Kai opened the cabin door and was blinded by sudden light. The warmth of Knov's dimension collapsed behind him, its air fading like smoke. He blinked and found himself ankle-deep in snow, wind clawing at his cloak. The cold was merciless, gnawing back into his bones as though eager to claim what the mountain hadn't finished.
The world stretched wide, an endless canvas of white dunes. At the horizon loomed a mountain so tall it seemed to pierce the sky itself. Its summit was devoured by storm clouds, its base drowning in shadow.
The Throat of the World.
At his feet lay two things: a strip of skin, dried and inked with jagged directions, and an amulet—black metal, coin-sized, etched with the same compass-flower as his right sleeve. When he touched the amulet it thrummed once, like a heartbeat under glass, and bled a thin thread of warmth into his fingers.
[Unidentified artifact detected. Resonant signature matches recent pocket-dimension topology. Possible anchor or key.]
[Recommend retention. Avoid direct binding until parameters are mapped.]
'Pick it up,' Flicker said, smug. 'Worst case, it bites you. Best case, we steal a house.'
Kai slid the strip of skin into his belt, then pressed the amulet to his left palm. The pentagram on his shoulder tingled; a scatter of sparks ran down his sleeve. The amulet vanished into storage with a soft snap.
"Mine," he murmured, and started walking.
---
Hours bled away. The snow bit at his legs, dunes shifting underfoot like cold waves. By dusk, the white thinned into patches of grass, the air warmer, the wind softer. The mountain still towered behind him, swallowing half the sky, a jagged throat that seemed to follow his every step.
By nightfall, he stopped. His body didn't ache for rest—the shard had stolen that weakness—but instinct told him to camp. He gathered crooked branches, fumbling with damp bark, cursing under his breath. Wilderness survival had always been his blind spot.
'Pathetic,' Flicker purred. 'Why not use your shiny new tattoos, genius?'
Kai scoffed, then caught himself. "…Wait. That might actually work."
He pressed his palm to the ground. The pentagram on his shoulder lit faintly, threads of light tracing down his arm. The soil shuddered and fell; his campsite dropped into a shallow pit. He drew the displaced earth up and over, packing it into a low dome.
A crude but solid shelter sealed around him, walls dense as stone, a narrow smoke-hole tugging air. He tested the draft with a spark and a twist of dry grass. The smoke slipped out like a trained animal.
He stared, a laugh breaking free. "That… worked."
'Told you,' Flicker whispered, pleased. 'Next time, we build stairs.'
He didn't feel tired, but he closed his eyes anyway, one hand resting against the earth as if it could remember him better that way.
---
Morning came gray and steel-colored. Kai resumed his march. Plains stretched endless, dotted by crooked pines and silver streams. By noon, a wooden sign stabbed into the earth read:
BEWARE OF WEREWOLVES
Kai frowned. "That's either a joke or the worst welcome mat I've ever seen."
[Probability this is a warning: sixty-eight percent.]
[Context suggests it is not humor. Exercise caution.]
The road bent toward greener fields. By dusk, threads of chimney smoke curled into a pale sky.
A town.
---
Valic Ville was a clutch of weathered cottages with dark thatch and leaning fences. A crooked sign swung at the gate. Chickens scattered as Kai walked in. People watched from doorways and windows—curious, wary, some holding hoes or knives the way soldiers hold swords.
Kai raised a hand. "That sign back there—werewolves. Joke, right?"
A little girl popped out from behind a barrel, eyes huge. "Oh, it's funny if you like staying alive! Werewolves, vampires, fairies, and kippers too! Little people—they die a lot. It's quite sad. You don't know much, mister!"
Kai rubbed his temple. "I've been… out of touch."
A wiry woman with hay in her hair gave him a once-over. "Say, you aren't wearing any adventuring gear."
His stomach dropped. The duffel. His black leather armor with the red stitching. All at the mountain's base. A day behind him.
'Brilliant,' Flicker hissed. 'March into monster country in your church clothes.'
A stocky mule-handler edged closer, forcing a smile. "Welcome to Valic Ville, peaceful heart of Vorath—when it's peaceful. The King's Nation, sir. God's mercy on us, but mercy doesn't keep goats safe."
"Goats," Kai said.
"Goblins," the man corrected with a grimace. "Nasty little thieves. Been raiding farms for weeks. Took two last night. If you're half as strong as you look, you could earn good coin."
A ring of villagers formed without quite forming—shoulders angled in, hope hiding under fear. Someone coughed. Someone else clutched a child closer. The little girl peeked around the mule, whispering, "They have yellow eyes. Like corn going bad."
Kai glanced down the road he'd come, then at their faces. He felt the storage sleeve prickle; the amulet tugged faintly from where he'd tucked it in his soulprint, like a thought that wanted saying.
[Low-effort solution: accept contract. Acquire local currency. Gather terrain intelligence.]
[And maybe don't get eaten by goblins. Just a thought.]
He sighed, shoulders settling. The ink under his skin warmed, as if bracing itself. "Fine. I'll deal with your goblins."
Relief moved through the small crowd like wind through grass. The mule-handler pressed a pouch into Kai's hand; the coins clinked with the solid, ordinary promise of bread and roofs.
"Thank you, sir," the man said. "Trail heads north past the mill. They nest in the briar gullies. Don't go alone after dusk."
Kai tucked the gold away. "I won't ask anyone to come."
'Can't,' Flicker said, amused and gentle at once.
He turned toward the edge of town. The sky was purpling; the fields beyond looked harmless in the last of the light. He stopped after a few steps and glanced back.
"Two things," he said. "First—kippers. If I see them, I won't step on them by accident."
The little girl beamed. "They step on themselves plenty! You just watch your toes."
"And second," he added, "if a wolf howls, you go inside."
The villagers nodded, the fear in their eyes shifting into something steadier. Kai faced the road again.
[Task acquired: goblin extermination. Secondary objective: recover equipment cache at mountain base—deferred.]
"DM there is zero chance I'm recovering that I dropped it at the top of the mountain and it fell into the clearing below"Kai lauched
[56% chance.]
"No offense but I don't trust your percentages even so 50/50 is terrible and that's not even my survival chance. Done talking about it."
Kai hid a smile and walked into the dark, the promise of goblin trouble ahead and the amulet's quiet heartbeat thudding once against his stored hand.