I am going to tell you how many times I died, and then I am going to tell you that the number does not matter, and both of those things are true.
The number, for the record, was somewhere past two hundred. I stopped being able to hold it cleanly after the first forty or so, when the deaths stopped being events and became a texture… the way rain stops being individual drops once it is heavy enough.
Porridge... Storm... Gold… Dark... Engine... Porridge…Death… Death… Death… Death…
I lived these sentences more times than I have lived any other sentence in my life, including the one about wanting to be a mage, including the one about my mother loving me, and I want you to understand I am not being dramatic when I say it became the realest thing I knew.
But here is why the number does not matter.
[ Creation-Anima, Tier Three: Fusing — 3% liquid ]
[ Creation-Anima, Tier Three: Fusing — 5% liquid ]
[ Creation-Anima, Tier Three: Fusing — 9% liquid ]
It was working.
∞
