Clutter turns as I step up to the top of the tower. He quickly taps the edge of some black fabric down over the last visible piece of glass, blocking out anyone who might be spying on us with visuals, and hurries over to the central anchor.

"Is this good?" He asks. "It's kind of hard to tell with how light works in this place."

Pearl pokes out of her shell. "It's all covered, thanks Clutter."

He puffs out his chest with pride. "I do my best. But, uh, I guess this means Jumble knows about you? Unless this is super confusing for her right now?"

"Yep, I already know. It was super surprising, though." She looks around with a raised eyebrow. "Where are we supposed to sit?"

I motion at the wall. "We usually just lean up against that. I don't see any reason to stop now."

"Neither do I." Pearl agrees. "Let's get the rewards first, though, before we do any relaxing."

"Right! Because you actually… did…" Clutter trails off with a cough. "Um, are we telling Jumble about my assignment?"

"In a second. Let's get our reward before we make her angry." I grin and walk over to the anchor, then lean down and put my hand on it.

Jumble frowns. "Why would I get angry? Should I be angry right now? I don't want to be angry with you–any of you."

Clutter snorts. "Just wait a minute and see if you're still saying that. And if you are, I have so many questions about what happened. Probably too many questions, honestly. Do we have time for me to ask too many questions?"

"Unless the quest or the horizonguard decide otherwise, we have all the time in the world." I frown and tap my knuckles against the anchor. "Can you eject this for me? I think it isn't working when its injected."

"On it." Clutter confirms, taps his Class Card twice, then nods. "There you go."

The anchor catalyst hisses free from the tower floor, bringing with it its unique scent. Jumble grimaces and holds her hand over her nose, then whines and pulls her shirt up to cover the lower half of her face. Clutter nods in sympathy while I just hold my breath and tap the thing twice to bring up the reward menu.

You have proven yourself to be: compassionate, observant, righteous.

This has been noted by the city.

Reward: one Tower addition, to be voted on by the following member(s) of your group:

(Shelby).

Possible additions: Kitchen, Meditation Chamber.

I raise an eyebrow. "Apparently all the decision making power lies with me this time."

"That makes sense." Clutter says. "You're the only one registered to the tower that completed the quest. Subquest, I mean."

Jumble pouts, but doesn't say a word. I know she wants to become a part of our group, and I'm probably going to let her, but I don't get to make that choice alone. Whitelisting her to enter the tower is one thing; actually giving her some amount of control over this place is another thing entirely.

"Clutter, kitchen or meditation chamber?" I ask.

"Meditation chamber." He says without hesitation. "That sounds like something that'll do something it doesn't outright say it does. Did I say that right?"

I shrug. "Personally I don't really care, and I don't want to use my skill at a high risk time like this, so meditation chamber it is."

"What, I don't get a say?" Pearl feigns hurt as I press the button. "Maybe I really want a sandwich all of a sudden."

"Then you can meditate up an imaginary one."

Construction commencing within the walls underneath your tower; access to the meditation chamber will still be restricted by your group's choices.

Tower configuration has changed since the last construction.

Construction will instead be placed within the walls of your compound, and will still be restricted to those you allow entry.

If you so wish, they can be connected directly to your tower.

Addendum: any previous constructions will be moved inside of your compound as well.

Construction commencing: time remaining: 11 minutes.

…

Enjoy the benefits of a late-quest bonus so early on.

You're going to need it.

I ignore the quest's little jab and wave away the notifications. "One meditation chamber coming right up. In eleven minutes."

"Eleven minutes? Wasn't it instantaneous last time?" Clutter asks.

"Sure was. And now we have more magic to work with, so it shouldn't take this long." I dust off my lap and stand with a sigh. "Must be the quest messing with us for some reason."

Jumble nods. "Probably because it's working for the system, so this is all it can legally do to mess with us."

Stolen novel; please report.

"Us. Right. Because you're a Worth Class too." Clutter turns to Jumble. "Did you get screwed over by the system too?"

"Yes. Yes times a thousand." Jumble laughs humourlessly. "Really short version; the system gave me the Class for a reason I can't really explain and hates me for it. Considering it also forcibly uplifted me in the second wave… well, you get it."

Clutter nods slowly. "I kind of do, but I think I get enough. So what Worth Class are you? Do you already know about the other four?"

Jumble's eyes widen so suddenly that they threaten to pop out of her skull. "There are three more than Shelby?!"

"Four more. You and me make six." I take a seat next to Clutter. Jumble scrambles from his side to plant herself next to my free arm. "We make up an organization called the resort back on Earth. I know at least three of them are on this world right now, and they'll definitely want to meet you when we're done with the quest."

"What about the fourth?" Jumble asks with childlike glee. "Are they nice, too?"

I pull my mouth into a thin line as my first meeting with Gil comes crashing back to me. Including his assurance that he wasn't attracted to me because I'm human. "He's nice. You're not meeting him."

Jumble frowns. "What? Why?"

"What she means is you're not meeting him alone." Pearl clarifies. "For reasons that'll probably become very obvious the second that you see him. Heck, I don't think I want to leave Shelby alone with him any more."

"You think sharp teeth is exotic enough for him?" I chuckle and shake my head. "A human with a body mod could still look like me. They definitely couldn't look like Jumble."

Her confused expression only deepens. "Um… is that a good or bad thing?"

"Good." Pearl says instantly. "It's a good thing. But that's enough talk about a guy we've only met once; Clutter, you have questions for Jumble and we need to talk about your message that Shelby didn't read."

Clutter blinks, then turns to me. "You didn't read it?"

"It was too long." I say sheepishly. "And you were literally standing right outside the tower. Besides, you can just give the quick version of your report now. Jumble won't mind."

With his suspicious glance over at Jumble, I get the feeling that Clutter isn't as convinced that she won't mind as I am. Maybe because of what was actually in that message. Ah, shit, probably should've just read it.

"You're sure I should say it out loud?" Clutter asks. "It's… not really kind. And, uh, you know who it's about."

I breathe through my nose and consider the possibilities. Screw it; the truth's going to come out sooner or later. Better to get ahead of it. I turn to Jumble, who puts on an expression that makes it a little harder to say this.

"I sent Clutter to spy on your friends. Because we already cleared that subquest."

Nevermind, that was pretty easy. I guess I still hold some hatred for Dani.

Jumble tilts her head to the side. "That's it? I mean, how'd you manage to do it?"

"I can go invisible." Clutter chimes in. "We wanted to make sure you weren't going to hurt us, and after Dani tried to take the sphere, we weren't really sure about anything any more. Just ignore the fact that we were going to do this before he did anything, okay?"

"Sure, I can do that." Jumble laughs. "Honestly, it's good to know you didn't instantly trust us. Putting my safety in the arms of someone who's too trusting isn't the most comforting thing possible."

Clutter nods slowly. "Then you'll tell me why I can remember your birthdays and a bunch of other miscellaneous things about you, but not anything important?"

He stares Jumble down as he finishes speaking, his trust obviously not as settled as mine is. Truth be told, he has every right to be suspicious. There's so much context he hasn't been told yet.

"Yep, I can do that. Right after you give your report, I'll tell you everything I already told Shelby. Does that sound fair?" Jumble asks without hesitation.

Clutter opens and closes his mouth multiple times before closing it and settling on a nod. "Uh, sure. Yes. If everyone else trusts you, I guess I can wait a few minutes. So, um, without further ado, here's my report."

He clears his throat, spares Jumble one last look, then focuses on me and Pearl. "Dani and the others are conspiring to take our tower if we end up being too weak. Ward and Rina both opposed him at the start, but he won them over with charismatic arguments that made my blood boil. He said some horrible things about you."

I raise an eyebrow. "Just me?"

"Just you." He confirms. "I don't know why, but he thinks you were bluffing and that you're actually way weaker than you're presenting. Probably something to do with that dumb book that's giving him way too much power. Ward wanted to talk to Jumble and Euro first, but Dani was confident that they'd agree with him."

Clutter leans back to meet eyes with Jumble. "Now I'm not so sure about that."

Jumble presses her shoulder to mine, but her body is wound as tight as a spring. "Dani really did that?"

"You saw what he tried to do with the sphere." Clutter says dismissively. "How much of a stretch is it that he'd go just a little further?"

"Not that far." Jumble grimaces and clenches her fists. "I'm sorry. I'll talk to him."

From how much venom she puts into the word 'talk', there's no way that's all that's going to happen. Clutter sucks his teeth in a moment of indecision, then looks away from Jumble.

"They almost didn't clear the subquest. I had to help them without letting them know." He grumbles. "Dani took all the credit. He's dangerous for all the wrong reasons."

"And I can make him harmless in two seconds. Just let me deal with him. With them." Jumble insists intensely. "They're my creations. If anything's wrong with them, it's my fault. Even… even if they're growing like real people."

Clutter blinks slowly. "Um… should I ask about that?"

I pat his shoulder sympathetically. "Wait for the explanation. It'll clear everything up. Do you have anything else to report?"

"Yeah. Yeah." He shakes himself to focus. "The horizonguard's watching almost everything we do now, but he can't watch quests or get into the tower. I'm really worried that Dani's going to side with him, but until something happens, that's just my gut gurgling theories. And… only Dani actually had a Class Card out of all of them. None of the others took theirs out for the entire thing. That's it, unless you want to hear the contents of hours worth of chatter."

Jumble recoils like she'd just been struck. "Dani has a Class Card? I… how?"

"Because… he has a Class?" Clutter states. "Is this another thing I just have to wait for the explanation of?"

"Oh, you don't have to wait." Jumble chuckles darkly. "Something's happening that I don't know about and it won't make sense until you're in the loop. Firstly; everyone else is a construct. None of them have Class Cards because they piggyback off of mine. So if you say Dani had a Class Card, I need you to be perfectly sure of it."

Clutter frowns. "I'm… pretty dang sure I saw him take out a Class Card. Or else he wouldn't have been able to access the subquest, right?"

"Dang it, I really hoped you were remembering wrong. Because that means one of two things; he managed to manifest my Class Card somehow, or someone else let him use theirs. We… no." Jumble centers herself with a breath, then latches her arm through mine. "The entire story first, then we do something about it. So it all kind of started when I… um… accidentally groped Shelby. And it all went uphill from there."

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