Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

"I actually did ask the thing about that when it tried to shapeshift into Kana," Kael said, pausing slightly. "Well, more like I blew up at it and demanded an explanation. Sparingly, it actually gave me one. It said no mind reading was taking place… it was just watching everything we did inside the time loop and taking note of people close to us. That’s probably why it tried to convince me while looking like Kana instead of Namira, even though the latter would probably be more effective. Since my wife had died long before the start of the time loop, Panaxeth had no idea what she looked like, and thus couldn’t copy her appearance."

"Yes, that is what he said to me as well," Ilsa said. "He tried to tempt me with the secrets of true creation, and I asked how he knew about that. He said the same thing he had to Kael, but he also expanded on it a little bit. Panaxeth claims the Sovereign Gate is not made from a primordial like we thought – it is more like an attachment, or maybe a shell, which must be bonded to a specific primordial in order to work. This can potentially be any primordial, but currently it’s Panaxeth."

"That’s why he could appear in front of us like that," Zach said gloomily.

"Yes," Ilsa said, nodding. "The Sovereign Gate somehow twists the primordial in question into the time loop as we know it. In a very real sense, Panaxeth is the time loop… which means he is aware of everything that occurs inside of him."

"So Panaxeth is watching us even now?" Taiven said, sounding disturbed.

"Probably," Ilsa shrugged. She seemed to take the idea in stride. Or maybe she’d just had more time than the rest of them to come to terms with it.

Zorian was personally very disturbed by this discovery. How were they supposed to subvert the time loop mechanism in order to leave this place, if the time loop was basically a sapient being that was always watching them? It was quite likely that Panaxeth could actively sabotage any escape attempt it did not like. Perhaps it was limited by the safeguards built into the Sovereign Gate, but those safeguards probably wouldn’t protect people like him, who were trying to break the system.

No wonder Panaxeth claimed he was never leaving this place without its help. Back then, Zorian thought that meant without its help , but perhaps what Panaxeth really meant was 'without its approval'…

"If he is that all-knowing, I wonder why he had not been more effective at tempting us," Xvim mused. "One would think he would have a far better grasp on our character if it could perceive everything we did so far."

"Awareness is not necessarily total awareness," Orissa offered. "I am technically aware of everything my bees do, but if you were to ask me about one particular bee, there is only so much I could tell you."

"The various elementals we consulted did say that primordials view us all like animals, maybe even mere bugs," Zach said. "How much do you really understand the sparrows living in the city or ants digging up your garden? We may be greater than them, but they are still alien to us. Hell, Zorian can read their minds and memories, and he still has trouble leading them from place to place without using any magical coercion."

"You’re talking about that one time he tried to literally herd cats, right?" Kael said, smiling slightly. "I remember that one."

"It wasn’t a serious attempt," Zorian complained. "It was just an amusing idea I had when I was bored."

"This isn’t the time for this," Alanic said, a little annoyed. "Zach brings up a good point with primordials seeing us all as animals. You don’t discuss things with animals, you manipulate them into doing what you want. We should be wary of trusting that creature too much. Although there is probably some glimmer of truth in what it’s saying, I suspect it is willing to say anything , true or false, if it thinks doing so will increase its chances of escaping its prison."

"I don’t know. He seemed pretty honest and forthright to me," Ilsa said, looking at Alanic. "Clearly you also thought there was some value in listening to it, since you were one of the people that managed to engage it in a lengthy conversation. What did you speak about, then?"

Ultimately, only a few people managed to keep their cool and get something substantial out of Panaxeth. Alanic, Xvim, Orissa, Ilsa, Kyron and an aranea named Night Dream were the only ones that managed to interest Panaxeth enough for him to engage them in a lengthy back-and-forth. It made Zorian a little self-conscious to realize he had essentially bungled that meeting. He might have gotten some important answers out of the primordial if he had been a little better at acting.

Then again, were these people really so good at acting or were they actually somewhat tempted by Panaxeth’s offer, and the primordial could sense that in their exchange? He could tell that Ilsa, at the very least, was lying when she claimed she had only been pretending to be interested in the primordial’s offer. The others were harder to read.

In any case, Alanic did not appear in the slightest bit uncomfortable about being put on the spot like that.

"We had a big talk about faith, risk-taking and the duty of the individual towards their community," Alanic said.

Zorian raised his eyebrow at him. So did a lot of other people, from what he could say.

"And you were scolding me and Zorian for not taking things seriously just a little while ago," Kael scoffed.

"It’s the truth," Alanic said. "Rather than just refuse the creature, I asked it why I would ever agree to such a deal. The consequences would be so apocalyptic, especially for Cyoria, that I couldn’t imagine how this would be a good idea. Even if I was selfish to the extreme and only cared about myself, the primordial was a threat to all of humanity."

"Oh, I asked him the same thing," Orissa interjected. "He said he had no intention of destroying the world or menacing humanity. All he wanted, he said, was to be free and to free the rest of the imprisoned primordials as well. He would only destroy those who tried to prevent him from achieving those two goals."

"Ha. Well, it said no such thing to me," Alanic said. "Probably because it knew I would not believe that. Instead, the primordial countered my concerns by telling me that the gods had left numerous contingencies in regards to primordials, should they ever successfully escape. If I truly had faith in the gods, it said, what was the harm in setting it free? The contract would be fulfilled the moment it was out of prison, even if it died immediately afterwards. I should have faith in the divine and their works, in which case there was nothing wrong with taking the deal, releasing it out of its prison and then watching it die immediately afterwards."

"Do these contingencies of the gods truly exist?" Zorian asked. He heard nothing about that, but Alanic was a priest, so…

"I don’t know," Alanic admitted. "Even if they did, it is said the gods imprisoned primordials because they had trouble truly killing them. If the gods were incapable of dealing with them in person, I rather doubt a mere contingency could do it. Clearly this Panaxeth did not believe this either, otherwise why would it even make the offer? We then got into a lengthy philosophical discussion about what constitutes true faith and various other things. I doubt you really want to hear about that."

"Maybe later," Zach said. "Orissa, you said you also talked to Panaxeth about what he’d do once free?"

"Yes. Aside from what I already said, I think he alluded to these divine contingencies Alanic spoke about at one point," she said. "He mentioned that, in the process of tearing himself free from his cage, he would likely end up weakened and grievously wounded , and that it would take him centuries to fully recover. During that time, he would just hide somewhere and wait until he was fully healed. He was suggesting that I had no reason to care about his goals, because by the time he was ready to make his move, I would have died a long time ago."