Door after door, floor after floor, barely anything changes. The layouts are slightly different, and the tendrils from the tower grow few and far between, but nothing truly important jumps out at me. My knees and feet wince a little more with every impact. Clutter’s grunts of exertion and whines of pain grow much faster. Minutes fly by.

  A door opens under my hand just like all the others. I fall into a new space, but this one is much different from the others. The walls are far more enclosed and end in spaces just wide enough for a door. I slowly stand up, look around, and nod to myself.

  “The apartments.”

  Clutter’s eyes snap up from the floor. “We’re here already?”

  “Apparently. That means we’re damn close to the ground floor. Get ready.” I rub my wrists and take a steadying breath. “We don’t know if we can even get deeper than ground level, but if we can, we need to be ready for anything.”

  Pearl nods in agreement. “Most likely more of those twisted paindne–or constructs, or plastic stains.”

  “Like I said, ready for anything.”

  We stop for a minute to let Clutter catch his breath, but soon enough, we’re all good to go. I tap my coin holster with my fingertips as a silent reminder to myself, then bend down and open up a door. It reveals a tunnel just like the first one Clutter and I entered through the wall, which means we’re right here. Only one more to go.

  Clutter licks his lips and flexes his fingers. I share a look with Pearl, who smiles confidently and raises both her fists in encouragement. Alright. Guess this is it. I press my hand to the ground, feel a little magic glimmer in Clamber’s armlet, and watch as an outline of my hand etches itself onto the ground.

  No circle follows. I raise an eyebrow and try to focus, but none of the other doors needed anything but a touch. A slash of grey magic violently slices across the floor, digging a deep gouge into the tiles that sends up a spray of debris. Two more quickly join it, just as violent as the first, and two more join them the moment they finish.

  “This isn’t normal!” Clutter states worriedly. “Is this supposed to be happening?”

  I don’t have an answer for him. We never tried going deeper at the ground level when we first got here, so we have no idea if this would’ve happened then or not. And my Class Card isn’t giving me any notifications either. So… I guess this is what’s supposed to happen.

  One final line slashes to connect all the others. In a perfect hexagon that surrounds the three of us. My awareness flickers as the ground gives way, but not like before. The chunk falls with us, almost like our feet are glued to it, and… absolute darkness surrounds us. One so deep and all-consuming that I can’t even tell how far the closest thing is–or if there’s anything at all in here. If it wasn’t for the sensation in the pit of my stomach and the wind in my hair I wouldn’t even know we were falling.

  Now Entering ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

  LEAVE.

  Dull, stinging pain lances through my skull. I grit my teeth and stare through the darkness as the notification rumbles and shudders on my vision. That didn’t feel like the system was saying something. Nor the quest. It feels like… an automated message. A warning set to play the moment anyone was stupid enough to fall headlong into the darkness. Which means whatever was here before doesn’t want anyone here.

  A wolfish grin splits my face. We’re definitely in the right place. I take a second to actually feel around this place. Silence and darkness is all my awareness can touch, but I don’t feel any walls.

  “Pearl, can you feel anything?”

  “I’m trying to right now.” She answers immediately. “Absolutely nothing right now, though. It’s… completely empty. Why?”

  I shake my head. “Hell if I know. Clutter, you hanging on?”

  He grimaces. “Kind of. It feels like I have a horrible sinus headache, but other than that… I guess I’m okay. Um… why can I still see you?”

  See me? What is he talking about? His eyes trail skyward, and I follow his… gaze. All the way up to a completely blank nothingness where there should be a hexagonal piece missing. Absolutely no light filters down. Yet I can still make out Clutter, Pearl, and the hexagon we’re standing on. When we should be in absolute darkness.

  “That is weird.” I mutter in agreement. “I can’t feel any magic out of the normal, either. How the hell are we supposed to find anything in here?”

  “I have no idea. We could… um… hm.” Pearl frowns and turns her head. “There really isn’t anything here at all. Did the system just not remake whatever was actually down here?”

  Well, that’s a terrifying thought. We could be falling through literal nothingness right now–and since the roof seems to have closed in behind us, if I didn’t have relocation coins in the tower, we’d be stuck here. Then… why the hell did the ground open up in the first place? Wouldn’t the system just make it so that was impossible?

  Then again, the door wasn’t normal. Maybe something we did altered the rules. I cross my arms and tap my foot against the hexagon as I try to think; this place exists for a reason. Something either currently is–or used to–exist below ground level. The construct confirmed as much, and it did so with information anyone could’ve gotten out of it. I refuse to believe the quest would have a random dead end accessible to literally everyone.

  …Except the construct called out me and Pearl as Shellraisers. Shit. That rips a gigantic hole in all my reasoning.

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  “There has to be something here. If there wasn’t, there just wouldn’t be anything here.” I frown at the sound of my own words. “I guess that’s obvious. Pearl, can you do the awareness thing again?”

  “The thing? Oh, you mean what I did with the beacon. Can you… I guess it is a quest item…” She purses her lips in thought. “If you can bring it out, I think I can do the thing again.”

  I nod and pull out my Class Card. A quick swipe over to my quests rewards me with an almost completely grey screen–except for two things. Our current quest, and the Serenade of Shattered Shells are both visible. And the beacon now sits comfortably under the Serenade. I pull it out, all the potential of it being attached to that quest not lost on me, and raise it for Pearl. She taps on it a few times, then hums deep in her throat.

  “Can you access the power core too?”

  Good question. I swipe back to my inventory, but I can’t see the power core anywhere. “That’s still greyed out. Are we screwed?”

  Pearl grimaces and shakes her head. “I can power it myself, but only for a few seconds. If the beacon works, though, those few seconds should be enough. Ready?”

  I nod. Pearl takes a deep breath, puts one hand on the beacon, and the other on me. She shudders as a snap of electricity courses through her body, and the beacon blossoms with light as my awareness flares. The emptiness surrounding us pushes back even stronger, but my awareness eats away at it like a crackling fire. Thousands upon thousands of… things… scurry away from my awareness as the beacon projects the idea of ‘me’ to every square inch of it.

  The darkness scuttles away like millions of tiny insects making a perfect wave. Somehow, they still give off a feeling of emptiness, but as a physical thing. I shudder at the sound of silence receding, giving way to a scratching click that I’ve only heard in my worst bug-filled nightmares. Clutter doesn’t even seem bothered by it, either; he’s just fascinated with the pure, unadulterated grey they leave in their wake.

  “We’re… on the ground?” He murmurs in disbelief. “But your hair… and my stomach still feels weird.”

  Pearl grunts, and my enhanced awareness cuts off. She slumps forward a little, but when I move to help, she holds up a hand to stop me.

  “I didn’t overdo it this time. It’s safe to step off now.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Onto the glowing grey floor?”

  She nods. Well, alright then. I step off, everything in my body screaming that I’m still falling. My feet touch solid ground. The sensations don’t let up. I grimace and run my hand through my hair in an attempt to get it under control, but the second I let go, it streams upwards once more.

  “So the grey is messing with us. The hell is it?” I ask as I carefully walk further. The darkness shies away from the very edge of my awareness, and closes in behind it. “I guess I’m the beacon here. Clutter, you… what the hell are you doing?”

  He looks up at me from the hexagon. Where he’s pressed his entire body against it for dear life. “It’s a hexagon.”

  “...Yes? And?”

  “I’m trying to do what you did with the map. We already talked about this.” He says insistently and presses his cheek back against the hexagon. “I think it’s working. My body’s tingling with some kind of foreign energy.”

  My awareness says absolutely nothing’s happening to him. I focus on the edge of the darkness and feel if it’s pushing back at me–but right now, it feels completely at bay. So I can give Clutter a few seconds to test out his theory. He stays plastered against the hexagon, letting out periodic grunts as he shifts ever so slightly for reasons I can’t comprehend. After a minute, he lets out a disappointed sigh and stands up.

  “Nothing happened.” He says dejectedly. “I thought it would work.”

  I reach over and pat him on the shoulder while not so subtly steering him off the hexagon. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll get Illumisia here soon enough, and you can ask her about it when she’s here.”

  He nods and starts walking on his own–but not in the direction I was pushing him. If where I was going is forward, he takes a sharp right and nearly jogs off in the seemingly random direction. Pearl and I share a glance of confusion; it didn’t feel like he was going against my lead, just… doing something else. For a reason I can’t fathom.

  “Do we follow him?” I ask.

  Pearl considers that for a good long moment. Clutter reaches the edge of the darkness fairly quickly, then turns back to stare at me like I’m the one who’s going crazy. Something in his eyes unnerves me, but in a good way–and no, I can’t explain how that works. My awareness shudders at whatever’s pulling him in that direction, but it also wants to go that way too. I take a step without waiting for Pearl to say anything.

  She squeaks in surprise. “You’re just following him? For no reason?”

  “I guess I am.” I chuckle as Clutter starts to walk again now that he’s got more to work with. “If this place was actually built for paindne, then maybe he’s got some… sixth sense for navigating it. Unless you’ve got something else?”

  “No, I don’t. I’m just… I don’t trust this.” She hugs herself tight and shivers. “Something about this place is just wrong. It shouldn’t have reacted to your awareness like this. Nobody else in the quest has an awareness like we do.”

  I shake my head. “We just phased something into being. Like we did in the well. Other people have other ways of doing that.”

  Pearl grimaces. “I really hope you’re right. Something tells me you couldn’t be any more wrong.”

  Clutter jogs ahead at a constant, willful pace. Even though it’s my awareness that’s letting him move forward, it feels like I have to speed up to keep up with him. He doesn't turn back, doesn’t say anything, and doesn’t make any wasted movements as he runs. If I’d felt any magic at all, I would’ve thought something possessed him. But this single-minded focus… he’s like a hunting dog locked onto his prey.

  Even though it’s barely a whisper in my mind, I can almost feel it too. Something in the distance, amidst the nothing–like a table in a pitch-black room. I can’t explain it for shit, but then again, I can’t explain anything here. The darkness bugs, the pure grey floor that somehow doesn’t feel like magic, the constant sensation of falling… none of it fits together. Especially not with the city of walls we’ve been exploring up until now.

  This almost feels like a different quest altogether.

  Glass appears. Thin glass as fragile as the morning frost. Clutter grinds to a halt less than a step from it and stares into the material as my awareness pushes away the darkness. As more and more of it is revealed, the less I understand.

  Moments later, we’re staring at a car-sized glass sphere sitting atop a simple platform of the same material that the city walls are made of. There’s no darkness left in the sphere, which shouldn’t work if they’re physical things, but it did. My mind locks onto a console at the other end–one that looks almost exactly like the console on the shellraiser power core containment device back in the workshop. Pearl silently mouths the words, then blanches.

  “It’s a prototype.”

  Unearned dread wriggles into my stomach. “For what?”

  She swallows hard. “An oath-bound containment device. The exact same thing that imprisoned Illumisia.”