"Uh... how did it go?" Atzi asked. "You look like you fell in a pile of mud."

  "Great!" Terra said brightly, sludge dripping off her. "They hid it in the sewer under their house. Really clever. I never would have found it if not for that lizard guy."

  "Lizard- oh, the spy guy?" Atzi blinked a few times. "Wait, it was down there? Can you tell me exactly where it was?"

  "Oh, is that what he is? I just assumed he was part of the guard." Terra walked over to her desk.

  Atzi was surprised she didn't go take a bath immediately. Especially after you told me to, last time!

  Terra set her book down. "We started by having the guards dig through the entire house. They let us in, said they had nothing to hide. We didn't find anything even after breaking a few walls, but we did find a secret hatch in their second story office."

  "Wow." Atzi took a few steps back so she wouldn't need to smell Terra.

  "I climbed down a rope and it went directly to the sewer. So anyway, I started blasting." Terra lifted a muck-covered hand. A flash of red appeared in the air above it, before expanding out as though exploding. Before Atzi could dive for cover, Terra closed her hand, and the explosion stopped. A trail of smoke rose from her muddy fist. "It didn't get me anything but dirty. Then that lizard guy came down and told me to stop. Walked over to a wall I'd only partially blown up and reached inside. Pulled out a loose brick."

  "It was in the brick?" Atzi guessed.

  "It was in the brick. They had covered it in a package and then clay. I've never seen a hiding job so thorough..."

  "Woah." Atzi clicked her claws. "Uh... what happened to V after?"

  "They got arrested," Terra said plainly, as though she didn't care.

  "Oh." Well, not my problem this time. But, this means… "So, considering how thoroughly it was hidden... I really shouldn't have been able to see it, right?"

  "I'm willing to entertain your loop theory. I can't say it's true based on this, but you've earned my trust."

  "Good. If you tell me exactly where you found it, maybe next time I can just bring it myself." Atzi remembered something important and snapped her claws. "Oh, yeah. That butler? Don't trust him. I told him I knew where your book was and he didn't even pass that along!"

  "Hm? Oh, yes, he was scolded." Terra shrugged. "Technically, he did the correct thing by passing the information to the guards. But also, he was incorrect to not inform me."

  "Yeah, that prick. Shoulda just come here first, save me a day in a cell." Atzi grumbled. "Anyway, tell me exactly where it was and I can find it for you next time. And save us both time."

  "Sure." Terra raised a finger. "Oh, one second."

  She went over to one of her cabinets, the one filled with magic items. She waved her dirty hand over the front and it swung open with a click. Then she reached inside and clutched the stone bird within.

  What's that for? Atzi peered over.

  Terra took out the stone bird and turned it towards herself. Then she gripped it tightly.

  The stone bird's beak opened, letting out a caw. Then there was a visible rush of air. It pulled off all the sewage covering Terra in a huge force of suction. The dirt literally flew off her, rushing into the bird's beak. Her hat and robes rustled, but remained in place.

  The stone bird made a tiny burping noise and closed its beak.

  Terra, now thoroughly clean, set the bird back on the shelf. "That's better." She closed the door.

  "Hey, that's pretty useful," Atzi said.

  "You don't know how many times I've had to clean myself after an experiment. So I made that to save time. Best fifty pounds of gold I've ever spent."

  Atzi froze. "F-fifty… that bird cost... "

  "One air diamond, one earth moonstone." Terra nodded.

  Atzi let out an awkward laugh. "Um... you can learn magic from gems with enough of them, right?"

  "Correct, but that would be absurdly expensive."

  "How do you do it?" Atzi asked.

  Terra blinked. "You eat ten of them."

  "That's it? You just eat ten gems?"

  "Well, you need to be careful not to pierce your throat by swallowing the pointy bits the wrong way. But yes."

  Atzi rubbed her throat reflexively "A-and that lets you cast magic?"

  "It instills the fundamentals of an elemental or sorcerous essence in your body, enabling you a direct connection to that essence without going through the usually time consuming exercises."

  "Woah…" Atzi blinked a few times "Oh, um. So, there's something you should know. The wards on the college have a big problem."

  "What sort of problem?"

  "If there's a city-wide explosion, the wards break and tons of undead come in. Wards can't stop them."

  "That's like saying that ten billion pounds of gold won't withstand spending all of it, and then needing to spend more." Terra scoffed "That's not a problem. That's impossible to fix."

  "I was in the college when it got overwhelmed! Point is your wards didn't stop it!" Atzi pointed with a clawed finger. "You said they were unbeatable and you were wrong."

  "They are unbeatable. For things that can be beaten." Terra went back to her desk to sit down. "An explosion of that scale followed by a horde of undead is not something I can design wards against."

  "Can you do magic that lets you move really far, really fast?" Atzi sat down, too.

  "Teleportation magic? No. Such magic is very powerful and costly. I'd need to be at least a rank four mage. Well, rank three for some easier solutions to moving quickly."

  "You're not?"

  "I am a mage of rank one or two in all eight known paths of magic."

  "Even blood?" Atzi remembered something she wanted clarity on from the magical theory book she had read. "Oh yeah, how exactly do you get the gems for that?"

  "You need to collect blood essence."

  "Cool." Atzi paused. "What's that?"

  "Blood essence is formed as a magical being lives. All mages have blood essence in them, even if they are not a blood mage, though blood mages have more. Though killing mages for such essence isn't sustainable, so typically that's done by hunting magical beasts."

  "Y-you kill mages?"

  "Magical beings."

  "I don't even know where I'd find those." Atzi sighed.

  "Oh, they're all over, though typically they only show up at sites of high magical essence. When they do, adventurers tend to kill them and sell the blood essence. Though, they usually don't have enough blood essence to produce a singular gem unless they are very powerful. For most, several such beasts would need to be killed and their essences combined to be equivalent to one gem."

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  Atzi slumped. "Sounds like a load of work."

  "It is. Attempts have been made at breeding magical beasts, but to no success."

  "Great… Okay, scratch that idea then." Atzi waved her claw. "So, in four days time, the city's gonna get destroyed. Undead start showing up, endlessly. All over the empire, actually. Malus tries blowing up the whole city to stop them - doesn't work. And... I remember being terrified when it happened."

  "Terrified?"

  "Yeah."

  "Like, magically so?"

  "I think so."

  Terra hummed. "Emotions are the domain of nature magic..."

  "I know. Weird."

  "Other paths of magic can simulate the effect through oppositional reversal, though. So either it involves heavy nature magic, or heavy in another magical type counteracting the emotion of calm." Terra raised a finger. "Death magic would be the most obvious such example, based on what you mentioned with the undead."

  Atzi nodded. "Anyway, this is gonna happen in four days. If it does, you got any secret exits from this place? 'Cause I don't wanna get killed by a load of corpses again."

  "You could leave the city."

  "Oh I'm gonna, but having a powerful wizard around makes it a lot easier."

  "I see." Terra hummed again. "Okay. Then we will leave tomorrow. If your statements are true, then you would be as safe as possible, and I would necessarily want to investigate you afterwards."

  "I figure you don't wanna get eaten by zombies eith-" Atzi flopped her tail. "Really? Woah, sure."

  "I have my book back" - Terra picked up a quill, turned it over, and began carefully brushing the dirt on her book away - "and was going to perform some experiments outside the city once I got it back anyway."

  "Where are the experiments?" Atzi asked.

  "Well, the flux of the aura fields have been lowering for the past few months, so I wanted to use an astral spectromation device to study a related anomalous point."

  Atzi blinked, not understanding a word.

  Terra clicked her tongue. "I want to use magic to feel other magic."

  "Oh. Okay. Where?"

  Terra got up and headed over towards her bookshelf. She moved two books and reached between them, pulling out a map.

  Atzi wandered over.

  Terra pointed to the middle of the border between Sostra and Cthargictha. "The best reading would be high atop the mountains here."

  "Oh. Hey, that'd be good, I wanna go to Cthy anyway. Uh, right, I should mention this part. I'm the prophet. Of a god there's no records on."

  Terra raised an eyebrow.

  Atzi held up a claw. "I'm definitely a prophet, other prophets can check that part. But I have no idea who she is and she doesn't know either. You checked the whole records and found nothing."

  "You are? Fascinating."

  "Your ideas were it's one of the three from Cthy, though I asked someone from there and she didn't think it sounded much like any of them, besides maybe the Atlantean goddess. That it's the goblin's god, or maybe the elves or something." Atzi paced. "The Saintess definitely knows, though the others in Sostra don't. Also the Saintess uh. Don't tell Malus. Please. She'll burn me alive."

  "Very fascinating! By the way, is the offer to kill you still on the table?" Terra leaned forward.

  Atzi considered it, even as insane as it sounded. She sighed. "I... I guess, can we at least do it later? Do it when the undead are attacking and I'm gonna die anyway..."

  "I'm not sure if that's enough time," Terra said. "The spell I want to test is very agonizing and lasts for hours before you die."

  Atzi stumbled back. "Wh-why do you want me to report on that? Why's it gotta be a painful one?"

  "Oh. To make it more painful!" Terra grinned.

  "Why?!"

  "To see if I can?" Terra's eyebrows drew down in confusion.

  "Won't it be obvious if you cast it on anyone?"

  "There's only so much people can report while in pain. The advantage you would have is you'd be able to tell me after when you feel fine."

  "No! Y-you have no idea how much dying hurts already, no way!" Atzi shook her head vigorously.

  "Awww." Terra pouted.

  Atzi waved away the fact she thought the insane mage looked cute. "You've never been burned alive or eaten alive or torn to pieces or thrown off a wall or..."

  "Fine. Fine. I won't do it without your consent anyway. I'm not a monster."

  Atzi sighed in relief. "S-so the plan is... we go to Cthy? I can uh… I have a friend from there, maybe she'll want to come..."

  "Is she related to the loop?"

  "No, but I did tell her about it. And she's from there. So she might know stuff we don't. Though she might not believe me if you're not there. Could you…"

  "I'll write you a letter," Terra said. She went back to sit down and quickly penned out a letter. It was the same quill she had used to brush away her book's dirt. Atzi noticed that Terra wrote exceedingly quickly, far quicker than she expected.

  Then Terra took a wax stamp and pressed it against the page, before folding the letter and handing it to Atzi. "Here you go."

  Atzi took it. Being a sage sure is convenient. But so is knowing one, and that's way less work. Atzi sat down once more. "Oh, also, there are these Pomarian necromancers here in the city…"

  "Oh, yes, the necromancers. I haven't interacted with them myself, but Doctor Death won't stop complaining they took his staff."

  What kind of name is 'Doctor Death'? "Oh? So does he know where they are?"

  Terra shrugged. "I don't know, you would need to ask him."

  "I tried the necromancer temple and couldn't find them. Or at the Water temple. Can you get him to talk to me?"

  "Sure, I'll-"

  Atzi's stomach made an incredibly loud growling noise. She clutched it, moaning in discomfort. Then she looked up at the sage. "Can I use the cafeteria too...?"

  "Go ahead. I've already registered you as my guest."

  Atzi nodded, scurrying out to the cafeteria.

  Luckily I know where to go.

  Yet she couldn't find it.

  What in the hells! They said I'd be able to find it if I'd been there before! I know where it is!

  Atzi stopped a student. "Why can't I reach the canteen? I know where it is!"

  The woman looked at her. "If you know where it is, then you can find it. If you can't find it, then you don't know where it is."

  "But I do know where it is! I've been there!"

  "Then you can find it." The student pointed down.

  "Urghhhh. I keep getting lost! Where is it? Just show me."

  "...Fine."

  The student led Atzi to the canteen. It was the same place she remembered it being.

  Okay. The wards in the school don't work the way these idiots think they do. This is useful. And annoying. But useful. I wonder why that is…

  Atzi got distracted by the smell of food, so she wandered to the counter with the chefs. "Gimme the biggest bugs you have."

  She was soon given a singular beetle the size of her head, served on a bed of lettuce and drizzled in butter.

  Atzi dug in ravenously.

  Full, Atzi noticed it was getting late. She wasn't given a room to stay in this time, though. So she decided to head back to the inn, letter in hand, to let Hemm know what was going on.

  -

  Hemm was busy making some hand-repairs on a splintered table. Atzi didn't know if it was a good or bad thing she was about to make that irrelevant. "Hey Hemm."

  The cyclops looked up at Atzi and smiled. "How have you been?"

  "I got arrested. Guard showed up here."

  Hemm's eye widened. "What happened?!"

  "Well… I was trying to get the sage her book back and talked to the wrong person and he passed me along to the guard, and… there may have been a warrant on me still."

  Hemm was silent for a moment. Then she asked, "You're okay now though, right?"

  "Yeah. Things worked out eventually."

  "Good. Good." Hemm set down her hammer.

  "Terra wants to go to- oh, right, that's the sage. Anyway she wants to go out of the city to the Cthy border. So, if you wanna head back, having her along should get us through any problems." Atzi held out the letter to Hemm.

  Hemm took it and read it over. Her thumb passed over the seal. Her eye widened. She opened her mouth. Then closed it.

  Atzi fidgeted. "I... I said you could help when there, if you wanna come. You shouldn't stick around Sostra."

  Hemm's fingers crumpled the edges of the letter as she scanned the page. She blinked a few times, and then set the letter down. She closed her eye. "This is real."

  "Yeah?"

  Hemm exhaled. "Fine. Yes. I'm coming."

  "Great!"

  Hemm turned towards Atzi, reopening her eye. "Marco. Can he come too?"

  "Uh. We might have to make up an excuse so she doesn't refuse, but sure." Atzi shrugged.

  "I just don't think he'd do well here by himself," Hemm explained. "He seems to get caught up in whatever someone tells him to do, even if it's a bad idea."

  "Oh. Yeah, those two bozos dragged him along for everything." Atzi nodded. "He's doing a lot better without them."

  "He is," Hemm said with a smile. "I got him to cook chicken the other day without making it too dry."

  "Yeah, he'll figure it out. Eventually." Though without much time to really practice it. Eesh, that's pretty grim…

  "Then, when are we going?" Hemm asked.

  "Tomorrow, she said." Atzi was hopeful. With Hemm and the Sage, there was no way they wouldn't make it to Cthy. Then it was just a matter of the undead not reaching that far.

  "Okay. I'll let Marco know. We'll pack some things and sell or donate the rest," Hemm said. Atzi couldn't help but notice she looked somehow sad.