Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

"I assume you had a reason for doing that, then?" Alanic prompted.

"Of course," Zach laughed. "We had the best reason. Gather round, children, Grandpa Zach is going to tell you all a story…"

Over the next half an hour, Zach told everyone involved what the point behind the airship theft was. Zach being Zach, he focused more on describing the exciting parts of the airship battle than the strategic goal of the theft, or their reasoning, but he did eventually manage to get the point across. They needed the airship in order to locate all the Key pieces in time. Without the Pearl of Aranhal, travelling across the Xlotic desert to reach the Ziggurat of the Sun would probably require multiple restarts due to the hostile environment and a lack of human towns where they could hire teleporters at. Additionally, they eventually needed to reach Blantyrre to collect one of the pieces, and traversing the vast amount of ocean that separates Blantyrre from the nearest human landmass in less than a month would be nearly impossible through alternative methods.

"It’s more than that, though," Zach continued. "Not only is the airship we stole absolutely critical in getting us out of this time looping reality, it is also important practice for another theft that needs to happen."

"More thefts, mister Noveda?" Xvim asked him, raising an eyebrow inquisitively.

"Well, yes," Zach said. "After all, the dagger is held inside Eldemar’s royal treasury…"

"Oh heavens…" Taiven groaned, burying her face in her hands. "Zorian, are you seriously going to break into the royal vaults?"

Kael, who was sitting next to her, chuckled quietly.

"He kind of has to, doesn’t he?" he said, sounding a little amused.

"Since you’re mentioning this now, I’m guessing you intend to make the attempt at the royal treasury in this very restart, then?" Alanic asked.

"Yes," Zorian confirmed. "Additionally, we also intend to try and wrest the crown from Quatach-Ichl, the ancient lich fighting for the Ibasans. Potentially, we could gather all but one of the Key pieces in this very restart. I doubt we’ll succeed in getting them all this time – hell, I wouldn’t even be surprised if we fail to get any of them – but it’s good practice and it should at least tell us what areas we’re lacking in and what we need to work on to succeed next time."

"I see," Alanic sighed. "I will be frank – I am not very comfortable with condoning such an act of treason. Considering what is at stake here, I will not stand in your way… but you should not count on my help in this regard."

"Ha ha!" Silverlake suddenly cackled. "So righteous and serious! This is too funny! I still remember how you came to me back then, a budding little necromancer full of ambition and anger, asking for my help! It’s really hard to reconcile that memory with what you ended up becoming. A necromancer and a thief became a fervent priest and a patriot, now I’ve really seen everything in the world…"

Alanic stiffened slightly at her words and then gave her an angry glare. Silverlake just grinned cheekily at him. Taking a deep breath, Alanic rose from his seat and gave Zach and Zorian a frosty look.

"I think it would be best for everyone if I did not participate in this meeting anymore… or any other meeting where you planned how to best rob Eldemar’s royal family," Alanic said. "And while I realize more than anyone that desperation can make one do things they rather wouldn’t, I have to warn you that you’re making a mistake by working with this old ghoul. You’re playing with fire. She will stab you in the back in a heartbeat if she thought it would benefit her."

"Ah, I love you too, my little necromancer," Silverlake said sweetly.

Alanic did not bother to respond to her, or even look at her. He simply turned around and left the room. Not quite stormed off, but it wasn’t quite far from it.

Zorian resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands. It always had to be something, didn’t it?

A long, uncomfortable silence descended on the scene. Only Silverlake seemed entirely comfortable with the situation, humming happily to herself and idly examining one of the experimental potions Kael had made. The meeting was happening in one of the alchemical workshops Zorian had made for the white-haired boy, so there were quite a few of them lying around.

"So," Silverlake eventually began. "You were saying something about an ancient lich?"

Although the Xlotic desert was usually depicted as an endless sea of sand, with only the occasionally broken up rocky outcroppings or secluded oases, its actual landscape was far more complex than that. There was plenty of sand, yes, but also vast fields of rock, barren hills and mountain ranges, remnants of dried-up lakes and riverbeds, and old Ikosian ruins scattered all over the place. And that was just the more mundane landmarks. Zorian had heard that there was a forest composed out of stony, seemingly fossilized trees in the deep desert, blooming with life and greenery during the rare times it rained in the area before reverting back to its seemingly lifeless appearance after a few weeks. Then there were the so-called water volcanos – massive geysers of boiling water that occasionally erupted from the Dungeon in some regions, flooding the area around them for a brief while.

The area around the Ziggurat of the Sun wasn’t as unusual as those two examples, but it was still an unusual place. First of all, this was once a famous temple complex of the Ikosian Empire, and a great many ruins were scattered around the area – ruins of temples, lesser ziggurats, military forts, private estates and so on. Many of these ruins had been claimed by the local sulrothum, but many more had been overrun by various desert-adapted monsters, which had moved into them and had dug themselves in too thoroughly for anyone to dislodge them. Secondly, there was a seasonal river passing through the area – although it only persisted for part of a year, it was enough to make the area relatively vibrant compared to its immediate surroundings. Finally, the local underworld was particularly extensive and featured a large underground lake that no doubt contributed to making the land far livelier than it realistically should have been this deep in the Xlotic interior.

Zach and Zorian were currently traveling through this land on foot, warily observing their surroundings. Their journey had been relatively free of dangers thus far, but that could change in a flash if they weren’t careful. The heat was also slowly starting to get to them. Their comfort spells had done a fine job of warding off sunstroke and the worst of the desert heat, but this sort of magic was not all-powerful and Xlotic was quite an extreme environment.

It made Zorian wish they had just arrived here in their pretty new airship. Unfortunately, that hadn’t been an option. They were coming here to try and negotiate with the sulrothum for the right of passage, and the devil wasps would no doubt react badly to the sight of an incoming airship. Most likely they would just attack the vessel immediately, ruining any chance of successful negotiations.

Well, if Zorian was being honest with himself, the negotiations were not very likely to be successful anyway. Although sulrothum were known to have peaceful interactions with humans on occasion, they had a reputation of being an extremely fierce and violent species, and there was a long history of bloody conflict between them and humanity. On top of that, sulrothum were incapable of producing the necessary sounds to mimic human speech, and humans could not speak sulrothum either, making communication between the two species difficult.

Even though the odds of a peaceful outcome were low, though, Zorian still felt they had to try. No doubt he and Zach could forcibly take the ziggurat from the sulrothum if they really applied themselves, but there were hundreds of these things living there and this was their home. This was where they kept their children, their food stockpiles and water reserves, their workshops and trade goods… they were not going to give the place up easily. They might even decide to fight to the death, which would force Zorian to deal with sulrothum children and non-combatants somehow. He’d rather avoid that headache if at all possible.