Two… huh…

  “Of course, only about six-hundred million survived the procedures.” The construct continues. “From those, only a tenth ever left this facility. Yet the second wave–numbering only around two million–survived nearly in their entirety. Very, very few of them perished due to a… spiteful desire to survive.”

  It waits for me to say something but I’m still reeling at the numbers it just threw at us. There’s only about two billion humans in total right now. And it expects me to believe that a hundred times that many paindne threw their hats in with the system? And only sixty million ever left this facility? It just… how can I believe that?

  Shit, why do I believe it?

  The construct clears its throat. “I know the numbers may be hard to believe, but if you could see how huge this city really is, you’d understand that the system was ready to house half of all the paindne.”

  Clutter blinks, his eyes refocusing into a glare. “Half. It only expected half of them to survive the uplifting, and it did it anyway?”

  “Yes.” The construct says simply, and without any further explanation.

  I slowly shake my head. “Those numbers are bullshit. They have to be. How many goddamn people live on this planet?”

  “If my data is correct, the number is steadily approaching two trillion if you count all the sentient species. That doesn’t factor in humans who’ve made this place their home, though.” The construct turns to me and raises its chin. “And there you have it; confirmation that neither of you are controlled by the system. Is there anything else you want to ask me before I lie down and parse through my database to see what the quest removed from it?”

  “That’s a quick shift. What brought it on?”

  With a shrug, the construct lies down on the ground. “I’m just curious. All this information I’m telling you isn’t connected to the quest–which feels extremely wrong. It can’t be true that the only quest-sensitive piece of information I had was on the heretic. There has to be more that’s been completely removed from my database, and I want to find those holes before they catch up to me.”

  “What could possibly catch up to you?” Clutter laughs and shakes his head. “The quest is barely progressing, and it’s been three days. At this pace we’ll be here for years before it reveals any of the ‘great riches’ it promised us.”

  I nod in agreement. “So far, even if I count the plastic that we weren’t supposed to access yet, all the ‘riches’ we’ve gotten were maps, markers, and fifteen stat points from something I probably wasn’t supposed to access. You’ve got to remember something about the endgame for the quest.”

  “No… no. I’m sorry.” The construct apologizes. From how its face contorts with frustration, it seems sincere. “Can you tell me… how empty are the tunnels right now? Are the ideal figures still out there, or are they offline just like I was? …Excuse me, did you say you got fifteen–”

  “You’re talking about the plastic paindne. The ones that can’t talk.” I say, to which Clutter nods in support. “They just appeared with the last change the quest put in, so they weren’t there all along. The hell are they?”

  “...They are models used to train the in-progress paindne into getting used to uplifted forms. But you said you got fifteen stat points. Was that when you interacted with the hidden panel that Clutter reacted to earlier?”

  I narrow my eyes at it in suspicion. “Yes, in fact, it was. You know something about it?”

  The construct laughs humorlessly. “You could say that. In fact, you could say that I was put there with the sole purpose of guarding it.”

  “It’s that important?” Clutter asks suspiciously as he sneaks a glance at me. “Was that from one of the things that got censored the first time we talked to it?”

  I slowly nod. “The trials. That must’ve been the reward for it; fifteen Mind given out over fifteen hours. I bet that’s how the system finished uplifting the painted danes into paindne.”

  “That’s right. Each paindne completed four of these trials, gained stats, and in the process uplifted itself. I… why can I remember this?” The construct grimaces as its eyes glaze over. “How isn’t this important to the quest? Why isn’t it censored or corrupted any more? Okay, let’s try this–the incident (DATA CORRUPTED).”

  It sighs, as if that fact is somehow a relief. “That data is still corrupted, thank goodness. I’m just confused what the quest is actually about if the paindne uplifting process isn’t even part of it.”

  “The heretic. And the incident.” Clutter cracks his knuckles again as he nibbles his lip. “We know those two are at least something.”

  “But everything else is already completely gone from the construct’s head. We won’t even know what it is.” I pause, then look up at the roof. “I guess we’ll just have to find that out as the quest happens. Can you point us to other ‘trials’, which might have more info?”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  The construct nods absentmindedly. “I can register their signatures on your navigation orb. Even though I don’t have their exact locations, that should lead you to them.”

  “Navigation orb?” I pull out my hexagonally faceted sphere and wreath. “Do you mean this thing?”

  “Yes, that thing. Leave it with me and I’ll have it done… soon-ish.”

  So it is some kind of compass. “Was it designed here?”

  “I… hm.” The construct’s eyes flicker to mine. “I have no data on this thing’s creation, just its use. It must be important to the quest.”

  “Of course it is.” Clutter scoffs. “It’s one of the things that led us here.”

  The construct raises an eyebrow. “Is it? Interesting. Keep an eye out for anywhere it could be useful–that might progress the quest, or get you those ‘rewards’ you alluded to. But, uh, why is it so… hexagonal?”

  I stare at the thing closed-mouth and dumbfounded. There’s no info on hexagons in the thing’s database? No goddamn way. A stupid-ass shape is more important to the quest than the entire history of Clutter’s species?

  “Quest.” Clutter whispers. “I knew the hexagons were important.”

  “Yes… apparently.” The construct frowns at the wreath-sphere as I hand it over. It flips the thing over a few times in its hands, until its eyes freeze on the words etched into the wreath. “Marywell Den. Mary. Well. Den. I… have absolutely no data on these words, or the location they seem to be pointing to. That, too, is impossible.”

  Big surprise; those words are important to the quest. I sigh and lean away from the construct as it studies the sphere. Somehow, I feel like we’re leaving with a shitton more weight on our shoulders–and answers to questions I really wanted answered–yet we’re at the exact same progress on the quest as before all this happened. I glance at it one last time as Clutter opens the door, steps through, and puts his arm in the space so it doesn’t close on me.

  It looks… confused. Ecstatic. Terrified. All at once. The system created this thing to oversee the paindne uplifting process. So technically, Clutter’s made in his exact image. Or they’re both cut from the same mold. Shit, I’m staring at a vessel with so many more answers than we’ve managed to coax out of it.

  But… is it a person now? An elemental, like Fleur? Or is it technically some paindne-shellraiser hybrid made out of shellraiser plastic? I suck air through my teeth and turn away. It’ll be there when we know the right questions to ask. Illumisa will definitely have thousands of potentially violent and vitriolic questions for it.

  “See you later.” It says.

  The door swings shut, sealing us off from the thing. Clutter grimaces, but he doesn’t shudder as he starts climbing the stairs. His legs tremble from exertion, since he isn’t recovered from his ordeal, but it looks like he isn’t… as bothered as before.

  “So what do you think?” I ask when we crest the top. “Can we trust everything it says?”

  He barks out a quiet laugh. “I don’t want to. But… I think it’s telling the truth. On absolutely everything. Briony’s a second generation purist; her dad’s a purebred and her mom’s a ‘mutt’.”

  I tilt my head in question, but stay quiet as Clutter walks over to a wall and slides down it with a sigh. He motions for me to sit across from him on the other side of the rather small room. Once I’m sitting, too, he sighs and continues.

  “They cut off her tail when she was really little to try and pass her off as a purebred. Obviously that didn’t work, since we regenerate a lot faster than other species, so they just… put her in a suit of armor and claimed she had a horrible degenerative disease. A lot of purebreds actually do have diseases like that, so nobody bats an eye.”

  He takes a deep breath and raises his chin to stare at the ceiling. His fingers fidget restlessly into a myriad of different hand symbols and orientations, and after a good half minute of silence, he squeezes them tight.

  “Everything the construct said about the wave one and twos makes perfect sense to me. The purists try to keep their bloodline pure, and if the system’s trying to control them, it makes perfect sense why it’d do that; they’re the only ones it has control over. It also explains why every purebred paindne is born with fifteen in each stat.”

  I nearly choke on my own spit. “Fifteen?! I had one of each important one!”

  “I had two of each, so not much better here.” He cracks a half-smile and looks back over at me. “They get better classes and get them sooner. I used to think it was just because the system liked them more, but I guess I was even more right than I thought.”

  Humming silence fills the room as Clutter’s words come to a stop. Everything seems… quieter, yet more intense now that things are kicking off. We’ve got the horizonguard, the party, the construct, and a possible other enemy that damaged the construct before the horizonguard got to it. And all the quest’s showing for it is those new plastic paindne.

  Something huge has to happen soon. I don’t know what it is, or what brand of huge it’s going to be, but it has to be something. There are people all over this place that’s big enough for billions. If the quest doesn’t do something to bring everyone together, then there was never a way for the quest to go forward in the first place.

  “What do you think’s going to happen, Clutter?”

  Soft, calm breaths answer me. His chest rises and falls rhythmically as he clutches the ring wrapped in bandages. There’s no way the encounter with the construct didn’t mess him up even more, but he hid it pretty damn well. I shut my mouth as Pearl squirms out of her shell and climbs down onto my right thigh.

  She leans back against my torso and sighs. Minutes tick by without a word said between either of us as we both just stew in all the new information the construct gave us. More than anything, I’m just… confused as to what this quest actually is. If we’re supposed to be bringing the city back into reality, then why isn’t its history important to the quest?

  My eyelids droop as Pearl nestles into my jacket. It’s all so much. All these people, all this information, yet we’re exactly where we were before we met the horizonguard. If the quest doesn’t start moving things along…

  Then we’re going to start moving without it.