One of the biggest problems I have right now is that I'm a little... directionless. I have many disparate goals, and nothing stringing them together; that means I'm just leaping for the first opportunity to complete whatever goal seems within my reach.

I need to save Rotar. To do that, I've decided I'll try to save Guard as well, a process which involves me in Isthanok's politics and necessitates that I work on a counter to She-Who-Whispers's main skill — her Whisper. That's where my work with imbuement comes in. It's the whole reason I studied with Virin, and my growth in that department has helped me in other areas, too.

Directly countering She-Who-Whispers by physically grabbing her Whisper, for example.

I might not need the Firmament sink anymore with this new application of Phaseslip, but it's clear from our last encounter that it won't be enough. It's not hard to avoid when she does it right in front of me, but the strength of the skill is that she can do it from absurd distances, and she clearly has countermeasures against people that can interact with her skill the way I did.

That and creating a better Firmament sink will help Miktik and the others. If I want them to help me, I'm going to have to do that anyway.

"You sound like you have a plan," Bimar says. Her tone is still tinged with suspicion, but I just grin.

"Maybe."

Telling Whisper I was going to go to the Arena was a little less well thought out than it should have been — more of an impulsive plan with a half-finished end goal. It's the seeds of what I'll need, but I'm not being focused enough.

At the time I was thinking I'd lead Whisper on something of a wild goose chase — to tell her I was there for the Arena, work on the Firmament sink with Thys and Thaht, and then show up at the Arena when I was good and ready — and use that moment to imply I was after a different target. One of those underground groups Rotar had mentioned that studied the Interface, for example.

That way, I can keep her off-balance. I can make sure she's looking for me in the wrong places, trying to counter the wrong plans. If I play it right, she'll be trying to deal with a version of me that doesn't even exist, not knowing that I know she can pass information back to herself.

The question I need to ask, though, is this: Is that good enough?

And the answer to that question is a resounding no. Not if I want to do everything I came here to do. Fighting the Integrators, fighting Hestia's Trialgoers, learning more about the Interface and doing everything the Heart of Hestia asked me to do — I have a laundry list of tasks, and that's not even touching on the Interface chat that's still been locked since the last time I managed to speak to other humans.

Come to think of it, I wonder if my brief glimpse of what was going on with the rest of Earth's Trialgoers had anything to do with Gheraa. He seems plenty willing to manipulate details of the Trial to my advantage, even if it gets him into trouble.

...Which also makes it more of a priority that I extract him from the Integrators as soon as I can, because I doubt his deception is going to last much longer.

"I need to make Whisper work for me," I say out loud.

There's a long silence. Bimar is the first to speak. "What," she says, her voice deadpan. "You better not be thinking of working with he—"

"No," I say, shaking my head. "First of all, if I were, it'd be stupid to say it out loud here."

Bimar glares, evidently unconvinced.

"Second, it'd be hard to work with someone I don't trust," I say dryly. I give Bimar a pointed look — it's obviously how she feels about working with me — and she has the grace to look a little bit embarrassed. I'm going to have to ask her what her deal is eventually, but given the way she keeps glancing at Tarin, I'm wondering if they have history.

Except Tarin doesn't seem to recognize her, so that can't be right.

"So what's your plan?" Bimar asks.

"If I'm going to have her chasing after me, we need to work it into our plans," I say. "Both yours and mine, ideally. Is there anything we can make her go after that would help you guys out?"

That makes Bimar fall into a contemplative silence. Thys and Thaht look at each other, He-Who-Wanders whispers something to Vahrkos, and Miktik suddenly scampers off to her workbench to grab... something. It's clear they'll be thinking about this for a while, so I turn my attention to Tarin.

Rebels aside, there's one way I can play this in my favor and against the Integrators: I need to make sure the Hestian Trialgoers can't work together. As I understand it, any alliance they have is tenuous at best; a little bit of strain on that relationship can only benefit me.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Tarin's in a unique position here. He's the father of one of the Trialgoers, Naru; if Whisper knows this, and finds him fighting in the tournament that the new Trialgoer has expressed interest in...

Well, I have no doubt that it'll at least serve as the seed of some very tense conversations later on.

Naru's proven that he's going to be a problem if he shows up, and while he hasn't shown up in a while, Tarin and Mari's wayward son is still beyond me as far as his physical prowess goes. I've got my own tricks up my sleeve at this point, but Whisper's skills are an almost perfect counter to Naru's — far more than my own.

Naru's a brawler. Whisper is a controller. Her skills render physical strength useless, unless you have the mental fortitude to withstand the sensation of your own Firmament being torn apart and your skin being burnt to a crisp. Naru does not strike me as an individual with that level of mental fortitude.

"What do you think, Tarin?" I ask. The plan's contingent on his agreement. Whisper might not know that Tarin is Naru's father, but she will if we go ahead with this plan.

"It good plan," Tarin says approvingly. "Naru learn lesson."

That's... not the intent of the plan, exactly, but I suppose he's not wrong.

"We need a way to make Whisper suspicious of you," I say. "I'm thinking—"

"You not worry." Tarin gives me a reassuring nod that somehow does nothing to reassure me. He taps his beak with a wing. "I plan. You need Whisper think Naru sent me, yes?"

"Well... yes."

"Okay. You watch. I make happen." Tarin taps his beak again. And then refuses to elaborate, no matter how much I try to get him to.

I sigh. Whatever his plan is, it can't be that bad.

----------------------------------------

A few hours later, I find myself — for once — seated among the audience in the Craven Arena.

It's only after a lot of discussion that we collectively decide it's best to do things this way. Hestia has enough species that come and go from the planet that a human won't be immediately identified as the Trialgoer. Hestia may have been a hub planet even before the Integrators, but the Trial has made it that much more of one. Something about the Integration process apparently allows a much faster form of interplanetary travel.

Apparently, something about passing your Integration connects your planet more deeply to the Interface and allows a form of interplanetary travel. The crows and a few other species here are native to Hestia, but many others I've seen are not — Thys and Thaht, for example, are from a planet called Urukanis.

Which has dragons. The part of me that's still a child almost wishes my Trial had taken place there instead.

Thys and Thaht are both seated next to me, flanking me in the spectator's stand. Miktik isn't here, because Whisper already knows she's associated with the Trialgoer, and we can't risk her becoming a target. Bimar, Vahrkos, and Wanders are all off making preparations of their own. Something about the plan they've come up with.

As far as I understand it, that plan is to instill distrust in Whisper's so-called inner council. Whisper doesn't really listen to others when it comes to the way she rules over Isthanok, but she does have individuals that she trusts enough to delegate tasks to. Her assassins, for example, are headed by a morphling named Th'kar; commerce and trade are handled by a salamander-like creature named Ueuiel; and scientific research on both the Interface and otherwise are led by a crow by the name of Kera.

The way Bimar mentions Kera's name tells me there's something personal there. I wonder if that's the reason for her hostility, the reason she keeps looking at Tarin.

The nature of the loops, they tell me, allow them to conduct riskier operations than they otherwise could. As long as any information they discover comes back to me before the loop ends, it can be preserved into the next loop. We can make it look like her trusted advisors-slash-minions are leaking information, even if they're not.

They're putting a lot of trust in me, in other words. Even Bimar, who's begrudgingly admitted that this is the best shot they've had against Whisper in years.

"You look nervous," Thys says, giving me a friendly nudge. "Your first time at the Arena?"

"Yeah," I say, giving him a weak smile. I can see through to what he's really asking — it's not like we can talk freely with Whisper listening in to everything. "Just worried I'm going to see someone get really hurt."

"Good that you care," Thaht grunts. "A lot of people don't. But for what it's worth, kid, everyone's already getting hurt. All the time. It's just how things are under Whisper. You just don't usually see it."

"Kid? We're the same age. And you're half my height."

"Don't mind him," his brother says. "He's just always wanted to use that line."

I smirk a bit at this, then turn my gaze back toward the Arena grounds.

The tournament is starting. Might as well get settled in.

According to Tarin, watching him is going to be good training. He's the first one coming out, and he's up against a silverwisp. The announcer blares out their names, making me wince a little, even as Thys cheers.

"First up: The Crack of Thunder versus the Scion of Combustion!"

In retrospect, I probably should've stopped Thys from pulling him aside and whispering to him. Now he might insist on me calling him The Crack of Thunder even outside the Arena.

Then again... he fits right in with his opponent, doesn't he? I lean forward with sudden interest. Lightning courses along Tarin's feathers. Across him, on the other side of the Arena, a silverwisp stands tall.

And then, like a switch being flipped, the silverwisp blazes red, then orange, then white.

Fire.

It's not the physicality of the fight that interests me, though.

It's the Firmament.