Inch by Inch

“I don’t need ya.”

One finger ticked down. Two remained.

“I don’t want ya.”

The next fell, striking palm with a judgemental slap.

“I don’t like ya.”

That final finger lowered as slow as a coffin. The woman’s face was just as grave. Whatever you might say about the owner of Evening Pastures, their client today, she was at least honest and direct.

“That I hav’ta pay ya is shittier than this ‘ere field.” Elizabeth took a deep breath. The shifting of her lungs cracked a smudge of dirt on her cheek and sent both it and a square leaf resting in her dark hair falling to the ground. The other workers bore similar injuries to their cleanliness. They hadn’t waited for either the time on the task sheet, or for Ana, Jay, and Kane to arrive to start the work.

“So ‘ere’s how this’ll go. We-“ She gestured at herself, and the five men and women standing behind her. “-are going in there-“ A resurrected finger jabbed at the thick undergrowth and woods behind her, taking up an uncertain box of eleven by twenty-four meters wide.

The five helpers she’d shanghaied into joining her on this task had the decency to look bashful or at least roll their eyes at their leader’s antics.

“-and ya’ll are gonna sit ‘ere like the cattle shit ya are.”

In hindsight, Jay should have known that the client would have been combative. The task notice had been hidden. All the cursing on the notice, which was funny at the time, was less amusing now. Elizabeth didn’t want them here. It had been obvious to them when Ana found and presented the notice. So, how had he forgotten that in the 5 days since accepting it?

The farmer examined them, widening her lips as if to grimace and revealing pristine white teeth. After a few seconds of making sure that they were suitably cowed, the woman turned and power-walked to the undergrowth.

Her five helpers shared a look before four of them followed. The one man who stayed behind approached them.

“Don’t mind Elizabeth. The land's been in her family for decades, and she’s just upset at the reminder that she isn’t, in fact, royalty when standing on it. Wait here for ten minutes, she gets to strut about all happy, then find yourselves somewhere to sit down. It’s gonna be a long day.” He gave them a friendly nod, shining the bare skin at the top of his head at them. ”I’m Edric. Come to me if you need anything.”

“Actually, we need to scout out the area before you start.” Jay knew it wasn’t going to get him anywhere when he said it, but this was a requirement in Lauchia’s adventurer regulations for tasks of this nature.

It was buried deep in those regulations, but so were the rules around bumping adventurers off tasks. Jay now knew far too much about both subjects, and several more, than he’d like. It all got shoved into that corner of his mind where the broader rules for all city state adventurers were stored. Those rules were both shorter and clearer. He wondered how Lauchia had fallen so far with their own.

Edric looked at the five currently attacking the gorse, then back at Jay. He harrumphed. “Bit late for that. Besides, nothing reaches this far in.”

“We fought a hostile oddity last week in Slow Keeping,” Jay rebutted, not sure why he was pushing this beyond that professional pride. It wasn’t a brag. A warning not to get complacent, perhaps?

He just couldn’t stand it sometimes. Why make the rules if no one was going to follow them?

“Huh.” Edric scratched his side. “Well, you have two choices. Push it, and Elizabeth will turn you down then shout at ya for an hour, getting nothing done in the meantime. Or don’t and we can get on with it.”

Without waiting for an answer, Edric turned to the thicket himself. He’d made his opinion clear.

As soon as he was far enough away, Jay groaned. “This is going to be a long day.”

“Why did she even post the notice?” Ana asked, scowl burning an invisible hole through the back of Elizabeth’s head. She wasn’t upset about the rule breaking. Jay knew that. Ana was more likely to have taken their client’s welcoming speech personally.

“Regulations,” he said with a sigh. They watched the workers for a moment.

“So? You gonna ask?”

Jay winced. The farmers had already been at it for quite some time, judging by their progress. There was a definite line in the ground between farmland and freshly cut brush. “I’ll wait ten minutes, then ask.”

“So we stand here? For ten minutes.”

“I guess so.”

If Kane had been aware enough to hear anything, he would have been delighted. Unfortunately, Jay had caught him dozing off about a minute into Elizabeth’s welcoming speech.

So they waited.

Ten minutes later, Jay was happy to report that Edric’s advice had been helpful. Instead of shouting for an hour, Elizabeth only lasted twenty minutes before she turned away.

“Let’s never do a task where the client doesn’t want us again,” Jay muttered as he met Ana and Kane at the edge of the tamed section.

They would not be checking out the wild woods. Elizabeth had made herself clear about that, if Edric hadn’t already. Oddly enough, he felt better after that dressing down. The shouting didn’t bother him — he’d dealt with poor clients at the shop for years — pretending to listen only made him weary. It would have been easy to step back and ignore the duty to make life easier. Instead, he tried.

It mattered. Making the attempt mattered to him.

“What a bitch,” Ana said. “Should we just leave?”

“No,” Jay said, rolling his shoulders. “I’ve already been shouted at. Might as well get paid for it. Let’s just keep an eye on things.”

An hour passed by. Then another.

Eventually, watching the workers grew agonizing. There were only so many times you could watch someone scythe down the undergrowth with a wave of their hands. It became rote. After the hundredth iteration, even the sight of clippings and leaves swirling about to collect into bales as a woman clasping her hands together grew drab.

They lasted, they endured, slowly inching forward in the wake of the workers. However, a human could only stand so long without anything to do before going crazy. Not all of them were like Kane, who could watch grass grow for days. At a point, they would need to do something or snap. Jay fully believed they’d reached that point, and that if they had to go any longer, Ana was going to kill someone. He wasn’t sure if he’d stop her.

With a word to Ana, who breathed a sigh of relief, Jay went to find Edric.

“What are you planning to do with those trunks?”

Once a tree had been felled, two workers laid into it. They stripped the smaller branches off, placing them to be compacted into bales, and set aside the larger ones in another pile. It was a slow process, but the team worked in a Word powered rhythm. When they finished with the process, a woman carried the stripped trunk back to cultivated land and added it to a stack. All the trees were gathered together, regardless of color, thickness or toughness. Some of the varieties would surely be known in Lauchia already, and be worth something, but it appeared no one here had the expertise to know which.

“A sawmill will send a cart by tomorrow for them. Why?”

“We’re going insane with nothing to do. Can we take one and do some training?”

Edric eyed the stack before nodding his head. “I’ll ask Mary to give you one of the lighter logs.”

Mary, a woman with gold-copper skin and smile lines that gave her face a mischievous flair, was kind enough to give them a hefty trunk, 1.22m across and 5.68m tall, though she said it was one of the lighter ones. Jay decided not to weigh a gift and price it. The trunk’s size only made it more impressive when Mary twirled the log upright then drove it forty-three centimeters into the soil. She appeared to use the same effort that Jay might take to stab a spear through a straw dummy. The athletic woman even looked happy to do it, or at least show off her strength in a new way.

Jay appreciated it — both the showmanship and her help with the trunk itself. The twirling his mother could do, but driving the log that deep was a feat.

Elizabeth saw the process, of course, but thankfully kept her complaints to a scowl. It said a lot about her that none of the workers she directed were worried about the temper that might hide behind that look, or helping the adventurers without her orders. One of the other workers even said something to Mary that made her laugh when she went to pick up the next trunk.

Jay jabbed Kane to get his attention before laying out his plan. “I think we can practice a few things while we wait to stay active and alert. One of us at a time, the other two can watch the workers.”

Reluctantly, he untied his bow from his waist. It would take a minute to string it up, and he continued speaking as he did. “Kane and I can practice our aim. Ana can practice her Word — only for a short period. You can’t get exhausted.”

Ana pursed her lips, against any restrictions as always, but like him, she seemed desperate enough for a distraction to not complain.

“You can go first, Ana,” he said, lifting his bow away from Kane’s reaching fingers. Kane didn’t get to skip all the watching by dozing without cost. No, he can go last, Jay decided. “I was thinking you could try something new. Have you ever seen a woodcarver at work?”

She hesitated. “Old Pavan used to do stuff in the tavern?”

“Yes. You remember how Blanka used to always complain when she came out from the bar and saw him at it? She’d throw him out every now and again?”

“Yes?” Ana’s eyes crossed as she tried to figure out where he was going with this. Kane looked just as puzzled.

“Can you remember why? Those piles he used to leave on the floor when he carved?”

Ana nodded. “The wood shavings.”

“Exactly! That’s what I want you to do.”

Kane hummed thoughtfully. Ana looked at the tree, her eyes wide with skepticism. “You want me to carve the trunk into something?”

“If you can,” Jay snorted. He would be shocked if the tree looked like anything but a training yard stump at the end of this. Wood carving was hard when you did it with precise tools. No one included a spear in that category. “Just try to cut slivers off the sides for now. Controlled cuts that curve.”

The idea was interesting enough that Ana focused on that instead of the challenge or his doubt about her abilities.

Jay allowed himself a proud smile as she stalked up to the trunk. Even Kane’s eyes remained focused.

That pride lasted all of thirty minutes, and two full cycles of the training, before a thud stopped all the workers in their tracks. The sound of wood falling was normal now, but it always came with a warning before it. Not cursing after it.

“Shit. Stupid fucking thing.”

The sound usually came from the woodlands too, not behind the workers’ backs.

When he turned, Ana was scowling down at two logs, one driven into the ground and another lying flat beside it.

“Ana,” Jay groaned.

“I know!” she snapped.

“You have to be careful.” That was the whole point of this training. How had she managed to cut the log in half while trying to cut a sliver off of it?

“It’s fine.” She turned to scowl at him. “Now you and Kane can each have a target. Mary can drive the other one in too.”

“Ana!” he yelled. Mary had been so helpful, it was incredibly rude to just assume she’d fix things for them. “You can’t assume that.”

Before they deteriorated into an argument, Elizabeth stomped up to the trunk.

“What did ya do?”

Ana bristled, ignoring Jay to deal with the new, nearer threat.

“I cut it.”

They faced off, Ana and Elizabeth. The surly farmer leaning over the dainty adventurer.

“Can ya do it again?”

The words were barked out, but their meaning didn’t match the tone they were spoken in. The disparity threw Ana off a little. “What does it matter to you?”

Jay winced.

“I’m paying is what matters! Yes or no?”

“Yes, I’m doing it again! I don’t care if you don’t want us here, I’m not standing her doing nothing.”

“Good.” Elizabeth’s smile was bloodthirsty. She spun. “Maxine and Brad, you’re on stripping. Mary, how’d ya feel about picking up the pace?”

The two in charge of felling trees groaned. Mary’s shoulders were shaking with laughter.

Elizabeth made it a few steps away, before she noticed she was alone. “Well? Come up, we don’t have all day.”

“Why should I help you?” Ana asked, resting the butt of her spear against the ground and letting the head tilt away from her. It was a terrible display of weapon form, but it made her look at ease and confident. “You’ve done nothing but shout at us.”

Jay appreciated the solidarity, being the one who got shouted at, but wished that Ana had phrased it differently.

Elizabeth’s mouth twitched like a bull before it leapt at you. A second passed as she debated it. “A bonus. Ten bronze.”

“Fifteen,” Ana said, exaggerating her pronunciation of the word. Her eyes danced with pleasure.

Elizabeth grimaced. She looked back at the trees, then at the sun. “Fine.”

Jay closed his mouth like a portcullis. He swallowed his complaints and reprimand. Fifteen bronze was nearly a week of food for one of them. They all knew it. It was a sizeable bonus for what they would be doing anyway.

Ana’s next steps were closer to skips than walking.

The work didn’t go quite so smoothly at first. Ana could cut through anything, yes, but there was more to chopping a tree down than cutting through the base. When Ana cut the tree, it fell, but the direction was nowhere near as controlled as when Maxine and Brad did it.

However, Elizabeth was determined to get her money’s worth. After a tree nearly took Ana with it on its way down, she shouted for a halt.

“No, no, no! That’s not how ya do it!”

“Why don’t you try it?” Ana snapped, dragging her fingers through her hair to scrape out twigs that had settled there after her tumble away from the falling tree.

Unfortunately for Ana, Elizabeth took that literally. She jumped forward and grabbed Ana by the shoulders, dragging her to the next tree in line. This one was fourteen meters and thirty-seven centimeters tall, and forty-one centimeters thin. It made up for thinness by supporting enough branches to feed fifty fires.

“‘Ere.” Elizabeth grabbed Ana by the hips, provoking a yelp. She steered her to the side. Then, as Ana squirmed her way free, held up her left hand in the shape of an L towards the previously cleared areas. She gave the next warning. “All clear, dropping the next!”

The client and owner of Evening Pastures grabbed Ana’s elbows, ignoring the fussing, and guided Ana’s spear up high. “Top to bottom. A nice diagonal. Ya got it?”

She refused to let Ana’s elbows go until she confirmed that yes, she understood.

Jay watched the whole process with half fascination and half dread.

Ana swung, and the tree fell, not perfectly in place, but many times better than before.

Four workers descended on the two trees. Elizabeth joined them.

Ana was left eyeing her spear and swinging against the air.

The pace sped up. A poo-brown trunk as wide as a street cart required several cuts and Brad’s guidance. When a green-tinged trunk fell, it shattered into pieces like glass and took a lot longer than usual to clear up.

Jay made sure Ana took several breaks to not suffer Word exhaustion. It was unpopular with everyone but Brad and Maxine, who were more than happy to take back their tree felling position instead of being relegated to general labour.

A pale pink tree had squat branches that only Ana could cut through. It was decided to drag it out of the way and see what the sawmill had to say about it. They lost another trunk when it drifted up into the air instead of falling like it should.

Their rhythm was settled when Kane shouted.

“Movement! Behind the blue.”

It took a precious lost four seconds for Jay to locate the tree that Kane was talking about, a twisting plant 9.58 meters tall. The tree had few branches, but each bushy enough to make up for that.

A football-shape escaped from one of those bushy branches. Jay’s hand reached for his bow. More seconds were lost picking it up. Grabbing an arrow took longer again.

The oddity was too quick for him to hit. It flapped through the air, an autumn missile, five furry wings shaking with effort. The five wings were enough for Jay to identify it from Peter and Tema’s descriptions. This was a fluffball, an oddity that lingered around Lauchia, but wasn’t valuable or aggressive enough to do anything about. The insect-mammals only attacked if their dens were threatened. Like now.

Elizabeth was in its path, the farmer turning on Kane with a scowl instead of following his warning.

Small though they were, fluffballs were dangerous. They didn’t have long talons, or mouths that could bite a hole in you, but they did have teeth. Their strategy was to latch onto their prey’s mouth and nose, sinking hundreds of tiny teeth in to keep their grip. The teeth would barely draw blood, but that didn’t matter. Fluffballs would hold on until their victim ran out of breath. The Oddities wouldn’t let go, even if it killed them. Soft, flying insects that wanted to smother you in the ‘to death’ way, not the motherly.

The fluffball bobbed to the side, Elizabeth’s poor decision actually helping her in this case, as the monster couldn’t attack the back of her head.

An orange shaft swung out, a glint at its tip. It was a practiced motion for an incoming object.

Blood spattered against fitted armor. Three wings, batting at her body weakly before falling to the ground. The other two wings continued on to crash into a bale of leaves.

A problem shared and halved.

“I did it,” Ana mouthed.

Elizabeth began pacing about and shouting about the Lauchia council.

“One hit,” Edric murmured beside Jay. It was repeated by another worker. Ana’s name was added to the end. It was the beginning of something.

Any of the Three, if you’re listening, please let that not be a thing, Jay prayed.

| i i i ¦ i i i | i i i ¦ i i i |

Jay walked into the tavern first, followed quickly by Bakti and Kane.

“This is it?” Bakti asked, his voice nasal with one hand clamped over his nose.

“Yup, welcome to Rock Bottom.”

Bakti blinked. Kane showed a flash of bright teeth as he fought down a reluctant smile of surprise.

Okay, Jay could see why Miles enjoyed doing that now.

“Really? That’s what they went with?” Bakti asked, releasing his nose and tentatively taking a sniff.

“Lauchia is obsessed,” Kane stated. A surprise addition to the night, Kane had invited himself along once he heard of Jay’s plans. Jay assumed he was as sick of “One hit” Ana’s crowing as he was. It didn’t feel right to leave him alone with her, and so here they were.

“It’s the puns…” Jay sighed.

All three sons of Kavakar shook their heads and thanked the Three that no one back home had tried to start anything similar. Bush jokes could only go one way, and would never grow on them.

“The beer is great here.”

Bakti grunted. Jay knew he was just happy to get away from his guild for once. Rock Bottom was somewhere they couldn’t find or bother him.

Jay led the way through the tavern to a nice round table in a nook at the back. The cushions were just as comfortable as they looked.

“Ah.” It was the perfect spot to relax after a long day of training.

“Jay,” Bakti coughed.

“Hmm?”

“Jay!”

He opened his eyes to see what was bothering his friend. “What?”

Bakti cast a wary glance around. “I thought you said it would be fine if we came here.”

“What?” Jay asked, then he saw it. Everyone in the tavern was looking at them. No one was talking. They just stared.

What the fuck?

A quick glance at Kane showed he was none the wiser about what had happened.

“Eh... Hello?”

“You need to move,” the barman said.

Jay looked down at the comfortable seat. It wasn’t that important. He stood.

Everyone returned back to their business. The silence faded, chased away by a murmur.

“Death’s seat.”

“Death.”

“Death’s.”

“Death’s seat.”