«Why were they sealed away?» Zorian asked. «Why not just kill them?»
«Primordials don’t die the way most things do,» Batak said. «They are a remnant, a relic of the age when the world was still fresh and the World Dragon had only just been bound at the center of our world. They are her original children, the purest expression of her rage and hate, and they have found ways to strike out at humanity and the gods even in their death. They spawn smaller, weaker primordials in their death throes, and often inflict corrupting effects on the area in which they died. Even the gods found the aftermath of one of them dying to be difficult to deal with, so they eventually just contained the lot of them and trapped them in far corners of the earth.»
«And the attackers believe one of them is in Cyoria,» Zorian stated.
«Apparently,» Batak said. «I wouldn’t know personally — no one has ever seen one of these prisons within living memory and written records are deliberately vague about their locations. Still, Cyoria had effectively been ‘a far corner of the world’ up until relatively recently, historically speaking, so I suppose it’s possible. Strange that no one had ever found any indication of it in all this time, though, considering how many mages delve into the depths of the Hole on a regular basis…»
«I see,» Zorian said. He excused himself soon afterwards. While interesting, this truthfully didn’t change much and his task had already been done.
Zorian was feeling pretty pleased with himself for organizing this little event. While setting up Kirielle for a meeting with Novelty was done purely for amusement and sheer curiosity at how Kirielle would react to Novelty’s antics, introducing Tinami to Novelty was… well okay, it was also mostly done for the sake of his curiosity and amusement. But that didn’t mean he didn’t take advantage of it to gain something from little miss ‘forbidden magics’ Aope. Like, say, getting her to teach him the invisibility spell. He knew, just knew that Tinami had been taught how to cast that spell, restricted magic or not, and he was totally right! So now he had finally completed his ‘list of spells every proper mage should be able to cast’, and all it took was promising to do something he had intended to do for free, anyway.
And the cherry on top? Novelty loved him for promising to bring her two new humans to meet. He didn’t need to make it up to her in any way, because she thought he was doing her a favor!
Yes, Zorian was feeling very pleased with himself. Now all he had to do was wait with Kirielle until their two guests showed up and then stand back and watch the fireworks. Novelty would come first and meet with Kirielle to start with, since that meeting was bound to be shorter and more casual, and would then remain to greet Tinami when his classmate eventually showed up at Imaya’s place. There shouldn’t be any problems, but just in case there were problems and they somehow degenerated beyond his ability to handle, Zorian had arranged for a for a bit of insurance…
«So aranea are about the size of a dog?» Kirielle asked.
«A big dog,» Zorian said. «But Novelty’s not scary at all, and I’m sure you’ll get along splendidly. She reminds me of you, actually.»
«A giant spider reminds you of me?» Kirielle asked him, sounding surprisingly threatening for a 9-year-old.
«You’ll find out why soon enough,» Zorian said, more amused than anything. «She’s coming over as we speak.»
He had been devoting only half of his attention to his conversation with Kirielle, trying to train himself to pay attention to his mind sense and talk at the same time, and had thus immediately noticed Novelty when she came in range, despite the fact that she had tried to dim her mental presence to surprise him. He immediately launched a telepathic attack on her and she promptly dropped her attempt at stealth in favor of a short mental wrangle that resulted in Zorian being quickly booted out of her mind. Despite his poor showing, Zorian was pleased. He had been doing such ‘greetings’ for a few days, ever since he realized that Novelty didn’t consider such telepathic ‘play-fights’ hostile, and compared to his initial results, this was absolutely amazing.
It was kind of amusing how Novelty refused to actually teach him telepathic combat due to the matriarch’s orders, but had no problems helping him practice in such a fashion. In fact, after his first few attempts, she sometimes even initiated such impromptu telepathic combat herself, or tried to stalk and surprise him like she did today. He supposed she didn’t think of it as teaching — it was just a game as far as she was concerned. She would be rather cross with him if she ever caught him thinking it, but she really was still a child in many respects.
[That was barely any better than yesterday,] Novelty complained, apparently not sharing his optimistic self-assessment. [This is why I think we should have gone with my idea for teaching you. It would have been a million times faster than our lessons so far.]
[You are not locking me in one of your hatcheries,] Zorian told her.
[But you’d have left a master of telepathic combat within a week!] Novelty protested. [Well, master by human standards, anyway.]
[No,] Zorian responded. He suddenly became aware that Kirielle was tugging on his shirt. «What is it, Kiri?»
«You drifted off,» she said.
«I was just talking to Novelty,» he said. She looked at him oddly. «Telepathically, I mean.»
«Oh,» Kirielle said, her eyes widening in realization. «I’m so jealous you can do that. I wish I could talk to people without being overheard. It would have been so helpful around mom.»
«Don’t I know it,» Zorian sighed. «So many things would have been easier if I could have done that earlier. Though maybe it was a blessing in disguise — a lot of people back in Cirin would have freaked out if they started hearing voices in their head and mind magic abuse is punished very harshly by the mage guild. Anyway, let’s go introduce you to Novelty.»
To her credit, Novelty hadn’t immediately rushed in towards Kirielle and started to crawl all over her. To Kirielle’s credit, she didn’t immediately scream in fear and try to hide behind him upon seeing a huge black spider hop into the room. Instead, the two of them faced each other square on, standing a good deal of distance from each other, and carefully scrutinized one another.
[A mini human!] yelled Novelty telepathically, breaking the stand-off. [Great Web, she’s so much smaller than you! Can she even talk yet?]
«W-What!?» Kirielle protested. «Of course I can talk! I even learned how to read and count last year! What do you think I am, a baby!?»
[Oh, you can talk, that’s excellent! Excellent! I actually was afraid you were a baby,] Novelty admitted, skittering left and right to take in Kirielle from different angles. [Not that there is anything wrong with being a baby, but I got assigned as a babysitter for soooo long and it gets soooo boring after a while you know? They’re all so needy and grabby and they never know anything interesting…]
«Um, yeah,» Kirielle said. She shot Zorian a suspicious look, but he was maintaining his impassive facade through superhuman will. His lips only twitched into a smirk once she returned her attention back to Novelty. «I guess I can understand that. But I’m definitely not a baby anymore! I’m nine years old, and that’s a lot!»
[Wow, that is a lot!] agreed Novelty. [You’re only a year younger than me! How come your brother is so much bigger than you, then?]
«He’s… older than me?» Kirielle tried. «Wait, if you’re ten, aren’t you just a kid like me?»