Mother of Learning. Arc 3 Incomplete

He had spent three of the six restarts learning from the ever-enthusiastic Nora Boole (the other three restarts were spent learning from Haslush) and had gotten skilled enough at spell formula to create a lighter, more inconspicuous version of his explosive suicide switch. It was still a cube, though a much smaller one made of a combination of wood and stone — he made two of them in each restart now and attached them to his key so they would appear as an ornament.

He had also found a mage specializing in mind magic and had him inspect his mind for implanted compulsions and other nasty surprises. Sadly, the man was rather baffled by the memory packet and couldn’t confirm it only contained memories. He did confirm, however, that it was currently dormant, and also that no other magical effect was currently active in his mind. If there was some kind of trap in the memory packet, it had yet to activate.

The seventh restart saw Zach still in class, but he appeared to have finally given up on Zorian as a lost cause. It was time to get down to business.

Chapter 019 Tangled Webs

One thing Zorian found interesting about the restarts was that small, seemingly inconsequential choices exerted incredible influence on what happened in the restart. Conversely, actions that he felt should throw everything out of whack often tended to have muted, or even non-existent effects. Case in point, the last time he had gone into the sewers to meet the matriarch, convincing Ilsa to grant him an access permit to enter the sewers had been trivial. Thus, when Zorian marched into Ilsa’s office a few days after the beginning of classes, after he realized Zach had decided to give up on befriending him in this particular restart, he expected the request to be easily granted.

He was wrong. No matter how much he reasoned and pleaded, Ilsa refused to allow a newly-minted mage like him to risk his life in the underworld. He tried to demonstrate his (at this point rather advanced) combat magic skills, but Ilsa wasn’t interested and simply shooed him out of her office. It took nearly an hour for Zorian to calm down and realize what the difference was.

Last time he came with Kael. A self-taught genius mage who was also a single parent and had probably dealt with danger before in his life. If Kael thought Zorian was ready to go down into the tunnels beneath the city and was willing to accompany him to boot to make sure he was safe, then that was good enough for Ilsa. This time he came alone, though. No Kael, no permit.

Not that Zorian was going to be deterred by such a minor setback, of course. He knew at least one person who already had a permit to go down there and might be persuaded to help him.

«Roach, I hate you. You do know that, right?»

Zorian released a long-suffering sigh, opting to keep an eye on the tunnel in front of him instead of turning around to look at Taiven. He didn’t need to turn around to know she was making faces at him. «No, Taiven, I don’t. After all, you only told me so five times already. Maybe I’ll remember it if you say it a few times more?»

«I just don’t get it,» Taiven complained, ignoring his sarcasm. «You refused to follow me down here when I asked you, saying it’s too dangerous. And then you come back to me a few days later, asking me to take you into the tunnels.»

Yes, and he was very much regretting it. Why couldn’t she have waited by the entrance like he had asked her to? He still didn’t know how he was going to explain aranea to her when they found the damn spiders. Hopefully the aranea would be savvy enough to hide in the shadows while he talked to them telepathically — kind of a hassle, but should be enough to arrange a proper meeting in the future somewhere more accessible.

«I mean, were you trying to piss me off?» Taiven continued, undeterred by his lack of response. «Because I’m feeling pretty angry right now, let me tell you…»

«Taiven, please,»  Zorian pleaded. «I said I was sorry! How many times do I have to apologize? You of all people should understand, considering how many times you pulled stuff like this on me.»

«Not quite like this,» Taiven grumbled. «At least tell me where we’re going.»

«I actually don’t know,» admitted Zorian. He was relying on one of the aranea scouts inadvertently contacting him by trying to read his mind, since he had no real idea where their home territory was. «I’ll know it when I see it, though.»

«Zorian, I swear, if this is your idea of a prank—»

«I’m totally serious,» Zorian assured her. «I’m pretty sure we’re getting close, it shouldn’t take too—»

An alien presence skittered across the surface of his mind, withdrawing immediately when it realized its intrusion was detected. Its telepathic touch wasn’t as subtle as that of the matriarch, but Zorian definitely received an aranea feel from it.

«Wait!» he protested, hoping that the aranea hadn’t physically fled already. «I want to talk to you, aranea! I have important information for your matriarch!»