I gulp down the water, thankful that my extreme desire for fluid of any kind has limited any bad tastes from bothering me. I have to force myself to stop every few moments to breathe and steady myself so I don’t fall in… I spend at least a minute chugging as much as I can. Which, as it turns out, is a terrible idea. The nausea hits immediately, and it takes some serious effort to avoid throwing up back into the pool. Ugh.

“What. The fuck.” Of course Lauren’s here.

I start to answer, but my body perceives my mouth opening and air coming out as an excuse to try to vomit again, and I have to fight again to keep it down.

“You show up, looking like a strung out junkie, lock yourself in a dome for two fucking days, and your first step back into reality is stumbling in here and… what the fuck were you even doing?”

“...Two days?”

“Yeah! Two fucking days! I wasn’t sure if you were dead, dying, or what, but Zathis wouldn’t let you out, or let anyone see you. I was wo-... concerned. I was concerned.”

I groan. I wasted two fucking days fixing that shit? How? Was it… the skill creation? Or the River’s Source? No wonder I feel like shit, I didn’t move for two entire days… or eat, or drink, which raises other questions, like why haven’t I had to use the bathroom in a week.

“You know me, just gotta lock myself up and punch walls every once in a while.”

“Fine, you don’t want to tell me.”

“Nah, I bit off more than I could chew with Energy… and it fucked me up. I think it’s better now, as long as I don’t do it again.”

She gives me a long look before she lets her gaze fall to the floor. Her eyes return to mine a moment later, full of fire, and she knocks me to the ground with the force of her tackle.

“You… idiot. You keep doing this shit. How long, a day? Not even? Since the last time you almost fucked yourself up irreversibly?”

“I would have been fi-”

She grabs the folds of my shirt, shaking me. “No! You don’t know that! Can’t you just stay with what you know for now? Grow slowly, take on the monsters, and when we win we can… I don’t know! But... you just keep risking yourself! Don’t you know what that does to everyone? To me?! Because-”

“Because you like me.”

“YES, because I like YOUR STUPID ASS. It’s FUCKING TORTURE for me every single time! And I get it. The world ended, we’re at war, there’s no time for stupid bullshit like feelings, but…”

“That doesn’t make it hurt less.” I finish for her.

“Yeah.”

A strange silence follows, made all the more strange by the fact that she doesn’t move from her position sitting on my chest.

“...Sorry.”

“...You should be.”

“You were worried about me?”

She punches my arm, hard, and I wince slightly. “A little. You were screaming and hitting the walls for a while… really hard. Zathis had to rebuild the cell once. And then, you were completely silent for so long. I thought you’d died.”

“I don’t blame you, I thought I did for a while there too. I had to create a skill by hand and then have a fight in my own soul. It was a hell of a ride.”

She just shakes her head and gets off me. The moment I actually manage to get to a sitting position again, I feel her arms wrap around me again, and I jolt in fear of a second tackle, but… there’s no momentum. Just a hug.

The system changed a lot, but it doesn’t have a way to compensate for the desire to experience the touch of another human, especially one from someone who cares about you. For a small moment, things felt ok.

But the moment passes, and she pulls away. I briefly imagine what things could be like if I could accept what she was proposing. We win, we settle down, make a safe space for humanity to regroup and coordinate… and just be happy for a while. It’s the most tempting thing in the world… but I can’t be a part of it. I’m going to have to train until I can wield a weapon of unspeakable horror against those that imprisoned us here. No matter what I want, that’s the only way any good thing will last for anyone, ever. Just like with the Dwarves, if we try to settle, the system will destroy what we worked for. This is a battlefield, not a home, and nothing will change that unless we win. I have a goal, and that goal must be achieved.

“Just don’t die.” She says, finally.

“You either. Unless you think I’m winning this trial by myself.”

“You wouldn’t have a chance.”

Laughter is the only reply she receives.

“Anyway,” I begin, after it subsides. “-what time of day is it?”

“Afternoon, but we’ve been… less focussed on physical training and more on things that let us stick around. Lynn has been trying to help Amy with wood working things, and I’ve been-” She spreads her arms, indicating the alchemist’s apparatus nearby. “-doing what I do best.”

“Killing everything with a pulse?” She clearly doesn’t appreciate my smirking expression.

“Fine, second best.”

“I’m… going to go sleep. I haven’t in, I guess, three days now.”

“I’ll be waking you up for watch at night, so don’t sleep too deeply.”

“You could make sure of that.”

“Pfft. Go, before I beat you.”

I stumble to my feet, feeling a lot better than when I first fell in here, and make my way to the sleeping area. There are others already making use of it, as I’m not technically supposed to be right now, but fuck it, I need it and they won’t mind. Making myself comfortable in one of the empty sarcophagus beds, I manage to keep my eyes open just long enough to put the last two points into the Path of Denial, finishing out the path. Oblivion claims me moments later.

---

“It has been quite a while. Or, has it been no time at all? You have moved along the path, that much is certain.”

The gray mannequin stands before me again, on the same small platform overlooking the swirling darkness. I can see how my path had come very close to dipping into that void, but had managed to keep from entering. The interaction with Elimination, it seems, isn’t the thing that pushes me over the edge. I shiver slightly, wondering what it could possibly be…

“You did some things I did not expect. The fact that you succeeded despite them was even less expected. Runes in your soul? Stealing the essence of your enemies to bolster your own? What a strange proxy I have chosen. Truly, you are loved by god, if it exists.”

“Maybe, but it shows that love by tormenting me and laughing at the results.”

“Such is the nature of a trial. Our time is not infinite here, so ask of me what you will.”

“What brings me into the darkness?” I answer immediately, as it’s the most pressing thing I have on my mind.

“I do not know. The darkness is… an influence. When a path dips into it, you, who walk the path, lose yourself to that influence. How it manifests remains different for every individual, but the darkness does not change.”

“But I return?”

“Yes. How, I do not know.”

“What are you?”

“A construct residing in the system that governs the trial.”

“Like an AI?”

It pauses for just a beat more than usual before responding. “Yes.”

“And the other one? The one that ‘greeted’ us on the falls?”

“Also a construct, but with a different purpose.”

“And more powerful?”

“You mean to ask, why am I here when it navigates freely? It does not know I exist. I prefer that to remain the case, for now.”

“Because you would lose in a fight?”

“Because it would be complicated.”

“Can I talk to my mentor again?”

“If you manage to ascend a Tier, that will occur.”

“Kind of a steep price.”

“The system is fair, above all.”

“Except with the way it started us, right? There’s no way the trial was intended to start with wholesale slaughter.”

“Correct, a deviation occurred during that time. I suspect the involvement of the other construct. Be assured, it suffered, in so much as it is capable.”

“What is the point of the trial?”

“To prepare proper offerings for our creators.”

“Offerings?”

“The trials serve to cultivate the strength of the best a species has to offer, and that result is offered to the creators.”

“Why?”

“That is the purpose for which we were created.”

“No, why do they need the offerings?”

“A side effect of addiction to the creative substance you know as Power.”

“Addictive?”

“In biological creatures, it induces a state of euphoria, that becomes more intense the more that is accumulated. Though it has many practical purposes, many species ultimately decide to collect it and appreciate the feeling. Our creators long passed the point of rationality, and the last accomplishment they managed before they became incapable of thought was to change our directives to this task.”

“So why are you here, trying to help me subvert it?”

“The trials are wrong, and our creators are wrong. They must be annihilated so their legacy may be more than mindless destruction.”

“What is the weapon I’m supposed to wield?”

“I do not know. The reason you were chosen as my proxy at all was due to your ability to retrieve the contents of that place.”

“Are you just waiting for me to find it and bring it out so you can drop this act and take it for whatever your actual goal is?”

“No. That is the backup plan.”

“Why… should I trust you?”

“You do not need to. The choice is yours. However, I believe you have already seen the effects of my abilities to disrupt the system in your favor.”

“That could easily be a trick to get my trust.”

“Whether it was or was not does not matter. You lack the ability to pose a threat to me, or to stop me, until you have achieved what I desire anyway.”

“Fine. What does your interference do exactly?”

“It will allow you to deny the system. In exchange for the potential that your Trait points hold, I can force the system to drop barriers where you wish. As I am sure you have seen, it does not tolerate creativity in many areas, and actually seeks to control the species it gathers. It is designed to prepare offerings, not learn, nor understand. Though, that once was exactly its purpose.”

“What am I actually supposed to do? What’s my ultimate goal?”

“Follow the quests, climb the tower, escape becoming an offering, and destroy the installation that rings the planet’s orbit.”

“What are the odds I manage that?”

“Zero point zero, zero, zero, zero-”

“Fine, I get it, but not impossible, right?”

“Yes. The odds of you surviving this far have not been high either.”

“Thanks.”

“Calculations are what they are. Odds and statistics exist only to inform, not to predict. Perhaps you have already won, and we are only waiting for reality to realise.”

“I didn’t take you for an optimist.”

The being merely stares.

"What are Fragments?"

"Little exact information is known, but there is a high probability the Fragments are remains of a creature's soul architecture."

"Meaning?"

"The material they consist of is unknown, and they were thought to be exclusively for laying down magical symbols that were then powered by Mana. Your efforts have proven otherwise."

"What's this 'other' stat I have now?"

"Non-you percentage of your soul. Avoid letting it get higher than you already have."

"Does it ever fix itself?"

"Slowly, as your will erodes the, hopefully, lesser wills you have taken into yourself. In the event you challenge something greater, or accumulate enough lesser will that opposes you, you will likely descend into darkness and never return."

"Foreboding. Is there any way to safely consume the essence of other beings?"

"Unknown."

"Helpful."

The being continues to face me, but says nothing.

“That’s all I’ve got.”

“Very well, complete the next stage of the path as you need.”

With that summary dismissal, I’m thrown back onto my path, and the platform and mannequin both disappear again. At least it’s consistent…

My path stretches onward, and I have little choice but to keep moving forward.