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Jonah half-expected Koh to turn his nose up or even growl at the man, but to his surprise, the wolf actually let Sermung pet him.

"He doesn't usually allow people to touch him," said Jonah. "Only children."

Sermung scratched behind Koh's ear, which the dog seemed to appreciate. "Perhaps I'm still a child at heart."

Jonah tried reaching a hand towards the animal, but Koh immediately turned and growled at him.

Sermung chortled as he retracted his hand, as well. "Are you sure his consciousness is being suppressed? He seems quite capable of resisting you."

"Don't I know it," said Jonah with a sigh. "Ironically, that might be why it is so difficult for me to free him. I've been trying to discover how to undo the psychic bindings over his mind, but it's like... they've become knotted together with his psyche. At this point, I'm not even sure Ettol knows how to undo them."

"How curious."

"Can Tenebrach see a solution?"

Sermung paused. For quite a while. "...No."

And while Jonah did not think the Crystal Titan would lie to him, necessarily, he also couldn't help wondering if that was the full truth. Because there was at least one solution that Jonah was fairly sure would work.

His own death.

Tenebrach would know that--and probably not be afraid of mentioning it, either.

Jonah didn't blame Sermung for leaving that out, but given how long that pause had been, perhaps Tenebrach had mentioned another, similarly grisly solution.

The Titan pushed the conversation onward before Jonah could finish organizing his thoughts, however.

"Anyway, down to business," he said. "Do you have any fresh leads for me?"

Ah, of course, that was much more important. "One moment." Jonah stopped and focused. His information gathering efforts had been a constant project over the years, squirreling away any relevant-seeming tidbits whenever possible, creating a web of memory points that may-or-may-not be related to one another. There was no way to tell until he unsealed the mental vault that he'd constructed.

Anything less secure or concealed would have eventually been found by Ettol. It was much too risky to just let those memories float freely.

Wow. There was quite a bit to sift through this time. He needed to be quick, though. Damn.

Skimming, skimming. Irrelevant. Irrelevant. Useless. Dead end. Irrelevant. Old news. Unimportant. Oh?

Hmm.

"...I believe there may be a dormant portal in Polost," said Jonah. "Western outskirts of the city, beneath a ruined fortress."