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DRR Book 4, Chapter 42 — Tree of Death
🕑 Added 2025-05-22 14:12:27 +0000 UTCThis isn't the first time I've encountered Firmament like this. I've seen it once before in the Empty City, used to create an Abstraction for the express purpose of killing me. I'm not surprised the Integrators have somehow managed to build it directly into a trap meant for their Trialgoers.
If I had the Firmament to use the Great Filter again, I might be able to block part of it. Maybe even all of it. But at the level I would need to use the skill, and considering the amount of Firmament I have available to me...
I'd only be able to save a fraction of the people about to be attacked.
Instead, I do everything I can to slow it down. I reach out and grasp it all with Firmament Control, nearly buckling under the immediate strain it puts on me; if I were trying to stop it entirely, it might kill me. I'm not, though—I'm only trying to slow it down long enough that the Trialgoers on the other side can see and react to what's happening.
Forty-two portals open, linked to forty-two different planets. Each and every portal is directed at the back of a human Trialgoer. Several of them are already turning, aware that something's happening; others, though, don't seem to have noticed.
"I'm slowing it down," I say, my voice strained. "You need to—"
Adeya is already moving, to my relief. Everyone is. Warnings are being shouted out across the chamber.
But this Intermediary isn't complete. There's a cruelty in its design. The portals are designed to let light and sound through, but only in one direction; the person that triggers the blowback can see every detail of what happens to their people.
The people on the other end, though? They can't be warned. Despair clutches at me for a moment.
And then Gheraa reaches out and shoves his hand into the blossoming Intermediary.
The golden lines of Firmament on his body turn abruptly red. He lets out a sharp cry, shuddering in pain. I almost reach out to tell him to stop, but I know before even saying anything that he's not going to. He's just as stubborn as I am, in some ways.
Gheraa manages to throw me a shaky, pained grin. "You're not... the only one that can pull off miracles," he says, his words interspersed with shaky breaths. Ahkelios hurries over to support him so he doesn't just collapse next to the Seed—he looks like he's barely able to stay awake, let alone stand. "I spent... so much damn time... as a corpse... in the Intermediary, of all places. I know a thing or two... about how it works."
The portals open. Properly. Light and sound stream in just in time as Death Firmament begins to fire haphazardly into the Trials; I slow them as much as I can, and it gives many people just enough time to dodge or get out of the way as our cries of warning reach them.
Many. But not all. Not even most.
A full twenty-five people still lie dead or dying as the blowback begins to fade. I close my eyes and use a skill I never thought I'd use.
I have the Firmament for it. It doesn't take much, really. It's a surprisingly Firmament-efficient skill. The problem with it is that in most cases, all it does is prolong the suffering.
But Yarun is a medic, isn't he? Not all of them are dead. Some of them are just dying. They might survive, with the right medical attention.
I can't even tell if I'm lying to myself.
"Please," I mutter. "Save them."
Field of Immortality.
Yarun hurries forward, eyes wide, pulling what looks like a burnt and blackened body through one of the portals of the Intermediary.
And I watch tiredly, doing my best to keep them alive. At least until Yarun can help them.
In my head, through my bond, I can hear Guard calling for me. He's fighting Teluwat, I think, and he's... well, he isn't losing. But he's going to need my help, and soon.
I shut my eyes.
"Just a moment longer," I tell him. "Just last a moment longer. I'm sending some help, and I'll be there as soon as I can."
—
Ghost was a little surprised that Lilia had agreed so readily to the plan. He was even more surprised that he'd managed to recruit her to the cause, considering what Ethan had told him about her, but he supposed that made a certain kind of sense: Lilia had had plenty of time to mellow out since they met.
He supposed he had too, in a way. Meeting Ethan had changed the course of their Trials for the both of them. It hadn't changed the way things ended, of course. That was more or less set in stone, especially with the endless destruction of the planet proving itself an impenetrable barrier for success.
But going straight for the City of Swamp and Stone as two Firmament constructs to fight the most feared Trialgoer on the planet? That was sort of a risky move, even for them.
Not that he minded. He liked risky moves. He was the coremind that had pioneered the whole "live past the destruction of the planet" move, after all. Besides, he'd be meeting the pseudo-coremind he'd been told about, the one that had adapted their technology just so he could continue to live after his body had expired. That was exciting!
"You're thinking too loudly," Lilia grunted. Ghost turned to look at her, optics shuttering in a blink.
"You can hear my thoughts?" he asked.
"Temporal Link keeps us linked, so if I wanted to, I could," Lilia said. "But that's not what I mean. I turned that off as soon as I realized it was there."
"Then how is it that my thoughts are too loud?" Ghost asked, puzzled. Lilia sighed.
"Your... I don't know what you call them. Those flaps around your head." She gestured irritably, though the movement looked a little ridiculous at the speeds they were moving. "They move a lot when you're thinking. It's distracting."
"Huh. Do they?" Ghost glanced up at them. "I use them for expressiveness, but I wrote the subroutines to work automatically. I can turn them off if you wish! It is just that I have been told it is comforting to organics. Older coremind models had little more than a pair of optical and audial sensors emerging from the neck."
Lilia glanced at him, then visibly shuddered. "No, this is definitely better than a bunch of tentacles coming out of your neck. And I would prefer to know that you're thinking. I'm just telling you that you're thinking too much."
"They are not tentacles," Ghost offered helpfully.
"Are they set on top of manipulators that allow them to undulate and move freely in all directions?"
"Yes. How did you know?"
"They're tentacles, Ghost."
—
He-Who-Guards fought, careful to keep his power contained.
The trickiest thing about fighting Teluwat was that he needed to pay attention to about five or six different things at once. First among them was the possibility of being Assimilated by Teluwat's Talent—that one was tricky, even with the Void watching out for him and devouring any stray fragments of Firmament that came too close to his core.
History alteration wasn't the only thing Teluwat was capable of. It was evidently the trick he relied on the most, but there were a lot of other things he could do that Guard couldn't defend against quite as easily, mostly because he didn't have as much experience with it. That mostly came down to Teluwat trying to trap him by merging him with various parts of the environment, and because Teluwat could do that without explicitly targeting him, he needed to keep an eye on where he was stepping as well.
That and Teluwat could mold the environment around him pretty much at will. There were the metaphysical traps—the Talent-imbued stones or walls designed to try to drag him into them if he touched them—and then there were the literal ones the slime king seemed to be able to build at a whim.
Versa had warned them about this, at least, so he wasn't entirely unprepared. He was lucky that Teluwat seemed to prefer rather archaic traps—the dart walls couldn't do much to the metal of his body. The blades swinging down from the ceiling were a little more dangerous, but more from a bludgeoning perspective than a slicing one.
A lot of these traps, it seemed, were built for fear and intimidation.
Not to stop a robot intent on beating the shit out of you.
And Guard was still quite intent on beating Teluwat. He was counting on Ethan to join him, but it seemed Ethan had other troubles to deal with at the moment. What he needed to do now was to keep the slime king off-center, keep him guessing, keep him worried.
It helped that he was angry and could wield enough Firmament to threaten even Teluwat.
Everything he discovered as they smashed their way through the lair's walls only made him angrier. Small chambers designed to keep prisoners, with rusty chains attached to the walls and a smears of blood on the ground; a menagerie that held a variety of plant and animal life that Guard was almost certain contained the cores of civilians; a literal closet full of skeletons that seemed to serve as a dressing room, of all things. Did Teluwat just change out parts of his skeleton to serve his mood for the day?
Guard slammed his fists together, charging up enough Firmament that the room they were in darkened; all light seemed to bend toward him until the only things visible were the glow of his optics and arm cannons. Teluwat was panting, a trail of fresh ooze on the ground from his most recent attempts to dodge Guard's attacks.
"You are a fool," Teluwat sneered, trying to catch his breath. "What do you gain from this? Do you think you can defeat me? You will exhaust your Firmament, and I will make both you and your son into playthings—"
Guard fired. The blast ripped through Teluwat's body, sending the slime to a bubbling boil that filled the room with acrid steam. He felt a flicker of satisfaction.
Then Teluwat's voice filled the room, laughing from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
"I hope you didn't think you were making headway," he said. "You have no idea what I can do, do you?"
"I do not care," Guard replied. The skill circuit for the Black Hole skill flashed in front of him, and a dense core of a singularity zipped out, tearing through the gaseous remnants of Teluwat floating through the air. "And that goes both ways."
There was a slight pause. "Perhaps," Teluwat said. Guard caught the slightest glimmer of concern in the slime king's voice. Then his sensors pinged—he was coalescing again, two rooms away.
Before he could dart forward, the walls of the castle slammed down around him, the entire space of a room constricting to nothing in an instant. Guard felt a dozen systems scream warnings at him as Firmament-reinforced stone suddenly began crushing him.
It hurt.
He snarled, and chains exploded around him.
--
Author's Notes: Section I'm writing at the moment is a bit of a struggle, but I'm hoping to get it done soon! Once it's done I might be able to speed up updates until the book is complete.
Also might post a chapter of the new thing tomorrow (tentatively titled Just Add Mana); no promises on an update schedule on that one yet, though. So far its chapters are nearly twice as long as DRR's and take more editing. Which is funny, because it was meant to be my "relax and don't edit" story. >_>
Comments
Silver Linings
It was supposed to be a lighthearted comedic story!
Melissa Harden
Guard and Ethan needing eachother at the same time, &/or who's tasks would have been possible with each other's skill sets, was probably a hard thing to set up. Skill arays and Black Hole in the anti Skill and Fillument sewer. Time manipulation and body/mind resistance against a body/mind bender blender. Hopefully these gaps give the human trialgoers with Ethan and the recovered trialgoers that should get to Guard time to shine. Or traumatizes them into never splitting the party again.
Mr.Turtle
Thanks for the chapter!
Hayden Hodge
“Relax and don’t edit story” lol I only know you through your writing, but how did you not know you were lying to yourself on that.
