Chương 38: Chapter 34: Testing Loopers

For a moment they just stared at one another, Suria ready to cast spells and the other woman apparently cheerful. She was still wearing her bright pink dress and an innocuous expression, and Suria noticed that she wasn't even slightly wet. There was only one way to interpret the statement, so she carefully checked the area around them to make sure they weren't being watched.

"What would have happened if I'd opened it?" Suria asked.

"Don't you want to find out?" Xuhriha asked back.

"No." Suria shoved the handbag back to her and took a step back.

"You intentionally showed me the combination before to see if I would use it now... as a test?"

"Mostly I just wanted to see what you would do. You sure you aren't curious? I wouldn't have blamed you just for looking inside - there's nothing wrong with being curious!"

"I'd be more concerned about it exploding."

"I guess I was being pretty blunt just forcing it into your hands." Xuhriha tapped her lips with a frown.

"Clumsy of me, but I was getting sooo impatient. I tried to bait you three different times last loop and you actually didn't notice me the first two times. You're... very focused." As much as Suria didn't want to believe she could have looked straight past this woman, it wasn't hard to imagine herself being too focused on her work or her plans. She'd improved her perception magic, but probably not her actual perception, at least outside of combat situations.

The bigger problem was that, though Xuhriha didn't seem obviously malevolent, her purpose remained unclear.

"So why hide yourself?" Suria asked.

"And why reveal yourself now?"

"If we're going to talk, standing around here would look suspicious," Xuhriha said.

"Do you want to walk to the Wyvernry? I like it out there. Always helps me think." Suria glanced back toward campus, considering the potential threat. There were so few people around at the moment that their present location wasn't much safer - if she wanted others for security, she would have to demand they move closer to the center. Then again, if they were going to discuss the time loop, being around other people would actually increase the threat to both of them.

Threat aside, if she left, Kiznua might return to find her gone and assume the worst. Suria decided that it was more important to be on good terms with another looper, since Kiznua would forget and Suria could always set up these events again. She had been considering meeting Kiznua earlier in the supply tunnels, anyway.

"Alright, we can walk there," Suria agreed.

"Lovely!" Xuhriha spun on her heel and began moving north, with no apparent concern about showing Suria her back.

"You haven't answered my questions yet," Suria said as she hastened to catch up.

"I hid myself because the others seem untrustworthy to me, and talked to you because you seem nice." Xuhriha looked back over her shoulder and her expression was somber for once.

"But I'm not trying to withhold information. Let me tell you something that no one else knows: on the second loop, Adwyrma killed several of us. Not permanently, but she tried."

"When, who, and how?"

"We were all just realizing that we were in a time loop and frankly it was a mess. I was so disoriented, I wasn't sure what to do. But I saw Adwyrma hunt down and kill several of the others, cutting their throats from behind. She's lucky that she did it without being seen, because they didn't stay dead... or maybe that was why she attacked from behind in the first place." Suria shivered at the thought.

She tried to keep in mind that it was possible that Xuhriha was lying to her, but it was all too easy to imagine that Adwyrma would do something like that.

"I guess that doesn't answer the 'how?', does it?" Xuhriha tapped her cheek as she remembered.

"She opened a cut on her hand and her blood sort of... flowed into a sword. I'm not sure what it was, but the sword she made cut through a mana barrier. Is that a special magic from the Shantic States? Adwyrma is from there, right?"

"She looks Shantic," Suria answered, "but I can't be sure. There are dozens of Shantic kingdoms and they all have their hidden spells and ancient bloodlines."

"I think I understand that a little. Vedraz is the same way. Well, more unified, but we have the same legacies." The two of them had been walking slowly across the moor, getting further from the main campus. With the forest on one side and the lake on the other, it was easy to feel like they were the only ones in the world. Yet Suria was beginning to feel more comfortable with Xuhriha, despite how they'd met, and decided to press to learn more.

"How did you see all this without being noticed?" Suria asked.

"I can be very sneaky when I want to," Xuhriha said with a giggle.

"The first time was just luck, but after that I was specifically tracking Adwyrma. Anyway, I hope that explains why I'm cautious about other loopers. Fortunately, if you do enough random silly things with no purpose, they start writing you off when you do real things. It's actually surprisingly easy to pull off, like people in the loop don't think anyone else is real."

"I don't think everyone is like that."

"I mean, obviously there are different sorts of people, but..." Xuhriha spun so she was facing Suria while walking backwards.

"Think about Wynchard. He seems nice enough, but if he ever decided that the right thing to do involved killing you, do you think that would stop him?" Despite herself, Suria grimaced at the idea. Wynchard was definitely driven and believed that the time loop existed for a purpose; so far he had been helpful and Suria wasn't going to write him off, but she could easily imagine how dangerous he would be if he believed someone stood in the way of his purpose.

"It isn't like I haven't tested others," Xuhriha said, spinning back around.

"Do you know Jesper?"

"Vaguely," Suria said, trying to think back to her first introductions. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"He's one of the Akrashic group. Anyway, he spent about four different cycles trying to sleep with me, attempting different opening lines, asking about my favorite things, generally trying to set everything up. He was weird, so I'm not sure it would have worked even if I wasn't in the loop, but you can imagine how it didn't make me particularly inclined to trust anyone." The idea gave Suria an unpleasant feeling in her stomach, but all she said was, "Well, I'm not going to try to sleep with you."

Xuhriha laughed freely.

"Are you sure? Are you the one I really need to be worried about?" Their conversation had brought them to the northern side of the moor and Suria could see the Wyvernry properly now. Its strange shape was due to various parts of the building designed for specific purposes, from a tower like a giant bird cage to an enclosed garden to iron pens filled with arcane beasts. At another time Suria might have enjoyed exploring it, but now it felt more like a distraction.

Her companion seemed to agree, because after looking for a few seconds, she pivoted left, directly into the forest. The trees became thick within a few paces and would block the view from the rest of campus, but after a moment of consideration, Suria decided that she trusted the other woman enough to follow her.

"Is that why you wear pink?" she asked.

"To make other loopers discount you?"

"What? No, I wear it because it's cute!" Xuhriha spun in a little circle to make her dress flare while grinning at her.

"You should know that not everyone from Vedraz wears black and silver and very serious faces. We have... well, everything you have anywhere else."

"I don't know much about the Court of Vedraz, actually. We're on opposite sides of the world."

"I'd like to take you one day, but I guess that's not really possible now, is it? Then again, I don't know how fast leyline ferries are. I'd have to check..." That seemed too forward to Suria and she considered the other woman carefully. It was possible that Xuhriha was lonely, viewing the the other loopers as threats, and wanted a friend. The trouble was that it was also possible that she was doing all this to manipulate Suria.

Perhaps the best way to determine the truth was to push on something that a deceptive person wouldn't want to reveal.

"It seems like pure coincidence that I ended up trapped here," Suria said slowly, "and I'm just trying to survive. What about you? What are you trying to accomplish?"

"Well, I was just coming to be a normal student, because the Mage Circle is closed to families like mine." Xuhriha sighed and shook her head.

"Now that I'm trapped in the time loop... I'm hoping to figure out just what's going on under the surface here. I admit, I was hoping that you might know more, since you start in Convocation Hall. Maybe we can compare notes."

"Where do you start?"

"Oh, I was staying at an inn out in the city! It's very nice, especially since it was prepaid before the loop. I'll show you sometime!" Letting someone else know where you started was a vulnerability, as Suria knew all too well, so if Xuhriha was honest that seemed like a mark in her favor. As they spoke, they had ventured deeper into the forest and Suria realized that Wynchard had just recently told her something about it.

"How close is the graveyard?" Suria asked.

"Do we need to be worried about the necromancer?"

"Wynchard's necromancer." Xuhriha stuck out her tongue.

"He's convinced that he'll find the man by watching here, but only a very weak necromancer would need a graveyard. No, I'd bet that the graveyard is one of the safer places on campus. Do you want to go see it?"

"That isn't what I-""Come on, it's just this way!" Suria tried to tell herself that the risk wasn't too extreme, if Wynchard had struggled to get the necromancer to appear at all. They soon arrived at a strange graveyard, which didn't have a ceremonial wall like Suria would have expected at home, or a metal fence like the Republic of Junn; it was just part of the forest, with headstones scattered across multiple clearings.

"This is the old cemetery," Xuhriha explained in a quiet voice.

"I like it here, because it's so quiet and peaceful." That didn't stop her from hopping up to sit on one of the headstones.

"You've been open with me so far." Suria took a deep breath and made herself continue.

"I'll tell you something the others don't know: there's something going wrong in Convocation Hall. Most of the professors are in there at the beginning of the loop and I don't know why. But I started with so few resources that I haven't been able to learn much."

"I guessed there was something like that. I don't blame you for holding back, given how the other loopers are."

"Have you been able to learn more about whatever is going on?"

"Well, I know one big thing." Xuhriha settled into her headstone seat and stared at Suria grimly.

"You know how they claim Professor Drazen left the school before the term? I'm fairly certain that's a lie and he's actually dead. I wish I was completely certain, but getting proof has been frustrating."

"And how do you know that?" Suria asked.

"It's not like that isn't one of the rumors."

"It's actually a Vedraz thing. You know we're both from the Court of Vedraz, right?"

"Do you know each other?"

"Yup, he's my uncle!" Xuhriha abruptly giggled and shook her head, sending her golden locks flailing.

"No, I'm kidding. They say Vedraz is incestuous, but the families aren't that entangled. But I do know a little more about him than the average student."

"Anything you're willing to share?" Suria went to lean against the nearest headstone so she was standing beside the other woman. Even this far out, talking about the conspiracy felt dangerous.

"Back in Vedraz, he had a reputation for being absolutely ruthless. He went to Darkmoon because he thought he'd outgrown the Court and this was the only place where he could perfect his spellcraft, or so people say. So I don't believe he would just run off, not for any reason. It's much more likely that he was involved in some plot and it got him killed."

That didn't mesh with the man Suria remembered facing in the very first loop, but she had to admit that it matched the way the other professors had treated him, and the fact that they all ended up fighting one another to the death. She couldn't assume that Zaasif Drazen had been the instigator of the fight, however, or that it had turned into an execution. Whatever the entangling conspiracies, they clearly involved political fractures in the university itself.

Realizing that she had been silent for some time, Suria forced herself to speak: "Thank you for telling me. I wish I had more to say, but the beginning of the loop... it's hard to make progress, especially because I'm not very strong."

"Neither am I," Xuhriha said with a sigh.

"I have a few tricks, but I really am just a first year student. The second year students, even the lazy ones, have a lot more knowledge, and Wynchard and Adwyrma are even stronger. Equivalent to a one or two seal mage, I think."

"There's supposed to be something called a soul talisman that would probably go back through the time loop. Allegedly Professor Huen knows how to create one, but her class is next to impossible. And it's possible that it could be some sort of trap..."

"I'll help if I can!" Xuhriha chirped, then hopped off her headstone seat.

"I was going to ask if you wanted to room together? I promise I won't be a bother, and I'd appreciate it if you could cover for me if any of the other loopers get suspicious."

"Oh, I... just agreed that I'd be roommates with Kiznua. The woman I was with before."

"Aww, but that's okay. Maybe another loop?"

"Sure, maybe." Suria smiled and realized that it was authentic - despite herself, she was beginning to trust Xuhriha.

"Lovely!" Xuhriha took a few steps backward and took a deep breath, as if inhaling the graveyard's air.

"Well, I'm pleased to meet you, Suria Northbrook. This is better than stalking you and hoping you'd turn out to be reasonable. If you need anything, just ask me, okay? I'll be around school doing random things."

"We should definitely talk more. I'll see you later, Xuhriha." They parted there, Xuhriha wandering directly into the woods and Suria retracing her steps to the moor so she wouldn't get lost. She was tense until she got back under the sky, then she gradually accepted that the encounter had actually gone well. It was possible that she had an ally. When she headed south, Suria was interrupted by a frantic Kiznua, who seemed to have convinced herself that she had been abandoned, Suria had been kidnapped, or worse.

Suria tried to calm down the other woman and they went to arrange their accommodations. Somehow it was still Suria's first day at Darkmoon University. Just how much was happening during this first day that she didn't know about?