9. Cheaters

Chapter 009
Cheaters

“Majara,” intoned Zorian, finishing the spell with the word he wanted the spell to search for. He felt the spell reach out around him, scanning the books in the surrounding shelves for any mention of the word in question, and poured some more mana into the spell to expand its radius. His efforts to overcharge the spell almost unraveled it, forcing him 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 his chest and connecting him to various books in this particular section of the library.

Zorian smiled. The spell was one of the book divinations Ibery had taught him, 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 Zorian that he 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, he had only found 13 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 he sought existed somewhere in the library, only in a format that was invisible to the divinations he was using – Ibery had only taught him the very basics of ‘library magic’, as she called it, so his searches were painfully crude in the grand scheme of things – but if that was the case, there was little he could do about it.

He glanced down at the threads growing out of his chest and waved his hand through them, watching it pass through them without effect. He never got tired of doing that. Well, he probably would, in time, but the novelty hadn’t worn off yet. The threads were an illusion, existing only in the privacy of his 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 he was currently looking at was actually fairly advanced as divination mediums go, or so Ibery had claimed when he had tried to tell her he got the spell working within 30 minutes of being shown how to do it. He had a distinct impression she thought he was lying. He 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 him. Natural even.

He shook his head and followed after one of the golden threads till he reached a book it was attached to. It was a huge, intimidating, 400-page book about the history of Miasina, and Zorian had absolutely no intention of poring over it until he reached the tiny part that actually interested him, so he cast another divination Ibery had taught him. This one highlighted every mention of the chosen word (in this case ‘Majara’) in shining green, so he simply flipped through the book till he caught a flash of green.

“Zorian? What are you doing here?”

Zorian immediately snapped the book shut and stuffed it back on the shelf. While he wasn’t doing anything forbidden, he really didn’t want to explain to Ibery what Majara was, and why he was searching the library for any mention of it.

The retort he planned to use died on his lips when he finally turned to get a good look on his 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…” he started hesitantly. “You wouldn’t happen to go in the same class as my brother, would you?”

She flinched back and looked away. He sighed heavily. Just great.

“How did you know?” she asked after a second of silence.

“Brother dearest came to me earlier today,” said Zorian. “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. He had discovered, during the last three reverts, that Fortov was either unable or unwilling to track him down if he failed to return to his room after class. That was actually the main reason why he spent the entire day in the library instead of inside his room. Still, due to his rather unique situation he knew what would have happened had he been present.

“Oh,” she said quietly. “That…. That’s alright.”

“No,” disagreed Zorian. “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.” He 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.”

Zorian 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 he didn’t have to do it, not that he shouldn’t, and that it wasn’t that important, not that it wasn’t.

“It’s not really a problem,” he 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.”

Zorian paused. That was… potentially problematic. After all, the alchemical workshop would be closed down this late in the evening, and he 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 Zorian’s apartment. Of course, having Ibery looking over his shoulder wasn’t enough, so when he had finally reached his room he found another familiar person waiting for him. Specifically, Zach.

He wasn’t terribly surprised to see Zach waiting for him, to be honest. The boy had been getting steadily more nervous during their practice sessions as the summer festival approached, no doubt unnerved by the impeding invasion. Not that he ever told Zorian about the invasion – Zach was stubbornly tight-lipped about that, regardless of how much Zorian tried to goad him into blurting out something. Over the last few days, his fellow time traveler had questioned him about his plans for the summer festival several times, not-so-subtly implying that staying inside his room would be a bad idea. As Zorian still remembered quite vividly how one of the ‘flares’ flattened his entire apartment building when the invasion started, he was inclined to agree with Zach on that one. Unfortunately, Zach seemed to have trouble believing that Zorian was in agreement with him on that point. No doubt he came specifically to make sure (again) that Zorian was going to attend the dance. Zorian wondered, for god knows what time, just what happened between Zach and his previous incarnations to produce this kind of impression. Had he really been that stubborn before the time loop?

He walked up to Zach, who was sitting on the floor next to his door, completely oblivious to his surroundings while he concentrated on something on his palm. No, now that he got closer he could see it was actually something above his palm. A pencil, lazily spinning in the air above Zach’s palm. Apparently Zach knew the pen spinning exercise too, and was currently practicing it while he waited. Zorian had a strong urge to throw a marble at Zach’s forehead and demand that he starts over, but decided against it.

Mostly because he didn’t have any marbles on his person at the moment.

“Hello Zach,” Zorian said, startling Zach out of his reverie. “Are you waiting for me?”

“Yeah,” confirmed Zach. He opened his mouth to say something else but then noticed Ibery trailing behind Zorian and snapped his mouth shut. “Err, am I interrupting something?”

“No, not really,” Zorian 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,” Zach 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 Zorian with a snort.

“You’d be surprised,” mumbled Zach.

Ibery watched their interaction in silence, but Zach was a fairly sociable person, so by the time Zorian returned from his room with a box of supplies the two of them were engaged in lively conversation. Mostly about Ibery’s current condition.

“Man, I didn’t know your brother is such a jerk, Zorian,” Zach remarked. “No wonder you turned out to be such a… uh…”

He trailed off when Zorian raised his eyebrow at him, daring him 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,” Zach insisted. “Intentionally or not, it was his fault. He shouldn’t have dumped his responsibility on his little brother like this.”

“Nobody forced Zorian to do anything,” Ibery said. “He’s doing this out of his own free will. Right, Zorian?”

“Right,” agreed Zorian. “I’m doing this because I want to.”

He actually agreed with Zach, but chose not to say so. If he had learned anything about Ibery from spending an entire revert around her it was that she had a massive crush on Fortov. No good could come from bad mouthing him in front of her. Besides, if he was to be honest with himself, Zorian had to admit he was incapable of being objective about Fortov. There was too much bad blood between the two of them.

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 Zorian – apparently Zach didn’t agree.

“Hey, Zorian,” Zach said. “Why are we going towards the academy proper?”

“So I can access the alchemical workshop, of course,” said Zorian. He knew what Zach was getting at, of course, but he was still hoping to get away without revealing one of his most closely guarded tricks.

No such luck.

“But all the workshops are closed this late in the evening,” remarked Zach.

“Ah!” Ibery exclaimed. “He’s right! They closed down two hours ago!”

“It won’t be a problem,” Zorian assured them. “So long as we clean up after ourselves, no one will know we were there.”

“But the door is locked,” pointed out Zach.

Zorian sighed. “Not to magic, it isn’t.”

“You know unlocking spells?” asked Zach in a surprised tone.

Zorian understood his 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 Zorian didn’t know a single unlocking spell.

“No, I don’t,” said Zorian. “But it’s just a simple mechanical lock. I’ll just manipulate the tumblers telekinetically. Piece of cake.”

They gave him a blank look. Like most people, they had no idea how locks actually worked, and how easy it was to bypass most of them. Zorian, due to his somewhat colorful childhood, did. In fact, he could pick your average lock without using magic at all – it was just a lot slower than his little magic trick and required him to carry around a set of lockpicks.

He stopped in front of the door leading into the alchemical workshop and tried the handle. Like Zach said, it was locked. Shrugging, Zorian placed his palm over the keyhole and closed his eyes. He could feel Zach and Ibery cluster around him to get a better look at what he was doing, and did his best to block them out. He needed total concentration for this.

He had developed this particular trick back in his second year, after he got bored of refining the standard shaping exercises they were given. It involved flooding the locking mechanism with his 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 proper position so he could neutralize the lock. It took him months of stubborn practice, but by now he was good enough at it to unlock most doors in 30 seconds or less.

Even warded ones. He didn’t say this to Zach and Ibery, but the door he was trying to open was actually warded. Anything even remotely important in the academy was, including most of the doors. However, as Zorian quickly discovered when he experimented with the newly-developed skill, low-level wards were very specific – they countered a handful of common unlocking spells, and nothing else. Zorian’s little trick was not a structured spell, and thus didn’t trip these rudimentary wards at all.

The door clicked and Zorian tried the door handle again. This time the door opened without resistance.

“Wow,” said Zach as they all filed into the workshop. “You can open a lock just by pressing your hand against it for a few seconds!”

Zorian gave him 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,” Zach said.

Still, while Zach seemed very impressed with Zorian’s achievement, Ibery remained strangely quiet and kept giving him funny looks. This was why he hated telling people about his lock-picking prowess – most immediately assumed he was some kind of a thief. Well, that and he didn’t want the academy authorities to find out about his achievement. They would no doubt change their warding scheme and then he wouldn’t be able to do what he just did.

Fortunately, Ibery wasn’t as condemning as some people Zorian met in his life, and got over her suspicions quickly once he started to prepare the salve. Strangely enough, Zach didn’t know how to make one, even though it was a fairly simple thing to make and Zach had demonstrated some mightily impressive alchemical work in class. He didn’t appear all that interested in learning, either – apparently the anti-rash salve was too mundane for his tastes, and he 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 Zorian who was a decade old time traveler. Yet.

“Aren’t those purple creeper leaves?” Ibery asked, pointing at the small pile Zorian had placed on a wet piece of cloth.

“Yes,” confirmed Zorian, 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 Zach 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, Zach dragged Zorian away in the corner so he could talk to him in private.

“So?” Zorian prompted. “What is it?”

Zach reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring, which he promptly handed to Zorian. It was a featureless band of gold that reacted strangely when Zorian channeled some mana into it.

“It’s a spell formula,” Zach said.

“Magic missile?” guessed Zorian.

“That, plus shield and flamethrower,” Zach said. “Now you can use all three in actual combat.”

Zorian looked at the ring with newfound respect. There was only so much one could cram into a spell formula, and it was mostly dependant on the size of the item used as a base. Turning 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,” Zorian remarked.

“Made it myself, actually,” Zach said with a grin.

“Still, that’s a pretty valuable thing to give away to someone you’ve met less than a month ago,” said Zorian. “Why do I get the feeling I’ll be needing this in the near future?”

Zach’s smile disappeared and he 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 Zorian. “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?” Zach prompted.

“Yes, yes, I told you I will half a dozen times already,” huffed Zorian. “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,” Zach sighed. “It’s possibly even more implausible than time travel being real.”

“That bad?” asked Zorian, privately agreeing that an invasion of that scale was something he would have had trouble believing in if he had not lived through it.

“Just… try to survive, okay?” Zach sighed. Before Zorian could say anything else, Zach suddenly donned a mask of fake cheerfulness and spoke in a voice loud enough to be heard by Ibery. “Wow, Zorian, I’m sure glad we’ve had this talk but I should really get going now! Have to be well rested for tomorrow! Bye, Zorian! Bye, Ibery! I’ll see you both at the dance!”

And then he left. Zorian shook his head at the other boy’s exit and walked up to Ibery, who was now free of purple rash that once covered her face and neck.

“Well, I guess we should go too,” Zorian 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.”

Zorian watched Ibery as they filed out of the workshop and he used his magic trick to re-lock the door again. She seemed strangely subdued for someone who got what they wanted.

“What’s wrong?” he finally asked after a while.

“Err, nothing’s wrong,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

“You don’t seem very happy to be cured,” he noted.

“I am!” she protested. “It’s just…”

“Yes?” he prompted.

“I don’t have anyone to go to the dance with,” she said. “The boy I was hoping to go with already has someone by now.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

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 he 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?” concluded Zorian.

She suddenly stopped and gave him an appraising glance.

“You don’t have anyone to go with, either?” she asked.