Inch by Inch

Jay’s hope didn’t even last a full day. It barely lasted a few hours. He knew something had gone wrong after lunch when Margaret was waiting at her front gate for the second time.

Her mouth was a tight line, lips pressed so close together that any hint of pink was hidden. She watched them closely as they approached, never looking away, her eyebrows high and drawn together. Both of her hands compressed into pinched-white fists at her sides. This morning she had been concerned. Now she looked worried and regretful.

Margaret’s eyebrows lowered and pulled back into anger. She didn’t wait for them to reach her, shouting out across the main thoroughfare through Slow Keeping. “You need to go back to the bureau.”

If Ana and Kane hadn’t noticed something was up, they did now.

“Kane, can you see anything?” Jay asked at a volume that wouldn’t carry. Something was off. Was Margaret trying to warn them?

He tried to keep his posture relaxed and calm, fighting the itch to bring his spear in front of him in a guard. Instead of responding to Margaret’s shout, he waved back to buy time.

Kane staggered to the side, ‘tripping’ over a stone on the ground in an abnormal blunder from the tall athlete. It worried Jay for a second until he noticed how perfect the stumble was. The motion turned Kane enough to scan the left farmhouses and granted him an excuse to look behind him at the offending rock. An annoyingly exceptional maneuver, Jay realized, with surprising fondness.

“Lots of people in the windows,” Kane announced casually, like he was explaining his stumble.

Jay shrugged in response. The movement was blockier than he’d like. He was never much of an actor. It felt like positive news. If everyone was at the windows, there was no one hiding behind a gate for an ambush. It didn’t rule out bandits — a hostage or two might be all they needed to keep everyone quiet — but there were no signs of a fight around the pseudo-village. Jay couldn’t see any of the farmers he knew giving up without a struggle. Few bandits would be stupid enough to attack a city as well, preferring the easier prey around towns and villages.

So what was Margaret doing?

“I’m afraid this is a waste of your time,” she shouted just as loudly. “A waste!”

Her tone was reproachful and remained as loud as before, even as they drew closer. That wasn’t out of character for Margaret, though. She tended to be high volume only.

“What’s going on?” Ana hissed. She was a worse actor than him, shoulders tense as her eyes flicked back and forth. Her finger idly drummed against her spear, but Ana had enough sense not to start waving that around or moving it into a guard.

“I have no idea.” Jay wanted to find out though. He sped up a little.

“You’d think people had a better use for their time!” Margaret was making less sense by the minute.

Jay walked faster, checking every corner he could. When he was within a reasonable distance where he could talk without being heard by anyone or anything lying within wait, he spoke. “Hello Margaret. Are you okay? Is someone here? What’s going on?”

She gave them a down-turned smile. Her eyes were sympathetic.

“You need to go back to the bureau,” Margaret repeated. She was very loud up close. “Another adventuring team has already left on patrol.”

Jay recoiled. “What?”

He’d been dreading bandits, Oddities, even anger from how they’d handled the tailmouth. Another adventuring team hadn’t even crossed his mind. What did it even mean that another adventuring team was out on patrol? Was someone trying to muscle in on their repeat task? Steal it out from under them by just turning up and doing it?

That’s not how it worked!

He looked back at Ana and Kane for answers. What did they do? Chase after the other adventuring team and confront them? Do the patrol anyway, following on their heels?

Margaret faltered, hands unclenching as her shoulders sagged. Her voice lowered when she spoke next, directly to them as always. “You really do need to go back. It was a team from the Runninghoods and they had all the paperwork.”

“Runninghoods?” That name rang a bell. The location of which was just out of Jay’s sight. But it wasn’t important. How could a guild have the paperwork? The repeat task was his team’s. They’d been doing it for over a week now.

Margaret nodded. “They do a lot of patrols around here.”

“You told them that it was ours?” Ana demanded as much as asked.

“Yes, everyone here knew it was yours.” Margaret was back to shouting again. “Especially after the day before yesterday. Everyone got a good look at that oddity. Everyone knew.”

She isn’t shouting for us. That was important, but Jay couldn’t figure out why.

“Then why?” Ana snapped.

“I don’t know and I can’t help you,” Margaret said quietly. Her shoulders fell. “You need to go back.” She gave them a sad smile.

“A twisted waste!” she shouted and disappeared back into her farm walls.

Left alone, Jay looked at Ana and Kane. Ana’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes were daggers. Kane’s brows were furrowed.

“Fuck.”

He almost wished it had been bandits or Oddities. It might have been easier to deal with.

| i i i ¦ i i i | i i i ¦ i i i |

The adventuring bureau was filthier than normal, if that was even possible. A wide trail of dirt and the occasional blood splatter led past the scattered pillars to the counters.

There was a long queue which didn’t help soothe Jay or his teammate’s anger. It had only grown on the long walk back, as they guessed possible causes. A mistake was the nicest of them. An intentional insult or slight was more likely, one related to the ‘political’ mess they’d been a part of. Ana and Kane were kind enough not to mention anything related to his Word, though it didn’t stop Jay from thinking about it all the same.

If someone was willing to ban him from Peak, were they willing to mess with his tasks?

Thankfully, this time the queue pushed them towards a young clerk wearing a pointy hat, not Cole, their usual clerk on the far side. The clerk was two or three years older than them, with a nose that if Jay was feeling uncharitable, he would describe as pointy as the man’s hat.

He was feeling uncharitable. It was pointier than Peak tavern. Lauchia’s wonder had nothing on that spike.

“How can I help you today?” In a small mercy, the clerk’s voice was honeyed rather than nasally. The Three weren’t that unfair, not to anyone other than Jay.

“Someone stole our tasks,” Ana announced before Jay could speak.

“Our patrol in Slow Keeping. It’s a repeat task,” he added, anger keeping his sentences short.

The clerk blinked in surprise before frowning. “Stole?”

“Another adventuring team was already on our afternoon patrol when we arrived for it,” Kane explained, the sole member of their team keeping their cool, it seemed.

“Have your adventuring tag? Good. Let me find the task.” The clerk brushed free a space on their desk. Unlike Cole’s blissfully clean table — bar the single candle — this clerk’s was covered in sheets of paper, task notices, scraps of various substances and... a half-eaten sandwich. With a partially clean area now available, the young man stood and disappeared into a room in the back.

A groan came from behind them, as the next in line realized they would be taking a while.

Jay couldn’t bring himself to care. He’d make sure to complain about the Runninghoods guild loudly so that everyone would know who to blame.

Oh.

That’s what Margaret was doing. That’s where he remembered the name from. Romwell had said it. The old man had asked him if he was part of that guild. He’d done it right after telling tales and smoking Jay out of his house with those fumes.

Jay’s frustration reached new heights. Just what was going on?

A minute ticked down. Then another. He found himself tapping away at the wood of his spear.

Finally the clerk came back, carrying a thin folder. He set it down on his desk with a slap.

“Here we go. Slow Keeping, repeat task, Apprentice level, two loops, twice daily, three times a week.”

“Yes,” Jay confirmed through gritted teeth.

“Twenty five bronze for each day.” The clerk looked up. “We don’t pay out midway through tasks, if that’s what you’re after. Payment comes after the daily tasks.”

Jay scowled. “We know.”

“The task was stolen!” Ana reminded the clerk pointedly. It was good to know he wasn’t alone in his annoyance.

“Riiight.” The clerk nodded, flicking through the papers in the folder. His pointy hat bobbed as he did, the near-cone of leather jabbing out dangerously. “Ah, here. Team I38. You accepted the task, a couple of reports, huh — Oddity sighting and fight.” He looked up to squint at them. “Odd for an Apprentice task, but go figure.”

Jay nearly snapped.

The clerk looked back down. “And the next entry is another Apprentice team accepting the task. That’s odd. It was never relisted, or canceled.” He set the folder down and looked at them expectantly.

A moment passed without another word.

“How did another team accept the task?” Kane prompted, voice flatter than usual.

“I don’t know.”

Jay gave up. He placed his spear down until it rested against the desk, tip hovering in the air to the right of the clerk’s head. It was a shame he’d washed it since the fight against the tailmouth. A bit of gore would have made what he was about to say more clear. Perhaps that was why the bureau was such a mess. If he could think of that, so could the other adventurers.

“I suggest you find out.”

The clerk eyed the sharp metal warily. “I guess I could.” He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, there was a smirk on his face. “One moment.”

With a quick movement, he stood, avoiding the spear tip. The clerk took a few quick strides over to another counter. When Jay saw which, he groaned and needed a moment to calm down.

The pointy clerk whispered to his coworker, the smirk never failing from his face as his coworker grew less pleased by the moment. Pointy sat down at the other desk, and the coworker stalked his way over.

Cole sat down in front of them, taking a moment to push the spear tip to the side. Jay had to rush to catch it before it could fall. The scarred clerk looked at the desk with disgust, then at them with dismay before lifting a hand up and wiping at his face.

“Problem?” He started to flick through the task folder.

“Another team has taken our task,” Kane stated. He was no more pleased than Jay with the switch, glaring at the consistently rude clerk.

Ana seemed cowed by Cole. Like before, she was having difficulty meeting his eyes or looking at the burns across his face.

Cole reversed his flicking. He stopped on a page and dragged his finger down a column of writing. The finger stopped at the bottom. “You’ve been bumped.”

The matter-of-fact tone threw Jay off. “What does that mean?”

Cole started flicking through the pages again. “A master ranked adventurer from the Runninghoods has intervened with the task. With the recent oddity sighting, they have declared the task more dangerous than expected, and had it reassigned.” The clerk came to a stop on a page and tracked down a short paragraph. He pointed at it, but didn’t read anything further out.

Jay didn’t know people could do that. No adventurer had ever mentioned it to him.

Wait.

The adventurers that had replaced them had been from the Runninghoods guild. The pointy clerk had also said that they were replaced by another team of Apprentices, other leather tags.

“If it’s more dangerous, why did another team of Apprentices replace us?”

Cole rubbed at his face again. “You were bumped. The master rank has reassigned a team from his guild, which they state is under ‘direct supervision’. The Runninghoods run a lot of patrols in the area. Usually this one too. ”

Oh. They were bumped because someone else wanted the task. They were bumped because someone else had a guild, and they didn’t. It wasn’t an insult; it wasn’t political; it wasn’t his Word. An adventurer saw an opportunity to gain an advantage and took it. The tailmouth was an excuse, not a reason. Jay’d never heard about bumping, because all the adventurers that came to Kavakar were from guilds. He spoke to recruiters. None of them would air the dirty tactics that kept them ahead.

“Can any master rank do this?”

Cole nodded. “They need a reason, but those can be found.”

Jay let out a half laugh. That’s one way to put it. The deadly fight, the risk to their lives. It was being used against them. They fought an oddity, fought to keep people safe, and now they were being punished for it?

“You can take the reward for today and the next set of patrols once they’re complete. I’m sure the Runninghoods won’t find it in themselves to complain. Now, I need to kill Gabe for using his Word on me.” Cole stood and marched over to his own desk.

As the scarred man hauled the other young clerk out of his seat, someone coughed pointedly behind them.

Jay picked up his spear and retreated to the side with the rest of his team.

“Those assholes!” Ana yelled, twisting her grip on her spear as she eyed one of many pillars holding the roof up.

“Romwell asked if we were part of the Runninghoods that first day. I didn’t think anything of it.” Jay had lost some of his anger, drained away by the revelations. This wasn’t how things should be. It wasn’t how adventuring should be.

“Let’s go back to the dorms. We can train tonight instead.” Kane may not have been eyeing a pillar like Ana, but Jay could read the tension that formed millimeter by millimeter around his jaw. A spar would do them both some good.

It didn’t cheer him up. Without the repeat task, they were back to square one at the worst time. Lauchia was full of new guild recruits, all clamoring for tasks, and they had a larger advantage than Jay’d ever realized. Instead of two and a half weeks, his team had six days worth of savings.

Only one Word could summarize how he felt.

“Fuck.”