Chapter 6: A Fair Exchange
"Well!" Lirngelf gave an exaggerated yawn and stretched his arms over his head. "Seems like we'll be waiting on the proctor a while. I'm going to take a break, anyone want to join?"
"No thank you," Maut-mai said icily.
Suria swallowed and said, "I need more time to study."
"Just don't study too long," Lirngelf told her. "You know, eventually you have to meet the proctor. If you know what I mean."
That just sounded bizarre and only attracted more attention to her. Suria sank down and pulled up the hood of her peasant's cloak as if ashamed, which wasn't much of an exaggeration. On his way out, Lirngelf tossed his potion onto the table carelessly. Though Suria glanced at Maut-mai nervously, the other woman seemed focused on herself, so Suria was alone again soon enough.
There was one very obvious potential solution to her limited strength, one that just required a little courage. Well, courage and foolhardiness. Maut-mai's potion was sitting in her bags, mostly defenseless as the other woman didn't pay much attention. Taking both at once might do nothing, or might make her head explode, but either way, she had to try it just in case.
To make herself look less suspicious, Suria drank Lirngelf's potion and returned to practicing with her increased strength. Maut-mai stopped looking at her often, but Suria couldn't bring herself to reach over to try to snatch it. The chances of getting caught were just too high...
Eventually, however, Maut-mai left the room to complain to the guard, and she left her bag behind. Suria stared at it, willing herself to move. It wasn't that she had a great respect for laws and rules, it was that she knew if she was caught in a crime, there would be no wealth or connections to bail her out. Little indiscretions that might be laughed off by the children of nobility could end her career permanently.
But not in the time loop. Suria drew up her courage and plunged her hand into the bag until she found the vial. She immediately retreated, drank the second potion, and hid the evidence in her satchel.
Far from making her head explode, the effect was underwhelming: just a little surge of mana and a bit of dizziness. Suria sat down and began marking new runes on one of her talismans. Fifth... sixth... seventh... and there she reached her limit.
Suria sagged as she accepted that the effects weren't additive: one potion stretched her capacity to six runes and the other to seven. She supposed that was only logical: if potions could be combined infinitely, mages would just mass-produce the weakest quality versions instead of paying extremely high prices for more powerful formulations. It also might explain why potions had diminishing returns and Shuguja had rejected it, though everyone else was stronger than her and so there had to be more to it.
As time elapsed, Suria became increasingly confident in her new inscription, but she couldn't think of a solution to the broader problem. It wasn't as if she was going to stumble across a book that would hand her a legendary power that would instantly increase her rune capacity to a hundred, or an inscription so powerful it could do anything she wanted. She was going to have to be resourceful.
Since it could be awkward to make excuses when Shuguja invited her in, Suria eventually had to leave, and it wasn't long before Lirngelf accosted her in the hallway.
"How many cycles am I going to need to convince you?" he demanded.
"I want to help, but..." Suria took a deep breath and adopted her usual defense. "I have to be honest: I don't know if I'm strong enough to help you. You have an entire year of studying over me, and we're trying to take down a three seal mage."
"If you think you can trick me into giving you every inscription in exchange for nothing, I-"
"No, I have another idea." One she didn't like, since it held considerable risk, but she judged it was better than the alternatives. "You just want to get in to the basement where the professors are talking, right? You should take me hostage."
Lirngelf stared at her for several seconds, then chuckled. "Well, you're braver than I thought. You sure about this?"
"We can still try your plan. I'll bump into the secretary and maybe you can take him down. But if not, then we go with the hostage plan. Is that enough for you to help me more?"
"Tell you what, we'll give it a try this time. If I'm right, I can just explain the plan to the professors and you'll get far greater benefits than a few inscriptions. If I'm wrong, I agree to teach you another inscription before we try again. Deal?"
"Agreed," Suria said, then felt stupid for not saying "deal" instead.
They walked across the grand hall mostly in silence, getting into position in one of the narrow corridors near the stairs. Once they arrived, however, they were too early: though Suria hadn't seen him at first, apparently the secretary always moved from a locked room to the stairs at a specific time.
"I guess I should show you what I plan to do." Lirngelf pulled a stylus from his belt and then pressed a glyph on the wedge side. To Suria's shock, a blade of fire leapt out of the other end, practically as long as she was tall.
"Will that... burn me?"
"It puts off less heat than you think." Lirngelf chuckled and made the magical blade disappear. "First I was thinking I should surprise you, so you'd have a real reaction, but I figured you might panic without any warning. Just don't struggle around and be a good hostage, okay?"
"Okay." Suria nodded while wondering if she had gone completely mad. Even if she couldn't die within the time loop, what had possessed her to suggest something this wild? Was it even crazier that Lirngelf was willing to treat her as a hostage so easily? He seemed entirely convinced that this was their ticket to greater power, and he did know nobility far better than she did, so perhaps he was right.
They waited in silence until at last they heard footsteps: the secretary was coming and the man moved rather fast. Suria was almost too late and ended up rushing out, quite realistically fumbling with her satchel because she was barely under control. She collided with the middle-aged man and they both tumbled to the ground.
"I'm so sorry!" Suria gasped. She wasn't acting, she just reacted instinctively. This man was a three seal mage, he could ruin her career with a word...
But he didn't get a chance to utter that word, because at that moment Lirngelf attacked. The ambush was almost too fast for Suria to follow even though she was expecting it: Lirngelf cast some sort of binding spell with a talisman in one hand, creating loops of mana around the secretary, and lunged with his sword at practically the same time.
It wasn't fast enough: the secretary raised a hand and cast a burst of mana that deflected the sword. In the same motion he burst through the mana loops and reached into his robes, ready to pull out a runebook. If he could do that much instinctively, the runebook would make the fight hopeless.
Before that could happen, Suria was wrenched to her feet and had a flaming blade at her throat.
"Don't move or I cut off her head," Lirngelf said. There was no trace of his grins or nonchalance - he gripped her like he fully intended to kill her. Given how he was treating the time loop, maybe he would. Suria tried to tell herself that this was the plan and she would exact a repayment from him in the next cycle, but the truth was she didn't need to act to look terrified.
"What are you doing?" The secretary got to his feet slowly, keeping his hands away from runebook or stylus. "I have no idea who that is."
"Are you going to let an innocent student die?" Lirngelf demanded. "All I want is to talk to the professors who are meeting now. Take us to the basement."
"Are you mad?" It didn't sound like a rhetorical question; the secretary was peering at them with an expression more puzzled than angry. "Just how do you know about the meeting, anyway?"
"The same reason I know the professors will be glad to hear from me. Trust me, once this is over, you'll be glad you let me in. Or you can be a fool and see her blood boil."
With a strange expression, the secretary kept his hands visible at his sides and began to move toward the basement. Lirngelf followed, keeping a grip on Suria's arm but moving his sword to point at the secretary's neck instead. She was relieved now that the burning edge was further from her face, though the air was still unpleasantly scorched around them.
"No trickery with the spatial barrier!" Lirngelf shouted as they reached the stairs.
"Huh." For the first time the secretary actually looked a little impressed. "It hasn't been triggered... you know more than you let on. You can let the girl go. I'm happy to let you in just to find out what's going on."
"Nice try. Try something and you die right after her."
Suria tried to follow the exact magic, but whatever the secretary did to disable the spatial barrier was too advanced for her: she saw a glyph glimmering in the air, then they passed down the stairs. This time, instead of being shunted into a corridor, they entered the basement.
It didn't look much different from the ground floor, at least at first, but as they headed down the corridor, Suria noticed the differences. There were no tapestries or paintings here, just bare walls. Instead of comforting warm light, the mana lanterns on the walls shed cool spheres of illumination that left great gaps of shadow between them.
At the end of the corridor loomed a large pair of doors, more ornate than most of those she'd seen on the ground floor. As they drew closer, Suria could feel mana prickling against her skin. Her magical senses weren't terribly developed except for healing, so sensing was usually a process of searching for an ephemeral sensation. This was the opposite: the power in front of them refused to be denied.
Before they arrived, the doors burst open. Suria flinched and Lirngelf shifted his sword defensively, but they hadn't even been noticed.
"-refuse to be party to this travesty of..."
That cluster of words was all Suria caught, first muffled by the opening doors and then trailing off. The speaker was the woman who had pushed through the doors, and to Suria's shock, she actually recognized the face.
Professor Frunah Gwaslos looked exactly like her portrait: a pale woman bearing an ageless face, with the skin of a younger woman but dark eyes that looked ancient. She was clad in the black and white robes of the university, but instead of the collar that was her due, she wore a simple white healer's stole. When Suria had considered attending the university, she had thought that she might end up in the healing program, so she had learned more about it.
Seeing the woman in person, radiating authority, was an entirely different experience. Suria couldn't breathe.
"Hold it!" Lirngelf shouted, pulling the sword back to her throat. "Move and she dies!"
Professor Gwaslos didn't move, but she didn't look intimidated. There was a great weight to her stillness, like a healer preparing for a serious operation, except magnified beyond any healer Suria had ever met.
"Wait." The secretary raised both hands a little higher. "Sorry about this, Frunah, but I think they'll want to see him. It'll be easier that way."
"I want no part in this." After one last glance at them, Professor Gwaslos made a gesture and vanished in a column of white smoke that disappeared through the ceiling.
As they moved forward into the room, Suria remained stunned, unsure how to feel. A little part of her had hoped that the master healer would save her, even though that would technically have ruined their plan. In actual fact, Suria knew nothing about the woman other than her reputation for healing skill, so it was entirely possible that they weren't anything like allies.
Of course her comments as she left were probably important, but Suria was being bombarded by too many things at once to ponder any individual piece. When they stepped through the open doors, they entered a long room that was spartan except for a dark marble table. There were seven seats, five of them currently occupied.
Suria realized with a sense of vertigo that every single one of the people in front of her was a professor of Darkmoon University, even if she didn't recognize all of them. Even Lirngelf didn't seem able to bluff his way through this, so there was an awkward pause as they entered.
The first person she noticed was the silver-haired man who had appeared in front of her at the beginning of the first cycle. He didn't have the same strange look on his face as the first time, but he was still staring at her with an expression of concern. That contrasted sharply to all the other professors, who ranged from bored to mildly amused to annoyed.
There was an old woman bent over so far her face was almost to the table, an elegant noblewoman who stared at them like they were unwanted insects, a mild-mannered man wearing a floppy hat, and strangest of all a man who appeared to have been carved from white marble. Almost like the statue in the foyer, except where that moved like a toy, the statue raised an exquisitely carved eyebrow at them.
"And just what is-" The cultured voice was cut off when Lirngelf found his nerve.
"Listen!" He let the flames fade and tossed his stylus aside. "You're experimenting with forbidden time magic, aren't you? I know this because I've already lived today four times. I've died in your battle, but I'm immortal now, so you're just wasting everyone's time. Let me fight with you, instead, and you will have the might of House Daesmad on your side!"
The professors actually appeared surprised at first, since even at Darkmoon University this sort of talk was unusual. They did not, however, appear intimidated.
"Is this what you were threatening?" the elegant woman asked scornfully. She appeared to be addressing the silver-haired man, who regained some composure and shook his head.
"This doesn't make sense," he said faintly. "There must have been a miscalculation... or betrayal..."
The old woman cackled unpleasantly and it wasn't clear who she was laughing at. Meanwhile, the living statue examined Lirngelf carefully with molten gold eyes.
"We have our own disagreements, but we can set those aside temporarily." The statue's voice remained as smooth as before as he turned to address the others. "If that is true, and it does seem likely, then the laws of Hrakik the Irredeemable apply, do they not?"
"They do," the noblewoman said. "But we've already gone far beyond legality, so does anyone have an objection?"
"Hey!" Lirngelf was sweating now, and though he regained their attention by shouting, it didn't seem like he had control of the situation. The secretary took a step away from him and grabbed the back of Suria's cloak, pulling her toward the entrance.
"Alright, young man," the old woman said as she got her cackle under control. "What kind of offer do you have for us?"
"You have to work with me," Lirngelf insisted. "Even if you kill me now, I'm just going to come back to try again. But if you work with me, I can hand you the future. I can attempt anything, over and over, until I get what we need. Come on, all of you are reasonable people. Working with me is the only good choice you have!"
The old woman clucked her tongue and shook her head. "Cruel, but it seems he's already on a bad path."
"The spiraling path," the elegant woman said in a low voice.
"So there are no objections?" As he spoke, the statue rose to his feet. He looked all the way around the table, but his molten gaze settled on the silver-haired man. "Not even you?"
"It seems there's only one path left," the professor said in a flat voice.
"Listen here!" Lirngelf was looking around the room anxiously now and raised his hands to try to keep their attention. "You can hurt me, but you can't stop me. I'll always come back, no matter wh-"
In the blink of an eye, the living statue was across the room with a hand sinking into his chest. Suria hadn't felt any magic and couldn't explain how he had crossed the distance, the marble body had simply moved. Lirngelf didn't even cry out - he was already dead. The marble arm entered his body as if it was made of water and then pulled out in a fist, leaving the unharmed body to crumple.
"This discussion is pointless, isn't it?" The living statue turned back to the table, not even looking at Suria. "We might as well dispens-"
Before he could finish his turn, the silver-haired professor unleashed a bolt of lightning. What followed was a flurry of magic so fast that Suria thought it had blown her backwards until she realized that the secretary had actually grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back into the corridor.
On their way in, the man had seemed amused, but now his face was slack with terror as the professors did battle. Everything seemed to move impossibly quickly, so fast that Suria couldn't determine the slightest thing about the battle, not even who was on whose side or who was winning.
The pattern of the spells wasn't exactly the same as before, yet Suria still knew some of them. When the walls began to curl apart in strange spirals, she saw the pattern and jerked back before the spiraling energy could tear through her. When the edge of a flaming serpent scorched her, she instinctively cast her healing spell on herself, even though her spell was like a single drip of water falling into a volcano.
She was helpless in the face of the battle... and yet she felt something. Beyond all the magic that was incomprehensible, there was a throbbing sensation, like a sort of heartbeat. Something within her pulsed in response, as if she was sensing something new...
Then a gray sphere of death expanded, sweeping over her in an instant. As she dissolved, Suria reflected that it felt familiar.
When she returned to her chair in the waiting room, she was actually a little relieved: the burns on her arms were gone and she was grateful to be out of the mana boiler of that room. She marveled over the strange sensation, reflecting that whatever magic she was sensing, the gray sphere was more like it than anything else she'd felt in the battle. Something related to the fundamentals of the time loop, perhaps?
Interrupting the professors had also broken the one hour rule, which taught her something important: it wasn't that the loop was necessarily limited to a single hour, the issue was that she was dying. If she could avoid the gray sphere, it seemed certain that the time loop would extend for longer, or maybe she could even escape it entirely.
Setting aside such thoughts, Suria turned to look at Lirngelf. He hadn't moved from his starting position, and she wasn't surprised, given how badly his plan had backfired. She should be able to get concessions from him now, if he didn't agree outright to help her.
Yet he still wasn't moving. Suria frowned and walked over to check on him, touching his shoulder... and realized that he was dead.