I haven't looped. I think.

The I think is kind of a weird qualifier, I know. I'm pretty sure I'm not dead, but I'm also not entirely convinced I'm still alive. Best guess is that I'm in some kind of coma, or otherwise in some sort of transitional state, like when I managed my first Phase-Shift or when I'm picking out an Inspiration with Gheraa. Everything around me is a dull, drab gray, like I'm sitting in a colorless, Firmament-less Void.

I'm conscious, at least. So that's nice. The Interface feels far away from my grasp at the moment, and every attempt I make to call it up fails completely. The same goes for any attempt to use a skill, or to pull on my link with Ahkelios, or even to do something as basic as move around—there isn't really a ground for my feet to catch on, and even if there were, there's no sensation of inertia or landmark to tell me if I'm successfully moving.

The isolation is suffocating. I'm trying very hard not to panic. It's working. Mostly.

"We have to stop meeting like this," a voice sounds out. I whirl around to find Gheraa leaning against... well, nothing, in standard Gheraa fare. His back is pressed against a wall that isn't there, and he's holding a white cane trimmed with gold; he twirls it around casually, tapping the tip of the cane on the also-nonexistent floor and producing an oddly metallic ting.

I can't deny I'm relieved to see him, even if I have no idea what he's talking about. "This is the first time we're meeting like this," I point out.

"And it should be the last!" Gheraa points his cane at me. "This is incredibly dangerous. But also incredibly convenient, so good job doing whatever you did to trigger this."

"I have no idea what I did to trigger this." Besides exhausting myself mid-fight and passing out immediately after, which isn't something I'm planning on doing again anytime soon. There's a part of me that's tense about this—I don't know what state the world is in. I don't know how I've left things.

I don't know how long I've been like this.

Gheraa looks around. "Firmament exhaustion," he says after a moment. He rubs his fingers together like he's feeling for the texture in the air, scanning for something I can't see or sense—not in the state I'm in, anyway. "You pushed that Warpstep a lot farther than you should have. And... hm. There's something else."

"I've Warpstepped a lot farther than that without any problems," I say.

"Yes, but this time, you were in a corridor perforated by spatial distortions," Gheraa says. He tries to rap me on the head with his cane, but I dodge out of the way and glare at him; he just grins at me. "You're lucky the Interface is so adaptable or you would've torn yourself in half."

"...You sound like you're speaking from experience." I eye Gheraa carefully.

"Maybe, maybe not!" Gheraa says, with just a little too much cheer in his voice. "But be careful using Warpstep against anyone that can mess with space. Actually, just be careful with spatial movement skills in general. You still have to fold all the space between you and your target with your Firmament. What do you think happens if that spatial tunnel gets messed with?"

"Presumably the loop resets," I say, because that's a little more pleasant of a thought than getting torn in half by a misplaced teleport.

Gheraa just grins at me, falling back into a nonexistent chair and crossing one leg over the other. "The Interface can correct for it," he says. "It's why the thing exists—or part of the reason, anyway. You get to fire off the skill and not worry about it. But it's going to use much more Firmament than it should, because you're asking the Interface to compensate for something it shouldn't have to compensate for. A single spatial distortion in the way means part of your body might have to travel several times farther than a different part of your body."

He's got a point—I should've been more aware of what this Remnant was capable of and how it might interact with my skills. I shake my head and sigh. "How long have I been out, Gheraa?"

"Not long. About two minutes." Gheraa examines me for a moment. "You're worried."

"And I should be." I breathe out. "But I'm guessing there's no way to just wake up."

"Not quickly. And there are things we need to do before then." Gheraa's expression settles into something more serious, the faux-mirth fading away into something more grim.

"What do you mean?" I ask. Gheraa eyes me for a moment, then goes back to examining those invisible threads in the air, picking through them with his fingers and eventually shaking his head.

"You wouldn't have been pulled here if all that happened was some Firmament strain. Not unless you're experiencing ongoing Firmament strain, and not unless there's a threat the Interface's default settings can't protect from you."

...Ongoing? "I'm not using any skills right now," I say. As far as I know, anyway.

"You are. You're just not aware of it." Gheraa glances around, then tries a bright smile that I don't buy for a second. "But like I said, this is convenient! Good job. Right now, no one can see what you're doing, not even me. We can talk in perfect privacy."

I narrow my eyes. "Hold on. What do you mean, not even you?"

"Oh, uh, right. I guess I haven't actually explained what's happening." Gheraa scratches the back of his head in a decidedly human gesture. "You'll remember I told you I needed to prepare for our next meeting. Well, I did. This is the result of that preparation. We needed a way to talk privately, and this is the only way I could think to do it. There are no eyes on us right now—no Integrator can see what we're doing, including my real self."

"Your... real self." I repeat the words with a small amount of skepticism; this Gheraa seems as real as any version of him I've ever spoken to. "I'm talking to a fake version of you?"

"Well, depending on what you think of as fake, yes," Gheraa confirms, ignoring said skepticism. "But don't call me that or you'll hurt my feelings."

"Noted," I say dryly. I can feel a thread of anxiety within me—this all means Ahkelios is integrating his Remnant alone—but I try to focus on the problem in front of me. Gheraa's presence here can only mean one of very few things. "You want to actually explain what's going on?"

"Yeah. Let's start with this. This void we're in? We Integrators call it the Mind Vault," Gheraa says. "It's a failsafe built into the Interface. Think of it as a protective instance your mind gets brought into if it detects a serious threat to your metaphysical existence."

I grimace a bit at this description. "...I'm a little concerned about this 'serious threat to my metaphysical existence', but go on."

"I—the real me—can't talk to you openly and directly, which I presume you've noticed. I'm being monitored very closely. So I imbued your Inspiration with a little bit of my own Firmament and programmed it to integrate with your Interface's Mind Vault, to be brought to life if you ever trigger it." Gheraa seems inordinately proud of himself for the fact. "I figured the way you're going, you'd trigger it eventually. And would you look at that! I was right! Here we are."

He tries for a triumphant grin, resting his chin in both his hands and floating far too close for comfort. I glance at those hands, my gaze lingering for a moment.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

They're shaking.

Gheraa sees what I'm looking at and promptly folds his hands behind his back, fixing his smile firmly in place.

"You know, I somehow thought you'd be less of a showman without the Integrators watching over you." I give him a small smile, and I see his shoulders visibly relax.

"Nope! I'm a showman through and through," he says with a wink. "I mean, I'd like to have something I can still be proud of."

"...I can relate to that."

Gheraa nods. "Anyway! We have a lot to talk about." He takes a few steps back, regarding me with an uncharacteristic frown. "You need to know a few things about the Integrators, the Interface, and the Trial. Hopefully you'll still want to help me after all that, but if you don't..."

He takes a deep breath, then shrugs, not quite looking me in the eyes. "Well, this version of me will understand," he says. "I don't know if the real me will. I'll expire once we finish this conversation, so it's not like I can talk to him. Can't leave any traces and all that."

"...You don't seem very comfortable with that."

"Ethan, my friend, I am a fully sapient Firmament construct cloned from a larger, equally sapient Firmament construct. I am not comfortable with my imminent death, no." Gheraa glances at the lines of golden Firmament in his skin, watching the pulse of power beneath them. "But frankly, that doesn't matter right now. You have questions about the Trials and the Integrators. Ask them. This is going to be one of your only chances to get straight answers."

This is... admittedly unexpected. I'd been half-expecting to only get those answers by raiding the Integrator city myself. "You can't just tell me what I need to know?"

"I could try," Gheraa says. He gestures to himself. "But all this? Getting a working, living Firmament construct into your Interface? It's pretty complicated. There's a lot of knowledge compression I had to do to make it work, and I can't just unpack all that knowledge without the right prompt."

That makes sense. "How much time do we have?" I ask. I don't want to leave the others alone for too long—Ahkelios is probably already panicking over me, by this point, and if there are any other threats Bimar won't be able to deal with them alone. Not to mention everything that might be happening with the other rebels, with Tarin, with Guard...

I'd almost forgotten about He-Who-Guards, at this point. I clench my fists. After everything Miktik told me about him, I don't want to just leave him to Whisper.

Especially since I'm pretty sure he held back every time we fought. I saw how effective he was against the monsters in the Fracture—if he'd fought me with that strength when we first met...

I wouldn't have stood a chance.

"Theoretically? As much as you need," Gheraa says, capturing my attention once more. "The Mind Vault can last for days if it needs to, and I doubt we're going to be in here for days. Unless you really want to hang out with me." He gives me a playful grin, once again moving in far too close for comfort, and I hold him back by the shoulder with a roll of my eyes. This version of Gheraa seems a little too comfortable with getting close.

"Let's start with the most important bit," I say. All jokes aside, I don't want to stay here longer than necessary. "I strained my Firmament with Warpstep, but you said there was something else—some kind of skill I'm still using. I can't feel any Firmament or access the Interface right now, but I assume you have senses that I don't. What skill am I using?"

"Iron Mind," Gheraa responds immediately. "I can only partially observe what's happening outside of your body, but I can read your history in the Firmament easily enough. What do you know about Teluwat?"

I narrow my eyes. "Nothing. I know he's one of the Hestian Trialgoers, but Bimar wouldn't tell me anything more. Or she was too scared to. One or the other."

"He's the most dangerous of the Hestian Trialgoers, if not the most powerful," Gheraa says. He says it with enough certainty that I feel a spark of worry—of Premonition—almost like the skill is responding even in my currently-disconnected state. "You've been resisting him since almost the moment you got into that lab."

The idea that Teluwat was trying to manipulate me sends a surge of hot anger through me. "What was he trying to do to me?"

Gheraa frowns, closing his eyes and rubbing his fingers together again. "It looks like he was trying to manipulate you into seeing him in person. I'm going to go ahead and suggest you don't do that."

"How dangerous is he?" If he's making moves against me already, I'm going to have to face him whether I like it or not. I'll need to be prepared. One more thing to do in a steadily-growing list.

"Whatever you're thinking he can do, it's probably worse," Gheraa says. "He's gotten a skill from the Interface that we've never seen before. There are Integrators worried about what he's capable of. He might not be anywhere near being able to affect any of us, but he could mess with our plans, if he wanted to."

"And what can he do, exactly?"

"His skills revolve around manipulation and control," Gheraa says. "But you've probably figured that out already, and we've seen that before. There are ways to defend against mind-affecting Firmament. The problem with Teluwat is what happens afterward when he uses his main skill—it's called Rewritten Truth."

Gheraa gestures. Dark Firmament spreads out from his fingertips, spreading into the air like the branches of a tree. "Whatever new reality he enforces on someone under his control spreads. Like a sickness made of Firmament, infecting everything else it touches."

I stare at the slowly-expanding Firmament and feel myself taking a step back, in spite of myself. "What does that mean, exactly? He makes someone believe something and it becomes true?"

"Essentially." Gheraa's expression darkens slightly. "There are limitations, but nothing we've been able to clearly define. It's a Firmament-based skill, so anyone capable of working with Firmament can resist it. Objects that don't rely on Firmament are relatively immune. But Firmament is imbued into everything, including most objects and buildings—Rewritten Truth can alter all those things."

"That's..."

"I know." Gheraa closes his fist, and the tree of Firmament shatters, scattering into the void. "We've never seen skills like that before. But that's true for a lot of the new skills coming out of the Interface—that Time Punch skill of yours, for example."

"Time Punch isn't nearly as ridiculous as Rewritten Truth," I say with a grimace. I can't even think of a way to counter that. If what Gheraa says is true, then Teluwat's limitations are nearly nonexistent—his skills take advantage of the nature and prevalence of Firmament. Maybe if I could take advantage of the loops in some way.

...but now that I think about it, I might not be the only one able to take advantage of those loops.

The loop takes precedence over most alterations, but not all of them. Changes to the Firmament of people tend to stick across loops, while anything altered in objects and buildings doesn't seem to. It's the reason Guard's injuries were sustained across loops—the reason Whisper panics at the start of every loop.

A realization hits.

"Wait," I say. "Firmament changes to people are retained across loops, right?"

"Yes." Gheraa frowns. "Why?"

"Because," I say, "if Teluwat's figured that out..."

There's a beat, and then Gheraa's eyes narrow. "Then he's most likely using your loops to spread his control."

"Yup." The more I think about it, the more sense it makes—it even explains the sudden appearance of Whisper's agents under Teluwat's control. The question is how long it takes him to realize that the loops are running and begin his work. It can't be at the start of every loop; without outside factors like Naru learning about a Hotspot to investigate or Guard's sudden collapse, the Hestian Trialgoers don't seem automatically alerted to the fact that a Trial has begun.

"The Integrators won't like it, but they won't help," Gheraa says, frowning in thought. "They can't. Not with any Trial, and not with yours especially."

That figures. I'll have to work out some kind of counter to Teluwat on my own, then. The skill can't be insurmountable—even Gheraa thinks it has limitations, even if he doesn't know what those limitations are.

So I'll just have to work it out for myself.

"Sounds like it's time for you to tell me what the Trials are for," I say. "Especially if you're implying there's somethin special about my Trial."

"It is. And it's time for you to learn the true nature of Firmament," Gheraa says. He takes a breath, as if considering what he's about to say, and then nods to himself. "...You're going to need to be stronger. A lot stronger. So I'm going to use what I have left to train you, and as soon as we're done, I'm going to forcibly end this loop. It's too risky for you to stay in it while Teluwat is spreading his influence around."

I grit my teeth—I don't like that idea, considering how much I still have to do this loop. "Only if I can't figure something else out," I say. "I can end the loop on my own if I need to. Or with Ahkelios's help."

"Fine," Gheraa says. I notice he doesn't fight me on it. His hands are still shaking, too. How much is he really feeling, under all that faux cheer and showboating? Most of it has melted away over the course of this conversation, but I still see the little subconscious gestures, the flourishes he automatically adds to his movements and the forced smile he fixes on his face.

I sigh.

Mind Vault or not, I want to see what's going on with my body for myself. I close my eyes, trying to sense where I am, trying to connect to my body and its sense of Firmament.

I can feel Gheraa watching me. "Well?" I speak without opening my eyes. "What are the Trials really for?"