By the time I’m finished with my workout, everything hurts. But that’s obvious. Sweat drenches my clothes, my breaths are raggedy and short, and doing anything but sitting still takes too much energy. Making my way up to the top of the tower is a labor with jelly legs is a labor itself, and when I collapse onto the floor near Clutter and Pearl, they look at me with a mixture of emotions.

  Clutter’s starts off with worry. Pearl’s is mostly amusement, but there’s pity underneath.

  “Did it go well?” She asks.

  I groan. “Went perfectly. Just sucks to do.”

  “That’s… normal?” Clutter gestures at me. “It doesn’t look normal.”

  Pearl shrugs. “‘Normal’ is different for Worth classes. Why don’t you tell Shelby what it’s like for you when you get a stat point just to drive the difference home?”

  “Well… it just… happens. Then I can think better or feel better. I can’t imagine what it’d be like to actually have to work for those gains.” Clutter pauses, as if remembering why I took the pills in the first place mid-sentence. “Ooh. Sorry.”

  “Mrgh. Not your fault. It’s the system’s fault.” I grumble and flip over to my back so I can stare at the ceiling. “Did you two make some progress at least?”

  Pearl nods as she taps the more broken construct body with her knuckles. “The constructs that didn’t stack with the others are weaker. They scratch easier, break easier, and when Clutter put all his strength into twisting it we could see it straining. In comparison, the others are nearly indestructible. It took… ten times as much effort to even scratch them, and the only one with any real damage was from your projectiles.”

  I close my eyes and take a centering breath. “So what’s the verdict? Do you think they’re older, or just… weaker?”

  “That’s the question we can’t answer.” Pearl sighs. “The materials themselves seem like they have the exact same makeup–same colour, same grain, same density and weight. If they were just older, or a little more damaged, then they’d still stack, as you proved by putting all of them in one big pile.”

  “True.”

  “Yes, it is. And until we have access to something that can actually analyze these things, we’re not getting any more information from them. I even had Clutter put each of the heads on the bodies to see how they reacted–and there was no difference between the two. For all purposes, they work exactly the same.”

  “Unless you wanted to build with them.” Clutter chimes in. “Then you’d have a bunch of structural weaknesses.”

  Pearl frowns. “Well, yes, but I can think of a whole bunch of reasons like that. I’m talking purely for what they’re being used for right now.”

  “But what if this is some kind of hint? Like… the quest shows us that everything that looks and seems to work exactly the same isn’t really the same.” He turns to me with an excited thump of his tail. “We could go back through the walls, hit everything, and see what gets damaged! That could lead us to something new!”

  “If we get an extra two years, sure. But until we find a way to identify the weaker ones without testing every individual specimen, we don’t have the time.” I cross my arms over my chest and set my jaw. My teeth hurt for some reason when they’re not pressed together. “So that’s a discovery from the bodies, but one we can’t use yet. How about the magic in the heads? Any insight from that?”

  Clutter and Pearl share a look, then after a few seconds, he motions for her to go ahead. She nods and motions at the four spheres sitting close to the bodies they were working with.

  “They’re liquid at this place’s ambient temperature. That doesn’t mean they’re always liquid, but until we get some equipment to freeze or burn them, we can’t really test it. And the friction from Clutter’s hands wasn’t enough to get it to do anything.” She says, and Clutter pats a sphere for emphasis. “And this isn’t exactly scientific proof, but Clutter was pretty sure the blue magic is exactly the same as the stuff in the catalyst–so we went into the walls to check it out.”

  Clutter nods in agreement. “It almost looked the same, but then I figured out a really important difference–the texture.”

  The image of the slimy, gooey blue magic in the catalyst instantly pops into my mind. In comparison, the stuff in the sphere is thin and very liquid-y. Almost like comparing water to molasses.

  “I think I remember that.” I say slowly. “So why’s it important?”

  “Because Pearl confirmed that the magic in the head is exactly the same as the magic the tower used to connect to the walls below. But it did something completely different than when the constructs used it.” Clutter starts to vibrate with excitement, his voice picking up in pace to match. “She thinks the grey magic the blue magic was suspended in completely changed its properties and let the tower use it. And if that’s true, then if we can find more of the grey stuff, we can probably put more catalysts into the tower to make it do more things!”

  “Huh. That does sound cool. But where are you putting those catalysts?” I gesture at the circles that are now flush with the floor. “Our only socket sank into the ground and took the catalyst tube with it.”

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “Oh, that? Pssh.” Pearl waves a hand dismissively. “I can get into the machinery and reset it. And I really doubt I’m the only one that could do it, so other groups are definitely going to try something similar.”

  I nod. “Okay. If we can find some grey magic and somehow get the catalyst tube out unharmed, we’ll give it a shot. Do you two have any idea where we can find some?”

  “Nope.”

  “Not a clue.”

  That’s about what I expected. “Well if the stuff was there at some point, we’ll find more sooner or later.”

  “Hopefully sooner.” Clutter adds helpfully.

  Pearl nods. “Definitely sooner. I’ll keep my awareness peeled for any signs of the stuff. You, too, Shelby–just in case I fall asleep or drift off in thought.”

  I raise a thumbs-up into the air. “Can I take a nap now?”

  “Go ahead. I want to look over the schematics we already have–maybe there’s a way I can turn these constructs into schematics.” Pearl rubs her hands together eagerly. “Can you handle watch duty on your own, Clutter?”

  Something twitches over Clutter’s face, and he puffs out his chest ever so slightly. “I’ll make sure nothing sneaks up on us. And I promise I won’t make anything else explode.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.” I roll onto my side and curl an arm under my head. Then, just in case, I summon a few shields and projectiles. “Use those if you need ‘em. And if you go out, make sure you close the door behind you.”

  Clutter scooches over and scoops up the coins. “Thanks. But I’m not leaving you two alone; I’ll be right here until you wake up.”

  I offer him a tired smile and shut my eyes tight.

  ‘Thump-thump, thump-thump’.

  Rhythmic impacts against the tower’s roof slowly stir me from a dreamless sleep. I rub my eyes with my forearm as a yawn hisses through my teeth, and before I see him, my awareness tells me that Clutter’s standing at the window. He’s completely enraptured with whatever he’s watching out there, and even as I get to my feet–not bothering at all to be quiet–the only way I can tell he hears me is the twitch of his ears.

  “Good two-hours-later.” Pearl says cheerily from inside her shell. “No luck with the schematics yet, but if we can find out how these constructs are built, I’m sure I could put one together. I could probably make it way better than this, but I’m not sure these things were made to be good.”

  I roll my shoulder and grimace at the creaks and pops. “Do you think they’re mass-produced garbage?”

  “Garbage? No, not garbage. Those mockeries in the tunnels were garbage–they couldn’t perform their intended function at all. I think these things were meant to be simple and uncomplicated–so there’s less to go wrong with their deliveries, and basically nothing that could interfere with the magic in their heads.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “If they do their job just fine, then how aren’t they ‘good’?”

  Pearl purses her lips. “You know, that’s a good point. What if I said they weren’t high end? Does that get the point across better?”

  “Way better.”

  “Then I’ll remember that for next time.”

  With that, Pearl goes right back to working on whatever she’s working on. I roll my other shoulder and walk up to Clutter, who smiles softly and nods even softer when I stand next to him. The sight through the glass is… weird. My first instinct when I see the blanket of white coating the walls is that I missed a snowfall. But from how it shimmers and… moves… over the terrain… it’s more like I’m watching the fallout from a disaster at the snowglobe factory.

  “Isn't it beautiful?” Clutter asks. “I’ve been watching it for almost half an hour, and every time it switches directions, my brain just can’t register what I’m seeing.”

  “Switches direction?” I raise an eyebrow. “I’ve gotta see this.”

  Clutter nods in agreement. “It happens every five minutes-ish. So it should be… here it goes! Look up!”

  The tone of his voice is like a kid telling their parents to ‘watch this’. A grin pulls at the corner of my lips as I follow the trail of Clutter’s gaze, only for it to fall away as I lay eyes on the biggest snowflake I’ve ever seen. Even from where we stand, it looks like it’s the size of a monster truck–hovering in the air near the end of the ‘sky’, perfectly parallel with the ground. Before my very eyes, the thing tips ever so slightly to the right. And the ‘snow’ on the ground shifts to move in that direction.

  “Wow. That’s… insane.” I whisper as the giant snowflake shimmers in the sky. “What kind of place has this many different kinds of freakish weather?”

  Clutter shrugs. “I’ve heard about most of these, but they happen on completely different parts of the world. According to a book I rad, this one was destroyed when some jerks stole the guideflake from the sky and broke it down into some extremely powerful weapons and armor a few centuries ago.”

  “Hrm. Does that mean we’re going to see every kind of weather that doesn’t exist on your planet any more?”

  “Maybe? I don’t know.”

  I turn to him. “Not in a theorizing mood right now?”

  He shakes his head. “Not really. My brain kind of hurts from talking with Pearl too much. But if you want a bunch of random facts I’ve memorized, I can easily tell you all of them.”

  “You know what, sure. Hit me with your… fifth-favorite.”

  “My fifth-favorite? I’ll have to think… which one’s number five and which is number six…” He crosses his arms and swishes his tail across the floor. “Okay, I know which is number five. Did you know that there’s a cavern out there somewhere that removes all the colour from everything that goes into it? We call it the ‘strip mine’. Because it strips away the colour from everything.”

  “So… everything just becomes the colour it originally was?”

  Clutter furrows his brow. “No. Everything becomes the exact same shade of white no matter what it is. You have to put a spell on it before you go in, or else you’ll look like you’re made completely of chalk after a few minutes inside. People used to use it to get stains out of clothes.”

  That’s a boring use for something so weird. Practical, definitely, but boring. “So why’s that number–”

  Four anchors have been established.

  Progressing quest.