Throne of Time - Chapter 71-2: New Angles, New Courses (Patreon)

Given the course description of Mental Structure for Mages, Suria wasn't entirely sure what to expect. Unlike most classes, it didn't list an instructor, which made her wonder if it was taught by a rotating set of journeymages or something else unusual. Hopefully today, in the first session, she would finally get some of those questions answered.

The class was located in Oculon Hall, which had surprised her even though she should have guessed that mental magic would be lumped into the Perception department. After attending Combat Perception so many times, Suria instinctively turned left to go up the stairs, then had to correct herself and reverse course. This class wasn't in Orinyan's small upper floor class, but instead one of the classrooms she had never visited.

Suria had assumed that it would be easy to get to the class, since the entire building was just a square built around the crystal forest. But after she did a complete loop, she still hadn't seen her classroom number. She didn't see anyone else around, either, except students who were in a hurry.

Deciding that asking random people was a bad idea, Suria instead headed off to one side, where Orinyan had his small office. Fortunately, he was in and he already knew her well this cycle, so he grinned when he saw her stick her head in the door.

"Suria! What can I do for you?"

"I'm trying to get to Mental Structure for Mages," she said tentatively, and started to get out her course listing, but he waved her aside.

"Oh yeah, that's through the center." Orinyan shook his head. "They really should have included instructions. You can't get there going around the outer part of the building; you need to go through the garden. Take the west entrance and then go straight through."

That was puzzling enough on its own, but Suria could take that sort of thing in stride now. She was more concerned about the reason for it all, so she asked, "Is just finding the class a test? Am I cheating by asking you?"

"No, directions should have been included. If the teacher is who I think it is, it probably just slipped her mind."

"Who is she, by the way?"

"She wouldn't want me to say." Orinyan shook his head ruefully. "This might seem like you're getting off on a bad foot, but don't worry about it too much. She's a good teacher, just a little paranoid. Sometimes that happens when you work in the information side of the department. But you should get to class - we'll talk next time."

Since the hour was growing short, Suria headed back out and followed his instructions. She had been told the crystal garden in the center of Oculon Hall was dangerous, and since she had enough danger in her life, Suria had never considered entering. Now she made sure she had the proper door and stepped through.

On the other side, the crystal forest tinkled around her, scattering light in fragmented rainbows all around her. It was surprisingly beautiful and she would have liked to enjoy it, except for one fact that was more terrifying than beautiful: the garden appeared to be larger on the inside. The central square within Oculon Hall couldn't be that large, yet a crystal forest extended in all directions.

Taking a deep breath, Suria walked directly forward as she'd been instructed. The forest branched around her, in more directions than should have been possible, but she ignored all those paths and focused on the clear one in front of her.

Out of nowhere, sooner than she had expected, she was standing by the opposite wall of the building. When she looked over her shoulder, the entire forest looked like nothing but a small cluster of trees within the center of the building. Shaking her head, Suria opened the door and stepped to the other side.

Instead of coming out on the eastern side of the building, which she'd just recently walked through, Suria was standing in a different hallway. The layout was much the same as the rest of Oculon Hall, but instead of blue glass, all the windows were white crystal as the forest had been. Not only that, she realized that the hall was eerily silent, without any audible students.

And right in the middle of all that surreal mystery, she saw that the doors were clearly labeled, including her classroom number. Suria sighed and stepped inside.

There were a couple dozen students already in the small classroom and none of them seemed bothered by the unusual entrance. Suria told herself that it was fine, because they looked like older students and many had ranked seals on their lapels. No one took particular notice of her and she slipped into a seat, then calmed herself by opening her satchel and setting up all her books.

"Okay, it's time." One of the students sat up and Suria realized that she probably wasn't a student at all: it was hard to tell through the thicket of wavy black hair, but the woman looked to be at least five years older than her. She wore rumpled robes and, without any ceremony, crawled up to crouch on top of her desk. Though she didn't wear any seals, Suria had a strong feeling that she was the journeymage.

No one else in the classroom seemed to treat any of this as unusual, so Suria sat down to wait.

"Are you all here for Mental Structure for Mages?" the journeymage asked, hair whipping around as she looked at everyone. "Good. If you're not, you need to leave. I could explain the class now, but why? You should all have read the description already. Let's just get started: put up whatever kind of mental defenses you can. If you have nothing, just try your best."

That was a bad start, since Suria was in this class because she needed mental defenses. What was that instruction even asking of her? She tried to clear her thoughts, like she was getting ready to cast a spell. Once she was calm, she began the meditation technique she'd learned to try to help her with her soul talisman.

Was any of that enough? Suria tried to clear out concerns over her own adequacy, then thoughts about those thoughts. It didn't help when the journeymage appeared in the chair beside her, peering at her through her hair.

"What kind of technique is that?" she asked.

"It's... meditation," Suria answered weakly. "For soul magic."

"Ah. That's not the kind of magic we do here, but it shows you can discipline your mind. You're probably fine." The journeymage raked a hand through her tangled hair as she examined Suria. "Sometimes there are more prerequisites for this course. You can take it, that's okay. Just tell me if you get headaches or your nose starts bleeding."

Suria decided that she could relax her efforts, though she still tried to keep her thoughts clear. The journeymage checked on several of the other students with strange, furtive movements before eventually returning to her desk.

"You'll do," she said. "Before we learn mental focus, we need to work on your mana sense. So we'll start with a spell against mental scrying. This is one of the most common spells people will use against you, so it's good to master. There are different versions for runic squares and for runic pentagons, so we should do both..."

With no further preface, much less real introduction, the lesson began. The journeymage seemed to have a strange personality, but she was an able enough teacher, especially when it came to inscriptions. Suria could tell that the work for this class was going to be challenging, yet by the end of the first period she had already grasped the basics of the runic square version.

Up to this point, her thoughts had been preoccupied with the thrones of each department, especially due to the benefits of working directly with them. They were each head of a whole group of professors, however, who she had only begun to learn.

It was strange to think about some of these groups having a department meeting. A little old man like Professor Milirent didn't seem like he could talk over the scarred woman, yet he apparently trusted her to sort through the students in combat Evocation courses, based on her comments. It was hard to imagine Professor Eortrax leading any kind of meeting, but especially not one that included all the sober artisans and other enchanters supposedly in his department.

And of course there was Perception, now lacking its throne. Before his death, Professor Drazen had apparently put together a department that included Orinyan as well as this unusual woman. It was hard to know what that said about him, if anything.

"That's time," the woman said. "Do what the papers say and come back for the next one." She turned away and walked directly into the wall, which didn't so much as ripple as it swallowed her.

Part of Suria was nervous to go back through the crystal forest, in case it would reveal some nasty new trick in the opposite direction. But this time she walked out the door with all the other students, who treated the mysterious forest like it was nothing worth remarking upon. Many of the others seemed to know each other, and two even went off on one of the other paths, but most strolled through, so Suria followed them.

Then she was on the other side, back in the normal Oculon Hall with blue windows. Just how many classrooms did the building have that weren't a part of the main floor plan? Where else did the forest lead? Suria glanced back at it and decided that while she wanted to know, she could be very patient actually searching for an answer.

When she looked forward again, Suria realized that the real threat, as always, was people.

Herriot and the three other Akrashic loopers were waiting for her - the way they were standing, there was no question of this being a coincidental encounter. The other students from the class briefly glanced in their direction but then headed off, so soon Suria was facing the group in empty blue halls.

"We were hoping to collaborate with you," Herriot told her. "Come this way, let's talk in the Blue."

"I'm in a hurry," Suria told them, even though she wasn't really. Even though she had worked together with them once and they technically owed her, she didn't like being ambushed like this.

"Well, at least let us set up a privacy spell."

They walked out of Oculon Hall before saying anything else, then moved closer to the field. Once they got into the shade of a tree, one of the others Suria didn't know well began casting a spell that wrapped them in a sphere of silence. She would have to assume that they knew better than her, and unless it was something about the time loop, it was their secrecy anyway.

"We've been trying to get into the Perception vault," Herriot explained once they were secure. "Breaking in during the beginning of the cycle is impossible, as far as we can tell. We even tried a full attack last time, when things were going badly. Couldn't pierce the door."

"Wouldn't that put a target on your back?" Suria asked.

"Oh, absolutely. We killed ourselves after that or someone would have come after us." Herriot shrugged as if this was to be expected. "We haven't made real progress on the vault, either, and we think it's probably impossible for people at our level to break in. But we've confirmed that, after the school deals with the office, the security keys to the vault are given to one of the professors or journeymages in the department, so the best plan is to get it from them."

"And you're asking because you think it was... that woman from my class?"

One of the Akrashic women snorted. "Not likely. She's an okay teacher, but Darkmoon would never trust her with vault keys."

"We're still working out the details," Herriot said. "But we were hoping you could help us in stealing the keys directly."

"You mean taking on a professor?" Suria asked incredulously. "Even if they gave the key to a journeymage, for some reason..."

"They're not invincible. Many of them aren't even battlemages. We were decent mages when we entered the loop and we're stronger now, so it's possible. But..." Herriot shook his head. "Well, there's still a risk. We're not expecting you to fight, but we need to coordinate with someone who understands what's at stake. And anyone not in the loop wouldn't be willing to take the risk."

"Don't all of you still owe me?" Suria looked over the group and frowned. "I was actually thinking of tracking you down and calling in my favor. Wynchard and Adwyrma have agreed to lead another run into the Sequential Library, so we need more people."

To her surprise, some in the group went pale or looked away. Herriot didn't react quite as strongly, but he shook his head. "If you want to call in your favor, we can tell you everything we know about the library. Maybe give you an idea about which block you'd find books about time magic in. But actually going inside? We're not risking the rest of our loop for that."

"You were asking me to attack someone! That's definitely risking the entire loop."

"Which is why those two would be a better trade," one of the other men said, and the rest of the Akrashic group immediately nodded. Suria wondered if they had set this up from the beginning.

"There are still details to work out," Herriot told her. "We don't know which member of the department gets the keys, especially because it might change on each cycle - apparently Professor Drazen didn't leave anything like a will. But at the end of the cycle... we can all risk our lives for each other, how does that sound?"

"Let me know once you have all the information," Suria told them, then walked out of the stealth spell to return to her day.

She had a nice schedule in front of her, with a variety of books and assignments that she had been planing to enjoy. No matter how she tried, however, Suria couldn't forget about the meeting. If she wanted to get a large enough group to enter the Sequential Library, she might need to compromise with the Akrashic faction.

That itself didn't bother her so much, and she'd seen enough of the underside of Darkmoon University that she didn't automatically recoil at the idea. But participating in an ambush against a professor... she almost hoped that plans would fall through so she wouldn't have to find out what that looked like.