Editing Cognita (section)

=== Volume 8 ===
The routine of Wistram as well as Cognita was changed, however, when [[Eldavin]] came to the academy. He introduced himself fully with an older practice involving fighting the Archmages all at once leaving Cognita to protect the students rather than join in.<ref>[https://wanderinginn.com/2021/01/27/8-04-t/ Chapter 8.04 T]</ref> This was not the only idea that Eldavin had to shake up Wistram though. He soon after went up to Zelkyr's test to confront Cognita on how deceitful and harmful the test was. In doing so, he brought forth ideas of Zelkyr's fallibility which Cognita would not accept. The two almost came to blows before Eldavin left.<ref name=":6" /> Eldavin made many more attempts to convince Cognita of the faults in Zelkyr's test as well as her own inadequacies due to her undying loyalty towards Zelkyr, but she would not listen.<ref>[https://wanderinginn.com/2021/04/04/interlude-paradigm-shift-pt-1/ Interlude - Paradigm Shift (Pt. 1)]</ref> He tried again by telling the world what he saw as the true tale of Peril Chandler and Zelkyr Amerwing but was interrupted by Cognita herself once she realized that what he was saying hurt the image of Zelkyr. Soon after this broadcast, Eldavin went to actually challenge the upper floors with a secondary goal of freeing Cognita of her undying loyalty that Zelkyr had planted within her. He failed his primary goal after the true power of Zelkyr's guardian golems were revealed, but after taking a grievous injury, Eldavin did manage to alter Cognita against her will.<ref name=":3" /> Cognita disappeared for days after this to wallow in grief  of what she had lost.<ref>[https://wanderinginn.com/2021/06/22/8-29/ Chapter 8.29]</ref>

Eventually, Cognita came to the conclusion that her loyalty binding was gone, but she still felt that she should be loyal to Zelkyr regardless. To prove this, she lashed out by using her power over Wistram to start placing statues and tapestries showing Archmage Zelkyr around the academy. Cognita continued to behave erratically while she struggled with her newfound freedom and what she truly wanted. She burned books that she saw as revisionist towards Zelkyr and looked into other forms of artificial intelligence as she saw it in the form of Cortana on [[Aaron Vanwell|Aaron]]'s computer. Finally, she came to her conclusion that she should go see the world as Cognita increased the amount of golems guarding the upper levels significantly to prepare for her absence. Soon after, Cognita left the academy to go to [[Illivere]] among other locations.<ref name=":0" /> Before she could get to her destination, though, Cognita's ship was hired by [[Barelle|Barelle the Bard]] and [[Zenol Isphel|Prince Zenol]] to head to [[Nerrhavia's Fallen]] in order to free [[Yvlon Byres|Yvlon]] from wrongful imprisonment.<ref>[https://wanderinginn.com/2021/09/15/interlude-songs-and-stories/ Interlude - Songs and Stories]</ref>

In Cognita's absence, [[Trey Atwood]] put into place his plan to free Archmage [[Amerys]] from Wistram. Cognita acted in proxy to inform the Archmages of a golem's defeat and eventually did what she could to stop further intruders after the situation got out of hand.<ref>[https://wanderinginn.com/2022/01/19/8-63-k/ Chapter 8.63 K]</ref>Although Trey's initial plan was not good enough, his group had backup ideas and was eventually successful in freeing Amerys causing Cognita to mark Trey<ref name=":2" />