Die. Respawn. Repeat.

It begins with a spark of Firmament. A single, tiny spark of one of the fundamental forces of the universe, parallel to all the rules of matter and energy.

Or something like that, anyway. I'm not exactly a scientist.

The void around me burns into focus from that single spark of Firmament. I look around at the clean, alabaster-white halls, the rounded benches and the perfectly potted plants placed perpendicular to their length.

"Ethan!" a voice calls, and I hold back a sigh at the familiar voice. Gheraa. It's been a while since I've seen him. He's been on my mind, but with my only means of contacting him being accumulating an enormous amount of credits, I haven't really been able to follow up on anything as far as he's concerned.

"Gheraa," I say, trying to keep my tone polite. I turn around to greet him. The Integrator is dressed even more ostentatiously than before, if that's possible; a white-and-gold trimmed form-fitting suit, clearly stolen from human fashion and 'upgraded' with Gheraa's particular tastes.

"I've been asked to conduct an interview to assess how your experience of the Trials have been so far," he says, sweeping into a low bow and manifesting a microphone in his hand. Strangely enough, now that I'm a little better at reading him, I can see all the ways he's hiding the way he really feels. I can see the grimace he's hiding in his eyes, the frustration in his shoulders. "Rate your experience so far? One to five?"

"One," I say dryly. Gheraa puts on a faux-shocked expression.

"One? But you've gained so much from it!"

"I've gained a set of skills I never would have needed in my day-to-day life," I correct, which is more or less true. "Also, you introduced yourselves by threatening to destroy Earth. Not exactly a good first impression."

"You might have a point, there," Gheraa says in a too-cheerful voice. "We've had similar responses from other Trialgoers! I'm actually surprised you're being so polite."

"Would attacking you actually do anything?"

"Nope!"

"Then I'm not going to waste my energy." Not that I would attack him anyway, considering the situation I suspect he's in. But we're both playing a role for the metaphorical — and possibly literal — camera, now.

"Why don't you recap your journey for us?" Gheraa asks, leaning forward. "Some of us missed key moments in your Trial. Take us through your journey."

I stare at Gheraa for a moment. The look on my face says it all: really? Gheraa gives me a tiny shrug, as if to say "Just go with it, I don't know why they want this either."

I sigh.

"Well, it all started when you dumped me on an alien planet — while I was sleeping, might I add — underneath a monster that immediately killed me."

"Truly one of the entrances of all time," Gheraa agrees. I give him a look, and he shrugs innocently. "Human internet is entertaining."

"Right," I say, and decide to move on before he derails me further. "I suppose one of you Integrators thought it would be funny, seeing as my Trial is a time loop and I can't actually die."

"Unless you give up."

"Right." I give Gheraa a look. "Unless I give up."

"Or you get your mind broken."

"The fact that you consider that a possibility is worrying," I mutter. Good thing I picked up Iron Mind as a skill. Hopefully it's enough.

"Anyway. Where was I? Woke up on a foreign planet, discovered I was in a time loop. Died a lot, because you decided to start me off under a monster. I finally beat that monster, and encountered the dying moments of another looper, which I feel like you put there intentionally to try to traumatize me."

Gheraa studiously avoids looking at me.

"Then I run into the crow village, which I still don't know the name of, because the Interface just calls it the Cliffside Crows. They get attacked by a pack of harpies and I watch them all get slaughtered."

"Ah, yes." Gheraa hums thoughtfully. "That was a bit controversial among our viewers. Not enough death."

I consider responding to this, and decide not to.

"The Interface calls it a raid," I continue. "I get three attempts, or else the Cliffside Crows get erased entirely."

"A very desperate situation."

I shoot Gheraa a dirty look. "That the Integrators engineered." My tone is sharp. "I only got through it with Mari and Tarin's help, and even then Tarin nearly died permanently in the process. I had to find a rare herb to help him heal, which was hampered by the fact that Hestia is an Integrated planet and already has its own set of Trialgoers that have not only passed their own Trials, but apparently see me as an opponent. I would have appreciated a warning."

"What would be the fun in that?" Gheraa grins. I ignore him.

"Naru's the first one I met. Big, strong crow. Arms instead of wings for some reason. His skills all seem to focus heavily on destruction. Also it turned out he was Tarin and Mari's estranged son, so that was fun to find out."

"Was it?" Gheraa looks genuinely curious.

"No," I deadpan. "I managed to get away from him. Barely. I did bring Mari to him and she kicked him between the legs."

"A very well-received moment with our viewers."

"Do I want to ask you about these viewers you keep mentioning?" I finally ask, and when Gheraa opens his mouth to respond, I shake my head. "Nevermind. I don't want to know. Uh, let's see, what happened next..."

"If I didn't know any better, I would think you're trying to finish this as fast as possible so you can get away from me." Gheraa pretends to look hurt.

"Trying to get away from this situation," I correct. "I hate interviews."

Which isn't a lie. You'd think one good thing about being mid-apocalypse would be not having to go through interviews.

"Anyway. I met Naru because he's investigating one of the Hotspots that spawned — a Hotspot that just so happens to have the exact rare herb I needed to heal Tarin." I stare at Gheraa as I say this, one eyebrow slightly raised. He just whistles innocently. "...That Hotspot also had an obelisk that was emitting pulses of destructive Firmament. Ahkelios recognized the writing on it and said that the key to deciphering it is in the Fracture, so since we couldn't beat Naru yet, we went there."

"You skipped a step," Gheraa says, leaning forward in anticipation. I sigh.

"Before going to the Fracture I banked some of my points and met you," I say dryly. "That's when I learned what an Inspiration is."

"How would you rate my introduction? One out of ten?"

"Five." Gheraa looks disappointed, and I relent. "...Seven."

"Good enough," he decides.

"Anyway. The Fracture is where things really started to go wrong. The Fracture itself was emitting blasts of Firmament on a cycle, and I had to shield myself against them just to avoid getting disintegrated. It's also where I met Guard for the first time, the place I found what I think are partial skill shards, and where I got attacked by golems that felt like they were using skills." Maybe it's my turn to ask a question. "Do you happen to know anything about that, Gheraa?"

"Nope," he responds, far too casually.

That's an answer in itself.

"Right." I move on. "I met a Guardian in the Fracture that said some cryptic stuff about the Fracture being a Way to the Heart, which I think has something to do with Hestia's Heart, although what a Heart is I still don't know."

"Neither do I," Gheraa says, unnecessarily. I give him a look, then narrow my eyes slightly when I notice the way he's fidgeting. He's tugging on his sleeve, but it almost looks like he's pointing.

I stretch and take the opportunity to glance in the direction he's pointing in, where an empty Interface window sits, and consider what he's trying to tell me. That the Heart has something to do with the Interface?

"That's when I got attacked by Guard," I continue. "I managed to push Guard into the Fracture's blasts — which I'm starting to think he somehow let me do — and run away. At this point Naru's had enough time to investigate the Hotspot and move on, so when I go there I don't have to deal with him anymore, which was... probably for the best."

I don't know that I could have gotten strong fast enough to beat him and save Tarin, and frankly, I'm glad that I didn't have to find out. "After that I healed Tarin, I went through my first phase shift with help from all the crows."

I hesitate and stop myself before I describe what happened next, because that's my next meeting with Gheraa, and the one in which I promised I would try to help him. As best as I can tell, he doesn't agree with what the rest of the Integrators are doing, although he clearly has to put on some kind of show, since he's being watched.

Now that I think about it, his sleeves are hiding any bruises he might have. I hide a frown before continuing.

"I was going to go back to the Fracture and try to figure out the whole Heart thing, but one of the crows — Rotar? — showed up and began talking about how his danger-detection divination device is registering a lot of danger. He thought it was Naru, but I'm pretty sure his pocket oracle was registering the literal end of the world."

"Tell me more about this literal end of the world," Gheraa says, leaning forward, fake interest in his voice.

"...When I went into a slipstream with Ikaara and Rotar, it interacted badly with my Interface. Specifically, the part of it that controls the whole time loop thing. Whatever happened, it catapulted me into the future and did god knows what to Rotar and Ikaara."

"The future!" Gheraa sounds impressed. "And this is where you witnessed the end of the world?"

"This is where I witnessed the entire planet blowing up, yes," I say dryly. "You know. From the Fracture spreading all over the place. You couldn't have warned me?"

"That would've made things too easy for you." Gheraa clicks a tongue that I'm not even sure he has, then waves a hand at me. I'm abruptly shoved out of whatever pocket of Firmament I'm in and back in reality.

I sigh. Time to get back to the Trial.

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