Chapter 58: New Arrangements

There would no doubt be another meeting between loopers, to complain about the hunt if nothing else, but Suria didn't care. Now that she knew the cycle would last for just over seventy days, she wanted to do right by the people she'd met. That gave her entirely different goals for the beginning of this one.

She couldn't do everything at once, and there was still the possibility that Adwyrma or another looper would cause trouble, so she needed a new approach. Suria began recreating some useful talismans, noting with pleasure that she started with a runic capacity of five - she could still feel the change to her soul, and it would only grow stronger over time. Before she finished her inscriptions, Maut-mai left the room, so Suria leapt into action.

With her refined force spells, it was easy to move Lirngelf to a back passage and return in record time. She headed straight through the waiting room to the other hallways, where Maut-mai was talking to Rije.

"It's completely unacceptable for us to be forced to wait like this!" she insisted, gesturing wildly. "Have you no respect for students?"

"I'm sorry, my lady, the staff have many obligations." Rije was holding her off with a flat smile.

"Excuse me." Suria stepped in between them and drew on her old shyness as they looked at her. "I may be doing something wrong, but I can't get the main door open. It seems to be warded?"

"Warded?" Rije's smile immediately vanished, and though he gave her a second look, he seemed to believe her. "That doesn't make sense... we can definitely go check."

They headed down the corridor, Maut-mai tagging along huffily, and entered the foyer with the statue. Once there, Rije tried the main door and confirmed what had been the case since the very beginning. As he tried a few different things, Maut-mai began to pace.

"Just what is going on here?" she demanded. "This is utterly absurd!"

"Don't bother him," Suria told her firmly. "He's our best chance of getting out of here."

Rije glanced at her briefly and smiled, while Maut-mai turned away with a scowl and stalked closer to the center.

"Don't worry," the statue told her, "there just seems to be a minor incident."

"Gah!" Maut-mai struck the statue in frustration, hurt her hand, and slunk off nursing it.

"Do you have any idea what could be wrong?" Suria asked quietly.

"These wards are designed to protect the hall from outside attack," Rije explained. "They were upgraded recently, so something must have tripped them by accident."

"I don't want to make your job harder, but I'm really anxious being trapped in here. Is there anything I can do to help? I saw an older woman who looked like a mage, might she be able to do something?"

"I think she's a local affiliated scholar, so probably not."

"Hmm." Suria pretended to think for several seconds while keeping an eye on Maut-mai. "Well, if you just need time to work, I'll stay quiet and let you."

"Actually..." Rije released a sigh and stepped back to look at her. "I don't want to alarm you, but the wards seem firmly locked. We might be able to break our way out, but I don't have the strength for it."

They remained there, trapped in the foyer, for several more seconds. Suria had seen this play out before and forced herself not to rush things too quickly, waiting as Maut-mai slipped closer to them. The other woman was becoming increasingly distraught and would probably have an outburst soon, so this was the right time to act.

"Let's all work together on this," Suria told them both. "You... I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name?"

"I am Maut-mai Thoeris." She tried to draw herself up proudly, but the circumstances had deflated her a little.

"We should see who else we can find who might be able to help." Suria led her out of the foyer toward the eastern halls, making sure to guide her away from the area where Lirngelf's body lay. "The older woman is a mage, but she was a bit intimidating, do you think you could get her to help?"

"I'll see what I can do." Maut-mai sniffed and moved northeast, freeing Suria to head straight west.

It was long before the time when Houdon was called to join the professors, so he should still be in his office. For a moment Suria shifted between the locked doors uncertainly - it had been long enough that those memories were a little buried. Once she was fairly certain she had found the right one, she cast her unlocking spell, shoved that talisman deep into her satchel, then knocked on the door.

"Hello?" Suria opened it and pretended to flinch back when she saw Houdon. "Oh, I'm sorry!"

"The door was unlocked?" He frowned up at her and she got a glimpse of him as she hadn't seen him before: hunched over his desk, looking over a number of papers, clearly troubled. Though he seemed upset at first, the emotion wasn't directed toward her.

"Something is wrong with the building's wards," Suria told him. "At least that's what Rije said. Do you think you could help us?"

"The wards are up?" Houdon pulled out his runebook and cast something she could barely detect, then his frown deepened. "That doesn't make any sense..."

"We're trying to get the main door open, but we haven't had any luck. I'm Suria Northbrook, by the way. I'm supposed to be a student here this term."

"Houdon Droucet," he greeted her briskly as he got to his feet. "I'm afraid this is a poor introduction to the university, but these are strange times. Let's go, hopefully we can get this sorted out."

They headed back to the main foyer, where Maut-mai was supporting the older woman, Eluauna, who was snapping at Rije.

"What kind of hair-trigger wards are these?" she demanded. "Any fool should be able to prevent them from going off at any old thing!"

"They won't," Houdon said as he arrived, immediately commanding attention. "I've just checked and the wards responded as if they were struck by an extremely high tier spell. It's too early to determine what happened, but we can look into it."

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He tested a few things on the door, but like the others, his code phrases and key spells didn't work. Suria kept her suggestions to herself, letting them talk to one another a little more. Unfortunately, the commotion - or perhaps her absence - drew Shuguja, who came to join them, complaining about the disruption. She wasn't as annoying as usual, likely because Houdon outranked her.

"Why would there have been a high tier spell?" Rije asked in a low voice.

"Well..." Houdon glanced around and saw that Suria was nearby, though she was doing her best not to look engaged. "Just some faculty business."

"It has us all trapped in here. You can give me more than that." For the first time Rije's frustration boiled over, just a little, and it seemed to have an impact. Houdon sighed, and though he lowered his voice, he did answer.

"This isn't widely known, but some of the thrones are meeting in the basement today. Professor Drazen asked me to assemble the schedule for the coming year before it's officially settled. Whatever they're discussing, it seemed important enough that they asked me to drop my other work."

Suria continued looking away while silently thanking Rije for pushing on the issue where she never could have. So the meeting was scheduled enough for Houdon to know, and apparently Zaasif Drazen had asked for information on the schedule, which was strong evidence that he was the one planning for a time loop. He'd also said the "ritual was flawed", so this wasn't the original plan, but how had it all played out? Since the first cycle had been the trigger that set off all the rest, she couldn't presume an answer.

They didn't discuss anything secretive after that, so Suria waited a little longer for deniability, then shuffled closer to them.

"Does anyone have an unlocking glyph?" she asked.

"That's absurd," Shuguja snapped. "Do we look like criminals? No, we should break it down. Houdon, can't you do something about this?"

"You want us to just blow the doors out from within?" It was his turn to snap and Shuguja shrank back, stung. "No, focusing on unlocking the wards directly is a better idea. Unfortunately, I don't specialize in that sort of thing. Ordinarily the actual keys are more useful."

"I only have the opposite," Suria said, offering a talisman with a locking glyph. "But there's such a thing as an inversion augment, isn't there?"

Houdon's eyes widened just slightly and he snapped his fingers at her. "Not a bad idea, girl. Give me a moment."

She had to wait impatiently as they got through all the steps of working on the inscriptions, but soon enough Houdon created an inverted locking glyph. Suria didn't know the average level of ability for a three seal mage; she just knew that he had no trouble with it.

"Now, we just need to find the specific locking glyph," he muttered, paging through his runebook.

"I can handle that part." Eluauna stepped forward with her runic glasses and poked the appropriate places on the door. "There they are. Can we get out of here now?"

Indeed they could. This loop Suria walked out the front door of Convocation Hall in a group of six, including a guard and three mages with ranked seals. She saw that there were several loopers waiting at a distance, including Wynchard and Adwyrma, but the group seemed to startle them and they didn't approach.

"Settled," Houdon said, tucking away his runebook. "Let me just go in and take care of one thing. Rije, stay on guard and make sure no one wanders back in."

Everything had been going so well up to that point, but now Rije moved to stand in the way of the door. With the wards opened, how probable was it that he would still end up injured? Of course, there was a chance that disrupting Houdon would throw off the professors and the entire cycle.

Just in case that happened, Suria had been as cautious as possible, so there should be no hints of any time loops. She still thought that it might be best if she wasn't standing right next to Convocation Hall when things went sideways, so she began considering alternatives. There were several other events going on around this time and she hadn't properly arranged all of them...

"That was so impressive." Maut-mai hovered at her elbow, staring at her. "I almost completely lost my head, but you actually helped."

"No, I just had a little idea," Suria protested, "they cast the actual spells."

"I completely misjudged you earlier. Sorry if I was rude."

"We were all under a lot of pressure." Suria paused for a moment, looking to the dormitories, then decided to try for everything. "I guess my interview is canceled thanks to all this. What were you going to do?"

"Well, I was going to ask a question about the Water Society, but I'm not sure I even want to anymore."

"Let's go for a walk. I heard that there are some other good dormitories."

They headed east, venturing into the clusters of buildings. Maut-mai seemed subdued, given her experience, and Suria wondered just what path the other woman had taken on all the loops where she left. Her real goal, however, was to intercept Kiznua, and this time she got lucky: they ran into the other student while she was still on her way toward the supply tunnels.

"Hello there!" Suria used her greeting to trap Kiznua before she could move on and made introductions between the three of them. Once they went around the necessary circles, Kiznua looked like she still wanted to move on - she was sweating and fidgeting. "Are you alright?"

"Oh, I was just..." Kiznua shrugged and looked down. "There's this problem, uh, in the supply tunnels. I was going to try to do something about it."

"Did it have to do with monstrous weevils?" Suria asked. "I heard the faculty talk about cleansing that themselves."

"Really?" Kiznua blinked in surprise, but she seemed relieved. "I'm glad they're finally doing something. The poor xenarths have been dealing with the bites for so long."

"And just what are those?" Maut-mai asked.

"Xenarths? They're a type of... well, I'm not sure how to describe them. But they work for the university and they handle all sorts of things."

"You look like you've been here for a while," Suria cut in. "You probably know your way around the whole campus?"

"I suppose I know a little. This is my fifth, wait, no, I mean this is my sixth year."

"Maut-mai was hoping to see the Cerulean Sanctum; do you think you could show her?"

"You aren't coming?" Maut-mai asked with a frown.

"I've already visited," Suria said, only lying temporally, "and they didn't seem very welcoming. But the building is beautiful, you really should take a look."

"Yes, the underwater floors are astonishing!" Kiznua took Maut-mai's hand. "There are some views with filtering sunlight that are absolutely gorgeous, you really must come..."

The two of them walked north, allowing Suria to head back toward Convocation Hall. She hadn't felt anything impact the wards yet, so it was hard to say what was happening. So far, no matter what they altered, the events in the basement ended up in a fight between thrones, and she didn't think this would break that streak.

At the moment, with the others intercepted, her greatest worry was that another looper would ruin things somehow. She saw no sign of Adwyrma at all, which was simultaneously encouraging and concerning - Suria made a mental note that she would have to figure out what the other woman did during the loops when she wasn't screwing things up. Qanti was standing at a distance, watching curiously, and when their eyes met Suria shook her head slightly.

There was a growing crowd in front of the doors, discussing whatever was going on. Houdon was present, unlike normal, but she doubted any secrets would be revealed at this point. Wynchard was in the middle of things, apparently arguing with some of the officials, and Suria decided to keep her distance for the time being.

It wasn't long after that when it finally happened: all of Convocation Hall shuddered from the detonation of spells. Some of the officials tried to rush in like idiots and Rije grabbed them, pulling them away. As more spells cascaded out, he just had to throw himself in the way, generating a mana shield that she already knew wouldn't be enough.

Even though Suria started running, the fire swept out before she could arrive. Houdon and Wynchard both defended themselves, but their shields didn't extend far enough to protect Rije: his mana shield shattered and he was flung to the ground.

Suria arrived at his side, already reaching into her satchel for talismans. She wasn't massively stronger in this loop, but now that she had multiple burn-specific spells, she was far better-equipped to handle the injuries. Thanks to the location and so many other mages, Rije wasn't nearly as severely burned, either. First she dealt with the deepest burn, then she began soothing the others, letting the inflamed flesh heal...

Rije took a deep breath and opened his eyes, staring up at her. "You... saved me?"

She had meant to respond, but the words choked in her throat. Before she could say anything, there were tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Hey, hey." Rije gingerly sat up, taking her shoulders. "It's okay. I'm okay."

There were loopers waiting for her and a deeper conspiracy to unravel, but in that moment, Suria didn't care at all.