The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

As the cycles continued, it was those moments of friendship that Mirian held onto, that helped bolster her when she felt bitter and alone. Telling Beatrice about the roses helped her friend find acceptance in the nature of the cycle, and softened the blow when the end came again.

Progress in the Vaults was arduous and sluggish, though it sped up considerably when Mirian had nailed down exactly when and where each attack would be. They opened up three more rooms in the 'ecology' wing of the Vault as Mirian read up on more and more myrvites. Soon enough, she had memorized some hundred species and their associated magichemical and ecological niche, simply by studying them endlessly.

She also figured out that, far from protecting the group from attacks, the force shield spell engines the group was using to block off passages were actually triggering attacks. Mirian theorized the spell engines were making some sort of arcane 'noise' that disturbed the labyrinthine horrors and riled them up. When they stopped using them, the attacks decreased.

Eventually, she also got Frostland's Gate to listen to her about the myrvite stampede that happened on the 19th, and just let them all run right through the middle of town. When everyone got out of the way and just put up a few force walls in front of the greenhouses and the livestock, no one died and the stampede was over in record time. She hadn't even needed to tell everyone she was a time traveler, just claim an expertise in myrvite studies and then get the Torrviol Expedition to back her up on that.

Beatrice's research group made a leap in progress when they opened up an entire new wing. The illusions cycling through various three dimensional crystal forms in the first room turned out to be another of the puzzles, and the solution was to project her own illusion in the same space with a four dimensional extrapolation of the shape. She thought of Professor Jei teaching her the mathematics of that, and again was thankful for her old mentor.

She missed her. A lot.

That puzzle in turn led to more puzzles, each with more of a geometric theme. Then, like the magically suppressed agility course death corridor, there was another room that seemed certain death to go into.

This one had two greater labyrinthine horrors, and its own magical suppression field. The horrors wouldn't leave the room. They simply waited patiently for anything to enter, then rapidly came in for the kill.

Projectiles didn't seem to work in the room, either. Mirian had them bring down several rifles the second time they visited the room, but a magnetic field activated that stopped the bullets the instant they crossed through the door. Crossbow bolts and thrown spears (metal tipped or not) got stopped by force magic, though a spear could be brought into the room if carried by hand.

That got Mirian wondering if Labyrinth magic was powerful enough to stop an artillery shell, though there was no practical way to test that. There was no artillery in Frostland's Gate, and even if she helped make a weapon, it wasn't going to fit in the elevator shaft or through any of the doors.

"How many soldiers would you need to bring those two horrors down without magic?" Mirian asked Grimald at one of their tavern meetings.

"At least twelve. Four with heavy shields, six with specially reinforced spears, and two with machetes for hacking away at those creepy limbs. I still think you'd lose several people. But add too many more, and there'd be no room to maneuver."

Mirian's attempt to use soul magic to get around the suppression barriers didn't work either. She iterated on her soul repository, but no amount of soul energy she could contain in the device seemed to be able to overcome the suppression field. Like the death corridor, whatever glyphs or runes were controlling the field seemed to be on the other side of the room.

Her consolation prize was the stone tablets they brought back from one of the deeper rooms in the vault. One tablet had both regular arcane glyphs and celestial runes.

It was the breakthrough Mirian needed. She spent four cycles getting to the tablet as fast as she could, bringing up special materials and devices from Torrviol, just so she could study it. At the start of another cycle, she brought her hypothesis to Professor Endresen, her old arcane physics professor, who admitted the math was impeccable and then, when realization struck her, got very excited. Mirian was sorry to have to disappear on her the next day.

"It's not a different type of magical field," Mirian finally concluded one evening, while she and Beatrice ate dinner atop a hill overlooking town. Beatrice had brought lagers for both of them, but Mirian had decided she hated the taste of the stuff. "It's the same field on a different part of the spectrum. Like, we can only see visible light normally, because we're human, but we know that light can be infrared light or ultraviolet, each with its own properties. Arcane magic is like the infrared part of the spectrum; humans need a special tool, the catalyst, to interact with it. Celestial magic is like ultraviolet. You need a different tool, the celestial focus, to interact with it. Your own soul is like visible light. As it expands out, it changes frequency to the arcane equivalent of infrared, which is why auric mana's frequency matches the arcane catalyst. So if soul energy can be brought down into rapid decay, it can be used in arcane spells. Maybe that's what I'm doing subconsciously. Maybe that's what archmages like Luspire are doing, but not even realizing it. Does that make sense?"

Beatrice, who was drunk as Mirian explained this to her, said, "That's so beautiful," only slurring her words slightly. "That would get you published in the Journal of Arcane Physics, you know. Very prestigious. I still can't believe the holy Luminate Order is covering up that they do necromancy. Or whatever." She gave a loud sigh, then said, "The sunsets here are so pretty."

Mirian continued her speculation. "Myrvites like bog lions and glaciavores can probably interact with soul magic in the same way I can with orichalcum. They've got to be attuning some sort of substance with a resonance field to gain spell resistance. But what substance?"

"Can't believe the Arcane Praetorians have been hiding a super-metal from researchers this whole time," Beatrice mumbled.

"And any myrvite that can cast a natural spell is able to access arcane magic naturally. Is it required to have different biomagical substances that can do this, or is it possible to get a single catalyst that can access both ends of the spectrum? Would that allow a more deliberate shift of energy? And what does that imply about how a soul can be strengthened?"

Beatrice had no idea. By now, Mirian's hypotheses were well outside her expertise. Even Elsadorra had no idea, and her only thought for testing Mirian's spell resistance involved capturing a live glaciavore to vivisect, which was completely out of the question.

Mirian found that she did some of her best thinking on the road to Frostland's Gate. It helped her mull over her new theories and how to test them, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. Even when she wasn't focused on a problem, some part of her brain was working on it, and sometimes inspiration would strike.

This time, as she made yet another trip north, she realized she needed to change tactics again. She could still make incremental progress, perhaps opening another room, or narrowing down the function of another new glyph, but it would be slow and time consuming, and wouldn't lead to much gain.

Mirian decided there were a few things she needed to do.

The first was to investigate Palendurio. She still needed to learn more about how the conspiracy played out there. She was also very interested in investigating the Grand Sanctum and its artifacts of the Prophets, as well as learning more about how orichalcum and the other special materials were manufactured. Both places might open up new theoretical ground for her to cover.

Two was to start monitoring Sulvorath, and see if he was still fixated on finding her, and which of her disruptions were most effective. She had a few ideas on how to accomplish that in relative safety.

Lastly, she wanted to find a way to get to Vadriach. Going into Akana Praediar itself might be risky, and she'd initially dismissed the idea, but the university there was leading the way in arcane physics research. Plus, she never had figured out how the Akanan dreadnought airship's engines worked. And if she could keep an eye on Sulvorath without him knowing, she could make sure she was countering his methods to find her before she even encountered them. Besides, if he was moving into Torrviol each cycle, perhaps it was best to strike him in the place he'd just vacated. General Hanaran would approve of this kind of strategic thinking, she thought.

She spent one more cycle wrapping up her research and formulating how she might use more advanced equipment to explore some of the unanswered questions, then said her goodbyes.

"I know you won't remember it, but I'll miss you," she told Beatrice.

Beatrice gave her a big hug. "Be good to yourself out there," she said. "And tell my little sister I said 'hi.' You know. When the time is right."

"I will," Mirian said.

The world ended again.

***

Mirian saved Arenthia again the next cycle so that she could consult with the Cult of Zomalator again and run her new ideas about soul magic past them.

Lecne and Arenthia were very impressed by her research, and said it made a lot of sense, and also, that they had absolutely no idea how to help her. She was breaching new ground in magical research. At least, new ground in unclassified magical research. She was sure that there were people in the Praetorians or the Deeps or their Akanan equivalents who had already made progress in those areas.

Lecne said as much in a few sentences. Arenthia reached the same conclusion in about thirty minutes of yammering.

Mirian then interrogated Lecne endlessly about what he knew about the Grand Sanctum. He told her as much as he could, including what daily life there was like, the greeting rituals, and what sort of behavior might arouse suspicion.

"This sucks to say, but you're going to have much better luck disguised as a man than as a woman," Lecne said. "The Order is, uh, still working on the idea that men and women have equal rights."

"After a hundred years?" Mirian asked.

"Look, there's a reason I left them," Lecne said. "There's some good faithful there, some real great people. And there's also a lot of real asses. Frankly, if I were the Ominian, I'd go on a smiting frenzy, but They have bigger myrvites to mangle, I suppose."

He taught her two of the secret phrases that priests used to indicate the layers of secret knowledge they knew. "The holy vaults are very well guarded, though" he told her. "The elite of the Luminate Guard are there, and in the heart of the Grand Sanctum, so there's only one way in. The Arcane Praetorians have their headquarters very close by, and they're all going to have wands of levitation and some serious spellpower. And orichalcum pieces, which I suppose you know about. And everyone knows soul magic. It's not like people walk around checking each other's souls, but… well. I have no idea how you're going to do it."

"I'll figure it out," Mirian said. "I have a plan for how to do it safely. Relatively speaking. I'm sure I'll die a lot. But I'm used to that, at this point."

"What a strange world we live in," Lecne said.

Near the end of the cycle, Lecne helped her change the flow of her soul, binding it in several more key points. It took about two days for the changes to finish. Professor Marva seemed to know some trick that sped along the physical changes that resulted from soul modification, but Mirian wasn't worried. Two days would still put her ahead of the other time traveler's arrival.

It was the strangest feeling. Before, her changes had all been superficial. Changing a few features and her hair color was only disorienting when she looked in the mirror, but it didn't fundamentally change her body. Modifying her soul so that her body presented as a man's, though, changed everything about how she felt. Her body moved differently, felt different, and every time she opened her mouth to talk, the voice that came out surprised her—never mind the change in sexual organs.

"Standing up to pee is so weird," she complained. "It would have made the trip to Frostland's Gate easier, though. I've had enough squatting in the woods for a lifetime."

"You should try pissing off the roof of a building while drunk," Lecne said. When he saw her face, he could only laugh. "It's a feeling of pure liberation! Also, a Cairnmouth tradition you've no doubt smelled. Oh, don't worry, I haven't actually done it in years. When I was a youth, though, my morals didn't pester me as much."

"Gods above," she muttered. "Alright, I've decided. I'm not going to stop the moon falling, I'm just going to make sure it lands on this city in particular."

Lecne laughed again.

Near the end of the cycle, as they watched the end from the rooftops again, he said, "Have you decided on a new name for your disguise?"

"Micael," Mirian said.

"Ah, one of the saints," Lecne said. "A good name. Wear it well." As the eruptions intensified, he added, softly, "And the Gods watch over you."

***

It was a relief to wake up in her own body. She didn't particularly look forward to the changes that would take place over the next two days, but she'd have to prepare for them. She started the cycle by buying new clothes, then relaxing in the gardens as the first changes crept up on her. First, she used a phantom mirror spell to help cut her hair. Then, she watched the sigil bees move about the winterblooms and the birds murmur calls to themselves as they carefully flitted about the brush and branches.

Even as her body changed around her, she still thought of herself as she. Everything about the change would take getting used to. But, she reasoned, it would make it even harder for Sulvorath to find her.

She made her usual combat wand, killed the bog lion in the catacombs, retrieved the levitation wand, orichalcum, and focus as usual, then hunted down bone rats and stonemoles to attune her orichalcum, since by taking a break in the gardens she'd missed the window of opportunity to siphon the captured wyverns in the Myrvite Studies building.

That night, she pilfered one of Mayor Wolden's fake gold ingots, then implemented part one of her plan to monitor Sulvorath: she torched all the records in the Torrviol Academy's registrar. She timed her attack so that the midnight train had already started moving south towards Cairnmouth, set the fire, then used her wand of levitation to escape. She moved fast southward until she'd caught the moving train, then quietly landed on the back balcony of the caboose and then just as quietly found a sleeper car that she knew from experience would be empty. Picking the lock with raw force magic was trivial.

She slept for a few hours, then spent the early morning taking the arcane catalyst out of her spellbook and rebinding it, a task she was thoroughly sick of, and scribing a few useful spells, which she was also sick of. It was one of those things that was too easy to be interesting, but just difficult enough that it took a great deal of attention and effort.

At Cairnmouth, she got off and made a bank account with the Florinian ingot, withdrawing a hundred gold doubloons. She didn't want to withdraw any more mostly because it would be annoying to carry, and it was more than enough money to buy whatever she needed this cycle.

She stopped by the cult to assign them her monitoring plan.

"You'll save Arenthia… but in a different cycle?" Lecne said, and she could feel the despair in his voice.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"The execution is at noon. There's still time—"

"My best friend will be cut to pieces by Akanan soldiers. Her sister will be devoured alive by monsters in the Labyrinth. My mentor will be slaughtered like an animal by Akanan spies. Another friend will hold his knight in his arms as she dies, trapped in a broken train car until myrvites devour him alive. There's a man by the train tracks on the way to my home village who gets his head eaten by a drake. Maybe if I went down fast enough, I could save him. Maybe he's got a family at home, and they never know what happened to him. Maybe they find out, and his daughter has to live with that for an entire month. Maybe he's a nobody with no family left. I know their suffering is temporary, but I also know it's real. But every cycle, I have to live with who I let suffer, and who I let live," she snapped, the rage coming on her so suddenly that her hands started to tremble.

She closed her eyes, and steadied her breathing. "When it matters, she'll be with you. I gave you my word, and I intend to keep it. But there's an… inhumanity to what I have to do. I have to be efficient. I have to make every hour count. And that means—you know what it means. I am sorry."

Lecne blinked back a tear. "No, I… I'm being selfish. You're right." He looked at the papers full of instructions Mirian had given her. "We'll do what we can, then send the zephyr falcon with what we learn."

Mirian thanked him, then deployed the few 'seeds of chaos' she'd had time to make on the roof. By now, the design was quite efficient, and they didn't take much time or many materials to make.

The cult would also help spread the rumor around that she was in Cairnmouth, which would hopefully lure Sulvorath or his proxies down where they could be identified.

After lunch, she took the next train to Palendurio, studying a map from the privacy of one of the 'comfort' rooms the trains had. The plush cushions of the seat and the small writing desk were the main draws for Mirian, and the cost didn't matter.

There was a lot she could learn: how the war conspiracy went down, the leyline collapse dynamics, and books in the Great Library that were rare enough even Bainrose didn't have them. Her first priority would be to learn the normal patterns of the cycle when it had no major changes, like she had in Frostland's Gate. But what she really wanted to know was if Arenthia had been right about the Sword of the Fourth Prophet.

As the towers and castles of Palendurio came into view, her anticipation grew. There would be so much to learn, and she already wanted to know it all.