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The Core had been behaving itself, as of late--at least insofar as it hadn’t been trying to do anything without his permission. Mostly, it just slept, only waking up when Hector touched it, but occasionally, he’d found it demonstrating curiosity about Warrenhold.

He was starting to think that it wanted him to give it a full tour of the place.

Which was quite a tall order, given the castle’s size, but maybe Hector would make time for that, eventually. When things calmed down a little more.

Which, on second thought, might mean never.

Abbas had instructed him in how to properly use the Kag, and it seemed simple enough. All Hector had to do was press his soul into it while the Kag was close enough to the Gate. Then the Gate was supposed to establish something called a “soul-ardor resonance.”

“...Okay,” Hector had told him. “So what happens after that?”

And for a time, Abbas had just stared at him. Then he shrugged.

“Are you kidding me?” said Hector.

“Once the connection with the Gate is achieved, the full extent of its capabilities should become available to you. But what exactly that entails... is still a mystery. You mentioned it was capable of teleportation, so that will almost certainly be an option. But if it can do anything else, then... well, I suppose the only way to find out is to test it.”

“Great. Awesome. Love hearing that.”

“I suggest making use of the Living Core again. It should, theoretically, allow you to examine the Gate’s full capabilities without accidentally triggering any of them.”

“What do you mean ‘theoretically?’”

“I mean, I designed it for precisely such purposes. But... it has also taken some rather mysterious qualities of its own.”

“Right...”

“So have caution.”

“Hmm. Wait, you make it sound like you won’t be there when we test it.”

“I probably won’t be.”

“Are you serious? Why not? This is a pretty important, science-y thing, isn’t it?”

“...Eh. I have more interesting projects to work on.”

“Huh? Like what?”

“Too early to discuss. Oh, but here. Take this with you, as well.” And after rummaging through a pile of books and machine parts, he’d shoved a new heater shield into Hector’s hands. “The Amir-22.”

At that, Hector had done a double take. “Wait, what? Twenty-two? The last one you gave me was only ten.”

“Yes. There were some failures. And successes. Trifles. Nothing terribly impressive. Do not expect the world. But when you can, please report back with an assessment of its performance.”

“Uh. An assessment? Okay. Um. W-what, er... what new features does this one have?”

But the question went unanswered, because the man had already walked away. Worse still, he’d been in pan-rozum the whole time, so even Worwal didn’t offer an explanation. They just returned to working with the Candle, which roared to life with a vigor that Hector had not previously seen from Abbas. It was comparable only to Agrian, one of the Candle’s creators.

And something about seeing that had made Hector want to cut Abbas a little extra slack. Not bother him then and there with more questions.