38 KiB
[RT] [HF] Mother of Learning Chapter 57: Unwanted
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Author: u/Nepene *
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URL: https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/57/Mother-of-Learning
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Score: 123
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Created: 2016-08-07T22:20:40
Post:
Comments:
u/Fredlage [+37] (29 minutes later)
Two people to whom they've told different parts of their story come together. This'll be interesting. Also, for those who don't follow the author's Patreon, he's written a new worldbuilding post: https://motheroflearninguniverse.wordpress.com/2016/08/07/golems-and-undead/
u/hoja_nasredin [+1] Dai-Gurren Brigade (11 hours later)
Yeeeeeaaaaaaah. Thanks for th elink.
u/Xtraordinaire [+1] Team Glimglam (11 hours later)
Aha, so that little discussion from ch 54 did bear fruit, nice.
u/None [+43] (24 minutes later)
"Now tell me who this Anixa Pravoski girl is…"
System Shock fan!
"It's just… I don't want anyone using mind magic on me. Having someone looking through my thoughts is a last resort as far as I'm concerned. This compulsion, if it even exists, clearly isn't a pressing issue. It's pretty much rendered irrelevant at this point. I'd rather take the time to learn how to deal with this myself."
Taking bets now for "He's under a compulsion not to get his mind checked for compulsions", which really should have been thought of by Zorian sooner.
Sadly, the Boranova heir never turned up anywhere and their attempts to find him went anywhere
^Nowhere.
u/PeridexisErrant [+21] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (4 hours later)
Taking bets now for "He's under a compulsion not to get his mind checked for compulsions", which really should have been thought of by Zorian sooner.
Obviously, but there's no good way to have that conversation. "Oh, I need to check you for a compulsion. You don't think it's a problem, that's another compulsion. You don't want to be checked? So is that." Sure.
u/nerdguy1138 [+6] GNU Terry Pratchett (5 hours later)
Isn't this the Thompson hack, but for magic?
u/PeridexisErrant [+7] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (5 hours later)
This would be considered a "Thompson's Trusting Trust Trojan' only if Zach is implanted with a contagious compulsion that compels mind-mages to conceal it's existence and implant it in Zach.
^(What a sentence! What a name for a spell!)
As described, it's only a single-part Trojan which makes it (relatively) easy to detect, if hard to remove.
u/nerdguy1138 [+4] GNU Terry Pratchett (5 hours later)
Antimemetic infection, then. a self-keeping secret.
u/JackStargazer [+3] Primordial Apologist (2 days later)
Also the compulsion to hate mind magic (in general, also making him hate the aranea and the other guy Red Robe knows is a mind mage - another looper) would be even more effective.
Couple that with a few implanted commands or keywords to mind control Zach during any truly dangerous confrontation as contingencies, and another to erase all memory of that. Red Robe could have been using Zach as his magic artillery cannon anytime it was necessary with him being non the wiser.
Mind magic is scary kids.
u/PeridexisErrant [+4] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (2 days later)
Research mind-alteration charms ... Actually, just research every kind of mind magic you can find. Mind is the foundation of our power as humans, any kind of magic that affects it is the most important sort of magic there is.
u/JackStargazer [+1] Primordial Apologist (2 days later)
Indeed.
Note how he never really did that? And it was how the main plot ended.
u/PeridexisErrant [+1] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (2 days later)
Yeah. I take Significant Digits to be canon though, so it does come up later :)
u/JackStargazer [+1] Primordial Apologist (2 days later)
I liked the story, but goddamn that abrupt ending.
u/stepupson [+13] (2 hours later)
Is Anixa Pravoski that unnamed girl that was hanging out with Zach along with Neolu at the beginning?
Here's a theory out of left field: what if she is Red Robe? No evidence for it, but there is the possibility that she blanked Zach and then hid Veyers/got rid of him. It'd be a pretty good red herring.
u/JulianWyvern [+1] Wayward Wanderer (16 hours later)
"Never turned up nowhere" is a double negative, Never turned up anywhere is the right one
u/None [+2] (17 hours later)
I meant the second "anywhere", though a second "never" would work as well.
u/wordbug [+20] ongoing self-aware accident (an hour later)
They're all going to be one big family when this is over. A chunk of a nation dedicated to helping two 'teens' improve themselves, whether it wants it or not.
u/Lajamerr_Mittesdine [+16] Q Continuum (39 minutes later)
Does this chapter feel shorter or is it just me?
Probably went by fast because I was enjoying it.
u/-Fender- [+11] (47 minutes later)
From looking at the bar on the right side, it was definitely shorter than most other chapters. I don't know by how much, though.
u/altoroc [+3] (an hour later)
If you receive email updates it will tell you the word count of each released chapter.
u/gbear605 [+4] history’s greatest story (an hour later)
It was only ~6,000 words while most chapters are ~10,000
u/nobody103 [+27] (an hour later)
There is only one chapter that is longer than 10,000 words. Most are in the 6000-8000 range, with ~7500 being normal. But shorter chapters like this one are hardly rare.
u/Lajamerr_Mittesdine [+19] Q Continuum (4 hours later)
I'm sorry I didn't mean to sound rude about the chapter length.
I really enjoy the story and like every other addict you always want more, you know?
Thank you for writing this.
u/nobody103 [+19] (8 hours later)
I'm not bothered, don't worry. I just found it eye catching since I pay keen attention to the length of my chapters. Thank you for reading.
u/OutOfNiceUsernames [+13] fear of last pages (6 hours later)
I think it feels short because of the interviews about Veyers Boranova, which take ~30% of the chapter (so 4k words without them). They will make the story flow more naturally for people reading it from cover to cover, but when you’re reading one chapter at a time, things like that make you fidgety instead.
u/Diralman_ [+3] (an hour later)
Not quite. I just checked my emails and the past 20 chapters are all under 10,000 words. They seem to range from 6,000 to around 9,000. The past few chapters have been towards the lower end.
u/None [+14] (55 minutes later)
[deleted]
u/None [+2] (a day later)
I thought the same. That should be a way good way to keep him off the hook, really.
u/GodKiller999 [+14] (22 minutes later)
Looks like Alanic decided to find Xvin afterall, one of Zorian worst nightmares just became reality.
u/literal-hitler [+13] (7 hours later)
And now they somehow track down Silverlake, in spite of the fact Zorian has never mentioned her.
u/-Fender- [+20] (an hour later)
I think that they knew each other to begin with, actually. I find it unlikely that Xvim would have reached archmage level without having at least some connections.
u/GodKiller999 [+13] (2 hours later)
Alanic himself said he had never heard of Xvim and that: "If I really wanted to meet this 'Xvim', I would have sought him out on my own. With a name like that, I doubt he'd be hard to find."
u/monkyyy0 [+22] (3 hours later)
Alanic keeps truth potions and lets a young mage mind rape a prisoner
I'll go with lie
u/GodKiller999 [+6] (5 hours later)
Why would he though? It's not like him telling Zorian he knew Xvim would have changed anything.
u/monkyyy0 [+10] (12 hours later)
Because they were lying
u/-Fender- [+2] (a day later)
Exactly. Say something slightly provocative, and gauge their reactions. He knew they were withholding information from him, so he had to be curious, to a certain extent. This is someone involved with the military, and who hunts necromancers and undeads. Of course he'd make sure to gain as much information as he can before getting involved with someone.
u/ggrey7 [+0] (2 days later)
No, you're making an ad hominem argument.
Just because Alanic does those things doesn't make it more likely that he's lying about knowing Xvim. Then you might as well say everything he's ever said to Zorian could be lies.
As to /u/-Fender-'s point, there's really no motive to provoke Z&Z about Xvim since they were the ones who mentioned Xvim's name first anyways. The way he phrases his responses makes it extremely unlikely he's lying about knowing Xvim.
u/-Fender- [+1] (2 days later)
Here's a link to another comment I made.
And as I stated here, it's curious how Alanic knew right away that "Xvim" was a person rather than a place or a training method, and also that he knew right away that it was a man and not a woman, and with seeming certainty. I honestly think that they knew each other beforehand.
u/ggrey7 [+1] (2 days later)
Not sure how curious it is given the fact that he overheard them making a comparison that heavily implies Xvim is a person (overhearing "What is it with you and annoying teachers?" "Mr Zosk is way less annoying than Xvim" doesn't have plausible alternative interpretations).
You're also making the assumption as a reader that "Xvim" is exotic as a word, rather than as a name.
u/-Fender- [+1] (3 days later)
Yeah, in the second link, I was specifying that that bit was the fairly obvious part. It's knowing right away that it was a man rather than a woman that I thought to be the more interesting point.
u/ggrey7 [+1] (3 days later)
Could be, but still based on the assumption that their language is different, i.e. our language is customarily skewed towards male pronouns.
u/thrawnca [+1] Carbon-based biped (5 days later)
Well, perhaps Alanic was being chivalric and assuming that if a particular teacher was described as being harsh, unfair, and insulting people without good reason, then this must be a man rather than a woman.
u/-Fender- [+1] (5 days later)
But then again, he's probably met Silverlake.
u/thrawnca [+1] Carbon-based biped (7 days later)
Only if she wanted him to. On the whole, I wouldn't expect a witch to be too thrilled about talking to priests.
u/-Fender- [+1] (7 days later)
At the very least, I expect him to know of her. Lukav certainly seemed like he had personally interacted with her, at the very least. So she can't be that perfectly reclusive. But I do agree that she would have more reasons to interact with an expert alchemist than with a professional warpriest.
u/Vakuza [+2] (15 hours later)
Maybe Alanic knew him by a different name? That is possibly the case, or Alanic was lying.
u/-Fender- [+3] (a day later)
To be honest, he never told a lie about him, afaik.
"This Xvim fellow you keep talking about sounds fascinating. I hope you can introduce us sometime."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^.
"I was just joking, mister Kazinski," [...] "If I really wanted to meet this 'Xvim', I would have sought him out on my own. With a name like that, I doubt he'd be hard to find."
He asked for an introduction (which could be done merely to see how he'd go about doing this, whether or not he and Xvim are already acquaintances), stated that he knew "Xvim" was an exotic name, and that he'd be easy to find. He never claimed that he didn't know him. Merely spoke in such a way as to give that impression.
Until next chapter, we won't know if they were previously acquaintances or not.
u/Vakuza [+1] (a day later)
I mean earlier where Alanic asked Zorian who taught him how to protect his soul he said it was a friendly shifter.
u/thrawnca [+1] Carbon-based biped (5 days later)
I doubt that they were personal acquaintances. Wouldn't rule out the possibility that Alanic, with his investigative connections, recognised the name, though.
I find it unlikely that Xvim would have reached archmage level without having at least some connections.
See chapter 50, "One is only ever a real archmage when other people start referring to you as such, and not many people use that term to describe me. Then again, not many people know about me in the first place, and I prefer it that way…"
u/-Fender- [+1] (5 days later)
Simply because the public does not know of him, does not mean that experts in their fields and high Government/Church officials do not. I would tend to consider Alanic somewhat high up, being an expert at fighting undead.
So Xvim's propensity for obscurity is not a compelling enough argument for me to completely discount the possibility that they were previously acquaintances.
u/Vakuza [+18] (28 minutes later)
So how much will Z&Z have to reveal now one cat is out of the bag? If Zorian reveals that he's a very good mind mage I'm worried Xvim might have a bit of a reaction. Even if Xvim is okay with it Zorian is going to have some gruelling soul protection lessons ahead.
Having Xvim and Alanic involved would be a massive help regardless.
u/-Fender- [+33] (an hour later)
Just to recap, what do they each know?
Alanic knows that they were targeted by some soul magic, and that both of their souls now have a marker. He knows that Xorian has some knowledge about sensing his soul, and that Zach is a novice. He probably knows that both are inordinately good magicians for their apparent age (depending on how exactly they saved his and Lukav's lives), and may be aware that they can both teleport. He also had to find it strange how Zorian spoke about him as if they were acquaintances, and seemed to know Xvim. (Although it was fairly obvious, he still somehow knew that Xvim was a person's name rather than a place or a training method, and he also knew right away that it was a reference to a man and not a woman.)
Xvim, on the other hand, knows that the time loop is a thing, and that Zorian and Zach are "endlessly" repeating this same month. He most likely knows that the Astral Plane is currently disconnected from their plane of existence, since he's told Zorian in the past that this is one of the most convincing things that he could be told to believe in the time loop. He also knows that both Zorian and Zach have very developed shaping skills, and that Zorian has been his student for a long time, going so far as respecting him as his master. He can also easily guess that this is really Zach's first time spending a restart as one of his students. Beyond that, all I can think of that he would also know would be whatever anecdotes and circumstantial evidence Zorian would have told him to convince him of the time loop.
As far as I can tell, neither is currently aware of the Sovereign Gate's usage or that Cyoria's time magic research facility is involved in any way, they are unaware of the invasion, unaware that Sudomir is a necromancer and built a spiritual sinkhole. They are most likely unaware of the deaths of all of the people with working knowledge of soul magic around Knyazov Dveri. They are also unaware that Zorian is a mind mage, although Xvim at least must have strong suspicions that Zorian is very knowledgeable in the field, after his talk with Zach. And they are unaware of the exact purpose of the soul marker.
Did I miss anything that they could have taught each other about the time loop and Z&Z?
u/Vakuza [+11] (2 hours later)
A good summary, though the attack on Lukav is definitely hinting at something. They might be able to deduce something from that. The real kicker is what they are going to ask Z&Z since they'll have to be honest since I think Alanic might have some lesser form of truth detection like the priestess or at least was able to recognise he taught Zorian his soul sense and thus will be sceptical.
u/Xtraordinaire [+9] Team Glimglam (16 hours later)
And they are unaware of the exact purpose of the soul marker.
This they probably deduced. Two time travelers, both have this unique masterfully crafted maker that no one else has. Yeah...
u/-Fender- [+2] (19 hours later)
Good. This is where I wanted the discussion to go. Above, I listed the things that they each knew. But now that they're talking to each other, what are the additional pieces of information that they could deduce?
u/Frommerman [+2] (2 days later)
I think Xvim could figure out that the Sovereign Gate is involved, actually. An artifact purported to be able to train someone up for centuries in mere minutes of real time? Sounds like what's happening to these two.
u/HPMOR_fan [+1] (8 days later)
And is a possible that Xvim and Alanic know a way to copy or steal the soul marker?
u/Xtraordinaire [+3] Team Glimglam (8 days later)
Eeeeh, hard to tell.
IIRC Alanic was awed by the marker's complexity. so he can't. Xvim may be a good enough mage to handle such complex spell patterns, but then does he have an extroverted soul sight? Introverted absolutely, he is a DADA master after all, but extroverted perception may or may not fit his moral framework. So, who knows.
Maybe by their powers combined they could do this, but I think this is unlikely for story-wise reasons. If they manage to create a significant number of loopers, the 'real world' fight once they exit the loop is no match for them, because there are so many of them.
u/Xtraordinaire [+12] Team Glimglam (10 hours later)
I like that the major problems with VB!RR have been addressed. There is more to it than simple teenage classmates 3-way drama.
And team Xvilanic is gonna tear ZZ a new one, hue hue hue. On that note, I wonder if Alanic knows a tidbit or two about Boranovas. An expert fire mage could know something about expert fire House.
u/whywhisperwhy [+1] (2 days later)
What I'd really like to know at this point is more about the Time Loop. The identity of the Maker isn't known, but it seems like a good bet would be on this being a god... Except what reason would a god have to give a human ever few hundred years 11 lifetimes worth of experience and magic on a fixed date?
In this case it's fortuitous that it ended up being around the time a primordial was going to be released, but under normal circumstances, it doesn't seem likely that anything of that significance would be occurring. We do know that one Sovereign Gate user established the Ikosian Empire so maybe it was intended to help advance humanity? And it was implied by the Spirit that it used to be common (every few centuries or so on the planar alignment), was the Gate being used to occasionally shove humans forward?
It would also be nice to know more about the gods and why they left...
u/monkyyy0 [+1] (5 days later)
Except what reason would a god have to give a human ever few hundred years 11 lifetimes worth of experience and magic on a fixed date?
Primordials? The gate and the weakness of the bounds on the primordials seem to line up
u/whywhisperwhy [+1] (5 days later)
Assuming the primordial release can only happen on the planar alignment? Otherwise the god(s) created a safeguard that only covers one month once every few hundred years.
u/thebishop8 [+7] (27 minutes later)
Typo thread:
Sadly, the Boranova heir never turned up anywhere and their attempts to find him went anywhere.
The last anywhere should be nowhere.
u/None [+3] (an hour later)
[removed]
u/OutOfNiceUsernames [+3] fear of last pages (6 hours later)
- currently a soulless corpse right now → “currently” and “right now” repeat themselves
- we shouldn't just to conclusions → we shouldn't just jump to conclusions
- And don't even get me
evenstarted on
u/-Fender- [+3] (45 minutes later)
Or: "never went anywhere"
u/literal-hitler [+2] (an hour later)
I barely interacted with my own classmates, nevermind people I had to reason to talk to.
Should be no reason.
u/Kuratius [+2] (5 hours later)
how he looked like
"How he looked" vs "what he looked like", the two aren't really supposed to mix.
u/torac [+1] (8 hours later)
Ghost Serpent was onto to something
One to too many.
I don't see what we can't try that we haven't done already,
can try
she decided she can also help
could
u/Cheese_Ninja [+6] (4 hours later)
Could this whole "Veyers can't be found" thing be the same as the whole "Zach can't be found" thing that happened after the Lich's attack and Zorian's inclusion into the loop? They seem fairly similar.
u/I-want-pulao [+1] (7 hours later)
It took 8 loops for Zach to be back, right? It's been way more that that since RR disappeared (assuming he left 2-3 restarts after Soulkill).
u/literal-hitler [+11] (7 hours later)
It took 8 loops longer than Zorian. We have no idea how long it took total. I think Zach was only "sick" during this time, where it's hinted that the Boranova family can't even find him. Maybe he was in a secret lair at the start of the loop?
u/Cheese_Ninja [+6] (9 hours later)
Regardless of whether Veyers is RR, Zach and Veyers have gone through completely different events. Even if Veyers was RR, why should RR leaving have the same effect as the Lich trying to combine Zach's and Zorian's souls had on Zach's existence? What's weird is that it does seem to be giving the same results, as far as Zorian's information gathering is concerned.
Granted, while Zorian himself didn't have the resources or skills he does now back in loops 2-7, it's still odd that absolutely nothing could be found regarding Zach in those loops. And overall, Zach's disappearance then was a bigger deal than Veyers' is now. Investigators hired by Zach's guardian and other interested parties couldn't find any trace of him.
Even though we've had the loop explained, it still has some plot relevant mysteries to it, such as the mechanism or entity that made Zach disappear entirely for loops 2-7.
One other thing that's been bothering me, that came up again this chapter. Zorian is still assuming RR is a necromancer, despite never seeing him perform any necromancy. "Soulkill" was never a necromantic spell at all, just a time loop specific one, RR could have been misdirecting Zorian to throw him off by naming it as such. RR somehow manages to track him down while Zorian is invisible and shielded from Soul Sense, which could be explained by mind sense or any other non-visual detection abilities.
u/Xtraordinaire [+8] Team Glimglam (11 hours later)
Zorian assumes RR is a necromancer because RR has openly boasted about his extroverted soul perception. While having soul sight is not the definitive proof of being a necromancer, it is a particularly strong evidence for it.
As for Zach's disappearance, this is complicated by Tesen not being trustworthy at all. Let's say on the start of the loop Tesen finds Zach's soulless corpse. Tesen knows that people know that he has been looting Noveda, but outright killing Zach in his sleep (and that's the reasonable assumption when the boy is found mysteriously dead) is beyond what's acceptable. He shoves the corpse into a pocket dimension and announces his eccentric ward has totally disappeared! He can even hire investigators in earnest to maintain plausibility.
The reasonable assumption was that the Gate was simply detecting soul damage done to the Controller and has abandoned remaking controllers body(ies) in favor of giving the soul time to heal. Zorian's soul was either more resilient or got less damaged and got healed faster.
u/Cheese_Ninja [+2] (a day later)
But was it really soul sight and not some other sense?
RR manages to locate Zorian just a few paragraphs later, despite Zorian still hiding himself from soul sight. Lying about how you're tracking someone seems like a good way to catch them. He does seem to know that Zorian is hiding his soul though, so there is some evidence for him being a soul mage, unless he was just guessing.
True, Tesen isn't trustworthy, but I feel like Zach's disappearance was legit. Zach being dead at the start of a loop fulfills one of the conditions for the loop to reset, so I'm not fond of that idea. Zach being in a coma would work better, but I don't see why Tesen would need to hide it in either case. There's not really a reason for people to suddenly start suspecting him of foul play, (other than Zach in a coma) and if lies can be detected with great accuracy in this world, he should be able to tell the truth and clear any suspicions regarding himself.
My thoughts are more in line with your "reasonable assumption", Zach's body simply wasn't created for those first loops, or it was created and immediately moved into a special location to facilitate the recovery of his soul. RR had a decent idea of when Zorian entered the loop, which I assume was based on when Zach's disappearances began.
Too bad Zorian didn't investigate Veyers' disappearance more in earlier loops, I'd like to know if this is a consequence of RR leaving or something established many loops ago. If there was a controller ability to keep someone's body from appearing in the loop, that would be pretty significant.
u/Xtraordinaire [+3] Team Glimglam (a day later)
That's an interesting question. I'll go with soul sight.
Zorian had learned the very basics of soul protection before ch 26. His only mentor, if you can even call him that, was Kael. His soul defenses were extremely shoddy. It also seems that he has not mastered absolute soul defense in the current chapter. Maybe there is none, unlike mind magic and Mind Blank. In any case, even after Alanic's lessons he was still vulnerable to Sudomir's soul sight. The necromancer could even tell when Zorian activated his soul marker to reset the time loop. So of course Red Robe was able to find him.
The ability to have someone's body disappear would be fairly useless, if you have an ability to make anyone a soulless corpse. The only difference would be that someone disappearing is less disturbing then someone being found mysteriously dead.
However, you got me thinking, such ability is from entirely different class than "Soul Eject" ability. Modifying the physical world Template could be very useful and it makes sense to grant Controllers such ability. No need to gather crystallized mana and alchemical ingredients each restart when you can simply tell the Guardian create you some in the next restart. I wish Z&Z brute-guessed some info of the Controller abilities from the Guardian. He is, after all, obliged to answer a direct yes/no question about a particular ability.
u/Cheese_Ninja [+1] (a day later)
I had forgotten about Sudomir's soul sight, but Zorian doesn't try to hide himself entirely from Sudomir at any point anyway. Probably because Zorian's presence in Iasku mansion was such that it couldn't be disguised in the first place, breaking stuff and destroying undead to get the innermost rooms of the mansion.
For the moment, I'll continue to find it suspicious that RR congratulates Zorian on hiding himself from his soul perception, goes on to talk about how great he is at soul magic (since he just used it to kill the aranea, which was a lie), and then grabs Zorian and slams him into a wall, and then attempts to read Zorian's mind (without any chants or gestures). One of the big appeals of Daimen as RR had to me was the idea that Daimen might be an inferior mind mage, which would explain RR's mental abilities.
Making a person disappear entirely would have one advantage over simply eliminating their soul, which is that other people are less likely to know for sure that the person is gone. Still, I'll admit that it would be an odd mechanic. Could the Guardian have collected Zach immediately due to the soul damage, and put his body in a place he couldn't be reached? If that was the case, maybe the Guardian did the same for Veyers for some reason?
u/Xtraordinaire [+2] Team Glimglam (a day later)
Zorian barged into the cultist gate guns blazing, with reasonable expectations of being confronted by necromancers (because Ibasans) and a possibility, albeit small, of facing RR himself. He had been preparing for this assault for at least a month. Of course he had every possible ward and defense up including soul defenses and still Sudomir bypassed them.
Still, of course, every RR's word is suspect. We can be certain only about his mind magic, because he used it.
The way the safeguards against soul tampering are set up for the Controller ultimately depends on lots of intricate worldbuilding questions. I.e. does a soul need a living body to heal? If no, what happens to the souls of the dead in the loop? Since there is no afterlife for them to move on do they simply float for a month before the current SG-iteration is collapsed? It could be that a soul needs only time to heal. In this case the Guardian will simply place Controller's soul in the control room (or whatever this weird place where they talked to the Guardian was called), which is probably the safest place for a Controller to be, and wait.
u/Vakuza [+12] (13 minutes later)
Well seems like Xvim has a new friend xD
This story just keeps getting better.
u/FireHawkDelta [+4] ** (2 days later)
I just realized, Red Robe spent at least two long periods in the loop before the time Zorian entered. First, somehow getting in and finding ways to assist the invasion. Second, erasing Zach's memory of the normal version of the invasion, and repeating the same changes each restart to avoid suspicion. It was like this long enough that Zach made an elaborate plan to save Zorian, a side objective, from an explosion that only happens with Red Robe's influence, without thinking it was anything new.
Hopefully Alanic and Xvim force him to get his head checked.
u/wordbug [+3] ongoing self-aware accident (an hour later)
none of us is very similar to the person we used to be before the time loop,
aren'tare we?
u/None [+3] (a day later)
You know Zorian, sometimes I can't help but wonder if you are actually RR
Interesting, caught my eye for some reason.
u/archaeonaga [+6] (2 hours later)
This is a bit tangential, but to be totally honest, I've gotta say: I ship Zach/Zorian p. hard. It's not remotely supported by the text or even slightly indicated subtextually, but still, they have a lot of chemistry. Zach is a really good foil for Zorian, and props to u/nobody103 on that score; I was legitimately surprised at how well he slotted into the story, given that he had been purposefully put on a bus for large swaths of the text.
Also, this was a good chapter, because I also ship Xvim/Alanic. I'm excited to see what happens here; Alanic's presence is likely helpful, since we have every reason to believe he's got pretty high-level connections with the church and the military.
u/Sailor_Vulcan [+7] Champion of Justice and Reason (13 hours later)
Well, if they got together it might be kinda contrived. Since part of the reason they're such good foils could be the spell that qtach ichl cast on them to try to combine their souls or something. So I guess you could kind of say they're soul mates in a sense I guess, but only because an evil lich tampered with their souls.
As for Xvim/Alanic I don't think there's been any contextual evidence for that whatsoever. No hints that they've ever interacted before. It would have been kinda funny though.
u/archaeonaga [+2] (17 hours later)
I'm mostly just being flip, honestly; you'd have to rewrite the entire story to make Z/Z make sense and be interesting, and it'd almost have to take the place of something else, since piling a romance subplot on top of everything else would be a bit crazy. Surprised it's so controversial as to get a cross, but hey.
And I'm only joking about X/A, mostly as an excuse to talk about what actually happened in this chapter.
u/GodKiller999 [+5] (a day later)
The only one who I could really see Zorian getting with among the presented characters is Raynie. I do know you're not being serious about the Z/Z thing, but just saying.
u/archaeonaga [+5] (a day later)
I think it'd be a stretch for nobody103 to include anybody as a romantic partner for Zorian at this point, except as some sort of aside in an epilogue that follows some kind of time skip. As Zach pointed out last chapter, Zorian hasn't thought much at all of the romantic possibilities of the time loop, and it's hard to see him turning to that at this point.
I don't miss the romantic subplot here, fwiw; I think Z/Z would probably be the most compelling possibility if one were to add such a subplot, especially given the mechanics of soul magic and etc., but it would arguably slow down the narrative of a very plot-driven piece of work. Part of what works about MoL is its approach to the time loop gimmick, and given how many time loop stories include romance as the main plot driver, it's refreshing to see nobody103 eschew that in favor of worldbuilding density and plot elegance. Very Nasu-esque, really, all while avoiding the pitfalls that Nasu falls for in his H-game plots.
u/GodKiller999 [+6] (a day later)
I didn't mean during the loop though, he himself said that he wouldn't contact Raynie any longer while it was going.
Z/Z could work if Zorian was bi, which I just don't see happening, he made his view of Taiven sexiness very explicit when he initially described her, so there's no doubt about him being interested in women, but he has never shown any such views on men.
I'm also happy that there's no romance, it usually ends up being fairly crass and often bloat out of proportion to take over the plot and romance pretty much only works as a side dish so it's pretty bad when that happens.
u/archaeonaga [+5] (a day later)
I dunno, I'm pretty sure that romance sits at the heart of some of the most iconic works of fiction. It's true that when it's done poorly, it's uniquely terrible, but I'm inclined to think it's easy compared to the complicated plot work nobody103's doing; it's one thing to put together a mystery plot, but doing it so that you tell a satisfying mystery in a serial format seems even harder, since you can't go back and edit in that subtle foreshadowing that nobody103's so good at.
Z/Z obviously is not a real thing that can happen in the story at this point. But I call it compelling because romance is a good vector for conflict, and these characters and their motivations would be interestingly complicated by additional tension in their relationship. I don't think MoL would necessarily be better for it, given that the space that sort of thing would take up has been used to tell a story from an arguably more original POV, but I can see how it'd be an interesting alternative.
u/bumbiedumb [+1] The Polity (7 hours later)
Really enjoy the recent chapters! In the past it used to be monologues and hell lots of doubts and speculations, but now with Zach it really add more flavors into the story and have a more positive vibes when reading it. Interesting to see how an additional character really change the whole mood of the story and really affects Zorian and his thought process
u/literal-hitler [+1] (20 days later)
Finally, it's the 28th, time to check for another Mother of Learning chapter every few minutes. I'll just double check the profile...
Profile Updated: Aug 26 Croatia
Mother of Learning Next Chapter Target Date: 4th of September, 2016
u/Nepene [+1] (20 days later)
Yeah, he said so on his patreon before. Lots of little time issues. I hope the extra money is helping him be more time efficient.
u/thrawnca [+1] Carbon-based biped (28 days later)
You know, it sounds pretty feasible that RR could have asked the Guardian to transfer his physical body to the real world. The Guardian wouldn't object to him leaving, since he has the Controller marker, and it's perfectly capable of creating a copy of his body and anchoring his soul to it.
Zorian and Zach might even be able to pull the same thing, once they get the Key and reopen the Gate. By transferring their physical bodies, they would sidestep issues of interfering with the template, since their original selves would remain intact. Of course, that would mean that there are two copies of them in the real world - or at least two copies of Zorian - but clearly the Guardian was not designed to anticipate that possibility. If the Maker thought about physical exit at all, then it would have anticipated the Controller's original body being a soulless corpse. Not a big deal. So the Guardian might allow it.