Die. Respawn. Repeat.

Adeya brings it up first, which is a bit of a relief. We find ourselves walking together as we lead the way through the Sewers. Ahkelios, Gheraa, and the scirix form the middle of the pack, and Dhruv and Taylor take up the rear.

"Most of us are holding off on completing our Trials," Adeya says. I quirk a brow at her, and she shrugs. "It's the best we can do, considering what we know." She hesitates, apparently trying to figure out how to approach the topic, and then just goes for it. "Have you heard of something that calls itself the Sunken King?"

I pause for a moment. "I have," I say slowly. "But I'd like to hear what you have to say about him, first."

Adeya gives me an evaluating look, but nods. "Mentions of the Sunken King show up across a majority of dungeons we've encountered," she says. "Every human Trialgoer—and some alien ones from previous cycles, where we've been able to find allies, along with some of the Disconnected—can corroborate. It's almost never on Trial planets themselves, though. We're not sure why that is yet."

"Probably because dungeons are corpses," I mutter.

Adeya gives me a bewildered look. "What?"

"Long story," I say. "I'll explain later. You said he's mentioned a lot. How is he mentioned, exactly?"

"It usually shows up in the form of some kind of prophecy," Adeya says, eyeing me before sighing. "Something about how the Sunken King will return and devour the galaxy. Nothing especially interesting—it's one of the reasons we didn't take it too seriously, at first."

"But something made you take it more seriously?" I guess.

She hesitates, but eventually nods. "I'm sure you've noticed it yourself, especially since you have an Integrator working for you," she says, turning to glance at Gheraa, who quickly pretends he isn't listening. "But most of the Integrators don't know why they're doing all this. They have some general idea of what their goal is—they know the process of Integration brings the Interface's web of influence closer to the center of the galaxy—but they don't know why that's their goal. For some of them, it's a religious thing. A pilgrimage. For others, it's just a means to grow their power."

"Because the Trials give them new skills and new types of Firmament to work with," I agree.

Adeya stops mid-step, turning to me. "They what?"

"They... unlock new skills and gives them new types of Firmament," I say, blinking. "You didn't know?"

"No, we didn't—" She cuts herself off with a sigh, visibly forcing herself to calm down. "We knew that each completed Trial strengthens the Integrators in some way," she says. "We haven't been able to figure out how. You're telling me the Trials are, what, making Firmament itself grow more powerful?"

"Something like that," I say, and since I doubt this conversation is going to go anywhere without me elaborating, I launch into a quick explanation of what I think is going on. Adeya remains silent as I talk about how the Trials exist to help the Interface connect with the Heart of a planet, and how each Heart contains a different distillation of a Concept.

When I'm done, she rubs her temples, looking both relieved and disturbed all at once. "That answers some questions we've had," she mutters. "We figured there had to be more to completing a Trial than just freeing the Sunken King, but we never did a full comparative analysis of our skills. Mostly because people are paranoid."

"Paranoid?" I ask.

"There aren't that many of them, but not everyone agrees with the plan," Adeya says with a sigh. "Joint dungeons come with a lot of risk, and sometimes, there are... suspicious deaths. Not many people are willing to share a complete list of their skills because of that."

"Right." I wince a little, but I'm not surprised. I remember being a little suspicious of Zhaohu, too, in our first conversation.

Adeya shakes her head. "Either way, this explains why the Integrators are so eager to integrate new civilizations," she says. "Not sure how much that helps us, but it's good to know. We might be able to use it against them."

"We still have to figure out this Sunken King thing, first," I point out.

"Right." Adeya takes a deep breath. "We started taking it more seriously when we began noticing signs he was awakening. The prophecies all mention that he has control of the Interface, and that the Interface will begin to behave strangely when he starts to awaken. They also mention the appearance of certain key dungeons that have all begun to appear."

"What kind of dungeons?" I ask. Adeya winces.

"It's going to sound ridiculous," she says. "But they're all named after body parts. The Black Heart, the Corroded Spine, the Eyes of the Fallen..."

I snort. "Somehow, that doesn't surprise me."

"Fits in with what you said about dungeons being corpses," Adeya says. "Are you going to explain that, by the way?"

"In a moment," I say. "I need to know more. Is that all the prophecies say about what he's going to do? Or about his motivations?"

"More or less." Adeya frowns as she thinks. "They mention that it's revenge for some kind of betrayal, but we haven't found anything that explains what the betrayal was. All we know is that he's locked away in the center of the galaxy and that the Interface itself functions both as the chains that bind him and the key that will set him free." 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

"That sounds about right," I mutter.

Stolen novel; please report.

Adeya gives me a long look. "You know something."

"I think I do, at least," I say. "I'm pretty sure I've met him."

At this, Adeya stops in her tracks once more to stare at me. "You've what?" she hisses, loud enough that several of the scirix turn to stare at us. I shrug awkwardly and gesture for her to keep moving, which she only does after a good thirty seconds or so. "You're going to need to explain that one. And don't you dare say you'll explain it later."

"Like I said, I'm pretty sure I've met him," I say, shifting uncomfortably under the intensity of her glare. "It happened when I was... alright, there's a lot to explain, here. I'm going to need to take a step back."

"This better lead to an explanation," Adeya mutters.

"It will," I assure her. "It started when I broke the Intermediaries—"

"That was you?" Adeya interrupts. Once again, she's loud enough that the scirix turn to stare at us.

"Yes," I say.

"This is going to take a long time if I keep getting surprised, isn't it?" Adeya says, staring at me.

"Astute observation," I say dryly. She snorts.

"I'll do my best to keep it in," she says. She stays true to her word, though, staying mostly quiet as I explain what led to the damage to the Intermediaries and the subsequent damage to the Interface, then my eventual attempt to trigger an Inspiration.

"That's why your Inspirations are so weird," she mutters. "This Kauku. You think he's the Sunken King?"

"If not him, then an aspect of him," I say with a sigh. "That part I'm not so sure about."

"The fact that he offered to help you worries me."

"Trust me, I'm on the same boat."

Adeya listens intently as I explain the rest of it—everything from his initial offer of help to his eventual disappearance, and our conclusion about Rhoran's part in all this. After that, she remains silent for a solid minute or two, her expression both disturbed and thoughtful.

"I think you're right," she says. "It explains a lot. Explains why you've got an Integrator on your side, too." She glances back at Gheraa, then grimaces a bit. "Where there's one... I doubt this Rhoran is the only case of Integrator abuse. I might have to ask the others to keep an eye out for this. We might get more allies out of it. Which we're going to need, if the rest of what you said is true.

"What I don't understand is how this Rhoran was able to infect Kauku," she continues. "If Kauku was as powerful as you say, then he should've been able to fend something like that off."

I nod. I've been thinking about that too. "Unless he didn't want to."

"Exactly." Adeya gives me a serious look. "Something about what Rhoran can do accelerates his plans, and he was willing to give up some amount of autonomy to do it. That's a dangerous amount of dedication."

"Tell me about it." I sigh. "We need to figure out what he's up to. He's laying low for now, and he hasn't interfered with this dungeon, so I'm willing to bet there's something here he needs. After that..."

"After that," Adeya says, "all bets are off."

I nod. "That's the gist of it."

"We could abandon this dungeon," Adeya says. "Complete this stage and never come back."

"Even if I didn't need to complete it to help my friend, do you really think he'd make it that easy?"

"I think he'd start actively sabotaging us." Adeya grimaces. "So what do we do? We can't just wait around for him to break free, and from what you're saying, it sounds like he's well on his way."

"Well, first of all, keep doing what you're doing," I say. "Don't complete Trials. Every one we complete is going to strengthen him—he's got more access to the Interface than any of us."

"Right. Done."

"Second," I say. "We need to prepare. He wants Hestia, I'm pretty sure. The fragment of Rhoran that infected him has it out for Gheraa, so he's going to come after us first no matter what—and that's not accounting for the fact that Hestia's Heart is going to give him the power to do exactly what he wants."

"How are we going to do that?" Adeya asks, raising an eyebrow. "I'm not sure if you've noticed, but we can't just break through the Intermediaries to come help you..."

She trails off. I raise an eyebrow at her. "Shut up," she says irritably. "I'm thinking."

"I didn't say anything."

"We might," she says. "We might be able to. I don't know. We're going to have to talk to our contacts in the Disconnected, and frankly, most of us don't have nearly enough power to match up to you. I'm not sure how much use we're going to be."

"I can help with that," I say. Adeya straightens, realization striking us.

"You've advanced faster than any of us," she says. "Are you going to tell us how?"

"I'm going to tell you as much as I can," I say. "Not all of it is going to work. It didn't for Ahkelios, so there might be an extra trick or two to it."

"It doesn't matter," Adeya says. "Even if it only helps a little, collectively, across all the human Trialgoers and our allies..."

She sounds excited. Hopeful, even. I smile at her. "Then let's make sure the Sunken King will have an army to reckon with if he awakens."

Adeya's responding grin is fierce. "Let's."

Not long after, we encounter the first of our expected obstacles on our way to the Tear. The structure of the challenge in the third Ritual stage is fairly simple: it's an endurance and navigation puzzle. Every time we approach something that might help us make progress, the Sewers shift and rearrange its passages, closing off some and opening others. It's meant to test us, force us to travel for days to arrive at even one of the objectives.

We don't have days. Not with Kauku's plans advancing in the background. So we take a shortcut, and that shortcut takes the form of... well, me.

It's a plan that's going to result in a lot of deaths, more likely than not, and that suits me just fine. It plays perfectly into everything else I need to accomplish. So when the Sewers first begin to shift and block off a path, I launch myself forward, the Knight's Projector Form coalescing around my body.

"Hurry!" I call. The shields I'm using strain against the tunnel walls, and the entire expedition team hurries through while I keep them open; Dhruv and Taylor give me half-terrified and awed looks respectively as they step through.

Just as predicted, the Sewers don't like it when I try to circumvent its rules like this. It reacts the same way it did before, elongating the tunnel so much that the entirety of it collapses on me before I can escape. We're lucky that it only reacts like this once the expedition team has passed completely—the plan wouldn't work otherwise. Nor would it work if I didn't have a key that claims to let me rejoin the expedition team at will.

But both those things are true, so when the tunnel crushes me, I feel nothing but fierce amusement. I make sure not to laugh this time, though.

A powerful wave of Temporal Firmament washes over me.

Once again, I find myself aware of the world as it ticks slowly backward.

Once again, I reach out, feeding that power into my core.

And once again, my core grows a little bigger, spins a little faster, and deepens.