Chapter 65: Book 2: Incoming

Chapter 65: Book 2: Incoming

I pore through the logs for a while more, but it soon becomes clear that this is a task for another day mostly because this looks like it's hours of reading, and sitting in the dirt next to the cooling corpse that appears to be a time-twisted distortion of my closest friend in the loops doesn't seem like a particularly good use of my time.

"Where to first?" Ahkelios asks. I take a moment to think through everything I've decided I need to do.

I should meet with Mari and Tarin again, just to find out what's happened to them after the last loop. I should find out what the Interface meant by other anomalies. I should investigate the Fracture. I should accompany Rotar to the Great Cities, because if there are people investigating the Interface there, they might be able to tell me more about how I can jailbreak it.

I plan to get Gheraa away from the other Integrators, given all the signs that he's on my side and all the signs of abuse, but I have no idea how I'm even going to start with that yet. Maybe the next time I bank my stat credits and meet with him.

Naru is a problem. The other Hestian Trialgoers are problems, and I'm almost certainly going to meet with one of them when I head to the Great Cities. That automaton I encountered in the Fracture that is almost certainly the reason I hit the Anomaly ninety days in instead of a hundred and eighty? Also a problem.

None of them I know how to deal with yet, exactly. I feel like maybe I should address that robot-automaton first. Something about its behavior struck me as strange.

Then there's the Empty City a long-term goal if there ever was one. There's the skill shards in the Fracture, but I'm folding that into investigating the Fracture as a whole...

And whatever's going on with K'hkeri. I don't think they betrayed me on purpose there was a distinct look of panic on their face when I got whipped away.

The Interface mentioned new temporal anomalies, which I'm worried about but can't do anything about for now. The best way for me to be prepared for those is to make sure I'm as strong as I can be, which means I should make sure I bank my credits...

Speaking of which, I should probably check my Interface status again, just to see if I've reached any of the milestones I've been aiming for.

[ Status:

Name: Ethan

Strength Skills: Crystallized Strength (Rank C), Concentrated Power (Rank B), Amplification Gauntlet (Rank A)

Durability Skills: Tough Body (Rank E), Barrier (Rank D), Crystallized Barrier (Rank C), Hexfold Shield (Rank C), Second Wind (Rank B), Verdant Armor (Rank A)

Reflex Skills: Quicken Mind (Rank B), Inspect (Rank B), Compounded Mind (Rank B), Iron Mind (Rank A)

Speed Skills: Triplestep (Rank E), Accelerate (Rank C), Firestep (Rank C), Flashstep (Rank B), Intrinsic Lightning (Rank A), Lightning Rod (Rank A), Warpstep (Rank A)

Firmament Skills: Firmament Manipulation (Rank D), Temporal Fragment (Rank D), Color Drain (Rank C), Tetrachromacy (Rank C)

Inspirations:

The Mirror Twice Shattered (Firmament, Unique)

The All-Seeing Eye (Reflex, Rank A)

The Void (Strength, Rank Unknown)

The Accelerator (Speed, Rank A)

Open Dungeons:

The Empty City (Rank S)

Credit Distribution:

Strength: 114 (179 banked)

Durability: 338 (84 banked)

Reflex Barrier just automatically calls up a powerful barrier of Firmament if something is about to kill me. It's stronger than any of the barriers I can call forth on my own with my Durability skills, but it needs time to recharge. Something like a 'get out of death free' card. Nice to have, but Inspect tells me the recharge time is a long one, and if something is good enough to kill me once, I'm not sure it's going to make the difference.

Quicken Mind will evolve into a new skill that will let me think faster. That one's pretty straightforward.

"I want to take Premonition," I tell Ahkelios. Maybe it's a foolish choice. It's the idea that I might lose a loop before I'm ready for it that makes my decision, here as consequence-free as the loops technically are, I... clearly have a lot to lose when I loop.

I probably can't hold off my next death forever, but I can try, and Premonition will help me more than anything else.

"Are you sure?" Ahkelios looks a bit dubious, but I think he sees something in my expression, because something in his eyes soften. "It gets easier, you know."

"I don't want it to," I tell him. I'm telling the truth, too, though I only realize it as I say the words. I don't want it to get easier to leave people behind, to make friends and then lose them; that seems like a ticket to slowly not caring about any of the events that happen within the loop, to letting myself see people as pieces of a four-dimensional puzzle.

I don't want that to happen. I'll cling on to whatever vestiges of humanity I can. It's the only thing that'll keep me sane through all this.

[ Premonition (Rank B) obtained! ]

"...Maybe that's for the best." Ahkelios looks like he wants to argue with me for a moment, but he acquiesces after a moment of thought, to my surprise. There's something sad in his eyes. A fragment of a memory, swimming back to the surface. "I remember a little more about my loops now."

"Do you want to talk about it?" I offer. It only seems fair. Ahkelios is the only companion I get to keep across the loops, the only one I can call forth at a moment's notice. I haven't been looping for that long, but it's abundantly clear to me that having him around keeps me sane.

"...No," Ahkelios decides. I can tell he's conflicted about it. "Not yet. I don't remember enough yet."

That's a lie, I think.

But I don't call him out on it. If he wants to keep this to himself until he's ready, he can.

"I'm going to go see Tarin and Mari," I say. I want to get that out of the way first. "We need to check if Rotar's pocket oracle is already broken or if it's something that happens partway into the loop, and... I want to find out if Tarin still remembers."

Ahkelios is silent for a moment. "What are you going to do if he does?"

"I don't know." I sigh, pushing myself to my feet and gingerly noting that nothing feels sore or broken. It's strange how feeling okay is suddenly a foreign feeling; I hadn't even realized how many aches my body had accumulated up until the reset. I must've been more injured than I thought.

I still don't have a healing skill. Yet another reason to get that Durability upgrade; if I can draw a healing skill again, it'll solve the problem of long-term damage in loops. I'm lucky I haven't fallen sick yet, honestly.

Or maybe it isn't luck, and the Integrators changed something about my immune system so I don't spend all my loops sick and dying. Who knows.

For now, it's time to make my way back to the Cliffside Crows.

Flashste

As the burst of speed takes me, Premonition activates. My eyes widen. There's a force barreling towards me, and it screams danger.

Warpstep!

There's no quick way to change directions when I'm moving that fast, so I teleport away from the point of impact, but even with that moment of disorientation, I don't miss the cracked crater torn into the ground. Even with the distance I've created, I'm blown backwards by the shockwave, and my back cracks into a cactus-like tree with a thump. Tough Body protects me, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. I grit my teeth.

What just attacked me?

The dust clears. I see scales, first, then the telltale silhouette of a tail; a snarling maw attached to a distinctly draconic looking body, twisted and malformed though it is. One half of its body is trying to be quadrupedal, and the other half is trying to be bipedal.

Perhaps the most notable is the scar over its heart.

Definitely an Interface monster. Like the mantis we fought only moments ago. Like the harpies that attacked the crows in the first Raid I encountered.

Why is this here?