Inch by Inch

Today’s task was the bottom of the barrel, the lowest of the low, the stinkiest of shit. Literally in the last case. This was a council task and paid poorly. According to the clerk, it was normally used as a punishment duty by the grand guilds of Lauchia. Today, Jay was to escort a city excrement wagon carrying night soil out to the surrounding farms.

None of them were happy with the task, least of all him with all the goodwill he was burning to get Ana and Kane onboard, but it was an important job that needed to be done. Vital even in a city. Shit didn’t stop flowing; the only choice was deal with it or live in it.

He tried to delude himself with possible benefits. It was an escort task outside the city, based around a wagon – if you took off your glasses and blindfolded yourself, you might see similarities with a caravan protection detail. It might also help adapt them to the realities of adventuring. Blood and guts could smell just as bad as shit, and some oddities used smell as a weapon. Flinching now was better than in the middle of combat.

Unfortunately, the reality of it was far simpler. With a week and a half of rent stored, they couldn’t afford to be picky about what tasks they took.

Jay adjusted the cloth mask over his nose and mouth one last time. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

He received an unenthusiastic hum and groan in response. It took a bit of prodding to get the team out of the dorms. They didn’t stop for food. That was a mistake in the making that Jay was keen to avoid.

The city’s sewage center was in the southwest of the city, near the tanneries in the south of the trade district, and the poorer residences near the stoneworks. It didn’t come as much of a surprise to him that Rock Bottom was in the same area. He knew the way there well by now.

Once nearby, he followed his nose to the location listed on the task notice. It was a set of plain buildings made from chalk-gray quarry stone that stretched ninety-nine meters wide. For all its floor space, the sewage center was a single storey tall, though the stairs leading down in each alley led Jay to question that. By the time Jay reached the center’s reception, marked by a sign with “Inquiries”, he’d accepted that his cloth mask was going to be of little use. He would need to copy Rock Bottom’s dried fruits and flowers if he wanted to shield himself.

The smell didn’t disappear inside the building, but in this situation it wasn’t the shit that smelled off. Six adventurers stood waiting in the room. They all wore matching leather armor, of a design Jay remembered Ana rejecting, and masks made from a cloth so light that he could see the color of their skin beneath it.

Ana and Kane filed into the room behind him, and all nine adventurers stared at each other.

“You... you must be the origi- the previous team,” one man said. His pitch was high and nasally, though he appeared to be six years older than Jay. He at least managed to sound apologetic as he stepped forward and held out a slip of paper. “The task has been reassigned.”

Jay stared in disbelief. Literally the worst task in the city, and they were being bumped. It was hardly the first time it’d happened, this was the second this week, but really? Guilds were bumping for city excrement tasks now? The shit was flowing somewhere, but he couldn’t figure out in which direction.

“Oh, no!” Ana cried, not a measure of sincerity in her voice.

He wanted to scowl at her, but he was a little relieved himself.

The adventure’s eyebrows furrowed, clearly noticing Ana’s tone, but their three masks weren’t quite as sheer as his team’s. “I know the short notice is not ideal. I can’t tell you any details either. We were assigned this morning and-” he fluttered the slip of paper. “-given the task.”

“It’s such a shame,” Ana agreed. She fiddled with her mask, failing to fully muffle a snicker. “Well. May the three be with you during this difficult time.”

Ana escaped out the doorway, her laughter growing louder even as the door hid her from sight.

Jay groaned and considered how he was going to apologize before remembering that they’d been bumped. A bit of rudeness was justified. After all, it was his team that should be granting forgiveness, not asking for it. Instead of saying any of that, he settled for a simple ‘Goodbye’.

With a prod, Kane led the way out, though he turned to look back at the building once they were gone.

“Ana...”

“Oh please,” she said. “You can’t say that you’re upset about all that. They stole literal shit from us.” A disbelieving scoff left her lips. “The guilds must be feeling the pinch.”

Jay rubbed his face. “And so are we.”

“Not so much that we should be upset about this,“ Ana grumbled.

“Not yet.“

“We can leave,” Kane said softly, abandoning his gazing and turning to walk forwards with them. “Lauchia is one of many city states.”

“Yeah...” Ana’s agreeing echo was less than enthusiastic.

Jay felt the same way. They could in fact afford a ticket to one of the nearby city states, Thornton, being the closest, or further, if they could join as adventurers, but he didn’t want to. It would feel like a defeat, a retreat. They’d need to give up on all their local knowledge, the friends and contacts they’d earned. It would be a setback. Starting again would be difficult for new reasons. People would want to know why they left, why they came. And with the cost of travel, they’d have very little to fall back on if it went badly.

“I don’t think we need to consider that yet,” he said in the end.

It was an important point, though. The city’s problems were theirs, yes, but only to borrow, not to own.

Kane nodded, his shoulders relaxing half a centimeter.

Jay pulled his mask down around his neck. They were far enough away now that it wasn’t as necessary. “Do you feel up for the quarry, or should we spend the day training?”

Ana patted at her armor. “Quarry. My arms are still aching from yesterday. Let’s grab a quag, and finish up for the day.”

“Kane? Are your eyes up for it?”

The man in question blinked, before pulling his own mask down. It was made from an oilcloth, the kind he used to maintain his sword. “I have an idea I would like to test. It might make it easier for me to see the oddities.”

“Quarry it is then.” Jay paused. “Jog there?”

Ana groaned.

| i i i ¦ i i i | i i i ¦ i i i |

“Forward.”

“Left...”

”Left.”

“Up.”

The commands came with a gap of two to three seconds between them, as Kane flexed his Word and shifted from vision of Jay and his spear to a world of Threads. Each pause was nerve-wracking. Quags could be explosive when they wanted to be, and two seconds was plenty of time to snap at the human less than two meters away. For every step forward, Jay was itching to jump five back.

Sweat dripped down his back as he fought to steady his spear and not wave it before him defensively. The grain of his spear dug into his hands. He would need to sand it soon.

“Forward.”

His breath was so loud. Surely the quag could hear it.

“Down.”

Jay blinked. Kane’s new idea for spotting the oddities hadn’t worked. It was a shame, but now it filled Jay with worry that Kane would forget and try to use it again.

“Go.”

His hands shook as the impact vibration traveled up the spear shaft. It was a good hit, the kind that knocked your opponent back or left a visible hole behind in a training dummy.

The ground before him grew fuzzy. That was all the warning he got before the spear was wrenched out of his hands.

“Fuck.”

Jay backed up as fast as he could. The wooden shaft was waving in the air more frantically than a musical rattle in the hands of a child.

No sound came from the oddity, but as it trashed, the impact against the ground was loud enough to echo in the quarry. Thumps like the tailmouth was chasing them again.

“Stay back,” he yelled. “It’s going mad.” A single strike from those tendrils would make them sleepy. Multiple and they might not wake up.

He reached Kane, and they retreated together, Ana scrambling to pick up the rope between them so they wouldn’t trip.

The quag did not follow. It continued to trash; the spear acting as a gristly sign of its location.

It took him a moment to realize what that meant. I can see where it is.

“My bow,” he said, waving a hand back, keeping both his eyes on the spear and quag. The weapon was strung and waiting with the rest of their bags 32.07 meters away from the oddity. He’d only prepared it out of habit once they left the city. It was an afterthought. Why would a bow be of any help against an enemy you couldn’t see? “Let’s back up. I’ll keep an eye on this one. Kane, check for other quags. Ana, guide us back.”

“Yes. Starting now.”

“O-Okay.”

They began to step back. Jay fought blinks away, remaining locked on the oddity. After eleven meters, the spear shaft stilled in the air.

“All clear,” Kane announced, turning back to face it.

“It’s stopped,” Jay said at the same time, his fingers twitching helplessly. He wanted his spear back. Why was the quag still now? He stopped to match it.

The rope at his waist dropped as Ana stopped taking up the slack and moved to get a look at the oddity.

“What’s it doing?” she asked. Her voice was wavering, but steadier than when he’d called the retreat.

“I don’t know. Kane?”

Another agonizing wait as Kane looked beyond.

“I cannot tell,” Kane said, anger seeping into his tone.

Jay made fists with his itching hands. “Keep going back. We’ll see if an arrow changes its strategy.”

They continued the awkward back shuffle to the bags, focusing on avoiding falls and rope tangles over everything else. To his dismay, his first shot went wide, his hands still unsteady from the adrenaline and impact.

The second struck true. The quag didn’t move.

“Is it dead?” Ana asked in disbelief.

“It couldn’t be.” Jay shot another arrow. The creature gave the same reaction – none.

A later prod with Ana’s spear settled it. The quag was dead. His first spear thrust had struck something vital near what must be the front end of the creature. They’d run from its death throes.

“You know,” Ana began, twirling her weapon as Jay struggled to retrieve his own spear. “If you liked my nickname so much, you could have just said.”

Jay loosened his grip, stepping off the quag to stare at her in disbelief. “What?”

Ana burst out laughing. Kane wasn’t far behind her with a loud snort.

Sighing, Jay turned back, and finally got his spear loose. “Whatever. Let’s get this back to Lauchia and Tony.” The hunt went so quickly they still had most of the day left to do something.

“I’m just saying,” Ana continued. “I would have been happy to share. There was no need for all of this.”

“We can claim it as a team,” Kane suggested, his eyes laughing.

Jay ignored them both.

| i i i ¦ i i i | i i i ¦ i i i |

Thunk.

When the strange sound disturbed the peace of the field, both Jay and Kane looked up. The spear fell to the ground, leaving a thin line through the bark above it.

Ana stared at the slight cut with disgust, left hand trembling. “All done.”

Jay made a mark in his notes and hid his snicker at her failed attempt to chop the tree without Word assistance. “Okay, that’s pretty definite for stone and wood, then. You can Cut more often if what you’re cutting is weaker. We’ll have to test it with more materials, but there’s enough of a difference that it can’t be tiredness. You cut four times as much wood.”

“Huh.” Ana crouched to pick up her spear, clearly fighting to keep her hand steady. “Metal is probably worse?”

Kane nodded. “The swarm Oddities that attacked the Caravan too. We should test why stone is harder to Cut. It could be the weight or hardness of the material that affects you. Or it may be random to each material.”

“How do we test that?” Jay asked, even as he pondered it himself.

“Iron and gold,” Kane answered. “Both are heavy, but gold is soft.”

Jay blanched. Buying enough of either for Ana to test with would beggar any merchant. “Not unless we find a mountain of it in the Wilds.”

“There will be other substances we can use,” Kane said dryly. “The library might have a list of stone types somewhere.”

“Why have a list when the entire city recites it before bed every night,” Ana snarked. She sat down beside them on one of the trees she’d felled earlier in the testing. “I bet it’s like counting chewillas for them. Granite, brissite, wellstone, ...ehm.”

Jay didn’t hold his laughter back now.

“Shut it,” Ana said, pulling and throwing some grass at him. “I don’t have to list kinds of stone often.”

His laughter faded, and they relaxed in the peace of the small clearing. It was nice, and a clean break from the worries of the city, or the tension of the quarry.

As always, Ana was the one to disturb that.

“What next?” she asked, a challenge clear in her tone.

Jay stiffened despite himself. He chose what he said next carefully. “I thought, that we- that I could try some of your ideas. Train my Word.” The words tasted of bitter disappointment.

He looked up into the eyes of his teammates. Kane’s green were as calm as always, though wider and more engaged than usual. Instead of satisfaction or victory, he saw panic in Ana’s sharp blue.

“Oh- I- I don’t have ideas,” she confessed.

“What?” Jay asked, sitting up. “This was your idea. You brought it up, you’ve been bugging me about it.”

“Yeah, now I can see that, but I thought...”

“What?”

“I don’t know, that you’d had more exercises or something!”

He stared at her in disbelief. “Your plan was for me to come up with plans for my own Word? Exercises and ideas to make it useful that I’d been ignoring for some reason? How does that make sense?”

Ana groaned and stood up. “I know! I didn’t think, I just thought that...”

“Tell us about your Word and how you use it,” Kane said, interjecting before the conversation could get too far off track and saving Ana from Jay’s wrath in the process.

Jay crossed his hands and glared at both him and Ana. It was as much Kane’s fault as it was hers. They were both in this together.

“I see distance. Numbers come into my mind when I look at things.”

“You use it for positioning,” Kane prodded. “For fights and sparring.”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” He sighed. “It does make it easier to notice when someone is off center.”

“Your stance has been better. Perfect in the case of the more common ones you’ve seen more often. It is not as good when you move or change, but given time, you correct.”

“I think we do enough spear forms already,” Ana said, perturbed, her lips bunched to the side.

Jay had to agree, and he shrugged at Kane. Having a nice spear form wasn’t exactly what he considered a gift from the gods.

“What else, Jay?” Kane asked with extra intensity, shifting to lean towards him. “What else can Measure do?”

“What do you mean?” Jay replied.

Ana echoed the sentiment, staring at Kane curiously.

Kane moved back, his face remaining a mask. “I do not want to speak about something which I am not sure of. Is there nothing else you do with Measure?”

“If you have an idea, you should tell us,” Ana said crossly, in a remarkable display of hypocrisy.

Kane’s expression did not shift an inch.

“Well...” Jay hesitated. “There is something, but it’s mainly an extension of distance.”

His teammates turned back to him.

Jay waved a hand around his face. “Expressions and body language. Sometimes I notice these small changes. Minor twitches, but it helps me put things together.”

Ana’s eyes widened. “That’s it! That’s how you can tell what Kane’s thinking. Oh, by the Three. I thought it was me. He’s so hard to read, but you never seem to have the same issue, and everyone else seems not to notice – Taylor, for one – I thought I was going mad.”

Kane’s eyebrows rose in such offense Jay had to laugh. He didn’t need Measure to judge that expression.

“I am what?”

Ana winced. “Nothing. Ignore what I said. Jay, we could train that, right?”

Stifling his laughter, Jay shrugged. “How do you train that? They’re just little things I notice.”

But Ana would not let this go, not when the alternative was answering Kane’s question instead and opening that pit. She suggested a guessing game. She and Kane would speak to each other, or he would say a keyword, and then have to guess how they felt about it.

It didn’t take long for Ana to get insulted by how easy she was to read. Kane remained a challenge.

The ‘exercise’ was stupid, but also fun. Jay felt relieved and sad. It was a confirmation of his thoughts. This was nothing that could be used for adventuring. It might come in handy someday, but it required too much concentration to be used in a fight or in the wilds. The pressure he’d been feeling from his team was gone, but so was a little of his buried hope. As certain as he’d been that Measure was helpful, a part of him hoped that it could be.

They attempted to continue the game on the way back to Lauchia, stopping only when Jay stumbled to the ground mid-guess.

In all the laughter, neither Ana nor Jay thought to follow up with Kane.