Die. Respawn. Repeat.

Before I leave, I pay a visit to Virin. I haven't forgotten the way he helped me out with imbuements, and it's because of him that I was able to fix He-Who-Guards. It's because of him that Isthanok's casualties weren't... well, significantly worse. The research he wants me to help with is a small price to pay in comparison, even if I haven't kept up with it as much as I should have.

This time, though, I notice something I haven't noticed before. I can feel the imbuement within the stone through my Firmament sense. More importantly...

"This thing has a Strength skill in it," I mutter in surprise.

It's not a weak Strength skill, either. My ability to parse Firmament constructs isn't so advanced that I can immediately tell what skill it is, but I can at least tell what level of complexity it's at. As far as I can tell, this thing is at least a rank A skill. Maybe even higher.

"Interface skill?" Virin asks immediately, leaning close in interest. His daughter plays around near the back of his hut, uninterested in what we're doing.

"No. Well, I don't know," I admit. I've encountered skills outside the Interface frequently enough that I'm starting to wonder if they originate with the Interface at all. "Maybe. But it feels like a Strength skill."

"How you know?"

"It's hard to explain." I quite literally don't have the words to explain it, and even if I did, Naru's waiting for me outside—I don't really want to unveil all the secrets I've discovered right in front of him. "I only figured it out recently. You'll have to trust me."

"I trust!" Virin says firmly; I have to laugh a bit at his enthusiasm. He's never failed to be incredibly excited every time I tell him we're working together on this.

Now. How to go about this...?

Knowing that it's a Strength skill is helpful, but it doesn't solve the entire problem. Skill constructs are still vastly more complicated than I have the capacity to understand. But I can compare the construct to the ones I have in my soul and get a better idea of where the input mechanism is supposed to be.

There. On the left side of the stone, where a series of whorls are inscribed. I aim a trickle of Firmament into the center of those whorls.

Almost immediately, I can tell that this isn't quite right. The good news is that it partially works—I can feel Firmament being projected out of the stone, a solid brick of force that knocks over one of Virin's chairs with a clatter and startles his daughter, who immediately flies up into her nest.

"Whoops," I say, embarrassed. "Sorry."

The bad news is that that's all I get out of it. The slight misalignment of Firmament is enough that the whole thing disintegrates after. I expect Virin to be disappointed, but instead, he's practically hopping up and down with excitement.

"It work!" he exclaims. "You make it work!"

"Well, partially," I say, holding up the dust. "It still broke after."

"But you can fix next time, yes?" he asks, clutching my hands and staring at me with wide eyes that look remarkably like a puppy's. I laugh.

"Yes, I'm pretty sure I know what I did wrong." Too much Firmament, for one thing—this thing isn't designed for a third-layer practitioner—and for another, the real activation spot is a little bit to the left of where I'd tried. And here I'd assumed 'center of the whorls' was a safe bet. "We'll get it next time."

"Yesssss." Virin looks delighted. "We finally figure out! Now I can learn. Make more!"

"You can make more of these?" I ask.

"Yes." He nods, incredibly sure of himself. "If I can use? I can make again."

Oh. Oh, that's valuable. Dangerously valuable. If the Disconnected are making vials that grant skills to people, if the Trialgoers are after ways to grant Interface skills to regular citizens... this might be the safest and most replicable way to use skills yet.

I say nothing. We can talk about this properly when Naru isn't around. "We'll talk more next time," I promise.

Virin bids me goodbye with an excited hug before he runs to the back of his hut to play with his daughter; I can hear her squealing in delight as he swings her around, and I chuckle a little to myself. He really does love imbuements and everything related to them.

Naru, of course, spoils the mood as soon as I exit the tent.

"You done?" he asks. His voice is a low semi-growl, like I've tested his patience with this little detour.

"Nope. Need to get some supplies for the trip," I say casually, more to mess with him than anything else. Naru makes a frustrated noise.

"You are wasting time," he says.

"Yeah, I was just kidding." I grin. One thing about the changes to my body ever since that second and third phase shift—I haven't needed to eat or drink nearly as much as before. Even without access to the Empty City to serve as storage for food and drink, I'll be fine for this little detour.

"Oh." Naru blinks, apparently thrown off by the joke. "Well... fine. I'll lead the way. You better keep up, Trialgoer."

"My name's Ethan, you know."

"I don't care." Naru refuses to look at me. "I'm not even going to remember that next loop."

Well, he's got a point. I glance around, looking for He-Who-Guards and Ahkelios; the former is off trying to recover as much as he can before the trip, and Ahkelios is with him. There's something he wants to try to help with Guard's recovery process, apparently? I don't know the details.

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"They're near the river," Naru grunts at me.

"Huh. Thanks," I say absently. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

I find them talking quietly in a quiet corner of the village—near the river, just like Naru said. Ahkelios is seated on Guard's knee, staring out at the nearby river and leaning back against the automaton's hand. From what I can hear, Ahkelios is asking Guard about Hestia. About what it was like before the Trials.

I cough politely to get their attention.

"You guys ready to head out?" I ask. Ahkelios glances up to me first, hopping off Guard's knee and flying to my shoulder.

"Yep!" he says cheerfully.

"I am ready," Guard says solemnly. He gets to his feet a little slower than he normally might, but the Firmament within him is swirling as strong as ever; looks like he's mostly recovered.

Versa isn't with us, which I'm quietly grateful for; Naru I can deal with, but if Versa decides to turn on me while I'm dealing with a Hotspot, it's going to be irritating at best and disastrous at worst. She gives me a codeword I can use—I'm somehow entirely unsurprised she has one—and tells me the code means we've agreed to work together.

Somehow, I don't believe her. She's exactly the type of person that probably has a half-dozen scenarios embedded into her codewords; she's just using me as a replacement for what the Interface is no longer offering.

It'll be an interesting game to play, and we both know it. If I use her system as intended, it gives her the information advantage; if I figure it out, though, it gives me the advantage. The gleam in her eyes tells me she knows exactly what she's doing.

For now, though...

"Let's go, then," I say. "Naru? Lead the way."

There's a solid five minutes where I'm pretty sure Naru is testing us—going as fast as he can to see if he can lose us, not because he actually wants to lose us, but just to test himself. To see if he can.

Unfortunately for him, Warpstep is more than capable of keeping up, and Guard's ability to just fly above most of the forest and terrain makes up the difference as far as speed goes. He's forced to slow down eventually, and even though he doesn't say anything, I can see him breathing heavily as he tries to catch his breath.

"We can take a break, you know," I say, mostly to break the silence.

"I don't need a break." Naru sounds affronted. "How weak do you think I am? I've made this trip dozens of times."

"I need a break," Ahkelios quips.

"I mean, if you need a break..." Naru says. I turn to stare at Ahkelios, perched snugly on my shoulder; he stares back up at me, a mischievous little grin on his face.

I sigh. If it works...

Naru clearly does need a break. I'm not sure what skills he used to try to blast ahead, but it drained a pretty significant portion of his Firmament; if I had to guess, he's misusing a skill that isn't actually intended for speed. A Strength skill, maybe? He's certainly left behind a trail of destruction. I'd be concerned about it if not for the fact that everything will be reset in the next loop anyway.

"Let's take a break, then," I say. We come to a stop—Naru a much harder stop than the rest of us, in the sense that his landing digs a trench into the ground. He comes out partially covered in dirt and mud, and shakes himself violently to get it off.

I put up a Crystallized Barrier. I'm not dealing with all that. Guard promptly steps behind it as well.

The ensuing silence is awkward. Naru pants, chest heaving, as he tries to gather himself; I watch him for a moment before inclining my head toward a nearby pond.

"There's some water over there, you know," I say. He blinks at me as if only just remembering that I'm there, and mumbles the most awkward 'thank you' I've ever heard before trudging over and dunking himself in.

Steam rises from the water, along with a not-insignificant number of bubbles. Whatever skill he used generated a lot of heat, too. Must've been uncomfortable.

When he emerges, Naru looks... well, wet. But also a good deal calmer than he was before. He doesn't quite look me in the eyes, but he appears to be considering something for a while. I wait for him to speak.

"You said..." he starts, and then he falls silent again. It's another moment before he gathers himself enough to speak. "You said my father was dying and I didn't care."

"I did say that." I remember the moment quite clearly.

"Why did you care?" There's a bitterness in his voice, and something else I can't quite place. "Your Trial is a time loop. It's not like lives matter to you. You can just kill people and take their credits. Isn't that what you're already doing?"

"First of all, no." I don't quite manage to keep the disgust out of my voice. "That's horrific. I wouldn't be able to do that and stay sane."

Naru blinks at me like he doesn't understand. "You're lying," he says. "You're too strong for someone who doesn't farm everyone and everything around them."

Farm? Even the wording makes a thread of revulsion coil through me. In a way, I'm glad—it's proof the loops haven't managed to change me the way the Integrators have no doubt been hoping for.

"My memory is not perfect," He-Who-Guards interjects. "But I have some memory of the loops. He has not done this."

"What—" Naru shakes his head. "You just haven't seen it, that's all! You weren't there for every loop. I bet he's even killed you once."

"Not on purpose," I say dryly. I did push him into the Fracture, but in my defense, he'd been attacking me at the time.

"It was not on purpose," Guard agrees. "However, Ethan, if it would help—"

"No, Guard." The thought alone is distasteful. There are better ways to gain credits. I don't get that many from fights that don't present some sort of challenge, for one thing. "And second, Naru, I wouldn't have said he was dying if it was just a normal loop-related death. He's died in the loops before."

"What..." Naru trails off. For the first time, I see what looks like realization in his eyes. "He was actually dying?"

"I'm realizing in retrospect that I don't think I actually clarified that he was dying a permanent death," I mutter. "You know about the loops. You thought it was temporary?"

"I don't know what I was thinking," Naru says. He looks suddenly lost again. "But... probably. They weren't supposed to..."

Well, now I feel a little bad.

Kind of.

I probably could've at least clarified before punching him.

"There was a Raid on the village," I say quietly. "Tarin was dead at the end of it, and the Interface is supposed to make deaths during raids permanent. He managed to fight it off, but it left him in a coma, slowly dying to the Interface."

"But he didn't die," Naru says. "He fought them. And won?"

"With some help," I say. I wonder if I should let him know his presence in the Hotspot that held Tarin's cure nearly meant his father's permanent death.

Probably not. He looks like he's going through a lot, judging by the look on his face.

"You saved him," Naru says.

"I helped." I shrug. The crow stares at me, looking—for once—very, very lost.

Eventually, he shakes his head. "Let's get going," he says. His voice is quieter than it usually is. "If your friend has had enough of a break."

"Ready to fly!" Ahkelios gives him a thumbs up.

To my surprise, Naru actually gives him a small smile.