Within the void, Atzi recovered. It took an eternity for her to stop feeling like her scales were gone. To stop shaking. Eventually, she regained her senses.

  "Make it go away! Help!" The goddess screamed. Her arms were wrapped around herself and her legs pulled in tight to her chest.

  "You're scared? You're not even the one going through it!" Atzi snapped.

  The goddess looked up with a pitiful expression. Her face was contorted as if she was crying, but there were no tears on her cheeks. "It was that energy..."

  The fight drained out of Atzi as she rubbed her scales. "Right. I... I was terrified too. Just, suddenly, the most scared I've ever been. That's..." Atzi considered everything she had learned about magic the past few days. "Nature magic! That can affect emotions!"

  Atzi looked over at the goddess, only to find the goddess was already gone.

  And she heard, "Out! Out!"

  -

  "I'm going, I'm going!" Atzi stumbled away from the old woman's cane. "Find something better to do with your mornings!"

  "Crazy druggies!"

  The old woman hobbled past. Atzi clenched her teeth in frustration.

  Malus blew up the city to contain the skeletons. She must have blown up Novae too, but for some other reason. The important part is she's not involved with the necromancers. As long as they're stopped, she has no reason to blow up the city.

  But I have one thing I gotta know more about first. I need to ask Hemm about her homeland.

  Atzi made her way to the inn, walking directly up the counter, which Hemm stood behind. As usual this time of the loop, she was sweeping the floor.

  "Hey, you came from Cthy a while back, right?"

  Hemm looked up and nodded. "Yeah. Eleven years ago last month."

  Atzi clicked her claws on the table. "Wow. How easy is it to get in or out?"

  "It's easy if you know the right path. The caves are winding and it's easy to get lost."

  "Ohhh. You got any advice for how to follow it? Like, are there signs?"

  Hemm's one big eye narrowed. "Are there- Atzi, are you planning to go there?"

  "Yeah. Is that weird?"

  "There's a war," Hemm said very slowly.

  "Oh. Shit, right... urghhhh..." Atzi scratched her hair. "I gotta find someone in the army, I guess." Maybe that stupid old drunk might know someone?

  "Why do you want to go there?" Hemm asked.

  "If I told you, you'd just say I was on drugs. Not worth it." Atzi sighed "I'm not though, I'm really not. I just need to find out stuff about those three gods you guys kicked out."

  "The banished gods?" Hemm looked very confused. "Why?"

  Atzi fidgeted. How do I word this? She took a deep breath.

  "Don't laugh or say I'm crazy. I spoke to one. I think."

  Hemm did not laugh. Instead, she looked at Atzi with deep concern. "Do you know which one?"

  "Uh. She's a woman, she's kinda green, a bit taller than me, really pretty, kinda sad voice," Atzi rattled off. "Any of them sound anything like that?"

  "That...hmm. It sounds closest to the goddess of the Atlanteans, but she was huge and had several jaws of sharp teeth in the story. I would not call her 'cute'."

  "That doesn't sound like her, unless she changed her looks." Atzi shook her head. "The problem is, she doesn't even remember anything. Her name, or what she could do, or where she's from. Nothin'."

  "How did you" - Hemm paused - "meet her?"

  "Long story. Wasn't a fun meeting, anyway." Suddenly, Atzi stopped, then smacked herself on the forehead. "... Shit, whatever you do, keep this to yourself, alright?" Don't want Malus to set me on fire.

  "Okay? Atzi, I am worried about you, though. You're talking about going into an active warzone, meeting a goddess, and insisting you aren't on drugs."

  "That's not even half of it!" Atzi waved her tail. "That's just the easy stuff to explain. You think I wanted any of this? I just wanted to do a job and get rich and live in a nice mansion of my own..."

  Hemm set her broom on the wall. "Why don't we sit down, I'll make you some warm porridge, and you can tell me about it. Okay?"

  Do I share this? Well... maybe I can try.

  Atzi sat and waited for Hemm to make the porridge. Hemm walked out with it five minutes later, complete with sprinklings of beetle dust. Atzi dug in greedily, having forgotten how hungry she was at the start of a new loop.

  After Atzi finished shoveling and chewing, Hemm asked, "So, what's happened?"

  "You're gonna think I'm crazy, you always do, but whatever. Worst case you just think I'm crazy for a week-" Atzi stopped and felt bad about what she'd just said. She's gonna be dead in a week, and so is everyone… "Sorry."

  "It's okay, just tell me." Hemm put her hand over Atzi's claw. "I'll try to reserve judgement. I can tell this is stressful for you."

  "The god I mentioned, I dunno her name but for some reason she... picked me as her prophet. She didn't even tell me, either, I had to find this out from that new Novae prophet! And I had to go bust that idiot Vance out of jail for her to even find out that!"

  Stolen novel; please report.

  "The what?" Hemm turned her head in confusion.

  "Oh right. It's happening about now, she's being announced as the new prophet." Atzi raised a clawed finger. "Vance's sister."

  "So you got him out of jail? Huh..." Hemm pushed Atzi's glass of water closer to her. "I assume he's staying with his sister now?"

  "Nope, she has no idea where he is, and he's sitting in jail with Karl." Atzi drank her water.

  Hemm opened her mouth, and then closed it.

  "Hemm, there's no uh... there's no way to say this that doesn't sound crazy but... time is looping. For me. I think only for me, no-one else acts different, except in ways that don't matter. It's been happening since that goddess showed up and picked me out. A week from now, Sostra-"

  "I'll be right back." Hemm got up and headed back to the kitchen.

  "-Hey, I'm serious!"

  Hemm came back quickly with an open bottle of wine. "I know. This is my less judgement juice."

  "...Oh."

  Hemm took a big drink.

  Atzi nodded. "Thanks."

  "Continue," Hemm said, before taking another sip.

  "Sorry, this isn't... this isn't the first time, or even the fifth time, I'm actually starting to lose count." Atzi gave a dumb, hollow smile. "Every time I die, I wake up in the street, this morning. The same morning, that same stupid old bag yelling at me, everything back how it was. Every time. And... well, I don't get much time since Sostra's destroyed a week from now." Atzi stared into the distance. "The whole empire I think. The dead just keep rising and rising and..."

  Hemm put the bottle to her lips.

  "Malus tries blowing up the whole city to stop it. Doesn't even work. Oh, right. She blew up Novae. Or at the very least, whoever did it can do the exact same trick she can."

  The bottle was half empty.

  "I tried running away, I tried warning Malus, I tried working with the sage at the academy, nothing's stopped it so far. My best guess is figuring out who in the hells this goddess is, so I can see if she has any other powers that might help. But the academy had no idea. Terra figured the best possibility is one of the three lost gods of Cthagtha." Atzi began muttering to herself. "But if she doesn't sound like any of them… maybe the goblin god after all...?"

  Hemm set down her bottle and wiped her mouth. "Sorry, small judgement. It's pronounced Cthargictha." She rumbled the 'g'.

  "Oh! Yeah, people say it wrong all the time then I guess. Must be kinda annoying."

  "Anything else?" Hemm asked as she picked the bottle back up.

  "Else? I know who stole the sage's spellbook and it's my boss and they'll absolutely kill me if they knew I knew that. And it was stolen to give to..." Atzi remembered Cory last loop and winced, going quiet for a few seconds. "Um... what else... that's it for big stuff, I think."

  "Okay."

  "...This is the first time you've heard me out, usually you just say I must be on drugs or try taking me to a priest."

  "Well, you seem… really distressed." Hemm's eye watered. "That was my first impulse, to go get you to see help. But, then you were afraid I would do that. So, I didn't."

  Atzi looked down and spoke quietly. "You follow the Saintess, so I reckon you don't wanna hear anything bad about Malus. Just had a bad experience talking to her, let's leave it at that. Don't wanna repeat it ever again."

  "Okay." Hemm set down the empty bottle. "I'm reserving my judgement for everything you just said. That doesn't mean I believe it, or even understand it, but I'm choosing not to not believe it."

  Atzi sighed. "That's better than I usually get." She put a claw across the table, beseeching Hemm. "You got anything I could tell you next time that would convince you I'm not making this up?"

  Hemm shook her head. "I don't really keep secrets. There's personal stuff about my life I haven't told you, but if you brought it up, I'd just assume you talked to someone who knew. And if it was really personal, I'd assume you were stalking me."

  "I guess. Yeah, if I said what colour underwear you were wearing, you'd just think I was spying on you and kick me out, not believe me."

  "Oh, like the books!" Hemm laughed.

  "Books?"

  "You don't know the books? Um, please don't go around figuring out anyone's underwear, time resetting or not."

  "I wasn't gonna!" Atzi thumped her tail. "Well maybe one person, but it's their fault for quizzing me like that. I didn't choose the stupid question."

  "They were probably referencing The Curious Doppleganger."

  Atzi gave a blank look.

  "The books."

  "What're they about?" Atzi asked.

  "The Shapeshifter tricking people for fun. Apparently the Shapeshifter even likes the books themself. Though does insist it's fiction."

  "Huh." I should glance at that to fuck with Fence sometime. "Anyway, my plan is I'm gonna find Terra and tell her where her book is. Memorised the inscription inside it so she'll believe me."

  "Alright." Hemm breathed out, then looked at Atzi, eye to eyes. "I'm reserving judgement. But even if I fully believed you, I'm not sure how I could help. But please be safe. There will always be food and a bed here for you when you need to rest."

  "...Thanks." Atzi rubbed her own shoulder awkwardly. "When it gets closer to the end of the week, you should, I dunno where exactly's safe, maybe if you get far enough away it'll be."

  Hemm looked at her inn sadly. "To be honest, I wouldn't mind returning home. I was thinking about it anyway, it's just with the war..."

  "Oh right!" Atzi snapped her claws. "There's something else I gotta look into. The necromancers in the city. I bet they're behind this. Or know something."

  Hemm frowned slightly. "Necromancers?"

  "Pomarian necromancers."

  "That sounds dangerous," Hemm said.

  "Yeah. Well, what's the worst they can do, kill me?" Atzi said bitterly.

  Hemm put her hand over Atzi's claw and held it. "Atzi, even if you're telling the truth, please don't treat your life as disposable. I don't think… that's a good thing to do. And even worse to get in a habit of." Her one big eye looked misty.

  "I was... kidding, really, really. I don't wanna do that, trust me." Atzi shook her head. "Dying's awful."

  Hemm let go and blinked a few times, removing the mist from her eye. "Good. Remember that."

  "When it gets near the end of the week, I'm gonna try running away as far as I can. Find out if anywhere's safe. Maybe I'll try running to Cthargictha after all."

  "I'm not judging you now, but if you die I'll tell everyone at your funeral all the things I didn't voice right now. It'll be very embarrassing, for you." Hemm gave a short laugh.

  "Not gonna be many people there to hear it..."

  "I'll scream it loud."

  "Okay, okay! I'll do my best not to!"

  Hemm smiled. "Good. Now, I recommend going to bed. You seem really tired."

  "... Yeah. Always feel that way after coming back." Atzi yawned. "Hey, uh, Hemm. Thanks." She looked around the inn. "This is the first real, normal conversation I've had in a while, about this stuff. With someone that's not some psycho drugged up mage, or a psycho super rich paranoid asshole, or..."

  "You should spend your time with nicer people." Hemm stood up.

  Atzi scoffed. "Yeah, well, bit late to fix that now."

  Hemm shrugged. "According to you, you have all the time in the world to fix it."

  "But no-one'll remember it but me." Atzi grimaced. "I mean I remember all this stuff, but you won't. What about the second time, or the third?"

  "Like I said, I don't know how to help." Hemm grabbed the dirty bowl and wine bottle. "I just know that this is taking a toll on you, even if you're 'okay' every time."

  Atzi pulled herself up from the table. "Well…" She clicked her tongue. "I guess, maybe... I'm gonna go sleep, then I've gotta go bug a crazy mage and hope she listens."

  Hemm headed back into the kitchen. "Let me know if you need anything."

  "Will do!" Atzi headed upstairs and climbed into bed.

  She drifted off with the thought that maybe things weren't so bad after all, as long as she had someone nice to listen to her.

  Atzi discord! Who knows how big that'll get one day.