Inch by Inch

“Not you.”

The door guard’s pointed finger lingered in the air. This was a good thing as Jay, the object of its focus, was still trying to understand the delivered ultimatum.

“What?” he asked, double checking that the armor-clad finger was indeed pointed at him and not Peter. Peter, who had yet to present an adventuring tag. But no, it was definitely him. The Bedrock recruit stood on the other side of Ana and Kane. 2.59 meters too far away to be involved in a mixup.

The door guard sighed. He lowered his finger. “I can’t let you in.”

“Why not? You just looked at my tag. I’m an adventurer.” Jay looked at his friends, checking to make sure he wasn’t missing something like his trousers. But no, they were as surprised as he was. Peter had gone white. “I was here two days ago.”

“Look, I get a list. I don’t let the list in. You’re on the list. That’s all this is.” The door guard crossed his arms. “I don’t decide the rules, I just complete the task.”

“Wait, a list? What list? Why am I on it?” Jay spluttered.

At the exact same time, Ana exclaimed. “Wait, task? Guarding the door is an adventuring task?”

Jay shot her a look. “Really? Is that important now?” He rounded back on the guard, who hadn’t yet had a chance to open his mouth. “Are you sure there’s not a mistake? That it’s me on the list?”

“Jay,” Peter began, trying to calm the situation, but Jay could not be dissuaded.

The door guard rubbed his chin, one of the few parts of his face not covered by a helmet. He hadn’t shaved in a few days and one of the scraggly hairs caught on the leather of his glove, halting the movement and making him curse. “Look. It’s you. Your description and team number were provided.” He cast an eye across Jay’s team, yet not Peter. “I don’t think anyone is mixing you three up. You’re on the list, and that’s not going to change tonight. Find another tavern for the night, one with better and cheaper beer.”

“What? I-”

“Come on,” Kane, who’d been silent until now, said. He put a hand on Jay’s shoulder and steered him away from the entrance to the mountain top tavern. Jay was so flabbergasted by the situation he couldn’t find the words to speak until they were across the street.

“Did that just happen?” he asked finally.

“What did you do to get put on a list?” Ana asked, squinting at him.

“Nothing! I’ve spent the last two days with you!”

“There was lunch...” she muttered, but seemed to get his point.

“Could it be that political situation that Peter was speaking of earlier?” Kane asked.

As one they turned to face the sandy blond haired man trailing behind them. Peter winced. “I don’t think it’s that, but... I might know what it could be. You’re all from Kavakar, yeah? There’s a rumor going around about a guy from there who’s a- who received a- that they-”

The tips of Peter’s ears had gone bright red, and with each attempt he seemed to be struggling to find more words. That was okay. Jay had already figured it out what Peter was trying to avoid saying, trying to avoid calling him.

“It’s about my Word,” Jay said softly. Heart sinking as his fears he’d thought forgotten were realized.

“No!” Peter insisted, only for his face to contort seconds later. “Yes, maybe? I don’t know! I only heard this today from-. Look, this is weird and I don’t know why it’s happening. People here-We’re not like this,” he finished weakly.

Ana arched a brow. “Sure doesn’t look like that.”

“What they said about your Word-” Peter’s nose twitched. “-it’s not like that.”

Jay said nothing. It was like that.

“Peak is–it’s kind of for the top guilds in the city, right? Bedrock, Marching Orders and Heritage mind most of the tables. That’s not to say it’s only their members who are allowed in! I’m sure someone just made a mistake or...” Peter trailed off, likely knowing how that sounded.

Jay looked at the tavern once more. Its jagged rock protruding from the clean street at an odd angle, making a mockery of city planning. The pyramid shaped building took up four plots, yet only had the capacity of two. Bright light streaming from windows carved through the stone lit up small nooks and crannies on the surface. That illumination didn’t extend to the street. The stolen mountain top no longer felt so interesting and inspiring. It felt closed off. Hoarded.

“I’ll go in and see if I can talk to someone. One of the more senior members should have some pull,” Peter said, but there was no conviction on his face. Only a hint of remorse. He was holding something back.

Before Jay could ask what that might be, Peter hurried away. The door guard let him in without challenge.

Who told him about my Word? Jay wondered. What do we do now?

He looked at his teammates. Both looked a little lost, though not as much as he was. Ana’s shoulders were slumped. Kane’s posture as rigid as a metal rod.

“Tavern down the street?” Ana asked finally.

It didn’t feel the same as when the suggestion for Peak arose earlier. Jay didn’t want to go. His heart wasn’t in it. That tavern wouldn’t have his new friends, or more adventurers to hear from. There were rumors going around, and apparently several concerning their team.

He exhaled slowly and made his decision. “No, you need to go in.”

“What?” Ana snapped, offended.

Kane’s eyebrows were furrowed, but he did not add to the outcry.

Jay ran a hand through his hair. It was growing longer than he liked. The curls were starting to form. “We need to find information. About the tailmouth, the politics, the rumors, everything. Something’s going on in this city, and we don’t know about it.” He jabbed a finger at Peak. “They apparently do. You can get in, I can’t.”

“Is it that important?” Kane asked, his face a mask.

Jay slumped forward. “It might be.” Anything they could do to avoid a repeat of their dangerous patrol...

“Not sure I want to give them money,” Ana growled.

“Then don’t!” Jay said, a little too quickly. He wasn’t upset with her or Kane. “Sorry. Just sit at the table with the others and take up space then. I don’t know.”

It took a little more cajoling, but they reluctantly agreed to go in without him. Kane looked back once as they entered, but carried on. Then Jay was alone. He walked back to the dorm in a daze.

The city of stone had a chill to it, that night.

| i i i ¦ i i i | i i i ¦ i i i |

They avoided all conversation about Peak the next morning. Ana and Kane seemingly had nothing to report. It wasn’t difficult. Another, more sensitive subject was filling their thoughts. Today was a patrol day. Their first since the... incident.

Their fight against the tailmouth was not a taboo, yet none of them brought it up as they washed, changed and put on their armor. Only when they passed under the gate and left the city itself did Jay feel the urge to say something.

“Let’s take it easy today. Go slowly, get back into the swing of things. With all the attention, the outer layers of patrols should be covering things better.”

Ana didn’t look so certain. It made Jay wonder if Peter and the other Bedrock recruits had spilled anything else on the political situation last night.

No, Ana and Kane would have told him if they had. As much as he wanted to pry, he had to trust them. There was a part of him that did not wish to know, too.

Kane lifted up on his tiptoes before sinking down as he rolled his ankles. His lips were pressed together and his brows settled into a pensive rest. “I have an... idea, if we are to patrol at a slower pace. I believe it will help with the training we spoke about yesterday.”

“Great.” Jay took a deep breath. “Shall we?”

Margaret met them at her front gate before they had a chance to ring her bell. She stood in the entranceway, legs shoulder width apart and arms crossed. As confrontational as her stance felt, her face and modulated voice expressed the opposite. While Jay thanked her for the other day, and asked his usual questions, her gaze wandered across them. Margaret inspected them like a father chewilla would its pups, lining them up, smoothing out their fur and confiscating any socks or shoes that they had gotten their hands upon. There was a measure of respect in her gaze, though, that the furry pets, smart as they were, lacked. It straightened Jay’s spine and warmed his gut.

No oddities had approached Slow Keeping in the last forty-eight hours. No further tailmouths had been spotted — Margaret reacted to the name with one raised eyebrow and a bemused curl to her lips that was so uncharacteristic to the farmer it launched Ana into giggles.

They lingered perhaps a hair longer than needed.

Once away from the collection of farmhouses, Kane revealed his idea. “We can work on reducing the noise of our passage. Yesterday we spent time lowering the sound from our feet impacting the ground.”

Walking slightly crouched, and putting an awkward weight on my knees and thighs, Jay translated in his mind.

“Today, I think we can change our step. By walking toe first, you gain more control, and can brush leaves aside rather than crush them.” Kane lifted his foot, and in slow motion demonstrated.

It wasn’t a shocking mystical technique. Jay had spent plenty of time tiptoeing around when trying not to disturb anyone back home, but rolling the foot down backwards was new to him. So was walking for more than a few meters like this.

Once they got the hang of placing their toes down first, Kane got them to combine it with the posture from yesterday. It was more difficult than Jay expected, and before long his legs ached far worse than they did after a run around the city’s walls. To his surprise, he had to stop before Ana did. The glee in her eyes as she continued on while he stretched was perhaps deserved after all the running, but no less annoying.

Eventually Ana needed to stop as well, far past when she should have, given how stiffly she walked for the twenty minutes after stretching. They spent the rest of the way back to Slow Keeping in a comfortable silence.

After their report, they were left standing in the center of the collection of farmhouses with hours until their next patrol.

“Shall we hunt?” Kane asked.

Jay considered it. There had been no signs of any knobs on their patrol. Whether they’d been scared away by his team’s hunts, or the presence of the larger tailmouth had caused them to retreat, the patrol had been oddity free.

The extra money would be appreciated, but they weren’t low on funds. The payment from patrols and the occasional bounty was making them a small profit even.

“No, let’s rest today. We didn’t see any tracks and there’s a lot of ground to cover without anything to go on.”

Kane eyed Jay for a moment before nodding. Ana started walking before anything could change his mind.

As they passed back under the Lauchia gate, Jay finally relaxed. The morning patrol was over, half of the task complete for the day. Nothing had gone wrong. It filled him with a faint hope.

Maybe things are going to return to normal.