Something wrong flutters through the air. Sensations akin to falling through thousands of miles of clouds filled with tiny shards of lightning-filled ice prickle against every fiber of my being as my attention forcibly latches onto the monster. Everything screams that this shouldn't work. That I can't repurpose something that's obviously still alive.

A harsh snap cracks my left ear. I wince and slap a hand against it, fully expecting to feel blood. Instead, a strangely sharp prickle presses against my earlobe and palm. The skin of my ear gives way like warm butter. In stark contrast, the skin of my palm stands strong like the toughest leather. There shouldn't be that much of a difference. Not with Jumble's spell empowering me.

I carefully pull my hand away. A very small amount of blood trails down my palm inside of indents that very much look like they should've dug deep into my skin. Something dangles from my earlobe. I don't need my awareness to feel that it's constantly rotating like a strange waterwheel without any input from me.

Another, similar prickle cuts into my other lobe. A perfect twin to the first strange ring rotates in a fresh hole that's somehow already healed over. I reach up to tug on the thing, but… it doesn't move. Almost like it's frozen in space and time.

I swallow hard and pull my neck back. The rings move with me, and thank goodness for that. Each of them feels unbelievably strange to the touch; almost like they're alive in their own twisted ways. I reach up again and twist one of them a little. It shifts this time, but only in one exact way; to shift the perfect ring into a figure eight.

Or… an infinity symbol. I look back at the monster, and… it's still right there. Stopped completely. But that shouldn't be true. These earrings are obviously made from it; they even have the hexagonal plating that the creature does. Can something keep existing while its repurposed part exists?

Everything shudders. Jumble leans into my side, the monster blinks out of existence, and a message slides into my Class Card. I slowly take in whatever the hell just happened… and the apparent lack of reaction from Pearl or Jumble.

"Did either of you see that?" I ask.

Pearl and Jumble share a confused look. Shit, more phase weirdness then. I reach up and fiddle with one of my new earrings as I try to come to terms with the fact that they're technically responsible for the potential deaths of hundreds.

"Where did you get those?" Pearl gestures at the new acquisition.

"They're obviously from the repurposing," Jumble answers for me. "Which is a little weird, since I didn't feel any magic happen at all. Did it stop things again in one last desperate attempt?"

I shake my head. "Unless that desperate attempt was being made into earrings, no. It just kind of happened. Let's get out of here."

Jumble nods in agreement and Pearl ducks back into her shell. We walk over to the space just beneath the entrance, the light filtering through somehow brighter and more dazzling than a moment ago. I shoot a glance back at the hoard while Jumble jumps up with no problem at all, a strange sensation worming its way into my heart that's both a warning and an encouragement.

It reminds me a little too much of Fleur.

I shake my head and put the thought out to pasture. Some of the constructs are very obviously alive. Even if I just repurposed one of those into earrings… I can't feel guilty or responsible. It did way too much damage for that.

"Shelby?" Jumble stares down from above. "Is there something else down there?"

"Nah… just thinking," I reply, then crouch down and spring through the hatch. Jumble deftly grabs me by the waist and spins around to set my feet on solid ground. "Thank you very much."

She smiles and takes a shallow bow. "Think nothing of it my l–… m-my… uh…"

Crimson flushes her face as she snaps her mouth shut. I can guess where she was about to go with that… but… uh… not ready for that right now. Maybe once we're out of this hellhole and the system isn't such an imminent threat.

"Thinking nothing of it. So what's our move now?" I pull out a few relocation coins and raise an eyebrow. "Gil, the army, or Clutter first?"

Jumble looks away and adorably hides her face with one hand. "Probably Gil. If the liquid construct has a lead to anything we should start with that."

I nod in agreement. "It'll let me give Gil the army's relocation coins too. Ready?"

She glances at my earrings. "Don't you want to see what those are first?"

My fingers reflexively go for them. "Guess that's a good idea. Probably should be a little more cautious of something the system could be using to listen in on us, yeah?"

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Yeah," Jumble agrees. "They look pretty cool, though. Not as grey as I thought they'd be."

I raise an eyebrow and pinch one of the loops. They aren't grey? How can't they be grey; everything about the monster was grey. Hell, everything about everything in this city is grey. No… no, she said not as grey as she thought. Which can still mean they're grey.

Jumble raises a hand to my ear, hovering just away from touching the loop. "Can I touch?"

"Go ahead," I say with a shrug.

She does exactly that, rolling the thing in her fingers as a strange expression spreads to her face. I wait a few seconds for her to pull away, but something in her eyes says she's going to take a minute or two with this. Making it a good time to check the notification I got. I pull out my Class Card, swipe over to the notifications, and… there's nothing there.

Huh. Maybe I just got a really poorly-timed update from someone. …Well… that's a 'kind-of'. I do have a new message. It's just that it's from the quest itself. The last time that happened things went downhill fast. Reluctance stills my hand for all of two seconds before curiosity devours it and brings my finger down.

You weren't supposed to do that.

But I had to intervene; without something like these rings, the quest isn't fair.

I sincerely hope you can do something with them.

…

–item description expunged for safety reasons–

A shiver works its way down my spine as the message cuts off, then swiftly deletes itself. That was, undoubtedly, from the quest. From the thing that posed as Ursula when I first got here months ago. Is it trying to deceive us? Or is it actually trying to help… in a strange, roundabout way? Maybe it doesn't like that the system is giving blatant favoritism to the horizonguard.

…No, no, what the hell am I saying? The quest is a system creation. If anything, all it's trying to do is make sure things are actually fair for everyone involved. I can't ascribe emotions or goals to something that was created with a single purpose; to run this quest. Though… some memory tries to wriggle itself out of my brain and into the light. Something Jumble said a little while ago about quests. But… I… damnit, I can't remember what it was. Hopefully it wasn't too important.

Y'know, who the hell am I kidding? I can just ask. "Jumble, a while ago you told me something about quests. Do you remember what it was?"

She blinks, as if snapping out of a trance. "Um, sorry, say that again?"

"You said something about quests a while ago," I repeat. "Do you remember what you said?"

"About quests?" she frowns in thought and lets go of my earring. "What did I say… about how they aren't always exactly what the system shows us? No, no, you knew that already. OH! It was when we were in the meditation chamber, right? You didn't know there were naturally-occurring quests. Most of them, in fact."

The back of my throat sticks to my tongue. Gears slip into place with a horrible thunk-thunk, and the wheels of thought start to turn. Rusty chunks of mental effort shear away by the second, revealing little by little a light of truth that might actually be able to save us. But it's way, way too early to put any kind of hope in an uncertainty like this. I won't gamble a single life on a possibility before I have any solid proof whatsoever.

Because… there's no way this quest occurred naturally. It has to be the system's blatant efforts. If that isn't the truth… then… it complicates everything. Though this time, all the complications might actually be a very, very good thing for us.

"Is there any way we can talk with the quest again?" I ask.

Pearl snorts. "How would we know that?"

I shrug. "You know a lot of strange stuff."

"That I do," Pearl agrees. "Not about this, though, sorry. If the quest wants to talk with you, too, then it'll probably only happen when you're about to clear it."

"Which we can't let happen," I sigh. "Alright, let's shelve that for now and work on the hope that the quest is at least a little on our side. It's obviously still beholden to the system, or else it would've locked the horizonguard out a long time ago in this hypothetical scenario. What could it do for us, without letting the system know, that could seriously help?"

Jumble raises an eyebrow and points at herself. I nod in confirmation.

"Heck if I know," she shrugs and motions at my coins. "But maybe the constructs on our side will know more. Let's pay them a visit before we teleport them all into Gil's store."

"Mm," I hum at the logical change of plans. "Let's hope we're not teleporting into another warzone."

Magic solidifies around Jumble as I latch onto the right relocation. I hold her coin up to let her know, then flare the spell in my connected coin. The scenery shifts to the strangely huge rotunda where all of our construct forces used to be… and where about a quarter of them currently are. Slice is nowhere to be seen, and neither are Gnash, Sawyer, or any of our other non-construct buddies.

The only ones I actively recognize are Click and two others–the child and parent from the apartments so long ago. Both of them look over at me when I take the first step, then gasp when I flare Jumble's coin to bring her here with me. Dozens of eyes turn at the gasp to lock on us as well, hushed murmurs spreading like wildfire through the diminished numbers.

Click breaks away from the group a moment before I start walking towards it. The construct looks run ragged, though I can't tell if it's from fighting or socializing. It always seemed to prefer quiet over the bustle of people.

"Click," I say as it comes to a stop in front of us. "How ready is everyone to fight?"

A hum of anticipation instantly thrums to life; a primal thing that speaks of eagerness and a righteous desire to put an end to things. Not a single construct lacks that conviction–from the smallest child to the most frail elder.

Click motions at everyone still in the room with a tired smile. "These are the ones who could wait. The others are far, far less patient to drive a spike through the system's cold, uncaring heart. Metaphorically, of course. Though I wouldn't mind a literal interpretation if it could somehow come to pass."

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