Mother of Learning. Arc 3 Incomplete

Tinami narrowed her eyes at him and launched into a series of increasingly esoteric questions about spiders. Since Zorian had spent a great deal of time investigating various spider species as part of his research into aranea, he actually knew how to answer most of her questions. He then tried to turn the tables on her by asking her about magical varieties of larger, more monstrous varieties of spiders, gambling that her interest mainly extended to the smaller, ‘cuddlier’ breeds. He gambled wrong. Not only did she know more about spider monsters than he did, she also knew a great deal about monster species that only looked like a spider (such as various kinds of spider demons), and about monsters with spider-derived traits.

He wondered what would happen if he introduced her to the aranea, and decided he would definitely do so in one of the restarts. It was bound to be amusing, if nothing else.

«I see it didn’t take you long to find a new girl once your lovely date for the evening left you,» Zach said behind him, causing him to jerk in surprise. He glared at the boy in response, wondering why he didn’t sense him coming — he usually always… oh, right, he’d shut off his mind for the evening so the combined feelings of the throng wouldn’t overwhelm him. The fact he managed to keep it closed with no conscious effort while being absorbed into his conversation with Tinami was an encouraging sign for his developing mental abilities.

«Why are you here, Zach?» Zorian sighed.

«I’m the host,» Zach said. «It’s my job to check up on the guests and see if they’re having any issues with the service and what not. Though in this case I just wondered if you wanted to see the fireworks or not.»

Oh yes, Zorian definitely wanted to see the fireworks and immediately said so. Thus, he and Tinami joined a sizeable group of people in the garden where they would have an unobstructed view of the sky. Zorian paid more attention to Zach than to the sky, though. If the matriarch’s plan went along as planned, Zach was bound to have an interesting reaction.

Zorian had shied away from acting against the invaders, and not just because he was too weak to contribute much. The fact was that trying to sabotage the invasion was bound to get the attention of the third time traveler leading it, and Zorian didn’t want to advertise his existence. So instead, he limited himself to gathering information about the invaders and waiting until he was strong enough to survive hostile attention. The aranea had no intention of doing the same, however — the invasion forces seemed to spend most of the month leading up to the invasion wiping out the aranea as a coherent force, and the matriarch had no intention of sitting on critical information for the sake of deception. Fortunately, there was no way for the invasion leaders to connect the aranea to Zorian, and the matriarch agreed with him that he shouldn’t get involved, arguing that he was far too useful as a scout and memory carrier to risk revealing himself recklessly.

So three days ago, he and the matriarch sat down to discuss a plan of action. Zorian had observed the progress of the invasion from various points in the city during the last few restarts, and he was convinced that the best and easiest way of derailing the invasion was to prevent the initial artillery barrage that preceded the invasion proper. This was especially true because he knew exactly where they were firing from — triangulating the location of their firing positions was absolutely trivial when you were tracking a brightly shining projectile moving relatively slowly across the sky. Unfortunately, he never managed to get close to one of those firing points to see what kind of defenses they had, since he was killed both times he attempted the feat. The matriarch agreed that assaulting those positions before they could fire was likely to be the best way to strike a critical blow to the invaders, and the plan was put in motion.

The fireworks started… and not a single artillery spell accompanied them. The look of increasing bafflement on Zach’s face was priceless.

«What’s wrong, Zach?» Zorian asked innocently. «You act like you’ve never seen fireworks before.»

«Err, no, I mean I did, it’s just… never mind,» Zach sighed.

Zorian shrugged and turned to Tinami, offering her a hand. «What do you think of going back inside for another dance?»

«Um, yes!» she agreed enthusiastically. «Let’s!»

Slowly, the people got tired of exploding lights in the sky and streamed back inside, leaving a frowning Zach staring alone at the sky.