Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

Now for the hardest part: dealing with Quatach-Ichl…

Zach, Zorian and Quatach-Ichl were hiding inside a small cave under a random field. It had been more than half a day since they had broken into the royal treasury, and they had the exact same problem that Zach and Zorian had had when they had made their attempt at the treasury in the past – somehow, the Eldemar forces were tracking them down everywhere they went.

[How annoying,] Zach commented to Zorian telepathically. [I was specifically paying attention for something like this and I never noticed any sort of tracking mark being placed on us or on any of our possessions.]

[I can’t detect anything being done to our souls, either,] Zorian replied. [It’s really frustrating. How exactly can they track us so unerringly? They clearly don’t know our actual identities, just like they hadn’t known in the previous restart we’ve done this, so it must be something like a tracking mark or magical tether. We’re both experienced with detecting those kind of things, so why can’t we find it?]

Quatach-Ichl, who was currently sitting on the floor of the cave in complete silence, looked like he was engaged in some kind of intense meditation. Zorian could tell through his soul perception, however, that Quatach-Ichl seemed to be doing some rather intense personal soul searching. He could tell because the lich’s soul was usually perfectly calm and controlled, but now it churned and pulsed as if caught in a storm. Presumably the lich thought the tracking method had been placed on their souls and was trying to locate it. Zorian had done the same with no results, so he didn’t get his hopes up that Quatach-Ichl would find anything this way, but it was worth a shot. At least he wasn’t flipping out and trying to kill them for dragging him into this mess.

Maybe if they–

"It’s a tether made out of divine energies," Quatach-Ichl suddenly said, rising from the floor of the cave and dusting himself off.

"Divine energies?" Zorian repeated incredulously.

"Like the ones that make up my soul stabilization frame and power divine artifacts," Quatach-Ichl said. "There must be an item somewhere in that building that automatically connects to the soul of any being that comes within a certain distance of it. How insidious. If I didn’t have so much experience sensing the piece of divine magic in my own soul, I would have never been able to detect it."

Damn it, divine magics were so unfair. No wonder they hadn’t been able find the way the Eldemar authorities were tracking them…

"Can you sever it?" Zach asked.

Quatach-Ichl shook his head. "Perceiving divine energies is one thing. Affecting them is another. I have no way to get rid of the tether, although I can tell it’s not permanent. It will eventually weaken and fade away."

"Eventually being…?" Zach tried.

"A couple of weeks at least," Quatach-Ichl said calmly.

"You are too calm," Zorian pointed out. "Clearly you have already found a solution."

"Yes," Quatach-Ichl said smugly. "The tether may be made out of divine energies, but it ultimately has the same weakness that all such magical tethers have – a maximum distance it can support before it snaps. If we go outside the range of the item we are tethered to, the magic will break and we’ll be free to enjoy our ill-gotten gains."

"Ah," Zach said. "Wow, this is easier than we thought, then!"

"Of course, being made by a divine artifact, the tether no doubt has a downright absurd maximum range it can support… and Eldemar’s authorities will probably take the anchor item out of the treasury to keep us in range of the effect if they notice us trying to break the tether this way. So not only do we have to travel extremely far away from here, we must do it so quickly that Eldemar’s authorities cannot keep up with us."

Zach and Zorian looked at each other before turning back to the grinning lich. He probably thought he had them – that they had no method of traversing vast distances quickly enough and that he would be able to squeeze some kind of concession out of them in exchange for helping them break the tethers on their own souls.

Well… he was wrong.

"I don’t see the issue here," Zorian shrugged.

"No?" Quatach-Ichl asked. "I’m not sure you understand… just teleporting around a little isn’t–"

"No, we get it," interjected Zach. "It’s just that, no matter how ridiculous the range of this tether is, going to Xlotic is probably enough to make it snap. And if not that, then we can just continue on to Koth instead."

Quatach-Ichl stared at them with an uncertain look on his face.

"Do you want to come with us?" Zorian asked innocently. "It probably isn’t so easy for you to put so much distance between yourself and Eldemar on such a short notice."

"Yeah, you’ve helped us a lot tonight, so it’s only right for us do something for you too," Zach nodded, playing along.

They didn’t actually expect Quatach-Ichl to agree to their suggestion. After all, going with them involved stepping through a dimensional portal without knowing where it really led. That wasn’t something you did unless you thoroughly trusted the other person, and Quatach-Ichl didn’t even trust them enough to leave their simulacrums wandering around unsupervised.

They opened a portal to Xlotic, and Quatach-Ichl followed after them, surprisingly calm. He did not comment at all on the fact they knew how to cast something as rare and difficult as a dimensional gate, or the fact they arranged for said gate to open to another continent on a moment’s notice. He simply observed everything around them, his eyes sweeping over the desert horizon with a thoughtful expression.

"Cities to rubble, fields to dust…" he murmured quietly. "What a depressing sight."

Hum. Zorian had never really thought about it before, but Quatach-Ichl was probably the only living person that had seen Xlotic as it had been before the Cataclysm.

In any case, Quatach-Ichl then closed his eyes and once more started sensing his soul for the tether. He opened his eyes ten minutes later and nodded to them.

"It’s gone now," he said. His voice was devoid of any trace of joy or satisfaction, though, which set off some alarms in Zorian’s mind. "Apparently Xlotic is far enough that the tether ended up breaking when we crossed over here through the gate. Or maybe once the gate closed behind us. Can the tether maintain connection through a dimensional gate, even if the people are far outside its range in terms of actual distance? Interesting stuff. Too bad this is hard to reproduce and study. And too bad none of this is real, no?"

Zorian couldn’t stop himself from flinching a little at that statement. Quatach-Ichl narrowed his eyes at the movement.

"I thought so," he said, voice serious. He started to slowly circle around them, eyes never breaking contact with them. Like a predator. Zach and Zorian assumed fighting stances, but did not make any aggressive moves. "I should have figured it out earlier. I really should have. The fact everyone got cut off from the spirit planes all of a sudden should have been a massive warning as to what was happening, but it sounded so incredulous that human beings could cause something so grand in scope and effect. When I found that the aranea beneath Cyoria had just suddenly dropped dead one day, I was just happy an obstacle had disappeared and did not think on it as hard as I should. It was only when I talked to you that things started to become clear… but I, in my arrogance, refused to see the truth."

"We have no idea what you’re talking about, bag of bones," Zach growled at him.

"It all clicked when you just casually opened a dimensional gate to another continent," Quatach-Ichl continued, ignoring his claim. "There had been something about your attitude that had bothered me right from the start, when I first talked to you in that tavern, but it is only now that it starts to make sense. You showed up out of nowhere, loaded with money and skills that make no sense in light of your past and age… like two adult mages badly pretending to be a couple of teenagers. You are fine with giving up divine artifacts in exchange for information and throw huge amounts of money on speculative research… as if material possessions don’t matter to you, only knowledge. You don’t like me killing people, but you have no problems butchering Eldemar treasury guards to get what you want… like those guards were never actually real to begin with."