Die. Respawn. Repeat.

Chapter 3: Stakes

I wake with a gasp. The nature of my death leaves me rattled, and I only barely roll out of the way in time; I can feel the wind of the mantis' scythe brushing just past my ear as I do so.

And yet, something is different. It's nothing easily placed, just a strangeness in the way the air feels, in the way it thrums against my skin.

It feels like the record of a Temporal Echo.

I reach for the skill, allowing intuition to guide my hand. Activating it is not quite as simple as everything else about the Interface. There is nuance, a whole dimension to it that I don't yet understand.

But this is no time for nuance.

Temporal Echo activates with minimal guidance.

A ghostly version of me peels off from where I am a moment later, retreating back several steps, just as I remember doing the loop before. I see myself hesitate for a second, trying to decide what to do... and then I see myself launch forward.

I take a quick step back, moving in the opposite direction of my twin, away from the monster's line of sight. My heart pounds rapidly. If it does what I think it does

my echo's leg connects with the monster's scythe with a snap. I watch in fascination as my previous self wrestles with the monster in exactly the way I did before, up until he buries the scythe in that thing's head. Only then do I release the skill, and I find myself feeling slightly dizzy in the aftermath.

Firmament skills are not without cost, it seems. But as long as I still get the reward...

[ You have defeated a Broken Horror (Rank E)! +1 Reflex credit. +2 Firmament credits. ]

No durability, just reflex. Less credits in every regard except Firmament.

...At least this way I won't be covered in blood when I find the mantis looper again.

When I make my way there, though rushing this time, hoping to get there before they bleed out and bandage them up or something there's no one there. There isn't even the hint of a sound to tell me they might be arriving soon, and though I wait to see if they'll come around again, no one arrives.

The clearing remains pristine and undisturbed.

I don't know what that means, but it leaves me feeling unsettled. I find a flower it's not hard, the forest is full of them and leave it where I buried them before.

It's a small gesture, but... I don't want to forget.

There's a problem with time loops: the erosion of consequence. I'm not foolish or arrogant enough to think that I'll be immune to it. I don't want to stop caring.

But I recognize that's going to be hard. The best I can do is to make a conscious effort. My goal remains clear, at least. Get as powerful as I can before I leave, and break their little game in half.

Still, there's one thing that rings in the back of my mind that mantis-person sitting against the side of a tree, broken and mutilated. I doubt this journey is going to be quite as easy as I think.

I glance through the Interface messages that I'd received as I died.

Loop 5, which means this is my sixth loop. I don't know when it started counting. I've gotten a few more points in every stat except Firmament, which I'm starting to suspect I'll only get if I kill something that explains why the Firmament reward was so much better than the Durability reward. There's every chance that I just got incredibly lucky, but I doubt it. Better to assume the higher probability circumstance.

Which is definitely not that I'm lucky. Especially given that it gave me the feature to rank dangerous areas after I died.

It's almost like it has a sense of humor.

I open the map and wince. The Fracture is rated as a rank C danger no wonder I got destroyed so quickly. I'm not heading back there for a while yet, which means...

I'll go somewhere else, I guess. Now that I have a map, tracking what direction I'm heading in isn't nearly as important I just pick a direction that isn't the chasm and start to wander.

I've picked and eaten a few fruits from the trees. I have no idea what's edible and what isn't, but there's no better way to test it than to try it myself. The worst that'll happen is that I'll die and get a couple Durability credits.

Which I'm aware is absolutely not the way I should handle the thought of dying. I could and probably should look at the subject with a little more nuance. But there's still so much to understand about the Trials and the Integrators, and I'm not sure I can afford an existential crisis on the nature of death.

So I put it off. A little procrastination never hurt anyone.

I've made a few marks on my map, and I'm now trying to clear more of the area in a circle around what I've chosen to deem the Spawn Point. The Clearing and the Fracture are both due south, and so far what I've found other than that is...

Mostly just a lot of vegetation. It's been a lot of walking and attempting to find out more from the Interface.

"Who or what are the Integrators?"

[ That information is locked from individuals undergoing the Trials. ]

Figures. I'm pretty sure I know the answer to the next question, but I ask anyway. "How do I earn credits?"

[ Credits are awarded upon death or upon killing any Firmament-enhanced creature. They are distributed based on the type and difficulty of the actions you take. ]

That tracks, considering the credit boost I got from my last death. I better get Durability or Strength credits for what I've been doing so far this loop, then. I've climbed a number of trees and fallen off even more of them yes, that math works out, don't ask me how so I'm expecting a good number of points in both.

I have the scythe gripped tightly in my hand. The blood's long since dried, so it doesn't feel nearly as slippery as it did in the beginning. I'm not expecting to get attacked, exactly, but I feel like it's inevitable; this is a Trial, and I've only fought two monsters so far. The fact that it's this peaceful is starting to unnerve me.

Right on time, I find something.

Footprints.

They're nothing like either the mantis person or their much more terrifying counterpart, thankfully. They're larger, which is concerning, but they also look like the prints of a sandal or a shoe, which means people

The fact that the last time I found a hint of civilization I was immediately assaulted by a stone golem doesn't faze me. This one's much closer to the Spawn Point; if this is a Trial, and artificially designed, then there's a good chance that it's not going to be nearly as dangerous.

I follow the footprints.

What I find is a small village that's built near the side of a cliff; that cliff extends far into the sky above me. It's a landmark that's hard to see through the forest canopy, but becomes glaringly obvious now that I'm right next to it.

It's really only a series of small huts, each of them haphazardly built, but if there's anyone here that can help that knows anything about this then I can really get started.

"Can I help you?"

It's a low whisper of a voice that scares the crapout of me. I spin around to see a hunched over crow of a man.

A literal crow, to be clear. Beak and all. A very big one, and vaguely humanoid, but only vaguely.

At least he doesn't seem to be hostile.

"Uh... yes?" I cough, and check for anything from my Interface; there's nothing. I'm not close enough to have 'discovered' the village, I suppose. "I'm just wondering where I am."

The crow cackles. "I see, I see! A new friend, then! Come, come."

I can't tell which one of us is completely disregarding the whole stranger danger thing. I follow him anyway, taking a moment to glance up once the Interface pings with a notification.

[ You have discovered a location! Location Found: Cliffside Crows (Rank N/A) ]

...The Interface needs to be better at coming up with names. At least it seems like this place is safe. I stay on my guard, though.

For better or for worse, the crow doesn't seem to think I'm a threat to him or any of his people, either. He leads me straight towards a hut I assume is his which I very pointedly do not step into, because I'm not sure I want to be trapped in an enclosed space.

Is that paranoid? That's probably paranoid. I don't have to worry about dying, technically.

Whatever.

"Whatcha waiting for?" The crow pokes his head out, flapping his wings to spread the curtains; there's nothing but a dirt enclosure inside the hut, as far as I can tell. What furniture exists in there is sparse and worn down. "Come in!"

"I'd just like to know where I am," I say as politely as I can.

"Crow village!" the crow caws impatiently at me. I take it back. The Interface's name is better. "Come in! Outside cold! Talk inside!"

Is it cold? I hadn't noticed. Maybe Tough Skin has more of an effect than I thought. I trot in obediently, mostly because I can't come up with any excuse not to do so, and am immediately met with a smell.

The smell of wet crows. It's not particularly pleasant. Other than that, the interior is pretty much everything I expected; what little furniture there is is made up of twigs, and there's a whole nest of twigs in the corner that I assume is the crow's bed.

"Sit down!" the crow insists. He plops himself down on one of the chairs, and I'm surprised to see it hold him up. I very gingerly sit down on one of the seats, worried it'll break beneath me and ready to shoot up if I hear so much as a crack...

...but no, it's fine. The surprise must've shown on my face, because the crow taps his beak knowingly. "Firmament enhanced!"

I start, and my eyes narrow. So these people know magic.

The crow, for his part, doesn't seem to notice my alarm. He wiggles around in his chair until he's comfortable, then looks me over. "Strange creature," he mutters, mostly to himself. "Very loud. Unstable Firmament."

"I'm sitting right here." And he's been much louder than me, but I don't say that part out loud.

"Weird," he declares, pointing a wing at me. "But will answer your question. This place Hestia. Planet. Our planet. Not yours."

He pauses, and then with a hint of pride, adds, "Hestia chosen to host Trial. Invaders come, get tested."

Hestia is a planet. Not just a small, isolated location created for the sole purpose of the Trials. And he's familiar with Trials. I can't help but tense a little at the way he calls us invaders, a term with a distinctly negative connotation; I'm prepared to run if I need to. Or fight.

I grip the scythe just a little tighter.

He doesn't seem to notice. "No threat," he says. "We help you pass Trial. Get planet back."

I frown, some tension bleeding out of me. "Back?"

"Monsters. Needed for Trial. Planet overrun." My chest tightens at the words. "We proud. But planet dying. Want Trial over."

"I see." I wonder if he's really as proud as he seems as he says he is. That information is... worrying. He doesn't seem like he's lying, and if he's not lying, then the Integrators have played him and his people for fools. Propaganda is a powerful tool. "Do you know how you can help me, then?"

"Depends!" he squawks out the word. "You need training! Firmament training. Your Firmament weak."

Presumably, training with them will be faster than trying to train alone. If he admires the Integrators, I'll still need to be careful around him, but the rewards outweigh the risks.

I'm almost eager to accept, but there's another question pressing on my mind. "You said this planet's called Hestia? What's the 307B part? Is that the zone?"

"What 307B?" the crow glares at me like I've committed some sort of personal offense; I frown back. Is that just how the Interface numbers things internally, then?

Something about that feels... strange. I'm not convinced it's correct.

But then a rumble starts; I feel it in my core first, before I notice the furniture is shaking. The chair I'm sitting on starts to feel distinctly shaky, and I get up just a moment before it falls apart; the crow sitting opposite me just falls to the ground with an indignant caw that very quickly turns fearful.

There's a flurry of worried squawks outside. I take a moment to help the old crow up to his feet and rush over to the door.

Apparently, there are a lot more crows living here than I thought. The village had seemed pretty empty at first, but that was apparently because they had all been indoors; now all of them had flooded out of their homes, and were staring up at the top of the cliff in fear.

I follow their gaze.

There are harpies descending at least a dozen, each one utterly identical. It's hard to see them clearly from such a distance, at least for me, but even as far away as they are I can make out some details. They have misshapen wings, one significantly larger than the other.

What's disturbing, too, is that every one of them has one arm missing. The wound almost looks fresh.

They dive towards the ground, too fast to be safe, and a notification appears.Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m nov𝒆lb(i)n.c(o)m

[ Warning: You are in range of a Raid! ]

[ Rank E Raid Lost Harpies proceeding! You have three chances to beat this raid. If you fail, Cliffside Crows will be removed from your map. ]

[ New feature unlocked! You may now utilize the Timeline Tracker. ]

Gee, thanks.

I take a moment to glance around.

This planet is real. If what the old crow said is to be believed and I have no reason to disbelieve him then the people here are real, too. They've lost their planet to some sick game, and they've been told that this is an opportunity. They've been told to be proud that their planet is to be used as a battleground.

I've been taking a lot of this a little lightly, perhaps. It's hard to feel the stakes when you can't die and the loss of your planet is just words on a screen. You have all the time in the world, after all.

But this?

There are children here.

They're so small.

I grip my scythe.

For the first time since this started, I find myself well and truly angry.

[ Loop 6 in progress. ]

[ Status:

Name: Ethan

Durability Skills: Tough Skin (Rank F)

Firmament Skills: Temporal Echo (Rank D)

Credit Distribution:

Strength: 7

Durability: 5 (9 banked)

Reflex: 9

Speed: 7

Firmament: 2 (2 banked) ]