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Since then, Hector had used his standard training and meditating time in order to experiment with the new shield and learn a bit more about about it, but even now, he still felt like there were things that he’d yet to uncover.

None of that was on his mind at the moment, however. Right now, he was focused entirely on the Gate.

And the Kag.

He pressed his soul into it. With the shield on his back, both hands were free to wield the Kag and the Core with ease.

The Gate responded. He felt it, both mentally and physically. A quaking pulse under his feet. A shivering wave over his body.

Whoa. It gave him pause. He was already quite close to the Gate, and now he was wary of taking another step. What if proximity was the main trigger for teleportation? That seemed unlikely, considering how he remembered the teleportation being conducted by Malast and Royo in the Undercrust, but still.

He wanted to be careful.

He turned to the Core for assistance.

It was certainly awake now. Not lethargic or grumpy at all.

It was intrigued. In awe? Eager to examine the moving energies in the air. In the ground. All around them.

But it was waiting for his permission.

‘Go on, then,’ thought Hector, holding the Core aloft. ‘This is Rathmore’s Gate. Tell me what it can do.’

A series of pulses arrived, this time from the Core, running down the length of his arm. It wasn’t actually telling him anything yet, though. It was just expressing its exuberance.

Wow. Hector hadn’t known it very long, but this behavior was definitely new.

‘Anything?’ said Garovel privately.

‘This thing’s like a kid in a candy shop, right now.’

And they waited a bit longer, while the Core conducted its examination. At length, it began feeding Hector so much information at once that he was having trouble parsing it all.

‘Whoa, whoa, slow down,’ said Hector, rethinking. ‘Can you just... show me?’

The core took another moment, then pulsed with happy acknowledgment.

A set of translucent spheres appeared in front of Hector, hovering there in midair.

He blinked inside his helmet. He hadn’t quite been sure what to expect when he’d made that request, but this certainly wasn’t it. Impulsively, he reached a hand out toward one of the spheres, and it passed right through it.

Uh...

‘What am I looking at here?’ he asked.

The Core pulsed again, explaining.