Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

"Ah, you mean the mysterious gifts some people have been getting?" The second researcher asked. Elayer nodded. "We have only managed to recover a handful of them from the people they were given to. Rumors of us confiscating them have spread among people fast, as has the fact they are of no danger to the recipient, so people no longer report them to us. But from the few we have in our hands, they seem to be full of novel magic specifically tailored for the recipient."

"If I may make a suggestion, it might be prudent to return the books we’ve confiscated to the people they were given to," The first researcher said. "We’ve already copied the contents, and it might motivate people to let us take a look at the stuff they’re currently hiding if they see they’re eventually going to get it back."

"I’ll think about it," Elayer said, not thinking much of it. He didn’t like the idea of someone handing over magical secrets to people like that, not at all. Plus, he had suspicions their mysterious saviors were behind this as well. Those gifts were evidence and he was keeping them, at least so long as his investigation lasted.

Infuriatingly, said investigation was encountering a lot of unexpected obstacles. The Triumvirate Church had clearly been heavily involved in the battle – there was a giant angel battling a dragon mage in the skies of Cyoria, for heaven’s sake! – but they refused to let him interrogate the priesthood involved, and the crown was reluctant to offend them. The church had been spectacularly successful recently, providing valuable help and information on necromancer hideouts, demon summoner bases, and some of the more awful criminal groups. Elayer had no idea how they had gotten so much critical information about Eldemar’s criminal underbelly, but they had, and this unfortunately meant they currently had an upper hand over him and his investigation.

At the same time, Elayer was having trouble keeping the funds and manpower for the investigation going. Eldemar’s attention had been stretched very thin lately. They had an invasion of Ulquaan Ibasa to organize, complicated heavily by the fact the Ibasans had somehow managed to take over Fort Oroklo without Eldemar realizing it. They were throwing a lot of money and manpower at Cyoria in order to get the city up and running again in order to make a show of strength and lift up morale, and these efforts often clashed greatly with Elayer’s own investigation into what had transpired there. Sulamnon, Falkrinea, and even many smaller countries were stirring, trying to see just how badly the kingdom had been hurt and whether they could fish in troubled waters while Eldemar’s forces were distracted elsewhere. And finally, there was that permanent gate that linked Eldemar with jungles of Koth, which had everyone and their mother excited about the incredible opportunities this presented. The gate was clearly related to the Ibasan invasion somehow, but Elayer and his men were not allowed to examine it closely in fear that they would destroy the precious, irreplaceable, intercontinental gate with their tampering.

Bah. And then his superiors complain he has no results. Of course he had no results! Just what did they expect when they constantly keep taking his money and resources, and don’t let him touch things or question people?

But Elayer was patient. His foes may have won this round, but he knew what to look for now, and everyone slipped up sooner or later. It may take a year, or even a decade, but they were bound to make a mistake.

And when they did, Elayer would be there, and he would be ready.

Daimen Kazinski was having a stressful, but very exciting month. From the day he had woken up in an unknown room in Cyoria with an entire month of his life missing from his memory, it had been a non-stop wild ride of crazy reveals and maddening complications. It was annoying, but truth be told, he kind of enjoyed it. A safe, boring life had never been something he coveted. He somewhat resented his little brother for wiping away a month of his life to save his friend, but he understood. He would have done the same in his place, probably.

At the very least, Daimen could safely say he had profited handsomely from this whole time loop business. Not only had Zorian gifted him a veritable treasure of research and notes he had apparently made for himself during this time loop , but he also indirectly allowed the Taramatula to seize the permanent gate linking Koth to Eldemar.

A permanent intercontinental gate… the sheer possibilities of that thing were breathtaking to consider. Eldemar’s forces quickly moved to secure their side of the gate, but they didn’t try to push through it to monopolize the whole thing. It would be too easy for Taramatula to simply destroy their side of gate back in Koth, and thus ruin this whole thing for everyone. Thus, the Kingdom of Eldemar and the Taramatula now found themselves in possession of a permanent dimensional link between continents. Both sides were positively salivating at the potential profits and other benefits involved, and since Daimen was closely connected to both of said parties, it was often up to him to act as a bridge and negotiator between these two sides.

And then there was Zorian… his little brother, the time traveler. Well, it wasn’t real time travel, but it may as well be, from Daimen’s point of view. He had beheld a doomed future, and then he had traveled back to their own world to stop it, and save as many people as possible in the process.

And in order to pull it off, he’d had to kill the original Zorian, and steal his body for his own uses.

Daimen would have liked to say he was conflicted about this information. Zorian was right: in a very real sense, his little brother had been murdered and replaced by an imposter. He should have been outraged. He should have been deeply disturbed by the implications, just like Zorian himself clearly was.

But he wasn’t. Maybe it was because the whole situation was so utterly ridiculous and it was hard to really know what to feel. Maybe it was because, by Zorian’s own admission, the original Zorian hated him something fierce. Or perhaps it was because he damn well knew that if he had been in Zorian’s position, he would have murdered his own original without a shred of hesitation and thought nothing of it. All he knew was that he’d simply told Zorian that everything would be fine, and that he shouldn’t worry about it. He had only done what he had to.

Maybe it was just Daimen imagining things, but he thought he’d seen a small flash of gratitude in his brother’s eyes when he said that. He hadn’t expected the big bad time traveler to actually care about his opinion that much. Interesting.

Now, here they were – every Kazinski sibling gathered together. Daimen, Zorian, Kirielle, and Fortov were all standing next to one another at Cyoria’s train station, waiting for the next train to arrive.

Their parents were coming to Cyoria.

It was kind of funny, actually. If his parents had arrived to Koth as planned, they could have been here way earlier. Daimen would have arranged for them to step through the brand new interdimensional gate linking Koth to Eldemar, and they would have been home before you knew it. Alas, they’d actually heard about the attack on Cyoria when they had almost reached their destination, and decided to immediately switch ships and turn back. As a consequence, they had spent almost an entire month in transit before they were able to return to Eldemar.

Sighing inwardly, Daimen noticed that no one except him looked actually excited about that fact. Zorian looked bored and disinterested, clearly intending to just get this over with as quickly and painlessly as possible. Fortov seemed nervous and unsure how to behave. His other young brother had been acting strangely ever since Daimen had evacuated him from Cyoria along with Kirielle, and Daimen had no idea what was going on in his head at the moment, but he clearly wasn’t looking forward to this meeting. As for Kirielle, she was playing around with the fancy snow globe Zorian had bought for her while they had been waiting for the train to arrive, but Daimen could see she was extremely nervous under this disinterested facade.