Shadows, and more shadows that night—people like cut-outs pasted against a pale horizon. He knew some shapes without knowing their names: a woman with a bun and ink stains at her cuffs; a broad man with a leather apron; a boy with a school crest he had never quite read; a shaved head, a knife grin. They were there and also not, like thumbprints rubbed off glass.

  Wind hissed through grass that wasn’t grass at all but slender, silver pins. The sky turned like a slow coin. Out beyond the silhouettes, wolves howled in threes: one high, one low, one that seemed to come from inside his teeth.

  A figure stepped forward from that cut-out crowd, taller than him by a head and somehow weightless, a cloak of smoke thrown over starless shoulders. When it spoke, the voice was not loud, only placed exactly where it could not be ignored.

  “Hold,” it said, and the word didn’t echo so much as root. “Not everything that hunts you must be met with running.”

  Kevin tried to answer. His tongue felt sewn to his palate with thread made of light.

  “Two shields,” the figure went on, almost amused. “A door you carry in either hand. One to bar the world, one to break it. You will be offered a blade. Decline it.”

  The pins of grass leaned all one way. Somewhere, far below the place dreams call floor, something gnawed: a steady, wet scrape.

  “Mind the twins,” the voice said, softer. “Gnash is the forest you walk. Gnaw is the hunger inside it. Solve one, you feed the other.”

  “What—who are you?” Kevin managed, his voice the noise of paper.

  The figure’s head tilted. Where its face should have been, a pale mask of wolf-teeth turned, then turned again, then became nothing at all.

  “When wolves call in threes, do not answer the first,” it said, as if reciting a child’s rhyme. “And when the crows show you a path, take the ditch.”

  It put a hand on his shoulder, gentle as a doctor with bad news. Warmth—not comfort—passed through him.

  “The first name you carve will be a small one,” it added, almost kindly. “The next will not be. Live to learn the difference.”

  Light blew through everything, as if someone had opened all the windows at once. He fell up.

  He woke just before daylight broke.

  He stared at the ceiling beam until the throb of his pulse slowed. The inn breathed beneath him—mugs clinked, someone laughed too loud, a door found its swollen frame. As if cued by his heartbeat, a bell icon blinked in the top-left of his vision and then unfurled like a scroll.

  Daily Reset Complete

  New tasks available.

  Daily ? Gatherer’s Hand

  Collect 25 small herbs (any). Skin 5 beasts (any).

  Rewards: +150 Herblore EXP, +100 Skinning EXP, +80 Player EXP, +20 c, Bundle: Twine & Needles

  Daily ? Cull the Count

  Slay 15 enemies (any).

  Rewards: +120 Combat EXP, +100 Player EXP, +30 c, Chance: Common Salvage.

  Daily ? Boss: Farmland Greyfang

  The farmer at Northwood Edge reports livestock missing, night howls in threes, and tracks the size of dinner plates. Slay , a dire wolf (Named ? Elite I).

  Proof: Greyfang’s Tooth.

  Rewards: +350 Combat EXP, +250 Player EXP, +90 c, Greyfang’s Pelt, Chance: Uncommon Equipment.

  “Named,” Kevin said to the empty room. The word sat heavier than he expected.

  “Try to contain your excitement,” the AI murmured. “Your chances of not being chewed are… mathematically educational.”

  He accepted all three before his nerve could invent a reason not to. The panes snapped into his Quest list with tidy precision.

  Fresh-armoured ratleather creaked as he rolled from bed. He buckled straps, laced gloves. The gear felt less like costume this morning, it fit better than before in-fact, the stretch of the leather contouring his body loosely.

  Downstairs, the Laughing Minotaur had already found its morning volume. Steam from porridge pots met the drift of woodsmoke, carving the light into visible bands. Dwarves argued amiably over measurements. Orcs traded jokes like elbow jabs. Garric operated at the center of it all like a planet with its own gravity.

  The innkeeper’s eye took in Kevin’s armour, the steadier set of his shoulders, and—Kevin suspected—the dark under his eyes he hadn’t yet shaken. He tilted his chin toward the bar. “Eat. Then business.”

  Porridge. A heel of brown bread. A wedge of salty cheese. It tasted of being alive.

  When the bowl scraped clean, Kevin set a small collection on the counter between them: two Restorative Salves in fat little jars, three Minor Vitality Draughts, one Purified Draught, two Luminous Poultices, and a dozen uncooked cuts of yesterday’s rat meat he hadn’t sold with the bulk haul.

  Garric lifted the salves, turned the glass to the light, sniffed once without letting the stopper fully breathe. He grunted approval that might have been a whole hymn in another language. “These you made yourself?”

  “With help,” Kevin said, thinking of Renna’s steady scorn and the AI’s wasps’ nest of a tone. “They work.”

  “I don’t buy for adventurers,” Garric said, which was a lie he immediately disproved by adding, “I buy for my house. People bleed in here more often than they mean to. Folk bring trouble through the door, or hobble from it. If I can keep them breathing long enough to climb stairs or sleep it off… well.” He spread his thick hands. “The stew stays hot. That’s my religion.”

  He tapped the little row of glass. “I’ll take them all, and the meat. Half of these I’ll set aside for the watch on market nights. The rest I’ll tuck behind the bar where my big hands can find them when the shouting starts.”

  Numbers clicked in Kevin’s vision as the innkeeper counted quickly in copper, then—after a glance at the jars again, and perhaps at Kevin—added more.

  Sold: 2 Restorative Salves—180 c each = +360 c

  Sold: 3 Minor Vitality Draughts—60 c each = +180 c

  Sold: 1 Purified Draught—120 c = +120 c

  Sold: 2 Luminous Poultices—35 c each = +70 c

  Sold: 12 Raw Rat Meat—1 c each = +12 c

  Garric pushed the little hill of copper across the counter in two easy scoops and then, as if bored of seeing coins try to behave like a river, dropped a square-hefted bar of stamped metal on top. “There,” he said. “I prefer clean tables.”

  Trade Rounded: +118 c

  House Credit Bonus (Laughing Minotaur patron): +30 c

  Total Received: +890 c

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Kevin’s purse icon swelled and chimed. He flicked it open.

  Purse: 192 c → 1,082 c.

  He blinked. “That… puts me over a silver.”

  “Aye,” Garric said, deadpan. “Try not to spend it all on soup.”

  Kevin’s mouth went dry. “You… still sell the wood axes?”

  A heartbeat of silence. Garric studied him as if he were a hand of dice he’d just thrown. Then he nodded once, satisfied with a private result. He ducked behind the counter and came up with a long-handled axe, the head dark steel banded to a seasoned haft, blade wide but not heavy. It gleamed in the hearth-light without preening.

  “Not a weapon,” Garric said, and the emphasis was a lesson. “A tool. But if you swing it like a fool in the wrong place, it’ll cost you fingers and friends both. You’ll be cutting for Borik or for the wood lot, I’d wager. Or building your own walls, two-shield man.” His chipped tooth flashed. “I keep count when folk talk loud over ale.”

  Kevin flushed. “I— It’s an idea. That’s all.”

  “It’s a spine,” Garric said. “Ideas don’t stand on their own.”

  Purchased: Wood Axe (Tool)

  Weight: 2

  Not a Weapon. Enables Woodcutting.

  Cost: 1 Silver (1,000 c)

  Purse: 1s, 82c → 82 c.

  The axe’s handle fit his palm like another decision he’d finally made. As he slung it over his shoulder, a soft ribbon of text unrolled across his vision:

  New Skill Unlocked: Woodcutting, Rank 0

  Felling small trees; harvesting saplings and workable lengths.

  Tip: Cutting at the swell just above a root reduces waste.

  Garric wiped an already-clean spot on the counter, the rag doing laps merely for tradition’s sake. “If you’re hunting that farmer’s wolf, don’t do it alone unless you’re set on testing the sturdiness of your hide. Dire wolves don’t play by the maths rats play by.”

  Kevin thought of the dream—the howls in threes, the hand on his shoulder. “I’ll scout first,” he said. “Get eyes. Put work between me and the beast until I know what work matters.” Garric nodded, picking up one of many tankers laid under the bar's top bench.

  He noticed a new icon in the top right corner of his vision—a globe “Hmm, wonder when that got there…” he said perplexed, though he had a good idea what it was. He selected it. A mini-map of the surrounding area appeared, light grey lines denoting the outline of the trees around him. He could see, in the centre of the map, a white circle, denoting his position. “I wish I could see some more while I’m out and about,” he said. As if responding, the map zoomed out, he could see the treeline, some slowly moving red circles in the underbrush linked by a faint trail—rats. It struck him as a handy feature and an odd one to present later on in the adventure that right away, but it also struck him that he wasn’t exactly the most observant person in the world.

  He played around with the map for a while. It would zoom quite far out, out enough that he could see the start of the Deep Hollow Caverns even from the courtyard of the inn. If he concentrated and dragged his imaginary cursor over the map, he could temporarily pan the map around to some extent too, allowing him to see the a yellow marker, it wasn’t like the other markers, however—it was more, a larger, outlined area.

  “... Click the area, dummy…” Sighed the AI in the back of his mind.

  He did.

  Quest Area: Farmland Fang—The Boss objective may be found within this area.

  There was a label above the area—Northwood Farms.

  “Well that’s extremely handy.” He said dimly.

  “Oh for f-” The AI whispered almost silently under its breath.

  He wouldn’t go straight to the farms. Not yet. Daily work first: herbs under sun, beasts under shade. The new axe sat warm against his back, a promise of a different kind of progress. He cut through the trellis—safe zone winking like a curtain as he crossed—and the forest met him with the soft applause of leaves.

  Mintleaf twitched under his fingers; pinebud stuck resin to his gloves that smelled like memory. Each stem snapped with satisfying precision; each toast of +2 or +3 EXP slid a notch along his bars. He found a small sapling with straight, greedy growth; he set the axe just above the root swell and let the weight of the head teach him the line.

  Thock. Thock. Thock.

  Woodcutting +4 EXP

  Item Acquired: Greenwood Lengths (x3)

  Item Acquired: Bark Strips (x4)

  +5 Player EXP

  He surprised himself by liking the rhythm of the thwacks against almost immoveable trunks.

  The rats—those that hadn’t learned him yet—tested his ratleather and found it less forgiving than before. He culled five, skinned them in the quick, obscene zipper the System gifted, and, with the Gatherer’s Hand ticking, moved them from problem to inventory without letting triumph spoil into cruelty. The daily pane ticked:

  Gatherer’s Hand

  Herbs 25/25 ?

  Skinned Beasts 5/5 ?

  +150 Herblore EXP / +100 Skinning EXP / +80 Player EXP / +20 c / Bundle: Twine & Needles

  A little wrapped packet slid into a slot: coarse twine, bone needles, the exact kind of thing Borik would grunt at him to fetch.

  Fifteen enemies came and went: rats all crushed under his foot or held as weapons themselves, the new strength point even allowed him to crush one's skull in his palm—its eyeballs oozing down his arm—Gross! Daily panes ticked and chimed. Coins dripped copper into his purse until it read 102 c—a number small compared to the silver he’d just spent, but better than the ache of a stomach that knew it would be empty.

  By midday he stood at a fence post halfway rotted through, looking out over a patchwork of rough fields that had been sewn together with stubborn hands. Sheep clustered in a worried knot. A woman stood with a crook braced against her hip, eyes on the tree line. She had the same steadiness as the post, and the same weathering.

  “Mara?” he called after inspecting the quest log.

  She turned, measuring him in a glance that anyone’s grandmother would have been proud to own. “If you’ve come to talk,” she said, “turn back.”

  “I’ve come to help,” he said. “You posted on the job board in the inn?”

  That won him a fraction of a nod. She led him to the place where the grass had been pressed and split and worried into a path that wasn’t a path. The prints there were… large. He had no poetry for them. They were plates sunk into mud, a rhythm of four that suggested menacing intent—stalking. He noted that the minimaps border had turned the quest yellow.

  He crouched, laid his gloved hand beside one pad. His palm looked like a child’s.

  “Howls?” he asked.

  “Always three,” she said. “One here.” She pointed to the tree line. “One… feels like it’s behind me, though I never see it. And one under my feet.”

  Dream memory tightened the skin across his shoulders. He stared at the shadow under his boots and saw nothing but his own outline in noon sun.

  “All at once?” he asked. She nodded.

  “The tooth,” she said. “Old Silas says there’s plenty of adventurers that’d take avantage… So I’ll need the proof.”

  “Not a problem… I’ll see what I can do.” Kevin said. His heart was almost audible. But knew this would be a cementing opportunity, plus that threat of a debuff was menace enough that he didn’t want to find out.

  He did not go straight in. The old him might have, because momentum felt like choice. The new him remembered markets and mornings and the way Garric had said tool the way priests say vow.

  He found a rise where the grass admitted a view of shadow and slope. He sat behind a deadfall and listened. Birds stitched sound across the canopy… and then, at intervals he could not predict, the seam unpicked itself and silence fell in a neat cut.

  The first howl came from left, high and confident, as if ceremony demanded a fanfare.

  The second came from nowhere he could place. It was closer. It curled the hairs at the back of his neck the way a cold finger does.

  The third—he felt rather than heard. The ground under his boots said Yes when he asked Is there a deeper thing?

  “When wolves call in threes, do not answer the first,” the dream had said. He didn’t move.

  He waited through one cycle, then another. When the third shuddered through the soil again, he rose into a crouch and let the new Tracking lines—thin as a moth’s flight—overlay the ground—unique in the fact he had not slain his enemy yet. I can use these… He thought to himself. I can see where the trio are, avoid them while I try to craft some shields.

  The AI, for once, did not fill the quiet. Perhaps even it knew when to let him concentrate.

  Kevin breathed slowly. Two shields. He had none, not yet—the axe was none equipable—he had tried to use it against one of the rats, but it immediately pinged back into his inventory when he went to swing at the beast. If he wanted a weapon he would have to use a real weapon, no tool. But he still had something: time. And a habit of not running from that he could hone into a shape.