A single ribbon of sunlight slipped between the scissoring shutters and laid itself across my eyelids. I woke in Master Forge's loft, tangled in a blanket that smelled of coal smoke and peppermint oil, every muscle aware of the night's madness: the sprint through the Graveyard, the hush-forged spike, the moment Brack's Pulse aura guttered like a candle in wind.
The forge hall below rumbled already. Hammers rang in a measured rhythm—two slow, one quick—Aderyn's personal code for "shop's awake, danger low." I rolled from the cot, boots soft on the iron-grate floor, and peered over the rail.
Brack Morrow lay trussed to a dolly cart, manacles glowing with silvery runes. Forge, goggles perched on her brow, checked the bindings while a pair of night-shift porters wrestled the cart toward the open doors. Beyond them, dawn had set the Iron District ablaze with copper light. Steam hissed from rooftop vents; distant tram whistles called morning crews to work.
Brack's eyes, bloodshot but clear, tracked me. A gag of quietstone linen muffled his voice, yet the look said plenty: This isn't over.
Forge waved me down. "Help them steer him. Concord wagon's two streets over."
I descended the ladder, the Interface blinking awake beside me:
⟢ Spectral Authority—User: Cipher
Status: Null Overtone (Stable)
Flux Reservoir: 06 %
New Note: "Overnight regeneration improved by Anchor."
Tutorial—Quiet Smithing Lv 1 → Progress 12 %
Brack's cart hit a rut; the spike still buried in his breastplate hummed, drawing sound from every jostle. Even his chains clinked in eerie half-volume. The porters exchanged spooked glances but kept hauling.
"Quiet metal unnerves them," Forge remarked, passing me a grease-stained satchel. "Breakfast. Carry it and look like an apprentice."
Inside: a heel of rye, pickled eggs, a screw-top flask of chicory brew, a lump of soft gray ore that pulsed with a faint heartbeat glow. "What's this last bit?"
"Night-stone. Absorbs residual noise. Good for your toolkit." She flicked soot from Brack's singed hair. "He'll wake fully in five minutes. Concord wardens aren't gentle, but they'll treat him better than I would."
We trundled into the street. Civic wardens in white-glove uniforms waited beside a prism-glass wagon whose panes shimmered with containment sigils. Their captain—scar-lined cheek, immaculate hat—consulted a brass ledger as porters slid Brack inside. She barely spared Forge a nod before sealing the doors.
"Bounty paid upon verification," she said, voice clipped. "You'll receive a promissory chit by noon." Her gaze caught mine, narrowed. "Your apprentice looks pale. Keep him clear of Null residue, smith."
Forge draped a casual arm across my shoulders, fingers smudging coal dust on my collar. "He's had his inoculations." A gentle squeeze warned me to stay silent. The wagon clanked off, sun flashing on its mirrored shell.
Back inside, the door boomed shut. Forge tossed me a rag. "Scrub the anvil pit. Quiet forging drags hush into every crack; mustn't gum ordinary work. Meanwhile, lesson two: terminology." She chalked three words on a slate propped against a tool chest.
Bucket. Spout. Lid.
"Repeat."
"Bucket is Mass—how much Strata I own," I said, kneeling to scoop gray ash with the rag. "Spout's Flux—throughput. Lid's my Riddle—keeps me from drowning."
"Good. Yesterday you worked with a cupful of stranger's rainwater borrowed from a cracked gutter and poured it through a straw made of rumors." She tossed the night-stone lump; I caught it, felt vibration ease in my wrists. "Today, we start carving your own bucket."
A pang of raw hunger pinched. I bit egg, chewed. "How?"
"Anchor two: Purpose." She jabbed her chest. "Mine is Shape fury into function. What's yours?"
The question rang louder than her hammer strikes. Purpose? Survive had always been enough, but Purpose meant direction, a compass for every decision. I wiped ash on my trousers, thought of the Interface's impossible fraction, of being a zero no one counted, and of the hush that saved me.
"Solve impossible problems so nobody stays powerless," I said, heart thumping. "Be the cipher key, not the blank."
Forge's expression softened. "Big words. Write them."
She tossed a stub of silver chalk. I knelt, inscribed the sentence on the stone floor. The chalk glowed, threads of Null weaving around the letters until they sank like etching acid, leaving the words faintly indented.
The Interface chimed:
⟢ Anchor Registered: Purpose ("Solve impossible problems…")
Paradox Risk → 11 %
Flux Reservoir Cap +4 %
The world felt a notch steadier, as if floor bolts tightened underfoot.
Forge grinned. "Buckets get deeper. Good. Now we melt ore."
She led me to a side furnace where crucibles glowed orange. We shoveled charcoal, pumped bellows, and added night-stone shavings. Heat prickled my cheeks; sweat raised coal grit on skin. Forge demonstrated: dip tongs, withdraw a slug of half-molten metal, then whisper a Null hum across its surface. The glow dampened, metal behaving like thick clay. She kneaded it into a bar without tongs, bare gloved hands shaping with minimal sizzle.
"Quiet metal conducts force away," she explained. "You coax heat into the spaces between atoms instead of letting it bite your skin."
My turn. Flux at 08 %. I reached with tongs, extracted a glowing slug, braced it on the anvil. Null Overtone sensed cracks in the roaring air—tiny voids to hide heat. I whispered my secondary Riddle: return borrowed power as silence. The bar's hiss dulled until it sounded like rain far off. With each hammer tap, clangs muffled to dull thuds.
Forge's eyebrows rose. "You swing lighter than you look."
"Noise bleeds energy." I panted. "Less clang, more craft."
An hour passed in strikes and shapings. By the end I'd forged two quiet nails and a coin-thick disc whose surface swallowed reflections. Interface pop-ups tracked every success:
⟢ Quiet Smithing Exp + 7 % (Total 19 %)
New Item: "Silence Disc" — Stores 0.15 Strata. Tap to release as 1 s null-field.
We set the disc to cool in oil. Forge poured us both chicory brew. "Next, Vector fundamentals—force direction. But first, housekeeping." She gestured toward a narrow hatch in the wall. "Dwelling. The cot's yours until Concord chases me into a new city. Sweep upstairs, wash stink, and meet me in drafting room by second bell."
The loft's washstand hosted a cracked mirror and a basin of lavender water. I stripped, wincing at bruises blossoming purple on my ribs. The Null Overtone manifested as faint starpoints on my skin—pinpricks of soft dark. They pulsed calmer now, less ready to scatter me into every crevice.
Clean and dressed, I descended to the drafting room: shelves of rolled schematics, maps, spare Interface crystals. Forge sat at a slate desk, etching a pattern onto parchment. She waved me closer.
"Schematic for a Quiet Bandolier. Holds spikes, discs, nails. You'll craft leather harness, embed silent runes. That's your homework."
"Materials?"
"Scraps in the bin. Pay is the learning." She handed me the parchment. As my fingertips touched the edge, silver glyphs ignited—tiny mirror of the Interface:
⟢ Blueprint Acquired — Quiet Bandolier I
Components: leather (grade C), copper wire, night-stone dust
Bonus: Auto-calibrates flux siphon, +2 % stealth
Forge pressed a calloused thumb to my chest. "Blueprint copies itself to your Authority ledger. Means the System expects you to finish." She smirked. "And I expect better than 'street stitch.'"
We worked side-by-side. She outlined Vector arrays—arrows showing how silent metal could redirect kinetic attacks. I practiced, feeding a trickle of Flux into copper threads, watching them bend a hammer blow sideways instead of absorbing it. Every success mattered; each failure stung.
Midafternoon, a tap sounded at the front shutter—three quick, two slow. Tamsin Quill slipped inside, cloak hiding city stripes. Her eyes tracked the newly patched door, the soot-scoured floor, the still-humming forges, and landed on me.
"Word is Brack woke mid-transport, tried to headbutt a warden," she said. "The bounty doubled again: they blame him for unauthorized Nova usage inside city limits. He blames you."
Forge snorted. "He can blame gravity next. Sit, librarian."
Tamsin produced a parchment bundle. "I bring supplies." Out tumbled sealed ink vials, paper, a cylinder of chalk labelled "Null-grade," and a folded city broadsheet. The front page headline screamed: "Phantom Smith Silences Pulse Gladiator—Concord Investigates Null Incident." An artist's sketch showed Brack choking on a hush-cloud; my own form rendered as a black silhouette with question marks.
My stomach twisted. "They think a black-market smith ambushed him."
Forge laughed. "Better they blame me than you. I have licenses for dangerous iron; you're still unnumbered." She scanned the article. "Concord wants witness statements by week's end. We'll be scarce on inspection day."
I gathered the chalk, felt its cool weight buzz—a pure hush waiting under hard shell. The Interface popped a tooltip:
⟢ Item: Null-grade Chalk — Enables temporary dimensional scribing. Cost: Flux 1 %. Duration: 30 s per symbol.
Tamsin leaned against a workbench, folding arms. "Cipher, the guild rumor mill knows you exist now. Half the wardens think you're a living paradox, half think you're a hoax to scare apprentices. Either way, invisibility window shrank."
My throat tightened. "Suggestions?"
"Stay in apprentice clothes. Learn faster than they search. Also, I found this." She slid a brass token across the bench. One side showed an anvil ringing a bell; the other, a stylized question mark etched inside an ellipse. "Invitation to Paradox Carnival preliminary trials—Null division. Someone sponsored you anonymously."
Forge's jaw clenched. "Carnival's a Concord meat-grinder."
Tamsin shrugged. "Still, trials offer legal standing. Win two bouts, get provisional registry ID. You'd be a recognized anomaly, not an outlaw."
The token felt heavy as iron in my palm. Carnival rumors spoke of duels where combatants battled logic itself—winners gained spheres of influence, losers vanished into Deep Null.
The Interface chimed a new alert:
⟢ Event Flag — Paradox Carnival Preliminaries (3 days)
Requirement: Null-Affinity Combat Demonstration
Reward: Provisional Citizenship ID, Mass Voucher 1.0 Strata
Risk: 42 % fatality
Forge's eyes softened despite her scowl. "Three days is nothing. He needs tactics, gear, stamina. And a third Riddle slot for redundancy."
Tamsin produced a slim book. "Manual of Foundational Paradoxes. Pages half-eaten by mites, but it lists beginner-safe Riddles. My gift."
I took it, thumbed pages. One snippet leapt out:
"I advance only when I retreat."
Low Paradox, focuses Vector around backward steps, ideal for duel footwork.
Could give me literal dash when dodging.
Forge nodded toward the courtyard outside the side door. "We test it now. Vector ring's free."
We stepped into an enclosed yard. Steel plates bolted across pavement formed a circle forty paces wide. Chalk arrowheads marked cardinal points. Forge set a sand timer on a crate, flipped it. "Three-minute drill. Declare third Riddle; Interface will log. Use your new silent nails as projectiles. Tamsin, release the spar dummy."
Tamsin rotated a crank. A six-armed wooden mannequin lurched into motion, spinning maces on chains. Whirring gears simulated unpredictable attacks.
I swallowed nerves, touched fingers to chest. "Interface," I whispered, "register tertiary Riddle: I advance only when I retreat."
Letters flared:
⟢ Tertiary Riddle "Advance/Retreat" Registered
Constraint Hash Linked to Vector
Flux Efficiency +1 % when moving backward
Paradox Risk +2 % (cumulative 13 %)
Forge barked, "Begin!"
The dummy lunged. Maces whooshed. I back-stepped; the Riddle kicked, thrust me two steps farther than my muscles intended—like sliding on oiled steel. A mace clipped empty air where I'd been. Flux spiked to 09 %.
I flicked a silent nail. It spun, trailing a ribbon of nothing, embedded in the dummy's wooden torso. Sound swallowed; the gears stuttered, momentum bleeding.
I retreated again, torque doubling. The dummy overshot, arm smashing crate. I dashed forward—technically retreat by Riddle logic because I pivoted feet backward—and used Null Overtone to slip through a seam between plates, re-emerging at its flank. Two nails later, its chain-maces sagged, mechanisms drained of their clang.
Forge upended the sand glass. "Time. Good control. Breath rate?"
"Fast," I admitted, chest heaving. "But stable." Interface confirmed:
⟢ Flux 13 % — within safe parameters
Quiet Smithing Exp + 4 % (Total 23 %)
New Technique: Vector-Slide (cost 1 % Flux per meter)
Tamsin clapped softly. "You look less dying than yesterday."
Forge handed me the Silence Disc. "Pocket weapon. But remember: every silent object leaves a bookkeeping trail. Over-use, and Authority auditors sniff you out."
"Understood."
She unrolled a city map on a barrel. "Two nights to craft bandolier, train Vector-Slide, rehearse Carny footwork. Day of trials, I'll forge a hush-pulse bomb—one-shot crowd-pleaser. Tamsin will handle paperwork."
I traced a route on the map—from workshop, across tram lines, to a coliseum icon labeled Carnival Grounds. "We go through guild precinct. Wardens thick."
"Then we go underneath," Tamsin said, tapping sewer lines. "Echo tunnels weave there—my library key grants access."
Forge inspected the token's ellipse-with-question-mark. "Anonymous sponsor. Could be ally, could be trap. Stay wary."
Evening shadows stretched. My muscles ached but thrummed with purpose. The impossible fraction had felt abstract; now it had a date and a stadium.
The Interface ticked a countdown:
⟢ Paradox Carnival Prelims — 71:49:08
I took a long pull from the chicory flask and stared at the hush-forged spike still quivering in a scrap bin, its surface dark as midnight ink.
Three days. A bucket filling drop by drop, a spout widening with each drill, a lid learning nuance. Steady integer steps toward worlds no longer counting me as zero.
Forge clapped her hands. "Back to leatherwork, Cipher. Nails don't carry themselves."
Under forge-light I bent copper wire into loops, stitched hide, dusted runes. Quiet hours passed, punctuated by hammer-rings, page-turns, terse advice. And all through the night, the buckets of Mass and courage filled, one silence at a time