Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

"Did you know I was considered a dangerous radical in my youth?" Silverlake asked him. Zorian didn’t and told her so. "Oh yes. When I was born, the covens had already been on their last legs – Ikosian magic had shown itself to be mostly superior to our own spellcasting traditions. After all, most of our spells are long rituals involving lots of chanting and standing still for hours on end, or relied upon invoking the spirits of the land – who are notoriously fickle things if you ask me, you can never rely on them to aid you when you need them the most. The one thing we had going for us – our potion making – the Ikosians simply copied and then improved upon. I saw all this, and I decided to commit a huge heresy – I decided to study Ikosian methods in addition to traditional education I received from my mother. My coven exiled me for it when they found out."

"Tragic," Zorian said. "But that wasn’t quite what I was looking for. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t really be surprised if I revealed I knew this little tidbit of your past."

"No, of course not," Silverlake said. "I’m sure you could find out that and more if you really decided to investigate my history. If you came to me and started narrating my past, I’d just think you did your homework before coming to see me."

"Right," Zorian nodded. "So I’d really prefer if you gave me something more substantial. Surely you have some kind of private password that you could easily tell me without truly inconveniencing yourself. You can change it immediately after you tell me, so it’s not like there is any danger I’ll abuse it."

"Not during this month, no," Silverlake scoffed. "But what if you’re right? I have no assurance you’ll only use such a secret to convince my future self of your crazy tale – you could use it just as easily to rob her blind!"

"But you don’t believe in the time loop?" Zorian tried.

"If I’m going to entertain a stupid hypothetical, I’m not going to do a half-assed job," Silverlake said, her tone brooking no argument. "But… hmm. I think I have it. Do you remember how you came in front of my home and made all that racket to draw my attention?"

"Of course," Zorian nodded. "It’s one of the best moments of this month."

Silverlake took a sudden swipe at him with her bony, withered hand, but Zorian successfully dodged her strike.

"Brat. I should refuse to say anything now, but I don’t want you pestering me about this further," Silverlake grumbled. "Anyway, at some point I actually considered the possibility of someone finding my abode and trying to catch my attention. I was thinking of what would be the proper, polite way of doing that, and I realized I would probably have to install some kind of doorbell or something. And that would be kind of incompatible with the whole hidden nature of this place, no?"

"Right," Zorian agreed. "So the doorbell would have to be hidden too, accessible only to people who have been told about it in advance."

"Exactly!" Silverlake said. "Now, in the end, I just scrapped the whole idea. I didn’t want people visiting the place too casually. However, I did implement part of the system before I gave up. There is a stone in this place that emits shrill whistles when a special keystone is activated right outside the entrance to this dimension. These keystones were never actually made, so the whistle stone just sits there, uselessly gathering dust. I guess there is no harm in showing you how to create a matching keystone…"

"And that would convince you there’s something funny going on?" Zorian asked.

"Well yes, I guess it would," Silverlake said. "I mean, I never actually made a single keystone, let alone distributed them to people. How could you possibly create one that matches perfectly with the whistle stone in my dimension? If you showed up holding one of those, that would catch my attention for sure."

Zorian grinned. He had a feeling their chances of convincing Silverlake in the future had just dramatically improved…

One of the more unexpected things about this restart was that Daimen had made a surprise decision to stay in Cyoria for the last few days of the restart. Zorian was not sure what exactly triggered this decision. Perhaps it was because Zorian had asked to borrow his divine artifice mirror for a little research or because his eldest brother had joined them in exploring the ruined palace inside the orb this time, but he suddenly decided he absolutely must see the invasion that occurs on the night of the summer festival.

Zorian thought nothing of it at first. Even when Daimen came to Cyoria a few days before the actual day of the invasion, making a mysterious claim that he had something he needed to do , Zorian just dismissed it as him wanting to talk with his old friends or whatever. Then Daimen came to him for help and Zorian realized he probably should have inquired deeper into what Daimen was doing while back home in Eldemar.

"No, Daimen," Zorian told him firmly. "I am not going to set up a meeting between you and Fortov."

"Come on, Zorian, this is our family at stake here," Daimen pleaded.

"Oh please," Zorian protested. "You and Fortov not getting along with each other is not a crisis. That’s par for the course in our family. Stop being so melodramatic."

"Crisis or no, this time loop is perfect for solving things like this, and it will take so little effort, too! Show some compassion for your big brother and do me a favor, eh?" Daimen insisted. "Haven’t I let you borrow my mirror when you asked, despite my better judgment? And let’s not forget about that secret room full of treasure that I found in the ruined palace – it would have taken you months to find that without me, if you ever did."

Zorian made a sour face. Yes, Daimen was rather more helpful in this restart than he usually was. That secret room in particular… they were still sorting through the contents, but it would seem there were some very nice things hidden there. One of the daggers appeared to be a genuine divine artifact! They had no idea what it did yet, but even if it turned out to be underwhelming, it would be extremely valuable as a research subject and priceless trade good.

"Look," Zorian said. "Using me as a lure so you can basically ambush Fortov out there in the open really doesn’t sit well with me. Don’t you think that’s kind of a jerk thing to do?"

"I thought you hated Fortov?" Daimen challenged, raising his eyebrow at him.

"I don’t like him, but this sort of manipulative maneuver doesn’t sit well with me," Zorian said. "Just go confront him directly, okay? I’m sure he’ll relent if you keep pestering him."

"No, he won’t," Daimen said slowly. "Do you think I’d suggest this if that worked? Besides, you’re looking at this the wrong way. You don’t have to trick him or anything. You said he always seeks you out at the end of the restart, so long as you don’t avoid him. Something about the cure for the purple creeper rash, yes?"

"Yes," Zorian reluctantly admitted. "So you want me to just go somewhere where he can easily reach and wait for him to show up on his own?"

"Yes," Daimen nodded. "Since you haven’t asked him to meet with you, he has no right to complain when it turns out I was in the vicinity."

"Well… alright," Zorian sighed. "Though if you have been pestering him these past few days, he might decide to deviate from his usual pattern. It’s amazing as it is that he always ends up pushing Ibery into that purple creeper patch. That has got to be a deliberate move on his part…"

"Mm," Daimen agreed. "I should ask about that too, I guess."

The final plan was very simple. Zorian would spend the evening walking around the city, occasionally casting divinations to see if Fortov was approaching. If he was, he would quickly seek shelter in one of the many coffee shops scattered around Cyoria, under the theory that Fortov was slightly less likely to start yelling at Daimen in the middle of a crowded coffee shop than in the middle of the street or whatever. Once Fortov sat down, Daimen would show up to crash the event.