Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

Anyway, the first task simulacrum three currently faced was checking if the old Silverlake was still alive and inside. If she was, then he needed to know if the time looper Silverlake had already visited her and tried to recruit her.

To find that out, he could rely on slowly using exotic divination on her hideout while carefully avoiding being found out… but that would take a lot of time and mana and he didn’t want to bother. Instead he simply made an unearthly racket just out of her pocket dimension, screaming obscenities at the treacherous old witch until she decided to come out to confront him.

Which she did. She stomped out of the pocket dimension, visibly fuming and glaring at him.

The simulacrum immediately decided she probably hadn’t been visited by her time looper self. She had approached him too carelessly, like she had no idea what he was capable of. She would have been far more cautious if the other Silverlake had warned her about him.

Still, he had to make sure.

"Boy, what the hell are you shouting for!?" Silverlake shouted, stopping some distance away from him. "Coming here in the dead of the night, at three in the morning, shouting all these obscenities at a poor old woman like me… what is the world coming to these days!? Haven’t your parents taught you to respect your elders!? Bow down and apologize or I’m going to poison your whole family, you hear me!?"

"I just wanted to get your attention," the simulacrum told her honestly.

That only made her angrier.

"Listen, I’m kind of in a hurry… did you perhaps get visited lately by an ugly old crone that looks just like you?"

Silverlake raised her hand and fired a weak lightning bolt. Well, relatively speaking, since that spell could have inflicted serious damage to a normal person.

Zorian’s simulacrum, though? He simply copied his mentor Xvim and backhanded the lightning bolt to the side. Rather than char his hand, the bolt was deflected harmlessly into the nearby ground, creating a small crater in the forest soil.

Silverlake’s posture instantly changed, becoming warier and more alert.

"No, seriously… did someone who looks just like you visit you recently and try to kill you or recruit you? Someone who knows all your secrets and abilities?" he again asked.

"Who are you?" Silverlake said, her eyes narrowing suspiciously and her hands twitching with half-formed spells.

The simulacrum clacked his tongue. She was totally ignorant of everything, he was sure of it. Time looper Silverlake had not visited this place.

But why? Did she really not care about her old self, or was she just being paranoid? He hadn’t arrived here particularly quickly – if Silverlake wanted to travel here from Cyoria, she would have arrived way before he did. In all likelihood, she would have finished up before he had a chance to get here and intercept her.

"Hey! Are you deaf or something?" Silverlake shouted, kicking a nearby stone in his direction. It was surprisingly accurate, flying straight at his forehead. She had a pretty good kick. Of course, Zorian just dodged the stone with practiced ease, so it ultimately amounted to nothing.

He could kill her, he realized. Even if time looper Silverlake wanted her dead, there was no guarantee that old Silverlake would be grateful to them once they saved her. She was an incredibly cynical person, and would simply see two young fools she could exploit to her advantage. She might work with them out of a sense of self-preservation, but she would be constantly looking for an angle to exploit and probably wouldn’t want to do anything that placed her into significant danger.

What was the point of such an ally?

"Here. Catch," he said, throwing a small stone disc at her. She did not bother catching it, simply stepping back and letting it hit the ground. She then used a nearby fallen branch to suspiciously poke at it.

The simulacrum rolled his eyes at her.

"What the hell is this thing?" she asked.

"It’s an illusion stone," the simulacrum said. "I recorded a rather interesting scene in it. You can study it later in the privacy of your own abode. Oh, and by the way? You should probably change your warding scheme as soon as possible. You should also collapse any secret entrances into your place, even if you think you’re the only one who knows about them."

He turned to leave.

"Now wait just a moment here, you little brat! You’re just going to leave without explaining any of the crap you just unloaded into my lap?" Silverlake demanded.

"Yes," Zorian’s copy nodded. "I decided not to kill you. Don’t make me regret it, alright?"

Before she could respond, he teleported away.

He didn’t want to linger around Silverlake’s place. While setting up an ambush around her hideout might have seemed like a good way to get the time looping version of her, Zorian felt something wasn’t right there.

He had to make sure Alanic, Kael and Lukav were fine. Silverlake could wait.

While Zorian and the other simulacrums were teleporting around and wracking their heads to figure out what the enemy was planning, simulacrum number two was bored. His job was to secure the house and watch out for Red Robe or Silverlake staging an attack on his family. However, he had already done all he could to secure the house and no attack was happening.

The hours passed, and eventually he found himself in front of Kirielle’s room. Hmm… the morning was already here, wasn’t it? Didn’t that mean it was about time for Kirielle to wake up?

He rubbed his hands sinisterly, an evil grin on his face. It had been so long since he had a chance to wake up Kirielle. He liked to sleep in, and the time loop never really changed that, so it was usually her that woke him up.

He entered her room and crouched next to her bed. She was covered up to her neck in a blanket, with only her face visible. She was blissfully unaware of Zorian crouching next to her, a look of peace and contentment on her face.

The simulacrum considered how he should go about doing this. Jumping on her, like she liked to do to him, had an air of poetic justice on it. However, it didn’t feel right. He was too big and heavy, and it would be a bit too much for a prank.

Dropping a bucket of water on her like she had when she had thought he was a shapeshifter?

No, that would get the bed wet and mother would freak out on him.

Hmm…

Oh well, he’d just go with the classic.

"Good morning, sister!" he suddenly shouted in her ear. "Morning, morning, MORNING !"

She woke up screaming and flailing, and eventually fell out of the bed.

He laughed at her. Ah, he needed that…

"Zorian, you jerk!" she shouted at him, flailing her little arms at him like a windmill. She was like a little angry kitten, though, so it just made him laugh harder.

She eventually kicked him out of the room so she could switch out of her pajamas. Once she was out, she gave him a curious look.

"How come you’re awake?" she asked.

"I couldn’t sleep," the simulacrum said.

"Oh," she said. She looked at him hopefully. "Hey, can you show me some magic? Please?"

He spent the next half an hour entertaining Kirielle, casting various spells for her amusement, until the original contacted him and told him to stop wasting mana on frivolities like that. What a jerk. The mana drain on those illusions was totally negligible!

He watched Kirielle deflate when he told her he had to go pack and couldn’t play with her anymore. She looked like she wanted to ask him something but eventually just chickened out, staring at the floor like a kicked puppy instead.

He sighed internally. He knew what she wanted to ask, of course. She wanted him to take her to Cyoria with him. But doing that would be… irresponsible.