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DRR Book 4, Chapter 44 — A Difference in Time
🕑 Added 2025-05-27 15:23:49 +0000 UTCFilian was nervous. As far as his memories went, that wasn't particularly unusual for him. His "father" was volatile at the best of times, and while he remembered plenty of good moments with Teluwat, there were plenty among them that were... worrying.
He remembered being made to watch as the slime king experimented with his civilians, warping their Firmament in grotesque ways. He remembered helping with some of those experiments, even, passing various instruments to Teluwat as he asked for them.
Filian was relatively certain those memories were false. Or he hoped they were, at any rate. There was a certain lack of emotional depth to them—he didn't react with the disgust he knew he would have, and he was far too compliant. Reviewing his memories felt almost like watching a dream.
Incompatibility, he thought, or something like it. If it was a weakness in Teluwat's abilities, then it was something even the slime king didn't know about. Filian himself was something of an experiment, considering Teluwat allowed him much more freedom than he allowed any of his other agents. More room to be himself, as it were.
Why he was given that consideration Filian had no idea, but if he had to guess, it had something to do with Teluwat experimenting with the limits of his abilities. And maybe some twisted desire to have a family of his own.
Filian glanced at the few paintings in his room and sighed.
If he focused hard enough, he thought he could see a shadow embedded in those paintings, like a message he'd left for himself painted in colors he couldn't quite see. It required him to push his Firmament toward his eyes to bring them into focus. It felt like a technique someone had taught him, a long time ago.
In one of his paintings, three silverwisps stood, instead of Teluwat. Filian stared at that painting for a long moment, contemplating the memories it invoked.
Filian wasn't even his real name. There were echoes of that in his memory now—He-Who-Harmonizes. It felt strange to think of those words, but it also felt like it fit.
Not that he could be sure how much of his mind was his own. Maybe he would go by Harmony for now, just to see how he liked it?
Harmony nodded to himself. He could work with that.
One of the reasons his memories were particularly strange, he thought, was that it seemed Teluwat had tried to revise them recently. There were new memories battling with the old ones, memories of an automaton handing him over to Teluwat. He-Who-Guards. His real father?
It was confusing. The memories were a jumble, because the new set hadn't quite taken over the old yet. And Harmony really didn't have time to wait for them to, because he was pretty sure that unless something changed soon, he was going to die.
There was a pressure he could feel all around him, concentrated strangely like a warmth in his abdomen. He couldn't be sure, given his lack of training, but he thought what he was sensing was Firmament.
It was gathering in extreme concentrations. Teluwat, more likely than not, and if Teluwat was preparing that much Firmament then he was in one of his moods. Harmony knew better than to get in the Trialgoer's way when he was in one of those moods, and if he weren't so certain that this time he was the target, he might have just hidden in his room.
Instead, he slipped out, doing his best to replicate something he'd learned to do... he didn't know when he'd learned to do it, actually. The memory just existed in his mind, not quite connected to anything else. It was a memory of pulling a shroud over his core, hiding his Firmament signature from Teluwat. Maybe it was a trick he'd learned across the loops? But if that were the case, he shouldn't have been able to remember that trick.
Harmony shrugged to himself. It wasn't that important. He hid himself then slipped down one of the many secret tunnels embedded throughout Teluwat's lair, keeping that shroud carefully in place even as the slime king's voice thundered through the halls.
"Filian!" he called. "Get over here!"
Not likely, Harmony thought to himself. He had a basic sense of self-preservation. Teluwat hadn't managed to take that from him, at least. Actually, Teluwat had left a surprising amount of his actual self intact.
He hoped his real father would get here soon, though. An odd memory flickered to life in his mind, unattached to anything else—one of Guard holding him close, grasping his hands firmly, and whispering to him a promise. The words were silent in his memory, but he thought he understood their purpose.
Stay safe. I will find you. Always.
And there was another oddity that persisted in his mind. A fragment that shouldn't have existed from a dream he never had.
"I will be everything and every moment that you stole from us."
Harmony had no idea where he'd heard those words, or if he'd actually heard them at all, but something about them gave him strength.
So as Teluwat's voice rang out again, a little closer to his current hiding place, he ducked down a different corridor and continued to run.
—
Ghost and Lilia found themselves in front of a makeshift throne, only a short distance away from Teluwat, who stared at them in disbelief. Neither of them wasted any time—they were well aware that the more time they gave him to react, the more likely it was they would be targeted and subverted by Assimilation or one of the sub-skills Teluwat used to empower it.
Lilia summoned a dagger. Ghost prepared an array of combined skills that he had estimated had a 87.2% likelihood of disrupting Teluwat's outer membrane and at least briefly causing a physical collapse. It was a little more difficult than it normally might have been, but he didn't have access to his complete list of skills, and the constructs that remained in his core were a little difficult to correctly use. It would have to do.
Neither of them expected to defeat Teluwat, only to create a significant enough distraction that they could buy time until Ethan or Guard arrived, and to make sure nothing happened to Harmony.
Teluwat was blasted apart by their skills. He was in the middle of reacting to their appearance, but he'd opened his mouth to start monologuing instead of attacking or defending, which was well within Ghost's expectations. Their respective attacks struck him in the chest with no apparent attempt to dodge on his part, and he promptly dissolved into a pile of bones.
That was, Ghost reflected, probably the first sign that they were a little out of their league.
Teluwat didn't even bother to reconstitute himself. Instead, his voice emerged from all around them, sounding mildly annoyed rather than actually hurt in any way. "Who are you two?" he asked. "How many allies does this Ethan have? This is getting ridiculous."
"Ghost," Lilia said. Ghost nodded—he was already scanning for Teluwat's Firmament signature.
It made sense that the Trialgoer spent most of his time as an amalgam of slime and bone. As far as Ghost could tell, Teluwat was a sort of free-floating Firmament core that could freely assemble himself a new body. He didn't need all that slime or the bones to anchor him—all he needed was some sort of physical mass to anchor his presence.
Lilia threw another set of daggers at the bones anyway, just to be sure, and there was a sharp crack as the skeletal remnants on the ground dissolved into dust. Teluwat's voice emerged again, annoyed. "That was my favorite skeleton," he said.
That was when he attacked.
The difference between Avegoth and Teluwat was almost immediately apparent. Avegoth's auras had done almost nothing to Ghost, empowered as he was by Ethan's Aspect Pools. Teluwat, on the other hand?
Ghost's vision crackled into static. Beside him, Lilia staggered, coughing in pain as her body abruptly distorted. Considering the barrage of warnings his own systems were sending him, Ghost was pretty sure he was in the similar state.
He grabbed Lilia and forced a Timeskip—
—just long enough for a spiderlike woman to Phaseslip through the ceiling and smash her foot directly into Teluwat's core, slamming it back and forcing whatever skill Teluwat was using on them to end.
Lilia gasped for air. Ghost rapidly recalibrated his systems, rapidly trying to construct a counter for whatever it was they'd just experienced. It was some variation of Firmament Control imbued with Assimilation—he could feel the way that power had directly interacted with his Truth. If he hadn't been a third-layer practitioner, he might have succumbed immediately.
"Are you alright?" he asked quietly. Lilia nodded, though her breath was ragged.
"Barely," she said. "Thanks."
Teluwat, in the meantime, had reconstructed a new body of ooze from the walls of his lair. He still seemed more annoyed than afraid.
"Are these your agents, Versa?" he asked. "You should know better than to attack me. Especially now. I'm not exactly in a good mood, as you might have noticed."
"Oh, I know," Versa said. "I'm counting on it."
And under her breath, she muttered something Ghost was pretty sure was meant for them. "Ethan better be telling the truth about that polarity reversal thing."
Ghost had no idea what that meant, but he figured he would forward the message.
—
The first thing I notice when I'm conscious again is how much everything hurts. It is, thankfully, fading rather quickly, but it's still a distinct ache that slows me down for a second or two.
The second thing I notice is the time gradients.
Hestia has gotten significantly worse in the short period of time I spent offworld in the dungeon, apparently. I'm not sure exactly how bad it was before, but right now it's bad enough that even in the middle of nowhere there's a distinct disparity in the flow of time—Temporal Link shows me time running faster in one direction and slower in another.
All of this is perpetuated by the Tears, which are now bad enough I see visible cracks in the atmosphere. Each one, I'm pretty sure, leads to a new one, and judging by the sheer concentration of them in the sky... It's like I'm witnessing the end of the world. How many Tears are there distributed all across Hestia, now?
I force myself to my feet, pushing away the lingering remnants of pain, then make my way to the thankfully-stable one that contains Ahkelios and Gheraa. The moment I rip it open, the two collapse out with a groan, covered in sticky time-residue.
"Took you long enough," Ahkelios mutters, but he looks more worried for me than anything. "Are you alright? What you did back there..."
"I'm fine," I say, looking over the other two to make sure they are, too. The prolonged time in the Tear doesn't seem to have hurt either of them—Ahkelios is already straightening his makeshift coat, and Gheraa has his hands folded primly behind his back. "And you two?"
"More than," Gheraa says cheerfully, his eyes practically sparkling. "I didn't think I'd witness another feat of Firmament engineering so quickly! I'm sure I don't need to tell you Soul Space isn't designed for you to absorb Intermediaries. That was... impressive."
His voice turns sly. "I don't suppose I could convince you to do it again?"
I give Gheraa a deadpan look, then snort. "Maybe after all this is over," I say, ignoring the way he pumps a fist in the air and instead turning inward to check on my core. It doesn't seem like I've done any damage, at least—the makeshift Intermediary stretches out of the ocean like a massive tree. It's still dead, for the time being, but if Gheraa can repeat what he did before...
That's a pretty big if, though. I might be able to replicate it myself, if it comes down to it—doing that seemed to drain a lot out of him. He doesn't usually get like this unless he's specifically trying to hide something, either.
Right now, though, Harmony's safety is paramount. I glance through the Interface, noting with surprise that the Empty City dungeon is already open again—the Ritual shift doesn't seem to have taken much time, this time around. That, or I spent a lot of time unconscious, but I'm pretty sure I haven't.
And the links to my core... I wince and freeze as I finally catch up on everything that's happening.
Guard's on his way. Versa is somehow already in Palus, helping Ghost and Lilia of all people fight off Teluwat; I'm amazed Ghost was able to pull off a new Link without me there. How much time has passed for everyone? And then there's the message that Ghost passes on to me...
I pull out the teleport stone Versa gave me and eye it briefly. I might be able to reverse-engineer it on my own, but that's going to take time, and I'm not the local expert when it comes to imbuements.
Conveniently, however, the time gradients seem to work out in my favor in the direction of the crow village.
"We're going to find Virin," I say. "And fast."
I tell Guard to meet up with me instead as I make my way to the Cliffside Crows. We're a little closer than Palus is, and from the feel of things, Guard is struggling through a veritable storm of Firmament to try to get there.
We're going to need to work quickly. One way or another, I have a feeling things are about to come to a head, and as much as I hope I'm wrong...
The Sunken King hasn't made a move yet, and somehow, that makes me feel like we're playing right into his hands.
--
Author's Note: Ethan's using his phone a friend for imbuement related matters!
Thanks for all the feedback on JAM! I'm taking a look at it now.
Comments
Mr.Turtle
Thanks for the chapter!
