Introductions are made all around, and although Melody and Sage have not directly met one another, Sage has of course heard of Westminster.

"I was there when the boy rang the bell, and decided to become a Bard," Melody says.

"A bold choice for any Topsider, much less a scion of Westminster," Sage says.

"It will be weird going home again, after all the places I've seen in the past year," Melody says.

Now that I'm here, I need information. I have questions. And it would have been helpful had I written any of them down rather than spending all my time playing around in dungeons and working on textbooks for reincarnated dwarves and assuming everything would make sense once I got here. Fortunately, I have party members who have been keeping up with the plot better than me and probably don't have ADHD.

Once Basalt is done telling our new friend about Hebron, we hit upon the topic of the bell and bring up the name Misty Harrow.

"Ah, yes, Harrow's little prodigy," Sage says. "I can't tell you where she might be right now, but you can check in Harrow. Do you have a map?"

"Just a brochure advertising businesses in Mayfair," Basalt says.

"I use the second bedroom as a library," Sage says, pointing to one of the suite doors. "Feel free to memorize or copy anything in there, but please don't take anything out of the room."

"Thank you," Basalt says.

I head in to take a look at what she's got and figure out where we're going. Before sifting through this place for information, though, I go over to the window to look out upon Tiganna's core. The five-kilometer-wide crystal sphere bathes the world in the vivid red light of late evening.

I find maps of Gleam in the small library. Harrow and Pinner are close to one another in the shadow of the Underside. We didn't quite pass over them on the way here, but they're not too far away. I'm momentarily confused looking at the map before I realize that on the Underside, east and west are flipped. We're on orbital habitats with arbitrary directions to begin with, and I'm just kind of glad that everyone in Tiganna has decided that "north" is in the same relative direction.

Westminster is on the Topside, and Melody tells me that flying over Topside is strictly prohibited and that we will need to use lifts instead. I am currently trying to keep a low profile, so I will avoid flying in the no-fly zone for now and will try not to require a daring rescue.

The phrase "never split the party" isn't really applicable once you get more than six people on your crew. And I'm really not that interested in winemaking. Hebron's grapes are an exploitable resource that will make us money, and I'm not worried about the details. I have another quest to do here, and the name of a second contact that I need to be more careful in locating.

[Before we split, let's plan out the inevitable daring rescue,] I send to Basalt.

[You think you're going to need a daring rescue?] Basalt asks.

[I would prefer to have one arranged should it turn out to be necessary and then not need it,] I reply. [I'm leaving the boat in your capable hands.]

Meanwhile, Sage is still talking to Amethyst about wine.

"Not everyone will be happy about having new competition," Sage says. "But Gleam's winemakers are not in the habit of murdering business competitors and most sensible people will begrudgingly agree that more available variety is never a bad thing. Gleam's light-aspected white wines can happily live on the shelf with Tempest's life-aspected red wines, after all. The only other red wine we regularly get here is from Sustern Skymote, and that's Dawn's fire-aspected wine. Not at all the same thing."

It's growing late and we've had a long day of traveling, so we turn in to our suite across the hall for the night. There's a common area and four identical bedrooms overlooking the shadowed side of Mayfair, so we quickly pair up Rowan with me, Hemlock with Basalt, Anise with Jade, and Amethyst with Melody.

I don't dare send a ghost out to explore right now. The ghost has pretty blatant visible eyes and I don't know what the local laws are on Necromancy. So I just summon a [Ghostwriter] to work on texts while I sleep instead.

Sage Pinner is our foot in the door, and the next morning, she's taking Amethyst, Basalt, Hemlock, and Anise on a tour of the local vineyards. I will be heading off with Rowan, Jade, and Melody.

"You kids be careful out there," Anise says, hugging me tightly. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"That doesn't leave out a whole lot of things, Mom," I say.

With maps in mind and our destination at hand, my half of the party moves out into the twilit Underside suburbs.

"Quit looking up so much," Melody chides Rowan. "You look like a tourist."

"Sorry," Rowan mutters. "It's just so weird having an upside down city over our heads."

"You'll get used to it," Jade says cheerfully. "At least this area is so much nicer and cleaner than any part of Rust. I bet everything works right, too."

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A giant spider wearing brown clothes strolls up the side of a building and lets out a bit of silk when she reaches the top. The silk lights up as it catches the aether current and the aranea leaps just as a skyboat resembling a double-decker flying bus rumbles past overhead, loud and close enough to feel the vis rolling off of it. With perfect timing, the aranea lands atop the skybus like she does this every day.

"And you're staring, too," Melody tells me.

"I love watching how the aranea use their silk," I say. "Right. Focusing now."

The four of us make our way through the streets of Gleam and soon receive the system notification that we've reached Pinner. Trees line the suburban streets, giving a bit of shelter from the lights and noise of the city overhead, leaving neatly spaced street lamps to illuminate the pavement.

I spot a small shop that looks like it's selling hot beverages and stop to get us some drinks I don't recognize. I was hoping for coffee or tea, but instead wound up with something weirdly blue that tastes sour. We drink them anyway, and keep going through the nice neighborhood to reach Harrow around noon.

I know Misty is a 15-year-old girl, so I keep my physical and [Ghost Eyes] open to see if I can spot her or her aura. I doubt she's just loitering in the park, though, so I suppose what I'm really looking for is someone who can lead me to her. And there's a lot more Harrows than there are Corwens.

Harrow has issued you a challenge: Find Misty Harrow Description: Your friend, Bucky Harrow, gave you the name of a cousin he believes would be able to help you in Gleam. There is a guest house down the street. You might check there first.

Ah, good. Quests. That will at least point me in the right direction. And I would not have bothered coming all the way out here if I didn't intend to undertake Harrow's challenge.

The Harrow Guest House is a large wooden building painted green with balconies jutting out from the upper floors. A neatly mowed lawn outside is framed by a boxwood hedge pruned to be perfectly rectangular. Would increasing Gleam's Chaos rating make its yards messier, I wonder?

Inside, the common area is full of people eating lunch. A silver-haired teenage girl dressed like a waitress approaches us.

Name: Misty Harrow Gleam Tiganna Race: Human | Gender: Female | Rank: Elite | Tier: Apprentice | Class: Apprentice Wizard Disposition: Neutral | Mood: Dearly wants to be doing anything else.

You have completed challenge: Find Misty Harrow Harrow offers you a challenge. Title: Awaken the Silent Bell. Rank: Elite | Domain: Gleam | Requirement: Resonant Child Description: Re-Attune the sacred bell of Westminster. Reward: 10% Elite → Heroic rank progression Result: Increase the Chaos rating of Gleam by 5%

I suppose now that I've actually come all the way to Harrow, it's confident that what it's spending on me won't be wasted. The frozen experience glitters brightly at the edge of my aura, waiting eagerly for the trigger condition.

"Welcome to the Harrow Guest House, travelers," Misty says with a forced customer service smile. "What can I get for you? Are you interested in lunch, a room for the night, or information on the local dungeons?"

"What's an [Apprentice Wizard] doing waiting tables?" I wonder.

"Trying to save up money to attend Crux Academy," Misty replies.

"I'm Drake Corwen," I say. "Wanna go on a quest?"

Harrow has issued Misty Harrow a quest: Join Drake Corwen's party Description: This is the chance you've been waiting for. Go forth and prove yourself!

"Let me tell my mom and grab my stuff," Misty says quickly.

I would try to assure her that she doesn't have to do it if she doesn't want to, but I saw her mood when we walked in and how much it brightened when she saw that quest appear. There's a spring in her step as she runs off, leaving us standing awkwardly near the door.

"Although we could have stood to get lunch first," Rowan comments.

"Oh, Bucky sent you!" Misty exclaims once we explain what we're doing here. "How is he doing? Is he getting enough to eat? Did Aunt Lark find work?"

"They're doing well," I assure her. "Bucky became a [Creative Child] when he turned 7, and Lark's working as a crafter. She teaches me sometimes."

We've relocated to a private dining alcove with a plate of cucumber sandwiches and a pot of hot black tea to go over the quest and hash out our plans. Judging by Rowan's aura, he's finding the fare disappointing, and mostly sticks to the tea. Melody, on the other hand, is popping the tiny sandwiches into her mouth left and right.

"I knew about the class," Misty says. "Sometimes I climb the Hearth tower and find his plaque and make sure he's still okay. We didn't have the chance to give him any naming day gifts, though!"

"I'm sure he appreciates the thought," Jade says.

"When we're done with your quest, can you take me with you?" Misty says. "I'll pack gifts from everyone and make sure Bucky knows Harrow still loves him even if he can't come home right now."

"You might not be able to come home again, either, if you're with me when I do this quest. They were angry enough at him for ringing the bell. Harrow wants me to re-attune it."

Misty's eyes widen. "I don't know much about that bell. It was all anyone could talk about after the fact, but it's all the way on the Topside. All we really knew was that Lark had taken Bucky with her on what was supposed to be an ordinary trip to sell some commissioned pieces. Then the next thing we knew, they had apparently broken some sacred law and had vanished! Their Hearth plaques still listed them as being alive so we knew they'd gotten away but we've been so worried and we couldn't even make protest to the enforcers without risking being detained ourselves."

The plate of cucumber sandwiches depleted, Melody no longer has anything to do with her hands to stop her from fidgeting uncomfortably.

[Whatever you're nervous about, you might as well let it out now, before we get going,] I send to her.

Melody sighs. "Right. Yeah. Well. It was kind of… my fault."

Misty turns and narrows her eyes at Melody. "Your fault? What did you do?"

"I dared him to ring the bell," Melody blurts out hurriedly. "I didn't think he would. Most kids won't take mad risks like that without a quest. And I thought if any of the cores really wanted to stop him, they could give him or someone else a quest to do so."

Misty lets out an exasperated sigh and deflates. "It was just a childish dare?"

"Did you have a quest to tell him to do it?" I ask.

"No. I always wondered what would happen but never dared to do it myself. I had to live there, after all. And my family might be angry if they found out. But was it really my choice, or was my destiny chosen when my core gave me the name Melody in a domain without song?"

I give her a reassuring smile. "We're birds on the winds of destiny, Melody. We can't control the sky, just where our wings take us."

"That was… surprisingly poetic," Melody says. "Do you mind if I steal that line for a song?"

"I probably stole it from someone else I forgot anyway," I say.

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