There was a reason Clayton was eager for there to be more traffic in the tavern. When he had started his journey, other reborn had been a rare thing. There hadn’t been much chance for him to build a party for adventuring. As he got further and further out from the center of things, they had been more plentiful, but both they and him had been feeling out what their options would be, trying to make sure they didn’t get caught in a dangerous world with a party full of less useful members.

  Clayton wasn’t as bad of a bet to take along as the blacksmiths and cobblers. Every single one of them would die out there, victim to the system’s four-people-in-a-party policy and the cruel, unrelenting practicality of anyone heading towards a dangerous, untamed wilderness. Nobody was going to reduce their team’s combat effectiveness by a quarter, even if months down the road it might have meant better weapons or armor. Crafters were friends of the permanent, established places. Out there, they were liabilities and nothing more.

  Later on, Clayton had realized his class wasn’t much better. Helen was right that a weak ability to sense and avoid danger wasn’t much when the potential variance in levels was so high. Most people had been interested, but as he got closer and closer to this endpoint, he had seen parties start to form without him, then completed parties ready for their journeys made up of the folks who had passed him up.

  He was risky. But out on the edge of things, he was also the last choice most people would have. So long as he could resist the call, he had a chance.

  There really was no opportunity for will to play even a small role in his direction of travel. At each stage, he was allowed just enough time to consider running away from his destiny, if not to do so. Once the time to move on came, it was impossible to stop himself from heading towards the edge. He could bemoan his fate, or grow angry over it. He could not resist it.

  Hours later, the tavern really was starting to fill. Mostly, it was locals, people who farmed or crafted in the outskirts. They were misfits, but safe from having to go further. Everyone else was heading towards the edge, an even more bizarre grouping of people from a diverse mish-mash of worlds. They were fully committed to groups of conventional looking warriors, or desperate groups of four doomed crafters hoping to beat even the more insurmountable version of insurmountable odds.

  After his time watching group after useless group walk in, Clayton was starting to become desperate. Then, impossibly, someone walked in who wasn’t backed by a group of three more committed warriors. She carried a staff, which usually meant a mage of some kind. There was a chance she was a blunt-force clubber of some kind, of course, but that chance was slim.

  Clayton left her alone for a while, convinced that was the right thing. She ate and drank her fill, rested, and then went out towards the back where the tavern’s bathing facilities sat. Clayton waited until she returned, tapping the table in frustration and impatience. It wouldn’t do to blow his chances with rudeness now, but with the call that might draw him onward any moment, he was playing a risky game.

  “Thanks.” The Cinna sat down, using a four-fingered hand to lower herself to a stool slightly too low for her longer-than-average legs. Cinnas came in a shorter variety and a taller, stronger one that tended towards combat classes. She was a tall one. “It must have been hard waiting. I appreciate the chance to eat.”

  “Least I could do. Mage? Healer?”

  “Mage.” The Cinna woman was ready to get down to details. “A light mage. I can distract. That’s most of what my class does. It makes openings.”

  “Ah.”

  That made sense. Distraction mages were useful, even mandatory for certain kinds of adventures. They were also specialized. When they ran into situations that didn’t cater to their skills, they were useless.

  “Combat abilities?” Clayton asked.

  “A powerful beam of light. It’s not bad, but it has a long cooldown and leaves me helpless. I have no medium-strength attacks at all,” the woman said.

  “I appreciate the honesty.” Clayton tapped his spear where it leaned against the table. “I’m an intelligence fighter. I have magic that makes me more evasive, and I can sense danger to a limited degree.”

  “How limited?”

  “It varies with the danger. More magical enemies tend to have ways of hiding.”

  “Ah. Well, I guess we don’t have much of a choice.” The Cinna brushed her hair out of her face and gave Clayton a weak what-can-you-do smile. “Grace.”

  “Clayton. I’m sending the request to party up now.”

  The other party rules were boilerplate. They would be immune to each other’s attacks, could not voluntarily choose to hurt one another, and would share a communal storage much bigger than the sum of what they’d have individually. There were other provisions, but those were the life-or-death ones, the binding together of the group that made it possible to party safely with someone you didn’t really know.

  “Done.” Grace poked at the air, interacting with her system window manually, in the habit of the very careful or very physical. Clayton suspected it was both. He accepted his own invitation to the party as well, and it was done. “So, do we have any leads on a third?”

  “Not yet.” Clayton looked at the door longingly. “I’d love to have a shield class, or a healer.”

  “I don’t think we’ll get that lucky.” Grace shook her head. “Any true shield class would be locked up early unless something was wrong with them.”

  “I’d deal with it. For some defense, I’d accept a lot of wrong-with-them.”

  “Here’s someone now. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  The door parted and admitted what Clayton thought of as a turtle person. He didn’t know why. It didn’t have a shell, but there was a certain stockiness about it that suggested turtle instead of lizard, and no room to think of the soft-scaled, greenish person as anything but that. In its hands, it carried a long-handled hammer, the kind that needed to be wielded with two hands.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  “Hear me out.” The turtle approached the table where Clayton and Grace sat without sparing a single glance for the rest of the room. “Just hear me out, please.”

  “Sure.”

  “A crafter.” Grace’s whisper was quiet but unmistakable at that short range. “He must be.”

  Clayton nodded. It wasn’t good news. Even so, he wasn’t going to turn the turtle away without hearing his case.

  “Agreed. But we can listen,” Clayton whispered back.

  “It’s cruel.”

  “It’s… necessary. As you said, we don’t have much choice.”

  “Just make it quick,” Grace said loudly with the turtle in range to prevent any more whispering. “You know what this is.”

  “I do, but you are two. Only two.” The turtle grabbed the back of a stool and hauled it away from the table enough to sit. “You might get two more warrior classes before the morning, but what if you don’t?”

  “Then we’d party up with you, and get ourselves killed protecting you. The party agreement wouldn’t allow for anything less.”

  “It wouldn’t! I know.” The turtle thumped his chest. “But I’m a Tetra. A reborn.”

  “Which means?” Clayton felt for the guy. He really did. “I’m a reborn too, but I’d doom any combat party I was in if I was a crafter.”

  “It means I can take hits. Tetra regenerate like they have a skill. It doesn’t level, but we do. And we are hard to damage. Poke me with your spear. Do it.” The turtle motioned towards his shoulder.

  “I can’t.”

  “You can. Just do it.” The tetra thumped his chest again. “In the shoulder. Hard.”

  Clayton sighed but did as he was told. The spearhead flashed forward with the same power he’d use on a probing, medium-strength blow. It sunk into the tetra’s flesh, but only with reluctance.

  “Well?” Grace asked after a moment of silence from both Clayton and the turtle.

  “He really is tough, Grace. I’ll give him that.”

  “Now watch it heal.” The tetra angled his neck to get a look at the wound, wincing as he did. He might have been tough, but the wound apparently hurt. “It’s not as fast as real regeneration, but give me a few minutes and I’ll be closed up.”

  “Fine. I can see that’s happening. But what can you contribute?” Grace asked.

  “I’ll fight.” The tetra pushed forward his hammer. “I’ll run into every battle swinging.”

  “You won’t hit anything,” Grace said. “And if you do, you won’t hurt them.”

  “I won’t. I admit it! But I’ll be a distraction. I’ll hold enemies off. If I’m fighting, the system won’t force you to protect me in the same way. I’ve tried it. Look.”

  “And how will we know you won’t go back on that?” Clayton asked. “No offense.”

  “You don’t. I couldn’t get an affidavit for that. The system won’t tell a person what they believe in that way. But I swear it to you. I swear…” Alvin was overexcited now, choking on his words. “I just swear, okay?”

  “What do you think?” Clayton shot the obvious question towards Grace. Alvin waited patiently. “If he does as he says…”

  “He will be cannon fodder. He’ll almost certainly die,” Grace stated.

  “We all will almost certainly die. He’s no exception. This improves his chances.”

  “I leave it to you. But not before we have to. If anyone else shows up, this deal is off.”

  Clayton didn’t want to be in charge. He hated being in charge for just this kind of reason. He took a deep breath, shook his head, and put Alvin out of his misery.

  “I’ll allow it,” Clayton said.

  “Oh, thank you!” The tetra sprang from his seat, talking much louder and faster than he probably knew. “I will do my best, I’ll…”

  “Hold on.” Clayton held his hands up. “There are conditions.”

  “Oh, of course. I’m sorry. What are they?”

  “We won’t party until we have to move on. If two others show in the meantime, you can’t come.”

  “Of course.” Alvin nodded eagerly. “I wouldn’t expect anything else.”

  “You are a smith?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you prepared for spending all the materials on survival? No wealth accumulation?” The system wouldn’t enforce that deal, but a verbal agreement wasn’t nothing. If Alvin held back materials the system assigned to him for his fair share of wealth accumulation, they’d never see benefit out of him even if he survived. “If we find Heaven Iron, I don’t want…”

  “My people don’t care for wealth.” Alvin burst in. “You can’t know that, but we don’t. It’s about doing a good job. I agree. It’s not even a loss for me.”

  “Then it’s settled. If we can’t fill our party by the time we leave, you can join. I’m sorry but that’s the best we can do,” Clayton said.

  Alvin was overjoyed, which both Grace and Clayton tried to tamp down. At best, this was going from a sure death sentence to an infinitesimally less sure one. It wasn’t anything to celebrate.

  They stayed up all night, long after the last of the stew was eaten and everyone else went to bed. If there was even a small chance of the party getting a third warrior or a fourth to replace Alvin, Clayton and Grace were going to take it. Alvin, for his part, seemed eager to prove he was all-in, even if his two temporary companions were waiting for others to take his party spot.

  It was almost dawn when something changed, and it wasn’t good.

  Clayton felt the certainty that he would leave that place in an hour sink in, irresistible. He didn’t even want to stay, though he knew he should.

  “Damn.” Grace stretched in her chair. “I thought we’d have longer.”

  “So soon?” Helen appeared from the storeroom behind the kitchen, which seemed to connect to her and her son’s rooms. The other Merkie really was her son, it had turned out. It had been easy enough to confirm as she spent the entire night yelling at him for various kinds of foolishness he seemed to be doing on purpose just to rile her. “I thought you’d have longer.”

  “We have an hour,” Clayton said. “I hate to ask, but can you feed us?”

  “Of course.” Helen smiled. There was something odd in the smile that Clayton could tell Grace saw too. “Just let me take care of something, for a moment.”

  “What’s that about?” Grace asked as Helen moved into the back. “Should I be worried?”

  “I have no idea, Grace. I guess we should wait.”

  Helen went upstairs, and after a short time the muted sounds of an argument bled through the ceiling above them. After a sudden crash, the argument stopped. Grace appeared shortly afterwards, dragging her son behind her.

  “What do you want, Mom? I already met them.”

  Grace ignored him.

  “Here,” she said. “Breakfast is free, on one condition. Take this idiot with you.”

  “Mom!” the Merkie man yelled. “Why?”

  “Oh, stop it.” Helen’s eyes teared up. “You think I haven’t noticed? Living this close to the edge, it was always a possibility. When you started to hang around the lost and found, you think I couldn’t tell why?”

  “The what?” Grace said what everyone was thinking.

  “I didn’t want to tell you,” the Merkie man said.

  “Well, I know now. And you can’t have long left. This group is as good as any. Do you want them, or do you want to wait?” Helen asked.

  “I can’t wait.” The Merkie gulped. “I put it off too long.”

  “See? Not an ounce of sense in the boy. Go, raid the armory. Bring back anything that looks like it might work for these people too. I’ll get breakfast ready.” Helen paused. “His name’s Tom by the way. I think you’ll get along just fine.”

  The lost and found, it turned out, was mainly comprised of weapons and armor. People had carried spares in, but few of them wanted the extra weight and bulk when they entered the dangerous chaos beyond. Out there, they’d either find something better soon or die. It made more sense to leave their storage spaces empty than to take too much.

  Still, years worth of collecting meant Helen had something a little better for everyone. Clayton ditched his spear for a longer, lighter version that would give him a bit more time to react compared to his standard issue weapon. Both he and Grace got improved armor, his leather and hers a slightly thicker cloth robe. Even poor Alvin was able to improve his clothes a bit, putting on more durable outerwear that would hold up to the elements and long journeys better.

  The real find, however, was Tom’s.

  “A shielder?” Clayton found himself yelling, and cut himself off before he woke up the entire inn. “Why didn’t you get a party sooner? Anyone would have wanted you.”

  “Because I didn’t want to leave my mom, all right?” Tom hefted a metal kite shield, hitting past it a few times with a spiked wooden club. That was the way shielder’s fought, as a general rule. They didn’t do much damage or have much skill, so they put everything behind heavy swung weapons, prayed they’d hit, and hoped stats and physics would take it from there. “I’m sorry, mom.”

  “I’m sorry to you, son.” Helen wiped her eyes. Time was running short now. “It was me who decided to live on the edge. Just promise that… you know.”

  “I’ll try, mom.” Tom gave his mother a long hug before pulling away. “If there’s any way for me to make it, I will.”

  With everyone armed and no new party members appearing at the door, Clayton finalized things. They were bound together now, for better or worse. The system pushed them out the door, and a few minutes later, with little fanfare, they crossed over the border to the outer planes and turned to see the world behind them was gone.