About three minutes after Thys leaves — it takes a lot of convincing, and makes me wonder briefly if Thys actually has any other friends besides his siblings — someone attempts to murder me. I almost wonder if this is intentional and a part of Tarin's training, too, but I'm pretty sure it isn't. Mostly because the would-be-assassin is almost laughably weak.

Or maybe it's just the fact that Premonition and my Firmament sense trivialize that particular method of assassination. Premonition alerts me to a small dart of Firmament aimed at my head, and my Firmament sense quickly locates a shrouded wall of stealth-based Firmament a moment after that.

It's not hard to stop them. It's not even hard to make it look like an accident. Trip at the right time, and that bolt of Firmament flies harmlessly part of my head; stumble into the wall, just hard enough to crash into whoever's just tried to kill me and knock them out of their stealth.

"Oh!" I say, pretending at surprise. "Sorry, I didn't see you there. Are you alright?"

The assassin in question is a froglike creature that squints up at me with large, bulging eyes. He looks confused and utterly out of his element. "Yes," he says. "No worry. Have good day."

His voice is rough, like he isn't used to actually speaking — and now that I can get a close, visual inspection of him, there are angry red splotches on his skin that make me narrow my eyes in abrupt concern. I'm not able to bring them up, though. He disappears almost as soon as he's done speaking, hopping off into a corner and shrouding himself with stealthy Firmament once more.

I don't chase after him. My primary concern at the moment is that She-Who-Whispers is keeping an eye on me somehow. She's certainly demonstrated the ability to at least hear what people are saying across the city. If she has the ability to send messages to herself across loops...

Well, I want to make sure her information is wrong. I just can't give up the entire loop to do that. There wouldn't be a point, anyway; if I let the frog kill me, She-Who-Whispers wouldn't have enough time to send back information through whatever part of the Interface lets her do that.

Or maybe I'm being a bit paranoid about this whole thing.

I head back towards Miktik's workshop, lost in thought. I'm worried about a lot of factors that I don't have any real information about; a lot of what I'm doing is educated guesswork based on what others have told me. It's better than nothing, but I can't help but feel like I'm just floundering around in the dark.

But I don't have to keep floundering about in the dark. If I make the right calls, if I talk to the right people over multiple loops — if I take advantage of the fact that I don't need to write notes to remember things across loops... I can get the information advantage. Eventually.

I think.

And so begins the smallest spark of a very, very stupid idea.

—

In no time at all, it's time to meet with She-Who-Whispers. The invitation arrives in the form of a whispered breath of Firmament.

Meet me in my palace in two hours.

That whisper is everything but simple. There's something about the Firmament bound into it that wraps around me like a vice, and from the looks on Tarin's and Mikitk's faces, they feel it too. There's a promise embedded in the whisper. An oath. It's adjacent to a compulsion — it doesn't force me to do anything, but it does make it very clear that there will be consequences if I choose not to obey. The Firmament digs into me, promising to cripple, to destroy.

A part of me rails against it immediately. Firmament Manipulation rears up around me, slamming against the Firmament bindings like it's a cage, for all the good that does. She-Who-Whispers has Firmament that might as well be iron to a normal, un-enhanced Ethan.

That doesn't mean I can't do anything.

Quicken Mind helps. Whatever skill she's using is powerful, but it's not fast. At the speeds I can think, it's enough for me to react, to evaluate, and to try different strategies. Plain old Firmament Manipulation doesn't work? That's fine.

Inspiration. Void.

The Void rears up within me, eager to consume. Hungry. It's been hungry for a while, I realize with a start, and if I hadn't chosen to feed it then it would eventually have reared its head on its own; I realize with a grimace that I'm going to need to remember to feed it before it becomes a problem.

For now, it attacks the binding with a voracious hunger—

—and just as quickly as it begins, it's full.

I'm almost stunned into silence. The Void has never been full before. But the Inspiration is emanating a definite sense of satisfaction, and withdraws deeper into me before I can call on it to eat away more of the binding.

There's a crack in there. The smallest fracture that might allow me room to manipulate the terms of the Whisper. But considering the Void is one of the more powerful tools in my kit, I'd been hoping it would have more of an effect.

"I guess that's where she gets her name," I say grimly. There's a deep sense of exhaustion beginning to settle just from using the Inspiration—I've taxed myself in some fundamental way. It's not quite the same as straining my Firmament, though. I wonder what the difference is.

Miktik nods in agreement. "Her Whisper controls a lot of Isthanok," she says. "Even the underground. Especially the underground, maybe."

Tarin does an exaggerated sort of shudder, puffing out his feathers. "It feel gross."

"It does." Miktik's antennae wave around in discomfort. I get the sense that there's more to this she isn't saying.

"What happens if you don't listen to it?" I ask suddenly. Miktik grimaces, the plates of chitin on her back shuddering involuntarily.

"Nothing good," she says faintly. "It doesn't kill you—can't kill you, as far as we know. But it does hurt. It restricts your Firmament, and it feels like it's burning. You can't escape it until you obey."

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

I let out a breath. "She's worse than Naru," I mutter. "Are all the Hestian Trialgoers this bad?"

It's Tarin's turn to respond. "We not know," he says. "But many."

It almost makes me wonder if there's a secondary true purpose to the Trials. From what Tarin's said, the Trials are meant to get the Trialgoers to access the Heart of a world; it looks like it's also meant to build them a troop of loyal soldiers. It does seem strange that there are exactly ten Hestian Trialgoers. It's the bare minimum needed for a planet to pass the Trials, but I wouldn't have expected exactly that number to survive.

Maybe they cull it down to ten. I narrow my eyes at the thought, and briefly call up the Interface, looking at the chat —

— and almost step back in shock.

[ Temporal band interference temporarily bypassed. Chat connected. ]

I don't even think to check for new names, anyone newly deceased. The names glow in the Interface, temptingly available. Some of them are listed as not yet having unlocked the Chat feature, and therefore not being able to respond, but...

I can contact almost anyone else in the Trials using this. Anyone else that's unlocked this same section of the Interface, anyway.

"Ethan?" Tarin interrupts my thoughts by poking me with a wing.

"Sorry, sorry," I say, distracted. "Just... give me a second. I need to look at something on the Interface."

I retreat to a corner of the workshop so I can scroll through the list and look for a name. Anyone I recognize, but failing that, just being able to talk to another human...

"I can see your chat," Ahkelios says quietly. I almost jump; he's been strangely silent this whole time. "I think... I think I remember seeing this. In my own Trial. It never connected for me."

I don't know what to say to that. "I'm sorry," I offer.

The mantis shakes his head, hopping down so that he's sitting on my knee and staring up at the list with me. "Message someone?"

There's something in his tone, like he wants to see how it could have gone for him. What things might have been like if he were able to contact others. I reach out to the Interface. I don't need to find someone I know; the odds of that happening are slim to none, anyway.

I just need to talk to someone else from Earth about this.

Fortunately, with the Interface directly transcribing my thoughts into text, messaging is fairly quick and simple.

[ Connecting to: Zhao Ong (aaaaaaaaaa) ]

[ Ethan: Hello?

aaaaaaaaaa: Ah! Hello!

aaaaaaaaaa: Please ignore my username! I selected it while I was in distress!

aaaaaaaaaa: I do not know what language you speak, but supposedly the Interface translates all of it. It is nice to meet you! You are new?

Ethan: Sort of. I haven't been able to connect to the chat functionality until recently. It sounds like you've been talking to others?

aaaaaaaaaa: Yes! There are dozens of us! We have been contacting people in alphabetical order.

aaaaaaaaaa: When they can be contacted.

aaaaaaaaaa: We are trying to learn as much as we can. It is difficult! All our Trials are very different, and our Integrators refuse to tell us anything.

aaaaaaaaaa: But we think they are lying. ]

I pause long enough to delete my initial response, which was a little more sarcastic than strictly necessary.

[ Ethan: They are. ]

There. It pays to be polite, I hear.

[ aaaaaaaaaa: Ah! You know already. Perhaps more than we do?

Ethan: Maybe. Can you tell me what kind of Trials you're in?

aaaaaaaaaa: Ah! Yes! I am in a Rank B Trial. It is some kind of dungeon, I think. There are many rooms, and many monsters. I am taking a break at the moment.

aaaaaaaaaa: The others I know of are in Rank A, Rank C, and Rank S Trials. The first one climbs a tower! The second one simply has to fight waves of monsters. They come every day or so.

aaaaaaaaaa: The Rank S Trial does not talk much. I think she is constantly falling. There are islands she can land on, and she has not managed to land on any yet. I am worried about her. ]

I wince. She's been falling for... days, if that's correct. Sounds like there's some kind of Interface trick involved.

[ Ethan: How did she manage to unlock the chat, then?

aaaaaaaaaa: There are many monsters that are also falling. ]

I guess that answers that question.

[ aaaaaaaaaa: Can you tell us what you know? ]

I hesitate, deciding how much I can say — how much I should say. It sounds like other people have found out much less about the Trials than I have. I'm inclined to tell them everything I know, but while Zhao seems earnest enough, I don't know any of the others he claims to be in contact with.

And the secondary problem is... some of them might agree with what the Integrators are doing. Naru's story rings clear in my head, along with what I've seen of the Hestian Trialgoers. If I tell them my theories — if I tell them that there's a chance the Integrators are only looking for ten people to enforce their policies on Earth...

That way lies a definite power grab. I don't want to say too much until I know these people better.

But that doesn't mean I want them to die. I should still help them — I just don't want them to have a reason to fight amongst each other.

[ Ethan: Only a little. The Integrators are definitely lying. They want the Trials for something else. We need to find a way to get around them.

Ethan: They're always watching, but they don't always seem to be paying attention. That, or they think it's funny when we try to work against them. We can probably take advantage of that.

Ethan: You mentioned your Integrators, so you've probably already hit a milestone and earned an Inspiration?

aaaaaaaaaa: Yes! I have one. It is powerful, but very tiring to use. It magnifies skills! Makes them bigger or smaller, beyond their normal limits.

Ethan: Nice. I have a few. You should get Inspect or Intuitive Analysis as soon as possible, if you don't have them already. They'll help you figure out what skills you're going to get before you get them.

aaaaaaaaaa: Thank you! That is useful to know! I have just been guessing. I have a skill that makes my hands buzz very fast. It is not very useful.

Ethan: It's a Reflex skill, weirdly enough. I think Reflex is just mental skills. We should see if there's a way to help each other in the Trials. I can't talk very often — my Trial disconnects me from the chat a lot. Can you keep me updated if you find a way to help one another?

aaaaaaaaaa: Of course! You are very helpful. Thank you! ]

I lean back and sigh. I don't know why, but there's something like adrenaline pumping through my veins; something about that conversation alarmed me. I don't know what it is. It's not Zhao himself, I don't think — he seems earnest enough — but their circumstances seem so different.

He has one Inspiration so far. That's not bad, but it's drastically different from where I'm at. I've been assuming everyone else is more or less on pace with me, but if they're not — if they're further behind — then things are going to get much, much harder.

"I think you made the right call there," Ahkelios says. "Not telling him about the Heart."

"Maybe," I say. I'm not convinced. "Let's go. We have a palace to get to."

And in the Interface, the chat once again disconnects, displaying its usual error instead.