Soft hissing like a burger fresh on the grill seeps out from underneath the map. Stone from the hexagonal plate bubbles and burbles like boiling water all around it, falling away little by little until the map has a perfectly hexagonal moat around it. Molten stone splashes out on the furthest edges, rolling in on itself over and over again as it seems to cool and grow into tendrils of itself.

  All at once, they stand vertically like poles of bamboo. Dozens of them, each about eight inches tall and barely an inch around, seem to lock the map in a cage without a top. I tilt my head to the side in an almost unconscious motion, and I feel my Class Card vibrating somewhere in my mind.

  One of the tendrils creaks, snaps, and bends down–breaking into six segments of perfectly equal length that somehow stay up without being connected to itself. It lowers itself closer and closer to the map, descending until it’s close enough to brush against the plastic covering the map itself.

  Something flashes. Something cracks. I blink and flinch back as a shard of stone smacks against my forehead, small enough that I wouldn’t have noticed it if I wasn’t watching it so clearly. But even with how close I’m watching, I couldn’t make out whatever just happened. Which just won’t do–this is obviously important, and I refuse to miss anything else.

  I summon a shield between me and the stone, lean in just a little further, and focus everything I have on my awareness. More and more tendrils snap down–each in six perfect segments–and snap towards the map with a loud sound and a little burst of stone. It almost looks like they’re connecting to something. I frown and squint harder, begging my brain to register whatever’s happening so quickly that even my awareness can’t catch it.

  “I got it.” Pearl says, and my awareness sharpens to an almost headache-inducing level. “Don’t think yourself into a coma.”

  All I can do is nod in thanks with Dizzy and Clutter watching me so closely. With Pearl-enhanced awareness, I wait patiently for the next tendril to slam down. It takes less than two seconds, but it feels like half a minute. Stone flakes off at exactly one-sixth of the way up the tendril, then one barely discernible moment of time later, another flake appears one-sixth further up than that. That continues until the six segments form, split apart completely, and somehow move like they’re still one continuous unit.

  Barely a whisper of magic joins them together. It’s so subtle and simple that I easily missed it the first few times, and it doesn’t feel like it should be enough for what’s happening. But it is, so I just have to accept that I’m still not seeing something. The segmented tendril bends, approaches the map, and in the blink of an eye, brushes the plastic ever so slightly. A chip appears right next to it that whizzes at my face, which is blocked by my shield, but in that smallest moment, I see it.

  The tendril rebounds by barely a millimeter. The distance between the plastic and the stone shows for a nanosecond. And inside of that distance lies the smallest glimpse of a spear of stone. The exact same ones Clutter and I set in the map’s border. For some reason, the stone hexagon underneath is connecting itself to the map, and it’s using the spears to do so.

  I hum and lean back, brushing away Pearl’s enhanced awareness as I glance at the other two things. The ring’s doing absolutely nothing. And the sphere has, somehow, bled away all of its plastic into a multicolour puddle that it now sits upon. It feels like they’re… incomplete. Yet, somehow, the map is complete.

  “That’s weird.” I mutter to myself and pick up the ring, slipping it back onto my finger. “I get why the ring didn’t do anything, since we didn’t actually find Well ourselves, but why not the wreath?”

  “I bet it was the tree.” Clutter says accusingly, but there’s a tinge of fear in it. “The thing gave you the sphere and the wreath, right? You didn’t pull them out of the grave yourself?”

  I click my tongue and nod. “You’re right. But what would it gain from screwing us over? Or… did it even know it was screwing us over?”

  “Um, can either of you fill me in here?” Dizzy cuts in while nervously glancing at the stuff going down in his assumedly expensive machine. “The rock didn’t do anything like that when I was studying it.”

  Clutter nudges Dizzy with his elbow. “It’s for the quest. Can’t you tell by how nothing you’re seeing makes sense? Isn’t that exactly what you said a long time ago?”

  “Don’t throw my words back at me.” Dizzy grumbles. “I worked by butt off trying to get anything out of that thing, and she just… walks in and… does whatever this is. Did you have any idea this was going to happen?”

  I can’t help but laugh as I vigorously shake my head. “Can’t say I did. But now that we’re here, we might as well watch and see what happens.”

  “What else can we do?” Dizzy mutters, but he can’t hide his tail’s excited wagging. “Can I turn the recording function on, at least? This might give me some really interesting data to look over.”

  “Sure, go ahead. Just don’t do anything that might stop whatever’s happening.”

  Dizzy shoots me an utterly appalled look. “I would never! This could be a huge discovery!”

  He hurries to a control panel on the side of the machine, taps his Class Card to it, and starts pressing on it. The glass door creaks shut, sealing the stone inside, and some simple magic starts to coat the inside of the glass like condensation on a can of cold cola. It doesn't look like it’s messing with the map’s reaction, and the sphere-wreath still isn’t doing anything, so it seems like we’re good.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “These readings are… oh my.” Dizzy breaths as his eyes widen. “I’ve never seen magic like this since… um… well, I guess I’ve never seen it, but I’ve read about it.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “It’s that rare?”

  He nods vigorously as he taps away at the panel. “Rare is an understatement. This magic is subtle, powerful, and ancient. It’s like I’m watching two tectonic plates push up against each other, except thousands of years are happening in seconds, and it’s doing really weird things. I bet Nibble would want to see this.”

  That rips my attention away from the map. I can only think of one reason why Nib would want to see the data. “Does it have something to do with Shellraiser tech?”

  A shiver works its way through Pearl at the mere mention, and she stands bolt upright as if pulled by fish hooks in her shoulders. Her gaze turns fiery and intense, yet with undertones of hope and worry fighting to show on her face. She watches Dizzy so intently that I almost feel uncomfortable for the guy, but he physically can’t notice.

  Even so, he shivers just a little. “It’s giving me slightly similar readings to the glass used in Shellraiser machines. And I have absolutely no idea why. Maybe she’ll have some reasoning that I’m just not in the right field to know.”

  “Shellraiser tech.” I mutter to myself, images of the poor mockeries I fought in the tunnels spinning through my mind. “Why does the map’s stone have similar markers to Shellraiser tech?”

  “If I could tell you, I would. Sorry.”

  I wave Dizzy’s apology away. “Just talking to myself right now, no need to apologize. Does it mean that the stone was… made the same way as the glass was? Or was it just made in the same place?”

  “Either possibility is just as valid.” Pearl sneers. “We really need to gain access to this quest now. Even more than before. It could give us some info on my quest.”

  True. I have no idea how the plastic is connected, if it even is at all, but the stone found inside of it definitely has a connection. It also explains why the ring didn’t react at all–it’s just heated up plastic, not stone. I run my tongue against the backside of my teeth as anticipation fills me with renewed vigor; this quest is way more important than I thought. More interesting, too.

  “Ooh, something else is happening.” Clutter whispers excitedly. “Look.”

  “Is it the sphere?” I ask as I turn to look.

  It definitely isn’t the sphere. The plastic on the map, now with every tendril connecting it to the other piece of stone, has blended into a mishmash of colours with no discernible shape to them. It rolls and shifts completely at random, with wisps and sparks of magic zipping every which way as something happens in the exact center of it. Something that I can’t see, but that I can feel in my awareness.

  “Oh, no, did I do that?” Dizzy grimaces, his finger diving for the shutoff.

  “No.” I state, loud and certain enough that he stops dead in his tracks. “You didn’t do anything. This is a continuation of what was happening and nothing more, so don’t blame yourself. But I might need you to open the glass in a minute.”

  He breathes a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. Just tell me when you need to get in there.”

  One side of my mouth twitches into a smile. “I’m pretty sure you’ll know when it happens. So just sit back and watch your reading until it’s time.”

  Clutter leans in close, concern written on his face. “How do you know what’s going to happen?” He whispers, though not very quietly. “Did you get a quest update?”

  I shake my head. “It’s a little more complicated than that. Maybe I’ll tell you the details someday, when they couldn’t get me arrested–or worse.”

  “Mmh. Some people are jerks.” He nods in understanding and takes a step back. “If this glass shatters, I’m definitely going to pee myself in fear.”

  I wrinkle my nose and frown at him. “Then you should back up further than that.”

  His eyes snap open wide. “Is the glass actually going to break?”

  “Hell if I know.” I shrug with a sigh. “But if you can easily prevent yourself from wetting your pants, you should do it. Like, right now. Go stand onn the other sde of the room and watch from there.”

  “Good idea.” He nods, and sprints off in the direction we came in from. My awareness feels him hunker down behind a desk, just his head from the eyes-up peeking out above it. I can’t help but laugh at the image, and halfway through, I notice Dizzy staring at me.

  “Did the readings change?”

  He slowly shakes his head. “How long have you known Clutter”

  I raise an eyebrow. “A few months, but this is only the… third? I think it’s the third day I’ve seen him in person. Why?”

  Dizzy shrugs. “No reason, really. You’re just a lot more likeable than most other people we meet. Paindne aren’t really–”

  I hold up a hand to stop him as the plastic starts to shift. He glances down at the stone and falls completely silent, a scientific focus overtaking him as he snaps down to stare at the readings. Quiet mumblings rise with his breaths, and his face rapidly shifts from confusion to excitement with a small amount of fear in between. Then he flicks a finger across the panel and the glass door unlocks with a click. I give him a nod of thanks and pull it open, leaning into the machine as a perfect rectangle of golden plastic pushes its way to the middle of the map.

  Before I can get there a lattice of plastic raises the rectangle up a foot higher, just above the bent tendrils, like a dais waiting for its sacrifice. Except my awareness screams at me that this isn’t sacrificial–it’s a gift. I summon my Class Card and gently set it down on the golden plastic rectangle. Clawed tendrils of the stuff snap out from behind the rectangle, latch onto my card, and start to reverberate.

  Less than a second passes. The tips of the scrabbling tendrils turn jet black. In the blink of an eye the black squirms up the tendrils, taking over the gold wherever it goes. First it takes the tendrils, then then rectangle, and finally the lattice of hole-filled plastic that connects it to the map. But it doesn’t stop there. All the plastic on top of the map dyes the colour of night, then even that spills over the edges of the map and wraps the stone in a blanket of glistening black.

  For the shortest of moments, color blossoms in the black. Speckles of brilliance that perfectly match the stuff filling my bite marks, and the same stuff that makes up Pearl. The map disappears. All the plastic squirms up the hole-filled lattice, hovering in midair as it too seems to funnel into my Class Card. And then, without fanfare, it’s done. The map and plastic are gone. I grab my Class Card from where it floats and bring it close to my face.

  Function Assimilated: Map.

  Location Marked: Denmary Well.