Throne of Time - Chapter 76: Preparation Before the Plunge (Patreon)

Hello, readers! I have a pleasant surprise for you: this week you are going to be getting two bonus chapters, meaning one every weekday. In addition to thanking everyone for their support, it means this week should flow smoothly with fewer cliffhangers. You will see why once we get into things.

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Not so long ago, there had been a month left before the end of the loop, but now Suria was staring down the final days. Considering that they needed time to organize, read whatever they found in the library, and deal with other business, she really had no time at all. It would have to be soon.

Personally things had been a little easier, since Maut-mai was doing much better. Receiving letters from her family had done her a world of good, though she still made frequent reference to the eruption. She was developing her skills well enough that Suria wished she could join them in the library, but there was no good way to justify the risk to her.

Fortunately Suria had most of her projects in order. She had developed her new perception spell and reinscribed all of her primary glyphs in her runebook to account for her new runic capacity of sixteen. Bumbledun's access token would allow them in and she had agreements from Wynchard and Adwyrma. There were still a few things to negotiate, but before she was forced to take those final steps, Suria needed to take care of someone else.

She and Qanti stood on the far eastern edge of campus, near the shifting hedges. Not their normal location, but they needed somewhere more out of the way just in case something went wrong with their attempt.

"I think you're ready," Qanti told her as she pulled several potions from her bag, "but the only way to be sure is to actually try."

"What happens if I fail?" Suria asked as she nervously balanced all the potions. "Will drinking this many be healthy? It won't end my loop early, will it?"

"You'd have a splitting headache, but you'd probably be fine. You're more likely to burn off all the mana in your attempt, though."

Suria's soul talisman had been fully formed for almost an entire loop and she'd been working at learning to control it. Now, in theory, all she needed to do was awaken the talisman with sufficient mana, then she'd be able to use her new capacity to store spells within herself.

Part of Suria wanted to ask Qanti to go over the instructions again, just to reassure her. But loopers already had to deal with enough repetition in her lives, and Suria thought she remembered, so she swallowed that instinct and just calmed her mind. There was no point delaying too long, because most of her preparation had been over the prior months.

So she began drinking the mana potions, one after another, and what started as a pleasant flow of energy turned into a hurricane. There was too much for her to contain and she struggled to gain any control at all before she managed to redirect the torrent: instead of letting it flow out of her, she pushed it inward toward the prepared center of her soul. For a moment it seemed like it would fail and her head began to ache, but abruptly she broke through and all the mana poured into what felt like a bottomless abyss.

When it had all drained away, Suria was swaying on her feet. Her sense for her own soul had improved and now she felt as if the talisman section was glistening like freshly-polished crystal. She hesitantly took up her stylus, focused on her new technique, and tried to press a rune into her own soul.

It worked. Suria breathed a sigh of relief and lowered the stylus.

"Congratulations," Qanti told her with a slight smile. "That's not a technique someone at your stage would usually be able to manage."

"Are there any other tricks?" Suria asked. "Anything to stop me from building a glyph in there?"

"No, it's straightforward after you've mastered all the basics. Oh, and I confirmed that you keep the spell in your soul between cycles... it might be a bit much for your reduced mana reserves, but runic capacity won't be a problem."

That was a huge boon for Suria due to her starting point: the soul talisman had increased her runic capacity by three, but if she could place a new spell within, she would be able to cast a glyph that used her full sixteen... and that number would only increase as she made more progress across cycles. She wanted to thank Qanti again, but the other woman had stopped smiling.

"With this, the two of us are even," Qanti told her. "No debts between us."

"Does that mean you aren't willing to help me if I want to study soul armor?" Suria asked.

"You wouldn't be ready for it anyway. This loop is dangerous enough - let me keep something to defend myself."

Suria accepted her logic even though she disagreed: a defense like soul armor was self-evidently a threat that could destroy the balance between loopers. So far Qanti had been polite and cooperative, but Suria didn't truly know the other woman. If she had suddenly turned on everyone else, Suria would have been surprised, not disbelieving. Worse, someone with soul defenses might potentially trigger consequences that would harm everyone else - either accidentally or using the professors as weapons.

"Don't look that way," Qanti told her dryly. "We can still work together in the future - it will just be a new deal."

"Fair enough," Suria agreed. "And if I can't convince you about the library run, that's all we have for today."

"The best I can do is wish you good luck. I'm not going back in there."

They went their separate ways and Suria carefully considered what this meant for her future plans. A soul talisman would benefit her enormously at the beginning of subsequent loops, but in the short term it was more of an emergency contingency, in the case that she lost her runebook and talismans somehow. For that reason, she started by creating a flexible force glyph within her soul, one that could be used for either utility or offense.

That structure - a runic square with four augments - used up only twelve runes. She could feel that there was still room in her soul talisman, but how much could she really do with four runes? Suria considered for a while before making an additional runic square and placing a healing inscription inside it. Not very powerful, especially by her new standards, but at least she could heal herself in an emergency.

Placing the spells in her soul talisman was even easier than creating them in real life, and when Suria tested them, casting was effortless. It was like the best glyph she'd ever created, the force or healing effects flowing out of her naturally and draining minimal mana. This was a huge step forward and she was eager to keep testing.

When she was perfectly honest with herself, however, Suria could admit that this was essentially procrastination via productivity. What really mattered to the coming library run, more than what specific spells she placed in her soul talisman, was who she could convince to join her.

She couldn't rely on random intersections with other loopers anymore, so she would need to seek them out. The largest variable was the Akrashic faction, since all four of them were deciding as a group, so she needed to get them on board. With their assistance she might be able to convince others, whereas without them the group would be unfortunately small.

Though she didn't know the Akrashic group terribly well, she'd need to seek them out to finish those negotiations. A woman named Gannet had been moderately friendly, Jesper was out of the question, and in the end Suria just found Herriot since they had spoken together most. They met outside the Taedric Building, which meant the Sequential Library loomed over their conversation.

"I want to make the attempt this cycle," Suria told him. "Do I have your commitment?"

"If you help us first," Herriot countered. "We've figured out exactly who has the key to the Perception vault, and we can take them, so we just need a window of opportunity. Help us get in and we'll go on your library run."

"Absolutely not." Once Suria would never have taken a stance that aggressively, but she needed to hold the line on this. "First, all of you still owe me. Second, assaulting a professor and breaking open a vault will raise a lot more suspicion than just slipping into the library. I'll commit to helping you if your whole group joins me."

"Do you realize how much we're risking coming with you? There's no guarantee that we'll be able to set up conditions like this again."

"One of those conditions is my cooperation, isn't it? If you won't even compromise on this, then I don't see any point trying to work with you."

Herriot paused and, to her surprise, actually looked pressured. Suria still thought of herself as a weak novice, so the idea that she had any leverage over anyone felt strange. Her instinct was to speak up and fill the silence, but she forced herself to keep her mouth shut and just stared at Herriot until he gave in.

"Fine, we'll help you," he said. "But after that, you have to help us get into the vault. And I mean this cycle, not later. If you betray us on this, we won't forgive you."

"Agreed." She put her hand to her chest in imitation of the Akrashic gesture and Herriot responded, so the deal was done.

That meant she had seven people including herself, which she thought was a reasonably formidable group. When she tried to leverage that against other loopers, however, she was unsuccessful. The Junnite faction was still obsessed with their plan to try to rush out and fight the crystal drakes before they ran out of time - despite their failure the previous cycle - so it didn't seem like anything could convince them.

When she tried to confirm with others, Suria was actually found by Wynchard first. They happened to meet inside the Earth Society Building, and again, they could see the Sequential Library out the window. Suria couldn't help but steal glances toward the monolith while Wynchard never once looked toward it even as they spoke.

"If you have the Akrashic faction on board," he told her, "then that's probably enough. The Endelythans will be with us."

"Why?" Suria asked. "Since when were they even on the table?"

"They need information just as much as we do, and since they've spent so many of their loops working in the city, their access to university resources is weak. Well, after some of these loops have gone poorly for them, they've been convinced to do some more research first."

"But we need everyone to be working together. If we end up running in different directions, there's no point taking a group into the library."

"Don't worry, our interests align here," Wynchard told her firmly. "The books they need should be on our way, and I won't let them retreat or I can punish them for it in future cycles."

"Are you getting something out of this too?" Suria asked suspiciously.

"We're fundamentally looking for a section of the library with forbidden books, specifically on time magic. I hope to find a book regarding any prophecies about loops or current events. If I don't find anything, however, I'll still be pleased to help you grasp the magical side of things."

"I suppose that's acceptable."

"But in return, I do insist on your help in a coming loop." Wynchard's gaze finally left her, instead staring toward Convocation Hall. "No secondary missions: you'll help me get down to the professors."

"If you're planning to reveal th-"

"I'm not so foolish. I've gathered information about everything that's going on in Darmkael and even the Taedric Colonies - only facts that I could legitimately have known at the start of the loop. Once they're given the whole picture, I have to believe that they'll realize the Glyphbreakers are a threat. It may not be enough to end the loop, but it will prepare us for what's coming."

Suria didn't like the idea of confronting the professors like that, but at least his plan didn't sound like suicide. In any case, she couldn't pull this off without Wynchard's help, and doubly so if he was bringing the Endelythans with him. No, she was betting everything on this.

"And Adwyrma?" Suria asked.

"She only agreed to help if she got your cooperation next cycle," Wynchard said with a sour expression. "She said she just wants to observe, but I don't know the details. To get her committed to the library run, I had to agree to go after... are you ready?"

"I'm ready. We're running out of time, so when do we make the attempt?"

"I think our best chance is in three days, meaning five days before the end of the cycle. That will give us plenty of time to read whatever books we find, but it's also a good day. There's a gathering out in the Eaves Laboratory that ends up starting a fire and it distracts campus faculty."

"Alright." Suria took a deep breath and accepted that, after so long being a mere abstract goal, her attempt at the Sequential Library was a reality with a specific date. "I expect to see you all there at midnight."

"We will be," Wynchard assured her. "I think we can survive with this group, but if not... well, we're at the end of the cycle, so we only lose five days."

That wasn't true at all as far as Suria was concerned. She had burned most of her favors on this, so if it didn't get her closer to the heart of the conspiracy or the mystery of the time loop, it was a complete loss.