The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

Three hours after waking up, she chanced to pass Lily as she headed to her next class and her roommate didn’t even turn her head. The disguise had certainly worked. Mirian crafted the replacement part for the train and scribed the fine manipulation spell she’d need to pick Mayor Wolden’s locks, then moved to start dismantling the wards by levitating small quantities of magichemicals that would alter the glyphs she targeted. Most configurations were designed to stop overload ward and dispel ward, but very few could detect a slight change in a single glyph that disabled the sequence. Funnily enough, it had been the train’s engine problem that had given her the idea.

She departed on the morning train with her three fake ingots. There, she tore the catalyst out of her spellbook so she could hide it, rebound the book, then scribed the spells she’d need: remote whisper, variable illusion, and major disguise. With a bit of extra time, she scribed a few other spells she might use. When she departed the train, she headed to the bank first, and left two hours later with the doubloons she’d need.

“I’d like to hire a ward specialist and two teamsters for a half-day job,” she told Ravantha, as soon as they were past the pleasantries.

Ravantha examined her. “You seem like you’ve done this before, but Nurea never mentioned you as an asset.”

Oops. She’d grown too used to the terminology and meeting, and accidentally changed the Syndicate woman’s reaction. “A new asset. And hopefully long term ally. I see a bright future for the Sacristar family.”

“Perhaps,” the Syndicate woman said. “And the job?”

“Stealing a body. It’s slated for incineration anyways, so no one will miss it.”

Ravantha raised an eyebrow.

“My client is very particular about this one,” she said, and then gave her the details of who she needed, where, and what time.

“Tomorrow? I can arrange it, but... a delay would be better. We don’t like rush jobs.”

“I understand. I wish I could have made it down here sooner, but the job can’t be delayed. My client is willing to pay an additional fee for the inconvenience.”

Ravantha tapped her fingers on the table while keeping her face neutral. She really did have the same mannerisms as Nurea. They must have gotten along splendidly. Likely, Ravantha was weighing the discount she wanted to offer to a new potential contact with the extra fee she wanted to charge for the added danger of the job. Also, she was probably wondering why anyone would want to pay so much for what she assumed was corpse-smuggling. “Fifteen doubloons,” she said.

Mirian placed them on the table, then put out her hand, and they shook on it, then swore the oath of secrecy the Syndicate demanded.

She went to the market next and purchased materials both for several of her ‘seeds’ and for the magichemicals she’d be handing Numo later, then a vial of scarlet dye. Then she went to meet Lecne. It was evening by then, so he was back from the market.

“Take a look at my soul,” she told him as they met at the door to the hidden temple.

“Did you want that… removed?” he asked.

He was looking at the disguise transformation, and had missed his own soul mark. “No, look closer. You’re looking for a soul mark along the fifth sinuous flow.”

Lecne’s eyes widened. Now he’d gotten it. “But that’s impossible,” he said.

“I can explain, but we may wish to go indoors.” Lower, she said, “There’s still time to save Arenthia.”

As usual, the priest of Zomalator needed only a short time to understand the implications of the loop. “What do you need?” he said with a note of desperation, after Mirian had finished explaining.

“I need to borrow a celestial focus and I need a scroll of shatter rune.”

Lecne blinked several times. “That’s it?”

Mirian winked. “You’ve already done the rest.”

That night, she crafted a special wand of her own design.

***

The next day, Mirian met Numo in a typical looking house on Second Cairn, one that apparently let the Syndicate borrow it from time to time. He was wearing a deep blue vest with silver embroidery, which was typical of guild arcanists. She also knew that while his credentials were forged, the forgery was impeccable, and the glyph-seal would pass any examination.

“The teamsters are in place?” Mirian asked him.

“Yes. Very easy to bribe, given what they usually make. I was told you have materials for me?”

She handed over the magichemical concoction. “Two drops of this on the sier glyphs, and two drops of this on the xolm glyph will transmute them just enough for my purposes. Here’s the map. Two are under the flagstones, one is in the wall. Each comes out with just a bit of force.”

“Good,” he said. “Good. Interesting. You know your alchemistry. Surprised you need me.”

“I’ll be busy with the other part. I’ll mask us both with an illusion until we get to the gardens.” She pointed to the map. “We’ll take this route here, which will take us through some dense foliage, then I’ll drop the disguise before we’re in the outer ward radius.”

Numo shrugged. “Sure.”

Mirian liked how he didn’t ask a bunch of annoying questions. She flipped to her major disguise page and cast.

They made their way up the route, their fine clothes flaking away into motes of light as they passed rhododendrons and Zhighuan maples in the outer gardens. Then, they parted ways. Mirian appreciated how Numo’s stride and facial expression changed as he assumed a new identity. He didn’t look that old, but he’d clearly been a man of subterfuge for a long time.

He entered the plaza of Shiamagoth, while Mirian stayed in the adjacent garden and embraced the cult’s focus.

She already knew from the previous loops that the Luminate guards would investigate Numo. She also knew he was great at acting the flustered arcanist who liked rules and hated the idea that anyone would accuse him of breaking them.

In a moment, he’d be saying something like, “I thought… it was the Order that hired me. I thought they’d told you? I know it’s a rush job, and I doubt they had time to fill out the paperwork, but they said it had to be done before noon. Messing with? No, I’m fixing the suppression ward. I’m guild-certified. Here are my credentials. Should I wait? I can wait until you check with your superior. Actually I’d be happy to wait, I’m not in a hurry. You can delay the execution, while you check, right?”

Then the guard would get nervous, because no one wanted the suppression wards down right before the execution, and they certainly didn’t want to have to tell a big crowd to wait a while so he could check with the high priest. To make things easy, he’d give him the go-ahead to do the repairs, thinking the ward would trigger if he did anything wrong, and anyways, there’d be five guards and a priest there if anyone did try anything. Numo would press him, ask him if he was sure, then do it. For a few minutes, he’d pretend the work was far more detailed than simply injecting a single glyph with magichemicals, then plop the flagstone back down and repeat the ‘fix.’

Mirian let her mind’s eyes go inward. First, she saw the flow of her soul, then, the soul of one of the birds in the garden. As soon she sensed the suppression and detection wards go down, she telekinetically gripped one of the birds and brought it to her hand. She hated killing the cute little chickadee, but it was necessary. She felt its soul energy course around her hand, then directed it toward the statue of Shiamagoth.

The runes at its base were old. It was possible that the Order didn’t even remember they were there, but she would take no chances. Unlike the glyphs, there would be no layered divination wards to detect the changes. She formed the energy into patterns like Lecne had shown her, letting it flow through runes engraved on a small scroll he’d helped her prepare, and a moment later she knew two of the runes had burst apart by the subtle change in currents outside her soul. Lecne had questioned how she could do that, but it just felt natural—like one knew when the wind was blowing over their skin.

As Numo departed—thanking the guard, and giving a fake address in case the guard needed to contact him for another job—Mirian walked through the garden and quietly sat at one of the far benches to observe the execution. Like the spot in the adjacent garden, the bench she’d chosen was just outside the radius of the nearby wards that were still active.

For this part, Mirian had torn out the three spellbook pages she’d needed and sequestered them on the inside of her clothes, and had the wand she was using up her sleeve. Tactile contact with the glyphs was usually done with the fingers, but it wasn’t strictly necessary, just like the conduit in a wand could be bypassed and the glyphs used out of order. It was just harder, sort of like writing with a pen by gripping it with your mouth. Having the pages in contact with her skin would be sufficient to make sure to avoid the exponential drop-off of efficiency that came from trying to channel into something too far away. Once again Jei’s training had set her up well.

As Arenthia took the stage, arms held by two of the executioners, Mirian used her elbow to press the remote whisper page up against her torso. “Arenthia,” she whispered, so close to her ear that she had to overcome some of her spell resistance. “Lecne sent me. Keep your face neutral. All I need from you is to ignore when you feel something go up your back, and to crumple to the ground as soon as you hear the rifles fire. Then stay limp, and pretend to be dead until you hear from me again. Blink twice if you understand.”

She could see the cultist trying to scan the crowd, then catch herself. She blinked twice.

Mirian next pressed both the major illusion and lift object pages to her body, then let the thin leather waterskin she had up her other sleeve drop down into her hand. In it was a concoction of starch, syrup, water, and the red dye she’d purchased. Compared to the magichemicals, it had been trivial to make.

First, she cast variable illusion on it so that the bag looked just like the cobblestones. Then, she slowly maneuvered it with lift object. The crowd was watching the sun glint off the armor of the Luminate guard, or watching the heretic, or watching the executioners line up and load their rifles. They didn’t notice a ripple on the pavement. When it moved to the wooden platform, Mirian altered the illusion to resemble that color and texture. Carefully, she maneuvered it beneath Arenthia’s dark skirts, then moved it up, squeezing the waterskin under her belt until it was just above it, then let go. The belt kept it from slipping back down again. Someone behind Arenthia might notice the bulge of the waterskin as it sagged slightly, but only Shiamagoth was behind her, and He wasn’t saying anything.

Years ago now, Mirian had created a hybrid wand to fight the spy that attacked Jei in the Underground. She had used conduit dispersal to use the mana bleedoff from a high intensity spell to cast a secondary spell simultaneously, though with lowered efficiency.

She’d eventually discarded the design since it was far more time-consuming to make than two wands and was a pain to get right. But here, the design would be perfect. People might notice a delay if her fake blood burst out a few moments after the bullets were fired, so the spell had to be simultaneous. The primary spell in her wand was greater magnetic field. The secondary spell was telekinetic burst.

“…and may the Gods bless her soul,” the priest ordaining the execution finished.

Mirian channeled.

The rifles fired.

As her greater magnetic field caught the bullets right in front of Arenthia’s skin, the telekinetic burst ripped apart the waterskin full of blood and the part of the dress by it, sending fake blood out in a cone to splatter the stones. The torn fabric and red mess from the dye that covered her back would also superficially resemble the exit wound from bullets fragmenting inside the human body—something she’d seen far too many times in the fighting at Torrviol.

Arenthia fell as instructed, and the guards carried her limp body away. They had no reason to suspect anything had gone wrong, so they wouldn’t be checking her that carefully.

Mirian left with the crowd, walking casually. In the garden, she replaced her major disguise spell to wear the formal clothes expected of Second Cairn, then circled around the hill towards the crematorium, changing her disguise one more time once she was off the hill.

If everything had gone to plan, the two teamsters she’d recruited had intercepted the cart scheduled to pick up Arenthia’s corpse and ‘traded jobs.’ The original team would be moving a cart full of empty boxes, and her Syndicate-trusted criminal laborers would be making sure no one disturbed the body.

Mirian met them in an alley on the way to the crematorium. “Here,” she said, handing them a pouch full of silver. “The crematorium loves bribes, and there’s a bit extra for you two for a job well done. She’s expecting the full twenty drachims and the shipment of wood pellets so she can fake the ashes.”

“Pleasure doing business, lady,” one of them said. “Always appreciate a generous soul.”

“Take care,” she said.

Well, there was one thing to be said about the criminal underworld here. If you gave them easy coin, they were extremely polite, and kept discussions short. She could get used to that.

Mirian levitated the body off the cart, then waited for them to depart. Then she took the shroud off and cast another major disguise spell, changing Arenthia’s hair, face, and clothes, which hid the hole in the back of her bodice and all the fake blood that was back there. “You can get up now, Arenthia,” she said. “Lecne is waiting for us at the temple.”

Arenthia—now with light brown hair and looking ten years younger—stood, shaking. “Who are you?” she asked.

“Niluri. I made a promise to the cult to save your life.” Mirian incinerated the yellow shroud with a fire spell, using a gather smoke spell to keep the smoke bundled up so it wouldn’t attract attention.

Arenthia looked around. A few yards away, people were walking down the street, but they were alone in the alley. “Is… are they going to be looking for me?”

“If I did it right? Nope. And if I did it wrong? I’ll just try again in about a month.” Seeing the other woman’s confusion, she said, “Let’s talk more in the temple. There’s a lot to say, and a lot of people who will be very happy to see you.”