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1264 Words
“But I cut a lot of restarts short by dying thanks to some stupid s**t in the first few days,” Zach protested. “Are you telling me I’ve been burning through our allotted time every time I did that?”
“Yes,” the Guardian confirmed again blandly. “It is the Controller’s right to do such a thing, however. Presumably you felt the gains were worth the sacrifice of additional time.”
“Hell no, I didn’t!” Zach protested. “I just didn’t know any better! If I knew all this, I would have been a lot more cautious about this s**t!”
“Unfortunate,” the Guardian said. It did not sound very sorry or compassionate, however, using the same pleasantly bland voice. “It seems you were poorly prepared for this undertaking. You should complain to whoever gave you the marker once you get outside.”
“Yeah, I’ll get right on that. Just as soon as I manage to find the bastard,” Zach said gloomily. “So anyway, let’s just get this finally out of the way… Guardian, how can we unbar the Gate?”
“You would have to present me with the Key by bringing it before the Gate,” the Guardian said. “If you present all five pieces, you will gain sufficient authorization to reopen the Gate.”
“I don’t suppose you could tell us where to find those things, then?”
Zach tried.
“No,” the Guardian immediately answered. Of course. “But finding them should not be too difficult for you. Your marker can sense their presence.”
Not for the first time, Zorian wished the damn marker stamped on his soul came with an instruction manual.
Though they continued to question the Guardian for two more hours, very little new information came out of it. When they finally decided to leave, the Guardian informed them that they would have to start a new iteration of the time loop because their bodies had been ‘excessively damaged’ while they talked to the Guardian, and the dumb thing hadn’t thought it important to mention that until they were ready to leave.
Five minutes later, when Zach was still ranting at the Guardian over this, Zorian reached into his soul and flipped the marker restart switch.
Everything went mercifully dark and silent.
Like always, Zorian’s awakening was done via Kirielle jumping on top of him. The events immediately following the awakening were also fairly typical, with him having his talk with Ilsa and dodging Mother’s attempts at conversation while having breakfast. He even ended up inviting Kirielle to come with him to Cyoria, despite initially planning to leave her behind.
Partially, this was because he realized his vague plans of rushing to gather the Key as soon as possible and find a way to fool the Guardian into letting him out were rather premature and he should really take some time to calm down and digest things a little. But an equally important reason for it was that he realized he needed a break. The previous restart had been very exhausting, what with all the non-stop aranea hunting and the various significant revelations, and he didn’t feel like jumping into another long-term mission right away. Taking a restart or two to relax a little and think things through wasn’t going to kill them. The time limit they had was uncomfortably short for his tastes, but not that short.
He was just wondering how to explain all this to Zach when they next met each other when he was interrupted by a knock on the door.
What? That… that doesn’t usually happen…
He went to open the door, reaching out with his mind sense towards the unknown visitor, only to find Zach on the doorstep. Apparently his fellow time traveler wasn’t content to wait for him at Cyoria’s train station.
But this wasn’t the main source of Zorian’s surprise…
He could actually sense Zach’s mind. It was still shielded, but the boy wasn’t under the effect of mind blank anymore. Zorian was kind of touched at the show of trust this represented.
“Hello, Zach,” Zorian said. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Yeah, well, our last meeting’s ending was a little abrupt,” Zach told him with a little glare. “So I thought I should drop by and finish our conversation.”
“Sorry,” Zorian winced. “I know ending things so suddenly was a jerk move, but I was already kind of depressed from what the Guardian was saying, and you getting into a one-sided shouting match with the thing was…”
“It’s fine,” Zach said, waving him away. “I lost my nerve too. It’s probably for the best you shut me down before I did something stupid. That thing seemed pretty uncaring, but if anyone can manage to piss off a non-sapient spell construct, it’s me.”
“Zorian, who is that?” Mother said as she approached. Turning around, Zorian could see Kirielle peering from behind the kitchen door as well, watching the situation unfold.
“It’s just Zach,” Zorian said. “He’s one of my classmates from Cyoria.”
“Oh my, Zorian finally has friends visiting him at home,” Mother noted in exaggerated mirth. “I never thought I’d see the day. Could I get an
introduction?”
“Sure,” Zorian agreed. It was only polite. “Mother, this is Zach Noveda, a friend and a classmate. Zach, this is Cikan Kazinski, my mother. The little girl peering from behind the door is my little sister, Kirielle.”
Mother gave Kirielle an annoyed glare and gestured her to come over and introduce herself. Huffing slightly at the order, Kirielle approached and shook hands with Zach as proper manners dictated.
“What, no Fortov?” Zach asked with a whisper.
Mother always had good hearing, though.
“He’s at his friend’s place right now. He’ll meet us at the train station, so you can see him there. I assume you intend to take a train to Cyoria along with Zorian, yes?”
“Yes. The train. Of course,” Zach fumbled, giving Zorian a questioning glance. He had probably expected them to just excuse themselves and teleport to Cyoria.
“I decided to take Kirielle with me to Cyoria this time,” Zorian said. “I hope you don’t mind her traveling with us.”
Kirielle gave Zach the hardest look she could muster, daring him to disagree with her coming along.
“Err, right. Of course I’m okay with that,” said Zach.
What followed was about twenty minutes of Mother trying to talk Zach into accepting something to drink and fishing for information about him.
Zach decided not to mention he was the last living heir of a Noble House, possibly because he still remembered what Zorian had told him about Cikan Kazinski, and simply described himself as a wealthy orphan from Cyoria.
Based on the looks Mother gave him, however, Zorian was pretty sure she suspected the truth. She was quite perceptive about these sorts of things.
Eventually, the four of them packed up and left for Cirin’s train station.
“How come Zach doesn’t have any luggage?” Kirielle protested, glaring at the bag of her own things that Mother had forced her to carry herself.
“Well, I’m from Cyoria to begin with,” Zach said with a grin. “My luggage is already there.”
“Unfair,” she mumbled.
- Writer
