Agathe, the person I can definitely trust, hovers deeper and deeper into the district at a breakneck pace. It's not hard to imagine she's remote-controlling this cloak somehow, what with the lack of a person inside of it, but it is hard to imagine that they only control this one district. They've had three months to do it. Her and… well… I assume she has a group with her.

Maybe that's not a safe one to make. "Agathe, you said 'our district' a minute ago. How many of you are there?"

The cloak turns to me without slowing down. A flicker of a human form inside appears for a moment, but the strange plasma-like half-visible outlines of hands replace it almost immediately.

"There were three. Two left."

"So you're alone?"

Her empty hood nods. "Two months now."

Hm. I guess that explains the lack of expansion. Before I can ask anything else Agathe speeds up and turns around once again, the magic in her cloak shifting ever so slightly to something faraway. Almost like she isn't focusing on me anymore. I cough to try and get her attention, and when that fails, I try calling her name a few times. That doesn't get an answer either.

"She probably has a lot on her plate." Pearl notes. "Plus, imagine if you came here with Clutter and me and we disappeared two months ago to leave you alone. I bet you'd forget how to interact with people within a week."

I snort in amusement, but can't really argue her point. If those two that left her were her friends, then there'd be both the betrayal and the loneliness aspects to it. Even if they weren't, I can't imagine she's been left alone all this time; there's no way that paindne was the first one she's dealt with.

Hell, even if I ignore everything else, I still need to complete a subquest in this district. Trying to do that behind Agathe's back isn't just a recipe for disaster; it's a surefire way to add another enemy to the pile when the horizonguard comes knocking. So I have to play nice until I know what's happening. And if Agathe says no… I'll weigh the options.

Her hating us against having one–or even more–constructs on our side. It isn't an easy choice.

Root-cables much like the ones that fill the hallways under our tower start to appear. At first they're thin and wispy like strands of spiderwebs desperately reaching for something I can't see. The closer we get, the thicker they get–but not in exactly the same way. Ours were a true mixture of cables and roots. These are more like frayed wires leaking liquid magic electricity that crackles and pops against my footsteps.

All in all, though, the district looks almost exactly the same as ours. Shops, a load of constructs, and root-cables as far as the eye can see. The only difference is how the root-cables look. Makes the city feel… small? No, that's not the right word. What am I looking for… redundant. Yeah. That's it.

The city doesn't feel like one giant place. It's much more like thousands of small places repeated over and over and over again. Probably because it was easier for the system to make, and because the actual paindne who lived here would've added the uniqueness themselves.

Not these constructs, though. Hell, I'm pretty sure I saw the exact same art supply store and cauldron-lined magic shop we have in our own district. It's definitely pulling from a finite list of possibilities. Not a long one, either.

Little by little, the roots grow so thick that it's hard to run. Agathe's cloak just crumples or flattens to get through the trickier parts while I'm stuck with good old shove-and-hope. Every time she disappears from view I expect to come out the other side completely alone, but no; she's always there waiting for me. Far enough away that it looks like she remembered I was here at the last minute, but hey, I'll take it.

Until eventually she stops before a twisted gnarl of cracking electric magic. She turns to confirm I'm there, then raises a sleeve to gesture at the ceiling. I know what that means.

Just in case, though, I'll ask. "We're right under it?"

She nods. "You'll be a guest. If you want."

"Sure." I shrug and stick my hands in my pockets. "Guest away."

A sharp, piano-like note plays clear through my skull as text appears over my vision.

Offer extended; Guest access.

Accept: Y/N?

I hit 'Y' and dismiss the message. Agathe looks down as if she's holding a Class Card in her hand, then tilts her chin upwards until she's staring directly at the ceiling. A door opens in the ground, but instead of a human face looking down at me, another black-purple cloak flutters in the empty wind. It reaches down to pull Agathe up, and before it can reach for me, I jump up into the bottom floor of her tower. And surprise surprise; its floorplan looks exactly the same as ours.

The decorations, though, are anything but. An intricate display of black and purple offset with shimmering silver threads line the walls all the way up to the top in one constant tapestry. Starting at the bottom is an image of three people, each depicted in silver. I recognize all sorts of things from the quest; the tapping twisted paindne, the constructs, the constructs with magic filled heads, and more that's just tangentially related to what we've lived through.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

About a quarter of the way up one of the figures disappears. A little while later the second stops appearing as well. Leaving only who I assume is Agathe alone in the tower. Alone to progress the quest slower than they were as a group of three. I shake my head and turn my focus from the tapestry to the very alive feeling person who's waiting at the top of the tower. With a cane at her side and eyes covered with a strip of cloth.

"Are you there?" Agathe asks.

I nod to nobody. "I'm here. Don't have much time, though."

Agathe laughs quietly. "Understandably so. Come up, come up."

The tapestry on the wall shifts, the images turning from a story to a series of arrows pointing up the stairs. Barely any magic flows through it to make the change, but it's wielded with such pinpoint grace that it's honestly impressive. I gently brush the silky-smooth fabric with my fingers and hurry up the stairs.

It's hard not to compare it to Dell's fabric Clutter gave me. Dell's is strong, smooth, and unbelievably light. But Agathe's… it's just ethereal. Like fabric woven from mist and coloured by whispers. I can't tell if it's unbelievably strong or just as unbelievably weak. Feels like my softest touch should send it scattering to the winds.

"Soft, isn't it?"

Agathe steps up to the edge of the stairwell, carefully prodding at the gap with her cane to make sure she doesn't accidentally step too far. She doesn't quite turn her head directly at me, but rather, at the stair where I made my last sound. I clear my throat. Her head shifts ever so slightly to 'look' at me.

"It's beautiful. A real work of art." I say sincerely. "What's it made of?"

"Shadows, silver, and what was left when I used up all of a certain kind of purple thread." Agathe pauses, coughs, then motions for me to step up. "You have some of your own."

I raise an eyebrow and put a hand over Dell's fabric. "Uh, yeah. I'm borrowing it from a friend."

"Mm, a friend. Nice, nice." Agathe makes her way to a simple rocking chair, then waves a hand at a spool of black-purple thread. "So why are you here?"

As I take a step forward, the spool erupts with threads. Thousands of them spin together in the air like a storm of flies, and in mere moments, a simple sheet hovers in the air. It shimmers in the light with a whisper of magic, then folds itself to look like it's perfectly covering an old leather armchair. I stare at it for a second, then point at it with a look of question.

Agathe doesn't respond at all. Which, uh, yeah. Should've known. "Is that safe to sit on?"

"Safer than almost anywhere else."

I hum in uncertainty, but move to sit on the hovering sheet anyway. Carefully and slowly I lower myself into it, my knees struggling to stay up just in case. The fabric gives way ever so slightly for a moment. Then it just feels like there's an entire chair under me. I hum once more, this time in appreciation, and fully collapse into the sheet-chair.

"Comfy."

Agathe nods proudly. "I would hope so. So, what brings you here?"

"The same reason anyone else would come here, I guess."

Tension stiffens Agathe's shoulders. Her smile becomes notedly less pleasant, and I can feel the fabric under me start to shimmer with magic. Shit, she definitely misunderstood what I meant.

"You're here for the tower." She whispers coldly. "Just like the others."

I force a laugh and shake my head. "No, definitely not. We've got more than enough troubles with our own to be honest. Nah, the reason I'm here is a lot simpler than that; one of my subquest rewards put a marker in your district, and I'm just here trying to find it."

Agathe tilts her head far to the side. Her expression warms a little, but the magic under me doesn't. "You're here for a subquest?"

"Mmhm." I confirm with a nod. "For reasons I can't figure out, the quest doesn't seem to want me to finish it. So I'm doing everything I can to spite it."

"To… spite it. Hehe." Agathe cracks a sharp, cold grin. "That I can understand. Want help?"

I blink in surprise. "Just like that?"

She nods. "Just like that."

…Well then. I sit up a little straighter as Agathe's magic leaves the fabric and try to get a sense of if she's being serious or not. Her expression–a small smile that looks like it could break into cackling laughter at any second–doesn't give anything away. But it also doesn't feel like she's screwing with me, so…?

"Uh, if you're offering, sure." I say before I can convince myself otherwise. "I need to find this subquest pretty soon, but if you've already cleared it, then maybe–"

"No, no. I haven't done any subquests. Just scouting." Agathe nods at a cloak floating in the corner. "It's all the same. Whatever's here is still hidden."

"Or isn't here at all." I mutter under my breath.

Agathe hums in agreement. "That, too. I haven't done many quests like this. Where it feels like we're just doing the system's work for it."

"Damn right. I mean, where are the rewards? We've been here for months and we haven't managed to get more than a few Class Card upgrades and some Worth. Everything else has just been upgrades to our towers."

"Which'll be gone when we are." Agathe finishes for me. "Okay. Go do whatever you want. Just don't attack any cloaks you see."

The fabric under me flexes, forcing me to stand against my will. Agathe waves her hand and one of the cloaks floats down the stairs, most likely to resume its patrol. I turn to follow it. She doesn't even try to stop me; she just returns to what she was doing before I got here.

"What a strange woman." Pearl muses. "And she must have a piece of a mask under that cloth, since I couldn't make out what she looks like at all. Heck, maybe the cloth just acts like a mask does."

Hey, anyone that doesn't attack me is good in my books. I pull out my Class Card to double-check where we are as I round the corner to the bottom of the tower. A cloak leans in like a curious onlooker as I swipe away from my messenger to the map. Nosy little–

"WAIT!"

Hurried footsteps, a few crashes, and even more stifled curses belt out from the top of the tower. Agathe yelps as she tumbles down the stairs, struggling to get her balance, and eventually comes to a stop at the bottom sprawled out like a plushie dropped from the roof. She groans and feels at my leg to try and pull herself up, then stammers out an apology and reaches for the wall instead.

"Um, sorry, but, um, I…" She coughs and adjusts the cloth covering her eyes. "You're talking to a Gil. Merchant Gil?"

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