Die. Respawn. Repeat.

Chapter 82: Book 2: Problem Solving

Even if I hadn't grown sharply between my last attempt at exploring the Fracture and my current one, Guard and Tarin's presences are enough to make the first three hundred meters of the Fracture a cakewalk. Guard by himself would probably be more than enough the more I watch him fight, the more I appreciate that me pushing him into the Fracture might have been nothing more than luck.

That, or something else was at play.

[ You have defeated an Abyssal Cicada (Rank A)! +47 Strength credits. +92 Durability credits. +86 Speed credits. +60 Reflex credits. +27 Firmament credits. ]

Presumably I don't get the full Firmament credit because Tarin and Guard did most of the work on that one. It's a relief to finally see all of the credits I've accumulated since the fight against the chimeras, though; evidently training in that tournament was good for something.

That, or fighting off Whisper's... well, Whispers, was enough to award me a good number of credits.

...Calling her just Whisper is probably going to get confusing given her skill is also a 'Whisper', but I've decided she hasn't earned me referring to her by her proper title. I'd sooner do that for Guard. He-Who-Guards. Whatever.

[ You have defeated an Abyssal Cicada (Rank A)! +1 Firmament credit. ]

I didn't get to contribute much to that one. I'm lucky I got any credits at all. Guard and Tarin both are focused on defending us from the literal horde of monsters buzzing towards us, with Guard doing the majority of the work and Tarin getting progressively more frustrated and competitive.

I'd join them, but I think I'd just get in Guard's way, at this point. That, and I still don't want to reveal everything I'm capable of to Whisper. I hate to admit it, but she seems to be right I did need his help here. The thought makes my lip curl in distaste.

We're getting close to where Rotar is, according to Miktik. I can't see him in the distance at all, but she insists that he's nearby, and that he should be visible.

As Guard and Tarin clear out the last of the cicadas, though, Rotar and K'hkeri-slash-Ikaara both become visible. The sight of them is briefly relieving, and then slightly concerning.

They're not actually standing on land at all. They're floating in the air, right above the endlessly deep Fracture.

"You guys might need to catch them once I bring them back," I say. Honestly, I don't even know if I can. I'm hoping against hope that Temporal Fragment will give me something this is somewhat within its area of expertise, and the skill still hasn't given up all its secrets.

It's been a while since I've used it for anything besides calling up Ahkelios. I haven't even used it to bring out echoes of myself; it hasn't really been relevant. But calling on the skill again feels like reaching for an old friend. The Firmament it uses is unlike anything else I've encountered. It rushes up into my skull, granting me sight the ability to reach for any of my past loops and bring forth an echo of myself...

...but that's not the functionality I want, here and now.

I close my eyes, and reach deeper into the skill.

There's at least one other ability inherent to the skill I'm aware of. The connection I hold with Ahkelios still thrums within me. Part of the skill is able to reach out to anything that's out of sync with time and create a connection with it; that's the part of the skill that I used to connect with both the harpy and Ahkelios.

That's the part of the skill I need but it doesn't resonate with Rotar or Ikaara. Not in the same way, at least. The skill knows that they're there, it just doesn't respond to them in the same way. There's no connection I can forge with them because they aren't an echo or a fragment; they're complete beings caught outside time.

A certainty settles within me, guided by Inspect: Temporal Fragment in its current form cannot bring Rotar and Ikaara back. It can make the connection if I force it, perhaps, but with its limited ability to manifest the things I make a connection with, it can do no more than bring out a partial copy. Like Ahkelios, in some ways, and like my own echoes in others.

I take a breath. Tarin is watching me, worried, and I'm not ready to give up yet. I have my Inspirations, the aspect of the Interface that allows me to modify the function of skills. I have points I can bank. I have skills I can merge.

All I need is time.

The Mirror Twice Shattered. The All-Seeing Eye. The Void. The Accelerator.

The Void and the Accelerator are out. The Void will consume everything that Rotar and Ikaara are. The Accelerator can do little more than speed up the process by which I manifest their echoes, and its link to the Void makes it even more suspect. Both Inspirations seem eager to be used, but I close myself off to them.

The All-Seeing Eye is an Inspiration I use to combine skills. It might help me here if I can find something to combine Temporal Fragment with Crystallized Strength, for example. A way for me to compound all the fragments of a person I can pull out, and reconstitute them from the pieces...

...That one's a little more violent than I would like, and I have no guarantee it would work the way I want it to.

The Mirror Twice Shattered is the unique one amongst my Inspirations. I can mirror a skill four different ways through it, lensing it through different aspects of my past that each relate to one of the basic categories of credit offered by the Interface. In theory, that allows me to use it to convert any skill into a Strength, Speed, Reflex, or Durability skill.

None of that feels like it helps me here.

"Ethan?" Tarin caws, hopping closer. "You can help?"

"I don't know." My voice is terse. I've been banking on Temporal Fragment for this, and I'm only now realizing that I just haven't really planned enough. Even if I use the Mirror and strengthen the connection I can make with Rotar and Ikaara which is the only one of the Mirror's reflections I think could work in this situation I don't know that it'll give me enough to restore both Rotar and Ikaara. Or even one of them.

But there's no way to know for sure except to try. Inspect is silent on this one.

I pull the trigger, and the Inspiration surges within me.

Inspirations are fundamentally different from skills in a way that's always been hard to articulate. Now, with a slightly deeper understanding of Firmament and layering, I'm able to see a little bit more of what it does. The change it invokes onto the Firmament happens underneath the surface layer of Firmament. The Inspiration is almost like... a filter. A lens that acts upon the deeper layers, twisting and changing its underlying nature, giving it new shape and form and power.

Temporal Fragment burns an angry red within me. Connect, I tell it; I nudge at the part of the skill that resonates with anything out-of-sync with time, the same part of the skill that called me to the harpies, that called me to Ahkelios. The movement is initially slow and sluggish, reluctant but the Mirror makes it surge forward, bright and strong and eager.

I make a connection. Firmament wraps around something impossible and intangible, a moment out of sync with time. Rotar.

It's... a miscalculation.

The first thing that happens with a connection forged through Temporal Fragment is a flood of memories. This time, altered and affected by the Mirror, the memories that rush towards me are fragmented and incomplete.

The Mirror is tainted with my own memories, my own emotions. Strength from the Mirror comes from my angriest moments and so when it reaches Rotar, those are all the memories that rush toward me.

I see Rotar shouting at an assistant in a lab, the background indistinct and blurry compared to the sharp focus on him and his assistant. Rotar's feathers are disheveled. The coat he's wearing is stained with splotches of dark brown fluid.

I see Rotar sitting alone at his desk. There's a deep, burning frustration deep within him; the papers scattered in front of him show diagrams that are utterly unintelligible to me and unintelligible to him, too, if the crushed-up pile of papers is any indication. There's a shattered mug lying next to him, glass and ceramic just scattered messily on his table.

I see Rotar burning with fury. He punches a wall hard enough that I think he might have cracked the bones in his wing. His assistant cowers before him. Her face is blurred and out of sync with the memory; she's not the source of his anger, just the person he's taking his anger out on.

And then... rejection.

That part is Rotar. Temporal Fragment bridges the gap between us, forming a bond that's not unlike the one I share with Ahkelios, though this one is tinged with the Mirror's angry red. Through that bond, I can feel a vague impression of his state of mind, his thoughts, his feelings...

He's angry, and that anger has nothing to do with the Mirror.

I can't blame him. His Firmament rails against the connection that Temporal Fragment tries to form, fighting against it in a combination of instinct or self preservation I pull it back just as hurriedly, because I know with a sudden certainty that if I allow this, the connection will be tainted. It will create an echo of Rotar cobbled together from his worst frustrations and angriest moments. It will create an echo of Rotar that is wrong.

The Mirror falls apart. The Inspiration falters. The skill ends.

I stare at Rotar's frozen body, breathing heavily. The Mirror still takes something deep out of me. I can't imagine my Firmament would look like anything close to coherent if I examined its layers now.

"I'm sorry," I say, feeling suddenly drained from more than just using the Inspiration. "I don't think I can get them out. We'll need to figure something else out."

Tarin looks crestfallen. Miktik looks... a little sick. Guard is largely impassive, though I sense sweeping waves of Firmament emanating from him he's scanning the Fracture for anything that might attack us.

I'm not completely out of options. Maybe if I stayed here for long enough, threw myself at the problem for long enough if I rotated through every Inspiration and skill combination I have...

But even then, it's just a maybe. We need something else. A different solution, or a new skill. Maybe an upgraded version of Temporal Fragment, if I can roll it again.

We'll figure something else out, and we'll come back for Rotar. If he's gone in the next loop, Miktik should be able to find him again. Nothing here is permanent. I open my mouth to say we should retreat.

But before I can say a word, Guard collapses.