Die. Respawn. Repeat.

The sheer exhaustion that washes through me after I finish that imbuement isn't something that I'm prepared for. I join the crows for a quick dinner — most of my disgust by the more insect-based diet has begun to settle by now — and then one of the crows invites me back to his hut, seeing as I don't have a place to sleep. He's the father of the little crow that brought me over to their campfire, I think.

"Are you sure I won't be intruding?" I ask again, and he waves it off.

"No, no," he insists. "Nori not have many friends. Your presence good."

"What about you?" I ask, raising an eyebrow. I'm not exactly the right age to be a good friend for his daughter.

"...I not have many friends either." The crow looks down. "My name Virin. Wife dead. Other crows... worried. Hard to talk to."

There's a story there, I suspect, but I'm too tired to dig into it. "I'm sorry," I offer instead, and he waves me off.

"It old news," he says. "Trying for something new, now. But hard. Helping Trialgoer seems like good start."

I chuckle. "I didn't want to sleep in Mari's hut," I admit. "Mostly because she's a little scary when she's busy."

Virin shudders. "You not see Mari when she really scary," he says. Somehow, I doubt that's true. I've seen her wing slice the head off a harpy. But Virin doesn't know I've seen that, so... fair enough.

The bed of straw he has in his little hut isn't exactly comfortable — not nearly as comfortable as Mari's, anyway. There's some imbuement in the straw that abates the itchiness and scratchiness of it, but it's a halfhearted job at best; I can feel the Firmament moving around restlessly.

Out of curiosity, I take a small poke at it with Firmament Manipulation, and it seems to almost immediately settle. The straw almost seems to relax beneath me at the same time, becoming more comfortable.

Huh.

Nori's off in her own little corner. Virin's built a kind of hanging-nest for her, a bed that dangles from the ceiing in a cozy little swing in the corner of his hut. She hugs a small doll to her chest, a matted little thing with a single stone as an eye and leaves to serve as feathers; it's worn down, but I sense the smallest trickle of Firmament from it.

Virin, on the other hand, is just sitting at his desk. He's poking around at a few sticks and stones.

"Not going to sleep?" I ask him. There isn't exactly another bed around, now that I think about it.

"It hard to sleep at night." Virin gives me a rueful smile. "No worry. I work. You sleep."

"What're you doing?" I peer over at the collection of stone on his desk. There's Firmament here, but for the life of me, I can't tell what he's trying to do with it. It seems like he's just imbuing objects with raw Firmament, reinforcing them slightly but doing nothing else.

"Practice," Virin explains. He shifts a little so I can sit in next to him, and I watch as he picks up another stone; with a quick deft move, I feel a thread of Firmament push into the rock and then tie itself off. It's faster than even Mari's own imbuements, and I stare at him in amazement. "I help maintain weapons. Need to be good at imbuing."

"Can you teach me?" I ask, and Virin looks at me, surprised.

"Imbuement not easy," he says. "You Trialgoer, no? You have Interface. Interface give you plenty?"

"I need every advantage I can get," I say with a shrug.

But there's more to it than that. The Interface is an easy route to power, but it's clear that the Firmament phenomenon is distinct from the Interface; the crows here are able to use Firmament even without it. That makes me think that there might be a whole unexplored niche — some way to take advantage of the Interface.

I need to get ahead of the Hestian Trialgoers somehow. They've had the Interface ever since their own Trials. If I don't think outside the box and find something, they're going to overwhelm me, every single time. I'm not always going to have a convenient Firmament explosion to shove my enemies into.

"If you sure." Virin looks uncertain, but more than willing to teach me; I get the feeling he's lonely and just wants someone to talk to. "You can enchant, but cannot anchor, yes?"

"Yes," I confirm.

"Three stages for imbuement," Virin says. He lifts a wing, counting them off on his feathers. "Enchantment. Anchor. Enhancement. Enchantment easy; you put your Firmament into object. Some things harder to enchant, some things easier. Different things have different resonance."

Virin picks up a rock and hands it to me. "This rock easy to enchant," he says, and gestures for me to flood it with Firmament; I use Firmament Manipulation to draw a little of my own Firmament into it, and it passes into the stone like it isn't even there.

"It is," I agree.

"Now this," Virin says. He picks up a slightly different rock; there are flecks of purple-black in it. I try to push my Firmament into it, and I'm surprised when it resists. It's like trying to push myself through a wall. Greater force of effort results in only a tiny fraction of my Firmament making it into the stone.

Virin is staring at me with his wings folded, one brow slightly raised, and I swear there's an equivalent of a smirk playing on his beak. "Not easy, yes?"

"Much harder." I frown. "What makes it so different?"

"I not know." Virin takes the stone back and taps it slightly, then does something with his Firmament — in a flash, the stone is suddenly flooded with his energy. He radiates no small amount of smugness when he's done, and tosses the stone over to me to look over. "Different material, different resonance. Firmament different for everything, maybe? You want enchant material, you need match resonance."

Which is undoubtedly the thing he did with his Firmament. "How?" I ask.

"Practice." Virin laughs at the look on my face, then takes another similar-looking rock and presses it into my palm. "It hard to explain. You... vibrate Firmament. Change essence. Will take time, yes? Not easy to do."

I grumble, but acquiesce. I'll have to take some time to test out this idea of Firmament resonance, I decide; pushing Firmament into things has always been possible to varying degrees, but clearly there's a whole realm to it I haven't begun to understand yet.

The next time I die, I'll take a moment to check out the mantis-monster. It has to use Firmament — from what the Interface told me early on, all 'monsters' use Firmament to some degree. Maybe I'll find some way to use its parts, as macabre as that idea might be for Ahkelios.

Speaking of which... I look around for the mantis. He's found himself a perch somewhere up near the ceiling, apparently; I can spot the faint glow of his form as he snores away. Virin follows my gaze and chuckles.

"He friend?" he asks. "He very quiet."

"You should see him when we're alone," I say. Now that I think about it, he does tend to be a little more quiet around the crows; I wonder why that is. Maybe I'll ask him about it tomorrow — along with whether or not he's ever experimented with Firmament imbuement.

"He shy?" Virin looks at the mantis thoughtfully. "What he like to eat?"

"Flowers, usually," I say dryly. "You should see him munching away on them."

Virin hums thoughtfully and nods to himself. "Good, good," he say. "You go sleep now. Practice with stone. I see you in morning, okay? I go run errands."

"In the middle of the night?" I ask, but he's already wandering out through the flaps of his hut. He moves surprisingly quickly when he wants to. I shake my head and climb back into the makeshift bed of straw, rolling the rock around between my fingers; every so often, I try what Virin suggested, twisting Firmament Manipulation around to try to force some of my Firmament into the stone.

I don't succeed, but it's a surprisingly meditative exercise. Before long, I fall asleep.

I wake to a notification.

[ You have defeated a Mechanical Remnant (Rank E)! +33 Strength. +106 Durability. +38 Reflex. +44 Speed. +12 Firmament. ]

I stare at it uncomprehendingly for a moment, and then another two roll in.

[ You have defeated a Mechanical Remnant (Rank E)! +1 Firmament. ]

[ You have defeated a Mechanical Remnant (Rank E)! +1 Firmament. ]

What in the world...?

No other notifications appear, even though I stare warily at the Interface for a solid minute or so. Eventually, Ahkelios — who is apparently already awake — climbs up onto my shoulder and pokes at my hair.

"What're you staring at?" he asks.

"You can't see?" I tilt my head towards the Interface.

"I can see your status, but not any of your notifications." Ahkelios grumbles. "It'd make it a lot easier if I could see the whole Interface, but noooo..."

I chuckle a bit. "It says I defeated a Mechanical Remnant," I answer. "Three of them. I'm trying to figure out what that means."

"Something to do with that robot in the Fracture?" Ahkelios asks, and I nod.

"That's what I'm thinking. But three of them? And that thing has to be higher than Rank E."

"Huh." Ahkelios frowns. "I have no idea, then. I have to say, your loops are weird. Mine were never this exciting."

"Exciting is one way to put it." I glance at Ahkelios, catching a glimpse of his expression; he certainly doesn't seem excited. There's something a little melancholic about his expression, if anything. I pat him on the head, and he jumps a bit at the movement.

"I'm not a pet," he protests, then pauses. "...But don't stop, please."

I snort.

Virin chooses that moment to return. He shoulders in through the flaps in his doorway, carrying a large platter — he seems surprised to see me awake and starles, nearly dropping the whole thing. Fortunately a small burst of Firmament keeps him stable. "You awake!" he says. "Good morning. I not expect you to wake up so early."

"Is it... early?" I peer past him to the outside. It looks like it's almost midday, if anything.

"Early for crow!" Virin says cheerfully. "Not early for Trialgoer, maybe. Crows very sleepy. Or maybe just this village. I not so sleepy."

I can't help but chuckle a bit at Virin's enthusiasm. "Explains why Tarin always wakes up so late," I say.

"Maybe he just sleeping in. Playing big prank." Virin leans in as if in a conspiratorial whisper. "He wake up and laugh at us later. You see."

I don't respond to that. Virin carries on as if nothing is wrong, but I can see in the hunch of his shoulders that he's worried about Tarin — the whole village probably is, now that I think about it.

"You guys care about him a lot," Ahkelios says softly, his voice strange. "He must've been a good chief."

"Yes. Good chief. He is good chief." Virin gives Ahkelios a sharp gaze, and Ahkelios flinches slightly.

"He is," Ahkelios says, correcting himself.

"Mari ready to see you, by the way," Virin says. He pushes a large bowl at me, and then a smaller one at Ahkelios — the large one is some sort of grub-soup that looks like it's been freshly cooked. It's surprisingly devoid of any insects. Ahkelios' bowl, meanwhile, is filled with a variety of flowers and plantlife.

And a few bugs, more as a consequence of them living on the flowers than anything else. Ahkelios doesn't seem to mind — he brightens when he sees the bowl, and immediately sets about devouring them, just as I take a sip of my soup.

"She say you come see her later." Virin adds. "She need sleep. She stay up all night. I need sleep too! So you go find her once you finish eating, and if she still sleeping, you no wake her up." He pauses, considering his words for a moment, and then flashes me a cheeky grin. "Or you wake her up. I need wake up too. I think noise will help me."

Note to self: Do not wake Mari up.