Die. Respawn. Repeat.

We wait for the Fracture to erupt with Firmament a second time before beginning our descent, hoping it'll give us more time to find something that can act as cover. That's still a real and present danger of traversing this place, even with all the ways we've grown—Gheraa has admitted to that the kind of power emitted by that explosion could erase even the strongest of the Integrators in the later stages of the loop.

Frankly, that's a terrifying thought. I file it away for later.

There's an abrupt change in the Fracture once we descend far enough. A point where all the remnants of civilization sort of end, and everything beneath is dark stone and stifling air. Something about the rock here seems to absorb light with particular efficiency, which I suppose explains why the sun can't seem to penetrate deep into the Fracture.

It also means the stone emits a suffocating kind of heat. There's a wordless agreement between the four of us to stay as far away from the walls as possible—we hover in the center of the Fracture as we descend, paying attention to any possible threats.

Fortunately for us, there doesn't seem to be anything here. No structures built into the sides of the Fracture, no indications that anything alive might patrol the space. The most interesting feature of this layer is the rocks that float around with no apparent interest in the concept of gravity.

On closer examination, those rocks are imbued with faint sparks of Firmament not unlike the kind used to keep Isthanok's citadel-shards floating in the sky. I frown, wondering if they're related.

"It seems the Fracture may have more to do with our history than I would like to believe," Guard says quietly, apparently thinking the same thing. "I had hoped otherwise."

"Do you miss Isthanok?" I ask. Guard shakes his head.

"I have more than a dozen proxies patrolling the city as we speak," he says. "I'm never far from home. If anything, I'm a little sick of it."

"You spend a lot of cumulative time there, huh?" Ahkelios remarks. "And you get all the memories from your other bodies... I can see how that gets exhausting."

"Indeed. But it is still my home." Guard is silent for a moment, his gaze once more straying to the few rocks floating around this layer of the Fracture. "I find myself wondering how the Great Cities came to be. Our history is fragmented."

"Probably because of all the loops," I say.

"None of us knew what Hestia's Trial would be prior to Integration," Gheraa says. "But we did notice temporal inconsistencies within your recorded history. If the loops caused them, then their impact extends to even before they started."

"Paradoxes," I grumble. I get the feeling I'm going to have to deal with more of those as we move forward. "You think the Fracture might be able to help you piece things together?"

Guard hesitates, "I believe so," he says eventually. "If the Fracture plays some role in the creation of Isthanok, it is possible that all Great Cities have an origin that can be traced back to this place. It may be a means of uncovering the lost pieces of our history."

I nod. "We'll have to keep an eye out," I say.

"Uh, guys," Ahkelios says nervously. He gestures down to where sparks of light are beginning to light up the walls of the Fracture. I can feel the sea of power beneath us reaching a sort of boiling point. This far down in the depths, I can even sense the way it churns like turbulent waves of liquid Firmament. "I think another blast is coming, and uh, I don't see anywhere we can hide."

"I know," I say. Ahkelios gives me an incredulous look.

"What do you mean, you kno—"

I twitch my fingers once, and the hundreds of green Chromatic Strings I've left attached to every rock we've passed flare into being. Ahkelios stops mid-word, his jaw hanging open.

"Premonition warned me a while ago," I say, my tone entirely too casual for the grin stealing across my face. I don't get to show off that often, but Guard's training with the Strings have paid off—not only is it far easier for me to use them, it's also a lot easier for me to hide them.

Turns out those things have a lot of utility outside of being a weapon. Different colors lend the Strings different properties, for instance. The ones that are this specific shade of green?

They're really, really sticky.

The rocks here are impervious to the Fracture's blasts—that much is obvious based solely on the fact that they still exist—so all I need to do is...

I snap my fingers, and all the fragments of stone I've connected come careening toward us. All it takes after that is an exertion of will to shape them into a sort of half-dome around our feet, with green Strings holding the whole construct together.

"How long have you been able to do that?" Ahkelios asks, eyes wide.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I shrug. "Remember that time you tripped while we were sparring?"

"Wha—Hey!" Ahkelios's expression becomes one of outraged realization a moment before the Fracture beneath us roars. Whatever he says gets lost in the deluge of Firmament that shoots up through every layer and blasts into the sky. Honestly, it's a wonder that the little stone shell I created was able to protect us from something of that magnitude, but somehow we remain entirely untouched.

Something to do with the stone itself, I think. Everything in the Fracture has been shaped by the Fracture, and as a result is immune to its regular expulsions of Firmament that would, frankly, disintegrate just about anything else.

By the time the blast fades away, Ahkelios's rant has trailed off into halfhearted grumbling and a general look of annoyance. I laugh a little at his antics and give him a nudge. "You're the one that told me anything was fair game, remember?"

"I know, but you still owe me a rematch," he mutters. Then he perks up. "At least I finally got you to fight dirty."

I chuckle. "I'll let you have that one."

We continue down in a comfortable sort of silence for a while, the stone platform beneath us providing ample cover against the Fracture's blasts. It's not long, however, before we realize that there's a problem.

The blasts are becoming more frequent.

The more we descend, the more the Fracture reacts, like just our presence is enough to disturb whatever it is lying at the bottom of the chasm. Presumably, it's a path to Hestia's Heart, but if that's what it is, then she doesn't seem to want us to get anywhere close to her. The blasts almost feel like a warning, and even if they're not...

I grimace. It's pretty clear proceeding like this is accelerating the timeline of that final explosion significantly. The sea of Firmament beneath us grows increasingly agitated, and there are sharp spikes of destructive power beginning to strain the Fracture's walls.

If we don't want to stop descending entirely, it's probably worth changing our approach. Just descending until the planet explodes seems like a waste of a loop.

Granted, that's a lot easier said than done. There aren't many options available to us besides just slowly floating down on this half-sphere of blackened stone. I've tried extending my Firmament sense, but it's muddied and unclear this deep in the Fracture—everything around us feels like one thick, solid layer of Temporal Firmament. I can't even distinguish between air and stone, much less figure out if there's something hidden in the darkness around us.

Fortunately, it turns out Guard's scanners have no such problem.

"There is a network of tunnels leading deeper into the Fracture," he reports. "We may be able to use those instead."

"Should we?" Ahkelios asks worriedly. "I mean, what if... you know..." He gestures vaguely upward, trying to get his point across; I glance at where he's pointing and reach out with my senses as far as I can, then shrug.

"If they want us, they'll just have to find us," I say.

"Exciting!" Gheraa says cheerfully.

We're being followed, we know that much. It's something that Aris—the AI chip that was formerly implanted in Guard, now given a life of her own—was able to track down during our time in the grove. She sent out feelers across all the Great Cities, apparently, trying to track down all available data about the Hestian Trialgoers. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Turns out Teluwat's sending out agents to track us down. We don't know why, but it doesn't really matter. We're not particularly interested in that meeting. If they're dedicated enough to follow us into the Fracture, then they'll have to face the disadvantage of navigating it, along with the absolute saturation of Firmament here.

It's one of the secondary reasons we're here. Teluwat's skills should have a harder time penetrating the sheer density of Firmament in the area. If his agents do manage to find us—and they should be able to, given they're apparently using an oracle to trace the path we're taking—then we'll have an advantage.

For now, though, there's no real point waiting for agents that might never arrive. I nod to Guard. "Lead the way," I say. "We'll see if that's what the Heart wants us to do."

It is, apparently. We know this because the moment we step into the entrance of the tunnel, the Firmament beneath us calms. It doesn't erase the damage that's been done—those blasts are still more frequent than they should be, and more destructive spikes haven't disappeared—but the churning and turbulence abruptly vanishes, leaving only a moderately stormy sea beneath.

It feels like the Heart is trying to guide us. As much as she now seems unable to reach out directly, there's something about what we're doing here that feels... purposeful, for lack of a better word.

Technically, we're here to figure out what causes the end of the world. The secondary reason is that Teluwat has agents following us, and his reach will be significantly dulled by the sheer level of Firmament in the Fracture.

But there's a third reason. We saw it on our way to the Fracture—miniscule, barely noticeable lines of power burnt into the sky like an afterimage. It makes the sky look like shattered glass.

The temporal barrier around Hestia is weakening. The Tears are worsening. Those almost-invisible cracks seem to span the globe, running along the lines of the continent in a pattern eerily reminiscent of what I remember seeing in the few moments I had when I saw the planet cracking apart. Every single one of them originates from a Tear, from what we could find.

And every single one of them leads down into the Fracture.

If the Heart wants us here—and it almost certainly does, given the way the Fracture is reacting to us—then it's because something down here is related to those Tears. We'll need a way to slow down their spread.

Otherwise, at the rate they're going, we might not have a planet left to save.

"Ethan," Guard calls. "These tunnels. They look like the ones in Inveria."

I blink. I vaguely remember him telling us about Inveria. "One of the Great Cities?"

"Yes. And I sense an anomaly deeper within."

That's two traces of the Great Cities we've now found in the Fracture. I frown, sending my Firmament sense out once more; I still can't make the tunnels out with any real clarity, but... there is something strange further down. A barrier of Temporal Firmament that feels like a miniature version of a Tear.

"So can I," I mutter. "Let's find out what that is, shall we?"