Chương 100: Chapter 176 - Revisit

Mirian didn't like keeping to the shadows, but reminding herself of the strategic necessity helped her overcome her periodic urge to start flinging spells. The next cycle, she left Selesia behind. She didn't want the girl to get caught in the crossfire of whatever came next. Prior to Kinsman's speech, Mirian did what she'd done to find the spy's headquarters in Torrviol so many cycles ago: she arrived near the building where the mind-cursed Baracueli patsy would be deployed and tracked where he came from.

Sure enough, he arrived in a spell carriage with three handlers. One of them was a very attractive woman with dark hair and quite a provocative dress. Gwenna, Mavwell said. The carriage took off, but not before Mirian telekinetically placed a tracking glyph inside it. Mavwell, meanwhile, had already been in position for hours in the blacked-out apartment. Mirian took a position on one of the balconies near him.

Right before the shot, she used magnetic shaping to subtly warp the barrel of the rifle so that the end was too small for the bullet to travel. There was the loud bang, but this time, Kinsman was left standing. For a brief moment, he froze, mid-speech. His bodyguards looked around. What the hells are they doing? They should be putting up layers of defensive spells! There was another shot, startling Mirian, and Kinsman's head exploded. Mirian turned towards the noise.

There was another window, covered in curtains, but with detect life she could see the figure who had been there rushing about. A second gunman. Of course. They wouldn't leave such an important event to chance. Mirian followed the second assassin. She could always track down the spell carriage later.

By the next cycle, Mirian had followed the carriages moving agents both backwards and forwards in time. She'd uncovered several safe houses and learned the names of more agents. It was becoming clear that, like in Baracuel, this wasn't some errant cell. The RID had deployed its agents in force. What she really wanted to do was descend from the sky in front of Kinsman with a prismatic shield and then pull the assassins from their buildings with hold person and show everyone who the real culprits were.

However, that would very clearly indicate both her presence and her objective to any other time travelers who were paying attention. She had grown powerful, but she couldn't assume another traveler hadn't surpassed her power. After all, Troytin had thought he was untouchable right up until it was too late. Jherica and Ibrahim were also proof that some of the loopers had started with an advantage in power. Instead, she stayed cautious, continuing to track where the Republic Intelligence groups were coming from.

For her next attempt at stopping Kinsman's death, she made a small spell engine that she buried in the park at night. It was designed to trigger when the wards above ground triggered, and would supplement Kinsman's defenses with a strong magnetic shield. When the 21st came again, Mirian sabotaged the wheels on Gwenna's spell carriage four blocks out, which would prevent Theodoro from plausibly being blamed for the attack.

Then, she quickly flew back and altered the barrels of the two guns she knew about, then moved to the front of the crowd where she could better monitor the situation with the bodyguards. This time, three shots rang out, but the magnetic barrier stopped the one she hadn't known about. As the panic set in, Kinsman's bodyguards actually managed to start erecting shields. That was when Mirian noticed a woman near the front of the crowd pull out a curse wand.

Mirian narrowed her eyes and used a blast of raw force to knock the wand out of her hand, then with lightning speed she snatched it out of the air and hid it in her coat before the fourth assassin could even react. She then tried to look like she was just another part of the panicking crowd while keeping an eye on the woman. How many damn assassins are ready to take a shot? Mirian wondered. As the pandemonium continued, the woman looked around, clearly panicking herself.

Then she started pushing through the crowd, moving north. Mirian followed. The woman used a glyphkey to enter one of the buildings bordering the park. With detect life, Mirian could see her talking to three other people. Intuition told her what would happen next. Mirian manifested her mythril amulet beneath her shirt. Unless they had a particularly strong divination detector, a bit of distance and her spell resistance would keep them busy. Mirian mentally noted the location of the building.

She could investigate it next cycle. Kinsman was being evacuated to his spell carriage, surrounded by a half-dozen shields. She'd finally done it. With the assassination prevented and the scapegoat not present, perhaps the war— There was an earthshaking explosion, and Mirian's ears rang. Kinsman's spell carriage had been detonated. Mirian felt a burning rage swelling in her. She suppressed it.

Two cycles later, Mirian abandoned the project. She could disarm the bomb, stop the riflemen, steal the curse-wand, and the conspirators would still kill Kinsman. The last cycle, it had been in the night with a heart-attack wand two days after the attempt in the park. The cycle before that, they'd managed to get a dazed Theodoro in position and sneak him into Kinsman's room with a bloody knife after they'd stabbed him to death.

His security detail was clearly infiltrated, and too many people in the RID were against him. There was no way to stop it all and be subtle about it. Disguised as Specter, she'd talked to more RID agents, but they were all small players. It all came back to Old Kudzu—whoever the hells that was—and Westerun. Mirian made her way down to Specter's hideout on the night of the 1st of Solem. She made a new spell combining displace light, modify voice and major disguise that she called shadow form.

It would wreath her in crawling darkness and prevent light from revealing her features. And, it would change her voice to be deeper. She hoped it would be sufficiently intimidating. She used silent zone to suppress opening the hatch, then carefully removed the celestial focus around Specter's ankle, as well as the pistol she kept beneath her pillow. The spy awoke with a start as she felt the gun being zipped away by telekinesis.

"Wha—who the fuck are you?" Specter said, seeing Mirian sitting at the foot of her bed.

"Nightfall, cerulean, masquerade," Mirian said. Specter reached under her pillow, and, finding nothing, her eyes darted towards her desk.

"You didn't answer my question."

"I don't take orders from you, you take orders from me," Mirian snapped.

"I'm here on behalf of Old Kudzu." Specter blinked, then swallowed.

"I… was under the impression that Arturus and Matteus… had an agreement. Of course, you know my loyalties." Matteus. Allen Matteus? The head of the Republic Intelligence Division? No wonder the entire thing is infested with assassins. The RID is even more compromised than the Deeps.

"We do, which is why you're not dead already," Mirian said, keeping her voice low.

"Here's a riddle for you: Where would Westerun run?"

"Westerun?"

"He thought he'd made a breakthrough in mind control and made an… inadvisable move. Allen's had enough of his shit." It seemed like a plausible lie to Mirian. After all, if they were all willing to murder their way into starting a war, what was stopping them from eliminating a few rivals?

"That can't be right," Specter said.

"He's committed. Like I… he's committed. Are you sure your intelligence is right on this?" Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"Absolutely. Where are his unofficial bolt-holes?" Specter swallowed again.

"I don't know."

"If you're protecting him…"

"I'm not," she snapped.

"You know I'm not. You know I'm loyal." There was that word again. Loyal to what? Mirian wanted to shout. Specter had betrayed Baracuel, assassinated a Praetorian, and was willing to burn the country in the conflagration of war. Mirian stayed silent, eyes boring into Specter.

"Where did he leave from? He was in Vadriach, working with the University, right?" Mirian suppressed a smile.

"Of course," she said.

"Perhaps you can help with something else. Think of his colleagues at the University. Would any of them choose Silou over God and country?" Specter's eyes darted towards her desk again.

"There's too much blackmail on Tyrcast. He wouldn't. Talk to Gottard. He's the obsessed one." Mirian nodded, then sent a force blade through Specter's neck. She set fire to the rooms like normal, then levitated back up the ladder hidden in the closet, leaving behind the underground shelter. Once outside, she contemplated what to do next. She was still angry, she knew. If she went back to Akana Praediar now, she wasn't sure she could stop herself from doing something stupid.

That, and I spent too much time in Mercanton. Falling into a routine was dangerous. She had to stay unpredictable. Mirian headed back to the dorms. The next morning, she said, "Hey Lily, want to go see Beatrice?"

Lily was a lot more difficult to convince than Selesia, but she eventually yielded. Guilt, rather than a sense of adventure, ended up swaying her.

"Look, it's been a year since we've spent a meaningful amount of time together," Mirian said, which was a lie, but one of those lies with a bit of truth to it. It had actually been several years. So it was that they found themselves trekking north to Frostland's Gate. They spent the first part hiking slowly while Mirian regaled her roommate with stories of the loops, and talked about some of the conversations they'd had.

"You've changed so much," Lily finally said.

"I… I can't even imagine. I mean, at first I was just thinking woe-is-me it's so unfair, there's all these things we've done, but I don't get to remember them. Then you talked about how I started to see things from your perspective, and I realized how self-centered I was being, but… I just don't know what to say. How many years has it been?"

"A little over twelve years," Mirian said.

"Gods above," Lily hissed. They walked through the forest in silence.

"I think I need another break," Lily said. She wasn't used to so much physical exertion.

"I'll fly us for a bit," Mirian said. Lily's eyes grew wide.

"You can fly? I'm so envious." Mirian picked her up with lift person and started levitating them towards the pass. Lily looked below as the trees passed beneath them.

"This is amazing," she said.

"It does have some benefits," Mirian admitted. As the Littenord mountains drew closer, Lily said, "But no one remembers what you've done. Why aren't the other time travelers… I mean, you told me about Troytin, but…" Lily gave a heavy sigh.

"My friends from before can't remember. It's safe to talk to you all. I still like it. But you're right, it isn't the same without someone to share memories with. And the other time travelers… well, with enough time, we can move armies. Take control of governments. Which means, the fate of nations is at stake. So there's a problem of trust. How can I trust another time traveler if they're just potential competition? It shouldn't be that way, I know.

I don't think the Ominian understands why we can't just work together. I think They intended it," Mirian said, though as she said it, she had that terrible feeling of doubt beneath it. After all, the cycle was longer now.

"Anyways, it's easy to trust people who can't hurt you. It's hard to trust people who can."

"That's just life, though," Lily said.

"Normally, at least. Sometimes you trust the wrong person, and they break your heart, or screw up your life." Mirian smiled.

"That's true, isn't it?" As they approached Littenord Pass, Lily said, "Uh, Mirian, I've been doing mana cost calculations in my head. Exactly how much mana do you have?"

"A lot," Mirian said.

"I can levitate both of us for about four more hours." Lily's jaw dropped." With my spell resistance? Mirian that's insane!"

"Yeah," she said.

"Also, don't worry about the greater wyverns ahead."

"Wyverns?"

"You'll see," Mirian said. Lily looked at her.

"Two days ago you were freaking out over Alchemistry. This is going to take some getting used to."

Once they got over the initial explanations and Beatrice stopped freaking out over her sister missing classes, she was happy to see Lily. They got settled, then Mirian said, "Beatrice, I'm going to grab your supplies out of your room, then get the artifacts at the end of the Vault. I'll be back in a few hours."

"Uh, my room's locked."

"I know, won't be a problem." Beatrice blinked.

"What do you mean 'the artifacts at the end of the Vault'? Mirian, it's dangerous down—where are you going?"

"I've done it before, don't worry." When she returned, lugging a backpack crammed full of Elder artifacts, Beatrice was waiting.

"Look, Prophet or not, you can't just…" She stopped as Mirian opened up the pack and gaped at the artifacts.

"Wait, that's impossible. You can't go down to the Labyrinth alone and… do… that."

"If you know exactly what every room layout is and have practiced a few dozen times you can." The relicarium box had, of course, been empty. She'd brought the rest though. They set up in Elsadorra's workshop since she was always happy to accommodate them in order to get her hands on a discovery like the Vault artifacts. Mirian started taking notes in a mundane book.

She'd transcribe any critical details on her soulbound spellbook, but there were only so many pages in the thing, and she'd already dedicated several of the back pages to leylines. First, there was the powerful acid, stored in a strange crystalline cylinder. She couldn't fathom a use for it, but Elsadorra quickly became obsessed with it. It seemed to have unusual properties. Next, there was a rod of glowing metal that absorbed colossal amounts of heat without seeming to warm up itself.

With careful measurement, Mirian could divine that the metal was heating up, just imperceptibly. One of the smiths started excitedly talking about 'thermal capacity.' There were definitely uses for something like that, but working with a metal like that would be a challenge. Shape metal didn't seem to affect it. Mirian decided to call it 'solite' after the Persaman word for a mythological golden star. There were several tesseracts, each scribed with tri-bonded glyph formations.

Mirian could now decode the function of a few of them. Beatrice, Cediri, and one of the artificers who'd worked on Mirian's wyvern-glider started running the sequences through tests once Mirian showed them how to scribe the tri-bonds on spellbook paper.

"The ultimate goal of this project is to figure out a way to regulate massive amounts of arcane energy," Mirian reminded them. Then there were the tools. They were also four-dimensional objects, that much was clear. Several were also constantly in motion, like kinetic sculptures. Unlike the Divine Monument, though, she could physically manipulate them, which was a rather mind-blowing experience. When she'd first encountered them, they'd all tried various channeling techniques and energy inputs to stimulate them.

These early experiments had resulted in nothing. There wasn't much to do except try everything. Professor Endresen had taught Mirian several techniques for investigating arcane physics, and she applied those now. Each tool would be exposed to different glyphs and different energy types, following a long list of combinations. If simple inputs didn't work, they'd increase the complexity. After that, they'd start using different materials.

If the tools weren't related to energy, perhaps they were related to elements or compounds. Over the course of weeks, they made two critical pieces of progress. The acid seemed very good at dissolving almost anything they put in there, leaving piles of inert powder.

'Acid' was probably the wrong word for it, though, since it wasn't behaving as a simple chemical. The substance wasn't actually reducing its own mass after it was done reacting. It turned out one of the tools was related to it, though. When they retrieved the powders, one of the Elder devices could reconstruct the powders back into crystals. These crystals, though, were perfectly formed.

"I need to bring Jei up here to see this. And probably Seneca too, she'd be able to help us with the chemistry."

"Why not bring it all down to Torrviol?" Beatrice asked.

"Contractually, that's what we're supposed to do."

"Maybe," Mirian said. The problem again was the other time travelers. The Labyrinth had given her an advantage, but that advantage might evaporate if a hostile traveler started looking into them and found more relicarium. Whatever relicarium existed was a limited resource. She'd used a cube's worth to get herself a way to carry information through the loops, but looking towards the future, it might be needed to help construct some giant spell engine to change the leylines. After all, they only had so much time.

If the others knew, would they be patient, or would they just use it to get an advantage over the other loopers? Frostland's Gate was easy to keep secure, and isolated enough no information could reach someone like Ibrahim. Torrviol was distant, but not so distant or isolated that she felt safe bringing Vault artifacts there.

"I'll need to think about it," she finally concluded.

"There's other factors at play." Mirian looked at everyone in the Elsadorra's shop. If only there was a way… But she couldn't plan for what she hoped was true.

"It's been nice," she said.

"I need to go north though."

"North?" Lily said.

"Yeah, I need leyline data from up there." She gave Lily a soft smile.

"Enjoy the rest of the cycle. I'll see you around, alright roomie?" Lily looked out the window in the direction of the howling tundra, towards the Endelice Mountains.

"Take care of yourself," she said. Mirian headed back to her room to prepare.