This was great and all, but it's a little disheartening that I'll have to wait 18 months to fill another lazy Sunday afternoon reading this (I'm spoiled by Worm). I liked the magic system here though, it manages to both make sense and be expansive and interesting at the same time, and a lot of systems fail on one of those fronts.

 

Updated.

http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/19/Mother-of-Learning

 

Argh, it's so short... even when I first started reading and had like 15 chapters to go through the pace was sluggish, but this is downright tortuous.

 

Good update, but really short. That's probably why it didn't take very long...comparatively.

Edit: LOOK WHOSE TALKING 'BOUT NOT ENOUGH CONTENT, RUSTY. SHAME ON YOU.

 

I dunno, I really enjoyed this story up until I read the last few chapters.

To me, the ultimate sin/jump the shark moment of a looping story is when the looper starts to play copy and paste memory edit with other entities to 'bring them into the loop', so to speak.

The distance that Zorian kept from Zach is what made initial parts of the story interesting for me, but now he's including psychic spiders and (maybe) this Soul Elf Kael or whoever he is.

I much preferred the story when it was about Zorian growing as a character in both skill and maturity, and deepening his understanding of the loop.

In this chapter its remarked that Zach's strategy is to beat the invasion through his own personal might, whereas I liked how Zorian is thinking things through on a different level.

So yea, while I really liked the story up until now, for me its standing at a crossroads where it could get even better, or start to diminish.

 

I happen to agree. There are many instances of this I've seen in fanfiction, where a timetravel story features other characters getting involved with the timetraveller, memories get bookmarked, or whatever, and after after every restart, he's heading over to these characters to hand them back their old memories...

Yeah. There's something about it that's stupid. It's a logical thing to do, no doubt, but I can't see it as a good story.

Time travel stories are interesting because the traveller has a perspective no other character has. It's interesting because their perspective cannot be understood by others either, because it's assumed by the reader that trying to convince someone that you're a time traveller is a fool's errand.

But once you bridge the gap and remove that tension, it's almost like, "Oh, so our protagonist is now 'normal' again. Great." You're basically supplanting the time traveller trope when you get memories involved.

The spider shouldn't have "memory packet powers" or whatever, or Zorian should be wary of so easily collaborating with this mysterious hive-mind of spiders. I get that he needs their help to believably solve this crises, but collaboration takes away other kinds of tension too. He now has someone to fall back on, that he didn't before. The tension now has to ratchet up next chapter, with even greater problems than he had prior, to continue holding my interest I think. If we have any number of "training arc" chapters where he collaborates with this spider and the conflict doesn't continue to increase, then this story's promise has diminished.

 

Nice update, really liked the inclusion of celestial beings such as gods and angels.

Really love this story and how it deals with time loops without making the main character unlikeable by treating the people he interacts with like shit he can squeeze knowledge and skills out as usual while still making mistakes, misjudging people and learning about them.

Really love the sister character and wish she were involved more.

Thanks for the recc, guys.

 

I've enjoyed this up to now, but it's reached the point where it could very quickly get bogged down and boring if the author isn't careful. I'm cautiously optimistic, but there are enough open plot lines that I don't get the feeling this is going to end anytime soon. Hopefully he finds a way to keep the plot moving forward while resolving all the open issues.

 

Update. https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/21/Mother-of-Learning

 

Not funny, that update was from Dec 22nd. Your post made it sound like it was just updated today.

 

As annoying as this would have normally been, gmail decided the update notice for this was spam, so I actually haven't read this chapter yet.

 

Be sure to add the update alert email address to your white list in gmail. They use a different term for it in gmail, but if you google for "how to whitelist an email address in gmail", then I'm sure you'll find a good answer.

I had to do this a few months ago.

 

Will do. As to the chapter, what do you guys think the Matriarch might have found out that was worth the risk of exposure to transfer the info? She seemed calm, so probably to too bad, but it should be important.

 

Probably just the makeup and placement of the invaders and what she could learn of their battle plans. I'm more curious about whether Zach suspects Zorian's involvement in the time loop or if he is just starting to lose his mind.

 

I think it's pretty clear that he does by this point with all the hints dropped in this chapter alone. Zorian's magical capabilities have expanded dramatically and his grasp of the mental arts has him acting sufficiently OOC from his original self that it's no-doubt confirmed Zach's suspicions. (Recall that Zorian was showing deviation from his original self long before, something Zach even noted at the time.)

 

I dunno, the way I see it Zach is not that bright. I mean, the way he acts around them ( how he mentions all those girls he saw with Zorian for example) is very nonchalant. I would act like that if I thought nobody will remember that due to restart approaching, Bill Murray acted the same way after a while in the original Groundhog Day.

So by mentioning different girls he saw around Zorian in different restarts, is Zach trying to get a reaction from Zorian? If so, he's not very subtle.

 

Note we are never told Zach is stupid, just that he originally sucked at magic. While there is still room for doubt, I think he's catching on; if he hasn't already figured it out. Zorian faces a common problem a lot of black sheep and introverts face. He's so focused on his problems that he forgets those around him are people with their own reasoning minds.

Edit: That said I want to see him interact more with Taiven. Is it just me or is the longer he's in the time loop the more interesting he comes off to her?

 

Zach has been traped in this time loop for far longer then Zorian and yet Zorian has made much bigger progress when it comes to solving their problem. Zach never thought about attacking the enemy artillery before they unload that first barrage or about possibilties that mind magic offers or about the existence of another time traveler. At the end of every restart (if he doesn't die sooner) we see him trying to win the battle all on his own using the brute force.

He even wasted few restarts trying to kill a frickin' dragon because he was bored or depresed! How is that usefull?

 

I didn't say he was smarter or wiser than Zorian; just not an idiot. A lot of Zorian's progress on the loop has been due to luck in that, in some ways, he's more social than Zach is.

After all His family are social climbers and have been pushing him in that direction for awhile. Meanwhile Zach has seemingly been doing everything he can to NOT be a socialite, even though he has a natural talent for it.

Basically Zach is like the rich guy with a lot of potential but average smarts that esaily falls into an idea and doesn't let it go. Who would tell him otherwise? Zorian is the smart guy who has a weird selection of associates due to his mix of being an introvert and skill at mingling that he managed to pick up a few things that Zach missed for one reason or another.