"The voices remind us of our purpose just like eating and sleeping allow you to keep track of time and remember about your origin. Without them, in a few centuries, your mind would turn into a broken mess, just like it happens to Liches."
By the time the Guardian of Might was done talking, they had arrived at their current residence. Yet while Zagran gently shapeshifted before her landing, touching the ground with the grace of the flying squirrel she once was, Scarlett plummeted like a brick.
She fell head first, opening a small crater on impact.
Zagran's lair looked like a Greek temple from the outside. It was a simple rectangular stone building with a sloped roof and protruding side walls. The inside, however, was much bigger.
The building had been decorated akin to a noble household that extended for hundreds of meters and had multiple floors. Even the entrance was filled with high-end furniture from all past eras of Mogar.
Each one of them had been engraved or inlaid with decorations that depicted the story of the Guardian of Might, including her brief time as the ruler of the entire Jiera continent.
In her human form, Zagran looked like a bulky woman in her mid-twenties, over 1.8 meters (6') tall, with shoulder-length blue hair, brown skin, and purple eyes. Zagran usually wore shoeless monk's clothes, but to honor her latest guest and apprentice she had replaced them with a comfortable adventurer's set.
It consisted of a saberist leather jerkin over a fine linen shirt, brown pants, and leather shoes.
The butler offered to each one of them a flower-scented towel soaked in warm water to clean both their faces and hands from the dirt of their recent battle. The man was actually an Awakened and was dressed like a warrior, not as a servant.
His steel gaze and the long sword hung to his back made his expression unsettling rather than welcoming, but Zagran didn't seem to notice. She was one of the few Guardians that still took in disciples and the butler was one of them.
Scarlett was in her human form as well. She felt embarrassed noticing how only her towel had turned brown whereas Zagran's was still snow-white.
"I don't get it. Why the servants?" She asked.
"Not servants, apprentices. They want to become stronger and maybe reach the white core while I need to remain sane. It's a win-win." The Garuda replied.
"Do you really know the secret of the white core?" Scarlett had already tried asking Leegaain, but he had refused to share it with her until she got accustomed to her new condition.
"Yes, but I don't just teach it to anyone. I guide my disciples during their training and offer them my insight. The rest is up to them. I've met enough Awakened who reached that level to understand the danger that such knowledge poses to any living creature, even to a Guardian." Zagran said with a nod.
"Danger?" The Sekhmet echoed.
"Yes. The voices in our heads aren't a cruel leash that Mogar burdens us with to keep us in line. They are the means we have to find those who really need us and to spot the danger before it escalates to the point of being dangerous to the balance.
"Eldritches, white cores, and Guardians are very similar between them, that's what makes us so powerful. Eldritches are the rulers of death, yet being cut off from the world energy there is a cap to the power they can reach.
"White cored individuals, instead, are one with the world energy but are cut off from Mogar's will. When an Awakened reaches the white core, their will becomes so strong that they can ignore the planet's needs, yet it caps their powers as well.
"Without Mogar's aid and guidance, however, they become living natural disasters prone to madness. All the white cored Awakened before Baba Yaga either killed themselves or were put down by us."
"At this point, you should have understood that Guardians are one with both the world energy and the will of Mogar. The only limit to our power is the amount of effort we put into developing our abilities." Zagran said.
"I never heard from Mogar ever since I became a Guardian." Scarlett said in confusion.
"And you should be grateful for that. It means that there's still no reason for you to intervene. Mogar doesn't boss us around, they expect us to do our stuff. They call us only when something big is going on, but we can contact them at any time." The Garuda replied.
'Mogar?' Scarlett closed her eyes, calling upon the conscience of the planet just out of curiosity.
'What do you want?' They replied as their vast consciousness flooded the Sekhmet's mind, allowing her to catch a glimpse of all the major events on Mogar and the plans that the entity had for their Guardians.
The mind link was different from anything Scarlett had ever experienced. It wasn't just a passing of thoughts, but a sharing of essences. Her mind and memories fused with those of Mogar to the point of becoming one.
The experience frightened the newborn Guardian. Her conscience wasn't just her own anymore and, in a way, even her body.
Something that Lith called Monday from the day he had found Solus.
'Nothing. Sorry to bother you.' Scarlett closed the mind link in a rush, returning to be the sole ruler of her own mind.
"That's what I meant with danger." Zagran resumed talking as if she could read every thought and fear that was passing through Scarlett's brain. "The voices, Mogar's influence on our mind, are all things that white cored Awakened don't have to worry about.
"Sooner or later, all Guardians go through a phase when they want to get rid of them forever and be their own person. Then they grow out of it and thank themselves for not doing something so stupid."
"It doesn't seem stupid to me." The Sekhmet sat at the dinner table, still shivering from the shock.
"Yet it is." The Garuda ordered the waiters to bring the appetizers. "Think about it. Why did you become a Guardian? To become stronger or to live forever?"
"No. Otherwise I would have either joined my friend Kalla in her quest for Lichhood or I would have researched the secret of the white core." Scarlett shook her head. "I did it because I wanted to give those poor children justice.
"To keep monstrosities like those that Balkor and Xedros did from happening again."
"My point exactly." Zagran nodded. "All Guardians have an ideal that they strive to uphold, but not for personal gratification. We do it because it's a part of us that we want to share with others, something that even Mogar agrees on.
"The planet isn't our master, it just gives us the means to do what we want and helps us to never forget the reason why we gained our powers in the first place. White cores, instead, are still egotistical creatures.
"Take Baba Yaga, for example. Just like you, she loves children above everything. Unlike you, however, she now focuses solely on her own.. She doesn't care about the kids of humans, Emperor Beasts, or of any other race but the undead.
