Mother of Learning. Arc 3 Incomplete

«Hi, Taiven,» he said blandly. «Fancy seeing you here. I mean, this place is pretty far from your usual haunts. It’s almost as if you decided to track me down to this place…»

«That’s because I did,» Taiven said. «What are you doing on the edge of the city, anyway?»

«I was visiting a temple nearby,» Zorian answered. «Lovely architecture.»

«You, visiting temples?» Taiven scoffed. Zorian said nothing. «Fine, be that way. I won’t pry. In case you’re wondering, I’m here because I asked around to see if I could find a human empath that could help you control your powers.»

«You did?» asked Zorian, suddenly a lot more alert and enthusiastic about this conversation.

Taiven smiled sheepishly. «I kind of did find someone willing to help you, but I’m not sure whether it’s something you’re willing to go for. The woman in question is a healer in one of Cyoria’s big hospitals and she’s only willing to teach you if you agree to an apprentice contract with her and become a full-blown healer.»

Zorian clacked his tongue in disappointment. He did intend to learn the basics of magical healing at some point in the future, but that was a long way off. Learning medicine wasn’t something you do in your spare time and would doubtlessly require him to dedicate most of the restart on mastering that one field. He had too many things on his plate as it was.

«No, that doesn’t work for me at all,» Zorian sighed. «I have nothing against healers but that’s not the career I’m aiming for.»

«Yeah, I kind of figured,» Taiven said. «It really would be kind of a shame to let all that work you sank into spell formulas go to waste. I guess the spiders are still your best bet, huh?»

«Yeah,» agreed Zorian. «Although… to tell the truth, they have been dragging their many feet in regard to teaching me. Maybe if they thought I actually had valid alternatives to their help they’d hurry up a little? What was the healer’s name, anyway?»

Taiven narrowed her eyes. «You’ve been down there alone again?»

Uh oh.

«Maaaaaybe…»

She reached out across the table and cuffed him in the shoulder. It hurt.

«Zorian, you moron,» she complained. «I told you not to do these things alone! Even if you trust the freaky giant spiders that much — and I don’t really think you should — there are other things down there! Not matter how capable you are, it’s always smart to have another set of hands and eyes with you. Unless you think I couldn’t keep up with you?»

«I don’t think that at all,» Zorian said. «I just didn’t want to be a bother and…»

«I already said I don’t mind helping,» Taiven cut him off. «You can’t use that as an excuse.»

«…and the Aranea are kind of prejudiced against non-psychic people,» finished Zorian.

«Non-what?» asked Taiven incredulously.

«Psychic. People who are like me and them. I don’t quite have a comprehensive explanation what being psychic entails, but it seems to be some kind of instinctive affinity for mind magic. That’s where my empathy apparently comes from — the aranea claim it’s a weak form of mind reading, and that I could actually do more once they actually deign to teach me.»

Taiven seemed at a loss for words for a moment.

«You’re reading my mind?» she finally said. «I didn’t give you permission to do that!»

«I’m only getting vague impressions of your emotions, and not even that consistently,» said Zorian with a long suffering sigh. «Besides, that’s why I’m meeting with the aranea — to learn how to not do that unless I want to. How did you think empathy works, anyway?»

«I guess I didn’t,» admitted Taiven. «But we’re getting off track — why does me not being psychic matter to your new spidery friends?»

«How should I know? Prejudices rarely make much sense.»

«Well go ahead and ask them the next time you see them!» Taiven said. «Because if you can’t give me a proper answer the next time I ask, I’m going down there to ask them myself, with or without your permission. It’s total bullshit!»

Aside from his visit to the temple, none of the other future forecasters were in any way helpful to Zorian. A fair number of them didn’t even want to talk to him, and those that did hadn’t made long-term predictions and hadn’t noticed anything strange. Well, one of them did claim to have done so and found nothing of note, but he was an obvious fraud and spent most of the talk trying to get Zorian to part with his money in exchange for a ‘more detailed reading of the future’.

So Zorian turned to the matter of his classmates and the possibility that one of them was the third time traveler. Zorian didn’t think there was much chance of that, but better safe than sorry. Besides, it was a good way to look for clues as far as he was concerned, and he had been thinking of getting to know his classmates better anyway.