Rina tenses. "Class Card? What Class Card?"

I sneer and step in close, infusion buzzing with borrowed magic as I push it into a shield coin. It whines and shrieks as the magics join together in unholy matrimony. A small flick sends it at Rina. She deflects it with the blade of her axe.

It detonates into a torturous shell of keening magic. With a few inches of clearance, of course; I don't want her accidentally killing herself before she tells me a few things.

"Who gave it to you?" I demand.

She takes a half-step back. Her armor of blades clashes with my magic for a moment, and a cocky sneer crosses her face. Then her armor breaks, destroying her sneer and attitude as my magic rips into her back. She barely screams. Barely.

I walk in close and put my hand against the shield. My own magic won't hurt me. "I'll repeat myself one more time; who the hell gave you that Class Card?"

A glob of spit hits the inside of my shield and is promptly vaporized. Rina's sneer returns, though much weaker this time, and it looks like she's going to refuse to say anything. I can't have that. If someone's going around arming constructs to their side with Class Cards I need to know about it.

"You got a Class Coin. There's no other way to get a class. And you got it before you killed Euro, because you responded to my group message." I pause, then look over my shoulder at Jumble and Dani–who're in the middle of a very heated silent conversation. "He gave you access to the chat. Shit, if I'd noticed that sooner…"

Rina laughs. "Euro might still be alive."

I level a hateful gaze at the woman. "Took the words right out of my mouth. So, that means you got the Class Coin a while ago. Would it happen to be from the same person that was trying to get Dani to do something in the reservoir subquest?"

Rina's eyes widen and she instinctively closes off her body language. Then she clams up completely. The accusation had no basis in anything. Just a little hunch I've had since Dani's outburst in the subquest; one that she pretty much just confirmed by not responding at all.

"So who was it? The system? The quest? Ooh, what about the horizonguard himself?" I tilt my head to the side and stare deep into Rina's soul. "What did they tell you to get you to change sides? Or were you like Dani; always a traitorous scumsucker that'd kill his friends in a petty bitch-fit?"

No answer. She just closes off even further and tries to look away. But she didn't overly react to anything this time. So… it wasn't any of the ones I listed, and she isn't the type to get twisted in knots over an insult. Hell, maybe she agrees with it.

I click my tongue in exaggerated disappointment. "Well, this is a problem. Because, see, I only have one question left for you. And if you don't answer that one right, then… I guess I won't have a use for you any more."

"W…won't…" Rina swallows around a drying mouth. "You wouldn't. You couldn't."

I raise an eyebrow. "You think I'll feel bad killing a betrayer like you? Hell, I probably won't give you another thought the moment your body's out of eyeshot. Won't even feel satisfied with it, honestly. So! Where's Gnash?"

Rina's eyes quickly dart over to Dani. "I don't know. That's… Dani dealt with all of that."

An excuse, or the truth? She's been damn tight-lipped so far. Could mean she's just trying to save her own ass, or maybe this is actually the truth. If she's lying to me, though, and I slit her throat… then Gnash could be lost for good.

"Okay. I'll believe that for now." I make a show of spreading my hands and stepping away to give Rina a false sense of safety. "So fill in some details for me. Was Gnash hurt?"

She vigorously shakes her head. "Not more than he needed to be."

My lips twitch into a venomous smile. "Enlighten me on how hurt he 'needed to be'."

"Uh. Just… j-just enough to… umm…" Rina looks around as if the answers are contained in the goods around her. Sweat drips down her face. "He had to be subdued when he found us. W-we didn't mean to get anyone but you, Jumble, or us… constructs… involved! I swear!"

"You just meant to kill Euro," I say icily. "Keep talking. Please, for your own sake, try to do a little better."

"We healed him!" Rina blurts out. "So he was fine! But then he kept struggling, so we had to tie him down, but he kept using magic… so… we had to keep knocking him out."

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Prickles of rage trail down my neck. "This isn't the goddamn movies."

Rina winces, but this time, doesn't look away. "I know, okay?! He… stopped talking right. We kept giving him potions, but after one time… he just… um… stopped resisting? Stopped doing much of anything, really. So we… left him like that."

…How… I… that's like giving someone a lobotomy to stop them from acting out. I… I'm not that surprised, honestly. That's the kind of casual cruelty that I'd expect from someone who murdered their close friend out of fear. Also means I probably won't be able to contact Gnash any time soon–poor guy wouldn't even be able to answer his Class Card.

Doesn't change my resolve for getting him back… but it does somehow make me hate these sorry excuses for people even more. "How long ago did you lose him?"

Rina relaxes at my lack of an outburst. That's a huge mistake. "Almost a week ago, now. Right before we came into this district and the horizonguard recruited–"

I tense my fingers. Everything else Rina says hits my ears, but it's through a wall of staticky noise. The horizonguard did recruit them. But he didn't give Rinna her Class Coin, and apparently, he didn't take Gnash either. Rina's not good enough at hiding her body language to have lied to me. So… who the hell else is left?

Because literally everyone else I can think of works for the horizonguard. So that'd count as him doing those things. Is there even a third party here? As far as I'm aware, it's literally our group against the horizonguard's army with the system and the quest backing them. Am I missing something?

Anything?

"Shelby!"

Jumble's cold, hate-filled voice calls my name. I shift my focus away from Rina just in time to witness the power of the sun shining violently in a compact beam hurtling straight at me. Purification and infusion rise up to meet the attack. It slams into a wall of salty mist that drains away the horrific magic aimed right at my center mass. My awareness screams warning, and I just barely have time to throw myself out of the way before it runs me through.

My skin cries out for moisture and my eyes burn behind my eyelids. I feel my infused shield shatter, and two different hands fall on both of my shoulders. One infused with enough heat to melt stone. And the other a strong, unyielding insistence to throw me out of the way of danger. Jumble pulls me behind her and swats away Dani's hand–shattering his wrist in the act.

"You're strong," Dani states, then nods at me. His wrist knits together in a burst of grey. "Too bad she isn't strong enough. Can you really fight while protecting her at the same time?"

Jumble snorts a demeaning laugh. "You take two cheap shots, neither of which work, and you think you're in trash-talking territory? I thought I made you better than this."

"Cheap shots?" Dani scoffs. "In a real fight, there's no such thing as a cheap shot."

"Really?" Jumble swipes a whisper-coated hand through the air. "The End."

Crushing inevitability given physical form swarms Dani like ravenous piranhas. He gets one gasp out before falling to his knees, wounds tracing over his body that don't match any kind of weapon or magic either Jumble or I have. The light in his eyes winks out and he crumples to the ground–not quite dead since he's still breathing, but… not quite alive either.

"The…" I grimace and look away. "The hell did you do?"

Jumble turns to Rina. "What had to be done; I skipped over our fight because we don't have time. Now, Rina, do you feel a little more like talking?"

"I don't know! I don't know enough!" Rina scrambles backwards, yet doesn't let go of her axe. "I told Shelby everything I know! Dani gave me the coin! He didn't tell me where he got it from!"

Jumble shakes her head. "I know you're lying to me, Rina. Do you know that?"

She smiles sharply and reaches out to caress Rina's cheek. Rina's breaths come harder and quicker, fear lighting her eyes as she takes in the real Jumble. The woman who's apparently so much stronger than I thought.

"I'm… I…" Rina laughs shakily and drops her axe. "I'm unarmed! I surrender!"

"Yes. You are, and you have," Jumble's smile takes an artificially sweet turn. "If you tell me everything, then just maybe, I'll take those facts into account. So please; if you wouldn't do it for Danii, and you wouldn't do it for me, do it for yourself."

Rina nods vigorously. I grimace and look away in disgust. These two… they really are the worst kinds of people.

"It was a man with one arm and a mask on his forehead."

Jumble goes deathly still. "The coin? Or Gnash?"

"Both," Rina quickly clarifies. "Dani and I met him a few days before everything, and he… he told us what was going to happen with the uplifting trial. Then he gave us two coins, told us to use them, and to look really closely at what they say about us. That was what finally convinced us that we weren't imagining things, and that we were actually constructs."

"Shit," I hiss, "it isn't just the horizonguard or the system; it's both."

Rina furrows her brow at me. "What are you talking about? He wasn't… hello? Who… who's there?! Help! Please!!!"

Jumble gently prods Rina's shoulder. "Rina? Who's talking to you?"

"She's… yes… she is." Rina's eyes lock on mine as they… glass over. Instead of thought behind them, now all I can see is endless distance. "She is an enemy of the system. Both of them are."

Pearl sits up with a start. "The system's exerting control over her! Get her before she–"

Rina's magic prickles, then flares far stronger than before. The world splits just behind her in a clean cut, and she teleports backwards into a room packed to the gills with people. Each and every one of which is turned to look perfectly at me with glassy eyes like camera lenses. The scope of the dead-turned-construct problem expands rapidly before my very eyes.

Then it simply winks shut. Leaving us with a mostly-dead Dani and a grim understanding of what we're actually up against here.

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