Mother of Learning. Arc 3 Incomplete

Zorian blinked. Is that why Red Robe hadn’t flooded the whole room in fire to flush him out? Because he thought there might be more time travelers beside him? Huh. In retrospect, that seemed like a reasonable conclusion: the matriarch did claim such to Zach, after all.

Suddenly Red Robe surged forward and snatched him by the shirt. Before Zorian could do much, the other mage slammed him into the rough wall of the aranea cavern several times, causing Zorian to see spots and hover on the edge of unconsciousness. He tried to break free, but he was never particularly gifted in the physical areas and Red Robe’s strength was utterly superhuman and completely out of proportion with his size and build.

«How many others have the aranea brought into the time loop?» Red Robe asked menacingly, dropping all pretenses of politeness and friendliness.

Someone else might have been tempted to try and lie, but Zorian knew it was best to stay quiet. A statement could be divined for hidden meanings and veracity. You could not divine the meaning of silence.

«Oh fine, have it your way,» Red Robe said with a dramatic sigh. «I guess I’ll just have to rip it out of your mind like I did with Zach. Regardless of what those arrogant bugs told you, the aranea aren’t the only ones capable of mind magic.»

Zorian felt the other mage trying to connect with his mind, but he immediately realized the attempt was incredibly crude and simplistic. Zorian was better and he knew it. Not willing to let this mistake on the part of his opponent go to waste, he promptly clamped down on the connection and blew Red Robe’s telepathic attack to bits before counter-invading his mind. Knowing he had no experience with subtle attacks, he simply proceeded to blast the Red Robe’s mind with an undirected telepathic scream. Red Robe flinched back and tried to terminate the connection. When that failed, he reached for his spell rod, but Zorian caused his hand to spasm and it promptly slipped between his fingers and clattered to the floor of the cave.

After several seconds Zorian realized that, while the other mage was no match for him when it came to telepathic combat, he wasn’t defenseless either. He couldn’t overpower Red Robe mentally, and the moment his concentration dropped the other mage was going to sever the connection and beat him to a pulp in the physical world. He tried to commandeer the Red Robe’s limb to release its grip on him so he could flee but the hand remained resolutely wrapped around his neck.

Well fine then. Zorian reached to his belt and retrieved the revolver he had bought from the merchant, emptying the entire wheel into Red Robe at point blank range.

He lost concentration as the gun fired, the bang surprising him with its volume, but as the first two bullets impacted Red Robe’s chest he immediately released Zorian in favor of erecting a hasty shield around himself. The last four bullets splashed uselessly against the plane of force the other mage had managed to raise in front of him, but the damage was already done, as the first two bullets had already struck true, tearing through whatever protections the other mage had on his robe and drawing blood.

Zorian took advantage of the aftermath to flee, hoping that Red Robe’s fresh wounds would inhibit his pursuits. The lack of footsteps following him told him he was correct.

A disintegration beam narrowly missing his head also told him that his opponent wasn’t out of the fight yet.

«You shot me!» the Red Robe’s voice yelled hysterically behind him. «What kind of mage uses a gun!?»

Zorian didn’t grace this with a response and instead opted to keep running. The idea of simply activating his bombs (the only item he bothered to make before coming down here) and killing himself was tempting, but he realized that would be a horrible idea. His opponent was a necromancer — suicide wasn’t going to protect him from Red Robe, not in any way that mattered. It wasn’t like the time loop was going to reset itself when he died — it only did that for Zach.

No, he had to find a way to kill himself in such a way that Red Robe could not recover his body afterwards. After wracking his brains for a second, he accessed the map of the underworld the matriarch had left for him and searched for something… there! That tunnel led to a long vertical shaft that ended in a giant underground lake marked as ‘dangerous’. That probably meant there was something living there, ready to eat anyone who ventured into the waters. His body would likely be eaten long before Red Robe could recover it. He sped off towards his destination.

He narrowly avoided the next two spells, Red Robes constantly on his toes, not nearly as crippled by his wounds as he should have been. He shot him in the chest, for gods’ sake! Twice! What the hell did he do to himself to get that kind of resilience? Some kind of forbidden ritual, maybe?