I turn on my heel and glare down the hallway. How the hell are we supposed to find whatever was in here if it's on another plane of existence?

"Pearl."

She grimaces as she scans the area. "Nothing I can see. There's as good a chance that whatever did this left right when Ebb opened the door as there is it standing right in front of you waiting to get a hit in."

"Or it could've escaped through the walls with someone who has permissions," I say with a look back at the hall. "Maybe our missing gardener took this thing with them."

Ebb rounds the corner as I finish speaking. Her feet slam the ground with enough force to crack the stone, but her tail sweeps away all the damage anyway. Breaths come measured and deep when she slows to a stop just a few inches away from us. Then she plants her hands on her hips, walks around me, and freezes when she gets a glimpse of the clearing.

"Whaaaaaaaat…," she trails off with widening eyes and mouth hanging open. "How… who… what happened here?! Did you two happen here?!"

Her question plinks off my brain in just the right way to get an amused snort. Yet she asked it with such sincerity that it's almost flattering to think that she thinks so highly of us. Still, I have to clear the air here–for all of our safeties.

"No. It was like this when we got here," I say with a gesture at the carnage. "From your reaction I'm guessing there wasn't a monster in phase being stored here with any of the treasures?"

Ebb shakes her head so vigorously that her earrings whip audibly through the air. "No. No-ho-hoh. That'd be beyond stupid to keep something that dangerous right next to our food supply. But… maybe someone was that stupid. Or someone else is in the progress of betraying the old boss like we are."

The possibility of that seems very, very low. Anyone with a mind to betray the horizonguard wouldn't do it by killing random people… at least, I hope that's the case. No, this feels like something directly related to the fact that there aren't any treasures in here at all. The horizonguard either accidentally put something with a phased guardian in here… or didn't want anybody knowing that the stash was moving. Combine that with the fact that we don't need to eat here…

And the only puzzle piece that doesn't fit is the obviously recently-harvested plants. Shit. That seemed dangerously close to a logical explanation.

I shake my head, then turn to Ebb. "Can you seal off the front again? If that phase-thing has all the anchors somehow, then we have to hope it's still in this room."

She nods and turns to go do exactly that. No questions, no quips, just action. I can appreciate that. Which leaves me, Jumble, and Pearl. Once my awareness feels that Ebb's out of earshot I reach up and tap Pearl's shell.

"Can you use the beacon trick to try and find whatever's in here?"

Reluctance colours Pearl's expression, but she signals yes anyway. "As long as everyone is very ready before I do it; yes, I can. Just remember that we have no idea what we're going to find here, and there's a really good chance we find absolutely nothing. Or even if we do find something, there's a chance it won't have any anchors."

I'm all too aware of that, but I do my damndest not to let it show. Steady breaths. Don't get overexcited. Finding out the anchors aren't here will suck, yes, but there's a way, way worse option than them just not being here. Just have to hope that isn't the truth.

Jumble places a hand on my shoulder, her expression saying she's ready for her part. "What do you need me to do?"

Even after all these months… I still don't feel like I have a really good grasp on her abilities. She can manipulate outcomes…ish. And massively empower other people…ish. Plus there's that instant-win thing she did against Dani which I really hope has some severe limitations, or else I'm going to be pissed she hasn't been spamming it this entire time. So what is her part right now?

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I click my teeth and glance back into the clearing. "Can you use your skills to see if there's anything hidden in here? Like… ask it if there's any hidden treasure in this place we're obviously overlooking."

"Can do," Jumble eagerly confirms, then gets to whispering.

Her words hit my brain without any recognition whatsoever, and in the time it should've taken to say 'hello, how do you do', she speaks a damn half-dictionary's worth. After what feels like forever, two things happen in unison; Jumble abruptly stops talking and jogs into the clearing, and an elastic twang reverberates through the plant-coated halls. Jumble doesn't even look back at the noise, instead beelining for a little water fixture that looks like a dozen mossy grey rocks stacked on top of each other.

"Ebb sealed it back up," Pearl informs me. "No attacks yet."

I nod in acknowledgement and move to follow Jumble into the clearing. Instantly the air shifts, taking on a pleasant and floral scent that wafts through the garden on a calming breeze. No blood, rot, or other corpse-related scents mar the manufactured calm that saturates the fairly large place. If the bodies weren't here, I wouldn't even think anything had happened.

"Shelby. Right here, right here."

Jumble waves me over to the water fixture. I raise an eyebrow and step in close to try and see what she's found, but to my eyes and awareness, there's nothing special about this. Just a simple little thing with still water in each slightly-hollowed rock. Each of which is… sloped downwards. With little rivulets of water frozen mid-pour completing an unbroken line from the top to the bottom.

"It's stopped," I say, bringing the obvious into open air.

"Yep. not frozen, either–completelyl stopped." Jumble waves a hand through the stream for emphasis. The water bends around her hand, leaving a strange chop-shaped impression on what's supposed to be a moving stream. "Someone's magic did this, and they must've come through and cleaned up all the bodies afterwards. Why, though? If they're frozen, there's no reason to worry about a mess."

"And if they thought it was going to run out soon, then it'd turn messy the second they undid their spell," I add. "Does explain why we haven't seen the person who supposedly ran when we opened this place; they could've run from whatever did all this damage, then the plants got stopped. Hell, one of these poor bastards could be our gardener."

I motion at the stopped corpses for emphasis. Jumble hums in thought, but doesn't move from the water fixture.

"It's a good possibility. But it doesn't explain any of the 'why', just the 'how'. Maybe the horde will have some more clues for us." She pauses for dramatic effect, then jabs her fingers between two of the stacked stones. "If only we knew where to find them–oh, wait, what's this? A secret switch between two stones? How was anyone supposed to find out about–"

"Oh, you found the switch?" Ebb says as she walks into the clearing. "Nice work. You have to fiddle with it a little to get it working."

Jumble pouts as Ebb looks between her and me. She raises an eyebrow in question, completely unaware of the moment she'd just ruined for Jumble. I mean, it makes sense that she'd know where a secret switch was. But poor Jumble just wanted a little bit of theatrics to liven the mood.

I offer her a smile and scratch between her ears. "You did good, Jumble. Now get us in there."

She melts under my fingers with a sigh. A sharp click sounds a moment later from underneath one of the rocks, travelling through the floor like a spark on a line of gunpowder. Ebb looks over at the perfect center of the room and starts walking towards it before the sound gets there. Sure as sure can be, the click quickly zips through the stone to land in the center of everything.

Where it transitions into a soft, pressure-filled pop and disappears. Ebb kneels down at a disc of stone that looks like all of the others, but when she presses her palm against it it pops up out of the ground on a hinge. My awareness stretches below, feeling out the previously hidden space with probing curiosity. It feels like a wave frozen mid-crash down there, except the 'water' is made up of thousands of individual pieces.

"Well how about that; they didn't move everything," Ebb says with obvious surprise. "Though it's not all in the… well… lets just say it's not mint condition any more."

She looks back at us and purses her lips. "I found where all the missing chunks of people are."

A hazy shimmer coalesces. My brain stabs with an unfamiliar sensation, yet one that's very reminiscent of something I've felt before. Pearl screams something at me. Jumble, too. Even Ebb, now that I'm listening a little harder. But they all sound so… far away. And they're looking at my… my chest? Why would they be doing something like that?

I slowly turn my head downwards. A huge, bloody gash enters my field of view. Slashed from one side of my ribcage to the next. Not deep enough to rip through anything too important, but definitely deep enough to expose some off-white bone to the world. My private bones.

"Mlrrg," I gurgle in pain as the shimmer appears again–this time over Ebb's shoulder. "Ehb!"

A full-body twitch wracks her form as she throws herself to the side. Haze rips through where she was not a moment ago, then blurs as it disappears down the hole.

Where all the anchors are.

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