Filian was nervous. As far as his mories went, that wasn't particularly unusual for him. His "father" was volatile at the best of tis, and while he rembered plenty of good monts with Teluwat, there were plenty among them that were... worrying.
He rembered being made to watch as the sli king experinted with his civilians, warping their Firmant in grotesque ways. He rembered helping with so of those experints, even, passing various instrunts to Teluwat as he asked for them.
Filian was relatively certain those mories were false. Or he hoped they were, at any rate. There was a certain lack of emotional depth to them—he didn't react with the disgust he knew he would have, and he was far too compliant. Reviewing his mories felt almost like watching a dream.
Incompatibility, he thought, or sothing like it. If it was a weakness in Teluwat's abilities, then it was sothing even the sli king didn't know about. Filian himself was sothing of an experint, considering Teluwat allowed him much more freedom than he allowed any of his other agents. More room to be himself, as it were.
Why he was given that consideration Filian had no idea, but if he had to guess, it had sothing to do with Teluwat experinting with the limits of his abilities. And maybe so twisted desire to have a family of his own.
Filian glanced at the few paintings in his room and sighed.
If he focused hard enough, he thought he could see a shadow embedded in those paintings, like a ssage he'd left for himself painted in colors he couldn't quite see. It required him to push his Firmant toward his eyes to bring them into focus. It felt like a technique soone had taught him, a long ti ago.
In one of his paintings, three silverwisps stood, instead of Teluwat. Filian stared at that painting for a long mont, contemplating the mories it invoked.
Filian wasn't even his real na. There were echoes of that in his mory now—He-Who-Harmonizes. It felt strange to think of those words, but it also felt like it fit.
Not that he could be sure how much of his mind was his own. Maybe he would go by Harmony for now, just to see how he liked it?
Harmony nodded to himself. He could work with that.
One of the reasons his mories were particularly strange, he thought, was that it seed Teluwat had tried to revise them recently. There were new mories battling with the old ones, mories of an automaton handing him over to Teluwat. He-Who-Guards. His real father?
It was confusing. The mories were a jumble, because the new set hadn't quite taken over the old yet. And Harmony really didn't have ti to wait for them to, because he was pretty sure that unless sothing changed soon, he was going to die.
There was a pressure he could feel all around him, concentrated strangely like a warmth in his abdon. He couldn't be sure, given his lack of training, but he thought what he was sensing was Firmant.
It was gathering in extre concentrations. Teluwat, more likely than not, and if Teluwat was preparing that much Firmant then he was in one of his moods. Harmony knew better than to get in the Trialgoer's way when he was in one of those moods, and if he weren't so certain that this ti he was the target, he might have just hidden in his room.
Instead, he slipped out, doing his best to replicate sothing he'd learned to do... he didn't know when he'd learned to do it, actually. The mory just existed in his mind, not quite connected to anything else. It was a mory of pulling a shroud over his core, hiding his Firmant signature from Teluwat. Maybe it was a trick he'd learned across the loops? But if that were the case, he shouldn't have been able to rember that trick.
Harmony shrugged to himself. It wasn't that important. He hid himself then slipped down one of the many secret tunnels embedded throughout Teluwat's lair, keeping that shroud carefully in place even as the sli king's voice thundered through the halls.
"Filian!" he called. "Get over here!"
Not likely, Harmony thought to himself. He had a basic sense of self-preservation. Teluwat hadn't managed to take that from him, at least. Actually, Teluwat had left a surprising amount of his actual self intact.
He hoped his real father would get here soon, though. An odd mory flickered to life in his mind, unattached to anything else—one of Guard holding him close, grasping his hands firmly, and whispering to him a promise. The words were silent in his mory, but he thought he understood their purpose.
Stay safe. I will find you. Always.
And there was another oddity that persisted in his mind. A fragnt that shouldn't have existed from a dream he never had.
"I will be everything and every mont that you stole from us."
Harmony had no idea where he'd heard those words, or if he'd actually heard them at all, but sothing about them gave him strength.
So as Teluwat's voice rang out again, a little closer to his current hiding place, he ducked down a different corridor and continued to run.
Ghost and Lilia found themselves in front of a makeshift throne, only a short distance away from Teluwat, who stared at them in disbelief. Neither of them wasted any ti—they were well aware that the more ti they gave him to react, the more likely it was they would be targeted and subverted by Assimilation or one of the sub-skills Teluwat used to empower it.
Lilia summoned a dagger. Ghost prepared an array of combined skills that he had estimated had a 87.2% likelihood of disrupting Teluwat's outer mbrane and at least briefly causing a physical collapse. It was a little more difficult than it normally might have been, but he didn't have access to his complete list of skills, and the constructs that remained in his core were a little difficult to correctly use. It would have to do.
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Neither of them expected to defeat Teluwat, only to create a significant enough distraction that they could buy ti until Ethan or Guard arrived, and to make sure nothing happened to Harmony.
Teluwat was blasted apart by their skills. He was in the middle of reacting to their appearance, but he'd opened his mouth to start monologuing instead of attacking or defending, which was well within Ghost's expectations. Their respective attacks struck him in the chest with no apparent attempt to dodge on his part, and he promptly dissolved into a pile of bones.
That was, Ghost reflected, probably the first sign that they were a little out of their league.
Teluwat didn't even bother to reconstitute himself. Instead, his voice erged from all around them, sounding mildly annoyed rather than actually hurt in any way. "Who are you two?" he asked. "How many allies does this Ethan have? This is getting ridiculous."
"Ghost," Lilia said. Ghost nodded—he was already scanning for Teluwat's Firmant signature.
It made sense that the Trialgoer spent most of his ti as an amalgam of sli and bone. As far as Ghost could tell, Teluwat was a sort of free-floating Firmant core that could freely assemble himself a new body. He didn't need all that sli or the bones to anchor him—all he needed was so sort of physical mass to anchor his presence.
Lilia threw another set of daggers at the bones anyway, just to be sure, and there was a sharp crack as the skeletal remnants on the ground dissolved into dust. Teluwat's voice erged again, annoyed. "That was my favorite skeleton," he said.
That was when he attacked.
The difference between Avegoth and Teluwat was almost imdiately apparent. Avegoth's auras had done almost nothing to Ghost, empowered as he was by Ethan's Aspect Pools. Teluwat, on the other hand?
Ghost's vision crackled into static. Beside him, Lilia staggered, coughing in pain as her body abruptly distorted. Considering the barrage of warnings his own systems were sending him, Ghost was pretty sure he was in the similar state.
He grabbed Lilia and forced a Tiskip—
—just long enough for a spiderlike woman to Phaseslip through the ceiling and smash her foot directly into Teluwat's core, slamming it back and forcing whatever skill Teluwat was using on them to end.
Lilia gasped for air. Ghost rapidly recalibrated his systems, rapidly trying to construct a counter for whatever it was they'd just experienced. It was so variation of Firmant Control imbued with Assimilation—he could feel the way that power had directly interacted with his Truth. If he hadn't been a third-layer practitioner, he might have succumbed imdiately.
"Are you alright?" he asked quietly. Lilia nodded, though her breath was ragged.
"Barely," she said. "Thanks."
Teluwat, in the anti, had reconstructed a new body of ooze from the walls of his lair. He still seed more annoyed than afraid.
"Are these your agents, Versa?" he asked. "You should know better than to attack . Especially now. I'm not exactly in a good mood, as you might have noticed."
"Oh, I know," Versa said. "I'm counting on it."
And under her breath, she muttered sothing Ghost was pretty sure was ant for them. "Ethan better be telling the truth about that polarity reversal thing."
Ghost had no idea what that ant, but he figured he would forward the ssage.
The first thing I notice when I'm conscious again is how much everything hurts. It is, thankfully, fading rather quickly, but it's still a distinct ache that slows down for a second or two.
The second thing I notice is the ti gradients.
Hestia has gotten significantly worse in the short period of ti I spent offworld in the dungeon, apparently. I'm not sure exactly how bad it was before, but right now it's bad enough that even in the middle of nowhere there's a distinct disparity in the flow of ti—Temporal Link shows ti running faster in one direction and slower in another.
All of this is perpetuated by the Tears, which are now bad enough I see visible cracks in the atmosphere. Each one, I'm pretty sure, leads to a new one, and judging by the sheer concentration of them in the sky... It's like I'm witnessing the end of the world. How many Tears are there distributed all across Hestia, now?
I force myself to my feet, pushing away the lingering remnants of pain, then make my way to the thankfully-stable one that contains Ahkelios and Gheraa. The mont I rip it open, the two collapse out with a groan, covered in sticky ti-residue.
"Took you long enough," Ahkelios mutters, but he looks more worried for than anything. "Are you alright? What you did back there..."
"I'm fine," I say, looking over the other two to make sure they are, too. The prolonged ti in the Tear doesn't seem to have hurt either of them—Ahkelios is already straightening his makeshift coat, and Gheraa has his hands folded primly behind his back. "And you two?"
"More than," Gheraa says cheerfully, his eyes practically sparkling. "I didn't think I'd witness another feat of Firmant engineering so quickly! I'm sure I don't need to tell you Soul Space isn't designed for you to absorb Interdiaries. That was... impressive."
His voice turns sly. "I don't suppose I could convince you to do it again?"
I give Gheraa a deadpan look, then snort. "Maybe after all this is over," I say, ignoring the way he pumps a fist in the air and instead turning inward to check on my core. It doesn't seem like I've done any damage, at least—the makeshift Interdiary stretches out of the ocean like a massive tree. It's still dead, for the ti being, but if Gheraa can repeat what he did before...
That's a pretty big if, though. I might be able to replicate it myself, if it cos down to it—doing that seed to drain a lot out of him. He doesn't usually get like this unless he's specifically trying to hide sothing, either.
Right now, though, Harmony's safety is paramount. I glance through the Interface, noting with surprise that the Empty City dungeon is already open again—the Ritual shift doesn't seem to have taken much ti, this ti around. That, or I spent a lot of ti unconscious, but I'm pretty sure I haven't.
And the links to my core... I wince and freeze as I finally catch up on everything that's happening.
Guard's on his way. Versa is sohow already in Palus, helping Ghost and Lilia of all people fight off Teluwat; I'm amazed Ghost was able to pull off a new Link without there. How much ti has passed for everyone? And then there's the ssage that Ghost passes on to ...
I pull out the teleport stone Versa gave and eye it briefly. I might be able to reverse-engineer it on my own, but that's going to take ti, and I'm not the local expert when it cos to imbuents.
Conveniently, however, the ti gradients seem to work out in my favor in the direction of the crow village.
"We're going to find Virin," I say. "And fast."
I tell Guard to et up with instead as I make my way to the Cliffside Crows. We're a little closer than Palus is, and from the feel of things, Guard is struggling through a veritable storm of Firmant to try to get there.
We're going to need to work quickly. One way or another, I have a feeling things are about to co to a head, and as much as I hope I'm wrong...
The Sunken King hasn't made a move yet, and sohow, that makes feel like we're playing right into his hands.
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