Jumble stares at me through the tear. I shift my Class Card through my fingers as I try to come up with the right way to ask 'can we actually do anything about this', but my brain's not exactly pumping out the right thought juice for this. Now that we know this is connected to their tower we've pretty much got a few minutes before somebody shows up.

That is, unless they've already destroyed the plastic anchors from everyone here. I don't want to acknowledge that possibility. But with how few alarm bells are seemingly going off… it's looking more and more plausible by the moment.

I set my jaw and type out a quick message. Jumble twitches as she receives it, pulls out her own, and trails her eyes over it in a matter of seconds. She looks over at me and nods, then bends down over Fore's construct and starts messing with her static. I cross my arms and watch her work.

Fore's construct's eyes snap open–but they're pools of liquid static. Whatever recognition's behind them isn't directed at Jumble, or anything beyond her spell. She puts on a pleasant smile and talk at him for a few sentences while the messenger chimes in every now and again in what I assume is an attempt to help. From the sideways looks she keeps shooting him that aren't getting through, he's doing a piss-poor job of it.

"What're they saying?" I ask Pearl.

"Not much. They're trying to convince the construct of something right now, and if they can, things should get a lot easier," she relays. The silent conversation flows for a minute or so before Pearl purses her lips and shakes her head. "Okay, it isn't going well. Fore's construct doesn't know much more than we do; that's the horizonguard and his inner circle's domain. Wait, um, it's pointing over here. Just past us. Why?"

Jumble stares past us with narrowed eyes. Her expression pinches to the point that it looks like she swallowed a lemon covered in sour powder, then she raises her Class Card and types out a message. It pings onto my card a second later.

"No need to read that," Pearl interrupts before I can, indeed, 'read that'. "Apparently one of the horizonguard's inner circle is in here with us–but she's magically out cold so she can't free herself. If we can wake her up, then we can get everyone out of here."

I stare at Pearl. She stares back at me. With a soft 'pop', she opens her lips in understanding of why that isn't going to work at all. Because if we can't get at Gnash… then we can't get at anybody–no matter how much access they have.

She sighs through her nose and leans back. "Then we're stuck here at square one. What else can we do? Is there any way to get someone on the other side to wake the… wait. Are we just being idiots?"

"Idiots? Why're you…" I trail off as I turn to look at Fore's construct. Who, as far as we know, has access to this place. Not admin access, but probably enough to free someone who does. "Okay, maybe we are idiots."

I quickly type out a message and send it off to Jumble. She looks down at her card, then laughs and shakes her head. The messenger frowns in question and opens his mouth to speak. Jumble replies. He buries his face in his hands and looks away in embarrassment. Good thing I'm not the only one that overlooked a blatantly obvious solution.

Jumble stands, bringing Fore's construct with her, and walks right up to the tear. I lock eyes with her, the knowledge of our own tower's magic removal abilities obviously fresh in both of our minds. If this doesn't work, then I honestly don't know if there's anything else we can do until we find someone else with the right permissions.

"Let's hope they never bothered with the magic scrubber," Jumble yells from across what looks like a very small distance. "If it looks like my magic's going away, should I just kill him?"

I nod without any deliberation. She nods right back and shoves Fore's construct through the tear. It stumbles forward without a change in expression, slows to a halt, and looks around the theater's supposedly empty halls. Then it takes one step forward on its own and vanishes. All traces of the thing flutter away in the still air, exactly the same place as they were as far as I know.

Anxiety worms its way into my gut. I turn to Jumble for comfort, but find none in her own strained expression. Nothing in it says her magic has disappeared–thought there's a huge undertone of a struggle to keep her spell from dying out. My purification didn't feel like it was being destroyed, though, so it isn't anywhere near as strong as our own tower's defences. Not that said defences stopped the horizonguard's forces from destroying the tower complex in question.

A flicker of magic lances through the air. I twitch and take a step back as everything folds in on itself, then simply is. Gnash grunts in surprise as I back into him, and before I can look around, my awareness tells me that there are so many people here now. Close to a hundred if my initial count is correct.

"S…shelby? Is that you?" Gnash asks. "Please tell me this isn't a hallucination."

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I grin and lean down to press a finger against his shackles. "I'm the real deal, buddy."

He sighs in relief. "Thank goodness. Boss lady, it's been a weird little while. Can't wait to get back to the tower and sleep for a few months."

"Yeah, not going to happen," I say as I put a purification on his shackles. "The horizonguard's people destroyed the place. We're homeless."

Gnash's eyes go wide. "Oh. Uh. Is everyone oka–Euro! Is Euro… are they…"

I sadly shake my head. "Dani and Rina killed them."

"...No," Gnash murmurs. "I… I thought I got there in time. I-I… I have to talk to Ward. A-and Jumble. You know that they betrayed us, right? Dani and Rina, I mean, you aren't still working with them, right?"

"No."

Gnash's shackles snap off as the magic in them dies out. Lucky for us they didn't bother just making some really high quality stuff. He rubs his wrists, reaches down to rub his ankles, then slowly staggers to his feet. I offer him my arm to steady himself. He grits his teeth and reluctantly accepts the 'boss lady's' help.

"Thanks, boss lady. For coming after me. It's… more than other people would do."

I offer him a reassuring smile. "I'd do this for any of us. Now c'mon; we need to get you back to the group. Sawyer's worried sick about you."

Gnash nods seriously and lets me escort him out of the tear. His eyes widen again when he finally gets a glimpse of Jumble–then even more when he sees the book on her hip.

"You… killed him?" he asks incredulously.

Jumble pats the book. "He's still alive for now. Until he stops being useful, at least."

"Damn; thought that problem was dealt with," Gnash says through clenched teeth. "Kick him in the ribs a few times for me. Then make his death long and painful for what he did to Euro."

"It's a promise."

He laughs weakly, betraying the relatively fine state his body looks to be in. Jumble and I help him step out of the tear and into the hallway, where she summons a little bit of potion to get him back on his feet. I turn to the messenger and offer him a nod, too, which he returns with obvious relief. He doesn't instantly run away. So there's still more to this.

The tear calls out to me as I move to return to it. A long corridor of stone, with people in various states of lucidity chained against the walls, stretches for what looks like a mile. Nothing about it looks like a theater anymore. And at the end, standing face-to-face like two goats locking horns in competition, are Fore's construct and a woman in a long trenchcoat.

She's not quite a paindne… but not not one either. She has the fur, the face shape, and the tail, but the rest of her body is lithe and slim like a Y'tocwa–complete with the horns, facial adornments, and stiletto-like natural heels. Her mouth opens to reveal needle-like teeth surrounded by clear, warbling outlines of shark teeth. It should be pretty damn obvious that people like this exist… but… uh… I guess it's not common enough for it to be an everyday occurrence.

Fore starts to say something as static sloughs away from his head in clumps. The woman sneers in disgust and grabs him by the neck, needle-sharp fingers digging deep into his flesh as she turns and… appears right in front of me. I tilt my head to the side in surprise at the sudden meeting, her intense yellow eyes boring holes through the back of my head as she tries to get an idea of who I am.

"The shellraiser girl," she eventually says in an almost sing-song voice. "I was wondering when I'd get to meet you."

I offer her a not-so-pleasant smile. "And here I have no idea who the hell you are. Free everyone, then if you want to talk, we'll talk. Jumble!"

She looks over from Gnash and raises an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

I jut a thumb at Fore's construct. "Did you get all the info we need from him?"

"If you're asking to kill him, be my guest," she says nonchalantly. "He knew way less than I thought he would."

Alright, then. I summon a projectile, place it against the construct's chest, and flare it. The paindne-y'tocwa woman shoves Foore's construct away and wipes her hands on her coat as it detonates in a spray of blood and construct material that looks a hell of a lot like flesh. Just without any actual internal organs that're necessary for life.

"Hm. That explains a lot," she notes. "So you're the new boss, then?"

New boss? Is she talking to me? Her eyes are still trying to excavate a tunnel through the back of my skull, so unless I'm misunderstanding a hell of a lot, then yeah. She's talking to me.

I shake my head vigorously. "No way in hell; you all can do whatever you want with the company once we get out of here. But I have a feeling you're not too keen on helping the horizonguard out after he… did whatever he did."

The woman grimaces and taps the side of her head. "He stopped the flow of fluids in my brain. Pretty much turned me into a piece of furniture until you came along, but now that I know that can happen, he'll never catch me off guard again. You got a home base we can retreat to, sweetheart?"

'Sweetheart'? "Yeah, I do. You're not getting anywhere close to it."

"Mmh, probably a good call. We're not very trustworthy," the woman laughs and sticks out her hand. "Ebb's the name, killing people's the game."

I reluctantly accept her handshake. "Shelby. Just trying to survive."

Ebb snorts a laugh and shakes heartily. "Keep telling yourself that; maybe one day you'll believe it. So, now that you've got two-eighths of Stonestep Solutions' board of dissectors on your side, are you in the mood for a little hostile takeover? I know I am. How about you, Belay?"

The messenger nods as Ebb shifts her attention to him. "We could use a change in leadership."

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