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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/LiseEclaire on 2025-05-16 16:37:08+00:00.

PARTICIPANT REWARD (random)

AIR SENSE (permanent) - sense the strength and direction of air currents

Will felt the world around him change. It wasn’t that reality had shifted, or the loop had come to an end. Rather, it was the immediate effect of the new skill. The amount of innate information was so vast that for a moment, he lost himself in it. Air movements were everywhere, as if he’d suddenly found himself surrounded by static noise.

Gradually, his mind compensated for the new sensations. The minor currents faded quickly away, then slowly the rest did so until everything was calm again.

Wow, Will thought. All it took was for him to concentrate to sense the currents and use them along with his other skills.

“Look at him.” Ely, against all odds, smiled. “First time getting one.”

No wonder everyone looked forward to this phase. The skill Will had received, while not openly meant for combat, was a lot more significant than any wolf reward he had gotten so far. Even common boss skills weren’t always as good.

“Let’s move,” Jess said. “The others won’t be careless.”

Trees and patches of plants kept sporadically shooting out in various parts of the city. As time passed, they became less and less devastating, only focusing on very specific targets. It was of note that all the areas Jess and Ely had identified as containing class mirrors had been among the first wave. Others didn’t seem to have any significance, neither in terms of urban infrastructure or eternity matters. One could only assume that the remaining elves were targeting other participants. Either that, or they were setting up the scene for the invasion hour.

In one specific location, an intense battle took place. It was just above one of the city’s parks, which made it fairly unremarkable. All that changed when an array of arrows flew up from the ground, blasting half the armor off the elf in the middle of the air cone. A second elf joined in, launching lightning bolts to the ground just as a carpet of bamboo shot up from the park soil. Most things would have been scorched or impaled on the spot, yet the arrows kept on coming, swerving through the air, seemingly from all directions.

Will was miles from the spot of combat, but thanks to the combination of skills, he could see more than enough.

The archer. He thought.

Was that the extent of the elusive enemy’s strength? So far, the boy hadn’t set eyes on him. He had no idea whether the archer was male, female, old, young… All he knew was that he was skilled and merciless. Back when he had destroyed an entire classroom as he had to pin down Will, the archer had seemed extremely skilled. Now, there could be no doubt that he hadn’t been using even a fraction of his skills.

“Admiring the archer?” Jess asked.

“Have you seen him?”

“I think so,” the girl replied in an evasive fashion. “I don’t remember everything from my eternity days.”

There was no way of telling whether that was a lie.

“But I remember he was strong. It took the entire team to take him down.”

“You took him down?” Will turned to her, his face impressed.

“Once,” Ely quickly clarified. “After that, we came to an agreement.”

“That’s what Alex said.” Will remembered. “Was he part of your group?”

Both of the girls looked at him in utter confusion.

“What?” Will asked, a sense of unease crawling into him.

“The goofball was—” Jess began.

“We don’t talk about him!” Ely quickly interrupted. “I’d warn you to stay away, but by the looks of it, it’s already too late.”

“Why?” Will pressed on. “Everyone keeps warning me about him, but when I ask for details, you shut up. What did he do?”

“Will, it’s really better that you don’t know…”

“For real?! I’m part of eternity, in which everyone’s pastime is to kill others so that they could break loose of it. What worse could there be? Unless he started eternity, what could he have done that was so terrible?”

“He’s killed people.” Ely said, her fists clenched. “Not temps, not killed for the loop, he’s killed people forever.”

The concept was supposed to be terrifying, but what really terrified Will was how little it affected him. With all the warnings, he had expected that much at least, or even worse. Erasing someone from eternity was no doubt a scary concept, yet one that his mind couldn’t fully grasp. It had been so long since he had entered eternity that permanent death didn’t seem permanent. After all, he had seen two permanently dead people return in the form of mirror reflections. One thing was clear, that he wouldn’t be getting any further information about Alex, at least not this loop.

“Okay,” he said. “I won’t ask. But if you know something that could help, tell me, okay?”

“Sure.” Ely looked away. The way she said it suggested that she’d do anything but that.

Precisely at noon, mirrors filled the city again. Will had followed Jess and Ely’s advice, and gone to one of the mini-parks of the city. The place was little more than a square with benches and a few dozen trees, but it didn’t have mirrors and—if the girls were to be believed—was viewed as an unofficial safe zone. Neither of them could explain why, but they seemed fairly convinced; plus, with Will’s skills, he could easily escape if things became serious.

Unlike all the previous days, there were a few minutes of calm, after which the fighting broke out, as usual. The elves had, apparently, set up a few traps, yet the same could be said for the participants from Earth.

Will spent a few minutes checking on things with the rest of the alliance. As it turned out, both Jace and Helen were alright, keeping low after the initial elf attack. Other than Alex, there didn’t seem to be additional casualties, but even so, the acrobat ordered Will to remain low till the end of the loop. There was no mention of the merchant, but that was hardly something Will was going to miss.

[9 hours 31 until the end of your loop.

7 hours 57 minutes until the arrival of the merchant.]

The guide displayed the information on his mirror fragment.

Eight hours, Will thought. Half that much had passed, and it still felt like weeks had gone by.

“Chatting?” Jess asked, while Ely was keeping an eye out for trouble.

“Checking on the others.” Will put the fragment away. He was on the verge of sharing that Helen and Jace were fine, but at the last moment decided it would be better if he didn’t.

“So, we really were a thing?” He looked at the girl.

“As much as a perm could be a thing with a temp.” The girl let out a chuckle. “Nothing that would last, but the best one could get. Danny came up with the phrase, and he was right.”

The thought that the former rogue had anything to do with the phrase soured Will’s mood.

“Danny…” he said with measured anger. “A lot of people said he was a piece of shit.”

“Not at first. Then again, few of us are. Eternity changes everything.”

I’m not a piece of shit, Will said in his mind.

“It’s not just a lack of consequences. Principles are a drawback, and unless there’s something specific you’re going for.”

Will narrowed his eyes. All this time, he thought he had become cynical, but he couldn’t even compare to what the girl had said in such a casual fashion.

“You think I’m wrong,” she tilted her head. “Everyone does early on. That’s why people like newbies and temps so much. They’re a link to humanity.”

She sounded like an old woman. Considering the time she had been in eternity, there was a good chance that she was. If one considered the average loop to be eight hours, that meant that for every thousand loops a person would have grown older by a year. A hundred thousand, and one was the equivalent of a hundred-year-old.

“You’re strange,” Will said with a smile.

“That’s my line.” Jess leaned against him.

Will’s first reaction was to move away, but resisted it. In other circumstances, he would have been happy from such an outcome.

“Did we do this a lot?” he asked.

“Shh. Just let me have this,” she whispered. “If we survive today, there’s a chance that we might end up together, but it wouldn’t be you, just your temp. That’s the problem of eternity: once you get a taste, you can’t forget about perms. The loop will end and you’ll have another conversation with some other temp of me.” She paused. “Both of us were part of eternity, but never in sync. The game really has a cruel sense of humor.”

“Maybe you’ll join it again.” Will placed his hand around her shoulders.

“Maybe, but it won’t be this me. No, this is the only chance I get to talk to you like this. I guess I’m luckier than all the ones before.” She paused again. “We didn’t have this conversation in the past, did we?”

“No,” Will replied. “We spent some time together, though. Just chatting mostly.”

“Then this is the luckiest me there’s been.”

“Cut the crap, lovebirds,” Ely grumbled. “We must move. Fighting’s coming this way.”

In the distance, green flames were consuming building after building. The flames didn’t follow any particular path, but Ely was right in assuming that they were always moving closer. Based on the screams, blasts, and sirens, it was safe to say that two groups of participants were at it. It was impossible to tell what classes were involved, but both participants seemed to have adequate magic skills.

It was interesting to note that no more arrows were visible throughout the entire city. After the initial clash, the archer had disengaged, and no one felt particularly willing to have a go at him again.

The hours crept…

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