Jack Thatcher strode over and redonned his tunic, feeling both accomplished and terribly behind the tasks he needed to get done today. With a shaky breath, Jack exited the absolutely brutalized circle of grass he’d called home these past hours and strode toward town.

  Above, the sky was a juxtaposition of colors and impressions. Dark gray rain clouds roiled over one another like oceanic undertows, building up for what had to be the father of all storms over in the north. To the west stood the black shroud, eating up the sunlight even as its surface swirled with the promise of death. But directly above himself and the town of Thistlebrush, the sky was clear.

  It was beauty surrounded by destruction.

  Jack strode across the uneven cobblestone road that led in and out of the town. It was surreal how much easier it was to navigate the world after his exercise and grinding out skill levels. He felt more solid and magnitudes more confident. Sure, he was still only level 3, but compared to where he was the last time he was inside that city, it was night and day.

  “Move, runt!” a wizened voice shouted from behind him.

  He turned to see another wagon approach from the northern road. Unlike the previous one, this wide cart was pulled by a bulky beast that was a mix between a rhinoceros and an ox. With one tiny difference.

  This creature had scales. Rainbow scales.

  It reflected and refracted the undappled light cascading from above, veritably impersonating a disco ball. Its dull black eyes were the only boring part of this incredible, if slow, beast.

  He Inspected it.

  [Chromox: Leonard - Level 7]

  A fitting name by all accounts. Jack was so enthralled by the exotic creature that he entirely missed the thin crack of a switch until he felt the sharp sting across his cheek.

  “Ow!” he yelled, clutching at the minor wound indignantly.

  “Serves ya right, runt! Get out’a me void-damned way, or I’ll have Leonard here trample ya and fit ya right straight as a new cobbledy-stone for this here road!” the old man snapped back, his accent so thick it was hard to understand him.

  It vaguely reminded Jack of an Irish accent, if an Irishman had lived too long in Texas.

  “What?” the man demanded, raising his thin reed switch again. “Got curd on me face, or am I just that purty? Git afore I take an eye, runt!”

  The mechanic sent off another Inspect.

  [Trudy the Digger - Level 14]

  Jack sidestepped the cart, still too confused by the accent and chromox to really care that he’d just been hit by a stranger. Odder still was how little it had hurt. Trudy didn’t look frail by any stretch of the imagination, and that wasn’t even taking into account his level and thus stats.

  And Jack had felt the tight sting of a leather belt enough times to know how much pain a seasoned whipper could inflict. So, why hadn’t that hurt more?

  Oh, right. Resilience.

  His was at 18 now. He didn’t have a great frame of reference, but still, that had to be better than the average level 3 person. Was Trudy holding back? He doubted it. The old man’s demeanor screamed of a bitter soul. His scowl was nearly as deep as his hunched spine.

  Leonard trudged past Jack, and one of its lidded black eyes met his. He might’ve imagined it, but it looked like the creature said, ‘See what I have to deal with?’ in that one glance. Jack resisted the urge to laugh.

  When the cart had passed, he stepped back onto the road and resumed his earlier brisk pace. The storm clouds were getting closer.

  A breeze spread across the farmlands he passed, carrying with it the mixed aromas of sweet fruit, wildflowers, and fertilizer. Jack was a city boy, so he didn’t care much for the final scent, but the rest were welcome.

  Trudy and his chromox made it to the city gates over a minute before he did, but he quickly got into the queue. There was one more cart ahead in line of Trudy and himself, as well as a young couple who clung tightly to one another.

  There wasn’t much to cling to.

  Both partners were unnaturally thin and wore tattered cowls over their oily hair. Their heads were bowed, and they shuffled between the two carts like they wanted to be anywhere but in this line. Jack couldn’t blame them. Between Trudy’s attitude and the guard’s roaming stares, he’d consider coming back another time, too.

  With a jolt, the frontmost cart started moving right as the guards let them into the city.

  “Papers,” the guard on the left droned. He was a bulky man with a lazy eye, and he barely fit in his simple, red leather armor. “Come on, then. Haven’t got all day, and don’t fancy a shower in the storm that’s comin’.

  Papers, Jack thought, and a quiet panic started to lay its roots deep in his gut.

  He watched as the couple panicked and rustled about their cloaks. The moment stretched into a painful few seconds. Then a few more.

  “Move out of the way, ya dreamsniffing buggards!” Trudy bellowed from his perch atop the wagon. “Thistlebrush ain’t got no time for ya vagranting and leaching off our good town’s resources!”

  A few of the guards chuckled and nodded their heads, but a guard to the right stepped in front of the couple and spoke in a clipped, but not unkind, tone.

  “We need your papers or proof of either a reservation in a local inn, or that you have contacts inside the city. Family is always best, but we’ll take friends of the family. Do you have any verifiable correspondence?” she asked, and Jack recognized the voice.

  He leaned past the obstruction of the cart and peered around to see none other than Captain Yelena Stark. She wore her massive sword strapped to her back, and her steel helm framed the sharp angle of her jaw and that tiny nose reddened by a long day out in the sun. Her pitiless eyes shot past the couple.

  Jack dodged back behind Trudy’s wagon.

  “We… we don’t have any papers like that,” the man spoke, his voice as quiet as it was coarse.

  “Then get out of me void-damned way! I’ve got orders to fill!” Trudy bellowed down at the couple, who shrank under his yelling.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “STAND DOWN,” Captain Stark ordered Trudy, and everyone—including Jack—felt the barely restrained power behind that command. “You will wait your turn, citizen, or I will detain you for contempt. If you utter another word before your turn for inspection, I’ll personally see to it that you have to take your wares to Thurnfeld for the foreseeable future.

  From his vantage, Jack couldn’t see Trudy’s face, but he did hear the man splutter. After a painfully quiet few seconds, Yelena spoke again.

  “What brings you to my city?” Stark asked.

  It was the young woman who spoke up this time.

  “We… We heard that there was work here. Honest work,” she added quickly. “A friend of mine said that some millers and brewers here had positions open up recently.”

  “Unfortunately, without proof of those positions, we sadly cannot allow you entry into town at this time. If you can have your friend converse with her contacts and collect a writ of hire, then that will be sufficient for entry,” Yelena said, her voice soft.

  “Please. You don’t understand! We’ve nowhere else to go! I swears, we’ll be good citizens! Just give us a—”

  “You heard the captain!” the other guard shouted. “Now leave a’fore we have to make ya leave!”

  From where he watched the whole affair at a discreet distance, Jack saw the guard level his long pike at the young couple.

  “I don’t ask twice,” he growled. “NEXT!”

  Trudy flicked his switch, and the cart plodded forward. While the rotund guard helped Trudy, Jack—now fully visible—saw the young couple step aside. The captain approached them, her greatsword blotting them out from the view of the other guards.

  “Go to Thurnfeld,” Yelena said quickly. “Ask for Cintri at the Bent Dagger. Tell her Stark sent you, and that you’re looking for work. I’m sorry, but that’s all I can do.”

  “Thank you,” the young woman whimpered, clutching at the captain’s armored forearm.

  “Yes. Thank you, captain,” the man responded, sounding more relieved than Jack could’ve imagined.

  The tall redhead gave them a nod, extricated her arm, and then turned to take her place back at the gate.

  Jack didn’t hesitate. He dove for the grass right as Trudy’s cart started to clip forward in earnest. He waited breathlessly, half-expecting Stark to stroll over and skewer him in the back. But as one minute bled into the next, no one shouted down at him. He lay there, submerged in the tall grass, for what felt like days, but was probably closer to ten minutes. When he heard a fresh arrival at the gates, heralded by the clip of hooves against dirt and cobblestone, he started to make his move.

  He didn’t have any papers, and there was no way in hell that Stark of all people would vouch for him.

  For some reason, that conclusion bothered him a bit, and he realized it had to do with the young couple. She’d been kind to them, but that only made her treatment of him all the more frustrating. If she were a tightass with everyone, then her attitude toward Jack would make sense. It wouldn’t be personal.

  But it was.

  She’d demonstrated that she was capable of compassion. Of kindness.

  That meant that her suspicion and callousness toward him weren’t just unearned; they were targeted.

  There’s no way I’m risking that right now.

  He began to army-crawl his way through the tall grass, hating how soggy and moist the soil was beneath his body. It only got worse as he circumnavigated the wall. When he was well out of eyesight from the gate and away from the sparse patrols along the ramparts, he rose to a crouch and moved through the unkempt weeds.

  It took him longer than he would’ve liked, but as he approached the border of the shroud, the condition of the wall grew worse in conjunction with the frequency of patrols along the ramparts. He’d had to dive and lie flat on his stomach over a dozen times now, and his blue tunic was thoroughly stained brown at this point.

  But, after nearly another hour of searching and waiting, he made it to the steep hill that preceded Thistlebrush’s crumbling defense. When the next pair of red knights passed overhead, he scrambled up and dug through the underbrush until he came upon the hole he’d escaped through.

  “I hate this so much,” Jack grumbled, but got back on his stomach and started to crawl through the dark tunnel.

  It was slow, arduous work. Worms and other insects had reclaimed it, and he had to resist the urge to gag as he made his way through. When he reached the other side, he let out a string of curses.

  Sathem—the knight with the tree and root powers—had sealed up this side with a network of thorny limbs.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Jack considered his options as he stared through the net of roots.

  I can go back, but that’ll mean going straight back to Olric with little to show for it. And I ruined his shirt. I could try to break my way through the net of thorns, but given the way I’m facing, that’ll mean I need to use my fists. If I had my feet facing this way, I could use my fancy boots…

  Jack cursed again, but knew that he wouldn’t turn back. He had a job to do, and if there was a chance he could still do it, he would exhaust every option before giving up.

  “This is going to suck,” he said morosely.

  The mechanic started to use the lip of one boot to slowly pry off the other. It was even slower than crawling through the tall grass, made so much worse by the limited space of the tunnel. He scraped his knee, and a jagged rock kept digging into his hip as he shimmied about. Sweat and a growing sense of claustrophobia made him clumsy. He nearly lost the boot once he’d taken it off, and had to feel for it in the dark with his sockless foot.

  “Got you!” he whispered in victory, squeezing the old leather boot between his toes.

  He started to bend and contort until he just barely managed to grab it from his foot and pull it up to near the thorns. It reeked, but Jack once again forced down his bile and focused on the task before him. He slipped his right hand into the boot and adjusted his position so that he had a clear angle on the roots.

  “Please don’t let this alert that bastard,” Jack quickly prayed, then rocketed his booted fist forward.

  It slammed into the roots awkwardly, but fortunately, none of the thorns punctured the leather. A few of the intertwined twigs bent under his strike, but did little else. He punched again.

  And again.

  The tunnel was getting smaller. He was sure of it. It wanted to eat him. Swallow him whole for trespassing a second time.

  He punched again. There were a few snaps this time, but it felt like punching old iron. His boot warped around the offending limbs, and he could feel his knuckles pop and creak under each blow.

  “Why. Won’t. You. BREAK?!” Jack bellowed, punching forward with every ounce of his flagging strength.

  More cracks.

  Lying there in the tunnel, covered in mud and sweat, Jack had never felt so alone. So defeated.

  His eyes watered, and he snarled at the thorns.

  “You will not break me,” he promised. “But I will break you!”

  He shoved his booted fist forward, and at last the net of thorns snapped and broke away. He used the boot to crush the rest of the surrounding thorns as best he could, then tossed it out so that he could drag his way out.

  The moment he emerged, he felt like he’d been reborn. Light washed over him, and he let out something between a laugh and a sob.

  His right fist shook uncontrollably, and he noticed quite a bit of blood painting his knuckles. He flicked out his wrist but turned back to the thorns. Now seeing Sathem’s work better, he could see how he’d used the roots to make a cage nearly twice the size of the tunnel’s meager entrance. How the knight had transformed the roots into something this strong, and with thorns no less, had to be some weird magic skill or something.

  “See?” Jack said to the roots. “I broke you. I broke you. It’s going to take a hell of a lot more to return the favor.”

  If this was how this world wanted to do things, fine. It wanted to make his life miserable? Get in the freaking line. But it would not break him. Not now.

  Not ever.

  And just like with Sathem’s petty vengeance, he would break anything that stood in his way of making things right again with his sister. He’d fix this world, then leave it. That was his plan.

  Nothing else mattered.

  He turned away and looked down the path he’d taken with Myrtle. The old woman and the female knight’s body were gone, though the bloody stains of their fight remained affixed to the walls and stone floor. It was eerily quiet.

  Not wanting to interrupt that silence, he quickly put on his boot and slid into the shadows of Titanhold’s slums.

  It was time to find a sidequest. How hard could it be?