Well Maryden. Marywell Den. Denmary Well. Three names. Three words. All in places my skill told me would lead us to the quest. Even if I was the dumbest person on this planet, I’d be able to recognize this pattern. I hold my tongue as Clamber leads me into a lavish half break room half workshop, beelines for a couch without the back cushions, and sits down.

She pats the cushion next to her. “Come sit down! Do you have some squirmstone here right now? Can I see it?”

I walk to the couch and summon half a pound of plastic, which I place on a table in front of the couch. Clamber’s eyes go wide with disbelief, and her tail wags against the floor as she leans in and pulls on her gloves. While she’s busy prodding at the mass with oohs and aahs, I take a seat next to her and almost fall back trying to relax into a cushion that isn’t there.

“Mrk.” I grunt and catch myself before I fall. “Is this couch… custom made?”

Clamber shrugs. “It’s been here since before I was born, so maybe? Sitting on regular chairs and things is kind of hard with a tail, you know.”

“Huh. Hadn’t even thought about that before.” I muse as I think back to the chairs at Whitestone Porch. They definitely had space for Clutter’s tail to fit through. “You’d think they’d make chairs with holes the standard when a chunk of your population has tails.”

“You’d think so, but most people don’t. I’m already used to it, but daddy gets angry every time someone doesn’t have anywhere for us to sit. Yeep!” Clamber flinches back as the plastic tries to take hold of her finger. Her glove stays stuck in it. “Ooh, this is really fresh. How many colours do you have?”

“A lot.” I chuckle. “But before I bring them out, can you tell me what happened to Well? I’m looking for a quest that’s related to all this plastic stuff, and he might be able to help me find it.”

Or he might be the clue I’m looking for. But Clamber doesn’t have to know that just yet.

“Wellll… I don’t really know. Like I said before, he just disappeared; Stonestep Solutions probably knows more than we do.” She says as she peels off her other glove and coaxes the trapped one from the plastic. “But you don’t seem like the kind of person who’d work with them. Um… ask me some more specific questions. Maybe I’ll have better answers for you that way.”

I nod. “Alright. What did he look like?”

Clamber spreads her arms wide, then bends to the side. “Really fat and really tall. But his footsteps didn’t feel like they belonged to him, and daddy said he was really magical. He had a mask like yours, but I don’t think it worked right, because I can remember that he was fat and tall.”

Something the system made had an anonymity mask? I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise, but for some reason, it is. Especially if the anonymity mask only slightly… worked. Huh. Maybe that’s a hint, not a screw-up.

“Clamber, what can you not remember about how he looked, talked, or anything else?” I ask and hold up a hand to stop the follow-up question brewing on Clamber’s face. “Try to think about what the mask actually hid from you, not the things it let through. Does anything stand out?”

She nods right away, much to my surprise. “Daddy thought of that, too. The only things I couldn’t remember about him were his face, what his exposed skin looked like, and what his voice sounded like. I do remember what he said, though, just not how he actually spoke those words.”

So the mask didn’t want them to see what species Well is, what his face looked like, or what his voice sounded like. That could be to mask what species the system used to create Well, or… to hide if Well was even alive at all. I’ve already seen robots and magical duplicates, so it’d make sense for the system to use that instead of trying to create a brand new person just for this quest.

Actually, no; that’s making two huge assumptions I really shouldn’t make. Well could just be someone the system ‘hired’ to do something for it. Or all this could be happening without the system in direct control, and Well was just someone like Clutter who was looking for the quest. And… maybe he used Well Maryden as an alias to try and get others like him to seek him out?

I frown and lean my elbows into my thighs. Everything hinges on one simple fact–was Well part of the quest, or was he looking for it himself? Stonestep Solutions obviously came up with their own answer, and I would’t be surprised at all if Well was being held in some dark basement somewhere to keep people like me from getting access to the quest. That is, if Well is even alive anymore–or in the first place.

A smaller hand gently pats my knee, and I turn to be greeted by a sympathetic expression. “Daddy was really bothered by all this, too. I don’t know what else I can tell you to help, but if you can get whatever is at the end of that quest before Stonestep Solutions does, we’ll do everything I can to help.”

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“Young lady, you do not have the authority to speak for the store.” Scooch says, making himself known. I’m pretty sure I didn’t hear the scanner, and he just kind of appeared in my awareness. Must be a spell. “I, however, do. Whoever you are, miss, I formally make a request for you to find and prevent Stonestep Solutions from attaining the prize for the quest tied to the Squirmstone.”

The soft beep of a notification coincides with a small, holographic window appearing over my vision.

Minor Quest: A Jeweler’s Request.

Due to the disappearance of ‘the proprietor’, you have been requested to complete a quest that has not yet started.

If you complete said quest, and prevent another party from claiming any rewards, this quest completes.

Rewards are negotiable, and will be partially given in advance, regardless of success.

I read through the system’s popup with a frown. “Clamber’s dad is missing?”

Scooch makes a noise in his throat. “Yes. After Well disappeared, the proprietor went looking for him, fearing the worst. Now the young lady and myself fear the worst, and I cannot leave her side to go to his aid.”

“Well, I know someone who might be willing to–”

“No.” Scooch gently but insistently cuts me off. “It is not a matter of safety, but of contract. I physically cannot leave the young lady, regardless of the circumstances, without the proprietor signing off on it firsthand.”

A contract. I guess that makes sense. “I guess since there’s no penalties for failing, there’s no reason not to accept it.”

“Thanks!” Clamber hugs me tightly. “Daddy’s strong enough that he won’t die, but if he’s gone for too long, we might lose other things before he gets back. Can I use this squirmstone to make you some jewelry?”

I wave her on. “Go ahead.”

Her tongue sticks slightly out of her mouth as she nods, scoops up the plastic, and hurries to the other side of the room. She grabs a curtain that’s bunched up on the end of a rail, pulls it across to section the room in two, and disappears completely. No sound, no sensations, and no light seeps through the curtain.

“More magic absorbing stuff?” I wonder aloud.

Scooch nods without sitting down. “To keep those on this side of the curtain safe from the activities on the other side. Clamber may be young, but she is very skilled–second only to the proprietor himself, and even that is arguable.”

I look up at him. “So you’re just a bodyguard, then?”

“Not quite, no.” He says with a smile. “I am a very skilled appraiser, and where the young lady lies on the creative side, I stand on the scientific side. Now, any questions that you could not ask her–or that you simply did not have the time to get to–you can ask me.”

“Alright.” I lace my fingers together in my lap. “Do you actually think her dad is fine?”

His shoulders slump ever so slightly. “That is complicated. My contract still stands, so he is alive, but ‘alive’ and ‘fine’ are not synonyms.”

“I get it. Next question; the guy’s name was Well Maryden. Did you ever think he was part of a quest before Stonestep Solutions stepped in?”

“We had our thoughts, but nowhere near what it turned out to be. Sorry to disappoint you, but that is all I have.” He apologizes. “Well Maryden was an enigma we tolerated because he was neither kind nor hateful, and he had a product we were interested in. Our relationship was purely business.”

Purely business. Damn, that makes things much harder for me. But there has to be something here that’s equal to the bauble or the stone slab, or else my skill wouldn’t have pointed me here.

“When Well left… did he leave anything behind?”

Scooch tilts his head to the side, and I know I need to clarify.

“I’ve already gone to two other places that gave me hints about the quest. One was for someone’s grave, the other points to a well, and now here there’s a guy with a name that fits the conventions of both.” I explain, and after a moment’s hesitation, bring out the bauble for Scooch to see. “We don’t know where this is pointing to, and we don’t have time to follow it across the continent. Did he leave behind anything like this?”

Scooch leans in close and squints at the bauble. “Not that I know of, no. The last thing he gave us was a batch of squirmstone, and that batch was no different than any other batch we bought. The only strange thing was his disappearance.”

“Shit. Well Maryden, Marywell Den, Denmary Well. They all have to fit in some larger puzzle I’m not seeing. You have any ideas, Scooch?”

He frowns. “Denmary Well… you know, I grew up in a very small village called Denmary. I don’t remember us having a well of our own, but it’s possible that we did at one point–or that they have dug one since I left.”

“I figured it existed, but it’s nice to know there’s something solid-ish to prove that. Problem is that we have no idea what to look for if we go there, or if it’s even telling us to go there in the first place.” I sigh and lean to the side. “It could be a weird riddle, or a trail that leads to a trail, or even a red herring the system put in place to make sure too many people don’t find the quest.”

“It could also be the correct path.”

I shrug. “Sure. If I had any way to tell what was the right way to go, or more time to check out all the possibilities, then I’d be on my way to that town tomorrow morning. But we’ve got less than two days to get this quest up and running. So unless you’ve got rock solid proof of anything, we’re just going to have to keep looking.”

“Yes, but where would you look? Stonestep Solutions may have answers for you, but they will not give you them. What else can you do?”

If I knew that, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now. But since I don’t, I need to dig deep into the hints I already have and dredge up something new.