I don’t know how to deal with this. So I slowly pull open my Class Card to see if it can deal with it instead.

“Identify.” I whisper, completely focused on the shell.

Identification failed due to protective magics around the target.

“Hello? I just felt you trying to do something to me!” The voice calls out a little more desperately now. “Please! I can’t stand being alone any more!”

I wince and close my Class Card. If a little shell has protection magic cast on it, then I don’t want anything to do with–

“I’ll give you a spell! People still like spells, right?!”

Okay, maybe it isn’t that bad. I ready my ghost quarters and carefully tiptoe around all the debris, stepping lightly to avoid making a single sound as the little voice lets out quiet lonely sobs. Honestly, now I just feel bad for the poor thing. And if that’s the system’s way of getting me to run myself into a trap, then tugging on my heartstrings is a damn good way of doing it.

“...Hey there.”

The shell gasps hopefully. “Hi! Are you real?! Please tell me you’re real.”

I smile and lean down a little. “As real as real can get. So what’s the deal? Are you part of the quest, or are you going to turn me into swiss cheese with some horrific black laser beams?”

“Well, I don’t know what swiss cheese is, but I can’t shoot any laser beams! Not right now, at least.” The voice says chipperly, as if it’s a good thing it can’t shoot lasers. “Oh, I promised you a spell, didn’t I? Um… there’s a little problem with that, considering that I’m kind of… trapped here? PLEASE DON’T LEAVE!”

I flinch back at the sudden desperate outburst. “I’m still here. You really can’t see me, huh?”

“I can’t do anything. Except talk and hear, obviously. But moving, seeing, tasting, smelling, and… um… everything else is impossible right now. Since I’m sealed here. As a… quest item.”

The little shell shivers a little as it says that. The way it said ‘quest item’ makes it sound like it’s some kind of horrific punishment, but for me, that’s probably the single most convincing argument it could’ve made.

“Do you know what quest you’re a part of?”

A tiny sigh escapes the shell. “I wish I knew. But I don’t have access to one of those fancy system access cards. But hey, you probably do! Just… accept whatever quest pops up when you try to pick me up!”

Sound logic. But the state of the cavern warns me against accepting the quest. There has to be a reason this little shell is the only… survivor? Wait. Are there even any other shells around here? Or any life at all?

Or it’s only here as a part of a quest, and there’s no logic to why this place looks the way it does.

“Um, did you leave? Did I scare you off?”

I shake my head. “Needy little thing, aren’t you.”

“Oh! Um. I’m sorry.” The shell meekly apologizes. “I’ll be quiet.”

That’s not what I was trying to get at, but I also don’t feel like explaining myself. I press on my back and stand up straight with a grunt, then pull out a coin and roll it through my fingers. There’s a whole lot of rubble here to sift through. Maybe it’ll give me some clues before I go triggering a quest that may or may not have a time limit.

“I’m going to go look around.” I feel the need to tell the shell as I walk over to the wooden rubble. “Do you know what this place looks like?”

A soft, melodic hum escapes the shell. “The last time I saw anything, it was a pretty beautiful underground market. We didn’t really have any customers, since we were… you know…”

I lift a board with similar writing to the one above the stand. “Underground?”

“Yes. But… also… um… we were kind of…” The shell trails off awkwardly. “Isolated? And not just in the physical sense. We were really strong, so we didn’t really need customers. Most of this was just for us.”

The thought of an army of little shells peddling their beachside wares while thinking they were absolute powerhouses brings a smile to my face. I brush aside some splintered driftwood, then pause as a glimmer of pearlescence catches my eye. Another nautilus-like shell splintered against the hard glass floor. Shards of it are caught in a splatter of hardened black substance, and my imagination fills in the blanks.

Now that I know what I’m looking for, I find it everywhere. The little shell keeps talking, making excuses and spinning tales about how it was actually powerful at some point, but all I can focus on is the destruction. Something destroyed this place–there’s no doubt about it. And it happened after the shell was turned into a quest item, which somehow saved it from getting caught up in the crossfire.

Or it was the crossfire.

“Hey, shell-thing. Everything’s destroyed.”

It abruptly stops talking. “...Everything? How much is everything?”

“That’s kind of hard to say, but if I had to guess…” I look around with a grimace. “Looks like an entire market was destroyed. Including everyone that ran it.”

“...No.” The shell says quietly. “You can’t be telling the truth. Everyone… everything… how long have I been stuck here? Why couldn’t I hear anything? What…” It’s voice catches with emotion. “What happened to them?”

I gently set down the rubble and walk back to the tiny stand. Whatever hesitation I had, it’s gone now. Looks like this little thing’s the last of its friends–and honestly, I can’t stand how sad it sounds.

My hand gently brushes against the shell. It’s horrifically hard to the touch, almost like what I’d imagine dragon scales to feel like, yet it’s also comfortingly warm. I can feel something trembling deep inside, and when the shell speaks, its voice echoes through my body as much as it hits my ears.

“Is there anything left?”

“Only your stand. Probably because you’re a quest item. Tell me how to accept your quest.”

The shell lets out a quiet breath of relief tinged with sadness. “Thank you, whoever you are.”

Quest Item: Shellraiser.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Part of Quest: ?????.

Required Clearance to initiate quest: ?????.

Clearance requirement nullified due to item’s intervention. Quest details obscured until required Clearance is obtained.

Purchase the Shellraiser?

“Shellraiser.” I repeat, testing the words for myself. “Is that your name, or is it your species?”

“I’m a Shellraiser. My name is Pearlescence of the Fathomless Depths.” The shellraiser offers eagerly. “But you can call me Pearl!”

I was going to call it Pearl anyway, but I guess it’s good to get permission.

“Well, good to meet you, Pearl. I’m Shelby, and I guess we’re going to be traveling together for a little while.”

Golden energy flows from my fingertips onto Pearl’s shell as she–I think she’s a she–giggles happily. It mixes with her shell, overtaking the silvery bits and painting her a completely new colour. From the way she squeals excitedly, I don’t think she minds one bit.

I raise my hand and open my Class Card to check what I’ve just obtained. Except there’s nothing there. I frown and look around the screen at Pearl, who is making little patient noises as I work.

“Pearl, is there anything else I have to do to purch… ah, shit.” I mutter and look up at the sign. “I need to buy you to actually get you out of here, and I can’t read this sign at all.”

“Maybe if you can describe what it looks like, then I can try to help?”

That sounds like a good enough idea to me. I study the sign for a second, make sure I’m seeing things right, and breathe in. “The first symbol looks like two triangles underlined by a bumpy line. The one closest to the left has two dots inside of it, and the second one has four.”

“Hmm. Is there any line on top of it?”

“There’s a line with an arrow on either side between the two triangles pointing at each other.”

“That’s what I thought. If you described it right, that one means ‘trade’. There’s a little more significance to it, but you’re not here for a lesson in linguistics.” Pearl giggles. “How many other symbols are there?”

“Two.” I say with a glance at the last one. “But I'm pretty sure I get what the last one means. It’s a ‘W’ with a line slashed through it.”

“Oh, that one’s easy. It means you can’t use Worth to pay for me.” Pearl says, confirming my suspicions. “Well, it means you can’t use Worth to pay for anything sold here, but I’m pretty sure that’s only me. Unless there’s other stuff here?”

“Nope, just you and one more symbol between ‘trade’ and ‘doesn’t accept Worth’. It’s two vertical lines, then three spiral-y things like someone drew wind blowing, and another two vertical lines after it. And all of it’s sandwiched between two slightly curved lines.”

Pearl doesn’t answer right away. I give her a few seconds, but the only sounds she makes are little hums.

“Um, sorry, but what direction are the spiral-y things facing?”

“Two to the right, one to the left.”

“...Oh. Okay. I… don’t know what that one means. Usually things caught between two curved lines means that it’s an expression, but closing off the contents with two vertical lines on either side tells me that I’m supposed to take it literally…” She trails off with a ‘humpf’ of thought. “Whoever wrote this definitely doesn’t know our language. Or if they do know it, they definitely don’t know it very well.”

I raise an eyebrow at that. “Does that mean the system didn’t write it?”

“Probably not, no. That should mean that it doesn’t hold any power over the quest… unless it was written with a mistake on purpose for some reason?” She theorizes. “Something I have to take literally, but that’s also an expression… and with two travel symbols counteracted with one return symbol…”

She makes a cute little frustrated noise, then sighs.

“I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean, sorry. Purely reading the symbols without any of the context would say ‘for trade: travels and return. No Worth accepted’, but that doesn’t make sense. Since… I’m the thing ‘for trade’.”

“Travels and return, huh.”

I look down at the ghost quarter I haven’t stopped playing with and knit my brows together in thought. There are two possibilities for the badly written sign–either the system miswrote it on purpose, or something else with a simpler understanding of the shellraiser language wrote it after Pearl got stuck here.

Except the second option doesn’t make sense, since she wouldn’t be bound to the rules of the sign if something other than the system wrote it. I cross my arms and tap my foot as I stare at it, trying to glean some new understanding from the completely pristine thing. Well… almost pristine. There’s still that little bit of damage under the ‘W’, and I can almost make out a little bit of white in the damaged area, but–

Wait. I lean in close and carefully run my finger over the damaged area. A prick of pain causes me to yank it away with a hiss.

“Are you okay?” Pearl asks worriedly. “Is something attacking us?”

I grimace at the splinter in my fingertip. “Nope, just did something stupid. It might’ve solved our mystery, but it was still pretty damn stupid.”

With a little grunt of pain, I pull the splinter from my finger. I hold the thing up to my eye, and then I see it. A tiny amount of white–barely anything at all–on the broken edge that must’ve ended up facing towards the sign somehow.

Someone defaced the sign. And they must’ve written in that middle symbol to try and throw whoever came to help Pearl off their tracks. Which means there was another smaller symbol under the ‘W’, and that the entire sentence was ‘for trade: no Worth accepted’. I glance down directly underneath the scratched out symbol, and there’s something barely there on the wood.

A tiny discoloured spot, so completely unrecognizable that I would’ve missed it if I hadn’t been pointed directly at it. There’s a symbol on it that I recognize instantly–it’s the same one on the coin that I’m rolling between my knuckles, after all.

“Looks like I have to pay in quarters.” I chuckle to myself, placing the flipped coin on the symbol. It flashes deep silver, then disappears.

Price Paid: 1/50.

“Did it work? Can you buy me?” Pearl asks.

I take almost an entire stack of flipped coins out of my inventory. “I really hope you’re worth more than fifty ghost quarters.”

Pearl huffs as if insulted. “I sure hope I am, too. You can find those things littered about the beach above. All you have to do is avoid the monsters while gathering them.”

“Easier said than done.” I mutter to myself as coin after coin disappears on the symbol.

The last one disappears in a flash of silver that slowly changes to gold. Thin ribbons of light snake out from the stall, wrapping Pearl in a forceful hug that sets her shell shaking. With a mighty ‘SNAP’ that's felt and seen as much as heard, Pearl is free.

Bought, I remind myself. Not free–bought.

Quest Item Obtained: Pearlescence of the Fathomless Depths.

As you advance in the connected quest and gain this item’s trust, it gains more effects.

While equipped, gain +1 to one non-Worth stat. This bonus does not increase the Worth cost to increase the chosen stat.

Pearl’s shell wiggles a few times, then falls to the glass with a loud crash. I lean in with a hiss, fully expecting to see her shell shattered like all the others, but no. It’s the glass that’s damaged. Her shell looks just as pristine as before–hell, maybe even more so.

“I can move!” She announces giddily. “Thank you so, so, SO much! Do you want to be friends?”

I blink away the text over my vision and kneel down next to Pearl. Gaining her trust is one thing, but having something that’s knowledgeable about this world–that doesn’t cost me Worth–is beyond important.

“Sounds good to me. I’m hunting a monster that tried to obliterate me this morning–maybe you can help me out?”

Her shell bobs up and down. “Yeah! It’s probably one of our old guard constructs. Did it have a bunch of shell-like things on it?”

“Uh… yes, actually. You made a guard construct? That can shoot a massive black magic laser that destroys everything in its path?”

Pearl makes a sound like she’s blowing a raspberry. “Of course I didn’t. That was the work of some really smart engineers and mages. It’s probably still running on auxiliary power after all this time, so we just need to find its source and shut it down! Or they managed to get the perpetual magic machines working while I was sealed away, and in that case, we need to kill it!”

She pauses. “Well, you can’t technically kill a machine, so it’s more like dismantling it. Violently dismantling it into enough pieces so that you can get at its core. But you’ve got a Class Card, so that shouldn’t be a problem for you!”