Die. Respawn. Repeat.
Chapter 268: Book 4: Trialblazers, (2)

Artor wasn't sure what he was expecting from the stranger that had dropped into his Trial, though stranger was perhaps a strong word for it. He'd met He-Who-Guards before. The problem was that the version he'd met had always been an empty shell—a mere receptacle for the She-Who-Whispers. He'd always thought the tale was a tragic one, but if Guard was to be believed, then someone in the far future had managed to fix it.

Maybe that meant there was still hope for him, after all.

He sighed, leaning back on the bench and staring up at Isthanok's sky. Somewhere along the way, the sight had become something comforting to him.

"What yer tellin' me—it's a lot to take in," Artor said. He reached out with a hand, staring at the scars he'd accumulated since the Trials began. Technically, the loops should have protected him, but one of the Trialgoers...

He winced at the memory, shuddering. It felt like it was real, for a moment. Like his core was being carved open once again, his connection to the Interface dissected and analyzed. Somehow, that process left an ugly hole torn open in the carapace of his right hand.

"It is hard to forget such trauma," Guard said, as if reading his mind. Artor glanced sharply at him, and he shrugged. "I apologize. I do not read your mind, as I said. I am simply... familiar with it."

"Aye. Suppose you didn't have it easy either." Artor forced himself to relax, staring back up at Whisper's cathedral. Supposedly, the skill circuit Guard had drawn in the ground would keep them safe for her eavesdropping. He didn't care enough to check. "I heard a little about what she did."

"I am fortunate that many of my memories of that time are gone," Guard said. "But the ones I do recall are unpleasant."

"Ain't gonna argue that." Artor snorted. "But as I said, I ain't gonna help you, either. Yer plan's suicide."

"You ain't gonna get me on semantics." Artor's mandibles twitched in spite of himself. "I've been fighting for a long time, Guard. And my family ain't gonna be alive even if I follow you into the future. I ain't gettin' nothin' outta this, and I'm tired of fightin'."

"I do not blame you." Guard was silent for a moment. Artor waited for him to argue, to try to recruit him once more. He nearly fell out of the bench when the automaton followed up with: "Perhaps a vacation, then?"

"A what?" Artor asked. "Are ya outta yer mind, machine? The continent's crawlin' with Hestia's Trialgoers!"

"And I know how to avoid them." Guard shrugged. "In addition, we do not have to stay on this continent. I am aware you lack long-distance travel skills, but I am quite capable of carrying you with me."

"You ain't gonna convince me to help with a vacation," Artor said, narrowing his eyes. Guard only smiled.

"As much as I may hope you will change your mind, I do not require it," Guard said. "And I do not do this for you alone."

Gently, Guard reached out, and a smaller, younger silverwisp stepped out of thin air—cloaked by some sort of invisibility skill, Artor realized, startled. He hadn't even sensed the use of Firmament. "This is my son," Guard said. "His name is Harmony. I have much time to make up for, and time is only stable while I remain close to you. Will you help me?"

Artor stared. "...I still ain't helpin' you fight," he muttered. "But fine. We can go on this... vacation."

He wondered if Guard knew, somehow, that he'd lost his own son before the Integration had even begun. If Guard somehow knew Artor had resigned himself to failure even before the Trial had truly started.

No, he decided. He knew liars. Guard was many things, but even in the short period of time they'd known one another, Artor was pretty sure he wasn't a liar.

And yet...

It had been so long since he'd had anyone to protect. He felt an old instinct surge to the forefront and shook his head, doing his best to suppress it. He couldn't let himself be hurt again. He couldn't let himself fail again.

He just... couldn't.

Kauldri didn't know what she was doing at the best of times, and Hestia's Trial was certainly not the "best of times", as far as she was concerned. She felt like she'd been running forever! Especially since that strange mantis-thing had appeared in the air and started chasing after her. Even with all her Speed skills, that thing moved impossibly fast.

"Stop chasing me!" she yelled, panicked. The mantis-thing yelled back something she was pretty sure was an angry roar, and she flinched and yelped as a sharp, cutting breeze passed right over her antenna. "Go after someone else!"

"I'm not chasing you," the voice said, suddenly right in front of her. Kauldri screamed, but couldn't stop in time, and ended up slamming facefirst into his chest.

...He had a very nice, solid chest. Kauldri blinked.

"You can talk?" she asked.

"Yes, I can talk," the mantis said with a sigh. "My name is Ahkelios. You're a pretty good runner, you know that?"

"Thank you?" Kauldri said, bewildered.

"That wasn't a compliment," Ahkelios said dryly. She deflated.

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"You can't just show up and start chasing people," she muttered. "This planet is full of monsters. I thought you wanted to eat me."

"Have you tried talking to anyone on this planet?" Ahkelios asked.

"Why would I do that?" Kauldri asked, confused.

"...I can see there's a lot we're going to have to discuss." The mantis sighed, then held a hand out to her. "Come on, let's find somewhere safer to talk."

Kauldri stared at the hand for a moment, flicking her antennae, then took it shyly. Ahkelios narrowed his eyes. "And just for the record, I'm not interested."

Kauldri deflated for a second time.

Oh well. At least there was someone here that could talk. For a while, she thought she might be running from the monsters forever. She was even beginning to consider using that Death's Hand skill she'd gotten, even the Firmament that came out of it felt kind of gross. Now she maybe probably wouldn't have to! And even if this Ahkelios wasn't interested, he was at least nice to look at. Unlike the funny feathered things she'd seen earlier.

One of them was squawking.

Shuddering, Kauldri hurried after Ahkelios.

"You're an Integrator." Karfi narrowed his eyes at the interloper that had invaded his loops. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, just visiting," the Integrator said cheerfully, putting a finger to his lips. Mouth? He didn't really have lips to speak of—it was more a hard line in his face that opened and closed. "Don't tell the others, though. They might get mad at me. The name's Gheraa, by the way."

"They're already watching," Karfi said steadily. It was true, as much as he'd figured—the Integrators were using his connection to the Interface to essentially stream everything he was doing to 24/7, even if not all of that footage was actively reviewed.

"Well, they're supposed to be watching," Gheraa said, waving a hand airily. "But Hestia's a dead end, so they're a little lazy about it most of the time. Even if they're not, they wouldn't be able to see us."

"And why is that?" Karfi asked suspiciously.

"Through the magic of time pockets!" Gheraa winked. "The downside of being an all-powerful Firmament construct that exists only in the primary iteration of reality is that we can only be real in the primary iteration of reality. Anything else is just a poor copy following a script. If you used an Inspiration right now and tried to tell... I don't know who was in charge during your Trial. Fhorma? If you tried to tell Fhorma about me, she would probably still just tell you to choose your Inspiration."

"Forgive me if I would prefer not to test that," Karfi said, though he took that information and filed it away carefully. He had no idea what this Integrator was on about, but it was clearly something important. What did he mean, they weren't in the primary iteration of reality? "You still haven't told me why you're here."

"I'm here to prevent the darkness from taking you over, of course," Gheraa said cheerfully.

Karfi stared at him, then turned to leave.

"Hey!" Gheraa sounded indignant. "Stop leaving! Why do they always leave when I say this?"

"Because you are either a fool, or a man who acts like one, and I do not have time for either."

"You had the time to plant bombs all over the Great Cities, though," Gheraa said casually, and Karfi froze in place, his heart leaping up to his throat.

"How did you—"

Gheraa was next to him before he could blink; he felt the Integrator wrap an arm around his shoulders, and the strength in them almost forced him to his knees. "Why don't you disable them first?" the Integrator said with a smile. "Then we can have a talk."

"I—I just—I need the credits," Karfi said. The excuse felt empty, now that he was saying the words out loud. "I don't want to do it, but you don't understand—"

"Believe me," Gheraa said, and for a moment Karfi thought he heard the Integrator's sheer age buried deep in his voice. "I understand all too well what we've done. Like I said. Disable them, and then let's talk."

Karfi hesitated. But there was something in Gheraa's voice that struck him as strange, and what this Integrator was asking him to do... it went against everything the Interface had been trying to encourage in him. Something within him said this Integrator wasn't like the others.

Maybe this wasn't another trick. Maybe it was a choice. A new possibility.

"Alright," Karfi said. Part of him was loathe to give this plan up—the amount of time it had taken him to gather everything he needed alone was astronomical. But at the end of the day, what did he have to lose? If this Gheraa couldn't convince him, he had all the time in the world to try again.

Too much time, really.

He stopped the flow of Firmament into his Echo Bomb skill. Gheraa grinned at him. "Excellent," the Integrator said. "Now, there's this great place over in Inveria we really have to try."

"You knew this was going to happen, didn't you?" I accuse, though there isn't any heat to it. Fyran just laughs brightly. He's seated across from me, and the both of us are back in that tavern in the middle of Inveria. The food here is just as good as ever. It's a nice break after the three other Trials I just pushed to completion and the three Trialgoers I brought through.

"I might have," Fyran says with a lopsided grin. "Is that so bad?"

"You could have warned me," I mutter, although even as I say the words I know it doesn't quite work like that. "Your Truth helped you figure it out?"

"I see inevitabilities," Fyran says. "The end of Hestia was one of them. You, Ethan Hill, are another."

"What, all of me?" I ask, my tone light. He smirks.

"Kauku is an inevitability," he says. "So is the Sunken King. It should have been impossible for you to beat him, and yet far in my future, you were able to find a way. A lot of people would have been satisfied with that, but you? You decided it wasn't good enough."

"What can I say?" I shrug. "I'm stubborn."

"So stubborn that fate bends around you harder than it does around the very gods themselves." Fyran seems more amused than anything.

"Kauku isn't a god."

"Close enough. You know what I mean." Fyran chuckles. I roll my eyes.

"Does that mean we're going to win?"

"I can't predict the outcome when two inevitabilities clash," Fyran says, shaking his head. "But I can nudge things in our favor. I've had all this time to figure out so many tricks with Temporal Firmament, you see. For example, I have this skill I got just for this occasion. It's called Time Tether."

A string appears in his hand as he speaks. I examine it curiously, and then my eyes widen when Inspect tells me exactly what it does. Fyran grins when he sees my understanding.

"Remind me not to get on your bad side," I say.

"Oh, you're very much on my good side." Fyran nudges me. "Shall we?"

"Yeah, but I'll have to borrow a skill from Ghost. Didn't expect this to be quite so quick."

Timeskip.

In all these other Trials, the planet still explodes. It's a remnant from a choice I never made, a time that never happened. But now that I've broken time open from the other side... The Anomaly is a portal. An exit, just as long as one can navigate it.

And as Firmament cracks the ground open beneath us, I yank us through back to Hestia 307B.