Sophia felt sorry for Othala. The being was clearly very limited, but that was probably a good thing; a more advanced one wouldn't go into and out of stasis so easily. Even so, it was clear that Othala was made to work with people. Being alone couldn't be good for it, and the constructs it could make like Scout and the guards probably made it harder by being close but not close enough.

The constructs might be able to become more than they were, but Sophia suspected they'd never had the chance. Standing around in a dark deserted facility with nothing to do wasn't exactly a recipe for the development of a sane person. It was probably just as well that Othala didn't keep constructs around long enough for them to develop real personalities, at least not so far. Sophia wished she could get a specialist in artificial sapiences to visit Othala; they'd know if the constructs even had the chance to grow or not.

Othala needed people around, but that wasn't exactly easy to arrange. All Sophia could do was translate and hope that there was a good reason for people to keep visiting. That would be enough, surely. It would have to be.

"I don't know how long I was out," Othala admitted to Sophia. "It has been over a millennium since then. I've put myself into hibernation whenever nothing was happening, but it's still been hard. You are the first humans I've seen in that time. Do you know why I was abandoned?"

Sophia shook her head. "I don't know much about the history here, so I don't know what would have happened more than a thousand years ago. The only thing I know is … wait. Maybe I do know. Do you remember the Tower of Kestii?"

"Of course," Othala answered confidently. "Many of my records are based on the Tower and what it contains. Replicating as much as possible is the purpose of this facility, after all, so I have to have good records."

Just like that, Sophia had an answer to one of the biggest questions she had: what was this place for?

She was certain that with that as the answer, Lan'ti would be even more interested. She'd have to make sure to tell him once she was done talking to Othala. It might even be the reason she needed so that people would visit, at least if they could get enough people who knew enough Old Kestii to talk to Othala.

"What role did you fill for the facility?" Sophia couldn't help her curiosity. She knew of dozens of jobs an artificial sapience could have in a place like this, but she wasn't certain which one Othala held.

"All sorts of things," Othala answered easily. "Records were my primary responsibility, both maintaining them and providing them when needed. I created constructs to help record results when the humans weren't including everything. I monitored the entire facility to be certain that the mana flow was not impacted by the experiments or the manufacturing when someone found something we needed to test out in larger numbers. Naturally, that also meant I had the best knowledge of the facility itself, so I coordinated maintenance and scheduling and even room assignment. I wasn't in charge of the projects themselves or food or security; there were humans who did those things. I did almost everything else."

Sophia nodded as Othala described its tasks. It was very similar to the tasks a shipmind did on a spaceship, though a shipmind was usually also an important voice in his or her own right. Othala clearly wasn't.

Of course, Othala was also not a shipmind. Sophia suspected that the sapience wasn't specifically trained for the role after choosing it from a host of options with some idea of what they all meant. It was probably seen as a useful tool rather than a person, like the automatons it called creations. That was wrong, but even on Earth it was common. Most people had never seen a true artificial sapience except on television, and Earth-based humanity once called AIs was anything but human, with no sense of self or understanding of anything.

"That explains how you knew we were there, then. You said there was a mana disturbance from the top level?" Sophia waited for Othala to agree before she continued. "You also said a lot of your sensors were broken when you woke up. Could a huge surge in mana explain that, maybe why you were knocked out and also why your sensors failed?"

"Yes," Othala agreed doubtfully. "A massive spike in the mana running through the distribution conduits would damage me and my sensors and require a repair and restoration cycle. That's been my top possibility for a logn time, since there are few other things that would damage the conduits, but we had the fluctuations under control; there was no way the mana could spike."

Sophia was pretty sure that anything big enough to change a planet into the mostly disconnected fragments of land known as the Broken Lands was big enough to cause a huge surge. The timing wasn't perfect, but it seemed possible, especially since Othala didn't know how long it was disabled. "I assume that you don't remember when the Tower of Kestii fell?"

"The Tower fell?" Othala sounded confused. "That's not possible. I have reviewed the records of the attempts to destroy it many times. The material it is made of did not react at all to any attempt to harm it; all it did was stop anything that tried. It did not behave like any other known material; it seemed to be infinitely strong and infinitely instantaneously absorbed any force spent on it, as if it were not there. No matter what you hit it with, that object simply stopped without suffering any damage, as if it hit nothing, yet the motion was gone. Explosions were similar, and it was completely nonreactive to all known chemical compounds. It was a major research topic, even though there were no strong contenders for what it was."

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"It was magical." Sophia shook her head. She'd heard of several different ways to cause that sort of effect, but the answer was obvious in the Broken Lands. There was something every Called had that explained it, at least if it were made a little better, with fewer clearly deliberate weak points. "It was a shield; without seeing it, I can't even try to figure out the details, but a properly-made shield can withstand all sorts of things. It would take a lot of magic, but the Guide has a lot of magic available. The thing is, the shield was never breached. The Tower was taken out by someone who had the authority to destroy it."

Sophia turned and looked for Volat. He hadn't said anything in a while, so she'd lost track of him. Oh, there he was; he was talking to Lan'ti.

She waved at him to get his attention, then gestured for him to come closer. "Volat? Othala predates the Breaking. I only know it happened, not any stories about it; can you tell it what you know?"

"I knew it," Volat muttered in English. "I knew this complex had to be from the Kestii Empire." He took a deep breath, then stepped closer to the glowing crystal-studded sphere that was Othala's body. His next words were in Old Kestii. "Today, we tell the tale in English, but I know the old story, the tale that became what we tell today. That is what I will tell you now."

Othala's glow flickered for a moment before it steadied at a slightly dimmer level than before. "Tell me. I need to know."

Volat's voice shifted slightly, as if he were listening to a melody as he spoke. "Kestii was the center of the world. All roads led to Kestii; even the gods bowed before the Empire's might. That was to change, for the Tower did not respect Kestii. It started small, a building of black glass where there was nothing the day before, but it did not stay small."

Volat gestured as he spoke. When he spoke of the Tower, his hands rose and became closer together. As he moved on, his hands balled into fists and fell to his side. "No one noticed the Tower at first, but that was not to last. Monsters poured out of the Tower, bent on killing everyone they encountered. The Guide was silent then, silent until the first wave of monsters was defeated. That was the first Feat and it created the first Vocation."

"That is close, but the records say it was not that simple," Othala muttered.

Volat's eyes gleamed at the reminder that Othala had actual information that traced back to the Kestii Empire, but he continued with his story instead of asking for it. "Those with Vocations challenged and climbed the Tower, at first to stop the monsters and then for the power and challenge it offered. With each success it grew larger and taller, until the Tower overshadowed the great city of Kestii itself."

"That is not how it grew," Othala objected. "The records are clear; defeating the monsters within had only a marginal effect on the Tower's growth, even in the initial stages. There was a theory that allowing it to leak monsters would prevent it from growing at all, but that was never attempted."

Volat nodded at Othala's objection. His mouth curved in a grin. "The Tower reached to touch the sky. On its peak, another Tower appeared, a mirror of the Tower of Kestii. It rose, higher and higher, wider and wider, a mirage that should have blocked the Sun and did not. The mirrored Tower had no entrance, but when it was complete, the Tower grew outwards, a mighty expansion that tore Kestii apart. The mirror cast its shadow not in darkness but in a Maze with many entrances. To even challenge the Tower became a task fraught with difficulty, yet challenge it the champions of Kestii did. Many walked in but few walked out again."

Sophia glanced at Othala, expecting another comment. Othala's lights pulsed but it did not say anything.

Volat continued on with no more than a pause to take a breath. "This was the time of the Profession, the time when age was enough to claim a Sphere. While the non-Called could not fight the monsters of the Maze, they could do anything else and learn things the Called would never know in their lives filled with violence. Past the Maze were other hands, other peoples, and they brought skill that the new Professionals could learn and emulate. The Empire grew farther and farther, welcoming everyone into its shelter."

Volat took a moment to swallow, as if his throat were becoming dry from all the talking he was doing. "The Maze brought the height of the Empire, but it was also its downfall. Anywhere touched even once by the shadow of the inverted tower that became the Maze could form a doorway for the monsters. They ravaged the land and forced the population into places of safety, enclaves they could protect, venturing out only when it was necessary."

"Enclaves like this one," Othala muttered. "Though it was not as dangerous as that sounds. Monsters don't like each other any more than they like humans and they are slow and stupid. Anyone can keep away from them, as long as they weren't surprised. The point of gathering together was a night watch, mostly."

Sophia raised an eyebrow. As much as she wanted to trust Othala's records, that sounded an awful lot like propaganda. You didn't create massive underground installations when a simple wall and a few guards were enough. There had to be more to the story, which made Volat's version seem more likely. It did raise the question of exactly how long everything took, which was more likely to come from Othala's records than Volat's story.

Volat tilted his head, then straightened and continued. "The monsters brought new challengers to the Maze and the Tower, challengers who wished to repeat the victory of the past. At their head was a child of the Empire, a child of the Emperor. No one remembers who he was then, but today he is known as the Broken Lord. The day he conquered the Tower is the day the Tower fell, releasing the monsters he did not kill and shattering the very land the Tower stood above. The threat of the Tower was over, but so was the Empire that lived in its shadow."

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