Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

There was a second a silence following that statement.

"What?" Zorian said incredulously. "That’s it? Just a mana battery?"

"Ha!" Quatach-Ichl grinned. "I knew you’d react like that! It never gets old. However, when I say it’s a mana battery, I don’t mean it stockpiles ambient mana like the mana batteries modern mages make. I mean it stockpiles the personal mana of the wearer… and the mana inside it never gets un-attuned. It effectively makes my maximum mana reserves ten times larger than they naturally are."

"T-Ten times!?" Zorian couldn’t help but blurt out. By the gods… and he thought Zach was a total mana monster.

Although Zach was more reserved, one could see on his face that he was also boggling at the utterly ridiculous amount of personal mana that Quatach-Ichl apparently had at his disposal.

The ancient lich seemed very pleased by their reaction.

"Of course, that is without considering the divine blessing I’ve received in the past, which doubled my already impressive mana reserves," Quatach-Ichl continued. "Measuring of one’s mana reserves was in a rather primitive state at the time I had begun my mage career, so I don’t really know what sort of magnitude I would have according to the standards of modern mages, but I think I was about… magnitude 25? Something along those lines, I believe. The divine blessing then doubled my maximum without hurting my shaping skills in the slightest, so my natural mana reserves were huge even before I got ahold of this lovely little crown. So when I said my mana reserves are effectively ten times their normal size due to the crown? It’s actually even more impressive than it sounds."

How… interesting. Zorian shared a long look with Zach. That explanation about the divine blessing that doubled his mana reserves… didn’t that sound rather familiar?

"So…" Quatach-Ichl eventually said with a grin. "Do you still think making an enemy out of me is a good idea?"

"This blessing you spoke about…" Zorian tried.

"Aha, no," Quatach-Ichl said, raising his finger to stop him. "I honored my side of the bargain. Now it’s time for you to honor yours."

"Fine, fine," Zach sighed. "Aside from being a massive portable pocket dimension, the imperial orb is also a nigh-infinite memory bank, capable of storing a massive amount of personal memories and mental blueprints inside it."

Quatach-Ichl considered it for a moment.

"Considering the scarcity of writing supplies in those times… yes, I can see how that kind of function would be invaluable. Not that impressive today, although the remaining records inside the orb, if any, would be incredibly valuable. To historians, if nothing else. How much did you find inside?"

"No comment," Zach immediately said. The memory bank was completely empty, of course, as it could only be used inside the time loop, but Quatach-Ichl didn’t need to know that.

"Fair enough," Quatach-Ichl conceded.

"As for the location of one of the other imperial artifacts…" Zach said. "Well, you can find the dagger inside Eldemar’s royal vault. You’re already attacking the country in question, so you should have no qualms about breaking into its royal vaults as well."

"They have one of the imperial artifacts and they’re letting it gather dust inside the treasury," Quatach-Ichl said, shaking his head sadly. "How typical."

There was a brief and uncomfortable silence as both Zach and Zorian waited for the lich to say something more, but he never did. Instead he simply observed them silently, saying nothing.

"So, this blessing you spoke about…" Zorian tried again.

"It’s going to cost you," Quatach-Ichl immediately warned.

"Well, what do you want?" Zorian asked him bluntly.

"Since you’re asking questions about the divines, I think it would only be appropriate if you offered something divine yourself," Quatach-Ichl smiled.

Zorian thought about it for a second before pulling out the mysterious dagger they had found in the imperial orb and handing it to Quatach-Ichl. Giving the ancient lich a divine artifact of unknown powers in exchange for this kind of information would be monumentally stupid in any other circumstances, but he really wanted the proper answer to his question and the dagger would be back in his hands in the next restart anyway.

Quatach-Ichl gingerly accepted the dagger and immediately started casting spells on it, scaring Zorian quite a bit. This was the first time Quatach-Ichl had performed any sort of magic after approaching them, and Zorian watched him like a hawk to make sure he didn’t slip in something unsavory between all those divination spells he was casting at the dagger.

"It’s a divine artifact," Quatach-Ichl eventually concluded.

"Yes," Zorian confirmed. "Divine for divine, no?"

"What does it do?" he asked.

Zorian was pleased that not even a millennia-old lich like him could just casually figure out divinely-bestowed powers.

"I don’t know," he admitted to the lich. "It’s just something we recovered from an old ruin."

"So it could be totally useless or amazingly powerful," Quatach-Ichl concluded, turning the dagger carefully in his hands and studying the lines and glyphs etched into its surface. Zorian knew he would find out nothing through that, though. They appeared to be purely decorative and said little about the dagger itself.

"No divine artifact is useless," Zorian insisted.

"You’re wrong," Quatach-Ichl said, shaking his head. "Gods were very impulsive, whimsical creatures. They made all sorts of pointless items purely as a joke back in their heyday, it’s just that most of them broke down or got thrown away as the years went by."

"Divine artifacts can break down?" Zach asked curiously.

"Of course," Quatach-Ichl nodded seriously. "Most of the surviving divine artifacts are not unbreakable because this is some inherent trait of a divine artifact – they are unbreakable because they wouldn’t have lasted for centuries if they weren’t."

"Still, based on what you just said, the very fact this dagger lasted up until this day means it’s probably at least a little bit useful," Zorian said.

"There is some truth to that," Quatach-Ichl acknowledged. He looked Zorian straight in the eye. "Are you sure you want to trade this, though? You could be losing a real treasure, you know?"

"I’m sure," Zorian said firmly. "Just make sure to give me an extra-detailed explanation if you’re so worried about taking advantage of me."

"Ha! Decisive. I like that," Quatach-Ichl said. "Well, since you’re not afraid to take a risk, I guess it would be pretty pathetic of me to shy away from it."

With a dramatic flourish, Quatach-Ichl twirled the dagger expertly in his hand, showing impressive manual dexterity, and then… pushed the dagger straight into his chest.

The dagger sank into him like he was made out of water, right through the clothes, and then it was gone like it never existed. Quatach-Ichl also looked completely unharmed by the action.

He folded his hands over his chest and smiled at them.

"What exactly did you want to know?" he asked.

"You said this divine blessing of yours doubled your maximum mana reserves," Zorian said. "Was that a typical size of increase for such blessings?"

"Hm?" Quatach-Ichl hummed, seemingly surprised at the question. "Well… that’s an interesting question, but I’m afraid I can’t answer that. People with divine blessings were rare, even in times when the gods still roamed the earth, and they tended not to advertise their identity and capabilities. If you think secrecy among top mages is bad today, you don’t want to know what the ancient archmages were like. So many legacies got lost because the old fools refused to let anyone see their work… but I digress. I suspect that the sort of blessing I received is relatively typical of its sort. Making someone’s mana reserves twice as big utterly dwarfs any sort of natural increase one can obtain through other means, thus firmly cementing the god as actually godly, but it isn’t completely over the top. Plus, doubling something is a nice, simple-to-understand change."