Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

"Probably," Kael agreed. "I was surprised when people told me they only became friends over the summer holidays. They seem like they have been friends their whole lives."

"Yeah, I first though Zorian was just taking advantage of Zach to get at his money, but these days I kind of doubt it," Kopriva said. "He has a serious source of cash of his own, I can tell."

"From what?" Akoja asked curiously. How could a teenager like Zorian have serious money unless someone gifted it to him?

"Sales," Kopriva said. "I don’t know what he’s selling, but it must be pretty rare and profitable because people have been asking about him a lot, trying to get in contact with him."

"You mean… in your circles?" Akoja asked worriedly.

"Yes, in my circles ," Kopriva laughed at her. "I’m sorry, but your crush isn’t as clean as you imagine him to be."

"I don’t know what you’re talking about," Akoja told her quickly. "We’re just colleagues."

"Yeah, sure," Kopriva rolled her eyes at her.

"So, I hate to interrupt your conversation," Kael suddenly said, "but have any of you recently found a book… or a collection of notes, maybe… in your room?"

"What kind of book?" Akoja asked curiously. What was the boy even talking about?

"A book you’ve definitely never bought, and notebooks you’ve definitely never written," Kael said. "Just… sitting there on your night stand, full of magical secrets that seem almost as if they were specifically tailored to you, and you alone…"

There was a second of silence as the two girls processed this statement.

"That seriously happened?" Kopriva asked incredulously. "You found a book and some notebooks in your room-"

"My locked room," Kael clarified. "My locked and warded room that Ilsa later confirmed hadn’t been broken into."

"-and they contained a gift of magic specifically tailored for you?" Kopriva finished. "You damn morlock bastard, first you have a rich guy buy you your very own alchemy lab, and now this? How are you so damn lucky!?"

"The most disturbing thing," Kael said hesitantly, ignoring Kopriva’s outburst, "is that some of the passages use the exact same wording, codes, and symbols that I do. This happens over and over again, to the point I don’t think anyone can reasonably fake it."

"What are you saying?" Akoja asked, not really understanding.

"It’s my writing style," Kael said. "I have several years' worth of alchemical and medical research, seemingly made by my hand, but no memory of writing any of it. And I don’t know what to think about that."

The two girls stayed silent. Their first instinct was to deny the idea as completely absurd.

But these were mad times they were living in, and nothing was too absurd to fully dismiss. So they just stayed silent and filed the topic in the back of their heads, put aside but not forgotten, and went about their shopping in peace.

Elayer Inid was the special investigator sent by the crown of Eldemar to find out what exactly had happened in Cyoria on the day of the attack, and he was not happy. Not happy at all.

It wasn’t just about a foreign power having the ability to strike deep into Eldemar’s territory at their leisure. It wasn’t just about the rampant betrayal among Eldemar’s highest ranks that had allowed this attack to progress as far as it had.

It was about the fact that someone had stopped the invasion and saved the city, and it wasn’t anyone that Elayer recognized.

Regular people often talked about mysterious organizations and enigmatic hermits moving about in the shadows of polite society, but the truth was that organizations that held real power and powerful individuals didn’t spring out of nowhere. It took a lot of resources and connections to raise a top tier mage, and even more to build an organization around one. By the time these rising powers were able and willing to exert their will and influence on the world around them, people like Elayer will have already noticed them and learned who they were. When mysterious events like the one that had happened a month ago in Cyoria occurred, investigators were often unsure who exactly was behind them, especially if the perpetrators had been thorough and erased all the evidence. However, they always had an idea who could have done it, even if they had no proof or couldn’t narrow down all the possibilities to one actor.

At the moment, though, Elayer had plenty of evidence. He had witness testimonials, magical recordings, field reports from soldiers and mages that had been present when the attack took place, and even material evidence.

And all of it was telling him that this couldn’t have been done by anyone he knew about. Even more disturbingly, even after he had consulted with some of his foreign sources, he was no closer to finding a likely candidate. No one had any idea who could have done this. It was as it these saviors had materialized straight out of thin air, and vanished just as suddenly afterwards.

Elayer stood in front of the wreckage of a large golem, hands folded behind his back. To his left, two researchers shuffled uncomfortably in place, hesitating to speak.

"Well?" he asked them impatiently. "Have you identified the maker of this thing?"

"None of the known golem makers produced this, Mister Inid," one of the researcher said after fumbling with his clothes a little and clearing his throat. "Although the animation core has been shattered beyond recovery, enough of it survived that we have been able to make some startling discoveries. We are very sure the established golem makers would never make such a thing."

"Hmm? Why is that?" Elayer asked, suddenly curious. Honestly, he though the golem wreckage would bring him no answers, so this was a pleasant surprise.

"The spell formula inscribed on the animation core are completely unprotected," the other researcher said. "No codes, no misdirection, no attempts to shroud the method of creation at all. Usually artificers spend almost as much time trying to hide how they made something as they do making designs for it. Golem makers especially so. But there is no evidence of that here - whoever made this thing cared only about pure efficiency."

"Are you saying we could potentially replicate this thing?" Elayer asked.

Now wouldn’t that be something… he had heard reports about how good these golems were, and it was apparently something on a whole different level from your typical combat golem. If they could duplicate one of these, then this would be a huge gain.

When Elayer saw the two researchers share a knowing look with each other, however, he knew it wouldn’t be that simple.

"The issue is that the animation core has been totally shattered, and some parts of the spell formula inscribed on it are missing. Even after we compared it with the remains of other golem wrecks we have recovered from the city, we are still missing about 10% of the design."

Just 10%?

"And you can’t fill in the blanks?" Elayer asked curiously.

"Heavens no," the first researcher said, bursting into laughter. "The design for this thing is one of the most complex things I’ve ever seen in my life. Everything slots together perfectly, and even the slightest mistake would make everything collapse on itself. And considering how expensive the materials for the construction of this kind of core are, experimentation would be hellishly expensive. Never mind 10%, even a 1% gap would make this design completely unviable. Unless we managed to find an intact golem, the only thing this is useful for is for serving as inspiration."

"Alright," Elayer said, turning away from the wreckage and walking off. The two researchers quickly followed after him. "What is this about some mysterious books that I’m hearing about?"