«You’re serious,» Ibery half asked, half stated.
«It’s what they said,» Zorian 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 — Zorian didn’t know that and would have had to make something up. He 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. Zorian allowed it, not interested in pushing the issue. He had no idea if this exchange was going to have any sort of meaningful effect on the restart, but it cost him nothing to try and start the rumor mill a little early.
The first domino was set.
Much like the last time Zorian 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, Zorian was now in possession of a warding necklace that he had made while waiting for the departure time in Cirin, so keeping the rain barrier up around the group didn’t strain his mana reserves in the slightest. Consequently, he 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. Zorian gave him directions to Imaya’s place and told him to drop by when he had the time. He was pretty sure Imaya wouldn’t mind in the slightest and, while Zorian himself didn’t care much for the boy, he 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, she didn’t even protest much when Zorian insisted he had something important to take care of and went out into the rain again.
The important thing he had to do was speaking to the aranea to give them back their memories, but this time he 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 Zorian’s possession, so he didn’t have to descend into the sewers every time he 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,] Zorian sent to the matriarch, putting as much of his annoyance and crankiness as he could manage into the message. He still wasn’t very good at attaching emotions and images to his communication, but he was confident she would get the general picture of what he 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,] Zorian agreed.
[I assume you can make long-lasting versions?]
[Yes, of course,] Zorian said.
[Could other artificers duplicate your work?] she asked. [Or is this something you came up with yourself?]
Zorian frowned. Why would she need other artificers when she had him? Did she plan to ditch him after they left the time loop or something?
[It’s something I came up with,] Zorian said. [Other artificers would have to design a blueprint first. That could take a while.]
True, but misleading. He did design the relays on his own, basically from scratch, but it honestly hadn’t been that difficult. He 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. She could figure out that little detail on her own as far as he was concerned.
[I see,] she 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.]
Zorian rolled his eyes. As if there was any doubt. Apparently having gotten what she contacted him for, the matriarch cut the connection and left him alone in his bed again. Well, alone in his head at least — Kirielle was very much in the room with him, a fact she immediately reminded him of by taking advantage of his momentary distraction to appropriate the last bit of bed covering he had managed to keep away from her thus far. He gave her a nasty look for that, but she just snuggled deeper into her cocoon of stolen blankets, blissfully unaware of his ire in her realm of dreams.
He sighed. There was no way he was going to be able to go back to sleep now. He quickly cast a silencing ward on the room and then slowly extricated himself from the bed, taking care not to wake up Kirielle. She was annoying, yes, but it wasn’t her fault his sleep was ruined.
‘Note to self: the next generation relay needs an off button.’
After surprising Imaya by already being awake when she woke up, Zorian went out into the city to hit the stores. The plan he and the matriarch hashed out last restart involved creation of a lot of magic items on his part, and that meant buying material components and specialist tools. Not to mention that there were a few things he had to buy if he wanted to seriously start teaching Kirielle how to be a mage.
He really hoped Kirielle charmed Kana in this restart like she had the last time around — while Zorian himself was decently skilled in alchemy and could manage on his own if he had to, Kael’s help would be invaluable in some of the projects he had planned for this restart…
«Zorian! Over here!»
Zorian snapped out of his thoughts and quickly made way towards the person calling him. Benisek was exactly the person he was looking for. He quickly sat down next to the chubby boy and exchanged a bunch of pleasantries before getting to the reason he had tracked the boy down today.
«Ben, my friend, you won’t believe what I found out during our school break,» Zorian 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…» Zorian 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 he 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, Zorian. I would never betray your trust like that.»
Zorian 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, Zorian went back to Imaya’s place to wait for Taiven and her offer of joining the sewer run. He amused himself by creating one of those practice cards that Xvim had him hone his shaping skills on. He had planned to simply buy a stack of them from one of the stores he visited this morning, but they were a lot more expensive than he had figured they would be — his respect for Xvim rose slightly when he realized how much money Xvim effectively spent on his training during that restart. Zorian’s list of complaints about the man was several pages long, but it seemed that being cheap wasn’t among them.