The more the quest stalls for time, the less sure I am in its knowledge. If it'd just lied to us then that's fine, but it seems like it's genuinely trying to tell us the truth. Unfortunately for it, that truth must be as cryptic to it as it is to us. Shit, was all that talk about the heretics and the constructs something it made up? Or is that the extent of what it actually knows?

"You're screwing with us, right?" I half-ask, half state. "You're in charge of this subquest. How can you be in charge of it if you don't know how it's supposed to be completed? Shit, is there even a way to complete it?"

"If there isn't, we can always abandon it. Even if we get nothing else out of this, we have a way to not be trapped in here." Jumble says, but her tone gives away just how uncomfortable she is with these possibilities. "If the construct had just told us it can't say anything more, then that would've been fine. But it's trying to tell us things. Is this just an act to lull us into… into… um… honestly, I can't think of anything."

I nod in agreement. "It's already in control of the subquest. Letting us run around in circles for hours without saying a thing would've been a better way to waste our time, so there's no damn reason to play stupid."

Well excuse me for not… being… whatever!

Believe me or not, I'm just as confused about this as you are.

I have explicit instructions to tell you about the pipes, the reservoirs, and the heretics' constructs clogging everything up.

After that I have absolutely no idea how the quest is going to progress.

The construct stops abruptly as eyes bubble to the top of its pool. All the newly surfaced eyes open and blink slowly, like someone waking up from a restless sleep confused and disoriented. But the ones that were already there stay locked on us with empty awareness. I want more than anything to believe the construct is screwing with us because it makes things so much simpler; the quest told it to keep us busy for as long as possible, and that's that.

But if it is actually being kept in the dark about things… then why? What would the quest stand to gain from limiting this construct's knowledge while also making it more sentient than before? Those two realities don't seem compatible with one another.

Jumble nudges me with her shoulder. "I don't think it's lying."

"Neither do I." I sigh. "But I can't figure out any reason why the quest and system would do this. Nevermind the fact that this subquest is way too simple for a regular subquest, nevermind one of the repurposed trials. Something big is going to happen. It has to. Or else… what's the point of this?"

The construct sighs, splattering a new coating of teeth onto the ground with the force of its exhale.

I really wish I could tell you.

Because I just made contact with the constructs I told you about.

Small insect-like things with barely a drop of liquid magic each.

Most of them already dead.

Very few doing anything even close to disrupting the magic of this place.

I kick away some teeth to clear space and kneel down at the pool's edge. "How many more constructs are there?"

None.

Thanks to your reservoirs enough of me has been put into the pipes to scour them clean.

And we still haven't found any reason why there's a necessity for the water reservoir.

"No, we have not." I raise my hand to cover my mouth in thought. "Did you get anything from the quest telling you to tell us anything?"

The construct sloshes side to side in its equivalent of shaking its head. Jumble leans into me a little harder and bites her lip.

"I could use my skill here, but… nobody else could. So this subquest would be pretty much unclearable by anyone but me. And, like, why would the quest–whose working for the system–make anything that's just solvable by a Worth Class?"

Good question. The only answer to which I can think of is 'it wouldn't'.

I shake my head confidently. "No way in hell. Whatever's happening here is either to stall us for a long time or lock us out of getting the upgrade locked behind this quest. Construct, do you have access to anything else in here? Even if you don't think it'll help, we need to know about it."

The construct makes a noise as it considers my words.

I can… bring the disabled constructs to your friends on the other side.

Maybe they'll be able to find some meaning in them that I don't have access to.

"Alright, that's a good start I guess." I turn and raise my chin at Jumble. "Let's give your skill a shot. If the quest didn't give the construct enough information, it still has to have left a clear condition. At least I hope so."

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Jumble nods and pulls out her Class Card. She whispers to herself in a voice that is completely unintelligible, then shifts to reading whatever just appeared while muttering to herself. Furrows deepen on her brow with every line her eyes slide over, and by the time she finishes reading and sends her Class Card away she's more frown than paindne.

"It said we're done with the subquest. We just have to claim the rewards." She says with heavy tones of suspicion and disbelief. "How's that even possible? Shouldn't there be a popup if that's true?"

As far as I know, yes. There definitely should be. I glance down at the construct in the pool to gauge its reaction. Somehow the proctor of the subquest is even more surprised about the results of Jumble's skill than we are.

This… no.

It can't be over already.

Barely anything even happened.

You… you didn't use half of the reservoirs!

And if you weren't already communicating with the people on the other side, there wouldn't have been any way at all to clear this!

I haven't been… alive… for long but even I know that something's off about this.

Very, very, very, very off.

So off that I'm not confident any of you should be exploring this place.

Everything here could be a trap specifically laid for you.

Jumble raises an eyebrow. "Are you included in 'everything'?"

It's a real possibility.

One that I really don't want to be true, because I like thinking, but… my sentience could just be something to slow you down.

If I could just access the databanks, then I'd at least know what's going on.

Wait–hold on a second–I'm just getting the constructs into your friends' hands.

It's a little hard holding two conversations at once, so I'm going to focus my attention there.

Most of the construct's eyes squeeze shut as I feel its magic shift away from us. I scratch my neck a little too hard as I try to make sense out of… anything, I guess, but all my answers come with too many caveats to be legitimate.

"Shelby?" Jumble asks.

I turn and almost smack my nose against hers. "Yeah?"

She backs away just a little. "This construct didn't just suddenly get sentience. Something happened to it, and if it was the quest that did it, then it's pretty likely that's what messed up its memory. Heck, there's a chance whatever happened to it wasn't even intended."

I find that hard to believe… but it is an option. The quest pulled access from Click when it started helping us, so maybe it did the same preemptively for this construct. And maybe that process took away some of its knowledge of the quest. But that doesn't explain why Jumble's skill thinks we're done with the quest.

Man, why couldn't this just be simple? Can't believe I'm wishing for another subquest like the stain that chased us through the hallways. At least that one built on logical things that we had a little influence over.

"Alright, they're far enough away." Pearl says as she pops out of her shell. "But just in case, I'll use your body to hide myself from Llaliu. So how's it going? Any progress?"

Jumble raises an eyebrow. "I thought you could see and hear everything from in there."

"I can. But not if I wasn't paying attention." Pearl says with a grin. "Something's been bothering me about this place, but I hadn't been able to pinpoint exactly what it was."

"Hadn't?" I ask.

Pearl nods. "Past tense, yep. And it all comes down to the rules of this place we've seen so far; all the subquests, the lab underground, even the tower and rooms; they all exist in the city. Even if they were magically empowered, like the hallway we ran from the stain in, they were still there. But here?"

A wide gesture made with small arms motions at everything around us. Without saying a word, I get the point; wherever we are, we got here somehow. And that somehow doesn't fit with anything else we've seen in the city so far. Pearl watches our expressions for her cue to keep talking.

"The city doesn't teleport like this. It uses doors." She eventually continues. "The apartment, Click's alcove, going underground to wherever that actually is–it's constant. Check your maps again. I'm pretty dang sure we'll find something off with them."

Without a reason to doubt Pearl or a good theory of my own, I open my Class Card and swipe over to my map. It looks exactly like I thought it would; a bird's eye view of this place and all the designs on the ground made with the pools. Nothing wrong instantly jumps out at me, but there's definitely a sense of strangeness that I can't deny.

As Jumble does the same, I squint down at the map and tap at it a few times. I feel like there's something missing here. …And it's no longer a grey stain, which should've been beyond obvious the moment I looked at it.

"Apparently unclogging those pipes fixed the maps."

Jumble blinks, then giggles in embarrassment. "You know, I was just trying to figure out why this all felt completely new. Whoopsie."

I shrug. "Hey, we both missed it for a second. So, Pearl, see anything that proves whatever you're theorizing?"

"Yep. Right away." Pearl leans in and taps my map. "All of your markers are missing. Jumble, do you remember doing an uplifting trial that's anything like this?"

Jumble shakes her head. "Nope. But I didn't do my trial in this district."

Pearl nods. "Exactly. If the trial actually took place here like the construct said, then there should've been a place physically in the district for this to happen. But Clutter didn't find anything. And the construct itself said that Click was supposed to run this trial–so what do you think it means?"

She looks expectantly between the two of us. I'm not quite sure exactly where she's going, but if we don't have our location markers here and there's nowhere physically close to this place… and… constructs in the pipes… hm. Part of me wants to say we haven't actually gone anywhere and the construct's just showing us visions. But at least one of us would've detected something if that's the truth.

So what else does that leave us with? Somewhere on the map that is visible but won't show our location markers. The only thing I can even think of is that strange room from right after we cleared the apartment. Or… another space like it. Somewhere only the constructs are supposed to be able to go.

Somewhere it really feels like the system wouldn't want us anywhere near.

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