Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

They discussed things for another hour or so before deciding to shelve the discussion for now. They would be interrogating Jornak in more detail in upcoming days, which would hopefully shed more light on the issue. They also intended to use pieces of Veyers' body as divination tools to try and track his movement while he was alive. They would have to do this very, very carefully though, lest they get tracked down themselves by the Boranova House investigators.

Eventually the two of them retired into one of the quieter, less frequented taverns on the outskirts of the city and sat down to have a drink and talk about less serious topics. The waitress gave Zorian a really weird look when he ordered fruit juice instead of anything alcoholic and Zach mocked him for it, but Zorian wasn’t really bothered about that. Instead he decided to make use of this opportunity to complain about the family drama that Daimen forced him to participate in near the end of the previous restart.

"Oh man, your family is such a train wreck," Zach laughed. "It’s not even funny, except it kind of is. Though I have to admit, I kind of get the urge to defend Fortov when you explain his situation like that. I mean, I understand why you feel the way you do, but us fuck-ups needs to look out for each other, you know?"

"What do you– Oh yeah, you were kind of doing badly in the Academy yourself, weren’t you?" Zorian suddenly realized. He winced. "Sorry. I wasn’t thinking."

"No, it’s fine," Zach said, shaking his head. "I’m not insulted. Much like Fortov, I too had excuses for my poor performance. But I understand now that they were just that: excuses. Perhaps Fortov will eventually learn his lesson as well, eh?"

"Perhaps," Zorian agreed diplomatically.

Zach responded by taking a deep sip out of his beer keg and then leaned back in his chair in contentment.

"You know, every time I think about what my future would have been like if I never got pulled into this time loop thing, I get both furious and horrified," Zach said, staring at the ceiling of the tavern with unfocused eyes. "It’s been so long but I remember what it was like so very vividly… How I lived in an empty, half-abandoned house, constantly hearing about how I was expected to rebuild my entire House from scratch and feeling utterly lost as to how I can accomplish it. How I eventually decided it was a hopeless task and began to coast by on the least amount of effort I could get away with and just tried to keep myself happy. But hey, it was fine! I had plenty of money! I mean, that was why Tesen fired all the servants and sold off all our properties, right? So it doesn’t matter if I don’t do too well at the academy and have no real professional skills. Everything will work out… just… fine !"

Zach suddenly finished off his beer keg and then slammed it violently onto the cheap wooden table. The tavern workers all turned towards them, and for a moment Zorian thought he would be thrown out of a building for the second time in two restarts, but in the end they just shook their heads slightly and went about their work. Evidently this was not a rare occurrence around here.

"I’m getting angry again," Zach explained unnecessarily. "I shouldn’t be talking about this while drinking."

Zorian scratched his cheek awkwardly, not sure how to respond to that. He was really regretting starting the topic about Fortov now…

"You know what the problem with teaming up with you is?" Zach asked him suddenly, staring intently into his eyes. He didn’t wait for his answer. "I can’t start a restart by beating Tesen into a bloody pulp anymore. I used to do that every once in a while to work out my frustrations."

Zorian remembered that. It used to occur quite frequently, leading up to a lot of speculation about Zach and his reasons for doing that…

"It’s probably for the best you stopped doing that," Zorian told him. "You might develop unhealthy habits and end up becoming a fugitive for no good reason once we’re out of the time loop. That would be a pretty sad way for all this to end, no?"

"I guess," Zach said. "But it was so satisfying…"

Zach eyed his keg for a couple of seconds, as if considering if he should get himself another, before sighing and pushing it to the side. Good. He’d rather not deal with a drunk Zach right now.

"What do you intend to do about Tesen, anyway?" Zorian asked. "When we get out of the time loop, I mean."

"What else? I’m going to sue him into oblivion," Zach said. "He may be powerful and well connected, but I still have some friends in high places and he was pretty brazen in his actions. He broke the law when he robbed me of my inheritance and I’ll do my best to make him pay for it through official channels. If that doesn’t work… well, I hope it doesn’t get to that."

"I see," Zorian said. "I didn’t see you do any research on the topic thus far…"

"I’ve already done all the preparations a long time ago," Zach said. "I have all the evidence I need, I know how to blindside him when putting things into motion and I can afford to hire the best damn lawyers in the country to represent me. There is nothing more that can be done within the confines of the restart. These kind of legal cases take years of legal wrangling, not weeks. Still, a strong start does count for a lot and all the lawyers I spoke with tell me I have a good chance of winning."

"That’s good," Zorian nodded slowly. "Though I have a suspicion Tesen and his faction won’t limit themselves to mere legal wrangling in their attempts to deal with you."

"I know," Zach grinned. "But you know me. I don’t shy away from danger. Let them come. It will just give me a stronger case when it turns up what they’ve been up to."

"Anything I can do to help?" Zorian asked.

"Probably not, actually," Zach said, shaking his head. "This is mostly a job for lawyers, not for the likes of us. Once I put things into motion, I just need to keep the money flowing and ward off any assassination attempts and the like. But we’ll see. Rest assured I will not be too shy to ask for help from my fellow time traveler."

The conversation wound down after that, and they each went their separate ways for the day. The upcoming days were going to be somewhat busy ones, involving a great deal of preparations and planning.

It was time to visit Silverlake again… and this time they planned to seriously try and convince her that the time loop is real.

When Zach and Zorian showed at Silverlake’s hidden base, they came carrying the grey hunter’s egg sack and the ancient giant salamander that Silverlake was looking for. The eggs were acquired in the exact same way they had been in the previous restart. As for the salamander, they just went to the same place Zorian had found it in the past and then started their search from there. Eventually, after two whole days of searching up and down the river and examining nearby hiding places, they found the giant salamander buried in the mud of one of the flooded caverns, almost undetectable if one didn’t know what to look for. Without an appropriate starting point, it would have taken them forever to track it down.

But no matter, the point was that they had both of the ingredients that Silverlake wanted so badly for her youth potion, and Zorian had created the keystone that Silverlake had shown him how to make in the previous restart. They also loaded up a bunch of combat golems into the portable palace orb, ready to be taken out at a moment’s notice, just in case Silverlake reacted badly to their approach… something that was entirely possible, but unavoidable. They didn’t have the time to take things slowly anymore.

"I’m ready," Zach said, twirling a combat staff in his fingers to pass the time. "Go ahead and ring the bell."