I haven't looped. I think.
The I think is kind of a weird qualifier, I know. I'm pretty sure I'm not dead, but I'm also not entirely convinced I'm still alive. Best guess is that I'm in so kind of coma, or otherwise in so sort of transitional state, like when I managed my first Phase-Shift or when I'm picking out an Inspiration with Gheraa. Everything around is a dull, drab gray, like I'm sitting in a colorless, Firmant-less Void.
I'm conscious, at least. So that's nice. The Interface feels far away from my grasp at the mont, and every attempt I make to call it up fails completely. The sa goes for any attempt to use a skill, or to pull on my link with Ahkelios, or even to do sothing as basic as move around—there isn't really a ground for my feet to catch on, and even if there were, there's no sensation of inertia or landmark to tell if I'm successfully moving.
The isolation is suffocating. I'm trying very hard not to panic. It's working. Mostly.
"We have to stop eting like this," a voice sounds out. I whirl around to find Gheraa leaning against... well, nothing, in standard Gheraa fare. His back is pressed against a wall that isn't there, and he's holding a white cane trimd with gold; he twirls it around casually, tapping the tip of the cane on the also-nonexistent floor and producing an oddly tallic ting.
I can't deny I'm relieved to see him, even if I have no idea what he's talking about. "This is the first ti we're eting like this," I point out.
"And it should be the last!" Gheraa points his cane at . "This is incredibly dangerous. But also incredibly convenient, so good job doing whatever you did to trigger this."
"I have no idea what I did to trigger this." Besides exhausting myself mid-fight and passing out imdiately after, which isn't sothing I'm planning on doing again anyti soon. There's a part of that's tense about this—I don't know what state the world is in. I don't know how I've left things.
I don't know how long I've been like this.
Gheraa looks around. "Firmant exhaustion," he says after a mont. He rubs his fingers together like he's feeling for the texture in the air, scanning for sothing I can't see or sense—not in the state I'm in, anyway. "You pushed that Warpstep a lot farther than you should have. And... hm. There's sothing else."
"I've Warpstepped a lot farther than that without any problems," I say.
"Yes, but this ti, you were in a corridor perforated by spatial distortions," Gheraa says. He tries to rap on the head with his cane, but I dodge out of the way and glare at him; he just grins at . "You're lucky the Interface is so adaptable or you would've torn yourself in half."
"...You sound like you're speaking from experience." I eye Gheraa carefully.
"Maybe, maybe not!" Gheraa says, with just a little too much cheer in his voice. "But be careful using Warpstep against anyone that can ss with space. Actually, just be careful with spatial movent skills in general. You still have to fold all the space between you and your target with your Firmant. What do you think happens if that spatial tunnel gets ssed with?"
"Presumably the loop resets," I say, because that's a little more pleasant of a thought than getting torn in half by a misplaced teleport.
Gheraa just grins at , falling back into a nonexistent chair and crossing one leg over the other. "The Interface can correct for it," he says. "It's why the thing exists—or part of the reason, anyway. You get to fire off the skill and not worry about it. But it's going to use much more Firmant than it should, because you're asking the Interface to compensate for sothing it shouldn't have to compensate for. A single spatial distortion in the way ans part of your body might have to travel several tis farther than a different part of your body."
He's got a point—I should've been more aware of what this Remnant was capable of and how it might interact with my skills. I shake my head and sigh. "How long have I been out, Gheraa?"
"Not long. About two minutes." Gheraa examines for a mont. "You're worried."
"And I should be." I breathe out. "But I'm guessing there's no way to just wake up."
"Not quickly. And there are things we need to do before then." Gheraa's expression settles into sothing more serious, the faux-mirth fading away into sothing more grim.
"What do you an?" I ask. Gheraa eyes for a mont, then goes back to examining those invisible threads in the air, picking through them with his fingers and eventually shaking his head.
"You wouldn't have been pulled here if all that happened was so Firmant strain. Not unless you're experiencing ongoing Firmant strain, and not unless there's a threat the Interface's default settings can't protect from you."
...Ongoing? "I'm not using any skills right now," I say. As far as I know, anyway.
"You are. You're just not aware of it." Gheraa glances around, then tries a bright smile that I don't buy for a second. "But like I said, this is convenient! Good job. Right now, no one can see what you're doing, not even . We can talk in perfect privacy."
I narrow my eyes. "Hold on. What do you an, not even you?"
"Oh, uh, right. I guess I haven't actually explained what's happening." Gheraa scratches the back of his head in a decidedly human gesture. "You'll rember I told you I needed to prepare for our next eting. Well, I did. This is the result of that preparation. We needed a way to talk privately, and this is the only way I could think to do it. There are no eyes on us right now—no Integrator can see what we're doing, including my real self."
"Your... real self." I repeat the words with a small amount of skepticism; this Gheraa seems as real as any version of him I've ever spoken to. "I'm talking to a fake version of you?"
"Well, depending on what you think of as fake, yes," Gheraa confirms, ignoring said skepticism. "But don't call that or you'll hurt my feelings."
"Noted," I say dryly. I can feel a thread of anxiety within —this all ans Ahkelios is integrating his Remnant alone—but I try to focus on the problem in front of . Gheraa's presence here can only an one of very few things. "You want to actually explain what's going on?"
"Yeah. Let's start with this. This void we're in? We Integrators call it the Mind Vault," Gheraa says. "It's a failsafe built into the Interface. Think of it as a protective instance your mind gets brought into if it detects a serious threat to your taphysical existence."
I grimace a bit at this description. "...I'm a little concerned about this 'serious threat to my taphysical existence', but go on."
"I—the real —can't talk to you openly and directly, which I presu you've noticed. I'm being monitored very closely. So I imbued your Inspiration with a little bit of my own Firmant and programd it to integrate with your Interface's Mind Vault, to be brought to life if you ever trigger it." Gheraa seems inordinately proud of himself for the fact. "I figured the way you're going, you'd trigger it eventually. And would you look at that! I was right! Here we are."
He tries for a triumphant grin, resting his chin in both his hands and floating far too close for comfort. I glance at those hands, my gaze lingering for a mont.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
They're shaking.
Gheraa sees what I'm looking at and promptly folds his hands behind his back, fixing his smile firmly in place.
"You know, I sohow thought you'd be less of a showman without the Integrators watching over you." I give him a small smile, and I see his shoulders visibly relax.
"Nope! I'm a showman through and through," he says with a wink. "I an, I'd like to have sothing I can still be proud of."
"...I can relate to that."
Gheraa nods. "Anyway! We have a lot to talk about." He takes a few steps back, regarding with an uncharacteristic frown. "You need to know a few things about the Integrators, the Interface, and the Trial. Hopefully you'll still want to help after all that, but if you don't..."
He takes a deep breath, then shrugs, not quite looking in the eyes. "Well, this version of will understand," he says. "I don't know if the real will. I'll expire once we finish this conversation, so it's not like I can talk to him. Can't leave any traces and all that."
"...You don't seem very comfortable with that."
"Ethan, my friend, I am a fully sapient Firmant construct cloned from a larger, equally sapient Firmant construct. I am not comfortable with my imminent death, no." Gheraa glances at the lines of golden Firmant in his skin, watching the pulse of power beneath them. "But frankly, that doesn't matter right now. You have questions about the Trials and the Integrators. Ask them. This is going to be one of your only chances to get straight answers."
This is... admittedly unexpected. I'd been half-expecting to only get those answers by raiding the Integrator city myself. "You can't just tell what I need to know?"
"I could try," Gheraa says. He gestures to himself. "But all this? Getting a working, living Firmant construct into your Interface? It's pretty complicated. There's a lot of knowledge compression I had to do to make it work, and I can't just unpack all that knowledge without the right prompt."
That makes sense. "How much ti do we have?" I ask. I don't want to leave the others alone for too long—Ahkelios is probably already panicking over , by this point, and if there are any other threats Bimar won't be able to deal with them alone. Not to ntion everything that might be happening with the other rebels, with Tarin, with Guard...
I'd almost forgotten about He-Who-Guards, at this point. I clench my fists. After everything Miktik told about him, I don't want to just leave him to Whisper.
Especially since I'm pretty sure he held back every ti we fought. I saw how effective he was against the monsters in the Fracture—if he'd fought with that strength when we first t...
I wouldn't have stood a chance.
"Theoretically? As much as you need," Gheraa says, capturing my attention once more. "The Mind Vault can last for days if it needs to, and I doubt we're going to be in here for days. Unless you really want to hang out with ." He gives a playful grin, once again moving in far too close for comfort, and I hold him back by the shoulder with a roll of my eyes. This version of Gheraa seems a little too comfortable with getting close.
"Let's start with the most important bit," I say. All jokes aside, I don't want to stay here longer than necessary. "I strained my Firmant with Warpstep, but you said there was sothing else—so kind of skill I'm still using. I can't feel any Firmant or access the Interface right now, but I assu you have senses that I don't. What skill am I using?"
"Iron Mind," Gheraa responds imdiately. "I can only partially observe what's happening outside of your body, but I can read your history in the Firmant easily enough. What do you know about Teluwat?"
I narrow my eyes. "Nothing. I know he's one of the Hestian Trialgoers, but Bimar wouldn't tell anything more. Or she was too scared to. One or the other."
"He's the most dangerous of the Hestian Trialgoers, if not the most powerful," Gheraa says. He says it with enough certainty that I feel a spark of worry—of Premonition—almost like the skill is responding even in my currently-disconnected state. "You've been resisting him since almost the mont you got into that lab."
The idea that Teluwat was trying to manipulate sends a surge of hot anger through . "What was he trying to do to ?"
Gheraa frowns, closing his eyes and rubbing his fingers together again. "It looks like he was trying to manipulate you into seeing him in person. I'm going to go ahead and suggest you don't do that."
"How dangerous is he?" If he's making moves against already, I'm going to have to face him whether I like it or not. I'll need to be prepared. One more thing to do in a steadily-growing list.
"Whatever you're thinking he can do, it's probably worse," Gheraa says. "He's gotten a skill from the Interface that we've never seen before. There are Integrators worried about what he's capable of. He might not be anywhere near being able to affect any of us, but he could ss with our plans, if he wanted to."
"And what can he do, exactly?"
"His skills revolve around manipulation and control," Gheraa says. "But you've probably figured that out already, and we've seen that before. There are ways to defend against mind-affecting Firmant. The problem with Teluwat is what happens afterward when he uses his main skill—it's called Rewritten Truth."
Gheraa gestures. Dark Firmant spreads out from his fingertips, spreading into the air like the branches of a tree. "Whatever new reality he enforces on soone under his control spreads. Like a sickness made of Firmant, infecting everything else it touches."
I stare at the slowly-expanding Firmant and feel myself taking a step back, in spite of myself. "What does that an, exactly? He makes soone believe sothing and it becos true?"
"Essentially." Gheraa's expression darkens slightly. "There are limitations, but nothing we've been able to clearly define. It's a Firmant-based skill, so anyone capable of working with Firmant can resist it. Objects that don't rely on Firmant are relatively immune. But Firmant is imbued into everything, including most objects and buildings—Rewritten Truth can alter all those things."
"That's..."
"I know." Gheraa closes his fist, and the tree of Firmant shatters, scattering into the void. "We've never seen skills like that before. But that's true for a lot of the new skills coming out of the Interface—that Ti Punch skill of yours, for example."
"Ti Punch isn't nearly as ridiculous as Rewritten Truth," I say with a grimace. I can't even think of a way to counter that. If what Gheraa says is true, then Teluwat's limitations are nearly nonexistent—his skills take advantage of the nature and prevalence of Firmant. Maybe if I could take advantage of the loops in so way.
...but now that I think about it, I might not be the only one able to take advantage of those loops.
The loop takes precedence over most alterations, but not all of them. Changes to the Firmant of people tend to stick across loops, while anything altered in objects and buildings doesn't seem to. It's the reason Guard's injuries were sustained across loops—the reason Whisper panics at the start of every loop.
A realization hits.
"Wait," I say. "Firmant changes to people are retained across loops, right?"
"Yes." Gheraa frowns. "Why?"
"Because," I say, "if Teluwat's figured that out..."
There's a beat, and then Gheraa's eyes narrow. "Then he's most likely using your loops to spread his control."
"Yup." The more I think about it, the more sense it makes—it even explains the sudden appearance of Whisper's agents under Teluwat's control. The question is how long it takes him to realize that the loops are running and begin his work. It can't be at the start of every loop; without outside factors like Naru learning about a Hotspot to investigate or Guard's sudden collapse, the Hestian Trialgoers don't seem automatically alerted to the fact that a Trial has begun.
"The Integrators won't like it, but they won't help," Gheraa says, frowning in thought. "They can't. Not with any Trial, and not with yours especially."
That figures. I'll have to work out so kind of counter to Teluwat on my own, then. The skill can't be insurmountable—even Gheraa thinks it has limitations, even if he doesn't know what those limitations are.
So I'll just have to work it out for myself.
"Sounds like it's ti for you to tell what the Trials are for," I say. "Especially if you're implying there's sothin special about my Trial."
"It is. And it's ti for you to learn the true nature of Firmant," Gheraa says. He takes a breath, as if considering what he's about to say, and then nods to himself. "...You're going to need to be stronger. A lot stronger. So I'm going to use what I have left to train you, and as soon as we're done, I'm going to forcibly end this loop. It's too risky for you to stay in it while Teluwat is spreading his influence around."
I grit my teeth—I don't like that idea, considering how much I still have to do this loop. "Only if I can't figure sothing else out," I say. "I can end the loop on my own if I need to. Or with Ahkelios's help."
"Fine," Gheraa says. I notice he doesn't fight on it. His hands are still shaking, too. How much is he really feeling, under all that faux cheer and showboating? Most of it has lted away over the course of this conversation, but I still see the little subconscious gestures, the flourishes he automatically adds to his movents and the forced smile he fixes on his face.
I sigh.
Mind Vault or not, I want to see what's going on with my body for myself. I close my eyes, trying to sense where I am, trying to connect to my body and its sense of Firmant.
I can feel Gheraa watching . "Well?" I speak without opening my eyes. "What are the Trials really for?"
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