ceremonial gestures. The whole procedure was annoyingly lengthy, but apparently necessary. The reclusive sage they wanted to talk with was normally.. well, reclusive. He wouldn’t deign to meet most people, but perhaps if they could convince the village elders to put in a good word for them, he might give them a chance.

Zorian was currently sitting on one of the cut down logs on the outskirts of the village, watching some of the lizardmen children fight the animated mud person he had created out of the ground to distract them from himself. Although the mud construct had the size and strength comparable to an adult human, the truth was that humans were notably smaller and weaker than lizardmen. Their vaguely crocodilian frames were wider and larger than human ones, and their skin was covered in tough leathery scales. Thus, even though the mud construct’s enemies were mere children, it was still being gradually overpowered. This was pretty much how Zorian had intended it to be, however. He didn’t really want to hurt the little brats, even if they were loud, grabby and generally annoying.

Not far from him, some enterprising lizardman woman had come to try and peddle her crafts and trinkets to the gathered humans, trying to exchange pottery and necklaces made out of colorful stones for metal tools and fabrics. She was currently ‘negotiating’ with one of the female members of the group, each of them loudly talking at one another, even though neither spoke the other’s language.

He took off his glasses and started obsessively cleaning them. Damn it, when was this damn meeting going to en–

“Why so impatient?” asked a voice beside him. “It is good to sit down from time to time and appreciate the simpler things in life.”

His heart skipped a beat when the voice started talking. He turned towards the source of the voice, shocked to find that there was suddenly a strange lizardman sitting next to him. And he did mean ‘suddenly’. The lizardman did not register at all on Zorian’s mind sense and seemingly materialized out of nowhere when he started talking.

He was also very, very weird-looking. Intricate pattern of blue and white lines was painted over his whole body, and he wore what seemed to be a massive deer skull over the top of his head. A multitude of bone armbands, necklaces and ankle-bands decorated his limbs and neck. Resting horizontally on his lap was a gnarled wooden staff with a huge pearl attached on top of it.

His posture and appearance gave the impression of someone old and worn down – eyes half-closed, scales cracked and faded in places, his posture hunched and drooping – despite that, he inspired a faint feeling of terror in Zorian, who couldn’t understand how he had been able to sneak up on his so easily.

“I hear you’ve been looking for me,” the lizardman said. He was speaking fluent Ikosian, which was kind of interesting but way down the list of questions Zorian wanted answered at the moment.

“What? Oh, you’re the sage we wanted to speak with,” Zorian realized.

“Indeed,” the lizardman said, fiddling with one of the bone armbands while watching the children play with Zorian’s mud construct. “I dislike this kind of attention, so I decided to just meet with one of you and be done with it.”

Zorian looked around and realized no one seemed to be paying attention to his conversation with the weird lizardman that had showed up out of nowhere.

“Only you can see and hear me,” he said casually.

This was such bullshit.

“Why did you pick me out of everyone else present?” Zorian asked with a small frown.

“I like you,” he said. “You took the time to play with the children. Don’t you remember what I said earlier? It is good to sit down from time to time and appreciate the simpler things in life.”

Zorian looked at him incredulously, not sure if the lizardman was being serious or not. He had only made that toy so the children would let him rest in peace.

“How did you sneak up on me?” Zorian couldn’t help but ask.

“I’m old,” the lizardman said, tapping the staff in his lap with his scaly, clawed fingers. “Ancient. It’s natural to have a couple of secrets.”

He did not offer to explain any further and Zorian did not press him.

The staff was probably some kind of divine artifact. Zorian checked it out with his marker, just in case it was the one they were after. It wasn’t.

“What did you seek me out for?” the lizardman asked, his half-closed eye focusing more firmly on him.

Zorian quickly described the origin and probable appearance of the staff to the old lizardman. The sage patiently listened to his explanation, saying nothing. He said nothing for nearly fifteen minutes, seemingly lost in thought. Occasionally he whistled to himself softly in the native lizardmen tongue, tapping on his various bone ornaments and drawing some kind of simple geometric diagrams in dirt.

Zorian patiently waited for the lizardman to come to his senses again, not daring to interrupt his musings. Unfortunately, when the sage finally turned to him again, he did not have a favorable answer for him.

“I cannot remember anything that would help you in your quest,” the lizardman said, shaking his head sadly. The various bone necklaces hanging from his neck clinked softly at the movement.

Zorian sighed. So much for that.

“However..” the lizardman continued, “I have an idea where you might look for more knowledge on the matter, if you feel brave enough. This staff.. it is a very valuable thing, yes?”

“Yes,” Zorian confirmed.

“There is a particularly loathsome dragon mage terrorizing our people throughout the entire region and beyond,” the sage said. “I don’t know her name, but our people refer to her as the Violet-Eyed Disaster, The Covetous One or Typhoon. For centuries she has preyed upon our communities, snatching away any item that catches her fancy and killing anyone that tried to bar her way. Many important artifacts have been lost to her. If this staff of yours is as important as it seems, she has probably tried to find it and knows a thing or two about its whereabouts. Perhaps.. it may already be in her possession.”

Zorian gave the lizardman an unamused look. An infamous dragon mage? There were few things in the world more dangerous than that.. feeling brave indeed.

Still, the old guy’s logic was sound and the idea was worth checking out. Didn’t Zach already demonstrate the ability to kill Oganj, who was similarly an infamous dragon mage?

“So what do you–” Zorian began to speak, only to realize the old lizardman was no longer there.

He waved his hand through the air where the sage had been sitting next to him, but hit only empty space.

Groaning audibly, Zorian wandered off to find Zach and Daimen to inform them that arranging the meeting with the sage was no longer necessary.

* * *

Zorian woke up with a panicked scream as an endless deluge of ice cold water poured on top of his head as he slept. Stumbling and flailing around in panic, he tried to jump out of bed, but the wet fabric clung to him and made him trip. He tumbled awkwardly to the floor, frantically trying to rub the water out of his eyes while searching for his glasses.

When he had finally come to his senses and looked around, he found Kirielle pressed into a corner of the room by the door, a large bucket clutched tightly in her hands.

There was still water dripping from it onto the floor.

“Kirielle.. what the hell are you doing!?” Zorian shouted incredulously.

“I, u-umm..” she stumbled, pacing nervously while clutching the bucket in her hands tightly. “I was trying to make you assume your true form!”

Zorian looked at her like she was crazy.

Actually, scratch that – she was crazy!

“True form!?” he asked her. “What the hell are you on about? You just dumped a bucket of cold water on my head in the middle of the night!”

“I read in the book that doppelgangers assume their true forms if you surprise them while they’re sleeping,” she said. “So, um, if you dump water on them when they’re deep asleep, they’ll drop their disguise and assume their true form.”

Zorian stared at her, unable to believe her explanation.

“You think I’m a face-changer?” Zorian asked her in a calm voice.

“Y-You aren’t acting like the Zorian I know,” she said while staring at the ground and refusing to look at him. “You have all these friends all of a sudden, you didn’t get angry at all when Imaya asked you about Daimen and.. you’re way too nice to me.”

Zorian sighed and ran his hand through his wet hair to get it out of his eyes. He looked at the closed door, confused as to why the entire house hadn’t woken up by now because of all the shouting, but then he remembered he had put pretty strong privacy wards on the room.

“If you thought I was a doppelganger, you should have at least gotten someone to back you up when confronting me,” Zorian told her.

He made a couple of gestures and pressed his hands against his chest, evaporating most of the water out of his clothes.

“You’re too good at magic, too,” Kirielle added. “That’s another thing that’s weird. But, umm.. you didn’t change forms, so I guess you really are Zorian.”

Zorian debated the merits of using an illusion to seemingly morph into some kind of grotesque monster right at that moment, but immediately discarded it as too cruel. As much as he wanted to rage and get back at her, she had good reasons for pulling off this stupid stunt.

He was getting entirely too careless around her, it seemed.

“Yes, I really am Zorian,” he told her in an exasperated tone. He took the bucket from her hands and lifted her up before marching back to his bed and plopping her right on top of it.

Right on top of the wet part, that is.

“Why!?” she protested, immediately jumping off the bed and inspecting her suddenly wet behind.

“Punishment,” Zorian said pitilessly. “You did say I was too nice to you, no?”

She gave him an angry look but said nothing.

“Anyway,” he said. “I suppose I can tell you a little bit about what’s going on and why things are so weird right now..”

* * *

Time marched on. The search for the staff in Blantyrre, the research on pocket dimensions and other points of interest, the training of people with the aid of Black Rooms and nigh-limitless resources.. as the restarts started to accumulate, these and other projects started to gradually bear fruit.

Just like that, another five restarts had passed.