The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

Mirian had made a primitive leyline detector using scrounged materials in Arriroba. Even when relaxing, she couldn't quite bring herself to do nothing useful. The detector couldn't do much, but it did alert her to a leyline flare northwest of them.

Torrviol has fallen. Liuan Var can delay the Akanan armies, but not prevent them. She hadn't created a path for Palendurio to reinforce Torrviol, and Marshal Cearsia had no doubt destroyed the gate, even when it was open. However, this cycle had proven another theory she'd had: that the longer a gate was open, the longer it regulated leyline energy. Simply having the gates open acted to stabilize the breakdown, and the longer the better.

Based on the rising intensity of the arcane auroras, Mirian suspected she had another day left.

As she'd rested in Arriroba, a thought had occurred to her: she was in the perfect position to do some reconnaissance, and there was a way to minimize risk.

She headed south.

Ibrahim's army and Atroxcidi's undead had recently taken Madinahr, but once the city was taken, most of the forces were no longer needed out east. With time in the loop running out, this was her opportunity to learn something about the necromancer's capabilities. From what she could tell, Atroxcidi himself was not a part of any of the battles, and he certainly wouldn't be needed in an already captured Madinahr. Like Ibrahim, he seemed never to lead from the front.

Mirian flew south, then began casting divination spells like there was no tomorrow. Which, likely, there wouldn't be. Next, she used her lens spells to get a good glimpse of the area surrounding Madinahr. Sure enough, a mixed Persaman and undead army had occupied the city.

She thought of her old friends who still lived in the city. All the merchants she knew. Even that man who'd been guarding the gate who she'd recognized from preparatory school. What terrible fates had they suffered?

God's blood, Ibrahim. Who in Madinahr was responsible for your family's death? Why do they have to suffer? None of the noble families had any presence in the city she was aware of. The city did, however, have military and strategic importance. So is justice still his objective, or has that become a lie he tells himself?

She cast total camouflage as she approached the forces outside the city, then set up by a hill to look out over the patrols and camps in closer detail.

The Persaman army had little artillery. They had few light guns—all different types—that had been pilfered from Alkazaria, plus a few shield engines. The soldiers were all carrying different kinds of guns, many of which had different calibers. Mirian didn't envy whoever was in charge of logistics.

The other thing she noticed was more subtle. Mirian had commanded the Fort Aegrimere garrison many times, and just as often she'd been in charge of militia units. There were ways experienced soldiers set up that were different than new recruits. The leftover trenchwork was sloppy. There were large gaps in the patrols. Ammunition was being laid directly on the ground, where mud could seep into it and cause problems. Several artillery were positioned out in the open instead of behind cover. If they were facing actual opposition, it would be able to pick off several guns with ease. The deficiencies made sense; Ibrahim would only be starting with a small core of veterans.

The thing she was most interested in were the undead.

The base of the undead was a mummified corpse. These looked sand-desiccated. Atroxcidi had been clever; with divination she could sense that he'd inscribed runes directly on the bones, but then sealed the desiccated skin back over the runes so that the sequences couldn't be simply observed. He'd also crafted enchantments to ward away common divination. Those same anti-divination enchantments were also covering up what enchantments or spells he'd used.

The skeletons wore simple garments of gray cloth, the same kind that a Persaman commoner might wear. Over that, each had a skullcap and a breastplate. How in the five hells did a single man equip an army like this? she wondered. Simply keeping the enchantments charged would be a challenge. The rainproofing enchantment on Mirian's cloak needed to be recharged every week or so. Lily's glasses sapped a small amount of mana whenever she was using them—one of the reasons Lily had possessed significantly more auric mana than her before the loop started. An enchantment, no matter how high quality, would eventually lose the mana, or use it up. That was why the ward stones at waystations needed an arcanist to charge them. But these undead and their enchantments have lasted the entire loop. Atroxcidi can't be charging them all. The undead army is too spread out and too large for that. She needed to find out how an enchantment could be persistent like that.

There was only one thing to do: she needed to observe one up close.

There appeared to be small Baracueli resistance militias nearby, so whoever was commanding this force had been wise to keep the patrols up even after Madinahr had fallen. Mirian snuck closer to one.

One undead patrolled with three soldiers. She looked again. The undead soldier had an orichalcum torq and carried a rifle. Do they all have that? That would mean Atroxcidi had access to more orichalcum than the Arcane Praetorians! Or maybe they killed a few Praetorians and distributed the… except that wouldn't work, because the metal would need to be soul-attuned.

Again, it was clear that Atroxcidi was operating on a level far beyond her. For all that she had achieved in magic, she still had a long way to go to reach the apex of human capability.

She levitated toward the patrol, still nearly invisible, then cast zone of silence before snatching up all four of them with mass lift person. The three soldiers came easily. The undead slipped from her grasp. Its head snapped toward her, eye sockets glowing with faint violet flames.

Mirian stripped the rifles from the patrol and tossed them aside so she could focus on the undead soldier. She thought she'd used enough soul energy to penetrate the resistance, but she redoubled her efforts. She cast lift person again—and felt as the soul coating that normally penetrated spell resistance got sapped away.

Well shit, she thought.

The undead raised its rifle. Mirian raised her prismatic shield, and the shot smashed into it. She batted the rifle aside with a powerful force blast, which shattered some of the finger bones and sent the rifle flying.

This time, Mirian didn't take any chances. She used lift object on the ground beneath the undead soldier's feet, carrying the earth underneath it so that the soldier moved too. As almost an afterthought, she grabbed the three soldiers and then sped away towards the cover of a hill.

Mirian used force drill to weaken the hillside, then partially buried the undead in dirt so it couldn't move. It stared menacingly at her, but it wasn't strong enough to lift itself out. At least they have some weaknesses.

Then she turned the first soldier. She pulled him forward, moving the zone of silence to cover the other two but not him.

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"How are the undead commanded?" she asked in Adamic.

"Please don't hurt me!" the man said.

"What's your name?"

"Abduat. Please, I have a family!"

"Great, so do I. Listen, Abduat, I won't hurt you as long as you cooperate. I'm a Prophet like Ibrahim. Sorry, Chosen of the Prophet, since I'm guessing you're Isheer. Anyways, I'd like to learn a bit about what he's doing and why so I know if I can cooperate with him to stop the end of the world. Does that sound good to you?"

The soldier looked scared. "End… of the world?"

Mirian raised an eyebrow. Hardened veteran he is not. "Ibrahim didn't tell you? The world is going to end in… well probably a few hours at this point. Don't worry, there's a time loop, that's how he knows so much. We'll all do it again, it's just, we'll remember and you won't. What is Ibrahim telling you?"

The other two soldiers were struggling and shouting, but there wasn't much they could do.

"I…we fight for a rebirth of Persama! Justice for our dead! And an end to Baracuel's slaughters."

"Great, that all sounds good. So you're allying with a necromancer?"

The man got a very uncomfortable look. He glanced back at the other two. One of them was shaking his head vigorously.

"I… I shouldn't say."

"Well, yes, you should say, or something very bad might happen," Mirian said.

Abduat turned pale. "Please no!"

"Then keep talking. How do you command the undead?"

"They've been ordered to follow the commands of Dawn's Army." He glanced back again, then added, "Please don't hurt my friends either."

Mirian contemplated that. She examined the man's soul. There were no obvious soul-marks. Then how are the undead identifying friends?

"Can you order the undead not to attack me and to submit to examination?"

"No, I'm not an officer."

Hmm. Maybe officers have soul marks. Even that would be a lot of soul marks to give out though.

"Where are you from, Abduat?"

The man shook his head.

"I'm not going to hurt your family." He's not listening at all. The world would end before I could get to them. "I'm just curious."

"Narabalda. Near Rambalda," the man whispered.

"And Rambalda is where Dawn's Peace is based, yes? Ibrahim was there at the start of Solem?"

"Of course. Are you going to kill us?"

"Where is Atroxcidi?"

"Please don't kill me! I don't know! None of us know!"

Mirian clutched her forehead. "Gods above, I'm not going to kill you." She looked at the three soldiers. "When did you get recruited? A month ago?"

"Uh… yes. How did you know?"

Basically all militia, then, she noted. "How far does the recruitment stretch? Are there soldiers from Mahatan?"

"I… I don't think so? Mahatan is a long ways away. Have you been to Persama?"

"A long time ago," she said. That gives me the most critical information. She prepared a force blade spell, then stopped. What does a promise matter? They're dead in a few hours. But she held back. "Alright, I'd appreciate if you all just said you had to chase after your undead friend here after it spotted a patrol and ran after them, but you couldn't catch it. Can you all do that for me?" She dismissed the zone of silence.

"Never!" one of the bound men cried. "We serve the glory of the Last Chosen and we will—!"

"Okay, you're coming with me then. Maybe when you report back you mention he's still chasing our mummy here."

Abduat swallowed, eyes wide. "What are you going to do to him?"

Mirian narrowed her eyes. "You'd rather not know." And with that, she flew off again, taking the stubborn soldier with her using hold person and the undead soldier by wrapping it in a layer of the ground and pulling that with her. Bits of sand and soil trailed through the air as she took them away.

Two miles later, she dropped the soldier off. "Bye," she said. "If you follow me I will kill you."

"Heretic!" he called after her, but he didn't follow.

A mile later, she figured she was far enough from the army. She found an abandoned farmstead and stuck the undead soldier in the middle of the barn. The nearby wood and iron became the raw materials she used to create shackles binding the construct. The entire time, the undead minion stared at her wordlessly. It was slightly unnerving.

Once it was bound, she could properly study it.

The first lesson she learned was that her use of raw soul energy, while effective against myrvites, was not at all effective against a trained necromancer. The energy shared what she thought as 'soul resonance,' but that resonance could still be manipulated. Any time she got raw soul energy close to the undead construct, it was sucked away. Atroxicdi apparently knew of a way to turn this soul energy into more fuel for his creations.

It must be similar to how the siphons work, only a more advanced application. After all, if she could siphon the living soul of Apophagorga for her own use, why would he not be able to do the same to energy that had not fundamentally changed in form? But enchantments are heavily limited. Usually, they can't handle even basic conditional events. The rain-repelling enchantment is always on, rain or not. Setting conditions for a spell to trigger usually requires a spell engine.

She clearly needed to become more proficient at runes.

Here was an opportunity.

Her first attempt at dissecting the creature failed. As she brought the steel knife she'd stolen from the house's kitchen close to the construct, some sort of rune sequence activated and began siphoning her auric mana. Mirian swore and stepped back far enough to break the spell's connection.

She resorted to using telekinesis to manipulate the blade and began carving up its skin.

The first arm she tried this on was highly resistant to cutting. Atroxcidi was using some sort of glyph sequence that transformed energy. As she tried to cut the arm, the arm heated up. This meant instead of opening it up, the arm burst into flame, and the glyph and rune sequences there exploded.

Mirian erected a shield in time. The undead, now restrained by a single arm and its two legs, angrily moved its torso at her, jaw clacking.

She stood back, contemplating her next move.

He's obviously studied the techniques of the Elders. She had only recently seen this kind of magic in action protecting the rooms that contained Conductor and Eyeball, though in retrospect, it was probably pervasive throughout the Labyrinth as well.

Eventually, she settled on using a tightly controlled, very hot flame to burn off the layer of mummified tissue covering the bone of the left leg. Her eyes widened as the bone was revealed. Endresen would be envious of Atroxcidi's scribing techniques. She didn't see any tri-bonded sequences, but she saw plenty of glyph and rune sequences each delicately engraved in the bone. Well over three-quarters of the runes were ones she was completely unfamiliar with. She felt like the first time she'd been in Professor Eld's class and had wondered how anyone could remember all the glyphs. Now, she knew the glyphs like she knew her own soul.

And yet, I still have so much to learn. Studying this and trying to figure out the function through testing might take years. It's like with the Elder Gates. She needed a teacher.

She needed Atroxicidi.

The amount he could teach her would certainly outweigh the monstrous things he had done.

If Ibrahim allied with him, he's not ideologically opposed to working with Prophets. And, at least according to my parents, I'm Persaman born, so perhaps he won't oppose me purely for being Baracueli. But I need to get to him before Ibrahim does. Otherwise, who knows what tales he tells the necromancer?

Before, it had been an intractable problem. Now, she had a solution for that, didn't she?

She needed to find where the necromancer was based. Then, it was a simple matter of uncovering the nearest Elder Gate.

***

The Praetorians had never gotten a precise location on Atroxcidi, only an area to be searched. This was because of the political maneuverings of General Corrmier and Director Castill, who simply wanted the Praetorians out of Palendurio during the coup. However, she knew the general area that needed to be searched. He was somewhere south of the East Sound, near enough to visit the town of Falijmali. Given how fast Ibrahim could reach him, and given how fast the undead reached Alkazaria, that narrowed down the area she would need to search significantly.

Mirian mapped out her route. It would be lengthy, but it would circle far around Ibrahim's armies. He would be running a war. She would be skulking in the shadows.

When the cycle started again, Mirian took the Elder Gate down to Palendurio. She fetched Rostal again, and also stole a pile of volumes from the Great Library on Atroxcidi and the Unification War. It would be a long boat ride to Urubandar, and she wanted to keep occupied.