground not far from Veronica, but she remained silent and still, hoping to avoid notice.

It would have been nice to say that what followed next was some epic battle where she bravely strode forth to finish the monster once and for all, but in truth, she simply evaded the creature’s notice and waited as it rampaged throughout the forest for a while, looking for more targets. The loss of its vision seemed to really hurt it, and it never even came close to detecting her location. At some point, it simply stopped and keeled over, finally dead after having succumbed to its many wounds.

Still - a victory was a victory, wasn’t it?

Her "guards" had fled from their posts at some point in the battle, so Veronica slowly made her way towards the Yellow Cavern Guardians' temporary camp to give them the good news.

* * *

The two Yellow Cavern Guardians that came to check up if she was telling the truth stared silently at the charred corpse of the frog-thing that had nearly ruined them. Veronica tried to be respectful and wait for them to come to terms with the fact that she had actually succeeded in killing it, but after five minutes she was really starting to get impatient. And annoyed – it wasn’t that unbelievable that she’d succeeded at this, surely?

She cleared her throat, finally getting their attention.

"About my payment…" she began.

* * *

Veronica’s eyes abruptly shot open as a sharp pain erupted from her stomach. Her whole body convulsed, buckling against the object that fell on her, and suddenly she was wide awake, not a trace of drowsiness in her mind.

"Good morning, sister!" an annoyingly cheerful voice sounded right on top of her. "Morning, morning, MORNING!"

Veronica sighed. She really wished that not all of her restarts began this way.

"Good morning to you too, Kiri," she said politely. "Mind getting off me?"

"Hmm…" she pretended to think about it. "Nope! I think I’ll stay like this for a while."

"That’s unfortunate," she said blandly.

"You know you’re going back to the academy today, right?" she asked her.

"How could I forget?" she responded. "The real question is, do you want to come with me?"

Kirielle’s eyes expanded comically, like those of a particularly startled cat. "Really!?"

"I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t certain," Veronica said.

Five minutes later, Veronica managed to distract an ecstatic Kirielle with an illusionary bird and get her to stop babbling and start packing her luggage.

She, on the other hand, was ready. She had learned the basics of deep mental scanning from the Yellow Cavern Guardians last restart, she was certain that simply being in Cyoria wasn’t dangerous in itself, and she had a rough plan of where to go from now on.

It was time to visit her old Academy again.

Chapter 38: Chapter 38: Return to Cyoria

Chapter Text

Veronica’s previous experiences with riding the train to Cyoria alongside Kirielle hadn’t been very encouraging. She always started excited and curious, staring intently at the passing landscape and commenting on anything that caught her interest, but that didn’t last very long. There just wasn’t all that much to see on the route to Cyoria, so she quickly got bored of looking through the compartment window and turned to the only other source of entertainment left to her – Veronica. And she was hard-pressed to entertain her throughout the entire ride.

That was back when she had been unwilling to use her rising shaping skills to do magic on the train, though. This time she decided she simply didn’t care about the risk of discovery. She could find no detection ward on the compartment they were in, and even if they did catch her in the act somehow, they would probably just slap her with a small fine and a lecture. It would be annoying, but better than listening to Kirielle whine about being bored for several hours. Plus, this way she got to practice her spellcasting while inhibited by a shaping disruption ward – something she had already been planning to try.

That was how Veronica found herself levitating a sphere of water in front of her, a ring of pens and erasers orbiting around it in a diffuse, slowly revolving ring. It was hard, despite the seeming triviality of it all. This wasn’t just her stacking a bunch of easy beginner spells to get a neat effect – she was performing an act of unstructured magic, treating the whole thing like a very complicated shaping exercise. Between the complexity of the floating construct and the disruption ward throwing off her shaping skills, she was really struggling to maintain control over the sphere and its satellites. She was pretty sure this was her absolute limit in terms of mana shaping skills so she should probably—

"Make a frog!" Kirielle challenged.

Veronica gave Kirielle an annoyed look. She grinned at her, confident that she had won their little game. That she had finally found her limit. She did not deliberately set out to make the complex thing floating in front of her, after all – it had started out as a much smaller sphere with a mere two pens circling around it, and Veronica had fully intended for it to stay that way until Kirielle started challenging her to make it more difficult. After she emptied the entire contents of her water bottle and used up all of the pens and erasers they both had in their possessions, she was certain Kirielle would have to concede her victory…

Veronica broke eye contact with her and focused on the floating construct in front of her. Trying to shape the floating water into anything other than the sphere it was now would be insanely hard. Telekinetically controlling water was far, far harder than doing the same with solid objects, and she would be hard-pressed to sculpt it into complex shapes even if she was outside of a disruption ward and had no ring of small objects to serve as an additional distraction.

But she’d be damned if she was just going to roll over and admit defeat to her little sister just because of that. Over the next fifteen minutes, she slowly shaped the blob of water into a sculpture of a frog, as detailed and convincing as she could manage it… in other words, not very. She did have a burst of inspiration halfway through, though, and decided to depict the frog monster she saved the Yellow Cavern Guardians from in the previous restart instead of a normal one. Unfortunately, Kirielle didn’t think much of her efforts.

"That’s a pretty weird frog," she declared.

"It’s a yellow cavern devil frog," said Veronica, shamelessly making things up. She had no idea how that monster was called or if it even had an official name to begin with. "Huge, vicious things with a penchant for eating little girls."

"That’s stupid. You’re just making things up," she accused. "Just admit you lost."

"Bah, you asked for a frog and I made one. It’s not my fault you are not knowledgeable enough in the diverse and fascinating world of magical amphibians. Let me put this away and then I’ll tell you about Sumrak the mage and the story of how he saved a secret society of mages from one of the aforementioned devil frogs…"

Before Kirielle could complain too much, Veronica hurriedly set about dismantling the construct in front of her before her rapidly degrading control unraveled completely, letting the pens and erasers float down on the empty seat beside her and pouring the water back into its bottle. That done, she launched into a somewhat modified account of her battle against the frog monster.
In Veronica’s story, the Yellow Cavern Guardians were a group of reclusive human mages that lived in the far north, practicing spider magic. The adventurer Sumrak confronted the frog monster head-on with her awesome magical might instead of resorting to traps and subterfuge. It made for a more impressive story that way. Kirielle seemed skeptical of the story at first, but when Veronica started using detailed illusions to demonstrate the events she was talking about, her suspicion melted away, and she paid rapt attention to the story. Veronica didn’t know whether to be amused or outraged that her sister was so entranced by the illusions. They were... well, not quite easy, but nothing special either. The floating ball of water and school supplies she had conjured earlier on Kirielle's prompting had taken much more skill and effort to create. She was tempted to chalk it up to Kirielle's ignorance of what a true display of magical expertise looked like, but she suspected that even if Kirielle knew how to judge the difficulty properly, she still likely wouldn’t have cared. Veronica had noticed during previous restarts that Kirielle loved illusionism the most out of the magical disciplines she had shown her. Maybe it appealed to her inner artist?

The train announcer declared that they were arriving at Korsa, forcing Veronica to cut the story short just before Sumrak succeeded in fighting her way through the devil frog’s innumerable spawn and confronted the monster in the cavernous home to which it had cravenly fled when it lost its last bout with the adventuring mage… And of course, Kirielle was having none of that. She was fine with waiting while people were streaming into the train and looking into compartments to find a seat, but with everyone now settled down and the train moving again, she demanded Veronica continue with the story.

The problem was that Ibery had decided to join them in the compartment in the meantime, and Veronica felt just a tiny bit apprehensive about showcasing her abilities in front of her. An apprehension that Kirielle didn’t empathize with in the slightest.

"You can’t stop now, not when the story is so near the ending," she complained.

"Well, so long as I refrain from using my, err, visual aids …" tried Veronica.

"Nooo!" Kirielle pleaded. "That was the best part of the story!"

Veronica threw a significant glance towards Ibery, hoping that Kirielle would take the message. She did, sort of, though she didn’t react to the information the way she hoped she would.

"Oh come on, the nice lady won’t snitch on you for doing magic in the train," Kirielle declared out loud. She then turned towards the startled Ibery and gave her the most soulful puppy-eyes look she could muster. "You wouldn’t do that, would you?"

"Umm…" Ibery mumbled, fidgeting uncomfortably in her seat. "What? I thought the train had countermeasures to stop spellcasting?"

"It does?" asked Kirielle, surprised.

"It does," Veronica confirmed. No point in playing dumb now. "They just disrupt spellcasting though, not make it impossible. You can work around it if you’re good enough."

"And… you’re that good?" Ibery asked uncertainly.

Veronica shrugged, offering no other response. To Kirielle’s delight, she then proceeded to finish the story she had been telling, pretty illusions included. She noticed that Ibery had set aside her book to listen as well.

She also tried to discreetly cast a few simple spells when she thought Veronica wasn’t looking, and then frowned when she failed to overcome the disruption ward. She was probably just curious about the level of skill needed to overcome the ward. Veronica thought about scanning her surface thoughts to find out what she was thinking but decided not to after giving it some thought. The risk of getting caught in the act was minimal since Mind Like Fire had taught her how to stealthily test for the presence of mental defenses, but getting into the habit of casually invading the minds of everyone around her struck her as a bad idea. She left Ibery to her experiment and focused back on Kirielle and the story she was telling.

Once she was done with the story, Ibery promptly struck up a conversation with the two of them. She admitted that she didn’t care much about the story itself, especially since she only caught the tail end of it, but she was very impressed by Veronica's ability to overcome the train’s wards. Especially once she learned she was only starting her third year at the academy.

Eventually, they arrived in Cyoria, however, and went their separate ways. Before they said their goodbyes, however, Ibery nervously told her to drop by the library sometime in the next week in order to discuss… something. Well, whatever – Veronica had intended to raid the library for more spells in this restart anyway, she might as well see what she wanted from her while she was at it.

"I think she likes you," Kirielle said when they were alone.

"Nah, she’s head over heels for Fortov," said Veronica.

"What?" Kirielle asked, baffled. "Her and Fortov? No way!"

"Well, I didn’t say they’re together," Veronica clarified. "Just that she has a crush on him."

"How do you know that?" Kirielle asked suspiciously.

"Ancient magical secrets?" tried Veronica. Kirielle gave her a deadpan look. "Fine, fine… I’ll tell you later, when we arrive at our new lodgings. It’s not something we should discuss out in the open."

Even as she conversed with her little sister, Veronica paid attention to what her mind sense was telling her while they moved through the crowds. Even if she was being targeted by someone shielded from mental detection, the absence of a mind in someone would be a huge red flag on its own. She detected no hostile intentions directed at either of them, though, and none of the suspicious people she encountered were invisible to her mind sense. After ten minutes, she breathed a sigh of relief – her fears of walking into a trap with her little sister in tow appeared to have been unfounded.

Hmm, Veronica knew it would rain later on, but she could ward against the rain easily enough… perhaps a little sightseeing around the city to quench Kirielle’s curiosity a little?

"Hey," Veronica said, attracting Kirielle’s attention. "Do you want to visit the main plaza of the city? They have a pretty nice fountain there that I like to watch sometimes…"

She said yes, of course. Veronica needn’t have even asked.

* * *

It had been more than four years since Veronica had started looping, and a lot of things had happened in that period. Keeping track of it all was a major challenge, despite her mage training and her own excellent memory. Being absent from Cyoria for nearly a year and a half in order to escape Red Robe’s scrutiny certainly didn’t help in this regard, and many of the minor details and specifics of how a normal restart was supposed to go had faded from her mind during her long absence.

It should not be very surprising, then, that she’d totally forgotten what happened the last time she tried to reach the fountain at the beginning of a restart – after all, she hadn’t tried it since that very first, fateful restart that got her included into the time loop.

Thus, when the two of them finally stumbled upon the swarm of cranium rats blocking their path, Veronica was caught just as off-guard by it as she was the previous time. She wasn’t as defenseless as she was back then, though, and she nearly burned them all to a crisp before she stopped herself. She was pretty sure that her killing the swarm would put her on the invaders' radar, and therefore on Red Robe’s radar as well, so the smartest move would be to simply retreat like she did back in her first restart.

She felt the swarm testing her mental defenses and responded by strengthening her defenses and striking back. The attacks stopped, but her counterattack did very little to the collective mind of the swarm – the group mind was thoroughly unshielded, probably because any mental shell would interfere with its internal telepathic network, but her counterattack merely knocked out a couple of individual rats instead of doing any significant damage. She wondered—

She felt a spike of terror from Kirielle as she finally realized what she was looking at and realized she really shouldn’t be playing around with these things – she was probably immune to anything they might dish out, but her sister wasn’t. She fired off a weak flamethrower at the closest part of the swarm to make them back off a little and then immediately turned around, grabbed Kirielle, and fled. The rats didn’t follow, much like how they didn’t follow her the first time she encountered them. They probably didn’t want to attract attention any more than she did, though that did raise the question of what the hell they were doing blocking off one of Cyoria’s major roads in broad daylight. Something to look into eventually…

While they ran, Veronica idly marveled about how fortunate it was that she’d never replicated that first meeting with the cranium rats before she had met the aranea – they would have undoubtedly read her mind, and there was a good chance they would have found out about the time loop from her thoughts. Even if they dismissed the time travel stuff as delusion, they would have definitely been interested in her knowing about the invasion…

"Um, can we still go see the fountain?" Kirielle asked once they had retreated sufficiently and she’d had a chance to catch her breath and calm down.

"Yeah, I know an alternative route," said Veronica, pointing towards a nearby park.

Wait, hadn’t she tried that in the first restart and encountered some kind of problem? She was pretty sure she had. What kind of— oh! The bicycle girl. She had totally forgotten about her. Oh well, that wasn’t really a problem – she would just get her bicycle out of the water really quickly and they would be on their way.

Kirielle got unusually quiet when they encountered the little crying girl and hung back while Veronica talked to her. Veronica got the girl’s bike out of the creek with trivial ease, simply placing her hand over the bridge and willing the bike to rise into her grasp – it took more time to calm the girl down a little and get her to tell her what she was upset about than it did to actually retrieve it. She used a couple of spells to dry the bike off and clean all the grime that had accumulated on it, simply because she could and saw no reason not to. She suspected the bike was cleaner now than it was before it had fallen into the creek.

"There," said Veronica proudly. "Your bike is clean, intact, and out of the creek. You can stop crying now, okay?"

"Okay," she sniffed, rubbing her eyes. "Um. Thank you."

"Don’t mention it," Veronica said. "Well, we should get going now, so take care. I think it’s going to rain soon, so you should probably head home as well."

"Come on, we can’t just leave her here," protested Kirielle suddenly. "We should get her home ourselves, just to be sure."

"She’s not mean," the other little girl protested, suddenly snapping out of her daze. "And I can find my way home just fine. I’m not stupid."

Oh, Veronica liked this kid. It wasn’t often that someone defended her in preference to Kirielle.
"Well. I’m glad that someone is not automatically assuming the worst of me," said Veronica, giving a sideways glance towards Kirielle. She rolled her eyes at her brother. "I am sure that Kirielle didn’t mean anything like that, though – she was just worried for you, since you still looked pretty upset."

"I was just… I only got the bike yesterday, and Mother told me to be careful with it because they couldn’t afford a new one and I…"

"Hey, hey, it’s alright," said Veronica gently, interrupting her story. The girl looked like she was going to cry again. "You got it back. All’s well that ends well. But maybe we really should accompany you home, at least until you calm down a little."

"Yeah!" Kirielle piped in. "We can talk on the way and get to know each other. I just moved in here, and it would be nice to have a friend my age. What’s your name anyway? I’m Kirielle, and this lovely lady here that got your bike out of the river is my sister Veronica."

"Nochka," she said. "But, um, I don’t want to make you late."

"We were just going to see the fountain, nothing really important," Kirielle waved her off. "We can do that any time. Come on, show us where you live."

The walk to Nochka’s house was a short one – she lived pretty close to the park, which was the reason her parents had let her go there all alone. Still pretty strange for parents to be so hands-off about their child’s whereabouts, but Veronica’s parents were the same with her, so she didn’t pry. Veronica didn’t say much of anything really, but that was okay because Kirielle talked plenty enough for both of them. Nochka herself was shy and nervous, constantly watching her surroundings and jumping at every unusual sound, but she did warm up to Kirielle by the time they had reached her house. She was eight, a year younger than Kirielle, and was also fairly new to Cyoria. Her family had arrived in the city a couple of months ago, and she didn’t have any friends her age either. Great. Veronica was pretty sure she knew where this was going…

Veronica once again tried to disengage from the whole situation once they got Nochka to her destination, but failed – Nochka’s mother saw them arriving and insisted they come inside, and Veronica didn’t want to be impolite. She figured the woman had every right to be curious about a couple of strangers walking around with her daughter in tow, so they should at least allay her fears a little before leaving. Nochka hurriedly gave her an account of the situation the moment they were inside; though in her story the bike didn’t end up in the creek but was instead stuck in a rope trap that happened to be in the park for… some reason. Nochka kind of glossed over that part and moved onto Veronica helping her get it down from the tree.

Yeah, Nochka was a terrible liar. Based on the way her mother was looking at her when she finished her story, Veronica was betting that she would be getting the real story out of Nochka the moment Veronica and Kirielle left the house.

Nochka’s mother, who Veronica learned was named Rea, was honestly a little intimidating to Veronica. She didn’t look frightening – she had the same jet-black hair and dark brown eyes that Nochka did, and the stature and dress of an average housewife – but it took only five minutes for Veronica to decide there was more to her. Her movements were all fluid and precise, she never stuttered or wavered when she spoke, her gaze was frighteningly intense, and she gave off an air of absolute confidence and composure. Frankly, if Veronica had been alone, she would have left the place in a hurry, but Kirielle didn’t seem nearly as intimidated by the woman and insisted on telling her new friend stories. Such as the one of how they stumbled upon her in the first place.

"Ah yes, the strange brain rats," Rea said when Kirielle told them about their encounter with the cranium rats. "I’ve seen a few hanging around the house, but never in such numbers. Disgusting things."

Veronica frowned. Why were the cranium rats hanging around their house?

"You should be careful," she told her. "They’re called cranium rats, and they can read your mind, possibly even memories if left unmolested long enough."

"Hmm… good thing I kill them when I find them, then," Rea said.

"Yes, but don’t think that makes you totally safe," Veronica continued with concern. "They’re a telepathic hive mind, so killing one rat will not erase the information it has gathered on you. What one cranium rat knows, they all know. I really think you should report this to the city authorities and have them hunt the swarm down, but it’s your choice in the end."

"I see," Rea said after staring at her for a few seconds. "I’ll talk to my husband about your advice, and we’ll see what we can do. I must say, you are surprisingly well informed for a fifteen-year-old, Miss Kazinski."

"Sister is really smart," said Kirielle, smiling with pride.

Oh hush, you flatterer.

"Right - thank you for your hospitality, Mrs. Sashal, but our landlord is expecting us, and we really should get going," Veronica said, rising from her seat and motioning for Kirielle to do the same. From what Rea had said earlier, her husband was going to come home from work soon, and she’d rather not get stuck in another round of explanations.

"The rain is rather heavy, though," Rea said, glancing through the window next to her. "You should at least wait for the weather to get better before you go."

"Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem like it’ll happen for quite some time," said Veronica. "But that’s okay because I can just teleport myself and Kirielle close to our destination and shield us from the rain for the short while we’ll be caught in it."

"Can Kirielle come over to play with me sometime?" asked Nochka.

"Uh, yeah. Sure," said Veronica. Yes, she was pretty sure Kirielle would be angry if she said no. Though she really didn’t want Kirielle in an area infested with cranium rats…

Veronica and Kirielle said their goodbyes and left in the direction of Imaya’s house.

* * *

The next day, Veronica woke up early and told Imaya she was going to the library, though in truth she did no such thing. Instead, she teleported herself to Knyazov Dveri, where she proceeded to gather crystallized mana. By now she had mapped large portions of the local underworld, and as such couldn’t actually pick up every piece of crystallized mana within a single day. She would need another two or three days to clean the place up properly. Oh, and she was also hitting the limits of her memory, it seemed – she had outright forgotten about some of the minor resource locations, and it took her a while to track down others. Annoying.

She wondered what her previous self would say if she knew that in the future she would have so much wealth within reach that she would literally forget about some of it. Probably something rude.

She had only been back at Imaya’s place for half an hour or so before Taiven came to speak with her.

"Let me guess; you want me to go into the sewers with you to recover a watch from a bunch of giant spiders," Veronica guessed.

"What? No, I decided not to bother with that job since more lucrative ones have popped up lately," said Taiven. She gave her a strange look. "How the hell do you know about that, anyway? I told maybe two people I was even interested in that job."

Uh, right. The circ*mstances in Cyoria had changed greatly since the last time she’d been in the city – the mercenaries she hired to confront Red Robe had been soul-killed along with the aranea, and monsters were starting to well up from the Dungeon with no aranea to keep them in check. Nothing could nor should be taken for granted – she had to keep that in mind.

Rather than try to trick her with some poor excuse, she decided to simply ignore her question and ask her own.

"If you’re not here for that, why are you here, Taiven? You don’t exactly have a habit of visiting me for the hell of it…"

Taiven protested that she totally did visit her for the hell of it, and vehemently denied that she had come to ask her for a favor. It was an opportunity, she insisted – an opportunity to earn big money and fame, if only she would cooperate with her.

Well. If nothing else, her new scheme was a lot more tempting than her old one.

Long story short, the monster incursions she read about in the newspapers had started way earlier than Veronica had expected they would. There were a couple of bad ones on the very first day of the restart – a young couple had been heavily injured when a huge abyssal centipede crawled out of the sewers in the middle of a crowded street and a restaurant had to be evacuated when a huge yellow ooze broke into the wine cellar and started consuming everything in sight. Things got worse overnight, and there were a number of fatalities while Veronica had been busy picking up crystallized mana in Knyazov Dveri, causing the city to enact some emergency measures. One of these was issuing large bounties on confirmed monster kills and encouraging various dungeon delvers and mercenary groups to go as deep into Cyoria’s dungeon as they dared and cull the monster population before they could reach the surface.

As far as Taiven was concerned, this was exactly what she had been waiting for. Already frustrated with the lack of chances to prove her worth, she was eager to take advantage of this new development to make a name for herself by aggressively pursuing bounties and putting down as many dungeon denizens as she could find.

The problem was that her group was too small for her ambitions. Three people do not make a proper hunting party.

"I’m surprised you came to me with this," said Veronica. "This sounds like it requires decent combat skills, and I am only a third year. Surely some of your peers would have been better for this?"

"Well, the thing is, I’m not the only one recruiting… and many of the other recruiters are a lot more prestigious and well-known than little old me. It should get easier once I start getting results, but that could be too late, and I can’t afford to be too picky right now."

"Can’t afford to be picky, huh?" said Veronica flatly. Before the time loop, that phrase right there would have caused her to refuse her offer out of spite. She hated being thought of as second best, never mind a last resort. But years in the time loop had tempered her ego, and she could admit to herself that Taiven’s judgment was spot on – considering the information she had on her.

"Okay, bad choice of words," admitted Taiven. "But as you said yourself, you’re only a third year. How good are you at combat magic? Do you think you could pull your own weight in a team as you are now?"

Hmm, how much should she reveal here? Taiven could be shockingly oblivious about some things, but she would definitely not ignore her being way stronger than she had any right to be. And she was one of the few people who knew her pre-time loop self well enough to make such a judgment call with a fair amount of certainty.
And for that matter, did she even want to join Taiven’s group? It sounded like such a huge time sink, and Veronica had so many other things vying for her attention... Maybe it would be better if she were to pretend she was too weak and inexperienced to help Taiven? Oh, to hell with it – she’d give it a chance this time. If nothing else, it would give her a ready-made excuse for a lot of things she intended to do in this restart.

"Absolutely. I have been in the Dungeon before," she admitted softly. "I have a decent repertoire of combat spells, and I’m confident that I won’t freeze at the first sign of danger. The biggest problem is my mana reserves – at maximum, I can only cast about 20 magic missiles in a row. And that’s after I increased my reserves through constant use – I’m pretty average in terms of mana reserves magnitude."

Taiven stared at her for a few seconds, incredulous. "You’ve been in the Dungeon before?" she finally asked. "I’m surprised you got permission for that. The Academy sure didn’t want to give me one before I was well into my fourth year."

"I didn’t say anything about asking permission," said Veronica with a playful glint in her eyes.

"Veronica…" Taiven trailed off.

"What, like you’ve never done anything like that?" Veronica challenged gently.

"Well, maybe once or twice," Taiven admitted. "But it doesn’t sound like this was an occasional occurrence for you. Getting your mana reserves that high must have involved some pretty intense practice, considering where you started from. That sounds pretty dangerous."

"Sometimes a woman has to take chances," Veronica quoted in Taiven’s voice with a teasing smile. "I do believe you’re the one who told me that, Taiven."

"I was talking about romance, and you know it," Taiven protested with a light chuckle. "Why couldn’t you take my advice about that instead?"

I did take your advice, thought Veronica sourly to herself. I got laughed in my face for my trouble.

"Why are you lecturing me about this? You should be overjoyed your desperate ploy had worked," she said instead with gentle assertiveness. "Do you want me in your team or not?"

"I do, I do!" Taiven quickly assured her. She pulled out a sheet of paper from her bag and set it down on the table in front of Veronica. "I guess you’re right, this isn’t really important right now. Why don’t you just fill out this membership form, and I’ll give you a rundown of what I had planned for tomorrow..."

* * *

Over the next couple of days, Veronica went on regular forays into Cyoria’s underworld with Taiven, Urik, and Oran. She quickly realized that her combat skills weren’t really the most valuable thing she brought to the whole operation – the combined might of Taiven and her two old teammates was usually enough to handle any threat they encountered, with Veronica only stepping in to fight when one of those three ended up low on mana and needed to rest for a while. No, the biggest benefits she brought to the table were a detailed map of a huge chunk of Cyoria’s underworld (courtesy of the matriarch's last message) and a decent proficiency in divination that allowed her to scout the areas in front of them and track down any specific target they were pursuing. Without her there to direct the rest of the group, they would have probably spent most of their time wandering aimlessly in search of something to fight. Those three were dangerously overspecialized for direct combat in Veronica’s opinion.

While down in the Dungeon, she took the opportunity to scout the invaders' underground bases that she was aware of, trying to see how they were dealing with this kind of increased activity and scrutiny of Cyoria’s underworld. Taiven’s group was far from the only one that had tried to cash in on the bounties the city was offering, and more groups were expected to get involved soon. What she found was that the invaders had retreated somewhat, abandoning several of their more exposed bases completely and leaving only token forces in many others. That was bound to have a very negative impact on the execution of the invasion…

When she wasn’t hunting down dungeon denizens with Taiven, she was tending to the multitude of her other plans and obligations. She finished harvesting crystallized mana under Knyazov Dveri and had started to slowly sell her huge stockpile off to various stores, both in Cyoria and outside. She took Kirielle to see Nochka and stayed around to watch out for any cranium rats in the area (but thankfully didn’t detect any). She ended up meeting Nochka’s father this time – a tall, jovial, bearded, muscular fellow named Sauh who loved to laugh and talk and was completely unlike his wife, yet still terrifying in his own way. Veronica was half-convinced that the workshop Sauh insisted on showing her, the one full of hammers and other heavy, dangerous-looking tools, was the man’s way of threatening her with bodily harm should she hurt his daughter in any way. She also visited the library to see what Ibery wanted from her. To her surprise, she found out that Ibery was interested in getting magical instruction from her. She had been looking to hire someone for additional tutoring outside of the academy, but found most tutors out of her price range, and was hoping a third year like her might be amenable to a spell exchange or something else of that nature. Though the offer was kind of interesting, she had too many things on her plate as it was – so she told her she’d get back to her after the summer festival, if she was still interested. Perhaps in some future restart where she refused Taiven’s recruitment pitch.

And, of course, she still had to attend classes. That was a chore, though not quite as big of one as she had been expecting. Her long absence from Cyoria had made her forget many of the details of how classes were supposed to go, and caused her to view others in a completely new perspective. The constant monster incursions into the city had also had an effect on the academy. Jade was gone from the class, pulled out of the academy by her family for safety concerns. Shirley was gone too, of course, and since nobody (except Veronica) knew the real reason for her absence, most people assumed she had been similarly pulled out for safety reasons and sent out of Cyoria. Kyron announced during their first lessons that he was running additional combat practice lessons during evenings, and Ilsa openly encouraged anyone with significant combat ability to join one of the groups culling the monsters, offering special benefits and exceptions to anyone who did so and achieved results. She pointed out Veronica, Briam, Tinami, Naim, and Estin as examples of people in the class who had already done that, thoroughly surprising Veronica – she never would have guessed so many people in her class had decided they’re good enough to get themselves involved in that. Two days later, Kopriva would join that list, while Maya and Iroro were ordered home by their parents until the situation calmed down.

With such large changes in class composition and teacher behavior, Veronica’s school experience was relatively novel compared to what she remembered of her pre-exile Cyoria days. She was sure it would all get boring and repetitive again after another restart or two, but for now it was bearable.

* * *

A few more days passed. The number and severity of monster excursions gradually dropped off, and the city stopped behaving like a kicked over anthill and settled into some semblance of normality. There was still a lot of tension in the air, forays into the Dungeon went on still, but things were finally calming down. As such, Veronica started investigating various invaders, cultists, and other people related to the invasion that she still remembered from her time with the Cyorian aranea, tracking their movements and activities but launching no attacks for the moment. The furor over the dead mercenaries and monster incursions caused so many changes to the preparations of the invasion that her memories were of limited use, and she didn’t want to move until she was reasonably sure she knew when and where to strike.

It was peculiar, though... even accounting for massive divergences due to Red Robe’s removal of aranea, the invaders were still strangely ineffective. Less informed. Before, they seemed to know how to bypass certain wards or evade notice of Cyoria’s law enforcement – knowledge that they largely lacked in the current restart. She was starting to suspect that Red Robe had a habit of handing over a lot of crucial information to the invaders in previous restarts, even ones where he didn’t appear to pay much attention to them afterward... but that in this one restart he’d chosen not to bother with that at all.

Strange.

The arrival of Kael at Imaya’s place reminded her of their deal to help Kael develop his alchemy in exchange for help with soul magic and other stuff. Unfortunately, there was a problem: Veronica had largely forgotten what the contents of Kael’s notebook were over the many, many restarts she had been absent from Cyoria. Somehow Kael managed to figure out a few things from the disjointed parts of his notes that she still remembered, which helped convince him that she was telling the truth, but he was essentially starting from scratch.

Veronica knew she had to find a solution to the forgetting problem if that deal was ever going to work. Without constant reinforcement in every restart, she would forget again, and the amount of information she had to memorize was only going to increase with each restart, making the task harder. And that wasn’t just the issue with Kael’s potion recipes, either – she had been having trouble remembering the layout of Knyazov Dveri resource deposits, some of the minor details of previous restarts (such as her meeting with Nochka) had completely slipped from her memory, and she had a feeling that remembering the vast amount of information about invaders in Cyoria she was currently gathering was going to be a major issue in the future.

She needed a better way to remember things, and she needed it soon. She would have to set aside the upcoming weekend to see if she could figure something out.

She knocked on Xvim’s door and dutifully waited for the man to invite her in.

"Come in," Xvim called out from inside, and Veronica quickly entered the man’s office and sat down when instructed to do so.

"Show me your basic three," Xvim ordered.

Veronica did so – silently, efficiently, and without complaint. She had decided before coming here that she would try and see how long it would take for Xvim to get unnerved by her meeting all of his demands without any issue or complaint. It was a long-term project, of course – she didn’t really think she could baffle the infuriating man in this particular restart – but she was determined to see it through. She would practice whatever stupid exercise Xvim threw at her every single day, restart after restart, until she got them right. Until she got them all right, if she was forced to. The man had to run out of shaping exercises at some point, right?

Xvim threw a marble at her. Veronica moved her head lightly to the left, moving out of the marble’s flight path without ever meeting the man’s eyes. Another two marbles flew at her, but the result was exactly the same.

"Close your eyes," Xvim ordered.

Veronica did. She still dodged every marble Xvim threw at her, a cloud of diffuse mana scattered around her as a detection field. Xvim did not react, unfazed by her improbable skill, but neither did Veronica.
"You can open your eyes again. Here’s a box of marbles," said Xvim, reaching beneath his desk to pick up a large bowl full of the dreaded spheres of glass. They came in a wide variety of sizes, and Veronica was silently thankful that Xvim only ever threw the small ones at her – some of the big ones looked like they could knock a person unconscious if they connected. "Levitate as many as you can. Hurry up, we haven’t got all day!"

Veronica levitated every single marble in the bowl, but alas – she was too slow. Or at least Xvim thought so, anyway. He made Veronica lift and lower the entire mass of marbles over and over again, wasting an entire hour. Veronica said nothing though, doing her best to meet Xvim’s unreasonable demands.

"Levitating them like that in a giant disorganized lump is unsightly. Make it a proper sphere. A ring now. A pyramid. That doesn’t look like a pyramid to me – do you need to have your glasses checked, Miss Kazinski? Yes, better. But slow – you must be faster. Much faster. Start over from the sphere again. Again. Again."

Veronica made the mass of marbles flow from one shape to another as fast as she could, but eventually a disaster struck – she lost control of the exercise and the entire mass went crashing down onto the table. Veronica winced as the marbles bounced off the table, making a huge racket and scattering all over Xvim’s office, her mask of cool detachment breaking for a moment.

Damn it.

Several seconds passed in the aftermath as Veronica and Xvim stared at each other impassively.

"Well?" asked Xvim curiously. "What are you waiting for, Miss Kazinski? Hurry up and gather the marbles into the bowl so we can continue where we left off."

"Yes, sir," said Veronica, unable to keep a note of sourness out of her voice. "I’ll be right on it."

It was official: she really hated marbles.

Chapter 39: Chapter 39: Suspicious Coincidences

Chapter Text

Veronica stared at her tormentor in silence, as relaxed and impassive as one could be when faced with such a pitiless, unreasonable man. Xvim stared back at her, his face a picture of unshakable, effortless composure that made Veronica’s best efforts at stoicism appear laughable in comparison. Still, she wouldn’t break. She didn’t break. She had (eventually) met every ridiculous demand Xvim had given her and had never blown up at the man even once. Of course, that hadn’t impressed the man any, even when she’d demonstrated insanely good shaping skills for a third-year student, but she’d expected as much.

They continued staring at each other in silence for several seconds.

"That," Xvim finally decided, "was terrible. You are inflexible, slow, yet paradoxically impatient. I see in you a tendency to overreach, Miss Kazinski, moving on to advanced fields of study without a healthy foundation to back it up. A common problem with many of your fellow mages, true, but 'everyone else is doing it' was never a valid excuse for anything. We will have to work on that before we tackle anything more substantial."

"Of course, sir," Veronica said calmly. "I’ll be sure to practice everything you’ve shown me back at home."

"Good. I expect a better performance on our second session," said Xvim, leaning back in his chair before making a shooing motion with his hand. "You are dismissed."

Veronica made a solemn nod, slowly rose from her chair, and then fled the office as fast as she could without making it obvious she was in a hurry to leave. Only when she shut the door and put some distance from the room did she let herself relax.

That could have ended up badly. Very, very badly. She knew she’d be taking a risk when she tried to read Xvim’s mind, but the man had aggravated her so much that she couldn’t help herself. Besides, what were the chances of Xvim deciding to shield his mind for a meeting with one of his students? Pretty good, apparently, because Veronica encountered a powerful mental shield when she tried to read his thoughts. She withdrew immediately, terrified that her telepathic probe had been noticed by the man, but whatever defenses Xvim had apparently gave the man too little feedback to notice Veronica’s relatively delicate attack. Well, that or he did notice but decided not to say anything, but that seemed very unlikely – if that were the case, he would have at least made a snide comment or two about how sloppy Veronica’s attempt was, even if he wasn’t at all bothered by the attempt itself.

It was very interesting that Xvim had bothered shielding his mind for their meeting, though. Was Xvim one of those mages who kept their mind shielded at all times, or did he somehow know about Veronica’s talents? There were a lot of possibilities. Veronica made a mental note to barge into the man’s office unannounced at some point in the next week, just to see if Xvim had his mind shielded even when not expecting Veronica to arrive…

Her thoughts were still preoccupied with Xvim when she arrived back home, at which point the realization that she could sense the minds of Nochka and her mother in the house pushed the topic of her so-called mentor out of her mind. That was unexpected – there had been no plans for them to visit, as far as she knew. She entered the house and made a beeline towards the kitchen, where she could sense Imaya and Rea were currently situated, and found them seated around the kitchen table, gossiping over some cookies and… plum brandy?

Well, whatever. After exchanging greetings, she tried to ask Rea about her reasons for coming unannounced without sounding rude and accusing. She didn’t quite succeed if the dirty look Imaya shot her was any indication, but Rea herself didn’t seem to mind.

"Nochka was being impatient about your next visit so I decided to take her to Kirielle instead," she explained. "Besides, it is not fair to make you spend your time on bringing your sister over to my home. You are a student of magic, with many additional obligations aside, I’m told, and I am but a simple housewife with plenty of free time."

Simple housewife, right. If she really was what she claimed to be, she would… well, she wouldn’t do anything crazy, but she’d be shocked. It was possible, but she was too confident and emotionally composed to be some ordinary housewife.

"For myself, I have no complaint about Nochka coming here from time to time," Imaya piped in. "So you need not worry about any complaint from me."

"I see," Veronica said slowly. She looked at Rea, and found her unflinchingly meeting her gaze. Though her empathy detected no hostile intent and she didn’t do anything overtly threatening, she found her vaguely unsettling. It was her body language, she realized – though her posture was relaxed, she did not fidget or move at all.

Making a snap decision, Veronica decided to take a risk for the second time in a day and dived into her surface thoughts. She didn’t want to get too comfortable with violating the mental sanctity of people around her, but if a person looked like a threat, she felt it was justified. And Rea definitely looked suspicious to her right now.

Rea’s mind was not shielded, and she gave no indication that she detected her intrusion. That said, she didn’t get anything worthwhile out of it. She was not feeling very introspective at the moment, nor thinking any incriminating thoughts. Mostly, she seemed to be studying her, even as she was doing the same to her. Much like Veronica could tell she was not a normal housewife, she too seemed aware that she was anything but a normal student.

She decided to get her talking about her background and current situation, hopefully guiding her thoughts down the path that would reveal what her deal was. Besides, Imaya seemed to be getting more and more uncomfortable with their silent stare-down so if nothing else she should break the silence to calm her down a little.

"You know, I just realized I never did ask you why you and your family moved into Cyoria," said Veronica. "I bet it’s a fascinating story…"

Over the next half an hour, Veronica spoke with Rea about her life and recent history, with Imaya occasionally jumping in with her opinion. Despite her efforts, Veronica failed to uncover any deep secret from Rea’s thoughts. Her mind was too focused on what she was saying, with little in the way of internal musings or stray thoughts. The only thing Veronica could tell with certainty was that she hadn’t lied even once while talking to her. Her story about her family moving from a small rural town to Cyoria out of simple desire for a better life in the big city was something she honestly believed in, rather than some clichéd cover story. Her husband wanted a better paying job he could not get in their old home, Rea wanted to get away from their rather unpleasant neighbors who were spreading nasty rumors about her whenever they could get away with it, and they were both unhappy with the poor state of the local school and wanted better for Nochka. So they moved. Simple as that. Currently they were still in the process of setting up in Cyoria, and were thus having some money problems, but Rea seemed unconcerned about that, claiming it to be a temporary issue.

Her mind reading did pick up on two interesting things. First, Rea had ridiculously good hearing. Throughout the entire conversation, she was somehow picking up on the conversation Kirielle and Nochka were having in another part of the house, separated from the kitchen by a corridor and two closed doors. Veronica herself could not hear a thing from the two girls, no matter how hard she strained her ears. Secondly, while Rea did not know she was reading her mind, she was pretty good at figuring out people’s moods and motives the old fashioned way – she realized pretty quickly she was suspicious of her and trying to interrogate her.

And she found it amusing. Very, very amusing.

Eventually, Veronica was forced to admit defeat, withdrawing from Rea’s mind and excusing herself so she could leave. At the very least she was mollified that Rea did not seem to have any sinister plan for her and Kirielle, which was really all she cared about in regards to her. She could keep her secrets, so long as they didn’t come back to haunt her later.

"Oh yes, I nearly forgot," Imaya said as she turned to leave. "Kael said he wanted to talk to you when you get back. He’s in the basem*nt right now, tinkering with his alchemical equipment again."

Thanking her for the information, Veronica descended into the basem*nt to see what Kael wanted from her. It could be any number of things, really – she had dropped a multitude of bizarre problems on the morlock boy since they’d met in this restart, and she counted herself lucky that Kael was so reasonable and level-headed about what he had learned. She had to admit, with no small amount of embarrassment, that she herself probably wouldn’t have taken it half as well in his place.

Then again, she had the feeling that Kael’s willingness to accept her explanation about the time loop came from greed. She was sure that Kael saw the time loop less as a terrifying anomaly and more as a fantastic opportunity that could catapult his skills and knowledge immensely if he played his cards right, and that doubtlessly influenced how inclined he was to accept Veronica’s story as truthful. Case in point…

"Ah, you’re here," Kael greeted her. "Did you get the ingredients I asked of you?"
"Yup," said Veronica, reaching into her bag and withdrawing a wooden box full of alchemical ingredients. Her slender fingers gently grazed the top as she passed it to Kael.

"There were no problems?" Kael asked, accepting the box and promptly opening it to examine the contents. He pulled out one of the bottles from the box, the one full of inky black liquid, and brought it towards the light to check something.

"No. The shopkeeper looked at me strangely for buying so many expensive ingredients, but said nothing in the end. It would still probably be smart to buy the next batch from some other shop, though," Veronica replied, her tone softly assertive.

"Probably," agreed Kael, snapping the box shut with a firm click.

There was no offer of reimbursing Veronica for her expenses. One of the first demands Kael had once he decided the time loop thing had validity was for Veronica to finance his experiments to the best of her ability. She understood Kael’s demand for what it was—a test of her belief in her own story. If she truly trusted the reality of the time loop, the money was inconsequential, after all.

Kael placed the box on the work table next to him, depositing it among the many other boxes, ceramic bowls, glass bottles, and alchemical instruments cluttering his workspace. He seemed lost in thought for a moment, his blue eyes scanning the basem*nt with quick precision before refocusing on Veronica.

"How often do you think you’ll be able to buy more?" he asked.

"Well..." Veronica hesitated, her lips curving into a thoughtful smile. "I hesitate to say as often as you need me to, since I’m sure you can burn through any amount of money I have if you go wild. But honestly, I’m pretty loaded right now. Thanks to the time loop, I found a very time-efficient way to extract a great deal of crystalized mana from Knyazov Dveri’s underworld. Selling that has given me a huge amount of money to spend."

She brushed a lock away from her gentle eyes. "So... two or three boxes like that a day if I had to? Maybe more, but I really think that would be a bad idea since I don’t think I’d be able to avoid unwelcome attention if I started buying so much expensive stuff."

"I... see..." Kael said slowly, clearly more than a little surprised at the information. "That’s a lot of money. Out of curiosity, why did you go to the trouble to get so much? Funds for your own experiments?"

"Partially," said Veronica, her expression softening. "It certainly makes things a lot easier when you can throw around money like it’s nothing. Saves time. And yes, I know it’s strange for that to be a concern when you’re stuck in an ever-repeating time loop."

"And the other part?"

"Greed, I guess," Veronica admitted, a gentle laugh escaping her. "When I finally break out of the time loop, I kind of want all my monetary concerns taken care of. Probably not the best use of my time, but—"

"Don’t worry, I understand you completely," Kael cut in, smiling slightly. "I probably wouldn’t have been able to resist doing so myself. In fact, I probably would have done it much sooner, even with the threat of other time travelers and the presence of more pressing problems you’re dealing with. So many problems in my life would have disappeared if I had a million pieces or so..."

"Well, you are an alchemist," Veronica pointed out, her grin playful yet warm. "Your profession has always been very expensive to practice, unless you were one of those alchemists who were willing to limit themselves to components they could grow and personally harvest in the wilderness. It makes perfect sense that you’d want to get rich if given a chance."

"Perhaps. I don’t think I’d be anywhere near as efficient about it as you are, though. Well, not without resorting to theft. The thought of looking for crystalized mana would have never occurred to me. What’s so valuable about it that people are willing to pay so much?"

Veronica gave Kael a curious look. "It’s a bit strange to hear an alchemist ask that. I’m pretty sure that powdered crystalized mana is an important potion ingredient."

"Not in the kind of potions I’m making," Kael said, shaking his head.

"Ah. Well, crystalized mana is basically ambient mana in solid form. Harder to make use of than ambient mana, since it first has to be broken down into the more familiar ethereal form before you can use it to power anything, but it is very convenient as a mana battery."

She gestured gracefully as she explained, "Most mana batteries, such as the ones made with spell formulas, lose all stored mana in a couple of days to a week. Crystalized mana, on the other hand, is completely stable in normal circ*mstances. That’s very useful if you want to, say, support a powerful magical item or warding scheme independently of ambient mana levels."

"Ah, so these are the crystals the new trains use for fuel," said Kael with understanding.

"Yes," Veronica confirmed, her eyes twinkling with a hint of mischief. "I heard that use of crystalized mana as train fuel is really driving the prices of it upwards lately, got a bunch of people worried. Very convenient for me, though."

"Shame it’s only useful for powering items," Kael mused. "Having some kind of personal mana battery would have been a nice way of sidestepping your limited mana reserves. Have you looked into making such a thing? Even if it only lasted a few weeks, that should be enough to be useful in your circ*mstances."

"Of course I’ve looked into it," Veronica said with a soft scoff. "It’s impossible. Personal mana loses its affinity with its maker rapidly once expended, becoming indistinguishable from ambient mana in a matter of minutes."

"Ah."

"Indeed. What about alchemical solutions? Is there a potion that increases your mana regeneration, gives you a momentary mana boost or something like that?"

"I doubt it. I think we would have all heard about such a potion if it was at all available. But it’s possible, I suppose, especially if it has some serious drawbacks that curtails its use. You should probably ask Lukav about that – if anyone knows how to answer that question definitively, it’s him," Kael said. He squirmed uncomfortably. "And since we’re on the topic of Lukav, I have a bit of a… personal request."

"I’m listening," Veronica said, curiosity piqued.

"Okay..." Kael began, his voice quieter. "When I gave you that list of people to consult with in regards to soul magic, I did not exactly give you a list of strangers. We weren’t best friends, but I knew these people. We had history between us, we met sometimes to exchange news and the like… to find out that someone had been going around, kidnapping and killing them, was very upsetting to me."

Veronica winced inwardly, now more aware of the emotional weight in Kael's words. This wasn’t just another disquieting mystery to him, but an outright attack on him and his acquaintances.

"I’m not angry at you," Kael hurriedly added. "I realize you already have a lot on your plate, and that staying alive and figuring out what is behind the time loop takes precedence over everything else. However, I would really appreciate it if you looked into these killers and figured out a way to stop them for good."

"Of course," Veronica immediately agreed, a gentle determination in her voice. "I had fully intended to do so anyway. I simply delayed that investigation until I had taken care of more pressing problems and gotten somewhat better at magical combat."

Besides, she had figured that investigating the invasion forces here in Cyoria would automatically bring her closer to solving that particular mystery. The two were clearly connected somehow, perhaps even two different fronts of the exact same operation.

"I see. That takes a load off my chest," Kael said, exhaling heavily. "If there is anything I can do to help you with this, just let me know. I’m still in the process of asking around, but I think I can get my hands on a couple of truth potion recipes."

"I already have my own interrogation magic, but I suppose having more options to choose from never hurts," Veronica said. Truthfully, truth potions might actually be more effective than what she had in mind, at least at the current stage of the investigation, but she really needed to develop her ability to sift through people’s memories so she was reluctant to use them. "Keep in mind that Lukav already knows how to make a truth potion, so if your talks fall through I can just teleport you to his village so you can have a friendly chat with him. Perhaps he is willing to share."

"He knows how to do that? Sneaky bastard was holding out on me," Kael grumbled. "Still, that does remind me that Lukav is far from being a helpless victim, and neither is his priest friend. It might be a good idea to involve them in the investigation – they might be perfectly capable of taking the killers down on their own if you provide him with sufficient information."

Now there was an idea. It would be hard to secure Alanic’s cooperation without coming clean about absolutely everything, but the benefits could be immense. She would have to seriously consider it when she started to seriously tackle the problem of Iasku Manor and disappearances around Knyazov Dveri.

"Well," said Kael after a few seconds of silence, unlocking one of the drawers attached to his work desk and withdrawing a cheap, featureless notebook out of it. "With that out of the way, I’d like to discuss another unpleasant topic with you: your soul marker."

Veronica straightened her back a little, suddenly alert. Truthfully, when she had told Kael about the soul marker and allowed him to perform a scan of her soul, she had not expected much. Kael may have been a necromancer, but he was very much an amateur one. Still, she figured it wouldn’t hurt to put some trust in his work—both Lukav and Alanic were rather narrowly specialized in soul magic, and it was entirely possible that they had missed something that a full-blown necromancer, even a novice one, might find obvious. It seemed that was indeed the case.

"What is it?" she asked, a mix of curiosity and excitement in her voice.

Kael sighed and pressed the notebook into her hand. Leafing through it, however, Veronica realized she didn’t understand anything in it. It was full of unfamiliar diagrams and alien jargon, interspersed with brief paragraphs that meant nothing to one who lacked sufficient context to understand them. She shot Kael an annoyed look.

"I’ll be blunt," said Kael, ignoring her glare. "Your marker shouldn’t work." Seeing Veronica’s confused expression, he moved to explain. "I was immediately suspicious when you described how tightly the marker’s entwined with your soul—why would someone make such a deeply embedded marker and then make it a simple unchanging identification stamp like you assumed it was? The desire to make the marker resilient to damage and harder to remove could explain some of it, but it was still excessive—there are less invasive means that would have only failed if the soul was so mangled that the person was effectively dead. Those methods do have a noticeable flaw, though—they are a lot easier to copy than what you have rooted in your soul. That, I felt, was key. The marker was designed to foil attempts at copying it to other people. And in order to do that—"

"It needed to check up on the host’s soul to see whether it has been transplanted to another person," Veronica interrupted, her eyes widening in realization.
"Yes," Kael said. He took the notebook out of Veronica's hands, flipped it to one of the later pages and handed it back to her. Looking at it again, Veronica could tell that the diagram was supposed to be a crude outline of a human’s body, several circles, triangles, and straight lines drawn over it. Below it was a short paragraph talking about essence channels, feedback nodes, and transition barriers. It still didn’t mean much to Veronica, but she could tell this time that it was supposed to represent her soul, the marker attached to it, and their interaction with one another.

"I do not claim to completely understand the marker," Kael said. "Or even most of it – it’s an awe-inspiring thing, clearly made by a master soul mage. I especially like how it makes itself inconspicuous to casual soul scans – I’m not surprised I never detected it before being informed it was there. Still, there are some things about its functions that are obvious to me, and one of them is that the marker is designed to consult the soul of its host – the core, unchanging part of it, anyway – and alter its identification tag according to what it detects. Transplanting the marker to another person should result in a totally different identification value."

"But that’s clearly not how it works," Veronica protested. "Shirley and I have the same damn marker! The tracking spell wouldn’t have worked otherwise!"

"It’s broken," Kael said calmly. "Your marker, that is. There are parts of it that are totally inert, either because they do not acknowledge you as its rightful host or because they are missing some critical piece that got lost in the transfer. I’m guessing that at least one of those is supposed to send a signal to the looping mechanism when you die, terminating the loop prematurely – that would neatly explain why you get sent back when Shirley dies, but she doesn’t experience the same when you end up dead. She has the intact version of the marker, whereas you don’t."

"But the main part of the thing works?"

"In a sense. It does everything it is supposed to, consulting the core of your soul, but for some reason, it is still stuck on the same value it had while it was still inside Shirley. It’s broken, but it’s broken in your favor."

"Huh," said Veronica softly. What was she supposed to say to that? "Honestly? This isn’t such a huge surprise. I always suspected that the marker was in some way defective. After all, I highly doubt that its makers intended for someone like me to enter the time loop the way I did. Does this really change anything?"

"Depends on how you look at it," Kael said. "You are in no danger of being suddenly dropped out of the loop, so I suppose from a personal perspective this doesn’t change much. But look at it from a wider perspective. If I’m right, then whatever convergence of circ*mstances aligned to pull you into the time loop along with Shirley was a fluke. A fortunate fluke, but a fluke all the same. It is not consistently reproducible."

Veronica frowned, pondering what Kael was implying. Then it hit her.

"Wait. How did Red Robe end up time looping, then?"

"Yes, that is the question, isn’t it?" Kael said, his fingers drumming on his work table impatiently. "I’m afraid I don’t know how to answer that question. But he clearly didn’t use the same method you did."

"Yeah," Veronica agreed. "I had strongly suspected that, but I couldn’t be sure. Him having some other method of joining the time loop would explain why he never used his own marker to track me down the way I did Shirley. He doesn’t have the same marker as me and Shirley, if he indeed has one at all, so he would have to capture Shirley and use her as a key to locate me that way."

"And if he’s indeed a master soul mage like you seem to think, he probably knows you could not possibly have an identical marker as Shirley, so there is no reason for him to try that in the first place," Kael said.

They bounced theories and ideas off one another for the next half an hour, but it was all just hollow speculation at the moment. They had no way to confirm or discard any of the possibilities. Kael thought that Red Robe was in some way piggybacking on Shirley, either by leaving portions of his mind in her the way the Cyorian matriarch did with Veronica, or by having some kind of soul link with Shirley. Veronica discarded the possibility of a mind package immediately. The logistics of that kind of setup didn’t add up – Red Robe was active within hours of the start of the loop, if his quick arrival at the ruins of the aranea colony in that one restart were any indication, and processing a large amount of memories took more than a day. Not to mention that Shirley didn’t start every restart by going to the same location, so it was questionable how Red Robe would have even gotten a memory package in every restart. No, Red Robe definitely wasn’t using memory packages. And really, Veronica didn’t think he was linked to Shirley’s soul either – if he was, he would have checked Shirley’s soul for additional connections when he’d read her mind and found out there were additional time travelers running around. Instead, he immediately ran off to confront the aranea. The thought of someone being connected to Shirley’s soul didn’t seem to occur to him.

Personally, Veronica thought Red Robe did have a marker of some sort. It was entirely possible, she felt, that there was a way for people who knew what they were doing to enter the time loop properly – to get their own marker and all. Though that did raise a question about why he didn’t just off Shirley and go on with his life free of interference. What was so special about Shirley?

"Right. I don’t think we’re getting anywhere with this," Veronica said. "Anything else I should keep in mind?"

"Nothing that Lukav and his priest friend didn’t already warn you about – avoid any magic that could alter your soul substantially. We don’t know what caused the marker to get stuck on its current identification value, and there is no telling what will push it off the edge, so take care," said Kael.

"I was afraid to do that even before now, and for that exact reason too," Veronica said, leaning back and letting out a deep, theatrical sigh. "Pity, though. I guess my dream of turning that stupid grey hunter Silverlake sent me to deal with into my very own familiar or becoming a grey hunter shifter is doomed to remain just a dream…"

"Didn’t you know? There is a reason why most shifters are made from normal animals," Kael warned her. "Being a shifter means you get instincts from the other part of the soul, and magical creatures always have very strong souls… the more magical the creature, the stronger. And they tend to be extremely violent and territorial. With regards to grey hunters, I’m fairly certain they don’t tolerate even their own kind, much less anything else. Such an attitude would bleed over to you if you became a grey hunter shifter. And there is also the matter of inheritance to consider - even if you are able to master a grey hunter’s soul and not let its urges rule you, there is no guarantee that your children will be similarly strong-willed, especially since they’ll have those urges from the day they are born. I’d strongly recommend against that course of action. As for making it your familiar, keep in mind that it takes a long time for the soul link to mature and that you need to be close to it the whole time. There is no guarantee that the creature won’t kill you during the process. And if you do manage to slave it to your will, it could still be dangerous to everyone around you who is not protected by the soul bond."

"There was no need for a lecture. I was just joking," said Veronica with a grin.

"Good."

"Even if its abilities would have been so very useful…" Veronica said wistfully. "Extreme toughness, speed, and magical resistance? Yes, please!"

"Just kill it, chop it up for parts, and make an enhancement potion out of them," suggested Kael. "You can ask Lukav to help you do it, I’m sure he’d jump at the chance. Not many people are crazy enough to go after one of those monsters, after all, so I’m pretty sure he never had a chance to work with grey hunter parts."

"You know, that actually sounds like an interesting idea…"

"Glad I could help," Kael said, peering into a slowly bubbling metal pot on the table in front of him and scowling. "Well, my current experiment is not going too well. And I thought I had it this time, too. Time to try batch number four." He gave Veronica a speculative look. "Say, do you think you can help me out here? Some of the steps are pretty simple, and observing my work will ensure you don’t forget what I talked about as easily as you did last time."

"Yeah, I’ll help, and holy gods, will you stop reminding me of that?" Veronica whined playfully. "It was more than a year, and I had a lot on my mind, it was natural I would forget a lot of things. Besides, I’m already working on side-stepping my faulty memory somehow."

"Hmm, I wish you luck with that," Kael said. "Nonetheless, we both know you’ll remember my work a lot better if you understand what I’m doing instead of just blindly memorizing recipes and dry instructions. Think of this as free alchemical lessons."

Well, Veronica did use a fair amount of alchemy in solving the problems she encountered, so getting some advice in the field might actually be useful.

"Alright. Where do you want me to start?"

* * *

The next day, Veronica decided to make good on her own internal promise to find some solution to the forgetting things problem. Well, she had to organize another one of Kirielle’s magic lessons first, but there were no issues with that. Her sister's progress was much faster than it had been in the previous restarts she had tried teaching her since she had already been through this several times and was therefore getting better at motivating her and explaining the subject matter in a way she intuitively understood. Her obligations done for the day, she quickly excused herself and went out for a walk, lest Kael or Imaya find some other job to dump in her lap.

In the long run, Veronica knew she already had a perfectly good solution for remembering things with perfect clarity – she could just make memory packets like those of the Cyorian matriarch, storing them in her mind for future recall. The map of Cyoria’s underworld that the matriarch had left her was still as crystal clear in her mind as it had been the day she had assembled it from the scattered remnants left in the minds of the male survivors of the colony. It served as a shining example of what was possible for one who could master the procedure of creating such things. And it wasn’t like learning how to do that would be an additional time sink, either – learning how to handle memory packets was something she was already working on. It was her current priority, in fact.
The problem was, it would be a while before Veronica's effort there bore any fruit. Could be a couple of months, could be a couple of years… well, hopefully not years, since the matriarch’s memory package could decay into uselessness by then, but the point remained: it was not a quick solution to her immediate problem. Fortunately, human mages were quite good at making quick solutions to immediate problems, and surely some of them had at one point needed to memorize a map down to the very last detail, or recite a book word for word? Veronica would be shocked if the spell to do such a thing didn’t already exist somewhere out there, it was just a question of whether she could find it. She decided to try at the academy library first. A bit unimaginative, but it was the best place to start her research and it had been a while since she’d spent some time browsing its shelves. She kind of missed that during her long absence from Cyoria.

Three hours later, she was torn between smiling in satisfaction and the urge to find something flammable to take her frustration out on. The bright side was: she found what she was looking for. There were no less than five different spells that could do what she wanted, mostly by allowing the caster to record what they see and hear for a brief period of time and storing that record in their minds. They differed in details, such as whether it was possible to pause the recording, but the core was the same. One even claimed it could form a clear memory retroactively, allowing the caster to remember what they had forgotten.

The bad news was that these spells were only available in the restricted section of the library. Specifically, the mind magic section of it. Veronica leaned back in her chair, precariously balancing it on its back two legs and taking her glasses off to massage her eyes. To say that the academy was reluctant to give permission to random students with regards to doing mind magic would be a severe understatement. She needed a better library pass if she wanted to get what she wanted, and there was no way she was going to get it through legal means.

She narrowed her eyes while staring at the library ceiling. There was no helping it. She would just have to steal one.

"What has gotten my best student so gloomy on this fine day?"

Veronica jumped in her seat, startled, the poorly balanced chair almost giving up on her and pulling her to the floor. After finally stabilizing herself enough, she turned around to give Ilsa an unamused look.

"Sorry," she said, but her smile and the emotions Veronica felt off of her told her Ilsa was not sorry at all. "I didn’t think you would react so… explosively."

"You just surprised me a bit," Veronica said. She had detected a person passing by her with her mind sense, but that wasn’t exactly something unusual in this place. It wasn’t like the library was empty, after all. "What can I help you with, Miss Zileti?"

"Nothing, really – I am already done with what I came here for. You didn’t notice it because you were so absorbed into your reading, but I had passed through this section twice before now. I just didn’t want to interrupt you then, since you looked quite busy. I was just leaving now when I noticed you trying to burn a hole in the ceiling with your eyes, so I wondered if I can help you with whatever is troubling you."

"I appreciate the offer, Miss Zileti," Veronica said. "I really do. But I don’t think you can help me with this."

Helpful though she may be, Veronica was pretty sure that asking her to help her with committing a crime was a terrible idea. Amusing, but terrible.

"What are you working on, anyway?" she asked, peering at the open book in front of her. "Memory preservation spells? Why would you need that?"

"I need a way to quickly and flawlessly memorize a notebook or two," Veronica said truthfully.

Ilsa gave her a searching look.

"If this is about class work…"

"No, I think I’m doing quite well in my classes," Veronica said, shaking her head. If anything, she thought she was doing too well – she was at the top of her class in terms of grades, despite her efforts to avoid standing out. "It’s personal. All I can say is that I’ll be going on a trip soon, and I won’t be able to bring anything with me. Anything but my memories, that is. And while my memory is quite good, it is not good enough to memorize, say, a word-for-word transcription of a book of potion recipes."

"Sounds ominous and suspicious," Ilsa noted.

"I’m not planning anything illegal," Veronica assured.

"I’m sure," Ilsa deadpanned. "That’s why you’re looking up spells that I know you’re not authorized to learn."

"Hence me being gloomy when you approached me," Veronica countered. "I’d thought I had found a solution to my problem, but it turns out it’s beyond my reach at the moment."

"I see," she said. "Out of curiosity, how important is it that you be able to access the information in the book while it is stored inside your mind?"

"I’m not sure I understand," Veronica frowned. "What would be the point of holding a book in your head if you couldn’t read it?"

"To create a copy of it, of course," Ilsa smiled. "It’s a trick that some alteration experts use if they want to be able to create complex objects without carrying the originals with them. They use a spell to record the blueprint of an object, storing it inside their heads, then simply use that blueprint to create copies of the object whenever it strikes their fancy. Well, provided they have the correct raw materials. In your case, that would be a blank book of similar dimensions to what you’re trying to copy and a bottle of ink."

"And… you know how to do this?" asked Veronica hopefully.

Ilsa hummed. "Well, I am an alteration expert… but even if I was willing to teach you, this is not exactly an easy spell combination. It requires a great deal of alteration expertise and great shaping control. It would take-"

Veronica concentrated for a second and pulled at the heavy, metal lined book on the shelf next to her with her magic, not bothering to make a single gesture or hand motion. The book smoothly slid out of its shelf and floated in front of Ilsa, startling her. Before she could say anything, the book opened itself and started turning its pages, slowly at first but then speeding up until the last half of it passed in a blur and the book slammed itself shut. Her point made, Veronica smoothly slotted the book back to its previous place on the shelf.

"I can’t think of a proper way to prove my alteration expertise right now," said Veronica in the resulting silence, "but I’m perfectly capable of restructuring a metal pan into a fully functional metal watch. How much harder would this be compared to that?"

"Not exactly harder," Ilsa admitted, still staring at the book on the shelf with a frown. "But certainly different. You’d have to practice for a few days before you can get it right." She shook her head and tore her eyes away from the book to stare Veronica in the eyes. "We’re going to have a talk about this on Monday, Miss Kazinski."

"Does that mean you agree to teach it to me?" she asked.

"Not yet. I’ll need to run some tests on you to see whether you can handle the spells safely."

Ilsa soon left, leaving Veronica alone to her own thoughts. She closed the book in front of her, setting it aside. Ilsa’s spell combination wasn’t exactly what she had been looking for when she searched for a quick and dirty solution, but it could work. In fact, it was even better than her original idea in some regards. Much less annoying to use, for instance. Plus, she wouldn’t need to painstakingly transcribe the information from her head every time she wanted to add or change something. She would give Ilsa’s method a chance.

But she was going to steal a better library pass anyway.

* * *

Two weeks passed in a blur of activity. Most of it was routine, like her accompanying Taiven and her team to the Dungeon, teaching Kirielle, or helping Kael with his alchemy (and having her soul occasionally scanned by him, with little results thus far). It helped that Kirielle actually had a friend her age this time, so she monopolized Veronica's time a lot less. Whatever dark secret her mother harbored, Veronica had to admit Nochka’s presence made Kirielle a lot more manageable than she usually was, so she was definitely going to visit that bridge in future restarts as well.

Two main things stood out from the rest. The first one was that she had managed to learn the spells Ilsa had talked about, and they worked just as she said they would. She was happy that she could finally keep written notes on what happened in the time loop, since she now had a method of effectively transferring her notebooks into the next restart. Kael was happy too, since he could now be much more liberal about the amount of information he was sending over to his future self – he promptly gave Veronica four fully filled-out notebooks to store the blueprints of, with a promise of one more by the end of the restart. Veronica really hoped Kael wouldn’t accumulate notebooks so rapidly in future restarts because she could only hold about 15 blueprints in her mind. The matriarch’s memory packet didn’t leave much room for anything else, really.

The second interesting thing was that she had all but confirmed that Xvim had his mind shielded at all times. She had barged into the man’s office three different times, and the shield had always been active. Sadly, her unannounced visits seemed to have finally provoked the unflappable man somewhat, so now Veronica had 5 different shaping books on her reading list for their next session. Depending on which book Xvim decided to focus on, their next lesson would consist of Veronica making detailed shapes out of sand, telekinetically dismantling a watch without breaking any of its parts, playing around with candles and matches, trying to apply paint on canvas without using any brushes or carving glyphs into stones with her fingers. Or maybe all five if Xvim was feeling particularly vindictive.

But that was all background activity – the real focus of her efforts was tracking the Ibasans and the Cult of the Dragon Below, mapping the structure of their organization. Originally she wanted to be cautious, spending most of the restart just observing everything, identifying their members and locations they met and did business in, but… well, she saw her chance and she took it. While the Ibasans were mostly full-blown mages and lived deep underground in heavily warded bases crawling with guards, only periodically visiting the surface, most of their allies in the city were far more modestly protected. Veronica followed around cultists and simple mercenaries that worked with the Ibasans, tracking them down to their homes and reading their thoughts as they skulked around. The wards on their houses, if they even had them, were hilariously easy to avoid or break, allowing Veronica to root through their stuff for additional clues and connections with other members of their conspiracy.
She had found out some interesting things. For instance, not all of the Ibasan agents in the city were aware of what they were getting themselves into. The various merchants that smuggled food and other supplies to the invaders seemed entirely ignorant of whom they were really supporting. It was just business to them. Apparently, there were numerous secret bases and operations happening in the deep reaches of Cyoria’s Dungeon, and most of them were fairly inoffensive – illegal harvesting operations for dangerous substances, secret research facilities by various trading groups, even a government black site of some sort. The merchants thought they were simply supplying one of these many shadowy factions and never pried much into the identity of their customers. A couple of mercenaries knew that the invaders planned to do some kind of terrorist strike during the summer festival, but didn’t care about the details so long as they got paid – they didn’t seem to be aware of the true scale of the invasion. Then there was the Cult of the Dragon Below, who honestly baffled her. The cult had a very complex, confusing structure, with lots of different ranks and categories of membership, and every rank seemed to have been fed a different story. On top of that, some members seemed to be in it purely for the benefits and had never bought into the Cult’s belief system in the first place. They were in it for the money – apparently, being a member of the Cult of the Dragon could be pretty profitable if you played your cards right. They knew that the cult planned to release a primordial at the summer festival to ravage the city and everything around it, of course, but didn’t believe the primordial in question even existed, so no harm in going along with it, right? Right.

There was still no evidence that Red Robe was in any way operating among the invasion forces, nor that he had shared even a speck of knowledge with them before running off to do something else, so Veronica decided to be a little more aggressive and start actually practicing her memory reading on acceptable targets. To that end, she identified a small cultist gathering – organized by a trio of magic-wielding members who appeared to be of a slightly higher rank than the usual dregs Veronica encountered thus far – and prepared to subdue them for questioning.

Eight armed cultists, three of whom were magic wielders. Her old self would have called her crazy for trying to tackle them all on her own, even from ambush, but they never really stood a chance – she trapped the house they were to meet in before they even got there, having found out about their chosen meeting place several days in advance, and took them down one by one as they came. Mostly by telepathically compelling them into falling asleep, much like the aranea had tried to do to her such a long time ago when she’d first encountered them. The last arrival was a mage who had a mind shield spell formula on a ring and fought her attempt off. Veronica was forced to deal with him via slamming him into a wall a couple of times with some judicious application of the force blast spell.

Once they were all down and tied up, Veronica took a deep breath and concentrated on diving into the memories of her first victim.

Before she got instruction from the Yellow Cavern Guardians, Veronica sort of expected that probing someone’s memories would be like one sometimes sees in adventure novels and the like – a walk through some psychedelic mindscape, where the intruder has to navigate deeply symbolical mazes and fight mental representations of the victim’s psyche and whatnot. The reality was nothing like that. Or at least the way aranea did it was nothing like that, and the Yellow Cavern Guardians had seemed more than a little amused when Veronica had described the idea to them. Instead, memory probes simply consisted of a powerful telepathic probe that punched through the surface layers of the victim’s mind and then started branching throughout their inner self in search of whatever the psychic was after.

It was, by its very nature, a dangerous procedure – unlike lighter, surface manipulations, deep scans like the one she was about to do could permanently ruin a mind. An amateur like Veronica was all but guaranteed to cause irreparable damage on her first try, unless she had spent years doing careful exercises which Veronica had no time for. Thus, she was not terribly surprised when that first man ended up as a mindless husk five minutes later. The convulsions and foaming at the mouth that preceded it were very disturbing, however, and almost made her give up on the whole thing right then and there. She didn’t even manage to read anything out of his memories, so his death had been for nothing.

A few minutes later, after she’d had some time to calm down and drown out the little voice in her head telling her she was a monster for killing a defenseless man like that, she continued with victim number two. She decided not to stay so long inside the minds of the rest of them.

Number two, three, four, five, and six survived her probes. They could even wake up someday. Well, they could have, if the time loop wasn’t so close to its end. The sixth attempt actually yielded some results, too – she didn’t find much in the man’s memories before she had to withdraw, but she did add a few more names to her list to investigate, so at least some good came out of it. The last two suffered only light damage due to her probe. They knew nothing useful that could help her.

Veronica left the house feeling hollow, wondering whether she was really justified in doing this.

She came home to find Kirielle in tears and the entire household in an uproar. Rea and Sauh Sashal had been found dead in their home, brutally murdered by what appeared to be a monster missed by the many extermination squads operating in the city by now.

Of their daughter, there was no trace.

Chapter 40: Chapter 40: Shifting Tracks

Chapter Text

Veronica woke up very early in the morning, roused from her slumber by the faint, incoherent mumbling of Kirielle sleeping beside her. For a moment she wondered why Kirielle was sleeping in her bed instead of being in her own room, but then she snapped out of the confused half-dream state she was in and memories of the previous evening came rushing in to her.

Rea and her husband were dead, their daughter missing. An event that had completely blindsided Veronica, who had never heard of anything like that happening in the previous restarts. Was this something that usually happened and she just never heard of it, or did the many changes in the wake of the aranean destruction somehow cause this? That the fact that Rea and Sauh had been killed by a wandering monster seemed to suggest the latter, but Veronica had a hunch there was nothing random about that monster attack. The cranium rats had been monitoring the Sashal household for a reason, after all, and the invaders were ever so fond of slaving dungeon denizens to their will and using them as their attack dogs.

Kirielle, of course, neither knew nor cared about Veronica’s musings on the matter. Unlike her, who was not terribly close to the Sashal family and for whom their deaths would, in no way be permanent, Kirielle had gotten very close to Nochka and was devastated to hear about the attack. Not even pointing out that she may still be alive could get her to stop crying. After all, the police said her parents were killed by a dungeon denizen, and those weren’t exactly known for kidnapping people and keeping them alive for ransom.

In the end, Kirielle only calmed down and went to sleep when Imaya gave her some homemade calming tea that kicked in suspiciously quickly. Probably a mild opiate. She should have asked for a cup of that herself, in all likelihood—she had already been rather unnerved by her experience of reading the cultists' memories and was thus ill-equipped to deal with this brand new crisis.

Moving slowly, Veronica carefully extricated herself out of her bed and vacated the room, trying not to wake up Kirielle. She was pretty sure she failed in that regard, as her mental signature abruptly got more active about halfway through her retreat from the room, but since she never said anything and kept her eyes closed, Veronica figured she didn’t want to talk to her yet. Or maybe she just wanted to go back to sleep. It was pretty early…

She found everyone else already awake and seated around the table when she entered the kitchen – Imaya, Kael, and even Kana.

"Couldn’t sleep either, huh?" Kael asked rhetorically.

"Kirielle snuck into my bed in the middle of the night," said Veronica with a sigh. "She’s hard to bunk with even in normal circ*mstances, and considering the recent events…"

"Poor thing," Imaya said. "She was hit the hardest by this, I think. It’s a disgrace that something like that could happen in the middle of the city, and after it was already known that monsters were getting unusually aggressive too!"

Imaya spent the next ten minutes or so blaming the city for the poor handling of the monster crisis – a subject that she never showed all that much of an interest in before now. It didn’t take an empath to figure out that Kirielle wasn’t the only one greatly affected by the killings. She had probably formed a friendship with Rea during the many times she had brought Nochka to meet with Kirielle.

Kael and Kana, on the other hand, seemed far less affected. Kael had virtually no interaction with either Nochka or Rea and had never even met Sauh, so that was understandable. Kana had sometimes joined Nochka and Kirielle in their games but had been nowhere near as close to Nochka as Kirielle was. She was also very young and probably didn’t quite understand what was happening.

Eventually, Imaya ran out of steam and fell silent, though Veronica could still feel a lot of frustration coming off her. An uneasy atmosphere descended on the table.

"Oh yes," Imaya said suddenly. "I forgot to tell you yesterday, but the police want to talk to you about… Rea and her family."

"Me?" asked Veronica in surprise. "What would I know about that?"

"You did speak to Rea and her husband relatively recently," pointed out Kael. "They probably want to see if they told you something of importance. Most likely they want to talk to everyone who knew the victim."

"I see," Veronica said, idly drumming her fingers on the table. "Are they going to drop by at some point or should I go visit the police station?"

"Detective Ikzeteri said he was going to be at the Sashal residence at noon today, and that you should meet him there if possible," Imaya said.

Veronica frowned. Ikzeteri? That sounded familiar, where did she… oh, her old divination teacher had that last name too, didn’t he? And he was a detective, too…

"This detective Ikzeteri… he wouldn’t be named Haslush, would he?" asked Veronica.

"I think that was his name, yes," Imaya said, frowning. "I have to say I don’t really remember his introduction all that well. I was too shocked to really pay attention. Why, do you know him?"

"I’ve heard of him," said Veronica. "It’s not really important, I was just curious. I’ll give him a visit later."
At that point, Kirielle trudged into the kitchen, seemingly having decided not to return to sleep after all, and they all wordlessly chose to shelve the topic of the Sashal family for the moment.* * *

The Sashal family home didn’t resemble a scene of death. That was the first thing Veronica noticed as she approached the house. She had expected to see some kind of damage on the building – shattered windows, the door ripped off its hinges, perhaps a damaged wall section – but the house appeared entirely intact. Were it not for the trio of policemen lingering at the entrance and giving her severe looks as she approached, she would never have guessed the occupants had been killed.

It didn’t seem much like a monster attack to her. The chance of this being an actual random occurrence was shrinking rapidly.

"I’m here to speak to Detective Ikzeteri," she said to the tall, mustachioed, stern-looking policeman who seemed to be the leader of the group in front of her. "He told me I should look for him here. Is he present?"

"He’s inside," the man nodded. "But I’m afraid I can’t let you go look for him yourself. If you are willing to wait a little, I will notify him that you’re here."

"I’m fine with that," said Veronica, though internally she wasn’t pleased. She had hoped to take a look inside to search for clues. She doubted the police would be willing to share any details about the killings, after all.

Inconvenient. She could just wait until they left the house unattended and sneak in then, but that might take several days – most of the clues would have gone cold by then, assuming they hadn’t been taken by the police as evidence. Besides, there wasn’t that much time left before the end of the restart, so her window of opportunity to conduct an investigation was very small.

Darn it, she really didn’t need this right now...

"Wait here, then," the mustachioed policeman instructed her. "What is your name, miss?"

Veronica gave him her name, and the man promptly disappeared through the door to fetch Haslush. After five minutes of waiting in uncomfortable silence while the other two policemen gave her suspicious glances, however, she could tell it would take a while for the man to return.

Veronica shifted in place awkwardly, probably looking quite suspicious to the two policemen scrutinizing her every move. She knew it wasn’t entirely rational, yet she was profoundly unsettled about being so close to law enforcement. Logically speaking, they had no reason to suspect her of anything and this entire talk was likely just a formality. She’d had negative experiences with the police back in Cirin, though, and she was also dealing with Haslush – her old teacher could be perceptively astute at times. Veronica wouldn’t put it past him to notice something unusual about her and bring her in for more detailed questioning, which would be a gigantic waste of time at best, and at worst would necessitate an early end to the restart via suicide.

She’d prefer to avoid the latter possibility at all costs. Kirielle was already devastated about losing a friend, so having her sister suddenly end her life in such a manner would be terrible. True, Veronica wouldn’t be there to witness her anguish, and the restart would end a few days later, but just imagining the possibility made her feel sick.

Maybe she should read Haslush’s mind? He was probably trained in detecting and resisting mental intrusion, being a mage working for law enforcement and all, but Veronica’s particular brand of mind magic was very non-standard. She didn’t use any obvious chants and gestures, so maybe she could get away with it. It would likely answer many questions and would allow her to avoid any obvious blunders while talking to him...

…but no, that was too risky. Besides, she had a much better target for something like that standing right beside her – she doubted those mundane policemen were trained in dealing with mind magic, beyond maybe being given a few pointers. A secret is only as strong as its weakest links.

She proceeded to worm her way into the two policemen's thoughts. She found that they were really not as intrigued by her as she had been imagining, but they also weren’t contemplating the Sashal family either – one of them was hungry and thinking of the dinner his wife was making him back home, and the other was fantasizing about some female administrative employee back in the station. Well, that was okay – she would engage them and steer their thoughts back to the situation at hand.

"So, I don’t want to get you gentlemen in trouble or anything, but is there anything you can tell me about what happened here? Sauh and Rea had been friends of mine and I was shocked to hear what happened to them… is there anything you can tell me about all this?"

Veronica didn’t really expect them to say much – she fully expected them to give her the silent treatment until Haslush got outside, but simply mentioning the topic was usually enough to get a person to start thinking about it. She didn’t anticipate being hit by a significant wave of distrust and derision coming from her link to one of the policemen, though.

[And she looked like such a normal-looking girl, too,] the man thought to himself. [I’d never have guessed she was associating with a group of thieving cat shifters. Just shows you can’t trust outward appearances when it comes to magical nonsense…]

Rea was a cat shifter? Huh. That made a lot of sense, actually – explained some things. What she didn’t understand at all was why the policeman seemed to think this made Rea and her family bad people – so much so that Veronica was apparently bad just for associating with them.

Apparently, she had physically reacted to this revelation, because the other policeman noticed it and spoke up to forestall any potential unpleasantness. He didn’t seem to see Veronica’s reaction as any evidence of mind reading, attributing her reaction to her ability to sense the change in his partner’s demeanor and facial expression.

"We’re just here to look tough and discourage curious neighbors from snooping around, miss," the other policeman said. "We don’t know anything more about this than you do, in all likelihood – some sort of dungeon creature made its way into the house and killed the couple inside. For anything more, you’ll have to wait for Officer Kalan to return with the detective."

The first policeman lightly shook his head before catching himself and stopping. [The creature that killed them simply sauntered in through an unlocked door instead of breaking in and attacked absolutely no one else in this entire crowded neighborhood. If that was an actual monster incursion, I will eat my own shoes,] the man thought to himself. [The kitties likely stuck their noses in some shady business, like usual, and got offed for it when someone took offense. Gods know they got their paws on everything these days…]

Veronica frowned. "What about Nochka? Their daughter? I was told her body was never recovered and that she might still be alive?"

The two policemen suddenly became very uncomfortable. Even the first one, who clearly didn’t like cat shifters as a whole, felt bad about the little girl who reminded him of his own daughter. Neither of them thought there was much chance of Nochka ever being found again, but they were unwilling to disclose this to Veronica and instead tried to think of a suitable non-answer they could provide.

They both sighed in relief when their exchange was interrupted by the arrival of their mustachioed friend, who exited the house with Haslush in tow. Haslush, for his part, decided to lead Veronica on a walk away from the house, ruining her plan to keep mind reading the mundane policemen while they conversed for additional clues.

It might be for the better, actually – paying attention to two different thought streams simultaneously had already been rather hard. Attempting to have a conversation with Haslush while doing the same would probably have been impossible.

"So, Veronica… I can call you Veronica, right?" Haslush asked. Veronica nodded, aware that the man had a massive dislike for formality. "Right. I’m guessing Miss Kuroshka has told you what happened back there, but just so we’re clear: Rea and Sauh Sashal have been found dead in their home yesterday morning, along with the mangled corpses of two giant centipedes. Their daughter was nowhere to be found, and nobody has heard anything about her since. Is any of that news to you?"

"Mr. Tverinov and Miss Kuroshka already told me most of that, but not the part about the mangled centipedes," said Veronica.

"Yes, well, your younger sibling reacted so badly to the news that I censored myself a little. Called it a monster attack rather than dwelling on the details," Haslush shrugged. "I apologize for upsetting her so much. I’m told I can be a bit tactless at times, but it’s a difficult trait to lose. This line of work tends to make you a little morbid, and I occasionally forget that most people aren’t exposed to death and crime every waking moment of their lives."

Veronica pondered offering some reassurance and telling the man she didn’t hold a grudge about that, but then thought he might be more willing to share information with her if he felt guilty, so she remained silent. Instead, she steered the topic back to the killings.

"So they were killed by giant centipedes?" Veronica asked. "I didn’t observe any damage outside the house. How did they get in?"

"Through the door. Apparently, the occupants had left it unlocked."

Veronica gave Haslush an incredulous look.

"I’m just telling you what we found," Haslush defended. "I know this case is strange, it’s why we haven’t pronounced it closed and moved on. And on that note, is there anything you could tell me about the Sashal family that would explain what happened to them?"

Of course, she did – but nothing she could share without getting herself in trouble. She relayed to Haslush everything she had deduced about the apparent cat shifters through her interactions with them, but this was very sketchy information, and based on Haslush’s unhappy expression, it probably wasn’t anything new to the detective. Not that surprising – Imaya alone had probably told him everything Veronica just did and more.

"This wasn’t really a monster attack, was it?" Veronica inquired.

Haslush gave Veronica a piercing look, which she met unflinchingly. After a few seconds, Haslush withdrew a hip flask from his jacket, took a long, deep sip from it, and then returned it to his jacket pocket.

"No, probably not," he conceded.

"Why were they targeted and by whom, if you don’t mind me asking?" Veronica said, trying her luck. Hey, who knows? Maybe the man would even answer.

"Well now. If I knew that, I wouldn’t be speaking to you now, would I?" Haslush pointed out.

"So you have no leads," Veronica concluded.

"I have too many leads," Haslush corrected. "The Sashals… well, how much do you really know about them?"

"I presume you’re talking about them being cat shifters?" Veronica guessed.

"Ah, so you do know about that. I’ve been wondering about that – the rest of your housemates didn’t seem aware of that fact, but Imaya said you were unreasonably suspicious of Rea right from the start. Well, if you know what they are, then you surely know why this could be any number of things…"
"I don’t, actually," said Veronica, shaking her head in denial, her long ponytail swaying slightly. "I was suspicious about Rea because she looked suspicious and I am a paranoid person. Them being cat shifters never factored into it, and to be frank, I know virtually nothing about them. What’s the deal with cat shifters, anyway?"

"Bluntly put, most cat shifters are heavily involved with crime," Haslush said. "Theft, smuggling, and spying, usually, but occasionally even assassination. Their alternate forms are tailor-made for such shady activities, after all. Cats are small, stealthy animals whose presence is hardly ever notable in and of itself. How many new, never-seen-them-before cats do you see in a week?"

"A lot."

"Right. In a big city like this, unfamiliar cats are ubiquitous. Few things threaten them aside from humans, and most humans don’t hurt cats without reason. And on top of that, shifters get the ability to access traits of their animal form even while they’re human, meaning cat shifters get things like night vision, a sense of smell powerful enough to put most dogs to shame, superior balance and agility, and a whole bunch of other benefits."

"I’m still a bit surprised this lets them be so active in crime," said Veronica, her voice softening with curiosity. "You’d think the sheer flexibility of classical mages employed by the various police forces would allow them to shut down a shifter group operating like that, regardless of their special abilities."

"Ah, but you’re assuming cat shifters work alone, which is not the case at all. They are hands down the most firmly assimilated shifter type of them all. They live in cities and towns among ordinary people and are virtually indistinguishable from a normal human upon casual inspection. Everything a regular citizen could do, cat shifters can as well – in particular, this means they have no problems in getting classical magic of their own. Hell, their links to crime mean they can get their hands on many things an average mage can’t, like permanent enhancement rituals or illegal spells for evading notice and influencing people…"

"Do you have any evidence that Rea and her family were that type of cat shifter though?" Veronica frowned slightly, her gentle eyes betraying her concern. "Maybe I’m naïve, but they didn’t look like that to me. Surely there are non-criminal cat shifters?"

"There are," Haslush nodded. "And every single cat shifter would have you believe they’re one of them. Considering what happened, I don’t think I’m willing to put much stock in the Sashal family being such counter-examples."

Half an hour later, Haslush decided he’d gotten everything he needed out of Veronica and sent her on her way. Instead of going home, however, Veronica hung back. Once she had confirmed that Haslush was not going back to the scene of the crime, Veronica stealthily returned there to do some more fact-finding. There were guards posted in front of the house, but none were inside. Perfect. She didn’t dare enter the house herself, afraid there was some kind of alarm to notify the police of break-ins, but conjuring an ectoplasmic eyeball and sending it inside didn’t seem to trip any wards, so she closed her eyes and had her eyeball spy look around the house.

The bodies of Rea and Sauh were long gone by this time, but it was not hard to figure out where each had died due to all the blood stains. Tragically, Rea seemed to have been killed in front of her daughter’s room, trying to keep the attackers away from Nochka. She didn’t go down without a fight – the bodies of the two giant centipedes, which the police decided to leave in the house for some reason, littered the entire area. They had been quite literally torn to pieces, their bodies sliced into sections by some powerful severing attack. In the end, though, it hadn’t been enough. The door to Nochka’s room was smashed open – the only door in the house to have been dealt with so destructively – her bed flipped over, and Nochka herself nowhere to be found.

Veronica had been harboring a hope that maybe Nochka had turned into a cat when the attack had come and then escaped into the night, but that didn’t seem likely anymore. It was beyond obvious that Nochka had been taken by the attackers for some reason.

Half an hour later, not having found anything similarly notable, she was ready to call it a day and go home. That’s when she searched the place where Rea had died again and noticed something interesting on the severed head of one of the centipedes – faintly carved into the chitin of one of the forward sections of the centipede was a very familiar symbol – a circle with an archaic Ikosian pictogram for heart inside of it. It wasn’t the official symbol used by the Esoteric Order of the Celestial Dragon, but it was one of the several secret signs that their lower order cultists used to signal other members of their membership.

After inspecting the rest of the centipede parts and failing to find anything else significant, Veronica let the eye dissolve and walked away. So her initial suspicion was right – this wasn’t some shady deal coming back to haunt Rea and her family, it was connected to the invasion somehow. Admittedly, Veronica had no idea how, but she knew where she could find that out.

The Cult of the Dragon Below was going to get a lot more visits from Veronica in the coming days.

* * *

After that day, Veronica’s daily schedule changed completely. Kirielle lost all interest in magic and no longer attended the lessons she had organized for her, and she decided to free some more time by dropping her membership in Taiven’s group and skipping most of her classes. She spent most of this extra time planning and executing attacks on known members of the Cult of the Dragon Below, trying to find out what they did with Nochka. She attacked them incessantly, hitting two or more locations a day, and ruthlessly memory-probed every cultist she disabled in those excursions.

She learned some interesting things doing that. For instance, while Sudomir Kandrei, the mayor of Knyazov Dveri, was indeed a member of the cult, he was a very independent-minded one… to the point that the cult was very annoyed with him. They seemed to have no idea he was killing soul mages around his town, nor did he have any links to the Ibasans as far as they knew – the man promised to give his flocks of iron beaks and hordes of winter wolves to the Cult of the Dragon Below, not to the invaders as a whole. Veronica supposed he might be in contact with the Ibasans on his own initiative, but it was equally possible that his soul mage killing practices were his own thing. What he hoped to accomplish with that, Veronica could only guess.

She also found some emergency resource caches that the Cult scattered around the city, its underworld, and surrounding villages. They looked very… stealable. She made herself a note – a real written note, seeing as how she could now effectively take a notebook with her to the next restart – to search through those in some future restart for anything interesting or easy to sell for some quick cash.

When it came to locating Nochka, however, her successes had been underwhelming. She managed to track down the group that kidnapped her, but they had simply been following orders and had long since handed her off to another group. She then tracked down that group too, but they no longer had her either and also didn’t know who had her now. She had dived deeply and aggressively into their memories, shattering their minds beyond repair, but to no avail – the man they handed Nochka to was a total unknown to them, other than being a high-ranking member of the cult, and they had absolutely no idea where she might have ended up in.

Truthfully, Veronica had already suspected that kidnapping Nochka had been the whole point of the attack on the Sashal family, so her findings weren’t a huge surprise. The fact that the order had come from the very top of the cult indicated they considered it to be of critical importance. They also told both groups that Nochka had to be delivered alive and unharmed to the transfer point, forbidding abuse under the pain of death, which was also fairly strange. Why? Why did they want Nochka so badly, and why was her continued health so important?

She suspected the answer was something in line with she’s their sacrifice to the primordial to wake him up. Demon summoning often involved ritual killings, so it wouldn’t surprise her much if unbinding a primordial required the same. Still, why Nochka in particular? Because she was a shifter? The cultists did refer to the primordial as – among other names – He of the Flowing Flesh, which could indicate an ability to change its physical form. There were other shifters in the city, though. Other cat shifters, even.

She didn’t think she could get to the bottom of this by the end of the restart. If she had another week, maybe, but the restart was near its end and the Cult of the Dragon Below was getting more paranoid in the face of her constant assaults on them – they’d already tried to set up an ambush for her the last time she tried to attack a location, and only her ability to read people’s surface thoughts kept her from stumbling into it and getting herself killed. She wasn’t going to get much from them in the two days she had left before the summer festival.

Although, as horrible as Nochka’s kidnapping was, it could prove to actually be a huge opportunity for her, so long as it happened predictably in every restart. If she could place some kind of tracker on Nochka, she could lead her to the highest echelons of the Cult of Dragon, those who had stayed well hidden from her up until now. Also, if she really was intended as a sacrifice like she suspected, she could lead her to the place where the cult intended to perform their unbinding ritual, which could be a key to a lot of mysteries surrounding the Cult’s actions - perhaps even the time loop itself.

She would have to wait and see how events would play out in the next restart.

* * *

"Can we talk?"

Veronica looked away from the novel she was reading and glanced towards Kirielle, who was currently standing in the doorway, nervously gripping one of the support beams. Strange. Kirielle had been very subdued and asocial ever since Nochka had disappeared, rarely ever bothering her anymore, so her approaching her like this was quite unexpected.

"Sure," she agreed easily, her tone gentle and warm. She wasn’t doing anything important at the moment, anyway. She was supposed to be organizing her notebooks so she could store the latest blueprints in her mind, but she just didn’t feel like doing that at the moment and was instead procrastinating with some light reading. She could spare some time for her little sister. "What is it?"

Kirielle ran up to her and, before Veronica could tell her to stop, hurled herself on top of her. As Veronica was currently lying on her bed, she ended up basically re-enacting what had long become a very familiar scene to Veronica.

Damn it, Kiri, I get enough of that at the beginning of each loop! thought Veronica, but refrained from actually saying it out loud. Kirielle was already shaken up, no need to snap at her when she finally decided to open up a little.

"Where are your shoes?" she asked instead, with a playful lilt in her voice. "Don’t tell me you’ve been walking around the house barefoot again?"
Kirielle glanced at her feet and gave Veronica a guilty look. "Don’t be like Mom, Vera. It was only one time."

"You’re doing it right now, too," Veronica pointed out softly.

"Okay, two times," she said, pouting.

Veronica put a bookmark into her novel, laid it aside, and gently nudged Kirielle off her before sitting up. Kirielle immediately mimicked her, sitting at the end of her bed beside her. They sat in silence for a while, Kirielle dangling her bare feet over the floor and staring at her toes as if they were the most fascinating thing in the world.

"I’m sorry," Kirielle finally said, breaking the silence with a small voice.

"What are you sorry for?" asked Veronica, genuinely surprised.

"For being difficult."

"Difficult?" Veronica asked incredulously, her gentle eyes meeting Kirielle's. She sensed the worry in her sister's mind, her thoughts turning to their Mother. Ugh. That did sound like something their mother would say. She never praised much other than the fact that Veronica rarely cried, even as a young child.

"Kiri, you lost your friend. It’s okay to be sad about that. You weren’t being difficult at all," Veronica reassured softly.

"But you’ve been avoiding me all week," she mumbled, her voice barely above a whisper.

"I wasn’t avoiding you," Veronica protested gently. "I was just... giving you some space to grieve in peace. You know? And besides, I was..."

She paused, contemplating whether to share her secret.

"You were what?" Kirielle asked curiously, looking up with interest.

Should she tell her?

"I was trying to find Nochka," Veronica finally admitted, her voice gentle and sincere.

Her sister's eyes widened in surprise and hope. "You were... Is that... you should have told me!"

"I didn’t want to get your hopes up," Veronica said softly.

"I was hoping anyway," Kirielle replied, gripping the sheets tightly in her small fists.

Veronica wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her into a warm embrace. Kirielle was still tense, but gradually relaxed and returned the hug.

"I didn’t find her," she admitted after a while.

"Well, obviously," Kiri said, as if it were the most self-evident thing ever. "But you tried. You knew you probably weren’t going to find her, and you still went out and searched for her. You didn’t cry and mope around the house all day like I did."

"Kiri, you’re nine," Veronica sighed, her voice filled with understanding. "What else could you have done? You’re being way too hard on yourself."

Kirielle didn’t respond, sitting quietly. Eventually, Veronica decided to spend some time playing cards with her and admiring her drawings, cheering her sister up in the process. One of these days, once she had mastered the alteration spell sufficiently, Veronica would gather some of Kirielle's artwork into an art book and copy it into the next restart. Showing her sister the drawings she had made in previous restarts was bound to produce some amusing reactions.

* * *

Later that evening, Veronica decided she had given Kael enough time to wrap up his last-minute experiments and went down into the basem*nt to retrieve the last of the Morlock’s promised notebooks. The door was unlocked, so Veronica simply walked in and closed it behind her.

As the door clicked shut, she felt the sounds of the house above them disappear—the privacy portion of the wards placed on the basem*nt sound-proofing the room, among other things. The privacy measures were a standard part of the warding package the academy used to secure their workshops, and thus got added automatically to Imaya’s basem*nt when Kael had requested its conversion into a proper alchemical workshop. It was conveniently soundproofed now, ensuring she could speak with Kael about sensitive subjects without worry.

"You done yet?" Veronica asked Kael softly. He ignored her for a moment, deeply engrossed in some passage in the book in front of him, before shaking his head and pushing it away, massaging his eyes.

"Yes, I’m done," he said, pointing at the notebook perched atop a large stack of books. "The notebook is there. Everything ready on your end?"

"Mostly," Veronica replied, "I still have to write down some stuff I found out today."

Kael raised an eyebrow at her. "I thought you said you were taking a break from the cult today?"

"I did," Veronica said, with a sigh. "Doesn’t mean I did absolutely nothing, though."

"Oh?"

"Basically, I was thinking about warding, and how the upper-level cultists all lived in warded houses that were a pain to break into and how I might speed up the process. And then I remembered that there’s already a type of tool to do that which is present on the black market, and I actually know where to find one for free. The aranea had stolen a ward scanner from one of the invaders a while before the start of the time loop, and the device was surely still in the destroyed colony."

"You said you don’t like going there," Kael noted gently.

"I don’t," Veronica sighed, her voice tinged with sadness. "The place is… it has too many bad memories. And the aranea's corpses are literally scattered all over the place, which makes it hard to go there without being reminded of that whole disastrous event that led to their destruction."

"I still think they were somehow ejected from the time loop rather than soul-killed," Kael said softly. "I agree with what others have told you—souls are indestructible. There has got to be a trick there."

"Yes, well, time travel is supposed to be impossible too," Veronica pointed out softly. "Though I’ll admit that I’m hoping you’re right. Never mind that for the moment; the point is that I went there to find the ward scanner… and I couldn’t find it."

"So?" Kael asked with a hint of curiosity.

"So, that means either somebody already took it or that there’s some secret part of the aranean complex that I’m unaware of. And frankly, I think it’s the latter. I mean, once I thought about it a little, the sheer emptiness of the aranean settlement was very suspicious… The Cyorian web was very wealthy and surely had a sizeable treasury. The matriarch often implied they have some kind of storage full of trade items and such. But I never saw anything like that when I checked the settlement out earlier, probably because I was very uncomfortable there and in a hurry to leave."

"You think there’s something important there?"

"Time loop-related? No, probably not," Veronica admitted softly. "But I need every advantage over Red Robe I can get, and there could be a lot of useful stuff there. Who knows what the aranea have squirreled away over the years?"

"True," Kael agreed, rising from his seat and stretching. "Well, I’m tired. I think I’ll go to sleep now. Is there anything else we need to talk about?"

"There’s nothing pressing I can think of," Veronica said, shaking her head.

"I see. Just so you know, I’ll be taking Kana with me on a trip to a nearby village on the day of the summer festival. I don’t want to be in Cyoria when the invasion comes, and I’m even less enthused about Kana being caught up in the invasion."

"I understand," Veronica replied, knowing the weight of such a decision.

"I’m glad. If you want, I can take Kirielle with me," offered Kael. "I know you’ve been agonizing about what to do with her for a while now."

"Yeah," agreed Veronica, her voice tinged with concern. "I don’t want to leave her alone during the invasion, but at the same time, I need to be able to move freely if I am to investigate what’s happening with the invasion after all these changes. You think she’ll agree to go with you?"

"I don’t know, that’s up to you," Kael shrugged. "All I can do is make an offer."

"Fine, fine, I’ll talk to her," Veronica sighed. "That’ll be a lovely talk, I can already tell."

"Notify me what you decide by tomorrow evening," said Kael softly, before heading out.

And just like that, the restart was already almost done. Tomorrow, she would see how the invasion of the city proceeded this time around.

* * *

Veronica looked over her things, trying to remember if she had forgotten something crucial in her rush to finish the preparations in time. She couldn’t think of anything but knew that it would be just like her to forget something blindingly obvious while worrying about irrelevant minutiae.

She still had several hours to burn until the start of the invasion, however, so she left the preparations alone for now and went to find some quick diversion. Remembering that Imaya kept a whole miniature library of exotic works in her house, she set off to browse its shelves in search of a good time waster. She found Imaya already there, staring at her collection with a faraway look.

"Miss Kuroshka?" Veronica asked worriedly, sensing some concerning emotions through her empathy. "Are you alright?"

"Hm?" Imaya mumbled, before focusing on her presence. "Oh, Vera. How long have you been standing there?"

"I only just came here. Been looking for a book to pass the time with, but you looked…"

"Don’t worry," Imaya sighed. "I’m just disturbed by the sudden quiet in the house. It feels so… lonely."

"Huh. I thought you’d be glad to have some peace and quiet for a change," Veronica said with a small smile.

She snorted. "I think you’re projecting your own attitude here a little," she said warmly.

"Probably," admitted Veronica. She always liked having space from everybody else and would have probably welcomed such solitude in Imaya's place. "But Kael and the girls are only gone for one day, so it’s hardly a big deal. You could have gone with them, you know?"

"I know. But if there really is rioting during the festival, like you said there might be, I don’t want to leave my house to looters. It’s… it’s the only thing I have left."

"Oh…"

"Sorry, getting a little personal there," she smiled softly. "Is there any particular book you were looking for—"

There was a loud knock on the front door. Imaya and Veronica exchanged raised eyebrows, both uncertain of who might be visiting at this time of day. Most people were preparing to attend the summer festival somewhere. Imaya hurried towards the door to see who it was.

There was a brief exchange, after which Imaya called out to Veronica.

"Veronica, your date is here!" she yelled teasingly.

"My date?" Veronica asked incredulously, more to herself than to anyone else. How could she have a date when she didn’t—

But she totally did. As she approached the front door to understand what Imaya meant, the frowning face of Akoja greeted her.

"Hello, Ako," Veronica said with feigned nonchalance. "What a surprise to see you here. I suppose Ilsa had something to do with this?"

"I, yes," Akoja fumbled, her composure slipping for a moment. "Miss Zileti told me to accompany you to the dance, since we are both without a partner."

Now that was interesting. How had Ilsa known that? True, Veronica had no date for the dance and had no intention of attending the academy dance at all, but Ilsa shouldn't have been aware of that! Veronica had never mentioned anything to her, nor had she hinted at it to anyone except… Imaya. Damn.
Veronica gave her landlord a disapproving glance before refocusing back on Akoja. This was not part of the plan. She was supposed to roam around the city, observing the invaders in action and noting the changes to their tactics as a result of the various changes arising from the destruction of the aranea and that unfortunate mercenary band she'd hired to participate in the ambush. Sometimes she hated her empathy. Without it, she would never have known just how much this meant for Akoja and how hard blowing her off to do her own thing would hit her.

"We still have several hours before we have to be at the dance hall. Come inside and wait with Imaya for a bit while I run some urgent errands in the city," Veronica said gently.

"What?" Akoja stammered, confused, as Veronica slipped past her through the door and began walking into the city. "Wait, you can’t just—"

Veronica quickly cast the teleport spell and let the city’s teleport beacon draw her into Cyoria’s teleport access point. She had lots of work to do and only so much time to execute it.

* * *

"What were you in such a hurry for, earlier?" Akoja asked as they slowly made their way towards the academy. She was surprisingly calm and polite, all things considered. Veronica had thought she’d be more annoyed at her abrupt departure earlier.

"I had something already arranged before you arrived. I had to take care of some things when you came knocking at Imaya’s door," Veronica replied softly. "Cancel some things and adjust others."

Specifically, she was placing marker stones in various parts of the city to make scrying easier. Watching the invasion forces move through the city was not quite the same as ambushing isolated battlegroups and rooting through their minds, but at least it was something.

Maybe it was better this way. Her original plan was kind of ambitious. Possibly too ambitious…

As they talked, Akoja told her a little about how the rest of her classmates handled the changes to the restart. It was mostly just idle chat, though it did remind Veronica that she hadn’t paid much attention to her class in this restart. There was just so much to do in this particular restart that interaction with her classmates sort of fell by the wayside. Considering that one of her motivations for coming back to Cyoria had been to see and talk to them again, that was something that should probably be remedied in the near future.

The night proceeded far more smoothly than the last one where she’d had Akoja as her date – she seemed to have far more respect and concern for Veronica's wishes this time around, though Veronica couldn’t figure out why. In some ways, she had actually been a bigger jerk now than she had back then. Regardless, once the flares started hitting the city, she sneaked away from her and started scrying the city for information.

The initial barrage of artillery spells was different this time. While the old artillery barrage used by the invaders specifically targeted critical buildings whose destruction was calculated to send the city into chaos and cripple its ability to organize a defense, the new barrage was… uninspired. Oh, they still targeted the central police station, the city hall, and other obvious targets, but things like backup government buildings and armories were left intact. In fact, a lot of the flares seem to have been aimed completely at random, demolishing unremarkable clusters of houses and civilian apartments – something that would admittedly greatly increase the number of deaths in the invasion, but was of questionable strategic benefit. Bizarrely, every single temple in the city was the target of at least one flare – Veronica had no idea what the invaders were trying to accomplish there, and it definitely wasn’t something they did in their previous invasion plan.

The fights around the city were far fiercer than they had been in previous restarts. Partly it was due to the defenders being in a lot better shape this time around, courtesy of the invasion’s poor choice of targets for their initial strike, but there was more to it than that. The invasion forces seemed a lot less coordinated than she remembered them being. They moved a lot less purposefully through the city and often blew off their apparent goals to rampage through the undefended civilian neighborhoods. That happened sometimes in the past as well, but never in such high numbers.

As far as the initial attack on the academy went, the invaders chose their actions there just as poorly as they did elsewhere. The new barrage targeted the academy building directly instead of aiming for the less well defended dormitories and support buildings like the old barrage did. Consequently, the flares simply splashed harmlessly off the heavy wards protecting the main complex, doing minimal damage. With no need to render aid and run damage control in the peripheral parts of the academy, the teachers were free to keep their forces concentrated and organize the evacuation of the student body and other non-combatant employees much more competently than they had before.

Funny, Veronica originally thought the academy was massively incompetent for leading the students into massive underground death traps, especially since that involved going over vast swathes of open ground where they would be completely exposed. They didn’t look so dumb right now. The evacuation went off without a single problem, and no one attacked them when they were shoved inside the shelters.

Veronica was pretty sure at this point that she was looking at what the invasion was really like – what it would look like had Red Robe never given them any help. When she really thought about it, most of their mistakes could be chalked up to being far less well informed and lacking the ability to bypass every ward and defense they encounter because they’ve been either keyed into them or knew how to counter it quickly.

It would appear that Red Robe really did abandon the invaders in this restart, right down to the very end. Was this a one-time thing, or did Red Robe suddenly decide not to meddle in the invasion anymore?

Her musings were interrupted by Ilsa coming to the shelter and demanding that every combat-capable student come with her to defend the academy. Thanks to her participating in monster hunts with Taiven’s group, that included her as well, so she got up from her spot on the floor and joined the group of students following Ilsa outside. There, she saw what had gotten Ilsa so concerned that she was recruiting students as defenders – the invaders were massing just outside the academy wards, preparing for an all-out assault. Entire regiments of war trolls, winter wolves, and skeletons were present there, supported by their mage handlers and thick flocks of razor beaks. More unusually, there were a couple of flying drakes mixed in among the deadly corvids, and two bulky, elephant-sized lizards stalked in front of the miniature army.

"Thunder lizards," Ilsa said distastefully from beside her. "Immensely tough and very destructive. They can breathe arcs of electricity in a straight line in front of them, so try not to fight them from the front if you are forced to engage them at all."

Lovely. She never saw those in any previous restarts. Maybe this was something they never felt like committing to the battlefield because they never felt they needed them?

But the time for considering such things was over. Although clearly not fully assembled for attack, the commander of the monstrous horde urged his forces to charge ahead. Maybe he felt that waiting for the rest of the forces would be a bad move since the academy defenders were busily fortifying their positions, or maybe he was just impatient. Either way, they surged ahead, thunder lizards leading the charge.

Veronica knew she could offer very little by simply pouring some more offensive spells into the attacking horde along with the rest of the defenders, but she had a better idea anyway. Focusing on the two thunder lizards, she felt their simplistic minds and was overjoyed to find out that they were far less magically resistant than she had feared. She suspected that might be the case – the invaders were probably controlling those things with mind magic to begin with, so it would only make sense that they were not all that resistant to it. Regardless, this meant she could manipulate them. Not to the extent of directing them like puppets, but enough to negate their attacks.

Sure enough, when the lizards started approaching the makeshift barricades that the teachers had made out of the ground via alteration spells, the two lizards opened their toothy mouths and tried to blow up the barricades with their thunder attack. Veronica quickly seized control of their movements and made them angle their heads towards one another, their thunder attacks colliding with each other’s bodies. A surge of anger flooded the minds of the two thunder lizards, and they halted their charge in favor of roaring at each other, too dumb to realize their actions were caused by outside influence. Veronica seized on this opportunity, amplifying their wrath and urging them to fight each other, and the two of them promptly collided with each other and began fighting to the death.

To their credit, the rest of the invading forces simply flowed around the two battling behemoths, unconcerned with their failure. The battle was joined.

* * *

Veronica stared at the battle site full of corpses, more than a little bit dazed. She had been in a fair amount of battles ever since she’d gotten pulled into the time loop, but nothing quite like this. The fight had quickly turned chaotic once the two forces seriously started engaging one another, and even now that it was over Veronica still wasn’t sure what exactly happened there.

They won in the end, repulsing the attackers – the mages decided to flee when enough of their monster minions got killed – but they lost far more people in the attack than Veronica had thought they would. Veronica herself was surrounded by a pack of winter wolves at one point and only survived thanks to no less than five blasting rods she had smuggled into the dance hall with her. Well, that and Kyron’s timely arrival with reinforcements to drive the attackers back.

She jumped in fright when someone’s heavy hand clasped her shoulder suddenly, almost blowing their head off with a reflexive piercer before she realized it was just Kyron.

"You’re the one that was messing with the heavy-hitter monsters during the whole fight, aren’t you?" her combat teacher asked.

"Yeah," Veronica shrugged. No need to keep it a secret this close to the end. "I felt that was the most effective way of contributing to the battle that I was capable of."

"Well, that flying drake would have roasted poor Nora alive if you hadn’t made it plow into the ground suddenly, so thanks for that. Though we’re really going to have to talk about how you learned how to do that and what exactly your limits are…"

"Ha," Veronica snorted. "It’s far too late for that, I’m afraid."

"Oh?" Kyron asked, a mixture of warning and curiosity in his voice.

"Yes," Veronica confirmed. She consulted her watch to see what time it was. It was 2 hours and 39 minutes after midnight. "I’m afraid this loop is just about to end."

Kyron stared at her blankly for a few seconds before opening his mouth to say something. Before he could utter a single word, though, everything went black and Veronica woke up back in Cirin, ready to start this month anew.