Jumble stares at Pearl with wide eyes that slowly narrow to slits filled with suspicion. "What are you?"

"A shellraiser, obviously, and one of the secrets Shelby was going to tell you." Pearl smiles and dangles her legs against my shoulder. "You know, I kind of thought I'd remember you. On the off hope that you were there fighting with Illumisia, the painted danes who didn't give up, and us shellraisers. But I guess it's pretty hard to remember innocent bystanders."

"You… that's impossible." Jumble whispers. "All the shellraisers are dead. I… the system said so."

Pearl raises an eyebrow. "And since when do you take the system at its word?"

Jumble frowns. "...I guess so. But–but if you're actually a shellraiser, then you should be able to tell me some things. Like–"

"Shelby, cover your ears." Pearl says.

The start of staticy censorship from Jumble's words reaches my ears before my hands do. I carefully avoid smooshing Pearl as I smack my palms against my ears, drowning out most of Jumble's words and Pearl's responses. Jumble's expression shifts to doubt, then to confusion, and finally to something that looks like… relief? No, wait, it's not 'finally'; tail-wagging excitement overtakes everything right as I go to lower my hands, and the censorship takes on a fever pitch of fast-paced questions and answers.

Pearl's amusement only grows with each passing second. Admittedly I was a little worried when she brought up how Jumble was an innocent bystander, since it could've just been thinly veiled sarcasm on how Jumble didn't resist at all. But it seems like Pearl was being serious. I guess I can relate–it'd be like sending unarmed, class-less people to try and fight Fleur or Illumisia. The only result would be corpses and an unbothered enemy.

Eventually Pearl taps my hand. I lower my arms, and there's a sort of tension in the air that I'd missed how it began–but it doesn't feel like it's between Pearl and Jumble. More like they just unearthed something that's important enough for them to be serious about. It's completely undermined by Jumble's wagging tail thumping against the underside of the couch.

"A real, live shellraiser." Jumble murmurs in awe. "I can't believe it."

Pearl spreads her arms wide. "Here I am, so start believing it. Now, can you three finish up this subquest as soon as possible? The real quest could progress at any second, and I don't want the horizonguard getting a single second worth of a head start."

"Wait!" Jumble says as Pearl gets to her feet. "Didn't you say you had questions for me?"

Pearl stares long and hard at the horizontal paindne. "...Yes, I did, actually. Thanks for the reminder. Three little things; you said there was a lot of water under this place. We checked, and there wasn't anything like that."

"Really? Well… I guess that makes sense." Jumble nods to herself. "The river was part of the world, and I don't think this place took anything worldly when it… did the thing. What's under the base level now?"

"Things." Pearl says flatly. "A specialized prison to hold a god under oath and a science experiment that I'm extremely happy to say failed miserably. Question two; do you know what the constructs here are made of?"

Jumble frowns. "Plastic?"

"Yes, but what is the plastic made out of?" Pearl continues.

"Oh. I guess… I don't know." Jumble admits. "It was all here by the time I was uplifted. Maybe if some of the oldest wave-ones are still around, they'd be able to tell you."

I carefully take in her body language as she gives her response. Nothing about the way she spoke said she was lying, but there's always a chance–an absolutely pointless chance. Pearl glances down at me for a sign. I shrug ever so slightly with a small shake of my head.

Pearl's smile grows ever so slightly larger. "Okay, good to know. Now for the last question; did the system ever try to replicate shellraiser technology at this facility?"

"No." Jumble says instantly. "I heard rumblings and read some reports about research being done elsewhere, but not in this city. All the system wanted to do was make a loyal army. Shellraiser tech could've easily messed with that."

"That's what I thought." Pearl sighs. "I guess it won't be that easy to find the source of the forgeries. There's no way you've seen crappy imitations of shellraiser tech out in the wilds, right?"

Jumble furrows her brow in thought. "I've seen… a few little robots over the years. But I couldn't find any common ground with any of them–and I saw them all around the world! Um, I, uh, also didn't really try that hard to look. Sorry."

Pearl waves off her apology. "Don't worry; you thought we were all dead up until a minute ago. But when we're back, can you show us where you found them?"

"Definitely." Jumble nods. "I marked all the locations on my map just in case."

"Perfect, thank you." Pearl grins and places her hand on her shell. "That's all I've got for now; good luck and good haste with the rest of the subquest."

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With a wet slorp, Pearl dives into her shell. Jumble watches with continued, excited awe until the last of Pearl's goo slides out of view. At which point she squeals, covers her face with her hands, and turns to face away from me as she reddens through a mask of fingers.

"She heard everything I said to you! Everything!" Jumble squeaks. "This is so, so, so embarrassing!"

I grin and tap Pearl's shell. "She's listening to this, too."

Jumble groans and pulls her knees towards her stomach in an attempt to make herself as small as possible. My grin threatens to turn into a laugh as I pat the pouting paindne, her body shivering as she mumbles to herself about everything she confided in me. I… huh. Yeah, that's actually… pretty intrusive, now that I think about it. She thought she was spilling her guts to me alone–another Worth Class that could commiserate. Pearl rightfully never even sparked as a thought in Jumble's mind.

"Hey… sorry for not saying something earlier. I just… didn't know who I could trust." I gently scratch Jumble's head. She doesn't pull away. "Pearl's too important to me, and there are more people who want her dead than who want me dead."

"I know… I know." Jumble mumbles through her fingers. "You were about to tell me about her before this conversation started, too. Let's just… keep going now. And I'll be… um… a little more careful about what I do."

I raise an eyebrow. "What's there to be careful about?"

"Nothing!" Jumble says a little too quickly. "Um, you said the paindne in the construct have names. How's that useful for the quest?"

…Okay, I guess we're changing the subject. Not that I mind. "I don't really know, but it's probably so we can know which one inside the construct we're talking to. Maybe it'll be more important once we find the last–"

"Anomaly!" Jumble sits bolt upright and pulls out her Class Card. "I completely forgot to check what the construct said when it got hurt!"

She stands up without a moment's hesitation, steals a glance at me over her Class Card, and blushes profusely. Learning that Pearl was listening in on everything sure did a number on her. I stretch my back before standing up as well, then take out my Class Card to see what anomaly number four did to the construct. Aside from the pun, which I already saw, the construct's words colour my messenger.

(Question Recognized)

Murderer.

I'm a murderer.

Kill me.

Kill me!

KillmekillmekillmeENDMYSUFFERING!

It won't let me rest!

It won't let me die!

Trapped like this foreverandeverandeverandeverandever…

I don't deserve it.

I don't deserve to die and stop the pain and stop the voices and stop everything.

But please… have mercy.

Have the mercy that I never did.

For me.

For… all of me?

Apparently I was just a little too early. Because that right there confirmed multiple people in the construct and that at least one of them is a murderer. Does this mean the 'main voice' of the construct is Novast?

"Multiple people in one construct." Jumble mutters. "Disgusting. No doubt the system doesn't care about how the personalities and thoughts could clash with each other."

I nod in agreement. "Caring for anything is pretty low on the system's list of priorities. Why else would it shove a murderer in there with a bunch of not-murderers?"

"Hm…" Jumble taps her Class Card as she looks between the construct sprawled out in the corner and the paindne tanks. "What if… the construct itself is the unified consciousness, and by sending it messages, we're somehow dissolving that unity?"

That sounds dangerously close to a plausible explanation. "How'd you come up with that?"

Jumble holds up her Class Card. "I just reread all the things Novast and Lunlea said. Neither of them sound exactly like the construct, so I doubt either of them is speaking through the construct. Which means we're either talking to one of the other three or a combination of them all. Let's try to get all their names, then we'll find that last… Euro!"

My stomach lurches. "What? What's wrong?!"

"We forgot about them!" Jumble exclaims, turns, and runs at Euro. She undoes her skill, and Euro flinches. "Sorry, sorry! I completely forgot you weren't already looking!"

Euro blinks, looks between us, and narrows their eyes. "Did you two get… even closer when I wasn't looking? How'd that even possible?"

"Stories." Jumble says as if that explains everything.

Much to my surprise, Euro nods knowingly. "I understand. What do you need me to do now?"

"Just keep looking. We're one away from getting close to almost finishing this subquest." Jumble's face scrunches into a frown. "At least I hope we are. Someone's starting to get antsy, and it's making me worried and antsy."

"Um… yeah." Euro shoots me a mistakenly knowing look. "Where else should I look? We've pretty much turned this place upside-down already."

Jumble shrugs. "Honestly, I have no idea. If anything seems suspicious to you, just follow your gut. There's bound to be something we missed."

Euro nods, stands up, and walks right past us. They turn into the bathroom without hesitation, and the clatter of… things echoes through the apartment. Even with my awareness it just looks like they're tossing everything that's not breakable into the tub, which is a choice. But the two of them are up three to my one in anomalies found, so I'll just them do their thing.

"Well, that's that!" Jumble dusts her hands together with a grin. "Do your thing and get the names out of these poor dead wave-ones."

I raise my Class Card and start typing out a question. Halfway through I pause, then delete what I'd written with a click of my tongue. The best way to associate a name with a body is to slip the cause of death in with the question.

"Which one of you died and got sliced into ribbons." I say, then raise an eyebrow. "Think that's good enough?"

Jumble shrugs. "We won't know until you send it!"

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