Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

"We have no idea which ingredients are essential and which are not," Zach finished for him. "She never lets us see the actual recipe. We can only speculate and try to call her bluff, but we’re more pressed for time than she is and she knows it. She wouldn’t relent, even if we guessed correctly, and might even up the price out of spite."

"Yes," Zorian nodded. "Whatever. It’s doable, that’s all that matters. Let her have her little victory if it pleases her."

"True," Zach agreed. "Say, are you really sure we’re in the right place? We’ve been looking for more than two hours and the flower doesn’t appear to be here. Maybe the yeti tribe we spoke to lied to us. Relations between them and humans are not exactly the best."

"The tribe’s shaman didn’t lie," Zorian said, shaking his head. "He thinks we’re cocky idiots that will get our souls eaten by the soulseizer chrysanthemum, so he told us the truth as he saw it. He gets the payment we promised him and two humans end up dead. It’s a win-win as far as he was concerned. It’s just that yetis don’t really have any concept of maps or precise coordinates, so all I have is a set of vague directions regarding the local landmarks. Just be a little patient."

"But this is so boring ," Zach whined childishly.

"Tough luck," Zorian told him pitilessly.

Zach was quiet for a few seconds before he started talking again.

"You know, the idea of fighting a flower is kind of funny. And embarrassing," he said.

"I don’t know," Zorian said. "I think fighting those rabbits a few days back was way more embarrassing. Especially since both of us ended up getting bitten before we managed to bring them down."

"Ugh. Don’t remind me," Zach groused. "Those have got to be one of those fake ingredients Silverlake added to the list. I mean, how are a bunch of rabbits like that related to a potion of soul perception?"

"I think those red gems embedded in their foreheads were some kind of sensors," Zorian speculated. "They did see through our every attempt to sneak up on them."

The two of them spent the next half an hour discussing which of the ingredients were likely to be fake, only to realize that none of them were obvious imposters. They could all potentially be valid, which meant that either Zorian was too paranoid or Silverlake was very clever when picking her additions. Zorian was leaning towards the second option.

"I know we already talked about this before visiting Silverlake, but are you really sure this is even necessary?" Zach eventually asked. Seeing Zorian’s confused look, he moved to clarify. "Acquiring soul sight, I mean. Are you really sure you need it?"

"Of course I’m not sure," Zorian said, shaking his head. "Maybe once we get the whole key, everything will be neatly resolved, and me getting soul sight will end up being a pointless diversion. The thing is, even if the Guardian of the Threshold overlooks the fact there are two of us and places our souls back into our bodies, there is a problem…"

"Your original body still has its old soul," Zach said.

"Well, it would be more accurate to say that the body I hope to inhabit was never truly mine to begin with," Zorian said. "But yes, that’s the core issue. If I want out, I need to steal my real world body somehow. I guess this could be done by convincing the Guardian to switch my soul with that of the original, but… the Guardian has made it clear that this goes against the very nature of his job. I’m skeptical that acquiring the Key will let us ignore this."

"I get that," Zach said. "But maybe you don’t have to literally steal the body, you know? Maybe you can kind of, you know… coexist with your old self?"

"An interesting idea," Zorian said. "I don’t know enough about soul magic to say if that would be possible, but… that kind of thing would still require me to acquire soul perception first."

"Yeah, I guess," Zach sighed.

They walked through the forest in silence for a few seconds, Zorian keeping an eye out for that funny-shaped rock outcropping that the old yeti had told him about. It should be around here…

"What’s really on your mind?" Zorian eventually asked.

"You know I’m not really sure that I’m the real Controller of this time loop," Zach said. "And if I’m not… I could be facing the same choice you are."

"Ah," Zorian said, nodding. Personally, he felt Zach’s fears were unfounded, but he knew by now it was useless to tell him that. "I see."

"Do you think I should try to acquire soul perception too?" Zach asked. "I’m not nearly as comfortable as you are in killing my old self, but I have to admit… if I have to choose between myself and him…"

"It would be the safe thing to do," Zorian told him. Concerns about not being the true Controller aside, he didn’t see any particular downsides about Zach acquiring soul perception. "But best not to try that in this particular restart. We have no idea how the safety triggers on your marker are going to react to a potion like that. I mean, they did terminate the restart when you tried to undergo Alanic’s training, remember?"

"I remember," Zach scowled. "If it weren’t for that, I would have had simulacrums of my own by now."

"Right. They could easily trigger this time too, since the potion works on similar principles," Zorian remarked. "It’s best if we wait for a less interesting restart before testing this."

"Yeah, I’m in no hurry," Zach said. He glanced around the area they were traveling in. "How long do you think it will take you to find this soul-eating flower? Maybe we should stop for now and come back tomorrow?"

"Actually…" Zorian began, his eyes zeroing in on a bunch of seemingly unremarkable trees, "we’re here."

He pointed at the base of one of the trees, where a beautiful white flower proudly sprouted from the forest floor.

There was nothing overtly supernatural or sinister about the soulseizer chrysanthemum. It was a large plant, but not monstrously huge. Its leaves and stalk were the most mundane of green, easily blending into the rest of the nearby vegetation. A single white flower the size of Zorian’s head crowned the otherwise unremarkable plant, its numerous rows of petals folded inwards into a sort of flowery hemisphere.

This sort of peaceful, unremarkable appearance was merely a trap, though. Since the soulseizer chrysanthemum was immobile, most of the time it behaved as inconspicuously as possible to lure its victims near. The moment Zach or Zorian stepped close enough, the flower would reveal its true nature.

"You know how I said earlier that the idea of fighting a flower is kind of funny?" Zach asked.

"Yeah?" Zorian prompted.

"I take it back," Zach said. "There is nothing funny about a dangerous creature that hides itself so thoroughly. I looked straight at it and I still can’t see any sign of danger. If we hadn’t been clued in advance about its true nature and where exactly it can be found, we’d never have noticed it."

"Mm," Zorian hummed in agreement. "If you really think about it, this is one of the most dangerous enemies we could possibly face. Stuff like the grey hunter could kill us, but the time loop makes that just an inconvenience. But this flower? If we stumbled upon it by accident, without being mentally ready or applying some kind of soul ward beforehand, there is a good chance we’d really end up with our souls devoured by it."

"Well, you would," Zach pointed out cheekily. "The safeguards on my marker would probably kick in the moment my soul was torn away from my body. You, on the other hand, would be thoroughly doomed. You know what soul devouring entities do, right?"

"They flay the outer layers of the soul for nourishment and keep the indestructible core as a sort of mana battery," Zorian said. "Or in the case of wraiths, they use the core to make more of their kind. I don’t know how fast this process is, but even if it takes a while, I’d probably end up with my soul severely damaged by the time the restart ended. I would probably spend every single restart thereafter in a deep coma and stay that way until the time loop collapsed."