I crack my neck and nod to myself. This is pretty much our only shot at clearing this subquest. If it's another system trick, or the others on the pipe side didn't get any instructions, we're not getting any further. So we just have to do it.

"That pool up there." I say to Pearl and Jumble. "It lined up perfectly with the holes in my message and disappeared right after."

Jumble looks over at me and nods. "Let's get going, then."

She re-takes her place clinging to my arm and Pearl scurries back to my shoulder. I shoot her a warning glance, then look back at where Clutter and Llaliu are off in the distance. And getting closer by the second.

"Aw. I guess it's time." She sighs. "Well, good luck. Hopefully things work out."

"Hopefully." I repeat under my breath as Pearl squeezes into her shell. "Any news from the other side, Jumble?"

"Sort of. Kind of. Maybe?" She shrugs apologetically. "Gnash's message had strange spaces just like yours, but whatever it's saying isn't as obvious. And Dani isn't really making it easy."

I raise an eyebrow. "How so?"

"Because he's angry about the construct. Really, really angry." Jumble frowns as she speaks, gripping my arm a little tighter. "It's weird. Like, he shouldn't know what was going to happen, but he's acting like you screwed up some grand plan he was working on."

That is weird. Suspicious, even. "Do you think he found some info and is keeping it secret from everyone else?"

Jumble lets out a long sigh and shakes her head. "I just… I just don't know. Part of me thinks he's keeping something secret–maybe even betraying us to the horizonguard. But why would he? Even if he's acting like a jerk, that shouldn't be enough to actually try to hurt all of us. Right?"

When she looks up at me, I can tell she doesn't believe her own denial. With everything she must've seen, there's no way she could be innocent to things like betrayal. So now she's trying to justify it as Dani wouldn't have anything to gain from said betrayal. But she knows. Because of course she does.

Sometimes, a single flake of spite is all it takes to start an avalanche of betrayal.

"I don't know, Jumble." I reach up and scratch her between the ears. "But we'll have to find out sooner or later. Can I count on you to help with that?"

Without a moment of hesitation, she nods. "I want to believe in him. The best way to do that is to prove he's innocent."

"And if we prove the opposite?"

A small, tired smile slips onto Jumble's lips. "I'll do what has to be done. For the sake of everyone else–you and Pearl and Clutter especially."

I set my jaw and pull Jumble into a hug. Her expression shifts almost instantly to one of extreme weariness. An expression so old and well-worn that I can't imagine how many stories she could tell with that face alone. Far, far too many, if I had to hazard a guess. For Dani's sake… I hope we're mistaken.

For Jumble's sake, too.

"Um… are we… uh…" Clutter coughs awkwardly from a few feet behind us. "You know what, um, we'll just come back in a minute. C'mon, Llaliu."

He turns to leave, but Jumble waves him towards us without breaking the hug. Or moving her face from the nook in my shoulder where she shoved it.

"No, no, it's fine. I can hear you like this." She says, her words slightly muffled by my clothes. "You got my message?"

Clutter slowly nods as he looks between me and Jumble. "Yes, I, uh, did. Which pool are we going to?"

I point up at our destination. Clutter and Llaliu look up at it, but Llaliu takes a little longer than him to look away from me and Jumble. There's something like longing in her eyes, but it disappears the moment she locks on to the pool.

"That one? It's… that's not even vertical, it's wrapped around to being upside-down!" She snaps back to me, her eyes traveling down to Jumble for a split second before she forces her gaze to me alone. "We're sure this place will let us just walk up there? What if the gravity got all messed up, or… returned to normal… when the construct up and abandoned us?!"

"Then we'll find out soon enough." Clutter assures her. "Well, um… you two… we kind of have to… you know… start walking?"

Jumble untangles herself from me, smooths out her fur, and nods. "I'm ready."

Clutter smirks at the slight blush on her face, but doesn't point it out as he walks out ahead of us. Llaliu follows him a second later, conspicuously staring at Jumble with a mixed expression until she rips her attention away and focuses on the walk ahead. Either Jumble doesn't notice or doesn't care, as she just picks up the pace and happily inserts herself into the group and starts talking to Clutter.

I scratch my neck again. A sharp pain follows my nails, and I look down at my hand to see thin rivulets of blood trickling down my fingertips. I grimace and brush my hair to cover the tiny cuts I inflicted on myself, even though it won't do much good to fool two paindne noses, and quickly jog to catch up to the group. Llaliu acknowledges me with a nod, then goes right back to watching the back of Jumble's head with a forlorn expression.

Should I say something about it? Is now really the time? I reach up to scratch my neck, but stop short at the last second. Yeah, we're all stressed and worried that the future might not hold what we want right now. Definitely not the time for probing personal questions.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"Hey, Llaliu?" Jumble turns to look over her shoulder.

Llaliu startles. "Y-yes?"

Jumble runs a hand over the back of her head. "Do I have something on me? Because you're staring pretty hard there."

"W-what? I-I am?" Llaliu sheepishly stumbles over her words and looks away. "Sorry. You just… um… you remind me of someone. I haven't seen him since we got here, obviously, and I'm kind of… really missing him. Way more than I thought I would."

Clutter nods knowingly, but his face is twisted with confliction. "I know what you mean. My… girlfriend… I miss her. Even though I know I shouldn't… I do."

Llaliu scrunches her nose in confusion. "What do you mean you shouldn't miss her? It's normal to miss the people you love. I… I've been away for months before, but we'd always find some way to meet up every now and again. Now I can't even send him messages, and all this shit with the horizonguard… I'm just worried someone's going to try and hurt him to try and hurt me."

"Well, it goes both ways, at least. The message lock, I mean." Clutter clarifies. "We can't send anything out, but neither can the horizonguard. So unless the people who got cold feet decide they want to hurt your… boyfriend?"

"Husband." Llaliu says.

Clutter's eyes widen for a split second, but he composes himself quickly. "Well, unless what you did before you came here made people want to hurt him, there shouldn't be any reason to worry. In a few… weeks… hopefully… we'll be done with this. And we can all go back and see our… loved ones."

My heart breaks at the way Clutter says 'loved ones'. It's like half of him wants to go back to Dell and act like nothing happened and the other half is screaming at him to run as far away as possible and have nothing to do with her. I look up at the pool, so far in the distance, and roll Illumisia's half-destroyed relocation coin through my fingers as a harsh reminder that we're cut off from everything else until this damn quest ends.

I shift to a jog. Then, a few seconds later, a sprint. Even without my awareness, I know that everyone's following me. Because they're all as desperate to get out of here as I am.

When we finally get to the pool, it looks no different than any other pool. Empty, deep, and as unassuming as every other one we've walked past so far. Gravity looks like it's holding to the weird rules of this place so far, but we have no idea how long that's going to last. So we flood the thing with water from the reservoirs.

And wait. Jumble constantly talks with Dani on the other side, and after a while, Llaliu starts talking with Sawyer. Poor guy's still intimidated by me, and unless he absolutely has to, he'll do anything not to directly communicate with me. Including messaging Llaliu so she can relay his info to me.

"They say they've got two of the pipes down." She says, head resting on her palm as she dangles her legs over the edge of an empty pool. "I'd say they're close to being done, but we don't have any confirmation that they've got the right ones. Probably a good chance they'll find the 'last one' and find out that they've still got a ways to go."

"Let's hope not." I sigh. "Whoever went through the trouble of modifying those notifications could've been a little more obvious."

Clutter snorts out a laugh. "That's an understatement. So… I know we don't want to ask this… but what if we're the wrong ones?"

I shake my head. "My notification disappeared. Theirs hasn't yet. If we're wrong there's literally nothing we can do about it, so there's no point worrying about it."

Jumble raises an eyebrow and looks down at my impatiently tapping foot. She giggles to herself and gently nudges my arm, which I answer by rolling my eyes. Okay, yeah, I'm worrying about it. Doesn't change the fact that there's nothing I can do about it. All it does is make the worrying pointless and harmful.

Can't stop it though. My brain just won't let me.

A message pings into Llaliu's messenger. Before she can read it, Jumble's makes the exact same noise–followed by Clutter, and then finally, me. I raise my Class Card to check the message and find myself staring at a few words from Sawyer.

'We're ready whenever you are, ma'am. Give the order.'

I take a deep breath through my nose. But before I jump the gun, I send back a quick message of my own; 'did the notifications disappear?'.

A response pings back almost immediately.

'Yes, ma'am.'

Alright. I scratch my neck lightly–not enough to draw more blood–and scan my eyes over the group one by one. Everyone looks at me with anticipation and more than a little worry. For better or worse, I hold the detonator here.

I nod down at Llaliu and Clutter. "Get ready."

They nod in unison and stand, moving away from the edge of the empty pool to stand next to the full one with Jumble and I. I stare into the still waters that fill the pool most of the way up–but not quite to the top. The message said to flood the pool. Time to get to work.

I tap out a quick message, then nod to Jumble. She nods back and opens the flow as I hit send, pouring gallons upon gallons of water into the mostly full pool. No confirmation pings back at me. We all watch with bated breath as the water level rises, bulges just over the top for the briefest of moments, and finally spills over the edge.

Wetness pools around my feet. A strange sound–like the physical sensation of a train rumbling through but with the quiet drone of a rotating sprinkler–spreads through my body all at once. Jumble clutches my arm hard, claws just barely nipping at my skin while she focuses on the brand new ripple that's forming in the center of the pool.

Quick, pounding impacts echo through the air. Bursts of pressurized steam erupt from seemingly random places in the ground. I take a step back and gently nudge Llaliu out of the way of one that erupts a little too close for comfort. She nods and opens her mouth to say something.

A scratching shriek like ten thousand nails on ten thousand chalkboards cuts through reality. Grey, pulsating magic piggybacks on the sound and cements itself in the perfect center of the ripple. Long, sinuous fingers slip through a space no larger than a coin, curl around the edges, and begin to pull.

Every fiber in my being screams at me to run. But… I can't. Not in a frozen in fear kind of way, but in a… time isn't working kind of way. None of the steam spouts screech. The ripple remains frozen in the water mid-movement. Jumble's fingers don't so much as twitch against my skin. All I can hear is the horrible sound of the thing ripping into reality.

And the soft huffs of Pearl's breaths.

The fingers tense. I try to grit my teeth in preparation, but nothing happens. With a horrid fleshy rip, the fingers pull the magical tear apart to leave a massive gaping wound in reality. The… thing… retracts its fingers like caterpillars crawling away from a freshly chewed leaf, and then… they're gone. I couldn't even catch a glimpse of the rest of the thing.

My heart hammers in my chest. All the sounds come right back, and the ripple quickly meets its end at the edge of the pool. I raise a shaking hand and ball it into a fist.

Quest Progress Made.

First glimpse of a heretic.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.