Die. Respawn. Repeat.

Chapter 107: Book 2: Preparation

She-Who-Whispers's fists tightened the moment she heard the words filter in through her Whispers on the Wind. The spoon she was holding bent with her strength. Firmament skittered across the surface of the metal, and she discarded it with disgust. One of her servants would pick it up later.

That lumbering brute's father was here. And he'd involved himself in the tournament.

Last she'd heard, the two of them were estranged, but she put nothing past any of her fellow Trialgoers. Those of them that had passed the Trial were devious, even the ones that relied primarily on brute force. Besides, even if Naru himself wasn't responsible, there was always the possibility that Teluwat had decided to involve himself with things.

It was likely, even, if Naru's father had somehow turned his opinion on the Integrators around. There was no one else that could so seamlessly change a person.

She-Who-Whispers shuddered at the thought. Of all her fellow Trialgoers, she feared Teluwat the most. She wouldn't even admit to fearing any of the others, but Teluwat's skills... as much as she hated to admit it, he had what could be considered a better version of her own skills.

Her Whisper gave her range and the ability to listen in on others; that was the advantage she held over him. She could control others with it, but that control was limited. They could choose to disobey. Technically.

It would just hurt them to do so.

Teluwat's victims had no such choice, and mind control was only the beginning of what he could do.

She-Who-Whispers remembered having a pleasant visit with Teluwat and his son. Strange, then, that the memory gave her such a coiling dread in her heart. Strange that the thought of Teluwat sent fear shooting through her very soul.

"Tell me what you did." The full weight of her Whisper pressed down on Teluwat, who smirked at her; he seemed entirely unconcerned by her power. He had no skin or carapace to burn. His Firmament was smooth and frictionless — there was nothing for her skill to grab on to, nothing she could tear apart.

The other Trialgoer cocked his head with an almost playful disinterest, and she held back a shiver of disgust. She-Who-Whispers didn't know if Teluwat's physical appearance was normal for his species or if he'd been changed in some irreversible way by his Trial. She knew silverwisps were already a strange combination of biology and Firmament, but Teluwat...

Pale-green, translucent goo kept a barely-cohesive form around a humanoid skeleton. It dripped, ever-so-slightly, each drop of liquid oozing back into the main body after a few seconds of separation. His facial features were drawn on his face with Firmament. Everything he gave away was precisely controlled, deliberate.

She would have been envious, had she not been disgusted.

"I don't know what you mean," Teluwat said. "He-Who-Serves has always been mine. Isn't that right?"

"Yes, father," the young silverwisp said. She-Who-Whispers felt her heart grow cold — saw reality written into the Firmament around her son.

Or her former son.

Whispers on the Wind couldn't undo what Teluwat had done. There were Firmament markers in silverwisps that spoke of their lineage — markers that should have been impossible to change.

And yet the young silverwisp before her held none of her markers. None of He-Who-Guards's markers. The only marker she recognized was Teluwat's, who wasn't even a silverwisp.

This shouldn't have been possible.

And the name he'd been given...

She wanted to tear Teluwat apart for this.

But she couldn't move.

"What are you so worried about, anyway?" Teluwat seemed amused. He sat back in his chair. "You've never had a son."

No. That wasn't true. She did. She had a son. She'd had a son with He-Who-Guards. She fought against it, struggled against his control, threw all her power into invoking—

"I've never had a son," she repeated out loud.

"And you're going back to Isthanok, aren't you?" Teluwat gave her a pleasant smile.

"Yes," She-Who-Whispers replied. Her feet took her away.

She did have a son. She remembered him — remembered the way he cried when he was born. Remembered the name written into his Firmament. It took everything she had to preserve that memory, to wrap it into a ball of Firmament and lock it in place to prevent Teluwat's skills from affecting it.

A week later, she remembered that her son had died a few years after his birth.

A month later, she remembered the accident that had taken him away just a week after his birth.

Two months later and the markers in her Firmament that told her she had once given birth were gone entirely.

Then she remembered nothing at all.

She-Who-Whispers let the pearl fall from her fingers and back into her necklace.

It had taken everything she had just to preserve the truth, but at least she'd been able to. She wasn't completely helpless against him. The idea that there wasn't more she could do against him rankled at her, but it wasn't like she was going to go out of her way to face him again.

The pearl was an excellent reminder of how dangerous he was. Hopefully, Teluwat wasn't involved in this at all.

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Though even if he was, she wouldn't stand for him messing with her city. Taking her son was one thing. Her city?

Not a chance.

The only question now was what this all meant. Was Naru working together with the new Trialgoer? Her notes hadn't said anything about that. Maybe he'd sent in his father this time, to test the waters and see how she would change things.

Consolidation is your next phase shift, Ahkelios explains. The next stage of Firmament development. Trialgoers go through a slightly different form of it — you lose some of your skills to boost the ones you use the most. It's like an optimization of your essence. It streamlines who you are.

Kind of like how the first stage tried to make me choose who I am? I ask.

You need a core to develop the base of your Firmament around, Ahkelios confirms. A simple core is usually better; it's easier to build around it. Mine was the Sword. I think I've mentioned it before.

But you're not a swordsman.

I was back then. Ahkelios is silent for a moment — he understands my point. He might have chosen the Sword as his core, but he is not a sword; he shaped himself around something that he wasn't. I can imagine how that might have cut away at him.

You'll probably have a harder time with your Consolidation, considering the way you built your core. I feel Ahkelios's grimace echo through our bond, and I just grin as I remember the answer I gave the Interface.

Who am I?

I'm whoever the fuck I want to be.

Ahkelios laughs, sensing my thoughts — more out of a fond exasperation than anything else. Well, you've always made things work, so...

That's right, I say. Anything else I need to know?

There's a lot about the new Skill Mastery thing, but a lot of it is just detailing the type of skills you can master and what mastering those skills do. I'll let you know as they come up, or we're going to be here all day, Ahkelios tells me. I nod and turn my attention back to the fight.

I have to admit, Tarin's battle strategies are a lot more versatile than I'd imagined. I've seen him fight before, of course, but in the first battle he was heavily restricted — and every time after that he's been shown up by someone stronger than him. He-Who-Guards, for example, whose strength is so monstrous Tarin's role in the Fracture had been mostly relegated to harassment and support.

Up against other thinking opponents, however, his skills really shine. Even Thys and Thaht seem entranced by the performance he's putting on. It's not the sheer speed he displays, although that's a part of it. It's the way he employs his speed to counter almost everything his opponents throw at him.

One opponent, for example, disrupts the ground. Tarin moves between the breaking stones so quickly that none of the momentum transfers to him. He treats the shrapnel like they're simply stepping stones, and rockets a reinforced wing directly into his opponent's throat.

Another opponent manipulates wind and ice; she surrounds herself in delicate, cutting crystals. Tarin's actually slowed down by this opponent, but not for long — her power over isn't enough to overwhelm the slipstream generated by his movement, and the eventual hurricane he creates from running sends her own crystals flying back toward her.

On and on it goes. And while there's plenty more I could learn from watching him, I think I've already picked up on what he wanted to teach me.

The Interface even confirms it with a message I've never seen before.

"I think we should go," Thys says quietly. I nod. The rebels have someone keeping an eye on the Arena just in case Whisper triggers whatever trap she has planned on Tarin. I don't want to leave, but I also want to make the best possible use of the time I have in this loop.

There are plenty of other fighters between each of Tarin's rounds, and it's clear that this is the sort of tournament that's going to last for days. Staying and waiting for every other fight, waiting for Whisper to act — it's pointless. I have other things to do. Thys and Thaht's workshop is waiting for me, and if I understand the plan correctly, then I'm going to need to help each of the others with their tasks as well.

Though only once I'm done with the Firmament sinks. That project's too important to ignore.

We slip out of the Craven Arena with relative ease. Most of the surveillance is focused on people trying to get in, not people trying to get out — and it's so much more crowded than usual that I'm sure many people have slipped in past the guards. Those guards are mostly there for show, anyway, since so many attendees are visitors from other cities. Everyone native to Isthanok knows that trying to hide something from Whisper is futile.

I can already see the coils of her Firmament beginning to curl around some of the ones that tried to sneak in without paying.

Hiding a disgusted grimace, I follow Thys and Thaht as they make their way back toward their workshop. It's clear when we're in range; I can feel the same privacy imbuement in the workshop's walls. I only ask about it once we're inside and the doors are securely shut behind us.

"Doesn't that imbuement make you kind of identifiable?" I ask. "Whisper has to know that she can't hear into yours or Miktik's workshop. Feels like a weak point."

"Yeah, but she don't really seem to care," Thaht says with a shrug. "We've had it for ages. Lots of workshops do. We create a lot of noise otherwise, see?"

As if to illustrate, the kobold picks up a massive hammer and swings it down onto a steel plate. I wince at the loud clang that echoes through the workshop.

"...Point taken."

A slight pause.

"Hey, Thaht, I have to ask," I say. "Last time we fought, you were driving this... giant... robot suit? That was nearly indestructible?"

"Oh yeah!" Thys responds before Thaht can, hopping on his feet excitedly. "Did you beat him? That thing's our pride and joy."

"Of course he didn't," Thaht scoffs, folding his arms across his chest.

"You have no idea if I beat you or not," I point out, amused.

"I doubt it. That thing is full of imbuements. Even Whisper would have trouble with it." Thaht grins, showing his teeth.

"...I have a lot of questions," I say. "First of all, if it's that strong, why are you using it in a blood sport and not in your rebellion?"

"We need to test it somehow," Thys says with a shrug. "And it's not good enough yet."

"And even if you need to test it," I continue, "why would you test it somewhere Whisper can observe it and figure out countermeasures?"

"Because—" Thys begins.

"Whisper found out about the prototype before we ever got to the first field test," Thaht interrupts with a sigh, giving his brother a stern look. "A privacy imbuement on our workshop doesn't mean that much. She can and will still pay regular visits, and she's smart enough to spot it if we're trying to hide something — especially a project that big. Best we can do is hide its full capabilities."

"You're telling me it can do more?" I ask.

Thaht grins at me. "Get those Firmament sinks working for us and maybe you'll get to see how much more it can really do."

...Well, that's motivation, if nothing else. I can only imagine how much a suit like that would help if they let me take it to the Fracture — though I can't imagine carrying that massive thing all the way there. Maybe if I bank some more strength credits...

Anyway. Back to the problem at hand.

"Show me what you've got," I say. Thys pulls open a drawer full of half-finished Firmament sinks.

I can tell this is going to be a long day.

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