Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

"Even if Red Robe had left the time loop thanks to a deal with Panaxeth, he still had to find a way to make his temporary marker last past the six month time limit," Zorian told Zach when they were discussing the topic at one point.

"You think it wasn’t Panaxeth who helped him modify that?" Zach asked.

"Maybe it did, but I doubt the primordial actually did any modification itself. It may have given Red Robe clues and instructions, but he still needed to find someone to do that for him."

"And you think that someone was Quatach-Ichl," Zach guessed.

"Yes," Zorian confirmed. "Yet, if Quatach-Ichl helped Red Robe acquire a permanent marker, why would he not acquire one himself?"

"Perhaps he couldn’t," offer Zach. "I mean, the fact that temporary markers do not work on people for six restarts after the previous temporary marker runs out clearly indicates it’s not the marker that does the counting. It’s the Sovereign Gate and the Guardian of the Threshold."

"So?" Zorian asked.

"So that means modifying a temporary marker has to be done before the Sovereign Gate processes it in some way. In all likelihood, that means any change to them must be made before the restart in which they gained the marker ends. We know from your example that the Guardian can only do certain things at the end of the restart, and this is probably one of them. This would also explain why we never managed to figure out a way to modify them that worked. The moment that first restart ended the chance was lost, and we never even realized it."

"Ah," Zorian said. That did make a lot of sense… "So you think Quatach-Ichl was already a temporary looper for a while before Red Robe entered?"

"I don’t know. I’m just throwing the idea out there, I guess," Zach said with a shrug. "What do you think happened?"

"I think maybe Quatach-Ichl didn’t even want to leave the time loop, even if he found out about it," Zorian said. "I mean, definitely not through a method Red Robe and Silverlake used. Entering into a death pact with a primordial? Not a chance. And physically leaving on your own is very hard. I don’t think even Quatach-Ichl could have pulled it off, considering the amount of effort we had to put into it. Perhaps he simply made a deal with Red Robe, similar to what I have with Xvim, Kael and the others. Once he gets out, he gives Quatach-Ichl a mountain of notes and other information, and in exchange he helps modify Red Robe’s marker."

"He could have still demanded a temporary marker of his own and modified that," Zach pointed out. "Just in case, you know."

"Yeah, I guess," Zorian said after a while. "I don’t know. Maybe it’s as you say, and he just couldn’t. I could see Panaxeth giving Red Robe a very specific solution tailored for him alone. It probably doesn’t want anyone getting out without making a deal with him."

Their interaction with the Cult of the Dragon Below was very adversarial at first. For one thing, they had kidnapped them and blackmailed them into working with them, so it was inevitable they were not too enthusiastic about cooperating. It also didn’t help that Zorian evacuated all the shifters out of the city and informed the cult leadership that no child sacrifice would be allowed in their attempt to free Panaxeth from his prison. That led to a lot of shouting and even a brief exchange of combat spells.

However, the cult leaders would ultimately see the light when Zach and Zorian showed them the Sovereign Gate. They did not explain to the cultists what the object exactly did, but they did tell them it was a divine artifact that contained some of the essence of Panaxeth itself… and could thus be used as a key to open Panaxeth’s prison. A much better key than the shifter blood essence they originally planned to use for the purpose, too.

Though their description was deceptive, the basic facts were entirely true – within the reality of the time loop, the Sovereign Gate could very much be used as a key to open Panaxeth’s prison. In fact, using the Sovereign Gate was the key part of their plan to exit the time loop. This had been true while they had Silverlake’s cooperation and it was true now.

Zorian had been a little worried that the cultists would figure out too much if given access to the Sovereign Gate, but thankfully that never happened. They were overjoyed with it, but only because it was a better, fancier key to releasing Panaxeth out of its prison. They never realized what was truly going on inside of it.

Considering it was a divine artifact, and that those were notoriously hard to figure out, Zorian probably shouldn’t have been surprised at that.

In any case, their plans went off flawlessly. Better than they could have hoped, even. They had dug up a massive underground facility, reshaped the entire local geomantic web to fuel its creation, and then surrounded the imperial orb with layers upon layers of complicated wards and barriers made out of extremely expensive materials. The cost of the whole project was enough to bankrupt a small country and would give even a major nation like Eldemar and Falkrinea pause if they had to pay for it. By the end of it, even Quatach-Ichl seemed to be getting a little uneasy at the amount of resources and effort being put into this thing.

It didn’t matter though, because he stayed true to his word and the project was finished on time. Six days before the end of the restart, the improved Black Room was done. A large throng of people – time loopers, cult leaders and the more enthusiastic of the kidnapped researchers – piled on into the imperial orb and then the time dilation was activated.

They would spend the next five months inside the imperial orb. Outside, a single day would pass.

Quatach-Ichl did not join them in the orb, despite helping them make it. This was smart of him, because Zach and Zorian would have killed him the moment the orb was isolated from the outside world and stolen his crown again. Zorian wasn’t sure whether Quatach-Ichl could have escaped back to his phylactery if he was killed inside the palace orb, but even if he could they wouldn’t care. The important thing was that he could not escape when overpowered inside the orb, and that having him inside for the full five months was too much of a risk. The cult leaders were… manageable. Someone like Quatach-Ichl wasn’t.

In any case, the next five months would consist of improving everyone’s skills so they could help with the final exit plan, manufacturing the necessary ward stones and blueprints to prepare the terrain, and so on. It would be a bit of a challenge to hide the true meaning of all the preparations from the cult leaders and the like, but Zorian was not opposed to simply killing them if they ended up revealing too much to them, so whatever.

Zorian had another thing he wanted to do, though. Something he wanted to keep hidden from most people… including Zach.

Thus, he gathered most of the aranea loopers, plus Xvim and Daimen, and brought them to one of the isolated corners of the orb dimension for a talk.

"What a strange group you have gathered," Xvim remarked. "It seems you are still not satisfied with your mind magic skills, if I am reading the situation correctly."

"Seriously?" Daimen complained. "Aren’t you good enough at that, already?"

"You can never get good enough at mind magic," one of the aranea responded.

"Indeed," Zorian said. "It’s my best skill, and it’s good to keep working on those. However, I didn’t bring you here to work on my general mind magic skills. What I want… is to figure out a way to get past the Mind Blank spell and target a person with mind magic anyway."

A look of realization entered everyone’s eyes. Even the aranea – their body language was a little hard to read but Zorian had gotten a feeling for it by now.