Learning to Love Time Loops Without Going Insane

“Hey guys, can you hear me?” Cal had walked up to the drone once Marley had departed.

“Cal, is that you?!” Andy’s voice responded.

“It is, how’s everyone doing?”

“Everyone except you is mostly fine and back. Can you follow this drone home? We need to discuss Melissa in private once you return.

“Yeah, sure. Is she okay, though?”

“Probably. I’ll explain more once you’re back.”

Cal spent the next few hours following the drone through several winding paths, passing other drones in caverns until he finally found the tunnel entrance. Once he passed through the airlock, he found the nearest chair and slumped down. He was still exhausted from everything he had been through. He had never actually drained his core so quickly before in a loop. He had never emptied it so entirely before, let alone twice in a row. He wanted to do nothing but eat and sleep for the next few days, but he needed to talk to Andy about Melissa before he crashed.

By the time Andy found him, he had already lost the war to sleep. “Cal, wake up. I know you're exhausted, but we need to talk.” He felt Andy poke him.

“Ugh, fine. I want to sleep in my bed anyway. Where is everyone else anyway?”

“I guess you’ve lost track of time down there, but it’s night shift. They are all sleeping. So it’s the perfect time for a conversation.”

“Alright, tell me what’s going on with Melissa, and I’ll tell you about a mana seed and a world spirit.”

Andy shook his head. “We leave you alone for a day, and you find even more magic?”

“Someone has to. You’re all so bad at it.”

“Yeah, about that. It turns out Melissa’s pretty good at it. When she and Robert went in search of everyone after your disappearing stunt, she tripped and fell into a mana well. She has no idea what it was, but it’s pretty obvious to those that have seen them before.”

“Damn. Any guess what her powers will be?”

“Not entirely. We have the consolation that I doubt it’s any of the types of pools we need to help us get further off the planet. It felt like a hot spring, so I’m guessing something water or steam based, maybe. We can track her down the next loop and see if it sticks to someone not in the loops or not. I know Ethel’s did, but she found it long before we started looping.”

“I hope it does. I don’t like the idea of wasting a trip to Mars.”

“So what happened to you?”

“Oh, I found the spirit connected to this world's mana core. He gave me a mana seed that, it turns out, is tied to the collective experience of the planet. I got to live early Martial life through the end of Martian life in my dreams, well, surface life. There are still some pockets left below ground, but no people, as far as I’m aware. So you know, I didn’t do anything that special.”

“...I think I want my own magic. You keep getting all the fun.”

“You can have it. We will see how long you keep thinking it’s fun. Actually, who am I kidding? You ignore all the world-saving stress, and this is the most fun I’ve ever had. We’re on Mars, Andy. Think how insane that would sound before all of this.”

“Yeah, and I have an older clone that lives in another dimension. You have a talking dog and a younger brother that’s older than you. Our lives have become insane.”

“When you consider how old I really am, that’s even more insane. But now I need to sleep. Don’t wake me up unless it’s a real emergency.”

“Will do.”

*

Cal had explained his experiences to everyone as getting deeply lost and hitting his head in a fall. When he found some privacy, he told his Father and Jen the real story. Both of them were as shocked as Andy had been that Cal found more world-shattering events to get involved in.

They had decided on no more people missions into the caves for the foreseeable future and to instead map it all out using drones, which is just how they spent the next several years. They created a giant map of the labyrinth of tunnels under the Martian surface. They also spent their time cataloging all samples brought back and coming up with random names for every new plant or small creature they spotted on the camera feeds.

Every time the drones found an enclave of abyssal beasts, they marked the area off and ignored it. This had worked well, and there had been minimal drone loss using this method, but they also hadn’t found anything Cal or Andy thought was a mana pool.

They did find a rather large gathering of the beasts in one location that had Cal plotting, though. With what Marley had told him, he considered it possible they were congrating the most around the most potent mana sources. That may mean there was a pool near the largest of the groups. He had no idea if he was right, but with time running out on this trip, he needed to discuss it with the other three at least.

He managed to get them all alone one night after everyone else had retired to their rooms.

“We need to assault the group here.” He pointed to a location on the maps of the underground.

“Why there? You could barely handle a much smaller group the first time around.” Stan countered.

“I know, but we don’t have a lot of time left before the Gryalth attacks the Earth, and I want to be done here before that happens. If we assume the beasts are attracted to the natural mana flows of Mars, then we can assume the reason we haven’t found any more sources is because we are avoiding them the same as the beasts. We can’t keep doing that, especially because their populations seem to grow daily.” Cal pleaded with the group.

“I agree with Cal. I don’t want to do this either, but we came here for a purpose. We already agree that Andy will be the one to go into the pool once we find it. So that means Stan and I should go in with as much of the heavy ordinance we have stashed for mining purposes. We use that to distract the creatures for as long as we can. Then Cal and Andy can slip past. Cal will have to keep Andy safe for as long as it takes from that point on.” Jen spoke up, laying out a plan. Stan’s face made Cal doubt this was the first time he had heard it.

“Fine, when do we leave?” Stan gave in.

“Tonight. I don’t know how soon we can get another time together. Cal and I will go get packed, you two get the weapons you want. Meet us at the end of the tunnel. I’ll disable the alarms before we go.” Andy had a smile on his face. He was looking forward to finally joining Cal in a world of magic.

“Understood.” Jen pulled Stan with her.