Die. Respawn. Repeat.

"It's just something the Interface does," Gheraa says, grimacing. "I don't have a good answer for you there. We think it has something to do with how the Interface draws from past Trialgoers as a template for new features or implementations—in the same way, it probably draws on people connected with it to create Remnants. Or monsters, if you will."

I think for a moment. "But that's not true for all monsters, right?" I say. "Like the monsters in the Fracture."

The ones Guard helped to kill. I remember him fighting with us, and I'm beginning to wonder if there was anything I missed in that fight. Was there any point in which he'd tried to communicate his situation to me? Would I have noticed? There were those flashes of not-purple within his Firmament, the moments in which prismatic power shone through the lavender fog swirling in his chest. Now that I know the situation he's in, I'm guessing those were glimpses of his true Firmament shining through Whisper's.

My fists tighten. I should have realized what that meant sooner.

"Not all monsters are Remnants, but all Remnants are monsters," Gheraa agrees, unaware of my thoughts. "The Interface labels and assigns a difficulty rating to anything you fight, be it creature, Remnant, or person. That difficulty rating is applied as a modifier to the credits you earn. But that's the slower method of growth. The faster one is to do what your friend is doing—to take their Firmament and make it your own.

"But even there, there are downsides." Gheraa draws his cloak around himself and rests his chin in his hands, staring at me. "For one thing, anyone you do that to you would permanently remove from the loop—kill, in other words. For another, it's not that easy to control someone else's Firmament. Ahkelios can do it because his Remnants are based on him; all he has to do is remind that Firmament that it belongs to him. Absorbing someone else's Firmament is a different story altogether. I know of Integrators that have permanently mutated and changed because they attempted this process."

"That doesn't sound like an option, then," I say. Anything like that will carry over between loops—I'm not going to be able to reverse time to escape the consequences of my own actions. I do, however, mentally file away the possibility of permanently removing people from the loop. It's not something I'd do under most circumstances, but...

The Hestian Trialgoers are a different story. If I let them reset, they're going to find new ways to come after me, and they'll know my tricks. I'm not going to try to absorb them, but that doesn't mean I can't find a way to permanently damage their Firmament in some way.

It occurs to me that that thought is cold. Colder than I'm used to. Colder than I'd want to get used to.

And yet the harm that Whisper's done—the disregard that she's shown for others, not to mention everything I've heard about Naru, about Teluwat...

"You have a third method?" I ask, trying to hide the nature of my thoughts. Gheraa stares at me for a long moment but chooses not to ask, for which I'm grateful.

"It's related to the second," Gheraa says. "Absorbing the Firmament of any living thing is difficult and dangerous. But there's plenty of Firmament around you all the time, and most of it doesn't belong to anyone. Ambient Firmament of all types."

I blink and stare at Gheraa for a moment. "...You want me to just absorb the Firmament that's floating around in the air?" I ask. "First of all, I refuse to believe that no one except the Integrators has tried this."

"You haven't tried it," Gheraa points out, amused.

"I've been kind of busy!"

"Well," he says. "You're not wrong. People have tried it, and they still do. Just because the Firmament doesn't belong to anyone doesn't mean it's not still dangerous. Drawing in Firmament from your surroundings is known to cause all kinds of physical symptoms, including but not limited to having your organs turn into the elemental Firmament you're trying to absorb."

"What."

"Someone's liver turned into fire once," Gheraa explains, a little too casually for my taste.

"Was it... your liver?"

"I don't have a liver."

"Great." I add a note to my mental file about Gheraa to be a little cautious about my organs around him, since he doesn't seem to place much value in them. Maybe because he doesn't have any. "I assume you have a way to avoid that."

Gheraa looks at me thoughtfully. "I do," he says. "You have an advantage a lot of others don't."

"The Interface?" I ask.

"Me!" he says, injecting too much cheer into his voice again. "And also the Interface, yes. You'd have to be willing to sacrifice a skill or two, though. Or more."

I frown in thought. That's not entirely out of the question—some of my skills operate pretty well together, but I have a few that are pretty redundant at this point. I might still use Triplestep, but it's technically objectively worse than Firestep and Accelerate. The only reason I still use it is because it's less of a strain on my Firmament and because it stacks with the others to a degree, but the speed advantage it provides as my ability with Firmament grows is starting to become negligible.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"How do you think skills work, Ethan?" Gheraa asks, drawing my attention again.

A test. The realization is more instinct than anything; he's looking at me like he wants a specific answer. I roll the question around in my head, considering.

"I assumed the Interface processes my Firmament and converts it into whatever effect the skill is supposed to have," I say slowly. "But that's not quite right, is it?"

Because I can feel the skills as they grow inside me. It's like how the Void Inspiration has a presence within me—my skills do, too, though they're a lot more subtle. They're most apparent when I'm using the All-Seeing Eye to combine them. The Interface plants something like a seed within me that converts my Firmament into that of the skill's. Using the skill itself is then a matter of application; the Interface deals with the minutiae, and I decide on the target and power.

It's... actually not at all unlike the Firmament sink I've been working on. Come to think of it...

"That's why I can imbue things with skills," I mutter to myself. "I place a copy of the seed in it?"

"Close!" Gheraa says brightly. He seems proud of me, for some reason. "Technically, most Interface skills are self-sufficient and fractal in nature; you can take any piece of their Firmament and regenerate the skill from it. But uh, you probably shouldn't try that, because most skills are incredibly dangerous if they're not regulated by the Interface."

I carefully avoid Gheraa's gaze. I'm definitely going to try it.

"...You're going to try it, aren't you," Gheraa says, resigned.

"You were saying something about absorbing Firmament?" I prompt, changing the subject. Gheraa sighs.

"You can destroy a skill and turn it into something to process ambient Firmament for you," he says. "The higher rank the skill, the better it gets at doing that. You'll still have to manually feed Firmament into the skill to make any real progress, but it speeds things up even if you don't. And those Firmament-conversion structures are essentially perfect for this process."

"And most Trialgoers don't do this, I take it. Even if they're told they can?"

"It's not exactly common knowledge, although a few people have figured it out. And I can't deny that we've... experimented." Gheraa seems hesitant to admit this. "But even most Trialgoers are reluctant to give up their skills."

"Skills are useful, but a phase-shift is even more so, if I understand them correctly."

"You'll be as strong as Naru with Tough Body alone if you manage to reach your third layer," Gheraa says. "He's a second-layer Trialgoer. Still stronger than you are, but you're catching up. Which he won't like. I've been trying to keep him away from you."

"Thanks," I say. I mean it, too. Any kind of involvement with Naru is something I'd prefer to avoid, not because I'm afraid of him but because I'm pretty sure I'd end up trying to fight him. That's a mess that I don't have time for at the moment.

Though I'm not entirely opposed to using a loop to mess with him if I do somehow find myself with the time...

I shake myself free from those thoughts. "How would I do this, exactly?" I ask. "Convert a skill into something for absorbing Firmament."

The Integrator regards me for a moment. "You can sense your Firmament now, can't you?" he asks. "You've reconnected with yourself."

"...Yes." There's nothing really happening, as far as I can tell. I'm still lying unconscious on the ground and Ahkelios is still sitting on my chest; Bimar seems to have found a seat nearby and is drumming her wings on it anxiously.

Teluwat's assault has lessened greatly. The Mind Vault probably won't be necessary for much longer.

"Then I want you to sense what I'm doing. Keep in mind I can only show you this once, because it will expend the rest of the Firmament I planted within you," Gheraa warns. "I'm guessing you don't want me to forcibly end your loop."

"No." Teluwat's Firmament is manageable, at this point, and I think Gheraa can sense the same thing. He studies me for a moment, then shakes his head.

"Be careful," he says. His voice is suddenly soft. Sincere, even. It's so uncharacteristic of him it makes me blink, but the expression he wears with it vanishes so quickly it feels like it was just my imagination. "And watch closely."

I feel Gheraa's Firmament surge. I see something manifest in front of him—Firmament of a type I haven't seen before, a brilliant blue-gold marble that's so dense with power that it warps the void around it. I can almost feel the Interface straining to contain the power that Gheraa's suddenly manifested.

At the same time, though, the golden lines in the Integrator's skin fade to white, and the deep blue begins to dull into an empty gray. Gheraa's eyes narrow in concentration, the entirety of his being focused on the marble in front of him; I focus all my senses on it as well, realizing I can't afford to miss a moment of this.

A barrage of sensations follows.

A sharp spike of Firmament. An inversion. The sense of something breaking, complete and irreversible. Power waxes and wanes, the blue fades...

...and then it sprouts.

Gheraa's panting. His entire body sways, and I reach forward to catch him just before he collapses onto the ground. This close to him, I can feel how much he's shaking—part of it from effort, I'm sure, but part of it from... fear?

I try to lift him to his feet, but he's light. Impossibly light, and getting lighter by the second.

The marble in front of him has changed. There's a small seedling sprouting out of it, and I can sense the way it's drawing in Firmament the same way a plant might draw in carbon dioxide—converting it into something pure, something I can almost instinctively sense I can use. It's real. I can sense it settling into me. This wasn't just a demonstration, this was...

"...That wasn't a skill, was it?" I ask him quietly. He laughs, the sound weak, and shakes his head.

"No," he says. There's a faint smile on his face—a small sense of pride in being able to trick me, I suppose. "It wasn't. Use it well, Ethan."

"I will." I don't know what to say. Maybe this isn't the real Gheraa, but he's still essentially just... given up his existence. To give me a head start. "...Thank you."

"Say that to the real me when you meet him," Gheraa says. He manages a final grin.

And just like that, he's gone.

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