"Hey! Let us in!" One of them yells, but I can't tell which.
Nose-mask nods in agreement. "What's all this about our buddy going missing?! We just saw him a few hours ago."
Neither of them look very surprised to see me. Gil must've messaged them beforehand–which doesn't add up with why he's hiding. I shoot a glance his way, then decide it isn't worth bothering. Instead, I walk up to the window–Jumble following close behind–and look up at nose-mask. Then over at eyepatch-mask.
"You want the truth?"
"Yeah! No, wait, that sounds way too ominous." Nose-mask pauses, furrows his brow, and looks over at his buddy. "How do we know the shopkeep here wasn't screwing with us?"
Eyepatch-mask shrugs. "We have no idea, and he doesn't have a reason to lie to us. I say we hear them out first, at least."
"Mm, good call. Go ahead, ladies." Nose-mask gestures ever so slightly with an almost stuck hand. "Tell us what kind of personal torture our buddy's made for himself."
Jumble steps ahead before I can say anything. "He's dead."
Both of them tilt their heads towards each other. There's less… disbelief in their eyes than I'd expected.
"Yeah, so?" Nose-mask asks. "We knew that was a risk coming here. Fore's died a bunch of times before; that's never stopped him yet."
Eyepatch-mask nods in agreement. "Usually takes him a few weeks to get better, though, so I can't fault you for assuming he's down for good. Life twisting classes like his don't really play well with the cycle of nature, you know?"
…No. I don't know. From the look on her face, Jumble is in about as much disbelief as I am. Because we both saw forehead-mask's body. Touched it and confirmed his death. Hell, his damn replacement construct is running around doing the system's bidding! There's no way in hell that he's anything but dead.
"How… about this?" Jumble rummages around in her pocket, then pulls out a hand-written copy of part of the list from the corpse room. She presses it up against the wall for the mask-buddies to read. "A list of experiments and deaths, and that's your friend right there. The system replaced him with a construct and now he's gone."
The pair quickly read the list. Eyepatch-mask laughs out loud and tries to smack his forehead. I stare at him with unbound confusion. This… this isn't the way people react to losing a friend.
Nose mask knocks his forehead against the glass. "That explains why he's been acting weird lately, doesn't it? Fore refused to fight anything and wouldn't even use his Class–and he loves using his Class to screw with people! The construct probably couldn't take his Class from him because of the pseudo-immortality."
"Right you are," Eyepatch-mask agrees. "Hey, sharkbite."
It takes me a second to realize he's looking at me. "Yeah?"
"Where's his body?"
I flash a glance at Jumble. Her mouth pulls into a thin line in thought, and eventually, she gives me the go-ahead with a shallow nod. I sigh and pull out my Class Card, tab over to the map, and zoom out until I can draw a path between here and the room with corpses. Then I turn it around and press that up against the glass for eyepatch-mask to see.
He whistles at the sheer distance between there and here. "Wow, that's far. Looks like we have to get moving now if we want to save his body from whatever happens when this place gets destroyed."
"Definitely," Nose-mask echoes. "Thanks for the info, ladies. Like we said before; we might not exactly be buddies, but you can be sure as sure can be that we're not working with the horizonguard after he betrayed Fore. You have any idea who nicked Fore's anchor thing?"
Jumble crosses her arms. "I killed him already."
Nose-mask nods in acknowledgement. "Nice, thank you very much. We'll repay the favor before we get outta here. Oh, and you're looking for that little paindne buddy of yours that you handed over to fake-Fore, right?"
"'Course they are, Nose," Eyepatch-mask answers for us. He smiles honestly–a casual thing that sends a shiver of discomfort down my spine. "Fake-fore's been monitoring him this entire time, along with a bunch of other people who don't exactly align with the horizonguard's newfound zealous worshipping of the system. We'd really appreciate it if you murdered fake-Fore for us, yeah?"
Nose-mask hums in agreement. "Obviously we don't expect you to do that for free. You're looking for another uplifting trial to finish off your collection of stat points, right? Zoom your map in a little and I'll mark it for you."
I just… I… whatever. No point questioning something that makes no sense if it seems like it's going to benefit you. I zoom my map in a little, then nose-mask taps the glass between us. A sharp chime plays in my head, and when I turn my card back around, there's a claw-mark of a location marker not far at all from here. In fact… it looks almost exactly like where Jumble's book described Dani's meeting with forehead-mask's messenger.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
No way in hell is that a coincidence. Or even true.
"So forehead-mask's construct is here?" I ask.
"As far as we know, yeah," Nose-mask says confidently. "If he isn't there, though, he's with the horizonguard. It'll be way harder to kill fake-Fore if they're joined at the hip right now, so if that's the case, then hold back until we've got real Fore's body. We'll help your little army of constructs fight through the horizonguard's forces."
I sigh through my nose and cross my arms. "You're way too good at gathering information."
Eyepatch-mask beams with pride. "Thank you very much. Tell your shopkeep buddy that we said hi, yeah? He's been a good host for these last few months."
"Real, real good," Nose-mask reiterates with a knowing grin. "He didn't sell you out, in case you were wondering. Actually, he's probably the only reason we weren't constantly attacking you like the boss wanted. So you're welcome for the reprieve. See you when we see you!"
Thick vines erupt from the ground, wrap around both of the masked guys' arms and legs, and drag them down through the floor. Jumble and I stare at the holes in the ground that don't even try to repair themselves, then slowly shift untl we're staring at each other. That was… strange, to say the lleaest.
"So… do you think their friend is actually immortal?" I slowly ask.
Jumble shakes her head. "He was dead as dead can be. But… I won't say a hard no. Weirder things have happened, and if he's a biomancer… well… they're one of the system's weirdest creations."
So there's a real chance that guy will just pop up alive at any random point. That's a factoid about biomancer's I'm definitely filing away for later. And… I mean… I guess I did die once and came back to life. It isn't unbelievable that someone else could be saved in some other way. Sure, it's going to take a lot of rationalizing, but I'll be able to live with this.
I turn to Jumble. She looks down at my map. Time to move.
"Gil, you still here?" I ask.
A thumbs-up appears from behind the counter. "Go get 'em! I'll be here when you come back!"
With that resounding encouragement ringing in my ears, I shift my attention to the mass of constructs outside. All we need to do is find some way through them and we'll be on our way. I tilt my head at them while giving Jumble the side-eye.
She steps ahead and puts a hand on the glass. "We're going to have to run."
I expected as much. "Ready whenever you are."
"Good," Jumble grins as magic surges in her palm. "Here we go."
A soft click sounds from behind the counter. The doors fling outwards, scouring a path about three feet deep into the mass. Jumble grabs my arm with her free hand and splays her fingers with the other. Static and weight surge into the mass of constructs along with a heavy amount of whispers. One by one, the affected constructs twitch uncontrollably and step out of the way–shoving their allies back with the force of their motion.
Jumble sprints for the forming opening. I have no choice but to follow her thanks to the iron grip around my wrist. Normally it wouldn't be anywhere close to difficult to keep pace with her, especially since her staticy magic is still empowering me, but now? Words flow out of the book she took back from Dani and spill over her fur in tattoo-like patterns. Each of them brims with power.
More than enough to turn my full sprint into a desperate hop-run to barely keep pace. "Jumble! Speed!"
"What? Oh!" She exclaims as she turns around. "Sorry! The book isn't quite listening to me yet. Or maybe I'm just not used to having it again after so long."
Her pace slows just enough that I can run full-tilt without being pulled along. She stares at me while almost running backwards, then nods to herself and lets go of my wrist. I rub a reddening ring where her fingers touched my skin and take a look around at all the constructs. So many of them are just going about their day normally, but every little bit, one of them snaps to us and fires off some kind of spell.
Static devours it before it can get close. Unlike my purification, it doesn't actually destroy the spell; instead, it misses by a country mile in the absolute best way for us. Usually by crashing into a construct that's joined in on the chase.
"How close are we?!" Jumble calls over an ear-ringing explosion.
I look down at my Class Card. "A third of the way there! How damn fast are we running?!"
Jumble laughs and doesn't answer. Instead she ups the pace just a little as more static flows into my ears. My muscles scream at the massive increase in burden for just a little more speed. Apparently I don't know exactly how Jumble's magic works, because I'm pretty damn sure it shouldn't be making me more exhausted the more she uses it.
"Now?!" She asks.
I furrow my brow; it's been all of fifteen seconds since she last asked. Just to humor her I look down at my Class Card… and we're two-thirds of the way there. I snap to take in our surroundings as they blaze by far faster than anything a non-Illumisia being has ever shown me. Yet it doesn't feel like we're moving all that faster than a few seconds ago.
Jumble leans back and taps my arm. "Shelby?"
"Right. Sorry," I shake my head and look down again. "We're here in… three… two… one."
I bring down my heels and stop on a dime. Everything instantly freezes in place, and I don't even feel my body decelerating. Jumble's magic is damn scary.
The person in question looks around with a frown. "Right here? Are we on the right level?"
"Hm. I don't know." I glance around, then extend my awareness to feel for anything. Dani's nowhere to be found, but a fresh batch of security constructs are damn close. "Not this floor. I assume we're on the topmost tunnel, so all we can do is go down."
Jumble leans down and opens a door to the lower floor. A pair of people look up at us–one of which perfectly fits the book's description of the messenger that was talking to Dani. The other's somebody I don't recognize in the slightest. I lean in and tap my foot impulsively.
The messenger looks up at the noise and blanches. "They're here!"
"Whoops," I state flatly and drop down. Jumble drops right behind me, a hand reaching out to wrap the random other person in static. "But hey, you know us. That makes this easier."
I bear my teeth and flip a projectile through my fingers. "Take us to Gnash or I blow your damn head off."
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