Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

After repeating this process gods know how many times, the cultists eventually assembled a fair amount of information about this entity, which the cultists called the Golden-Feathered Worm . To Zorian’s eyes, it appeared clear that this Golden-Feathered Worm was actually an imprisoned primordial, even if the book never actually identified it as such.

Because of the relatively unpleasant nature of the text, the somewhat archaic language the book was written in and the unhinged nature of the insights obtained by the cultists, it was tempting to just dismiss all of their findings as delusional gibberish. However, after re-reading the chapter a handful of times and thinking of it in some detail, he felt there was some actual insight hidden amidst the insanity. The victim’s mutterings of eyes between spaces , time that moves in braids and spirals , bones that stretched inside and outside and other such nonsense all hinted at the idea that the Golden-Feathered Worm was a very dimensionally complex being.

The path of the Golden-Feathered Worm is the path of the self as the universe, the book said. Indeed, the rest of his kind is also as such: each one a world unto itself, their flesh but a thin, porous cloak to hide the depths beneath.

That was interesting, to say the least. The book was basically saying that primordials were not really creatures in the way Zorian commonly understood it, but more like living miniature universes. He… didn’t know what to think about that. It sounded crazy, and considering where it had come from, Zorian would normally dismiss the idea without a second thought.

He handed the book to Zach, who had given up on trying to read over his shoulder a while ago, but would probably still want to see what the book had to say. Zorian couldn’t wait to see his face when he got to the lovingly illustrated description of the worm implantation procedure.

"So?" Silverlake asked, not bothering to wait for Zach to read the book too. "What do you think?"

"I presume you’re referring to the idea of primordials being living universes masquerading as flesh-and-blood beings?" Zorian asked.

"Wait, really?" Zach asked incredulously, slowly leafing through the book. He was going through it too fast so Zorian assumed he was only skimming the text instead of meticulously poring over it like Zorian had done. "How does that work?"

"Read the book and you might get your answer," Silverlake said blandly. What a lie. Zorian had read that chapter several times over and he still had no idea how that could possibly work. "But yes, that is what I was getting at."

"Great," Zach said. "But what does that-"

"I think we are living inside a primordial," Silverlake said.

There was a brief pause as they both digested this statement.

"I think you’re going to have to explain that a little," Zach said slowly, letting the book hang by his side for the moment so he can focus on her better.

"Well, provided that what you are saying is at all reliable," Silverlake said. "You are saying that this Sovereign Gate thing can copy the entire world and create its very own miniature universe to house it all. Oh, and run the whole thing at absurd temporal dilation levels. That is not the level of power you get from a divine artifact. The gods may have been able to build such things, I don’t know, but I have never heard of them handing out something on this level of power. Surely such a device would require an absolutely titanic expenditure of divine energy to produce, no? Sounds like a lot of effort just to give a mortal a new toy to play with. On the other hand, if the Sovereign Gate is just a modified, mutilated primordial… well, suddenly the whole thing becomes a lot more plausible. Turning one of their ancient enemies into an item like that and handing it down to a measly mortal to use and abuse sounds exactly like something the gods of old would do. Especially if the primordial in question had irritated them particularly badly by primordial standards…"

A long silence descended upon the scene as Zach and Zorian considered the plausibility of the story. Silverlake waited calmly for their reaction, hands clasped behind her back. She appeared to be trying to project an air of serenity and unshakable confidence with her stance and expression, but the effect was ruined by the fact she couldn’t stop herself from nervously tapping her foot against the ground as she waited.

Silverlake could be onto something, Zorian decided. It had always seemed to him that the Sovereign Gate was ridiculously powerful, even for a divine artifact, and this was as good an explanation as any as to why this was the case. He suddenly remembered the Ikosian myth of how the entire world they lived on had been fashioned by the gods out of the body of a defeated primordial dragon. He’d never taken the old myth very seriously, but maybe there was something to that story…

"You said there might be a very easy way to check if we’re telling the truth or not," Zach said cautiously. "Is this related to that? Are you saying it’s somehow possible to check whether we are inside a primordial or not?"

"Well, perhaps," Silverlake said, humming softly to herself. "You see, I have known about the primordial sealed away in Cyoria for quite a while, and have been carefully, carefully studying its prison from time to time. It was never the focus of my studies, but I reckon I know it quite well. If my speculation is correct, I should be able to notice some kind of change in the prison when I study it again. I refuse to believe that being recreated in the body of another primordial will not have a noticeable effect on it. Well, truthfully, my first instinct is to say that such an item couldn’t possibly affect beings on the level of primordials, even if they are sealed away… but from what you say about Panaxeth, I am completely wrong there, so whatever. Anyway, let’s go check!"

"Now?" Zorian asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Is there any point in waiting?" Silverlake challenged.

"I guess not," Zorian admitted. "I’m just a little surprised at your… decisiveness."

"I’ve just found out I could be trapped inside a body of primordial god-like monster that probably hates all humanity," Silverlake said, looking like he was an idiot. "Of course I want to confirm or deny this as soon as I can! Don’t you?"

"A copy trapped inside a body of a primordial god-like monster," Zorian corrected her.

"And you were preceded by countless other copies that lived out their short lives in vain, all their thoughts and accomplishments undone at the end of the month," Zach added.

"A bunch of brats, both of you," Silverlake told them. "Let’s just take a look at that primordial prison in Cyoria for now. You two know how to teleport, right?"

"We do, but there is no need for that," Zorian said. "I have a much better way for us to get there quickly."

After the three of them returned to Cyoria (via Zorian’s dimensional gate spell, of course), they immediately proceeded towards the place the primordial was imprisoned in – the massive circular abyss around which the city of Cyoria was built, known simply as the Hole.

Fortunately, accessing the Hole was not terribly hard. Although the incomprehensible amounts of mana gushing out of it were the foundation upon which the city rested, the Hole itself was not monitored very closely. The biggest concern the city had about it was that it was rather popular for people to commit suicide by throwing themselves into its depths, which meant they had to put a token patrol here and there to try and curb this behavior. These patrols were not very good and only checked the most obvious approaches to the Hole. So long as they didn’t bring too many people and avoided making a spectacle out of themselves, they could linger inside as long as they wished.