Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

After some more back and forth, they confirmed some details with the other members of the group. For instance, it seemed that nobody had been presented with an image of a person that had died before the time loop had begun. In fact, the primordial didn’t even bother copying living relatives, if the temporary looper hadn’t interacted with them within the bounds of the time loop. This led some credence to his claim that he couldn’t read minds and just relied on seeing everything that ever happened in the time loop.

This done, they turned to the last three people who had spoken to Panaxeth at any real length. Xvim, Kyron and Night Dream had all asked similar questions, however: they wanted to know the details of what the contract with Panaxeth actually entailed. Thankfully, this appeared to be a topic that Panaxeth was really eager to talk about.

"So if I understood you three correctly, the contract is as follows…" Zorian said. "You make a death pact with Panaxeth, swearing that you would either free him within a month or die trying. He then takes your soul and incarnates it in the outside world. That is to say, he creates a brand new copy of your body in the real world, at the start of the month, in effect physically ejecting you out of the time loop. Included in the created body is some kind of kill switch that will kill you if Panaxeth is still imprisoned at the end of the summer festival."

"Yes," Night Dream said, her magically produced voice clear and smooth. "It doesn’t matter whether you tried your best or why you failed – if Panaxeth isn’t free by the end of the deadline, the death seal activates and kills you. No excuses."

"And if Panaxeth is freed at any point before the deadline, this kill switch dissolves into nothingness and you are free to do whatever you want?" Zorian asked.

"Yes, even if Panaxeth dies, our part of the agreement is done," Xvim confirmed. "I asked several variations of that question just to be sure, and he always answered the same. We only needed to get him out, nothing more. Our original selves were not part of the agreement, either, and would not suffer if we failed in our task."

"Probably because their bodies hadn’t been created by Panaxeth, so he cannot place his death seal thingy on them," Kyron remarked. "Even if he wanted to make them die with us, he cannot."

"What stops you from taking the deal and then working against Panaxeth? Assuming you don’t mind dying in a month, of course," Alanic asked.

"When I asked a question along those lines, the shapeshifting asshole immediately ended our conversation and sent me back to the group," Kyron said. "I guess he really didn’t like that question. From what I can tell, though, the answer is nothing. Nothing stops you from doing just that."

"Then," Kael said hesitantly, "do you think that Silverlake–"

Kyron let loose a short, loud laugh.

"Boy, get real!" he told Kael. "Do you think a selfish, self-centered bitch like that would agree to sacrifice herself for our sake? For anyone’s sake!?"

Kael sighed, saying nothing.

A quiet murmur rippled throughout the entire group as they discussed the topic among themselves. Zorian listened to it with half an ear while lost in his own thoughts. Truthfully, now that he had heard about other people’s experiences with Panaxeth, her choice was… predictable. It wasn’t that they had trusted her because they had thought that she was better than this, they had just never realized making a deal like this was even an option. If Zorian had known about this before, he would have been the first one to veto any involvement with her, no matter how useful she could have been to their efforts.

And she had been very, very useful. Without any exaggeration, she was one of the pillars of the group on which their entire plan rested. Zorian wasn’t even sure if they could do this without her. Certainly, without Silverlake, their current exit plan was completely unworkable…

"I have to agree with Kyron," Alanic said solemnly. "Silverlake did not keep her attitudes hidden, so this decision should not surprise anyone here. You heard what everyone said on this meeting. The primordial offers people a guaranteed way to save their lives, as opposed to the uncertain odds of survival that we can offer her. She probably wouldn’t care if every single person in Cyoria ended up dead as a result of Panaxeth’s release, and it might be centuries before the wider consequences of his unsealing became apparent. Plus, there is no telling what kind of prize the creature offered her to entice her further."

"She was also clearly already interested in primordials even before the time loop. Including Panaxeth’s prison, specifically," Zorian said. "She might have felt more confident about being able to come out on top when dealing with one of them."

"But she’s immortal, right?" Taiven protested. "Shouldn’t she take the long view in this? Even if Panaxeth takes several centuries to start wrecking everything, she’ll still be alive by that point!"

"You have to look at it from her eyes," Zach said. He had calmed down greatly from his initial rage, and was now thinking much more rationally about the situation. "What’s the alternative? Dying immediately because you couldn’t get out of the time loop? That’s even worse."

"But if Panaxeth remains sealed, her original self can continue to live in peace indefinitely," Taiven pointed out. "She’s risking the long-term future of her original in exchange for a little more life for herself."

"I don’t think she cares about that," Zorian said, shaking his head. "That Silverlake is not her ."

"Yes. Did you ever notice she never created any simulacrums? Even when it would have been very useful?" Zach pointed out. "I don’t think for a moment she was unable to learn the spell. And I don’t think she would sabotage our attempts to escape from the time loop by not creating more skilled manpower. I think she’s one of the people who can’t use them because they would freak out when they realized their lives were fleeting and do something stupid."

"Well, when you all put it like that, why did we ever agree to work with her in the first place?" Kyron suddenly demanded, throwing his hands in the air in discontent.

"Yeah!" one of Xvim’s academic friends piped in. "She was a bad idea right from the start! Whose bright idea was to include her, anyway?"

"What was the alternative?" Xvim challenged, alternating his gaze between Kyron and the other speaker. "Silverlake was brought into the group because she had critical skills that no one else possessed. The only reason we got as far as we did was because we had her working along with us. Even if she betrayed us in the end, it’s hard to say whether we would have been better off without her."

No one had anything to say to that.

"Zorian, you’re the only one Panaxeth told anything related to Silverlake," Zach said. "Can you tell us anything else?"

"All he said was that someone had already taken his offer, so convincing me didn’t matter anymore," Zorian said. He was the only one Panaxeth had felt the need to tell that. "I had no idea what that meant back then, but when I saw Silverlake was missing…"

"Yeah," Zach said, clacking his tongue. "Doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happened. So, what now? Now we have two hostile loopers to deal with once we get out of the time loop?"

Zorian had to admire Zach’s spirit sometimes. Even now, with all their plans being thrown into total disarray, he was still confident they would get out of this alive. It was nice to have someone like that, sometimes.

"Panaxeth’s statement was a little confusing, but I think that’s right. He was implying that Red Robe had also taken his offer and made a contract with him in order to leave the time loop. Presumably, this is why he spent so much time optimizing the invasion. His very life depends on its success. Presumably, once outside, Silverlake will work with him to make sure Panaxeth’s release goes off as smoothly as possible."