Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

"What?" the boy said, realizing he made some kind of mistake. "What did I say?"

"Giant… spiders?" Mother repeated.

Daimen couldn’t help it. He sighed audibly this time.

So much for averting disaster.

As he walked through the streets of the city and observed the reconstruction efforts around him, Zorian couldn’t help but feel satisfied with how things had been going lately. There were a few complications here and there, but the city was slowly beginning to recover, and neither Zach nor Zorian had been implicated into what had happened. The thanks for that partially went to Alanic, due to him running interference on their behalf in exchange for helping him clean up Eldemar of various threats, as well as Eldemar having its hands full with all kinds of problems these days, but mostly it was because they were currently complete unknowns to most people, so nobody even suspected they could have been involved. Zorian sincerely hoped that by the time they were forced to reveal some of their real skills, too much time will have passed, and people would not connect the dots linking them to the events that had taken place during the invasion.

Sadly, his quiet enjoyment of the city was marred by the fact people kept giving him curious and occasionally fearful glances as he passed them, the crowds parting in front of him like he was diseased.

Well, they probably weren’t doing that because of him, specifically. Rather, it was because of the giant telepathic spider strutting around the city beside him. Spear of Resolve seemed completely unperturbed by the reception, however, and gave no indication this sort of behavior bothered her. If anything, she seemed immensely pleased with herself that she could walk through the city of Cyoria in broad daylight without being immediately attacked, or met with screams and calls for help. This was already a victory for her and her web.

The aranea hadn’t been entirely accepted by the city authorities yet. Legally, they were still considered monsters that had no rights, and there was a portion of Eldemarian leadership that really wanted to just wipe them out or drive them out of the city. However, the aranea had quietly gathered a considerable amount of support in the city over the years, so there was also no shortage of people willing to argue on their behalf. More importantly, even the critics that considered them dangerous telepathic parasites had to admit they were instrumental in preventing the various threats from the lower reaches of the dungeon from menacing the city. Considering the amount of destruction and suffering Cyoria had suffered recently, the last thing it needed was to go through a monster invasion too because some general couldn’t tolerate the aranea living beneath the city.

The opinion of regular citizens was, from what Zorian could understand, somewhat mixed. The aranea were said to have helped fight the invaders, which won them some good will, but they were also monsters, spiders, and mind mages. None of those three sounded good to the average citizen. Accordingly, when people saw Spear of Resolve walking down the street like she always belonged there, their reactions were… mixed, to say the least.

Thankfully both Zorian and Tinami were accompanying her on this stroll to make sure no incident occurred. Zorian was certain the Spear of Resolve was resourceful enough to evade any real conflict with frightened citizens, but it was best not to risk things.

"So how are the negotiations going?" Zorian asked Spear of Resolve, not bothering to use telepathy for Tinami’s sake. The Aope had managed to secure a magic exchange with the aranea, and Tinami was a part of that, but she wasn’t psychic, and her advancement was slow. She wasn’t good enough for casual telepathy yet.

"Somewhat disappointingly," Spear of Resolve admitted, using sound magic to speak out loud as well. "We have managed to block any initiative to have us driven out of our homes, but it’s unlikely we will get legal recognition any time soon."

"That was always a little naïve of you to expect," Tinami told her. The Aope usually preferred to employ older and more experienced people for these kind of meetings, but Tinami was the designated heir of the House, and she was throwing her weight around to get personally involved in something that very much interested her. "You’re still too much of an unknown for people to trust you, regardless of your help with the invasion."

"Oh, I know that," Spear of Resolve assured her. "I didn’t expect a better outcome, so much as hope for it. I have already made the necessary preparations. The colony can retreat from Cyoria on a moment’s notice, if it becomes necessary."

"Where would you go, though?" Tinami asked. "I can’t imagine there are that many places suitable for your kind."

"We would simply assault once of the smaller webs around the area and steal their home for ourselves," Spear of Resolve said blandly. "The aranean world is a rather brutal place, I’m afraid."

"Oh," Tinami lamely responded.

"I heard your academy is about to reopen soon," Spear of Resolve said, turning slightly towards Zorian before resuming her walk.

"So I’m told," Zorian said. He spotted Taiven and her team in the distance, trailing after a large group of other mages, and gave her a small wave. She waved back, but didn’t linger or tried to talk to him, simply following after her group so she wouldn’t slow them down. She looked happy, though. In the wake of the invasion, there was an urgent demand for combat mages, so she had plenty of job offers and opportunities to prove herself. "If it doesn’t start again soon, the parents that didn’t get frightened by the attack will start pulling their children out of the academy out of concern they’re not getting taught anything."

He looked at Tinami, somewhat curious as to how she was handling that. She had never expressed any desire to join their study group, or any study group for that matter. Was she so focused on this aranean business that she had no problems putting her education on hold for a month, or did she have some kind of alternate arrangements?

"My family has arranged private instructions for me," Tinami admitted, somehow guessing his thoughts. "I mean no offense to your study group and your efforts, but this seemed a better idea."

She was probably right. As good as he was, he wasn’t really a teacher and he had a whole group to deal with anyway. Tinami probably would get far better results out of private instructors. It kind of made him wonder why her family had even sent her to the academy in the first place, if they could just hire a bunch of private instructors for her. Was it too expensive? Did they just want her to socialize with people? Hmm…

"I have a favor to ask of you, then," Spear of Resolve told Zorian. "I’ve made some arrangements with the academy to let Novelty attend a few of your classes as an observer. I’d like you to keep an eye on her and stop her from getting herself into more trouble than she can handle."

"Hmm? Why would you do that?" Zorian frowned. "I know she wants to learn human magic, but do you have any idea how mundane and repetitive our classes are? She’ll be bored out of her skull in three days, maximum. It would be better to just have her come to me for instructions. I did promise I would teach her, after all."

"No offense Zorian, but you’re just a beginner mage still," Tinami said frowning. "You’re not really qualified to teach a member of a completely different species how to do magic. That kind of thing is best left for actual experts."

"Uh, yeah, I meant I would teach her later," Zorian fumbled slightly. "Years later, when I mature into a mage who is qualified to help her. That’s what I meant."

Tinami gave him a really strange look.