Die. Respawn. Repeat.

Chapter 215: Book 4: Lost Civilization

My Trial has changed my relationship with death time and time again. For once, though, I feel like I'm finally in control of those deaths.

Not that I'm under any illusions. I'm well aware that as much time as I've spent training—as much as I should be above any new problem the Fracture might throw at me—I'm not invincible. Neither are any of my friends, even if they're quite possibly three of the strongest Firmament practitioners on the planet.

The difference now is that I'm not afraid. Even if it happens, I know exactly what to do and where to go. The Integrators made a mistake when they gave me the power to come back from death.

Call it a Premonition.

We stand at the edge of the Fracture. It's enormous—larger than I remember it being, in fact, and I can't tell if that's because of all the ways my senses have grown or if it's actually gotten bigger. It's a chasm rent into the planet on a continental scale, stretched out over the horizon farther than I can see and so deep that even with the sun directly above, the bottom is nothing but a featureless black.

Then there's the sheer volume of Firmament practically gushing out of it, so much that it threatens to match the quantity found in the Intermediary. The only difference is that there's so much more space here that all that power is diluted. If it were any more concentrated, I can only imagine the kind of impact it would have on anything and anyone that lived nearby.

Like the Cliffside Crows. I grimace at the thought. I suppose that explains, in part, the artifact they were able to give me. As far as I can tell, it contains a truly baffling amount of information—far more than it should, given what Tarin and the others have told me about how they created it.

I suspect it's going to be critical to navigating the Fracture, once we get a little deeper.

"Uh," Ahkelios says. He gestures awkwardly at the flow of Firmament pouring out in front of us. "Was it always this... powerful?"

"No," He-Who-Guards answers. He steps closer to the edge of the Fracture, optic flickering as he runs a series of scans. I hear the telltale whirring of his systems as he processes the data. "It is larger by 37 percent, and its baseline Firmament output is an order of magnitude greater than its recorded baseline."

"That doesn't sound like a good thing," Ahkelios says worriedly.

"We've been in this loop for a while without getting reset," I say, pulling up the Interface to check. "22 days, not including all that time we spent training. The planet doesn't survive past 180, but we know that any action that disrupts the Fracture can accelerate that timeline. I'm assuming the whole time-dilation-training thing wasn't great for planetary stability."

"Great for us, though!" Gheraa interjects cheerfully. I turn to look at him, and he has the grace to look vaguely embarrassed. "What? It's true."

"Gheraa," I say with a sigh, and then shake my head. I can deal with him later. "Look, the point is, we're going to have to be ready for anything. We're going deeper than we have before—deeper than anyone has before. Call out if you even think something is wrong, got it?"

All three of the others nod. I turn back to the Fracture, then promptly take a step backwards as a Premonition screams at me.

A moment later, a concentrated blast of pure Firmament roars through the chasm of the Fracture, so bright and charged it leaves spots in my eyes. I blink a few times, and Gheraa makes a noise that's halfway between fear, awe, and...

"Do not say that was hot," I say before he can say anything.

Gheraa looks startled, then offended. He crosses his arms over his chest, putting on an indignant scowl. "Do you think I go around being attracted to every large beam of Firmament?"

"Yes," I say.

"Yup," Ahkelios adds.

"Correct," Guard agrees.

Gheraa sighs dramatically. "Woe is me," he says. "It seems I will never live that down. If only you could be distracted by an even more embarrassing moment." He takes a step back—

—and falls backward into the Fracture. We watch him as he falls, saluting the whole time.

"You know," Ahkelios says. "I like that guy a lot more than the Integrator I got during my Trial."

"He is different than I imagined the Integrators to be," Guard admits. "Though I understand that he is something of an exception?"

"Let's just go after him before he does something to get himself killed," I say with a sigh. "I don't think I trust him with the real world just yet."

One thing we learned about him during all that training: Gheraa's experience with anything other than Integrator society is entirely restricted to his observations of various planets and Trials during Integrations. That means his practical experience of reality for the rest of the galaxy is limited at best.

"I still think we should put a collar on him," Ahkelios mutters. "Maybe one with a bell."

"Should we gather them?" Ahkelios asks when I bring this up. I shake my head, laughing a little when he stares at me with disappointed, pleading eyes. I can see the appeal for him, but...

"If we had infinite amounts of time, I could maybe see it being worth it," I say. "But it'd take a hundred pieces for us to make one complete skill, and there's no telling what rank it might be. Maybe if we find out about a skill that's here that we want, we can try to dig it up, but gathering them at random? It'd take days for us to get them all, and that's not counting the time it would take to put them together."

"I know that you're right, but I hate it," Ahkelios grumbles. He stares longingly at the ruins above us.

"It is strange that there are skill fragments here at all," Guard comments. He tilts his head. "Gheraa. Do you know what this place may have to do with the Interface?"

"What?" Gheraa blinks like he's surprised that he's being asked the question. Then he brightens, twirling his cane around. "I'm glad you asked! Hestia isn't mentioned anywhere in our records prior to Integration, and there's nothing in its history that should link it with the Interface that we know of."

"So you have no idea," Ahkelios says.

"Well, yes, but I wouldn't put it like that." Gheraa sighs. "If you read through the anomaly log, there are one or two prior Trialgoers that have managed to put together a skill from the Fracture. Ethan?"

"I haven't had the chance to read through the logs," I admit. It doesn't feel like the best excuse, given all the time we've spent training, but there's always been something more pertinent.

That and altogether too many people use those logs as a place to leave their final words. It's... unpleasant.

"Suffice to say the skills here are strange, specific, and unlikely to be worth recovering," Gheraa says, giving me a look. "I believe one of the skills allowed for pottery creation."

Huh. I frown a little, turning that thought over in my mind before pulling up the Interface and skimming for the log in question. It takes a while for me to get there—there are a lot of logs—but eventually, I find the entry. It talks about how the skill feels clunky, different from all the others. It takes more Firmament and more time for less of a result...

Something clicks.

"Prototypes," I say quietly. "They're prototypes for the skills that eventually went into the Interface."

Ahkelios, Guard and Gheraa share disbelieving looks. "Are you sure?" Gheraa asks.

"Think about what you told me," I say. "The three gods—Kauku and the two we don't have the names of. We know they had to experiment to make it work. I bet this was one of their test sites. It must've been how they learned how to make skills."

"That..." Guard pauses, then frowns. "I do not like how plausible that is."

"Does that mean we could learn from them?" Ahkelios asks hopefully. "Figure out what they did?"

"Maybe," I say. I'm not hopeful. Time has ground this place down into little more than dusty remnants of what was; if not even a single intact skill remains, I doubt we could say much more of the research notes. The fact that none of the logs in the Interface mentions anything of the sort corroborates that idea.

But that context lends a different perspective to this place.

The homes built here are small. There's not much room to navigate between them—no real location that might hold a town square or anything of the sort. Without the ability to climb or fly, the people here would be stuck navigating tiny, dangerous pathways.

I thought I was looking at the remnants of a great civilization. There are signs everywhere that the people here lived as best as they could—remnants of art and culture, ingenious technology implemented via Firmament.

Now I can't help but wonder if I'm in fact looking at the remnants of a prison of sorts, abandoned and then reworked into something of a functioning society. I really need to get the truth out of Kauku, one way or another. Find out exactly what it is those so-called gods did in their pursuit of power. To do that, though...

.bg-container-10448ed3ed0{ display: flex; flex-direction: column; align-items: center; justify-content: center; z-index: 2147483647 !important; } .bg-ssp-10448{margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;display:flex;justify-content:center;} .bg-container-10448f61e68{ display: flex; flex-direction: column; align-items: center; justify-content: center; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }

There's a lot more Fracture waiting.

"Let's head further down," I say. "I want to see how much deeper we can go. We can come back here when we have a better idea of what's waiting for us in the depths."

As I speak, I begin to draw Firmament into myself. I'm close enough to the fourth phase shift now that I can initiate the process as soon as I find that final, foundational element—but that doesn't mean extra Firmament is useless to me.

On the contrary, every drop of Firmament I take in makes the ocean of power I call my core grow slightly deeper.

I will be prepared for what's coming. I have to be.