I consider fighting the Guilty Chiras again before heading off, but I feel a little pressed for ti there are too many things to do, and I still haven't seen the chat with Earth connect again. A few other humans have died, from the looks of things, and I'm no closer to figuring out how to escape this Trial than I was last loop.
Hopefully figuring out what's going on with Guard and Whisper will help. If nothing else, Rotar's connections in the Great Cities might be able to get a better lead on how the Interface works. I haven't forgotten the ssage from Hestia's Heart about needing allies, about needing to break the hold of the Interface.
Getting Rotar back will be a start.
Co to think of it, I haven't seen head nor tail of the secret societies that Rotar ntioned were a thing there's no underground rebellion or laboratory that I've noticed. I haven't t any other morphlings like Ikaara, either, in or out of their void suits. I suppose Isthanok is the one place I'm least likely to notice anything like that. It's a City that's under constant surveillance due to Whisper's efforts, and she's got her own army in the form of Guard and his multiple bodies.
I glance around the clearing I'm in. "No sign of Tarin," I say to Ahkelios. "You think he's going to actually stick to the agreent for once?"
"I bet he just forgot," Ahkelios says, crossing tiny mantis arms, and I snort. He's... probably not wrong.
If I want to evade the Guilty Chiras on my own, that's going to an figuring out how to fly. Which... I'm kind of ashad I haven't already tried, honestly. I've managed to stay in the air for long periods of ti with various combinations of skills; I'm surprised I haven't straight up tried to fly yet.
Warpstep to get high enough, and Accelerate to counter the force of gravity. Any sufficiently strong propelling force will keep in the air as long as I can maintain Accelerate.
That's the theory, anyway.
"Hey, Ahkelios?" I say.
"What?" His voice is wary. He probably knows I'm planning sothing. Triplestep Firmant gathers at my feet as I begin to run toward a tree.
"Hold on tight. I'm going to fly now."
"What do you an, you didn't unlock any new ski" Ahkelios's voice trails off into a yelp and a cry of dismay as I ignore him and launch myself straight toward the tree, Crystallized Strength bunching up around my thighs as I run up, then bounce off, catapulting myself in the vague direction of the crow village.
Accelerate kicks in as soon as I'm in the air. I adjust it to counteract gravity so that I'm basically flying in a straight line it's a little finicky, trying to control it like this, but I've done it before. The worst that happens is that I wobble a little as I lose my grip on the exact right amount of force to use, but it's still easier than I expect it to be.
"This is going surprisingly well!" I have to yell to be heard over the sound of the wind rushing past my face.
Ahkelios doesn't seem to agree. He doesn't bother speaking out loud, instead reaching out through our shared Temporal Link so I can hear what he's saying. "Please stop bobbing up and down like that," he tells . "I'm going to be sick."
"Can you even get sick?"
"I'm going to be sick taphorically."
The boost from Crystallized Strength isn't quite enough to carry the full distance that required a throw with the full force of Mari's strength, and even with Accelerate to mitigate the force of gravity, I still have to contend with the wind slowing down. I can extend the jump a little further by adjusting the vector of Accelerate, but it makes more sense to just kick off the ground again, so I let myself land
Premonition activates. These things are fast, and they've clearly been keeping track of ... sohow.
Crystallized Barrier. I pour more Firmant into the skill than I ever have before, Firmant Control giving the edge I need to force a raw flood of power into every edge and facet I can. The barrier that forms in front of looks almost real it takes on an opaque sheen, with a solidity and presence it simply didn't have before.
Not all of that is from the Firmant I've poured into it, either. I can sense the way the skill has grown and evolved every ti I used it, every ti it's been broken. That outpouring of Firmant was enough to trigger so fundantal change in the skill.
The last ti I did this against a chira, it tore through the Crystallized Barrier instantly and was only briefly stopped by the Hexfold Shield after it.
This ti, it slams into the barrier and nearly cracks its neck from the abrupt stop to its montum. I hear one of its many horns snap, and the chira lets out a roar of frustrated anger and pain, shaking its head wildly. It stares at with eyes that fu with green-grey Firmant, montarily retreating to recover. I watch as its scales roil and ripple with roiling energy. There are cracks in its flesh that ooze thick streams of Firmant into the air, and I grimace at the amount of power this thing wields.
So of this, I know, is just power I wasn't able to see before. Firmant Sight augnts my ability to sense Firmant, and now that I can, I can see how much sheer power this thing is packing.
And it's still just a Rank B.
I shouldn't give it ti to recover. My Strength skills flow into my arm as I prepare myself to et it head-on once again. Ahkelios gathers his strength to join with mine, and this ti I can feel the way his Firmant spreads out within my Amplification Gauntlet, a lattice of energy that reinforces and augnts my power into sothing formidable.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
The air cracks around my fist as I launch myself forward and into the chira.
[ You have defeated a Guilty Chira (Rank B)! 43 Strength credits. 15 Durability credits. 21 Reflex credits. 9 Speed credits. 20 Firmant credits. ]
The chira's flesh... shatters, for lack of a better word. Last ti I killed one of these, I couldn't break through its outer shell; the best I could do was liquify its insides with the energy from my punch. This ti, that outer shell doesn't hold up to the force of my punch.
I recoil a little from the sight. Watching sothing organic shatter like glass is not pleasant, no matter how used to violence I get in these loops.
"Ew," Ahkelios remarks. If he had a nose, I'm sure he'd be wrinkling it.
"No kidding," I mutter. "We better get out of here before any more of these arrive."
They're pretty decent for credits still, don't get wrong, but I have more important things to deal with at the mont.
The rest of the trip back to the crow village is uneventful. I have a nearly heart-stopping mont when I find Tarin in roughly the sa position I t him at within my first few loops there's a terrifying mont where I think whatever connection he's made with the Interface has fallen apart and he no longer rembers the loops. But no he glances up at the mont he senses my presence and gives a sharp caw of greeting.
"Ethan!" he says. "You take too long! Mari almost not believe ."
"You told her?" I try not to wince. I rember Mari's request.
"Prank stupid," Tarin says, waving a wing dismissively. "She need know. Then she help, yes?"
There's sothing in his tone that strikes as a little off and now that I look a little closer at him, his body language is a little more reserved. He speaks with just as much boisterous bluster as ever, but he holds his wings a little closer to his body, and doesn't move with quite so much exaggerated energy.
"It might be kinder if she doesn't know," I suggest softly. Might as well be honest. It's not like the prank plan was going to last for more than a couple loops, anyway; I'm sure Mari expected to improvise.
I expect Tarin to deflect imdiately. To my surprise, he doesn't; instead, he casts his eyes downward and seems to contemplate my words before he responds. "Maybe," he says. "I think about it."
That... will have to be good enough, I think.
"So she's agreed to help?"
"We go see her first!" Tarin declares. "She not even believe yet! You show her you real, yes? Then we discuss. She help."
"I need so of those imbuent stones"
"Yes, yes," Tarin says impatiently. "You get stone. I can give stone too, you know! You not need Mari."
...He's got there. It's not like he's any less in charge than Mari.
"You Trialgoer?" Mari says, peering at . She folds her wings across her chest in a way that reminds remarkably of Tarin, then sniffs in a surprisingly human-like gesture. "You small. And no feathers."
I'm not sure why she's comnting on my appearance first, this ti. "What did Tarin tell you?"
"He tell you strong!" Mari looks almost offended; she lifts one of my arms and pokes at the muscle there, and I just kind of stand there, allowing her to manhandle . "But you small."
"The Trial doesn't exactly let build muscle," I say dryly. "And is this really important?"
"No, no. I just surprised." There's a lot of nervous energy about her, just like there was last ti. Mari busies herself by cooking, fanning the flas on the open fire and checking on the dish she's making. I don't recognize it. "Tarin say you try to help Rotar?"
"Yes," I confirm. I briefly consider explaining Rotar's entire... situation, but it's a little complicated to explain at best. "And there's sothing weird going on in Isthanok with that friend of yours. Miktik?"
"Miktik!" Mari brightens briefly, then frowns. "What an sothing weird?"
"She's being blackmailed by the leader"
"WHAT."
...I had almost forgotten that Mari could yell so loudly. I don't think she even did it on purpose it looks like the Firmant worked its way into her lungs just through her sheer, sudden anger.
"of Isthanok. She-Who-Whispers." I glance surreptitously at Tarin, who's doing his best to look as uninvolved as possible. Did he leave this part out for to tell her on purpose?
"You help her, yes?" Mari says fiercely.
"I'm trying." How much of this do I want to explain? The situation is complicated, and half the pieces I haven't even managed to completely put together yet. It's clear that everything I've witnessed so far is connected if I could just put all the pieces together... "You know about Whisper's whole thing, right?" I ask. "Her Whispers."
Mari snorts. "Yes," she says. "Coward skill."
Tarin snickers sowhere behind , clearly in agreent. I have no doubt if Ahkelios were out at the mont he'd be laughing as well, but he's chosen to retreat back into the recesses of my Firmant for the mont, citing 'being tired'. Far be it for to deny him a break.
"Miktik's found a way to mitigate the effects of her Whisper, but her invention can't withstand it for long," I explain. "I'm trying to improve on her design using imbuent, but I'm not good enough yet, and the imbuent stones I use can't take the strain very well."
Mari cos to a conclusion rapidly. "You want village stones?" she asks suspiciously.
"Yes"
"It not help you," she asserts.
I frown. "Why not?"
"Village stones special." Mari seems to struggle to find the right phrasing. "It for... special imbuents. You use before?"
"You lent a few. They held a skill charge just fine."
"But you not carry them long, yes?"
"Well, no," I admit. I don't think I had them for more than a few hours, and certainly not more than a day.
"Stones take imbuent easy. But they lose imbuent easy, too. Cannot lock in enchantnt. You say your imbuent have strain? How it work?"
"It takes in Firmant"
Mari holds up a wing to stop . "Village stones not work for you. More Firmant will push out old Firmant."
There goes that idea. "You couldn't have told that, Tarin?"
"I not know!" he protests.
Which is a mistake, because Mari imdiately swivels her gaze to him. "How you not know!" she demands. "It your inheritance!"
"...I forgot."
Mari baps him over the head with a wing, but she does it with surprising gentleness. I see the way Tarin lts a little into even that briefest of touches. These small monts between the two aren't sothing I paid that much attention to, before, but there's a lot of genuine affection in their banter and interplay, as aggrieved as she sounds.
"You go see Virin," Mari says, turning to address . "He better imbuent teacher than . He help you. Tarin stay here."
The way she says that brooks no argunt, and in fact, before I can respond, she's already ushering out of the hut. "You go!" she says.
Their hut doesn't exactly have a door, but the cloth piece they use as a door hardens into sothing as solid as steel as Mari injects a burst of crow Firmant directly into it. I blink, staring at what is now effectively a locked door.
...Alright, ti to find Virin, I guess.
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