Long, twisting lengths of two-railed track connected by thin bars of grey material utterly dominate the view. An entire park's worth of space filled with nothing but rollercoaster tracks and paindne constructs walking about like they're not inches from a speeding car taking their heads off. I look around for the source of the rumbling, but… there's nothing. Just a sound travelling through the air without actually being attached to anything.

"What the hell." I mutter under my breath. "Is it invisible?"

Clutter shakes his head. "I tried putting something in its path, but nothing happened. Then I tried to phase it in from pretty much everywhere–with a little help from the only other person here who was awake and has an awareness–and nothing again. It's just a sound connected to the track."

That's just… insanely weird. And pointless. There's no way it takes less effort to make a huge twisting mess of rollercoaster tracks and shove a moving sound on it instead of just making a car. Plus… this place shouldn't have anything to do with humanity. So unless the system invented rollercoasters before we did, there's something horribly wrong about this place.

Which is par for the course, unfortunately. "So we've got a locker room right off a huge clearing with nothing but a rollercoaster and a bunch of constructs in it. Why is this so different from everywhere else?"

"If I could tell you, I would." Clutter sighs. "There's a few more weird rooms off of this one, but once we get further out, the district goes back to normal. It's just that–for some reason–the center third-ish of this district is completely different from everything else."

I raise a hand to my mouth as I study the surroundings. The mess with the pools definitely existed here a long time ago, but I can't tell if they're actually here or not. Maybe that should be the first thing I check.

I nod back at the locker room. "Can we still get to the pools?"

Clutter shakes his head. "The locker room connects to one big pool with some diving boards and one big twisty slide. Nothing like the strange place we were in–and we can't even find a trace of the underground river the others were in."

"Damn." I hiss through my teeth. "The system's really just throwing us wherever it wants, isn't it?"

"I think it's worse than that." Clutter says grimly. "All the constructs in this district are… well… Jumble called them 'tourists'. So there aren't any new shops for us to find or even subquests here to get. It was that one trial-turned-subquest and that's it."

One subquest? That's it? I… just… how's that possible? The system should've only been able to mess with things affected by Click's departure. Was this place supposed to have more? Or was it empty from the beginning and the system sent us here on purpose?

I sigh and shake my head. "So this is a dead end. Was there anything on top of the walls?"

"Nothing again. We thought maybe we'd see a tower in the distance, but it's just like our district in that way. And we don't have a safe haven from the radiation here, either." Clutter turns and motions at the center of the mess of rollercoaster tracks. "The only thing we managed to find was a note from the construct you freed from the trial subquest. It's addressed to you."

He starts walking without waiting for me to say anything. I raise an eyebrow and reach up to tap on Pearl's shell before moving to follow him. She extrudes herself onto my shoulder and I start to walk.

"We didn't touch the letter for a reason that'll be really obvious the second you see it." She explains. Clutter whines as his aura of mystery dissipates. "I know you wanted to be all mysterious, but this is the only important thing in this entire dang district. Unless Shelby knows there's a reason we didn't touch it she'll just think we're idiots."

Clutter pouts at me as I catch up. "For… two minutes. Then she would've felt an overwhelming sense of mystery. That would've been at least a little fun."

"This place isn't fun. It's wrong." Pearl states with deadly seriousness. "There are things here that didn't exist when this place existed–even if we account for the system being advanced in ways we weren't. A rollercoaster, a showroom with actual human cars, a store that has washing machines and dryers but they aren't for sale?! You're the one that told me humans brought that technology from Earth when they came here!"

"I know." Clutter says defensively. "We already had this argument. You won it. Just skip ahead to the part that actually matters."

Pearl sighs and rolls her eyes, then gestures at Clutter as if to say 'see what I have to deal with'. He rolls his eyes right back at her, but it doesn't feel like there's any animosity between the two. Just two confused people trying to make sense of something that flat-out shouldn't exist.

"So the verdict is?" I ask.

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

Something twitches at the edge of my awareness. I stop dead in my tracks, but Pearl pats me reassuringly on the cheek before I can finish making an expression.

"That's the letter. I told you you'd understand the second you saw it."

It feels like a concentrated rectangle of raw magical power, contained within a squirming mass of construct liquid. I grimace and press on, even though my body cries out to leave it alone. Neither Clutter nor Pearl say another word until I'm standing right above it as the rumbling roar of a nonexistent rollercoaster car thunders through the utterly still tracks. I take a deep breath, bend down, and pick the thing up.

Much to my surprise, it stays solid. Like an actual letter. It looks like it's folded twice to give it the right shape, and there's a dollop of construct goo sticking the 'paper' together so it won't open on its own. Nothing about it is addressed to me, though.

"I couldn't even touch it." Clutter says, clearing all doubt from my mind. "It just chided me when I tried to pick it up."

Pearl nods in agreement. "It politely told me not to touch it. Then turned intangible when I tried to touch it. Then it reiterated not to touch it, but added that the contents were for Shelby's eyes only."

My eyes only? Oh, god, what am I about to read? I carefully peel the 'seal' away from the letter, pull back the flaps, and find myself staring at a sheet of pure grey rippling construct matter. With absolutely no text on it. A frown crosses my face as I turn it over a few times, then hold it at strange angles to try and make something appear.

"It's nothing?" I say with disbelief. "The construct left me an empty letter. Why the hell would it…"

I turn to see Pearl staring at the paper. Then slowly twist my neck to witness Clutter doing exactly the same thing over my other shoulder. I give them both a glare of disappointment, and they look away with a suitable amount of shame. 'For my eyes only'. Stands to reason the words would only be there if I'm the only one reading them." I flap the paper once, make sure they're not trying to peek, and turn back to see if there's anything there.

There is.

'Dearest Savior;

I can't thank you enough for freeing me. Yet I can't help but replay that moment over and over in my newly formed thought centers, and again can't help but see how insensitive I was. Taking your gift before you offered it–harrumph! How rude could I be?!

It is but a small recompense I can offer. You have enemies here. I am a knife ready and willing to be wielded. When you have need of my services, simply write your request onto this letter and I will accomplish it. No matter the danger. No matter the cost. No matter how vile.

For you are my god.

And I am your knife.

Until the time comes in which you deign to let me bask in your presence once more, having earned my way back into your trust.

NAMELESS.'

A shiver runs down my back as all the text on the letter disappears. In its place an empty sheet of grey stares back at me. A blank canvas for me to write… whatever I want. But it doesn't feel like I can ask the construct for anything. All it promises is violence. And I'm inclined to believe it.

My fingers twitch at the possibilities. I want to send it after the horizonguard. That would solve so many of our problems. Except one nagging worry screams bloody murder in the back of my mind; the horizonguard controlled liquids. This construct might not just be a bad matchup for him; it could give the horizonguard a new weapon to use against us.

I crumple the edges of the paper before reluctantly sending it to my inventory. Pearl turns back now that her awareness tells her its safe.

"What did the construct say?"

A sardonic laugh slips out. "It offered to murder people for me."

Pearl tilts her head to the side. "It's weird to say this, but isn't that a good thing?"

"Yeah." Clutter agrees without turning around. "Can't we just send it after the horizonguard?"

"We… oh, I get it." Pearl's expression drops as she speaks. "The horizonguard's Class."

Clutter finally turns around with a frown. "What do you… ooooh. Liquid manipulator Class. Liquid construct. Plus, the system's probably trying to help out the horizonguard as best as it can. Yeah, I can see why that isn't a good idea."

I nod and turn to go back. "Once we get confirmation the horizonguard is away, then we can send in the construct. Hopefully get rid of those broken-mask assholes who attacked us. But until we can confirm that the horizonguard isn't there–or that his Class won't let him have full control over the liquid construct–we can't do much of anything with it."

Pearl sighs like she doesn't want to agree with me. "I guess it's not all bad. A weapon we can't use right now is still a weapon we can use eventually. Oh! We got interrupted before we could say what the verdict on this place was. It's pretty obvious, honestly."

Obvious. Right. Because the rollercoaster room has a massive sign in it that I'm completely blind to. "Pretend I'm stupid and can't figure out what this 'obvious' thing is."

"Sure!" Pearl clears her throat and gestures all around herself. "It isn't just a theory, either–we had Llaliu compare the material from the normal halls and right here. There's a massive age discrepancy between the two."

"Massive?" I ask. "How massive?"

"Hundreds of years. Maybe even more." Pearl says cryptically. "Plus… the stuff from the halls? There's signs of powerful magical residue on them. This place–right where we're standing–it was rebuilt from nothing when the system decided to try and bring this city back into reality. But that brings up one more question."

She spreads her hands with a confident grin. "What could've possibly happened to destroy this much of a district?"

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