The soft roar of a waterfall fountain to my back gives the smallest bit of anonymity as I explain everything I just learned to Clutter and Illumisia’s duplicate. He enthusiastically nods along and asks a whole lot of questions, so it takes quite a while longer to tell than I’d been planning on, but it means the question period afterwards lasts all of thirty seconds.

  “A map, a ring with a picture of the rock we found, and whatever the sphere is doing right now.” Clutter motions at the sphere and wreath, which are slowly turning in my hand. “I guess it makes sense that we’d have to put plastic on them for them to actually work. So, does that mean the actual hint from the jewelry store was the stuff made from the plastic Well left behind? Was it really that different from the stuff we found?”

  I shrug. “That’s what I’m leaning towards right now, but there’s always a chance this is something completely different and Stonestep Solutions has the real hint. We’ll use the ring as a last ditch effort if the wreath-sphere and the map don’t turn anything up.”

  “You say the sphere and the map, yet there is a part of both of them that has done nothing yet.” Illumisia cuts in before Clutter can start talking. “The spears on the edge of the map and the wreath surrounding the sphere. Furthermore, what is the sphere doing right now?”

  The sphere in question–now fully covered in a thin layer of plastic–is one solid colour: icy blue. It even feels a little cooler to the touch compared to before. I couldn’t get any plastic to stick to the wreath, though, so whatever it’s supposed to do obviously doesn’t gel with the stuff.

  “Well, if I had to guess, I’d say it’s a proximity detector. Blue and cold means we’re far away, and it’ll get redder and warmer the closer we get.” I snap my fingers to send the sphere into my inventory. “The map’s not going to work perfectly until I can get Clamber’s piece of jewelry tomorrow, so we’ll just have to make sure it’s accurate tonight. Clutter, I forgot to ask–are you doing any better now?”

  He squirms as I glance at him, and even though he’s got on a happy expression, there’s obvious discomfort there. I click my tongue and shake my head, not quite sure why I’m getting so involved in the business of every Paindne I meet, and make a note to beat Dell’s ass if she did anything to Clutter.

  Not that I need any more reasons to hate someone from the Preservation.

  “Alright. Let’s keep moving.” I pat Clutter on the shoulder and offer him a smile. “Think Dizzy has enough time to meet with us?”

  Clutter nods without hesitation. “I’ll send him a message saying we’re on our way. But don’t get your hopes up–he would've already sent me something if he had anything.”

  “Don’t really care–but he might be able to tell us something else we don’t know before we start a mad dash tomorrow. So, where exactly are we going? His house or where he works?”

  “Technically, it’s both. But he isn’t supposed to be living there, so don’t say anything about it.”

  That’s… strange. But I guess I can wait a few minutes to see what he means.

  A good half hour walk later, and we’re standing right in front of a building that looks a hell of a lot like a single university building. Except, for some reason, it’s right in the middle of an otherwise bustling outdoor market. I watch people go by with my awareness, completely unfazed by this intrusion on their shopping trip, and can’t help the amusement from showing on my face.

  “Couldn’t get permission to bulldoze this one?”

  Clutter furrows his brow. “What’re you talking about?”

  I wave off his concern. “It’s nothing–just talking to myself. Is Dizzy ready for us?”

  He tilts his head to the side as if deciding to let it drop or press on. Eventually his eyebrows return to normal and he slowly raises a hand to the set of double-doors. With a mighty downswing he smashes his knuckles into the stone, winces, and raises his other hand to knock much less violently.

  On the third knock, one of the doors swings inward. Behind it stands the third new Paindne I’ve met today–and by far the largest one I’ve ever seen. His muscles are barely constrained by a tan button-up shirt, which has a bunch of old oil and dirt stains dotting it, and a gut that rivals a powerlifter that threatens to pop off a few buttons at any second. He towers over all of us, staring down at Clutter with wide expressive eyes that look like they haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep in over a month.

  “Clutter!” Dizzy says in a perfectly average, unremarkable voice. Coming from that body, though, makes it seem a little strange. “How’s it going, my friend?”

  “It’s going okay. Not super great, but it could be a lot worse. Or a lot better.” Clutter laughs awkwardly as Dizzy pulls him into a hug. “I’ll tell you all about it later. But right now, there’s something else I might need your help with.”

  Dizzy pats Clutter on the back, careful to reign in his strength, and turns to me. “You must be the woman who hired him. I’m sorry to say I don’t have anything concrete for you, but you’re more than welcome to take a look at the data I’ve gathered so far. Oh, but where are my manners–come in, come in!”

  He steps to the side to make room for us. I nod in thanks as I walk in, and he closes the door when Illumisia’s double is halfway through it. It doesn’t stop her at all, though she does huff in annoyance. Even though Dizzy can’t see her.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Keep your shoes on, please. The usual cleaning crew hasn’t come around for a few weeks, so I don’t know how many little rock shards are waiting to stick into your footflesh.” Dizzy says seriously as he leads us into a very open room with stairwells and hallways spreading in every direction. “We’re supposed to be something of a headquarters for people who just got their classes, but as you can see, business hasn’t exactly been booming for a few years. It’s just me and a few other people now, though the system still gives us funding like we’re fully staffed.”

  He beelines for an open staircase leading to the second floor, turning back every now and again to make sure we’re still following him. It gets considerably warmer as we get closer and closer to the immense skylights that make up most of the roof, and a slight tingle of magic worms its way into my skin.

  I brush it off and look over the building as we reach the top. “So you’re supposed to be a community center?”

  Dizzy thinks for a second, then nods. “That’s a perfect description of it. We used to get quests from the system to give out, too, but that stopped when people stopped coming here. My office is down here to the right; the left is the break room and slee–I mean, uh, more break rooms. Definitely not sleeping quarters, since those are against the rules.”

  “Nice catch.” I chuckle as we walk past a glass wall, through which I can see a break room. And another open door at the end of that room with hammocks. “Don’t worry–we’re not system snitches. So what’d you do here before the crowd died out?”

  “Pretty much exactly what I’m doing now; monitoring the land for any changes that could lead to quests or that could be dangerous for Palastia.” He summons a Class Card and taps it against a door, which he holds open with one hand. “It’ll close the second I go in, so you two first.”

  I nod in thanks as I walk past him. The first bit of his ‘office’ is strangely clean, but there’s… rocks everywhere. On the tables, in boxes on shelves, inside of glass cases inlaid with magic, and a few particularly huge ones on pure white tarps on the floor. I take a wide berth around one that feels like it’s constantly playing melodic harp music through a car’s exhaust pipe and turn to Dizzy with a frown.

  “How many different rocks do you have?”

  Clutter laughs. “I don’t think he even knows.”

  “Hey. I know. They’re all in a ledger, numbered almost perfectly. I have somewhere between eight-hundred thirty-one and eight-hundred and sixty-eight samples.” Dizzy says confidently, even though that wasn’t something to say with confidence. “Just because I’ve misnumbered a few samples, it doesn’t mean I haven’t been counting them really closely. …Pretty closely. …Alright, so sometimes I get too excited and forget to write in a sample. But I’m almost done re-counting them!”

  “Oh, really?” Clutter grins and pats a green, egg-shaped rock with concentric circles of ash grey. “You definitely didn’t drop everything the moment you got that hexagonal chunk of quest-rock, right?”

  “...So, you’re here for the quest rock.” Dizzy blatantly changes the subject and looks away from Clutter. “I haven’t been able to name, date, or really do anything for it. But that’s a clue in and of itself; since it isn’t in any databases, and it doesn’t have any obvious signs, we can assume that the stuff doesn’t get affected by geological aging like other stones.”

  Dizzy walks right past the white rock, brushing his pants against it, and some of the sound rubs off on him like wet paint. He grimaces and leans down to wipe the… sound off… and opens another door that leads to a room packed to the brim with samples in their own climate-controlled cases. I raise an eyebrow at Clutter, who just smiles excitedly and bounds after Dizzy.

  I replay Clutter’s slight needling of Dizzy over in my mind. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him be like this with anyone. “So you’ve known Dizzy for a while, then?”

  “You can say that, yeah.” Clutter reaches back and grabs his tail to keep it from wagging against the cases. “I think we’ve been friends since… um… I can’t remember ever not being friends with him. So probably a really, really long time. Do you remember, Dizzy?”

  Dizzy shakes his head. “I’d have to ask someone else.”

  Clutter nods in agreement. “See? A really long time. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, just curious.” I smirk and pat him on the shoulder. “Dizzy, when you two found this boulder, was there anything around it? Or was it just a rock?”

  “Something around it? More rock, and some water, I think.” Dizzy raises an eyebrow at Clutter as he opens another door out of the sample room. “You found it first. Was there anything there before I saw it?”

  Clutter furrows his brow in thought. I can almost feel him trying to remember anything that’d help out our search, but from how long he’s taking, I can almost guarantee that the answer is going to be ‘no’. Just before we follow Dizzy into the other room, he shakes his head.

  “I can’t remember anything at all. Sorry.”

  “Nah, if you saw what I was looking for, you’d definitely remember it. Don’t sweat it.” I pat him on the back and offer him a smile. Dizzy’s eyebrows at the sight of my teeth, but he doesn’t seem bothered. “The pattern in the ring shows one of the big rocks with a bunch of plastic vines wrapped around it.”

  “Oh, yeah, then definitely not.” Clutter says confidently. “I would definitely remember something like that.”

  Dizzy sighs in relief and smacks a switch on the wall. Lights loudly flicker on, one by one, illuminating a huge room with dozens of work stations set with different samples. The equipment at each of them look well taken care of, yet along the walls there are dozens of dusty shelves full of the exact same equipment. It looks like someone set the room up exactly how they liked, and hasn’t bothered moving any of the equipment in years.

  Which… is probably exactly what this is, now that I think about it. Dizzy deftly dodges all the cords, overhanging rocks, and equipment set up on the floor as he makes his way to a larger machine at the other side of the room. Inside of which sits a massive hexagonal plate of rock, and right next to the machine, a container filled with plastic.

  “Well, here it is.” He says proudly. “My results so far are all here, and you’re free to look them over as much as you want.”

  Clutter says a quick thanks, but a buzzing in my head draws my attention to the plate. I lick my lips for some reason, and before I know it, I’m standing right before it. Only a thin pane of magically strengthened glass stands between me and it. Clamber’s ring twitches and shivers on my finger, and I gently put my fingers on it to steady it.

  Before anyone can say anything, I unlock the glass case and summon both the map and the sphere. With hurrying care, I set the pair down on the hexagonal plate and slip my ring off to join them.

  I can’t explain how, but something’s going to happen. I just know it.