Die. Respawn. Repeat.

The good news is that we're not surrounded by sewage. I'd been a little worried about that.

The bad news is... well, we're in a sewage system. It's a small, cramped series of tunnels, and my ability to sense Firmament is limited, what with the walls blocking my senses. If I'd been particularly claustrophobic, this stage of the dungeon would probably have been a nightmare.

As it stands, it's mostly just uncomfortable.

Though that's far from our primary concern at the moment. We still need some way to find the expedition team, and with my senses as limited as they are, we don't exactly have a lot of options. Especially since the Sewers seem particularly determined to make any sort of attempt at navigation difficult.

Essentially, the big problem here is that the tunnels are moving.

It's subtle, and I'm not sure I'd notice it without Kauku warning me about this beforehand, but I can see hints of it in the walls around us. They undulate every so often, like they're part of a living organ rather than made out of brick. The little I can sense of the shape of it all tells me in no uncertain terms that they're shifting, winding into one another, disconnecting in some places and connecting in others.

Looks like the model of the Sewers Kauku showed me is pretty accurate. I wouldn't be surprised if the tunnels were, in fact, moving as quickly as he'd shown me on a larger scale—we're just in too small a cross section to notice the movement, and likely in a part that isn't shifting quite as much. Get deeper into the Sewers, though...

Well, that's something we can figure out when we get there.

This is what Kauku offered to help me with, I realize. His claim, back then, was that this was the sort of thing that would take months to navigate without his help. Months that he could compress into days, presumably by manipulating the movement of the Sewers or otherwise guiding us in the right direction. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

I doubt he's going to be helping me now, deal or not, but fortunately we've had plenty of time to come up with alternatives.

In fact, I'm really kind of hoping Kauku doesn't show up. Part of me is still waiting for the other shoe to drop—everything points to him and his power having been corrupted by Gheraa's erstwhile, grudge-holding supervisor, Rhoran. If he pits his considerable power against us now, we're not going to be able to do much against him.

That said, he seems to be restricted at the moment, for one reason or the other. That, or he's biding his time. The ways he's been able to reach out so far have been limited.

I'm not willing to count on that being the case forever. Better we get this over with sooner rather than later.

"Gheraa," I say, glancing ahead through the tunnels. "Can you put on the disguise now? We're going to be meeting other Trialgoers, and we probably don't want a repeat of what happened with Fyran and Soul of Trade right off the bat."

My tone is apologetic. I'd have preferred for this not to be necessary, but the last thing I want is a fight breaking out before we get the chance to explain ourselves. I don't plan on hiding him forever—just for this initial encounter.

"Aha!" Gheraa grins triumphantly. He doesn't seem all that bothered, at least. "I knew I'd need a disguise!"

I sigh. "Do not try to disguise yourself as a human," I say pointedly, trying to hide my amusement. I've seen his attempts at disguises—his human ones are by far the worst. He's better off disguising himself as literally anything else.

"Fine, fine." Gheraa waves a hand dismissively, too excited to try on his disguise to worry about my implied criticism of his acting skills. He concentrates for a moment, and I watch as his Firmament begins to change—first, his clothes melt back into his body, turning into his trademark bluestone-gold and melting into his physique.

The man has absolutely no shame, as far as I can tell.

The physical changes come in quick succession, both fascinating and frankly a little disturbing to look at. What should be solid stone squishes down like rubber, and his joints contract, turning his limbs into segmented lengths of chitin. In moments, he passes for what I would call the average scirix male if he hadn't clearly opted for various, Gheraa-style flairs.

Gold-etched robes, for instance, along with unnervingly golden eyes. He grins at us once he's done. "What do you think?" he asks.

I just raise an eyebrow. "Firmament levels, please," I say. He still very much feels like a fourth-layer practitioner, if not higher, and he definitely still feels like an Integrator. Gheraa huffs but acquiesces, and I feel the Firmament around him slowly dampen until it resembles something closer to a third-layer's strength.

"Better?" he asks. I consider him for a moment, then nod—there's still small hints of gold in his Firmament that might be used to identify him, but not enough to be anything more than suspicious.

Ahkelios, on the other hand, is far more impressed than I am. Probably because I've seen this a lot more than he has. "You look amazing!" he says, walking around Gheraa. "I feel like you could be my brother. Or, I dunno, second cousin. Something like that."

I snort. "I think he might've based the design partially off Zhir," I say dryly. That only makes Ahkelios look flattered, and I bite back the laugh that follows.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

It's nice that they can still have fun, at least. In the back of my mind, though, I'm keeping track of the Interface's numbers and feeling for any disturbances nearby. There's nothing yet, but if the odd feeling I'm getting from Premonition is any indication, it might be best to hurry.

Time for the second part of the plan, then. This is the part I'm only mostly sure about.

I reach into my soul and retrieve my Chromatic Strings. They've proven to be extraordinarily useful, now that I've had some training with Guard, and what's even better is that their uses extend beyond just combat. We did a little examination of their properties back in the Grove—they're exceptionally lethal, yes, and powerful conductors of both Firmament and its intrinsic property of color—but that's not all they do.

I let three Chromatic Strings spool out from my fingers and imbue them with a small amount of my Firmament.

They have a secondary function that's perfect for my purposes here. In the absence of any other input, provided they have enough Firmament imbued into them, they'll seek out powerful sources of Firmament and color.

Here in the depths of First Sky, a city that's been drained by the effects of Color Drain for what I presume to be years, there are only three real sources of those.

The first is Gheraa, Ahkelios, and myself. The first String loops lazily around us, taking on a color that's a halfway reflection of all our natural emanations of Firmament.

The second is undoubtedly the source of the colorful flowers we saw in the ruined version of First Sky—what the Interface is currently calling the Seed, in other words. If it's what we think it is, then it's the source of the Color Drain currently affecting the city, and likely strongly imbued with both color and Firmament. In theory, my Strings should be most powerfully attracted to the Seed just for the sheer quantity of what it contains.

Sure enough, the second String shoots off through the Sewers, as if yanked forward by something alive. The direction it moves in is strong and stable, although it shifts slightly with the movement of the tunnels.

I glance at the last String. The third, of course, is the expedition team, and just as importantly the human Trialgoers I'm hoping are with them.

I hadn't particularly considered the need to go on a rescue mission when developing this plan, and I'm thankful that the Sewers appear to operate as a separate "instance" of the dungeon, or else the String might have been confused by the remaining scirix living above us in the city—living things appear to be the last to lose their color, after all. The presence of human Trialgoers helps. They won't have been exposed to the color drain for nearly as long as the scirix.

The third String is a little more uncertain than the others, which only makes me more certain that it's correctly tracking the team. It wavers for a moment, as if unsure which tunnel to move down, and then finally picks a direction and begins to accelerate. I nod to myself in satisfaction.

"Come on," I say. "Let's go."

I don't say anything about it, but calling up the Chromatic Strings is similar to using Soul Space. Like before, there's an odd sensation in my core, almost like it's stretching.

This time, though, something new accompanies it, and I have no idea what to make of it.

It almost feels like my core's beginning to spin.

Adeya had very few ways to politely express her frustrations. Which was irritating in itself, because her frustrations were many.

Most of it wasn't the fault of either of her two human companions, she knew. Technically, most of it was the fault of the dungeon itself, the Interface, and the Integrators that put it all together.

But also she had been stuck in a sewer for days. She was wet, cold, and the humidity around her was absolutely terrible for her hair. Not that the Trials provided any particularly good way for her to maintain that hair, but it was a bit of a point of pride; many others she knew of had simply cut most of it off.

That was... an option. Technically. She wasn't there yet, though.

It wouldn't be nearly as much of a problem if the other two humans shared any of her troubles, but both of them had the kind of short, straight hair that wasn't particularly impacted by damp tunnels or constant action. Their scirix companions didn't even have hair, so there wasn't really anyone around that could relate to her problems, and for some reason that grated at Adeya.

Or maybe it was just the fact that Taylor and Dhruv were getting along so well. She wished Zhao Hu were here—at least she got along well with him. Taylor and Dhruv were personable enough, and she liked them, but they got along with one another better than they did with her. Taylor in particular seemed a little intimidated by her, though why that was she had no idea.

Adeya sighed to herself. All this was beside the point, anyway. Her internal complaints were just that—internal complaints. She kept them entirely to herself. Outwardly, she projected confidence and strength, just the way she'd been taught.

Inwardly, well... It just would have been nice to have someone to talk to.

"This way," Adeya called. Her Wind Sense skill was less than perfect in the Sewers, but it was the one thing they had that didn't lead them into any dead ends. She had to keep it active all the time, though—deactivating and reactivating it seemed to cause the Interface's "Firmament saturation" percentage to tick up.

She didn't know what would happen if it hit 100%, but she did know she didn't want to find out. Bad things tended to happen when they ignored one of the Interface's warnings. Taylor and Dhruv had both agreed, so they'd spent most of their time here minimizing their Firmament use.

Not surprisingly, Taylor struck up conversation as they began to head into the tunnel. The man seemed unable to handle silence for more than a few minutes.

"Do y'all think they're sending help yet?" he asked, his tone hopeful. He was, Adeya had gathered, an optimist. A little bit like a golden retriever in human form, albeit one that gave her nervous looks every so often. "The other humans, I mean."

"I don't think anyone can reach us down here," Dhruv said, frowning. "They would've sent help already otherwise. Plus, they can't even talk to us."

"They might've gotten delayed," Taylor said hopefully. "Maybe the Disconnected are making a move. It'd explain why the Interface got all messed up."

"Or," Adeya said grimly, "the Integrators are making their move."

That shut him up briefly. Adeya felt a little bad, but she hadn't been trying to be rude or anything. She'd been trying to figure this out herself. There was no reason for their Interface to suddenly cut them off from its communication features, and there was especially no reason for the Interface to prevent them from making gateways back to their own Trials.

This stank of outside interference. The problem was she just couldn't see why. Why would anyone want the three of them trapped here? In the grand scheme of things, none of them were that significant. They'd done nothing that should have triggered a trap like this.

There was only one reason she could think of for a trap like this, really, and that reason was simple.

It had been meant for someone else.