Well now. That was a chapter.

 

Ah another cliffhanger!

Ok. Great to hear Zach's side of the story. Could use more details though..

 

I don't know if its just me, but I find it annoying how Zack is so overpowered and good at everything, that he (outside of the telepathy stuff) makes Zorian seem irrelevant. And with the timeloop business coming to a close in ~35 chapters or less, it feels like he will never catch up.

Like, this is probably on purpose, but it feels like this is just Zack's story, and Zorian is along for the ride.

And that makes all of Zorian's accomplishments meaningless in the grand scheme of the plot.

 

I dunno. I find it's a good counterpoint. Zorian doesn't have to solve everything on his own. Also, Zach is ridiculously overpowered yes but his strategy for everything seems to be walk up to it and wallop it into submission. That doesn't work when the lich is around, for example. Zorian isn't as powerful but he's smarter about his limitations and has that sneaking around aspect down pat. I think the author is playing with the trope of having an overpowered good guy but in this case we're following someone else, with different challenges and different motivations. MoL has always been about Zorian growing - look how one episode ago Zorian managed to ground the skeletal dragon while an army of mages tried to hit it and for the most part, missed. Like someone said 'Holy shit, I can't believe that actually worked'. Zorian's plenty badass on his own too, and it's definitely his story all in all.

 

Zach has also been doing this for far longer as Zorian noted. He's had plenty of time to become good, and even so Zorian was still helpful.

 

Well, the Serpent did mention that they were using the 'gate' + 'key'. I'm guessing sovereign gate that was mentioned by the warrior priest not sure what the 'key' is.

If they wanted to screw with Zorian/Zach, they could probably sabotage said gate so that in-between time didn't exist and Zorian/Zach would be screwed. Maybe red robe was trying to attack Zach to get at the 'key'?

 

The Eldemarr Royal Family have access to the fabled super-time-dialation room, there was a the legend about how a King went into the room, lived a lifetime and then came out again right?

The Ghost Serpent suggests that the super room can be activated once every 400 years (when the planets align) and that it simulates the real-world for the looper, who then gets to power up in a consequence free world, eventually the simulation runs out of juice, they do whatever they want for real one last time, and then go on their merry way in the real world, only having spent a month instead of N years.

The Ghost Serpent also says that the loop has been dormant for the past few cycles (i.e. 800, 1200, 1600 years ago the loop wasn't initiated) because either the Gate or the Key were lost. (Maybe that's what Damien discovered on his archeology trip?)

I suppose the mystery becomes twofold; why was the loop started? Is it because they know that coincidently at the 400 year/planets aligned mark crazy cults start to try and summon stuff, so they use the loop to stop them? Is it for more selfish reasons like amassing power & continue their rule? Who exactly is Red Robes (Eldemarr Prince?) Why is Zach in the loop?

It explains a bit of what the 'soulkill' is now; it simply stops the soul being simulated.

 

The whole thing is a simulation for Red Robe to perfect his plan. Zack and Zorian aren't real, they're simulations week have been made sentient and possibly ensouled.

 

Except you're making the assumption that the loop centres on Zach. (Zach has the Brand, which enables looping)

I find it more likely that Red Robes is the original looper, who then (somehow) included Zach into the loop. Zach readily admits in this chapter to no knowledge about the loop due to holes in his memory; just that he has a conviction that stopping the invasion is the task he's meant to accomplish. Zorian suspects that this is due to Red Robes influencing Zach via mind magic.

It could be that Red Robes deliberately included Zach in the loop to give himself a foil that he had to struggle and improve against to accelerate his own growth.

I don't think theres enough clear evidence to make any sort of predictions; this is all just conjecture.

 

I think Red Robes may have been spending the past loops bleeding all of the information he can out of creatures like the Ghost Serpent. Possibly even the Ghost Serpent itself.

Also bleeding all the information he can out of Quatach'Itchl- an ancient being who has some knowledge of the Bakora gates.

 

I doubt Red Robe is the original looper. If he was repeating longer than Zach, I would expect him to be a lot more dangerous than he showed to this point.

My guess is he joined the loop a decade or two ago, but how that happened is a completely mystery to me.

By the way, does the explanation mean everything is fake or everything but souls? Because, if souls are too then this Zorian is either going to disappear after loops are done or, probably because he has part of a non-fake soul in him, he's going to exist along his original self.

With all these revelations lately, what Zorian will be doing in the third act? Just preparing himself for the final loop?

 

No, I think they're real souls, and it's not really time travel.

My theory now goes something like this- in the "real" universe, time is paused. Or irrelevant- Zach and Zorian aren't in the normal, real universe right now.

Where Zach and Zorian are, time is always moving forward. It's not actually time being rewound or reset. A copy of the world/universe is made, with real souls and real bodies. The month goes on, and then that universe gets destroyed and a new one gets made, but the souls of Zach and Zorian get re-inserted into the newly created bodies (which, chronologically, happens after the end of the old universe, that universe just happens to be set up nearly exactly the same as the last one was a month in the past).

The story has hit on the idea several times that souls can't be destroyed, but that says nothing about making new, completely identical copies of souls.

The Cyorian Aranea and Mercs that start off dead in every restart? They're getting bodies made for them, but souls are either no longer being made, or no longer being put into the bodies at the start. Kael was right when he commented about them looking like sophisticated meat puppets that never had souls. They're newly created exact copies of the actual bodies, but without the souls.

It's not so much that Red Robes "booted them out of the loop". None of the 'real' people are in the time loop at all- for them, the events never actually happen.

But the copy people in these copy universes- they're not the "originals", but functionally they count as actual people with actual souls.

 

Maybe the fake wasn't a right world. What I meant was that every soul, but of the loopers, is created by the loop instead of every original soul looping into fake bodies and simply not remembering it.

If they're copies then Zorian is a copy too and his fate once the loops are over is a big unknown. Where that leaves Red Robe is even a bigger mystery.

 

I think their souls are copies too.

The simplest explanation is that when the loop ends, the looping soul-copies (those who have the Brand) simply replace the original souls.

 

Okay, honestly in regards to what Red Robe is doing, I've had my thoughts ever since they explained blood magic.

I think he is using the time-loop to steal the bloodline abilities of several powerful mage Houses, without anyone catching on. The only bloodline abilities he shouldn't have been able to steal should be Zach's and Zorian's. Zach's because he's the last of his line and the only one the bloodline magic can be stolen from, and he's basically protected by the soul-marker. Zorian, because Zorian himself didn't even know he had bloodline abilities, much less anyone else. I think the words 'thief' and 'murderer' could have made Zorian think of this, since Red Robe would be 'murdering' people to 'steal' their bloodline abilities.

 

There's been no mention of Zach having any bloodline ability and Empathy is reasonably common. The Red Robe could have stolen a bloodline ability or two, but I don't think that's his main goal. Besides, there are probably some hard limits how many add-ons a soul can contain and some abilities may be fundamentally incompatible with each other.

The spirit was probably talking about the earlier loopers. It doesn't appear to have any knowledge of what happens inside the loops (other than the particular loop they are living, of course).

 

Yea, the Ghost Serpent was basically saying 'You guys are loopers, you live in a world with no consequences, so I'm going to assume you're assholes with zero ethics who do whatever they want'.

 

My pet theory is that Red Robe is trying to stop the loop. If he is the guy pushing the invasion then having someone who can hit the reset button is a bit of a problem. Zach's soul is probably the anchor of the loop and expelling his soul from the loop would end it.