Inch by Inch

“Oy! You there-Jay!”

Like anyone else who had just had his name called, Jay stopped. Not without some confusion, though. He may have recognised his own name, but the voice calling it was unfamiliar. Jay turned, stepping out of the way of a man with drooping shoulders whose apron was falling off, and a teenager who was in far too much of a rush. Scanning the street behind him, Jay saw nothing.

Did I mishear? he wondered. ‘Hey’ sounded close enough to ‘Jay’. It was a similarity that had bugged him since he’d chosen the nickname to replace ‘Jiro’, but mishearing was better than mispronunciation. Sometimes he wished he’d gone for a different name, something that sounded more distinct. Casual ‘Heys’ made him turn his head. So did the other ‘Hay’. Or day, play, pay, say, stay-

“Jay!” The shout was cheerful now, the tone buoyed by success.

Even with the sound to guide him, Jay had no luck identifying the voice. There were plenty of people walking towards him, this was a busy street, but not one face on the street sparked recognition. He stood there, frozen by curious indecision, until the caller made themselves known.

“I thought it was you. Figured I owed you a word.”

The man was thin. His clothes weren’t baggy on him, having clearly been fitted, but by an inexperienced tailor who adjusted the material to form without style. The cut was unflattering and made his body appear more wiry than it perhaps was. His face was peculiar, not by structure which was round instead of gaunt, but by the tan lines. A curved line ran from one cheek to the tip of the man’s nose to the other cheek. Everything above the line was pale and everything below it was dark enough to be facial hair from a distance. As the man sauntered closer, Jay could see his actual facial hair, scraggly and black like the hair at the top of his head.

“Do I know you?” Jay asked, already hoping that this man wouldn’t be like the Pono Envoy. He wanted an evening of peace at the very least, not reminders of how he’d left home and family.

The man frowned, lower lip shrinking as he chewed on it. The moment where he started to reconsider calling out was obvious.

“From Kavakar maybe?”

With a loud sniff and a flare of his nostrils, the man shrugged to himself. Holding one hand up to Jay, he coughed his throat. When he spoke again, his voice was gruffer. “Tag?”

Jay’s eyes widened. “Peak! You’re the door guard.”

He couldn’t help squinting as he pictured the skinny man before him in full metal armor. It was quite the difference.

The man rolled his shoulders, letting the comment brush past him as he looked anywhere but Jay. “Miles. I go by Miles.”

“Hi. I’m Jay.”

An oncoming woman pushing a pram laden with two screaming children brushed past both of them, making them step aside. Miles glared at her, but the bags under her eyes were larger than the shopping bags attached to the pram. She was past caring what a scruffy man thought of her. When Miles turned back, he looked less unsure; the break having given him a chance to figure out what he wanted to say.

“Look. The other night, I didn’t want to do it.”

Jay gave him an understanding smile. He would have preferred if Miles had said nothing and just kept walking. It’d taken long enough to get distracted after Ana and Kane left, and after this encounter, he’d have to go through that all over again. “It’s okay, I get it. You don’t need to say anything.”

“No, it’s-” Miles made a face like he’d bitten into a sandwich to find he had the wrong order. “Look. It was shitty, and I didn’t want to do it. Let me buy you a round as an apology?”

Jay held up his hands to ward that off. He scanned the busy street for a way out. The merchants maybe? Claim to be shopping? “No, that’s okay. You don’t need to do that.”

“Got anything better to do?” Miles gave Jay an arch look, like he knew exactly what Jay had been doing before he called out to him. Which, given that Miles had been there at Peak and had possibly heard most of what came after, was quite likely. Or he’d just seen Jay wandering the streets for a while before deciding to call out.

Jay’s shoulders slumped. With a shaky feeling that he was going to regret this, he opened his mouth. “Not really.”

Miles jerked his head off to a side street and set off. His chest swayed with each step, in a walk that suited someone much bulkier than him.

Wincing and taking a last look in the other direction, Jay followed.

The bar was a bit of a dump. The outside was such a mash up of different colors, brick sizes and angles that Jay needed to narrow his eyes or suffer a headache. It was at the border between what looked like a residential area and what smelled like a tanning or sewage center. Maybe both. Needless to say, that was not a pleasant spot.

The interior was barely better, and mostly because of a series of dried out fruits and flowers hanging near the door to guard against the smell outside. It had been decorated in the same arbitrary fashion as the exterior. Some tables and all the chairs were wooden. This said a lot about a place in Lauchia. Not even the cheap furnishings in the dorm were made of wood. A bar took up the left-hand wall, blocking the way to a door leading to what Jay hoped was a kitchen at the back. It was made of a single plank of wood, a lengthwise slice of wavy lines from a trunk.

Miles led the way to a table at the far back on the bar side. It was a tall slim table with awkward looking seats you’d half stand at. He stopped when he realized Jay wasn’t right behind him.

Jay gestured at the other side of the tavern, at a nice round table in a nook with comfortable seats. Only after doing so did he realize it reminded him of their table at Peak.

Miles lowered his eyebrows and gave Jay a hasty shake of his head. He pressed on afterwards, not waiting for an argument or giving a reason why. Not wanting to start the walk back to the empty dorms, or pay for his own drink at this point, Jay followed.

As expected, the seats were uncomfortable to sit on. On a positive note, the bar was a step away, and Jay didn’t have to wait long before Miles slid back into the seat opposite him.

“There. A better beer at a better price in a better place,” The guard recited rather than spoke.

It was, as Jay sipped the frothy dark liquid, not entirely a false statement. The beer was served in stone implements better described as mugs than tankards, but the flavor spoke for itself. It was sweet in a way he couldn’t recognise. The tavern was also quieter than Peak, letting Miles say the endorsement rather than needing to shout it. Those that were speaking did so at a murmur and without the carved mountain walls, sound did not reflect quite as eagerly.

“It’s not bad,” he agreed.

Miles nodded. He raised his mug. “Welcome to Rock Bottom.”

Jay lowered his, taken aback. “What?”

“The tavern,” Miles said, eyes blinking in faux confusion as his eyes danced with mirth. “There was talk of hanging a sign, but too many people wanted the words carved on the floor instead.”

“That’s... nice?” The name was almost to be expected in a city with an obsession with stone, but... Rock Bottom and Peak taverns? There was a reference there.

Miles attempted to hide his smile with a sip of his beer. The mug failed to hide the upturned corners of his mouth and the millimeters his cheeks rose.

“Thanks. For the beer,” Jay said, with a nod as he remembered his manners.

Miles set his mug down with a clack. “Don’t worry about it. Or about Peak. It’s not all that it’s cracked up to be. All polish, no structure.”

“You work for Peak?” Jay said in disbelief. He waved his mug-free hand around at the bar. “Isn’t all this...”

Miles shrugged. “I work there, I don’t have to like the place. They give good money to stand there and do nothing but get paid for the task. Let anyone who looks like a seasoned adventurer in and keep out the gawkers, children and newbies.”

Seasoned adventurer? Jay wasn’t crazy enough to believe that’s what Ana, Kane and he looked like. Especially out of their armor. Was Miles trying to butter him up for something? Warily, he opened his mouth. “You let us in.”

“Yeah, well, one of those legacy kids vouched for you. They were even waiting at the door when you arrived.”

Huh. Jay hadn’t realized that they’d relied on Peter to even get into the tavern. “Peter's in the Bedrock guild, but I don’t think his parents are even adventurers.”

“He hangs out with the legacies.” Miles made a gesture with the hand he held his mug in, crossing his fingers awkwardly. His free hand was busy scratching through his scraggly hair. “Bedrock and Heritage? All the same thing if you catch my slide.”

Jay leaned in, the back of his chair lifting off the ground for a stomach sinking moment before he corrected the imbalance. The way Miles mentioned the guilds — Heritage, in particular — piqued his interest. It dawned on him that Miles was both a local, a ‘seasoned’ adventurer, and associated enough with places like Peak that he could be a source of information.

“Do you know much about Runninghoods?”

Miles shook his head from side to side. “Not much. They’re a mid sized outfit. Been around a couple of generations, but never made much of themselves.” He raised his eyebrows. ”Why?”

That wasn’t much. Jay sat back as best he could in the poorly balanced chair. “They bumped us from a task.”

“Ah.” Miles’s face soured. “I haven’t heard of them doing that in a while, but it’s no surprise.”

They drank more beer.

“What guild are you with?” Jay asked suddenly. It sounded like Miles had particular opinions about several guilds and had yet to say anything positive about any of them.

Miles snorted, dribbling a bit of ale out of his mouth. “Guild? Mine? What do I look like to you?”

Jay looked him over, taking in his disheveled appearance; the dark tan line on his face that did nothing to hide the number of days that had passed without a shave, the fitted clothes that accented his thinness, not his fitness and the untamed nest of his hair. There was only one answer that wouldn’t get him in trouble.

“An adventurer?”

He got a grunt in response. Miles chugged a good third of his mug. “Very diplomatic of you. I’ve no guild. I’m independent.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Miles arched an eyebrow. “Is it all that shocking to you?”

Accepting the point, Jay nodded and took a sip himself. “In my defense, there aren’t many independent adventurers.” Mile might actually be the first he’d ever spoken to. “And you do work for Peak.”

Miles’ answering smile was a little smug for Jay’s comfort. “I don’t know, there are more about than you’d expect.”

It was clearly a leading answer, and Jay disliked that he was intrigued anyway. He was missing a clear understanding about this conversation and encounter, and had the faint sense that he was being steered somewhere.

“Okay, tell me.” With a groan, he fell for the bait.

“This-” Miles waved his arm around the room with the same pride a toddler might have of their mud drawings. “-is an independent adventurer tavern. Everyone here is one.”

Jay’s eyebrows rose as he looked around the room once more. It was easier now to notice that the shirt one woman wore was padded to support a breastplate, not her appearance. How gray hair fell flat on one side of a man’s head, not the other, and how he turned his head to compensate for his missing ear. Some wore leather armor. From a line of pegs at the front of the building hung two sets of metal greaves. How, sitting at a rectangular table, a young man’s skin had turned black with soot from a powerful Oddity, fought back with the small hammer on his belt…

Frowning at that last piece of evidence, Jay turned back to Miles and raised an eyebrow. He nodded at the young man, who was clearly an apprentice to some metal worker and not an adventurer.

Miles scrunched his face. “Most of them, anyway. The others tend to be... people who chose to live a bit differently.”

“Ehhh...” The hint dawned on him. Jay’s eyes widened and suddenly a lot about the last hour made sense. The invitation for drinks, the small, cozy table for two.

“I mean I’m flattered, but-”

“Not that, you moron,” Miles interrupted, rubbing at his chin strong enough he was scraping at the skin. “Words and the Three.”

“Oh.” His cheeks were suddenly warm enough that he needed a large gulp of beer to cool them.

Miles knew why he was banned from Peak. He had invited Jay here for a very different reason, to offer a replacement tavern.

“Look, Words and all that — it’s not a big thing in Lauchia. Things have changed since the old days. There’s not half as much stoning as there used to be.” Miles waited a beat without getting a response, before muttering something about ‘appreciation’ and ‘settlements‘. He looked ready to start a rant until he spotted something in Jay’s expression.

Jay didn’t think he’d made any kind of face, but he most definitely did not want to talk about his Word or face the pity that had driven Miles to approach him.

“Shit, I’m saying this all wrong.” Miles rubbed at his cheek again. “I’m trying to say... you’re not alone, alright? It sucks that people are making a thing about it, but they always will, and then they’ll forget about it just as soon.”

Jay nodded, then made a fair attempt at finishing his beer as fast as he could. The sooner it was done, the sooner he could be out of here.

Miles groaned. He’d clearly been hoping for a different reaction. “Adjust! That balances us out, yeah? Adjust.”

“What?” The outburst was enough to make Jay stall his escape.

Miles grabbed his mug from the table, but not to drink. Using both hands, he cradled the rough stone, turning it back and forth with a focused eye. It was hard to see anything with all the movement and Miles’ hands, but Jay could have sworn he saw fingers dimpling the stone. After thirty seconds, the older adventurer opened his hands and presented a...

Mug. It was the same as before- wait. No. Jay examined his own. Both cups were carved from the same creamy stone, but now they were distinct and not just by the minute tool marks. The mug’s handle was wider, leaving more space for a hand to slide through and grip comfortably. Its base had been widened so it would sit easier, and the top lengthened. All the material for the changes had been drawn from the thickness of the stone, slimming it down into a frame that should have cracked in the process of being made.

Miles had changed his mug, which still had beer in it, without any tools, and somehow made it better.

“I’ve been trying to get Gerr to pay for that for years.” The adventurer grumbled, inspecting his own work.

“What did you do?” Jay asked.

“It’s my word. Adjust,” he said. The thin man pulled at his shirt. “I know yours because of Peak. Figured it was fair if you knew mine.”

“Oh.”

“It doesn’t mean crap.” Miles waved a hand across his body from his head down. “Do I look like a flower arranger to you?”

“No.” The answer came quick enough from Jay that Miles narrowed an eye in suspicion.

“No,” Miles agreed after a moment. He set his mug down. It was empty. “So I get it. A lot of people here would.”

Jay took a drink. His own mug was near to empty. It was a good moment to leave.

“I’ll get the next round.”

It was a quick few steps to the bar. The long plank that served as a counter was beautifully polished, with no marks or scars along its length. Under his fingers, the wood felt slightly soft and damp, but not sticky from dried ale. Unlike everything else in the tavern, it was well cared for.

Rock Bottom wasn’t where he wanted to be. It wasn’t anywhere he’d planned to end up. Peak had suited him. It had been the next step forward.

But he was here now, and it wasn’t as bad as expected.

Maybe he’d stay for one more after this one.