NOVPUBI decide to try starting with an explanation.
"I'm a Trialgoer like you are," I say.
She narrows her eyes at me. "Likely story."
Like before, a dagger made of Firmament materializes in her hand, and she flicks it toward me in a near-invisible movement. I don't bother reaching out to catch it this time—instead, I let it glance off my cheek and dissipate into harmless Firmament.
[Firmament saturation: 89%]
Mostly harmless Firmament. I wince as I watch the counter go up—turns out her skills count toward the limit on the Sewers as well.
Unfortunately, she doesn't just let it go at that. The moment she sees that her skill doesn't have an effect on me, she leaps backward, crossing that invisible boundary once more.
And once more, the Tear resets.
"What are you doing here?" she asks coldly. I don't bother responding this time. Instead, I reach for Temporal Link, intent on using the connection inherent to the skill to explain my presence.
[Firmament saturation: 90%]
Unfortunately, the moment she senses that I'm using a skill, she dodges back and out of range. I grimace.
At least she didn't get one of her own skills off that time.
"What are you doing here?" she asks coldly. I sigh, trying to figure out if there's a safe way to introduce myself. She seems intent on seeing me as an enemy.
I suppose, considering the circumstances, she has a reason to. I don't know how she's visiting what's clearly a past moment in her own life, but any unexpected presence in a moment like this probably feels like a violation in and of itself.
"Answer the question," she demands, but instead of answering, I look around. There's a pretty clear boundary around the body, now that I'm paying attention—if I had to guess, we're inside some sort of illusory skill. That might explain the resets. For whatever reason, the Tear considers the skill's dissolution as a sort of failure condition.
"What kind of skill are we in?" I ask. "It feels like an illusion."
She flinches at my words, which I take as confirmation.
Then she pulls out the dagger, and I sigh.
[Firmament saturation: 91%]
"What are you doing here?" she asks coldly.
"We're in some kind of illusion," I say, ignoring her. Instead, I move to examine the boundary of the skill, reaching out with my Firmament sense and testing its edges. It's a fairly solid skill, and it doesn't seem to be coming from the other Trialgoer.
Someone else must be using it. One of Hestia's Trialgoers, then? I haven't seen any of them use illusory skills like this, though. "Can't be Whisper," I mutter to myself. "Can't be Naru, Teluwat, Versa, or Soul of Trade."
The harpy snorts. "You sound confused," she says, her tone still wary. She hasn't attacked me yet, though. Who would've thought just ignoring her was the key?
"Not every day I end up in the middle of someone's illusion," I say dryly. "Which Trialgoer did this?"
A moment of hesitation. "Ascint."
My brow furrows. I think Guard's told me about him, but not in great detail—he mostly keeps to himself, apparently. A Trialgoer that fancies himself a master of death, something like a necromancer...
I eye the body on the ground and make the connection.
Yeah, that makes sense.
"What's your name?" I ask, glancing up.
The harpy stares at me for a long moment. "Lilia," she says eventually.
"And what did Ascint promise you?"
"I think you're asking a few too many questions." Her eyes narrow, evidently suspicious again; I hold back a sigh. "And you never answered mine. Why are you here?"
"Would you believe me if I said I'm trapped in a time loop and need you to stop trying to kill me?"
"The fact that you said trying tells me all I need to know." Lilia scowls at me. Apparently, the idea that she might fail to kill me is unbelievable to her. She manifests yet another dagger in her hand, then tosses it at me.
I catch it. "Trying, yes," I say evenly. She takes a step back, but before she can cross the illusory boundary, I tap into Force Construct and create a barrier behind her. "If you leave, you're going to reset the loop again."
Lilia glares at me. "You think that's going to stop me?" she demands. "I'm the one trapped in a loop, not you."
"We're both—" I start, but before I can say anything else, she pushes Firmament into some sort of construct at her throat. There's a sharp contraction of space, a brief flash—
"What are you doing here?" Lilia asks coldly.
I glance at the Interface. Firmament saturation is sitting at 93%, which means that whatever trick she used with her necklace thankfully wasn't a skill; only the dagger and my Force Construct counted. The number is definitely higher than I'm comfortable with, though.
More importantly...
"Did you just blow yourself up?" I demand. "What are you, allergic to conversation?"
Lilia stares at me. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about your necklace!" I gesture at the imbuement stone she wears. There's a string looped carefully through its center in a way that's meant to intentionally disrupt the skill inside the stone. A clever design, in all honesty, though I'm not quite in a mood to appreciate it at the moment.
"You know about my necklace?" Lilia looks disgruntled. "Do you... are you saying you remember the loops?"
"I'm looping," I say, forcing myself to calm down. "Or we both are, I suppose, but right now my loop is external to yours. Except you keep attacking me without letting me explain myself."
Lilia takes a moment to absorb this. She narrows her eyes at me, a dagger manifesting in her hands; I sigh, preparing to try again—
—but to my surprise, this time, she doesn't attack. She just tosses it into the air and catches it, repeating the motion a few times. I'm almost inclined to think it's a threat, but there's a small flicker in her expression that tells me she might actually just be nervous.
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From her perspective, if I'm telling the truth, then I'm stronger than her. Strong enough her past self felt the need to use her necklace instead of fight.
Sure enough, that's what she asks about next.
"That explains how you know about the necklace," she says. "But not why I used it."
"This moment gets reset every time you step outside the boundary of the illusion we're in," I say, gesturing toward it. "I tried to stop you by creating a barrier."
"And I used my necklace." Lilia nods, apparently satisfied by this explanation. "I see. A sensible choice."
"Not sure if sensible is the word I'd use," I mutter. "Does that mean you're willing to talk to me now?"
"Not until you explain why you're here."
"I've been trying!"
"Fair point." Lilia pauses, giving me a once-over as if to evaluate me. "Well, if you're telling the truth, and the loop happens to be reset again..."
"That makes me feel like you're planning something."
"...then just tell me my sister's name when your loop begins," Lilia says, nodding toward the body on the ground.
"And what was her name?" I ask warily.
"It was Mirrie." Lilia gives me a sad smile. "Now, if you'll forgive me, I'd like to make sure you're telling the truth."
She tosses the dagger at me, nods to herself when it clatters harmlessly off my skin, then sets off her necklace.
—
Lilia doesn't even get a chance to speak when the loop resets. I glare at her hard enough that the words falter before they leave her mouth. "I would've just let you step outside! You didn't need to blow yourself up!"
Lilia blinks at me. "What?" she asks, for once at a complete loss. I gesture toward her in frustration.
"I told you we're in a loop," I say. "And you decided to test if I was telling the truth, I guess, which would've been fine if you didn't decide to reset the loop by setting off your necklace. You could have just stepped outside! Did you think I wouldn't let you?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Lilia says, looking faintly perturbed. "But I suppose your knowledge of my necklace is sufficient proof to start with. For me to believe you, however—"
"You want me to tell you your sister's name. I know." I force myself to calm down again. It's mostly the shock that has me reacting so strongly—it's not like I haven't done the same in my own loops. Ahkelios is usually the one to trigger it for me, though.
The problem is mostly that the reset doesn't happen instantly. Both times she's chosen to reset via necklace explosion, I've had to watch the process in gory detail. It's... unpleasant.
"You told me her name was Mirrie," I say after a moment, my voice softening. The illusion is a morbid one—every gory detail of her sister's death is on display. I take a careful step away from it to move to a more respectful distance, then kneel beside it. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry for your loss."
Lilia stares at me for a long moment, then gives me a tight nod. "So am I," she says quietly. "Why are you here?"
"It's complicated," I answer. "The easiest way to show you is with a skill. May I?"
Lilia hesitates, but nods. I reach out with a flicker of Temporal Link, bringing the total saturation up to 95%, which... could be a lot worse, I suppose.
[Your Mastery of Temporal Link has increased!]
That, on the other hand, was unexpected. I put it out of mind for the moment, watching Lilia instead; she stills as the Link forms between us, and then her expression goes carefully blank.
It's an expression I know all too well.
She moves to sit beside me, eyes lingering on the corpse of her older sister. "I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose," she says. "I was planning on this being my last loop. Bargained with Ascint for it and everything."
That seems to be a trend amongst all these newer Tears. Or maybe just the ones in the Sewers. They recreate the moments before a Trialgoer chooses to end their loops.
"What was the bargain?" I ask.
"I just wanted to see her one last time." Lilia looks away. "You'll forgive me for being... aggressive, I hope. This is a very personal memory. I probably wasn't very happy that a stranger was intruding on it."
"You weren't," I say dryly, but I shake my head and sigh. "I don't think I can blame you, though, now that I have context. I guess this was meant to be something like a goodbye—and here I thought you wanted Ascint to bring her back to life or something."
Lilia scowled. "His constructs are hardly alive," she says. "They are abominations, the lot of them. But his skills allow him to bring to life any memory of any death, and that was what I needed."
"I guess that explains why we're in this memory." I glance back down toward the body.
Lilia nods tiredly. "It's morbid, but it's all I have."
"Do you mind if I ask what happened?"
"I suppose..." Lilia hesitates. "I suppose I do not."
I'm not sure how long we end up talking, but I think it's longer than either of us expected. It becomes very quickly clear that Lilia has never had anyone to talk to about what happened—she's more or less isolated herself in the loops, unwilling to let herself get close to anyone.
She's been that way ever since her sister died, it turns out.
Lilia is from one of very few planets, I think, where the Integration was a blessing. She considered it one, at least. She describes a life of hiding from those that would hunt her and her siblings for their wings—a life of running from place to place, doing everything they could to hide the fact that they had feathers.
Her older sister was only the first of the siblings she lost, but it's the memory that sticks most firmly in her mind. She remembers the desperate plea, the way her sister threw herself to their would-be poachers to give her siblings immunity, even if it would only be temporary. Until they were adults and their wings were large and resplendent.
The Integration happened just as Lilia became of age, and when she first realized what it meant, she was... driven. Delighted, really, by the possibility of power and revenge.
And then the loops just kept going.
Long enough that she knew the people she wanted revenge on were most likely dead. Long enough she knew she, herself, would likely never escape.
Long enough for her to miss her big sister again.
At the end of it all, Lilia asks me a question, though she asks it so quietly I'm not sure she intended for me to hear. "Do you think there's a skill somewhere in the Interface that would let me see her again?"
"It wouldn't let you change anything," I say quietly. "But... yes. Somewhere in there, I bet there is."
I know there is, in fact. The Road Not Taken would allow exactly that. But that specific skill would be a painful road to go down, and the amount of Firmament it would take to reach so many years into the past isn't something even I have.
But just knowing the skill exists tells me there will be variants that can do exactly what she wants.
"I might try to live for a few more loops," Lilia says eventually. "I think Mirrie would want that." 𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙥𝒖𝒃.𝙘𝙤𝒎
"From what you've told me, I'm sure she would." I offer Lilia a small smile, and to my surprise, she smiles back.
"Thank you," she says, slowly pulling herself to her feet. "Hey, uh... You think I could get a hug?"
I chuckle and open my arms, giving her a quick hug. The Tear is beginning to fade, so there's no doubt I've done what I needed to here. "Good luck, Lilia."
"You too, Ethan."
There's not much fanfare when the Tear seals itself. I head toward the center of the chamber and turn the valve, watching as the Interface updates.
[Align the Sewers: 2/3
Firmament Saturation: 92%]
Fortunately, the talk I had with Lilia was enough for the Tear's saturation to drop, though only slightly. I consider the situation for a moment, then shake my head. "Let's try to get to the last one and get this over with," I suggest. "We can wait outside the Tear if we need to, but I don't want to deal with another attack without being in position."
"We're pretty tired of the Sewers," Adeya agrees. Gheraa nods quickly, and the rest of the scirix seem equally eager to get out.
"The next chamber isn't too far," I say. I open up the Interface and its map to make sure—it isn't able to map out the Sewers, but it turns out that Hotspot Tracker ability still works. Much better than using Temporal Link to identify the Tear's location all the time. At the very least, it can give us an approximate direction.
I'm more than ready to get this over with.
Which, of course, is probably why the first time I die and find myself back in Hestia, I realize I might need to delay things just slightly. I grimace. Adeya isn't going to be happy.
But Hestia feels strange. Temporal Link tugs firmly in my mind, as if the planet herself is a half-step out of focus. Like time is holding its breath.
It feels the way it felt when I first met Ahkelios. I've felt this several times since, I think, but never with this degree of clarity—the new level of Mastery in Temporal Link must have made quite the difference. It was easy enough to dismiss as discomfort before, but now...
[Mastery: Temporal Link | 1 of 2]
Increase possible number of active Links to 3. Removes Interface-related Link tampering. Increases active range of all Links. Increases attunement to the timestream and natural sense for temporal events. Amplifies the effect of all time-related skills.
I almost whistle at that. I hadn't even been aware that increasing Mastery of Temporal Link was possible, but those are good bonuses.
It confirms some of my other suspicions, too. I'm on my 37th loop. It's a prime number, and it matches the pattern. I'm not sure if it's the increased attunement talking, but I'm pretty sure that means this is one of the loops where I have a chance of crossing over with the final loop of another former Trialgoer. My brow furrows in thought as I consider this—
—but before I can do anything else, a certain spider-like Trialgoer crashes into the ground in front of me, groaning in pain. I blink as she drags herself to her feet.
"Ethan Hill," Versa says. "You are an incredibly hard man to find."
She pauses, then frowns, staring at the pulsating tumor of a Tear that contains Ahkelios and Gheraa. "...What in the blasted Undergrowths is that?"
