Throne of Time - Chapter 42: Anti-Looper Strategy (Patreon)

The summons truly was the last straw: Maut-mai packed her bags and made plans to leave. Suria encouraged her, silently hoping that she wasn't making a mistake - at least if Maut-mai was soul-killed, she would be back in the next loop, or at least Suria thought that was how it worked. Or maybe Darkmoon would let the other woman go and she was worrying over nothing.

For her part, Suria wasn't willing to take the risk, so she needed to attend the meeting. She put on her Darkmoon student uniform for the first time this cycle and gathered her books and supplies, just as if she was an ordinary student.

As she walked toward the Hall of Thrones, Suria realized there was a strange parallel: she had originally wanted to enter the castle so that she could gather basic information about the professors, and now she was being summoned to speak to them directly. The Hall of Thrones hadn't been very important to any of the cycles so far, but it mattered as an administrative center... another thing to add to the long list of subjects to investigate if she survived this.

Her identification pin allowed her to enter the front entrance, unlike every other loop. Suria ignored her knowledge of the layout and instead walked down the main hall until she reached the double doors, which parted before her... and revealed an empty room. She looked around the circular table and the portraits looming on the walls, yet didn't see the professors themselves.

"You looking for something?" There was a man sweeping the marble floor on the other side.

"Uh, I was supposed to meet the professors..." Suria gestured vaguely at the portraits.

"They don't exactly meet in here for normal things. I think I saw two of the thrones in the conference hall. Head back and take the second left."

Suria thanked him, retraced her steps, and found the proper door. It opened into a much smaller chamber, a square room with a fine table and comfortable-looking chairs. Yet she was much less relaxed here than in the cavernous main chamber, because this one included two of the Darkmoon thrones.

"Suria Northbrook." Professor Rhamsolk had been completely motionless until he saw her, then he gestured at a chair, which shifted back for her. "Welcome."

"Where's your friend?" Professor Abouric asked. He had been looking over a few papers and still hadn't looked up at her.

"Maut-mai said she didn't think she could do this," Suria explained from the doorway. She had decided that there was no point trying to lie, so she would just have to discover the consequences. Staying by the door probably wouldn't make any difference, but she felt better having the option open.

Neither professor looked upset or surprised; they merely exchanged a glance. Suria didn't know either of them well, and one was literally a statue, so she couldn't begin to interpret what it meant.

"Where's Professor Rei?" Suria asked, intentionally using the wrong name.

"Lia Huen Rei is dealing with other business," Professor Rhamsolk told her. "Now sit. I insist."

Steeling herself, Suria sank into the offered chair and waited. Professor Abouric seemed to have replaced his floppy hat with another one that had a red brim instead, but otherwise was exactly as she remembered. He set down his papers, laced his fingers, and smiled at her.

"We wanted to give you some basic preparation for your task," he told her, "but you do have the right to refuse. Let's address that now and save us time. Are you still willing to help us search for criminals using forbidden time magic?"

"I think I have to try," Suria said. She had considered trying to say more, to justify herself by what she had seen, but thought that there was a risk of doing too much and seeming suspicious. "But I have to admit, it's scary. If I understand how the time magic works... can't they do this infinite times? It seems impossible to stop them, if they can try over and over again."

"I can understand how it might feel that way to you," Professor Abouric said with a sympathetic smile, "but it isn't so impossible. Your view is common but frankly I think it reflects a... lack of imagination, shall we say."

"You don't need to be concerned about the exact methods," Professor Rhamsolk told her sharply. "What we need from you is to observe your fellow classmates. For that reason, I require you to join my Arcane Tides of History class in the coming term."

Suria managed to keep her expression neutral, since the name should have been only as unfamiliar as any other class. She hadn't heard of that one in any previous cycle, though she might have seen the name once in the full course catalogue.

"Of course I can," Suria agreed, "but I don't understand. How will that help?"

"This class is only offered on a sporadic basis," Professor Rhamsolk explained. "It would never, under ordinary circumstances, be offered during this term. The class will be likely to lure them out, but they'll be suspicious of me, hence we require additional eyes."

"I still don't... if you changed your plan and a new class appears, won't that make them suspicious?"

Professor Rhamsolk's marble lips twisted in irritation, but before he could respond, the other professor spoke quietly. "There's no point recruiting students if we give them nothing," he said, then shifted to lean toward Suria. "The first thing you have to understand is that, while this is new to us, we cannot know for certain how many times the loop has repeated. Our targets might have done this a dozen times, a hundred, or a thousand. I trust you understand that?"

"I think I do," Suria said.

"For that reason, the only viable strategies are those that target multiple possibilities simultaneously. Simple probability would suggest it is more likely that we aren't in the first loop, but it remains possible, so we still need to attempt the simplest methods. Those who are overconfident in their invulnerability will tend to indulge in extremities they wouldn't ever try within the real timeline."

"Loopers are arrogant sadists," Professor Rhamsolk said bitterly. "If they don't start out that way, eventually they can't help themselves. The spiraling path."

"We also need to consider more experienced loopers," Professor Abouric continued. "Logically, if you had infinite retries, wouldn't you attempt achievements with unpredictable elements, or that could be overcome with repeated efforts? Thus you'd expect loopers to make unusual decisions, deprioritizing the long term that doesn't exist for them. You tend to see patterns that reflect trying something over and over again, such as brute force attempts at challenges that can only be tried once."

Suria nodded as if that wasn't exactly what she had been doing with Magical Analysis In Depth. Part of her was still anxious that this was all a set-up to confronting her, but she was starting to believe they were sincere. It didn't make her very comfortable to learn how thoroughly they'd thought about this, but she had to admit, she'd do the same thing in their position.

"Finally we have the veteran loopers," Professor Abouric finished, then gestured to his colleague. "Which is where the new course comes in."

"They've tried every class a dozen times." Professor Rhamsolk brought his palm down against the table forcefully. "They grow bored. They've experienced everything. Perhaps this is the first time I've offered Arcane Tides of History, or perhaps it is the hundredth. Perhaps they were fearful at first, but after multiple repetitions they grow complacent. Either way, they can be found out."

Logically they could also have tried it and seen the plan fail a hundred times, but Suria didn't bring that up, because that might go from seeming afraid of forbidden time magic to arguing for it. Plus, if she was someone facing the threat of a time loop, she would try to come up with more contingencies and never tell anyone about them.

It seemed like they were waiting for her to say something, though, so Suria decided to pursue something else she was curious about. "Professor Rhamsolk... do you have personal experience with this? I thought forbidden time magic was only... I don't know, a historical thing."

"Far from it," he answered in a grim tone. "Before we overthrew the corrupt aristocracy in the Republic of Junn, there were terrible atrocities. One of the old nobles sacrificed a great many workers in order to try to prevent his own fall, and we believe they likely repelled our assault through dozens of loops. But their responses grew too precise, too optimized, relying on too much information they could not possibly have known. We realized that it must have been time magic... and one loop it didn't go so well for them."

"It's a question of when to stop," Professor Abouric added quietly. "If someone controlling time magic is careful enough, they only need to succeed once, and indeed it is very difficult to prevent that. But the possibility of endless attempts for a perfect solution is also a temptation, and if they have any weakness in mind or soul... some failures can only happen once."

"But you don't need to worry about that," Professor Rhamsolk suddenly blustered. "The spies we saw in Convocation Hall were hardly strong, not even battlemages, and there was no sign they had soul armor. These loopers will be much easier to handle, which is why we risk bringing a student into this."

"I'll help if I can," Suria told them. Sitting in silence seemed dangerous, so she pushed forward with the next question. "Thank you for explaining so much to me, but that sort of strategy... isn't my decision, right? What do you actually need from me?"

To her surprise, the professors looked at one another again, then Professor Rhamsolk rose to his feet. He nodded to his colleague but not to her before striding out of the room, his marble shoes heavy against the floor. Suria felt a little more comfortable with him gone, especially when Professor Abouric relaxed in his chair and smiled slightly.

"My colleague wanted to be clear on the fundamentals," he explained, "but I will be handling the rest of your temporal orientation. You can relax, Suria. This isn't a test, and we don't expect you to do everything on your own. You're just another layer of our strategy."

"I'll try," Suria said - honestly, though not in the way she hoped it seemed. "I'm just not confident I can handle all this. I mean, I barely know anyone."

"But they might know you much better than you think, and that alone would be revealing. If anyone comes to you with information they couldn't possibly know, they might have gotten it from a previous iteration of the loop. And in that case, you have to ask yourself: what else have they done in those previous loops? They might have tortured the information out of you, or they could have befriended you solely to gain that information. Anyone bearing personal information should be considered less trustworthy, not more."

"It's really scary to think like that... what if somebody comes to me and says something different?" As she spoke, Suria hoped that her nervousness could be explained by a normal student in her position. "What if they say this is the first loop, or that they need my help? Or, I don't know, say they don't want to be in the loop anymore and want to end it?"

"Think carefully about this," Professor Abouric said gently. "Loopers are free to attempt any strategy, and an intelligent one would. If someone came to me saying, 'oh, I'm a poor student who just wants help' I'd have to assume they were trying to gain an advantage against me for future loops. Even if not, I'd have no way to confirm."

The professor was speaking kindly, yet Suria still shivered under his gaze. She wanted to push further, but she was likely already risking herself if the thrones were that paranoid, so she needed to switch to a more general tactics. Before she could gather herself, Professor Abouric saw her fear and gave her an encouraging smile.

"You don't need to worry about all those details," he told her. "We'll just ask you to do a few things for us and keep your eyes open for potential loopers among the students."

"What do I do if I see something that's just sort of suspicious?" Suria asked. "How do we know they're actually loopers? Surely you can't just... kill people."

"Of course we won't act without justification," Professor Abouric said. "That was one of the things we discussed, amongst all the thrones and the Archthrone. Aside from the obvious moral angle, thoughtless retaliation leads you open to counter-strategies. We agreed to a policy of preponderance of evidence: we'll observe a potential looper enough to be reasonably certain before acting."

"There isn't any magical test you can do to be sure?"

"Unfortunately, there is nothing of the sort, for reasons that would be too complex to-"

"Could you try to explain?" Suria hadn't meant to ask that question and felt a stab of fear that her curiosity had gotten the better of her, but to her surprise Professor Abouric smiled more broadly.

"It isn't really relevant," he told her. "But you're a born student, aren't you?"

"I can do a little magic," Suria said quietly, "and I've read some books about it. But I still feel like I'm just scraping the surface... I want to understand it all."

Apparently her sincerity came through, because Professor Abouric seemed more amused than suspicious. He settled back in his chair and laced his fingers together on the table in front of him.

"Do you understand how humans develop mana senses?" he asked.

"Not in detail," she said, trying to forget all her lessons. "I know it was difficult for me, but even harder for some others. Back in the village... I hope this doesn't seem too provincial, but people would try to work with the real elements to awaken their senses. Sitting by the fire for fire magic, that sort of thing."

"That's hardly provincial; it's still one of the standards. But you see, not all magic is so simple. You came to us as a healer, which is actually more impressive than someone who comes to the university with the ability to cast flame or lightning. That's likely part of why you received your scholarship. Can you remember back to how you developed those senses?"

It had been a gradual thing, so Suria needed to analyze her memories carefully. "I started out as an apprentice. I couldn't use any magic, so I just helped with mundane healing. Over time... I started to feel a difference between sick people and healthy ones, and it developed from an instinct to a mana sense."

"Yes, magical senses often develop based on discrepancies. But now consider time." Professor Abouric raised a finger and traced it along the table. "The problem is that time is all around us constantly. We are similar to, if you'll forgive an old parable, fish who don't know what water is. Developing time magic is like trying to develop a sense for healing when you've never seen a sick person."

"But..." Suria was eager to know more and had to restrain herself. "I understand what you're saying. But there are other kinds of non-forbidden time magic, aren't there?"

"I love having such curious students, but I'm afraid that's a subject for a much more advanced class. If you can help us with this... it could be fun to talk about one day."

She was so close to answers that could be useful to her, but Suria judged that pushing on this issue would be an unacceptable risk. Even if she had deflected some suspicion from her, asking "How do I get better at time magic?" would still be suicidal. Since she had exhausted the questions she thought she could safely ask, she sat back and nodded.

"Now, let's discuss your classes." Professor Abouric shuffled his papers and set one down in front of her. "You're required to take Foundations of Modern Spellcraft, and I appreciate you joining Rhamsolk's Arcane Tides of History. I'd also like you to take one of my classes - Introduction to Hazardous Naturalism. Don't worry, it's not as dangerous as it sounds."

"Okay," Suria said, as if she had a choice.

"Three classes is enough, but you can take a fourth if you want. Is there anything you're particularly passionate about?"

"Most of my skills are in healing, so I hoped to join the Medicine department..."

"I'm afraid you'll need a higher runic capacity for that, at least for now. Anything else?"

Pretending not to know her limitations had been a ploy to buy time, of course. There would already be enough tension and lies she needed to keep straight, so Suria judged that she should pick a subject that she hadn't studied very much, so she would actually be unfamiliar with it. There were multiple possibilities, but she decided to go with a subject that wouldn't expose her to professors involved with the conspiracy.

"Evocation," she said eventually. "I can cast a few spells, but I don't think I really understand the deeper theory of those spells. Is there a... more academic class I could take?"

"Well, you're going to like Anstell." Professor Abouric smiled oddly and scribbled something down on her sheet of paper. "Those four courses should be a good foundation for your education. I hope the additional duties won't be too difficult for you, and that this is a less traumatic beginning to your time at Darkmoon University."

"But... does it matter?" Suria asked. Unless she was pretending to be stupid, she would have to wonder. "Isn't everything I do likely to get wiped out by the time magic? I volunteered to help, but I didn't really think about what it meant..."

"The end of a time loop is a complex subject, but those within it generally create tension on the magic. If they are gone, the loop will collapse, so eventually our actions will be permanent." The professor shook his head ruefully. "Now, if the two spies really were loopers, we can't collapse the loop this instance. But you've seen what we'll do in this loop, so you can trust what we'll do in others. We'll continue our strategies until they're all gone and eventually we'll be able to have you as a proper student."

"Hopefully so." Suria bowed to him, got up, then bowed again. He didn't seem to require anything else, so she left the Hall of Thrones and just tried to keep all her thoughts and emotions under control.

Even though she had been expecting something along these lines, it still intimidated her to hear everything the professors were doing to target loopers. They were preparing for veterans who had been fighting them for hundreds of loops, but this was Suria's first time.