Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

"What?" Zorian tried to look around him and immediately realized what the darkness was supposed to accomplish. "Oh. You want to see how much I noticed about the state of the tavern."

"How many people?" repeated Haslush.

Zorian wracked his brains for a moment. He did get a pretty good look at the patrons of the tavern when he was scanning them, trying to spot Haslush, but he never actually counted them. And it’s possible someone left the tavern while he was talking to Haslush without him noticing it.

"Twenty… three?" he tried.

"Close. How many trophies are lined up on the wall next to our table?"

Unfortunately, while Zorian had noticed the trophies he didn’t give them more than a single glance. 15 more questions from Haslush in that vein, and Zorian was no longer feeling so confident about this. Haslush finally let go of his hand and the rest of the tavern immediately appeared again.

"Oh don’t feel so down," Haslush said. "You’re not half-bad, really. And honestly, I wouldn’t have canceled our lessons just because you did badly in something like this. How are you standing with divination, anyway? Standard second year graduate or do you have something extra?"

"I know a bunch of library divinations and I have mastered the north finding shaping exercise," Zorian said.

"What, north finding exercise already?" asked Haslush in surprise. Personally, Zorian felt that exercise was very easy. "Well, there goes the homework I intended to give you after today’s session. Anyway, today I’ll teach you how to analyze objects."

He reached into the pockets of his long coat and placed a number of objects on the table in front of them: a sealed envelope, an old pocket watch, a locked box, some kind of giant nut, a spell rod, and a fancy-looking glove.

"Analyzing objects is something I do a lot, so I figure it’s a good thing to start with. Identifying what the object does, finding out who handled it last, what kind of magics and protections are placed on it… you could make an entire career out it, and some do," Haslush said. "I hear you’re interested in a job at the spell forges so this is bound to be rather useful for you."

"So what do I do?" asked Zorian.

"Now I teach you the spells you’ll need and you practice on these," Haslush said, pointing at the various objects on the table.

It was a very productive session after that, and it got Zorian thinking. Based on the man’s various comments, Haslush was clearly somewhat high in Cyoria’s police hierarchy. Maybe he could do something useful with the information about the invasion without tipping off the organizers? It might be worth dying once or twice to find out.

"I really must thank you, Mister Ikzeteri," Zorian said. "You are a lot better at this than I initially gave you credit for."

"It’s fine," Haslush said. "I actively cultivate a somewhat unflattering façade. It helps people relax around me. So what are you trying to butter me up for, anyway?"

Zorian sighed. How should he put this then?

"Could you put up some privacy wards first?" Zorian asked.

Haslush raised an eyebrow at the request but nodded in agreement soon afterwards. He quickly set up some sort of spells over their table and then waited expectantly. He would have to get the man to teach him some of those protective spells in one of the restarts.

"I have heard there is a plot to smuggle war trolls into the city during the summer festival, after bombarding the city with artillery magic during the fireworks launches," Zorian said.

Haslush immediately sat up straighter, so at least it seemed he wasn’t going to get dismissed out of hand. Now he just had to make sure he doesn’t get carted off to the police station.

"And I don’t suppose you’ll tell me where you heard that?" asked Haslush suspiciously.

"Can’t," Zorian confirmed. "It seemed reliable to me, though."

"I see," Haslush sighed. He poured some more alcohol into his glass and took a sip. "I hate the summer festival, you know? Virtually all buildings have their warding schemes loosened while it lasts, the huge amount of visitors makes it hard to spot troublemakers in time, and the mayor and other bigheads want all sorts of stupid things done in preparation for it. It’s a perfect time for criminals and terrorists of all stripes to go wild in the city."

Huh. Zorian didn’t actually know that until now.

"So how are these people going to smuggle in goddamn war trolls of all things, and what are they trying to accomplish?"

"Through the Dungeon," said Zorian. "As for the purpose, I honestly don’t know."

"Anything else you can tell me?" Haslush asked.

"Not really, no."

"Then I have just one more question," Haslush said. "Why are you telling this to me , of all people?"

"There are some very high placed people involved in this, and I’m not sure who I can trust," Zorian said. "You seem like a fairly influential person who is unlikely to be involved. Also, I’m hoping you won’t drag me off to a cell for questioning."

He didn’t actually know whether high placed people were involved or not, of course, but he felt it was a good bet they were. He failed to see how an invasion of this kind of magnitude could be organized without the cooperation of some very influential person inside city administration.

"I’m tempted," Haslush admitted. "But all you’d really have to do is claim it was all a prank and I’d pretty much have to let you go. The mage guild was founded because mages didn’t trust civilian law enforcement to judge them fairly, and they guard their privileges jealously. They would get you out within days and perform their own investigation. You’d get a slap on the wrist for being stupid and I’d spend the next year being punished by my bosses for falling for a childish trick and getting the mage guild angry at us."

"Um," Zorian fumbled. Haslush sounded more than a little bit bitter. He didn’t know Cyoria’s police force harbored such resentment towards the mage guild.

"It’s fine," Haslush said. "I’m not angry at you. I guess I’ll do some investigating and we’ll talk more about it after our next session. You try finding out more from these mysterious sources of yours."

Zorian left the tavern in a good mood, though it was somewhat dampened by fear of assassins. Hopefully Haslush would be discreet in his investigation.

When he got to Imaya’s place he was told by Imaya that she got his message, but she was still fairly unhappy with him – apparently the paper plane rammed straight into the back of her head when delivering his message, and that was dangerous. What if it had rammed into her face and poked out her eye?

Some people were never happy.

The house was calm, the only two occupants currently present being Zorian and Kirielle… and thankfully, Kirielle was amusing herself with doodling into her notebook instead of pestering him. That was good, because trying to levitate a snail, like Zorian was currently doing, was not at all easy. Not only was the snail alive, and thus inherently resistant to magic, but it was also actively fighting the levitation effect, twisting and bending in the air in an attempt to break free of the unseen force holding it aloft.

He was cheating a little – he was actually levitating the shell, which was largely immobile and much more solid than the actual snail. The real test of skill would be levitating a slug or something, but… well, he was having enough trouble with the damn snail at the moment.

"Poor snail," Kirielle remarked from the sidelines. "Why don’t you let this one go and find another one to torture? It’s going to end up traumatized if you keep this up."

"I’m not torturing it," Zorian protested, trying to split his attention between holding the snail in the air and talking with Kirielle. "It’s completely unharmed. I’m not even sure if snail brains are complex enough to be traumatized. The damn thing is as enthusiastic about escaping as it was when I started this."