Die. Respawn. Repeat.

Chapter 186: Book 3: Choices and Changes

To say that Ahkelios was a little disappointed in his selection would be an understatement, but to his credit, he gets over it pretty quickly. I sit back as he goes through a rapid series of choices and selections, mostly outlining the start of something that'll make him combat-capable even if he's not in my immediate presence.

"It's harder to share skills if we're further apart," Ahkelios says. "So I need to make sure I can still fight even if I don't have any of your skills."

"You did pretty good even without any skills against Phylus," I point out. Ahkelios grins sheepishly.

"I did, didn't I?" he says. "I mean... whatever else was wrong with Zhir, he pretty much figured out and refined our Concept while he was stuck in the Empty City. I don't think I was nearly that effective even when I was a Trialgoer, but now..."

He looks down at his hands, and for a moment, a shadow crosses over his face. "I feel like I kind of owe him," he says. "It feels weird. Is that weird?"

"I don't think it is." I sit up a bit on the log and pat the space next to me—Ahkelios joins me after a moment, sitting with his elbows braced on his thighs. I'm still not used to how large he is now. If he were any smaller, I would've put him on my shoulder, but that's not really an option anymore. "He was..."

"He wasn't good," Ahkelios interrupts, looking up at me.

I shake my head slowly. "No, he wasn't," I agree. "But it's not that simple, is it? He was lonely. He fought to stay alive in the Empty City, and if what you're telling me is right, he did that alone for centuries. By the time he met us, all he wanted was a way to go home. He chose a stupid way to go about it, but I can't fault him for that."

"That's what he saw me as," Ahkelios mutters. "Or what he saw you as, I guess. A way home."

"I'm still a way home, Ahkelios," I say, nudging him gently. "I haven't forgotten that promise. One way or another, we'll find out what happened to your people. But it doesn't sound like the Integrators are just discarding planets that fail their Trials, does it? They pretend to, in that introductory message, but..."

"You're right," Ahkelios says after a moment, frowning. His eyes go distant. "They don't. So they have to still be out there somewhere."

"You never told me what your planet was called," I say, watching him carefully. "Do you want to tell me more about it?"

It feels like he needs it. Like he needs a moment to reflect and think about what he lost, about what he's missing. Ahkelios hesitates, looking between me and Guard. "We still have a lot to do..." he says. Not quite an answer.

Guard shrugs, shifting from his position on the log to sit on the dirt in front of us. "I would like to hear as well."

Something in Ahkelios's expression settles, a bit of tension fading. I notice a flicker of gratitude, a fragment of relief. "Okay," he says quietly.

We spend the next hour or so just talking. I still have credits to bank and answers to get, but more important than that is that Ahkelios needs this. Needs a chance to talk about something that isn't the Trials, a chance to reminisce...

A chance to grieve.

I think we all do.

I'm not sure when it happens, exactly, but eventually the conversation shifts: at some point, we're no longer just talking about Ahkelios's homeworld of Yotun, about the moving cities and the fields of death they march through. Instead, we take turns, telling each other what it was like to grow up on our respective planets, what our respective cultures were like.

I share stories about Earth. Not about my family, but about our technology, about our culture—or at least the culture I grew up with—about the stories we told one another across the globe. Half of them I've almost forgotten myself, but I find myself feeling wistful just recounting those barely-remembered tales. There was a time I loved them. Loved going to the movies, loved reading books.

The memories make my heart clench. Not for the first time, I wonder how the other Trialgoers from Earth are doing, and I almost reflexively pull up the chat function in the Interface; it sits there, silent, almost mocking. Ahkelios sees what I'm looking at and shifts to sit a little closer to me, placing a hand on my shoulder.

Guard tells us about Isthanok. He tells us what it was like growing up with his condition, what Isthanok used to be before it fell to ruin. Whisper's determination to restore it makes a lot more sense in context, even if it doesn't justify any of what she did.

None of us know everything about our planets. There's too much to be told in a single sitting, and there's too much for us to have explored even within our lifetimes. Too many different peoples and cultures, even residing on a single planet. But even those small pockets of culture and storytelling and art that we know of... it highlights how different we are, and in highlighting those differences, shows us all the ways we're the same.

"I was never able to experience it myself," Guard says. His voice is steady, but there's a hint of regret in it. "It is said that when all the crystal towers at the highest points of Isthanok were in full repair, and the wind blew through them just right, it would create a song—a song that resonated through the city and ignited our flames. But they were damaged beyond repair long before my birth."

"What destroyed them?" Ahkelios asks quietly.

"Time," Guard says. "Or so it is believed. In truth, there are gaps in our history. Who knows? With all that Hestia has been through—all the endless cycles of time..." He-Who-Guards shrugs helplessly. "These gaps are not uncommon throughout the Great Cities. Effect without cause, small contradictions, things that have always been with no apparent origin. It is not so widespread that we are lost entirely, but the impact of the Trial is apparent, if one thinks about it hard enough."

I exchange glances with Ahkelios. It's one thing to know something academically, but to have it laid out so plainly in front of us...

"We need to make sure this Trial is the last," I say quietly. Ahkelios nods in determination next to me, his expression grim, and Guard makes a small series of whirs and clicks that registers to me like a tired smile.

"You are perhaps our best chance at it," he says. "Of escaping this cycle. It's one of many reasons I felt I had to join you."

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"We are," I correct. Guard's optic flickers—surprise, I think—and I raise an eyebrow. "You're part of the team. You think I would've made it through any of that without both you and Ahkelios? We are the best shot your planet has. Maybe the best shot all our planets have. Don't count yourself out so easily."

Guard is silent for a long moment. His optic cycles through a variety of colors—yellow, blue, pink—before settling on a determined green.

"Then let us continue," he says gravely. "There is much we still need to discuss."

First things first, there's the rest of my skills to settle. Then a plan of action for both Ahkelios and Guard, a way for them to grow enough to keep up as we go through the Trial. We'll need to figure out how to bring back Gheraa, uncover why Hestia is exploding at the end of every loop—not that I've reached the end of the loop very often, or at all outside the one time I was flung into the future—and figure out what that warning I sent myself was all about.

And related to that, of course, I have to figure out that fourth phase shift. Guard said that there's a bottleneck. I need to figure out what that means and how to get past it. I can already tell that he's right; my Firmament doesn't seem to be growing the same way it was before, and while the Interface feature tracking my phase shift progress seems to be gone, I can still feel it. Feel the way my core is stagnating, struggling to push past some invisible barrier.

There are a dozen other lesser mysteries. Concepts, Threads, Abstractions, whatever's going on with the Interface categories, the idea that I'm Kauku's Heir and the whole idea of Talents; the Remnants of prior Trials on Hestia and everything they might have left behind. If I manage to get through to the other human Trialgoers, the others experiencing their own Trials, that'll add a whole stack of problems I'll need to address. It's a lot to get through.

But all we can do is go one step at a time. I bank my Firmament credits, watching as the numbers roll by.

[Are you sure you wish to bank 1,212 Firmament credits?]

[1,212 Firmament credits banked! Rolling for skill...]

[Select between:

Auric Command (Rank S)

Core Control (Rank S)

Remnants of the Lost (Rank S)

Soul Space (Rank S)]

I look through the list thoughtfully, letting Inspect engage and feed me information about each of the skills.

[You have obtained Soul Space (Rank S)!]

"What—" I start, frowning. I look at Ahkelios, but he's just as baffled as I am. "That wasn't you, was it?"

"No!" Ahkelios looks offended that I'd even ask, which is probably fair. "I wouldn't do that."

[Apologies, Heir. You will need that skill for your next phase shift.]

I stare at the Interface notification hovering in front of me. "I guess Kauku did it," I say, not without a little irritation. It's not the first time he's made these selections for me—I haven't forgotten being forced to pick a physical Durability upgrade instead of getting a new skill.

Granted, so far his changes have all been beneficial to me. I'm just not a fan of the way he doesn't even speak to me before forcing these changes. Part of me wonders if that's because of the restrictions he's mentioned—something about quid pro quo and equivalent exchange, if I'm remembering right.

Exchanging information is helping me, in a way; maybe by forcing the choice on me, he's technically helping me less...

"Nah. Don't like it," I say out loud, staring at the Interface screen. "Stop doing that."

It winks out almost sheepishly.

I don't miss the fact that this happened right after we spoke about the fourth layer bottleneck. Kauku's not hiding the fact that he's watching us anymore, not that he's ever really hidden it.

If nothing else, I'm reasonably certain that's the skill I would have chosen regardless. Auric Command is interesting and fits in well with what I've been trying to do with Guard and Ahkelios—it gives me the ability to exude an aura of Firmament, not unlike the one created by Breath of Life, that enhances and amplifies the abilities of allies within that field—but it's a skill that becomes useless if they aren't close enough. Which is to say that it inherently restricts our ability to position ourselves or utilize strategies that involve splitting up.

Core Control is a skill I assume is coming up because of what I did with Tarin and Naru, but I was inclined to reject it the moment Inspect told me what it did. It's a skill that allows for direct manipulation of any individual's core. Their soul. The problem is the method of it; any changes I make with Core Control is a fundamental change akin to a form of personality alteration.

No thanks. Mind control isn't a tree of skills I'm interested in, even if it's worryingly common among Hestia's Trialgoers.

Remnants of the Lost... I think it would have been between Remnants and Soul Space, ultimately. Remnant's a skill that allows me to track and identify all the Remants that have been left behind by the prior Trialgoers. It's a result of Ahkelios's evolution, no doubt. It's a good skill if not for the fact that Rotar's already told me it's something he's working on—better to trust him, I think, than to take it into my own hands and potentially waste more than a thousand credits on something he'll be able to do anyway.

And then there's Soul Space.

At its most basic level, the skill is basically a form of inventory management. It's a way for me to do everything I've already been doing with the portal to the Empty City, except in a way that doesn't rely on me retaining access to the City and doesn't endanger the items I've left behind. In theory, it's a skill that will allow me to store items within my core and let me keep them between loops.

In practice, given what Kauku's sent me and the hints I'm getting from Inspect? I think this is somehow exactly what I need to bypass the so-called fourth-layer bottleneck. How or why I'm not entirely sure yet, but I get the feeling I will soon.

There's a final Interface window waiting for me.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

[You have unlocked the Web of Threads.]

[NOTICE: A description of the Web of Threads has been provided as per the Heritage Protocols. It is as follows:]

[Web of Threads]

A Thread is a fragment of a Concept. Think of it as a precursor, of sorts. In general, one must access a host of prerequisite Threads before the Concept as a whole can be used.

This is not a hard and fast rule, however. There are many exceptions. Depending on the practitioner, some Concepts are simple to use in full even without knowledge or comprehension of their prerequisite Threads; others may be difficult to touch upon even with a complete set of Threads.

Consider, for instance, the Concept of the Sword: it is comprised of the Thread of Sharpness, the Thread of Cutting, and the Thread of Steel. To touch upon a Thread is to glimpse a fragment of a Concept, and to access the abilities contained within. Many practitioners, however, are able to access the Concept of the Sword without any conception of its Threads.

Warning: Threads are not an integrated Interface feature. While the Interface is able to track your access and use of Threads and in some cases amplify your affinity with them, be aware that their use may interfere with or obstruct your use of the Interface. We do not recommend their use.

Unfortunately, that you have gained the ability to touch Threads at all indicates that you are unlikely to stay within the bounds of the Interface. Consider this your only warning.

I'm barely done reading through the warning before another Interface window appears.

[Don't worry about that warning. It's not for Heirs.]

"You're really not hiding that you're watching anymore, huh?" I say out loud. "How much of the Interface's messages are you writing back there?"

No response, obviously. It doesn't surprise me. I shake my head and turn my attention back to the Interface—there's a seed of an idea here.

I think this might be enough for me to figure out what I need to do to complete that fourth phase shift. I don't know if I have everything I need yet, but if Kauku's telling me about it now...

If Guard and Ahkelios hadn't both advanced alongside me in that last Ritual stage, I might not have survived it. Maybe I'm going about this the wrong way. Maybe I shouldn't be waiting.

Kauku is hinting about as strongly as he can that I either have all the pieces I need or enough to get me started. And if I've got all the pieces?

Then that Thread of Insight might be exactly what I need to figure the rest of it out for myself.