Chapter 6 (Promises)

  “Ada, what did you do this time?”

  "What makes you think I'm this 'Ada' person?"

  "No one else would be a big enough jackass to open a portal directly into my garden, bypassing every single one of my wards, and then appear through the portal with their back turned. Especially not someone wearing a novice's black robe. My tea's getting cold, so spill it, what did you do?"

  It was a simple question, but not one that had a simple answer. Because my existence was on more of a Jeremy Bearimy than a linear timeline, the progression of events tended to get a bit confused in my memories. Keeping cause and effect straight took a lot of effort, and at this point in my personal subjective timeline, I couldn’t be sure that I’d done anything to warrant the Fateweaver’s attention.

  “I’m reasonably confident that nothing I’ve done since the most recent time returning to this world should warrant a divine smiting,” I replied.

  Flora frowned at me. “That’s not a real answer, and you know it.”

  “Ugh, fine. I jumped backwards through the timeline again, OK? I’m not telling you what I know, but I will say that I need to be here, now, and for the next hundred years or so. That’s it. I won’t tell you anything else, because I actually don’t want to invite divine retribution onto anyone I actually care about. And, you know, you’ve been a friend to me over the years. I won’t pretend to understand why you’ve chosen to stay a mortal all this time, but that’s your choice.”

  The witch lowered her head, placing her forehead into the palm of one hand and sighed. “Fine. Why don’t you sit down and you can tell me about it.”

  It was my turn to sigh. Flora was seated in what I would describe as a wicker patio chair. There was a second such chair next to it with a small table between the two holding a teapot. I assumed there was tea inside, since the witch was now sipping tea from a cup. I sat.

  “It’s hard to keep things straight in my memories. I can remember everything that’s ever happened to me, but the skill I have doesn’t help organize anything. On top of that, I don’t experience time linearly, so I can’t always be sure if I’ve caused some horrible thing to happen yet. And then She keeps sending her minions after me to ‘talk’, all because I betrayed them and opened that rift that one time. Wait,” I looked up at Flora, “That has happened already, yes?” She nodded. “OK, good. Well, I don’t mean good, but you won’t be endangered because I said that. You see what I mean? I didn’t choose to be like this. Sure, I made some poor choices in my past, which might be your future -- don’t worry, I won’t elaborate -- but I'm trying my best not to fuck everything up. The one thing I can be sure of is that no other version of me exists on this world right now. That would really get her going. Don't ask how I know."

  That had been a huge mistake, but I couldn't honestly be blamed for it. It wasn't my fault that Papilion hadn't bothered to check if my soul was already embodied on the mortal plane of the world. And besides, they stuck me in a rat body. A fucking rat! They probably thought it was hilarious when a lightning bolt ended that life as soon as my system had unlocked and started restoring itself.

  “Anyway, I’m here now, and I have accepted a job teaching the intro course for spatial magic, which I should be doing for the next, er.. century.. ish. Give or take a decade, things aren’t real clear on the timing. Uh.. forget I said that.”

  I looked over to find Flora glaring at me.

  “Hey, I’m trying, OK? I don’t think I’ve said anything important enough to call down divine wrath, but just to be safe, are there any of those idiot cultivators around? I bet I can get some of them as collateral.”

  “Ada, please, those are students. They paid the tuition to be here, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t get them killed for something they didn’t do.”

  “Oh, fine. Anyhoo, I need to go and look into lodging options.” I stood and started to leave, but then I had a thought and turned back. “I’m going to use the name Orphea while I’m here. It’s a name with some meaning to it that’ll make sense to some people.”

  The white witch raised an eyebrow at me. “Oh? That sounds vaguely like a name from one of the stories my father told me as a child, but, hmm, I see. Well then, you’d best be on your way.”

  “Thanks for not kicking me out. I promise to teach an appropriate level of spatial magic to your students. I’ll even impress upon them how much of a terrible idea it is to even attempt to open a rift, and the consequences of doing so.”

  “That really doesn’t fill me with the confidence you might think it does.”

  I gave Flora double thumbs up, then reset my displayed level to 2850, then waited for my robes to change themselves to a blazing orange in response. “Don’t worry so much, I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’ll be completely incognito.”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  The Wandering Inn was an interesting building. At some point during this iteration of the School, an inn had been constructed that started out perfectly ordinary, with a common room, kitchen, and several stories full of rooms for temporary lodging. Then, some wizard, apparently thinking it would be hilarious, added dozens of tiny crab legs to the bottom of the building making it literally wander around the island.

  I needed to at least pretend to need sleep, so I’d gone in search of the inn. It had only taken an hour to locate the place, and I went inside to rent a room. I’d had to get the attention of the [Innkeeper] three times before managing to secure the key to the smallest accommodation.

  With one task complete, I spent some time laying on the tiny bed inside the equally minuscule room, musing over my options for wasting time until it was time to go fill out the employment paperwork and pick up the delivery of metals. I checked off the items one at a time, and then realized that the only interesting things that really grabbed me today all lay within the library: the Endless Stack, and the restricted section. I figured it’d be amusing to throw some brain teasers into the request pile, and then solve a few of the more interesting ones. As for the restricted section, I wanted to find out what they had available about me at this point.

  As it turned out, the library didn’t have anything in the restricted section that I hadn’t read. Sneaking into the secret room behind the secret room was a simple matter, and while the super secret extra bonus restricted section didn’t seem to contain anything unfamiliar, I was pleased to discover that the shelves there did include one book I’d written, though. I’d just assumed that all copies had been collected and burned after so many religious cults had decried the book as blasphemous and “too dangerous to exist”.

  I can admit now that an instructional manual for how to most efficiently violate each of the divine decrees with minimal expended mana could be interpreted in a poor light, but I saw the subject in much the same way as any education in security. In order to prevent violations, you need to know how violations can be committed. I can admit, however, that this wasn’t knowledge that one might like to be disseminated to the general population. Keeping a copy for [Lorekeepers] to read was certainly appropriate.

  The Endless Stack was a more amusing use of my time. I wrote out a number of challenges meant to be unsolvable, and looked forward to reading any suggestions students would come up with for how to solve them. Going through the pile of completed arrays took a few additional hours, and I made several corrections on different sheets.

  The most amusing design I found was an array that would sound an alarm after eight hours, then cook and plate a stack of pancakes, or at least that’s what it was supposed to do. I debated between repairing the original intention of the array or updating it to instead conjure a small orb of water directly above the caster’s head at the same moment the alarm was triggered, and ultimately decided to go with the prank option.

  That task now complete, I found myself thoroughly bored without much else to do. I got up and went to visit the friendly demon librarian, Martin, who was helpfully stationed at the front desk.

  “Hey Martin, how are things?” I asked.

  He put down the book he had been thumbing through to look at me. “Hmm? Oh, you must be a new stu.. Wait, orange? Apologies, are you new faculty or continuing education?”

  “New professor of spatial magic. They have me teaching the intro course, but I’m hoping to find at least one I can take with information I don’t yet know. Also don’t worry about the books on the second floor behind the reading nook, I was careful to return everything to the original shelves, and I even signed that copy of my book you have stashed up there.”

  I enjoyed watching the series of emotions that played across his face over the course of those two sentences. He finally came to a rest on an expression that I’m going to describe as weary acceptance.

  “Right, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by that if you wrote something that’s in there. Please don’t tell me which one it is.”

  “A practical guide to the divine decrees, first edition.”

  He lowered his face to his hands.

  “I asked.. no, actually, that one is mostly fine. There are definitely way worse up there. Anyway, did you have anything specific to ask, or are you just trying to attract some [Paladins]?”

  “Oh, I just wanted to know if you had the current school time available. I’m supposed to go fill in paperwork at the admin building in the morning.”

  Martin looked up at me and just raised an eyebrow. “It’s well past morning now.”

  “Shit!”

  Waving goodbye to the demon, I ran outside where I continued across the island to the administration building. There, I found a long line snaking out the door. I fell to my knees and groaned.

  "Noooooooooo!"

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  Based on the world from the original work by Selkie Myth

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