Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

"Why does Silverlake accepting his offer mean there is no point in convincing you, though?" Kael asked. "You’d think Panaxeth would want as many agents as possible."

"Probably because every time he transports someone out the gate becomes barred again," Zorian said. "Remember, the whole point of gathering the Key was that the gate was inexplicably barred, even though it shouldn’t have been. The Controller has already left , Guardian of the Threshold told us. That probably means that when Panaxeth got Red Robe out of the time loop, it got stuck. The same probably happened now. Even if Panaxeth wanted to transport more than one person, he couldn’t."

"But you still have the Key," Ilsa pointed out.

"We do," Zach confirmed.

"So you can probably just unbar the gate again," Ilsa stated.

"Probably," Zach agreed.

"They’d have to be pretty stupid to take any of us into the Sovereign Gate again," Alanic said pitilessly. "I would never do so in their place."

"All of us present refused that thing’s deal," Kyron pointed out, a little incensed.

"Or maybe we were just too slow and Silverlake hammered out her deal before we had a chance to do the same," Xvim said. "I agree with Alanic. Now that Silverlake betrayed us, the pressure on remaining people is all the greater. It’s a pointless risk."

Zorian watched the argument in silence, not knowing what to say.

This was going to be a long evening…

After finding out what everyone had experienced in the Sovereign Gate, Zach and Zorian departed from the Noveda Estate and went to ransack Silverlake’s dimensional refuge for any clues. Of course, Zorian fully intended to also steal any magical secrets or notable resources he found there. Since Silverlake had betrayed them so utterly, he did not feel bad about robbing her blind in the slightest.

Unfortunately, it seemed that Silverlake’s spite and paranoia knew no bounds. When they finally managed to subvert her defenses and break into her pocket dimension, they found it utterly wrecked. It had been reduced to a smoking crater for quite some time before they arrived, most likely because some dead man’s switch had activated when she died and destroyed everything. Zorian left a couple of simulacrums to sift through the wreckage for anything of value, but he didn’t have much hope they would find anything. The destruction was quite thorough.

The only things that survived relatively intact was a curious arrangement of stones that was apparently responsible for powering her pocket dimension. He had long wondered how she was doing that, since the location itself could not support the dimensional magic she was using to isolate it from the rest of the world. Now he knew. Each of the heavy linking stones, which were build right into the walls of her hideout to disguise them better, had a matching counterpart in the deep in the underworld below her base. The underworld stones siphoned ambient mana from the Dungeon and sent it straight into Silverlake’s hideout through the paired stones in the pocket dimension.

He supposed that if he ever wanted to destroy Silverlake’s pocket dimension, he now knew a really easy way to do it. He just had to wreck the mana siphoning stones in the Dungeon below her sanctuary and the whole place would soon fall apart on its own.

In any case, with this matter currently being dealt with, Zach and Zorian turned their attention towards the next thing that had to be done as soon as possible.

They had to go back to the Sovereign Gate and talk to the Guardian of the Threshold.

There was danger in doing that, of course. However, it had to be done. They had to confirm their suspicions. First, they had to see if the Guardian would still be there at all when they came back, since it had gone missing when they had last left the Sovereign Gate. Secondly, they had to see if the gate really was barred again like they suspected. If so, a lot of their speculation would be all but confirmed.

Finally, they had to see if the Guardian could shed some light on what happened during their last visit. While it had seemed like nothing more than an automated puppet in the past, there was clearly something more complex going on in regards to that thing.

Only the two of them would be going there this time, of course. Considering Panaxeth completely ignored Zach the last time around and told Zorian he would not bother with him in the future, they probably wouldn’t be seeing him on this visit. Even if they did, though, Zorian was far less afraid of him now that he knew he couldn’t just reach into his head and start editing things. Whatever restrictions the primordial was laboring under, they clearly prevented him from coercing people into anything.

When they entered the Sovereign Gate, they were relieved to see the familiar figure of the Guardian of the Threshold floating in front of them.

"Welcome, Controller," the Guardian greeted.

"So Panaxeth didn’t break everything with his little visit," Zach commented, loudly exhaling in satisfaction. "That’s great. Finally some good news."

"Yes," Zorian agreed. He turned towards the floating humanoid of light, giving him a complex look. What was this thing really? "Guardian, is the gate still open?"

They waited for several seconds, wondering why it took the Guardian so long to answer that. Usually he was really prompt with his answers, only occasionally waiting while it looked up something in the background. As the seconds ticked by, though, they realized he wasn’t checking up on things before giving them an answer.

Instead, the Guardian ignored Zorian’s question completely.

Uh oh…

"Hey Guardian! Is the gate still open?" Zach said, repeating Zorian’s question.

"No, Controller. The gate is barred," the Guardian immediately answered.

Zach and Zorian shared a complex look with each other. On one hand, they just confirmed their speculation about what happened. This was good. It meant they were of the right track. On the other hand…

"Guardian, why did you answer his question and not mine?" Zorian asked the glowing humanoid.

But the Guardian ignored his question, just like he did the previous one. In fact, Zorian realized that, although the Guardian was facing them, he was subtly tilted towards Zach. It was like he was completely ignoring Zorian’s very existence.

Just like he had been ignoring the temporary loopers in the past.

"Guardian, why are you only responding to me and not him?" Zach asked, a bit of frustration bleeding into his voice.

"I only respond to the Controller," the Guardian stated placidly.

"I knew it," Zorian said quietly, followed by a small sigh.

Zach stared at the Guardian, getting visibly more and more upset as time went by. Zorian just felt a sinking feeling of defeat, instead. When it rained, it poured.

"This is bullshit," Zach stated angrily, pointing with his finger at Zorian. "He entered this space on his own, by activating his marker. Only a controller can do that!"

"Yes," the Guardian agreed. "He is an anomaly. Those happen sometimes. Something or someone has managed to get past the safeguards and disrupted the integrity of the mechanism. The anomaly can access Controller privileges even though he is not one. I am unable to do anything about that at the moment, but do not worry – the mistake will be corrected at the end of this cycle, when the world is recreated again."

Lovely. Zorian did not need a detailed explanation to understand what the Guardian was implying.

"But why now?" Zach demanded. "How did you figure out he was the anomaly all of a sudden? He had been coming and going here for ages now!"

"Yes. Regretful," Guardian said blandly. "However, you have presented me with the Key recently, which triggered a complete analysis of the existing situation. During this inspection, the anomaly was identified and correction procedures were scheduled to be performed at the first possible opportunity."