Chapter 132: Book 2: Loop 15.4
Bimar and Miktik's bodies are positioned outside the gate to the scrapyard in the exact same positions I found them in last loop.
That's enough to ring alarm bells. Even Ahkelios shivers a bit at the sight. "Didn't they look like that last time?" he asks. "You told Bimar what was going to happen. It should be different this time, right? Even if only a little bit."
"Wish I had an answer for you, buddy," I mutter, kneeling down beside Bimar's body again. Tarin's expression is both stormy and dark, and he kneels beside Miktik, trembling slightly. He doesn't say a word. I've seen him express a variety of emotions by now, but I've never seen him this...
Distraught isn't the right word. Neither is fury. He lingers somewhere on the precipice between the two, radiating with anger and grief and determination, and it's somehow Guard who remembers to calm him down. He pulls him away, speaking something in quiet whispers to the old crow, and Tarin's trembling slowly ceases.
I'm grateful, I have to admit. I wouldn't even have known where to begin. But there isn't much we can find from the bodies: Tarin and Guard both agree that it's some form of Firmament overload, but we can't tell anything more without going in ourselves, and it's risky to do that this late into the loop.
"If it's immersion armor you're lacking, She-Who-Whispers keeps a number of them at hand in case something important is delivered," He-Who-Guards mentions. "They are crafted by the finest in Isthanok—unlikely to fail easily to a differential in Firmament. I will bring them with me when you reset."
"That's probably for the best," I say, although my stomach drops a little at the prospect of entering the scrapyard for myself. Then my attention catches on to what he said, and I catch his gaze. "Delivered?"
He-Who-Guards cocks his head. "This is the Intermediary," he says. "The point at which the Integrator homeworld connects to Hestia. You do not know this?"
"Uh... Miktik called it the scrapyard," I say. My brain's scrambling to catch up. Intermediary? "I thought this place was just for junk."