“Right, I didn’t have one of those.” I note as I swipe through my Class Card to a brand new tab, which is suitably marked ‘Map’. “Dizzy, your Class Card already has a map function, right?”

  He nods. “I got it when I got my named Class. Didn’t you have one?”

  I shake my head. “Nope. Guess I do now, though. Is the reaction done?”

  “Let me check.” He leans down and stares at the panel for a few seconds. “It looks like it is. The sphere seems like it’s made of the same stuff as the map is, but it isn’t reacting the same way. Maybe it’s incomplete?”

  “That’s my assumption, yeah.” I turn and wave Clutter over. “It’s safe to come back.”

  From behind the desk his eyes dart between me, Dizzy, and the machine. He slowly stands up, walks out from behind it, and makes his way back to us.

  “How did the map disappear?” He asks as he looks over my shoulder. “Oh, that’s weird. Your map still looks like it’s made of the plastic stuff. And it’s got a personal location marker–that’s usually super expensive.”

  “It does? Can I see?” Dizzy steps away from the panel and stands behind my other shoulder. “Wow, it does. How accurate is it? Most of them only tell you what city you’re in, and they cost… like… thirty thousand Worth.”

  I raise an eyebrow and look at my map. It definitely still looks like the slab of stone, except it’s inside of my Class Card instead of physically in front of me. The words are still there, obvious as ever, and so is something that almost completely covers Palastia’s stone-coloured stain. A simple black hexagon with what looks like vines wrapped around it.

  “How can I tell how accurate it is?” I ask as I spread my fingers on the hologram in an attempt to zoom it in. It does, and the hexagon stays exactly the same size as the map becomes more detailed. “Oh, nevermind. Looks like ‘I’ stay the same no matter how zoomed in or out the map is. Wait, why does a location marker cost thirty thousand Worth?”

  Dizzy scratches his chin while he stares intently at the map. “You’d be surprised how common it is to get teleported to a completely random place in the world. A location marker instantly tells you exactly where you are, which can save your life a hundred times over. I bought a cheap one after a quest put me on an island and told me to find a way off–if I’d had a marker, I could’ve made much better decisions.”

  “Yeah, and I don’t even have one yet.” Clutter chimes in. “Ooh, can you mark things on it? That’s another pretty expensive add-on.”

  “How would I do that?”

  He shrugs. “Try tapping on it. Maybe something will pop up?”

  That’s a very reasonable assumption. I zoom in a little further, the plastic stain that is Palastia getting even more detailed than before, until I can make out the exact building we’re in. Clutter oohs and aahs in amazement at the detail, and Dizzy furiously mumbles to himself about how the stone map actually assimilated with my Class Card. A smile tugs at my lips as I press down hard on the building, and a sharp pang of information hits my brain.

  Place Marker?

  Now that’s confirmation. I mentally say yes to the popup as I take away my finger, and a stone spear suddenly appears right through the plastic. Swirls of colour dance around it, and as I zoom back out, it stays exactly the same size. Sure, that means it kind of clips through my own location marker, but it gets the point across very clearly.

  “So it does work.” Dizzy whispers. “I wonder if anyone would’ve been able to do that, or if only you could’ve. Or… Clutter, I guess, since he was there too. But he already had a map. Would that have stopped him from getting this one?”

  Clutter pats Dizzy on the back. “It’s too late to know now. So, are we leaving right away? Or do we wait until tomorrow to check this out?”

  I almost say ‘today’ immediately, but stop myself. There’s a real chance this is going to lead us to actually getting the quest. And I made a promise to a little girl that I’d see her again tomorrow. Not that I think the quest is going to instantly teleport us away, since the Horizonguard said it didn’t start today, but… well, better safe than sorry.

  Plus, there’s still the mystery of the sphere. Maybe we need to go back to the graveyard before we do anything else. …Oh, right, the tree. Clutter said Dizzy would tell me about it.

  “Hey, Clutter, I’m going to ask Dizzy about the tree. You might want to–”

  Before I can finish, Clutter turns and bolts for the door. He opens and slams it behind himself in one swift motion, leaving me to laugh and shake my head at his fear of the thing.

  “Well, Dizzy, you heard me.” I turn to him and raise an eyebrow. “What’s the deal with Paindne and Gravekeeper Cottonwoods?”

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  At the mere mention of the ghostly tree, Dizzy’s eyes go wide and his shoulders slump with fear. “Gravekeeper… is that what you fought at the graveyard? How are you still alive?”

  “No, I didn’t fight it–the thing was just there. Hell, it barely ended up doing anything.” I sigh and cross my arms. “Just gave us some directions, a little bit of sap and groundwater, and pulled the sphere out of the plastic mound after I killed it. Now I’m worried that it’s the reason the sphere didn’t integrate with my Class Card like the map did.”

  He shudders and looks away. “You’re lucky you got one of the old ones. Most of those… things… don’t react that way to Paindne, and especially not any of us that aren’t… well… dead. Even then it barely lets us bury our dead in those graveyards before they start… trynig things.”

  That sounds shitty. “So why even bother burying your dead there in the first place? Just find somewhere else to do it.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. The second you bury someone… one of them appears.” Dizzy whips around, as if a tree had somehow snuck up on him, then breaths a shaky breath. “If you’re too close to an already existing graveyard, the tree takes the body and puts it in the graveyard. And if you’re not, you just made a brand new graveyard.”

  Hrm. What a weird quirk of the system. I can see that making it extremely hard to hide a body, or… extremely easy, depending on how you go about it. Just bury it in the range of a tree and suddenly you don’t have a problem any more. But if you can’t get in range, the appearance of a ghostly tree would set off so many alarm bells.

  So why does that make them hate Paindne? “Dizzy, why do the trees hate you?”

  “Hate is way too strong a word. It’s more like they…” He swallows hard. “Like us way too much. So much so that they’d be really, really happy if we were dead instead of alive, so we can be with them forever. It’s why we never–and I mean never–go into a graveyard alone; we’ll get pulled down to the roots and stay there.”

  I blink in astonished surprise. “The trees murder you?! That’s… a perfectly reasonable fear to have, then! Shit, I owe Clutter an apology.”

  “No, they only kill us if we’re completely alone–so it’s not that… bad.” Dizzy winces, obviously unconvinced of his own words. “Most people don’t believe us, since they never see the trees as anything but loving caretakers, but… um… have you ever loved anything so much that you just wanted to crush it?”

  …Can’t honestly say I have. Sure, I might want to hug Pearl tight enough that she squishes because of how adorable she is, but… oh. Alright, maybe I have. Unless he’s making an innuendo, but from the serious look on his face, I don’t think that’s the case.

  “Kind of, but I don’t actually want to kill her.”

  Pearl’s eyes widen, and she silently points at herself. I offer her an apologetic smile. She huffs and crosses her arms, her expression somewhere between disturbed and proud. Adorable. Which just proves my point.

  “Well, the trees don’t have those inhibitions.” Dizzy continues. “So don’t leave Clutter there alone if you need to go back. Otherwise, there haven’t been any reports of those trees hurting anyone but Paindne if you’re respectful to the graves.”

  “So you don’t think it messed with the sphere?”

  He purses his lips. “I can’t say yes or no to that. The thing seems complete to me, so maybe it just has a different activation criteria than the map does? Or it could be something completely different, and you won’t know what it does until you follow it to its destination.”

  “That’s what I was both hoping for and afraid of.” I sigh and reach for the sphere. “Thanks for your time, Dizzy. I’ll be sure to come back after the quest and fill you in on everything.”

  Dizzy smiles, though he’s obviously still shaken from talking about the trees. “Clutter promised me the exact same thing. You two just make sure you’re fine and healthy before you come running back to me, alright?”

  I wave back at him as I make my way to the door. “Will do. If you have a miraculous breakthrough before tomorrow night, send Clutter a message.”

  “I was already planning on it.” Dizzy pauses. “The message, not the breakthrough. I can’t plan those.”

  “Didn’t think you could, big guy.” I open the door and look around for Clutter, who I find staring at a glass case filled with glittering yellow stones. “See you when we see you, Dizzy!”

  “Goodbye!” He calls as I close the door, whatever else he was planning to say cut off by the soundproofing. I walk up to Clutter and pat him on the shoulder, to which he turns and starts walking with me.

  “Hey, sorry for getting on your ass about the whole graveyard thing.” I say seriously. “I didn’t know it was so serious for your people.”

  He laughs, but there’s no mirth behind it. “Yeah, well, I shouldn't have taken the job in the first place. And I could’ve just let you go in there alone after giving you a real warning. So… it’s still mostly my fault, and I have to get better about standing up for myself.”

  I raise an eyebrow as he straightens his back. It didn’t sound like he was just talking about the tree. Hopefully I’m not included in the people he wants to stand up to, but I can definitely see him having some choice words for Illumisia. Speaking of… is she done with that thing she ran off to do? Her duplicate disappeared at some point after coming in here, and the only reason I can think is if she’s on her way back.

  Clutter gently taps me on the shoulder as we leave Dizzy’s lab and enter the main building. I tilt my head in a silent question, and he takes a deep breath that feels like it's meant to muster his courage.

  “Can I please stay with all of you tonight?”

  …That’s his question? I was expecting more. “Yeah, of course you can. Actually, I technically can’t say that, since Miss S is the one letting us stay with her. So you can ask her when we go back, which is going to be right after we link up with Illumisia again.”

  His eyebrows rise at the unfamiliar name. “Is Miss S another painted dane?”

  I laugh and shake my head. “No, she is not. She’s a very generous Ogean woman. C’mon, let’s go find Illumisia and then I’ll introduce you. I’m sure she’ll love you.”