We spend the rest of that loop fighting together within Isthanok's streets, finding out everything we can about the teorites—their abilities, their attack patterns, even their preferred targets. The harpies in my first raid had a certain sadistic thod to their attacks; given the opportunity, they would target soone they knew would upset , would break my spirit. Like a child.
The teorites don't seem to have any such innate sadism. I'm not sure if it's sothing I should be thankful about or not. On one hand, they aren't intentionally maximizing the amount of pain they cause; on the other, they're less predictable, reacting to even the smallest change around them.
That doesn't make them impossible to predict. As far as Vahrkos and I can tell, they go for the first thing that moves. Failing that, they go for whatever emits the most Firmant, including inanimate objects like street lamps.
Easy enough to manipulate if I'm within their range. Far more difficult to predict at a wider scale. I doubt they're going to remain very consistent between loops once they land. If I can catch them midair...
"Thys and Thaht are going to be in trouble," Vahrkos mutters, interrupting my train of thought.
"What?" Guardian of Fate still hasn't shown anything about either of those two—but even as I speak, it flickers, as if a vision is on the verge of manifesting. Not quite there yet. That's strange; the skill is new to , but it's been pretty good at showing definitive outcos so far.
"Their workshop is full of Firmant." Vahrkos nods toward a nearby shop getting smashed up; I sense the flickers and bursts of Firmant exploding into fireworks of power as the living teorites destroy everything within. "Like that. Once they're sniffed out, they'll be a target."
"Ah. Great." Another thing I'm going to have to worry about.
"They're good at hiding." Vahrkos grunts, shoving a piece of rubble out of the way. "I ntion them only to keep you aware, not to make you worry. They can more than likely handle themselves."
"I'll keep an eye out, at least," I say. "I appreciate the warning."
Guardian of Fate is going to have to pick up the slack there. I have too many things to keep track of individually as it is. I wouldn't be surprised if I've already forgotten so things.
As far as we can determine, the teorites themselves aren't anything special. Their main trick is the dispelling Firmant that bursts out of them whenever they're hit too hard, but besides that particularity, they're about as standard as you can get. They have great strength, incredible durability, diocre speed, and nonexistent reflexes.
It's pretty much just the absorb-dispel trick that's a problem, amplified by the fact that their outer shells are resistant to most blunt-force attacks. Even with stacked skills it's difficult for to break through even one, let alone the dozens raining down across all of Isthanok.
...I'm starting to miss the scythe I stole from that Ahkelios-expy that killed whenever I woke up. Maybe I should've kept a copy of it. Or at least stolen one from the dead monster in the research lab.
Ahkelios tunes in to my thoughts. "Can't you hit the inside of them?" he asks. "With Phaseslip."
I grimace. "I'm not sure what happens if I try to disable Phaseslip while I'm inside sothing, but I'm pretty sure it's nothing good. The Interface tries to stop from doing it."
"Ah." Ahkelios nods, as if expecting this answer. "That probably ans you'd lose a limb."
"...You say that like you have experience with that."
"Part of the mories I got back." Ahkelios says this as casually as he can, but I can sense the undercurrent of stress and tension in his voice—there's sothing unresolved there. "Don't worry about it for now. If the Interface is telling you not to do sothing, probably best not to do it."
"Or I'll try it at the end of a loop, where it doesn't matter as much," I grunt.
That said, a Phaseslip isn't my only option to get through these things. Now that he's brought it up, I rember doing sothing similar to Thaht's chanoid suit in an Arena fight that feels like it was forever ago. Tistrike doesn't have any restrictions on where I punch, only when; I should be able to use it to bypass the external armor of the teorites the sa way I bypassed Thaht's suit.
And if I pay enough attention, I'll have the positions of every teorite as they fall toward Isthanok. I could pri a Tistrike for them, depending on how it interacts with the subloops. The only problem with that plan is that it's significantly more positions and tis than is reasonable for to morize within a hundred loops, let alone the four or five I'll have.
I grimace. I should probably still try to morize a few.
"I'm going to go see He-Who-Wanders," Vahrkos tells . He isn't looking at . If anything, he's looking distinctly away, staring out at the carnage that's been strewn across Isthanok. Broken and lted glass lies across the streets. Sounds I've long since tuned out echo across the city, and I'm trying desperately not to hear them. Not to hear the crying of an infant, not to hear the sheer, grieving, anguished scream of a father that's lost his son, not to hear the rage-filled yell from a mother fighting to save the last of her children.
I don't have many loops to get this right. I can't afford the ti to—I can't afford the ti to process.
"Vahrkos." I want to warn him. Guardian of Fate tells exactly what state Wanders is in; whatever he finds isn't going to be pretty. The words die on my lips as soon as I see the Firmant rising from him.
Anger, grief, worry, fear... the colors are so bright I see them even without Firmant Sight. The strength of his emotions cover him in a distorted cloak of power, but one light shines through them all—a shimring blue.
Hope.
I can't bring myself to snuff it out. It's nothing I haven't already told him; he knows Wanders is dead. But I have to admit, I'd feel the sa way: if I don't see it myself, I wouldn't quite be able to let go.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringent.
Vahrkos has helped as much as he feels he can. He's been thinking about Wanders this entire ti. We both know that I'll end this loop soon, and he's decided he wants to spend his remaining ti with the silverwisp, even if all he finds is a corpse.
It's almost uncomfortable how much I understand,
"Good luck," I say.
Vahrkos gives a nod. His eyes et mine, and I see the smallest flicker of sothing in them. A question he won't put to words.
I nod back; a silent promise. I'll make all of this right.
Vahrkos vanishes into the streets. I take a deep breath, forcing myself to put all the chaos around out of my mind; Ahkelios watches with concern, but he knows as well as I do that there's nothing more we can do. Anything I try is just going to be erased as soon as I rewind into the next loops. I just... have to make everything I do do count.
There's one more thing I want to do before I rewind ti. I have to admit, it's probably for the best that Vahrkos isn't following along with for this one.
Whisper's cathedral stands before , a gleaming, impenetrable fortress of fortified crystal. I know Whisper's aware of what's happening. There's a whirlwind of raw Firmant strong enough that every teorite that gets remotely close is imdiately deflected and sent crashing into the ground.
And even if I disregard the storm, the Firmant here is in chaos.
Not a single thread of Firmant survives long enough to make it into the castle proper—it's ripped apart, torn to shreds long before it can reach Whisper. I can only imagine why. It was bad enough for to be on the streets, listening to the cries of every citizen of Isthanok as they were torn apart.
Whisper must have had to listen to everything.
My range is tiny compared to Whisper's. She would have had to hear every scared, hiding child, to every person begging for their lives, to the sound of her perfectly crafted city being torn apart. Isthanok is a reflection of Whisper's vanity, after all—the crystalline buildings all designed to look like they're made of glass, a city standing strong despite its apparent fragility.
Half of those buildings are shattered now. Reinforced or not, they might as well have been made of glass to the might of the Integrators and their raid.
I sigh and take a step into the storm. Firmant Control wreathes its way around by fingers, the skill's power coiling around , but...
The storm makes way for . It's almost as if it knows I'm there—I have to reach out ti to ti still, to prevent stray strips from cutting into , but for the most part, it's almost as if there's a protective bubble around .
I think I can even sense it. It's barely noticeable at first, visible only in the most violent collisions of Firmant, but there are flickers of familiarity within the storm. On impulse, I activate Firmant Sight, squinting against the chaos of color around and trying to peer at those flickers.
There's nothing for a long mont. Just a storm of power, raging around . I push the skill harder, trying to rember what it is that this reminds of—why this is so familiar. I can feel the Firmant within reacting, as if this, for so reason, is important.
An image cos to mind. A mory of what I saw in Thys and Thaht's workshop when my Void Inspiration made contact with Hunger Firmant. At the ti, I needed a combination of All-Seeing Eye and Firmant Sight just to glimpse into that gap beneath the Firmant.
Now, it feels like sothing's changed. The seedling that Gheraa left with is reacting to that change—I feel it beginning to sprout and blossom, like the leaves of a flower bending toward the rays of the sun. Gheraa said I would have to feed the ones I make manually, but this isn't made out of an abandoned skill, this is made out of... well, him.
And whatever small piece of him remains seems to sense an opportunity. It's drawing in all the Firmant it can from the pressure that surrounds , feeding purified Firmant into my core.
I check the numbers.
[ Firmant base attunent: 95.2%
Progress to next phase shift: 73.7% ]
They're growing.
[ Firmant base attunent: 96.6%
Progress to next phase shift: 82.4% ]
Rapidly.
[ Firmant base attunent: 99.5%
Progress to next phase shift: 92.9% ]
Almost there.
It's only when Ahkelios starts tugging at my collar that I regain enough of my senses to slow down. It takes effort—I have to force the Firmant away from with Firmant Control, create a second bubble around myself that's clear of Firmant.
"Are you okay?" Ahkelios asks, concerned. I nod quietly.
Now isn't a good ti to push myself to the next layer. The last ti that happened, I had to fight a whole internal battle and align my sense of self. With an ongoing raid and a confrontation with Whisper just minutes away, I can't afford to phase-shift now, as useful as the growth in power might be. If I have to do it, it should at least be after I reset ti.
I take a deep, shuddering breath, then take one last look at the storm around . Sothing within my Firmant clicks, as if the growth in my Firmant has unlocked so deeper insight, and I... see.
[ Mastery of Firmant Sight has improved. ]
Every so often, in the space between—in that oh-so-epheral sothing I glimpsed that Gheraa claid was beneath even the lowest layer of Firmant—there's a flicker of intent.
Path, it says. Open.
The concept of passage.
That's Whisper's intent. I'm not sure how I know that, only that I do. It's like I've managed to peer into a gap that isn't supposed to exist. A useful gap, at that; I can already envision the uses. If I can tell what an opponent is trying to do before their Firmant even reaches , then I've got an unshakeable advantage.
As long as I don't accidentally peer at the authority beneath it all. The thought makes wince. Even now, I'm steadfastedly ignoring it—I don't need to pass out again from accidentally taking a look. It wasn't a pleasant experience the first ti.
I wasn't expecting to get better at Firmant Sight here, of all places.
"Um... Ethan?" Ahkelios's voice is almost timid. It's a testant to how much the storm is ignoring us that I can hear him clearly—like we're in a muted bubble of clear sound. So of that, granted, is due to my own control over the bubble surrounding us. "Is Whisper letting us through?"
"Seems like it," I answer. Ahkelios looks like he wants to ask another question, but I shake my head. I need to focus. Even putting aside what just happened, it's not going to be easy for to stay calm.
I know part of what I'm going to find, and that ans I have to brace myself for it. I can't allow myself to be reckless here. This ti, I'm holding all the cards. Despite all of Whisper's many, many faults, she isn't going to let her city stay destroyed, and right now I'm the only person that can reverse everything that's happened to Isthanok.
That ans I can make a deal with her. It ans I can force her into making a deal on my terms. Her information is incomplete—she doesn't know how long I've been looping, who my allies are, and it's unlikely she even knew I was the Trialgoer prior to showing up on her doorstep.
She knows now, of course. There's only one conclusion you can draw when a stranger appears during a raid. I'd be surprised if she thought I was anyone else.
The only question is whether or not I can stomach making a deal with her while Tarin's corpse rots away in the room above.
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