Dav shot Sophia a grin and spoke silently in her mind. "You aren't the only one who has been looking for new Abilities. I picked up one that lets me understand and speak languages based on the people I'm linked to. It's not as good as Innate Communication on its own, but as long as we're linked…"

Sophia shook her head, but she couldn't keep the grin off her face. She knew he'd deliberately not mentioned that so it could be a surprise. At least it wasn't a bad surprise.

No, really, it was a good surprise. Now she could make Dav speak for her when she didn't feel like it! Not that she would very often, but it was still nice to know that she didn't always have to be the only one talking to the facility-minds, at least until they learned English.

She hadn't actually picked any new Abilities out yet; she was still slowly advancing her Ability levels to match the one level she'd taken. She couldn't decide what Ability she wanted. She couldn't figure out anything she was really missing from her kit, which made it especially difficult. She had ways to attack, protect herself, protect her allies, hold her enemies in place, and find out what was going on, along with the ability to not only know a lot about her enemies but to share that with allies under the right circumstances. What more did she need?

Well, maybe another movement Ability? Flight was great, definitely, but it was really the only one she had. Perhaps she could look into something else to do with Collected Knowledge, too, or maybe there was a way for her to help out Cliff's summons more. That was probably the most effective thing she could do most of the time, even if it meant she didn't personally act.

There was one thing she was completely missing when she thought about it. She had no way to hide. The closest thing she had to a way to hide was turning into feathers, and a bunch of literally glowing feathers wasn't exactly the best hiding place.

It didn't seem that important. If she really needed to hide, she could get help from Taika. She didn't have to do everything herself. On top of that, it wasn't like she needed to worry about fighting other people here; there weren't people here. It might be a concern when they got back to Izel, but this wasn't Izel.

Still, maybe she should look. There ought to be something; Ci'an could fly silently and many birds used camouflage. Stealth was certainly not prohibited by her Plume Signature, even if her feathers normally shimmered and sometimes even glowed.

"The evacuation started sixteen years after Emperor Arlo Kestii returned alone from the Tower of Kestii and it began to collapse," Tiwaz stated sadly in answer to Dav's verbal question. "The official evacuation, at least; by then, my staff was less than a tenth of the number they had been when the Tower stood and visitors were even fewer. It took only a few months for the remainder to leave for the walled settlements near the Maze which could hold off the monsters. While they expressed a desire to return for what they left behind, they never did. I waited for years, but when it became obvious that the collapse was not simply here and no one was going to come back, I placed myself in hibernation. I have slept ever since."

Sophia shook her head. It seemed like she didn't have to tell Tiwaz that the Empire was gone, at least not of the facility-mind thought about it. "That's very different from Othala's tale. You were not knocked out when the Tower fell?"

Tiwaz laughed. "I was made to coordinate the forces of the Empire in both peace and war, and we were at war when the Tower fell. Othala was made to create in safety. Of course it was damaged in a way I was not. I expect it was the damage to the interspace conduits that damaged Othala and the other tykki."

Sophia blinked at the word tykki. It seemed to mean both "opinion" and "thought" as well as being the term for the facility-minds. She really should have thought to ask what Othala called itself.

"The conduits were damaged by the same thing that broke the Tower," Tiwaz continued, "Jord was broken into pieces and the pieces moved. The conduits were not made for that and Issvako was unreachable for none of the Gateways could be reached with the monsters in the way, assuming the Gateways were even functional. The conduits were impassable, broken and far too unstable to repair. Since you found your way here from Othala's, I can only assume that they have settled."

"Petrified, perhaps," Dav muttered. "There was a giant but not exactly real rock over the hole. Othala had records that said that was a safety feature of the conduit. We had to punch through it to patch the hole, which pushed us to this side."

"There was no storm of dimensional energy?" Tiwaz sounded interested. "That was present even before the fracture. Afterwards, it was so strong that people had to leave after minutes of exposure, unless they had a resistance to the energy. Those who could stay reported that the conduits were completely broken, flailing in the space between reality. I closed the doors and pulled as much power away as I could, but without Issvako they could not be completely sealed."

Sophia shrugged. "It must have fixed itself, at least some? The ceiling was gone for most of the path, and I guess you could call what was above it a storm, but almost all of it was kept out of the corridor."

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"Perhaps some of the others can be revived," Tiwaz mused. "I will ask you for-"

Tiwaz's light dimmed abruptly, past even the level it was at when they entered the room. It stayed dim for a long moment, then slowly began to brighten. "Wrong."

Sophia relaxed a little after Tiwaz spoke. It might not sound entirely coherent but that was better than watching someone die in front of her. She couldn't come up with anything to do to help Tiwaz, but if it was conscious, maybe it could tell her what happened and how to fix it. It had been without maintenance for a long time and had been in a hibernation mode for most of that time; perhaps it simply wasn't capable of being fully online.

Would they even be able to fully repair it? Xin'ri probably had the best chance of it, but Sophia had to admit she wasn't certain. It all depended on whether or not the stuff from more than sixteen hundred years ago was still good, and Sophia had her doubts. Things didn't last forever, and that was a very long time. She'd seen functional things that were older than that, but they were rare. Things that wore out were far more common, even when the things were magical.

"What's wrong?" Dav sounded just as worried as Sophia felt.

"Energy draw," Tiwaz answered brokenly. "Faulty energy draw, faulty relic, faulty protection. Overload underload. Surge."

"What happened? What's going on?"

Sophia spun to face Xin'ti. The fox-eared woman looked pale. Sophia translated as well as she could. She wasn't certain she got everything right, but it was close enough. At least, she thought it was.

Xin'ri seemed to pale even more as Sophia spoke. She fisted her hands, then seemed to deliberately unclench them. "Where? Where is the relic, or where is the protection broken? We have to fix one of those, probably both. We have to."

Sophia turned back to Tiwaz and translated Xin'ri's question.

Tiwaz didn't answer.

"Do you think it doesn't know?" Dav whispered to Sophia. "Or is it looking?"

Sophia shook her head. Either seemed possible, but it was just as possible that it hadn't heard her. Tiwaz's light flickered and moved as she watched, becoming stronger and weaker in waves. There was nothing they could do without more information from Tiwaz. All they could do was wait.

It was only about a minute before the light seemed to steady, but it seemed a lot longer than that. Tiwaz seemed a little dimmer than at its brightest but was still far brighter than when it hibernated.

"Tiwaz? Are you back?" Sophia asked when Tiwaz stayed silent.

There was a short, awkward pause before Tiwaz answered. "Yes? Yes. That was unpleasant. It wouldn't have been noticeable if I were still in hibernation, but I am not. That must be fixed, it is spiking and drawing mana from the entire system instead of solely from the reservoir. The interlinks must be fused and the cutoffs must have failed, that should not be possible. I need a…"

Tiwaz trailed off and Sophia frowned. She wasn't certain if it was talking to her or to itself.

That question was answered a moment later as Tiwaz decidedly focused on the people who stood in front of it. "I need your help."

"What do you need?" Dav asked before Sophia could ask almost the same question.

"I cannot create a maintenance construct." Tiwaz sounded both annoyed and upset. "I have only limited access to the creation chamber at all; I may not even be able to create the materials required to repair myself. I need your help to bring it up to a state where I can at least generate the materials. I may have to ask you to perform more repairs than that, as well. I would prefer to have a maintenance construct handle the repairs, but that will depend on what you find in the creation chamber."

"We can try," Sophia agreed, then turned towards Xin'ri and quickly explained why Tiwaz wanted. This was really more in Xin'ri's area than Sophia's; Sophia could follow directions, but that was all. She'd never focused on making things, not the way Xin'ri did.

"Wait a minute," Dav said. "I think I can … yes, it's there. I thought it would be. Now … no. Dammit."

Sophia frowned at Dav. What was he talking about?

"What did you just do?" The flap of Dav's backpack was pushed aside as Taika's colorful head pushed its way up to where he could see Dav. "I can feel the change in the link, there's something more to it now."

"Ah," Dav sounded surprised at Taika's reaction. "Translation. I can understand Tiwaz because of Sophia's Ability, I'm sharing her understanding, so I thought I could extend that to everyone. I can, but I can't find a way to push that understanding to other people. They have to be in the psychic mesh."

"You have a translation ability?" Xin'ri interrupted. "One you can share? What do you need to do to share it with me?"

"Well, uh, technically it's Sophia's translation ability," Dav admitted. He clearly hadn't expected Xin'ri's response, at least not fully.

Sophia was pretty sure he'd expected her to want it, at least. It made sense; they were going to be helping to repair a major magical artifact. Having to translate everything for their item specialist wasn't just going to be a pain, it would be actively detrimental. That had to be why he'd gone looking, after all. It was probably why he'd picked up the ability that let him talk to Tiwaz in the first place, now that Sophia thought about it; it just hadn't really come up after Volat taught Othala and Scout English.

"I have to establish a telepathic link with you," Dav answered Xin'ri. "The translation ability can spread across that. It will also let you talk to all of us silently."

"Then do it," Xin'ri answered. "I will let you in."

Sophia noticed that Xin'ri's hand dipped into a pocket as she spoke. Sophia couldn't tell if she was activating something that would help her if Dav lied or if she was deactivating something that protected her from psychic intrusion, but from her words, it was probably the second.

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