Illumisia cracks open an eye as I jog to a stop near the edge of her vision. Two hours of a cycle of running and jogging have led me here–and here barely looks any different than the tunnels before. There’s a smaller cleared area in the glass, like a dome keeping the sand from crushing us, and it’s completely covered in claw marks. The ground, the ceiling, and the sloped walls that connect the two are just barely roughed up for… some reason.
“What did the glass ever do to you?” I ask as my jog turns into a walk, and I slowly close the gap between us. “Or is there some grand secret about it that I haven’t been made aware of?”
“Nothing so grand. I was simply letting loose some of the pent up frustration that was built up over all the years.” Illumisia stands and shakes herself, then plods off towards one of the four tunnels that connect to the clearing. “You took to the blood and bones well. Pearlescence’s intervention was more necessary than I thought.”
“Definitely.” I agree and hurry slightly to walk beside her. She gives me the side-eye, but doesn’t do anything about it. “So… you’re almost the same size as these tunnels. Does that get annoying?”
Instead of answering me, Illumisia’s fur shifts from red to creamy white. It’s a far more matted coat than before–like a sheep that hasn’t been shorn in a long time. Before I can ask about the transformation, she shrinks down to the size of a timber wolf and shakes the fur off her body, leaving her strange prismatic shark skin bare to the world.
“You can change size.”
Illumisia rolls her eyes. “How observant. My normal size is far too large to be practical most times, but the further I stray from it, the less of my raw power I have access to. That goes both for becoming smaller or larger.”
“That’s why she likes being so big.” Pearl chimes in. “It’s closer to how big she’d actually be if she wasn’t stuffed up in our tunnels. I’ve seen her at full size before–she was almost as big as one of our ships!”
If it’s a shellraiser ship, that probably isn’t super impressive. But I nod anyway just to be polite. Pearl puffs out her chest and looks like she’s about to continue, but Illumisia interrupts her with a high-pitched whine that makes Pearl snap her mouth shut.
“The censorship. Thanks for reminding me.”
“I don’t enjoy protecting your Shelby, but you don’t have the… sense for these things that I do.” Illumisia carefully says. “Maybe I should accompany you through the teleport to ensure that the world isn’t against both of you.”
“Ooh, we’d love that!” Pearl excitedly exclaims. “Shelby really needs to make a thousand Worth, and I kind of put her in debt, but with you here we won’t need to worry about that! Since you can kill all the monsters for us!”
Illumisia and I share a short look before she realizes and diverts her gaze like it never happened. She really doesn’t seem to like me, and it looks like she really didn’t like that we both thought of a similar problem with Pearl’s solution.
“If your Shelby does not kill the monster, she cannot sell it. Even if I fatally wound it and let her get the kill, I will be given credit.”
“So?”
I clear my throat to get Pearl’s attention. “Remember in the workshop, how we couldn’t take anything out that we didn’t own?”
“Yes, but how does that…ooooh.” Pearl nods her head in understanding. “You need possession of something to put it in your inventory, and the system won’t let you sell stolen goods. I get it now. But… it’ll still be really good to have her around as a friend, if nothing more.”
More like a nuclear bomb in my back pocket if that Worth cost is anything to go by.
“How much further is it, Illumisia?”
“Minutes.” She responds curtly. “I also have something I need to show you. It was not among your things, but I feel that it is yours.”
That’s needlessly cryptic. I reach down to scratch my arm, then frown as I realize that the coin holster isn’t there any more. It’s probably among my things, but that means Illumisia took it off me somehow. So it probably isn’t in the best shape anymore.
“What do you think she has?” Pearl asks. “I don’t remember losing anything, so maybe she dug up a bunch of ghost quarters for us! Or… maybe she took whatever machine was generating her barrier for us to use. Ooh, what about–”
Illumisia chuckles deep and low. I tilt my head to the side as I try to parse all the emotions that come through that one simple noise; adoration, amusement, and something like… relief? Probably because Pearl’s safe, but that means they have a much closer relationship than I thought. Or that alliance is extremely important.
Pearl keeps listing off less and less reasonable options as Illumisia and I walk and listen. She bumps into my leg and nods for me to switch sides with her so Pearl is between both of us, then starts moving before I get a chance to respond at all. I step awkwardly over her to keep from being knocked over by a horrifically dense mass of strength and magic, which seems to bring her a whole lot of delight.
There isn’t even a second of pause in Pearl’s stream of consciousness while we swap. I stick my hands in my pockets when Illumisia slows down to a saunter, then pull out my Class Card to see if my new improvements have translated to stat bonuses.
Before I even open the screen, there’s something new. Everything’s slightly rearranged itself, making space for a slightly changed symbol right next to my name. It’s a nautilus shell coloured like Pearl’s body, with a ring of prismatic colour around it that looks like it’s been painted on. Triangles point inwards from the ring like teeth, just barely not touching the shell, and somehow giving off a sensation of ruthless protection. Like a wildlife sanctuary stocked with alligators.
All of my stats are still the same, which is a little disappointing, but I’ve already seen the differences. Even if my stats don’t reflect it, I’ve definitely become more powerful. Before I can take a closer look Illumisia pops into my field of view. She snorts at my surprise, then pushes her head through my screen. It parts for her without a fight.
“We are here.” She states. “Come. Gather your things, then rest. We depart at tomorrow’s first light.”
“Tomorrow?” I frown and gently push Illumisia away. It feels like trying to push a mountain with my bare hands, but she moves anyway. “We… I can’t keep pushing things to–”
She shoots me a withering glare that freezes the blood in my veins. “Tomorrow. You know so little, which is pitifully normal for a system born these days. I will tell you as much as I can without alerting the system.”
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
“Can’t we do that on the road?”
Illumisia huffs and shakes her head. “When we go, we run. No talking, no thinking–just instinct. You will need instinct to survive with a weak class like yours.”
I’m about to say something back, but the words ‘weak class’ latch onto my brain like burrs. My legs don’t hurt in the slightest, but they sting when I remember how easily I would’ve lost to the mass grave if it wasn’t stuck over that hole. Or how the corpsedragger would’ve taken my throat out if Pearl wasn’t there to warn me. Even still, I want to argue with her. Tell her that Gambler isn’t weak.
But a little voice in the back of my mind reminds me that my class has done next to nothing for me. It’s doubled the strength of my spells, and that’s it. Who’s to say that any other class with mana doesn’t get stronger spells from the get-go? Or what about a class that’s focused on Body? Do they get superhuman strength from their spells and skills?
Illumisia snorts at my silence. “I do not want to admit it, but you are admirable. What you have done could be done so much easier with any other class. You alone are the reason you have survived this long, even if you do not realize it.”
She gestures with a tilt of her head at a shifting ocean blue barrier off in the corner. “Gather your things, then follow me into the clearing. I have procured a source of water and sand. Bring your curiosity and intelligence.”
Bring my… okay, that’s a new one. I watch as Illumisia walks over to the other side of the much smaller clearing, presses her nose against one of the walls, then simply walks through the glass.
My eyes widen, and I point dumbly at the wall that just devoured Illumisia.
“Pearl. Was that always a thing?”
She shakes her head wordlessly. Her expression perfectly paints how I’m feeling right about now–stunned and a little worried that we might’ve missed a bunch of things. I let myself gawk for a few seconds more, then shake my head and go to gather all my things. They’re scattered randomly about the barrier in a spray of splinters, but it doesn’t look like anything’s broken.
I lean down and pull open my backpack, then nod when everything looks just like I remember. Sure it’s a little frost damaged, and with some scuff marks from being pulled, but that’s damn good for what happened to it. Then I send everything into my inventory one by one, pull a relatively undamaged coin holster onto my arm, and pause as I study the power core.
“All that pain, just for this.” I mutter as I hold the thing at arms’ length. It’s about as cold as a can that’s been in the fridge for weeks. “How can this little shell be better at containing the core than that entire apparatus?”
“Maaaagic.” Pearl waggles her fingers for emphasis, then giggles. “Well, it’s more like we refilled the magic. The other one degraded over time, and even though it still worked really well, the containment part didn’t survive. They designed this shell to be a perfect containment thing, but it also has a really low effective range.”
I spin it in one hand, then send it to my inventory. “You mean I can’t hook up a bunch of pipes to it and power an entire workshop?”
Pearl nods. “Exactly. The shell changes the power output to a frequency that’s harmless to living things, but because of that, it has really horrible losses over long distances. It’ll work if you touch it to an engine, but not if you hooked wires up to it and touched those wires to the engine.”
“You’re the semi-expert.” I say with a shrug, then bend down to grab the last thing on the ground. It’s a chunk of sapphire shaped like a shield, but with a strange connector on top that looks like you could put a stick… in… it. Wait. This can’t be the thing, right? We have to be a… a hundred miles away from where I started.
I rise to my feet and look around the bubble. It takes less than a second for me to be certain that the wood isn’t everdriftwood, and a few seconds more to pinpoint a dented metal hoop with space for a handle lying near the edge of the bubble. The image of a sapphire shovel atop walls of sand shoves its way to the forefront of my memories, but I still can’t make out what kind of materials the handle was made of.
Before I can even second guess myself the sapphire spade starts to glow a light orange. Cutting away any doubts I had and replacing them with complete confusion. I flip the spade in my hands a few times in disbelief, then sigh and stick it under my arm as I pull out my Class Card again.
Pearl furrows her brow as she stares at the space. “Is that the same shovel you told me about? How’d it manage to follow us all the way here? And how’d Illumisia of all people get her hands–um, I mean paws–on it?”
“That’s one thing we’re going to have to ask her.” I open my class card, swipe over to my inventory, and quickly swap something out for the shovel’s head. “Let’s see what the system has to say about this thing.”
Spade of the Sapphire Sun: Head.
One-third of the Spade of the Sapphire Sun–an item that is extremely valuable to a select few Classes.
In this form, it can shape whatever pliable ground it is put into.
When completed and wielded by a proper Class, this item’s true power is revealed.
So that’s how I didn’t get teleported in my sleep; this thing made the sand walls and turned the sand under me into a solid mass. But that doesn’t explain why–or how–it managed to find its way here. Did it use its power to burrow through the sand until it finally found a way in? And.. how’d it do any of that without someone to wield it? Why did it even come to me in the first place, when I’m pretty damn sure I’m not one of the classes that’s meant to wield it?
I let the questions stew, hoping that some answers would come to me. But they don’t. None of it makes logical sense, and any leaps of logic I’d have to make rely way too much on random chances and coincidences. With a sigh and a shake of my head, I let it go and swipe away from the screen.
Quest: Sapphire Sunset.
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As long as you possess the Spade, you may accept this quest at any time.
No. No, no, no. I am not accepting a quest that’s all question marks and censorship. Even if there was a super strict time limit, I wouldn’t touch this one with a ten-foot pole. Not even a hundred-foot pole. Hell, I wouldn’t even tell someone else to touch it for me if I was in another continent.
“That’s a lot of question marks.” Pearl’s voice is filled with awe, but tinged with fear. “There could be a whole lot of horrible things hidden behind them. Only a crazy person would accept that. …You didn’t accept it, right?”
I vigorously shake my head and take the spade out of my inventory. “No way in hell am I doing anything with that many question marks. But I will be keeping this thing. Would’ve saved me a bunch of skeleton coins back at that frozen pile of sand.”
With the spade tucked away into my backpack and my equipment restored to their rightful places, I make my way over to the stretch of wall Illumisia walked through. Which still looks like a plain glass wall to me. I reach out and brush my fingers against it, and sure enough, it also feels like a plain glass wall. But something in my blood pushes me forward. It insists that there’s something behind this, even when my rational mind is struggling with what I saw Illumisia do.
I set my jaw and slam my hand against the wall. It reverberates through my bones for a split second, then slowly parts. I push through with just that blood feeling alone, forcing my body through what my brain insists is a solid wall. Sweat starts to bead on my forehead. My heart pounds in my chest as my face is overtaken by solid glass.
Everything disappears. I yelp in surprise and stumble forwards, catching myself before I’ve even taken two steps. Illumisia chuckles at my surprise from atop a foot-thick bed of hole-filled sand on the other side of a pool of extremely dark water.
“Do not pout. Your reaction was simply… amusing.” She says with a smile full of teeth. “Come. Let me fill your mind with knowledge the system may not want you to have.”