The spot was poor, but it was what they had.
Ahead, the mountain on the right fell away. The path narrowed, curling along the edge with nothing but open air on one side and a drop of several hundred feet.
Cedric began setting up his sharpened stakes, using his ability to plant them in the stone.
Harry left him to it and crossed to where Jo was wrestling with Stan’s bedroll.
Stan swayed on his feet, blinking too slowly, his movements loose and delayed.
“Stan,” Harry said, “can you summon me a shovel and pick?”
Stan tried to step around Jo. She shifted, blocking him.
“Aye,” he said.
He muttered through the casting, hands cupped out in front of him. A shovel formed between them. He fumbled it at once. It struck the stone with a flat clang.
He cast again. A pick appeared. He dropped that too.
Harry bent, picked both up, and turned away.
Stan tried again to slip past Jo. “I kin ’elp.”
Jo caught him by the shoulder and hauled him back. “Constantine of Brookhaven, you will lay down and go to sleep.”
He blinked at her. “But Jo…”
“Don’t but Jo me. What do you want to do, stumble around in the dark and try to kill us again?”
He looked down, one hand making a vague motion toward where Cedric was working. “No… I just thought…”
“The last time you were thinking I got frozen.”
He sagged a little, shoulders dropping. Without another attempt to move past her, he shuffled to his mat and sat.
Jo pulled a blanket from her inventory. She stood over him until he lay back. When he finally did, she tossed it over him. She knelt and tucked it in tight around his sides.
Harry turned away to give them the illusion of privacy, but his enhanced hearing carried Jo’s words.
“You did good, Stan,” she said quietly. “You got us out. But if you decide to do something like that again, I want you deciding with a clear head.”
Stan muttered something in reply, thick and soft. Harry couldn’t make out the words.
He moved past the stakes Cedric had already set and planted his feet just outside their line. He swung the pick down hard.
The blade rang off the stone and barely marked it.
He tried again, putting more of his weight into it. The impact jarred up his arms and bounced back with a solid clang.
He stared at the unbroken rock. “If I worked for a year, maybe I could make a ditch.” He crouched and ran his palm across the surface. Smooth. Unyielding. “A small one.”
Jo stepped up beside him. “How about Stonefang?”
“How about it?”
“You cut the ground easy enough with it before.”
Harry scratched at his ear and considered that. He set the pick and shovel aside and pulled the dagger from his inventory.
He knelt and pressed the tip into the stone. The blade slid through without resistance, carving a clean line the width of its edge. No dust. No chips. No sound beyond the faint scrape of steel.
He cut again, deeper, angling the blade. After a few more passes he worked a block loose and lifted it free. The space it left behind was smooth and exact.
Harry set the block aside and studied the dagger. He ran his thumb carefully along the edge. It felt sharp, but not extraordinary.
“Any damage to the blade?” Jo asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Great. Let’s get to work.”
Harry cut out more blocks, carving a half circle around their camp, three feet across and as deep as he could reach without climbing down into it. Jo hauled the blocks he freed and stacked them inside the stakes, building a low wall. Cedric joined her once he finished his perimeter.
They worked until the sun slipped behind the mountains and the light drained out of the sky.
When it was done, Harry slid Stonefang back into his inventory and stepped back to look at the wall Jo and Cedric had raised.
“That was too easy,” he said. “It’s like cutting out blocks of styrofoam.”
Jo glanced over. “What's styrofoam?”
“It’s… something in my world that’s really easy to cut.”
They laid out their mats inside the ring of stakes and stone and settled in. Harry took first watch.
Through trial and error he had learned he could rest without surrendering awareness. As long as he kept his eyes open and stayed alert, System would nudge him if something shifted, a sound out of place, movement at the edge of sight.
It let him gain his single point of vitae. More importantly, it stopped the steady drain from constant activity.
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He checked his meters.
H: 93 | V: 63 | TM: 43%
Not great.
He reached into his inventory and drew out one of the remaining venom sacs. Eight left. He rolled it between his palms, weighing it.
System, I hate to use one when I’m only down this much.
:: System: With your vitae getting low, I advise you to top off your health. You should prepare as much as possible for when trouble comes.
Yeah, I know.
He lifted his chainmail and the wool padding beneath it, stabbed the fang into his stomach, and squeezed the sac.
Heat flared through him, sharp and brief. It spread outward, followed by the familiar crawling itch as the healing took hold. He felt the tight pull under his shoulder ease where the dart trap had punched through earlier. Tissue knitting. Skin sealing.
He dropped the empty sac and ran a hand over his stomach, tracing the hard ridges of his abs.
I wish Martha could see me.
He paused. Raised his hand to his mouth. Extended his fangs and tugged at one with his thumb and forefinger, testing the point.
Not sure what she’d make of this though.
He looked over the camp. Jo lay curled on her side. Cedric slept flat on his back, hands folded over his chest. Stan was sprawled, one arm flung out from beneath the blanket.
That was a rough day. Do you think we’ll have to go all the way over the mountains?
:: System: Insufficient data. But given Dungeon Aspect’s flair for the dramatic, it is believed our final goal will be in the peaks.
Believed by our watchers?
:: System: Affirmative. Your journey has drawn great interest. There is general discontent that you have not had opportunities to gain experience. No enemies to defeat and no quests to overcome the traps.
They can’t give quests?
:: System: Negative. That function belongs to Dungeon Aspect.
Wonderful.
He settled back against the stone and kept his eyes on the area around them.
The hours passed quietly. The sky was clear and the stars were thick, more than he had ever seen back home. No city lights to wash them out. No haze. Just the cold black sky and all that light.
He watched them slowly slide past and tried to pick out shapes and patterns. He’d have to ask someone what the constellations were called. Which made him wonder if the stars in here were the same as outside.
Stan woke before the others. He blinked around, rubbed at his face, and dragged his mat across the stone to sit beside Harry.
“I’ll take watch if ya want ta rest.”
“Not yet,” Harry said. “Let Jo or Cedric handle the next one.”
Stan didn’t argue. He leaned against the stone wall and stared up at the sky.
Harry took the opportunity to try and explain baseball. Stan listened with real interest, asking questions, following the flow of it. Maybe it was the lingering venom, or maybe he was simply bored and restless, but he stayed with it longer than Harry expected.
That lasted right up until Harry reached the part about umpires and referees.
“Yer game’ll never take hold,” Stan said.
“What, why not?”
“These umpires ’old too much sway. Whoever controls ’em decides your winner.”
“No, the umpires are neutral.”
Stan’s face twisted. He shook his head. “Some lord or powerful wizard’d tell ’em what to do and that’s that.”
“But…”
“Now Folksball, that’s a proper game. None of this umpire nonsense.”
Harry frowned. “What’s folksball?”
“You get two teams an’ each of ‘em tries to get a ball to their side.”
“What are the rules?”
“Them’s the rules. Get the ball to yer side.”
“How many people on a team?”
“As many as you got.”
“Don’t people get hurt?”
Stan grinned. “All the time.”
“That’s crazy.”
“It ain’t so bad. The local lord or temple puts up a prize and provides healin’ for them what really needs it.”
Harry shook his head. “Sounds like a mad version of rugby.”
“Rugby?” Stan rolled the word around in his mouth. He rubbed at his jaw. “Rugby. That's a strong soundin' word. What’s yer rules for that one?”
“Um… actually, I don’t really know.” Harry grimaced. “But we have football. It’s a more civilized version.”
He tried to explain American football. The downs. The yard lines. The referees. The player positions.
Stan rejected it outright.
“More umpires?” he said. “An’ stoppin’ every few breaths? Nonsense.”
They went back and forth until Jo interrupted to take over for the next watch.
Harry stretched out on his mat and closed his eyes. System would stay reasonably alert. And he trusted Jo. He drifted into a few hours of sleep.
Harry woke at first light with Cedric’s hand on his shoulder.
He rolled up at once. The air was cold and thin, the sun just peeking over the mountain ridge. Everyone pulled cloaks from inventory. Stan added knitted wool mittens. Yellow ones. When Harry asked where he’d gotten them, Stan admitted, after some prodding, that one of the village women had given them to him. Jo teased him briefly about having a lady friend, but the quiet of the morning settled in and she let it drop.
They moved through their morning routine. Stakes pulled free. Mats rolled tight. Gear checked and secured.
Stan looked better. The haze had lifted from his eyes. He was steady on his feet, though still slower than usual. Jo watched him while pretending not to.
Cedric was much more blunt. He moved up and checked Stan over. Tugging at his gear. Talking quietly. Harry heard them chuckling.
He turned to Jo. “You get your recovery?”
“Yeah. I’m doing better.”
:: Health: 38/60
Harry scowled, “I’ll stay in the front another day.”
Jo drew her bow, strung it, and tested the pull. “Fine. I’ve got your back.”
Harry, Stan, and Cedric equipped their shields and spears.
They stepped out onto the narrow path.
The mountain wall pressed close on their left. On the right there was nothing but air. Harry glanced down. The drop fell away for several hundred feet, broken by narrow shelves of stone at uneven heights.
The trail was uneven. In some stretches it widened to eight or ten feet. In others it narrowed to three or four. Wind clawed up from the drop, tugging at cloaks and hair.
Harry pushed out his Blood Sense.
Nothing.
No birds. No insects. No hidden life in cracks or ledges. Just stone. Wind. Empty air.
They moved slow and careful. No one talked. Eyes tracked the ground, the edge, the next bend in the trail.
Cedric held the rear as always, steady and unhurried.
The path curved, cutting off the ruins behind them. Harry called up his map. Ahead was nothing but gray fog.
The trail doubled back on itself. Climbed. Leveled. Climbed again. Progress came in measured steps.
When the attack came, it caught Harry completely by surprise.
***
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