Drain a river. I… don't think that works how Llaliu wants it to work. But filling this place definitely sounds like the start of a plan.

"So do we all have access to the same reservoir?" I ask. "Or can some of us save ours to put the construct juice in?"

"They're all empty now, so we should be able to split them." Llaliu taps away at her Class Card, then nods to herself. "Sawyer's going to fill his with water and Gnash'll save his for later. How do we want to split it up here?"

I hold up two fingers on both hands. "Two and two, and we'll split up to work in those groups of one of each. Explore this place a little to see if there's anything we're missing."

Clutter nods. "Sounds good. Llaliu, you're with me."

"Does that mean we're choosing the same or two different liquids?" Llaliu asks.

"Two different ones." Clutter clarifies. "Take whichever you like and I'll take the other."

Llaliu taps her Class Card, then sends it away. "I'll go for water, but even if we can connect to the others from wherever they are, we need to find a source of water so I can start up the reservoir. And you'll have to find your way up to the orb for construct juice."

"Hm. I guess that's true." Clutter looks up at the orb and rubs his arm. "Well, I guess I can hitch a ride up there on a shield. So maybe we split up in a different way until we all have the liquid we need in our reservoirs."

With a huff, Jumble steps over to Llaliu's side. "I guess that means we're on water duty. You didn't think to bring a water bottle with you, did you?"

Llaliu shakes her head. "Not for a while. Not needing to drink kind of makes you forget about that."

"Well I forgot, too, so that's not an option." Jumble looks to me, then to Clutter. "Did either of you remember?"

We both shake our heads. Just like Llaliu said, not having to drink or eat anything kind of removes the necessity to bring water everywhere. Jumble sighs through her nose and motions for Llaliu to follow her, then raises her Class Card to us as the pair walls away as a reminder to stay in contact. I give her a nod of confirmation, then turn to Clutter and flip a normal coin through my fingers.

"Ready to go up?"

It takes a few seconds, but he reluctantly nods. "Aren't you running dangerously low on those?"

"That I am." I confirm. "But if I run out I'll just evolve my spells. That should raise the Worth limit on them."

Clutter frowns as I toss the shield at the ground and hop onto it. He follows a moment later when it starts to rise into the air, but there's a question on his face that he's not letting free. I stick my hands into my jacket pockets and nod in his direction.

"You know that I won't snap at you for anything you ask. So whatever's bothering you, don't be afraid to say it."

He blinks, then sheepishly looks away. "It's not really bothering me, you know? More like… I'm trying to figure out why you aren't just evolving your spells now. Or when we got access to that part of our Class Card back a little while ago. So… why aren't you doing it?"

Ah, that makes sense. I guess to the outsider, this wouldn't make sense. But I'm pretty sure I told Clutter about this specific evolution requirement before… eh, whatever. It was probably in passing anyway, so no harm repeating it.

"My spell that turns other spells coinbound–Shellborn Aggregate–needs five other coinbound spells to be ready to evolve at the same time for it to evolve." I explain. "Shield, projectile, relocation, purification, and now infusion. Once they're all ready to evolve I'll evolve Shellborn Aggregate and then the rest."

Clutter furrows his brow. "Aren't you extremely far away from evolving relocation? Do you really think it'll take longer to evolve projectile one more time?"

I shrug. "Maybe, maybe not. Depends on what the next evolution requirements are. It could be simple or it could ask me to kill a god before it evolves; not worth the risk."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Okay, then." Clutter says. "If you're sure. Oh, um, are we really moving this fast? Or am I just imagining the orb getting way, way closer?"

Closer? The ground's not that far away, so we should still be… ah. That's a massive mass of squirming construct liquid hovering a dozen feet away from my face. Definitely not as far in the air as it was a moment ago. I tap Clutter on the shoulder and motion downwards. He nods in understanding and gets ready to jump if things come to that.

A ripple spreads over the orb with a sharp chime and the tinkling of finely broken glass. I bend my knees and step towards the edge, but a shift in the surface of the liquid keeps my feet glued to the shield. Eyes, a mouth, and dozens of extraneous other body parts emerge from the mass like a toy someone left in the microwave for too long. The thing opens empty eye sockets, unclenches a maw that rains hundreds of fist-sized teeth down on us like sharp hail, and makes a noise deep inside of it that sounds like a hundred throats clearing at once.

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

You came.

Thank you.

This place is broken.

All of the pools won't fill any more, and the magic that's supposed to go into them stopped flowing some time ago.

I found all of you when I was searching the pipes for answers.

Do you think you can help?

The monstrous mass of a construct speaks in one single voice. Something tells me that this… thing… is just one mind. No matter how much my eyes want me to believe the opposite.

"I… uh… don't know how we're supposed to do that." I say slowly.

Clutter nods in agreement. "You said there were pipes. We haven't seen any pipes around here. How can we help if you won't show us the pipes?"

The pipes are not broken.

All the magic inside of them is.

There are things inside the pipes.

Little constructs that the heretics created so that our grand work couldn't be completed.

I need you to get those constructs out so the magic can flow again.

"We'd love to help you, but again… we kind of need access to the pipes to do anything about that." I reiterate. "If it's part of the subquest to find them then we'll go look, but if you just want us to do something about them, then giving us access to the pipes is–"

The pipes are NOT BROKEN.

The things inside of them are interfering.

Without the magic they are eating, you can't fix what's actually broken about this place.

Please get rid of the constructs.

Shit, this is going nowhere. Maybe the others have pipes with them. I open my Class Card and send a message to Sawyer, and before I can lower it, he sends a quick answer.

'Pipes here. Way too many empty pipes. There was some construct fluid stuck in Gnash's fur. We'll use that to link one of our reservoirs to you.'

"So we do have to work together." I muse. "Hey, construct. What would've happened if only one person got sucked in here?"

One person is not enough.

I needed at least two people to fix this place.

I raise an eyebrow. "At least two. How could two people complete this with one reservoir slot each?"

If two or three people were taken I was allowed to give two reservoir slots per person.

Or else they wouldn't be able to fix this place.

Confirmation that we need to fill two reservoirs with different liquids to do this. Perfect. This construct doesn't seem as tight-lipped as the others we've seen, but it does have a certain stubbornness to it. We can work with this.

"Alright, we'll do what we can." I assure the construct with a smile. "But we'll need some of your construct liquid and a little bit of water to get things started. Can you do that for us?"

The entire massive orb bobs up and down, then shudders as an arm with too many fingers trailing off it like feathers breaches the surface and points in the direction Jumble and Llaliu are already walking.

There is water in one of the pools in that direction.

And I will fill the pool right under you with me.

If you need more than that, just tell the me in the pool and this me will refill it for you.

Before I can try to untangle that mess of identity the construct dispenses a waterfall of sludgy liquid that thunders to the ground below and splatters into the pool we crawled out of. One of its empty eyes and half its toothless mouth dip and fall through the stream, leaving the orb with only half of its facial features.

Clutter stares down at the pool, which now looks up at us, and gulps. "We won't… accidentally seal away half of your face, right?"

You don't need to worry about that.

I have many more eyes where that came from.

To prove its point, dozens of empty eyes surface from below the orb's surface and open wide. Clutter whimpers as more teeth cascade from the thing's open mouth, obviously regretting having asked his question. I'm not too keen to stand here any longer than I have to, either, so it's time to bid this thing goodbye. And say hello to the part of it that's just overflowing the pool below us.

I offer it another smile and tap my foot on my shield to make it go back down. "You wouldn't be able to tell us how to complete this subquest, would you?"

Fix this place.

"Yeah, that's about what I expected." I sigh and look away from the biblical horror hanging over our heads. "I guess we have our liquid now. And an idea of how we're supposed to push this subquest forward. Do you want to touch the stuff first or should I?"

Clutter shudders as we get closer and closer to the ground. "You can go first this time. If this is a repurposed uplifting trial, what the heck do you think the first paindne were supposed to do to clear this? And how's this a trial for anything?"

The half–mouth opens on the pool and spits a wad of teeth over the side.

The first version of this trial was a simple test of teamwork.

Each painde was given a pool with one liquid in it and instructed to fill it with a different liquid.

All they had to do was find another painde with the liquid they were looking for and trade reservoir contents.

It's… actually explaining stuff to us? The hell? "How's that a trial?"

Well, unlike now, there were hundreds of liquids and hundreds of paindne.

One per pool.

It was just as much a trial to have yourself heard over the crowd as it was to bargain for someone's liquid that you need–but may not need yours.

"I still don't get it." Clutter says. "Wouldn't that just become super easy once people start trading?"

When you have two reservoirs, one for your own liquid and the other for the one you need to obtain, things get far more complicated.

Ah, I remember overseeing the trials like it was yesterday.

So many successes.

Far, far more failures, regardless of what you think of the difficulty.

And to think–I wouldn't even be here was it not for you poaching the construct the quest initially put in charge of the trial subquests.

For that, you have my thanks.

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