We poke around the room a little more, and after a real effort to get Jumble back on her feet, we leave the meditation chamber behind. I'll have to get Clutter in here as soon as possible so we can actually communicate again. Before things get moving again.

Jumble wistfully looks back at the door from her spot on my arm and sighs. "I'll be back soon, my beautiful nap-spot."

I shake my head. "Clutter's got first dibs. You can sleep when the rest of us do."

"Aw." Jumble pouts. "What if I say I'm so tired that I can barely move? Does that do anything to change things?"

"It might if you weren't walking with enough energy for two." I chuckle and tap Jumble on the forehead. "So, back on topic; could you point out where the other uplifting trials are?"

"Probably? But only the ones I took." Jumble quickly clarifies. "They're in districts that could be pretty far from here. I think it'd be better to try and find the trials in the other neighboring districts."

That's a little disappointing, but also perfectly logical. "I guess we'll just have to hope Click can point out the other trials."

Jumble nods. "It should be able to. If it actually has all that information in its head, there's no way it doesn't know where they are. We'd just have to give it a map so we can go to them."

"Can't you do that?" I ask.

She considers my question for a second, then shakes her head. "Sorry. I followed something here to you, but I don't have any other parts of the map explored. So it's all empty. But if we can somehow find our way to the parts of the city I explored, then my map will work again!"

I start to sigh in defeat, but an idea stops me. If she can move the map, we could eventually make our way to a part that she actually knows. "Can you scroll your map to the revealed parts?"

"Not anymore." Jumble grumbles. "Something about the towers here messes with it. I can only scroll through the already revealed parts."

"Hmm. Makes it seem like that's being limited for a reason." I scratch my neck, then nod to myself. "After Clutter finishes his quest, you should do the stain. Just in case it gives you full access to the map."

Jumble hums in confirmation and shoves her head against my arm. "I can do that. Even if it doesn't do anything, it'll be interesting to see what the quest did to an uplifting trial. Was it fun when you did it?"

I let out a derisive snort. "That's about the last thing I'd call it. It was a lot of running combined with very little actual decisions."

"And that gave you… Mind?" Jumble frowns. "That sounds more like a Body trial. The quest definitely messed with things."

"You don't say." I say sarcastically. "Maybe the body trial will be a mind-bending marathon of complex equations."

I turn at the fork in the road towards the workshop as Jumble giggles at my half-joke. She pulls me in closer as we turn, and I can feel her grow tenser with every footstep. Don't need to be a mind-reader to know that she's working up the nerve to talk about something important.

"D-do you think humans and paindne can have relationships?" She blurts out, then looks away as her face flushes.

That's… absolutely not the question I was expecting. "Sure. Clutter has a human girlfriend, but she's kind of a bitch. So…not the best example, but yeah. I don't see why not. Why the ask?"

Jumble swallows hard. "U-um… because… I… um… we're… there's someone I really like! I haven't known her–them, I mean–for that long, but I just…"

I raise an eyebrow. "Are you talking about me?"

"W-what? N-no!" Jumble stammers, then winces. "I mean… um… what if you were who I was talking about? P-purely theoretically, I mean, since it's way too fast for anyone to actually fall in love with anyone. A-hem."

She coughs into her hand to put a hard stop on her rambling. I scratch my neck in discomfort, completely unsure how I'm supposed to answer her half-redacted confession. We've really known each other for half a goddamn day, damn it. Yeah, I might've picked up on some things; I'm not completely socially inept, but I ignored them because paindne just seem to… naturally like me more.

But she's just so… nervous about this. Hell, I don't even know if I'm into women. Or men. My life's been… a little… not-receptive to any kind of relationships. By which I mean Jazz–my platonic roommate–is the closest thing I've had to a romantic relationship. Plus, I'm just not in the right headspace for anything like this right now.

"I'm… not sure." I carefully admit. "You seem like a nice girl, but I just don't know you well enough yet."

Jumble's eyes widen, and I ready myself for her disappointment. "That doesn't sound like a no."

Again, not what I expected. "That's because it… isn't. But it also isn't a yes; I'm just not in the mindset to think about this shit at all. Maybe after we're out of here, and we actually get to hang out some more platonically, then maybe I'd be willing to try it."

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"I'll take it!" Jumble squeals happily. "Can I still hug you like this?"

I slowly nod. Her smile brightens up the already bright hall, and she squeezes my arm with what I know is restrained strength. But I know that she's a paindne–it's just in her nature to be more touchy with people. Besides, once she gets out of the rut of being a Worth Class without support, I bet she'll get tired of me. Maybe she'll even latch onto Ursula or March.

But… if not… uh… I'll deal with that when the time comes. Because I am not ready to deal with that now. Romance of any kind hasn't even crossed my mind since I got my Class… no… since I started university. Shit, has it really been that long?

I shake those thoughts off and pause as my Class Card vibrates through my skull. Jumble's ears perk up at the exact same time, too, and she looks at me with a raised eyebrow. Except now I can't help but notice the adoration in her eyes. Poor girl really is crushing on me for no reason.

Enough time has passed.

Businesses inside of districts with towers are now open.

All of the city's other districts without towers have had their classifications changed.

Claim all districts surrounding the one that houses your tower to progress.

…

This portion of the message is for those with the first key.

The first lock exists within each unsafe district.

Each can only be opened once.

Do not lose your chance to someone else.

Jumble tilts her nose up as she reads. An expression like she just smelled something horrible spreads across her face, and she summons a heart into her free hand. It looks exactly like the heart of a heretic we have, but… my awareness says it's very slightly smaller. Meaning the quest didn't just duplicate the thing for everyone.

"I thought something like this would happen eventually." She mutters. "You have a heart too, right?"

I nod and pull the heart from my quests tab. "It's slightly bigger than yours. Does that mean there's more than one heretic?"

Jumble grits her teeth. "That's what I physically can't tell you. The quest's just going to censor it, since me saying yes or no can have really different consequences. But… I do know something. That's all I can say."

"Does it have to do with when you were stuck here before?"

Her face turns to stone. "I definitely won't be able to say anything un-censored about that."

That is a blatant 'yes' in my eyes. If the heretics were actual paindne, and I assume the system killed them for speaking out against it… then doesn't that feel more than a little similar to the subquest we just did? Not exactly the same, since the last two killed by the construct were killed for… listening. The notification said the deaths were of people who listened.

I barely gave it a thought in the moment, but it all fits in place too snugly now. They listened to the heretics–or a heretic–and were killed for it. So… what did the system actually do to the heretics? Why didn't it just kill them all right away? It seemingly had no problem sending a construct to murder people who just listened to them, so why not the heretics themselves?

"Whatever you're thinking… it might be right." Jumble says, pulling me from my thoughts. "But it might be wrong, too. Don't tunnel yourself into one possibility when there's so many ways for it to get worse."

Her hardened expression and sad eyes put a weight in my gut that sits there like a chunk of lead. Either she's greatly underestimating my imagination… or I'm not giving the system enough credit for how horrible it can be. Either way, Click said the heretics were below. Which didn't exist when Jumble was here.

So they were moved for the quest. I have no idea if that's important.

"Shelby!" Pearl calls before my awareness feels her. "Did you get the notification?!"

Clutter runs into my awareness a moment later, carrying Pearl in his hands just like he'd try to cup water in his palms. Jumble lowers her heart, stares into my eyes, and smiles confidently. Like she believes everything's going to go just fine because I'm here. It's flattering and god damn terrifying.

"We're here." I say right before Clutter rounds the corner. "And we both got the notification. How're you two doing? Is Clutter up to speed?"

"Oh, that. Um. Well." Clutter coughs and walks up to me so Pearl can scamper onto my shoulder. "So here's the thing. I might've lied so I could confirm Jumble's story."

I frown. "Excuse me?"

He holds out his now-free hands. "I know it sounds bad, but I was really worried that the horizonguard had gotten to you. So I asked for Pearl to stay behind just in case she knew what was happening and couldn't say anything while you were around."

"You asked for her autograph so you could… what? Compare it against one you already have?"

"Oh, no, I just wanted her autograph. Aaand I might've wanted to see if she tried to cast anything on me while she did it." Clutter admits. "Pearl cleared everything up, though, so I'm really sorry I doubted you!"

I shake my head. "No, no, that's perfect. You had every right to be suspicious, and you acted on it in a pretty damn smart way. Honestly, I'm impressed. A little annoyed and terrified that you think the horizonguard could've pulled the wool over my eyes that easily, but mostly impressed."

Clutter smiles sheepishly. "Thanks. I'm still sorry, but thanks."

"Just in case… how would the horizonguard control us?" Jumble asks worriedly. "I didn't know that was something I had to look out for."

"Water. Maybe just liquid in general." Clutter says before I can. "I don't know how he does it, but he can control liquids and apparently see through them. Maybe more than see, too. Oh, but the tower neutralizes any hostile magic, so you don't have to worry about that in here."

Jumble grimaces. "That sounds like something I have to worry about everywhere else, though. Do you think he's a wizard with a lot of water spells, or some other kind of transformation Class?"

Clutter shrugs helplessly. "I don't know enough about really strong Classes to say that."

"Dang." Jumble hisses. "If we knew what his Class was, we'd be able to prepare for it. Now we just have to prepare for everything."

"That, or just stay out of his way." I say, then hold up a hand at the looks I get. "I know, I know, but he probably won't do anything as long as we're progressing the quest. The moment we're not useful to him, though, is the moment we get killed. So somehow, we need to get strong enough to resist by the time that happens."

I crack my knuckles and nod in the direction of the meditation chamber. "Clutter, go run the anomaly meditation to get your messenger. The second you're done with that, we're going out hunting."

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