Die. Respawn. Repeat.-Chapter 222: Book 4: The Right Time

I find Guard sitting by the painting, and from the draw of Firmament around him, he's working on reinforcing his core. I wait a moment to see if he'll notice my presence; when he doesn't, I tap him on the shoulder.

It's clear that there's been a significant change in Guard's mood from the way he looks up at me, but all he tells me is that he isn't yet ready to talk about it. I take those words at face value—he'll talk to me when he's ready—and instead apprise him of the situation; he nods slowly in agreement, and I help him back up to his feet.

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Fortunately, he seems to relax somewhat as we make our way through Inveria's tunnels and away from the painting that seems to haunt him so deeply. Fyran gives him the occasional curious glance, clearly wanting to ask but respecting him enough to hold back.

Instead, we discuss more of the similarities and differences between our Trials. The strangest detail emerges as something minor but interesting: Fyran's Interface tells him that he's on Hestia 78A.

"Mine says Hestia 307B," I say with a furrowed brow, glancing at Ahkelios. "Do you remember what yours was?"

"It was 57A, I think?" Ahkelios says. He opens his Interface, then nods. "Yeah, 57A."

"Any ideas, Gheraa?" I ask. The Integrator in question is frowning slightly.

"None," he admits after a moment. "I didn't even notice when I was looking through the records, honestly. I always thought yours said 307A."

Odd.

There's not much we can do with a simple letter difference. For all we know, the Interface chose to label my Trial differently because it's the last one Hestia can handle. The way things are going, it certainly seems that way. Even the Thread of Insight gives me nothing, because that Thread still needs something to work with.

Other than that, the differences in our Trials come down largely to approach. Fyran's troubles have largely revolved around the Hestian Trialgoers; he barely makes mention of temporal anomalies, though he's encountered a few as he gets deeper into his loops.

Neither of us, unfortunately, have any idea why Hestia just ends six months into a loop.

"I tried looking into it, but it's hard to get very deep into the Fracture," Fyran says with a shrug. "I don't think I ever made it past the second layer. Kept getting killed before I could. Or fainting."

I grimace. "Time Flies."

"Time Flies," Fyran agrees, shuddering.

He's only ever managed to kill one of them, and even then it was largely by accident—he'd poisoned his own Firmament shortly before they started draining it. He'd done this mostly because he wanted to see if it was worth the credits, but as it turned out, it absolutely was not: an individual Time Fly only ever rewarded a miniscule number of credits.

After that, he'd mostly abandoned the idea of getting deeper into the Fracture. Hestia herself didn't seem particularly enthusiastic about it; according to him, the bursts of the Firmament got frantic if he even tried descending past the ruined city.

"You made it deeper, though?" Fyran asks, and I nod.

"It's how I got here," I say. "Still not sure how I'm going to get back, though."

Even as I say the words, though, I can feel the slight change in the Firmament around us. Slowly but surely, I'm beginning to sense the same chaos and noise I sensed on my iteration of Hestia, filtering in through a haze of muck. I'm not sure about it, but I suspect I won't be able to stay in this pocket of time much longer.

I'll have to make the best of it.

It's remarkable how quickly Inveria seems to bounce back from that altercation between Fyran and Soul of Trade. The bulk of the tunnel is deserted still, but as we make our way toward the central cavern, we very quickly find ourselves surrounded by Inveria's citizens again. Most of them are going on as if nothing happened—trading and talking animatedly. A few cast nervous glances either toward us or back down the tunnel, but...

It makes me wonder how common this type of thing is here. Too common, perhaps.

Eventually, we make our way to the heart of Inveria. Even with all the things we've seen on Hestia—even Guard and Fyran, who have been here before—we have to stop for a second to take in the sight of it.

It's hard to believe that this place is underground at all. It looks like the surface, and the actual cavern is so large I can see buildings beginning to disappear over the horizon. The ceiling is a beautifully painted depiction of Hestia's sky, with small dedications to each of the ten Great Cities within.

At the center of it is a massive garden practically overflowing with Firmament. It takes me a second before I realize that the entirety of the garden is painted—most of the plants and stone within are a sort of metal alloy painted over with the same Firmament-imbued paint used for the tunnels themselves.

Ahkelios makes a noise that's somewhere between impressed and disgusted, and I can't help but laugh at the outrage in his voice.

"They tricked me!" he complains. Then he flies closer to it anyway, wings fluttering as if he's being irresistibly drawn forward. "It's really pretty, though."

"It is," I admit.

It's like a miniature tropical paradise. The plants seem to be a collection of all sorts of esoteric flora from all across the planet—I recognize some flowers from the forests near the Cliffside Crows and the plains near the Quiet Grove, but there are plenty of others I've never seen. Some of them are large enough that they tower over me, frozen in a state of perpetual bloom; others are tiny, but their petals open and close in hypnotic waves that mimic the movement of water.

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I wonder where those might be found naturally on Hestia. The metal mimicry is impressive, especially with the way it manages to copy even the movements of the plants. It's not a still sculpture. Everything moves with the wind, with the ebb and flow of Firmament through the cavern. It can't be easy to maintain—even as I watch, tiny, bee-like workers about the size of Ahkelios's original Remnant make their way through the garden's paths, adjusting or repairing some of the sculptures while humming to themselves.

"Want to join them?" I ask Ahkelios. He's staring intently at the workers and jumps when I speak.

"What do you take me for?" he grumbles. Then, after a moment of hesitation: "Okay, yes. Don't judge me."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

In the center of it all is a massive waterfall that pours down from the ceiling and into a churning pond, though waterfall feels almost like the wrong word for it. It's a series of clear, layered sheets of water that splash almost soundlessly into the pond below; to my surprise, there are tiny, glittering sparks of Firmament within, and it makes the water look like it glows with an inner radiance.

"I believe that is how Inveria makes its paint," Fyran supplies, apparently amused by my fascination.

A moment of examination with my Firmament sense confirms what he's saying. There's a natural Firmament phenomenon here, one that draws in rivers of power to the center of Inveria. The real trick is that all that Firmament collects above the cavern—it feels like there's a massive lake just above all this. Tiny, hidden pumps below the garden carry the water that falls into homes, restaurants, and no small number of the factories that undoubtedly produce Inveria's paint.

It's beautifully elegant. A part of me wonders if this is what Soul of Trade wants to protect with her obedience to the Integrators, though that hardly excuses what she did to Fyran. A different part of me wonders if she really thinks that the Integrators will help preserve all this.

Hestia has had a lot of Trials, and the Integrators don't care about collateral. Not really. They're more than willing to initiate raids that could permanently rewrite parts of the planet and its history.

Fyran interrupts my musings with a nudge and a grin. "Ready?" he asks. I raise an eyebrow at him, then follow his gaze to the hole in the ceiling.

"You can't mean—" I start, but before I can finish, he grabs me by the arm. His grip is surprisingly strong, considering I should be nearly immovable by virtue of the Physical Aspect. He isn't using a skill, either, which means all this is his own strength combined with the power of his deepened core.

Fyran manages to drag me forward a step or two before he stumbles. He turns to furrow his brow at me. "What are you?" he asks. "I've carried entire chunks of city on my back, you know."

"I'm hard to move unless I want to be moved," I say dryly. Fyran seems to be looking at me in a different light—not that he's particularly surprised by the power I can express, considering how we met. Apparently physical power registers a lot more to him than control over Firmament, though, because he looks inspired.

"I can't decide if I'm jealous," he says. "But come on. Don't spoil my fun. You know how often I get to have fun in these loops?"

"A lot?" Ahkelios supplies. Fyran snorts.

"It's not the same when people can't remember me," he says. "You guys will, even if I never see you again. That matters."

"Alright, alright," I say, shaking my head slightly. Fyran grins and grabs my arm again—and this time, when he moves, I let him.

He does immediately do the thing I was worried he would do, though. Which is to say, he shoots us both up through the waterfall and into the massive lake above.

When we emerge from the lake, Fyran is coughing and spluttering. I'm a little more composed, mostly because unlike Fyran, I didn't spend half my time in the water boiling all of it into steam. I make it only a short distance before I realize that he's struggling and make my way back for him, grabbing him by the arm and Warpstepping us to shore.

"Lake" was perhaps an understatement. This place looks like an entire underground ocean. I have no idea where all this water is coming from or where it goes, other than straight down; the entirety of this place extends beyond my Firmament sense.

The most surprising thing of it all is the fact that this is all somehow still underground. Above us, glittering crystals of solidified Firmament line the ceiling in a strange emulation of the night sky; unlike the more artificial tunnels of Inveria, though, this place feels entirely natural.

"Hah!" Fyran, at least, seems to have greatly enjoyed the whole almost-drowning thing. I'm not sure if he was expecting me to have difficulty with the lake or if he was just excited to show it to me, but the wild grin on his face makes me snort. "Never had someone to rescue me from that before. That was fun. Did you know water doesn't exist on my home planet?"

"I didn't know, but considering you were boiling water on contact, I kind of assumed," I say. Fyran laughs at this, lying back on the ground and staring up at the ceiling. Small traces of steam continue to smoke off his body as he slides his hands behind his head.

He's a lot more relaxed here, I notice. It's like there's a part of himself he didn't let himself show during our time in the tunnels of Inveria.

"The first time I touched water, I thought I was dying," he confides, rolling over to look at me. "That stuff hurts. It's a lot better now that I've been through a bunch of loops and have skills to deal with it, but I have no idea how you drink the stuff."

"Not being made of fire helps," I offer. Fyran puts on an expression of mock-offense.

"I am not made of fire," he says. "Fire wishes it could be me. I am solid plasma."

"I think my point still stands," I say, chuckling.

"That I will give you." Fyran smiles and looks back out over the underground ocean, his expression softening. "This place is one of my favorites on Hestia," he says quietly, his voice heavy with sentiment and memory. "It reminds me of the firelakes back home. My daughter used to love them, you know. They sparkled just like this..."

His voice drifts slightly, becoming distant, and I straighten. I watch him closely—his core is beginning to pulse, reacting to the concentration of Firmament in the lake.

He was already on the verge of a phase shift before. It makes sense that he might be pushed to one again. This time, though, the shift in Firmament is a natural culmination of everything that he is. It feels right.

This must be why the Integrators sent Soul of Trade after Fyran. They knew that if they didn't turn him from his path, he would shift here and now, and it would be the beginning of a power they wouldn't be able to control.

And as Firmament gathers toward him, I notice something else.

This cavern is full of Threads. Everything that Inveria is, all the Concepts it holds—there's an intricate web of them that shimmer in the space above the ocean, almost invisible. The force of Fyran's phase shift causes just enough movement to bring them into sharp contrast, and their clarity of presence is like a sudden hammer-blow in my mind.

Fyran told me that even sensing these Threads had taken him months of work. I was prepared to just get the process started, and to return to Inveria when back in my own time. Now, though...

I watch as the Threads of Purpose and Evolution join with the massive, interlocked construct above. All the pieces fall into place—the reason I was sent to this place and this moment.

I take a deep breath and close my eyes, and with all my being, I reach for the Web of Threads.