Chapter 5: Ways Out
At first Suria froze, her mind racing as her body froze. Lirngelf was moving directly toward her with certainty in his eyes. She could try to play dumb, because any young woman would be alarmed to be approached like that, but she doubted it would work. They hadn't interacted much, but based on the fact that he'd been watching at the very start of the loop, Lirngelf had probably seen enough to be sure.
"Not here," Suria said, so quietly she could barely hear herself.
"Why not?" Lirngelf glanced at Maut-mai, who looked baffled, and then snorted. "It won't matter in an hour or two anyway."
There was no way for her to explain that she still didn't want trouble, and that wasting a loop made her feel bad even though she had no idea whether they were even finite. Well, there might have a been a way, but Suria didn't have it in her to voice it. Fortunately, Lirngelf didn't seem to care, he just rolled his eyes, muttered an apology to Maut-mai, and stalked into the hallway.
Suria followed more slowly, considering her strategy. She wouldn't pretend to be oblivious, since she wasn't a very good actor and doubted it would be believable. At the same time, she wouldn't offer information when she didn't have any idea what Lirngelf wanted or what he already knew. There was no guarantee they were having exactly the same experiences and she didn't want to reveal anything to someone so reckless.
"So we're stuck in a time loop, right?" Lirngelf said bluntly as soon as they were in the hallway. "And this is the fourth loop?"
Or he could just throw everything out there.
"I... I think so." Suria looked around nervously, hoping they weren't overheard. "The doors are locked as soon as it starts, so the wards are probably activated by the time spell that caused the loop. Then the professors start fighting at the end, and we die."
"You have no idea how glad I am to be sure there's somebody else here." Lirngelf gripped her shoulder with alarming familiarity. "I harassed that Maut-mai for a while, but I'm sure she doesn't know anything. Everyone else doesn't have a clue. So what have you been trying?"
"To get out. We can't break the wards, but we might be able to trick them."
"You just want to escape?" Lirngelf stared at her as if he couldn't believe what he'd heard. "No way. Whatever's going on, we have to confront it head on. When I realized we couldn't get out, I figured it had to be fate. We're involved with this, whether we like it or not."
"But... what is this?" Suria asked. "Are the professors fighting? Would they use time magic?"
The young man snorted derisively. "It's not a question of 'would', I'm just impressed they were able to pull it off. I didn't think loops were possible, not unless you're the Hrakik the Irredeemable or something."
"But isn't this kind of time magic forbidden?"
"How naive are you? All kinds of things are forbidden, but mages still practice necromancy and human sacrifice and all of that, don't they? And murder is illegal everywhere, but you think that stops people? No, forget all that, we just need to find the professors and stop them before they start fighting."
Part of Suria stung at his reprimand, but she had to admit that as reckless as Lirngelf seemed, he was following a logical plan: preventing a fight before it started was much easier than stopping a bunch of archmages in the middle of a battle.
"Anyway, there's some kind of spatial barrier." Lirngelf kept going, apparently not needing input from her. "I keep throwing myself at it from different angles and I can't get to the basement. But there's this secretary who goes to join the meeting, I'm pretty sure. If I can just figure out a way..."
"Is it an older man?" Suria asked, gesturing at the rough height she remembered. "Older than us, I mean."
"Yeah, he's faculty secretary, I can't remember his name. He caught me a couple times and I got thrown into a room for later discipline. As if that matters, when it all gets reset. But I can take advantage of the time he enters, if I can just get the jump on him, and I need you for that. Come on, you gotta help me or we'll keep dying forever."
"Wait. The professor who showed up in front of us the first time... have you seen him again?"
"Huh." Lirngelf's eyes widened as if he hadn't thought about that before. "I guess not. The first loop was different, and the spells were different, too. But the second two have been identical, except the two of us changing things."
That resolved a tension that Suria hadn't known was still lurking inside her: part of her had been afraid that the professor had instead gone to meet Lirngelf, or that his absence meant something even worse. This... she didn't actually know what this meant. It seemed possible that the first time hadn't actually been in a loop, just the start of it, but she knew too little about time magic to be sure. Regardless, it definitely didn't seem like Lirngelf cared to follow that line of thought.
"Alright," he said, "let's get moving. If we get into position, we can ambush him. Do you have any offensive spells? I can't handle him on my own, but most mages are vulnerable to being taken off guard. Now if we..."
"...wait..." Suria first said it very softly, then cleared her throat and forced herself before she got swept up in the forceful personality. "Wait."
"What? If we work together we double our chances."
"Why are you so sure that telling the professors is a good idea? Even if they're willing to break the law, why would they be glad that random students know about it?"
"They'll see us as assets: everyone is watching the professors, but not students. Believe me, this is my ticket into the circles of real power." He paused as if thinking about her for the first time. "And I'm saying that coming from a noble family. This is an even bigger opportunity for you. Think about how much you can learn in the time loop."
"You're making a lot of assumptions." Suria took a deep breath, unable to catalog all of them, and settled on the most important one. "We don't know that the professors are the ones who made the time loop, not unless you have information I don't. It could be an enemy attacking Darkmoon University, in which case we'll just look like enemies."
"In that case, we're subverting the enemy's weapon. Even better for us." Lirngelf frowned at her as if she was being ridiculous. "Look, even if I'm wrong, we can always just try something different in the next loop. But we'll learn a lot more going to the source of the problem than sitting around here."
In that, at least, he might be right. Suria didn't think she could afford to ignore the only other person she knew for certain was in the time loop: even if he didn't help, he could unquestionably hurt her cause if he decided to. Lirngelf seemed like a stubborn man and she didn't want him to start thinking about mutually assured destruction: he could threaten to get them both imprisoned or killed every cycle until she started playing along.
Could she do the same? In theory she had the option, but Suria didn't think she had it in her, especially against someone more powerful than she was. And he would definitely conclude the same if he started thinking about it. In that case...
"I'll help you," she said, "but it has to be a fair exchange. I still think the best option is to leave the building before the fighting starts. If I help you get closer to the professors, you have to help me get out."
"If we convince them," Lirngelf said, "you will get out. I'm telling you-"
Suria shook her head, sending her hair shaking from side to side. "No. I need a way to leave on my own."
"In case you haven't noticed, I tried to break out at first and I couldn't manage it. You think I'm just hiding a key in my back pocket? Hell, I didn't even bring my runebook today."
"I don't plan to force my way out, just trick the wards. It should be possible with an unlocking spell, or warding spells, or any number of things. I'll take any meaningful step toward a complete glyph that will help me get out."
"I'm not a thief, I... wait." Lirngelf paused and scratched his head. "You know, I did hear about a trick that some students used for a prank, once. If you start with a standard locking inscription, then attach inversion inscriptions, you get an unlocking glyph that actually slips past a lot of wards. Maybe you could try that."
"Yes, I could." Suria told herself not to react too much, but couldn't control her face very well and ended up smiling. "Can you teach me the inscriptions?"
"You know... I don't think so. This is sounding like too much work."
"Wait, you were the one pushing us to work together!"
"But teaching you inscriptions would take hours and hours, which means a whole bunch of cycles lost. We can't be sure they'll keep using the time loop that long, if it's part of the battle. So I'll keep going on my own and you can decide when you come to your senses."
Suria took a deep breath, trying not to panic. A minute ago she had considered this conversation a threat, but now that a solution had been dangled in front of her, she didn't want to let go. She had no idea about the magical viability of what he'd said, but it sounded like a bigger step forward than anything else she had available to her.
"Earlier... you asked if I had offensive spells." As she spoke, Suria's plan came together and she gained a little more confidence. "I don't, I'm a village healer. But I have several kinds of healing inscriptions. If I combine them with the inversion inscriptions, will they form harming spells?"
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure they would." Lirngelf abruptly grinned. "I see where you're going with this."
"If you teach me the inversion inscription, that gets us closer to both of our plans. And it's a good test for working together."
"Hey, you already convinced me. Let me just find a stylus and I'll show you."
~
In the end, it didn't take them long to cover the basics. Lirngelf Daesmad didn't seem like he took his studies very seriously, and he wasn't a good teacher, but he'd spent an entire year at Darkmoon University, which made him more magically knowledgeable than anyone else she'd met before today.
The inversion inscription was simple to paint, just a few intersecting lines, but a bit trickier from a magical perspective. Suria needed to imbue less of her mana than normal and it was extremely important that she didn't overlap any of the runes she'd placed, otherwise the feedback would be disastrous. Fortunately, the basic abilities she'd used so many times at home let her manage that part quickly, she just needed more time to master the magical twist.
So far she had been testing in individual triangles, but now she needed to take the next step. Unfortunately, that was where her weak strength was going to limit her, and she had intentionally not raised the issue so far. Worse, in the time they'd been working, Maut-mai had left the room to complain to Rije, and this time she hadn't come back.
"I'm getting tired," Suria said quietly. "Do you have a source of mana? I know Maut-mai has one, but she-"
"Oh, just use this." Lirngelf tossed her a bottle so abruptly that Suria bobbled it several times, catching it more by luck than skill. It was another potion, lighter blue and much heavier.
"You had this all along?"
"It's not very strong, just something I carry around with me sometimes. Ought to increase your capacity a little. I'll give it to you if we spend a cycle training, but I might eventually need it more."
"Thank you." Suria drank the potion and her head spun - this one tasted like whiskey and made the world glow for a second. She definitely felt stronger, however, so she picked up a new stone slate and began forming runes.
As before, she easily formed her square, then she added the triangle off one side more carefully. Even closing the triangle was difficult, however, and she knew that she couldn't manage another rune, so she didn't even try. Apparently Lirngelf's potion was less effective than Maut-mai's.
Still, she had the outline of her glyph. Suria placed her healing inscription in the center and then inscribed the new inverting formula extremely carefully.
She didn't think she made any errors, and she felt the magic of the inscription flare to life, but something was wrong. The two parts of her glyph didn't interact and she didn't feel like she had a complete spell.
"That's not going to work, dummy." Lirngelf hadn't been paying close attention to her work, but now looked over and shook his head. "You need an inverting inscription on both sides."
"Why is that?" she asked plaintively.
"Hell if I know, that's just how it works. Alright, you've messed up this one, but I'll give you the rest of the loop to figure it out. I need to scout out the route more, and the secretary is about to leave anyway. I expect you to get an offensive spell together eventually, alright?"
Suria nodded as if she wasn't feeling sick to her stomach. With her current capabilities she could enhance an inscription but, apparently, not invert one. Lirngelf didn't seem like he cared much about theory, so there was no point trying to press him for an answer. Here she was, at the best university in the world, and she was still guessing at magic.
What could she actually do? Just to be certain, Suria repeated the process and this time combined healing and enhancement inscriptions. The result was definitely stronger, so it seemed that enhancement didn't require doubles. That meant she'd made a little progress, just not enough.
Could she tell Lirngelf that she'd help him as a healer? No, that wouldn't make much sense. It was just possible that she could cast her healing sleep spell offensively, but it was such a gentle spell, she doubted it could work on anyone with magic defenses. And none of that was useful to her, because even if she got her hands on a locking inscription, she didn't have the raw strength to invert it.
To comfort herself, Suria repeated the method over and over again, getting used to drawing six rune marks. The ability would go away soon enough, but it felt good to make a larger glyph. She could only imagine how much fun it would be to create more elaborate spells... if only she could ever survive the application process.
While she thought about what she could do to mollify Lirngelf, Suria did her best to master the new inscription so she wouldn't need to copy it off him, especially if he didn't work with her again. The latter was easier than the former. It didn't seem like there was much of a chance of getting a locking inscription from him now, especially since the smart move would be for him to hold it over her head. Now that he had given her something, she couldn't very well refuse.
Lirngelf didn't appear again as the hour elapsed, either captured or busy with his own plans. Suria left the central chambers and found another hidden nook, this one so closed off by strange curving sculptures that it was practically a closet.
Ending the cycle asleep had been easy, but she resolved not to do that again. Instead, she carefully made a talisman of enhanced healing and kept it in her hand, resolving to use it if a spell struck her so the pain wouldn't be as agonizing. But even as darkness and fire burst through the building, no spells got too close to her, then without warning there was a shockwave of gray death and it was over.
She was back in the waiting room with Lirngelf and she had a quandary on her hands.