Die. Respawn. Repeat.

Before we go in for the second try, I decide it's time to bank some points. We're over the threshold for Durability, and I'd rather not lose to something like spears through my body again. Crystallized Barrier and Verdant Armor alone are powerful defensive skills, but as far as I could determine, they weren't quite enough when facing the Seedmother. The sheer amount of power in its attacks...

No. I need a third skill, I think. Something I can use against the Seedmother to survive the incredible variety of destructive skills it seems to possess. Besides, better to bank the credits now so that any new credits I earn in these fights go toward the next skill, and not just a chance for a better one in this roll.

[Are you sure you wish to bank 1,014 Durability credits?]

[1,014 Durability credits banked! Rolling for results...]

[Select between:

Diamond Carapace (Rank S Physical Upgrade)

Impermeability (Rank S Physical Upgrade)

Adamant Bones (Rank S Physical Upgrade)

Phase Metabolism (Rank S Physical Upgrade)]

I stare at the Interface options for a moment, then glance at Ahkelios, who seems even more speechless than I am. The confirmation that I'm doing the right thing is nice, though I'm a little nonplussed by Kauku's apparent ability to watch me and interfere with the Interface to this degree.

On the other hand, the fact that I've received physical upgrades instead of skills is more concerning by a fair margin.

"You know anything about this?" I ask eventually. Ahkelios shakes his head at first, then hesitates, changes his mind, and nods.

"Kind of," he says, seeming a little uncertain about it. "I've seen the Interface offer a physical upgrade as a reward before, but not from banking credits. It's usually a reward for clearing a dungeon or something. And they're usually... optional."

I glance at the floating screen in front of me. "Doesn't seem that optional, this one," I say dryly.

"No," Ahkelios agrees with a solemn little frown. He hops closer, reaching out as if to touch the Interface window before withdrawing, as though remembering it's not his. "Does Inspect work on them?"

"It does." In fact, Inspect gives me a pretty clear image of how each of the options will change me. Diamond Carapace will quite literally give me an insectoid shell, and I dismiss that out of hand immediately—my link with the Knight already covers that angle, and I'm not all that interested in a permanent, visible change.

I'm not prepared for the Interface to change me quite that much, and if I have to accept some changes, I'd like for them to be minimal.

The others are a little more acceptable in that they won't change how I look. Impermeability is exactly what it says on the tin—it's an immunity of sorts to stabbing and penetrating attacks. That would technically save me from getting killed via beetle-leg-to-the-face again, except it doesn't really change anything about the inside of my body, and all that would happen is that I'd have my bones and organs crushed inside my perfectly intact skin.

I shudder a little at the idea. No, I don't think I'll be picking that one, either.

Adamant Bones and Phase Metabolism are the most interesting of the lot. Mostly because, like Impermeability, Adamant Bones promises to make my bones virtually indestructible—which seems more useful than just making my skin indestructible, depending on how the force of a blow moves through my skeleton. And Phase Metabolism...

I wince. It would be an easy pick if not for the physical change that accompanied it, and even that I would've been willing to accept if that change weren't so much of a glaring weakness.

It's a... Firmament sac, for lack of a better term. The change would allow me to biologically process Firmament and use it to alter aspects of my body—speeding up healing or forcing myself to metabolize a poison, for instance. The problem is almost entirely in the fact that it would manifest as an easy-to-target, glowing sac, and taking a hit in it would be debilitating.

To say the least.

The prospect of the upgrade is still tempting, if only because of how much I might be able to learn about Firmament, but if this is an option at all then I'm going to guess that there are similar creatures in the Empty City or elsewhere. Knowing that it's physically possible is enough of a start for me to look into it. Even the Seedmother processes Firmament, technically, although I imagine it's not going to be easy to figure out how until we defeat it.

I sigh and make my choice.

[Adamant Bones obtained!]

The wave of pain is more or less expected, and I'm already gritting my teeth by the time it starts. It feels like a vibration in my bones—like the sound of a powerful bass ripping through my skeleton and making it rattle against my flesh. My vision blurs, and I would have collapsed to my knees if not for Guard reaching out to catch me. He holds me gently, like he's afraid I'll break.

I'm not that weak. I don't get the chance to say it, though, because anything I try to say comes out like I'm speaking into a spinning fan; the sound emerges warped and distorted, and I give up after a moment.

This is fine. It's comfortable enough.

The intense shaking rattling through my body settles after a moment. I have to blink away the doubled vision, and there's an ache in my muscles that tells me this change did some real, physical damage to my body. More than that, I feel like I'm a little larger than before, a little taller...

"The Interface does not respect its Trialgoers." There's something in Guard's voice that's more than disapproving. He sounds almost... upset.

"It never has," I reply with a shrug. I try for a stretch, wincing as I feel every muscle scream in protest—but I'm not immobile. This is minor damage at best, and in a moment or two I should be healed enough to fight again.

Time for round two.

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"Come on. Let's go."

On the second try, we lose.

The new Durability-based change helps, but it's not as much of a game-changer as I hoped. Not for the fight against the Seedmother, at least. It has a lot more skills than any of us expected, even with the information I got from using The Road Not Taken. Besides the black hole, the spear, and the lightning, it has skills that manipulate all the vines and tendrils around us—and there are so many more of those things than I expected.

Seriously. Those roots seem to be embedded all over the city, digging into every street and structure. I'd spend time ruminating on it if not for the fact that most of my attention has to go toward trying to stay alive.

On top of that, the Seedmother has a skill that melts concrete. Then it shows us something that freezes air into a solid barrier. A third skill that creates tiny portals into what I think might be a dimension of pure fire; I only realize that because trying to Warpstep through the flames nearly drained all the Firmament I have. I need to be more careful with that.

Even fighting with everything we have, it's not that much of a surprise that we lose—especially since we have to deal with the condition that the Seed needs to remain safe. Ahkelios tries running away from the fight multiple times, but the Seedmother almost seems to prioritize the Seed as a target, then me as a secondary target.

On some level, it fights like it knows the role it's playing in the Interface's game.

I doubt it actually does. It doesn't seem particularly intelligent—the way it fights is more a game of action and reaction, a semi-random selection of skills chosen to deal with specific situations. At some point over the course of the fight, Ahkelios, Guard and I all realize we aren't going to win this first attempt and focus instead on predicting it: on finding out if we can get the Seedmother to respond in specific ways to situations we put it in.

If we corner it, there's a good chance it'll use the skill that melts concrete and disappear into the ground for a minute or two. If Guard gets right up into its face, the Seedmother will relatively predictably use its black hole skill. If all three of us are about the same distance away, it calls up its lightning skill.

There's some variation to it. Sometimes it'll try to do something new, like using that flamethrower attack instead of the lightning; sometimes, it'll disregard skills altogether, instead focusing on a series of physical attacks as it tries to ram us into buildings or flail one of its many, many legs at us.

It's that last thing that catches me off-guard. Even with Premonition helping me, it shatters my Crystallized Barrier and my Verdant Armor, then strikes me directly in the face.

Probably one of my more embarrassing deaths, all things considered. Immutable bones don't quite stop the shockwave from obliterating my brain.

I did notice something, though, right before my death. Crystallized Barrier manages to survive for a fraction of a second longer than I would've expected—almost as long as Verdant Armor itself does.

Which means it's still growing in strength. I knew that to be an element of the skill, but I sort of assumed there would be an upper limit on it; instead, every time the barrier breaks, it gets stronger the next time I use it. There's no apparent increase in Firmament cost or anything, either.

I really need to be using that skill a lot more. I'm sure I'll hit an upper limit eventually, but this thing is valuable beyond its rank.

Unfortunately, that information doesn't help me this loop.

[You have died. +27 Strength credits. +87 Durability credits. +102 Reflex credits. +33 Speed credits.]

He-Who-Guards felt his systems heat up in a mixture of anger and frustration, though more directed at himself than at either of his companions.

He had known when choosing to fight with Ethan that the Trial would not be a simple one, but he hadn't expected to be fought to a standstill this quickly. He'd been one of the strongest combatants Isthanok had to offer for pretty much his entire life. Whisper's conversion of him from silverwisp into this abomination of metal didn't change that—if anything, as far as fighting was concerned, it was an improvement.

The amount of Firmament he commanded was formidable, and the technology that had gone into constructing his frame was quite literally among the best Whisper could procure. Half the materials hadn't even been acquired from Hestia.

And yet he was losing. They were losing. This was their third time fighting the Seedmother, and even now, he didn't have a better sense of how they would beat the thing. Sure, they were learning its patterns, and the artificial intelligence embedded within him was getting better at predicting what it would do, but that didn't help. Not when he couldn't adequately protect the Seed or do enough damage to the Seedmother to stop it.

Engage shields, the AI whispered. Vines incoming. 5 o'clock.

Pure Firmament rippled out from his arms into a perfect, shining barrier; he pivoted on the spot, slamming the shield directly into the encroaching vines. It pushed them to the side slightly, but it took only a momentary beating before the shield was shattered. The Seedmother was leveraging enough force that he couldn't stop it.

He-Who-Guards had never been this far on the back foot before. His optic flashed in angry desperation—he didn't like this. Didn't like being only marginally able to help, didn't like being little more than a distraction.

He was here to help, wasn't he?

Ethan reminded him so much of She-Who-Whispers. More precisely, he reminded him of who she'd been. Before she fell to the manipulations of the Integrators. Before she'd been forced to make difficult decision after difficult decision, stripping away any pretense of morality she once held and turning her into a ruthless dictator that would do anything to realize her vision of perfection.

This human had the same conviction she once had, the same powerful drive to do what he considered to be right, no matter the consequences. He had the same look in his eyes when he saw an injustice and declared it to be wrong.

It made Guard ache. He missed who Whisper had been.

It made him worry. He wouldn't be able to take it if Ethan went down the same path she did.

And it made him glad, because unlike Whisper, he didn't think Ethan would.

There was a fire in that human—a fire Whisper never had. It was his drive to not only make sure things were right, but to do them the right way. It was his refusal to bend to pressures that would have made anyone else break.

That fire ignited something in Guard he'd thought was long gone. He'd failed Whisper. He didn't want to—couldn't—fail Ethan. He never thought he'd be drawn to someone in the same way again, that he'd believe in someone the same way again, and then the damn human had pulled off three impossible things at once in a feat that still left Guard in awe.

Ethan forced Whisper to give up what he was doing, even if it was temporary. He'd deflected an entire asteroid, one that the Integrators had set up to destroy their home.

And he'd cured him. Not even Whisper had been able to do that. He-Who-Guards wondered sometimes if Ethan understood exactly what he'd managed to pull off, or if he'd just filed it under the dozen other impossible things he'd done like it was no big deal.

Guard owed him more than words could express, and yet, at the very first enemy they fought together—and even before that, with the Interface forcing a change on Ethan that he hadn't been able to do a thing about...

Is there nothing else we can do? He felt useless, and this was only the first obstacle. Unlike Ethan, he couldn't grow with the Interface; if he hit his limits now, then this was all he would ever be able to provide in support. Yet he'd tried almost everything in his repertoire, scanned and analyzed everything he could...

...except...

No. There was one thing he hadn't scanned yet, wasn't there?

Those patterns on the Seedmother's back. The ones it used to fire skills.

They looked like circuitry.

In the back of his mind, Guard began to wonder. In the back of his mind, a certain artificial intelligence began recording every permutation of that circuitry, linking each set of patterns with their observed results.

Circuitry was something he could copy.

Maybe he wasn't stuck with his limits.

If Ethan had taught him anything, it was that the impossible was just another thing to punch through.