EdgeCases

DRR Book 4, Chapter 47 — Realignment

According to Novi, we have exactly an hour to do this. How she knows all this is apparently a matter of her Path of Sight. She can see into the underlying truths of reality, she claims, in a way that's not dissimilar from how my Thread of Insight works. One of those truths, apparently, is the truth of the Empty City. She knows that her life and the lives of her children are merely recreations of the Interface, set in the playground of her own soul.

She's long dead, but at the time of he...

Just Add Mana 2 — The Art of Attunement

Despite Akkau's apparent desire to take Cale... somewhere, the dragon seemed incredibly resistant to the idea of using a teleportation spell to do so. Cale didn't really get it, considering he'd already used one not so long ago. Maybe he was one of the rare few that suffered a form of teleportation sickness?

Cale wasn't complaining too much about it, though. He wasn't exactly fond of letting himself be teleported by a relative stranger, either. It wasn't like he could see his d...

DRR Book 4, Chapter 46 — Beat 'Em Up

There's a fun little trick Guard and I have learned about our respective abilities—specifically, in my ability to Anchor and in the chains he likes to use. It's a sort of intrinsic synergy, something we encountered while we were sparring in the Grove. For one reason or another, his chains are able to carry the force of my Anchoring. It isn't as flexible as if I were to do it, but it's very capable of locking something in place. Reinforcing it against something else, as it were.

Given ...

DRR Book 4, Chapter 45 — Talented Dispute

Versa was starting to regret her decision to fight on Ethan's side.

She was, of course, sure that her past self was correct in her assessment of the newest Trialgoer's capabilities. That didn't change the fact that fighting Teluwat was terrifying, and it certainly didn't help that he was displaying abilities she'd never known he had. And that was with multiple loops spent essentially spying on him and taking notes.

It didn't also help that he seemed to have a literal army of conve...

DRR Book 4, Chapter 44 — A Difference in Time

Filian 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 ...

Just Add Mana 1 — Mana Overload

Synopsis:

The more lives you've lived, the more mana you have, and Cale has lived too many lives to count.

At this point, his core is closer to the magical equivalent of a nuclear reactor. The downside to this is that conventional spells have become impossibly difficult to cast: Cale simply has too much mana. His spells collapse under the weight of his magic.

Then he finds himself summoned to a new world. One with a spellwork system capable of adjusting to h...

DRR Book 4, Chapter 43 — Possibility and Sacrifice

"Ethan," Ahkelios says quietly. I try to look at him, though my vision is blurry from Firmament use; I can't quite focus through it all. Not a lot of time has passed, but the strain of keeping Field of Immortality active has been increasing with every second that ticks by. "You need to stop. Let them go."

We've been able to save... some of the humans. Not all of them. There were 42 people targeted by that initial burst, and 25 of them were hit hard enough to require additional treatment...

DRR Book 4, Chapter 42 — Tree of Death

This 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 Firmame...

DRR Book 4, Chapter 41 — Life and Death

Author's Note: Just a quick pre-chapter note! Chapter 39 was posted as an extra off-schedule chapter, in case anyone missed it!

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14 seconds left before the Ritual stage is complete.

It's a testament to the sheer power imbued into the skill that all sorts of plant and fungal life erupt through the stone beneath our feet even before it's fully activated. Vibrant Fir...

DRR Book 4, Chapter 40 — What Hides Within

The first Compressive Pulse I throw against the other Ethan explodes with so much force it hurls him back down the tunnel he emerged from, obliterating half the chamber wall in the process.

It's not enough to stop him, of course. It wouldn't be enough to stop me. By the time the Pulse hits him, he's layered half a dozen Force Constructs and a Verdant Armor to stop it, and even though he's visibly hurt, he cancels his momentum with a Warpstep and shapes another eight Force Const...

DRR Book 4, Chapter 39 — Time After Time

Ethan was using Temporal Link a lot, and it put a surprising amount of strain on Ghost, considering what he was trying to do.

He didn't mind it. Whatever Ethan was up to, he was fighting something incredibly dangerous; Ghost didn't want to distract him. He considered demanifesting to go help Ethan, even, but the man knew what he was doing and hadn't asked for help—had approved of Ghost's plan, even.

It seemed to him that the best thing he could do in the here and now wa...

DRR Book 4, Chapter 38 — Collapse

Premonition as a skill has saved my life countless times. I've never seen it react like this—the thing is in near-panic, to the point where it's almost difficult for me to think through the level of danger it's pouring into my skull. I have to strangle the amount of Firmament I'm feeding to the skill just to reduce its screams, although I can't afford to turn it off entirely.

Not with who we're fighting.

"Get back," I say to the others. I crush my building panic ruthlessly—the...

DRR Book 4, Chapter 37 — Presentation

A clump of vines sporting distorted, screaming wings of crystal launches itself at me. I grit my teeth and summon a Force Construct to block it. The wings themselves can't get through my armor, but they resonate with a sound-based skill that I think belongs to Dhruv. Even without being able to hurt me, they create a viscerally unpleasant, disorienting resonance that cuts through the shell of my armor.

As if the Root Acolytes replicating our skills weren't bad enough, they seem to be abl...

DRR Book 4, Chapter 36 — 'Neath the Wooded Shrine

It doesn't take us long to find the chamber where the Seed is kept. In fact, it almost feels like the Sewers are rearranging themselves to make it easier for us to get there. I can feel the rumbling beneath my feet; the movement of stone; even the limited reach of my Firmament sense tells me the tunnels are shifting and turning in a way that places the Seed right in front of us.

And I know that because the Seed is, at this point, the single strongest source of Firmament in the ...

DRR Book 4, Chapter 35 — Ghostly Recurrence

Ghost had no idea how he would feel when he saw his old friends again. A small part of him was worried about it, but a greater part of him was mostly excited. To think Bimar and He-Who-Wanders were still alive after all this time! Sure, they wouldn't remember him, but that was fine. That was how it worked every loop. He knew how to befriend them quickly by now.

He wasn't expecting the chaos that greeted him when he made his way through the city gates, though. Nor was he expecting the do...

DRR Book 4, Chapter 34 — Sibling Rivalry

I'm met with a familiar scene when the Tear finishes materializing around me. A lizard points a blaster at another one of her species, someone that looks pretty much like he could be her brother. It trembles in her grip.

"I'm sorry," she says. The pain in her voice is real, but so is the determination. The certainty that she has no other choice.

"Don't do this," the other lizard pleads. "Please, we can figure this out together! Haven't we always?"

"We can't," she says, squee...

DRR Book 4, Chapter 33 — Worst Place to Have a Picnic

I try to put that last revelation out of my mind. Adeya and the others, thankfully, understand the reason behind the delay once I explain what happened. "Just let us know next time," is all she asks.

"Will do," I agree.

They'd figured something had happened pretty quickly when I didn't immediately pop back in through the portal, and rather than wander around, they had chosen to take something of a break. It's been a while since the last time they've been able to eat, so by the tim...

DRR Book 4, Chapter 32 — Knock-On Effect

A spark blossoms in my mind and unfolds into a temporal map.

For the first time, I have a location. I know exactly where to find an echo of a Trialgoer in the moments before they end. According to the relic, though, I won't have much time to do it—the closest temporal crossover is going to end in about five minutes.

The good news is that its location isn't very far away at all. It's in the opposite direction of the Fracture, though, southeast of the Cliffside Crows and ...

DRR Book 4, Chapter 31 — Teardown

The more Versa tells me about the Great City of Palus, the more I appreciate the effort she put into coming here to warn me about it. I've gotten an overview from Guard before, but not in this much detail—Teluwat keeps most things about his Great City under wraps.

Even then, what Guard could tell me about it wasn't exactly encouraging. Palus is the least inhabited of all the Great Cities, with minimal traffic moving in and out of it. Pretty much everyone knows what Teluwat is...

DRR Book 4, Chapter 30 — Convergence

Kauku was, all things considered, relatively pleased with the way his plans were proceeding. Granted, the word relatively was doing a lot of work in that sentence.

The seal he'd put over himself was inconvenient, to say the least. He understood why he'd done it, of course. Before that little Integrator parasite had infected him, he'd begun rooting for the little human that dared to go against the Integrators. There wasn't any scenario in which Kauku wasn't planning on ...

DRR Book 4, Chapter 29 — First Meetings

I decide to try starting with an explanation.

"I'm a Trialgoer like you are," I say.

She narrows her eyes at me. "Likely story."

Like before, a dagger made of Firmament materializes in her hand, and she flicks it toward me in a near-invisible movement. I don't bother reaching out to catch it this time—instead, I let it glance off my cheek and dissipate into harmless Firmament.

[Firmament saturation: 89%]

Mostly harmless Firmament. I wi...

DRR Book 4, Chapter 28 — Physical Mastery

The Physical skills present a bit of an easier choice than the Astral one, thankfully. I prefer avoiding damage rather than tanking it, and while defending others is a good use of my Body skills, Eternal Moment by itself has defensive capabilities beyond just protecting me. There's an argument to be made for Body helping me die less in these tunnels, but...

Well, right now, those deaths are a good thing. I'm not sure I want to become too durable to die—it's the only thing tha...

DRR Book 4, Chapter 27 — Energetic Associations

Adeya wasn't kidding about the Sewer's monsters mostly attacking in waves. I'm not sure what to make of it, but after we clear the Root Acolytes, we aren't bothered by monsters again for a while—long enough, in fact, that we have time to make it to the next valve chamber.

[All enemies have been defeated. You have gained 209 Physical points. You have gained 72 Astral points. +32 Firmament credits.]

I should really start banking in those points. I frown and pull u...

DRR Book 4, Chapter 26 — A Murder in Carusath

The worst part about the loops, Naru reflected, was the fact that he had no idea when a reset would happen. For all his desperation to get into them, now that he was actually here, he'd realized one painful truth:

Time loops were boring.

He'd made countless plans for what he'd do if he ever managed to make his way into the loops, and he'd tried most of them. The problem was that nothing he did ever stuck, and without the control over the loops that Ethan had, he was limit...