Rem dashed through the corridor, boots hammering the tiles, heart rattling against his ribs. Every breath came too loud, every stride too late. He’d slept past dawn, wasted minutes soothing his mother’s fears, only escaping after promising to go with her to mass later.

  “Sorry, Ms. Feorda,” he muttered, nearly tangling himself with a woman whose arms overflowed with pale blossoms, petals trembling at the collision.

  “There’s no rush,” she said, breath blowing a copper strand from her face. The flowers swayed, paper crinkling, perfume trailing in his wake. “That arch isn’t going anywhere.”

  Rem gave her half a nod, couldn’t slow. The plan burned in his skull, relentless. If he was right, if the experiment worked, today could cut open the world. The thought only sharpened his pace, his legs aching with the urgency of it.

  His best ideas came while he dreamt, so when he woke with the need to scrawl down the plan, he knew he was onto something.

  The lift was thick with bodies when he arrived, doors sealing them in with a sigh. The car groaned downward, steady, maddeningly slow. Rem jittered in the cramped space, shifting weight heel to toe, heel to toe, until it felt like his bones might rattle free.

  “I’ve seen that look,” said an older man, jacket patched at the elbows, hands carved by years of labor. He had his arm looped around a white-haired woman, her eyes misted but bright as river water under moonlight. “What I wouldn’t give to feel that way again.”

  “What I wouldn’t give for you to feel that way again too,” she answered, her laugh crisp and bright, scattering the stale air in ripples.

  Smiles flickered among the passengers. Rem’s face flushed. He must look like a boy before an exam—twitching, burning holes in the floor. He forced his hands flat against his thighs. Still. Still. Don’t draw eyes.

  Fingers slid into his satchel, brushed the slime cores through the cloth. Cold lumps, damp and solid, each one a secret weight. He considered his notebook, sketches and scrawls of possibility, but pulled back. Not here. Not under watch. He bit down on the nerves, rode the hum until the car groaned to a halt.

  The rail level. Then transfer. Then the plaza. Every delay stretched. The crowd pressed, heat rolling in waves. When the station doors swung wide, he broke loose at last, sprinting down the causeway and into the crush.

  The square steamed with life. Vendors hollered over one another, carts smoked with the scents of fried root and spiced meats, bodies pressed in currents too thick to breathe. A girl balanced three trays of candied fruit. A man bellowed for fresh eels. Rem cut through them, sights locked on the stall he had marked yesterday. A crooked sign sagged over the planks: Groale’s Mishmash and Etc.

  Groale was as mismatched as his wares. One arm stiff from injury, nose twisted sideways, tunic patched in clashing hues. He reeked of iron filings and leather. A tin pail sloshed beside him, cloudy green cores bobbing. Tools sprawled across the boards: chipped sickles, dented helmets, broken hinges, a lantern whose panels could no longer keep the weather out.

  Rem slid into line, foot tapping its own wild drum. Each beat, another second stolen. A boy in front of him haggled over a coil of rope; a woman argued for better nails. Every transaction was a mountain to climb. When his turn opened, he lunged too fast, words spilling before breath could catch.

  “Bucket. And a shovel.” He pulled four cores, set them down with a crystalline click. His throat was dust but his voice steady.

  Groale picked one up with a rag, turned it in the light, squinting as though it were an old coin. “Low-grade. Not worth much. Binding stock, resin stabilizers. Useful, sure. But cheap.” He flexed it; the skin bowed but didn’t break. Tossed it back with a grunt.

  “They’re clean. Fresh. No cracks,” Rem pressed, fighting to keep the urgency out of his tone.

  “For four cores, I’ll give you a leaking bucket and a cracked haft. Good enough for a boy on his first run.” Groale leaned in, eyes cutting to the war hammer at Rem’s side. “Unless you’ve got something better. That hammer. Forged by hand, weighty. Trade that and the cores, and I’ll find tools worth carrying.”

  Rem’s hand tightened on the haft before he realized he’d reached for it. The hammer had been his parents’ gift, Tomas’s find, their reassurance he wouldn’t go helpless. For a heartbeat, guilt pricked sharp, shame curling in his gut.

  But the hammer was clumsy. Heavy. Yesterday it had nearly shattered his foot. He saw the bucket in his mind, saw the shovel, saw the plan forming teeth. The tool he needed, not the weapon they chose.

  Slowly, he set the hammer on the counter.

  Groale’s eyes glinted. “Better.” He ducked under the planks, rummaged in shadow, and emerged with a wooden bucket bound in iron, twice the size, and a steel-headed shovel, its haft leather-wrapped against a healed fracture. Both bore scars of use, but they were sturdy, honest.

  A snicker behind him. “Traded a hammer for a shovel? What’s next, boots for a soup pot?”

  Laughter trickled through the line, sharp as needles. Rem didn’t turn. He tested the tools, their weight, their balance. Old, worn, but serviceable. He nodded once, shoved the hammer forward, and watched Groale sweep his cores into the pail.

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  “That’s fair,” Groale said. “Don’t come crying when you regret it.”

  “I won’t… regret it I mean..” He gathered bucket and shovel, adjusted to their weight, forced his spine straight. He knew the cost. Knew what he was risking. And knew it would be worth more than a weapon if the plan held.

  He had to trust himself. He’d never been wrong about this kind of thing before.

  He slipped away into the crowd. Acquire bucket, acquire shovel.

  Near the plaza’s rim, scaffolds rose half-finished, frames groaning as hammers rang. Rubble heaps sprawled — stone chips, broken brick, timber shards. Workers hauled beams on their shoulders, lime dust hung bitter in the air, sweat dripping from foreheads into shirts already stiff with salt. Rem crouched, lowered his bucket, and began filling it. Stones, tiles, scrape on scrape, loud against wood. He kept his head bowed, working quick, trying to look like he belonged among them.

  “Well, well. Rembrandt de Vries.”

  The voice hit hard, though the echo that followed felt forced, hollow at the edges. Rem froze, stone in hand, before rising slow.

  Thames van Alst. Taller than memory, shoulders broad, muscles trained to obey instruction, not instinct. Fresh-dyed tunic, new leather boots, staff gleaming with brass. Wire spectacles flashing, catching every shard of light. His face was straight angles, too even, too deliberate—recruitment-hall symmetry. The crowd bent around him, but it was habit more than awe.

  “You’re still level one,” Thames said, voice bright, just a little too bright. A grin flashed wide as a few workers turned their heads. “Guess some things don’t change.”

  Rem set the stone in the bucket, slow and even. “Good to see you too, Thames.”

  Thames’s gaze flicked to the bucket and back, the grin faltering before it found its footing again. “Rocks? That’s… bold. Most fight slimes with steel, or at least with something that won’t shatter on impact.” He laughed once, the sound thin. “But you—if anyone could make gravel into a plan, it’d be you.”

  Doran’s laugh came late, too loud. Jessa smirked, dagger twirling, her glance sliding toward Thames as if to check the script.

  “I’ve got my own plans,” Rem said, steadying the bucket against his leg.

  “Plans,” Thames repeated softly, as if tasting the word. “Always had those. Big ones. Complicated. Dangerous, sometimes.” His gaze lingered on Rem’s hands.

  Rem’s jaw flexed, but he said nothing.

  Thames shifted, voice tightening. “Careful you don’t end up like Groale. Brilliant ideas, bad endings.” He gestured toward the stall across the plaza. “Dropped out on three, never leveled again. Now he sells junk to boys who think they’re special.”

  Groale looked up, eyes flat. The silence that followed didn’t help Thames—it made his words sound mean instead of clever.

  “That’s enough,” Rem said quietly. Heat rising, but controlled.

  Thames took a step closer, too quick to feel natural, his followers following half a breath behind. “Enough? You think I’m afraid of you?” His voice was low now, pitched for Rem alone. “You’re the one who doesn’t belong here. Say it.”

  Doran cracked his knuckles, glancing at Thames for permission that didn’t come. Jessa twirled her dagger faster, restless.

  The plaza noise dulled. Rem’s pulse slowed instead of racing. The bucket’s metal bit into his palm.

  “I don’t need to explain myself,” he said, voice steady. “Not to a coward and his collection of soft-skulls.”

  Thames froze mid-breath. The grin tried to return but didn’t make it all the way to his eyes. For a heartbeat, uncertainty showed—the faint tremor of someone realizing he’s prodded the wrong thing.

  Then Jessa laughed, slicing the silence in half. “Let’s go. He’s not worth the stain.”

  Thames exhaled hard through his nose, then managed a smirk. “Don’t trip on your own gravel, Rembrandt.” He turned fast, and the crowd opened for him—less tide, more retreat.

  Rem’s shoulders ached from the restraint. His breath came ragged. Their laughter followed, but it didn’t sound certain anymore.

  Rem filled his bucket. Strapped the shovel to his back. Hauled it with both hands, the swing awkward, weight shifting wrong, each step a negotiation with the shifting load. He forced himself into the line before the arch, heartbeat still caught in his throat. Someone’s laughter rang out behind: “Look at him, bucket of rocks!” Ripples of amusement spread, then faded, leaving him hollow but unbroken.

  He fixed his eyes forward. Walked on.

  [SYSTEM INTERFACE — TRANSPORT MENU]

  Available Nodes:

  ? Storage Locker (Ref: LOC-ST/001)

  ? Challenge Level 1 — Passes Remaining: 1 (Ref: CH-001/DAILY)

  ,

  He dumped the rocks into a bin, the clatter echoing too loud in the chamber. His gaze snagged on his official hero card, abandoned in a cubby — neat lines, titles promising futures that never came, false promises on cheap cardstock. He set his jaw, shouldered the bucket, turned toward the challenge.

  The brook murmured through the ravine, steady as breath, water threading stone. He followed its edge, found a shallow stretch, and stepped in. Cold bit at his ankles but he kept moving. Bucket down, fill, lift, pour. Rock after rock, a rhythm he could trust. The ache in his shoulders marked progress, the sting in his palms just another signal from the system of his body.

  When the basin was wide enough, he switched to the shovel, carving a deeper pocket where runoff would settle. The hollow shaped cleanly. Part three complete. One more step.

  A slime clung to the wall, surface glistening. He eased it up with the shovel, careful to cradle rather than cut, and tipped it into the new pool. The creature settled, pulsing once, then began to drink.

  Expansion started slow, almost delicate. Then faster. Volume doubling, surface tension thinning to transparency. He watched the skin strain, veins of brighter green racing through it.

  “Brilliant,” Rem muttered. “Made it worse.”

  He shifted his stance, raised the shovel. The motion triggered instinct—measure, strike, solve—but before the swing could fall the slime convulsed. A tremor ran across its body, then—rupture.

  A wet concussion, sudden and complete. Spray caught him full in the face, cold and sour, soaking his tunic, dripping from his chin.

  He froze, shovel still half-lifted. The basin filled itself, green water spreading in calm rings. Relief arrived.

  [COMBAT LOG]

  ? Target Eliminated: Level 1 Slime.

  ? Reward: 5 XP.

  Compliance reference: Combat Resolution §9.1.

  Rem’s smile cut thin. The interface refused to update, but it didn’t matter. The principle was clear: slimes consumed until their structure failed. Saturation, not force.

  He watched the green water thread downstream, carrying away the fragments of proof.

  “Now,” he murmured, shovel balanced across his knees, “how can we abuse this?”