Mother of Learning. Arc 3 Incomplete

But something was wrong, the sedatives didn’t seem to have any effect on the robed man and many spells also failed to have any effect. Even stricken immobile, the man somehow managed to defend himself effectively, exploiting any openings to fire off strange purple beams that slew anyone they hit instantly. They were slow to cast and only targeted single opponents, so their losses were light, but it was still frustrating. Finally, one of the purple beams hit one of the human mercenaries and his companions lost their nerve, responding with a barrage of glowing lances that tore straight through the robed man’s shield and impacted his chest.

For a moment, the matriarch was afraid that they had killed the man, making all her preparations and plotting meaningless… but the reality turned out to be far worse than that. Instead of erupting into a shower of blood and gore, the robed man simply… turned into smoke.

The opponent they had been fighting hadn’t been the third time traveler in person. It had been merely an ectoplasmic shell infused with some of his skill and magic. A simulacrum, meant to test the waters and distract them.

A cone of purple light washed over the room, instantly slaying all of the human mercenaries and scores of her loyal aranea. Damnation — their opponent had taken advantage of the distraction their simulacrum had provided and set up an ambush of his own. She turned to sound a retreat to-

Zorian jolted awake from his trance as his connection to the matriarch had been violently severed at the end. Watching the events unfold from her perspective had been strange and mildly unpleasant, and Zorian would have to talk to the matriarch later about doing stuff like that without asking for permission, but considering the sudden end of the transmission? The matriarch was probably dead. And the rest of the aranea would probably soon be as well.

They failed. All that preparation and they had still failed. Damn it.

«Zorian?» a raspy voice from the floor near him broke him out of his thoughts. It was Zach, who was apparently conscious again, a heavy bandage wrapped around his head. «You with us again? You kind of drifted off for a while.»

«Yeah,» Zorian breathed out. «I’m… fine.»

«They say you killed the lich,» Zach said, pointing weakly towards a pile of black bones some distance away from them. A couple of braver students were clustered around the fallen body of the lich, whispering and pointing. «How the hell did you manage to do that?»

«I severed the connection between his soul and his physical vessel, thereby causing it to snap back into his phylactery. He’s not really dead, just banished.»

«Oh,» Zach said. «Still, that’s… I never managed to do anything even close to that. How… how is it that you knew how to do that? You… are you…»

«I need to go,» said Zorian, rising to his feet.

«Hey wait!» Zach said, trying to rise up before wincing in pain and giving up on that idea. «You can’t just ignore me and go- Zorian! Zorian!»

Zorian ignored Zach, as well as Akoja’s questions about where he was going. He just continued towards the exit, mentally plotting the path to the nearest sewer entrance. Nobody moved to stop him.

«Zorian, you ass! I swear I’m going to punch you in the face the next time I see you!» Zach shouted behind him.

«Sorry, Zach,» Zorian whispered to himself. «But this takes precedence.»

By the time Zorian had arrived to the aranean settlement, the whole place was dead, and Red Robe had moved on somewhere. Probably to hunt down any fleeing aranea that had scattered into the city — Zorian knew that a number of aranea were above ground at the time the ambush had been taking place. Whatever the reason, Zorian thanked his good fortune and started examining the place for additional clues about what had happened and for any surviving male aranea.

The fight had been fierce, but Zorian couldn’t help but notice that most of the damage to the settlement had been inflicted by the aranea themselves, as they futilely tried to halt Red Robe’s advance through the use of the spell cubes he had gifted them and their own traps. Red Robe killed incredibly cleanly, leaving no mark of damage on the bodies of the fallen — it was those strange purple spells obviously, but why was he taking such pains to kill all the aranea so bloodlessly when he could just chuck a fireball and fry the lot of them?

He was thorough, though. Zorian didn’t know whether the man was unaware that the aranea males were not intelligent or simply didn’t care, but quite a lot of males ran afoul of his desire to kill as many aranea as possible. This thoroughness was another strange thing — the man hadn’t seemed hysterical or furious back in the dance hall, so why was he so insistent on getting every last aranea before the time loop was done? He even wiped out the children’s crèche, for gods’ sake! Yes, obviously killing them all would ensure that he got any time travelers amongst them for sure, but still — they would all be back in the next restart anyway.