Zaldizko - Chapter 23 Time Cell

Our uneventful experience ended up being too good to be true when we turned into a new corridor and found ourselves in a vast red-black cavern with guns and arrows pointed at our heads from a group of people surrounding us

“Hey Colin, is it me, or have we gone through this situation already,” I whispered to the knight next to me.

He replied with a firm nod.

We continued with the replayed course of events (as they had originally happened) until we found ourselves waking up in the kyanite happy room.

“Easy Lyra, I don’t have much brains, but I do value what I have.” I moaned from the hard whack she had given the back of my head to rouse me out of my unconscious state.

She sat back with a knowing sigh.

“Cursed time cell. Looks like we haven’t chipped away enough of the zirconia,” she groaned.

“Time cell? Zirconia?” I tipped my head to one side.

“The zirconia allows the Power of Preservation to occur around us, so we relive the moment from when we each entered into this time cell,” Brystagg answered as he stood in the room’s entrance with his arms folded.

_”Aah, I understand the mining of the zirconia now,”_ Death’s voice piped up in my head.

“Understand?” I rapidly blinked, still uncertain.

_”Zirconia is used for a lot of time bound magic.”_

He explained that this form of magic came from a source known as the Power of Preservation.

Zirconia could hold memories, records of events as they happened and keep time fixed to one point.

_”Isn’t the time fixed to one place thing dangerous?”_I frowned.

_”Yes and no. Say you’re playing a record on a gramophone and the needle runs over an unintended and deep scratch. What do you think the needle will do?”_ Death quizzed me. By the sounds of his voice, he was enjoying the chance to show off his knowledge.

_”Um, I guess the needle would move off to one side.”_ I gave an obvious answer.

_”Correct. However, if the scratch across the record’s intended groove is ever so slight but deep, the needle continuously hops off and on in the same spot with attempts to reset itself. However, the record keeps spinning its intended course.” _

Oddly, I was able understand this explanation.

_”So, if I understand right. This time cell is a slight groove, and they are chipping away the zirconia to make a big scratch, so the needle will be knocked off to one side when it runs over it.”_ I rephrased what I hoped was a correct understanding.

_”Bingo. That needle is the time magic imbued within the zirconia. Chip away a lot of the stone; it may be enough to create a big scratch for time to be reset back to a zero point of origin.”_

The penny dropped.

_”They can free themselves from the cell?!”_

_”I suspect it’s a done deal now that they have a knight with a maplink.”_ Death sighed.

_”Back to the Lotus Bridge.”_ I gulped.

Colin was in much more danger than I was being BHT’s ticket out of the cell once they had reached that point of origin. If they ever found out about him being the Light Grimoire, I shudder to think what they would force from him.

“Bring them Lyra.” Brystagg left the room.

We made our way back to the Office of Exacles, but it was a different conversation this time.

“Lyra.” Brystagg said.

Buru and Lyra closed the doors.