Unless there’s an invisible empty jar here, then we’ve got our hands on our first inconsistency. I hold up the jars one by one, and with each, I type in a simple question; ‘is this one of your two jars’. For the leaves and buds, the answer is simple.

  (Question Recognized)

  Yes.

  Which leaves the last jar. Process of elimination says it’s the odd one out, but I’m not counting anything out just yet. I type the question in one more time and let it fire off. Then I stare down at my Class Card for whatever the construct’s answer is. …And I keep staring for way longer than any of the other responses has taken. I raise an eyebrow at Euro, who shoots me back a puzzled look.

  “Is it not working?” Jumble interrupts. “Should I go see if the construct’s acting weird? I’m going to go see if it’s acting weird. Back in a second.”

  She backs out of the doorway and nearly sprints back towards the construct. Even though she could see the thing if she just looked down the hallway. I sigh and roll my eyes, set the jar of petals down on the shelf, and crack my knuckles. My awareness hasn’t warned me of anything magical since the subquest got settled in, and even opening the jars didn’t trigger anything. The quest must’ve planned for anyone who can sense magic, since we could’ve made this subquest incredibly easy in a few heartbeats.

  Euro clears their throat to get my attention. I raise an eyebrow as I give them a nod to go ahead.

  “What’s the point of this subquest?”

  I shrug. “Who knows. Maybe the quest just wants us to work so we can access our full Class Card again.”

  “No, not–not like that. I mean… it’s more like…” Euro trails off as they grasp emptily at the air. “The construct says we’re looking for things that are out of place. Shouldn’t that be important? Like, are these petals symbolic of something we’re supposed to already know? If there’s something wrong with this place, then how did it go wrong?”

  “Why did something go wrong in the construct’s apartment.” I chuckle to myself with a shake of my head. “This is probably a… recreation, or a simulation, of something that’ll be important later. We got our messenger back and we learned that we can use it to communicate with the constructs. Now we can probably go back into the hallways, talk to them, and figure out what the quest actually wants us to do next.”

  Euro frowns even as they nod slightly. “I can see where you’re coming from, but I’m… I’m just trying to figure out the right now. What’s so important about this specific scenario that we’re seeing it? Every quest I’ve ever seen involves the most important moments. What’s important about this moment?”

  “Mm. They have a point.” Pearl drums her fingers against her lips in thought. “If this is just a random room with a convoluted ‘spot the differences’ puzzle, then we could’ve done it in any of the apartments Clutter found before this. Why is this one any different?”

  Damn, Pearl agrees. That means I’m outnumbered. I cross my arms and lean back against the sink, my gaze locked squarely on the jar of petals. Even if the two of them weren’t in agreement, I’d have come to the same conclusion eventually. Probably just after we found a few more anomalies and it started to become even less clear what we were looking for. I glance down at the Class Card between my fingers, then turn to stare out the door. Jumble’s right there fiddling with the construct, but she’s… well… fiddling with it.

  “The hell’s taking her so long?” I wonder aloud and push off the sink.

  Euro nods in agreement. “Just taking a look shouldn’t take this long. Want me to go check on her?”

  “Nah, I’ll go myself. You move on to the next room.”

  They flash me a thumbs-up before gently nudging by and rounding the corner. I watch them with my awareness for a few seconds just in case they go to warn Jumble, but they just go into another room and start the search up again. The bedroom, to be specific. Meaning this place has a living room slash kitchen, wetroom, and a bedroom. There must be somewhere for storage, too, but it isn’t obvious to my awareness. Maybe that’s another anomaly.

  I raise my Class Card one last time, sighing when nothing new comes up, and grab the jar of petals as I make my way to Jumble and the construct. She turns the moment I step out of the wetroom, no obvious guilt at being caught on her face, and… waves me over. Reluctance stays my feet for a few moments. Something feels off, but my awareness isn’t picking up on anything. Time crawls along, and just before Jumble has time to get fidgety, I set my jaw and walk up to her.

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  “What’s worth the wave?”

  Jumble pats the thing on the shoulder. “It’s broken.”

  The sound that snarfs up from my throat from utter disbelief is anything but proper. “Excuse me?”

  “Yeah, I was super confused too, but look right here.” She pushes its shoulder, pivoting the thing until I can get a good look at its back. Where a horrible, jagged gouge tears it from shoulder to hip. “This wasn’t here before, and there’s no plastic around here that would’ve come from the wound. Something made it after I left the room.”

  It doesn’t take a genius to assume exactly when it happened. “Right when I asked about the third jar?”

  Jumble nods. “That’s what I think. Do you think this is part of the ‘things that are wrong’ it asked us to find? Because it feels like something that’s wrong.”

  “If it is, that’s one bitch of a quest progression.” I whistle as I run my fingers through the wound. Even though it looks jagged, the inside is perfectly smooth. Like polished marble. “Means we’ve lost our only way to confirm if anything’s out of the ordinary. Haaah, shit. Do you think the quest would really take out our only real way forward this quickly?”

  “Nope.” Jumble answers without a moment’s hesitation. “There’s definitely some way we can fix this. It’d be a pretty bad quest if there wasn’t. Well, one filled with a lot of guesswork, anyway.”

  “We don’t even know how to actually finish the quest.”

  “That, too. Um… sorry again for groping you like that. I promise I won’t do it again.”

  I wave her off. “Go search with Euro. I’ll take over checking this place out.”

  Jumble deflates at my lack of a response. With a dejected nod, she trods away to join her party member in searching the bedroom. My mind wants to twinge with sympathy because she’s acting a little like Clutter, but Clutter never did anything like she did. I mean, how socially stunted do you have to be to not know how invasive it is to grope someone like that?

  I take a deep breath through my nose and slowly un-grit my teeth. Gotta stop working myself up over this. Once the quest is over, I never have to see these people again. They deserve as much dedicated memory space as whatever I ate for lunch on a random Thursday in the third grade. …Probably a peanut butter sandwich, knowing me, but… nevermind. Bad analogy.

  “Wait!” She turns on her heel, frantic realization twisting her face into a mess of worry. “Didn’t something just rip a chunk out of the construct? Shouldn’t we be… like… super worried?!”

  “Probably just some invisible monster. Or it’s out of phase, and for some reason, it can touch the construct.” I pat the thing on the back for emphasis. “Don’t worry; I’ll protect you two.”

  Jumble looks at me like I’ve got two heads. “How am I not supposed to worry about this? We’re stuck in here with an invisible monster!”

  “Or it’s out of phase.” I calmly reiterate. “Just be careful and keep an eye and ear out for anything suspicious. You’ll be fine.”

  “I… you… we…” Her mouth opens and closes slowly as her brain gets to work. “Um… uh…”

  With the snap of her teeth clicking together, Jumble spins back around and shakily walks into the bedroom. I can’t help but crack a smile at her reaction before I go back to studying the construct’s body. My fingers trace along the gouge once more, trailing along the edges and pressing deep into the wound itself. All it does is confirm how strangely smooth the actual damage is.

  “It isn’t jagged like the ones the stain made.” Pearl notes. “In fact, it’s almost… professional? Is that the right word?”

  I tap on a new message box, the other one with the message that bricked the construct sitting there in limbo, and start typing. ‘Gets the intent through good enough. Any residual traces of anything that could’ve done this?’

  She instantly shakes her head. “Nothing at all. I didn’t feel anything with my awareness, either; the wound just appeared there the instant your message bolt hit the construct.”

  …Right at that exact instant, huh? ‘Do you think the message itself did the damage to the construct? Is that even possible?’

  “Definitely. The question is; why would it do that? If it’s irreparable, the subquest becomes way harder to complete. And if we can fix it, then it becomes a completely different subquest altogether.” Pearl glances at the construct and frowns. “Try deleting your message. Maybe that’ll do something.”

  I guess if sending a message can damage the construct, there’s about as much logic that deleting one could repair it. With a quick flick of my finger I slide the message box off to the side, deleting it from my Class Card. A bolt of magic flickers–but not from me. It rolls over the construct’s entire body, covering it like a greasy sheen. Where it travels almost nothing happens, except for the inches it trails over the wound.

  Like paint smearing over a crack in a wall, the sheen fills the wound as it goes. The actual motion takes a fraction of a second, but as I watch it travel, it doesn’t feel like I’m watching the construct get healed. It’s more like I’m witnessing it get damaged in reverse. Once the sheen reaches the top of the wound it coalesces in a bead of magic that snaps back to my Class Card with an audible ‘pop’.

  “What was that?!” Jumble calls from the other room.

  Noise–and that’s the best description of it–alerts me to a new message. The construct shudders, limited motion restored to it by the retraction of my message. I hold up my Class Card as the pair stumble out of the bedroom, taking in the new words that almost shimmer brilliant silver against the holographic surface. They look absolutely nothing like the construct’s other responses.

  Key Information Found: Jar of Petals

  This information hurts to hear.

  Use it carefully.