Once Miktik confirms that Rotar is still in the same place within the Fracture — the process is much faster when we have a general location to give her — we head off to the Arena. It's early enough in the day that it isn't particularly crowded this time. I'm a little apprehensive about joining. I don't want to draw attention from Whisper or any of her goons, but she doesn't have any reason to keep an eye on me right now.

Probably. As long as she hasn't sent a message back to herself about the whole thing.

...Maybe I should be a little cautious.

I'm not going to be so cautious that I do nothing the whole loop, though. I want to plan ahead using information from the last loop, but I'm not actually sure who the contestants are going to be. Last time, we arrived at the Arena close to the end of the day; this time, it's barely past noon, judging by the position of the sun. My opponents are going to be entirely different.

From what we heard during registration, they're going to be harder, too. The clerks at registration were pretty open about that, and not in a good way. In the sense that neither of them would stop laughing while explaining that the afternoon was reserved for veteran fighters.

I convinced them to let me in. I can be very persuasive.

Look, I'm not going to claim that in the limited time I've been on Hestia I've grown enough to fight the veterans of Isthanok—

—No, I'm going to claim that. It's a little arrogant, but what are they gonna do, kill me?

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

"I mean, what're they gonna do, kill you?" Ahkelios says, sitting cross-legged on my head. I'm staring up at a construct that's two stories tall. Its shell is practically glowing with Firmament, and I can see the lines of different imbuements running through every limb, every attachment.

"Yes actually," I say, gritting my teeth. I use Warpstep to carry me out of the range of a particularly large explosion of Firmament. Crystallized Strength isn't enough to punch through the armor of this thing, and as far as I can tell, the pilot is on the inside, so I can't specifically target them. Not unless I Warpstep inside the construct itself, and the shield of Firmament seems to prevent that, pushing the stream of Firmament that Warpstep uses to the side and forcing a misaligned teleport.

This is, for the record, also the first time I've experienced a misaligned teleport like this. It's an incredibly disconcerting experience, and the nausea nearly cost me the loop.

So I've definitely been a little arrogant, but in my defense... I did win two matches before this. It's not like I completely messed up.

"Had enough?" the pilot calls out from within the construct, and I stay silent, my mind rapidly working for a solution. I don't want to throw out all my skills just to beat this one construct — I'm sure I could, if I stacked an Inspiration and my usual combination of Speed and Strength skills — but I don't want to give Whisper too much information about what I can do.

That's also the reason I haven't tried Amplification Gauntlet. That's an obvious Interface skill if I've ever seen one.

But I also don't want to lose.

What else can I do?

I leap out of the way of yet another strike, this time just using Triplestep to carry me out of the path in time; the construct's slowing down, too. It takes a tremendous amount of Firmament to power the thing, and I imagine it'll wear itself out before long — but I don't think I can wait that long. The rounds run on a timer, and the time I have is running out.

...Time.

I pause.

This is going to require very, very precise timing.

I launch myself into the air and launch a Timestrike at the exact level of the construct's chest; my hand blurs, fueled by temporal Firmament and doing something strange to the fabric of Firmament around me. I don't have the time to parse exactly what's happening — everything is moving too quickly, even with the assistance of Quicken Mind — and I have to Warpstep away to avoid the construct's punch.

I gaze warily at it, hopping a few steps back, trying to angle the construct just right. Its pilot turns towards me, and I can just hear the smirk in his voice. "Nowhere to run," he says playfully. "Nowhere to hide."

I should probably mention that he introduced himself as Deathclaw Bloodseeker, and the way he speaks during combat is not unlike Thys's performance when I fought him in the last loop. He's putting up a show.

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"Come get me, then," I say.

I need him to take a few more steps forward. I've angled my Timestrike at the exact chest level of the construct, because I'm pretty sure that's where the pilot is hiding. I've timed it to go off in exactly thirty seconds, because it's only forty seconds until the round ends, and that's my all-or-nothing move.

Now I just need the construct to move into the right position...

It takes another step forward. I note its alignment, and launch myself up to meet the construct right in the air.

I take a blow almost immediately, but it's an intentional one. Tough Body and a few Barriers placed around my body let me shrug off most of the impact, and I latch on to the fist that was swung at me. Triplestep sends me running up the arm and towards its head, though I nearly slip a few times, my footing not as sure as I'd like it to be on the slick surface of the metal.

Five more seconds.

The construct isn't moving, presumably because it's waiting to see what happens. Every blow I've tried to land against it in the past has failed, so the pilot has no reason to believe that this one will be different.

And also because I already got it to punch itself one time with this strategy. That was the first time I used Warpstep.

I kick the construct in the head. I'm not really expecting it to do anything, even though I charge it with Crystallized Strength, just in case — and it does, indeed, not do anything.

My Timestrike does, though.

There's a thud, and then a loud yelp from inside the construct. "Hey!"

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

So I lost that fight.

The kobold that comes out to greet me afterward looks a lot like Thys, but is very clearly not Thys. He's also a lot grumpier, which is probably fair; the Timestrike I used apparently hit him in a rather... sensitive spot for kobolds. Honestly, all things considered, he's being rather cordial.

"Sorry about that," I say again. "I just kind of missed."

Timestrike, as it turns out, is difficult to aim.

"One hell of a miss," the kobold says. He grumbles a few more times, mostly under his breath, and then does the strange finger-twist salute that I remember Thys using. "Name's Thaht."

"Ethan," I say automatically. I remember what Thys told me about his family — they all pretend to be the same kobold, at least to the registration clerks. "I thought Deathclaw Bloodseeker was in the late afternoon bracket?"

Thaht glances at me, scanning me up and down. I get the feeling he's evaluating me. "Deathclaw Bloodseeker is ranked according to the equipment he brings in to test, generally. Sometimes he's placed in multiple brackets if he's there to test two different setups. It's more efficient that way."

"Makes sense." He's surprisingly open about the whole thing. "Doesn't that get tiring, though?"

"Eh. We switch out kobolds. No one ever realizes." Thaht shrugs. I breathe an internal sigh of relief; it's much easier to navigate this conversation if I don't have to hide that I know they swap in and out.

"You're being pretty open about it with me," I note. I get why Thys was open with me, but I didn't exactly make a good first impression on Thaht.

"Hiding it from the actual Arena challengers is usually pretty pointless, partly because Thys is terrible at keeping secrets and partly because most people figure it out from our fighting styles alone," Thaht says. "I'm not trusting you or anything."

"Fair."

Thaht sighs. "What was that, anyway?" he asks, his voice gruff. "We've been working on that construct for years. Takes a hard hit to get through that shell."

"No kidding." I almost broke my fist on the thing the first time I punched it, and that was a mistake I wasn't supposed to repeat. Only coating my fist in a Barrier at the last moment saved it. "It's just something I've been working on. I used up the only bomb I made for it, though."

I'm lying, but Thaht doesn't need to know that. He still squints at me, looking vaguely suspicious, but mostly impressed. "I gotta say, we don't see things that surprise us often," he says. "Don't suppose we could get you to build for us?"

"Who is 'us', exactly?" I ask, raising an eyebrow.

"Thys and Thaht," Thaht says, sweeping into a low bow. "It's the shop my brothers and sisters run! Thys and I run it the most, though. I work on the big stuff, and Thys works on the little stuff. He's usually in the arena testing new things a little later."

That more or less confirms it — Thaht is Thys's brother.

I sigh to myself. Those names are going to get really confusing. Maybe I should come up with some nicknames before this gets really bad...

Eh. I'm sure it'll be fine.

"Interesting," I say. Thys didn't mention their shop, but then I didn't really give him any reason to. "Do you mind if I drop by sometime? Take a look?"

"We'd appreciate that!" Thaht brightens, the last of his sourness leaving his face as if the prospect of getting a new customer far outweighs the annoyance of getting punched between the legs. "We're usually in the store at night. My brothers and sisters manage it during the day."

I'm almost afraid to ask what their names are.

"Are you open all hours?"

"Nah, but we'll get the store open for ya." Thaht grins at me. "Especially if you're a paying customer. You're gonna have some winnings from this, right?"

"I might have a few chips," I say. Technically speaking, the Arena's awards come in the form of points, depending on how well you've performed. The whole point of me participating in the Arena today was to get my hands on imbuement materials to try to build a better Firmament sink to counter Whisper, which means most of my points are going towards that.

Whatever's leftover I can throw at chips, but I suspect there won't be a lot of them left.

Fortunately, there's still the chips from all the betting Tarin has been doing... as long as he didn't go all in on my fight against Deathclaw Bloodseeker. "Do you ever actually lose when you use that thing?"

"Eh. Only by timeout," Thaht says with a shrug. "We're kind of the Arena champion when we use that construct."

Well. Not the worst opponent to lose to, at least.

I wonder what they need a construct that insanely powerful for. I can't imagine it's really just for the Arena, and I also can't imagine that Whisper doesn't know about it.

It almost feels like it's a military device instead of some hobby construct made by a family of kobolds.