They moved to a locked room. The government had several buildings within walking distance of the arena. Whatever taste the crowd had earlier had for the deaths of the fighters, today had been a sobering experience.

  He couldn't go and explain to them how many times he had died. If he could have done this without any fanfare, he would. Chances were that the Prefereti wanted to use him for their own political gain.

  Gia and Erebus sat behind him, acting as his own guards.

  "Ludo. Apologies for this, but we need to make sure that this isn't overheard. I believe that I would have noticed someone with such a soul. I am Senator Celisar from the government. What you did there was nothing short of… The gate… How did you do that?"

  Ludere pursed his lips. "I had the fortune of a good teacher. I spent the last several months working on my Will Magic, and that has made the difference."

  Celisar's mask slipped for a moment. "Come, now. You have a generational talent."

  Ludere felt the wooden table between them. How many arguments between men of means had happened there? The Senator could not match his skills. He didn't have any cards to force him to stay.

  "I might have talent, but talent gets paid. What assurances do I have that what I say in here isn't going to be common knowledge tomorrow?"

  "You have my assurance that whatever happens in here that it will not leave the room. I will do everything that I can to keep your confidence. Men of your strength are the backbone of the empire. You could have a position within my house, if you wanted."

  Ludere nodded. The Senator had made a similar request before in previous loops.

  "Thank you. I don't know what you think I want to do, but let me explain something. I had a vision that there would be an attack. Thousands of demons that would have gone through a gate today to invade our world were stopped. I don't understand why they chose this exact time to do it. This looked very intentional and planned."

  "What makes you think that this was so intentional?"

  Ludere recounted the size of the force. "It was at least the size of a Legion. In my vision, I saw hundreds of demons lined up to go through it."

  "A vision? Are you perhaps an Oracle?"

  "I don't know how to answer that. I'm going to need to talk to someone before I can confidently say either way."

  "What you are telling me is grave indeed, if a legion of demons was prepared to stage an assault on the capital, when most of the Legion is celebrating or scattered and would not be able to be reformed for several days. This is very peculiar."

  "Senator?"

  "I'm not saying that I don't believe you, and I'm going to need to have you answer some more questions, but this brings up more questions than I think the government wants to answer."

  For a long moment, the entire room was silent. Ludere didn't want to believe that this was anything except for a demonic plot, but something about how the Senator said 'government' gave him pause. If anyone knew how gates worked, it was a senior official.

  "Pardon me, but is there anything else?"

  "We need to account for your rapid rise in station. You will have to report to the censor and have your skills read. You are a hero to the Republic, but we need to make sure that what you do next is above board."

  Ludere knew that there was going to be some sort of formal inquiry.

  "What I am going to need you to do is to sign a Writ of Silence. Events that happened today need to not be discussed beyond this room. Even if they are discussed, it needs to be within a circle of trust."

  There had to be something. One of the Senator's guards brought out a page for each of them to sign.

  "You just have these forms lying around all the time? And just bring them out when company comes? Is that what this is?"

  The guard looked amused briefly before writing in the specifics of what they were not to talk about. He examined it with a casual air of somebody who had been shafted by more than one contract before. It looked about as airtight as it could be.

  "I will need to speak to the Oracle, and she will see things, no matter what happens here. But she would always have seen what she would see. I just need to talk to her about it."

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  "This makes it sound like she's your Oracle. You say you're not an Oracle, but why are you talking about an Oracle of Iosan this way?" Senator Celisar looked over the documents as well, before passing them back.

  "I cannot stop everyone from seeing what I see. You'd know that if you want to have ever visited one."

  "Ludo. I wish for you to call upon my house tomorrow morning. I will have my guards set you up with an appointment. I think it's very important that we need to be aligned on this and we stay ahead of the gossip. This kind of attack is probably the precursor for a larger invasion."

  He found some of the smaller details for a little bit before the Senator let them go. He was surprised to be walking free. Unfortunately for the Senator, Ludere was stronger than him. It was very clear that this was inconvenient for the man with the purple tinged robes.

  Shortly thereafter he found himself without anything to do.

  He wasn't returning to the beginning of the loop. Erebus knew what was going on. Gia also knew. The arena was closed down for the rest of the day by orders of the government. Perhaps it was just their luck that the highest ranking Senator had been from the governance faction of the empire and not the military faction. It wasn't like he had big plans for the day. He was going to work. The arena was closed, so he couldn't work. He didn't even know he wanted to return to work. If he did, he would have to figure out a way to veil his soul or something.

  That would become more difficult unless he got someone to help him with that.

  " You know what I haven't done in a while? I haven't gone and feasted on anything. Do you guys want to go to the temple of the fiddler and have some of their soup? The Oracle I want to speak to is there, and I think that'll do us good. Plus, the way things have been going, I haven't really had time to sit down for a meal with some good friends. I've seen you guys so much—I know that this is really abrupt and you guys bet on this whole demonic Invasion thing before I showed up with the arm of an elite demon, but I think that we need to go have some merriment."

  "Ludere, You seem awfully stressed, for somebody who's just basically been offered to be adopted by a Senator. But yeah, let's do that. And then we can talk about this special 'swapping' skill you have, because I think I need to learn some things from you."

  "The only thing you really have that I don't have is your Glam skill and I don't really think that I'm going to do much with it."

  All around them, revelers celebrating in the festival in their own way drank and ate, and they walked down streets that he'd run down before to save time. It felt so luxurious to not be in a rush. As they got closer and closer, everything narrowed down to the focus of him deciding that he was going to get exactly what he wanted. That night, he was going to eat some food. He was going to talk to the Oracle. He was going to tell Erebus and Gia the story of how he tried to save their lives so many times.

  He might not tell them that story. No one wanted to hear about how they were going to die.

  But if they asked, he would tell them. He would tell them his part of the story, and how many times they had saved his ass.

  They owed each other that, at the very least, and if all that he got from them was their company and a time where none of them was going to die, then maybe just maybe he could set down the spear that he'd been carrying unconsciously since the arena. He hadn't even noticed it when he signed his writ.

  But it was there all the same. It was almost like it was a part of him now. And now he was going to have to get something long-term if he wanted to survive. The spear he had, though it was perfunctory, belonged to the arena, and he would have to return it.

  "I think that I'm in the mood to go shopping for a spear tomorrow. I don't really know where to find one, but I know that all the guards have gotten some good ones and I've gotten some recommendations. I think that might be a good day. Especially given that I was supposed to have tomorrow off, if I recall that correctly, and I was going to spend it with my family. I think that I want to spend it with you guys as well."

  Erebus chuckled. "You must have really had a hard time. We barely hung out outside of work and now you're like you feel like you're my best friend. I know that's not what we were before, but it feels like we are buddies, and it feels like you really want that kind of experience."

  Gia nodded. They were near to the temple now. "It's not that I wasn't friendly with you. It's just that you're telling me that I introduce you to Jay, and then Jay introduced you to his mentor. All this stuff that say just happened. This just sounds so fantastical! I didn't understand it until you said that you've basically been living through this day for what feels to me like it's been a month. Or at least a week. Do you know how many visions you had?

  "I've tried to count them before, but I'm not sure. I lost count at around fifty visions. I think it was somewhere around one hundred. I was literally trying to do this as fast as possible because of the cat. It said I only had so many loops."

  "We do like to listen to our cats, right? Here's the temple itself." Erebus was the first one around the corner.

  It smelled like revelry in all the good ways. No one had been drunk yet. No one had been sick yet. There was no throw up. No one had pissed on the walls. It was still the early afternoon, or late afternoon, and all that they wanted to do was sit and be with each other. They found a bench that was unoccupied connected to a long table and they all sat down after they got bowls of soup.

  One of the priests of Fiddle dropped by and poured enough into each bowl to make them happy. The ladling was deliberate and quick. They had a practice with feeding, as they were probably the hundredth set of revelers to join in. A few tables away, people were singing bawdy songs of the Republic and how things were in the Legion.

  Ludere didn't know any words, but he found himself tapping his feet along to the beat. It was infectious, and he wanted it. He wanted it in his bones. This was the kind of thing he wanted to experience more of. Having such an experience and such a condensed time really made him weigh into what was important to him. When he got home, he would see his parents for the first time in what felt like forever.

  He held his bowl up and took a long sip.

  "This is the most delicious thing I've tasted in forever. Thank you both for everything you've done for me. I know you can't go back and experience what it was like, but I feel like I'm going to know you so well, and I just want to say that I am committed to making both of your lives better."

  That was when the Oracle arrived and sat down next to them without saying a word.