Orthos sighed, then looked around the basement with a sense of nostalgia.
"Well, give me a moment to get my things and I will analyze the situation here. If nothing else, I should be able to pinpoint the origin of any curses, spells or other effects that are preventing the continent from regaining System access."
Cara flapped her wings and flew back through the portal, making sure that the dragon wasn’t going to run away on her.
[Making friends, are you?] Karl asked as Cara followed Orthos around the Beast God Temple.
[Yep. He’s so... organized. It’s like dangling candy in front of Lotus or mice in front of Hawk. I just can’t resist messing with him.] The badger agreed.
Karl chuckled. Badgers and Bronze Dragons were polar opposites, order and chaos.
It really wasn’t surprising that the Chaos faction saw the disciples of the God of Law and Order as the perfect playmates, they were guaranteed a response to every prank.
Only a few minutes later, the pair were back, and Cara let the portal close behind them.
"Alright, where should we start? Let’s begin with the suppression, as I can still feel it weighing on me. But it’s not the same, just a similar effect to what was used before.
The original suppression artifact was created and used by an Immortal Rank Titan.
That Titan no longer exists. Matilda ate him.
But the effect is still in place, so I suspect that either someone found the device that he used, or that another Immortal managed to break through from their Realm and put a restriction on the continent so they could harvest it later, without risking any of the residents outgrowing the roles it had chosen for them.
Have you tried to assign classes to anyone? I heard you have a knack for that." Orthos asked.
Karl nodded. "Two of them so far. The attempt to awaken a mage met with intense backlash that Cara had to nullify at the Mythic Rank multiple times. But the attempt to awaken a Warrior didn’t give us any trouble."
Orthos tapped his chin as he thought, and tried to ignore the way that Cara twined between his feet like a cat.
He would deal with the badger fur on his socks later.
"I get it. I know what the issue is. It’s not targeting the System at all. If it was used by an Immortal from this planet, they would have. As it’s the greatest imbalance to the power structure.
Instead of the System, it is suppressing magic, which is traditionally the only way that most species can reach Immortality.
I believe that one or more of the gateways between the Realms have failed, or are being overpowered by something stronger than Matilda.
The Immortals on the other side either linked the gateway to one of their slave pens, or they are casting the spell through as a way to keep the mortals here weakened so that they have time to deal with the problem later." The Dragon insisted.
"So, we just need to find the source of the problem and then close the gateway, or deactivate the item that is causing the problem?" Karl asked.
Orthos nodded. "If we stop the feed for the effect, it will begin to fade. It’s not instant, the Immortals solved that vulnerability eons ago. But without anything feeding the effect, it shouldn’t be more than a few years before classes other than Warrior start to awaken."
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