"I don't want to be a bother," Suria said on instinct, even though nothing about this situation made any sense. Politeness had been so deeply drilled into her that she supposed she would respond positively to a dragon offering her tea, if it did so with a modicum of gentility.
"Oh, it's no trouble at all!" the creature said, apparently pleased. "I was just taking my break and I have a great deal. A little thing like you will only drink a sip or two."
"Well... then I'd be grateful." Suria stood there, stunned in an entirely different way, as the creature cheerfully set its cup onto a little table and began looking through a cabinet.
Now that she got a better look at it, Suria couldn't believe that she had mistaken the creature for a monster. Its claws certainly had the potential to be dangerous, but it had been using them to hold a little teacup and a plate with some sort of pastry on it. In her panic, she had somehow looked right past them, perhaps because she was expecting a monster.
The brown fur looked surprisingly fluffy and was clearly well-groomed, not at all like a wild animal. Some sort of tool belt was strapped around its middle, almost lost in the fur. Aside from the little hat, presumably pinned to the top of its head, it had a gentle round face with lighter patches around the eyes that made them seem even larger.
"Here you go." The creature turned back to her and set down a steaming cup of tea on the cabinet beside it. "We don't have chairs suitable for you, small one, but I hope you'll find a comfortable enough seat."
"Thank you," Suria said automatically. She sat down on the floor and took a sip of the tea, which was sweeter than expected. "I'm Suria Northbrook, a new student at Darkmoon. May I know your name?"
"I am known as Bumbledun," the creature told her. Now that she'd heard more of its voice, Suria guessed that he was male, which certainly felt more polite than thinking "it" in her mind. "And you're being very polite, but I can tell that you're wanting to ask what I am."
"I... haven't met anyone like you before," Suria admitted.
"Not all offended." Bumbledun settled back against the wall, took a sip of his tea, and sighed contentedly. "We xenarths are not so common, and I think there are none at all in the southern continents, which was your home if I'm not mistaken. Are you perhaps familiar with a creature called a sloth? They are to us as apes are to your kind."
"I see," Suria said in between sips of her tea. "And you said you were taking a break? From your... work here?"
"Oh yes, I am an employee of Darkmoon University. At the moment I was carving out a new section of this tunnel, but you're more likely to see us moving boxes around campus. Most supplies rely on us, you see."
Examining the walls and the claws more closely, Suria saw that they were a match: those long claws could apparently cut through stone, leaving the surface smooth except for striations from the strokes. That received less of her attention than what Bumbledun said at the end, however.
"You're the ones moving supplies?" she asked. The tea was starting to grow on her once she got used to its sweetness.
"How did you think boxes got around campus?" Bumbledun asked with some amusement.
"I thought they were carried by automated statues, I suppose."
"Perhaps at times, but they're really not suited for such work. It's really surprisingly difficult to make one of those statues that can tell the difference between things that are supposed to be there and things that aren't. Anyway, we would gladly pay a premium to have cavern space like this, and Darkmoon doesn't need to pay as much, so everyone feels they're getting a good deal."
"I see."
"Now, I do have to ask you about something else." Bumbledun set down his teacup and leaned closer to her, large brown eyes squinting seriously. "What led a young thing like you to come down here? It's usually safe enough, but not with the weevils these days, and at the best of times you might get in the way."
"Well... I was told there was an infestation," Suria said awkwardly. "I killed two of the, uh, weevils."
"This wouldn't be the first time a student was sent down here as a prank. At least they warned you about the weevils." Bumbledun settled back against the wall with a rumbling sigh. "They truly are a bother, since they move too quickly for us. They can even bite in our sleep, if they can get through the fur. But there is no urgent need, certainly not for a small thing like you."
"I was also told about you, except... they described you as a monster."
The xenarth leaned forward, looming over her. "That is a rather nastier prank," he said somberly. "It could have caused grave injury, if there had been a misunderstanding. Just who would say such a thing?"
"I'm not sure who they were." Suria bought time by taking a long sip of tea while mentally cursing the Akrashic woman. She supposed, from their perspective, there was no harm if someone got killed because it would all be reset before the month was over. The idea of harming Bumbledun or another of the xenarths still turned her stomach - she had been within a split second of casting her fire spell again.
"Take heart, small one: nothing bad came of this misunderstanding. Do finish your tea."
As they drank, Suria was offered a small pastry and pleasant ramblings on a variety of subjects. Apparently the xenarths came from an island off the eastern coast and Bumbledun was very particular about it not being part of the Endless Pale. This seemed to be a common misconception, but honestly Suria had very limited understanding of the northern continents: she just knew the Endless Pale was the generic name for the northernmost regions where nothing could grow. According to Bumbledun, the northern island was more temperate and pleasant, its only primary lack being good ground for tunneling.
Once she'd had her fill, Suria politely gave back the cup. Bumbledun shook crumbs from his fur and seemed ready to begin moving again, and once he was down on all fours, his head was closer to hers, though still enormous.
"You do not need to worry about the weevils," he told her kindly. "You would not be the first student to attempt to exterminate them and fail. The matter will be resolved in time."
"I'd still like to try," Suria told him as she got back to her feet. "If it wouldn't be any trouble?"
"So long as you don't mistake one of us for a weevil."
They parted and Suria returned to the tunnels, now much rejuvenated. Since she knew about the xenarths, the tunnels didn't seem so ominous, though that didn't stop her from gasping and launching a panicked flame the next time she saw one of the monstrous insects. By the second and third, she was getting used to them and feeling a little more confident.
As she turned another corner, a weevil launched itself at her. Suria wildly launched another stream of flame, but misjudged in her haste.
She threw up her other arm instinctively and cried out in pain as the mandibles sunk deep into her arm. The pain shook her more than she expected and she staggered before remembering to cast her shielding spell. Her first cast created a useless shell on the other side of the weevil, then she regained her composure and cast the spell around her arm, throwing the insect back.
It hit the ground, squirming wildly back to its feet, ready to attack her again. She managed to collect herself and finish it off before it could attack, but the accident left her shaken and clutching her arm.
Bites that deep on her arm could have been crippling for many students, and even as Suria cast her healing spell, she realized it would hurt for a while. Once she had made sure the wound was clear of rot, she took a bandage from her satchel and dressed it properly.
Should she give up on the extermination for now? Even though Bumbledun had said that she didn't need to do anything, that somehow made her more motivated to solve the problem for them. The xenarths shouldn't have to worry about such vile creatures biting them while they slept. Perhaps even more importantly, she would feel like a failure if she gave up now after the first real difficulty.
As she moved forward, Suria realized she was being more cautious than necessary because the injury had shaken her. She felt like she should have been more used to pain, since she had been killed by so many spells during the initial time loop, but those memories actually left her more anxious. The pain of being burned alive was still with her, even though those spells had killed her quickly. Being bitten by one of the monstrous weevils was less intense but more viscerally unpleasant.
When Suria entered another tunnel and saw three weevils ahead of her, she winced, but in the same motion she started casting. Her mana shield was up in front of her and she had her other hand raised, casting a stream of fire to torch one of the weevils. The other two began crawling toward her aggressively, but she kept her cool, kneeling down so her shield blocked the ground and picking off a second.
Everything would have been fine if a fourth weevil hadn't dropped off the wall and onto her back.
Suria screamed in pain as the mandibles bit deep into her shoulder and her spells went haywire. Her battle instincts failed her and she flailed wildly, which just meant one of her fists bounced off the weevil's shell. Worse, there was another crawling toward her and she had a horrible vision of the two of them tearing into her flesh.
"No!" Suria used her fire talisman without any control, sending flames sweeping around her. It turned the weevil on her back into a seared husk and burned her in the process, but the last one was still crawling toward her.
Collapsing back, Suria desperately cast her mana shield in front of her. The weevil crawled up the side, its mandibles snapping at the ghostly blue mana. Suria desperately tried to maintain it even as she stared at the insectoid face coming closer and closer as her mana reserves began to fail...
A claw swept down, crumpling the weevil against the wall.
"Bumbledun?" Suria asked weakly as she stared up at the xenarth over her.
"I think that's enough for today, small one," Bumbledun told her gently.
"Sorry you had to follow and help me."
"Not at all, I was glad to finally squash one myself." The xenarth offered her a claw up, which she gratefully took. "But I do insist that you retire for the day."
Suria nodded and mutely healed and wrapped her shoulder while Bumbledun maintained a pleasant monologue, then let him lead her back out of the tunnels. She was obviously incapable of clearing the infestation on her own, but that didn't bother her as much as she expected. Something like this would have been a nightmare before - and might become a literal nightmare in time - but she had faced it and lived. Next time she would do better.
Once she got back into the sunlight, Suria's good mood evaporated. She might have healed her wound, but it left her school robes terribly damaged. Unlike wealthier students, for her healing was free and new robes were a crippling expense. This left her with only one set, so she'd need to be extra careful with them through the end of the cycle.
She was worried about being late for the krashorb competition, yet as she checked the sun she realized that the entire experience had taken less time than she thought. Her conversations with Bumbledun had been reasonably long, so it must have been that the tense moments trying to hunt weevils had stretched into an ordeal in her mind.
That at least gave her plenty of time to go back to her room and change into her good robes. She took a while to read her textbooks to calm down, and very nearly convinced herself not to go out again, but no: if she could face down monstrous insects, she could go to a strange sporting event.
It was strange to think there there was so much going on just out of sight: she had no idea about the xenarths and their weevil problem during her first loop. And, for that matter, in this loop she'd barely heard a few rumors about the accident in the city that left the medical ward so overloaded. As if that wasn't enough, she was just skimming the surface of all the deeper events at Darkmoon University, down to the conspiracy between the professors.
Right now the events of these days seemed overwhelming, just like the weevils, or even the scope of the campus itself. How many loops would it take before she was fully familiar with all the events? Then again, how many students thought of Darkmoon as a home without having any idea of its hidden depths?
Gathering all her things again, Suria headed across campus to the field of arches so she wouldn't miss the competition. She circled around it, a bit put off by all the flashing orbs and shouting teams. That eventually put her behind the two loopers she was there to meet, and as she listened to them, Suria realized that she recognized the voices from the previous loop.
The encounter, which had unsettled her so much the first time, had just been Jeilin and Dsjaho-an. Now she understood that they were discussing randomness within the loop, which was something she was curious about.
It was the smallest of mysteries, but Suria was glad to see it solved. Just the first of many.