As the rising sun beats down on us, with Clutter standing proudly next to the rock, a sense of unease worms its way into my heart. Staring at the strange plastic-like… stuff… inside is just so against anything I’m used to. But it shouldn’t be. I’ve seen way weirder stuff than this. So why is this bothering me?

I scratch my chin and lean in close to the boulder. A soft squelching barely emerges from the plastic, quiet enough that I only feel it through my awareness. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was alive. But Clutter put it in his inventory, which should go against it being anything close to that–since I highly doubt the system despises this random plastic stuff as much as it hates Pearl.

“So? What do you think?” Clutter raises his chin with pride. “You can dig into the core and pull out a few handfuls of the plastic stuff for yourself. It’s probably going to be super important for the quest.”

Can’t really debate that. Even though I really want to–sticking my hands into a mass of… partially molten plastic… isn’t really my idea of fun. But I… shit, why am I so against this? Is the damn stuff putting out a signal to make me nervous about it? That’s… actually completely possible. More than possible, even, and I’m just a little too sensitive to magic so I get hit with it and Clutter doesn’t.

I flip a coin into my fingers and push purification into it. The salty magic bursts free in an instant, and all the sensations slip away. It feels like I’m finally staring at the mass of plastic for the first time—and wondering why the hell it has a defence mechanism against specifically magically sensitive people.

“Clutter, did you feel anything weird with this thing?”

He tilts his head to the side in thought. “I think so? It made me feel a little icky when I stood too close, but when I pulled some plastic out, it went away. A bunch of the other Paindne said they didn’t feel anything, so I didn’t bother bringing it up.”

“Those other Paindne–did they have classes?”

“Nope. Well, not stat-related classes, you know; just the base ‘class’. Oh, except for Dizzy and a few of his friends. They… all said they felt something, too.” Clutter pauses as realization lights his face. “Oh. It only did something to people with real classes. That makes so much sense. Do you think I’m already on the list for the quest just from taking some plastic? Was it trying to entice us into taking it?”

“If that’s enticement, then I’ve been doing it wrong my entire life.” I chuckle and stick my hand into the mass. It squelches around my fingers, but when I grab down, it pulls away like pastry dough. “Ick, yuck, I hate that.”

Clutter leans down and peers into the boulder. “You do? I thought it felt kind of nice.”

“To each their own, I guess.” I mutter as I toss the heart-sized lump from hand to hand. It’s pure orange–the colour of Fleur’s inner glow. “How the hell did this happen? All the stuff in there is a weird swirl of unmixing colour.”

“I have no idea.” Clutter says proudly. “Each of the colours comes away on its own for some reason, and even though it sticks to the other stuff, it won’t ever mix. The makeup’s exactly the same for all the colours, though, so it shouldn’t be doing this.”

I send the lump into my inventory and reach in for a second. “It’s probably some weird enchantment keeping it from mixing. Or maybe there’s an extremely minor difference that whatever equipment you used couldn’t detect.”

This time, I take hold of a clump of deep azure stuff that feels exactly like the orange. It seems like there should be a difference, but there really isn’t. I pull out my Class Card in my open hand, swipe over to my inventory, and send the plastic lump into it. Instead of going into a new, open square, it just… disappears.

I frown and scan my slots just in case I missed something. The first few scans show absolutely nothing, but upon closer look, it’s there. In the same slot as the orange lump, swirled together without ever mixing. I pull it out and hold the larger lump in one hand, staring at it with obvious suspicion as if it’d suddenly jump away.

Obviously it doesn’t. And after a minute I put it back and send my Class Card away with a sigh and a shake of my head.

“So the system even sees it as the same thing. Then why won’t it mix? Why’s there even more than one colour?” I shove my hand back into the mass and dig deep as dozens of colours shift by. “There’s gotta be something even slightly important here that we’re missing. Is there less of one colour? Does one go into a different slot than all the others? Is one specific colour missing?”

Clutter shakes his head. “We already did all that. There was a perfectly equal amount of all the colours, they all go into the same inventory slot, and the boulder keeps regenerating whatever we take out. If we still need to find something for the quest, it isn’t here.”

“Which is why you have Dizzy working on it.” I nod and step away, shaking my hand to get the plasticy sensation off. “What about the smaller rocks you found the plastic in? Those stayed in strands, right?”

“Yes, they did. But they all went into the same inventory slot. Here, let me show you.” Clutter raises both his hands, then summons the plastic. His right fills with worm-like strands, and his left fills with a lump. “These both go in the same slot, but I have to pull them out separately. I can’t make the lump turn into strands, and I can’t make the strands go into the lump.”

That sounds like a very important thing to mention. I have no idea why, but it’s definitely part of this. Maybe… hrm. If there’s two kinds of plastic already, how many other kinds are there? Do we need to find all of them to get in on the quest?

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I reach up and tap Pearl’s shell to get her input. She lets out a long breath and shrugs.

“Don’t look at me–this doesn’t have anything to do with the Shellraisers. Whatever this stuff is wasn’t around way back when.” She frowns, then cutely tilts her head to the side. “Maybe that’s a clue? The system had to have put the stuff in somewhere, so whatever the quest is, it… um… honestly, I’m kind of grasping at straws here. Sorry.”

With a shake of my head, Pearl goes right back to watching. Clutter somehow didn’t notice any of that, since he’s too preoccupied with the plastic, but it does bring up the question; what kind of quest are we getting ourselves into? Is it the venture into a dungeon to find riches kind, or the long research-driven discovery kind? Because I’m definitely more into the first option.

“Alright. You’ve obviously got a few other leads, Clutter. Lay them on me. I don't care how speculative they are, or if they’re even possible to follow-up on–we don’t have the time to worry about that shit.”

He snaps off a very serious salute, then pulls out his Class Card and flips through it. “There’s five things I haven’t investigated yet; everything else was a dead end. Four of them are possible to do, and I don’t know anyone with high enough clearance for the fifth. Do you still want to hear all of them?”

I shoot him a flat, unamused look. He fidgets and looks away as he clears his throat, and in one rambling go, he belts out the options.

“Right. Okay. Sorry. The first thing is a report from a camp in the west that detailed a river that looked like someone dumped melted crayons into it. Second is a kid who apparently saw a tall thing walking on two spindly legs above really tall grains in one of the farms around Palastia. Third is a jewelry shop that sold three gemstones that looked just like the plastic–but they were apparently as hard as diamonds. And fourth–which I don’t really want to look into–is a bulging grave at the cemetery where a colourful worm popped through the soil.”

He pauses to take a breath deep enough to push out his chest, then continues.

“They’re all still hearsay, and I just haven’t gotten around to checking on them yet. From all the thirty-eight leads I looked into before this, only four helped at all–one to track the small rocks with plastic, two to talk to people who bought it from random people, and one last one that led me to right here. Well, not right here, since I didn’t actually find the boulder until about a week afterwards and completely at random. Oh, and the fifth one is a rumor that someone in the horizonguard already knows how to start the quest. But I don’t know anyone who can confirm–”

“It’s true.” I cut in.

“W-what?” He stutters, his flow completely destabilized by my sudden interjection. “You… it’s… w-what?”

“Like I said; it’s true. There’s a horizonguard that knows how to start the quest. Or, well, he knows how to get into the quest–the start date is apparently the same no matter what.” I raise an eyebrow at Clutter. “Didn’t you get that from how many times I said ‘we’re running short on time’?”

Clutter laces his fingers together and looks down at the ground. “That’s bad. That’s really bad. I thought we had more time, but if we don’t… I’m not close enough to the answer. Or maybe I am, and I just don’t know it, but that doesn’t matter at all, does it? We could be walking right around the answer and if we don’t know it we’re still technically not close at all to finding out the truth.”

I nod in agreement. “Sounds about right to me. So we need to get moving right now.”

Before Clutter can start on another worry-filled tirade, I pull out a coin and ready Twist Fate. I really need to experiment some more to see how far I can get ‘likely’ to stretch by its definition, but for right now, I can cut out search options down to two. I focus on the first and second options Clutter said–the crayon river and the monster in the farms–and flick the coin into the air.

“Heads for river, tails for farm. Best to…” I pause as the coin hits its apex. Let’s try something else. “Best for me to find the plastic quest.”

Twist Fate.

Heads or Tails.

Best or Worst.

It’s never as clean as black or white.

Call it.

I frown as the world slows to a crawl. “Best for me to find the plastic quest.”

Wording incompatible.

Please rephrase the desired outcome.

Oh, so the newly-evolved skill is a stickler for grammar. That’s going to be annoying later on. Actually… maybe it might let me get a little more specific with my requests. Another thing to add to the list of experiments, I guess. After taking a moment to think on exactly how to phrase this, I clear my throat and stare directly at the frozen coin.

“Point me towards the lead that’s the most likely to get me access to the quest.”

Please specify which ‘quest’ you are attempting to access.

“The quest associated with the plasticy stuff in the boulder.”

Understood.

The coin slams into my upturned palm as the world returns to normal. Clutter flinches away with a yelp, and I quickly glance down at the coin as I ready to flip it again. It landed on tails, meaning the monster in the farm is a better lead than the river. Then again, it could mean it’s a better lead–not necessarily the right one. I flick the coin into the air again.

“Heads for jewelry store, tails for graveyard.”

Twist Fate reactivated.

Make your request.

I repeat exactly what I said to the system the last time, and no more text appears. The coin slams back down into my palm, and–

Sharp pain lances through my palm. I wince as blood wells up under the coin, and Clutter scurries up to me with blatant concern in his eyes. He grabs my hand and pulls it close to his face before I can get a look at how the coin landed.

“I’m fine, Clutter. Just a little blood.” I assure him. “I’ll heal in a few minutes as long as it isn’t too deep.”

He doesn’t let go. “That’s a weird coin.”

“What?” I pull my hand away to get a good look. “...Oh. What the hell.”

Staring up at me from inside a pool of growing blood is my coin. Split perfectly down the middle, with one half showing tails and the other showing heads.