Die. Respawn. Repeat.

There's something that begins to bother me as we fight the Seedmother. It's not our lack of progress—though we're learning enough about its patterns that I'm beginning to suspect that its tenacity is going to be a problem. It's something about the skills, about the way that circuitry rearranges itself on its shell.

It's not that there's anything wrong with them, it's just...

It feels like there's a pattern to them. A pattern I don't entirely understand yet. It's like an itch in my brain, and I find myself spending more and more time just staring at the Seedmother's carapace. I shouldn't, given we're in the middle of a battle, but I can't help trying to figure out exactly what's bothering me.

Part of me wonders if it's the structure of the skills—if a part of my brain is trying to figure out a way to copy them from the Seedmother—but I'm pretty sure that isn't it. I've already tried, and the complexity of these circuits isn't something I can mimic through Firmament Control alone. More than that, the skills in my core are fundamentally different; they're three-dimensional constructs, not two, and the way they take in and convert Firmament isn't compatible with whatever the Seedmother is doing.

It's not the structure, then. It's not the color of the Firmament it's using, either; there's no pattern to that I can identify. I'm pretty sure it's just drawing on whatever Firmament's immediately available through the network of vines and roots embedded throughout the City. It's not the amount of Firmament it's using, not the way it cycles or changes skills, nor anything to do with how each skill manifests.

I narrow my eyes as the Seedmother charges toward Ahkelios. A new circuit flashes into existence, just for a moment—bright red in color, triangular in shape, and although there's no apparent effect, the strength with which it swings its legs toward Ahkelios is suddenly amplified tenfold.

What was that? A Strength skill?

It's been using these the whole time, I realize. There's an entire other category of skills it's able to use that isn't quite as flashy as the ones that create Firmament constructs or directly manipulate its environment—it's why it's so much stronger and faster than I'd expect a monster of this size to be.

That's what I've been noticing, then. The inconsistencies in its strength and durability and reflexes. It's using skills from all categories, not just Firmament skills. That revelation tugs at something in the back of my mind, but it's hard to focus on that in the middle of the fight; as if on cue, the Seedmother chooses this moment to turn its attention to me, and I'm forced to call up Distorted Crux to dodge the spears it suddenly rains down around me.