Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

They grey hunter seemed to realize it too. It went berserk, lunging at Zach and Zorian with even greater zeal, and then tried to flee. They couldn’t allow that, of course. If it escaped, it would doubtlessly retreat into the deep dungeon and hide before dying, and other denizens of the dungeon might eat the egg sack before they could track down its corpse. Thus, walls of stone and force sprang up to bar its path, ectoplasmic threads and tentacles sought to entangle it and dimensional gates barred the path to its lair.

Eventually, the internal crystallization process advanced too far for the grey hunter to keep functioning and it started to visibly slow and then stop. Simulacrum number four and his fellow duplicates were then sent in to hack it apart and claim the egg sack, because the original was too much of a coward to do it himself. Then again, the grey hunter did mangle one of the simulacrums beyond repair as its last act before dying, so maybe he shouldn’t judge.

But anyway… the grey hunter was dead… and the egg sack was still intact.

It was time to visit Silverlake again. After some thought, simulacrum number four wandered off from the grey hunter’s corpse and sought out the original to talk to him about visiting the old witch. He was so looking forward to seeing her reaction when she realized what they had done, and it wasn’t fair that he wouldn’t get to see it just because he was a simulacrum! He was the one that shot the grey hunter! Well, he and number three, but number three ended up being killed by the grey hunter’s last hurrah.

He totally earned this and was not taking no for an answer.

After securing the corpse of the grey hunter, Zorian and his simulacrums went about carefully removing the egg sack attached to its underbelly without damaging it – a task far harder than Zorian would initially have assumed it would be. Then again, the egg sack had stayed attached to the grey hunter while it was doing all sorts of sharp movements and acrobatics, so it was a bit silly of him to assume he could just peel it off the spider as he wished. Still, it was nothing that Zorian and his duplicates couldn’t solve with a bit of time and analysis. After an hour or so, they finally managed to separate the egg sack from the corpse without ruining it.

They immediately set off to see Silverlake. They had no idea what it took to keep the eggs alive in the long term, after all, so it was better to deliver them to Silverlake as soon as possible. They also kept the grey hunter’s corpse, stashing it in the orb of the first emperor. Much of its value was ruined when its insides crystallized, but there should still be enough of it for a potion or two.

After some reasoned and totally calm discussion, Zorian also decided to take simulacrum number four with him to see Silverlake. Being accompanied by a simulacrum might help him convince her that he wasn’t just a precocious teenage mage and that she should actually take him seriously.

In any case, tracking down Silverlake’s home wasn’t hard this time around. She may have hidden it in a pocket dimension, but Zorian knew the general area it was in and had specialized divinations that could find such things. They didn’t try to break into the pocket dimension, though. That would have been threatening and rude. Instead, they got her attention in a more civilized manner – by taking the grey hunter’s corpse out of the orb and parading it around the pocket dimension entrance while chanting her name.

It didn’t take long before she decided to come out to meet them. She gave the dead grey hunter a quick, intrigued look before seemingly ignoring it in favor of focusing on them instead. She remained standing next to the entrance to her pocket dimension, though, a long iron rod clutched tightly in her bony fingers.

"Hello," Zach said, giving her a sunny smile and a casual wave of his hand.

"What a curious bunch of visitors you are," Silverlake said, unmoved by his friendliness. "It’s not every day that two baby mages manage to track me down to this place… and is that a simulacrum attached to a golem frame? My, aren’t you a clever sort."

"Well, you’re a pretty clever sort yourself," Zorian noted. "You figured out what my simulacrum is without casting any obvious analysis spells."

He really meant that, too. Certainly he couldn’t pull off something like that. He’d have to spend several minutes casting analytical divinations before he could work out what he was dealing with. Granted, she may have done that before she stepped out of her pocket dimension, but it was still impressive.

"Well? Out with it," Silverlake demanded. "Why are you bothering this old woman in the middle of her afternoon nap, making all this racket?"

"We have come to trade!" Zach said in an equally cheery tone, undaunted by her wariness.

"We have killed the grey hunter and retrieved its eggs fully intact," Zorian said without preamble, waving his hand at the corpse of the giant spider on the ground next to them. His simulacrum, meanwhile, casually extracted the grey hunter’s eggs from the box he was carrying, letting Silverlake see them. Her eyes immediately lit up with greed and excitement. She hid it quite quickly, but it was there. "We thought you might be interested in them."

"Oh? And why did you think that?" Silverlake asked him, inclining her head to the side, like a bird that spotted something interesting.

"Because you told me so in the past," Zorian said blandly.

"Because I told you so in the past," Silverlake repeated slowly, looking at him like he was stupid. "What a curious thing to say. Old I may be, but my memory is still going strong… and I don’t remember ever talking to you."

Zach and Zorian had discussed extensively what to tell Silverlake before coming to this place. Telling her the truth about the time loop was dangerous, because she was likely proficient in both soul and mind magic. She was a highly capable witch, after all, and they were famous for dabbling in both of those fields. However, convincing her to help them through lies and manipulations would take a long time… and time was, amusingly enough, something they had a chronic shortage of. Thus, they had unanimously decided to just tell the annoying old witch the truth and see how she reacted. Even if she was hostile, they could probably handle it.

Probably.

"You don’t remember because the world we live in is constantly repeating itself. On the night of the summer festival, the world ends. Everything reverts to how it was the month before, and then carries on as if nothing was wrong. Like an endlessly repeating music box, you repeat your actions over and over in month-long intervals… constantly forgetting, constantly starting over," Zorian explained, being deliberately a little melodramatic and mysterious.

Silverlake listened to his explanation with an arched eyebrow, looking surprised and amused in equal measure.

"My word, you came all this way just to deliver this kind of tall tale to me?" Silverlake said, chuckling lightly. "I suppose I can understand where you’re coming from. I have been told, on occasion, that I am rather repetitive in my arguments."

"It’s not just you," Zorian said, shaking his head. "Everyone is reliving this month over and over. Only me and Zach here are immune."

"Oh, but of course!" Silverlake said, slapping herself in the forehead. "Of course it’s like that! No doubt I too can get this kind of immunity at very favorable prices, thus saving myself from this awful, awful fate of… repeating myself for all eternity? I must say, the scammers these days are getting really inventive."

"Actually, there is nothing we can do to help you retain awareness of previous restarts," Zach said, clacking his tongue unhappily. "Kind of depressing, but there you go. We’re not here for that. As I have noted earlier, we’re here to trade – the grey hunter’s eggs in exchange for magical help."