Throne of Time [Magical Academy, Time Loop, Mystery]

Back to the waiting room. Suria had fallen into a routine at the start of each cycle, but she thought it would be a mistake to repeat her usual steps because this time she needed to prepare for other loopers. She couldn’t anticipate their exact actions, so she needed to take steps that would shield her from most potential reactions. As she hastily recreated her essential talismans, she planned her next moves.

The first problem: Maut-mai was inconsistent in this stage, wandering around depending on her confused inner state. Since Suria needed her to get out of the way, she decided to get up first and walked out into the corridor, since that would prevent Maut-mai from complaining to Rije. Since she had never tried to talk to Lirngelf in the past, at least as far as Suria could tell, that was the safest option.

What had she said so long ago? Suria did her best to remember while she reviewed that it had just been a short time since she’d rushed past Rije, misunderstanding his curtness. Honestly, she wanted to talk to him more than she had expected, now that it was finally an option.

”Sorry if I was rude earlier,” Suria said as soon as she saw him. ”This is my first time and I find this whole place a bit intimidating.”

Rije stared as he realized she wasn’t who he thought, then his face cracked in the broad smile she remembered. ”No problem,” he said. ”I was a bit rude myself, since a lot of students treat me like some sort of servant.”

”Right now I’m just waiting for my interview, so... should we introduce ourselves properly? I’m Suria Northbrook.” She gave a little bow and he copied it.

”Rije Gadreel, pleased to meet you. It seems you’re not like most students.”

”Yeah, I’m getting that idea myself. I was invited here on a scholarship, and it’s starting to seem like that was a mistake...”

The conversation didn’t follow exactly the same lines as it had the first time, but this was still the same Rije, so it was easy to talk to him. All she had to do was avoid saying anything she shouldn’t know about him, or that a new student wouldn’t know, and the words flowed easily enough.

”Well, I should get back to the waiting room,” Suria said when she heard a door close. ”I wouldn’t want to miss my interview.”

”Hey, don’t worry about Shuguja,” Rije told her. ”She’s a bit of a grouch, but you deserve to be here. Just don’t let her intimidate you.”

”Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”

It was strange how her mood shifted entirely as she walked back to the room. While she had been talking to Rije, part of Suria felt like she really had been thrown back to the person she was at the beginning, radiating all her old anxiety. Yet back in the waiting room, all that fell away and she returned to her plan.

After double-checking that Rije hadn’t followed her and that Maut-mai was in the office, Suria walked over to Lirngelf’s apparently sleeping body. At first she planned to drag him, but she realized that he was a lot bigger than her and she wasn’t sure she was strong enough. Instead, Suria quickly inscribed a force glyph and used it as gently as possible to pick up the corpse and move him out the eastern door.

”As gently as possible” ended up involving whacking him against multiple walls. All her practice with the spell had been using it for attacks, not fine control, and she needed to work more on that. She was just grateful that the banging noises didn’t attract anyone.

The corridors were empty, as had been burned into her mind during the early loops, so Suria easily moved Lirngelf into one of the smaller corridors away from the basement stairs. She set his body down as if he was sleeping, though her only real hope was that he wouldn’t be found here until it was too late. Hopefully the spells that tore through the building would distort any evidence she left behind, or perhaps the cleanup effort would wipe it clear.

She hesitated for a while, considering Lirngelf’s runic potion. It had become second nature to take it, and she sorely missed the boost to her capacity... but she decided that it was too risky. The potion would be evidence that could somehow undermine her story, even if it seemed unlikely. Best to be paranoid until she had a better idea what to expect.

All her actions had taken somewhat longer than normal, but Suria hadn’t established a very firm baseline, so she thought she could get away with it. So long as she left soon instead of delaying, she could make a wide variety of claims. She circled around where Rije was standing guard to return to the familiar western door and the memorized position of the locking glyph.

She opened the door to look out and a second later it was wrenched from her hands. Suria instinctively threw up her mana shield, which might have saved her, but it didn’t stop her from being slammed back against the wall.

Adwyrma burst through the door with shocking force and Suria was barely a roadblock in her way. Judging from the sheer strength the other woman had shown, Suria guessed that she was using bodily enchantment, as she’d just learned about from Eortrax. But that seemed secondary to the long gray blade she carried in one bloody hand.

”No more hiding,” Adwyrma snapped, leveling the sword at Suria. ”Are you going to try to stand in my way?”

Suria raised her hands and pulled back, not needing to fake her fear. It was more than the fact that Adwyrma could probably cut through her mana shield with that sword: her presence here meant the entire cycle was going to be disrupted in completely unpredictable ways.

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For a second the two of them faced off, then Adwyrma’s attention was drawn back toward the door. She sprinted away and Suria understood as Wynchard burst inside, though he skidded to a halt, hands on his knees as he caught his breath.

”Got ahead... of me...” he panted.

”What is she doing?” Suria asked.

”No idea.” Wynchard straightened and pushed past her, charging into the building.

That left Suria with an open door and a decision. For so long her only goal had been to escape Convocation Hall, and that still seemed like the safest choice - even if she wasn’t risking her life, she could lose an entire cycle. Yet all her time at Darkmoon University had only brought her a little closer to the truth about the deeper mysteries and this disruption could change so much...

Then she heard Rije cry out in pain and Suria started moving before she could think about it any further. She found him slumped against the wall of the corridor, a nasty gash across his arm and chest. Suria quickly rushed to his side and began casting her flesh healing spell.

”Who... is that?” Rije forced out the words between grimaces of pain.

”She just ran in,” Suria said grimly. ”Stay still so I can try to heal this.”

This confirmed that Adwyrma was at least as dangerous as a ranked seal mage, since Rije had barely slowed her down. Suria believed Rije was a competent guard, but two years of study at Darkmoon could make a student a truly dangerous mage, and Adwyrma was stronger than most. There were sounds of spells nearby, flames hissing in the air, and doors splintering.

”I think that’s the best I can do,” Suria said as she checked Rije’s injuries, then switched to casting pain relief. ”Normally I would advise rest, but... I don’t know what’s going on, but it seems bad.”

”This is good enough,” Rije said. He had to grip her shoulder, but he managed to pull himself to his feet. ”We need to do something. I wish I could stop them, but I obviously can’t.”

”Can we set off a signal or something? Is there any way to call more guards?”

”We should evacuate students and staff first. If we get them out, we can lock the attackers inside.”

That was a reasonable plan from Rije’s perspective, and Suria had to admit that she hadn’t considered trying to lock someone in. Either Adwyrma or Wynchard could most likely unlock the basic wards, but this Rije didn’t know they had been raised, so he must have been thinking about something else. A problem for another time, because they couldn’t afford to waste more of it.

Suria supported Rije as he walked, making sure he could keep his combat gauntlet ready, for all the good it might do. They didn’t get far before Adwyrma sprinted into the corridor in front of them, her blade cleaving through one of the doors. When she discovered another empty meeting room, she howled in rage and turned on Suria.

”There’s nothing here!” Adwyrma cried. ”What is this?”

Not answering would only enrage the other woman, but Suria didn’t want to give any hint that she knew about the time loop, just in case things turned bad. She was saved from the silence by Rije, who raised his good arm and launched several bolts of mana from his combat gauntlet.

Unfortunately, they melted away against some kind of dynamic shield, a gray shroud that lit up around Adwyrma. She sneered and started to raise her sword again, but at that point Wynchard caught up.

He arrived in a blaze of fire, his entire body surrounded by flames, his eyes trailing embers. Suria had known he was strong, but she hadn’t expected the raw intensity of the mana emanating off him. She wished that she had her perception spell to try to evaluate just what he was using - too late, Wynchard was throwing out a hand and unleashing a burst of flame.

Adwyrma pivoted sharply, treating Wynchard as a threat unlike the rest of them. Her gray sword lashed out and somehow absorbed the first flame, but Wynchard thrust out his other hand and the second caught her in the stomach. She staggered back and Suria caught a glimpse of gray metal spreading across her stomach, somehow shielding her.

The two of them faced off, just a few paces apart, ready to attack at any moment. In the time they had fought, Suria had only picked up her talismans, and she had no idea if she could effectively act. Rije was an experienced guard with a combat gauntlet and he wasn’t attacking either.

”Just what is going on here?” At that moment Shuguja and Maut-mai emerged in the corridor, with the proctor folding her arms irritably.

”Why are you even trying to stop me?” Adwyrma asked Wynchard, ignoring the new arrivals completely. ”We should work together to find whatever she’s hiding.”

”We didn’t discuss this.” Wynchard shifted back as he spoke, but the flames around him didn’t ebb.

”Now see here!” Shuguja said, putting her hands on her hips. ”You ruffians need to stop this at once!”

”Cooperate or I kill them,” Adwyrma said, raising her sword toward the two. Shuguja looked incensed while Maut-mai quailed, and Suria realized what was going to happen. There was so little she could do, but she began edging closer as the tension mounted.

”You can’t expect that threat to work on me,” Wynchard said. ”Stop playing around.”

”I’ll kill them and ruin the entire cycle,” Adwyrma insisted.

”You’ve already done that. Have you gone mad?”

While they argued, Shuguja grew angrier and angrier, then tried to draw a talisman. Even to Suria’s inexperienced eyes, she looked slow and clumsy, and she wasn’t close to fast enough. Adwyrma didn’t even look away from Wynchard, her sword just cut through the other woman, as easily as a knife through meat.

Suria rushed forward at the same moment, putting herself between Adwyrma and Maut-mai while throwing up her shielding spell. She hadn’t expected Wynchard to launch another stream of fire and even the secondary flames made Suria’s shield tremble. But she managed to endure and was just thrown back into Maut-mai, sending them both sliding out of the corridor.

”What’s going on?” Maut-mai gripped Suria’s cloak, holding her back when she tried to return. ”Who are they?”

”I don’t know,” Suria said tersely. ”Stay back where it’s safer.”

Maut-mai completely ignored her words, latching on to her, and Suria needed to see what was going on, so she dragged the other woman to the door. The battle had broken out again, ignoring Shuguja’s body lying in the corridor. Grim as it was, Suria had to do the same, because she could barely keep up with the spells being cast.

Wynchard and Adwyrma were clashing again, and Rije was ably providing support to distract Adwyrma, so it seemed like between the two of them, they’d be victorious. Maybe Suria had done enough and the best thing she could do now would be to take Maut-mai and run. The two other loopers were so focused on their own battle that they weren’t thinking about the consequences regardless of which of them won.

Then Suria realized that she hadn’t been cautious enough either: a spell gripped the corridor in a fist and all other spells were snuffed out.

Even before she saw them arrive, Suria put together the likely order of events. There weren’t many people in the building outside of the basement, but one of them was Houdon, the secretary who went to work with the professors. He must have noticed the battle and gone to warn them.

And now the thrones of Darkmoon University were approaching.