I dig into my soup as Virin lies back into his bed of straw — but almost immediately, he sits up again, his eyes wide. "You fix my bed!" he says. "How you fix?"

"I just... kind of tried to move the Firmament around a bit?" I say. "It all settled once I did. I'm not sure."

"It not easy to move other people Firmament," Virin mutters. "It hard, actually. And this bed experimental. I use new Firmament. Harder to anchor. But you anchor it?"

"Not on purpose?" I certainly hadn't tried to tie it down the way Mari had suggested; I don't have nearly the skill needed to anchor it down to every individual piece of straw.

"No, not anchor..." Virin runs his feathers over the straw, concentrating. "Stabilize? Firmament not stable before. Why stable now?"

I start to answer, but Virin isn't even looking at me — I don't think he's paying attention. He's completely lost in the mystery of how I apparently fixed his bed. I watch, amused, as he starts muttering to himself and pulling out individual pieces of straw, brushing over them with Firmament as though he can better understand what I've done.

Good luck to him. I don't even know what I did. Maybe it has something to do with the instability of my own Firmament.

Eventually, though, Virin seems to fall asleep while still muttering to himself. I chuckle a little at the sight — his beak is buried in the straw. Every so often, he shifts, scratching at his belly and then muttering something about Firmament imbuement; it only stops when Nori tosses down a stick from her nest up in the ceiling and somehow manages to nail her father right in the head.

"I guess she's used to it?" I remark to Ahkelios, amused. The mantis nods very seriously to me.

"Sleep is important," he says. "She must have picked up the skills necessary to survive."

I snort. "Where'd you get your sense of humor from?"

"My father," Ahkelios replies immediately. "And he got his sense of humor from his father's father—"

Ahkelios shuts up as another stick appears in Nori's little nest, and focuses on eating his flowers. I snicker a bit to myself and continue sipping my soup, enjoying the quiet warmth of the morning.

I'm worried about the notifications in the system, of course. I'm worried about the Trials. I'm worried about the bursts of Firmament from the Fracture, and I'm worried about Tarin.

But this is the longest I've ever survived in a loop, and just for a moment, I want to appreciate the quiet morning.

Eventually, I finish my food, and I pile it together with Ahkelios' leftovers — the mantis doesn't even need to eat, and most of the flowers he nibbles on either get disintegrated by his Firmament or fall through his body. He seems happy enough, though, and I gather the scraps into one of the bowls and put them both to the side. I'll clean them once I've had a chance to visit Mari.

Speaking of which... I've given her enough time to nap, I think.

The village is pretty quiet, even as late in the morning as it is. There are a few crows up and about, chatting to one another or doing their laundry by the river, but by and large most of them still seem to be asleep. I make my way to Mari and Tarin's hut without much disturbance at all, and knock on the wall of the hut.

Gently, just in case Mari's still sleeping.

"Trialgoer!" Mari bursts through the makeshift door, startling me and nearly bowling me over. "You come in!"

She doesn't give me much of a choice. She grabs me by the wrist and pulls me in, and I wonder for a moment exactly how much sleep she's gotten; even Ahkelios is grabbing on to my hair just to stay on, squeaking in surprise at the suddeness of the movement.

I don't understand why she's so aggressive about this until I see what's happening inside the hut. The translation stone sits at the center, flickering softly with purple light and floating a good two feet above the ground.

"Uh," I say. "Is that supposed to happen?"

"Of course!" Mari says irritably. "What you take me for? This ancient relic. All ancient relics float and glow. Common sense."

I want to question this, but Mari doesn't give me much of a chance. She jabs a wing at the floating stone, in particular to a little ring that sits at the top of it, flickering with that same purple.

"This Firmament indicator," she explains without preamble. "Translation stone translate when it make contact with ancient language, but it take time. When ring full, translation complete. Then Trialgoer add Firmament, and stone will translate."

I blink. "You found all that out overnight?"

"I very good," Mari says, sounding incredibly smug. "Mostly it activation sequence that take time. Activation complicated. Need. code. I not know code."

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"How'd you activate it, then?" I can't help but ask.

"Need understand underlying structure. Then can figure out what code is." Mari puffs out her chest a little. "Code strange, though. It crow word. I not understand why."

I blink at this. "What was the word?"

"Old crow word. Aarivari." The Interface doesn't translate the word, to my surprise; Mari seems to notice my confusion, and attempts to translate. "It mean... Knowledge. Purpose. Understanding."

"Makes sense, for a translation stone," I mutter. Ahkelios makes a noise of agreement, peering curiously at the stone. I wonder how much of it he remembers, now that it's activated. For that matter, how did he figure out what the activation word was?

He seems to be quieter than usual — contemplative, almost. I'll ask him more about it later.

"Is that it?" I ask. "I just take it, bring it to the Hotspot, and wait for the ring to fill itself?"

Mari nods firmly. "You trust. It work."

"I believe you," I chuckle. I stare at the stone, wondering how I'm even going to pick it up — it's still floating there, and I'm half-worried that I'm going to damage it if I try to touch it. But Mari doesn't stop me, so I grab it and fold it beneath an arm.

It's still glowing, and it feels warm against my skin, but it's not uncomfortable.

"Any sign of Naru?" I ask, and Mari shakes her head.

"Idiot son not come here," she says. There's no small amount of bitterness in her voice. "You careful. Maybe he still in your Hotspot."

"He'd have to spend an entire day in it," I mutter. I don't know Naru well enough to know if he would, but he seems impulsive and aggressive; I can't imagine him staying in one place for long.

"You not want me to come with?" Mari asks.

"Not this time." I shake my head. "I don't know where Naru goes after he leaves the Hotspot. If he decides to pay the village a visit, I think you should be here. Especially since Tarin's..."

I glance at the crow. He's still fast asleep, looking for all the world like he's perfectly healthy — if it weren't for the storm of Firmament raging inside him, I wouldn't know anything was wrong at all. Mari tenses a little bit at my words, and nods.

"I stay here. Protect village and Tarin. You stay safe." The way she says it, it's more of a command than a request.

I lift two fingers in a mock-salute. "Yes ma'am," I say.

Mari snorts and shoos me out of the tent, but not before I catch her smiling.

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

Carrying the translation stone with me to the Hotspot is uncomfortable, but not unbearable. Ahkelios and I make the journey in relative silence, stopping only to take the necessary breaks. Ahkelios seems lost in thought, and I don't want to interrupt him — I have my own worries. The notifications, for example, still hover in my mind.

Mechanical Remnant. What is that, exactly? And how did I defeat one of them?

As I ponder the question, I glance over my status. I've gained a number of credits from my unexpected 'defeat' of those remnants, and I might have to put them to use either now or in the Hotspot, especially if Naru is still there. I'm not particularly inclined to get captured.

[ 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), Crystallized Barrier (Rank C)

Reflex Skills: Mental Acceleration (Rank C), Intuitive Analysis (Rank C)

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

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

Inspirations:

The Mirror Twice Shattered (Firmament, Unique)

The All-Seeing Eye (Reflex, Rank A)

Credit Distribution:

Strength: 117 (47 banked)

Durability: 203 (84 banked)

Reflex: 38 (124 banked)

Speed: 141 (79 banked)

Firmament: 24 (100 banked) ]

...I am incredibly tempted to bank them all right now. The only reason I resist the urge is because I want to reserve at least one of them for the Hotspot itself; banking any of these will trigger an Inspiration, a meeting with Gheraa. I'm not sure I'm ready to meet him again. I need to be prepared, to come up with the right questions, to probe what his intentions and the intentions of the Integrators are.

And there's a second reason, too. The time stop effect of the meeting might be useful to buy me time to think. It feels like a waste to squander an opportunity like that.

But I should decide what I want to bank next.

Speed and Durability are well on their way to reaching 250, which is the number of points I need to get a Rank B skill, though Durability is closest. The only one of those I have right now is Second Wind, and it's one of the most powerful abilities I have, if somewhat limited in scope. I'd like to keep aim to get at least one Rank B skill, and a Speed one might be the best one to get, especially with how much running I seem to need to do.

I already have Second Wind for Durability, along with Crystallized Barrier, which will only get more powerful with each use. I'm mostly lacking in offense, which means the next stat I bank should be Strength.

If the Hotspot calls for it, I'll bank Strength. I'll save the Durability Inspiration for a proper meeting with Gheraa — hopefully netting another Rank B or even a rank A in the process — and I'll also try to save enough credits for a Rank B skill in Speed.

Okay. That's the plan, then.

The edge of the Hotspot comes into view. As before, color drains away from everything, collecting into sticky pools on the ground. This time, however, I have the translation stone with me — and it stays unaffected, glowing purple with Firmament.

There's just one small problem with that.

I'd forgotten how those color-pools reacted when they were first struck by the Obelisk's Firmament, and I hadn't considered how they might react to other forms of foreign Firmament. Apparently, the translation stone counts, and it's emanating waves that I can't stop even with Firmament Manipulation. They're weak, but they're there, rippling out through the hotspot.

And all around me, pools of color start to rise.

"Oops," I mutter.

"Oops," Ahkelios agrees. He sounds significantly more nervous than I do.