Jumble stares at the wall as she bites her lip. I clear my throat with a vigorous ‘ER-HRM’, startling her to a staggering, arm-whirling spin that ends with her looking at me like a deer in headlights.

  “I didn’t mean to!” She says quickly. “How was I supposed to know it’d trigger the thing?”

  I step in. Jumble doesn’t move. “That’s not what I’m worried about. How the hell did you know to touch that spot?” I turn to Euro with a half-grunt, half breath. “Did you see anything there before Jumble touched it?”

  Euro quickly glances over at Jumble. She widens her eyes in a plea for help.

  “It was, like, a little bump. Yeah! Almost like… the wall got bit by a bug.” Euro explains erratically. “When Jumble touched it, the bump flattened out and all that magic just poured out. There’s nothing suspicious about it at all.”

  Jumble nods vigorously. “Yes, a bump! It squished under my finger and pushed the magic out. That’s exactly what happened.”

  Yeah, I don’t believe that for a second. The way Jumble’s hands were placed on the wall made it look like she was framing something with her fingers. If they had a little time to prepare, they would’ve factored that into their excuse. Instead, Euro improvised a story that might’ve been believable if I wasn’t paying any attention at all. Not sure if right now is the time to confront them on that, though, since the subquest’s going to manifest any second now.

  Miasma brushes against my cheek as if to prove me right. I grimace and motion out of the room to where the magic seems to be flowing towards. “We’ll talk about this later. For now, we need to make sure the quest doesn’t kill any one of us just from manifesting in this place.”

  Jumble and Euro share a look, then hurry past me into the ‘living room’ in apartment terms. Neither of them ask where they need to stand, but somehow, they both beeline for the exact place that the miasma’s swirling around–and not in.

  “Is this stuff visible?” I mutter quietly.

  Pearl slowly shakes her head. “I… don’t think so. They must have strong senses.”

  Somehow, combined with the fact that Jumble knew exactly where to touch, I don’t think that’s the entire explanation. There’s a skill or spell at work here; maybe a passive since I haven’t felt any changes in either of them since we got in here. I didn’t think I’d have to keep an eye on them in this particular way, but if I want to keep Pearl a secret from them, I’ll have to be really damn careful.

  “Are you coming?” Jumble calls from around the corner. “The magic’s getting thicker!”

  …Aaand she confirms that she can, indeed, feel it. Or see it, or–whatever. There’s no way she’s trying to hide it. Nobody’s this bad at keeping a secret. I slowly breathe in through my nose, then exhale long and hard as I close my eyes and make my way back to the living room. Jumble’s eyes light up as I round the corner for some reason, and she gestures wildly for me to step into the eye of the magical miasmic storm. Like a mom desperately trying to get her five year old to walk away from a coyote the kid mistook as a dog.

  Jumble sighs in relief as I step into the safer area. “I thought you were brainwashed or something. Psychics are apparently really scary, you know!”

  “Yes, they are.” I confirm flatly. “No ‘apparently’ needed. Have either of you gotten notifications yet?”

  Euro shakes their head as Jumble pulls out her class card to check. “I haven’t felt anything yet.”

  “Nothing here, either.” Jumble agrees. “I bet we have to wait for the magic to do its stuff. All the plastic won’t put itself together, you know?”

  “It definitely… won’t…” I trail off as the words leave Jumble’s mouth. “What’d you just call it?”

  Jumble tilts her head to the side. “Plastic?”

  I nod slowly. “What is plastic, Jumble?”

  She studies my face with a frown. “Is that a trick question? Plastic’s a word. You said it a few times while we were walking, too, so you should know it. Especially because you’re a human. We didn’t know what it was until we talked to some humans a few years ago, right, Euro?”

  “Mmhm.” Euro confirms.

  “See?” Jumble gestures at Euro. “Why’re you freaking out over one simple word?”

  “I… no real reason, I guess.” I say sheepishly. Just because Clutter and Clamber hadn’t heard of plastic before, it’s wrong to assume other people haven’t. But something still doesn’t quite sit right. Could be my imagination, though. “My bad for freaking out.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Jumble smiles brightly. “You’re forgiven.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive for.” Euro mumbles quietly.

  I ignore Euro’s words, since it almost feels like they want me to, and watch the plasticy grey miasma swirl over every nook and cranny in the apartment. Nothing’s left behind in its wake, but magic sort of swells at random places; a pocket of the stuff here, a blob of it there, and a few big masses of the stuff dotted around the living room like ethereal bean bag chairs. Jumble watches the whirl closely, eyes darting around at each new deposit of magic. Euro just stares around without any rhyme or reason.

  So it is Jumble that can see. The room was almost confirmation, but their reactions now prove it. I watch Jumble out of the corner of my vision as the miasma thickens, waiting to see if her reactions are even a little delayed compared to what my awareness senses. A five-foot tall mass of magic deposits itself right in front of where we came in from. Her eyes snap to it at the very first moment the magic solidifies in my awareness.

  Just as fast as me. That’s dangerous.

  “What the heck is that?” Jumble points at the mass of magic. “It feels… weird.”

  I raise an eyebrow. The thing feels just like all the other masses of magic to me–magical, plasticy, and grey. Even as I squint to focus my awareness on the thing, nothing changes. Whatever she’s feeling–I can’t.

  A howl splits the air as the miasmic storm picks up. Euro makes a noise deep in their throat and grabs Jumble’s arm, who puts her hand on Euro’s and smiles assuredly. I flip a shield coin through my knuckles just in case something careens out of the magic and makes a pass at us–like another plasticy stain. Things drop out of the storm one by one–furniture, trinkets, clothing, magic-esque stuff–until the apartment looks like it’s been thoroughly lived in.

  Except the style is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. All the clothes are long, flowy, and look like they’d drape over me like a cloth jellyfish. Calling the pads of… stuff… with straps on them ‘shoes’ feels too generous. Sponges with string is a better descriptor, but the indents in the material in the shape of a paindne foot proves their use. Even the furniture is draped with thin sheets of fabric, coating each and every piece in a myriad of bright colours.

  It looks foreign, yet familiar enough to register as someone’s home. Just a completely different style and culture that I’m not familiar with in the slightest. None of the seats have backs, all the table legs are extremely thick and reinforced–albeit with dents and wings in the material–and as I already noted, there’s a shit ton of fabric sheets everywhere. I scratch my neck as my eyes trail over shelves and hanging baskets full of random stuff, then focus on the lone mass of magic that hasn’t solidified yet.

  “Hrm. Maybe there is something different about it.” I muse and step out of the safety circle. “No notifications yet, though. How much more does the quest have to make?”

  Jumble shrugs as she beelines for a seat and flops down on it. Her tail easily falls on the other side into a space between the chair and the wall that’s suspiciously wide enough for a wagging paindne tail. If it wasn’t already obvious enough that this place is entirely made for paindne. Euro glances around before flopping down into a beanbag that squashes like a fabric marshmallow under them, setting the two sheets of thin colourful fabric atop it to flutter unnaturally. They shift awkwardly as the fabric rises like kelp at the bottom of the ocean, then sigh in defeat and relax into the material.

  “Already relaxing.” I state with displeasure. “Unless you know something I don’t, I’d recommend the two of you get off your asses and get ready for the quest to start for real.”

  “But you said you’d protect us. And my feet are tired.” Jumble grabs her right leg with both hands and holds it up as if I can see her muscle fatigue. “What’s the worst that can happen in, like, five minutes? That’s all we need. Right?”

  She turns to Euro, who nods with a yawn. I roll my eyes with a barely stifled sigh of annoyance and focus on the pair with my awareness. There’s still one mass of magic that Jumble herself pointed out as strange. To shift from worried to completely unbothered like this… well, it seems like they’re being controlled. But they could just as easily be actually tired–even though we didn’t push ourselves at all on the jog over here.

  Damn, I miss when I just had to worry about Clutter not being able to match my top speed. He had legitimate reasons to be tired after our exploration sessions. I grip my coin a little tighter, the strange sensation of… a lack of danger seeping into my skin with a lazy insistence. Something’s weird about this. I want my skin to crawl, but it just refuses to.

  Hello.

  Welcome.

  My Home Is Your Home Is My Home Is My Home Is Wrong.

  The notification flows over my eyes in a shifting string of words. The third sentence rolls over again and again, using only those five words ad nauseum. I grimace at the lack of urgency the thing brings and turn to watch the five-foot tall stain condense into a plastic paindne construct. One with a flat nose, stubby tail, and eyes that almost bulge out of their sockets. With a creaky wave of one hand, the construct opens its mouth and another notification flows over my eyes.

  Something is wrong with my apartment.

  I don’t know what it is.

  Please help me find what’s wrong before you leave.

  …

  Objective: Find what’s wrong.

  “That’s it.” I state with a shake of my head. “Should’ve figured we wouldn’t get any real instructions. Check your Class Card–see if anything’s been un-greyed.”

  Jumble pauses for a second, then nods and pulls out her Class Card again. I do the same, flipping through my tabs for a glimpse of anything that’s newly revealed itself. It takes less than ten seconds to stumble on the answer; my communications tab is completely revealed again. A bunch of static greys out all the names that aren’t in the quest with me, and Clutter has a small grey ‘X’ next to his name. I tap on it anyway just to make sure, but it doesn’t even bring up his messages. All the others’ history comes up, even if I can’t type anything to them, but apparently I can’t even check Clutter’s message history if his messenger is greyed out.

  “Looks like we’ll need the messenger for this one.” I tap my screen as I look over my shoulder at Jumble. “Did you have a messenger function before this, or did the quest give it to you?”

  “I had one before.” She says a little too quickly. “Euro, too. How do you know we’ll need the messenger for this?”

  I smirk and take a step towards the construct. “Call it good instincts. Now, let’s see if this thing’s as chatty as I hope it’ll be.”