98. Beneath the Surface

Chapter 098
Beneath the Surface

After the two groups of time travelers agreed to the shaky truce, the daily fighting stopped and the situation in Cyoria stabilized. Zach and Zorian no longer sent their simulacrums to raid invader bases and assassinate their leaders, and the invaders seemed to have no interest in testing their luck with them. Zorian had been worried that their enemies would try to strike at them indirectly, perhaps by sending the law enforcement after them or by attacking targets technically unrelated to them, but fortunately, they did no such thing.

Not that the two groups were entirely ignoring each other just because they weren’t fighting, of course. Zach and Zorian were constantly monitoring invader movements, trying to figure out what they were doing and what their secrets were. Where they had placed all those wraith bombs Red Robe was threatening them with, for instance. Red Robe and his allies were similarly spying on them in return. Although both groups were clearly aware of each other’s surveillance, there was an unspoken agreement that this was perfectly acceptable and the truce continued.

Even though this was just the calm before the storm, Zorian found himself kind of enjoying it. Too many things had happened recently, barely days apart from each other, and he had never really had time to sit down and process it all properly. They’d failed to get their group physically out of the time loop, and he ended up killing his old self after entering the real world. Zach had almost died at the start of the month, and he was certain to die at the end of it if they couldn’t find a solution to the angelic contract he was working under. He doubted he would figure out something insightful about that just because he spent a few days mulling things over, but it would make him feel a little better, at least.

Of course, he couldn’t really justify wasting time right now, truce or no truce. Things still needed to be done, preparations made. Thus, he decided to simply spend more time in his workshop, building up his arsenal of bombs, golems, and magical devices. Something that was both useful and relaxing. He had actually wanted to set aside more time for magical artifice for a while now, but the frantic pace of their activities in these past few days made that all but impossible. Just building enough simulacrum bodies and equipping them for the daily skirmishes was challenging enough.

In any case, Zorian was currently sitting in his workshop – a spacious room in the Noveda Mansion that Zach had generously donated for his purposes – and staring at a shiny metal plate in his hands, considering things. The large wooden table in front of him was an absolute mess of tools, half-processed materials, technical reference books, and hastily drawn blueprints that probably only made sense to him and no one else. The rest of the room was not much better. Tall, dangerous looking golems stood lined up next to one of the walls, some of them with gaping holes in their chests, still missing critical components before they could be completed. A stack of small metal cylinders densely covered in glowing lines and magical glyphs lay seemingly forgotten in one of the corners.

Zorian glanced at the half-finished construction on the table in front of him before returning his attention to the metal plates in his hand. The device he was building was still barely formed, but a perceptive onlooker would be able to puzzle out that it was a fairly large and very complicated cube. The center of it consisted of several rare and expensive crystals, which were then surrounded by a plethora of gears and interlocking pieces of metal, wood, and stone. Most of it was already done, just waiting for him to put it all together and cast the necessary spells, but he still had to make the outer chassis of the cube.

[What are you making?] a cheery, excitable voice suddenly sounded in his mind.

Zorian glanced at Novelty, who was currently wandering around the room and inspecting everything within her reach, caressing the items with her hairy spider legs and occasionally taking a nibble when she thought he wasn’t looking. Most of his allies had no real interest in his workshop and what he did there, as they had no interest or deep understanding of magical artifice, but just about everything human-related was new and exciting for Novelty so she insisted on coming along. He suspected she would get bored of it all very soon, but for now she was surprisingly well behaved.

It was amusing, he thought to himself. Once upon a time, her presence here would have driven him up the wall and he would have done all he could to get rid of her. Now, he found her antics to be… kind of nostalgic. She reminded him of an older, simpler time. A time when Novelty had been entirely qualified to teach him mind magic and the aranea had been his only friends. Even though Spear of Resolve had intended to betray him in the end – something he had never actually revealed to the aranea here in the real world – he still felt gratitude towards her and her web.

He sometimes wondered what his life would have been like if they had somehow survived that fateful restart. Would the final outcome have been better with them around, or was their doom a necessary price for him to develop into what he was today? After all, without that reckless ploy he and Spear of Resolve concocted, Red Robe might have decided to stick around in the time loop for a long time. Zorian could easily imagine a situation where he never contacted Zach at all, constantly moving in the shadows in fear of attracting Red Robe’s attention, the aranea his only ally…

[Hey! Why aren’t you answering me?] Novelty protested.

What? Oh right, his project…

[It’s secret,] he told her, shaking his head.

[Secret project…] she said, tapping her legs on the floor excitedly. Rather than backing off, she seemed only more fascinated by the secrecy. [Is it a weapon? Ooh, maybe it’s a collapsible golem that transforms into a giant spider when a command word is spoken!]

[Why would I make a golem in the form of a giant spider, of all things?] he asked her, raising an eyebrow at her.

[Well, everything is better with spiders,] she told him matter-of-factly. [Plus, I heard you humans found us cute.]

Zorian gave her an incredulous look.

[What? What?] she demanded, shuffling from side to side in agitation.

[I… think one of your friends played a prank on you or something,] Zorian said diplomatically.

[No way!] she protested. [I have it on good authority that… I mean, you humans like small, furry animals, right? I saw your little sister playing with that black cat yesterday, and some people are taking care of dogs and stuff…]

[I’m afraid humans don’t really place you in the same category as cats and dogs,] Zorian told her. [In fact, a sizable number of humans think spiders are pretty… horrifying.]

[Even giant spiders?] Novelty asked, visibly incredulous.

[Especially giant spiders,] Zorian said, laughing.

[How mean!] Novelty whined, her entire body vibrating in a clear show of annoyance.

Idly, Zorian wondered if painting Novelty pink and wrapping her in ribbons and glitter would make her cute enough for people to coo over. He could probably talk Novelty into going along with it…

Well. Something to think about if they managed to survive the month.

Fortunately, Novelty got over the incident very quickly and continued her exploration of Zorian’s workshop instead of brooding over the whole event.

Zorian left her to her exploration. He closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and when he opened his eyes again the metal plate in front of him was densely covered in spell formula markings.

They weren’t real, of course. The whole thing was just a mental illusion – a visualization of what the end result would look like based on his plans. Spotting a few possible flaws and failure points, he quickly went through a lengthy series of complicated calculations inside his head, almost instantly calculating problems that would have taken another spell formula crafter an entire afternoon of diligent calculation using pen and paper. The visualization of the end result blurred for a moment and then shifted into a different configuration that took these new calculations into account.

The process repeated itself several times, gradually refining the design. Most other artificers would have to spend a lot of time and mana making test plates and waste hours upon hours every time something had to be recalculated or adjusted, but Zorian’s mental enhancements allowed him to sidestep most of that process.

Of course, all this work wouldn’t even have to be done if it weren’t for the fact that he had lost most of his spell formula blueprints while crossing over into the real world. So much work lost…

Thankfully, spell formulas were one of the fields he was most confident in.

He suddenly realized Novelty was poking a small metal sphere he left on a nearby chair. He pointed his hand towards her, causing invisible waves of telekinetic force to seize her entire body, and then gently but firmly dragged her away from the offending object.

“Don’t touch that,” he told her verbally. “It’s dangerous.”

She gave him an indecipherable look, staring at him quietly for a few seconds.

“What?” he asked her.

[You’re pretty scary,] she told him. [I didn’t even see you cast anything. You just casually pointed at me and I suddenly couldn’t move! And then you just dragged me off like it’s nothing… I thought mages like you needed to mumble and wave when they do their weird human magic?]

“They do. I’m just very, very good at this,” he told her. Though this did remind him that he needed to curb these kinds of moments as much as possible, since this kind of casual use of unstructured magic was not something a teenage mage like him should possess. Holding back for years and years was going to be hard…

[How did you even know what I was doing?] she continued. [Your back was turned! I’m sure of it!]

“This whole room is crisscrossed with a mesh of hair-thin mana threads centered on me,” Zorian told her. “Whenever you pass through them, I can sense it.”

[Like an invisible web?] she asked.

“Yes, exactly,” he agreed. It was a detection trick he had learned at some point in the time loop, inspired by Taiven’s old trick of flooding her surroundings with her mana to detect hidden attacks and enemies. He didn’t have the mana reserves to copy her trick exactly, but he didn’t really have to. Shaping the mana into a mass of threads was much cheaper than simply flooding every nook and cranny with his mana, yet just as effective for his purposes. The only downside was that this kind of ‘detection web’ required insanely good shaping skills to execute, but that was not really something Zorian had trouble with.

[Scary…] she repeated unhappily.

She glanced at the metal sphere she had been poking before he stopped her, and then gave him a speculative look.

[So what’s that thing anyway?] she said, pointing at the small sphere with one of her legs. [You didn’t complain when I was touch– err, I mean looking at the other things in the room, but you immediately reacted now? What is it?]

“It’s a hollow metal sphere holding a pocket dimension inside,” he told her. “It’s supposed to suck in and contain a creature inside. Like a portable prison for powerful monsters.”

[I… don’t understand,] she complained. [That’s meant to capture people? But it’s so small! I’d never fit inside!]

Oh, right… not everyone was familiar with the concept of expanded spaces and pocket dimensions and whatnot.

“It’s bigger on the inside than on the outside. There is an entire room inside that little metal ball. You’d fit in just fine,” he explained.

Novelty was quiet for a second, trying to process this.

[Oh. How weird,] she eventually said. [You shouldn’t leave it lying around like that, then. What if someone stumbles upon it when you’re not around and gets sucked in? They could starve to death before you remember to check inside!]

“Give me some credit. I did put some safeguards on it. It’s just that it’s meant specifically for capturing giant spiders, so I’m not sure if the safeguards would work properly for an aranea like you. I kind of forgot I left it lying around when I let you come today,” Zorian explained.

[Oh. Wait, why are you making tools for capturing giant spiders?] Novelty asked, suddenly sounding concerned.

“It’s a secret,” Zorian said. “It has nothing to do with aranea, though, so you can rest easy.”

Plus, if he wanted to deal with the aranea, he wouldn’t need to resort to such complicated and expensive methods. But he didn’t really say that out loud. Novelty already thought he was scarily powerful, after all, no need to feed her paranoia further.

[I kind of want to get inside now to see what it’s like,] Novelty eventually admitted, staring intently at the sphere.

Zorian snorted at the admission. And here he thought he was scaring the poor thing. Nosy little spider couldn’t resist sticking her legs and fangs absolutely everywhere…

“It’s meant to be a prison, so it’s pretty bare,” Zorian told her. “Wait a few days and I’ll show you something similar on a far larger, more interesting scale. There is an entire palace in there. And Princess. I guess I can introduce you to her at that time.”

[Princess? You know royalty?] Novelty said, sounding very fascinated.

“Princess isn’t really an officially recognized ruler of any place, but she’s very… majestic. Very memorable. I’m sure you’ll be suitably impressed after seeing her,” Zorian said, smiling evilly inside.

[Huh. You know, you’re pretty nice to me,] Novelty remarked.

“Yes, I’m a pretty great guy, aren’t I?” Zorian indulgently agreed.

[Did we know each other? Before, I mean? In the future? Err, I mean… this is so confusing… you know what I mean!] Novelty fumbled, waving her front legs in front of her frustratingly.

Zorian tapped his finger on the table thoughtfully. He never actually told the aranea the fine details about what happened in the time loop, and definitely didn’t mention Novelty, as she wasn’t terribly relevant in the grand scheme of things.

“What gave you that idea?” he asked her.

[It just seems like you know me a little too well,] she said. [It’s true, isn’t it? We totally knew each other in the future you came from, didn’t we?]

“You taught me mind magic a few times,” Zorian admitted.

[I was your teacher?] Novelty said incredulously. If she was human, she would have probably gasped. [But that means… I wasn’t just your friend, I was your senior! You should be paying your respects to me!]

“Keep dreaming,” Zorian said. “It was just a couple of basic lessons, and you’re younger than I am.”

[The matriarch said you don’t even qualify as a real adult in human terms, whereas I already went through the maturation ceremony. So there,] Novelty insisted stubbornly.

She almost immediately drooped down in an exaggerated gesture of defeat, though.

[Though… if I were honest… I kind of want you to be my teacher instead,] she admitted. [I kind of want to try learning human magic, and you’re the only human mage I know, so… you’d be willing to help your future teacher out, wouldn’t you?]

“Sure,” Zorian shrugged. “I already have a huge list of people I need to help out once this is all settled, what’s one more person on the list? You’re going to have to wait for this month to end, though.”

[Yes!] she cheered. [I’ll wait! It’s totally not a problem! Patience is my best feature!]

It took an inhuman amount of self-control for Zorian not to roll his eyes at her.

[What?] she demanded.

“Liar,” he told her flatly.

[How can you talk like that to your teacher?] she complained. [Kids these days, no respect…]

Zorian blocked her out and turned back to the metal plate on the table in front of him.

– break –

In a small but familiar tavern in Cyoria, simulacrum number three sat alone in a corner, curiously studying his surroundings. The insides of the tavern were dark, the air stale, but the place was still familiar to the simulacrum even after all these years. This was the tavern where he used to talk with Haslush Ikzeteri, the detective who taught him divination way back when he had still been a novice mage. Now, he would be meeting his old divination teacher again, this time in the real world.

He was disguised for the occasion. At the moment, the simulacrum looked like an older middle-aged man, with graying hair and a bushy, prominent mustache. A formal brown suit, a weathered wooden cane, and a roll of yesterday’s newspapers completed a picture of a regular, nondescript man that he hoped wouldn’t attract too much attention. However, based on the frequent glances he was getting from other people, he was pretty sure he failed at looking like he belonged here. It was likely that regular visitors to this tavern already knew each other and that a newcomer like him was automatically noteworthy, or maybe he just wasn’t as good at pretending as he thought he was. In any case, it didn’t matter much, since he intended to discard this identity entirely after today’s talk.

The author’s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Eventually a familiar man approached his table. Middle aged, dressed in a cheap, rumpled suit and kind of unkempt, Haslush looked just like he remembered him. He scanned the tavern quickly, his eyes soon falling on the disguised simulacrum. The simulacrum met his gaze, and they stared at each other silently for a second. Haslush had a sleepy, lazy look on his face the whole time as he studied him, but the simulacrum could see a trace of wariness bleed into his posture. The information provided by his empathy and soul perception reinforced this. Eventually, the detective averted his eyes, rubbed his nose for a second, and then casually ambled over to the simulacrum’s table.

“Hi there. Do you mind if I sit here?” Haslush asked in a lazy voice.

“Not at all. After all, I did ask to meet you here,” the simulacrum said.

“Ah, so you were the one that asked to see me,” Haslush said, nodding to himself. He plopped heavily into the chair in front of him, ignoring the ominous creaking of the wood beneath him, and ordered himself a drink. “Why all this cloak and dagger stuff, if I may ask? You didn’t even give me your name in that letter you sent me.”