This is a fanfiction of Mother of Learning. Soon it shall be over, and the sequel created. The original story is of course the most glorious creation ever in all of mortal history, and you should all read it. This is an attempt to give an answer to a few questions that will never be answered. What is in the deep dungeons? What happened to the gods? Where is QI's phylactery? What heights can Zorian reach with mental enhancements?

I hold no illusion it will hold any candle to the original story. But, it grants me and hopefully you some sense of closure. Plus, a fun story on Zorian advancing even further.

Into the story.

"I hope it hurts."

Zorian let his head collapse to the ground. Thick clouds of grey smoke filled the air, the aura of the augmented wraiths that flooded the city of Cyoria, their caustic nature burning his lungs, dragging at his soul. He strained his muscles, his power, to push his way out of the ectoplasmic arms that pinned him, failing against their supernatural strength.

They had a plan to stop them. Wraith traps, throughout the city. It hadn't worked.

"You tried your best to stand in our way. In the way of progress, of a better future for Eldemar. It's over. I will free the primordial, bind it again, and rule this land as emperor." Red Robe's words were punctuated by a cry as Zach his long standing ally burnt, the flames of Oganj's draconic magic smashing through his shield and incinerating him.

Zorian's flesh was melting. The caustic gases around them were making his skin melt, pool, every part of his body burning. His mana was almost gone. Despite that, he reached for the dagger of the emperor, a blade that could cut even spirits.

"No." Something slammed down on his arm, bones and flesh cracking under it's strength. More blood slicked his body. He kept the pain blocked, hidden for now. Red Robe's foot, he realized. "I've given you too much freedom. I'm not going to underestimate you again."

Hasted, a blur, moving faster than the eye could track, Quatach-Ichl the black boned lich of incredible skill sent a beam of red light slashing through Xvim's body, every drip of mana drained from the skilled archmage already. Xvim took the blow, collapsing under it. It was surprising he had lasted this long.

Quatach Ichl teleported next to them, and Oganj dropped down, their massive landing shaking their earth, wings curling around their body.

Red Robe grabbed Zorian by the shoulders and lifted him up to head height.

"You've failed, Zorian Kazinski. Everyone powerful on your side is dead, and soon our side of the bargain will be fulfilled. The primordial will be released, and Cyoria will burn as well."

Quatach Ichl looked at Red Robe with unconcealed annoyance. There was never any love lost between those two.

"Just kill him and move on. We have no time for your gloating. You're needed at the ritual center. They've launched another assault, this one much larger. We need to stop them so we can free the primordial."

Zorian had to stop them. He didn't have anything left though. Unless…

He gathered what tiny fragments of mana he had left, and snaked them past the magical sensors of Red Robe. His shaping skills had always been above average, and seven years of focused practice in the time loop had made him even more skilled at manipulating his magic. Quatach Ichl, being a millennia old lich, had the spell mind blank up, thought to be an unbreakable barrier against mind magic. Every spell had a flaw. The spell perfectly shielded the mind, but the body and nerves- and a crack appeared. His mind magic, his empathy, sneaked through the gap.

He barely had enough power left to overwhelm a house cat. He had no hope of battering down the mental defenses of Quatach Ichl, mightiest lich in the world. He could talk though. He forced through the memories he had just received. Red Robe, confessing that he intended to rebind the primordial so that he could rule Eldemar. He forced through some thoughts of his own. Once Red Robe had the continent under his grasp, would he really want a lich around who knew too many of his secrets.

He felt shock pushed back through the mental link, then words. "You can break mind blanks? Of course you can. I know, he's a treacherous snake. What do you want."

Zorian spoke back to him, communicating in a rush of images and feelings. His soul, exploding with the force to kill anyone. With the amount of pain he was in and how little mana he had left he just couldn't focus enough to speak words. He didn't explain that he knew about this technique because Quatach Ichl had tried to use it to kill him in the time loop. He just forced his need for the spell into their link.

He felt surprise, then a laugh from the lich. "We definitely can't have Jornak" Red Robe's true name, though he would always think of him as Red Robe. "Getting away with that. Fine. You get the spell."

He felt the knowledge of the technique filter back through the link. He could sense how it worked. He had better knowledge of his soul than any necromancer or lich he knew of, could feel how to make this work. The soul had a stabilizing frame around it, to ward off foreign magic. If you deliberately collapsed that…

The link collapsed. He didn't have any mana left. But as long as he was alive as long as he wasn't yet dead he still had his soul. He still had something left to give. Red Robe was droning on about something. Something to do with the splinter states.

He grabbed at his soul, fueling his magic with his raw life force.

Red Robe looked at him. "What are you doing." Red Robe had soul sight, he should have remembered. He accelerated his efforts. Quatach did a lipless grin at him and teleported away as Zorian's soul exploded in a blinding mess of agony, sending powerful soul magic out to rip and tear at Red Robe and Oganj.

Zorian died.

Taiven stood before him. He was lying on his bed- without broken arms- and she was stroking his cheek.

"You look like you had a wild dream. After that alchemy accident I thought you were a gonna. But come on. We need to get you to the dance."

What?

For seven years, Zorian had been stuck in a time loop. He had lived and died and lived and died again, exploiting this to gain power and magic. He had found a companion, Zach, who was also looping. They had escaped back into the real world to stop a lich, a witch, and a cultist from releasing a primordial, a creature of unspeakable terrible might from the Age of the Gods from being freed. He had fought and died to stop them.

And now he was back here… in the day before the invasion with one of his classmates.

He quickly tried to stealthily cast some spells to see what was up, but found he couldn't quite recall them. He tried to activate his empathy, his mind magic, but found he couldn't. He couldn't activate his soul sight. He didn't have any of the powers that he had possessed from the loops.

Taiven tugged him up, leaning on his arm.

"Come on, lets dance. Ask out again, nicely this time, and you might get lucky." Taiven grinned at him and planted a warm kiss on his cheek.

"You're not real!" He said.

She smiled at him, and pulled his hands towards her chest.

"I'm all real." They… felt real.

This couldn't be real. He had one last thing to do. He moved his awareness through his soul, subtly trying to feel if a geas or some strange mind magic was on him. He felt it. Divine magic. To escape the loop he had to learn to sense divine magic, and this magic was not subtle. He drew on his mana reserves, and flexed his soul.

The strands of divine magic twisted away from him, unbreakable, but no longer connected to the same parts of his soul.

The room flashed away. He was in a dark, black void. In front of him was a figure as vast as a mountain. It had a body shaped like a human, pale and with too many arms. He could see and feel countless eyes watching him blinking and staring from a skin darker than the sky. Sometimes an eye would vanish on the body soon to be replaced with a new one grown from the pale flesh.

High above him was a head made of stained gold, the gold pulsating and glowing with a million skulls that forced their way out of the molten metal, looking at him, reaching with arms. Six long arms jutted out from her body long as the coastlines dripping red blood from deep holes that flowed down into the void, long claws flexing and turning at impossible angles.

His hands were on a long metal key. Her chest was made of a host of them, twisting and turning as though into a lock, the metal forming and flowing back and forth.

His mind magic freed, he felt a mind incomprehensibly large. A mind that had seen worlds burn, seen countless terrors and pleasures and wonders. His head started to burn-

He was back in his room with Taiven. She was pouting.

"You mortals should learn to respect your deities. Why wouldn't you let me have your fun?"

She leapt onto him and pushed him down onto the bed. It felt surprisingly comfortable after hours of trekking through burning wraith mist.

"I did almost have you convinced it was a dream, didn't I?"

Zorian nodded quickly, not wanting a second try. Was this the primordial? A god?

"Yes, yes, it was very convincing."

She smiled, and he got the feeling that she genuinely believed him.

"Thank you." She looked down at him, on top of him, his hands still on her chest.

"I've done talks like this in worse positions. I am the goddess-"

He wrenched his hands away, and rolled out from under her, his combat trained instincts letting him stand up. The goddess flopped on the bed, and looked at him.

She laughed. "I don't mind your hands on my keys, if that's what you're worried about. I am Lopova, goddess of thieves. I am here to congratulate you." She clapped and cheered. "Go Zorian! You beat the invasion, stopped the ritual- your cleric friend managed to drive off the lich- and just had to die to do it. I restored all your damaged soul, don't worry. Well done you! You win life. I've personally talked to my head angel- a rare honor- and you are getting the full service treatment. All the books you want, access to my private library and the usual songs in your name, as much alcohol and drugs as you want, all the men or women you need- you name it, you got it. Your sister and brother are still alive and my angels will be personally keeping an eye on them along with your buddies." He could feel she was speaking absolute truth.

Zorian stared at her shocked.

She spoke, quickly filling the silence. "Was it the prank? You must tolerate us gods, it gets awfully boring here, we have to find ways to entertain ourselves. How often does a god get to say they convinced an archmage that their life was just a dream and they're just a precocious teenager?" She poked his arm twice, hard enough to sting.

"Not that often, so say I."

Zorian spoke, carefully. This was one of the weirdest situations he had been in.

"Thank you, Lopova. You honor me and my family. I thought you were gone" The world felt the gods had been gone for centuries. "But I am very grateful that you are still around."

She laughed, span, and got up to spin him around. He briefly tried to pull back, but felt a weight on him, greater than a mountain, holding him in place for her to spin him.

"So formal. Don't worry, I'm used to you mortals being uppity. Anyway, you have your reward. If you want something else ask it and any boon will be granted. Your work is over. Through that door is nothing but safety and happiness." He could feel she was being completely truthful. She gestured, and a new door appeared, of golden light, in the wall of his Cyorian apartment. The goddess flicked her hand at the door.

"Off you go, you have a fun afterlife ahead of you. And well done again. You the man, you the hero!" In Taiven's body, she cheered again for him, jumping and pumping her fists.

He was about to step away, when he noticed something. It was subtle, but… why did he keep feeling she was speaking the truth. His soul sight let him see her soul, his mind magic let her see her mind. But they were both false, versions of Taiven's. He'd seen her real soul and it was terrifying. He'd felt her mind and it was crushing. That meant that she… what had she said?

He smiled at her, careful not to display the slightest sign of what he was planning in his soul or mind magic. He was an archmage and he was pretty sure she didn't have any divine tendrils in his soul at the moment reading him.

He reached out his arm to Lopova, who eagerly grabbed his arm and pulled him close.

She looked at him lustily. "You know, the offer to check how real I am still stands."

Lopova, he remembered from his long lectures with Alanic when he had been learning his soul magic was a goddess of thieves. She was said to adore pranks, practical jokes, and pleasures with men and women, often in weird forms and shapes. She was very vain about her appearance and very prideful and loved physical humour. He didn't really want to touch a body snatcher using a fake version of his friend's body to allure him so he would show her. There were ways to get revenge on a goddess.

He looked back at her, with a confident smile. "Somewhere more real. Come with me." He winked at her, and led Lopova, her very real feeling brown hair spread across his shoulder towards the doorway. She spoke soft nothings into his ear, and ran her hand over his shoulder with a soft, electric touch.

Just before he reached it, as she started to stroke his chest, he moved his leg back and shoved the goddess through the doorway. As she passed the threshold from somewhere a metal bucket of ice water fell drenching her and soaking her clothes. Displaying no coordination or balance unlike the combat mage the real Taiven was, Lopova tripped over her own feet and fell unceremoniously to the ground, her face hitting the black void beyond with a satisfying thud.

After she fell rainbow lights flashed from past the door. After quickly casting a spell to lessen unpleasant lights and sounds (one Taiven had taught him) he stepped past.

There were massive glowing multicoloured lights shaping letters that said. "The game is not over, you fool" and a continual pounding music that stung his ears even past the spell, saying "Game on! Game on!"

He spoke out, to the room in general. "Safety and happiness. I personally feel very safe and happy so thank you for your honesty."

Lopova (he had decided that she wasn't worthy of the title goddess) rolled over onto her front, and looked at him with a glare that could crack continents. He felt a pressure on his mental shields, and felt them begin to buckle.

Then it vanished and she smiled.

"Best prank ever. And you have a bloody strong mental shield as well, I was hoping to scare you." She reached a hand out to Zorian. Zorian reached forward, and tugged her up. Lopova waved her hand and the water vanished, along with the lights and the sound.

"How did you know?" She asked, curious. Zorian thought of telling her about the falseness of the Taiven shell, or of the feeling of truth, but decided to go with another answer.

"Because gods are assholes. You've been gone for centuries. You wouldn't come back just to reward me. You want something from me. The game is not over.

Lopova's eyes glinted with surprise, and she nodded.

"We do need you once more as Jornak isn't dead and the primordial's contract allowed it to yank his soul away- easier with how close it was to the surface- and take it elsewhere and the primordials are children of the dragon below and have a sympathetic link to her as she is the heart of your world and is currently running a maintenance cycle replaying recent events so Jornak will be inserted back into the time loop just after the loop where you gained sentience as that loop was fragile and will return to destroy the world with an army of primordials unless you stop him so I am going to send you back as well and if that's all off you-" She said, all in one breath.

He held his hand up.

"Wait. Back to the start of the loops?"

She nodded.

"Try to keep up. There's a second set of loops about to happen and you and Jornak will be inserted into it." She paused, and looked thoughtful. "Of course, there's limits to what we can send. You're not meant to send souls into maintenance cycles. I can probably send two soul fragments- I was thinking your memories and your empathy- so you can quickly go defeat him, and return back to us once more. The earlier offers stand, by the way. Completely honest- you are gonna have a great afterlife, and your family and friends will be safe whatever you do." She said.

Most people would need a while to process all this. A long while. He did too, but there was a way to speed things up. He was already cutting off emotions like shock, blocking your distractions as he focused on what to do. He didn't have time to gape and stare. He could tell this goddess was eager to finish her games with him and send him on.

"We need to do this right. We need to do this perfectly, so we can stop the primordial release. I am going to summon several simalcrums so we can focus on it together. Is that ok?"

She shrugged. "More the merrier, I say. I'm never one to say no to some extra partners. She leered at him. He tossed a ball of light at her face. She casually tossed it away with her hand.

"You just wait, Zorian. There's a reason why we gods love simulacrum. I'll get you into it too!"

Zorian was sure that a number of priests would be fascinated to hear the goddess' imaginative and lurid ideas, but after a number of long lectures on the matter from Alanic, he was used to it. There's only so many times you can listen to a sermon on the uses of ectoplasm and still care.

Mentally blocking out her words, he summoned five simulacrums and began forming his fused hive mind. With aid from divine creatures, the Aranea, the rats of Cyoria and many magical secrets he had raises his mental arts to a new level, forming a hive mind that could do more than any one mind. He began to focus on the problem.

"… And that's why a more springy ectoplasm works better. A little wrestling always helps for a warm up and-" He interrupted her, wanting to talk about anything else.

"Why did the gods leave?" She paused, and looked at him.

"New horizons. We wanted to colonize new places and make new lands, and there wasn't enough divine mana to go around. We can't create it, at any speed you know?"

Zorian blinked. "You can't?" She shook her head. "We can manipulate it expertly, but we are not dragons. There's a limited amount of divine power we can tap here. A few primordials, some of the mightier creatures of the deep. Each one is a font of divine power, but we wanted more. More rare magics, sources of power. We agreed to forge out into the dark and find new sources, rather than wage a war over what was left."

Zorian remembered that there were several theories about why the gods had left. One popular one, that his asshole pastor had spoken of was that people were sinful, so the gods grew disgusted with this tainted world. Only by living up to their ideals and being pious men and women can we entice them to talk to us again (and hand out free stuff).

A second one that Alanic had favored was that the gods were beset by an outside enemy or problem, and had to dedicate their full attention to dealing with this. The emergency is still going on, and they trust their faithful to behave themselves and not set everything on fire in their absence, metaphorically speaking. The priesthood is here to make sure their trust isn't misplaced.

A third one, more common among the various necromancers he had killed was that the gods have decided we are now mature enough to live our lives without them holding our hands all the time. Them withdrawing their support so suddenly is really just a final step in their creation of us - the ultimate show of trust. The gods are still there, but we need to learn how to talk to them again, this time without them doing all the work.

They were short of mana had not been a theory.

"Can't you create it? I heard-"

She cut him off.

"Nope. Did your priests tell you the tale of how we gods came to be?"

Zorian began to recite from the book of Dosadan.

"And when the primordial sea parted, so forth were we."

She laughed. "Dragons, that dude was a bore. It's a pity what happened to him. No. In the distant past we were all humans, or lizards, or other things. The primordials ruled the world, cruelly doing as they willed and torturing and ripping apart people at will. A great coalition of the mightiest mages of all time and the strongest spirits came together and we slew one of the primordials. It was a long and terrible fight, and countless of us died, but with the aid of gifts we had stolen from them, we killed one. We took it's corpse, made potions of it, and consumed them to bind their magics to our souls. Did none of those stories survive till the present day.

They had survived. He had seen stories like that among the Cult of the Dragon Below, the group seeking to free the primordial and bind it to them. If they were right, that made a lot more sense why they felt they might succeed. They were still insane assholes.

This also explained why the Gods were such assholes. Binding the soul of a primordial to your soul would drive anyone a bit crazy.

She smiled at him. "Now you're getting it. We're badass heroes. Anyway, you can praise us later. Some of us can create divine mana. But it's hella hard. It's something complex to do with strings and vibrational modes and platonic shapes. I can't do it. But all of us can steal magic from the primordials, but they don't have so much, and they are starting to fray their cages and make it harder to seize magic. We were hoping for more primordials. Outside."

He glanced at her.

"Did it work?"

She shook her head. "It's not going well out there. Scary place."

As they had been talking his many minds had been planning out how to do it. She had given him constraints. Two fragments of his soul. His memories and his empathy, she had suggested. Those were strong. Maybe he could get more from her though.

"I could get a lot more done if you gave me the locations of useful artifacts, gave me some sort of blessing, perhaps offered to vouch for me with your church. You are a wise and intelligent goddess, I am sure you know much of use to us humans." Yes, let us loot your caches while you go mess about beyond the universe.

She shook her head and shaked her finger dismissively.

"Ahh ahh ahh. No giving you divine magic help on the core plane. Remember, divine magic is for us, not for you. I can probably explain away me stopping a primordial invasion. I can't explain away you looting all our best stuff."

"Do you want help?"

She looked straight at him, and nodded. "In bed?" She said hopefully.

He narrowed his eyes at her for a moment, and then shook his head.

"Outside. I was pretty close to doing it last time in the loop. If you can ascend, we might be able to as well. Repair the cages, bring you some reinforcements. Or we could go for a romp, but that's a lot more temporary than an eternity together.

She looked at him.

"Are you bullshitting me? You can't ascend. You can't manipulate divine magic. Your mana doesn't have any way to control it."

He made his soul ripple.

"We do."

She looked at him, and burst out laughing.

"Well I never. Your soul has divine mana in it, you know? Just a tiny amount, but enough to make it unbreakable. I can't do that. You humans have… shaping? That's what you call it. It's pretty impressive. We never really had such a great need for it. We could simply replicate a mage make them spend sixty years in a time dilated box practicing that spell, and then copy paste that soul skill into them." Well that was a really creepy and horrible thing to do to someone. "We had a lot more spells to master, but mastering them was never that hard. But shaping to control divine magic. What a crazy idea."

She shook her head. "Pretty insane. Maybe. Ok." She clicked her fingers a few times. "What do you want from me for it? Isn't saving the world enough? Fine. Ask any three questions, I'll answer. You can repay me when you come to me. Don't care about phrasing them carefully, I'm a good girl."

He spoke clearly, and slowly. "Where is Quatach-Ichl's phylactery, where are there accessible divine artifacts to help me, and who did your beautiful golden mask, it looks lovely."

She smiled at him, and brushed her hand against your cheek. "For that, I'll give you one extra. You know we're actually forbidden from helping mortals, and especially forbidden from doing this, because we're supposed to keep all the divine mana for the gods. You're lucky you're cute. I don't know where his phylactery is, but his partner probably does, seek out the Red Thorn in his homeland."

"The goddess of thieves doesn't know where to steal something" He asked her.

She waved her fingers. "I could find out, but I'm not allowed to do full scans. Anyway, go to the head church, ask for the top priest of my church, and tell him that Lopova has sent you, open the tombs. Ask for the divine compensator, it will get you some of my special stuff. There's a lot of our stuff on the southern continent, explore there. I can't tell you where, there are other eyes on you, don't ask. And my mask was personally created from the soul of a true dragon, thank you for asking. So, made your plans, ready to go?" She said, glancing at him.

"A few more questions. Do you have any idea what Red Robe will be doing once he gets into the 'maintenance cycle' and whether he will have his full powers? And rather than my empathy, can you send me with my shaping abilities?"