Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

In the interest of avoiding an argument, Zorian refrained from making a snide comment about whether or not Kirielle qualified as a lady. Not even a derisive snort. Someone should give him a medal for self-control.

"Basically," Zorian said, "they’re a race of underground humans. Though most of them don’t live underground anymore. The disappearance of the gods hit their civilization hard, and the other denizens of the Dungeon have largely driven them out to the surface. Ikosian settlers sort of helped the process along by kicking them while they were down and burning down a couple of their more prominent settlements."

"Oh," Kirielle said. "But that doesn’t explain why people don’t like them. Sounds like they should be angry at us more than we should be at them. And Kael doesn’t look like he hates us."

"Kael is probably totally ignorant of his ancestral culture. I understand a lot of morlocks are. And the reason people don’t like them is that the old morlocks had some pretty barbaric customs. They liked sacrificing people to their gods, and seemed to have been cannibals," said Zorian.

"Cannibals!?" Kirielle squealed. "They ate people!? Why!?"

"Hard to say," Zorian shrugged. "Ikosian settlers were more interested in condemning them for their practices then understanding why they did what they did."

"Well yeah, they ate people," Kirielle said. "That’s evil and disgusting. Don’t tell me they’re still doing that?"

"Don’t be ridiculous," Zorian scoffed. "The authorities would never let them get away with something like that."

"Oh," said Kirielle. "That’s good. Is that why people don’t like them? They’re afraid the morlocks are going to eat them?"

"It contributes," Zorian sighed. "I lost count of the number of rumors I’ve heard about morlocks supposedly kidnapping children off the street to eat them or what not. But there is more to it. The morlocks had their own brand of magic, which is currently banned just about everywhere, but a lot of morlocks still practice it. The guild calls it blood magic ."

"Sounds sinister," Kirielle remarked.

"It does, doesn’t it?" Zorian said. "There is no official information about what blood magic actually is, but most people think it has something to do with sacrifice. The story is that morlocks could use a ritual killing of a person or animal to power their spells. Modern morlocks can’t exactly kill a bunch of people at whim, but supposedly they still engage in animal sacrifice, both for magical and religious reasons."

Kirielle snuggled in closer to him, shuddering.

"I’m glad Kael and Kana aren’t like that," she said.

"Me too, Kiri," said Zorian, patting her on the head. "Me too."

Tearing out a piece of paper from one of his notebooks, Zorian wrote down a short message for Imaya, explaining that he had another of his divination lessons with Haslush and would thus be late today. He still didn’t see what the big deal about being late was, but he really didn’t want to argue about it.

Of course, writing the message was one thing and getting it to Imaya was another – he was at the Academy currently, and it was a long way from there to Imaya’s place. He was pretty sure he had a solution, though. He had found plenty of spells for long range communication, and although not many were within his ability to cast or suitable for his purposes, one of the spell combinations seemed promising. Basically, he was going to make a paper airplane and animate it to fly under its own power. A simple locator spell should guide it towards Imaya. The method worked when he tested it with Kirielle, but that was over considerably smaller distances.

Undeterred by the somewhat experimental nature of his actions, he folded the piece of paper into a paper plane and cast his spells on it before flinging it out of the nearest window. It sailed away out of sight soon enough, tracking its target.

Well… classes were over, and the message sent. Time to find Haslush.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, Zorian discovered Haslush had arranged their second meeting in another tavern. Of course. Undeterred, Zorian walked into the place and tried to ignore the stares of the other patrons as he scanned for Haslush among them.

Haslush wasn’t there. Did Zorian find the right place or had Haslush simply decided not to show up? He did have a bit of trouble finding the place, since Haslush had given very vague directions to it, but Zorian was sure this was it. He was just about to leave the tavern to see if he had missed something when he realized it.

Something was wrong. He felt an almost unnatural desire to leave this place. If he hadn’t spent the dozen or so restarts suffering through Kyron’s resistance training he probably wouldn’t have noticed it, but there was a compulsion effect targeting him.

He pulled out his divination compass and murmured a quick locator spell, seeking out Haslush. The needle immediately pointed towards an unassuming brown-haired man in factory worker getup sitting in the left corner. Sighing, Zorian shuffled over to the man and sat on one of the chairs facing his table.

"Can I help you?" the man asked in a painfully scratchy voice, staring at Zorian with hollow, bloodshot eyes. Very creepy. Very uninviting.

Instead of answering, Zorian muttered a quick dispel. A wave of dispelling force rushed towards the man, disrupting the illusion. The creepy man melted away to show Haslush pouting at him like a little kid.

"I must say, I didn’t expect that," Haslush said. "I figured you’d enter and leave the tavern at least three times before you figured it out. I dare say you just broke the betting pool – only two people voted for you getting it right away."

Out of the corner of his eye Zorian saw two of the bar patrons giving him a thumbs up.

"Can you drop the compulsion spell now?" Zorian sighed. "I don’t think I’ll be able to pay attention to you with this constantly hanging over my head all the time."

"Oh. Right," said Haslush, snapping his fingers. Zorian’s head cleared immediately and the desire to bolt out of the tavern evaporated.

"So what exactly was the point of that?" Zorian asked.

"I wanted to see where your observation skills stand," Haslush said, taking a sip from his glass. "'Divination is one of the trickier magical disciplines, because failure is not obvious. You could perform a divination flawlessly and still get nothing out of it. You could mess it up totally and not even realize you did something wrong. Ask the wrong question, interpret the results incorrectly, or fail to take an important variable into account and it’s all just wasted effort. Experience can help you minimize those kind of issues, but it helps to be naturally perceptive."

"I guess getting it right immediately means I scored really well?" Zorian tried.

"It means you’re off to a good start," Haslush said. "We’re not done yet."

And with that, Haslush reached out across the table and caught him by his wrist before he could pull him arm away. All sights and sounds around Zorian instantly disappeared, his surroundings replaced by an inky silent void. The only things he could still see and hear was his own body and Haslush, who seemed to be sitting on thin air, what with his chair being replaced by the same darkness that consumed everything else.

"Don’t," Haslush warned when Zorian tried to wrench his hand free of Haslush’s grasp. "It’s a harmless spell, and it will disappear the moment we break skin contact. If it makes you feel any better, I’m suffering the same effects while it lasts."

"What’s the point of this, then?" asked Zorian.

"How many people were present in the tavern when I used this spell on you?" Haslush said.