Time crawls by. Each second feels like a minute, yet somehow, every day blurs by in minutes. All in all, we find two more uplifting trials. Unfortunately, one of them overlaps with what I've already done–and the other is for Body. Yeah, they link more districts to ours for movement, but those districts are pretty much useless. They're filled with subquests and merchants; nothing we actually need. And since I just stepped into a pretty much cleared quest already, the constructs barely even know who I am. They're much closer with the others who actually worked to clear the quest–even if I'm the one that gave them their freedom.

Probably better that way, honestly.

Me, though? My time's filled with finding and clearing a dozen more strange subquests like the apartment and the one that gave us Slice. More constructs join our ranks. More stories reinforcing what I already know, but revealing nothing new get added to my mind. Day by day we grow closer to the two-week deadline. And with our relative success, adding about twenty total constructs to our ranks, we're no closer to Clutter meeting with Gil or Jumble finding Dani.

I haven't met them face-to-face since they left. Honestly, it's a little harder than I thought. Just me, Ward, Click, and Pearl. None of the other constructs want to get close to Click. So they're all in that… strange place with the others. Where Slice and the apartment constructs are getting ready for a war they couldn't have had any way to know about.

Ten days. Leaving me with four left. It's not enough. But it'll have to be.

I shake my head and swipe away my musings. Not enough to be considered a log entry, but enough that I can see my confidence shaking. I'm not strong enough to fight the horizonguard. Neither is any non-construct person in our group. Jumble… she should be, but if she is, she's doing a damn good job of hiding it for reasons I can't comprehend. So we'll have to rely on the constructs being strong enough to fight the horizonguard.

The idea doesn't necessarily bother me, but it does set off a lot of alarm bells. Because they're all pretty much unknowns. Slice could just kill… well… everyone. And the liquid construct might already be fighting the horizonguard at this very moment–or it's been turned into a slave to the liquimancer's magic. I just…

A drop of sweat falls from my forehead. I quickly wipe it away before Pearl notices.

"Are you alright?" She asks.

Not quick enough, apparently. "Just worrying over what's going to happen four days from now. Feels like we don't have anywhere near enough of… well… anything. Even though I have all these stats now, I'm barely any stronger thanks to all this Worth Class bullshit. If I was anyone else… maybe I wouldn't be so nervous over fighting the horizonguard."

"Yeah, that sucks." Pearl says flatly. "You need more time. But since we don't have it… we just have to make do with what we have. And we need to find a Soul trial for you. There has to be something that happens when you finish all of them."

I raise an eyebrow. "Maybe I become a full-fledged paindne."

Pearl laughs and shakes her head. "Your genetics haven't changed at all with the other trial rewards. Besides, if it does try to do that, the changes Illumisia and I did are way stronger. So what's the plan now? Just keep on like this?"

I can't really see any other options. Ward's barely making any progress. The tower refuses to make new rooms thanks to the attackers outside even though we earned them. And unless Gil shows up at the door, I can't see anything happening before the time limit's up. I open my Class Card to send a message to Jumble asking about her progress, then send it away and head for the room with doors.

"Keep on with this; gotcha." Pearl nods. "Which way are we going now?"

I pull open the door, nod to Click meditating in the corner, and head for our latest connecting door. It leads to Hummaker, a district like all the others. The only reason I'm bothering with it is because it's the closest to one of the anomalous districts Click marked on the sphere. I step though to hallways exactly like all the others, check the sphere for directions, and set off at a sprint to the next destination.

Even though my Body stat doesn't magically make me any stronger, months of consecutive pill-aided workouts definitely have. I'm faster, stronger, and far more resilient than when I came here. Yet it's still nowhere close to enough. It takes a real effort to pull out of an almost spiralling sense of twisted anticipation from being completely helpless to progress the quest.

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Even taking the most direct route, it still takes over two hours to run from one end of the district to the other. At full-tilt. With absolutely no breaks. And a message from Jumble that energizes me just from reading it, though to a much lesser degree than if she'd spoken the strange staticky words directly into my ears. If someone had speed magic, then maybe I could use infusion to make the run even faster. But this is all I have right now.

So it takes six hours to get to the next district. Six of our remaining ninety-six. I wipe a slight sweat from my brow as my map rolls over, then pull out the wreath-sphere to see where the anomalous subquest for this district–whatever it's called–is. The mass of squelching flesh chasing my scrapes through the hall like a cork trying to squeeze all the way down the neck of a wine bottle to get a sip of the bounty inside.

I tap my foot on the ground and open up a door. The mass rushes at me, but the second it touches the door, it shoves itself through with horrible noises. A few well-placed projectiles later, and voila! The thing's dead as a doornail and I have an overabundance of useless bones. Heretic hearts beat in the disappearing slurry. I ignore the truth of the situation and turn to make my way to the anomalous quest.

Something stands in my way. Or… well… 'someone' is probably more accurate. A tall figure, about nine feet if I had to guess, stands in the hallway perfectly in the way of where I have to go. Right now they're facing away from me, but it's hard to make out which way they're actually facing. Somehow.

"Magic." Pearl warns. "A lot of it, too. Shields at the ready."

I nod and summon one of each non-relocation spell coin. The most obvious answer is that this is one of the horizonguard's people. It's a miracle we haven't run into any of them yet, honestly. Hell, it's kind of a relief to be reminded that they exist in a way that isn't constantly bombarding our tower.

The thing shifts. I mentally tug at my shield and take a tentative step forward. It doesn't even react. Which is… weird. Doesn't look like a construct. My awareness extends to feel at it, but strangely enough, all its magic feels… skin deep. Like there's a veneer of power coating a core of mushy softness. I tilt my head to the side, hide my hand behind my back, and walk ever closer.

Step by step, the thing doesn't react. My footsteps make barely a sound as I get into earshot. It's breathing fairly loudly. Like it's got a horrible case of seasonal allergies, and it just swallowed a chunk of dandelion fluff. So maybe choking is a better word for it. Loud hacks and strangled gurgles fill the air. Somehow, not a single monster's shown up. And the closer I get… the more constructs show up out of thin air. The mindless, noisemaking kind.

"Um. I don't understand what's happening." Pearl laughs nervously. "Is the cloak killing that person?"

I snort in amusement. Then… well… I actually consider it. The tall figure isn't really moving. At all. It's just shifting from side to side, arms nearly glued in position while its legs tremble ever so slightly. I know Pearl was just joking but… well… maybe there's a little truth to it. Time to make a stupid choice.

"Hey!"

The thing struggles against itself. But it doesn't turn towards me. I set my jaw and shift purification to the front of my mind and jog towards the figure. Construct noise clicks and squibbles from all sides, filling the hallway with enough sounds to partially mask the struggling. Even still, the figure doesn't move. It just stands there. Immobile.

As the sounds of choking and struggling die out. Only to be replaced by wet, sickening crunches.

Unceremoniously, the thing finally spreads its arms and steps back. A mangled, bloodless corpse tumbles out from inside of it and slams hard on the floor. I grit my teeth and flick my purification at it. It holds up a hand–no, an empty sleeve–and a veneer of magic appears to make the shape of an ethereal hand. It gingerly catches my coin between two fingers and… sighs? In relief?

"No." It murmurs in a voice like air bubbles popping in an inkwell. "Careful. Defenses."

It leans in with an empty hood where a head should be and audibly sniffs my coin. With a strangled noise it recoils, then pitches my coin right back at me. I catch it easily in two fingers and stare at the strange… wait. Why didn't my coin detonate? I sent the command.

…Which is still in the coin, just tied up tightly in thin back-purple threads so it can't get loose. I don't even want to think about what the hell that means.

"Who the hell are you?"

The empty coat gestures at itself. "Agathe."

"Agathe," I repeat with a frown. "That almost sounds like a human name. Or a specific kind of paindne."

"Human." Agathe confirms. "You're in our district."

Then Agathe turns and motions for me to follow them. Their coat trails over the corpse, which they don't give a second thought, and they don't wait for me to follow them. I give the fallen painidne–a real paindne–one last look before jogging to catch up with the very strange seemingly living coat.

Is it a bad idea? Probably, yes. Am I willing to risk it because this is the first non-hostile quest-taker I've seen since Jumble and the others showed up at our tower?

Also yes.

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