I dismiss my Class Card with a flick of my wrist. Of course the quest doesn't want to die. Nothing really does. Unfortunately for it, I can't consider what it wants in all of this; if sparing it is feasible, safe, and easy? It'll happen.

If not?

Then nothing changes. I reach up and twiddle with my new earrings, forcing myself to ignore the urge to scratch at my neck, and wait patiently for Jumble to finish reading. Click, Slice, and the liquid construct aren't quite as thoughtful.

"What do we do now? The quest itself just talked to us, and we're supposed to just… believe it?" Slice sharks her head in disbelief. "Can anyone tell me why I'm seriously considering doing just that?"

The liquid construct hacks out a dusty laugh. "It doesn't change anything. The quest has to end one way or another, and we're trying to stop exactly one of those ways. What I'm wondering is why we didn't just destroy that pillar of dead computing paindne and get all this over with."

The both of them turn to Click for its opinion. Our first construct ally scratches at its wrist, thin wires of construct material jutting out of its body like fraying threads. Wide eyes stare off into the distance and a pinched mouth paints its expression as a thing of intense concentration. I can't blame it; the quest just revealed a few things about its life that Click apparently didn't know.

Like how it was just another corpse-turned-construct before all this.

"Click?" I ask with concern. "You alright?"

Its eyes slam shut as a breath shudders out of its lips. "No… I don't think I am. Seeing as I have complete access to the information the quest previously stole away, things now take on a slightly different tint. Not enough to change our goals, but enough to shake my confidence to my core."

"So you were a paindne once. It isn't so bad, once you accept the fact that the system obliterated your life and forced you into a new one," Slice chuckles humorlessly. "It'll take a while, but you'll get used to it."

Click shakes its head. "That's not what I was referring to… but thank you for the words of assurance."

"Then what were you referring to? Time is short and only growing shorter. Tell us," the liquid construct demands. "Or stop whining."

With a lazy blink, Click shifts to meet the liquid construct's demanding glare. Its expression shifts to something like… pity. The liquid construct keeps up the staring contest, though its posture grows increasingly uncomfortable as the moments roll by.

"What?! What're you looking at?!" the liquid construct snaps. "I'm not a sideshow for your amusement! Stop gawking, or if that's too much to ask, put a coin in the jar for admission!"

Coin in the… what the hell is it talking about? I look away from Jumble to better watch the budding conflict between the three. The liquid construct's words paint it as a defensive agitator, yet its body language is closed and nervous. Like it really wants to hear what Click has to say even though it's terrified of what might be said.

"We were doing fine," Click says grimly. "The system had completely forgotten about us; wrote us off as a horrible failure after the disaster. Somehow, something reached out to it through the phase and reintroduced us. That something was the quest."

The liquid construct scrunches its face in confusion. "Of course that's what happened. What else could it have been? The quest appeared somehow, we got involved, and… we… we were doing fine?"

All the fire leaves the liquid construct in an instant. Slice raises an eyebrow and motions for Click to continue; apparently her infodump didn't include that little nugget.

Click takes a deep breath, then sets its jaw. "We, in this case, refers to the central processor for the city. The one I was a part of, and which the quest now has complete control over. We'd worked out a way to repair the city by repurposing previously hazardous materials left over from the disaster."

It turns to me and makes a circle with its hands. "The vision you had from the sphere-headed constructs was from that time. If you need, I can lead us to the processing facility at any time. Before this it was… utterly inaccessible."

"From when you de-radiated the city," I ask for clarity.

Click nods. "It took a very, very long time to get the city itself safe enough to live in."

"And the radiation outside of the walls? Did you clear that up, too?"

"Partially, yes. But we were interrupted before that could happen." Click pauses, then turns to Slice. "How the material ended up where it did is a mystery; we'd cleaned the source of the disaster to start with, so there shouldn't have been any left. Do you remember at all how you got on that… coaster? Is that the word for it?"

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I shrug. "Close enough."

Click nods with satisfaction, then looks at Slice expectantly. She furrows her brow in thought, scouring whatever information the quest just gave back to her… but eventually she sighs and shakes her head.

"Sorry; all I got from those info-bug things were a few memories of the disaster itself. All the time after that was kind of… ethereal, you know?" She tries to motion with her hands for emphasis, but can't seem to settle on anything. "Until the sounds of wheels on a track woke me up, nothing really stuck in my brain. Or my… whatever I have now. Ugh, I don't want to think about that."

"Then don't," the liquid construct snaps. "This thing is trying to make us think the city was on track to becoming something good again. Well, until our savior came around, we were all literal system slaves. How'd that happen, smart-fridge? Was that a part of the plan; get the system to come back and grovel at its feet while it puppets us around?"

Click's expression turns ashen. "Yes."

The liquid construct flinches at the intensity. "Um. Yes?"

"Yes," Click repeats. "That was always the plan. Repair the facility for the system. Prove that we can return to the world. Even when some of the heretics showed up and tried to convince us otherwise, we continued undisturbed. Well, we should've been disturbed. Because the exact thing they warned us about happened the moment we established long-range transmission."

Click trails off, but they don't have to say anything else. The literal moment the system sensed they weren't destroyed, it reclaimed ownership of its property. The quest–Quest–was probably overjoyed. Hell, it should still be overjoyed at being part of the system's 'great infrastructure'. But something happened to it.

Me.

I don't fully understand how yet, but something I did brought the quest to our side. Maybe it all happened when I first met it and it had to give special permission thanks to the serenade of shattered shells. Maybe it happened when I took possession of the fake-shellraisers. It didn't freely divulge when it happened… but I just know I was accidentally at the center of it.

Jumble snaps her book shut, drawing all the attention back to her. There's a different sort of air about the constructs now that they know Jumble's responsible for the disaster; like they don't know whether to look at her like a savior or a monster.

She completely ignores them and raises her chin at me. "Rina just got deployed to fight our construct forces. As far as I can tell it's only the system calling the shots for that skirmish, so we're still stuck with the horizonguard's forces."

"Any idea how many that is?" I step closer to her and nod at her book. "And how's Dani doing? He made it to the tombs yet, wherever those are?"

"Not yet… but he's around a lot of horizoznguard forces now. If I was a betting woman like you, I'd say he's close enough to go on the offensive."

That's all I need to hear. "Click, can you fight?"

The construct hisses through its teeth. No matter what it says next, that's a 'no' to me.

"I could, if I was absolutely forced–"

"No, it can't," the liquid construct interrupts.

Click winces, then nods. "My apologies."

"No, no, you're fine. Better to learn that now instead of later. Use those construct doorways to go find Gil and see if you can get access to that room you were talking about." I pause for a moment in thought. "That room will help us win this, right?"

Confidence rolls down Click's shoulders as it bobs its head. "Certainly."

"Then go." I jut a thumb at the closest wall. "And if Agathe is there, tell her to be ready to relocate at any time. We'll probably end up needing her firepower when we fight the horizonguard."

Click hums in understanding and turns to face a wall. A glowing doorway appears with a wave of its hand and it steps through without a moment's hesitation. Leaving me with two constructs of questionable fighting… well… definitely not power. More like… feasibility. Considering Slice is a walking nuke and the still nameless liquid construct could easily be more of hindrance than help.

I point two fingers at the liquid construct. "The horizonguard."

It vigorously shakes its head. "I can't risk it."

"Yeah, I figured. You were already going to find the last uplifting trial for me; go do that. If we can purge the system from this place, it might become safe to use."

"That's it?" The construct snorts. "I can have that done in fifteen minutes. My, um, savior."

I roll my eyes at the thing's insistence on this 'savior' thing. "Then go reinforce the group that's fighting the system's constructs when you're done."

"Yes, right, of course. I'll get on that right now."

The construct opens a door and scurries through before I can get another word out. Jumble and Pearl laugh at the situation, though I can't shake the sensation of something going horribly wrong long enough to find humor in this. As long as the liquid construct stays the hell away from the horizonguard we'll be fine. Just have to hope it listens.

Which only leaves Slice. She shifts when my focus falls on her, an awkward sort of shyness in her glance that's almost cute. Except it's because she knows that her fighting anything is way, way too dangerous for anyone in a multi-mile radius.

"Do you have a plan?"

Slice sucks in a short breath. "I do. But I can't do it close to anybody."

"As long as you know what you're doing."

She nods quickly and turns to leave. I catch a glimpse of something behind the doorway she opens, but even my awareness can't latch onto it for long. It almost looks like it's looking down on the city from above. Then Slice steps through, waves once, and she's gone.

"So it's just us three again," Jumble chuckles. "Four if we count Clutter. Want to go now?"

"That depends; is he really close enough?"

Jumble purses her lips and opens up her book. Her eyes scan over the words for a few seconds, then widen in panic. She snaps the book shut and grabs my arm.

"They just detected Clutter. We have to go now."

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