Die. Respawn. Repeat.

The imbuement process takes exactly five minutes, and so much happens in those five minutes that it's almost impossible for me to absorb it all. There's a couple of things I pick up on almost immediately, though. The first is that the Interface's process of imbuement is far different from anything I've seen so far—there's no working with the Firmament here. It feels more like the Interface peels the stone open with sheer force of will and shoves the Hueshift skill into it.

And "peels" is really the right word for it, to my discomfort. Every layer of Hunger Firmament that's anchored to the stone is quite literally peeled away, and layers of my own Hueshift Firmament are shoved into place in between.

The second is that there are more forces at play than just some variant of Firmament Control. I catch a glimpse of that same force I caught before, I think—whatever force it is that lies between Firmament and Inspiration. There's a wisp of intent that forces those layers apart.

Everything else that happens is so rapid that it's difficult for me to catch a glimpse of. There's something different going on in every layer of Firmament. It's like the Interface does something different in each layer to properly anchor the Hueshift Firmament to it.

Virin is going to find this very interesting, I suspect. I make a mental note to try to upgrade Quicken Mind when I can, or at least to prepare Compounded Mind for my next attempt.

For now, though, I've got a fully-functional Firmament sink.

I think.

"This should work," I say, eyeing the Abyssal Hunger stone carefully. I can feel how much Hueshift is packed into it. In fact, the effect itself is visible, if I look closely—the air around it is warped a tinge of blue. "Thys, do you have any of the sink prototypes?"

"We have a whole drawer full of incomplete ones," Thaht says dryly before his brother can respond; the other kobold folds his arms and huffs at being denied the opportunity to speak. "It's the souleater seeds that are hard to get, if you haven't figured that out already. The regulators are complicated and expensive to make, but we've got the materials and all it takes is time. The souleater seeds take weeks to acquire and even longer to grow."

"...The what?" I ask blankly.

"You know." Thaht gestures impatiently to the stone in my hand. "That's the component you're replacing with your stone, right? The souleater roots."

I remember seeing a plant buried within the first prototype Miktik showed me. "That thing's called a souleater?"

Thaht shrugs. "It's a parasitic plant that consumes the Firmament of whatever it's attached to," he says. "I assume that's why they named it that. I didn't name it. Honestly, the imbuement stone is better. We just don't have an easy way to perform an imbuement. Souleater roots are our second best option, but they're hard to acquire and we can't use fully matured plants because, uh, they'll kill us."

"They'll do what now?" I say blankly. I turn to stare at Ahkelios. "Remind me to be much more careful about the plants on Hestia. And also about what plants I let you get near."

"You're not my dad," Ahkelios says with a huff. "Besides, those sound like the most interesting plants! I've never encountered them before, probably."

"Probably?"

"I still can't remember most of my life on Hestia and I won't until we find another Remnant," he says.

"...Fair point." I glance down at the stone in my hand. "Alright, well, hand me one of the prototypes and I'll try to fit this thing in there."

Thys scrambles to grab one before his brother can. I smile a bit at the sight, amused—it's not a competition, but Thys seems a bit stubborn about contributing—then begin to work on incorporating the new imbuement stone into the prototype.

About two minutes in, Thys snatches it away from me. "I can't watch this anymore," he declares. "Give me the stone."

"What?" I ask, annoyed.

"Half the regulators aren't even functioning the way you connected them," Thys complains. "You can imbue a stone, but you don't understand the engineering that goes into this thing! You're going to vent half the absorbed Firmament back into the sink this way and crack it before it even gets a chance to work properly."

...That does explain a bit about what happened with the first, impromptu version I made before running off to fight Whisper. Granted, I'd only had the stone at the time, but there was a reason the rest of the sink was necessary. I step back and let Thys handle it, the kobold muttering to himself as he begins putting it together.

I try to pay attention, I do, but he's right: a lot of the actual engineering goes over my head as soon as he starts. I can make sense of how the Firmament flow is supposed to work, but I'm not exactly an expert with the mechanical components of the thing.

Instead, my mind drifts onto the ever-present question: what next.

I want to make sure the new Firmament sink works, but both Thys and Thaht seem quite convinced that it will, and the Ringmaster seems impressed with the working, though he hasn't said a word. I suspect his time here's almost up—the arena shop closed after I purchased the Abyssal Hunger stone, and I can feel his Firmament slowly dissociating back into the multiple phantoms I noticed before.

"Thanks for your help," I tell him quietly. He gives me a slight nod.

I'll test the Firmament sink as soon as I get the opportunity, and I should get an opportunity soon. The next step is going to be to catch up with the rest of the rebels and see if any of them have managed to acquire the information we need to enact our plan—to make it look like Whisper's council members are working against her. I'm sure at least one of the rebels will need the Firmament sink. This isn't exactly a quiet operation.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

After that...

Well, the plan after that is going to be unpleasant. I doubt Ahkelios is going to like it.

But I've got a time loop on my side. If I can get one working Firmament sink?

Then I don't need to stop at just one.

Bimar had to admit that she was enjoying this.

They were taking a risk, sure. They were taking an enormous risk, even, based entirely on the word of the strange, pinkish creature that Miktik claimed she trusted. It had no feathers or protective body coverings beyond the clothes it wore—and how strange was that—and it claimed to be a Trialgoer.

What a ridiculous story.

She went along with it, partly because there was too much that made sense about what that creature said, and partly because she'd been saying for some time now that their movement needed to do more. They were too afraid of Whisper, she said. They were being too cautious. Whisper's ability to surveil nearly everyone in Isthanok didn't mean that she caught everything that happened, or they wouldn't have been able to get past her at all. More likely than not, she listened for keywords, things that seemed suspicious that she might need to pay attention to.

The appearance of perfect surveillance was just a part of Whisper's game—a deterrent to any movement that might try to rise up against her. It did work, and it was a clever strategy, but...

Well, the point was that the Trialgoer, real or not, was giving her the opportunity to interrogate her old boss. And that was an opportunity she savored probably a little more than she should.

"What's our latest project, 'boss'?" she asked. She didn't bother hiding the disgust in her tone. "Did we make any new discoveries yet, or are we still just messing up people's Firmament?"

The old crow in front of her stayed silent. He was pissed, she could tell—his feathers were fluffed up just a bit, and there was a raw sort of hatred burning in his eyes that she couldn't help but enjoy. It wasn't like she hadn't been on the other end of this a half-dozen times while working beneath him.

"You don't have to answer," she said. "I can get the answers myself. I don't suppose you changed the lock combinations you use?"

Fizar strained to speak—to call out for help from Whisper, no doubt, though it was unlikely that Whisper would be able to hear him when they were this far underground. She'd taped his beak shut anyway, as a precautionary measure.

Bimar hummed. She found the padlocked drawer, entered the code she remembered, and...

Yup. The old crow hadn't even bothered to change the combination. Her heart dropped a little when she saw how many new files there were in the drawer—she hadn't worked for him for a long time, but back when she had, they'd gone through maybe one test subject every six months.

There were dozens of new folders in here. They must've started experimenting more. Because they'd had some kind of breakthrough? She filed through them one by one—a young crow that died after too much foreign Firmament had been injected into his system. A silverwisp that experienced strange, unfortunate mutations, and was still being kept in one of the nearby cells. A kobold with an artificial eye that could perceive the Interfaces of Trialgoers...

...Huh. That one was interesting. Not what the researchers here wanted, but maybe something Ethan would be interested in. She stuck that file to the side and kept searching.

There were a few more failures after that, each dated about six months apart. Most people that had Interface Firmament forced into them died. One or two of them survived, but not without significant damage, either physically or mentally.

She stopped when she got six folders deep and frowned. The next folder was labeled partial success.

"You did have a breakthrough," Bimar muttered, opening the folder and glancing through it, then turning to look at the old crow. "Was it worth it? All the dead children we went through." She stalked up to him, fury in her feathers, Firmament knife clenched in her hand. "What was it you said? You had a hunch that age matters."

Fizar glared back at her. She didn't see a lick of remorse in his eyes—anger, yes. An impotent rage at the fact that she'd managed to restrain him. Honestly, it had been pathetically easy to get back down here and into his good graces. All she'd had to do was pretend to have had a change of heart. A few flattering words, and he welcomed her back with open arms.

"Ten children dead because of a hunch," she said. "This partial success isn't even a child, so you were wrong the whole time. And you don't even care, do you?" Bimar ripped the tape off Fizar's beak. "Do you?!"

She'd raised her voice, she realized. Caution wasn't as important to her anymore—there was too much anger and nowhere for it to go.

"They died so we could learn," Fizar growled out. "It was a worthy sacrifice—"

Bimar shoved the Firmament knife into the old crown's beak, taped it shut again, and spun around, ignoring his muffled screams.

The knife would burn, and that was fine.

She had some reading to do.

It took a few minutes for her to get through both this file and the many other files that succeeded it—the partial success had evidently been enough for Whisper to ramp up funding, and Fizar had had no shortage of 'test subjects' because of that. The long and short of it was simple: they still hadn't been able to artificially give someone Interface access, but they had discovered that an imbuement from a Trialgoer could be artificially implanted into a person, giving them the ability to use a skill the way the Trialgoer could.

There were problems with the process, of course. The first partial success could really barely be called that—the skill worked, but the test subject had no control over it, which resulted in haphazard skill activations that very rapidly killed the poor guy. The next few weren't that much better. The skill sometimes merged into the flesh of the subject in strange ways, or manifested in violent bursts without any of the protections that a Trialgoer typically had.

But they did have one complete success. Bimar's eyes narrowed at the file.

Remnant-02-A, unknown species. Suspected biological Integrator construct. Implanted skill: [Spatial Cut], Rank A, Strength-type

Remnant-02-A demonstrated successful use of [Spatial Cut] three times in rapid succession with clear intent before being incapacitated by He-Who-Guards. Currently held in cell block B.

Interesting.

A pounding at the door interrupted her thoughts. Bimar frowned. No one else was supposed to be here—she'd made sure of it. She pulled another knife from her belt and flooded it with Firmament.

Unscheduled visitors here were almost always dangerous, and on the off chance Ethan was telling the truth, she couldn't die without getting this information back to him.

Besides, there were so many things she could do with it if she could pass it on to her past self.