Mother of Learning. Arc 3 Incomplete

That said, he had absolutely no intention of rushing to the damn spider at the earliest opportunity — that would just make him seem desperate. Let her wait for a while. It was a good idea to do some preparations before confronting the matriarch, anyway.

First of all, he needed to know more about these ‘aranea’ he would be meeting with. His previous searches for information about the spiders left him empty-handed, but now he was armed with an actual name of the species and his search was much more successful. He found plenty of descriptions, though they were of much poorer quality than he had hoped. Apparently aranea were considered semi-mythical due to their rarity and there were many conflicting reports circulating about them. Everyone agreed they were sentient and magical in nature, but from there the details diverged wildly. Depending on the author, all sorts of powers were attributed to them, from the ability to assume human form to the ability to manipulate shadows and other, crazier abilities. Zorian could see three possible explanations for this. One, the aranea had a dizzying number of subspecies, all with a wildly different appearance and abilities. Two, the authors were making stuff up. And three, the aranea were mages in the human sense, armed with a flexible spellcasting system capable of producing a wide variety of effects. Knowing his luck, it was definitely number three — the most worrying of possibilities. A group of one-trick ponies limited to mind magic was a dangerous foe, but one that could be countered with enough preparation. A group of mages utilizing a completely novel spellcasting system whose limitations he was unfamiliar with? That was practically the definition of unpredictability.

Still, the aranea he had met never gave any indication of knowing any magic beyond the mind-based one, so maybe this group specialized in the field or something. Having a way to deal with their mind affecting abilities was certainly a must before going off to confront them. One of the books also suggested aranea were vulnerable to light-based attacks, being nocturnal in nature and lacking eyelids. It sounded plausible to Zorian, and he was pretty sure his spell formula skills were sufficient to cobble together some flash grenades. A few more general defensive measures and he should be set. Well, as set as a mage of his own caliber and resources could possibly be — it wasn’t much, but it would hopefully buy him enough time to flee if things turned sour.

The other thing he was trying to puzzle out was the matriarch’s claim that he was an empath. The idea seemed so wrong to him. The stories he’d heard about empaths painted an image of a compassionate, sociable person possessing great wisdom, respect for tradition, and lots of friends. Zorian didn’t really fit this mold. Did that prove anything, though? Empaths were so rare — among humans, at any rate — that any sort of ‘fact’ about them was suspect. As strange as it may sound, he rated the opinion of a giant telepathic spider higher than those of human authors. If he really was an empath, however, why didn’t he… well, know it? You’d think the ability to sense other people’s emotions would be very obvious. He supposed it was possible that his abilities were too weak and erratic to manifest themselves in an unambiguous fashion. Which raised the question — how to discern the truth, then?

Fortunately, empathy wasn’t a particularly sensitive topic so nothing stopped him from asking Ilsa or other teachers for help and information. Before he did that, however, he decided to try looking for help closer to home. He had noticed their landlord had an interest in esoteric branches of magic, even though she wasn’t a mage herself. She had enough books in her house to stock a small library. It wouldn’t hurt to ask, he supposed, and Imaya was a lot more approachable than anyone else he could reach.

He approached her while she was washing the dishes one evening.

«Miss Kuroshka, could you spare a minute?» he asked. «I’d like to talk to you about something.»

«I told you to call me Imaya,» she said, halting her task long enough to give him a mild glare. «And of course I can talk to you, but I have to finish this first. Pull up a chair and wait till I’m done.»

Instead of doing that, however, Zorian moved to help her with her task. She’d be done quicker with him helping her out, and it was a cheap way to score some points with her before asking for help. She seemed momentarily surprised by his gesture, but recovered her composure quickly and continued on as if his action was totally expected.

Once they were done, Imaya sat down at the kitchen table and motioned for Zorian to join her.

«So…» she began. «What exactly is weighing so heavily on the mind of my grumpiest tenant that he would come to me for counsel? The way you’ve been avoiding me this whole time, I almost thought you hated me.»