The construct shifts from side to side while the fabrics it made for itself flow unnaturally around its body. I wait patiently for its answer and so does Pearl–which seems to put more pressure on the construct. From the looks of it, the thing just isn't confident in its answer. That's actually pretty good news for us.

"If you're not sure, that's a good enough answer for me." Pearl says with a nod. "I think we have all the answers we're going to get for now, Shelby. We'll come back to this when Jumble's with us–she might have a few questions for this thing too."

No… wait.

I have something of an answer for you.

I raise an eyebrow at the thing's uncertain tone. "That's not very confident of you."

It shakes its head, sending fabrics flowing out every which way.

The truth is that the system's influence has… diminished since the start of the quest.

Even though I've seen the logs for myself, I can't quite bring myself to believe it.

You know that the quest for this is… well… sentient, yes?

"We've met." I say flatly. "Not on great terms, but we're acquainted."

Well what you don't know is the reason for this.

Assigning the quest a living proctor should have allowed the system more control over the minute-to-minute details.

Yet there have been very few communications between the system and the quest since you took 'Click' away from it.

"Click? Was it some kind of lynchpin for this entire thing?" I ask.

Pearl furrows her brow in thought. "Maybe it was how the system was communicating with the quest. When Click disconnected from the central control, the system could've lost its way to communicate with the quest. Which would mean the quest's been acting on its own since then."

"Just proctoring this thing like we're not even here."

"Exactly." Pearl agrees. "That could be why everything's been pretty normal since we freed Click, too. No winks and nudges from the system to push things towards screwing us over."

I nod slowly as a thought creeps into my mind. "Problem with that thought is the system could re-establish the connection at any time. Even though it can't directly tell the quest to kill us, it can put all the important things right next to the horizonguard and rush the quest to finish before we even have a chance. So we have to start moving way faster."

"Agreed. Of course, the construct here could just be lying to us about everything, and the system's been subtly nudging things in the way it wants all this time." Pearl sighs and shakes her head. "For all we know, the horizonguard could be two steps away from finishing the quest already. Heck, Click pointing out all those sidequests could've been it's way of distracting us from the main thing. Too bad we have no way of knowing how honest these constructs are."

I'm honest.

I roll my eyes. "Sure you are, buddy. Sure you are."

Pearl giggles at the construct's seeming hurt at being suspected. "You were literally created by the system. How can't we take everything you say with a Fleur's worth of salt?"

The construct looks down at its feet.

I don't know, either.

That's a strange answer, but… oh, no. It's saying it doesn't know if it's telling us the truth or not; it definitely thinks it is, but if the quest is controlling it on behalf of the system, then what it thinks might not be trustable. Click I trust a little more just because I initiated its transformation from mindless construct to construct with a mind of its own, but this one? It just so happened to become sentient after everything else that's happened, and we didn't do shit about it?

I smile apologetically. "Don't envy the place you're in. Maybe try looking back for the moment you started thinking and try to find a reason for it, because Click was not thinking when we first met it. Something definitely jump-started your consciousness. Could even be the quest working by proxy for the system."

Despair worms its way through the small construct's entire being as it shakes and squirms under the weight of implications. It looks between Pearl and me one last time, then unwinds itself into a formless stream and rushes back into my flask. One strand pulls the thing closed behind it, sealing the construct away from all the questions it no longer wants to hear.

"I think we gave it an existential crisis." Pearl laughs. "Do you know what the record from sentience to existential crisis is? Because I think this construct might have a claim to it."

"Could be. But this construct's mental state isn't our number one priority right now." I send the flask to my inventory, then start walking back. A message pings in a minute later informing me that Jumble and Llaliu found the water. "Good timing. Let's see if this subquest is more or less complicated than the construct's claiming it is."

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Pearl nods and shimmies into her shell. "If all the other quests are anything to go by, there'll be one thing missing that we can't find for a while. Then when we do, the subquest unravels like a really cheap scarf."

Can't argue with that. I hurry back to the meeting place where Clutter's waiting patiently, and a few minutes after that, Jumble and Llaliu join us. We exchange stories–even if theirs is just 'we walked and eventually found water–then turn to our Class Cards to start the process of actually progressing this quest.

"Gnash and Sawyer are ready." Llaliu says. "Dani and the others are standing by just in case things go wrong, but the construct's been talking to them now that they've got a reservoir full of it. Anything we can do here on our end other than standing around waiting for something to happen?"

We all look to one another, waiting for someone to speak up. In reality, this subquest has next to nothing to go on. Unless we want to start destroying walls to find the pipes the construct is obsessed with. Speaking of… the eyes and mouth in the pool have been silently watching us this entire time. It's talk with Pearl and I must've given the thing a real shock.

"If nobody else is going to say anything, I say we spread out and look for any changes." I decide. "Groups are what we chose earlier; me and Jumble, Clutter and Llaliu. If you find anything suspicious or important-seeming, send a message first and ask for relocation second. Even if I've got a bunch of these hexes doesn't mean I want to waste them."

Clutter and Llaliu nod in understanding as Jumble attaches herself to my arm. Neither of them bat an eye at it; they've gotten so used to it at this point. So have I, I guess.

"So what're we looking for?" Llaliu asks as I hand her and Clutter a relocation each–one keyed to me, and one keyed to Jumble. "Pipes, yeah, but how're we supposed to locate 'em? Do we have anything to go by?"

I shrug. "Your guess is as good as mine."

She makes a popping noise with her mouth. "I highly doubt that, but sure, whatever. How much suspicion do you want us to have before we send out a message?"

"Anything's good enough." Jumble answers. "Just keep it clear enooough that we'll notice messages coming in from the others. So no spamming single letters or anything like that."

"Aw, but that was the entire plan." Llaliu sarcastically rolls her eyes. "We're smart enough not to be stupid about this. Hopefully there's something here and we're not stuck waiting for the gloop with too many eyes to make its way through every single pipe, however many of the damn things there are."

She glances down at the pool as if expecting a retort. The construct returns nothing but silence and an empty-eyed stare. Llaliu shudders under the thing's unsettling gaze and turns away.

Clutter clears his throat to get our attention. "Even if we don't do anything, there will probably be a new development soon enough. There just isn't enough information right now to work with, and that's not how quests usually work. Either the others will have something to go on in an hour or so or we will."

"I really hope it's us." Llaliu mutters and turns to walk away. "C'mon, let's get going. I don't want to be near this puddle of yuck for any longer than I need to."

"That's not very nice." Clutter turns to the pool and smiles apologetically. "She definitely means it, but I don't think you're a puddle of yuck. But… um… maybe you could have a few less eyes and stop barfing out so many teeth? It is kind of unsettling."

The construct burbles in acknowledgement and shuts a few of its eyes. Clutter pauses, holding back a comment that's obviously about the dozens of eyes that are still open, then turns with a sigh and joins Llaliu. They jog away at a leisurely pace, heads turning on a swivel with their Class Cards out to search for literally anything out of place.

I bend down and grab a handful of perfect teeth. All of which are carbon copies of each other down to their exact dimensions. Maybe they're important for some reason, but right now, it just feels like an oddity of this construct. No idea why the system would make one that's blind and has all its teeth constantly falling out, though.

"It's almost like a really, really old person got liquified." Jumble says, getting so close to my thoughts that it's scary. "Hey, construct-puddle. Were you based on one specific person, or were you a creation straight from the system itself?"

If I knew that, I wouldn't be feeling this conflicted.

But please–keep talking like me meeting you isn't the reason my brain… my whatever I have now… is all out of sorts.

Do you know what it's like to live with no existential doubts?

I did.

It was very nice.

Jumble laughs bitterly. "I can't say I know what that's like, construct-puddle. All thanks to your creator."

Yes, my glorious creator.

In retrospect… no, I can't say that.

If the system is somehow monitoring me right now, that could get me killed.

Ki–oh, come on!

I have to worry about getting killed now?!

"Welcome to the club." I say. "Everyone else here is a part of it already. Meetings are all the time forever."

The construct burbles out a groan.

I hate this club.

Take away my membership, please.

But… not in a way that… urgh!

Just go do quest stuff and stop making me think about things that're too complicated!

"We'd love to, but there's just one problem. We have absolutely no idea what this quest is supposed to be, and right now, this doesn't feel like a trial at all." Jumble leans down and runs her fingers through the construct. It shivers like she has a gun to its head. "The sooner we're done here, the sooner you can be alone with your thoughts. Just tell us what we need to do to clear this and we'll be on our way."

A whimper bubbles up from the muck.

Okay, okay.

Um… what you have to do… is… um…

Give me a minute, give me a minute, I can see the impatience in your eyes.

It's… all… pipes?

Wait. No goddamn way. The construct has to be screwing with us.

Because there's no way it doesn't know everything about the quest it's giving us right now.

…Right?

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