The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

That evening, over mediocre chicken marsala, Mirian told Lily and Valen about the loops. Most things that happened, at least; she left out the details about the leyline explosions and the moon falling down. She breezed over how gruesome the deaths were. No need to spread the existential dread around. Unfortunately, as she talked, other students kept interrupting her story to ask her if she really killed a bog lion, so the tale was incoherent at best. It didn’t help that the events often blurred together in her memory. For example, when she tried to describe the seventh cycle, she kept mixing it up with things that had happened during the eighth and ninth.

The first time a group of students came over and asked about the bog lion, Mirian basically told the truth. The tenth time someone came over, she talked about how she had single-handedly taken it down while Professor Cassius ran for it. By the time the twelfth person mentioned it, she was telling them there was a bog lion army marshaling in the underground and it only ate people who didn’t pass alchemistry.

By then, the dining hall was clearing out.

“This is… heavy stuff,” Lily said as Mirian finished her tale. Her gaze was unfocused, and she looked somewhat dazed.

Valen had been uncharacteristically silent. They all sat, plates empty, listening to the clatter of dishes being washed and the last few murmurs of conversation as the hall emptied out. Finally, she said, “How do we have… so little time left?”

Mirian didn’t know what to say to that.

“So what do we do?” Lily asked, a hint of hysteria creeping into her voice.

“I don’t know,” Mirian said. “I mean, I have a colossal list of things I don’t know that I need to find out, but it’s things like ‘what’s the secret project under Torrviol?’ and ‘how do I get the Baracuel army to garrison Torrviol with enough force and time to repel an Akanan army group?’ and ‘Why is there a massacre in the capitol, and how does that lead to war?’ How do I ask you to help with that?”

There was silence at the table. To Mirian’s surprise, it was Valen who seemed the most dejected by her story. She’d never seen such a downcast look on her before.

Mirian rose from the table. “Sorry,” she said. “Fate is cruel.” And didn’t she know it.

***

The next day, Torrviol was full of meetings. The professors who weren’t busy proctoring exams were meeting about the Academy, the spellward, and the project. The townsfolk were all meeting about the mayor, the magistrate, and about their general discontent of things. The guards were meeting with the magistrate, and the magistrate was sending out letters by carrier birds to try and get Captain Mandez, Adria, and the mayor apprehended on the hope that their boats had gone downriver. Meanwhile, the students were meeting to pass around rumors or just celebrate the end of the quarter, even as the last group of bedraggled students finished their exams.

She wanted to open up the wand she’d retrieved from the catacombs and see what it did, but when she went to the student crafting center, she found it closed. That was annoying. Examining the glyphs would be far safer than channeling into it with no idea what it would do. She wasn’t in a hurry to end this loop yet. She’d also need to craft wands for her certification and classes, but it seemed that was going to have to wait.

The day after that, out of habit, Mirian went to register for her classes, chalking up returning combat this quarter as a loss, only to find the office closed. There was a big sign posted reading ‘Academy Registration Delayed Until The 8th of Solen’ that she’d failed to read, and on her way back to her dorm, realized she’d passed at least five more of the notices on various posts and walls.

Lily hadn’t had much to say to her. It seemed the only thing she kept asking was if it was all really true. Valen had also made herself scarce, though Mirian had seen her sitting with a group of other sixth years on some benches outside the dorms quietly commiserating. She had a good guess as to what about, though from the fragments of the conversation she heard as she walked by, Valen was keeping the details vague. She looked up at Mirian as she walked by, and Miran could tell she’d been crying. Gods, about what? It was way more unnerving than if Valen had just done something normal, like sneak up on her in an alley, or ‘accidentally’ spill juice on her uniform.

Mirian did what she could to comfort Lily. But what she wanted was someone to reassure her. To hold her while she cried. She was the one who’d seen them all die again, who was going to remember all the pain they had right now. Yet there was no one to comfort her.

It left a bitter taste in her mouth. One part of her wanted to spend some time wallowing in pity, but another part of her told her what’s the point? It’ll all happen again. All you can do is keep going.

She was almost to her door when she saw Professor Jei coming out of her dorm building. “There you are,” she said. “You have your spellbook? Good. Come with me. We talk.”

Mirian joined alongside her. “Did Torres finally cave?”

“No, they are all in a big boring meeting, going ‘talk talk talk.’” Jei made her fingers open and close. “They are talking about what should have happened, instead of what needs to happen next. A room full of very smart people, acting very stupid. No decision yet. What is the phrase you use? Do not capture your breath.”

Mirian thought about that. “Oh, ‘don’t hold your breath.’ No, I sure wasn’t. So what’s this about?”

“If you have been in the loop for 12 months, you are old enough to be an apprentice. The registrar tried to say it did not count, so I made up data and used scary looking equations to prove it was true, and they, what did you say? Caved. All you have to do is pass a standard skill assessment. Very easy for you, I think. Then you do not have to worry about classes or exams. Instead, we do serious studying. That is what you need, right?”

Mirian swallowed, and held down a sob. She hadn’t expected the emotions to swell up in her, but she couldn’t help it. Someone believed her. Really believed her, not just said they did. “It is. Thank you.”

Jei shook her head. “It is you we must thank. What you have gone through… hm. I do not have the words for it in Friian. I have arranged proctor on short notice.”

The proctor, it turned out, was Professor Seneca. She’d levitated a large chest and table over to the practice range, and was busy setting up measuring devices. It was strange to see the range deserted. Even at odd hours, there was usually at least a few other students.

Seneca showed her the list of things she’d need to do, and Mirian clenched her jaw. “I don’t have half these spells in my spellbook yet.”

Seneca, it seemed, was already prepared for this. She brought out a case with her own scribing materials, and set it on the table next to the detection devices she’d be using to measure her spell energy. “Apprenticeship examinations are more flexible than class requirements. Demonstrations of relevant skills can replace other requirements at the discretion of the proctor with the agreement of the master arcanist.” She glanced at Jei. “I don’t think we’ll be disagreeing about any of this. Scribe the spells you know.”

Mirian shrugged, and got to work. At this point, she’d memorized several dozen spells without even meaning to. After all, she had to use spells like minor lightning and major disguise in her classes as a requirement. And since she never experienced the end of the second quarter, the first part of the classes were stuck into her mind like nails.

“Oh that’s good,” Seneca said, watching her scribe simple illusionary cartography from memory. “I would have had to look up the third sequence of glyphs.”

Both professors patiently waited as she scribed spell after spell, and then it was time to demonstrate her casting ability. Most of her spells were of only passable intensity, usually measuring at around 30 myr. Minor lightning she managed to get to as high as 38 myr. “And that’s with a spellbook,” she said. “I know I can get it higher with a wand.”

Professor Jei had started frowning as Mirian cast, and her frown didn’t let up. When Seneca raised an eyebrow at this and asked if she was reconsidering, Jei said, “No, I just know what we will work on first.”

At the end of it, Seneca went through her results. “Great spell diversity, you pass easily there. Obviously I substituted enchantment scores for some of the spells you should be able to do, and I asked Torres earlier what you would get in artifice and she just said ‘She made a spellrod in two days. Pass her,’ so that’s high praise from her. Spell intensity is obviously… borderline. A few of your spells dipped into the high 20s, which normally would be grounds for failure, but Jei’s taking you in as an artificer, and so the scores are weighed differently. So you’re approved for the apprenticeship, if just barely. Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” Mirian said with a smile.

“We begin tomorrow,” Jei said.

Seneca paused putting away the measuring devices. “Tomorrow is still the break. She–”

“I’ll be there,” Mirian said.

“Suit yourself,” Seneca said. “I’m quite curious as to how this all plays out. Do keep me up to speed, Song.”

As Professor Seneca left, Mirian said, “She only half believes me.”

“Indeed,” Jei said. “She is looking at individual things in isolation and calculating how likely they are. In each case, there she can find an explanation, so she doubts your claim. But she is calculating it wrong. The probabilities must be totaled, and for that, I find no other explanation. I do not want it to be true. The implications fill me with dread. So it is. The world so rarely gives us what we want.”

Mirian nodded. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

***

They met in one of the groves just north of town. There were a few old stone benches and an overgrown fountain. Most importantly, there was no one else around. Jei wanted no distractions. Her professor looked tired when Mirian saw her. “Up late?”

“Went to the project meeting after your assessment.” Jei flapped her hand again and rolled her eyes. “Ridiculous. No sense talking about it. Inevitably, you will find the information you seek about it. However, if they share it in an official capacity, it will be better than me just explaining. As you have already figured out, two things will prove your claim until we can figure out the mechanism of travel: knowledge and ability. Each cycle, you waste time proving yourself again and again, no?”

“I do,” Mirian admitted. “It gets… tiring.”

“Like explaining the same concept to students over and over. Very boring. I do not like teaching. However, sometimes we must do what we don’t like. Today, we work on your greatest weakness.”

“Spell intensity,” Mirian guessed.

“Yes. Leave your spellbook. You will not need it. Here.” Jei handed her an amulet that looked much like the one she wore. The amber had in it a different creature, though. This one had segmented carapace and two strange eye-stalks. A thin web of silver permeated the amber.

“You just want me to use an arcane catalyst?”

“Yes. What do you call them in Friian? Raw spells. The Academy teaches wrong. They spend one class on this. They should spend two years. It is the foundation. Like the trunk of a tree. Here, the instruction focuses on making as many branches of that tree as it can, with big thick limbs. And yet, the trunk remains scrawny, and the professors wonder why the tree does not grow.”

“Tree talk. Sounds Tlaxhuacan,” Mirian said.

“If we were there, they would have you training with a literal tree. The tree I talk about is symbolic. You understand?”

“I do. Ugh, I hate raw spells.”

“Because you are bad at them. Whether that was cause or effect is irrelevant to us. You must practice.”

Mirian nodded.

They spent the entire morning on it. Jei taught her forty separate exercises, each of which she called out with a Zhiguan word. The first were easy: they involved creating a single type of energy. Light. Heat. Electricity. Magnetism. Arcane. Kinetic. The next set involved displacing that energy. Moving light to create a dark patch by a candle. Bending the magnetic lines of a lodestone so there was a gap in the field. She had enough trouble doing that with glyphs and spells. Her efforts at casting raw spells were pathetic.

The rest of the exercises, Jei demonstrated, since it was clear Mirian had no chance of accomplishing them. The next set involved combining two types of energy. After that, both creating one type of energy and displacing another. Mirian watched, fascinated, as Jei pushed a steel ball right next to a lodestone, and yet there was no attraction between the two. The precision involved wasn’t as flashy as the disintegration beam, but it was no less impressive.

“You understand why, yes?” Jei asked.

“You can cast without a spellbook. A well hidden arcane catalyst would mean no one can turn your magic off.”

Jei shrugged. “Just as easy to, say, hide a wand up your sleeve. No, all mana is raw arcane energy until it is transformed. With more precision as you feed mana into the glyphs, you waste less mana. With stronger threads of mana, the intensity takes less time to build. Your spells are faster and stronger. Eventually, you quicken them. The difference between a novice and a grandmaster playing a piano. A novice smashes the keys, slow and heavy. A master’s hands dance across like lightning.”

Mirian nodded. She wondered if Jei had seen her take the wand from the catacombs, or the example was a coincidence. Jei probably wouldn’t care one way or another, but lots of other people would. It was evidence in a high crime. And theft. Jei knowing about it would only expose her to problems from other people, so she didn’t mention it.

The rest of the time, they spent practicing the first twelve exercises. Jei called out each exercise in Gulwenen. Mirian had no idea what the words meant, but soon enough she learned what to do. As she cast, Jei kept prodding at her aura with some sort of basic divination spell. Eventually, she called a halt. “Feel that? Feel how thin your aura is? Researchers in Zhigua think this is the optimal place. The place just before depletion. Like working muscles. You do not lift weights until you collapse, but stop just before. When your mana is this low, you know to stop. We will track your improvement. When the cycle ends, you will report to me your starting capability and ending capability of the last cycle.”

Mirian was exhausted. She wanted to collapse into a chair. “What title should I call you? Now that I’m your apprentice.”

“Respected Jei.” She curled her lip. “No, I will teach you the word in Gulwenen. ‘Respected’ can have different connotations depending on tonal emphasis, and the connotation must be right or it sounds strange.” Mirian had to repeat the word about fifteen times before Jei was satisfied with her pronunciation. “Close enough,” she said. “Now go eat food. Lots of it. You will need your mana replenished tomorrow.”

Mirian stumbled off to go do just that. She hadn’t even lasted until lunch time.