Die. Respawn. Repeat.

I appreciate the silence as we speed through the scenery. Both Ahkelios and Tarin can see that I'm not in the mood to talk, and while they seem like they want to ask me what's on my mind, they've both chosen to give me space for now. I appreciate it — I'm not sure I'm ready to confront the whirlwind of thoughts that are still running through my mind.

Naru mentioned that the Hotspot we encountered was from the fifty-seventh Trial. That implies that Ahkelios was the fifty-seventh looper, and I can probably check by going through the Anomaly logs, assuming he left any. There are other possibilities — fifty-seventh might mean the fifty-seventh out of Earth's three thousand Trialgoers — but that seems like a stretch, especially with how clear it is that Ahkelios is related to the Hotspot. He's got memories of it, after all.

So I've always known that there have been many, many Trials on Hestia. I just didn't consider that there had been over three hundred. The number is chilling to me, because that number represents more than three hundred planets — more than three hundred civilizations that have been approached by the Integrators.

It also represents more than three hundred attempts to beat this Trial.

I'm not being told everything. The Trial has to be something more than just willpower, if that many people have failed.

My ruminations aside, it's not much longer before one of the Great Cities appears over the horizon. Apparently, we've already covered most of the distance at the speed we've been going. I still don't expect the sheer scale of it, though; what begins as a dull, matte-gray line quickly rises over the trees, and eventually towers taller than some of the skyscrapers I've seen on Earth.

Tarin and I slow down, mostly so we aren't approaching the wall at full speed. I doubt the guards will react well to two Firmament-enhanced individuals rocketing like bullets towards their walls. Good thing, too, because as soon as we stop, we're approached by one of the guards.

He isn't wearing a voidsuit, to my relief; I don't have to worry that I'm interacting with someone that's being physically controlled through Void, let alone the reaction that the Inspiration would have to that. Instead, he's wearing a set of heavy plate armor that's shimmering with a dense layer of Firmament — I can feel the complexity of the anchoring through my Firmament sense.

And yet it's distinctly different from how the crows do it. There's no anchoring point to tie the Firmament into the object. Instead, it feels like the Firmament has been shaped and weaved in such a way that its shape conforms to the armor. On top of that, I can sense other layers and types of Firmament coursing through the woven network.

Now that I think about it, Virin only ever helped me with the enchantment stage of imbuement. There are still the anchoring and magnification stages. I'll have to talk to him again when I get the chance — I need every advantage I can get.

"Ahem," the guard says, and I realize I've been staring at his armor for a while. Tarin snickers at me, and I roll my eyes. "State the purpose of your visit?"

Tarin answers for me, thankfully. I'm not quite ready to talk to anyone yet. "We here to tour!" he says, puffing his chest out proudly. "We hear great things about the Great Cities, see? We want see for ourselves. So we here."

"Right." The guard doesn't look like he believes Tarin. He folds his arms across his chest, scanning Tarin closely, and then turning his gaze to me.

And then his eyes land on Ahkelios, and I tense.

"What is that?" the guard asks.

Before I can come up with a response, Ahkelios speaks. "I'm not a 'what', I'm a 'who'!" he declares indignantly. He crosses his own arms, mimicking the guard's own stance, except his stature makes him look patently ridiculous compared to the guard. I start to ready myself to use my skills; Quicken Mind, to ready myself for anything the guard does...

...but Premonition isn't activating. There isn't danger here?

"Hah!" The guard bursts into guffawing laughter, his entire attitude suddenly changing. "I see. You're entertainers! From one of our vassal states, I assume? I know one's populated with a lot of you crows, although I have no idea what either of you little friends here are. Picked up a stray, did you?"

Despite myself, I relax. Being called a stray isn't great, but it's better than any of the myriad of other reactions this guy could have had. It does strike me as strange that he doesn't immediately recognize me as a Trialgoer — it's a possibility I forgot to consider, and one that I'm regretting now, except Tarin doesn't seem at all concerned about it.

Tarin and Mari both recognized almost immediately that I was a Trialgoer. What's different here?

Maybe the population on Hestia is a lot more diverse than I'd initially assumed. I've already seen crows and morphlings, after all, and I have no idea what species this guard is; most of his features are hidden behind his armor. He's humanoid, but that's about all I can identify — even the helmet has an obscuring layer of shadowy Firmament that hides everything except his eyes.

They're strange eyes, though. Chromatic. Not a morphling or a crow, then, unless there's something I don't know about either of those species.

"Not stray!" Tarin says, to my surprise. "He friend. He help me, understand? What word... Ah! Apprentice!"

Well, I'm glad Tarin's standing up for me, at least.

"I train him!"

Mostly glad.

"City has training facilities, yes?"

Maybe not that glad.

"Of course, of course," the guard says, not questioning anything Tarin is saying at all. It's a wonder this city hasn't been invaded yet.

But maybe that's what this is. They aren't paranoid about attackers because they have no reason to be; that armor the guard is wearing is already stuffed with more Firmament than I could hope to generate on my own, and if every one of their guards has something like that, then they don't have much to fear from the outside. I'm not exactly familiar with Hestian geography or most of the landmarks on this continent, so it's possible they've just had a long, extended peacetime.

If they're not scared, though, why the massive wall?

I remember what Rotar's told me about the Great Cities — that they're a loose coalition of cities clustered around the center of the continent. Presumably, this is one of them. I probably should've asked Tarin for a little more information about the specific city we were headed to first.

Then we get to the Gates, and everything makes a lot more sense.

The wall isn't surrounding a city like I'd assumed. This is a massive wall that encircles a giant section of land, within which the Cities reside. I wonder for a moment what the point of the wall is, and then I remember what Tarin told me about the number of monsters seeded on Hestia because of the Trial. Maybe they built it to defend themselves, and since this is still early in the cycle — and the first loop — they haven't had to actually fight anything yet.

I think about the chimeras I had to fight.

Yet. Even with their armor, if enough of those decide to try to break through the walls, I'm not sure they can fight them all off. That, and I doubt the chimeras are the only monsters roaming Hestia. I'm surprised we didn't run into anything on the way here, but at the speeds we were going, I'm guessing we blew past the majority of the monsters that would otherwise have chased us down.

The gate itself is a transparent barrier of Firmament. It's dense and thick, too, stronger than almost anything I've encountered short of the blast in the Fracture. Part of me wonders how it's being maintained, but considering the entire wall seems to be charged and imbued with Firmament, part of me suspects that this is just a project that they've been working on for a long, long time.

In stark contrast with the Firmament-enhanced gate and the sheer scale of the wall, however, is the outpost of guards that stand around just outside the gate. They have a scattered set of tents and wooden furniture that looks like it's been sitting out in the open for years and barely maintained. It doesn't stop the five other guards from lounging about in those seats, each clad in an identical set of armor and a glimmering rod tied to their hips.

Huh. The guard leading us has that rod conspicuously absent.

Strange.

"Alright," the guard says. "We just need you guys to register with us. One sample of Firmament for tracking, and you can be on your way to wherever you're headed."

A sample of Firmament? I don't like the idea of being tracked.

"Andos," another guard calls. She — I think she's a she, anyway — gets up from her seat and strides over, then folds her arms across her chest. She's a little taller than the others, and now that I look more closely, her armor is different in subtle ways. There's a symbol etched into the chestplate that's only visible when the sun catches on it just right. "Did you clear them for entry?"

"Almost done, Qura!" the guard that's apparently named Andos replies cheerfully. "They're just entertainers. A crow and his... whatever that is. His apprentice. What are you, anyway?"

"Human," I say dryly. It's not like they'll be able to get anything from the word; it's foreign to them.

"Human!" Andos says cheerfully. "A crow and his human."

"Please don't refer to me like I'm a belonging."

I don't really care either way, in truth. I'm busy trying to think of a way to avoid this — I don't really want to give away a piece of my Firmament for them to use, especially with the Interface so tied up with me. Rotar's already told me that the Cities are interested in exploiting the Interface specifically; if they know that I'm the Trialgoer, I'm going to be a target. How do I avoid this?

"How do you take a Firmament sample?" I ask, partly to distract them and partly to buy myself time. Andos walks over to a nearby crate and pulls it open, neatly ripping off the lid and a chunk of the crate with it. I wince at the sound of the wood cracking and splintering.

"With this!" Andos says. He spins around and flourishes a small crystal at me. "All you have to do is imbue it with a piece of your Firmament. Simple! Give it a try."

That actually is pretty simple, but that doesn't mean I want to do it.

Firmament Manipulation comes in handy here, along with just the lightest touch of Void; the Inspiration feels sleepy, for lack of a better word, but it doesn't mind lending me its power to draw a little bit more Firmament out of the air and into my arm. Then, as I take the crystal from Andos, I flood it with that ambient, passive Firmament.

The crystal turns green and I can almost swear it makes a ding.

"There you go!" Andos retrieves the crystal from me, digs around in the crate for a fresh one, and then hands it to Tarin. I try to weave another piece of ambient Firmament frantically, but before I can do anything, Tarin takes it and floods it with his traditional black Firmament. It crackles with electricity.

I wince. Hopefully that won't come back and bite us.

"Wooh, that's a lot," Andos says, whistling. He takes Tarin's crystal back, then walks off with both our crystals, grabbing a strange-looking... I mean, it looks like a gun, except it has prongs instead of a barrel. "Names?"

"Tarin," Tarin says.

"Ethan," I say. I wonder why he's not trying to get a sample of Ahkelios' Firmament. Does he assume he's just my pet?

...Probably.

Andos clicks the trigger of the gun, sending some Firmament into it at the same time; the prongs fill with energy, and a second later, both crystals are imprinted with our names.

I can't help but feel like this was almost too easy. Qura's staring at me, and I get the strange sense that she's frowning, but she doesn't say anything further.

"Well," Andos says. He hands us both a small medallion stamped with an image of... what looks like some type of bird. "Here are your passes to the Cities. They'll let you pass through the gate. Let me know where you're going to have a show sometime! I'd love to come watch."

"We send message back to guards!" Tarin says, dragging me along with a wing. "Must see cities first. Then decide."

"Sounds good!" Andos says cheerfully, and a fraction of a second later the sound of his voice is swallowed by the barrier of Firmament that envelops us. Ahkelios actually flickers within the density of it, though he isn't forced to stay outside like I'd worried might happen.

And then we're through. The walls stretch behind us, protecting us from the monsters outside.

Or, you know. Protecting them from us. More fun to think about it that way.