The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

The next cycle, Mirian planted several incendiary devices in the rooms where Troytin sometimes stayed, then talked to Torres about sabotaging the spell engines he'd be bringing so they'd blow up in his face specifically. She sketched out what a divination-proximity trigger would look like for her. Torres was deeply uncomfortable with the idea, but reluctantly agreed. Next, she got Calisto interested in her project, then set a date for them to meet in Second Cairn with her father.

Then she headed down to Cairnmouth and started working on a workshop and then production line.

Mirian hit five different banks that she knew weren't connected to each other, picking only one that was run by the Allard family. She used a different disguise in each one, relying on an old Syndicate contact, Numo, for fabricated introductory letters and forged identity documents. While the Syndicate had rules preventing it from working against its allied banks, it also had a policy of not asking why someone needed forgeries. Numo, like the good Syndicate man he was, didn't ask any questions. If Mirian had been planning on sticking around, the deception certainly would have come back to bite her. As it was, she just needed everything to pass muster for a few weeks.

To further allay the suspicions of the banks, she deposited some of the gold the letters of credit entitled her to and withdrew only a portion. That gave her ten thousand doubloons. Four more letters of credit of varying amounts made up the other ten thousand.

She spent another two days assembling a myrvite divination engine based on her previous designs. The difference was, this one had a setting that would pick up only the most intense soul readings.

The next challenge was moving it all. The doubloons weighed 150 pounds, and the divination engine another 50, so she bought a cart, then spent some time scribing glyph wards so she could both reinforce the case and ward it from basic divination. It wouldn't do to have a common criminal with even rudimentary magical training discover her; not because she couldn't handle it, but because it would draw unnecessary attention. Then she hired a small team to come with her. It felt strange to have people doing things for her. She didn't like not having her own hand on her luggage, and it felt strange to order people about outside a military context.

By the 12th, she'd made it to Second Cairn and reassumed her Micael disguise. On the 13th, Calisto joined her for the meeting. This time, the meeting was properly scheduled and Mirian had discussed their strategy beforehand.

That afternoon, she sat down in front of Cain Ennecus and presented her proposal. She'd arranged a catered lunch, because at some point Nicolus had told her the benefits of negotiating when everyone was enjoying a good meal.

"It's good to meet you, Mr. Ennecus," she said, giving him a firm handshake. "When I learned about your family's operation, I was quite impressed. I believe we can assist each other."

"The pleasure is mutual, Mr. Nezzar. I'm surprised I haven't heard of your family. It sounds like you've made quite a name for yourself in Akana Praediar."

Mirian smiled. "It's the land of opportunity. But it is getting crowded over there. There's a great deal of untapped potential here, I think."

"I've heard your proposal is quite generous," he said, and glanced at his daughter briefly.

They made small talk and ate while Cain reviewed the documents. Mirian only grazed lightly even though what she really wanted to do was start stuffing herself with sandwiches.

"Quite generous," Cain repeated, having finished the review.

"Perhaps, but also well worth it to me. With your help, Nezzar Arcanics will reach new heights of reputation. Imagine what will be learned from studying a myrvite titan!"

Cain looked skeptical. "You really think you've found one?"

Mirian nodded to one of the men she'd hired who wheeled forward the divination device. He took the cover off with a dramatic flourish, then stepped back. Mirian walked over and activated the device with a touch to a glyph. "This is the basic function of the device," she said. "Buildings and major terrain features show up in gray. Myrvite souls are colored based on their energy, done through a proprietary glyph system."

The illusionary projection bloomed. There were hundreds of glowing dots on the map.

"These energy intensities can help identify the species. That's obviously a forest drake farm over there," she said, pointing at one part of the map full of red dots.

"Amazing," Cain's secretary whispered.

"However, the device can be tuned to pick up a wider range of energies. It doesn't look as fancy, and tuning the device in this way prevents it from picking up weaker myrvites. But we did some testing, and found… this," Mirian said, tapping several glyphs on the device. The gray areas disappeared, and what was left was a single bright violet dot.

Cain furrowed his brow. "What am I looking at?"

"We are in the center of this map. This dot is east and slightly south of us, a few hundred miles away. There can be only one thing giving out arcane energy like that."

Cain glanced at Calisto, then at one of his men, then back at Mirian. "It's detecting a myrvite at over a hundred miles?"

"It is. And this is just the prototype. With your team's expertise in myrvite divination, I'm sure we can do great things. And, after we bag a myrvite titan, we'll have both academies and investors lining up to throw gold at us."

Mirian could see the greed working its way through Cain. He had questions and concerns, she was sure. But her proposal was clear: she didn't even want their investment. Just their connections.

"You said you require a… large team of myrvite hunters, and were willing to pay for the entire operation," Cain said. "How large a team do you need?"

Mirian nodded at the second servant, who wheeled forward the case. "I've done some research on Apophagorga," she said as the case stopped beside her. She handed the man a glyphkey and he opened a latch on it. Inside sparkled piles of doubloons. "I need every myrvite hunter you can get me."

***

Mirian had some expertise in logistics from helping direct the Battle of Torrviol, so she didn't at all envy the quartermasters. Coordinating and organizing supplies for nearly fifty myrvite hunters would have had her pulling out her hair, but she could say one thing about Cain Ennecus: he knew how to quickly pull together an expedition. Over the course of the next five days, he quickly processed contracts for all of them and even organized the train cars they'd need. Calisto helped secure several wagons. The days passed in a flurry, though Mirian kept glancing toward the horizon, wondering if she hadn't impaired Troytin quite enough.

Moving a bunch of experienced spellcasters and rifle experts might have drawn a raised eyebrow in earlier cycles, but now, with Ibrahim beating at the doors of Alkazaria, large movements of money and material were happening all the time, and Mirian doubted much of Troytin's spy apparatus had a presence in Second Cairn.

However, with Alkazaria under siege by Ibrahim, they'd also need to hop off the train early and make their way overland, then north. They also had to check in with a military liaison before boarding the train. Mirian was pretty sure getting him to agree to anything involved at least a few bribes. Well, she had plenty of gold to spend.

The head of the largest hunters group was named Annita, and Mirian quickly found her indispensable. She had several scars on her face, and wore an eyepatch. The woman radiated confidence, and apparently had high enough spellpower she'd attempted the archmage trials, though she hadn't passed. Mirian assigned her as second in command. They departed on the 19th of Solem, and Mirian finished organizing her chain of command on the train.

"Wow, you're pretty good at this," Calisto gushed as she watched her sketch out the organizing documents.

"Ah, my dad coached me in business, but he was an officer in the army before all this."

"Well, you're a natural," Calisto said, giving her a big smile.

She was flirting, Mirian knew. Now's not the time, she thought. Besides, it would feel empty again. All she likes is this shell she sees. She doesn't know me.

She used a spell to copy her documents, which brought more cooing from Calisto. When she was done, she rose from her seat. "Sorry, I need to get these to the captains of each team and talk with them about tactics. Lots to do." Experience tales at empire

"Yeah, of course," Calisto said, looking crestfallen. The woman always wore her emotions. At least she was honest. Mirian found it preferable to all the practiced liars she'd encountered. Of which I am now one, she thought bitterly. But it was necessary. I can't shy away from what needs to be done.

***

If dragging an obelisk overland with Rostal had been annoying, it was nothing compared to moving an entire expedition weighed down with wagons. They moved quickly across the roads and scrublands at first, but then as they got into the northern wilderness, the carts would get stuck. Constantly. Eventually, Mirian ordered them to abandon the carts entirely and just use the wooly oxen pulling them as beasts of burden.

This led to a great deal of grumbling, but it did speed up their pace considerably.

Finally, they arrived at the spot around noon on the 27th.

Nine days to get here. We only just made it in time. It's too long, she knew. But it's my first time. I'll find a way to speed things up. The number of things she'd need to accomplish was starting to become onerous. Cutting out the attack on the Elder titan would make assembling the rest of the book trivial. But the First Prophet was assigned to kill a titan. The Ominian must have had a reason for assigning that task. I already know the beast can do soul magic. It's burrowed right on top of a leyline. Its magic must be a key to stopping all this. It could even be the cause!

It was the best lead she had. And if she was wrong, it would still give her a powerful tool.

Mirian issued orders for them to prepare for the beast at dawn the next day. From the data she'd taken in previous cycles, she knew Apophagorga was inconsistent on when it emerged, but it didn't emerge earlier, and it would certainly emerge within a few hours of sunrise.

As they finished establishing their camp and setting up the anti-myrvite wards, Annita approached her. She had the demeanor of a soldier. Mirian wondered if she'd been in the army before she became a hunter.

"Wards should be up momentarily. The captains have their orders… sir."

"Very good," Mirian said, and had to bite her lip so she didn't follow that with 'lieutenant,' which is what she had followed up that phrase with so many times in Torrviol.

"May I speak my mind?" she asked.

"Please," she said.

"You don't seem like a kid," she said. "Certainly not an apprentice with connections."

Mirian contemplated her response. She already knew none of the hunters were using soul-bindings, and hadn't detected any runes used in the curse wands she was familiar with. She didn't know Annita well, but she got the sense she was someone who didn't like bullshit. "You're right. But I can't exactly tell you the truth. The gold I'm paying is real, though."

"Yes, I wouldn't have come if I thought it wasn't. What can you tell me?"

"Not much. Only that we'll have a bit more spellpower than is recorded on paper."

"Good," she said. "Does this have anything to do with the siege down south? A lot of the hunters are worried we'll get cut off."

"Eh, not really. But we won't get cut off. That, I can guarantee."

***

The predawn light was growing on the horizon when Mirian woke. By the time the hunters had assembled in the staging area, the sky had brightened so that the clouds' underbellies were burning pink and orange, and the rest of the sky was growing pale with the new light.

Mirian stood before the arrayed hunters, casting her gaze out at them much like she had before assembled soldiers so many times. "Today, we make history," she said. "We hunt a beast that has not been slain for an epoch, and when we bring it down, our names will go down in legend. Are you ready?"

A cheer went up. As far as cheers went, she'd heard better, but she'd also heard far worse.

"Excellent! To your positions. Strike as soon as you see the flare."

Mirian's own position would be the hill that she and Rostal had first camped out on. She'd positioned five hunting teams around the glowing mushroom trees where the beast would emerge, each with instructions to use different attack spells. Most of the riflemen were with her. She would primarily monitor, using divination and Viridian's old remote eye spell to observe which spells had the greatest effect. She also had an assistant who she could instruct to launch flares to quickly relay commands to the whole team.

The anticipation made Mirian's palms sweaty. She double checked that her divination machine was working properly, flipped through her spellbook, then checked to see that the flares were primed and ready.

Then she waited.

The minutes turned to hours, and she began to feel doubt creeping in. Had she scared the beast off? Would it emerge the next day for some reason? The device still shows it beneath the ground. But what's it waiting for?

Runners went out with a hot cooked meal for the teams. She knew from the battlefield that was always a morale booster. One of the hunting teams dealt with an overly aggressive scimitar lion, but it obviously hadn't been a problem. Mirian sat down on a log, and thought about spells she might want to use but hadn't had a chance to scribe yet. She pulled her ink set out of her pack and began doing so. One of the arcanist hunters by her stared in amazement. "How are you doing that so fast?" he asked.

"Practice," she said blandly.

"But you're not scribing the glyphs in order."

"Saves time not switching out inks," she said. "You do all the static glyphs first. Flux glyphs last. Much faster, still no risk of pairing-stability issues."

The man continued to stare. "Where's your reference manual?"

Mirian sighed. "It's invisible, obviously. Can you not distract me?" She'd only practiced scribing Luspire's prismatic shield a few times since learning it.

"Yes, sir," the man muttered, though he continued to stare.

She was almost done when the ground began to tremble. Her arcane sense tingled, just as it had. She set down her glyph pen and ripped out the incomplete page she'd been working on, letting it catch fire. "It's here," she said.

"Is someone casting a spell?" the arcanist asked.

"No, that's the beast. Brace yourselves!" she called.

Arcane geysers erupted around the spot they'd surrounded, and the trees there toppled.

"Gods above," Mirian's assistant gasped.

Two colossal legs emerged from the ground, knocking over another tree, and Apophagorga began to climb up, seeming to phase through the ground. Its head turned back and forth, rows of red eyes taking in the tiny animals around it. Then it roared.

Mirian locked eyes with it. We meet again, she thought, letting the sensation of her aura being scoured wash over her. "Order the attack," she commanded.

The assistant, trembling, lit the first flare. There was the whistle of the rocket, then a bright orange light bloomed over the beast.

The hunt begins.