Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

Quatach-Ichl, Silverlake, and Jornak. The three of them marched out of Iasku Mansion once the flow of troops leaving their base had slowed down to a trickle, their bearings proud and their steps never faltering. All three of them were as Zorian had come to know them. The ancient lich was in his skeletal battle form, black bones encased in gold-decorated armor and the imperial crown placed securely on top of his bony head. Sickly green light emanated from him, something that he now knew was a visible trace of a powerful ward anchored to the fancy armor he was wearing. His appearance wasn’t just for the sake of appearances and intimidation. Jornak was still dressed in that distinctive red robe he loved to wear, his face hidden in darkness. Truthfully, Zorian still often thought of him as Red Robe in his head, even though he was completely sure of his identity by this point. Finally, Silverlake was looking the most relaxed out of the three, dressed in an expensive red dress, hands clasped behind her back as she was looking around at everything around her. Zorian couldn’t really hear her due to the distance between him and their group of three, but she seemed to be quietly humming some kind of tune as she walked. It was hard to connect the beautiful, black-haired woman in front of him with the withered old witch he had come to know in the time loop, but they were clearly one and the same.

All three were under the effect of mind blank. Of course.

Two more new arrivals also caught his attention. At the same time their three main enemies marched out of the mansion, a large procession of people in robes also left the mansion through another entrance. The lead people were dressed in the same kind of red robe that Jornak was wearing, and guarded tightly in the center of the procession was a large armored carriage that seems to be shaking from time to time, as if someone was pounding on it from the inside. The group immediately set off in the direction of the Hole, barely glancing at the fights occurring around the mansion.

The second thing that caught his attention was… another Quatach-Ichl. This one was identical to the ancient lich that had just marched out of the mansion, except this one was holding a glowing red gem the size of a human fist, and was standing directly on top of the ruined roof of Iasku Mansion.

Quatach-Ichl was using a simulacrum? How interesting. As far as Zorian could tell, Quatach-Ichl was like Zach, in that he didn’t like using those unless he had to. He didn’t have the convenient telepathic link to his copies like Zorian did, and he probably worried about what he would do if one of his copies would do without his supervision. It was hard enough for Zorian to keep his copies in line, he couldn’t imagine how much headaches other people experienced with them.

So that probably means…

The second Quatach-Ichl raised his black, skeletal hand in the air, his palm pointed at the sky, holding the glowing red gem exposed for all to see. A complicated magic circle made out of blood red light suddenly sprung around his position. Red streams of light emanated from the gem like many whip-like tentacles, and the air above the mansion started to twist and distort like hot summer air.

Yeah. It was time.

He reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved and angel cube. Then, he deployed the imperial orb and retrieved from it a much bigger, metal cube of his own design.

Glancing to the side, he could see Daimen approaching him. His older brother had chosen to stay still for a while after the teleportation event, rather than immediately rejoining Zach and the others in fighting Oganj. He had spent a lot of mana fighting Sudomir’s skeletal dragon until Zorian had come, so he probably felt it prudent to take a breather and recover some strength while he could.

"That thing on the roof is going to summon something," Daimen told him, concern creeping into his voice. "Something big."

"Demons," Zorian said. "I know. But look at those three marching towards us. Do you think we can push through them to stop the summoning?"

Daimen looked at the ancient lich, the humming witch, and the man in the red robe. He didn’t know them like Zorian did, but he was a powerful and experienced mage, and could make a decent judgment. He then looked at the battle in the sky, where Zach, Alanic, and Xvim were fighting Oganj, and scowled. Their companions were too busy to come to their aid.

"Can you help me hold them off while I do some summoning of my own?" Zorian asked, giving Daimen a brief side-glance while focusing on the angel cube in his hands. He had never actually done a summoning like this before. He really hoped he didn’t mess things up. That would be really anti-climactic.

He swept his hands around him and invisible forces cut deep groove in the ground around them, forming a complicated magic circle of his own. The lines and glyphs began to glow blue.

"You won’t seriously ask me to fight three master mages alone?" Daimen asked incredulously. "I think you have a very inflated view of my capabilities here, brother."

"It’s fine," Zorian insisted. "You just have to hold them off for a little while. Plus, you will have Mrva here as support."

Zorian pointed at the giant hulking golem standing behind them. Daimen muttered something about Zorian having a stupid naming sense, but the reminder that he had a metal colossus on his side had obviously helped breathe additional confidence in him.

"Plus…" Zorian added, placing his hand on the other, much bigger cube. "I won’t be completely helpless."

Keeping his hand on said cube, Zorian copied Quatach-Ichl’s gesture and raised his hand up into the air, palm facing upwards. The small angel cube greedily accepted his mana, interfacing itself with Zorian’s improvised magic circle. Hundreds of tiny golden glyphs lit up on the surface of the cube, though from a distance Zorian imagined it just looked like he was holding up a miniature sun in the palm of his hand.

A vortex of multicolored light and soft wind suddenly formed around him as the angel cube suddenly started to madly draw in ambient mana in the area. A massive, mind-boggling torrent of mana was sucked into the cube, more than Zorian could have ever provided out of his own personal mana reserves, even if he sat there and powered it for several months at the time.

This wasn’t how summoning rituals usually worked. If Zorian had tried to use ambient mana to help pay for the summoning like this in normal circumstances, he wouldn’t just suffer mana poisoning – he would explode into ash and dust before he channeled even a quarter of the mana he was handling now. However, this time he didn’t have to channel the ambient mana through himself, as with most spellcasting. The cube was somehow doing that on its own, and Zorian simply had to make sure to guide the mana across proper channels and shape the summoning spell. His mana reserves were still dropping dangerously fast, but the ritual was more taxing on his shaping skills than anything else.

Did the angel make the cube specifically to take advantage of Zorian’s high shaping skills? Because this was hard. Insanely hard! Other than maybe Xvim, Zorian didn’t think there was any person other than him that could stop all this mana from running out of control and ruining the titanic summoning ritual the cube wanted to execute.

Zorian wasn’t entirely sure he could do this himself, actually. The difficulty was still increasing. His hand shook and beads of sweat formed on his forehead as the cube in his palm shone brighter and brighter.

An angel’s trust is a heavy thing to bear, Zorian lamented in his head.

Focused as he was at his task, he was only partially aware of thing happening around him, and even that was purely because his mind was fused with so many of his simulacrums. One of the simulacrums took over his body and senses while he focused on shaping the summoning spell, and in his current fused mental state, this allowed him to observe his surroundings in a way he would normally be unable to achieve without being distracted.