The torchlight of River's Reach didn't burn orange like fire back home. It flickered blue-white, fueled by some luminescent sap that smelled of pine and ozone. The glow clung to wooden walls, illuminated faces both curious and hard, and cast shadows that seemed to pull back reluctantly. My overlay helpfully informed me:
[ENVIRONMENTAL DATA: LUMEN-SAP TORCHES]
[EFFECT: MINOR DEMON REPELLENT, +5% VISION CLARITY]
[TOXICITY: NONE (TO HUMANS)]
Good to know I wouldn't get cancer from the streetlights. Small mercies in a world trying to kill me.
Mira's hand on my arm was firm, guiding, but not quite gentle. "Keep your head down," she murmured. "And let me do the talking. The Dockmaster doesn't like surprises."
The docks weren't just wood and nails—they were a living thing. The planks underfoot shimmered with the same moss I'd seen in the forest, but here it was tamed, cultivated into straight lines that pulsed with soft green light. [STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS: BIO-LUMINESCENT REINFORCEMENT] . The system's constant data stream was becoming less overwhelming and more like a second sight. I was learning to filter, to focus on what mattered.
The Dockmaster was a wall of a man, easily six-five and built like someone had carved him from the same black trees that haunted the forest. His left arm was missing below the elbow, replaced by a prosthetic of polished bone and silver gears that whirred as he moved. When he looked at me, I didn't see a man. I saw a status screen.
[NAME: GORUM IRON-BOUND]
[RACE: HUMAN (AUGMENTED)]
[LEVEL: ??]
[THREAT ASSESSMENT: DO NOT FUCK WITH]
[AFFILIATION: RIVER'S REACH (DOCKMASTER, SECURITY CHIEF)]
"Worldlost," he said. Not a question. His voice was gravel in a cement mixer. "We don't get many this far out. The River usually spits up closer to Bastion."
Mira stepped between us, though she barely came up to his chest. "He saved me from Mirelings by Miller's Bend. Two of them. Alone."
Gorum's eyebrows—thick as wire brushes—rose a fraction. "Level?"
"One," I said, before Mira could answer. No point lying. The system would probably flag it anyway.
He grunted, a sound like a boulder shifting. "Mirelings are Level 4. You should be dead."
"Absolute Calculation," I offered, tapping my temple. "Makes the math work."
The prosthetic hand flexed. I heard servos whine. "A Unique Skill. River's Reach has rules, Worldlost. You earn your keep, or you earn a trip back into the wild. We don't feed parasites."
"I don't plan on being a parasite."
He studied me for a long moment. My overlay helpfully provided a countdown timer: [STARE-DOWN DURATION: 14.3 SECONDS] . Then Gorum nodded. "Mira vouches. That's worth something. You've got three days probation. Stay at the Wayward Wake—it's the inn on Crooked Street. Tell them Gorum sent you. After three days, you either have a job or you're out."
He turned, dismissing us. But as we walked away, the system pinged:
[QUEST COMPLETED: REACH RIVER'S REACH]
[REWARD: 500 EXP, CIVILIZATION ACCESS, PROBATIONARY STATUS]
[LEVEL UP! LEVEL 2 ACHIEVED!]
[+5 STAT POINTS]
[NEW SKILL POINT UNLOCKED]
[RIVER'S REACH REPUTATION: +25 (DOCKMASTER'S GRUDGING RESPECT)]
Level 2. Already twice as strong as when I'd arrived. I opened my status, fingers twitching with the familiar urge to optimize.
[NAME: KAEL]
[RACE: HUMAN (MUNDANE → ADAPTED)]
[LEVEL: 2]
[HP: 30/30 → 60/60] (Vitality bonus doubled)
[MP: 8/8 → 12/12]
[STRENGTH: 4]
[AGILITY: 6] (+1 from level-up passive)
[VITALITY: 5 → 8] (+3 from new points)
[INTELLIGENCE: 10]
[WISDOM: 6]
[LUCK: 1] ⚠️ WARNING: STILL PATHETIC
[UNASSIGNED STAT POINTS: 2]
[UNASSIGNED SKILL POINTS: 1]
I dumped both stat points into Intelligence. The overlays in my vision sharpened, gained color depth, started showing me things I didn't even know I needed—like the weak point in the mortar of the building ahead, or the exact value of the coins jingling in a passerby's pocket. [PERCEPTION CAPACITY: 147% STANDARD] .
The skill point was more interesting. I could spend it on a new ability— [AVAILABLE SKILLS: STEALTH (LV1), SWORDSMANSHIP (LV1), ALCHEMY BASICS (LV1), HAGGLING (LV1)] —or I could upgrade Absolute Calculation . The system nudged me:
[UPGRADE ABSOLUTE CALCULATION → TACTICAL PRECOGNITION (LV2)? COST: 1 SKILL POINT]
[EFFECT: EXPANDS PREDICTIVE WINDOW FROM 2.3 SECONDS TO 4.1 SECONDS]
Four seconds of futuresight. In combat, that was a lifetime. I confirmed the upgrade.
[SKILL EVOLVED: ABSOLUTE CALCULATION → TACTICAL PRECOGNITION (LV2)]
[UNLOCKED SUB-MODES: TRAJECTORY PLOTTING, RESOURCE OPTIMIZATION, SOCIAL DEDUCTION]
Social Deduction? I glanced at Mira as we walked. A new overlay appeared:
[MIRA - RIVER GUIDE]
[CURRENT MOOD: GUARDED GRATITUDE]
[DECEPTION LIKELIHOOD: 12%]
[HIDDEN AGENDA DETECTED: PROBABILITY 78%]
Oh. She wasn't just a damsel in distress. That made more sense. My Luck might be 1, but my Intelligence was starting to compensate.
Crooked Street lived up to its name, a winding path that seemed designed by a drunk snake. The buildings leaned into each other like conspirators, their upper stories nearly touching. More of that bio-luminescent moss traced patterns on the walls—wards, I realized, as my overlay analyzed them.
[WARD ANALYSIS: MINOR DEMON REPELLENT, ANTI-THEFT (AMATEUR)]
[CREATOR: SELF-TAUGHT PRACTITIONER, LEVEL 3-5 ESTIMATED]
Amateur work, but effective enough. This was a frontier town, not a magical academy.
The Wayward Wake was the largest building on the street, three stories of weathered wood and stubbornness. The sign hanging above the door depicted a man drowning while raising a toast. Charming.
Inside, it was warm. Actually warm, not just less cold. A massive hearth burned with real wood—no blue sap here—and the air smelled of stew, ale, and too many bodies in close quarters. The barkeep was a woman with iron-grey hair and arms that suggested she could crush walnuts. Or skulls.
[NAME: HELGA WAKE]
[RACE: HUMAN]
[LEVEL: 9]
[THREAT ASSESSMENT: HIGH (IN HER DOMAIN)]
[AFFILIATION: RIVER'S REACH (INNKEEPER, INFORMATION BROKER)]
"Gorum sent me," I said, placing three Gloomvermin Essences on the bar. "He said three days."
Helga's eyes—one brown, one milky white—flicked from the Essences to me. The social overlay flared: [DECEPTION DETECTION: ACTIVE] . "He say anything else?"
"Stay out of trouble. Earn my keep."
She snorted, grabbing the Essences. They dissolved in her hand, absorbed into a ring she wore. [ARTIFACT DETECTED: SOULFORGE BAND (COMMON) ] . "Trouble finds Worldlost like flies find shit. But you smell of Stranglevine and Mireling blood, not fear. That's new."
She slapped a key on the bar. "Third floor, last room. Five coppers a night, includes dinner and breakfast. You can't pay, you work. Don't steal, don't start fights, and don't bring demons inside. Other than that, I don't care if you worship the River or the Void."
I took the key. It was iron, cold. "Fair enough."
Mira had drifted to the door, but Helga's voice stopped her. "Mira. Your father's looking for you. Says you missed your shift at the salvage pools."
The girl's shoulders tensed. "I'll deal with it."
"Deal with it before he drinks the rent again."
Mira left without looking at me. The social overlay flickered: [MIRA: STRESS INDICATORS ELEVATED, FINANCIAL PRESSURE DETECTED] .
I had a quest giver now. Or at least, a potential ally with problems I could solve.
Dinner was a bowl of stew that tasted like salted mud with hints of actual meat. My overlay analyzed it:
[CONSUMABLE: WAYWARD STEW ("SPECIAL")]
[NUTRITIONAL VALUE: ADEQUATE]
[SIDE EFFECTS: MINOR GLOW IN DARK (6 HOUR DURATION)]
[TOXICITY: NONE (SURPRISINGLY)]
The glow-in-the-dark part explained the faint luminescence of the other patrons. It was like a town-wide nightlight. Efficient, in a weird way.
My room was barely larger than the cot it contained, with a window that overlooked Crooked Street. I locked the door—not that the lock would stop anything determined—and sat on the bed, finally letting the adrenaline bleed out.
Three days. I had three days to make myself indispensable to River's Reach or I'd be back in the wild with whatever made that Alpha roar.
I needed a plan. My overlay obligingly pulled up a to-do list:
[OBJECTIVE: SECURE LONG-TERM RESIDENCY]
[- ESTABLISH INCOME SOURCE (URGENT)]
[- INCREASE COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS (URGENT)]
[- GATHER LOCAL INTELLIGENCE (HIGH PRIORITY)]
[- IMPROVE LUCK STAT (????)]
That last one was a mystery. No game I'd ever played let you directly upgrade Luck. It was always items, blessings, or hidden quests. I'd need to dig.
A knock on the door interrupted my strategizing. I grabbed my spear—still splattered with serpent blood—and approached cautiously.
[TACTICAL PRECOGNITION: NO HOSTILE INTENT DETECTED] .
I opened the door.
A boy, maybe twelve, stood there. Skinny, dirty, with eyes too old for his face. He thrust a folded parchment at me. "Message. From Mira."
I took it, flipped him a copper from the meager handful Helga had given me as change for the Essences. He vanished down the hall like a rat.
The parchment was rough, cheap. The message was simple, block letters:
WARDEN'S TOWER. MIDNIGHT. COME ALONE. BRING WEAPONS.
No signature. No explanation.
[QUEST OFFERED: MIDNIGHT MEETING]
[REWARD: UNKNOWN]
[RISK: HIGH]
[RECOMMENDATION: AGILITY CHECK TO CLIMB OUT WINDOW]
The system thought I should bail. It was probably right. My Luck was 1, and mysterious midnight summons from girls with hidden agendas usually ended in ambushes or worse.
But Mira knew this town. She knew its people, its wards, its secrets. If I wanted more than three days of probation, I needed an inside track.
Plus, my overlay had detected something else in the message. A faint magical residue:
[TRACES: MINOR ILLUSION, MINOR TRACKING MARK]
[SOURCE: MIRA - SKILL: GAMBIT (UNIQUE?) ]
Gambit. A gambit was a calculated risk. So she was gambling on me.
Fine. I'd been called worse than a long shot.
I waited until 11:47 PM—my overlay insisted on precision—and climbed out the window. The glow from the stew made my hands faintly luminous, but the shadows of Crooked Street were deep enough to hide in. My new Agility made the climb easy, almost silent.
The Warden's Tower was on the town's eastern edge, a crumbling spire that had once been a lighthouse. Now it was a ruin, its beacon long dark. My overlay marked it as [STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY: 23%] . One good storm would bring it down.
Mira waited inside, her back to a wall that probably wasn't stable. She wasn't alone.
A man sat on a fallen column, nursing a bottle. His face was Mira's, aged twenty years and pickled in alcohol. Her father, I assumed. The social overlay painted his details in depressing clarity:
[NAME: VARN MERCER]
[RACE: HUMAN]
[LEVEL: 7]
[DEBUFF: ALCOHOL DEPENDENCY (SEVERE), GRIEF (MODERATE)]
[OCCUPATION: SALVAGE DIVER (FORMERLY LICENSED)]
Formerly licensed. That meant he'd lost his credentials. Probably why Mira was working the pools instead of him.
"You're the Worldlost," he said, voice slurred but eyes surprisingly sharp. "The one who killed Mirelings at Level 1."
"He did," Mira confirmed. "With a stick and a rock."
"Absolute Calculation," I said. No point hiding it now. "I see the angles."
Varn took a long pull from his bottle. "Then you'll see this one. The Reach is dying. The River's been tainted three miles upstream. Demonspawn in the water. Gloomvermin packs getting bolder. Gorum's lost three scouts this week alone."
[INTELIGENCE GATHERED: RIVER'S REACH CRISIS]
[URGENCY: VERY HIGH]
[PROBABILITY OF SETTLEMENT EVACUATION: 34% WITHIN 30 DAYS]
"Why tell me?" I asked. "I'm a stranger."
"Strangers don't have debts," Mira said. "You saved me. That means you're either stupid—" [SYSTEM AGREES: LUCK 1 CORRELATION] "—or you see value where others don't."
Varn leaned forward. "There's a Bloom forming upstream. A big one. Demon-Bloom, not the usual fungal crap. If it matures, it'll spawn a Breach. River's Reach becomes a footnote."
My overlay supplied definitions:
[DEMON-BLOOM: STAGE 1 BREACH PRECURSOR]
[MATURATION TIME: 72-96 HOURS]
[MINIMUM LEVEL FOR COMBAT: 15+ (RECOMMENDED)]
[MY CURRENT LEVEL: 2]
[PROBABILITY OF SURVIVAL: 0.03%]
"You want me to stop a Demon-Bloom," I said flatly. "At Level 2."
"We want you to map it," Mira corrected. "Find its heart. The Reach's Warden—our only mage—died last month. We don't have the firepower to assault it, but if we know where the core is, we can collapse the cave it's growing in. Bury it."
"Demolition," I said. "Not extermination."
"Exactly." She stepped closer. "Your skill—Tactical Precognition, whatever you call it—you could get in and out. See the paths we can't. We pay in Essence, gear, and citizenship."
[QUEST OFFERED: BLOOM SURVEY]
[PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: MAP DEMON-BLOOM STRUCTURE]
[SECONDARY OBJECTIVE: IDENTIFY CORE LOCATION]
[REWARD: 2000 EXP, CITIZENSHIP, RARE GEAR, MIRA'S TRUST]
[FAILURE: DEATH (PROBABILITY 96%) OR BREACH EVENT (SETTLEMENT WIPE)]
My overlay was practically screaming at me to refuse. This was suicide. Level 15 content at Level 2. Even my skill couldn't make up a thirteen-level gap.
But the reward... Citizenship meant I wouldn't be out in three days. It meant a base of operations. Gear. Mira's trust, which came with an inside track on salvage, information, probably quests.
And the XP. 2000 would jump me multiple levels. The grind was all about finding the exploit, the quest that broke the curve.
This was it. The high-risk, high-reward gamble that separated casuals from champions.
"When do we leave?" I asked.
Varn's laugh was bitter. "We? You're going alone, Worldlost. My diving days are done. Mira stays here."
Mira opened her mouth to protest, but I cut her off. "Fine. But I need gear. Light sources, mapping tools, something for stealth. And a backup weapon. My spear's seen better days."
"Done," Mira said. "Meet at the north gate at dawn. I'll have what you need."
[QUEST ACCEPTED: BLOOM SURVEY]
[COUNTDOWN TO DEPARTURE: 5 HOURS 13 MINUTES]
[RECOMMENDED PREPARATIONS: REST, GEAR INSPECTION, PRAYER]
I left the tower, climbing back down the crumbling stone. The night air felt different now, charged. The settlement wasn't just a safe zone. It was a quest hub. And I was about to attempt a speedrun that would make or break my existence here.
As I dropped the last few feet to the ground, my Luck stat decided to remind me it existed.
A loose stone shifted under my boot. My ankle twisted. I fell, catching myself on my hands. [HP: 58/60] . Minor. But the system, in its infinite wisdom, added a debuff:
[DEBUFF ACQUIRED: TWISTED ANKLE (MINOR)]
[-10% MOVEMENT SPEED, -5% DODGE EFFICIENCY]
[DURATION: 8 HOURS OR UNTIL TREATED]
Eight hours. Dawn was in five. I'd be limping into a Level 15 zone with a sprained ankle and a cosmic middle finger flipping me off.
I laughed, lying in the dirt. "Okay," I whispered to the twin moons. "Point taken."
Then I stood, tested the ankle—painful but functional—and limped back to the Wayward Wake. The grind didn't care about your excuses. It cared about results.
And I had a Bloom to map.
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