Die. Respawn. Repeat.

I'm back in the laboratory. I let out a breath of relief—I wasn't sure how far back the skill would be able to take me. For the first time, I've been able to feel the process of time whirling back around me, and I've had to keep an eye on the stability of a skill while doing so.

This is as far back as I can take myself before it begins to fall apart. If I bring myself back this far, I should be able to use the skill another three times. Push it any further and I can only use it once.

Good to know.

The procedure with He-Who-Guards... worked, I think. I'm actually not sure, and I'm not going to know for another reset or two at the very least. The process was taxing on us both—the Firmament of a person is a lot more complicated than the Firmament of a stone—and Whisper getting steadily more agitated in the background didn't really help things.

It should have worked, but Guard will need a couple hours to recover and regain consciousness either way, which is when I'll find out for sure. I sigh, glancing down at my hand. They're still trembling with adrenaline, which is strange, considering I shouldn't have any right now.

"That was close, huh?" Ahkelios comments, trying to make his voice light. I shoot him a look.

"You think?" I had activated Once More Into the Fray only moments before Whisper lost control and attacked. "I guess we know for sure what happened with Tarin."

"Is he okay now?" Ahkelios asks anxiously. I nod.

"According to Guardian of Fate, he's fine," I say. "We need to help Wanders this loop. We'll get back to Tarin on the next one."

"Doesn't that mean he's going to die again?" Ahkelios protests. "He remembers these loops, it's not like you're rewinding him too!"

"He won't die again." I have to double-check with Guardian of Fate to be sure, but it's not pinging me with the same sense of danger—Tarin's said everything he needed to last loop, and it seems he's going to spend this one playing it safe with Whisper. "I'm going to cast Temporal Link. Can you make sure my echo works the way we want it to?"

"I'm not sure I can actually get that far from you," Ahkelios says cautiously.

"You can." It's not something we've tested, but with the latest fragment that Ahkelios has integrated, I can tell he's now strong enough to leave my side for a short period of time. He'll have to come back within my range eventually, but as long as we stay within the confines of Isthanok, I doubt it'll be an issue.

Ahkelios shoots me a look. "If you say so," he says. His voice is a little hesitant, and once again I pick up on the fact that there's something he hasn't told me—something he wants to talk about.

"If you can't, we'll figure it out," I say, smiling at him. "I trust you."

Ahkelios stiffens a little on my shoulder. I feel his claws grip into the fabric of my shirt tightly for a moment before he forces himself to relax, and despite not needing to breathe, I can sense him taking slow, deep breaths, as if to calm himself down. I say nothing. Whatever this is, he'll tell me when he's ready.

"Thank you," he says quietly.

I glance back to the Interface. It's not going to be quiet for long—the raid is due to begin any moment now, and this is my chance to check on the notifications I received last fight. There are a few registered defeats of the living meteors, apparently named "Meateors", which I promptly ignore.

And then there's the one about Anhar.

[ You have defeated Anhar the Unspoken (Rank S)! +331 Strength credits. +121 Durability credits. +201 Reflex credits. +85 Speed credits. +120 Firmament credits. ]

I almost flinch when I see the numbers. Apparently, the Interface considered him a Rank S threat, which is... higher than I expected. I wonder if it takes into account the sheer arsenal he had at his disposal. It feels like he was easier to defeat than some of the Guilty Chimeras that now infest Tarin's home, but I did have to use one of his own weapons against him. And I had Varhkos's help. If I'd had to fight him alone, I don't think the fight would have gone nearly as smoothly.

"The Unspoken, huh?" I mutter. I wonder if that's a part of morphling naming schemes that I don't know about. "Guess that fits."

"Do you feel bad?" Ahkelios asks. "About killing him."

"I don't know," I answer. "I don't think I know how to feel about it. But I feel worse about killing the frogs than I do about killing him."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Ahkelios says. I can tell there's a lot on his mind.

I put the credits to the side for the time being. The Interface seems to give me skills that are relevant either to my current situation or to what I've been doing—if I can hold on to my credits for a little longer, I might be able to get more skills related to rewinding and manipulating time. That's going to be one of the only advantages I'll have over the Integrators, so I plan to build on that as much as I can.

The good news is that I have enough credits to guarantee the quality of my skills. I'll bank them when I have to.

The thought strikes me that I'm probably going to have to before this raid is over, and I grimace.

In the background, Bimar clears her throat. I look up to see her leaning against a nearby wall; she stares at me and slowly, rather pointedly begins tapping her foot impatiently on the ground. Her expression remains perfectly deadpan all the while. "Do either of you want to explain what you're talking about?" she asks.

I grimace. Right. "It's complicated," I say. "I don't suppose you managed to find out anything about Miktik?"

"What are you talking about?" Bimar frowns at me.

"Long story. We don't have much time." I'm going to need to remember to try to catch up with Bimar before the end of this loop. "Try to see if you can find Miktik and figure out what she's up to. Be careful. The city's under attack."

"It's under what?" Bimar asks, straightening; a look of horror flashes into her expression. "You can't just—"

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"If you head up there, be careful," I interrupt. "Look, the Integrators are messing with the Trial, and I'm only going to have a few tries to get this right. I need to make sure He-Who-Wanders doesn't die, but I haven't been able to figure out what's going on with Miktik, and my skills can't reach her. Can you find her, and then meet up with me at, say, her workshop?"

It's a much clearer set of instructions than I'd had the mind to give her last time. Bimar's expression sharpens abruptly as I explain, and she nods.

"You said the city's under attack," she says, all business. "What kind?"

"Living meteorites, basically. Nearly invulnerable to blunt attacks. They target buildings and strong sources of Firmament." 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

"Living—" Bimar interrupts herself and scowls. "Got it. I think I've got an idea where she is. If it's interfering with your skills, then she's probably somewhere in the Integrator scrapyard."

She has mentioned something about that once. "Where is that?" I ask. Just in case. Bimar gives me a look, but answers me anyway.

"It's north of Isthanok," she says. "Not far off from here, actually. I'll avoid the city and head there through the forest. It's not hard to spot—look for a door so big it's taller than the trees."

"A... door?" I start. "Not a buildi—you know what, never mind. I'll figure this out later. I'll see you at Miktik's."

"If I can't make it back to her workshop, I'll come back here," Bimar says. "You just make sure Wanders is safe."

"I will."

It helps that I know what to expect now. Not as much as I want it to, but it helps.

I activate Temporal Link. A temporal clone peels off from me, darting off in Vahrkos's direction; Ahkelios gives me a hesitant glance, then follows after it. I turn my attention to He-Who-Wanders and check with Guardian of Fate.

Five minutes until he dies.

I'll get there in two.

He-Who-Wanders swallowed. He wasn't sure how he'd gotten into this situation—well, he knew how he'd gotten into this situation, he just didn't know how he'd allowed it to get this far. He was being clever! And it had even worked, at least in the sense that he'd been able to invoke Whisper's name and hadn't gotten instantly smited for it.

He was lucky, he knew. If Whisper had been paying any amount of attention, he'd be on the ground and writhing in pain by now. The problem was that he hadn't really been ready with any sort of followup, and he was rapidly running out of things he could pretend to know about.

On the plus side, he hadn't come out of this without any information! If Ethan had been telling the truth about the whole time loop thing—which seemed ridiculous, but if Miktik was willing to play along with it, then so was he—then all he needed to do was hand this information off to Ethan and he'd be safe.

...

Well, a different version of him would be safe. This version of him was still going to die. Or he'd at least experience a death, and that was sounding very much like something he didn't want to experience, even if it would be getting undone later.

Gods, now was not the time to be getting into his own head about the existential ramifications of time loops.

"Sir?" the merchant in front of him prompted, a touch of impatience in his tone. "Are they to the liking of our esteemed leader or not?"

He-Who-Wanders did his best to stop himself from jumping and responded in his best authoritative voice. "Patience," he said. "She-Who-Whispers is a busy woman. She cannot respond immediately."

Internally, he was just trying to memorize as much of the briefcase in front of him as he could. There were a series of vials, each filled with liquid and labeled with a serial number and a supposed effect; the names of them were rather silly, in his opinion. Critical Juncture. Orb Weaver. Snap Retort. What were any of these even supposed to mean?

The merchant clicked in annoyance. "Silverwisps," he rasped. He-Who-Wanders ignored it, though he wondered if the merchant had to deal with silverwisps particularly often. He didn't recognize the man's species, and that was rare; the Great Cities were a hub for worlds that had been integrated by the Interface, and by the very nature of his job and tendencies, He-Who-Wanders had met pretty much every species from the connected worlds.

But he'd never seen anything like this merchant. The man looked like he was made of sludge—green, viscous goop held together by sedimentary stone and fractured Firmament. It would have been fascinating were it not for the way the merchant hung over him. A few drops of that sludge came uncomfortably close to hitting Wanders more than once, and he couldn't help but suspect it was some kind of threat display.

"I'm starting to suspect you're not who you say you are, you know," the merchant said.

"If I wasn't, Whisper would already have punished me."

"Hmm." The merchant rumbled and loomed even closer; Wander tried desperately not to shrink away, though at this point he was practically being caged against the wall. He didn't fail to notice the way the goop was starting to circle him. "Maybe you made sure she's occupied, hmm? Maybe she has other matters on her mind."

Wander's Firmament guttered nervously. That... was quite possibly true. Especially since half the reason they were doing this now was because Whisper was distracted trying to figure out what the Trialgoer was attempting to do in her city. "Take it up with her, if you're that concerned," he said, trying his best to sound dismissive.

"Or you could pass a simple test," the merchant suggested, lowering his voice into something resembling an acidic purr. Acidic in the literal sense. Wander watched as the liquid from the merchant's mouth ate into the ground. "I'm sure Whisper has told you my name?"

Wander froze. He had no idea what this guy's name was. "Of course she did," he said, trying to buy time.

The merchant laughed. The sound made Wander flicker with discomfort; it sounded like a gust of wind blowing out a candle. "That's funny," he said, darkly amused, "because I've never told your little leader my name. Us Disconnected have to be quite discreet, you see."

Wander tried to run.

Tried.

The merchant's body melted, then rose up and swept around him, trapping him in place. Wander bounced off, falling to the ground and letting out a hiss of pain.

"Oh, I do so love it when it hurts," the merchant teased. "And since you're about to die anyway, I suppose I can tell you my name. If you beg me for mercy, I might make this hurt less."

The worst part about this, Wander decided, was that his killer was apparently the talkative type.

Also that he wouldn't be able to get any information back to the others before he died. That was annoying, too. But if he had to experience a death that would be retroactively pulled out of time, he would've preferred it if his killer wasn't the creepy, talkative type. There was a reason he liked Vahrkos; the man didn't like talking very much.

He wondered briefly if he'd already died like this before. They were supposedly in a time loop, after all. Who knew how many times Ethan might have tried this?

"It's Tekk," the merchant said. His body contracted once around Wander, walls of acid closing around him. "You'll scream it for me, won't you—"

Tekk's voice cut off into a scream of pain. Wander jumped, taking a step away from the fist that had suddenly appeared in the wall, lit green from the light of Tekk's body.

There was a sickening, tearing sound, and then Ethan's face appeared, also lit green. Wander had never been quite so relieved to see a meat creature that wasn't Vahrkos.

"Dude's kind of a creep, huh?" Ethan said by way of greeting. He tore the hole open with a flare of Firmament, then held a hand out to Wander. "Sorry I took so long. I got a little held up."