Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

"First of all, I don’t care that I’m trapped inside a time loop and people won’t really suffer and die – I did not go down this path to hurt people," Kael told her firmly. "Secondly, even if I didn’t balk at this on ethical grounds, it’s still a terrible idea. The other alchemists and healers aren’t stupid. Any potion developed through unchecked human experimentation will be obvious as such – people will surely realize that I couldn’t have possibly developed such a potion without going through an inordinate amount of test subjects and send the authorities to check up on me."

"At which point they will find absolutely nothing, because you did everything in the time loop, erasing all the evidence," Silverlake said. "They’re just accusations. Just keep insisting you’re a genius and you figured it all out in a dream or something equally absurd. You’re way too skittish. I think you’ll find that a lot of powerful people won’t care that you’ve done everything nicely and according to law. So long as you make too many waves they will want you under control or gone."

Kael was silent for a few seconds.

"You might be right," Kael conceded after a while. "But I don’t care. I already said my main problem is with the ethics of the whole thing, not whether or not I can get away with it in the end."

Silverlake glanced at Zorian.

"No way," Zorian said, shaking his head. He had seen just how messed up unrestrained human testing can get while trawling through Sudomir’s memories. While Silverlake probably had a lot tamer things in mind than that, he’d rather not risk it.

Silverlake ignored him, tapping her chin with her finger and muttering something that sounded suspiciously like if you want to do something right, you’ve got to do it yourself . This being Silverlake, though, Zorian had no idea if she was being serious or was just trying to piss him off.

"Well, never mind that, then," Silverlake shrugged. "Second idea, then. Did you two ever contemplate recruiting governments for help? They already have existing logistics and infrastructure, and the amount of resources even a minor statelet has at its disposal is vast."

"Yes, but we decided against it in the end," Zorian said. "Governments do things very slowly. Getting them to commit to anything worthwhile would take far more than a month, unless I was willing to use mind magic to speed things up. Which I’m not."

"Ah, but I wasn’t suggesting you try to negotiate a deal with them or beg for handouts," Silverlake said with a grin. "All you have to do is leak your potion formulas, research notes and other secrets to various governments and their research teams. Make it seem like they originate from their rivals and bitter enemies to light a fire under their ass and then simply stand back and watch what they do with it all. No need to convince them of anything – just dump things into their lap and swoop in at the end of the month to steal all their work."

That… might actually work.

"Huh," Zorian said. "You do raise a good point there."

"You shouldn’t have said that," Kael said. "She’ll be absolutely insufferable from now on."

Silverlake just cackled in obvious satisfaction.

"Well then," she said. "Do you want to hear the rest of my ideas?"

Once all of the preparations had been done, Zach and Zorian went to the address Quatach-Ichl had given them to contact him.

They had already discreetly checked the place out earlier and knew the place was actually a just a small, seemingly-innocuous corner store. The ancient lich had never given them any secret phrases or contact methods, so they were a little mystified as to what they were supposed to do when they arrived there. Just call for Quatach-Ichl by name? However, it turned out that they need not have worried. The man behind the counter seemed to immediately know who they were and what they were at the moment he saw them. He pointed them towards a door to the storage room, which wasn’t actually a storage room, where Quatach-Ichl had already been waiting for them. His black, metallic-looking skeleton just sat there on a chair in one corner of the room, tapping his fingers against his leg bone and observing them as they approached.

Well. That was kind of creepy. How the hell had the lich known they were coming? Surely he hadn’t spent the whole day here, just in case they decided to drop by…?

"Wow, you were waiting for us all this time?" Zach said loudly, bluntly drawing attention to the fact. "We must really mean a lot to you."

"I left a spare body in here and jumped in , so to speak, when I was informed you were coming over," Quatach-Ichl said, rising from his chair and making a few casual gestures in the air. A cloud of ectoplasm rapidly condensed around the black bones and then solidified into a familiar fleshy guise. He smiled at them lightly. "Still… I will admit I was rather looking forward to this. After speaking to you that day, I couldn’t help but check up on some things and I must say you’re even more unusual than I thought."

"Oh?" Zach prompted.

"For instance, there is no evidence that you are anything other than regular human teenagers," Quatach-Ichl said. "I thought, before seeing you up-close, that you may be shapeshifters or possessor entities wearing teenage bodies. Having seen how perfectly your souls slot into your forms, I can effectively rule that out. I have also managed to get a better glimpse at what you are doing and I have to say… you are even more capable than I thought you were. It is really curious that you have managed to amass so much magical skill, money and contacts while being so young… and even more importantly, while evading the notice of people who keep an eye out for such things."

"Well, those people clearly aren’t very good at their job because someone managed to organize an entire invasion right under their noses," Zach deadpanned. "In comparison to that, overlooking a couple of precocious teens is a minor matter, don’t you think?"

"Ha! There is a lot of truth in what you’re saying," Quatach-Ichl laughed. "The security around here is terrible. Still, the only reason we have been able to pull this off is that we have many of the local authorities infiltrated and that I secretly take care of… problematic elements. We are not completely undetected in the way you two appear to be. Furthermore, we are operating in impossible fashion, using magics that nobody is aware are possible, and we have only recently ramped up our activities to their present level."

"So have we," Zach pointed out. "If you’ve been observing our activities as closely as you claim to have, you’ve surely realized we only started to ramp up after seeing you do the same."

"That’s a curious way to put it," Quatach-Ichl said, cocking his head to the side in a questioning manner. "As far as I can tell, you didn’t just ramp up your activities… it’s more like you hardly even existed up until a few weeks ago. And many things you’re pursuing have no conceivable connection to stopping us."

There was a brief silence as both sides quietly studied each other and their reactions.

"Well," Zorian said eventually. "I hope you don’t expect an answer from us in that regard."

"Oh no, of course not," Quatach-Ichl said, shaking his head. "I’m just thinking out loud, that’s all. So. I presume you have an offer for me, yes?"

"Yes," Zach nodded. "We want you to help us break into Eldemar’s royal treasury and retrieve the imperial artifact stored there."

Quatach-Ichl gave them an incredulous look.

"Alright, you’ve got me there," he said after a second. "I honestly didn’t expect that at all."

What followed was an exhaustive, two hour long session of questions and answers where Zach and Zorian tried to prove to the ancient lich that they weren’t crazy for trying to pull this off. They showed Quatach-Ichl the various building plans and other information that they had gathered about the royal treasury in the past, pointing out that they already did most of the work and just needed his help with overcoming a few final hurdles.