Fear burns in those hateful eyes of his. A kind of fear that he never showed until this exact moment. His eyes dart from place to place, lingering for no more than a moment on any one part of me before widening and moving on to the next. The last place they linger is on my head right where Pearl's shell used to be.

"Y-you!" he jabs a finger at me, then snaps to Jumble as she pulls herself up. "And you! What did you do to me?! Why can't I use any magic at all?!"

Jumble tilts her head to the side. "You really haven't figured it out yet? I thought it was pretty obvious, especially since we just had a nice little friendly talk a few hours ago. …Was it even that long?"

She turns to me for confirmation. All I can offer is a shrug.

"Let's go with hours, then," she says smoothly. "So, Dani, are you done running? Is this where you're supposed to be?"

He shrinks back as if Jumble just stepped up to him. But she hasn't moved one step. The two guards or escorts shift to block our path to Dani… but they don't completely close it off. That message Jumble alluded to must be swaying their judgment. I can use that.

"Well, we're here. How about we just get it over with?" I ask and snap my fingers. A coin detonates into orbiting projectile-stars, and I aim one at Dani with my finger. "All we want is access to the tombs. If you two are willing to show us the way, then we'll happily leave both of you alive."

Jumble discreetly huffs and rolls her eyes. Lucky for her, the two guards are more focused on me than her–or Clutter, who's slowly making the long way around to reach Dani. I know Jumble won't want him to kill Dani.

That honour goes to her.

I just barely shake my head at Clutter with the hopes that he's at least partially watching me. He graciously pauses for a moment, seemingly in confusion, then slowly nods. Hopefully that's a nod of understanding–not one that says 'okay, I'll kill the bastard'. The two guards tense at my motion, but neither of them moves to attack. Unlike all the others we've seen so far.

"Why the hesitation?"

Tight-gear flinches. Not very good at hiding their reactions, but also not one for conversation. They glance back at Dani for some reason, then shake their head and lower into a fighting stance. All their clothes seem to ripple like flexing muscles made of kevlar and polyester, pulling even closer to their body and magnifying every little bit of their natural form. I almost avert my eyes, since it's… not hiding anything. But my awareness won't let that happen anyway, so there's no point.

The other one just stands there. Whatever their motives are, they're hidden by the fabrics that float and billow as if underwater on a slight upcurrent. Very little magic rolls off of either of them. I don't know what to make of that. Instead of trying, I crack my neck and shoot tight-gear a sympathetic look.

"I know what it's like to work for someone abusive. Never actually did it myself, but I saw a lot of old friends drop out for that exact reason. People never think they can quit. They can," I say as sincerely as I can manage. "You two show us where the tombs are then run for the hills and we'll make sure the horizonguard can't go after you for abandoning your post."

Fingers clad in tight-fitting gloves clench and unclench. I can see their pulse quickening through their bulging veins as breaths slightly push away the mask at their mouth. Either my words are getting through and they're having a serious crisis of conscience, or I'm just pissing them off.

"Speak no further," flowy-fabric growls in a startlingly authoritative low voice. "Honeyed words have no sway on us, doubly so because we are allergic to your specific brand of verbal sweets. Allergic due to years of loyalty from our own purveyor of the sweetest tones ever spoken to the ungrateful winds."

…What?

"What?" Jumble echoes.

Tight-gear turns to their ally and tilts their head, as if to say 'what' as well.

Flowy-fabric pauses and quickly looks around. "V…verbal sweets. Honeyed words? The connection there isn't so unbelievable, is it?"

"You sort of just insinuated that the horizonguard is manipulating you," Jumble points out. "In a way that… doesn't make sense in your own analogy. If you can even call that an analogy."

"I… you… quiet!" flowy-fabric huffs in embarrassment. "When I try to be the one that talks, everyone looks at me like I have two heads. What's so wrong with my metaphor? Honeyed words is a common expression."

Out of the corner of my eye, Jumble shakes her head. Clutter stops right at Dani's shoulder, teeth mere inches from ripping the life away from the construct. I set my jaw and clear my head; there's obviously something strange going on here. Not enough magic for a psychic… no… wait. Where's the buzzing?

Oh, shit. We're being played. I frown down at my projectiles orbiting my hand, one primed to fire directly at Dani, and try to shift my aim to the one in flowy fabrics. It's like everything in existence piles in to stop me from moving, yet there's no physical pain or struggle at all. Insidious. Dangerous.

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I shatter a purification coin against my chest. All the sensations die away. Flowy-fabric's pouty haughtiness disappears in a flourish of magic and cloth that grows to cover half of the hallway in a strange smokescreen. I toss another purification at Jumble just in case, then fire two projectiles at where flowy-fabric was. Both of them shear through magic and cloth like they were nothing, but neither of them pierce flesh of any sort.

Jumble twitches as purification flows over her. "Crap, the psychic."

"The psychic," I echo in confirmation. "Can you take tight-gear?"

She looks over at the fighter who looks just about as stunned as we are. "Are you sure they're even a problem?"

I nod seriously and point a projectile at them. "'Course they are. They're the psychic."

As if awoken by those words, the psychic's neck snaps unnaturally to me. A wave of nausea accompanies the simple gesture, and they push off the ground with enough force to shatter the stone underfoot. Jumble jumps into their path, one hand raised to catch the punch they're rearing back to throw.

Horrible noise screeches into my mind. Pearl winces and covers her ears, as do I, but Jumble stands her ground. The psychic blurs two feet to the right in a smear of headache-inducing magic. Jumble gnashes her teeth and pivots on her heel to intercept them.

A heavy fist crashes into the side of her head. Her magic screeches like an emergency alert, sending the psychic stumbling back with their hands gripping their ears. They make a noise deep in their throat like a motorbike revving up, then charge again for another attack. This time two smeared images of them split off in random directions–one two feet ahead, the other to the left and eight feet behind.

Once more, Jumble takes a breath and stands her ground. The flowy fabric from the second guard paints a strangely beautiful backdrop to the two images charging Jumble like dehydration nausea and an eyestrain headache teaming up to ruin a productive evening. They close in, each not quite aimed at Jumble at all. She tenses. Staticy magic roils on her body with harsh whispers.

The singing of sharp steel cuts through everything. Billowing robes flicker out of nowhere, revealing the other guard with a forearm-sized knife in hand. A vicious point aimed directly at my eye reflects my own surprise back at me. Yet, somehow, the flowy-robed guard seems more surprised than I am.

My awareness kicks in. Underneath all those clothes, I feel a pair of eyes open wide in utter terror. I clench my fingers into a clawed gesture and slam it into center mass, feeling flesh squelch under the insanely sharp edges of my strange new powerup. The guard coughs. Their knife slams into my eye, but a powerful whispering crack of Jumble's magic stops it dead in its tracks.

Blood seeps out onto perfect white. A cough stains it even more, followed by a pained wheeze that says I must've punctured at least one lung. Probably only one, though, since they haven't fallen over in rapturous pain. I rip my claws out and shove them away in one quick and violent motion.

They cough, soaking the cloth around their mouth to a deep crimson. One hand appears from underneath the fabric, reaches up to their mouth, and shakily dabs at the blood-soaked covering. A shaky, terrified whine gurgles through all the blood in their windpipe.

"Am I dying?" they ask like a scared, innocent child.

I flick the blood from my nails. "That depends on if you're going to show us where the tombs are. We have potions. But you have to earn them."

A wet, splattering cough punctuates my sentence. The guard nods furiously in understanding, takes down all their magic, and hurries over to a random stretch of wall. Dani and the other guard both watch in horror as they open a doorway that glistens like oil on the surface of water.

My awareness flares mortal danger. But not for me. I force as much as I can into a shield and project it with my awareness. It manifests between the guard and the doorway as a pressurized shear of water erupts from the doorway. The spell devours my shield like piranhas cleaning a carcass. All I can do is scream out a warning as the guard realizes what's happening.

A blur of motion slams into the guard. It knocks them off their feet, tackles them a good thirty feet down the hallway, and thumps to a stop on the ground with a long bloody trail behind them. I turn to shoot Jumble a questioning look. She slowly shakes her head and motions at the pair of guards–one with a punctured lung… and the other missing their legs from mid-thigh down.

"Please, please…" Flowy-robes pounds on tight-gear's back with desperate blows. "Open your eyes. I know you aren't… hack… I know…"

Jumble summons a potion and raises an eyebrow. I nod solemnly and follow her to the pair, where she sets down the potion and takes a step back. Flowy-robes doesn't even register that it's there for a few seconds, but when they do, they grab for it desperately with one hand while peeling off tight-gear's face covering with the other. They raise the bottle to a completely hairless head and force the liquid down their friend's throat. I lean back to watch the wounds on their legs close–leaving them crippled, but alive.

Only once their friend physically can't drink another drop do they raise the bottle to their own lips and drink deep. I lean in and take the bottle from them when the liquid refuses to go down their throat. They let go without a word of protest or a single retaliatory motion.

"Honeyed words, huh," I muse as I study the bottle closely. "Maybe take a long think about who was steering you the wrong way there. It's a given your enemies want to kill you… but your allies?"

I shake my head without finishing and hand Jumble the bottle back. Neither of the guards say another word, but I know they won't be a problem anymore. Jumble sends the bottle away and gently elbows my arm with a small smile that I can't tell the reason for. We walk up to the entrance to the tombs together, then Clutter parades a desperately blubbering Dani right up to us.

Jumble shoots him a look of utter disdain, grabs him from Clutter, and manhandles him into the doorway. He whimpers. He begs us not to do this. Jumble's resolve visibly hardens with every sniveling word out of his traitorous mouth.

She plants a hand on his back and shoves. "Move. I won't tell you a second time."

Tears streak down Dani's face as he stumbles into the hallway. He babbles out something incoherent, but shrieks and turns to run when Jumble gets within grabbing distance. We all leisurely follow the now-depowered construct into a fairly small room all things considered. There's only one thing inside that's worth mentioning; a massive observatory-sized telescope pointing straight at the ceiling.

But nothing about this place screams 'tombs' to me. Nothing… at all.

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