The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

Mirian found herself moving down, then up, then spiraling around, then going down again. She passed several rooms with closed doors, trying in vain to place where she was on the map she’d studied, but the cave network of the Grand Sanctum had rapidly disoriented her.

Soon enough she passed other acolytes and murmured the Ominian’s first prayer to them as they passed. When she saw a priest, she had to say, “Let Their words still echo,” which was the second prayer. For a bishop, it was, “Carry Their memory.” She thought it must get old to hear those words again and again, but they were a core part of the Luminate tradition. She supposed they probably got used to it, and after a while, probably sounded as natural as ‘hello.’ Thankfully, no one noticed anything odd about her.

As she passed the Hall of Remembrance, she realized she’d gone too far west, so took a right, but that hall ended up spiraling until it hit a staircase, then the hall went south again. She needed to go north.

She turned around, and nearly collided with a man who had been behind her. “My apologies.” Shit, a bishop, she thought. “Carry Their memory,” she muttered, and went to move past him.

“Another new face!” the bishop said. “A recent arrival?”

“That’s right,” she said.

“Ah. From where?”

Mirian hesitated. “Alkazaria,” she said, figuring that, statistically speaking, there were plenty of people arriving from the second largest temple complex regularly.

“Of course. I should have guessed. And you are lost, I assume.”

She smiled. “I’m afraid so.”

“You must be looking for lunch. The Hall of Bonding is this way. I was just heading there myself. I know this tunnel looks like it goes the wrong way, but it actually has a slight curve to it, and links up with the main hall.” He chuckled. “You get used to all the twists and turns. Eventually. You are…?”

“Oh! Micael,” Mirian said.

“Ah, a good name. I’m Bishop Lancel.”

She didn’t actually want to go to lunch with him, but she didn’t exactly have a good excuse not to. A bishop, unlike an acolyte, would know the routines of the temple too well. Besides, the more I learn about this place, the easier it will be to infiltrate again.

Fortunately, Lancel didn’t interrogate her, just started rambling about little tricks he’d learned on how to navigate the temple, which Mirian only half-listened to, and how he liked to get to know all the acolytes in the temple, even if their stay was brief. Soon enough, though, they were entering the main hall. Here, a larger section of the cave had been turned into architecture that was actually fathomable. From the map, she knew living quarters were west of them, the sanctum she’d come in from southeast, and the instructional rooms east. Again, the gaudiness of the decorations bothered her. Gold leaf brushed the murals and statues, while the chandeliers above had gleaming crystals. The hall had several glass display cases full of bejeweled instruments of the Elder Gods, including chalices, spikes, lanterns, and chains.

“…and that mural above was painted by the great Giosulla, after he met the Third Prophet. And here we are, the Hall of Bonding.”

Most people would just call it a cafeteria, Mirian thought. For all the deep secrets of the Order, in the end they were human. A dining hall by any other name felt the same, and though the conversation was quieter and more restrained, it still had the same atmosphere as any other hall she’d eaten in.

The fare was, unsurprisingly, vegetarian, and as usual with western Baracuel cooking, had a dire need for some more spices. It wasn’t terrible, though. The chefs clearly had some talent in sauteing the vegetables, and the bread wasn’t the best sourdough she’d ever had, but it was somewhere near the top.

Lancel, it turned out, was extremely talkative. He rambled on quite a bit about the petty goings on of the temple. “You’ve started communing with the celestial?” he asked.

Lecne had told her that was code for ‘know rune magic.’ The Luminate Order apparently didn’t even like to use language that was too similar to that used by arcane scholars. “I have,” Mirian admitted. And how exactly did the Order and the magi become such separate entities? Imagine what would have been achieved if they’d worked together.

“Amazing, isn’t it? Well, maybe not yet. It will probably take a few more months of communing with your soul before you manage anything. Most people achieve their first blessing within the second year.”

“Oh, does it take that long?” Mirian asked. Does it really? She knew she’d progressed fast in soul magic, but didn’t realize it had been that fast. Of course, none of the acolytes were likely to have a foundational understanding in arcane magic. The two forms weren’t fundamentally different, so her training at Torrviol had likely given her an edge.

“Usually. Some manage it faster. Some slower. The Gods bless us all differently, and their pattern is never clear. Which reminds me—”

Another acolyte had walked up to the table, though. “Carry Their memory, holy one. Bishop Lancel, I apologize if I’ve interrupted you—”

“Not at all!” He narrowed his eyes. “Starts with… hmm… no, don’t tell me. Hamel! It is Hamel, isn’t it?”

“Yes, holy one,” Hamel said. He had dark hair, and from his complexion and accent, probably was east Baracueli like Mirian. “If I may speak in private with you? It concerns a matter of temple finance.”

Bishop Lancel frowned. “‘The ledgers of the Order should be an open book.’ Second Prophet. There are things worth keeping secret, but the temple’s money is not one of them.”

“Very well,” said Hamel, glancing at Mirian a bit distrustfully. He lowered his voice then said, “My assigned duty this month was to transcribe a copy of the ledgers. I… before joining, I worked as an accountant for the Tailor’s Guild, so it is something I am quite familiar with. So you see, I am quite proficient at noticing suspicious entries.”

“Yes?” said Bishop Lancel, who was still smiling.

Strange. He surely understands what Hamel is implying, but isn’t bothered by it? Or is it just his demeanor?

“There are… a lot of suspicious entries. I made a copy of them.” He handed three sheets of paper to the bishop. Mirian couldn’t help but notice the total on the bottom of the front sheet was 351 doubloons.

“I’m sure someone made an honest mistake. You talked to Priest Treyul already?”

“I did, and he did not want to listen to what I had to say. Which is concerning. These do not seem like the kind of mistakes one could make on accident. Usually, when something like this happens, it’s because—”

“I’ll look into it,” Lancel said. “You have my word.”

Acolyte Hamel gave a small nod, then his shoulders visibly relaxed. “Thank you, holy one.”

“Only our duty,” the bishop replied. “Sorry to interrupt our conversation, Micael, but it was good meeting you.” Bishop Lancel stood, papers in hand. He paused midway through the aisle, then made for one of the doors. Then he paused and made for another one. Hamel left, glancing back at Mirian.

Mirian waited for them both to leave, then cleared their dishes and made for the exit herself. Part of her wasn’t surprised there was corruption in the Luminate Order. Another part of her was crushed. The faithful the Ominian calls to are supposed to be the best of us, she mourned.

Now that she’d found the main living quarters, it was easier to orient herself. She surreptitiously checked for both arcane glyphs and celestial runes. Her divination spell pointed her back towards the kitchen. Apparently, the ban on glyphs hadn’t extended to cooking. That made sense; ventilating the smoke from the candles and torches was annoying enough. Having to use a bunch of smoking fuel to cook for that many people would be a real pain. And yet, it’s a holy tenet of the Order. What lets them pick and choose what they follow?

It took her another fifteen minutes to find the holy vaults, mostly because she got turned around again and had to double back. New acolytes getting lost was, it seemed, a usual rite of passage.

The entrance to the holy vaults looked more like a catacomb than a sacred place. Eight niches around the doors were stacked high with bones, sacred prayers inscribed on each. The chandelier above was also made of bone, each candle on it burning with a golden flame. Unlike the mundane torches the Order usually used, these were runework, she could tell instantly. It took effort for her not to start studying them immediately. This was the first instance she’d seen of soul magic used to create fire.

The entrances to the vaults themselves looked like the entrances to tombs. There were seven doors between the eight bone niches, each entrance reinforced by granite, and each door solid stone with no obvious handle or mechanism. Unlike the faded runework in other parts of the Sanctum, the runes here were freshly powered.

In a central piece of stonework above the door were carved the words: We spread your grace; we remember your light.

Four Luminate Guards stood statue-still by the doors.

One took a ritually measured step forward. “I am Everad, and I stand guard. State your purpose.”

Once again, Mirian was thankful for Lecne’s instructions. “I am Micael, and I come to pray, and to seek Their light.” And with that, she knelt on one of the worn carpets on the floor and bowed her head.

The guard took a step back, becoming statue still again.

The nice thing was, Mirian didn’t actually need to see to be able to study the magic around her. She had become quite adept at sensing, and so as she knelt, she embraced the focus and cast her gaze out. Several of the runes were unfamiliar to her. Several of them she knew, which meant she at least had some idea as to the function of the others.

She spent an hour in this position, in which time acolytes and priests came and went. Finally, she decided staying any longer might look suspicious, so she left, murmuring a prayer to the guards.

Mirian would have loved to head to one of the classes where they taught acolytes more about runes, but Lecne has assured her that was a terrible idea. Celestial magic was one of the great secrets of the Luminates, and they guarded it jealously. The names of all acolytes to be trained were checked against a ledger, and the training classes were small so a strange face would be noticed. Besides, Arenthia and Lecne already taught me most of what they’d be learning. Given the runes and celestial flow patterns she’d just seen by the vaults, though, she was sure there were more secrets to be uncovered.

As evening fell, Mirian finally left the same way she’d entered so she could pick up her clothes on the way out. She picked a time when the sanctum room was empty and levitated down, then simply walked out the front door in her acolyte robe. The guards didn’t care much who was leaving.

All in all, it had been quite a successful infiltration.

***

The next day, Mirian visited several different shops to buy supplies for her artifice. She missed having the tools of the Torrviol crafting stations available to her, but in the end, shape wood, shape metal, and Jei’s crystal spinner spells could accomplish most of what she needed, even if that made the work far more mana intensive.

Her first task was to create a soul repository, but already she could anticipate a problem with making more progress on her knowledge of celestial runes. Many of the foundational runes could be crafted with any soul energy, but certain runes needed a specific type of soul energy.

From the different resonance she could detect from the runes in the sanctum, she would certainly need a specific type of soul energy to craft the new runes. In Cairnmouth or Frostland’s Gate, this could be easily solved by simply binding and killing the kind of myrvite she needed. Both were in abundance, either due to Numo’s smuggling or the fact that Frostland’s Gate was in, well, the frostlands.

Here in Palendurio, she had no such contact, and no easy access. She couldn’t just mash all the souls she acquired in a repository; the resonance of the energy would change and average out, making any special myrvite souls she collected just as generic as the soul energy of a fish.

Mirian spent the rest of the day designing a new kind of soul repository that had multiple ‘storage’ chambers where she could differentiate soul energy. This ended up being hideously complex, and she spent a second day reworking the design just to get two chambers. In the end, even all her design lessons with Torres couldn’t crack the problem. She decided it would be easier to just have multiple repositories that weren’t linked to each other until she could come up with a solution. That would be unwieldy, annoying to make in multiples, and resource-intensive, but she had already figured out how to miniaturize the repositories to some extent. It would have to do for now.

The next morning, she took a trip to the fisherman’s market down where the river met one of the busier southern canal entrances. There, she could purchase live fish and bring them back to her room at the Bard and the Lion Inn, where she could then butcher them for her runework in peace. This gave her the initial energy she needed for the first set of runes.

This stank up the room something fierce, but she scribed cleanse stench so she could cast that before anyone could complain, then gave the fish (and a bundle of spices) to the inn’s chef so he could make a proper east Baracuel fish stew.

“Eastern barbarians,” the chef joked with her, but he accepted her tip of silver coins and promised the dish would be ready by dinner time.

Once she had her first soul repository, she could simply walk down to the fisherman’s market and complete bindings on any fish about to meet its end until the repository was fully charged. All she had to do was make sure no priests were around, and her work was invisible.

She ended up making four soul repositories, which she hid inside an artisan’s knapsack. Then she went hunting for myrvites. No spellward would ever keep out the smaller vermin, so she thought she could at least get a few bone rats and maybe some copper beetles.

She used the celestial soul sight spell to help narrow her search. Seeing souls in a city as dense as Palendurio immediately gave her a headache, so she headed down to the underground canals where there weren’t so many damned people. Below, there were still merchants and teamsters moving around goods and the occasional passengers, but the canals were much more manageable. There were walkways along the canals for when rafts needed a team of mules to pull them through and to maintain the channels, so she walked along those.

She quickly located a nest of bone rats through the wall, then waited for the canal near her to be empty of boats before she bound and butchered them. Unfortunately, it probably wasn’t the right type of soul for the new runes she’d seen down in the holy vaults, so she wandered about.

A large cluster of different souls caught her soul sight’s senses, and Mirian investigated, only to find that the souls were behind a wall of some sort. She circled around several different passages, but there seemed to be no way in.

I know what that means, she thought. It had to be a smuggling operation, and somewhere, there’d be a hidden passage. She scanned the walls with divination, first locating the anti-divination wards (which obviously weren’t very good), then once she’d disabled those, found the mechanism on the other side of the door and used a telekinetic spell to open it.

As she entered, four gruff looking men all looked up from their work at once, right at her.

“You sell myrvites, yes?” she asked, closing the door behind her.

“Get the crystal hound back in its cage,” the largest and hairiest of them growled in a low baritone. “How did you find this place?” He kept his hand by his side, though whether he had a gun or a wand there, she wasn’t sure.

“I promised my contact I wouldn’t tell,” Mirian lied. “Apologies, I know this isn’t the usual way things are done. But I have a need, and you have the merchandise. I’m willing to pay an extra fee for the breach in procedure and swear the usual oaths of secrecy.”

The man’s shoulders relaxed slightly on hearing Mirian mention the oaths, which meant she was right, and this was a Syndicate operation. “You know these stay out of sight, yeah? Part of the agreement. We don’t care what you do with them, but they don’t go wandering about topside or too many questions get asked.”

“Of course,” Mirian said.

“And all these ain’t for sale. Some already have buyers, yeah?”

“Which ones are still up?”

“Let me see your coin first,” he said, while the other Syndicate workers finished wrestling the crystal hound back behind bars. The cage shut with a slam, and one of the workers shook his hand, which had a nasty looking bite mark on it.

Mirian showed him enough gold that the deal could continue, then it was a matter of inspections and bargaining. She embraced her focus and analyzed the souls of the different myrvites, picking three that had different detectable resonance.

She arranged to pick them up in the canal after dark. Since they were smaller myrvites, she estimated she could easily levitate them all. The Syndicate workers would put a paste in their food that sent the myrvites into a deep sleep for several hours so that they wouldn’t be a problem while she was moving them. Even with the price raised, the total came out to be seven doubloons and eighteen drachm, which was easily within her budget. She paid half of it up front.

After they’d shook on it and sworn the usual oaths, Mirian said, “And, for future reference, what is the usual procedure for getting in contact with you fine gentleman for purchase orders?” Mirian asked. “I might have need to be a repeat customer.”

The man gave her a toothy grin.