The world shifts. Everything lurches hard enough to get a harsh wheeze ripped out of my throat, and when I wrench open my eyes, everything looks… off. The colours too vibrant. The sounds too clear. And the smells… or, rather, the one, all-consuming scent. Heat. Damaging, overwhelming heat that scours the moisture away from everything and leaves a searing scent in its wake.

Except it doesn't feel hot. If anything, it doesn't feel like any temperature at all. Almost like the ambient temperature here is perfectly matched with my body. I wave a hand through the air to try and feel anything against my skin. There's no sensation at all. Not even friction.

I reach up to scratch at my neck again and look around. It's still a hallway. Everything's exactly the same, except… whatever the hell is making it feel so off. And someone very important doesn't seem to be here.

I cup my hands around my mouth. "Jumble! Where are you?!"

…No answer. Hell, it doesn't even feel like my voice left my mouth. It just kind of… vibrated around my throat and stayed there. Maybe that's just the weirdness getting to me, though. Or… Jumble could be in serious danger.

"Shit," I hiss through my teeth and pull out my Class Card. "Pearl, can you feel anything here?"

The shellraiser in question looks around while I type a quick message to Jumble. Her face is etched with suspicion, but undercut by a small bit of excited curiosity. I hit 'send' on my quick little message and trade out my Class Card for a full set of my combat spells. Three of which now occupy hexagonal coins instead of traditional Worth.

"Pearl?" I reiterate. "Can you talk here?"

"Oh, oops, sorry." She leans forward in her chair and laces her fingers together. "Obviouosy, yes, I can. The air here can't get into my shell, and the vibrations from your voice are coming through the side of your head. But everything else is silenced."

Silenced? That's ominous as hell. I scratch my neck again and take a tentative step forward. My foot silently taps against the ground. The slight shock runs up my leg, but that's it. No sound. No resistance. Just… weird stillness.

So why the hell was my coin sitting here? If Jumble was hurt, I hope she would've kept it on her in the hopes of me showing up. And if she accidentally dropped it, then why is the air here so strange? No–this isn't an accident. Whoever's altering the air here is responsible for this. I just can't imagine why.

"It's Jumble's magic."

Pearl's words cut deep. I stop mid-stride and look back down the completely empty hallway; no constructs, no enemies, no nothing. It hasn't been like this since we first got to the city. If this is Jumble's magic… then what kind of power has she been hiding from me?

"How far is this… zone?" I quietly ask.

Pearl furrows her brow in focus. "I can't feel anything but this. So it's bigger than my awareness."

Yeah. That doesn't track at all. Nothing Jumble's done has even hinted at the possibility of her being insanely powerful. But this… it isn't just a hint. It's like something Noland or Illumisia would do.

"Shit, Jumble, what's happening?"

I shake my head and start to run. There has to be a reason why she'd suddenly power up. The search for Dani is definitely one reason. But I just… don't get why she'd hide that from me. She already said more than enough. Why this in specific? Was she scared I'd be intimidated?

My Class Card chimes. I pull it out in silence, my own breaths the only noise accompanying my mad dash to find my friend. She could be in serious danger. Or about to do something she can't undo. I skim the message with a glance. It doesn't do anything to assuage my worries.

'Um, please go away? To Clutter, maybe? I don't want you to see this.'

I grimace down at the simple words and hammer out my response.

'Explain. Please.'

My heart beats faster and faster as the seconds stretch on. At some point I started holding my breath, which was brought to light by a desperate tightness in my chest and a lack of oxygen. Jumble's in trouble. Did the horizonguard find her? Or… is this Jumble's magic, but being used by Dani to fight her? That damn book. It could be the reason for all of this.

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A chime rips my attention back to my Class Card.

'So you're not going to leave, then. I… thanks, Shelby. I'll make myself available on the map again. Just… don't freak out too much when you get here, okay?'

I tab over to my map as quick as humanly possible. Jumble's marker is right there–just a few hundred feet away from me–and seemingly in the walls. Probably in another apartment. Hopefully on this level. I take a deep breath to ready myself for whatever horrible secret I'm going to see when I open up that door and push to get there even a few seconds sooner.

Before I'm ready, I'm staring at a stretch of wall. Just like any other wall. Jumble's marker is right there behind it. I take another breath which does next to nothing–one that Pearl also takes at the same time–and press my hand to the wall. The door carves itself into the material. Without a sound it retracts into the wall, revealing Jumble standing right there–hands sheepishly behind her back–in a room full of corpses.

Constructs. Paindne. Human. Every species under the sun laid out in that room like a field hospital with a one-hundred percent mortality rate. I reflexively flinch at the sight–even before I notice the stains going up Jumble's arms and the… state some of the bodies are in.

Jumble puts on a pained smile and steps to the side. "Come in. I have some explaining to do, if the system will finally allow it."

Words fail me as I step inside. There's… dozens of bodies in here. Most bearing stonestep solutions' insignia, just like the attackers at the tower. But there are more than a few that don't. Then there are the half-dozen constructs laid out on the floor, their bodies in various states of dissection from a cut open arm to a torso with all the extremities cut off and the organs neatly arranged next to it.

Jumble steps in front of me and holds out a now stain–free hand. "I know it looks bad, but I… found some of these people here already. The constructs and everyone without an insignia died before I got here–you can ask Pearl to confirm that. I know she can."

I turn an eye to Pearl, who nods slowly as she emerges from her shell. "Most of these are days old, but the ones she's referring to are at least three weeks dead. Just preserved."

"So the horizonguard's forces brutalized them. They…" I pause to look around the dead, but something's off. "Why don't any of the non-horizonguard troops have blood on them? Or… even look slightly injured?

Pearl and I look to Jumble for answers. As if in answer, she motions at the constructs–which… now that I get a good look at them… are much more advanced than most of the others. Their skin has colour, they bleed red, but their organs are just lumps. And in death, they've taken on a much more construct-grey hue than I assume they had in… in…

My eyes go as wide as saucers as it finally hits me. Why it felt so weird. Why everything's been… wrong since I stepped in here. Those constructs on the ground–which look closer in advancement to Jumble's party than anything else we've seen so far–they're not just paindne.

They're human. And y'tocwa. And ogean. And gris. And some more species I don't quite recognize.

"How the actual…" I trail off, all my worry forgotten in the face of utter confusion. "Jumble?"

She nods and reaches down to rub… something. A small piece of plastic under her clothes. Food the second time in as many minutes, a freight train of assumptions barrels straight through me and leaves a smear of fear in its wake.

I force my mouth to open and make the words I don't want to speak. "They took their anchors."

Then I turn to look at the regular corpses. Mirrors of flesh and construct material stare up at me with blank eyes. The horizonguard's people didn't just take anyone's anchors; they took these people's. And this… this is what the quest alluded to way back when we first came in here. A threat and a promise that, if we lost our anchors, we'd be replaced.

I just… didn't think it would be like this.

"How did it happen?" I ask quietly.

Jumble solemnly shakes her head. "I don't know, Shelby. But… I can give some exact times. Because they kept notes. Do you… do you want to read them?"

Hell no, I don't. But I need to. I motion for Jumble to hand them to me, but instead, she pulls out a blood-spattered notebook and opens it to an earmarked page. She clears her throat, then begins to read.

"First test; when someone loses their anchor, they don't instantly die. The same is true for having their anchor destroyed. Our leader insists the quest is not wrong, and I have no reason to question him. We will just have to wait and see."

Jumble flips multiple pages.

"Hey, why are you–"

"No," she says with stone-faced certainty, "you don't need to hear the specifics. Pearl, I'll give this to you after. Make sure Shelby doesn't get caught up in the details."

Pearl nods. All it does is make my imagination delve into the worst possible things the horizonguard's people could've done without leaving any visible marks. Jumble locks eyes with me to make sure I'm listening before she continues.

"Progress; everyone whose anchor we destroyed has perished. On the contrary, everyone whose anchor we merely confiscated is alive and well. I watched many people instantly lose loved ones for no discernible reason. My fears of one of my colleagues leaking the fact that we replaced some of our patients' anchors with fakes have been quelled. However, a new, unforeseen side effect has risen in its place."

Jumble pauses to take a breath, hatred bubbling in her voice as she shakes in rage.

"Construct facsimiles of those who have fallen have appeared. They are… fervently loyal. Not to our cause, but to the system itself. This worries me. Our leader has not been himself lately. Part of me wonders if this is due to the reasons he gave, or to… this. I will have to proceed with caution. History is not kind to betrayers, and neither will the immediate future be if I am caught."

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