Time flies by. Five minutes of talking stretches into ten, then thirty, and slowly but surely hours pass by with nothing but the sounds of all our voices to entertain us. At some point March orders pizza for everyone, but even that can’t slow down the speed of my storytelling. Hell, even Noland, who looked like he was seconds from meeting the sandman manages to hold on for the entire ordeal.
As I speak, somehow, I grow more confident. My words come easier, my descriptions become increasingly detailed and scene-setting, and I get a little into character when I relay important things people like Illumisia, Clutter, or Nib said to me. Questions and more than a few back-and-forths regarding things neither me nor Pearl have all the information on stall the story for quite a while, but eventually, the story collides with the moment March connected to us on the krarig and felt Pearl’s existence for the first time.
“Beyond that, you guys know pretty much everything else.” I say with a small shrug, then go for a bite of cold pizza. “Just in case it wasn’t clear enough, my awareness comes from Pearl. And when my body got remade, it supercharged my awareness.”
“Of course it’s clear. You repeated it six times for me because I couldn’t believe you.” Noland snorts with self-deprecation. “Your story of dying meshes with a description I read from some guy who got a one-time use skill that revived him after dying, too, so it just adds even more credibility to everything.”
“Yeah. Now all we don’t know is pretty much what you don’t know.” Ursula leans back in her hologram, her own meal a pitiful mass of wrappers compared to our pizza feast. “I’m still a little skeptical that Illumisia’s as strong as you claim she is, though; high identification costs like that can come from warding spells, skills, or relics.”
“Hey! Illumisia’s insanely powerful!” Pearl cuts in from atop a paper plate, remnants of grease and sauce surrounding her like bloodstains. “I saw the krarig. Even if I don’t have all my memories, I know Illumisia’s stronger than it is.”
Noland lazily waves a hand, all his vitality draining as there’s no more story to listen to. “Yeah, yeah. I believe you, little mythical creature. We all do, really, we’re just kind of scared shitless if it’s actually true. Since it means almost everything we dismissed as stories and legends might actually be real.”
Pearl huffs and crosses her arms. “Just get strong enough so they don’t kill you. That’s what Illumisia said I did, and look at me! The system couldn’t kill me, so it turned me into a quest item instead.”
“No offense, but I don’t really think that’s better.” March quietly says. “It means the system could actually contain you, right? So it had to put you in some kind of scenario where you agreed to be contained, or it was so strong it just didn’t care enough to kill you.”
With grumbling acceptance, Pearl reaches for a slice of pizza-shaped cookie and begins to devour it. I watch her for a few seconds, but before long, my own questions start to bubble up. Questions I couldn’t ask anyone else without threatening Pearl’s safety. But now that they know… what’s the harm?
“So none of you have ever seen a living shellraiser before this? None at all?” I scan the room for reactions, and they all give me their own version of confirmation. “Wow. Alright. How about shellraiser towns, art, machines? Anything like that?”
Ursula nods, but it isn’t very confident. “We’ve seen a few ruins in the field. And you said it yourself; most machines people find are post-shellraiser using their designs. True shellraiser tech seems to be lost to time, save for apparently the Preservation for some godforsaken reason.”
“And us now, too.” March happily interrupts as she swoons over the schematics Pearl has gathered. “With all your descriptions, I should be able to put together a blueprint for a workshop. One big enough to make anything we want. Ooh, and with the greenhouse for everdriftwood, all we’ll need is the right kind of sand and shells…”
March trails off, and I know she’s going to be in her own little world for a while. The soft sound of Noland’s breaths reach my ears next, and when I turn to look at him, he’s completely zonked out. Complete with drool leaking out from one side of his mouth and a slightly awkward sleeping position.
“Let him sleep. His skills take more out of him than they do pretty much anyone else for some reason.” Ursula sighs and shakes her head, then looks wistfully out of her window. “We won this battle, Shelby, but it feels like we just realized how bloody the war is going to be. Hell, we just realized that there’s going to be a war at all. Don’t know if it's going to happen in a day, or a month, or even a decade, but I can guarantee that it's going to happen.”
I nod in agreement. “We probably just pushed the start date back at least a year, but next time, the Preservatoin’s going to do their experiments where nobody can find them. Maybe the subwyrm infestation is their doing, too. No–I’d bet money on it that it’s their doing. They found out about it before anyone, evacuated everyone, and kept it a ghost town.”
“Yeah, that is really suspicious.” Pearl looks up from her cookie and swallows hard. “They have our mech design, and they’re using our tech like it’s meant to be used–just a little weaker, since they don’t have the right material and power sources. Why would they need to breed apocalypse monsters if they already have all that?”
“Hell if I know.” Ursula laughs. “Maybe some internal politics bullshit, or maybe they’re two different branches of the organization. Fact is that they’re doing it, and we don’t have the firepower right now to oppose them. Honestly, I bet nobody on Earth does.”
Pearl balls her fists and huffs with confidence. “Then we’ll just get way more firepower! March can make a factory, we can make a lot of machines, and once I get strong enough, I can write programs so they’ll fight for us!”
“But that all hinges on you getting stronger. Which also probably means Shelby has to get stronger.” Ursula locks eyes with me, and even though the hologram, I can feel her intensity. “When you go back to the other world, don’t come back to Earth until you’re strong enough. More than strong enough, actually, since the only way you’ll be safe leaving the resort in a few months is with one of us escorting you. Think you can do that, Shelby?”
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A grin passes over my lips. “That’s what I was already planning to do. Plus, I found out that my relocation is only messed up by magical interference–not distance. There’s a chance I’ll be able to use it to come and go without the system interfering.”
“Yeah, good luck with that.” Ursula snorts. “We’ve all had thoughts like that before. None of ‘em have worked so far, but if yours ends up being the one that does, then I’ll have Noland buy you a mid-sized country. Maybe… Japan or Korea. There’s a lot of apocalyptic action around those places.”
I can’t really tell if she’s being sarcastic or not. Honestly, I’m leaning towards ‘not’, which kind of scares me.
Ursula locks her fingers together and presses her arms forward to stretch. “Well, looks like we’re done for the day anyway. I’m still a few hours out from the mainland, so I’ll hit you up tomorrow morning and we can go over the plan to get the client their coins. And you have to get ready for your meeting with Call–you going as Shelby or Isla?”
“Shelby. Or Gambler, more specifically.” I answer immediately. “It’ll mean more if he sees a Worth class there. Can one of you watch over me so he doesn’t, you know, instantly murder me?”
“Yeah, I can do that. Anything else before I cut the feed?”
I think for a few seconds, but nothing really comes to mind. “Nope, I think we’re–”
“Oh, Shelby! You’re forgetting the coins!” Pearl reminds me with a smack on my arm. “Remember the notes in the safe? Did the client even know they exist?”
“Shit, right, good call.” I gently rub Pearl’s head, and she giggles in appreciation. “Ursula, we found these weird coins in the safe with the ones the client wanted. Identification told me they were class coins, but that they were tampered with and lost all their abilities.”
While I speak, I pull the mutilated coins out for Ursula to see. She leans in close to get a better look, so I move them closer to what I assume is the hologram’s camera. A frown crosses her face as she studies them, and she almost reaches out to touch one, but stops herself short. Something ghastly shudders through her entire body, and whatever she was about to say dies on her lips.
“Shit, I don’t know what that means.” She murmurs. “I honest to God had no idea it was possible to destroy a class coin. Could… could you destroy a Worth coin and kill the class that way? Or would that trigger the system’s rule and make another appear somewhere?”
Ursula raises a hand to cover her mouth as she quietly speaks to herself. I can’t make out much of it, but what I did pretty much just repeats her concerns. Suddenly, the coins in my hand feel infinitely heavier from the mere possibility that one–or more–of them could be one of the remaining Worth classes. And even worse–that someone on Earth would’ve destroyed them.
It would mean someone–maybe even the entire Preservation–was working directly with the system. And that all us Worth classes were in far greater danger than we ever thought possible.
Feeling the need to put words into the emptiness, I open my mouth. “I mean, there’s a chance they’re not Worth classes. Or… just because they were tampered with, doesn’t mean we can’t recover them somehow. Someone has to have a spell that… I don’t know… reverses an object’s time. We could fix the coins that way.”
“...Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. It’s too early to jump to the worst conclusion.” Ursula steadies herself and nods down at the coins. “I’ll take a look at ‘em when I get back. Even if they look completely blank now, there has to be some kind of trace of the class they once were. Best case scenario, they’re random classes that have nothing to do with Worth. Worst case… we’re stuck with five Worth classes total.”
I swallow hard at the grim acceptance in Ursula’s voice. Pearl shudders, too, and stares at the coins with concern. Nobody speaks for a few long seconds until Ursula coughs to break the silence.
“Well, that’s it for me for tonight. We can theorize more in person. See the two of you soon. You too, March.”
“Mmhm, bye.” March waves absentmindedly.
Ursula chuckles to herself, then cuts the feed. I reach an arm out for Pearl to scurry up, then push out of my chair and make my way to my room. Being able to sleep without worrying about dying is going to be a nice change of pace.
But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m putting myself in yet more danger very, very soon.
----------------------------------------
A week passes in a blur of advancement. March gets started on a dozen different projects, Noland contacts the client and sets a meeting date for a day after my meeting with Call, and Ursula works with me to test out my spells and skills. Fleur… takes a lot longer than we thought to get better. Even now, she can’t talk to me, and hasn’t left Pearl’s shell. She assures me it isn’t because she’s angry at me, but something nags at me and tells me it’s my fault.
Before I even know it, the time comes. Ursula drops me off, I leave a message at the exact location I told Call to wait for me at, and make my way back to familiar scenery.
While I suck in breaths of the dust-filled air of my destroyed hometown, my eyes scan the horizon for any signs of Call. Ursula is somewhere in the distance, our conversation cut short by her own announcement that a Preservation signal had appeared a minute ago. I take a deep breath through my nose and fiddle with a relocation coin in my pocket, filled with the request I’m going to give Call in exchange for my silence.
“Signal approaching.” Ursula’s voice crackles into my ear. “No obvious aggressive spells, but with those suits, you can never really tell until they’re launching ‘em at you. Stay on your toes. Mercenary out.”
I nod slightly and lean against my old apartment building. All the units on the top floor are ninety percent gone, and most of the ones on the ground floor have been run through by the subwyrms. It feels weird looking into living rooms, bedrooms, and bathrooms from the outside–parts of people’s everyday lives dirtied with debris and left to rot. It’s the kind of thing you expect to see in a war movie or a documentary.
But… I guess this is how it starts. Abandonment and destruction. Just with a more apocalyptic and magical cause this time.
“Shelby, I can feel him now.” Pearl whispers. “He’s moving really fast, and he’s alone.”
“Good. Hopefully this can end without bloodshed.” I whisper right back. “Stay in your shell and don’t come out. The Preservation can’t learn about you.”
She nods from inside of her shell, then turns right back to where I assume Fleur is. I reach up and brush a few grains of salt off her shell while I focus my attention solely on the sensation Pearl is feeding me. Call is moments away. Depending on how this goes, I’m either going to get a willing ally, a begrudging hostage, or an enemy I’ll regret for the rest of my life.
My awareness traces him as he rounds the corner. I flick my eyes to him and nod slightly towards one of the destroyed ground floor apartments. He starts to talk, but I speak over him with the confidence I know I need to project for this to work.
“Let’s talk about how willing you are to betray the Preservation.”