The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

As Mirian and Jei approached the plaza, a delegation of arcanists just outside Torrian Tower approached them. There were five of them, each wearing their formal Academy coats. Mirian recognized Professor Torres standing in the back, with High Wizard Ferrandus leading them. Mirian had seen Ferrandus quite a bit. He was always by Archmage Luspire’s side during official ceremonies. He often stopped by to observe lectures as part of his duties. He kept his gray beard braided, four silver beads on each side, and wore the traditional pointy hat of his office. That made him easy to recognize in a crowd. She wasn’t sure why she had expected the lead researcher on whatever was down there to be some mysterious figure, rather than the head wizard of the Academy. In retrospect, it made a lot of sense.

“Mirian Castrella,” Ferrandus said, peering over his spectacles. “You’ve caused quite a stir in Torrviol.”

“Honored Ferrandus,” Mirian said, tilting her head in acknowledgment.

“My colleagues have been… persistent.” He glanced toward Torres, who was stone-faced as always. “Let us talk as we walk.” Mirian walked beside him as they headed towards Bainrose Castle, and his colleagues fell in behind him. They were all older men, except for Jei and Torres. “As you are aware, it was Arcane Praetorian Adria who was in charge of project security. It seems we were played for fools. Whatever illusion magic the impostor used, our routine detection spells didn’t catch it. They also must have known Adria well, for they played her part flawlessly.”

“You knew there was a hostile force in Torrviol. Dozens of break-ins, over months. Dead maintenance staff—well, hmm, maybe not in this timeline. Either way, though. How were they able to evade the Academy’s wards?”

Ferrandus cleared his throat, and Mirian could see a slight tension in his jaw. He did not like being spoken to like that. Still, he humored her question. “An embarrassing confluence of events, I’m afraid. Archmage Luspire was working closely with Captain Mandez to apprehend the suspects. You see the problem, of course.”

“Of course,” Mirian echoed. It wasn’t a very satisfying answer. Surely Luspire would have realized he was being played for a fool when the break-ins continued, week after week. She didn’t want to press Ferrandus too hard. If he became too offended by her insubordinate attitude and stopped giving her information, that would make it that much harder in the next cycle. She had to be patient. “Respected Jei—sorry, Professor Jei—said she decoded the spy’s scroll.”

“Yes, quite an interesting mathematical formula being used in the cipher. She can show you how it works later. I don’t know how relevant it is anymore. It was directions for how to sabotage the alchemical recipe being used in some of our spell engines. That man you pulled off the roof seems to have had his eyes on Sefora Seneca’s office. Of course, since he never got there, the scroll ended up being useless. I’m shedding no tears for that criminal, though. If more of his ilk met his fate, the world would be a better place.”

Mirian nodded. Ferrandus clearly didn’t believe in the loop like Jei did. If he did, he would realize breaking the cipher was critical not for just understanding the first document, but any other documents the spies had encrypted. The fire in their headquarters had probably burned all the documents, but either he didn’t believe Mirian could go back to when they weren’t piles of soot, or he didn’t realize that the attack would kill him soon. What was he after, then? What benefit did he hope to gain from her? Something—she was sure of that.

They made their way to the third floor again, growing silent as they passed students. The project was still secret, after all. Another indication Ferrandus believed in a future. Once they were through the door, they began winding their way down the long thin staircase Mirian had followed Jei down. “There is some debate among my colleagues. Song seems to think your knowledge originates from the tinkering we’ve been doing with the device. You are familiar with the work of the Elder Gods?”

“You mean the stuff they built before they ascended? Like the Labyrinth?”

“The Labyrinth, of course, but I mean some of the other things they left behind. Strange constructions, scattered here and there. Many in places that are quite difficult to study. So the discovery of one, right here where the Academy is, was quite a boon.”

Mirian furrowed her brow. “But if they’re all over the place… surely Akana Praediar has their own to study. Why would they go to war over this… thing? What does it do?”

Ferrandus let out a hearty guffaw. “If we had any idea what it did, this project would be a lot easier. Perhaps they think it’s some sort of weapon. Or perhaps it is precisely because they studied a relic of their own that they think they know how it works. We have research-sharing agreements with several of the arcane universities in Akana Praediar, though, and they’ve mentioned nothing of the sort. I know whatever you told the mayor has turned him into a believer, but I still hardly think our close ally would escalate things to war so quickly.”

Mirian opened up her satchel and dug out another copy of the battleplan. Wordlessly, she handed it to Ferrandus who paused on the stairs to open it. Annoyance passed over his face, and he handed it back to Torres.

As they resumed moving, Torres said, “The map was obviously made by an amateur, but this looks like standard Akanan assault doctrine. It approximates the usual army composition. Airships excepted, of course. That one is harder to believe, especially the size of them.”

They made it to that same basement that Mirian had saved Jei in. Dried blood still caked some of the stones. That’s fine, I hadn’t been using it anyways, Mirian thought. The torn rug Jei had used to bandage her was also still lying on the ground. Some of the boxes had shifted around, and obviously, the spy’s corpse was gone now, though there was a smear of dark soot on the floor where he had landed. Burnt flesh, streaked across the stone like a charcoal mark.

She shivered as they passed by.

The tunnels beyond seemed to link with the catacombs, but a large wooden barricade had been erected to block that passage up, complete with lines of faintly glowing glyphs that indicated active wards. The other direction led down a sloped tunnel. The dark stone was clearly ancient, while the wooden staircase leading down it was new construction. They found themselves passing by another set of tunnels, these far more cramped. A person might crawl through them, but never hope to stand. A thin trickle of water dripped out of one, while a little spell engine worked to pump it away.

At last, the ramp bottomed out and they came to a spiral staircase. This time, Mirian could see all the construction was new. Drilling spells had sliced a smooth column of stone, and then they’d gone and drawn stone from the surrounding rock to make a staircase.

When they got to the bottom, some of the older wizards were breathing hard. It was a lot of stairs. They faced a door, again, made recently. It was about seven feet tall, and made of steel and oak, glyphs scribed into every plank and bar. It had four keyholes and no handle. This was not the giant stone doors she had expected. Does the Academy team even know about that passage in Bainrose?

Ferrandus said, “Please turn around, Mirian.”

She obliged, and heard the glyph keys being slide into the locks. She felt that prickling feeling of powerful magic at work across her skin, then heard the movement of heavy steel. From what Ferrandus had just said, she assumed that opening the door triggered a divination spell. The other spells probably had to do with alarms and protection.

“There we go! And now, one of the Divine Monuments. It’s quite wondrous to behold.”

Mirian turned, and the door lay open to her. She stepped forward into the cavernous room beyond.

Great lanterns had been set up all around the colossal room to illuminate it, so the whole thing was bathed in an orange glow. To her left, she saw those colossal doors of stone she had marveled at—but from the other side this time. If the Academy did know about the other passage, they seem to have decided it was easier to go around than through.

Scattered about the room were more supplies, and various spell engines, the function of which Mirian hadn’t the faintest idea. Some were on, some were off. There were empty desks for work, and calculation machines—very expensive—atop some.

Of course, it was the colossal thing in the center of the room that drew Mirian’s eyes. It was at least a hundred feet tall, so as large as the room was, the Divine Monument, as Ferrandus had called it, took up most of it. It was higher even than the giant stone doors. It resembled a sphere made of curved spiderwebs, only no spiderweb was ever so intricate, nor as large. More, around the sphere were floating blocks; she could see nothing holding them up, but given the size and weight, it seemed impossible a levitation spell was keeping them aloft either. The material seemed to be made of obsidian at first glance, but there was a faint sheen of color to the substance that was metallic. What the color was, she couldn’t say—the reflected light looked more like an afterimage of a bright spot than anything real. It reminded her of the indigo color that an ultraviolet light spell produced. Glyphic crystals, she realized. Jei had hinted at that. It wasn’t just part of a reinforcing structure, though. The entire thing was made of them. More, it was glyphic crystals of a sort that defied identification.

“Walk around it,” Torres said.

Mirian stopped gaping and did so. As she moved, though, the entire structure changed, with parts of the structure fading from view entirely, and other parts suddenly appearing. Moving back to where she had started, the structure went back to the way it was. It wasn’t random, then—the parts that faded from view and parts that materialized stayed consistent. Walking around it, she got the sense of a floating octahedron in the center of the room, layered a dozen times. Then, it seemed more like an icosahedron with waves of curved spines surrounding it. Then, a web-like sphere again.

She looked to Jei, mouth hanging open. “It’s a four-dimensional structure,” she blurted out.

“Oh, very good!” Ferrandus said. “Takes some of the duller arcanists a bit to work that out. Song, you were right. There is something there after all.”

“Can I touch it?” Mirian asked.

“Sure,” Ferrandus said, shrugging. “Takes a lot more than that to damage it.”

Mirian approached it, watching more pieces appear and disappear, until she was at the base of the structure, looking up through the incredible intricate mass of twisting strands and floating pieces. Gently, she reached a hand up, and it ran into something she couldn’t see. As she moved slightly to the left, the thing she was touching came more into view. As she ran her hand up and down that piece of the Monument, she could feel the object taking a different course than the one she could see. Vertigo seized her, and she stumbled back. “Amazing,” she breathed.

“You immediately understand why we are considering a new hypothesis,” Ferrandus said. “If there’s a… how should we put it? If there’s a time anomaly in Torrviol, perhaps this is the source. It seems to me, though, that moving an object through time would be ridiculously energy intensive. Who knows what limits the Gods have, certainly not I, but one gets the sense of a certain, hmm, admiration of efficiency, when one studies the holy texts. Far more efficient to send energy through time.”

“So you got it to work?” Mirian asked.

“Therein lies the problem. No. We haven’t.” Ferrandus strolled around to one of the desks and placed his hand on one of the piles of papers atop it. Mirian could see they were packed full of the kinds of equations Jei had been teaching them. “I was rather hoping the connection you have to the Divine Monument was… simpler. Perhaps triggered by proximity. Or perhaps it’s another dead end. We’ve certainly run into a lot of those.”

“There’s more of these… monuments,” Mirian said. She realized she’d seen one before. A chill ran through her as she recalled the strange sanctum and eldritch titan sitting on a throne.

“Probably. Almost certainly,” Ferrandus said, taking her comment for a question. “Some recent research in the Labyrinth suggested there might be some sort of connection with an extra dimension. Spatial dimension, that is, like with this. The problem is the most interesting things we could study are in the Labyrinth, which is a place not at all conducive to research. We have another research team scouring the historical records for more examples. There are some indications the Mausoleum of Ominian was one of these structures, but that great temple would have been destroyed two thousand years ago with the fall of the Persamian Triarchy. The descriptions are of a building that changed size and structure as one moved through it. Thought to be a translation error or some other kind of misunderstanding for the longest time, but when we found this… ah, but I’m rambling. This is all to say, if you’re connected to this monument, by some sort of accidental activation or dimensional anomaly, perhaps we can get out of the rut we’ve found ourselves in. Song said you’d be game, to lightly paraphrase.”

Mirian looked to Jei, who nodded almost imperceptibly. “Of course,” she said. “What do you need me to do?”

“We’ve come up with some tests,” Ferrandus said, and when he smiled, it was one of those fake smiles that didn’t touch his eyes. Throughout their conversation, nothing Ferrandus said was rude, but Mirian got the sense that to him, she was just a pawn. Maybe she was useful; if not, she could be discarded. “Follow me.”