Chapter 377: It's Somewhere

It takes all of five minutes to get Gisela and Dora to see things our way. Considering that they don’t have anywhere to go, the Preservation definitely won’t want to work with them, and another–possibly worse–leg of the apocalypse is about to start, they didn’t really have a choice. Doesn’t mean I didn’t try my damndest to make sure they didn’t feel pressured into anything; these people aren’t our enemies. They just made a really weird decision to leave the party all that time ago.

Once all that’s said and done, with the four new additions to the resort ready to move, I turn to Jumble and silently question about the presence she’d felt. She shakes her head after a moment to think, then taps the side of my skull where Pearl’s shell used to be.

“I’m on it,” Pearl says.

Jumble looks at me for confirmation. I smile and wrap my arm under her shoulder to help her stand up. She takes that as the positive that I meant it to be.

I motion to the door with a nod. “If we get confirmation on something, we might have to move out at any moment. Let’s get moving so you four can get as settled in as possible.”

Gisela stands first and locks eyes with me. “We need to make sure everyone at the company is alright first. Now that we know what the Preservation is actually like, we can’t be sure that they didn’t do anything drastic in retaliation.”

“Yes,” Dora agrees with a small nod. She stands next to her sister and squares her feet, ready for a confrontation. “We can’t leave our people or our investments behind. If you don’t believe us… talk to the Banker. He’ll know the worth of–”

“Dora, Dora,” Ava clicks her tongue and walks towards the door. “The Gambler’s face already said ‘yes’ before Gisela stopped talking.”

Dora’s eyes widen as a blush colours her cheeks. “Oh.”

Ava laughs and motions for Gasp to stay behind her. “Yes, ‘Oh’. You’re not dealing with cutthroat businessmen here, Dora. Once we do a pit-stop off at the resort to have a few conversations, I’m sure somebody will have the courtesy to teleport us up to your headquarters. Isn’t that right?”

All attention shifts to me with three well-placed words. Ava’s gaze is insistent, but not violent; she thinks she’s manipulating me into fulfilling Gisela’s very doable request. Jokes on her: I was already going to say yes before Gisela started her second sentence. Turns out nobody here is great at reading my face.

Nobody except for Jumble, who giggles and lets her arm rest on my waist as she shoots me a coy glance. I swallow around a suddenly drier mouth while Pearl rolls her eyes and desperately tries to look away from the thoughts swarming around in my mind. Unfortunately for her, Jumble sees the look in my eyes and squeezes a little harder, her fresh sunlit scent filling my nose as the rest of her squishes–

“Shelby!” Pearl cries. “Not while we’re closely linked!”

I stifle an embarrassed cough the best I can and make way for the door. Ava tries to put herself in front of me with the insistence of a professional bodyguard. I look back at the two sisters and nod in agreement, take a step back, and leave a space for the two of them to fill in. Gisela steps in with a deep breath and brimming psychic noise on the tips of her fingers.

Dora, however, stays behind. Ava nods at her and starts to walk, followed by Gasp and Gisela, then me and Jumble, and finally Dora. I set my jaw against the desire to tell the woman that I’m more than capable of taking the final spot, but the resolve in her eyes and the magic welling up against her palms keeps those words from leaving.

They’re a defender and a psychic if I’m remembering correctly. Ava and Gasp must’ve been training them the entire time they were in the other world. Might even have higher clearance than I do… hm. Haven’t actually checked what my clearance is in a while. Doesn’t really feel like it’s mattered to tell the truth, since the system’s just throwing bullshit scenario after bullshit scenario at me. Wonder how things would’ve looked if I’d gotten a normal class, gone through normal progression, and taken normal quests.

Jumble’s hand travels a little further down. My eyes widen as Pearl nearly screams at the new torrent of impure thoughts that one little motion subjects her to. I swivel to the side and stare at Jumble in disbelief, but the goddamn sultry look she shoots me… shit. She’s so innocent almost everywhere else. Poor Pearl’s going to have an aneurism if Jumble keeps this up for the rest of the day.

“Movement.”

I snap to the direction Pearl indicated with her words and narrow my eyes. Something quickly skitters away atop the concert venue, disappearing back into the shadows and out of the range of my awareness. No… that’s not quite right. I can still feel the top of the concert venue. It’s just that whatever was up there physically walked into the shadows cast by the bony shadows of the largest trees in the distance.

“Magic,” I mutter to myself. “Alright, no screwing around; we’re leaving with coins.”

Six relocation coins appear in my hand. Jumble plucks one of them for herself, then releases her possessive grip on me with her other hand to distribute the rest of them. Gasp and Gisela both take them with ease. Ava holds up a hand to the contrary.

“Not until we’re sure they can’t follow us. Dora, make sure nothing happens to the paindne or the Gambler while they’re getting things set up. You two–”

I cut her off by relocating Gasp and Gisela to the city. Ava blinks in surprise, then clears her throat and accepts the Join jumble’s pushing at her.

“My bad, Gambler. Didn’t know it worked like that.”

“Don’t worry about it; it’s a new addition to the repertoire,” I say with a tooth-filled smile. “We’ll fill you in on everything back at the resort. If you need someone to help you to the shore, look for a woman made of salt. She’ll make it happen.”

Ava raises an eyebrow. “Woman made of salt, huh? Sounds familiar for some reason. Dora, you ready?”

Dora nods, relocation coin in hand. I raise a thumbs-up and flare their coins, relocating them to join their allies in the city. Quest or Fleur or anyone else will make sure they have a warm welcome, but just in case, I pull out my Class Card and type a quick message relaying that they’re working with us now. A few confirmations hit my inbox before I can dismiss my card.

Jumble tilts her chin up at where we saw the movement. “Do you want to deal with that now?”

I consider for a moment, then let out a sigh. Pearl nods in agreement before I can say anything.

 “We probably should. Can you follow the thing through the shadow it disappeared into?”

“That depends if it left anything to follow. First, though; come here,” Jumble smiles brightly and grabs both sides of my face, then pulls me into a quick kiss. “Puah, I really needed that. Sorry, Pearl; Shelby’s brain’s probably off running in circles again. She’ll get used to this eventually. Probably.”

Pearl grunts in confirmation. I try to steer my thoughts back on the right track even though the distraction is still right here. It’s both harder and easier than I thought it’d be, and after a good thirty seconds of self-assurance that gets a good laugh out of Pearl, I summon a relocation and place it on a projectile. Jumble grabs my arm and holds on tight.

“That’s not how it works,” I remind her as she hands me her relocation.

“I know,” she says cheekily. “I just like this a whole lot.”

I close my eyes and try not to focus on her. “Yeah, so do I.”

An adorable blush travels up Jumble’s face and melts down into her chest as I let my projectile fly. She stammers out a mess of staticky words that don’t reach my ears as anything but magical noise, eyes averted from my own like a blushing schoolgirl. It’s goddamn adorable. I… need to make sure we don’t do anything like this when it really matters. Explaining to anyone that we messed up because we were too busy being infatuated with each other isn’t something I ever want to do.

The top of the concert venue appears under my feet. I roll my shoulder and look around at the shadows, feeling for anything moving in the slightest. There’s a slight hint of magic where the thing disappeared, but nothing else. Only shadows and leaves.

I walk up to the edge of the shadow and kneel down. “Is it a portal?”

Pearl hums to herself as she studies it. “I don’t think so. It’s more like a… um… something weird. It’s a whirl of different magics spliced together into whatever the heck this is. Get Jumble up here; she might have some ideas.”

My coin clatters to the floor and Jumble appears from it. She looks around with barely any worry, then hones in on the exact same spot Pearl mentioned and kneels down next to me. Her fingers dance through the air like she’s flipping the pages of an invisible book while whispers of staticky magic flow down from her and into the shadows.

“Any luck?” I ask.

Jumble breathes in through her nose and narrows her eyes. “I can’t tell. There’s magic here, which you already know, but it doesn’t feel like anything I’ve ever felt before. Not from when I was a painted dane, not from the apocalypse-machines, and not from anything else.”

I grimace and trail my hand through the shadow. “So there’s a good chance it’s the cataclysm.”

“I think so, yeah,” Jumble confirms. “But I have no idea why it’d be so passive. Shouldn’t it attack us indiscriminately like the other apocalypse monsters?”

My thoughts snap to the mechs at the Preservation. To the one mech that got free soaring above the city to try and attack the platform. If it was just an apocalypse-touched monster, then it’d attack the closest thing. But it went for the platform. Did it do that because of random chance, or… was it on purpose?

I reach up and fiddle with an earring while deep in thought. It’s too soon to assume anything, but if I’m starting early… say the mech had turned a week before it did. It would’ve been touched by the apocalypse in a normal way. Would’ve gone on a rampage through the poorer and more in-need parts of the city instead of exploding over the center. I don’t know if that’s what the person who brought it back wanted.

Hell, I don’t even know if there was a person who brought it back. Call never said what Lizzie told him, Lament hasn’t been useful at all, and Clutter hasn’t had a chance to find out anything important just yet. Now more than ever we need to start answering some of those questions. Starting with the one right in front of my face.

Is this unknown thing a product of the cataclysm? If so, does that mean that the cataclysm acts like a much more dangerous version of the apocalypse. I hope to hell that I’m just connecting dots that have nothing to do with each other. Unfortunately, as Jumble works the invisible pages of her book and the shadows seem to deepen, my gut says that we’re on the right path.

And that we’ll have our first answer sooner than I’m ready for.