Malice, pure and unadulterated, scythes through me in all directions. I try to tear my eyes from the words, but thanks to my awareness, that's an impossibility. Magic seeps out of the plastic into the water like rivulets of blood dissolving in a stream. Pearl hugs my cheek with a quiet murmur of worry.

"It's coming from everywhere." She glances around frantically, eventually settling on the spire. "We're definitely in the right place. Unhook yourself from the rock!"

"Working on it." I grimace and summon two shield coins. "Pull in closer."

Pearl squeezes herself closer to my cheek. It's just an inch away from the shield helmet, but that's more than enough. I summon a slightly smaller replacement, then put a plate of new shielding inside the hole I made in the pillar's shield. They connect with a magical pop, and I dismiss my old helmet as I jump back a few steps.

Then I swim like my life depends on it. "Where do we go?!"

"It's, um, in phase, right? So we need to find the perfect place to see it!" Pearl's eyes light up with realization the moment it hits me. "It didn't say 'don't look at me. Just 'this way'!"

I nod in agreement. All we need to do is find the right place to look at the pillar from, and that should open up whatever the next step is. I reach for the air pole as I exhale, but my fingers wrap around empty air. And the pole floats a fair bit away, already filled with water. So now we're on a strict time limit.

Okay. That's fine. I can work with this. The plastic's magic is hate-filled, but it doesn't feel like it's actually doing anything. All the plastic in the water hasn't turned into instruments of destruction, but since they're floating in the water like tiny landmines, I have a feeling they'll gradually become less safe to touch. But I have my awareness–if there's a few different words here, then I'll easily find them. If there isn't, though, and I actually have to find the right place through dumb luck…

Well, I'll just have to cross that bridge when I get there.

"Pearl. Do you see anything new?" I ask as I spin around to face the pillar once more. "Because I haven't seen anything yet."

She instantly shakes her head. That's a bad sign. "All the words are still the same, and they're slowly projecting magic towards the floating pieces of plastic. It's not fast, so it's definitely a test, but… I don't know how to find one of those phase things."

I shove my hands in my pockets as I stare through my awareness. "There has to be some way to find them other than dumb luck. If your magic sensitivity can't feel anything, then it's either way too powerful–or not magic at all. Shit, I'm completely drawing a blank. Maybe Clutter has some ideas."

One of my hands leaves my pocket, and I quickly type out a message with a short explanation asking for Clutter's help. The malicious magic grows ever so slightly stronger by the second, and unless I'm completely imagining things, the pieces of plastic look like they're drifting towards me. The popup accompanying his response nearly gives me a heart attack.

"If you're looking for a phase thing, try to find something out of place without an explanation for why it looks that way. Oh, but if you're asking that, you probably already found the thing. Haha, sorry." His message cuts off, and I stare at it in disbelief until the follow-up comes a couple dozen seconds later. "Once you have the place, look at it from every direction that it can be in eyeshot. Since you have to see it first, only places it can be seen from can trigger it. After that, mark where you've been, and make your way further and further away until it appears."

That makes sense. But it's nowhere near enough–there's so much of this thing that can be 'in eyeshot', especially with how you can get a half sphere of vision thanks to the water. From how the plastic magic feels, I've got maybe ten minutes before this place is too dangerous to check. And my oxygen might last that long if I'm damn careful with my breaths.

"Not good enough, Clutter. I need something more concrete right now." I send back, then swim away from the encroaching plastic. "I'm looking at a piece of rock that's got at least fifty percent visibility from all directions but down. Unless you've got a week that I don't, it's not going to work."

As I wait for the response, I keep swimming backwards. The plastic and the words continue to grow with magic, and I keep a close eye on the pillar so I don't accidentally swim too far. Right now, I don't have the tools to find what the pillar wants from me. Shields and projectiles won't do anything, purification might buy me a few minutes from the words, and none of the shellraiser tech I'm severely underusing seems like it'd be any help. The literal only thing I can even imagine being useful is the beacon, but it can only point us in directions Pearl already knows.

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Wait. No. That's not right–when I first found it, the thing was blasting death in all directions. Because it reflects and amplifies whatever is put in it. I haven't used it in months so it has to be fully charged. Could it… no. That's way too out there. But… what if it could? I'm technically part shellraiser. Ah, hell, what's the harm? If it doesn't work, it just means nothing happens.

…Unless it's not waterproof. "Pearl, are the beacon and power core waterproof?"

She stares at me like I just grew a second head. "Of course they are. Waterproof, fireproof, pretty much anything-proof. Ooh, that's a great idea! Why didn't I think of it?"

"What idea?"

"The one you just had. Here, here–bring them out. I'll set everything up. You won't actually 'see' from everywhere, but the beacon will project your awareness from everywhere in its area of effect." She pauses when I summon the beacon and power core. Outside of my shield. "Oh, um, right. Just bring it up close and I'll… do it. If I collapse after, that's completely normal, okay? Remote operation is really exhausting."

I bring the pair of artifacts to my helmet, avoiding the plastic shrapnel as best as I can. The stuff still plinks harmlessly from the devices, sure, but I'm not risking this shit. Pearl scrunches herself right up to the shield, closes her eyes with a deep breath that consumes no oxygen, and focuses. The beacon shudders in my hands, and a sharp prick of pain lances into my palm.

"Ow." I grunt as the pain grows. "The hell are you doing?"

"Connecting you to the beacon." She rasps, as if her mouth had instantly dried out. "I know it hurts, but the blood connection is needed. Unless you can turn your flesh into a conductor like I can. Okay… here… then I do this… and I think this next… good. It's all ready."

She looks back at me, her eyes filled with a mixture of emotions I can't tell. "I sort of lied, Shelby. You're going to see a lot more than you expected."

"Pearl?"

Before I can get another word out, she closes her eyes and slumps against my helmet. Her chest heaves with deep, slumbering breaths as the beacon opens, revealing a grape-sized sphere of blood hovering and shivering perfectly in its center. I stare at the thing that feels like a reflection of myself, bloodied and immobile, and the beacon hums to life.

My awareness blossoms. But unlike before, when Pearl augmented it, it doesn't feel like a part of me. Instead of real life, it's like I'm staring at a recording of these exact moments–beamed into my head through the beacon. I lick my lips, tasting the salt of sweat and anticipation, and the me in my awareness does exactly the same.

I watch that exact same motion play out infinite times. All at once. My brain screams at the overload of information, but the power core takes the majority of the strain somehow. In just a few seconds of being active, the thing's already a fifth drained.

"Intense." I murmur to myself, and Pearl quietly laughs. "What's so funny?"

"How much of an understatement that is."

Fair. It feels like I'm standing at every possible point my awareness can see, observing the entirety of my awareness inch by inch. The pillar isn't reacting yet, so I assume I'm not in the right place. With a rapidly draining battery and a bleeding wound on my palm, I swim up a little and make a cycle around the pillar as quickly as humanly possible.

Watching myself swim while also doing said swimming is… unnerving, to say the least. It's like if I was a movie star, and I could see every single person watching my movies as they watched, but those people are also me. Just thinking about it threatens to bring on the mother of migraines, though, so I just accept the unbelievable oddity for what it is and focus on making it work.

A sea of words glides by. Each of them contains something important, but not in the way that I need them to. I glance down at the power core, feeling it drop to just below half. Now all that's stopping me is my own sluggishness. So I set my jaw and swim harder than I've ever swam in my life.

The pillar disappears. All the words change as one–shifting to 'right here'. I grin and angle myself at the empty shield, where magic buds and grows like a flower in spring. A few kicks set me in motion, and–

The water disappears. All of it. I kick helplessly in midair for the moment it takes my brain to register what just happened, and… how I'm completely dry now. A shield appears under me before I fall too far, and a distant scream from Clutter followed by a flicker of my magic in the distance tells me he just did the same.

"Shelby!" He screams from somewhere in the darkness. "Did you do this?!"

I flick my shield-helmet and hold up a hand to catch Pearl before she falls. "Yes! Follow the sound of my voice–I think I've got it!"

"Really?! That's great!" He calls, all the worry from before completely forgotten. "Stand right there! I'll be there in a second!"

His footsteps smack against the ground as I turn my attention to where the pillar used to be. A grey, unappealing light shines through it–one that gives off the exact same sensation as the plastic stuff. My Class Card vibrates in my mind to alert me to the change, but I don't need it.

I already know I'm staring at one of the entrances to the quest.

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