The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

Of all the things Mirian thought she’d learn this cycle, spycraft wasn’t on the list, and Valen sure wasn’t the one she thought would teach her. Valen, in Mirian’s experience, was never particularly verbose, but she seemed to revel in two things: knowing things that other people didn’t, and being able to lord that over Mirian.

“I still can’t believe you didn’t do a proper stakeout before I suggested it,” Valen said. “You’re really alone up here?”

“I told you I can’t talk about it,” Mirian said, exaggerating the annoyance in her voice for dramatic effect.

Over the past few days that she’d been working with Valen, Mirian had discovered another truth of spycraft: it was boring as hell. She’d had to spend hours paying attention to foot traffic, waiting for the exact minute someone entered or emerged from the door. She and Valen had done several shifts in the evening, which Mirian still couldn’t believe Valen was willingly doing. Then, for some of the time, they’d both be sitting on the same bench watching the door out of the corner of their eye while Valen would see a passing ox pulling a cart from the train and say something like, “oh, it kind of looks like you!”

Agony. But they had discovered that there were at least three spies using the apartment, and Mirian had recognized two of them. One was the rooftop guy she kept stealing from at the start of each cycle, and another the one she’d been tracking over the past few cycles. The third one used his illusion spell a lot, but Mirian was pretty sure it was the guy who kept visiting Bainrose.

“You’re sure they don’t have another cell?” Valen said.

“I haven’t seen any evidence of it,” Mirian replied. She had to admit, it was certainly a possibility. But wouldn’t she have seen at least some sign of it before now? They didn’t need a second spy cell because they had the guards essentially working for them.

“Did they teach you standard Akanan operations? Why am I asking, of course they didn’t. The usual procedure of the Republic Intelligence Division is to deploy a minimum of two cells. One does the mission, and the other watches them do it. It doesn’t… either this is an unusual operation, or you’re missing the second group. Or, it’s not even officially government sanctioned. Are you sure it’s sanctioned, and not, say, the Syndicates?”

Mirian sighed. “I’m sure, and no, I can’t tell you how I know.”

The evening that they planned to actually break into the spy’s building, Mirian was ambushed by someone she didn’t expect: Lily.

Her roommate came in just as Mirian was preparing to leave for their break-in, and said, “Mirian, we need to talk.”

“Can it wait? I’ve got this really important study session I need to get to.”

“Wait until when? Mirian, I hardly see you anymore. We don’t talk. What… what happened? Did I do something wrong?”

Mirian’s heart broke. “I’m… sorry.” It seemed impossible to explain. How did she tell her that they’d already had those conversations, over and over again until she’d grown sick of them? How did she say she’d heard every story from class, heard about every letter from home, and heard every joke Lily had told during Solen ten times? It had been annoying at first, and then aggravating. When they talked, she was just going through the motions. Despite her efforts to put on a pleasant mask, Lily, who knew her best, had no-doubt seen through to the emotionless affect behind it. It wasn’t fair to Lily. Her friend still felt, and thought, and dreamed and lived—each iteration. Only, this version of her was damned to die in a few days. Nothing could stop that. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” she finally said, seeing the pain that was in Lily’s eyes. “I just… I can’t explain it. You’ve always been and will always be my friend. So don’t worry. I’m just—I’m going to be busy. For a long time. It has to be me; there’s no one else. I know it doesn’t make sense. Maybe someday it will. I’m sorry.”

Lily said, “What… Mirian, but what is it? Why—?”

Mirian thought about telling her in a few days, it’ll be the apocalypse again. That’s my life now. It had been her life for nearly a year now, she realized. What did that mean? Was she older now? Should she have celebrated her 23rd birthday? She just said, “I’m sorry,” again, and maybe Lily heard that raw pain turning into tears. She turned and left.

When she met Valen in one of the east alleys, she helpfully said, “Well someone had a bad evening.”

Mirian felt her sadness boil away to fury. “Don’t start. I’m not in the mood.”

Valen sighed. “You’re never in the mood. Always wound up tighter than a crossbow string, and about as resilient.”

Mirian thought about the time she’d slammed the other girl into the alley wall, and how good it had felt. Instead, she said, “You have no idea. And you should be thankful you never will. Let’s stay focused.” That last part was more to herself; she hated to see Lily hurting. Their friendship meant everything to her.

Valen rolled her eyes.

The plan was relatively simple. The spies liked to go out at night. That meant late evening was the time to break in. The cold nights meant people would be keeping indoors, where it was warm.

Already, knowing where they started was going to be helpful in future loops. Mirian had lost track of their movements for the most part, but now she could start to figure out all the different places they were targeting and why they were important. Maybe she’d find some part of the underground she hadn’t mapped, or a secret way into Bainrose. But actually getting to see the inside of their base? She was intensely curious as to what they would find.

Valen had volunteered to do the lockpicking. She had with her a set of brass picks (she’d already owned them, go figure) and had been honing the skill for years. Mirian would be the lookout, until they were inside. Then she’d be on divination duty, looking for any traps. Valen had assured her there would definitely be traps.

Even though Mirian logically knew this was a fairly consequence-free break-in for her, she was still nervous. The primitive part of her brain didn’t seem to care that no one who might catch them would be alive by the 4th of Duala. Valen was surprisingly calm about it, even though she had no such foreknowledge. Then again, while Valen had said she’d never actually broken into any buildings before, Mirian was pretty sure she was full of it. She was just way too comfortable hunched over the lock, feeling for the tumblers with her pick. Her hands didn’t even have the slightest tremble.

“Got it,” Valen whispered. She pressed down on the latch, then slowly opened the door just a crack. She listened cautiously, then continued to slowly open the door.

Mirian looked down the street again to see if it was still deserted. Then she opened up her spellbook and started casting. She went through several divination spells, but none of them detected any major glyph formations, just the usual ones used in construction. “Clear,” she said, and stepped into the entryway.

It was a small anteroom, with three pegs to hang cloaks and a wooden floor instead of the usual stone tile. The room was compact, and lightless, but there was another door at the end of it, and it looked a lot sturdier. She cast another divination spell to search for common trigger glyphs on the handle or latch, and found nothing.

There didn’t appear to be a lock on the inner door, so she turned the handle—

—and her heart skipped a beat as the floor dropped out from under her. Then she was screaming in pain, her body crumpled among a bunch of wooden stakes.

“Mirian!” Valen called out, panicked.

She might have said something else, too, but all Mirian could think about was the pain. The stakes weren’t sharp, but she’d slammed down on them from six feet up and everything hurt. She was nauseous, and she was sure something was broken. Maybe several somethings. For a moment, she blacked out, then the pain snapped her awake again. Two of the stakes were still digging into her back.

She groaned, and was able to roll over so that she fell face-down into the stone floor between the stakes. These psychotic fucking Akanans. They couldn’t just design a trap to imprison someone, they had to make it hurt, too, didn’t they?

Other thoughts tried to make their way to the front of her mind, but they kept getting battered down by how much it hurt. She looked up and couldn’t see Valen. She’d probably run off. It was the smart thing to do. There was no way she could haul Mirian up on her own, especially given that her left arm seemed to be broken. Another wave of nausea swept over her.

When she looked up again, she saw the first spy, the one she kept taking the satchel from each cycle.

“You,” he said in Eskanar, apparently recognizing her as well.

A chill ran through Mirian. Trapped as she was, already inside the spy’s building, they could do anything to her. Captain Mandez had kept her starved and shivering, and that was in an official guard house. The terrible possibilities of what they might do to her in the days remaining ran through her mind. She couldn’t let it happen. She didn’t want to live with whatever they were going to do.

“You Akanan scum,” she said. “I’ve already killed one of you. You’ll just have to join him.” Then she reached for her wand.

The minor lightning wand wouldn’t have done much to the spy, but he didn’t know that. When he saw the wand come out, he did what she wanted. He reacted by drawing his own wand, and this was a proper lightning wand, one that could kill.

Briefly, she felt another burst of pain, and then nothing.

***

Mirian woke, and felt terrible relief to be staring up at the dorm ceiling, the tiny hole faintly glinting. It was beautiful to be free of the pain, terrible because of a thought she kept having. Ever since she’d watched the true end of the world, past the invasion of Torrviol, she’d wondered: did the timeline persist after she died? Or did it cease when her consciousness did? She hoped it didn’t. She’d just left a hell of a mess back there if it did.

As she went about fixing the usual things and readying herself for another day at the beginning, she thought about what had happened. It was bullshit is what it was. She’d checked for magical traps over and over and there’d been—and then she figured out the problem. She’d checked for magical traps. They’d gone and made a trap with a purely mechanical mechanism. Of course. It was a town of arcanists and magic; everyone would be on the lookout for that.

Then she’d seen that damned spy looking down at her, not even a hint of remorse on his face. The anger bubbled about in her as she waited in the alley for him to jump across the roof again. This time, when she pulled with lift object on his bag, that anger found its way into the intensity of the spell. She put in far more mana than she usually did, and yanked hard.

To her horror, the spy didn’t just pinwheel his arms and regain his balance like usual—no, his back foot slipped. For a moment, he seemed to hang in the air between the two buildings, then he came plummeting down, landing next to Mirian with a CRUNCH of bone that made her heart skip.

Oh shit, she thought. This loop ought to be different.