"I think we might have a problem," I say. The ache in my chest is only growing, and with it, there's a distinct sense of dread. I'm not sure if the dread is coming from me or from the Void, which has very much decided to start paying attention to current circumstances and is now emanating a distinct feeling of hunger.
Ikaara stops. When she speaks, her voice is strange. "It is difficult to navigate the currents, especially with two passengers," she says to me; the words are distorted by a stray rush of dense Firmament moving past us, and I have to blink several times to get rid of the afterimage imprinted onto my retinas.
Briefly, I consider turning off Tetrachromacy — but no. I'm trying to learn. I need to know what Ikaara is doing here, in case I need to do it on my own. Right now, I have barely a clue.
"The Interface is reacting to the slipstream," I say with a slight grunt. Ikaara observes me, six eyes blinking alternately, and I feel her gaze like she's looking through my skin.
"The slipstreams are usually only navigated by us morphlings," Ikaara says, her voice faintly distracted. There's a small undercurrent of worry there, though. "We have never brought an Interface user in here before... But it should not be reacting to your Firmament regardless."
"You better not have tricked us," Ahkelios says, folding his arms.
Ikaara shakes her head, then presses one hand solemnly to the upper left corner of her chest. "I would not," she says.
She doesn't seem to be lying, though I don't have much attention to spare right now. The ache in my chest is growing, and the Interface pulls itself up in front of me.
[ Warning: Temporal overload detected. ]
Clarity slams into me. It's not the Interface that's reacting to the slipstream — not exactly. It's whatever part of the interface is tied to the loop.
"It's temporal Firmament," I manage to say, gritting my teeth through the growing pain in my chest.
Ikaara's eyes widen. "You have temporal—"
She doesn't get to finish.
Firmament erupts out of my chest, leaving me folded over and coughing, a sudden, searing pain flashing into every particle of my lungs. I collapse, letting go of Ikaara and Rotar, and I recognize almost immediately that that is a mistake, because the current of Firmament surrounding me catches me in its grip, and I realize, abruptly, exactly how much Ikaara was doing to keep us stable.
The current of Firmament around me lashes about wildly in thousands of violent tendrils, at speeds so great that Quicken Mind doesn't help me even slightly. I reach for the Accelerator, hoping to boost it further, but even with the increased speed of mind I can barely perceive a difference.
How was Ikaara holding all of this back? It looks impossible to me. Firmament moves around like a chaotic storm, and I'm sent tumbling along with it, down what I'm sure is a very, very wrong path.
All while temporal Firmament continues to writhe around me, interacting with the slipstream's Firmament and somehow — as best as I can tell — being amplified. The chaos of the slipstream merges with the Interface's temporal Firmament, and while the Interface itself doesn't appear to be in any danger of running out, it doesn't really matter. The real and present danger is that that chaotic temporal Firmament is throwing me around like a rag doll.
Worse than that, it's gathering. Tetrachromacy lets me see what looks like sparks and flashes of magenta lightning, which as far as I can gather is lightning made out of time. My head aches from trying to process and understand.
Hopefully Ikaara and Rotar will be fine. I need to focus on surviving this — especially since whatever's going on has something to do with time.
I don't know if I'll loop correctly if I die here.
Think. Ikaara was doing something to navigate the slipstream. I don't have access to the same Firmament she does, and I don't know how to produce it. She changed into this form because it had a better way to sense Firmament, and I do have that to my advantage.
Quicken Mind doesn't help. Accelerator doesn't appear to help, either. Processing speed won't help me out here. Ikaara's demeanor is calm, relaxed; whatever she's doing, she's not relying on split-second reactions to make it work, but it does require her focus.
Crystallized Barrier. I try it, just in case it can protect me from the Firmament all around me, but it nearly instantly shatters as it manifests. I grit my teeth.
I'm not close to death. I don't want to use Second Wind yet.
My various speed skills won't help me here; I don't have anywhere to go. I try Color Drain, but it steals only a fragment of the Firmament's energy before it fails and collapses. There's too much here for me to drain.
There is the Void. The Inspiration seems attentive. It's lurking within me, waiting for me to call on it. It hasn't tried to take over, and it doesn't seem hungry.
Verdant Armor fails. I don't even want to try either of my temporal skills. Ahkelios appears to have dissipated at some point in the stream of Firmament, though I feel the bond with him still secured within me — that, at least, is a small comfort.
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What else can I do? What was Ikaara doing?
She needed to sense the Firmament. I can sense Firmament. What are we doing differently?
All-Seeing Eye.
The purpose of the Eye is ostensibly to help me see connections. It lets me combine skills because it lets me see the ways in which two skills can fit together, because the two things are otherwise a chaotic mess.
Just like the slipstream.
As soon as I use the Eye, I see it. It's hard to notice, in the chaotic array of Firmament, but there is in fact a path that's relatively clear — it's just a path that's constantly moving and shifting. The Eye lets me predict where the path will open next, to some extent...
There is a temporal storm still gathering above me, made of stolen temporal Firmament. I don't want to find out what's going to happen if I get struck by a bolt of time.
Warpstep.
As soon as I see an opening with the Eye, I teleport into it, sparing only a second to look for the next one. The constantly shifting nature of the Firmament maze makes it difficult, like staring into static and trying to see a picture within that static, but I just barely manage it.
Warpstep.
It's painful. My chest still aches, and the Firmament in my body has gone haywire, no doubt as a result of whatever strange reaction there was between the slipstream and the temporal nature of the loop. It occurs to me that this may be what Gheraa was talking about when the Integrator mentioned temporal banding; he'd mentioned it made it difficult for him to visit.
Warpstep.
I stagger. There's blood on my hands, though I don't remember when it got there. It doesn't look like my blood. There is a phantom hole through the right side of my abdomen, and I observe this with a detached, clinical efficiency.
I am still surrounded by chaotic Firmament. The temporal storm continues to gather.
Warpstep.
There's an exit coming up. I think I'm missing an arm, but I don't know when that happened, either. I don't bother using Second Wind, because it's back a moment later.
It's... temporal banding? The knowledge doesn't seem like it's mine. I'm experiencing moments from my future, or maybe my past. The temporal storm continues to gather.
Warpstep.
I'm at an exit.
A bolt of temporal Firmament flashes towards me.
Accelerator. Flashstep.
I exit the slipstream and land on desolate, broken rock, tumbling and rolling several times over before coming to a stop. There aren't any signs of trees around me, but then there's no sign of any life, either. There's just... an empty nothing.
Good news: The sky still looks like Hestia's sky.
Bad news: The time of day is different.
My Firmament is exhausted, but I call on Temporal Fragment one last time, bringing up Ahkelios' miniature form to join me in what is, as far as I can tell, a barren desert.
"Any idea where we are?" I ask. My voice is hoarse.
"I think you should be more worried about when we are." This is the first time I've heard Ahkelios speak with such grim worry in his voice. "Check the Interface."
That was my next step, anyway.
[ You have defeated a Mechanical Remnant (Rank D)! +32 Strength credits. +51 Durability credits. +69 Speed credits. +27 Reflex credits. +20 Firmament credits. ]
A lot of which are my rewards for my actions, rewarded because I ostensibly defeated a Mechanical Remnant. I still don't know why the system is reporting these, except that it likely has something to do with the automaton I threw into the Fracture.
And then... many more messages. So many more messages. I don't even get credits for them.
[ You have defeated a Mechanical Remnant (Rank D)! ]
A ton of these messages.
[ You have defeated a Mechanical Remnant (Rank C)! ]
Less of these.
[ You have defeated a Mechanical Remnant (Rank B)! ]
The rank, I notice, is slowly increasing.
[ You have defeated a Mechanical Remnant (Rank A)! ]
Only one of those.
My eyes drift to the Timeline Tracker on the interface. It reads:
92:17:23
Ninety-two days, seventeen hours, twenty-three seconds. I've been displaced in time. A quick check of the Earth 'chat' shows no changes, so the temporal changes are likely local, limited to Hestia. I've pretty much already established that, but considering what happened, I figure it's better to be safe.
None of this feels quite real to me yet. I'm going through the motions. Adapting to being dumped into the Trial? Sure, I can do that. I was forced to do that. But this...
At least now I know, I suppose. I've learned some crucial information. I keep going through the motions. The map is very, very zoomed out when I check — I'm on another continent on Hestia entirely. The markers for the Cliffside Crows is gone.
"Ethan," Ahkelios says, sounding worried. No, scared? He sounds scared.
There's a rumble in the earth, and a very, very familiar sense of Firmament — overwhelmingly powerful and growing by the second.
That can't be right, I think. I'm nowhere near the Fracture. It's on another continent. But it feels like the Fracture, like that blast that was sent up into the sky.
I notice, for the first time, that the shape of the continent the Fracture is on is different. Half of it is missing.
There's a bright light on the horizon growing by the second. I take a second to parse what it is, and what's probably happening. I glance at the Interface's map once more and see a crack, spreading through the map, racing directly for me.
Fuck.
The ground cracks and splits beneath me, and I am swallowed by Firmament.
[ You have died. ]
[ You have unlocked a new feature: Doomsday Tracker. This Interface feature will track all events that may affect the time at which Anomaly 006 occurs. ]
[ You have unlocked the knowledge database of Anomaly 006, kept by other Trialgoers. ]
[ For encountering an Anomaly, you have been awarded 50 Firmament credits. ]
[ Warning: New anomalies detected in loop. ]
When I wake up, it's with the blade of a mantis arm descending on my head.
END BOOK 1