Inch by Inch

“We need to talk about the future,” Jay said.

Ana and Kane made noises of agreement, but neither looked at him. They were both quite focused on the bowls of warm dahl in front of them.

Time had been running faster than they could catch up today. It was only now, during lunch, that they’d gotten the chance to talk. After the dog track, Ana was too tired to participate in a proper conversation, and it would have been pointless to try it without her. Between getting breakfast and testing out the dormitory’s bathing facilities, the morning had disappeared before they knew it.

Still, sitting with warm bowls of lentil soup and the customary adventurer bread rolls felt like the right place to have this conversation.

“We all want to be adventurers.”

It was a question as much as a statement, but after yesterday, he figured it was best to start at the beginning. Jay had... missed things in his rush to get to the city, to become an adventurer. Obvious things that he should have been looking out for and paying attention to. Things he’d heard about a million times and never thought he’d be stupid enough to forget himself.

Put simply, he’d messed up.

It’d just seemed like if he didn’t stop pushing, didn’t stop planning, that the last strands connecting him to his dream would snap and it would drift away. He was barely holding onto it, even now.

“Yes,” Kane agreed, answering the statement-question and adding his support. He seemed to take his answer as a signal and reached forward to grab a roll. The crust crunched as the tall swordsman and want-to-be magic user dug his fingers into the middle and ripped it open. Wisps of steam rose from the soft crumb.

Ana was slower to respond, but she gave a jerky nod.

“I realize now that I’ve never asked either of you anything beyond that.” Jay watched their faces carefully as he reached for his own bread roll. “So let’s talk about things now.”

For a moment, no one spoke. The only sound from the table was the crunch of bread and the clatter of stone spoons against bowls. The wait made Jay’s throat tight. He knew this moment was important. He could feel it.

When Kane spoke again, that tightness eased. “How are we for money?”

Jay exhaled. This was good. He had this planned. He knew this. Money was comfortable grounds. “Ten days. I have enough saved for food, the dorms and some equipment for ten days. That’s including the dog track money. We could have two weeks, but that’s without the equipment, which I think we need.” His eyes strayed towards Ana and away from Kane as he spoke. Kane was the most prepared of them all, with his blade and leather armor vest. Ana... Ana was the least.

Kane hummed around a mouth full of soupy bread. It wasn’t clear if that was because of the flavor or Jay’s answer. Their companion was no help in the determination. Ana chewed on her lip instead of the meal, spoon resting forgotten in hand.

“I want to spend nine days of that ten training. We can go and find an easy task on day ten.”

“What equipment were you thinking?” Kane asked, showing interest but not making any opinion on the task clear. His face was a stoic wall.

“Padded vests like yours, preferably with high collars. Helmets. Another spear for the group. All basic stuff.”

Kane’s vest didn’t have any protection for the neck. His was custom fitted and designed to allow for maximum movement. Likely, it was meant to be paired with a specific kind of helmet. It was a higher quality product than what Jay would be looking for. Ana and he would be seeking out mass-produced armor.

Kane frowned, eyebrows crushing together. “Won’t that cost a lot more than half a week of food and board?”

“Prices have fallen in the last three months,” Jay answered, shaking his head. “The caravans traveling between the city states have been moving more finished equipment and demand for leather, cloth and metal has been increasing. I think there must have been a shortfall last year that they want to correct for this year’s ladder.”

Ana opened her mouth, but whatever she was about to say was cut off as Kane deposited a pouch on the table with a clink. He still looked a little skeptical, despite Jay’s assurances about the prices.

“Let’s make it two weeks of training. I want to work with my threads, you need to practice your archery, Ana needs to learn everything, and we need to train as a team.”

Jay goggled at the money pouch. “Are you sure?” He was putting all his savings into this, but he hadn’t really expected anyone else to. He hadn’t even thought to ask.

“Yes,” Kane said, dipping another chunk into the soup.

“All of it?” Jay asked, floundering a little. “You don’t want to save some or get anything for yourself?”

“No.”

Jay looked at Ana for help. She blanched, reddening before her face settled in a scowl.

“I don’t have any savings!” Her voice was high-pitched, nearly shrill.

Jay rolled his eyes. “Not what I was asking.” He focused back on Kane and his savings. “Are you sure? After two weeks, there won’t be enough for passage with a caravan.”

Kane looked up from his dahl to glare back. “I’m sure.”

“Right,” Jay said, sitting back. He drank some of the soup as he thought. This changed things. The extra time would make things easier, safer. They might be able to afford slightly better equipment too if Kane was still accounting for higher prices.

“Right. Let’s talk about the training then. I was thinking that we’d split the day into thirds.” He began to count off his fingers. “First, the morning and the dog track. We spend the time on exercise and general fitness. Second, midday and lunch. We meet for lunch but spend this time on whatever we want-” He met Kane’s eyes. “-like your threads. Third, evening and group training. We go to the training grounds and work on weapons and fighting together. Hopefully, the public training grounds will be quiet at that time.”

He remained focused on Kane to gauge his reaction. The swordsman’s Word was one of the big things he’d missed. After a night and morning spent considering it, he’d realized why. It’d been easy to discount Kane’s Word, to associate it with his own and treat it as just as useless. Not once had he thought that ‘Threads’ would have any use for an adventurer. Not once had he asked Kane about it. It was a bitter realization, both because of his failure and the sting of jealousy digging a little deeper.

Kane began slowly nodding, speeding up as he considered it more. “That sounds fair.”

“What do you mean by your threads?” Ana asked Kane, squinting at his clothes for some reason.

Jay took the chance as they talked to tear his roll to shreds and drop them into the dahl. While the crumbs soaked, he ate the lentils.

“I think I can see magic.”

Ana’s eyes widened, and she looked up from Kane’s plain training clothes.

Kane dipped his bread into the soup and continued eating, completely unruffled and seemingly planning on leaving it at that. In a way, it was good to know that he was just as infuriating to Ana as he was to Jay.

“What?” Ana exclaimed.

Kane blinked, eyebrows furrowing at the high-volume right beside his ear.

“What do you mean?” Ana tried again, thankfully at a lowered pitch.

“I can see threads. I think they’re magic. I want to try...” Kane trailed off as his eyes unfocused.

Ana let out a frustrated huff, looking to Jay to share her annoyance. He took pity on her, mostly due to a desire to avoid suffering through a repeat of his own conversation with Kane last night.

“He can’t do any magic yet, but he wants to try to figure out his Word. He’ll be working on it in his free time, but until he figures it out, he’ll be training and working with us as usual.”

“Magic?” Ana asked him now, still flabbergast.

Jay shrugged. It wasn’t like he could see it. “Everyone okay with that schedule then? We can always change later if something isn’t working out.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Ana turned back to her food, still deep in thought about the revelation.

Kane was lost to the world. Jay nudged his leg under the table to try to bring him back and pressed on when his efforts resulted in a blink.

“Great. Do you have any other questions? Things you want to talk about or discuss?” He looked at Ana in particular for this. She’d been silent for most of this meeting.

“Well...” Ana hesitated. For a moment she wavered, twiddling her spoon around. Then she gritted her teeth and stabbed the spoon into the dahl. A dam burst. “How does it all work? The adventuring? We got that tag, but what does it do? What are we going to do? Why did we get paid to run around the city? Who paid? What did Peter mean by winning? Why were people betting? What’s a high collar vest? Why another spear? Why were the Pono soldiers going into the bureau? What’s a year’s ladder?”

Jay’s stomach fell. He’d fucked up. He’d really fucked up.

She knew nothing. How did she know nothing? Why hadn’t she said anything before? Where did he even start?

“What?” Ana snapped. She scowled at him. “You asked if I had questions.”

“Ana,” Jay began. He had to be very careful with this. Everything was in the balance. He could feel it. “What do you know about adventuring?”

She did not like the question, that he could tell. Her shoulders tightened, and her hand clenched around the spoon. She held it like a weapon, not cutlery.

“As much as everyone else. Adventurers fight monsters. They scout the hinterlands and look for resources and miracles. They do a guard’s job, but outside the walls.”

Jay fought back a wince. It wasn’t a wrong answer or view. It was an uninformed one. She covered the basics of what the profession was, but said nothing about the lifestyle. Her words spoke of the face and avoided the heart of the matter.

“Right.” There was a lot to unpack here, but Jay couldn’t deal with everything now. He needed to stick to the basics and build from there. They had two weeks to build a team. Ana would learn as they went. They all would. “We’re registered under Lauchia, as only the cities have the authority to administer adventurers. It’s part of the agreement between all the city states. That leather tag declares our rank, Apprentice, and that we’re registered to Lauchia. We can still use it if we travel to the other city states like Theles, where my sister is.”

“What are the other ranks?” Her face was beginning to relax. There was still that distrust, but it was fading. More questions were... good.

“Apprentice, Journey, Master, Grandmaster, Hero. There’s a push to advance up the ranks every solstice as new adventurers sign up. It’s called the ladder or stairs depending on the time of year. Advancing’s not quite a straight path, these ranks are for teams, but you can’t go past a certain rank without a guild, and sometimes ranks are awarded to individuals rather than the team or guild and a team can qualify as a higher rank if they have members who hold higher ranks, but-” Jay could see by the slight glaze in her eyes that he was losing her. “Don’t worry about it for now. That’s well in the future.”

“Lauchia paid for us to run the dog track earlier. They subsidize our dorms and a couple of other things, like entry to the Wonder. As you said, adventurers are like the guards. Lauchia needs us to handle things outside the walls, and so the council pays for some things. They don’t pay for the prize for whoever wins the dog track — well, actually they kind of do, but it comes from all the bets on the race, which they take a cut from. High collars are what you call chest armor with protection that extends around the neck. We need another weapon, and spears both keep us away from Oddities and are easier to work with than swords.”

He looked at Kane to see if he missed anything. Kane lifted one eyebrow and shrugged.

“As for our plans, I was thinking we’d start off with patrols through the farms. Likely one of the inner circles. It won’t pay much, but it will keep us going and let us build experience.”

Again, he looked at Kane for feedback. This time, it seemed the taciturn man had something to say.

“Sounds good, but those tasks are popular. We should look for alternatives.”

Jay hummed an agreement. “I’ll start checking the boards. We won’t take anything yet, but it would be good to know the supply and demand.” He ran through Ana’s questions and his answers in his head. “I think that’s everything?”

“Pono soldiers can take tasks to escort their own caravans and messages. It was agreed in the last year.” Kane added.

Jay shrugged. That was news to him. “Anything we missed?”

“No,” Ana said, picking up her spoon to eat again.

“If you have any other questions, at any time, just ask me, alright?”

Ana searched his face suspiciously, looking for what, Jay didn’t know. Finally, she spoke. “Alright.”

There was another question that Jay wanted to ask the both of them: ‘Why do you want to be an adventurer?’, but he held it back. Everything felt so unstable right now and, most of all, he didn’t know if he wanted to know the answer. They were here, they were adults the same as him. Everything else didn’t matter all that much.

Spying the lack of bread and the low soup level in the bowls opposite him, Jay focused on eating to try and catch up. Two weeks, he promised himself. Two weeks of focused training, unbothered by anything else. They could be ready. They would be.

After paying for the meal, they retreated to the dorms. He made a half-hearted invitation to Ana and Kane to join him to explore their surroundings and Lauchia. Ana groaned that she was too exhausted to move another meter. Kane wanted to experiment with his threads. Instead of setting off immediately as he wanted, he instead spent the next ten minutes convincing Kane to restrict all experiments to training grounds in the city and not outdoors. It was one thing in the wild forest, but a tree falling in the city made a lot of noise. Noise they didn’t need and couldn’t afford. When he finally set off, he didn’t have half the time he’d wanted to explore and his mood had not improved.

Training that evening was more of a stretching session than anything else. On the way to the practice grounds, they got sidetracked a couple of times. Each time was for something that Ana and Kane could have seen if they’d gone with him earlier. When they did make it to the grounds, they warmed up and ran through some exercises, loosening up from the run that morning and preparing for the same tomorrow. Afterwards, in the few minutes they had before night fell, he showed Ana some spear drills. To his surprise, Ana had half her usual complaints and Kane was focused through each exercise.

They ate a simple meal and went to sleep early. It was a long day. Everything was all progress of a sort, but it didn’t feel like it.