The messenger nearly shits himself as he stares down the barrel of my loaded coin. "I knew I shouldn't have listened to that Dani guy."

"Should've trusted your gut," I agree. "Don't really feel like repeating myself, so let's go, yeah?"

Jumble gently pushes the other paindne to the ground. The static cushions their head from slamming into the stone, but it isn't a soft landing. The messenger flinches at the meaty thud, eyes widening to the point they're almost bulging from their sockets. He nods vigorously and gestures down the hallway.

"F-follow me. You… you won't… um…" he glances back at his ally as we start walking and swallows around a lump in his throat. "You won't kill me when I show you what you're looking for, will you?"

I shrug noncommittally. "That depends on how well Gnash has been treated. Whatever's happened to him is going to happen to you."

For a brief moment, relief overtakes the messenger's face. It transitions right back to worry a second later, though, leaving me with more than a little uncertainty to Gnash's safety. Seems like he's healthy in the general sense… but there's something else that's enough to worry the messenger.

I hope to hell it isn't what I'm expecting. For his and Gnash's sake.

He looks over his shoulder a minute later. "S-so… um… how are you doing? Having fun with the quest?"

The look I shoot him could curdle milk. He winces and chides himself for his stupidity while he taps his open palms against his calves. It's beyond obvious that he's unsettled… but he doesn't seem as worried as he should be. I wait for him to turn around, then gently tap Jumble with my elbow and motion for her to use her static on the messenger.

She nods, steps up quietly, and gently taps his ears. Static overtakes him instantly as she turns back to me with an eyebrow raised.

"He'll keep walking until we get to where he's taking us. What do you need to say?"

I point at the messenger's back. "He's not freaking out like he should be. The horizonguard wants us dead, he's leading us to where they're keeping their prisoners, and apparently forehead-mask is there guarding them. Wouldn't you be terrified of getting caught up in the crossfire if you were as weak as this guy?"

"Hm," she hums with a glance at the messenger. "You have a point; we're definitely being led into a trap. And if it isn't a trap, then he's really confident that the forehead-masked construct… um, 'Fore', if we're using the name the other guys used… the messenger's confident Fore will defeat us."

"But we know… 'Fore'... doesn't have his Class thanks to the other two," I pause as a frown splits my lips. "Shit, they were probably just lying to us. Just because Gil thinks they're trustworthy doesn't mean they are."

I look to Jumble for her opinion, but all I see is confliction. "You think I'm wrong?"

She slowly nods. "I… I think I'm starting to piece together the story here. Everything makes sense if we put one singular fact at the center of everything, but… I don't know how it could've happened. No, there's absolutely no way it could've happened."

What's she on about? How can one thing explain all of this? I cross my arms and tilt my head to the side as I wrack my memory for anything that could… uh… shit, I don't even know the thing that's wrong here. Everyone's working for the horizonguard, he has a hate-on for us, so we're fighting.

…Wait. There is one step missing there. The first time I meet the horizonguard… he just threatened us. Showed that he could be watching from anywhere at any time. If he really wanted to he would've just ended us right there. Which the system would've absolutely cheered on in spades. Now… it feels like the horizonguard and the system are working in lockstep. And the quest itself is almost on the backburner compared to the system getting this place back into reality.

So when did that change happen? When did the horizonguard start blatantly working for the system against us? It has to be after I saved Click. Other than that… pretty much any moment between then and… no, wait. The horizonguard sent two of the three masked buddies after us. If that wasn't just another attempt at intimidation, then that gives us a timeframe of when the system and the horizonguard started working together.

I reach up and scratch my neck. My fingers come away bloody. It feels like the hurt is trying to tell me something, but I can't understand the language of pain. Now, though, I get what Jumble is alluding to. At some point the system and the horizonguard started working together. It isn't far-fetched to think that a bunch of people who just wanted to do the quest wouldn't exactly be happy with that. Maybe our three masked buddies were among those dissenters.

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Maybe we have more potential allies than I thought.

"Is he just working with the system, or is the system controlling him?"

Jumble's words scythe directly into my brain. Because… yeah. That is one of the biggest questions now. "You think he's a construct now?"

She sets her jaw and looks over at me. Her eyes lock on my bloodied fingers. I quickly lower them and wipe the blood off on my jacket.

"Shelby… are you okay?"

"Me?" I laugh awkwardly and hurry to get my hand clean. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just really looking forward to getting out of this place. So… is the horizonguard a construct now?"

Jumble doesn't look convinced. But she shakes her head anyway. "I don't know. Part of me can't imagine anything taking his anchor from him, but there's always the chance that… well… maybe he keeps it somewhere for safekeeping, and someone destroyed it out of spite."

I consider that for a second. "No, I can't imagine that happening."

"Neither can I," Jumble sighs. "But him being a construct just makes the most sense to me. I mean, since he's wearing the mask, there's a chance we already saw his body in the corpse room. There's still the chance the system's just giving him a bunch of huge rewards, but that feels so against every rule I've known as ironclad."

She absentmindedly taps out a rhythm on the book that hangs from her hip by a chain while she thinks. Her claws gently drum against the cover, scratching thin lines into it that fix themselves almost instantly. Part of me wants to assure her that the system can't really break its own rules–we'd be unbelievably dead if that was the case–but everything that happened because I saved Click brings a halt to that line of thinking.

All I am confident in is that the horizonguard's objective–either from the quest or the system's direct orders–isn't to kill us. For some reason, that honour is being given to a bunch of random people only tangentially involved with him. There has to be logic behind this. The system can't give out orders to murder us, so what exactly are the orders it gave the horizonguard?

What personal subquest is he on?

My awareness warns me that the messenger's stopped walking before I crash headlong into him. Jumble and I share a look at his newfound stillness; are we here? Was he bullshitting us and there's supposed to be an ambush? She raises an eyebrow and mimes taking off a pair of earmuffs. I nod and brandish my coins just in case.

She silently raises three fingers, then ticks them down one by one. When the last one hits her palm she darts forward and taps the messenger on the back of the head to dispel her magic, then quickly brings her hand down to his shoulder for an inquisitive tap. He startles ever so slightly and turns to make eye contact.

"Well?" she gestures all around us. "Are we here?"

The messenger blinks, then clears his throat. "Technically, yes, um, we… we are. But it won't open while anyone not keyed into the magic i-isn't not around. Um. I-I mean…"

"It won't open while we're here," I finish for him.

He nods vigorously. "Y-yes, that! B-but there's a workaround, only it won't work as long as you two are within eyeshot. You have some magic that, um, teleports people around, right? How does that work?"

Of course the horizonguard knows all about my magic. I summon an empty relocation and spin it around in my fingers, connect it to myself, then hand it to the messenger. He looks down at it nervously–like it'll explode at any moment.

"It's just a teleport. Don't stare at it like it's a hand grenade," I say as I hand Jumble a coin to link for herself. "Once you're in there with Gnash and… whoever else… I'll teleport us in. We'll save Gnash, get the hell out, and you'll never see us again. Unless you decide you want to shove yourself into the inevitable bloodbath between us and the horizonguard."

The messenger laughs; a loud, barking thing that betrays nervousness and utter contempt for the idea I just tossed out there. Feels good to know there's a bigger schism in the horizonguard's forces than I thought. Maybe a little too good, if I'm being honest.

"Miss Shelby, most of us are here for the quest. Not whatever's been happening here since the horizonguard started talking like a system-worshipping weirdo. If you can get us out of here before… whatever he wants to happen happens?" He smiles shakily and holds up my relocation. "You'll have friends in high places in Stonestep Solutions."

I sniff back a comment and put on a toothy smile instead. "If I ever need someone assassinated I'll know where to call."

He nods seriously, then goes perfectly silent and rushes to stuff my coin into his pocket while shooing us away with his other hand. My awareness feels something magical scratching at one of the walls. I nod in confirmation and turn to run into a shop a few dozen down. The magical scratching amplifies as I round the corner into a leatherworking shop, Jumble hot on my heels. We duck behind a shelf as the scratching finally breaks through, and I focus heavily on my awareness to try and get a sense of what's happening.

The unmistakable silhouette of Fore appears out of nowhere. Behind him are scratches in the world, like long knife cuts through a king-sized bedsheet, and behind that is a room. Inside of which… my awareness just barely can't reach. I gnash my teeth in frustration and look to Pearl for a better description–or maybe even confirmation that Gnash is in there.

Her expression quickly shifts from concentration to curiosity to outright disgust.

"We can't let anyone make main quest progress anymore," she says shakily. "So many people will die if we do."

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