I take a moment to review my skills before we actually head into the Empty City. I've lost a number of them, and it's... surprising to me, how much that fact aches. They shouldn't even be alive, let alone sentient enough to sacrifice themselves for me the way they did. They're Firmament constructs residing within my core, my soul—whatever you decide to call it.

But I grasped at a Talent. I Anchored a Truth. For a moment, I made them something more than they were, and in that moment they chose to protect me.

Any number of other things could have happened. The Truth I chose at the time was half-formed, a product of anger and determination and a wilful, stubborn refusal to let myself die. That's all it was: a singular thought, ringing into the void. I am not going to die here.

I know a little more about Anchoring now. Not a lot more, but enough to make a few basic assumptions and come to a few basic conclusions. I know that for a working like that to succeed, a Truth must compete against a Truth. And the competing Truths there were simple:

Ethan Hill will die.

Ethan Hill will live.

I don't know what happens if a Truth fails to become Anchored. I don't even know how the process really works. My instinctive understanding of it, though, says that something had to bend in order for that Anchoring to succeed. It tells me that what happened back then was the path of least resistance—and that it was more likely than not the only possibility I was strong enough to Anchor into existence.

If not for my skills, if not for the way in which they manifested... I likely wouldn't still be alive.

Not only that, Isthanok would be destroyed. Most of Hestia too, more than likely. What kind of sacrifice was that, anyway? Why were the Integrators willing to go that far just to... what, punish Gheraa? By destroying me? They already killed him. It's not like they can do more.

Maybe there's something more to it. Maybe there's a reason they came at me so aggressively, threw everything they had at me within the "rules" they were constrained by. Maybe there's a reason I'm being hunted.

Maybe they're afraid.

I'll be able to find out, thanks to Barrier, Second Wind, and all the other skills that poured themselves into reinforcing my core against the effects of the double phase shift.

I hesitate a moment more, then call up the Interface screen. It pops up in front of me, shining a dull blue.

[Status | Skills | Mastery | Inspirations | Dungeons]

[Strength]

Concentrated Power, Amplification Gauntlet, Causal Shattering

[Durability]

Crystallized Barrier, Verdant Armor, Field of Immortality

[Reflex]

Quicken Mind, Inspect, Premonition, Iron Mind, Paradox Warning

[Speed]

Firestep, Accelerate, Intrinsic Lightning, Warpstep, Distorted Crux

[Firmament]

Firmament Control, Hueshift, Temporal Static, Firmament Sight, Temporal Link, Timestrike, The Road Not Taken

[NOTICE: Interface currently running on backup protocol ANCHORED HERITAGE. Features and rewards may be different.]

I let out a breath.

That's a lot of my core skills just... gone. If I extend my senses into my soul, I can sort of feel the gaps they've left behind—something like a set of scars in my Firmament, bleeding into the layers around it. They aren't doing any damage, but there's residue, for lack of a better word.

Not any kind of residue I can recover the skills with, unfortunately. The Firmament is raw and pure, a kind of undifferentiated potential that's being slowly reabsorbed into my being. Almost like a kind of final gift. It's strange, feeling so sentimental over some missing skills. Second Wind was one of the first skills I ever received—seeing it just gone from the list bothers me more than I thought it would.

Maybe the skill's still out there somewhere. It should still be in the Interface, shouldn't it? There's a decent chance I might roll the skill again, or maybe run into someone who has the skill, or maybe just find it imbued into something that I can grab a copy from.

"I feel like you're letting yourself worry too much about it," Ahkelios remarks. I blink, then glance at him—apparently I'm letting my thoughts leak through our link.

"Probably," I say with a shrug. He's not wrong. "Just feels weird, not having it. Second Wind saved my life several times over. So did most of the other skills I lost."

"And they did it again when it counted," Ahkelios says. "But you're letting yourself mope over them too much."

I snort, unable to help the grin that makes its way onto my face. "Not mincing your words, are you?"

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The new formatting of the skills is something I can appreciate, at least. The skill ranks aren't listed on the screen anymore, but I can still get the rank if I focus on each individual skill—in fact, the Interface even does something it refused to do before, and gives me a little description of the skill when I do. It essentially consolidates the information from Inspect. When I focus on Hueshift, for example:

[Hueshift] [Rank B]

Allows the user to alter the color of Firmament.

And if I focus specifically on the word color:

[Color]

An intrinsic property of Firmament. Color is an expression of emotional tint. For the most part, this affects the strength of the Firmament in question, although in rare cases it may affect the way a particular type of Firmament manifests its effect.

It's a relief to have so much more of the Interface open to me, and something about it directly explaining these things—even if I had to first manually learn them via Inspect or other sources—is... comforting. Like it's verifying that the work I've put in to understand all of this matters.

Also, the list looks cleaner this way, and the skills are sorted from lowest to highest in rank. I can't say I'm upset about it.

"Ready?" Ahkelios asks quietly. Guard stands by, his engines humming a soft static that joins with the wind, creating a pleasant background buzz. I shake my head: not yet.

"Need a moment to mentally reset," I say. There's too much on my mind. Too much I'm thinking about. The Empty City is going to be dangerous enough without me being distracted by a dozen different dangers, and that's with the help of skills like Premonition.

I sigh, then take a deep, calming breath. Absently, I reach within myself for the marble of Gheraa-essence I still hold. For a moment, I let myself focus on the sensation of it rolling between my metaphorical fingers, feeling for that tiny fragment of him that still remains.

I wonder what he'd say about all this.

For that matter, I wonder what's happening with Earth and with my fellow Trialgoers. I doubt anyone else has had someone like Gheraa manipulating their Trial. My eyes flick to the Interface screen, and I hesitate for a moment before calling up an Interface window I haven't tried in a long time.

It's worth remembering that there are still stakes beyond everything that's happened to Gheraa. Beyond everything I've learned about Integrators and Firmament. It's easy to forget, when I'm off-planet and everything and everyone I've faced is someone from a different culture and world entirely. Hestia is beautiful in its diversity, and my home life wasn't exactly so cozy that I'm yearning for it again, but I still have a world I'm fighting for.

I think I do miss home, in an abstract sort of way. I miss not having to worry about dying. I miss the people there—not the people I knew personally, maybe, but the kind barista down the block that always made sure to add a little extra whipped cream, or the cashier that made an effort to make me smile, even when she was having a bad day.

I miss when people mattered in little ways. When not every relationship was rooted in life or death. Not that I'd give up my bond with Ahkelios for anything, of course. Or the relationship I was able to build with Tarin and Mari. I'm going to have to visit them after all of this.

There's a word I'm looking for that describes my feelings about all this. I'm just having trouble finding it.

I think it's not quite that I'm missing those times. It's more like it serves as a reminder.

This situation Hestia is in. The one where so much power is held in the hands of its Trialgoers, who each seem to run their own distinct forms of dictatorships. The one where the entire planet is nothing more than a battlegrounds for a Trial that's been going on over and over and over, at the cost of everyone who lives on the planet.

That's the fate that awaits Earth if the Integrators have their way.

I stare at the screen I called up, pondering.

[Chat disconnected.]

I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything different. I scroll through the list of names, many of them still lit up, but a worrying number of them now dim. Casualties of the Trials, I imagine. If anything, it's surprising that as many people are alive as they are.

Of the 3,000 or so people selected for the Trials, about 100 of them are dead. It... could've been worse.

My lips tighten anyway.

"Guard, Ahkelios," I say out loud, dismissing the screen. "We should discuss how we approach combat. We haven't really fought together before, and my skills are different, so I'm going to have to adjust how I fight. It's probably going to take me a bit to figure out, but let's have a basic plan before we go into the Empty City."

Ahkelios and Guard both glance at me, surprised by the sudden change of tone. It doesn't take long for them to get on the same page, though. Guard gives me a severe nod, and Ahkelios does a little salute that he immediately tucks away behind his back, as if embarrassed. I smirk a little at the sight, but don't let it distract me.

"First, let's go through our strengths..."

—

It doesn't take as long as I expected. The conclusion is simple: Guard will take point, Ahkelios will harass at a distance, and I'll stack my abilities for powerful hits in whatever ways I can. We're not sure how effective I'll be in the Empty City yet, and we don't necessarily know how all my new skills are going to operate in combat or how quickly they'll exhaust me. The strain on my Firmament clearly isn't proportional between skills.

So a lot of the initial fights will have to be about figuring out what I can and can't do. What my current limits are. How long I can hold an Evolution, if need be. I can sense that I'm almost ready to try out the Knight again, though it won't last for very long.

So it's good to know that the recharge time is... something around an hour, if I need it for a few seconds. At this rate, probably a day or two for the Evolution to be at full effectiveness.

Good enough. I reach out to the Interface and prompt it for the gate to the Empty City. A golden key materializes in my hand—which is new, actually. The Interface usually just opens it for me. I stare at it for a moment, then carefully stick the key into the air.

Space solidifies around it. I twist, and I feel something give way; a golden doorway opens, and the key dissolves into nothing.

Strange. Why the entirely cosmetic change?

I've used this portal from time to time to store things—mostly items and food from the Cliffside Crows so I don't starve during my travels, though there was the entire person I stuck in there at one point to keep them prisoner—but this is the first time I'm actually going in. The floor through the portal is scattered with all those items, still perfectly preserved from when I left them in there. I'm pretty sure I've exceeded the time limit on the 'safe' period in the dungeon, since I sent someone in there, so...

There's every chance we're going to be attacked as soon as we enter.

"Guard?" I say.

He nods at me, and I watch as he takes a step through the portal. There's a shift in Firmament...

I narrow my eyes, sensing something strange, and step in after him.