sted that they both use the spell right from the start, but Zorian knew he had to keep his mind ‘open’ if he wanted these talks to be in any way productive. His instincts, which Zorian now recognized as his uncontrolled empathic abilities, were telling him that aranea placed great significance on mind-to-mind communication. Shutting them out completely would be seen as an insult, even if they did happen to have alternative methods of communicating.

As they approached the spot where Zorian had first met the aranea during his romp through the sewers with Taiven and her group, he felt a telepathic contact brush against his mind. Like the first time he had met the sentient spiders, this one was cruder, more forceful than the feather-light touch the matriarch had displayed during her ‘visit’ to Imaya’s home.

A stream of psychedelic images and alien emotions hit his mind like a sledge hammer, causing him to stumble back in shock. Kael immediately shifted into defensive posture but Zorian signaled him to stand down. He was pretty sure at this point that the aranea he was in contact with had no hostile intentions. Apparently the minds of humans and aranea were different enough that telepathic communication was difficult, and this particular one never learned how to do it correctly.

As suddenly as it came, the ‘communication’ stopped. The presence remained, however, and Zorian soon felt another aranea connect with him, using the first one as a sort of telepathic relay.

[Ah, so you’ve managed to find us in the end,] the distinctive mental voice of the matriarch spoke in his mind. [Good, I was beginning to fear I should have left instructions on how to find us. Stay where you are, please, I will be with you shortly.]

“She’s coming,” said Zorian to Kael, who nodded gravely.

They didn’t have to wait long. The matriarch soon skittered into view, flanked by two other aranea guards. The fact that he was able to pick out the matriarch among the three aranea, despite the fact that all three of them were fairly identical to his eyes, was probably just another proof that he really was empathic. Things like these made him wonder just why he had needed a talking spider to point it out to him before figuring it out.

[I originally intended this to be a private talk between just the two of us,] the matriarch spoke to his mind. [But since you saw fit to bring a guard, I decided to do likewise. Oh well, at least you didn’t shut me out of your mind like your friend did, so you’re still better than most humans I converse with.]

“Kael isn’t here just as a guard,” Zorian said, speaking out loud for Kael’s benefit. “He is involved in this thing as surely as you are, and I’d like him to participate fully in the discussion. Do you perhaps have a way to communicate vocally for his benefit?”

The matriarch seemed to consider it for a moment before she suddenly started waving four of her front legs in front of her, tracing some complex gesture in the air. Zorian tried for a moment to decipher what she was trying to communicate before he realized she wasn’t trying to talk to him.

She was casting a spell.

“There,” a feminine voice declared from the direction of the matriarch, though her mandibles didn’t move at all. “This is the aranea equivalent of the ‘magic mouth’ spell that you are no doubt familiar with. It’s just a sonic illusion, but it should be enough.”

Huh. So they did have more than just mind magic in their arsenal.

“I thank you for your consideration,” Kael said guardedly, obviously threatened by the spiders but trying to stay polite.

“Far from me to refuse such a simple request,” the matriarch said guardedly. She was obviously a little suspicious about Kael herself, probably because his mind was protected behind a mind shield spell. The spell made him immune to her abilities, but it also seemed to paint him as a threat to the aranea.

“Please, child,” the matriarch scoffed. Zorian heard the words with his flesh and blood ears, but he also felt them broadcasted to his mind – she might be vocalizing her words for Kael’s benefit, but she clearly wasn’t going to give up communicating with Zorian ‘the proper way’. “I could get past your silly human mind magic any time I wanted to. No, the reason I’m bothered by his mind ward is that it blocks me off from his mind completely. How am I supposed to trust him if he won’t even let me read his emotions and surface thoughts? It’s rude.”

Zorian’s mind boggled at the mindset that considered putting your surface thoughts up for scrutiny as being basic courtesy, but he supposed that’s species differences for you. Kael didn’t appear to be as understanding.

“Rude!?” he demanded, indignant at the accusation. “You think you have a right to just barge into people’s minds as you please, no permission given or asked, and you call me rude!? You spied on my personal memories, damn it, I have every reason to protect myself!”

The matriarch sent him a telepathic equivalent of a sigh, though no sound was vocalized for Kael’s benefit. “So did I,” she said calmly. “Your friend was a possible enemy that I needed to know more about, and you were one of the weak points I could target in order to get the needed information. Your mind was completely unprotected, after all.”

“So why didn’t you sift through Zorian’s memories, then? Wouldn’t that be quicker and more relevant to your quest?” Kael asked.

“Hey!” Zorian protested.

“I have limited myself to skimming his surface thoughts as a courtesy, because he is Open,” the matriarch said. “Among Aranea there is an unofficial custom to ask for permission before delving deeper into the minds of non-enemy psychics, regardless of species.”

Kael narrowed his eyes. “And if a person isn’t.. ‘psychic’?"

“Flickerminds are fair game,” the aranea matriarch said dismissively.

“All right, let’s stop trying to piss each other off now and get back to business!” said Zorian with a clap of his hands, hoping to halt the argument before it got out of hand. “We were talking about the time loop and how you can help me with that. Before we get to that, though, I really have to ask – when you say I’m ‘open’, are you referring to my empathy?”

Kael gave him a surprised look at that, since Zorian never told him anything about being empathic.

“Being Open implies being empathic, but they are not the same thing. Empathy is just one of the powers available to you, and a bit of a low-hanging fruit at that – that’s why you can use it, despite being completely untrained in the psychic arts. Openness often manifests itself as a low, uncontrolled empathy in the beginning, coupled with a gift for divinations and an occasional prophetic dream.”

”I.. what?” fumbled Zorian, trying to wrap his head around this new information. Just when he had thought he had things a little figured out, something like this happened. What the hell is being ‘open’ or ‘psychic’, then? Was she saying he was a full-blown telepath or something?

“You could be that with enough training, yes,” confirmed the matriarch. “I can teach you more about it.. provided we come to some kind of mutually acceptable agreement about this time loop business.”

“And what exactly do you want from Zorian in that regard?” asked Kael suspiciously.

“Why, my dear Kael, the same thing you want from him as well,” the matriarch said with a hint of mockery. “I want in on this time loop.”

For a moment Zorian wondered what she was talking about, but then his eyes widened as he understood what she meant.

“You want to keep your memories with each restart? To loop around with me and Zach?” asked Zorian incredulously.

Kael shifted uncomfortably in his spot, refusing to look at him in the eye, while the aranea matriarch stared straight back at him without a hint of shame on her face.

“I.. I guess I can see why you would want that,” said Zorian hesitantly. “I mean, I’m not too happy about my situation, but even I can see that I’m benefiting massively from it. But you seem to have gotten the wrong idea – both of you.” He glanced at Kael, but the morlock was still avoiding his eyes. He probably thought Zorian would be angry at him for wanting to ‘take advantage of him’, but Zorian wasn’t really angry. Just confused. “The thing is, I don’t know how to bring anyone into this loop. I don’t even know how the details of how I got sucked into it, much less how to replicate it. I can’t bring you into it.”

“We didn’t get the wrong idea, Zorian,” Kael sighed. “We’re not stupid. We know you can’t do it now. We know you won’t be able to do it by the time this time loop ends.” He gave the matriarch a weak glare. “Or at least I know. Maybe the great aranea matriarch knows something this poor flickermind doesn’t.”

“I agree with the morlock,” the matriarch said, refusing to rise to Kael’s provocation. “It is highly implausible that you’d be able to bring us into the time loop as you are now.”

“You’ve completely lost me at this point,” Zorian complained. “What do you want, then?”

“My idea was to store memory packets in your mind, allowing your soul to ferry them when the time resets itself,” the matriarch said nonchalantly. “It’s not quite as good as having your entire soul sent back, but it would be good enough for my purposes.”

“And I would agree to that.. why?” asked Zorian suspiciously. That sounded like it would require some serious messing with his mind. Far more than he was comfortable with, in any case.

“I’m sure I can find something to tempt you with,” the matriarch said, punctuating her message with a mental shrug. “You need information about the loop that I have. You want to learn how to control your empathy. You need my help in countering the invaders. Need I go on?”

Zorian sighed and turned to Kael instead of answering her.

“I wanted to connect you with some people and have you figure out, with their help, how your connection with Zach works. Then you could apply that knowledge to bring me into the time loop,” said Kael. “It would probably take quite a few restarts, and I don’t have anything nearly as tempting as our esteemed matriarch over there, but on the other hand it is something that will definitely help you learn more about this time loop in the process.”

Left unsaid was that those people Kael wanted to connect him with were probably all necromancers and that having them mess around with his soul was every bit as dangerous as letting the aranea screw around with his mind, and possibly more so.

“I see,” sighed Zorian. “Well, I’ll set aside Kael’s proposal for now, since that’s not what we came here to discuss.”

“That’s fine with me,” Kael said quickly. “I still have a lot to think about in that regard.”

“Right,” said Zorian. “Then let’s move on to the details of the matriarch’s proposal. Just out of curiosity, do you have a name? If we’re going to do business, especially so sensitive, I’d like to know who exactly I’m talking to.”

The matriarch didn’t answer verbally. Instead, she sent a short burst of telepathy containing the same sort of psychedelic jumble of images and concepts that the less-skilled aranea bombarded him with in the initial greeting. Thankfully, this particular burst wasn’t painful, just confusing – probably because it was so relatively short. After mentally dissecting the chaotic message in his head, he realized this was the name he asked for. Translating the concepts into something appropriate for human communication proved a bit of a challenge, however.

“Spear of Resolve Striking Straight at the Heart of the Matter?” questioned Zorian curiously.

“As good an approximation of my real name as any,” said the matriarch. “And yes, I know that’s too unwieldy to use in human conversation. Your language is very crude, so it’s hard to translate aranea names into it without ending up with such overdramatic-sounding drivel. You can just continue calling me ‘matriarch’ and I won’t hold it against you.”

Kael snorted derisively at the matriarch’s swipe against human speech, but didn’t say anything. Zorian, for his part, was considering how to proceed.

“Alright then,” said Zorian. “You told me that there is a reason why you took the time loop seriously. Why don’t you tell us what you mean by that.”

Before the matriarch could answer, a loud roar pierced through the relative silence of the tunnel, quickly followed by several more similar ones. Color drained out of Zorian’s face as he realized the identity of the creatures that produced the roar.

A band of war trolls were coming their way.