Inch by Inch

Jay stepped away from the city gate, leaving the dark arch of stone behind. He took a deep breath. Today, the world tasted green and floral. The wind smelled like pepper.

It was funny how accustomed you got to city air. When he first arrived in Lauchia, it was all he smelled. Now he only noticed it when he passed through one of the city gates. A lot of it was the lack of wind. There was never much of a breeze inside those great walls, and the lack often stifled the city.

More and more Jay realized he was meant for the outdoors, the wilds between Wonders and what dwelled there. It was a place of peace, of–

“Do we really need to wear these things already?”

“Yes.” Jay reached up and adjusted his own helmet. It was... not very comfortable to wear. The leather was hard and scratchy against his head, and the long neck guard at the back tended to catch on his vest. These helmets were designed to protect one of the most vulnerable parts of the body, the skull and back of the neck. Unfortunately, this made them look like a soup ladle with an overly wide handle. The ladle half poked into his neck, which was stiff enough already.

At his side Kane bore the helmet with a stoicism learned from years of training with Kavakar’s guards and living with one of their captains. The odd design looked at home on his head. Professional even. Part of that was the higher quality of Kane’s armor, but it was also the way in which the swordsman wore it. It was equipment for battle and Kane was a warrior. It belonged.

Ana, on his other side, wore hers like a saucepan on a scarecrow. The helmets all came from the same shop, the same leather worker. They were the same material and fitted in the same way. She still found some way of wearing it askew, shoving her brown hair out to one side in uneven sprouts.

Jay hoped his own helmet fell somewhere in between them, but he feared that he wore it more like Ana did than Kane.

“We’re outside the city now, and that means we are responsible for our own safety.” He nodded at what Ana carried in her hands, their second of three purchases from yesterday. “You’ll want to keep that at the ready too.”

Ana twitched, realizing the tip of her shiny new spear was almost — 2.76 centimeters off — trailing on the ground. Jay flinched back as she swung the spear into an upright position.

“Be careful with that thing!”

He was regretting the purchase already. Like with Ana’s armor, they had trouble finding a spear that suited her size. Unlike Ana and Jay’s previous shopping trip, the solution to the problem ended up being more suitable and deadlier. Especially in Ana’s hands.

The weapon’s shaft was made from wildwood. Its grain was a dark color that gained a hint of orange when wet or around the grips after a training session. At the shop, the spear smith assured them that moisture did not weaken the wood, though the material was chosen for its lighter weight rather than strength.

It was only with the spear smith’s recommendation that they even tested the weapon. As a craftsman who came recommended themselves, Jay was inclined to lend them the interest of uncertainty rather than the fear. Working with any material harvested from the ever-changing worlds between Wonders was always a risk; their properties unknown until error discovered them. It took a master to make the most out of the unknown. Few would trust their lives to such materials, reduced price aside, but the spear smith was highly regarded, and Jay recognized the shopfront from the last hints of Vasily’s task.

Really, Jay was more worried about what was at the end of the shaft rather than the quality of the wood. No standard spear was Ana’s size, so they didn’t buy a fighting spear. They bought one designed for throwing. The head lacked any wings or lungs. It was bladed, in a teardrop shape that stretched out twenty centimeters. It was a weapon designed to pierce and slice when in flight.

Now in Ana’s hands, it would cut.

The bloody thing was a long knife attached to a long pole! It gave Ana all that reach he had been pushing for, all the deadliness she seemed to pursue like a moth to flame, and did nothing to help her control. It was the perfect combination of qualities to prevent him from arguing against the purchase. Now they were five full days of expenses short of training, and ten days more in need.

Ana smiled, not moving the spear towards him, but clearly enjoying how Jay stayed clear of it. “Fine. Which way to the patrol place?”

Jay glared at her, but fished in his bag for their last purchase from yesterday. The leaflet sold as a map could barely be called such, but it contained enough detail to allow them to navigate. He took a second to identify landmarks before gesturing ahead of them. “Down that road. We turn at the statue of an old farmer. At our usual running pace it should only be a minute or two.”

Ana blanched. “Running? Today is the patrol day. We said we wouldn’t do the dog track or training?”

Kane snickered as her voice reached new heights, but offered no help. He began to adjust the blade hanging from his waist, so he could run easier and stretch.

“It’s not nearly as long a run. Don’t worry,” Jay said, rolling his neck and kicking his legs to warm them up.

Ana’s hands rose to her helmet, even as her loosened grip on her spear let it knock into the other side. “You guys are joking, right? I can’t run in all this.”

Jay didn’t snicker like Kane, but he couldn’t say he wasn’t enjoying it a little after her reaction earlier. “It’s a short run. You’ll be fine.” He started to jog forward.

“Jay! You have to be joking. Jay!”

A smile grew on his face.

“Wait, how do I run with a spear?”

“JAAAAAY!”

| i i i ¦ i i i | i i i ¦ i i i |

Standing at the center of Slow Keeping was, well, odd. There was one main thoroughfare that passed through the collection of farms, and it didn’t stop as much as swell like a knobby gall on a branch before continuing on its way past the farmhouses.

When Jay stood at the center of that gall, he felt much like the pith of an orange or any of the other zest fruits that came from Ohwoco city. The lump in the road connected all these holdings together, and from here all six of them expanded out onto their farms; each property a triangular segment with its point where he stood.

The design made for some very odd buildings, and Jay could understand why it had not caught on. Each farm holding had all the features he recognized from David’s farm back in Kavakar: the multiple floors on the farmhouse, functioning as a watchtower instead of conserving space; a heavy wooden palisade not shared — two walls separated each building; and bells outside the walls to signal visitors. All the right features, just squashed into a strange uncooperative shape.

It was as if someone tried to create a village without a Wonder, then thought better of it halfway through.

“Shall we start?” Kane asked, his voice muffled. He was faced away from Jay and slowly turning to get a better look at the collection of farms.

When Kane finished the rotation, Jay was surprised by the wide grin on his teammate’s face.

“Fine with me. Ana?”

Ana, who had not collapsed and died on the run as her shouting suggested, gave him a dirty look and nodded.

“Let’s see if the farmers have any information then.” Jay chose a house at random and walked over to ring the bell outside that entrance.

How do they know if I’m ringing their bell or their neighbors?

Behind him a window was slammed open.

“ROMWELL! It’s for you. Open your bloody gate!”

Oh. They don’t. Who designed this place?

A set of shutters slid open on the second story of the house they were outside. An elderly man with a great bushy head of hair poked his head out.

“Margaret? Are you sure it’s for me? I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

“LOOK DOWN!”

Jay winced at the volume and tracked the source. A woman with black hair leaned against her window sill, tapping her hand against the frame aggressively. He couldn’t help but notice as he turned that there was a face in at least one window per house, and usually more. They had drawn a crowd.

“Oh! Hello, I’ll be down in a jiffy.” The shutters slid closed and behind him, a window slammed shut.

“I guess they know we’re here at least,” Ana muttered under her breath. She was opening and closing her grip on her spear, making it look like the wood was glowing orange at her touch. It was a new habit, but one he supported once he checked to see if she was doing it right.

Old as he looked, Romwell must have been spry on his feet as the latches and bolts were thrown back shortly.

“Hello then. I didn’t expect visitors.” The old man leaned forward around his gate. “Do I know you?”

One of the man’s eyes was a full eight millimeters lower on his face than the other. How did that happen?

Ana nudged him with her elbow, and Jay cleared his throat and stepped forward.

“No, and this is not a social visit, I’m afraid. We are adventurers tasked with patrolling the area and wanted to check in.”

“Oh good,” Romwell said, slumping in relief. “I thought you were from the city again, and I’ve had enough of that this week. I’m in the middle of a brew and have no time for unpleasantries and conversation.”

“Ah... We won’t take up any more of your time then.” There were five other houses less than a stone’s throw away, and plenty of interested people given all the peeping from windows.

The old man’s eyes grew wide. “Nonsense. Come in, come in.”

“Umm–” Jay looked at his team for help.

Kane stiffened, which was a feat given how rigid he was usually, and sent Jay warning eyes. Ana was drawing on the ground with the bottom of her spear.

Jay turned back to Romwell. “Actually...”

The old man was gone. His gate creaked as it swayed in the breeze.

Kane groaned. He shook his head at Jay.

“What did I do?” Jay hissed back.

Kane nodded his head at the road and the other houses.

He grimaced at the gate. “We can’t leave it open.”

Ana sighed. “Oh, come on.” She pushed past them.

Farming equipment was strewn around Romwell’s yard. All was well-worn and sporting several repairs, but nothing was run down. There was little in the way of decorations.

“In here.” The voice rang out from the pointed end of the cone-shaped house.

Ana marched towards the voice, leaving Jay and Kane to linger behind.

Kane waved Jay forward. The guardsman’s son had a tight grip on his sword and was avoiding looking at the house. Giving him a wary look, Jay followed Ana.

Ana stopped just in the entrance, and Jay couldn’t help but do the same as he got a glimpse over her head. The doorway opened to a wide living room, and it was full of tubs and containers. Like the yard outside, all the equipment was worn but well cared for, and it made the situation all the more bizarre. The walls were hidden by shelves stacked full of jars, each containing a seemingly unrelated selection of contents. Liquid swirled beside fermenting and moldy grain, twigs and strange plants grew from dirt, fruit peels were squashed in with colorful stones. Towards the middle of the room, the tubs and containers bubbled and hissed and at the center of it all was Romwell, stirring an open topped tub. The air smelled of farts and sugar.

Jay’s nose scrunched, and his eyes widened in horror. Why did he pick this house? Was this what Kane had been warning them about?

“Now, what would a team of new adventurers like to know?” Romwell asked, not looking up from the stirring.

“Infor-” Jay gagged. “Information about the area. Oddities. Strange events.”

Romwell’s mouth twitched, the corners rising two millimeters. “Oddities! Oh, we get very strange ones around here.”

“I’m going to check on Kane,” Ana interjected between coughs.

Three’s mercy, is the smell getting worse?

Romwell didn’t react at all as she slipped past Jay, leaving them alone. “There was a big one. Took out half of Alexei’s cattle, blood everywhere.”

“What?” Jay scrambled for his notebook.

“Oh, Alexei won’t stop going on about it. He got a much better look at it to be sure. Ten feet high, he says. Threw its own arms to kill them and ate with its feet.” He sniffed, seemingly unbothered by the pungent odor. “Herd hasn’t been the same since.”

“Is Alexei alright? Where was it sighted? When was it last seen?“ He scribbled down everything Romwell said, mind racing. This could be why so many people were on the lookout in the farmhouses. They must think that the three of them were here to solve the problem. His guts wrenched. They were not ready for a ten-foot Oddity that could slaughter a herd of cattle.

They needed to let the bureau know.

Romwell stopped stirring. “Was it back in 46’ or 59’?”

Jay’s hand froze, and he blinked at Romwell in confusion. He regretted the act instantly as his eyes started to tingle. Years ago. The farmer was talking about an Oddity from years ago. He was both relieved and annoyed.

“Any more recent oddities?”

Romwell shook his head. “Just the usual. ”

Jay closed his notebook with a snap. This was not in any way useful to know. Coming inside was a mistake. “Thanks for your time,” He said, blinking his eyes to try to clear them.

“Oh, it is no bother. I always have time for Runninghoods adventurers.” The old man slapped the side of the tub he was stirring. The liquid wobbled dangerously. ”Come back in a week or two and this will be ready.”

Jay started to backpedal. “Runninghood? We’re independent.”

“You aren’t with Runninghoods guild?” Romwell’s eyes widened in surprise and he looked almost abashed.

“No,” He was out the door, and turning. He waved frantically at Ana and Kane. They needed to get out. “A pleasure to meet you.”

Romwell’s voice called after him, but Ana offered no argument as they jogged the first section of their patrol. Next time Jay was going to visit shouty Margaret. His ears could survive better than his nose.

Thankfully, the smell was confined to Romwell’s house. The patrol route, which followed a walking path, was full of more natural smells. Even manure didn’t seem so bad in comparison.

The fields were bursting with a purple plant that came up to knee height. It was here that Jay discovered he didn’t like looking at fields much; they gave him a headache and far too much noise about different heights. He didn’t care much for the length and width of one broad leaf or by how much its neighbor was smaller. Instead, he focused on the path ahead, and a herd of animals moving in the distance. All their armored humps made for a surprisingly pleasing shape when placed together. They formed a swaying caramel banner on the horizon that brought a smile to his face.

Leading as he was, he didn’t realize the others weren’t close behind him until Ana spoke.

“What the shit is that?”

Her hand was up, pointing towards the fields in the same direction that Kane, who had stopped several paces behind her, stared.

A rectangle of four shimmering lights bobbed between purple leaves, eleven centimeters long and eight centimeters wide.