The Guildmaster continued staring at Kael as though waiting for him to admit that the entire story had been a joke. Kael allowed the silence to stretch, then placed one hand beside the black egg resting on the table.
"Anyway, now that you know why the challenge changed, can we return to the reason I came here? I still have no idea how to hatch this."
The old man did not even glance at the egg. "No, we cannot simply return to the familiar. You just told me that a divine being spent Causality to interfere with one of your Trials, and you expect me to treat that like an unfortunate scheduling problem."
"There isn't much else I can tell you," Kael said. "His name is Ulsal, he apparently dislikes me, and Torrac said the interference was expensive. Unless you know why he did it, staring at me isn't going to improve the situation."
"You defeated a Trial Ulsal created. That may be all the reason he needs."
