Taking Jumble's lead, I hit send and wait. And… wait. Because we haven't undone the messages that lock the construct into important information only. I chide myself with a click of my tongue, then motion for Jumble to retract her messages. Somehow she nods in understanding and does exactly that. The construct unnaturally retraces its steps as if reality itself was rewinding just for it, and it comes to a rest right next to me.

I give Jumble a nod of thanks and hit send again. This time, the message hits the construct just fine.

(Question Recognized)

That would be… um… me.

A-at least that's what I remember.

Jumble's eyebrows raise in surprise. "That was a lot easier than I thought it'd be. Let's trade off questions; I don't want to be left out of this one."

I motion for her to take the stage. "Go ahead; the messenger is clear for you."

"Thank you very much." She says dramatically, then types a very short question out and hits send. "Hopefully the personalities don't cycle too fast. Or for no reason whatsoever."

"Didn't seem like they did." I say as my Class Card chimes. "Looks like you got a hit."

Jumble smiles. "So I did. What is your name, stranger one of five?"

"One of about fifteen, if we count all the ones in the last tube." I say. "Can't leave them out."

"We might not, but we don't know if the system does. For all we know, they could be a true amalgam–many brains working as one true unit with one personality. Hm." Jumble glances at the construct. "I wonder if this was supposed to be that, or if it was supposed to have a bunch of personalities. Both of them would have, like, polar opposite uses."

I quirk an eyebrow. "Would they?"

She nods thoughtfully. "One personality with the experiences of lots of brains could act like an entire research team–or an entire teaching squad–with just one body. Whereas one body with a bunch of brains is… well… kind of pointless? You'd just have a bunch of conflicting personalities and nothing'd ever get done. It's like… one personality is an entire library, and the other's one book that can only be lent out to one person at a time."

I scratch my neck as Jumble looks at me expectantly. Pretty sure I got the gist of what she's saying, but her library analogy is kind of wacky. Because there'd be overlap if two brains wanted to read the same book at once. Unless… that's the entire point. Combining a bunch of vastly different brains into a… giga-brain so one construct could effectively do any other construct's job instead of creating specialized ones.

Except the only way that'd work is if the system had so many brains that it physically couldn't run out of them to make constructs with. Billions of brains. Just like the construct currently sitting in our tower told us.

"You might be more right than you realize." I sigh. "There's someone I think you need to meet when we get back. So we can really get down to the nitty-gritty of what happened here."

Jumble's ears perk up. "Is there a fourth member of your party we haven't seen yet?"

"N… actually, yeah." I catch myself before I outright deny her claim. "You'll meet them soon enough. …We're sidetracked again."

"We are." Jumble giggles. "Let's stop that. Reading Class Card time starts now!"

I watch her dip her nose towards her Class Card, then follow suit. The message is literally three words long, and two of them are 'question recognized'.

(Question Recognized)

Lemmal.

"That's a third name to the causes of death. All we're missing is the patchwork and the back wound." I raise two fingers, then look up at Jumble. "You want to do the honours, or should I?"

She motions for me to go ahead. "Swapping off questions, remember?"

Right, right. I quickly type out a question asking who died by getting a chunk ripped out of their back and send it off with a tap. It hits the construct, stews for all of half a second, then returns as a message beep.

(Question Recognized)

Who wants to know?

Another new typing style. Jumble and I share a relieved look, then she types out the next question. As before, it sends and responds without a hitch.

(Question Recognized)

Davaresk Undercutter.

What's it to ya?

"This one has a last name." Jumble says with a frown. "Most paindne don't have last names–even first wavers. Either they made it up themselves, or the system gave them that name for a reason."

I slowly nod in agreement. "How about you? Got a last name of your own?"

Jumble shakes her head. "Most of us just say our Class if people ask our last name. I don't."

"Yeah, don't blame you for that one. No telling who the system might give a quest to murder you." I chuckle humourlessly. "You think the last name's important enough to take note of?"

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"...Maybe?" Jumble shrugs. "If we ever get access to a better database, we might be able to look them up specifically because of the last name. Unless… is undercutter a Class?"

I blink; the thought hadn't even come to me. "It does sound like it could be a Worth Class. But if it was, then the coin's definitely gone; Davaresk's been dead a long time."

"Hmm, true, true." Jumble grumbles. "But we should keep an eye out for it. There's a chance the coin could still be in the city somewhere."

"It would be the perfect place to leave a coin you never want anyone to find." I agree and type out the final death question. "Keep an eye on any rewards that show up. There's always a chance the system lets something slip through the cracks. Message going out."

Jumble turns to watch my message hit the construct. It pings back right after. No denials so far, which is drastically better than I thought we'd get. If everything goes well, we've got one anomaly after this. Hopefully.

(Question Recognized)

We perished/died/bit it that way.

Ah, shit. That doesn't sound simple at all. Jumble sucks air through her teeth and grimaces at me. I return the look and type out the follow-up question.

(Question Recognized)

(Question Recognized)

(Question Recognized)

(Question Recognized)

A deluge of notifications constantly fill my messenger. Almost like the answer's shifting too fast for the construct to respond. I sigh through my nose and delete my message, then change the wording of my message to accommodate for the possibility that the one we're talking to has more than one name.

(Question Recognized)

All of our names are Schism.

Remember to say it mockingly, since we're stuck together in here.

Yah, there's, like, no difference between us.

No matter how freaky we talk, we're technically one big happy mass of brainwaves.

Just, y'know, put through a different filter every time a message goes out.

…This is exactly what I expected, but it's still unbelievably unnerving. They talk like different people, but they're apparently one mind? I don't want to know what kind of heinous shit the system had to do to make this work out.

I close my Class Card as Schism continues talking to… itself, I guess. "That's all of them. Not sure what we're supposed to do with this info, but we have it. Time to try phasing something in underneath where the tube was above us?"

Jumble stares silently at her Class Card watching messages constantly pinging in at the exact same frequency that the paindne corpse shifted parts. It must be hard for her to see a construct act like this since her party are also constructs. But as her brows start to knit together in thought, I get the feeling that I'm misjudging her silence.

Might as well get confirmation from the woman herself. "Is this bothering you?"

"Wha?" Jumble looks up with a frown. "Oh, um, no. Maybe? I guess it depends what you're insinuating when you say 'bothering me'."

I spread my hands. "I'm open to being enlightened."

Jumble scratches her head as a low whine escapes her throat. "I just don't get the point of all this. Unless a quest is really simple–kill a monster, find a relic, deliver a package–there's always some… importance to it. For subquests, they're supposed to advance the main quest, give rewards that help with the main quest, and actually mean something in the grand scheme of the quest. But all this… it just feels like busywork."

Can't honestly say I disagree. Fumbling around in the dark for 'anomalies' that don't seem to have anything to do with the actual construct in here, only for it to freak out when presented with it? All this could've been replaced with a spot the difference picture book and a walkie talkie.

"I get what you're saying. But maybe we're just… not seeing the big picture?" I nod at the wall that leads outside. "The halls are filled with plastic paindne and there's a construct in here that claims to live here, yet is obviously a twisted science experiment. Maybe we'll get access to a lab when we're done here."

Jumble's frown only deepens. "That's not what I'm talking about. The quest put this specific construct here. Instead of just programming it to say 'Oh, wow, you found an anomaly', it gets hurt. Then there's the corpses, which did not need to be preserved, but they're here. In other apartments that should've had other paindne living in them. Why's that necessary? Why put the bodies here for what should be a really simple subquest?"

"Because the system's an asshole?"

"Well… yes. But not to normal people. Just to us." Jumble motions at herself, then at me. And after a moment of pause, she extends that gesture to Pearl's shell. "I just… imagine it wasn't you and me here. Imagine it was… like… the other people who showed up at your tower around the same time we did. None of this would mean anything to them; they'd just think it was part of the subquest. So why's all this here in the first place?"

I point a thumb at the wall where the hidden space is. "Let's just finish this and find out, yeah?"

Jumble huffs, her face slightly flush with emotion. "You're right. I know you are. It's just… I… really hate the idea that the quest is using people as… props." She nearly spits the word with how much it seems to disgust her. "Even if they were wave ones, they've been stuck here for a really, really long time. There's no way their constructs haven't degraded at all, especially since I can't imagine the system properly maintaining them."

"Sounds like you care a lot about them." I note.

"I do." Jumble confirms. "They're… the system didn't program the constructs to hate me. It's not like they loved me either, but just being able to be around people that didn't sneer at me or openly make their distaste known… even if they were just plastic… they don't deserve to suffer."

She sniffles, but not a single tear falls down her cheek. With a breath deep enough to puff out her chest, Jumble looks up and starts walking towards the spot on the ceiling that was directly underneath the tube. She stops a few feet from it and turns to me.

"How close am I?"

I wave my fingers in her direction. "Another four feet that way. Do you want me to do the phasing?"

She shakes her head. "If you saw a body that moved last time, we can't rule anything out this time. I want to be the first to see it."

"Alright." I walk over to the spot, kneel down, and motion for Jumble to get on my shoulders. "Let's get this said and done."

Jumble's eyes widen, and she hurries over. I put down a hand to help her stand on my shoulders, but she walks right past me. Much to my confusion. Then a weight settles around my neck, two legs step around my shoulders, and a tail smacks happily against my back.

"I'm ready!" Jumble says excitedly. From a shoulder-ride position. The kind of ride a parent would give their kid so they could see over a massive crowd. "Shelby? What are you… o-oh, um, is this not what you were going for?"

I close my eyes and shake my head. Jumble apologizes profusely and starts to move to get off, but I cut her off by standing tall all at once. She squeaks in surprise and wraps her arms around my head to keep herself from falling off, then devolves into a fit of giggles that's the complete antithesis of how serious she was a second ago.

"You're strong." She states giddily.

"Not as strong as I should be. Don't forget why you're up there." I remind her. "And be ready for literally anything."

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