The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

This time, Mirian changed two more variables. She recruited Valen as a spy again, torched the registrar's building as usual, and stripped the second spy of his soul-mark so that he'd trigger the destruction of the spy's headquarters.

But before all that, she had another person to recruit the aid of.

"Respected Jei," she said, walking into her office. "It's good to see you again."

"Mirian. Do you not have class? Do not tell me you are skipping."

Mirian didn't answer. Instead, she went through all forty of the exercises Jei had taught her so long ago, chanting the words in Gulwenen as she did. Then she explained. After that, she said, "You've always understood the full implications of the time loop. Few people do. Now I need your help."

Jei cocked her head. "How long did I need to come to terms with it?"

"Usually a full day. But we don't have that kind of time." She told her about Sulvorath. "We need to make sure no progress can be made on the Divine Monument. Whatever it does, we don't know yet, but he cannot be allowed to learn. All sabotage should be done subtly. Lost papers. Improperly mixed alchemical solutions. Partial melting of key glyphs that cause the spell engines to malfunction. Ironically, the Akanan spies in town help that along. I'm also conducting tests on the timeline, seeing which variables he has the hardest time dealing with. I'm also seeing how many people in Torrviol I can mobilize against him without him knowing."

Jei snorted. "Here I thought you would be coming for help with the exam."

Mirian waved her comment away. "Your math problem is impossible to solve without a second set of coordinates, and we don't know what the coordinates are. Which might mean needing to find another Divine Monument. Maybe. But it's not clear the Akanans actually have one. They have something else. But needing a second coordinate set would mean…." Then she blinked. "Oh shit. What if that's why the leyline collapse propagates down to Palendurio? But if there's one there, why have I heard nothing about it?" She stood and started pacing. "How old are the Monuments?"

"Undatable," Jei said.

"Right, probably predates even the Cataclysm since they were put there by the Elder Gods. Are there historical references to them?"

Jei raised an eyebrow. "I am not a historian."

"Right. Crap. I'm going to have to open a history book at some point, aren't I? Well, a problem for another time. That said, there is some math I'd like you to look over."

Mirian laid out the equations and formulas she'd come up with to measure rune resonance, explaining how it worked to her as best she could, comparing it to waveform mathematics. For two hours, they discussed it, and Mirian kept thinking about just how much she'd missed working with Jei.

Saying goodbye to her was the worst. Her eyes prickled with tears as she said it.

Jei looked at her, concern wrinkling her brow. "Remember to take care of yourself."

Mirian couldn't help herself. She gave Jei a big hug. At first, Jei stiffened like a board, then, she awkwardly patted Mirian on the back.

"See you next cycle," she said, trying to swallow the lump in throat. I can give myself that, without falling apart, she thought. Just a few hours. I can do that.

It was hard to focus after that. She had to take some time to breathe, and just watch the horizon. Then, it was back to the work.

Soon enough, she was on the train to Palendurio again.

***

True to her new plan, Mirian ignored the political situation in Palendurio and focused on infiltrating the Sanctum.

She had thought about assuming the identity of one of the acolytes so she could attend classes, but the more time she spent in disguise in the Grand Sanctum, the more she understood that the soul magic curriculum they taught was sparse at best.

Instead, she stuck to the shadows, continuing her own research into runes, taking breaks to make sure she was exercising her glyphic spellwork as well. Eventually, she broke down and started looking into history books in the Great Library, searching for any mention of descriptions of strange objects that might have a connection to the fourth spatial dimension, the arcane dimension that the Elder Gods had such mastery over.

Such mentions were difficult to find, and the archivists were little help.

She ended up crafting three huge detectors, warded as best she could, in hidden spots outside the city. The detectors were powered by small spell engines, and would output their data on a scroll using mundane ink so that when the antimagic pulse wrecked them, she'd still be able to read the results. Hopefully, data on energy intensity would help point her to something.

For all their failings, the priests and bishops of the Luminate Order took the circles of secrecy seriously. The secrets were passed down verbally in special ceremonies. Infuriatingly, there were no ceremonies scheduled until after the apocalypse. The last ceremony had been the 22nd of Cerelorn, a week before the cycles had started. While she knew the first and second circle secrets from Arenthia and Lecne, the third was the purview of the bishops and archbishops, and she had trouble even getting close to them.

On the 20th of Solem, her reports came in.

Lecne's was similar to his first report. Nothing she'd done this cycle was lethal to Sulvorath, so the Deeps had continued operations in Cairnmouth, and every indication was that they would continue until the end of the cycle.

Valen's report was also similar (the first part causing Mirian to blush, again). As she had guessed, removing the soul mark from the second spy caused him to burn down the headquarters, throwing Akanan operations in the city into turmoil. It was nice to get confirmation of that. Still, with Sulvorath's guidance, it seemed the operations were able to crack down on any effort to properly investigate the disturbances. People continued to go missing, though there didn't seem to be a pattern. Is he just lashing out, or is he perhaps systematically analyzing the population to look for advantages?

Unfortunately, Professor Jei sent no letter. She could deduce from Valen's letter that she hadn't gone missing on her usual day, but had gone missing several days after. The Akanans seemed set on making sure she died. Initially, they wanted to stop Baracueli research on the Monument until it was firmly in their control. But Sulvorath must know that will never happen. Either he hasn't been able to stop Marshal Cearsia destroying it, or he doesn't want to. Neither option makes sense. What in the five hells is he trying to do?

That also gave her an idea. If he's dedicated to killing Jei, maybe he'll spend disproportionate effort going after her if she vanishes. Whatever he wanted, she'd continue undermining it.

Mirian waited again until the leyline eruption shook apart Palendurio.

The arcane energy surges ended up igniting several glyphs, despite the wards, causing the explosions to wipe out any data she might have collected. Live and learn, she thought, then went to infiltrate the Grand Sanctum again. This time, she aimed to investigate different secret rooms. This time, she hid her entire spellbook in her robes. The antimagic pulse wrecked the remains of their already insufficient security measures, so smuggling it in the bulky garment would be no problem.

Underneath the shrine to Yiaverunan, there was a spiral staircase that led down to an old abandoned vault. Time had not been kind to the materials there. Some imperfection in the stone allowed water to drip into the room, which had ruined the books there and let the wooden furniture sprout strange fungi. The stagnant pool of water at the bottom smelled absolutely wretched, and not even filter air helped.

The next secret room was by the west passages, where acolytes regularly visited a statue of Altrukyst to recite the prayers of the traveler. She rescued a priest and an acolyte, then used her divination spells to locate a rather ingenious mechanism of ancient runes that activated when a flame was lit in Altrukyst's lantern. In retrospect, that made a lot of sense. That opened up a door that led behind the alcove. This room had seen recent use. It held several secret incantations, as well as a myth about Altrukyst she'd never heard before. Somehow, it involved convincing Xylatarvia to sail her ship through the hole in his chest, which led to her coming out a different hole that was the moon. Which moon wasn't specified, but given the details about its size, it seemed to be the Luamin moon. It was one of those nonsensical tales that seemed like it should have been in a storybook for children, yet here it was hidden in a secret passage, protected by Altrukyst's cult.

Another book inside that room was a 'secret history,' involving one of the sects inside the Luminate Order. When she skimmed it, it just seemed like the sect was boasting about itself for influencing a bunch of major decisions the Order had made. It was overly self-congratulatory, and the things it had manipulated seemed absolutely asinine to Mirian. Did anyone really care about whether or not there was a fifth eye carved on the heads of the monsters that traveled with Eintocarst? Did anyone really care about the specific process for the approval of new acolytes in the western regions? And how much did it matter that on feast days, the bread was passed counter-clockwise?

Mirian returned to the holy vaults again, and shared her food with Everad. This time, she'd brought along her dating spells.

The Mask of the Fifth Prophet seemed to be the genuine item, though even after she'd broken the runic wards to analyze it, she couldn't find anything magical about it. The Sword of the Fourth Prophet and the Holy Pages of the second and third vaults couldn't be analyzed, which meant they were also probably the real thing.

She tested the Holy Pages with the first four bindings, expecting it to respond with an initial connection like the Sword had—but the bindings failed to find any purchase. Something about the Holy Pages were different than the sword, though it still clearly had the same kind of divination-resistant form that genuine artifacts of the Elder Gods did.

As she moved through the other vaults though, her suspicions that the real relics had been stolen appeared to be correct. The Staff of the Third Prophet dated to 500 years old, which was far too recent, as did the supposed finger bones of the First Prophet. The Flesh of the Nameless God dated as some 2 billion years old, which meant it was made out of granite, not the same thing that the celestial reliquaries were.

The Bejeweled Skull of the Second Prophet really was 4000 years old, but like the Mask, it seemed to have no special runes or magical energy. There were faint places where runes might have once been, but if there had been magic there, it had long since faded.

She tested each of the other relics—genuine and fake—with the first four bindings, seeing if they had the same kind of resonant attraction that the Sword had. None of them did.

It was good information to have, and it would let her focus her efforts on what mattered. I wonder who ended up stealing the genuine relics? she wondered. But that would have to be a question for another time.

A wave of antimagic passed through the caverns, and then the ground began to rumble again. She said her goodbyes to Everad.

The world ended.

***

Mirian recruited Nicolas to spy on Sulvorath. It was the obvious choice, but since she hadn't interacted with him in several years at this point, hopefully it would catch him by surprise.

That was another hard goodbye to say.

The second variable was sending various letters to various officials, both in Torrviol and out, warning of Adria Gavell's death and the betrayal of the Deeps cell.

She burned the registrar's office and deployed her seeds of chaos artifacts in Cairnmouth again.

Mirian paid extra to the Syndicate to let her rent one of their secure warehouses so she could do more testing on live myrvite souls. Her theory was that she might be able to merge multiple bound souls into a higher tier of resonance. Her attempts to do that caused two of her soul repositories to violently explode, damaging the facilities and causing one of the myrvites to escape, which alienated the Syndicate that cycle.

She backed away from that hypothesis and went back to her research on the secrets of the Order.

No letters came from Jei or Nicolas. Her new variables seemed to have done little to affect Sulvorath's overall projection of power, though from Valen's letter, they had clearly annoyed him once again.

She opened up two more secret rooms. One was unused, and had been partially flooded. The other had completely collapsed with the rest of the eastern sections, but she discovered the mechanism she'd need to open the secret passage that led to it.

The world ended.

***

Mirian instructed Jei to recruit Professor Torres, giving her a list of predictions to help. She instructed Nicolas to have Nurea warn the Cairnmouth Syndicate about Sulvorath. She left several seeds of chaos in Torrviol itself, set to go off simultaneously in empty rooms and along the spellward.

This time, she got a letter from Torres, and it spoke to the timeline in Torrviol being drastically altered by a myrvite incursion and total disruption of classes. Sulvorath was indeed trying to do something with the Divine Monument, but what it was, Torres hadn't been able to tell. As best she could tell, they were still stuck on the same problems that had plagued them when Mirian was there.

Mirian managed to sneak into the passage she'd found in the Sanctum the previous cycle. This time, she seemed to have stumbled on a sect of Eintocarst. Thankfully, the room wasn't occupied, though it was obviously still in use. The books were mostly the same kind of garbage she kept encountering, but one was a detailed treatise on the Labyrinth, and what that implied about the nature of Eintocarst's Godhood. It included several studies into runes found in the Labyrinth, as well as the myrvites associated with their construction. She took the book with her, and spent as much time as she could reading up on and practicing the new runes.

This time, she used one of her orichalcum disks to shield the most critical parts of her energy detector artifacts. She succeeded in measuring the energy from the leyline eruption, but the eruption had been so big that even at the low-sensitivity measurements, all three devices displayed results at the maximum possible point on the scale. She'd have to decrease the sensitivity or find a way to extend the scale.

The orichalcum had shielded several critical components, but there hadn't been enough of it to shield the rest.

At the end of the cycle, she started scouting out the rooms of the archbishops and the pontiff. As she'd suspected, the rooms were well guarded. What few Praetorians were still in Palendurio were mostly guarding the grounds at Charlem Palace. She began to map their patrol routes, schedules, and routines. She found several easily exploitable gaps in the security measures around the Kingmont Hill. In three different areas, there were non-overlapping wards she could disable without causing any alarms that would allow her to sneak in without a permit.

She sent a letter to the pontiff requesting a meeting. The letter was, of course, ignored.

The world ended.

***

Mirian killed the first spy by pulling him off the roof, far enough away that no one could reasonably attribute it to her. For the second spy, she opened up the latches on the wyvern cages so that they ate him when he went to kill them. She killed the spy posing as the mayor's secretary when she went to rob one of his counterfeit Florinian ingots. She left a letter for Magistrate Ada on where she could find evidence of the spies' activities. Then, on her way out of town, she set the registrar on fire as usual. As she flew out, she levitated a pig through the spy headquarters window, triggering the fire traps, then sniped Captain Mandez from the air with a disintegration ray as he moved to respond, as well as the spy who worked at the train station.

She laid low in Palendurio, focusing again on the history of the Luminates and looking for more clues about the Labyrinth and the works of the Elder Gods. She also looked into the latest research by wizards looking into the leylines, which was an incredibly sparsely known field, but it allowed her a few key refinements of her leyline measurement device. This time, in addition to the orichalcum shielding, she tried to use what she'd learned of the runes in the holy vaults to create an additional layer of protection.

When she got the letters from Torrviol, she found the town had been deeply disturbed by the rash of deaths, then further disturbed by the revelations. Sulvorath had retaliated by killing dozens of people, including Nicolas, Magistrate Ada and Jei as he apparently attempted to wrest control of the town. But he'd been too obvious about killing Jei. Valen bragged about hearing that Archmage Luspire had ripped apart the house he was hiding in and incinerated him. Mirian couldn't help but feel a surge of gratification at learning that her nemesis had been torched. She noted what building he had stayed in. Possibly, it was a spy safehouse she hadn't identified.

Despite all her precautions, her measurement devices were overloaded again.

Two more secret rooms ended up being dead ends. One was abandoned, but contained no knowledge of interest. Another was still in use, but was full of useless ceremonial trinkets.

Mirian pretended to be an acolyte and healer up by Charlem Palace so she could learn a bit more about the people there, getting as close to the section of the palace occupied by the pontiff and archbishops as she could.

The world ended.

***

Mirian checked the house that Luspire had apparently burned last cycle over. She'd had to scribe several divination spells much earlier than she usually did, but she was getting quite good at speed-scribing, the exact thing every arcanist wasn't supposed to do. The house appeared to be empty, but it had basic anti-theft wards, and upon further investigation, a rune-mark detector. The kind Specter used.

The runes Specter was using were quite simple, and now that Mirian knew the rune sequences, changing them was simple. She needed to modify a single reference rune, and then add her own triggering rune. This changed it from 'if the rune-mark is not detected, the room catches on fire' to 'if the rune-mark is detected, the room catches on fire.' Then she created a miniature spell engine that would spread those flames if it detected enough heat energy. She was sure that Sulvorath had a rune-mark, probably that Specter had placed on him, so if he or any of the spies attempted to use the room, it would cause quite the fire.

She could have made the trap more intricate and deadly, but as always, she didn't have the time or the resources. Two days just wasn't enough.

She headed south again.

Mirian checked out two books about geoarcanology from the Great Library, trying to figure out how to get her detector to work. She ended up finding a relatively simple solution: seismometers. Not even magical ones, either, though a small spell engine was the only way she could figure out how to turn the cylinder of paper the waves would be recorded on. Measuring the arcane surge itself seemed to be impossible, but she could easily measure the shockwave that surge caused.

The result, though, was that she was left with three long seismograms of jumbled lines. The spell engines had broken too quickly, so the paper cylinder had stopped rotating, so all the lines were right on top of each other. She could triangulate one of the major earth movements at the start of the eruption, but not how the eruption had progressed underground as it neared the city.

The breakthrough, though, came when she investigated the next secret room on her list, the one north of the holy vaults that took the most drilling to get to. As she broke through, four priests of Shiamagoth greeted her, crowding by the entrance.

"Oh thank the Gods! We're saved!" one of them cried out.

Behind them was a large magical forge, and beyond that, an entire shelf full of orichalcum ingots.

Found it, she thought.