The lessons in divining the secrets of magical items that Haslush gave him really paid off here. Considering its purpose, the device yielded its purpose surprisingly easily — to put it bluntly, it was equipment for burglary. More specifically, it was a ward scanner, designed to guide and enhance divination spells meant to seek out weaknesses in complicated warding schemes so they could be broken or bypassed more easily. Their employer had probably been trying to identify a hole in aranean defenses.
Still, while the purpose of the device was readily apparent to his divination spells, its method of operation stubbornly remained a mystery. After several unsuccessful attempts to pry the casing open without damaging the device, he finally decided to try something… experimental. He extruded a mana cloud from his hands, the way he did when picking locks, and directed it to trickle into the device’s insides through the gaps and misaligned seams. The resulting information was fuzzy, but told him that the insides were filled with brass gears and crystals. They were probably not meant to be pried open. How then…
Ah, so that was the trick! The hands of the clock weren’t just static — they were nothing more than an image painted over a glass cover. Zorian pressed his finger against the glass cover and pushed it into the casing. There was a soft click from the inside, and when Zorian released the pressure the cover immediately flew open, revealing a complicated interface full of dials and sigils. Very complicated interface… he wasn’t going to figure this out in the hour or so they had until they reached the client.
He was so taking this thing apart to see how it worked in one of the future restarts.
Finishing the job was done without complications. Zorian opted not to put a tracking spell on the device, since he didn’t know how sensitive the device was and didn’t want to ruin it. That turned out to be a good choice, as the man immediately cast several diagnostic spells on the device once Zorian handed it over, one of which Zorian knew to be a spell designed to detect simple tracking spells. Once the transaction was done, Zorian insisted they shake hands, claiming it was traditional in his village to do so after a successful business deal. The man rolled his eyes and mumbled something about yokels, but humored him anyway. Mission accomplished.
After they all shared a drink in a nearby tavern (Taiven insisted and wouldn’t hear no from anyone), the group separated. Zorian immediately descended to the sewers again and went back to the aranea.
[A ward reader, you say?] the matriarch asked. [It makes sense. He and his friends had been hanging out at the edge of our territory for a while, trying to stay hidden. I’m surprised he hired a bunch of students to get it, though.]
«Yeah, I’m not sure what he was thinking,» Zorian said. «Seems like a stupid idea to me.»
[We’ll find out in a few days, if all goes well,] the matriarch said. [That said, there are other things we must discuss. I believe I told you in the previous restart that I happened upon some pretty important information.]
«You did,» Zorian agreed. «I was wondering what that was about.»
[It’s about the invaders. First of all, your guess was right — they are indeed from Ulquaan Ibasa.]
«I knew it,» Zorian scowled. «What was it? Are they out for revenge or is this just sheer opportunism?»
[A bit of both,] the matriarch said. [They resent you for their exile and they think you’re weak, now that the Splinter Wars and The Weeping wiped out most of your battlemages. But that’s not the important part. The important part concerns a question so basic I’m honestly not sure why neither of us thought of it. Namely, why exactly did the invasion think they could conquer Cyoria in the first place?]
Zorian opened his mouth to answer ‘with the aid of the time loop, duh’, but then quickly closed it again. According to the matriarch, this invasion had been in the works far before the start of the time loop. Clearly, someone associated with the invasion got brought into the time loop eventually and started feeding information to them to make the whole endeavor scarily effective, but what about before that? Without knowing exact locations of Cyoria’s defenses, their initial bombardment would have been a lot less damaging than it was. Without knowing the Academy’s exact ward scheme and how to bypass it, their assault at the place would be practically doomed from the start. And on top of all that, the matriarch claimed the aranea were successfully keeping the invaders out of Cyoria’s underworld before the time loop. So really, the invasion never really had the chance to take control of the place.
«Perhaps they didn’t,» Zorian said. «Intend to conquer it, I mean. Cyoria is pretty important to Eldemar, but it’s not the capital, nor its industrial heartland. It’s the seat of Eldemar’s Mage Guild and the home of the world’s most prestigious mage academy, neither of which is likely to cooperate with the invaders. Most likely, they just intended to do as much damage as possible. Keep Eldemar’s magical might busy while they invade with the bulk of their forces elsewhere.»
[You’re very close,] the matriarch said. [They were indeed trying to cause as much damage to the city as possible, but it was to be much more than a simple distraction. Apparently, the date of the summer festival is very magically significant. It is the day of the year when the barriers between planes of existence are the weakest. In fact, the weakening starts exactly one month before the date, gradually reaching its peak on the day of the festival. And this year’s summer festival is even more special than usual. I’m afraid that us aranea don’t know much about astronomy, seeing as we live largely underground, but apparently this year’s summer festival includes some kind of… ‘planetary alignment’?]
Zorian took a deep breath, a shiver running down his spine. Of course! How could he have missed it till now? This year’s planar alignment, signified by several planets aligning with their own, an event that took place once every 400 years or so. The last time such an event happened, a city of mages took advantage of it to teleport their entire city all the way from Miasina to the southern coast of Altazia, performing the largest feat of trans-continental teleportation to ever be recorded. If someone wanted to mess around with space and time on a grand scale, this was the time to do it.
«Yeah, that would explain a lot,» Zorian finally said. «Like why the time loop was initiated now, of all times. But wait, how does that help them to do more damage to the city? Did they intend to teleport the city into the sea or something?»
[No. First of all, they intended to summon a large amount of high-level demons to help with the invasion. This was why they were willing to go through with the attack, despite their lack of success against us and their inability to do much to the academy and its wards. Demons, especially high-level ones, are virtually immune to mental attacks and highly resistant to magic. The aranea would be massacred in no time at all, and the mages would be too busy fighting for their lives to help out the city’s mundane defenders. Those same defenders would be up against trolls and fire elementals, who are immune to firearms, with winter wolves and iron beaks acting as support.]
«That… that’s horrible,» Zorian said after digesting that for a second. «Why aren’t they doing that now?»
[They can’t, remember? No summoning anything while in the time loop. The whole material plane has been cut off from the spiritual ones,] the matriarch reminded him.
«Oh yeah,» Zorian said. «I guess that would throw a serious wrench in the works. I wonder if they actually went through with the invasion during the initial restart when they had no agent inside the time loop. They would have surely known their plan was doomed without demonic support.»