Chapter 4: Mapping the Building

As chaos erupted through the room, Suria knew she couldn’t defend herself; she only tried to understand. The first spell had been the strange snaking darkness, but it was joined soon after by the spiraling destruction she remembered. Yet no professor had emerged to confront her, not like before. Had the person responsible for the time spell retained their memories and changed things? Or-

Flames tore through Suria’s stomach and she collapsed to the floor. There was no pain at first, but as she saw the hole that had been burned through her, the agony blazed across her body. The first time, she had died so quickly she barely felt anything, but this was torture. She had managed to keep quiet for so long but now she writhed and groaned.

Gripping her talisman to cast pain relief on herself helped, barely. Suria was still in too much pain to analyze the battle, but there was definitely no sign of the professor who had confronted her earlier. It seemed like the others were dying as well, as defenseless as she was. Suria barely had time to realize that her life might just end like this…

And then she was back in her chair. The stomach that had been burned away flipped. The tapestry clattered to the floor.

All Suria wanted to do was lie down and cry, but she forced herself to her feet and rushed out of the room, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. Behind her, she heard Lirngelf let out a shout and begin smashing his forehead into the table, but she ignored him. Maut-mai seemed as unaffected as before, just staring like the two of them were lunatics.

As soon as she stepped out of the room, Suria sprinted to the western entrance, since that was the closest one. She seized the door’s handle… and found it locked, wards already active. All at once her energy left her and she slumped against it with a groan.

Suria shuffled over to the hallway and stared out the window, which mocked her with the view of the university she would never attend. She considered finding something heavy to try to smash it, but was certain that it would be wasting her efforts. They were bound in by magic, and she’d already seen that brute force wouldn’t do any good.

For a time she just leaned against the window, the glass cold against her forehead. She couldn’t deny that there was time magic now, and it seemed more like she was trapped in a loop. That was madness: not just forbidden magic, it was the sort of thing written about in legends of the past. It seemed that, by some accident, she had become entangled in events far bigger than herself.

But what exactly was happening? The most likely hypothesis was that the professors of Darkmoon University were engaged in some sort of battle – against one another or some outside force, she couldn’t be sure. She and the others were just collateral damage, incidentally caught in the loop.

Or at least something that appeared to be a loop. Two repetitions was no guarantee there would be a third, especially if there were other people making changes. Suria took a deep breath and resolved to keep on her current path: what she needed now was information.

First, she checked the sun and began tracking time more carefully. Second, she pulled out her talismans and her wedge to test a simple theory: her body didn’t feel charged anymore but she confirmed that she could no longer make seven runes. So there was no chance of taking Maut-mai’s potion over and over again, increasing her capacity up to ludicrous levels. That would have been too easy, she thought bitterly.

“Okay,” Suria said out loud to herself. “Think.”

They were all trapped inside this building, so it was essential to determine what exactly it contained. Based on what she had seen, Convocation Hall was a single tall floor for the sake of the cavernous ceilings, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a basement. Most of the rooms were locked, though she felt confident that most of them were empty.

One possible plan would have been to explore the eastern side, where she hadn’t spent much time, but Suria realized that she probably had a more direct method: she should talk to the guard. She hadn’t even learned his name, but he hadn’t been as rude as he seemed at first. Random wandering wasn’t very effective, so she should learn more from him first.

On her way back, at a reasonable pace this time, Suria considered her alternative plans. The battle between the professors seemed to be centered around the front of the building, so if she didn’t find a way out, she should at least make some distance and see if she could survive.

Just so she wouldn’t be taken off guard, Suria first headed back to the waiting room. There was no sign of Lirngelf and Maut-mai sat alone looking discomforted. She was paying almost no attention to her bag and Suria wondered how easy it would be to reach in and take the potion… but couldn’t bring herself to do it. If she failed the attempt it would put her in an awkward situation she might not be able to talk her way out of and there was no guarantee the battle or the loop would prevent consequences.

Maut-mai rose to her feet, so abruptly that Suria flinched as if she’d been discovered, but the other woman only marched out into the hallway to talk to the guard. Apparently that was her decision whenever she got frustrated. Suria lingered at the edge of her hearing range, listening to Maut-mai berate the poor man.

By the time she left, Suria understood the situation better: the beleaguered guard had been harassed by countless students and was already short on patience when Suria showed up. She had been considering him cruel when she hadn’t known him at all. After taking a moment to refocus, Suria approached and did her best to give a real smile.

“I’m sorry if I was short with you earlier,” Suria told him. “This is my first time here and I was just confused.”

The guard stared at her as if this was the last thing he expected to hear, then cracked a smile that transformed his face. “No problem,” he said. “I was a bit rude myself. Lots of students think I’m some sort of servant.”

“Well, I’m just waiting now, so…” Suria gave him a little bow. “I’m Suria Northbrook.”

“I’m Rije Gadreel,” he answered, mirroring her bow. “If you’re trying to network, I’m afraid I have to tell you that I’m nobody important.”

“I don’t even know what networking is,” Suria told him honestly. “If my name didn’t make it obvious, I’m from the middle of nowhere. And you’re not nobody – you have to be a mage to work here, right?”

“Barely.” Rije waved the suggestion aside modestly. “I studied Enchantment, Transmutation, and Evocation for… wait, do you know the departments?”

“A little.” She knew that Darkmoon University divided magic into eight major fields of study, but wasn’t clear on the details. Those didn’t matter so much as keeping Rije talking. “So you were a student?”

“Kind of. They decided I didn’t have much potential, and I never managed to earn a seal in any of those departments, so I ended up here. Not a mage at all by most standards.”

Such standards were absurdly far beyond hers. He spoke about earning a ranked seal as if it was nothing, but in Suria’s world that was the mark of an accomplished mage who could easily become wealthy. The strongest person she knew, her old instructor, was a three seal mage. She didn’t even want to know how many seals the professors here had.

“So are you just here to answer student questions?” Suria asked.

“Well, and keep order.” Rije shrugged. “I’ll help out if anyone gives Shuguja trouble. She’s the proctor back in the office.”

“Do you guard the professors as well?”

Rije barked a laugh. “That’d be like a dog guarding a dragon.”

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“Oh, I see. I thought you might be here because they were having a meeting.”

“Are they?” Rije’s laughter faded and he eyed her carefully.

Suria pretended to blink in puzzlement. “I mean, aren’t the professors having meetings now? Isn’t that what they do before the term starts?”

She managed to deflect his suspicion, but the conversation shifted at that point: she had brought up the topic too clumsily and he was never at ease again. Despite the way Shuguja treated him as a brute, Suria thought that Rije was actually quite clever. Even if he didn’t have the book learning or raw power to earn seals, he couldn’t have studied three different fields here if he didn’t have some ability.