The Master Key
Haalfrin would have normally considered it to be fortunate that he and Fisco don't have to waste too much time looking at each other's Names and completing the Contract; since Names technically exist in a Realm outside of Time, interacting with them happens instantly. Getting eaten by Ants while your mind is floating in your Soul Realm would suck.
However, in this case, it doesn't actually matter how long Haalfrin takes to open his 6th Gate and Contract with Fisco, since he's currently flying through the spatial tunnel between worlds. The journey is taking several hours so he has all the time in the world to discuss strategy with Fisco through their new soul Contract.
After all, even Far Speak medallions don't work across different worlds, but Haalfrin and Fisco are connected by the Soul with an Ally Contract. As the most practical form of Contract, they can share information with each other at least.
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"So Haalfrin," Fisco telepathically asks him, "what are you going to do now?"
"Hmm…," he grunts, "Just cause the ant Queen as much pain as I can before I die, I guess."
"… All right," Fisco acknowledges. "Well, instead of just sitting there killing the grunts, I'd suggest getting the Master Key. It has some information only I was privy to before, but it's an enchanted crystal linked to all the enchantments in the fortress – especially the Time locks. It IS portable, so if you take it with you, you can reset the fortress whenever you want and use the traps against the ants."
"And what?" Haalfrin shrugs. "just keep mindlessly killing the Ants? You know that killing the Ants doesn't actually harm the Queen at all, and she only loses mana when she has to personally spend it. If I were to attack her directly, she'd defeat me easily. There's no way I can end this. I think it would be better to just attack the Queen."
"What about your new Syl Name?" Fisco suggests. "With both of you being unable to leave, she won't be able to leave the fortress to hunt. Since you're now the only living person within the barrier other than her own Ants, she won't be able to get fresh meat. With no meals, she'll be in a constant mana deficit."
"Yes," Haalfrin concedes, "So long as I can do hit-and-run attacks, she'll be forced to constantly defend herself. Plus, I constantly get Death Aura whenever an Ant dies… so another thing I could do is avoid the Queen entirely while I hunt down her army – killing them over and over again. I'm a lot more mobile than her, so this should work. Eventually, with my Dra Name's strength, I'll be stronger than her."
"But," Fisco interjects, "with you being trapped in an enclosed space with the Queen and her army, you'll constantly be in battle, and you won't have the opportunity to EVER replenish your Mana. You're going to have to use your Fel Name to transform some of the Death Aura into mana instead of feeding it into your Dra Name."
"That's why I said you need to find the Master Key," Fisco reaffirms. "If you want to grow your power faster than the Queen, then you'll have to kill as many Ants as possible while using as little mana as possible; the best way to do that is to use my Fortress against them."
"What about food?" Haalfrin asks. "I can't fight forever without eating and sleeping, even if I have all the mana in the world."
Fisco thinks for a moment before replying, "Because of our Ally Contract, we can share physical objects with each other through the link in our Soul Realms. I can pass food and supplies to you to make sure you at least don't go hungry."
"Hmm…," Haalfrin frowns, "in order to sleep, I'll have to have my Wills carry me around and fight off the Ants for a couple of hours every day." His frown deepens. "There's not an unlimited supply of weapons for them to possess. The Fortress weapons will slowly go dull and break… and eventually, my Wills will have no bodies to fight with."
"I'll take care of that too," Fisco offers. "I'm very rich, so I can assemble an army of blacksmiths and keep you constantly supplied with new weapons."
The former Threshold commander pauses to think, "Hmm… I would prefer for you to collect the weapon scraps whenever you can and send them back to me; just in case this war is going to last a lot longer than it should, I'll need to think about finances more carefully. It IS cheaper to fix a weapon or reuse the raw material than to build a brand new one."
"Got it."
Fisco and Haalfrin never could've realized how important it was to save on money for this long war. If Fisco hadn't been careful with his money, even he and the entire Brancotte Empire would've gone bankrupt from supplying Haalfrin's battles.
Eventually, the history books call the conflict between Haalfrin and the Ant Queen "The Eternal War" for a reason.
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Eventually, Haalfrin does emerge on the other side of the World Gate. Instead of seeing the blue sky and bustling market town, he sees only darkness. Reaching forward, he only feels a hard wall.
"You there?" Haalfrin raises his voice. Fisco had said he was waiting on the other side of the wall, so he should hear him… right?
Alas, the man is met with silence. What he didn't think of is that it's impossible for sound to pass through a Time Locked wall.
After all, since sound is a ripple passing though physical matter (like wind, water, and stone) the sound wave passing through stone requires the stone to vibrate. Since the Stone can't move in time, it can't vibrate; since it can't vibrate, no sound can pass through.
Thus, Haalfrin's ears ring as the air echoes between himself and the World Gate. "Ugh. I'm not doing again."
"Anyway," Haalfrin says – this time though the link in their souls, "I'm headed back. The Queen is probably right behind me."
Given Haalfrin little delay here, the Queen actually would've caught him by now… if she hadn't been so slow and cautious to inch her way through the gate.
So, as Haalfrin is making the long trip back, he looks behind him and briefly sees a long line of ants streaming to where he just came from.
As the Ants see their prey coming back, he laughs as he sees them all wiggle their little legs in anger as they futilely tumble in the air – unable to turn themselves around.
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With the Queen no longer guarding the other exit, and being stuck in the World Gate for another minute at least, Haalfrin is free to make a break for it.
As he runs past, he's sure to have some of his Wills kill as many meandering Ants as possible; with their Queen temporarily in a different space, all of them are freaking out and aimlessly bumping into walls.
A few of them have even shifted into their humanoid forms, plopped their butts on the ground, and started sobbing – not in physical pain, but in loneliness and fear. It's the sort of pain and insecurity a child feels when they're separated from their parents; they feel alone and unsafe.
"Eh…" Haalfrin winces, "I kind of feel bad for killing them when they're like this; they're acting just like little kids."
The only thing that hardens his heart and keeps him killing them is when he remembers the way they ruthlessly tore apart his comrades. "Yes. These things are my enemy. It's Ok to kill them."
And so, Haalfrin charges through the fortress, slaughtering every Ant his path. Well, since his Wills are doing the slaughtering, he doesn't to slow down at all; that way, he doesn't have to worry about getting distracted killing things.
"All right, Fisco," Haalfrin speaks telepathically, "Direct me to where the Master Key is."
"It's in a secret room connected to my office. Tell me when you get there. Oh," Fisco adds, "and make sure you've bought yourself some time when you go get the Key; the security measures on the thing take some time to remove – even if you have the passcode for it."
"Got it. I'm headed there now."
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Along the way, Haalfrin orders his Wills to form large clumps and spread out across the fortress and hold the Ants off. With them occupying several places in the Threshold, the Queen should at least be confused about where he's gone.
Assuming she has to travel every which way to check out every batch of Wills, then he'll have plenty of time to get the Master Key.
Because of Haalfrin's enhanced body, he can travel through the Fortress so quickly that the sounds of chittering Ants eventually fades away. By the time he reaches the heart of the Fortress, the halls have become as silent and dark as a tomb.
Remembering the previously bustling atmosphere this place had, Haalfrin actually feels a little creeped out; the sense of nostalgia contrasting with… THIS is certainly disconcerting.
Finally, the dragon slayer reaches Fisco's office. "I'm here, Fisco."
Without waiting for an answer, Haalfrin's hand reaches for the door… only to find it locked. He tries ripping the door off its hinges, but he stops immediately after noticing the enchantment on it.
Whenever he visited in the past, Fisco always had the security enchantments deactivated, so Haalfrin never noticed before.
"Crap," he curses, "It has an alarm. If I force my way through, the entire fortress will know where I am. It'll be hard to get away in time with the Queen on my tail."
Just as he starts freaking out, he feels Fisco reach through their soul link and say, "Well, since we've shared out 'Dra' Names, and 'Dra' is the body… this SHOULD work."
Moments later, Haalfrin briefly feels another will enter his body, and he relinquishes control.
Immediately, Haalfrin sees his own hands start fumbling around in front of him – touching the door and stroking it.
"Is this supposed to be some secret passcode?" Haalfrin asks Fisco. "You're making me look weird when you're touching the door like that.
"I can maneuver your body," Fisco explains, "but I can't share your senses. I can't tell what your body is feeling or seeing. Just tell me where the door handle is."
"A little down," Haalfrin says softly. "A little further. A little to the left… Got it!"
The rest of what Fisco does is purely based off muscle memory. Haalfrin watches as his own hand draws his pointer finger over the door – etching complex runes and passcodes onto the wood.
After a few moments, Haalfrin's mana sensitive eyes see the magical glow on the door fade, and he's able to get through unhindered.
"I'm through, Fisco."
"Good," Fisco responds, "now go to the painting on the wall."
Haalfrin scoffs, "The painting? Really!? Could you have picked a more obvious spot to hide something?"
Fisco ignores his insult, and instead keeps talking, "You see how the painting is of a man knocking on a door?" More specifically, the painting has a mystical door set on a beautiful grassy hill. The door has no building it's attached to – no walls.
It's a painting of a door that leads nowhere. Ironically, the painting is titled, "Leadership".
"Yes? I see it," Haalfrin says after a moment.
"The Paint was drawn with a type of ink that easily molds itself when imbued with magic," Fisco explains. "Even an idiot can paint with it, since the ink only requires you to think of a shape, and it'll crawl on the canvas… until you've created an image directly out of your imagination."
Fisco finally instructs, "What I need you to do is put your magic into the ink and imagine the man opening the door. You're going to have to be VERY careful to not disturb anything else on the painting except the man, since you could disrupt the enchantment and never get the Master Key."
"Can't you just control my body again and draw it yourself?" Haalfrin asks, "You sound like you know what you're doing more than me, and it sounds dangerous if I mess up."
"Remember," Fisco replies, "I can't see what you're seeing; it's too dangerous for me to mess with the painting so precisely when I can't even see it."
Haalfrin nods. "Got it. I'm on it now."