The biggest question for me is whether or not the Fracture is populated the way the Cliffside is. Everything indicates that it isn't. I imagine that at least one person would have responded to the sound of me fighting the Fractured Guardian if it were populated, and the floor in here is covered in a layer of dust besides.

It doesn't look like anyone's been here for... I don't know how long.

"This place is creepy." Ahkelios shivers against an imaginary cold. I frown slightly, reaching out with my Firmament sense to see if there's anything out of the ordinary.

Nothing. Just those same sparks of Firmament in the distance, some pulsing a little brighter than before, and others a little dimmer; they ebb and flow like a tide. I've never felt Firmament quite like this before.

I try to sense the translation stone Ahkelios had mentioned, but if it does have Firmament, it's not different enough from anything else for me to pick it out at this distance.

"Why do I need a translation stone, anyway?" I walk into the first house the golem had spun out of. It's... sparsely decorated, to say the least. "The Interface translates everything for me."

"Most of the time." Ahkelios shakes his head. "Some things it doesn't. Because it's part of the Trial, you see."

"Of course," I sigh.

But maybe there's another reason it translates some things and not others — something that runs deeper than the Trials themselves. Ahkelios has already said that the Integrators aren't in full control of the Interface, and if we take that together with the mention that there's something unique about the Fracture, and the strange way Gheraa behaved when I met him...

As I think this, I come across the alcove the stone golem must have emerged from. It's a recess carved into the wall, decorated with the same intricately carved lines that were on the golem itself. Residual Firmament still thrums along the lines, and I tentatively reach out with my Firmament sense, wondering just how much I can understand.

Not much, it turns out. The alcove is clearly a charging station of some sort, but that's about all I can glean from it; if there's a reason that the lines are organized the way they are, I have no idea what that reason is.

Everything else about this house is almost eerily domestic, considering the deadly golem that burst out of it. There are tables, chairs, and shelves, all carved from the same pale-brown stone; it's incredibly plain, now that I think about it.

If this had been lived in, even if it had been abandoned, I would expect to find decoratives. Maybe the remnants of the frame of a painting, or something carved onto the walls. Instead, the room is devoid of anything decorative as can be, like it's a mockup of a living space more than an actual living space.

It smells like old, musty dust, and my footsteps echo in the empty space.

"I have no idea what to make of this," I finally say out loud. I glance at Ahkelios, who stares curiously around from my shoulder. "You have any ideas?"

"It looks lonely," he says. He peers around, still clinging close to me.

He's not wrong. There's something kind of lonely about a home that looks like it should have been lived in. There aren't even any of the facilities I would expect out of any organic species — no restrooms, no beds, nowhere to cook...

I wonder if this was the Fractured Guardian's home.

Was that thing alive? More than it had seemed?

"There's nothing in here," I say at last. The Firmament charging the alcove leads off into the distance, further into the Fracture; I won't find its source here. I doubt I'll even find its source this loop, in all honesty. If I reach out as far as my Firmament sense extends, I can vaguely sense the lines of Firmament heading downwards, and I've already determined I have no plans of going too far down this loop.

Or... almost nothing none. I frown.

Those sparks of Firmament I sensed are still ebbing and flowing — and one of them is nearby, too dim to be sensed until the latest pulse. I follow my sense of it, walking over to the empty-looking shelf.

I have to stand on a chair to see it, but it's not completely empty. There's a small fragment of what looks like pottery on there, incredibly out of place in the otherwise mostly-pristine room. Even if I'd spotted it, I doubt I would have given it a second thought without my ability to sense Firmament, because now that I'm close to it...

The Firmament within it is anchored, not unlike the way Mari taught me how to anchor Firmament — but the knot is by far the most complex thing I've ever seen. More than that, I have no idea what type of Firmament it is or what it's doing. It feels old. Older than anything I can imagine.

Ahkelios has climbed his way up to the top of my head so he can stare at it. "Why're you looking at a rock?" he asks.

"Because there's Firmament in it," I answer, distracted. Now that I think about it, I suppose other Trialgoers might not have paid attention to this at all — not if sensing Firmament is something unique to having unstable Firmament, or whatever it was Tarin had said.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

But what is it?

I reach out and pick it up, turning it over in my fingers briefly. It doesn't seem to react to my touch at all; it continues that faint pulsing of Firmament. I'm about to pocket it for later experimentation when Ahkelios clambers curiously down my arm, poking at it —

— and abruptly vanishes.

"Ahkelios?!" I'm startled.

Thankfully, he pops back out of the fragment a second later, looking awed. "Whoa," he says. "This thing has a skill in it! Or, uh, part of one, anyway."

I stare at him. "I have many questions. Like 'how did you do that', 'how do you know that', and 'how do I get the skill'."

"I dunno, and I dunno, and I think you have to complete it?" Ahkelios puts a hand to his chin. "I bet Mari can help you. This looks like an imbuing thing."

It really does. I try reaching out with Firmament Manipulation, but the knot of Firmament inside it is so complex that I don't want to touch it for fear of unravelling the whole thing — so I pocket it instead.

Yet another reason to survive this loop.

It'll be a few more minutes before I completely recover from the Firmament strain of that last fight, so I sit myself down in one of those stone chairs.

They're about as uncomfortable as they look. I pull up the Interface, glancing over it with some trepidation.

[ Loop 13 in progress. ]

[ Status:

Name: Ethan

Strength Skills: Crystallized Strength (Rank C)

Durability Skills: Tough Body (Rank E), Second Wind (Rank B), Barrier (Rank D)

Reflex Skills: Mental Acceleration (Rank C)

Speed Skills: Firestep (Rank C), Triplestep (Rank E)

Firmament Skills: Temporal Fragment (Rank C), Firmament Manipulation (Rank D), Color Drain (Rank C)

Inspirations: The Mirror Twice Shattered (Firmament, Unique)

Credit Distribution:

Strength: 84 (47 banked)

Durability: 97 (84 banked)

Reflex: 66 (58 banked)

Speed: 97 (79 banked)

Firmament: 10 (100 banked) ]

On the one hand, it's nice to see how far I've come. On the other... I grimace. Talk about decision paralysis.

Every single category other than Firmament can be used to trigger an Inspiration right now, assuming that the rewards are the same for reaching the hundred-credit threshold in the other categories. I don't want to touch Durability and Speed — they're so close to giving me a guaranteed Rank B skill that I can't help but feel it'll be better if I just wait those three points out.

Between the others, Mental Acceleration has proven enormously useful, and I imagine a Rank C Reflex skill on top of an Inspiration should be another game changer for me. Strength isn't as close as Durability and Speed are, but it's close enough that I want to wait — but given my main opponents in the Fracture are those Fractured Guardians, and even Crystallized Strength is insufficient to really hurt them...

"I think I'll bank Reflex first," I say, half to myself and half to Ahkelios, who is peering straight at my Interface. The status screen is apparently fully visible to him. "What do you think?"

"Sensible," the mantis says, nodding seriously. "The gap of power between ranks goes up as the ranks go up, so waiting for a guaranteed Rank B skill is going to benefit you more, but you can't wait forever."

"And Reflex is slow to train." I sigh. I suppose I could try to hone it by doing nothing but dodging an opponent's attacks, but I had been doing that with the Fractured Golem; apparently, that hadn't been enough to net me more than 15 credits.

Maybe there's a better way to train it. I'll have to pay attention to how far I need to push myself before I really start gaining credits in that category.

[ Are you sure you wish to bank 66 Reflex credits? ]

Yes.

[ 66 Reflex credits banked! Rolling for results... ]

[ Select between:

Foreknowledge (Rank C)

Intuitive Analysis (Rank C)

Enhanced Perception (Rank C) ]

[ You have unlocked an Inspiration. Bonus will commence once skill selection has taken place. ]

"Foreknowledge, Intuitive Analysis, and Enhanced Perception," I read out loud. This particular window Ahkelios doesn't seem to be able to see; he waves a hand in front of his face, as if irritated that he can't see it. "You know anything about those?"

"I don't think I ever got Foreknowledge as an option," Ahkelios says. He hops onto the table and frowns thoughtfully. "Intuitive Analysis and Enhanced Perception are both really good, but Enhanced Perception takes longer to get used to. They function best together, actually, so you might want to hope you get another instance of Intuitive Analysis."

"But what do they actually do?"

"Intuitive Analysis filters information for you and then fills in the rest with data from the Interface," Ahkelios says. "It's not entirely intuition-based like the skill name implies — but the more you understand something, the more information you can get about it."

That sounds useful. Especially if I can use it on skills themselves before I get them. Even if I can't, being able to tell what the Fractured Golems are doing, or what Naru skill Naru might be using... That's an attractive prospect.

"It does mean that you won't get as much information if the Interface doesn't know something," Ahkelios adds. "It's rare for that to happen, but it does happen. Especially around the Fracture."

"Which is right where I am, of course," I grumble.

"Enhanced Perception is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It makes you capable of processing a lot more information at the same time. It can be a bit overwhelming at first — you have to learn to filter out information all over again — but it can be incredibly useful."

I feel like that's something I can already train on my own. It's a bit of an arrogant thought, and I'm sure the Firmament skill would be far more effective, but a part of me is almost reluctant to pick it up. Maybe it's pride.

It won't stop me from picking it up if I think it's the most useful one I can get, though. I'm still leaning towards Intuitive Analysis, just because it's a way of getting information I wouldn't be able to get otherwise.

But then there's Foreknowledge.

Ahkelios hasn't seen the skill before, but the name itself is pretty telling. Since it's a Reflex skill, I assume there's some similarity with Danger Sense, which I remember getting as an option the last time I banked Reflex. Foreknowledge is a lot more vague, though; the implication there is maybe that it will let me learn about more things than just danger in advance.

I'm tempted to pick it, if not for the simple fact that I'm in a time loop. Foreknowledge is just a function of dying and waking up again. It's not perfectly comparable, obviously, but it's close enough to make me pick something else.

Intuitive Analysis.

[ Intuitive Analysis (Rank C) obtained! ]

[ Inspiration commencing. ]