The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

With her hidden remote spy spell, Mirian quickly determined that, once past the walls, Fort Aegrimere didn't have too much divination to watch for. There were, however, state-of-the-art glyphkey locks on almost every door, even the barracks. The supply depots had two doors and a security checkpoint.

Specter's notes in hand, Mirian began to look for the names of people Adria knew.

At first, she had little luck. The fort was full of strange faces, or people she vaguely recognized but couldn't say anything about. Then, she recognized General Hanaran moving across the central courtyard, and had her eye follow her around. That led her to one of the meeting rooms.

Mirian expected a ward alarm to go off, or an arcanist to start looking around suspiciously. Surely they had something to ward against divination in a command room!

Instead, Hanaran's command staff sat down at the table. She already recognized them. The group she didn't know was led by Commander Hirte, one of Adria's old friends. Both of them had attended the Great Cairn Academy, and they'd exchanged several letters to keep in contact. The Baracuel Army had merged from several different allied forces during the Unification War. Hanaran had mentioned that there was a quirk in the command structure that made Hirte her equal while they were both at Fort Aegrimere, so they both sat down across from each other as equals at—per military code—an oval table.

General Hanaran began the meeting. "Any revisions to the agenda? No? Then let us begin. Colonel Marquel, have we received the communications from our garrisons at Urubandar?"

"No, sir,"

The general let out an annoyed grunt. "Makes that item quick."

A man wearing a navy uniform—probably a liaison—said, "The transport ships are on their way down with heavy escort. Either they put pressure on this upstart warlord to withdraw, or if the situation is dire, we retrieve the garrison and get reinforcements."

"The latter is a problem. If we withdraw, that leaves the Akanans to garrison the city alone. That steps on one of the treaties. Parliament won't be happy," a colonel said.

"The Akanans should be sending us reinforcements soon," another woman said. Except those reinforcements will be redirected to invade Torrviol in eight days, Mirian knew.

"It's insufficient," Commander Hirte said. "All lines of communication to the border have been cut. We have to assume the worst."

Hanaran scoffed. "Dawn's Peace was on the verge of annihilation a month ago. It is simply impossible that they defeated the entire Rambalda garrison, took all the border forts, and have an army that size outside of Alkazaria. Ibrahim's bypassing the larger forces and using our lack of information to exaggerate his forces sizes and capabilities. It's a desperate move looking to draw concessions."

"You're sure it's Ibrahim Kalishah still leading Dawn's Peace?" Hirte asked.

"The man's a notorious lamprey. Once his teeth are dug into something—"

"Yes, I understand the metaphor," Hirte said. "What I meant to ask was do we have actual intelligence on this matter?"

Hanaran shrugged. "Would you trust it?"

"No," Hirte admitted. "He seized the rail line, General. Got to the city without a single signal flare going off. I don't care how much the Deeps deny it, we have been infiltrated."

"There are protocols to unmask traitors and spies," one of the colonels said.

The secretary taking notes said, "Should the minutes reflect a change of topic, or are we still on the second agenda item?"

Hirte waved a dismissive hand. "Second item. No need to record an idle thought."

The meeting continued to stray, though. Mirian could tell from the tension in General Hanaran's shoulders that she was far more worried than she was letting on. She always had put on a brave face.

In the end, they made the decision Mirian assumed was inevitable given the current conditions. Hanaran said, "Let the record show the command staff has decided to confirm General Corrmier's orders. My division will reinforce Alkazaria."

"And the last agenda item?" the secretary asked.

The room grew quiet. Hanaran said, voice low, "I don't like it. Some of them are our soldiers. Morale would plummet. I don't even want to guess the effect it would have on force cohesion."

Hirte looked grim. "We have to be prepared. I don't like it either. But if that's how our enemy did it—we have to be ready."

The command team kept talking around the issue, so Mirian brought her hidden remote spy gaze towards the sheet of paper in front of Hirte. Her eyes widened as she read it.

Item 4: Proposal for the mass detainment of all citizens of Persaman origin and deputization of emergency defense militias along the plausible route of enemy advance, per the Law of Emergency and Last Resort

Several things struck Mirian all at once.

One was that there was no official census category for 'Persaman origin,' so the implementation of such an order would be a mad heretic hunt. Plenty of people, especially from east Baracuel, had darker complexions that could easily be interpreted as Persaman. Two was that, based on their discussions of contingencies earlier, they were clearly anticipating everything from Cairnmouth to Madinahr as a 'plausible route of enemy advance.'

The third was that she'd never heard of the Law of Emergency and Last Resort in her civics class. It may not have been my best class, but I did study quite a bit. And that seems like one of those important laws they would have mentioned. A law authorizing the mass imprisonment of citizens without trial?

The command staff decided not to implement item four immediately, but agreed it would go into effect if Alkazaria fell. The meeting came to a close as Hanaran's staff left to prepare the division to ship out.

With her mana running low from needing to project such a complex spell so far, Mirian stopped channeling.

Hanaran's division hasn't been moving south on a consistent day. That's either Ibrahim's influence or Troytin's.

Mirian had been ignoring Ibrahim because he hadn't been in her way and Troytin was the more aggressive, more proximate threat. However, that was going to have to change. If Alkazaria fell, Baracuel was going to tear itself apart. He wasn't leaving her much choice. If he continued to push, it would disrupt everything she was trying to do. Discover stories with empire

She'd stayed away from Alkazaria, but one thing was clear: Ibrahim was iterating on his battles. An introduction of chaos would stymie his efforts to track changes in the timeline just as it had Troytin. On the other hand, maybe he can be reasoned with, she thought. Though, from talking to Rostal, Ibrahim didn't sound like someone who was moved by anyone but himself.

But perhaps the time loop has changed him. After all, I changed. I used to be…

Mirian shuddered. She had been weak, but she had also been kind. She'd felt for people. Now, she'd built walls in her mind, trenches and fortifications made out of rationalizations and emotional distance.

Once I get through this, once I've recovered my position… I can let myself feel again. I'm still me inside. I just need to push through this part of the crisis. Then, maybe I can make Ibrahim see reason, and we can work together to unite Persama and Baracuel, and then we can spread the call for collaboration and research far and wide. Together, we can figure this out. Together…

She wanted to believe that all. She just wasn't sure she did. The weight of it all was crushing her, bit by bit.

Well, nothing for it, she thought.

***

Three days later, she'd procured an army uniform through the Syndicates and used bindings to disguise herself again, making herself look like one of the maintenance artificers she'd seen moving around the fort. She used her camouflage spell to safely levitate herself through her de-warded corridor. Once she was inside Fort Aegrimere, she found an alley behind a building and dropped the spell. Then she headed straight for her prize.

The hanger was impossible to miss. The army had carved one of the inner "star" fortifications up, creating a large sloped structure. She already knew from Troytin that there was a way to authorize launches to pursue dangerous fugitives or for military operations. She needed to figure out how that all worked.

A guard stopped her immediately at the entrance. "Halt," he said. "You're not authorized to be in this area."

"I'm not?" Mirian said, acting confused. "Colonel Marquel said I was to report… except I think I've screwed it all up. I was told to go to the Secretary of Personnel, only the office was closed. So I was supposed to pick something up, only I don't know what, and even if I did, I couldn't have."

The guard looked at her like she was stupid, which was a promising reaction. "Personnel isn't closed."

"Fourth building from the right of the corner of the north star, right? I tried the door and—"

"Fifth building," the guard said.

"Oh," Mirian said. "Oh well that explains it. Sorry, I'm Micael, they rushed me up here from training because of the crisis, wanted the veteran artificers up front since they're not… it's a bit over my head. So how does this all work?"

"You go pick up your glyphkey and papers from Personnel and stop bothering me. Go talk to your superior."

"I wasn't assigned… or rather, I was assigned, but now they're being shipped out to Alkazaria…"

"Not my problem."

Mirian sighed. "Well, thank you, you've been very helpful," she said.

"Oh fuck off. I'm just doing my duty. Go learn yours."

Having obtained the security protocol, Mirian left, heading in the direction of the Office of Personnel. She had no interest in actually going there, though, so she walked right by it and circled back around to head to the mess hall.

After grabbing some food, she asked a random soldier who had already sat down, "I'm new to the fort, where does the maintenance crowd usually gather?"

The soldier rolled his eyes and jerked his head toward one of the tables.

"Thanks," Mirian said.

There were only three people sitting down, quietly talking.

"…suspended all leave, and heard they're adding an hour to each shift. With no compensatory pay," one woman said.

A man sitting across from her responded. "Gueneve, there's a Persaman army battering down the doors. What did you expect?"

"That the defense of the country is worth paying for," she said bitterly.

Good target, Mirian thought. "Hey, I heard we're all in the same boat," she said and sat down next to them.

"The one with all the leaks?" Gueneve said.

"Apparently. Only it seems to leak paperwork. Who knows how long it'll take to get my situation sorted out. Micael, by the way," she said, holding out her hand.

When no one took it, she laughed awkwardly.

"Who exactly are you?" the man said.

"Micael. Just got shipped up to work on the airships, only some of the paperwork got lost so you might not see me in the hanger any time soon."

"They 'brought you up'?" the man said.

"Yeah, I was training at Bastion Point in artillery and support artifice, working on modernizing artillery and they sent me up here. Before that I apprenticed under Professor Torres—"

The woman sitting next to Gueneve stood abruptly. "Oh, you're one of those," she said, and left without even clearing her plate.

"Five hells, I seem to be great at pissing people off today," Mirian said. "What did I do?"

"If you're the precocious prodigy type, you'd do well to learn how to keep your mouth shut and learn," Gueneve said. "No one likes being told their business by a junior."

Hmm, so Torres was liked by the brass, but not her colleagues, she realized. That made sense. She would have upstaged them all when she was down here. "Yeah, sorry I guess. I'm still trying to figure out how things work here. But I guess I've got some time to kill until my credentials get squared away. I'm sorry, I haven't read the doctrinal documents on airships yet."

Gueneve snorted. "No one's read them, especially not the brass."

"You have, though?"

The man said, "She reads everything."

"So why aren't we sending them with Hanaran's division?"

"They don't have the range to make it to Alkazaria without running out of fuel. And there's no refueling stations along the route, so either they'd be scrounging fossilized myrvite from villages or they'd be stranded until we could arrange a shipment. Everyone thinks the airships are a great idea until they realize the logistical train you need and how much fuel they burn."

"Can't they move them by train?"

"Yes, but only using specialized cars. Otherwise they're too big and heavy. And guess what?"

"Either they haven't built the cars, or they can't hook them up to the Alkazaria line."

Gueneve nodded. "A bit of both. The cars were built in Palendurio, but they're too wide to just be put on the tracks going north. So now they're being disassembled so they can be moved—at great expense, I might add."

"Which is why," the man added, prodding the mystery meat on his plate around with his fork, "we get to eat this."

Mirian laughed, trying to make it sound genuine. She felt like she was playing a board game, moving pieces around to get the result she wanted. Even as the two soldiers were talking, she could only think about what her next move would be so she could twist the conversation in the direction she wanted.

"Who are we reporting to? I mean, okay I know that part, I mean, who gets to decide whether or not to deploy them?"

"The brass. They're attached to a division."

Mirian furrowed her brow. "But aren't they also part of some emergency authorization law? How does that work?"

The man shrugged.

Gueneve said, "Yes, it's supposed to assist the Arcane Praetorians in emergencies. The Royal Couriers would have to deliver a specially authorized letter. Or Parliament can, but that's just because the Committee on Armed Forces is technically the head of the military and can authorize or countermand anything. Though that only happened once during the First Crisis after the Unification War."

"Wow, you really know your stuff," Mirian said. After that, she let the conversation drift, bringing it back every so often to figure out a bit more about the capabilities of the airships. She didn't push too hard, since many of the capabilities were considered secrets, just like with the Akanan ships, but inferred about how many shells each craft carried and how much fossilized myrvite they consumed. Then the hour chimed, and they both stood.

"Sorry, we've got to get going Micael," Gueneve said. "A lot of other things to take care of. I look forward to working with you though, we need all the hands we can get."

"Thanks," Mirian said. "I'll be in touch when the paperwork gets sorted. I'll get the other plate."

***

Back in her workshop, she started mapping out her new attack plan. The dimensional problem quickly made itself present. She started by reducing the dimensions by one and thinking of the hunter teams as pieces of parchment, and a turtle as the beast. Mirian mentally moved the pieces of paper around so that every path the turtle could take to evade was cut off.

Myrvites like that must only be able to briefly move through the fourth dimension, or we'd see them bypassing spellward barriers and evading hunters more often. I wonder if that's why Baracuel has such an issue with stone moles? Maybe they're like moon flickers in that they can briefly move through that dimension.

That seemed worth discussing with Viridian.

Mentally, she started to think about the problem in its actual form. Surrounding it in three dimensions still helps surround it in the fourth. With plunging fire from the airships, we're cutting off the top. With five teams around it, we cut off the plane. I can plant bombs under the ground. An earthshaker shell set with a conditional fuse instead of a timed fuse.

She fell into something of a daze, equations and diagrams floating in her mind. Jei's equations were designed to make remote spells cost less mana and have more power by having them follow a more efficient four-dimensional path. But what if the spell could be completed midway through it's journey? Just because we can't travel into that dimension doesn't mean our spells can't. They do it constantly. It's just a matter of changing the end coordinates of the spell.

For all her knowledge of glyphs and mathematics, Mirian had never explored that particular idea. Torrviol Academy might have already had someone who's done research on it. Jei would be the best person to talk to.

Jei…

A flash of anger went through Mirian. She thought of Troytin poisoning all the professors, of marching into Torrviol each cycle now like it was his place, and isolating her from her friends, her mentors—her home of so many years.

She suppressed it, breathing deeply.

Patience, she reassured herself. There will be a time to feel. But not yet.

Not yet.

A few days later, Mirian noticed increased patrols as teams found and started fixing the breached wards around Fort Aegrimere. She skipped town, and continued her preparations until the cycle ended.