"It… took her."

Jumble gropes helplessly at the space where Rina just was. Confusion quickly gives way to frustration as her fingers curl into a trembling fist. There's no doubt about it now; Rina and Dani did this of their own volition. The system just popped in to save Rina when it was too late.

And… well… not Dani. That's important, somehow. I rub Jumble's head reassuringly, then lean down to get a close look at Dani's eyes. They're mostly blank, but in the same kind of way as someone who's just severely out of it. Not the emptiness-filled-with-control that was in Rina's.

"He's not under the system's control," I note and turn back to Jumble. "Why not?"

Jumble gnashes her teeth at the space where Rina was before giving me her attention. "I don't know. The system has, um… I'm sorry, my brain's kind of super fried right now. It's just… this is… RRGH!"

A growl of frustration rips free from her throat as she punches the shelf next to her. Rows of pre-bottled potions and ingredients clatter from the impact, but not a single one of them pops out of place. From the sound of it, she hit that thing hard enough to splinter it into a million pieces. Gil's enchantments really are top-tier.

She frowns at the lack of damage, then shakes her hand out with a snarl at nothing. Without another word she walks away, motioning for me to take a look at Dani while she goes to cool off. Or get some things straight in her head. The info that her party can be hijacked by the system must be damn shaking.

Makes me wonder if any of the constructs I 'saved' are susceptible, too. Now that I think on it… we haven't seen the liquid construct since it disappeared. Really, really hope the system didn't turn it against us again.

I shake my head and sigh as I kneel down at Dani's side. His breaths are shallow and he isn't moving at all, but if I hadn't seen what Jumble did to him, I'd just think he was sleeping. Not 'The End'ed. I click my tongue in thought and reach down to pry the book from his fingers. To my surprise, it comes away easily.

As I start to flip through the pages, power floods my awareness. Strange power that clashes fiercely against something inside me, then simply stops trying to get inside. My Class feels… prodded at. Almost like the book tried to wedge itself in me where a Class would go if I didn't have one. Which… actually makes perfect sense.

"So this is how she did it," I muse aloud as I skim the pages. "Stats, spells, skills, even quests; this is basically an analog Class Card. This is insanely impressive, right?"

Pearl nods in agreement. "I think this might be the first non-coin Class I've ever seen. What's it called?"

"Let me check."

I flip back to the first page and quickly read over the information. The more I scan the page, though, the less things make sense. Apparently this is a 'Paladin' Class, but it isn't solely keyed to Dani; says here Ward can also use it. Euro and Rina, too, but their names are crossed and greyed out respectively. Dead and illegible if I had to guess.

"A multi-person Class? Wow. That's really weird." Pearl leans in closer to get a better look. "I wonder if it'd change to 'Wizard' if Ward got his hands on it."

Probably. I quickly flip through the rest of the pages, but aside from the fact that it's written in a book in ink, it's pretty much exactly like a Class Card. So the system either couldn't or didn't bother hijacking Dani through this. Does that mean Rina's full-blown Class is what allowed the system to take her, or was it something else?

I scratch my neck with a wince, then snap the book shut. There aren't any more answers to be found in these pages. Now we need Dani himself.

"Jumble?" I call into the depths of the store. "Are you good?"

A frustrated exclamation says 'no', but Jumble walking around the corner a moment later says 'yes'. Not verbally, though. She just hurries to my side, wraps herself around my arm, and shoves her face into my neck.

"Mmmngh," she says, her words muffled by my neck.

I raise an eyebrow. "I can wait if you're not ready."

She pulls away with a sigh. "No… no, I'm ready. Can I have the book?"

I nod and hand her the book. She lets go with one hand to accept it, awkwardly flips it open using her body to help, and turns to the last half of the pages. Thousands of lines of overlapping text dirty the pages in what looks like the scratchings of a madman; yellow, blue, black, and red ink written in the paindne language at random angles and in inconsistent fonts. As she gets closer to the end, the black writing stops abruptly. A few pages later the red ink gets fainter but doesn't quite disappear.

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"Is there a colour for each of them?" I ask.

Jumble nods. "You can tell who black and red are. Yellow is Dani, and blue is Ward. Everything they've done is written down here, but they can't access this part of the book. I… don't want to read this, Shelby. I didn't even want to put it in the book in the first place, but without it, none of them would've been able to do… anything."

"So it's like a controller?"

"Mm… no, not quite. It's more… hmmm…" Jumble hums in thought and looks down at Dani. "The book records what they're going to do before they do it, and then they do the thing afterwards. Kind of like a story being written in real-time; that's how I managed to get them to be… well… independent. But that's not important right now."

She flips to the last page and puts her finger at the end of the last word. Yellow, blue, and faint red ink slowly etch themselves into the page. Her eyes flick across the words like she's looking for something, then she sucks air through her teeth and flips the book back a page. Then another, and another, and another–until she stops dead where the black ink stops.

A stifled sob sticks heavily in her throat. I coax it out by scratching between her ears and leaning the side of her head into my neck. Tears splatter against the pages and roll off harmlessly while Jumble whispers to herself in a language I don't know. For as long as she needs to read, I stay right here and give her all the support I can offer.

"Rina was telling the truth," She eventually whispers. "They came to Euro, tried to recruit them to their side, and… silenced them after. Not just because Euro would side with us, but because we'd figure out Rina had a Class… and… wait…"

Her brow furrows as she re-reads a line. "No. Rina didn't just have one Class; she had a Class and three coins. One for each of the other party members. Shelby, can you wait a minute?"

"'Course I can," I say. "Just don't let Dani wake up before security eventually shows up."

"Oh, we have a good few hours before someone who's strong enough to break the shop's defences shows up. We'll have to be gone by then." Jumble assures me, then flips to a page that looks like any of the others. "Okay… um… right here. They met with the person with a forehead mask shard, got four coins from him… and were asked to work for the system. No, no, um, okay–only Dani was asked to work for the system; the mask-person waited to ask that when Rina was out of it and getting her Class."

"He did?" I lean in closer as if that'll help. "Why?"

Jumble purses her lips and scans the rest of the page. "Um… it looks like he didn't explain anything. Dani didn't ask, either, which is just… so dumb. But he did accept the offer to work with the horizonguard, so I guess that's pretty obvious. After that, it looks like Dani just did everything he could to slow us down."

My eyebrows shoot to my forehead. "He did?"

"Apparently," Jumble giggles. "He didn't do a good job of it, that's for sure. Apparently we were supposed to get stuck in that uplifting trial for the rest of the quest according to the forehead-masked person. They were in contact for… um…"

She flips through the pages, expression growing increasingly pinched by the second. Once she gets to the end of the book she flips back to the messenger page, which luckily hasn't shifted over from Dani's messages. They're in paindne too, so I can't read them, but from how Jumble starts to tremble they're not good.

I patiently wait for her to finish, then nod down at the messages. "How bad?"

"Horrible," she mutters. "Gnash is with the forehead-masked man, and the forehead-masked man is with the horizonguard's personal inner circle. Apparently the system is trying to do something to that circle, and the horizonguard's already in on it. It… doesn't say anything more. Dani doesn't know anything else."

Shit. "No location? No timeframe?"

Jumble shakes her head. "The closest thing I can see is a deadline, but that's just before quest completion. It doesn't tell us anything."

No, it does not. "Maybe… Gil was here. Should be here with Clutter soon-ish, too. If we wait here, then we meet up with them and we go after the inner circle. The horizonoguard's off trying to clear the quest. There's no way he took Gnash with him, right? So at least one member of the inner circle has to still be around here somewhere."

"Logically, yes. But that's just an assumption." Jumble snaps the book shut and glares down at Dani. "We need confirmation. And… as long as Dani's still alive… I could pretend to be him."

I shake my head. "Won't work; Rina's definitely already told the system everything."

"I know. But… no, you're right." Jumble grins wickedly. "Rina's already there. But they don't know that the book's still tracking her. I'll have to monitor it all the time, but I should be able to warn everyone before the system sends those constructs out anywhere. Maybe they'll let something slip about what the horizonguard is up to."

Another 'maybe'. Not the best thing to hedge our bets against, but if we're going to get Gnash out of this alive, then we'll just have to hope. But… if we can track Rina without her knowing… then the same's true for Dani. Even if the system knows he's been defeated, it doesn't know the length that Jumble can keep an eye on him.

A sharp grin splits my face as an idea crystallizes. A pretty simple one, honestly, as long as Gil can put up a convincing act.

I put my hand on Jumble's. "How'd you feel about getting Dani to do us one last favour before we put him out of his misery?"

She looks down at my hand, then up at me. An ecstatic smile twitches at her cheeks as she nods.

"He owes us that much, at least."

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