Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

Apparently this was a wrong approach to take, as Taiven’s temper flared immediately. He supposed she perceived his comment as an insult towards her skills as a mage. Before he could apologize and rephrase his argument she was already shouting at him.

"I’m not going to die!" Taiven shouted irritably. "Gods, you sound just like my father! I’m not a little girl and I don’t need to be protected! If you didn’t want to come you should have just said so instead of lecturing me!" She stomped off angrily, muttering to herself about conceited brats and wasted time.

Zorian winced as Taiven slammed the door behind her. He wasn’t sure why she had reacted so strongly to his words, but apparently pointing out the potential danger of the job was ineffective and only pissed her off.

Oh well, he didn’t expect to succeed on the first try anyway.

"Hi Roach!"

"It is a good thing you came, Taiven," Zorian said with a grave expression. "Come in, we have much to talk about."

Taiven raised an eyebrow at his behavior before shrugging and sauntering inside. Zorian tried to project a serious, ominous presence about himself, but it seemed to amuse her more than anything.

"So… I gather you wanted to see me then?" she asked. "I guess you’re lucky I decided to drop by, then?"

"Not quite," Zorian said. "I knew you would come today, just as I know you’re here to conscript me into joining you for a sewer run."

"It’s not a-" Taiven began, only to get interrupted by Zorian before she could gather steam.

"A sewer run," Zorian repeated. "Retrieving a pocket watch guarded by some very dangerous spiders from the top layer of the Dungeon under the city."

"Who told you that?" asked Taiven after several seconds of bewildered pause. "How could they possibly know? I told nobody where I’m going or why I’m visiting you."

"Nobody told me," Zorian said. "I had a vision about this meeting… and about what will happen should you descend into the tunnels."

Well, it was true in a way…

"A vision?" Taiven said incredulously, disbelievingly.

Zorian nodded gravely. "I have never told you this before, but I have prophetic powers. I receive visions of the future from time to time, seeing glimpses of important events that will affect me personally in the days ahead."

It wasn’t completely implausible – people like that did exist in the world, though their powers were quite a bit more limited than what he had at his disposal thanks to the time loop. From what he understood, their visions were less of a detailed recording of the future and more of a general outline of some upcoming event. The future was always changing, always uncertain, and trying to get a clear image of it was like trying to grasp a fistful of sand – the more you squeeze, the more things slip past your fingers.

Unfortunately, while being prophetic was not impossible, Taiven clearly wasn’t buying his claim.

"Oh really?" Taiven said challengingly, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "And what did this vision of yours tell you about the job?"

"That it will be the death of you," said Zorian bluntly. "And me as well, should I choose to follow you down there. Please, Taiven, I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’m serious about this. The visions are rarely as clear as they were this time around. I won’t go down into the sewers and you shouldn’t either."

As seconds ticked past in silence, Zorian began to think she would actually listen to him. This impression was destroyed when she suddenly started laughing.

"Oh, Roach, you almost had me there!" she wheezed, breaking into uncontrollable chuckles after every couple of words. "Visions from the future… Roach, you have the funniest jokes. You know, I missed that quirky sense of humor of yours. Remember… remember that one time you pretended you were asking me out?"

How Zorian stopped himself from physically recoiling at that he would never know. She just had to mention that, didn’t she? He forcefully pushed away the memories of that particular evening, determined not to dwell on it.

"Yeah," said Zorian emotionlessly. "What a funny guy I am."

Why was he trying to save her again?

"So…" she said, finally getting her giggles under control. "How did you know I was coming?"

"Hi R-" Taiven began, only to stop when she saw his vacant, hollow expression. "Whoa, Roach, what the hell happened to you?"

Zorian kept staring off into space for a few more moments before shaking his head, as if to clear his thoughts a little.

"Sorry," he said in a subdued voice, motioning her to get inside. "I just had an extremely vivid nightmare tonight and I didn’t get much sleep."

"Oh?" Taiven said, collapsing on his bed like usual. "What about?"

Zorian gave her a long look. "Actually, you were in it."

Taiven stopped fooling around and gave him a shocked look. "Me!? Why the hell would I be in your nightmare? You’d think a beautiful girl like me would automatically make for a pleasant dream! Now I got to know what it was about."

"I was walking through the sewers with you and some other two guys I never met," began Zorian in a haunted tone, "when we were suddenly set upon by a swarm of giant spiders. There… there were so many of them… They just swarmed over us and started biting and…"

He took a couple of deep breaths, pretending to be on the verge of hyperventilating, before finally calming down.

"I’m sorry, it’s just… it was so real, you know?" he said, giving Taiven the most vacant stare he had. After a few moments he looked down on his trembling hands and balled them up into fists in a very visible motion. "I’m sorry, it’s just… it was so real, you know? The feeling of their fangs sinking into my skin, the poison coursing through my veins like liquid fire… they didn’t even kill us in the end, they just wrapped us in spider silk and dragged our paralyzed bodies off to their lairs to feed upon later. Such a horrid, vivid vision – I don’t think I’ll ever look at a spider in the same light again."

Taiven shifted nervously where she sat, looking extremely uncomfortable and vaguely ill.

"But it was just a nightmare," Zorian said in forced cheer. "To what do I owe this visit, anyway? Is there something you wanted to talk to me about?"

"N-No!" Taiven blurted out, a nervous laugh escaping her lips. "I just… I just stopped by to have a chat with one of my friends, that’s all! How has life been treating you anyway? Aside from the whole… nightmare… thingy…"

She found an excuse to leave in a matter of minutes. He would later find out she went into the sewers anyway and never came back.

"Spiders?" asked Zorian, doing his best to appear alarmed. "Taiven, don’t you listen to rumors from time to time?"

"Umm… I’ve been pretty busy lately," Taiven chuckled awkwardly. "Why, what do the rumors say?"

"That there are some mind magic using spiders prowling the city sewers," Zorian said. "Word is the city is trying to root them out, but the creatures are evading them thus far. They’ve been trying to suppress the information, since it would make them look incompetent and all that."

"Wow, good thing I talked to you then," Taiven said. "I never would have thought to put a mind ward on myself before going down otherwise."

"You’re still going down there!?" Zorian asked incredulously. "What makes you think this mind ward of yours is enough?"

"Mind magic is a subtle thing," Taiven said. "It uses tiny amounts of mana in very sophisticated ways, which makes it easy to counter with brute force. So long as you know in advance you’re going to face a mind mage, it’s easy to make yourself effectively immune. Trust me, now that I know what to expect from those crawlies, I won’t fall for their tricks."