Die. Respawn. Repeat.

Chapter 171: Book 3: Simulations

[Charge the Seed: 32/100]

The fight's advanced enough to become harrowing. Novi knows enough to stay a good distance back, thankfully; the plan for Guard to take the lead doesn't quite work as well against these Regrets. If they get close enough to him, they can just phase themselves through—and from the looks of things, that does quite a bit of damage to his systems.

"Are you alright?" I ask, steadying him. There's some smoke coming out from his systems; he makes a sound that's a little bit like a cough. He nods, but leans a bit more weight on me than I'd expect if he was fine.

"I will be fine," He-Who-Guards says. "I simply need to make sure they don't touch me."

True enough. I take the lead anyway; as long as Phaseshift is active, I can basically act as a physical wall. A barrier. They seem drawn to me when I do it, too. Only a few of them slip past to try to get at Novi and the Seed.

Guard, meanwhile, doesn't take long to adapt to his role as backup. His Firmament blasts can still hit them, and his chains work as long as they're charged through with his power. At first, it's barely even necessary—but the farther we get down the tunnels, the more the Regrets swarm. More and more of them get past me.

And that's where Guard really shines.

From the way he's fighting, I get the odd feeling that he's frustrated—there's an aggression to his movements that I'm not used to seeing from him. Maybe he feels he isn't contributing as much as he should. He fights with an expert precision, launching charged chains of Firmament that anchor themselves into the walls to block off paths, firing bursts out of his palms that take down two or three ghosts each.

It's pretty cool, if I'm being honest. I'd sit back and watch him if I didn't have to fight myself. We make steady progress like this, and for a while it's enough.

I narrow my eyes, staring into the darkness further down the tunnel; the lights deeper in have started failing in a way that I'm pretty sure isn't a coincidence, and the mass of Firmament I can sense is starting to slowly increase. Some of the ghosts begin to blend into one another, flickering and merging into stronger specters that are just a little more resilient—a little harder to take down.

Figures that a dungeon challenge isn't going to be quite this easy.

Even without the slowly-increasing density and strength of these monsters, their sheer numbers are enough to make the fight harrowing. If it were just me and Guard, I'd be a lot more confident about being able to take on this hoard, but with Novi standing directly in the tunnel with us?

Having to protect her complicates things—

Three Regrets rush me at once. I solidify with a Phaseshift, wrap my arms with an Amplified Gauntlet, and tear through one in an instant.

[You have defeated an Empty Regret (Rank C)! +15 Strength credits. +2 Durability credits. +2 Reflex credits. +3 Speed credits. +2 Firmament credits.]

The other two follow quickly.

If nothing else, every defeat is still giving me credits. I'm not sure why—I'm pretty sure if I fought these things back in Hestia, they wouldn't be enough of a challenge to give me any credits at all. Maybe it's something about this place being a dungeon.

I'm not complaining, though. I'm well aware that skills aren't everything, but...

[Status | Skills | Mastery | Inspirations | Dungeons]

[Ethan, third-layer practitioner]

Talents: [Anchor]

[Credit Distribution]

Strength: 566 (1400 banked)

Durability: 879 (1646 banked)

Reflex: 633 (2477 banked)

Speed: 602 (1420 banked)

Firmament: 970 (2091 banked)

[NOTICE: Interface currently running on backup protocol ANCHORED HERITAGE. Features and rewards may be different.]

Another S-rank Firmament skill with about thirty more credits, and at the rate these things are coming, I'll attain it soon enough.

I'm well aware at this point that skills aren't everything, and I'm barely scratching the surface with what the Interface can offer me. One of these days, I'm going to need to sit down and pore over the skills with the All-Seeing Eye and see what I'm missing—because there's something. Something in the gaps between skills, something I've been catching a glimpse of here and there... The patterns they share.

Strength, Durability, Reflex, Speed, Firmament. If the categories are a lie, then what are they hiding? Some deeper truth about Firmament, if I had to guess. Maybe a deeper truth about skills as a whole.

A Regret grazes me with some frost-aligned Firmament, and I hiss, forcing my attention back to the fight. It's too easy to let myself get distracted when fighting each individual ghost feels so easy. Maybe that's part of the challenge here.

But that doesn't feel quite right. This is a Dungeon challenge. There's going to be some kind of twist, and if I don't figure out what it is before it happens...

I'm only going to have one try at this stage if I want to let Naru keep his memories.

More likely there's some kind of trick here. Or an upcoming boss. I narrow my eyes, trying to figure it out.

Rate of flow, maybe?

Every time there's a new wave of Regrets, they're a little stronger than before. There are more of them than before. Every time they do, the Seed ticks up just a little bit higher in its charge. The first wave gave it only a single point. The second gave it two. The third gave it four. Spare drops of Firmament from the ceiling cause it to jump up another one or two at random, but there's an exponential component to the way it's charging.

And, in the same vein, there's an exponential component to the difficulty of these Regrets.

But that doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel like it's the whole of it.

Firmament begins to pick up around me. There's something in it—something that isn't Firmament—and I reach out for it automatically.

To my surprise, there's something there.

[You have touched a Thread.]

...What?

Before I can consider the notification farther, I feel a sudden flow of clarity, and refocus my thoughts. I'll check on that later, but something about this is giving me insight I wouldn't have otherwise. It's almost like a trance—a flow state. Even my skills feel more responsive, eager to be used.

Dungeons are fundamentally meant to challenge their delvers. They may be created from the memories of a dead Firmament practitioner, but the Interface interferes with them in some way to create these challenges, these Rituals.

I can feel Premonition in the back of my mind beginning to shine. It's not doing what it usually does—normally, it points out incoming danger. This use of it feels different. It's almost like it's trying to build on my intuition, trying to guide me. Trying to boost whatever it is I just touched on.

I feed some Firmament into it experimentally. There's a way my Firmament curls through it, a way it connects to my brain and instincts—

[Your mastery of Premonition has improved!]

There's something building. I can feel the shape of it, even if I don't know exactly what it is.

"Ethan." Guard gets my attention. "What is wrong? You are faltering."

"I'm just trying to figure out what they're doing," I answer.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

He's right, though. Whatever I've latched on to is occupying most of my mind. I'm still fighting, but it's like my body is moving on autopilot—the Knight is helping me, now that I'm paying attention. I'm not fully engaging the Inspiration, but it's reaching out to guide me in battle, helping me grab and tear each Regret apart as they approach.

And my mind is running full-tilt, almost out of my control.

Almost. It's still my mind, after all. I can guide it, shape its direction.

[Your mastery of Quicken Mind has improved!]

I feel like I'm on the verge of understanding something about dungeons. My mental Firmament skills are all stirring, almost on their own—no.

Not on their own. They're responding to my train of thought. I'm guiding them.

A dungeon, once integrated, is a tool of the Interface. The overall beats of history are correct, I'm sure, but Novi probably didn't have to fight through a horde of ghosts to deposit the Seed in the Shadowed Laboratory. The challenge itself is unique. A creation of the Interface, not a real beat from history.

And the Interface promised I'd learn more about my connection with Firmament. Its rewards aren't usually just shoved straight into my mind, are they? The closest I've ever gotten to that is Ahkelios receiving an 'information package', and even that had its lies. Mostly because it was an Integrator reward and not a proper Interface one.

It likes rewarding effort. It wants me to learn.

The challenges are designed for me to understand things about Firmament. Possibly more. Like how I picked up something about shapes from the Seedmother.

[Bonus objective completed!

Grand Design: 1/1

Escalating difficulty...]

Whatever state I was in begins to fade, leaving me with a slight headache.

And at the same time, I see Firmament start to flicker through the crowd of Regrets, dimming and brightening, creating lines of movement. I get a final insight before my thoughts finally settle back to normal.

"Guard," I say. "This one's for you."

He-Who-Guards wasn't quite sure what Ethan meant by that, but there was something in the human's voice that made him stand a little straighter.

His journey with Ethan so far was... he wasn't sure he had the right words for it. He felt like he was falling behind, in a way. He had an immense amount of Firmament and very little he could do with it other than blast it out of his palms—he hadn't even quite figured out skill circuits yet. All of them were in his memory banks, and ever since he'd captured them he'd had his AI running in the background, trying to analyze them and figure them out.

But they were complicated things, even put into a format he understood. The last time he'd tried to invoke a skill circuit had been while they were repairing the Carusath Tear, and that had backfired and failed.

He hadn't shown it at the time, but the backfiring had failed in a spectacular way, too. All the Firmament he'd poured into the circuit flooded back into him, nearly overloading his systems. If the AI hadn't quickly taken over and shunted the majority of the force into its own circuits...

It meant that it would be partially fried for the rest of this loop, and in some ways, Guard missed having its company. He hadn't needed it the way he needed it before; not since Ethan had fixed him. But they were... friends, after a fashion. They knew each other better than anyone else did.

Now he was just left with his own thoughts. It was lonelier than he'd expected.

It surprised him, though, how many of those thoughts were centered around the idea of protecting Ethan. Ethan didn't even really need that protection. Half the time, it was the other way around. But it was like the human had entirely supplanted She-Who-Whispers in his mind—once upon a time, he would've given up his life for her, and now...

Well, now he was pretty sure that if he suggested anything of the sort to Ethan, Ethan would just stare at him and refuse in that very human way of his.

Silverwisp society was quite different from humanity, he'd gathered. Silverwisps considered a pledge of allegiance the highest honor one silverwisp could bestow to another. There was a whole ceremony for it, even. He'd take a piece of his Firmament, that wispy, ethereal substance that made up his form, and he'd give it to the person he was pledging himself to. They'd give him a lesser, smaller piece in exchange.

There was an importance to it. A lot of their society revolved around little exchanges like these. The people you shared your essence with were few and far between—most often for romantic arrangements, less often as a pledge of allegiance, and rarer still for truly close friendships and bonds.

The one time he'd suggested pledging himself to Ethan was shortly after the asteroid strike, while Isthanok was building. He didn't know the human that well yet, but he'd seen enough through the loops that he admired him. Looked up to him, in a way. Wanted a piece of that determination that let Ethan keep pushing himself through adversity, a piece of whatever it was that made him keep fighting when the odds seemed impossible.

Ethan had looked at him like the suggestion was an insult. "You know you're not serving me, right?" he'd said. "Because if you think that, we probably shouldn't travel together."

"I know that," Guard had said. He did, but the response made him feel warm anyway. It was good to have confirmation.

He remembered, still, what it was like. Trying to hold back the weight of an entire asteroid about to hit Isthanok. Knowing that if he failed, the entire city would be wiped out—likely far more. He remembered pouring all the Firmament he'd had into it. He'd never been lacking for Firmament; the disease he'd been born with ensured that. He had a nearly neverending pool of it, to the point it had begun to unravel his soul.

And Ethan had just... fixed it. Stitched his soul back together.

Even with all that power, he couldn't hold back the asteroid. It didn't matter how much Firmament he had if there was a limit to how much of that Firmament he could channel at any given time, and the body Whisper had given him, powerful as it was, simply couldn't output enough to stop something like the asteroid.

And even without those restrictions, if he simply opened up his core and blasted it, the calibration alone? Too much Firmament would drill through the asteroid and do nothing, leaving the rest of it to crash into the city; too little would do nothing; too wide and he'd again run into the problem of not channeling enough; too little and he'd once again just drill through it. Using all his Firmament and all his proxies was enough to slow it down, but just barely.

And then Ethan had come in. Looked at the asteroid. Hadn't even considered for a second that their task might be impossible. It was like he'd looked up and decided it didn't deserve to be there. The sheer force of what he'd done... He didn't think Ethan knew how it felt to everyone else.

It was like reality itself had bent to obey him. Bent around Ethan, first and foremost, changing him into something somehow more solid and more real—a magnetic presence that was unto perception like gravity itself. It was impossible not to notice.

Then his fist, lay flat against the asteroid, as he commanded it to move. Forced it into a new direction.

Again, Ethan himself most likely hadn't noticed—but the shockwave of it was something he'd felt in his soul. Not just him, but every citizen of Isthanok.

He was certain it was what had destabilized Whisper, too. She was a proud woman, but despite everything she said...

She'd been closest to Ethan and incredibly drained of her Firmament when that had happened. He-Who-Guards didn't have the level of Firmament sensitivity that Ethan did, but even he could guess what had happened.

When his soul unraveled, it was because there was too much Firmament bubbling up from within.

She-Who-Whispers began to unravel, and it was due to the shockwave of reality that Ethan had conjured from without.

Not that she would admit it. Nor would she ever stoop to the level of asking for help—not for herself, and not from someone she'd already tried to mess with. She was too proud for that.

He-Who-Guards wondered if she was telling the truth about waking up, because if he was right, then it was likely she wouldn't wake up at all. He didn't know how he felt about that.

That was all beside the point, really. The point was that what happened that day had shaken him. Forced him to reconsider the core tenets of what he believed in. Made everything shift, just a little bit, toward Ethan.

Back in the fight against the Seedmother, he'd started to consider that he could perhaps become something more. Started to consider that he might be able to learn to do what it did, might be able to grow the way a Trialgoer could. But he'd run into a roadblock—all those skill circuits he'd memorized practically burned in his databanks, but he still hadn't been able to do anything with them. He was relying on the AI in his systems, expecting it to eventually have some sort of breakthrough, but it was currently fried.

This one's for you, Ethan had said. He-Who-Guards stared at the flickering Firmament passing between the ghosts. Observed. Tried to understand, for the first time in a long time, without the help of his AI.

They were passing Firmament through one another, in a long, convoluted way, some of them charging and flickering, others inverting the signal, Firmament bouncing between each and every one of them like a long and hard to observe—

His single optic widened.

Circuit.

"Ethan!" he called out; there was a flare of panicked static in his voice. "They're using a skill!"

At the same time, their first circuit completed. A rush of Firmament poured down the tunnel. It was nothing like Guard had ever seen before—it radiated pure death. Death Firmament, literal and visible, creeping down the tunnel like a black fog.

Guard operated on pure instinct. He didn't even have the help of his AI. But he had experience, he had his observations, and his mind had never stopped calculating. It saw the circuit in its entirety.

The thing about the way the ghosts were doing this? It was slow. It was visible.

And it was exactly what he needed to figure out his final, missing step:

The circuits had an element of time. How long the Firmament took to flow. Where it came from. A fourth dimension to its flow that created a pattern he couldn't see.

"Hold on, miss Novi," he instructed. The scirix archivist grabbed on to his arm.

He-Who-Guards held that circuit in his mind's eye...

And inverted it.