Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

"What is it?" Haslush asked, flipping the envelope curiously in his hands.

"Don’t open this until the end of the month," the simulacrum warned him. "Otherwise I will assume the letter has been compromised and abandon that particular place. That said, there is a key to a post office box inside. It’s empty right now, but if the worst happens, there will be a package inside at the end of the month, explaining everything and containing some information to be distributed to various people."

"Insurance in case you die, eh?" Haslush guessed. He casually stuffed the envelope in his pocket, carelessly crumping it in the process. "Alright. Do you think–"

But the simulacrum was already unraveling, quickly becoming intangible ectoplasmic smoke.

Before he completely dissolved, he thought he heard Haslush say something about rudeness.

In Imaya’s kitchen, there was a large and curious gathering. Zorian, Imaya, Kirielle, Kael, Kana, Rea, Nochka, Taiven and Xvim were all present. They weren’t doing anything terribly important – the older people present were playing a game of cards and having scattered conversations, while the three little girls ran around playing with dolls. In the beginning they also participated in the card game, but they were not very good at it, so they eventually wandered off to do their thing.

These sorts of meetings had happened a few times already, but they’d never had so many people before. In addition, Xvim’s presence was an unusual event, to say the least.

Zorian thoughtfully fingered one of the cards in his hand, purposely ignoring Taiven, who was sitting beside him and craning her neck in an attempt to stealthily peek at his hand. Times like this were a bit of a guilty pleasure for him, since they were entirely unproductive and he realistically shouldn’t waste time on them. The reasonable response to Imaya’s request to join them in their game would be to say he’s busy and go back to analyzing Zach’s contract again, but… he was only human. Sometimes, he just wanted to play cards and relax, even with the fate of the whole city was at stake.

Xvim was present here for a reason, though. With the discovery of Zach’s contract and the fact Red Robe was sending a simulacrum to Koth to take his friends hostage, he was presented again with a question of what to do about his friends and family in the upcoming invasion. He clearly couldn’t leave them to wander the city on invasion day, ignorant of the threat. However, he also couldn’t just tell them about the time loop and dump them all at the Taramatula Estate in Koth.

In the end, it was decided that Zach and Zorian shouldn’t be doing the evacuation of all these people in the first place. Some people – Taiven for example – reacted very poorly to Zach and Zorian revealing crazy powerful abilities that they shouldn’t have, and other might refuse to cooperate with a bunch of teenagers trying to drag them off to a completely unknown place all of a sudden. It was better to have an adult in the position of authority to contact the people. Someone in on the whole story, capable of advanced dimensionalism, and respectable looking. That made Xvim the prime candidate, especially since he claimed he could talk Ilsa into accompanying him and lending additional weight to his words. Ilsa was Imaya’s best friend, so she would probably trust her if she said Imaya had accompany them and hide for a few days.

But it was still best if Xvim wasn’t a total stranger to the people he intended to contact, so it was agreed that he would visit Imaya’s place one day. Officially, the visit was because he had to discuss something with Zorian, since he was his mentor and all, but the real reason was so that he could introduce himself to everyone. That way, when he and Imaya came knocking to people and told them that they had to evacuate out of the city for a few days because an attack was imminent, they would hopefully be more open to the idea.

As for Zorian, it was his job to arrange things so that most people were actually present when Xvim visited.

He thought he had done a decent job there, to be honest.

"Mister Chao sure is diligent in his work," Rea remarked, throwing a card at the center of the table. "You don’t often see teachers making a personal visit to their student’s home. I only ever saw it once, and that was because the student in question had vandalized another student’s belongings, not because of anything good. Then again, I did hear that Cyoria’s Royal Academy of Magical Arts is on a different level than most places…"

"I usually don’t make this kind of personal visit, of course," Xvim said, casually throwing a card of his own on top of hers. Zorian thought the man would be awkward or annoyed when presented with this kind of social gathering over a card game, but Xvim showed no discomfort with the situation whatsoever. He wasn’t exactly relaxed, but he gave off the same sort of severe, dignified atmosphere than he always did. "Sadly, most students today are very lazy and lack proper dedication to truly master their chosen fields. They want shortcuts and instant results, and the modern academy curriculum sadly encourages that sort of attitude."

"It’s the Weeping, isn’t it?" Kael said softly.

"Indeed," Xvim nodded solemnly. "With the death of so many mages, the academy received a directive from on high to lower its standards. In more ways than one. On one hand, this meant children from wealthy, but not traditionally magical families could attend our institution far more easily in the past, and I have no issue with that. Unfortunately, it also meant that some of the more boring and unpleasant but necessary lessons were removed in favor of practical education and other nonsensical words. As if foundation building is not practical…"

The conversation continued for a while in this vein, with people chipping in with their thoughts from time to time. Zorian noticed Taiven staring at him at one time, but she averted her gaze when he glanced at her. She had probably started to notice that there was something weird going on with him. Well, other than him being a telepath and hanging out with sapient underground spiders. Thankfully, she was still wary of confronting him about it, so he didn’t have to figure out how to explain anything for now. She was one of the people who reacted very badly to him being suddenly absurdly powerful and competent, so delaying that confrontation for as long as possible was for the best.

He was still debating whether it would be better to have her join the fighting on invasion day or to simply hide her along with all the rest. On one hand, having her join the chaotic final fight would be extremely dangerous and there was a high chance she could die. He would be devastated if that happened. On the other hand, she was a warrior mage looking for a chance to get actual experience and make a name for herself, and he was pretty sure she would choose to stay and fight if she had a choice. Did he have the right to take that choice away from her just because he would hate to see her die or get seriously hurt?

He remembered his younger self and how much he hated his parent’s attempts to dictate his life for him. Taiven’s parents were already trying to keep her safe by steering her away from dangerous professions and she resented them for it. If he made this choice for her, how was he any different from his mother? He would be worse, probably, because at least his mother had never used advanced magic to compel him to obey.

Ugh. He put that decision aside for now. He could tackle that later.

He suddenly realized that Kirielle had brought her new toy to show off for her friends and that it was attracting attention from the adults as well. It was a small golem Zorian had made for her. Kirielle had already painted face on it and added hair and a dress and other little touches, so by now it looked almost like an animate doll rather than a golem.