Chương 36: Chapter 32: Details of the First Hour

Quiet waiting room. Tapestry clattering. Back at the start of the loop again. This time Suria didn't cry out, just twitched a little as she adjusted to being seated in her chair. She remembered plummeting toward the ground... had the loop ended before she hit, or had she died so immediately that she returned to the start without feeling anything? In any case, she had an entire new loop ahead and this time she should have her feet under her.

As she dug out her talismans and recreated her spells properly, Suria shot a glance at Maut-mai. The other woman was back to herself again, without any trace of the friend or the enemy she had been. Was there a hint of nervousness and indecision on her face, or was Suria reading in what she knew from the future? The more proximal question was how she was going to deal with other loopers, who would presumably come straight for her location.

Suria considered the problem as she absentmindedly took Lirngelf's potion and headed toward the western door. There were a lot of things she could only accomplish during this first hour of the loop, from investigating the building to saving Rije's life, but with other loopers involved it was difficult to predict how events would play out. When she reached the door, Suria also reached her decision. She drank the potion to temporarily boost her runic capacity, then added an explosive augment to her flame spell.

Just slipping out the door silently had still led to deaths, so perhaps she should go in the other direction. Suria unlocked the door in order to disable the wards, but then backed up and cast the most powerful explosive burst she could. The door broke off its hinges and a huge part of the floor and path outside were blasted, plus the sound was surprisingly loud. Before anyone could arrive, Suria rushed into the tangled side passages and listened carefully.

She didn't have to wait long to hear Rije's armored boots rushing in, then he cursed under his breath. To be extra cautious, Suria waited until she heard Maut-mai following him and complaining before she emerged herself.

"What's happening?" Suria asked, looking around in feigned confusion. She wasn't sure that she was a good actor, but everyone was thoroughly distracted by the fact that a door had exploded.

"I'm not sure," Rije said with the briefest glance at her, "but a spell hit this door, and it somehow activated the wards on the whole building."

"What are you talking about?" Maut-mai demanded.

"Someone attacked us and you're muttering about wards?"

"No, I'm not sure that's right..."

"Just what is going on?" Shuguja entered the corridor as well, hands on her hips, and derailed the conversation again. Suria went silent, looking over everyone involved and trying to decide her best route from here. The problem was that Rije was too dedicated to guarding the building and the people within it...

"How are we supposed to study here if we're under threat?" Maut-mai was asking. Suria moved beside her and nodded.

"Shouldn't we get to safety?" she suggested.

"The attack happened when no one was here, so if you accompany us, we should be safe."

"Absurd," Shuguja spat.

"Your job is to protect Convocation Hall, guardsman. The attacker could be anywhere inside!" Even as multiple people shouted at him, Rije was kneeling down and examining the threshold. His fingers traced the blast damage and he spoke quietly.

"No, they went out," he said.

"Look, the most intense damage is on the inside, so the fire burned there before the door broke open. I just don't know why anyone would need to break out..."

"It could be a trick!" Shuguja insisted.

"Someone blew up the door to distract you, then they'll attack as soon as you're gone!" Rije didn't grace this with a response and Suria tried not to look awkward, since that was uncomfortably close to the truth. She hadn't considered that the blast damage would reveal that information, and in fact she'd hoped that it would look like the door blew up on its own. Perhaps she could fake that in the future if she took some more artificing or warding classes.

Unfortunately, despite Suria's best efforts and even with Maut-mai demanding an escort, Rije didn't seem inclined to leave. In fact, based on the way he and Shuguja were arguing, his plan might be to keep everyone in the building. Suria couldn't help but glance toward the basement.

"Everything alright here?" The unexpected voice proved to be Wynchard, jogging up to the blasted door with his hair shining.

"What happened?"

"That's what I'm trying to investigate," Rije told him.

"There might be someone dangerous around campus - did you see anyone?"

"Nobody, but I just got here," Wynchard said, without even a glance toward Suria.

"Any way I can help?"

"These two students need an escort, just in case there's someone lurking around. Can you go with them?"

"Sure, of course." Wynchard flashed them both a bright smile and waved.

"Come on, you don't need to worry about anything." As they headed north, Suria followed the others and looked back over her shoulder at Rije, who was still conducting his doomed investigation. No matter what she did, she couldn't seem to get him away from the building. She wanted to see what happened at the exact moment, but there was still a major risk tied to that, and in the short term she needed to deal with Wynchard.

"This means I'm never getting my questions answered," Maut-mai said with a pout.

"This is entirely unacceptable."

"What did you need?" Wynchard asked.

"Oh, I just had some questions about the Water Society. I was supposed to be accepted for membership, but they were very short on details, and when I arrived no one came to greet me."

"I heard they rejected all applications," Suria said, following a wild inspiration.

"They're just going to have some kind of gathering on the opening night and choose people from there."

"What?" Maut-mai stared at her as if this was a tragedy, then pivoted to Wynchard.

"Is this true?"

"I don't keep up with the Water Society," he said uncomfortably, "but it's true they're on the decline recently. The Earth Society is stronger these days. I heard the Metal and Wood factions finally came to terms, so they're growing."

"Really? Well then, escort me over there." They pivoted slightly to the west and the massive Earth Society Building. Suria wondered if that was actually true, since she hadn't explored much about the mage societies. She would have suspected that Wynchard was just dumping her in the nearest building, except he had seemed so awkward after her lie about the Water Society she doubted he would just add another lie.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Misdirecting like that felt wildly reckless, but Suria was curious what would happen if Maut-mai didn't join the Water Society. That was assuming that her nudge was effective, since it was possible that Maut-mai would double-check and turn on her. Hopefully the fact that Suria had spoken accurately about the gathering would lead Maut-mai to draw the wrong conclusions.

All of this felt a bit unnecessarily underhanded, but it was too late to change her decisions now. They left Maut-mai in the Earth Society Building and then headed east to the field of arches, where Wynchard began frowning at her.

"Just what are you doing?" he asked.

"Being in the Water Society wasn't good for her," Suria explained.

"It's not going to matter in less than a month."

"I still hope it helped her. So why are you here?"

"Well, to be honest I was hoping to explore Convocation Hall." Wynchard glanced back to it and winced as he saw the growing cluster of staff.

"That's fine, we'll have another chance. But there's something I need to warn you about: I don't think the necromancer is one of us, but I do think they know that there's a time loop."

"What?" Suria drew closer and lowered her voice.

"How do you know?"

"This will take a while, but I guess we have nothing but time. In previous loops, there was someone looking around corpses, I could just never catch them at it."

"What corpses are we talking about?"

"Oh, the dead guard, or loopers who died temporarily," Wynchard said with a vague wave northward.

"They get put in a cemetery in the forest. The thing is, the corpses weren't disturbed, there was just a trace of fell magic. It could have been one of us, or someone outside the loop paying attention. So last time, I stayed around the cemetery... no one did anything. Then I spread rumors that I had left Darmkael permanently, and sure enough, when I came back secretly, there had been necromancy again."

"I understand the plan," Suria said, "but couldn't it just be that the necromancer waited until they saw you leave?"

"If they were that much stronger than me, why wouldn't they just act directly? Unless they're outside the loop and don't have a soul-killing spell... no, this is getting off track. A serious necromancer probably can kill the soul. But my best guess is that one of us knows something about the necromancer and is intentionally tipping them off in order to manipulate them."

"Thank you for warning me, but I don't know what I can do. I don't know many of you very well."

"Just be cautious and tell me if anything strange happens." Wynchard put a hand on her shoulder.

"You're one of the few people I can be certain about, because there was necromancy before you got out of the hall the first time. But the Akrashic group is huge, and I don't know the Endelythan loopers very well... I'm not going to go around throwing accusations, just keep your eyes open."

"I'll try." Suria trailed off after that, unsure what to say about this necromancer hunt. If there was actually a powerful mage trying to attack them, she wasn't sure how much she would be able to do. It was true that she didn't know the other loopers very well, including Wynchard. The silence stretched awkwardly between them as they watched the confusion around Convocation Hall. She wasn't actually sure why Wynchard was still with her at all, actually.

It was possible that he hoped to get inside, or that he had lied about trusting her and wanted to keep her in his sights.

"Do you have any suggestions for combat classes?" Suria eventually asked.

"I'm trying to become a competent combat mage, but there's so much to learn, and so many choices..."

"I heard that you cleared out the weevil infestation," Wynchard said with an approving nod.

"That's a good starting challenge. What kinds of spells did you use?"

"Well, I started out trying fire and then switched to force."

"Usually you want to specialize. Me? I'm definitely fire." Wynchard raised a hand and casually created a burning orb much stronger than anything she could cast before closing it in his fist.

"You don't strike me as fire or force, really. You've never felt called to a specific element?"

"Uh..." Suria tried to consider all her memories. Fire had come easily to her, but she wouldn't say that she felt any particular bond to it.

"I'm not sure."

"Then you probably just haven't found your element yet. You know, you might want to take a class called Practical Elemental Enchanting. It's taught by Professor Eortrax... don't be intimidated by him, he's not as scary as he looks. I already knew that I wanted to specialize in fire, but he helped me find exactly the right spells." Professor Eortrax hadn't been one of the people in the basement, but he was still one of the most important mages in the university and Suria didn't have any experience with him.

If he could really help her find the right element for her, maybe that would be a good step forward. Just when the atmosphere became more relaxed between them, it was ruined by a new arrival: Adwyrma was sprinting across the moor in their direction, already glaring. There was some sort of enchantment in her movements, making her spring forward with each step. She skidded to a halt beside them and Suria realized that she was the target of the other woman's anger.

"What's this nonsense?" Adwyrma demanded, thrusting a hand toward the confusion around the entrance.

"I tried to blow my way out," Suria answered.

"It got complicated."

"Oh really? Because it seems like a good way to prevent anyone from getting a good look inside."

"I'm telling you, I wasn't able to learn very much there. And pretty soon spells will start flying, so shouldn't we be staying away?"

"We can plan to enter on a later loop," Wynchard said firmly, which set off a stare-down with Adwyrma. The two of them almost looked like they would begin casting and Suria went still, trying to come up with a plan if they actually fought. Some of the older students seemed to have been social butterflies during their time at Darkmoon, but Wynchard and Adwyrma had ranked seals, so they were probably much stronger than Suria could manage.

Even if she escaped, their fight would attract more attention, which could be even worse. That fact might be what restrained them, because she saw real anger in their eyes. They waited as an awkward trio, and after a while Wynchard repeated some of his warnings about the necromancer. As far as Suria was concerned, Adwyrma could be a candidate, as she certainly had the malice for it.

For some reason, perhaps because they'd fought, Wynchard apparently presumed she wasn't the necromancer, and Adwyrma seemed to take the warning seriously. As time drained away, Suria realized that they were waiting for things to go wrong. Part of her wanted to run out to drag Rije away before it could start, but she knew that would probably just get her killed. Then she felt a shudder of powerful magic, absorbed within the wards, and knew that the professors had begun fighting.

From the outside, when there weren't deadly spells flying around her, the battle didn't last as long as she remembered. She could mostly tell that it was happening because all the staff members around the entrance began panicking - she saw Rije once, pushing some of them out of the building, before he went back in to carry someone else. Finally it arrived: she felt the wave of gray death as it made the wards tremble.

This time, the feeling in the pit of her stomach reminded her even more of how she felt whenever the loop reset. It might be more than a spell that killed her: the gray wall might be related to the time loop itself, though she didn't understand how. Then again, Wynchard and Adwyrma were watching without any sign they felt anything, so it was possible that she was just imagining all of it.

"That's the deadly moment," Wynchard said.

"Anyone who got close then has died."

"And going in after is pointless," Adwyrma spat, "even if you break through. How convenient." Suria couldn't bring herself to care about this, not when she saw that Rije was lying on the grass with other staff clustered around him. Before she made a conscious decision she ran toward him as fast as she was able, searching desperately in her satchel for her healing spells. The mages she could see looked shaken and weren't doing anything to try to help.

When she arrived, for a moment she felt a surge of hope: Rije's body was horribly burned, but his chest heaved and there was an eye moving in his scorched face that focused on her. But when she knelt down and started casting her flesh healing spell, it was like dripping water into a bonfire. This was utterly beyond her ability to heal and he slipped away from her before she could even try to cast a second spell.

There had to be a way to save Rije: she would get him out of the building, or become strong enough to heal him, or find some other solution. All of that seemed as impossible to her as fighting the professors on her own.

"There's nothing you can do, girl," one of the staff said, pulling her away.

"Keep your distance. We have to investigate." No one there was particularly kind to her, but at least they didn't seem suspicious: she was just a random student who ran in and tried to help, as far as they were concerned. Suria still lingered anxiously, wracking her brain for possibilities, until she started to attract more attention. The staff would begin covering up the incident soon enough, so she probably shouldn't test their patience. Instead Suria walked away, thinking about what little she could do.

Clearly, she was a long way from fighting any of these threats, saving Rije, or uncovering the truth beneath it all. At the moment, she didn't see anything she could do to solve those problems. But there was one thing she could do: buy an hourglass and conduct an experiment.