He took his chair, and nodded at her statement, now understanding a good bit more from that simple sentence. Why Barid would rather ruin Draiss' impression of the 'new' him, rather than lower the shield. Why he had chosen the inefficient route of guarding everything, all the time, rather than putting up the defenses as needed. Why he had implied to have at least a dozen hosts loyal to him, simply from draining beyonders.<br/><br/>His brother hadn't consumed his beyonder; no, it was still there, hiding, biding its time, carefully goading Barid's hatred of not being in utter control of a situation higher. He had always detested having someone above him, but going this far, undermining the lynch pins holding reality together, just for the sake of his ego... No, his oath brother was still quite mad, despite evidence to the contrary.<br/><br/>He finished his thought process before looking up. "How much of reality must be freed from the shields for you to stop degenerating? How much to start recovering? And how long before we hit the point of no return?"<br/><br/>Those three questions were to get the basic plan. He then asked another couple questions, getting details for either getting it started sooner. "Where is my world with the shadow stalker constructs? Where is the physical location to enter the god's centennial celebration that has lasted more than two hundred years? Once I know all that, I should be able to start doing something about those shields."