Chapter 62: Guarded Research

The first few classes of Beginner Augment Exploration disappointed Suria, which was one of the few times she had felt that Darkmoon University fell short of its academic ideals. The course was taught by a young journeymage about five years older than her who seemed to view the classes more as a chore than anything. After he gave them their readings and an assignment for the day, he sat at the front of class working on his own runebook.

That was frustrating especially because Suria felt that she'd chosen the class well: it promised to teach unusual sorts of augmentations as well as the fundamental theory underneath. But the textbook just gave basic information about inscriptions and the instructor clearly wasn't going to explain anything, so she decided that she was on her own to make connections.

In between classes she headed back to the Sequential Library, hoping to jump some of the hurdles. She hadn't spent too much time with Orinyan in this cycle, but over the loops she'd gained a general understanding of his schedule, so she knew he'd be on duty.

Sure enough, he was seated behind one of the main desks, crystal librarian crest askew on his head, another book in his lap. When she approached he looked up with a smile, though it was the same smile he gave everyone.

"Do I detect another student hungry for knowledge?" he asked.

"Sort of." Suria pulled out her main textbook for Beginner Augment Exploration and tried to explain her problems. "I want a better understanding of the theory than this. For example... some augments need to be in pairs while some work on their own. The teacher is just having us memorize lists without explaining why."

"Entirely reasonable. I'd like to explain personally, but since I'm on duty..." Orinyan looked away from her and his eyes went unfocused as he cast something to search the library shelves. When he was done, however, he ended up frowning. "I'm afraid the books that will really explain this are in the seal-restricted section. Can't loan you anything unless you have at least a half-seal in Evocation or Transmutation."

"Are you sure?" Suria asked. "I don't see how it could be harmful..."

"Neither do I, but I have to follow the rules or I could lose my job."

He said it with an apologetic tone, but Suria realized that she had overreached. She was sure that if she had been in a past cycle where she'd taken Combat Perception with Orinyan, he would have bent the rules for her - she had asked for all kinds of books and he'd never once been a stickler for half-seal requirements.

"You said that you'd be capable of explaining..." Suria started, but Orinyan was already shaking his head.

"Sorry. Feel free to enroll in Combat Perception if you ever want to talk more, though!"

Accepting defeat for now, Suria retreated from the front desk. The fact that she knew so many people better than they knew her was going to be an increasing problem as the loops continued, since every relationship was built on a foundation of sand. She could make sure to connect with people again, but the conversations felt increasingly unnatural the more she repeated them, and at worst, she feared she would end up ruining relationships because she initiated them too artificially.

The seal-restricted chamber of the library was just one phase over - through the northern door, if she remembered the layout correctly. It seemed absurd that Suria couldn't just go get the book she needed, and she found herself staring at the door. Members of the Sequential Guard stood on either side, looking self-important as they blocked her way.

Giving up for the time being, Suria instead redirected herself to the stairs, since she needed to get a few books from the second level. Now that she was spending more time with Murtiel, she felt the need to brush up on some facts about the Akrashic Union.

Before she reached the relevant shelves, Suria noticed that Qanti was seated in one of the nooks on the second level. They'd needed to talk anyway, and Suria was still frustrated, so this was a fortunate encounter. She headed over and slipped down into the seat opposite the other woman, who set down her book over her knee.

"How are you doing with the soul talisman?" Qanti asked.

"The meditation is going well, but I think I need to reference Internal Granite again," Suria answered. "Do you have access to that section of the library?"

"Sure. They do monitor students bringing out books for others, but they don't care that much when they're just seal-limited texts. I'm actually going to be headed there to pick up some more books myself, so I'll grab yours."

"How is the soul armor going?"

"Still a challenge. Maybe in several more loops." Qanti paused and glanced at her curiously. The two of them worked together easily enough, but they weren't exactly close, so it was strange for Suria to linger. "Is there something else?"

"I can't get the books I want from the librarians," Suria explained. "It's infuriating, because they just require a half-seal to check out."

"Too bad for you that the loop doesn't extend to the end of the term. With a cycle or two of work, you could probably pass the half-seal exams by now."

"Really?" Suria had been thinking of ranked seals as an endpoint, not something that could apply to her, and though the half-seals were less serious, they fell into the same future category. "Is there any chance you could pick up a few more things for me?"

"That's different." Qanti took her book off her knee and set it back in her lap. "We're working on soul magic together, so anything for that is just collaboration. If you want to spend your favor with me, I'll get you any books I have access to. But fair warning, a lot of what you'd want - about time magic or anything else - is in the forbidden sections."

After considering it several seconds, Suria shook her head. "Probably best not to. If I used my favor, would you help me get into those sections at some later point?"

"Only if you got enough people for a decent group," Qanti told her, eyes returning to her book. "Library runs are dangerous, even if they benefit everyone. I don't need one right now, but I think that's probably the right idea for you... just make sure you're ready first."

Suria nodded and moved away, searching for her old political textbooks. She still had to wonder what made venturing into the library so dangerous, if even the strongest loopers were wary of it. Wynchard had expressed the willingness to go deeper, so long as everyone was ready, but was preoccupied with crime in the city during this loop. Could she convince him in the next cycle? Would it be possible to convince Jeilin to stay long enough to help them?

In the end Suria left the library with only one political textbook and one reference for her Alchemy classes, which was disappointing. She'd barely gotten out the doors, however, when she saw someone in guard armor moving toward her. Despite the amount of time it had been, that sight still worried her before she recognized Rije.

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"There you are," he said as he loped closer. "Your roommate said you'd be here."

"I guess she knows me pretty well." Suria stepped off the main path and they spoke in the shadow of the library. "How are you doing, Rije?"

"I'm fine, except for the big things." He rubbed his jaw and his eyes flickered around the campus. "Every day I'm more convinced that something happened to Professor Drazen. Most people might believe the official line, but the professors wouldn't, and I don't understand why they're not worried."

"They aren't worried at all?" Suria asked. "Nothing different from past years?"

"Well, no two years are exactly like one another. But I guess... Professor Huen is spending a lot more time in Convocation Hall than normal, meeting with politicians. I assumed that was because somebody had to deal with outside issues, but I suppose she might have summoned them. And I heard that Professor Abouric was asking about time magic."

Even now, even just talking with Rije, that made Suria shiver. She did her best to swallow the reaction and nodded instead. "That's not normal for him? I don't know which department time magic falls under."

"None of them, really. Any major university needs someone with a specialty in forbidden magic, but they don't usually advertise the fact."

"So is there a necromancy expert on staff?"

"Oh, that's basically an open secret." Rije wasn't put off at all, just shrugging aside the question. "Professor Gwaslos knows the most, but mostly anti-necromancy. Professor Slagterwese is the one to talk to when it comes to necromancy-adjacent stuff."

"But no equivalent for time magic?"

"I'm not sure. I could ask, but there's a difference between staff gossiping a little and seeming like you're spying on the thrones."

That left things in an uncomfortable position, not much closer than they had been before. Rije continued to give her a new angle on what was happening on campus and she was torn between wanting to encourage him and hoping he wouldn't get in trouble. As she thought about that dilemma, she realized that maybe Rije could be helpful in another way.

"Hey, do you have library access?" she asked. "Either from your position or from when you were a student?"

"I managed to earn some half-seals," Rije told her with a frown, "but I can't access all that much. Certainly not anything related to these serious issues."

"I know, but you could be very helpful to me. I won't ask if it's a problem, but..."

"No, let me help." Rije's frown transformed back into a smile. "It's the least I can do. I remember how obnoxious the Sequential Guard can be. What do you need?"

So Suria described the books she'd wanted for Beginner Augment Exploration, but she didn't stop there: if she was using Rije to access the library, she should also do some indirect research. Even without getting into the forbidden sections, she could learn more via books that would be too suspicious for her to check out directly, so she asked him for books on Hrakik the Irredeemable and temporal magic.

"I can try." Rije rubbed his jaw as he considered. "That's not for class, is it?"

"No," Suria told him honestly. "I may not be able to unravel the entire conspiracy, but I can at least try to understand the basics, can't I?"

"I can definitely get you historical books, those are no problem. Anything more serious is probably buried deep in the library."

Rije didn't seem to consider it any kind of imposition, so he headed straight back into the library and Suria trailed behind him. When he asked about the augmentation books, Orinyan overheard and his gaze swept to Suria immediately... but he just rolled his eyes and then winked at her.

That interaction actually left Suria anxious while she waited for Rije to return, because she hadn't anticipated Orinyan realizing instantly. If he could figure it out, others might as well. That might be a good thing, however, because the not-really-improper books for her classes would distract from the more serious books regarding time magic. In future loops, she'd have to be more careful about leaving no evidence of her intentions before making such indirect requests, or spend time setting up evidence of misleading intentions.

No overzealous guards came to arrest her, though, even when Rije left the library with a bundle of books under his arm. Once they were outside, he handed them over to her with a smile.

"Hope these help," he said. "I just wish I had a clearer idea of why any of this was happening."

"Me too," Suria said, more honestly than he knew. "Maybe this is a wild hunch, but I keep thinking... maybe the answer doesn't lie in the past. Whatever was happening, they were probably doing it to plan for something in the future, right? Their actions might make more sense if we knew what they were trying to anticipate."

"That's a fair idea. Hmm... we'll talk later, Suria." Rije headed across campus with a thoughtful expression on his face.

For her part, Suria resisted the urge to look at any of her finds before she got back to her room. Since Xuhriha appeared to be gone again, there was nothing to distract her after that. First she cracked open the two textbooks about augments and confirmed that they were worthwhile: they might not explain all the deeper theory, but they would explain enough for her to get something out of the class. If she grasped the basics on her own time, she could pester the disinterested journeymage into assisting her with internalizing the inscriptions.

Once that was out of the way, Suria was far more interested in the next book. It was titled simply Hrakik the Irredeemable and the author claimed it was the single definitive history of the time tyrant. Based on the number of other authors he libeled in his introduction, it might not be as definitive as he claimed, but it would certainly be better than anything else she'd been able to find on her own.

A significant portion of the book seemed to be dedicated to the life of the man himself, from his early days to the "lost years" in his time loop, which were understood only by implication. A lot of it was focused on the atrocities he'd committed, and even though the author always noted these as likely hearsay, he also seemed to revel in the gory details. Suria hadn't expected the book to tell her exactly how to create and control a time loop, but she was a little disappointed.

When she flipped to the chapter about the beginning of the loop, however, she got more information than she had expected. According to the author "everyone knew" that time loops required far too much power for any one mage, or even a circle of mages, to create, so it should be possible to identify when the starting ritual took place.

Before Hrakik became "the Irredeemable" he had been merely a skilled battlemage. He ascended to a sorcerer's throne on a string of highly improbable victories that were widely regarded as due to time manipulation, so the author's goal was to pinpoint when that string started. Apparently the most likely theory was that Hrakik had taken advantage of a massacre of an Endelythan family with a magical bloodline in order to create a massive blood ritual that had likely initiated the time loop.

The book had much less information to offer on how the loop itself worked, though apparently it had been considered common knowledge at the time that Hrakik could control about a year. Yet his reign had lasted longer than that, especially considering the run-up where he was gaining strength, so how did that work? Suria got the idea that there hadn't been multiple time loops, just one that shifted, but that was putting together implications of the text and it was possible even the author didn't know.

After the book wandered off topic into atrocities again, Suria paged back to the table of contents. There was something else she needed to research: Hrakik's defeat.

There seemed to be several chapters dedicated to the subject, so she would need to read them all carefully. The text implied that Hrakik had soul armor and heavy mental defenses, so there was no easy way for him to be eliminated from the loop. And since he could try over and over again, he had seemed unstoppable for years.

It seemed that his enemies had begun playing an extremely long game, setting slow plans into motion that appeared harmless until over a year later, when Hrakik could no longer return to change his decisions. Yet the history of those attempts was fragmented, because many attempts were lost to time and only the final loops remained.

However exactly it happened, Hrakik the Irredeemable had been defeated and his name became anathema. And that was why Suria was being hunted.

She sat there with the book in her lap for a long time, thinking about what it meant for her. In some ways, there didn't seem to be many parallels: Hrakik was definitely the only person in his loop from the beginning and his had extended much longer. In a sense, he'd had access to far more powerful time magic than she did and yet he'd still died miserably, robbed of his power and tortured by all of those who he had tormented in the final loop, or who suspected he had harmed them in other loops.

Suria was doomed to repeat history, but she hoped she could learn from it enough to avoid the same end.