The system made… the house. I want to speak up and point out how strange that sounds, but the more I look around, the more the argument leaves me. It just doesn’t look like anything a person would ever live in–nevermind actually build. None of the logs that make up the walls have anything connecting them, the stairs aren’t lined up right with the second floor, and everything is way too smooth for something made of these materials.

  “I think you’re right.” I narrow my eyes at the door across the room, which looks scarily like the one we came in through. “Wonder if we took a really close look if all of those logs would be exactly the same. Like… the system just copy-pasted one single entity it had saved over and over again.”

  Illumisia snorts and shakes her head. “The system is not this sloppy. It has created detailed works of art and complex structures that do not so much as detract from the environment around them; no, this is purposeful. Though I cannot pretend to understand what that purpose may be.”

  “Because it wants us to know. Plain and simple.” Pearl mutters. “Are all the houses like this, Illumisia? Or is this the only one?”

  “There are other houses that are perfect copies of this one and other buildings that have no signs of system interference.” Illumisia nods at the stairs, and in a blur of red, appears on the second floor. “My personal assumption is that it planted these buildings here to make the village appear more populated than it originally was, but again, I cannot fathom why it would want to do that.”

  “No ideas here yet.” I say as I carefully start climbing the stairs. “Are we sure the system isn’t messing with us by making some buildings shitty and others unassumingly fine? Because that’s what I’d do if I was in its shoes and trying to be a dick.”

  Illumisia shrugs. “There is always that possibility. Yet Clutter was confident that there was, indeed, a village here. I see no reason to doubt his claim, and so I must assume that the system’s modifications are where we need to be searching.”

  Sound logic. I take one slightly-too-large step from the top stair to the upper floor as I survey the layout, which doesn’t look any different from what I felt in my awareness. It’s all a loft, with the beams for the roof holding themselves up without anything obvious to help, and there’s absolutely no furniture at all. Just a bunch of ugly brown rugs pushed into a corner.

  I nod at them. “Are those important?”

  “They have no patterns, fibers, or anything that should be useful in the slightest.” Illumisia saunters over to one of them and pulls it own with her teeth. “They are one mass of material with a texture that imitates fibrousness, but that actually is completely solid. None of my tests provided any results, which leaves us with the tests that I cannot conduct.”

  “The plastic.” Pearl says as I’m already taking a chunk out of my inventory. “Maybe it’ll work like the map and show us some pictures.”

  I lean down over the rug while Illumisia steps away. Touching it feels like putting my fingers against a woven straw mat, but the thing distorts like wool. The gulf between sensations sends an uncomfortable shiver down my spine.

  “The map did lead us here.” I say and drop a handful of plastic on the rug. “It’d make sense if it used the same logic as revealing the map did to show us where to go.”

  As the plastic squirms on the rug, I take a step back and wait for the colours to start shifting. The stuff twitches, squelches, and ripples… but it doesn’t actually change. It doesn't spread out like it did on the map, doesn’t change colours, and it definitely doesn’t look like it’s going to be helpful any time soon. But just in case it takes a while, I’ll give it a minute.

  I stare hard at the stuff for all of twenty seconds before I lean down and send it back to my inventory. “Well, that’s a bust. I guess we should try all the other rugs first, though, just in case only one of them works.”

  “If we’re doing that, then we should flip it over and try the other side too.” Pearl suggests. “Since it’s one solid mass, the plastic can’t seep through it. Who knows; maybe the other side will have the clues we’re looking for?”

  Both Illumisia and I sigh in annoyance, but she gets to pulling out another rug while I flip the first one over. Pearl sighs and rolls her eyes.

  “You two are being so overdramatic.”

  “The system is aggravating. I am simply letting it know.” Illumisia says.

  I nod in agreement. “What she said, but add ‘murderous’ and ‘an asshole’ to ‘aggravating.”

  Illumisia laughs through a mouthful of cloth. “I accept your additions.”

  Pearl smiles knowingly. “I knew you two could be friends.”

  A frown crosses my lips as I lock eyes with Illumisia. I fully expect to see disgust, or even the remnants of hated, but… I just see amusement. Sarcastic amusement, sure, but it’s way friendlier than I thought it’d ever be. When the hell did that happen?

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “She still won’t call me Shelby.”

  “No, I will not, system-born.” Illumisia says with a lick of her lips and a smirk. “When you have earned it, I will address you by your name. Until then, you are stuck with your designation.”

  I roll my eyes and smooth out the rug, then droop a gglobo of plastic on it. A flck of my wrist sends another glob to the one Illlumisia’s in the process of smoothing out, and she shoots me a look so dry that I almost want to get a glass of water.

  “Really?”

  I shrug. “A lowly system-born can be petty. You, the all-powerful megalodane, have to take the high road.”

  She snorts out a quick laugh. “I made my living on the low road. Now we walk it side by side. Do hurry with this annoyance; Clutter must be worrying himself sick over absolutely nothing, and he gets quite difficult when he works himself up.”

  Yeah, yeah. I’m on it. Not like either of the globs I already put down are doing anything to keep an eye on.

  Ten minutes and no results later, we’re done. I walk out onto the street with Illumisia hot on my heels, plastic back in my inventory, and Clutter’s relocation coin in my hand. I flick it into the middle of the street and take a step back, just in case, and flare the spell. Clutter appears with a yelp of surprise and one of his feet a good two feet in the air, hops around while trying to catch his balance, and finally manages to steady himself.

  “I’m okay! Perfectly fine and okay! Ooh, weird houses.” He notes, instantly shifting gears without an explanation for whatever he was doing beforehand. “Whatever those logs are, they aren’t native to the woods around here. Did the system mess up with making them?”

  I raise my eyebrows in surprise. “Yeah, that’s what we thought. I didn’t think you’d figure that out so fast.”

  “Well, I’d be a pretty bad scout if I couldn’t at least do this. I was up for a few hours last night studying maps and pictures I could find, just in case something like this happened, and I guess it was worth it!” He smiles proudly and puts his hands on his hips. “So… what are we looking for again? A well?”

  “We are looking for anything out of place.” Illumisia informs him. “The houses were merely the most obvious, and we have already checked them for danger. You are safe to examine them as closely as you wish.”

  He nods excitedly as his tail starts to wag. “Okay! Is anything reacting yet?”

  I shake my head. “No reactions from the plastic, sphere, or map. Whatever the point of the system’s interference here, we haven’t found it yet.”

  “That makes sense. The system works in really mysterious ways. Can I check out the houses now?”

  “Knock yourself out.” I say with a gesture at the house we just left. “Yell really loud if you find anything worth checking out.”

  “I will!” He confirms as he scampers to the door, pauses to examine it, then throws it open and disappears into the house. “Oh, wow, this place is really not made well! It looks like some kind of display model a house building company would have!”

  If that’s a company’s display model, I’m pretty sure they’d be out of business within weeks. I wait a few seconds just in case Clutter has something else he wants to yell through the door, but it looks like he’s gone into investigation mode. Illumisia nudges my leg to get me moving, and I don’t resist as she pushes me towards a building that doesn't look anywhere near as shitty as the houses.

  Even if it isn’t obviously bad, there’s something off about it. A sign with a treasure chest and coins marks it as a bank–and as we walk in, my assumption is proved right. There’s a dozen private booths, a desk for a receptionist to sit, and a lot of chairs for people to wait in. But in the back of the room, where the vault should be, is an open hole of half-burnt metal into another room that looks like it's been ransacked.

  Metal drawers and cabinet doors lie haphazardly on the ground, footsteps in ash around them immortalizing whatever looting attempt took the last of this place’s funds. I wave Illumisia off to have her check out the majority of the bank and step into the vault to get a closer look.

  The first thing that hits me is the smell. Old metal, stagnant water, and the slight char of burnt wood. I wrinkle my nose at the shift from absolutely no scent to the wall of sensations, take a very quick look around, then step back out the moment I can justify it.

  “Are you done already?” Illumisia asks quizzically. “You… what is that scent?”

  I thumb at the vault with a frown. “Inside there. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think the system put some amazing ventilation in this place and completely forgot about the vault. Actually… wait. Why does it look like someone blew up the vault door, but the rest of the bank is in perfect condition?”

  “Huh, yeah, that’s weird.” Pearl looks from the vault to the tables as she rubs her chin. “There should be a lot of debris and collateral damage, but there’s absolutely nothing. Almost like they purposefully rebuilt the bank without bothering to rebuild the vault.”

  “If the system did this, then it did it for a reason.” I turn and pull my shirt over my mouth and nose. “Guess I’m going back in.”

  Scents and sensations bombard me from all angles as I walk back into the vault. They’re no stronger or weaker than before, but knowing that I’m going to be standing here for a minute or two puts a tear in my eye. I beeline for the spaces where the drawers were supposed to go, hundreds of square holes lining the walls for me to check. Most of them have nothing at all. Some of them have chunks of rotting things, or rocks, or pools of standing water. There’s definitely not enough drawers on the ground to fill all of these, so whoever looted the place must’ve taken the majority of them.

  Or maybe they were missing before that; who really knows? Once my awareness double-checks them all for me I move on to the larger spaces down below, with individual cabinets and shelves for larger things. Again I find evidence of wildlife, rain, and overgrowth. Which makes absolutely no sense for this to be in the same place as a refurbished bank.

  “It’s like the system rebuilt the bank, but left the vault intact.” I note as I step away from the last space. “I think we need to check the other buildings. There’s got to be a reason for this.”