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 Zach, 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. Zorian’s family was completely untouched, for instance — both of his parents and all of his siblings survived the epidemic completely unscathed, which made them all very, very lucky. Conversely, Zach 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 himself.
«…which is how the whole sad story ends,» finished Zach. «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 Zorian happy for his rudimentary control over his empathy — Zach’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 his normal state.
Just as he was contemplating the best way to go mingle with the other students (hopefully giving him an opportunity to dig for personal information while they chatted), the choice was taken from him. Taiven also wanted to mingle, though her reasons were almost certainly more benign than his own, and she decided that the best way to do that was to have Zorian introduce her. Convenient.
After talking to a couple of people he was reasonably familiar with and knew he could talk to, mostly Kael and Benisek, Zorian 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?» Zorian 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?»
Zorian scanned the crowd again. To be honest, he 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 his way suddenly caught his eye.
«See that group of five girls over there?» he 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 Zorian. «See how they’re glancing in our direction? They’ve already noticed us and are debating how best to approach and interrogate us.»
«Zorian, don’t tempt fate,» Taiven warned him.
«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 Zorian, even as the group of girls he 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 him a quiet groan, but then quickly schooled her face into a pleasant façade as the girls approached. Zorian understood her perfectly — he wasn’t particularly looking forward to the upcoming conversation, but he knew it was coming the moment he had entered the room so he was prepared for it. And, while he didn’t really think any of those 5 was the third time traveler, he had promised to himself he wouldn’t skip over any candidates without giving them at least a cursory scrutiny.
This was going to be a long evening.
True to his prediction, once the introductions were done and the actual dancing had started, Taiven found herself some tall, handsome older student and left him to find someone else on his own. Whatever, he didn’t like dancing anyway. He promptly used his 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 him. He quickly noticed he 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 he doubted she really wanted to be left alone, with a face like that.