The caravan was a grumbling centipede of ten wagons, each piled high with wool bales and iron ingots, lumbering up the mud-choked southern track known, optimistically, as the King's Road. The caravan master, a stout man named Goran with a face like a clenched fist, eyed Kaelen and his "security detail" with undisguised contempt.
Kaelen's team was Anselm's "men who ask few questions." They were, in system terms:
[ SECURITY TEAM DELTA ]
Hugo: Former poacher. AGI: 11, SKL: 7 (Bows). Status: Sullen.
Borin: Dishonored man-at-arms. STR: 10, END: 9. Status: Bitter.
The Twins (Lars & Fen): City watch dropouts. SOC: 3 (Each), COHESION: 8. Status: Nervous.
Old Thom: Volunteered. SKL: 4 (Spear), LOYALTY: 65. Status: Quietly terrified.
Six men against the bandit gangs known to haunt the Pinefells. It was a joke. A cheap, expendable joke.
Goran spat into the mud. "My usual guard lost three men last run. And the Count sends me a boy and his grandfather. Saints preserve us."
"Your usual guard attacked the bandits head-on," Kaelen said, not looking at him, his eyes on the tree line. His Logistics II was already mapping the route—ambush points, chokeholds, escape vectors. "We're doing something different."
[ QUEST ACTIVE: THE LEDGER'S BLADE ]
BUDGET REMAINING: 5% of caravan value.
SECONDARY CONDITION: Deniability must be maintained.
The first day was a tense crawl. Kaelen didn't post guards in the usual places. He used Hugo's poacher instincts to scout a quarter-mile ahead, not on the road, but in the trees parallel to it. Borin, the strongest, he put not at the front, but in the center wagon, disguised as a teamster, his weapon hidden.
He was rearranging variables.
As they made camp in a rocky clearing, Goran approached again, sweating and angry. "One of my drivers says he saw figures in the western treeline. Your man Hugo is off chasing squirrels, and you've got my strongest man napping on wool! What in the Seven Hells is your plan?"
Kaelen finally looked at him. "The bandits expect a certain formation. A certain response. We are not giving it to them. We are making ourselves look like a harder, stranger target than we're worth."
"Worth? We're carrying a lord's treasury in iron!"
"And they're carrying their lives," Kaelen said. "Bandits are a business. They run a cost-benefit analysis too. We need to raise the perceived cost."
That night, Kaelen enacted phase one. He called Old Thom and the Twins.
"You three will take the first watch. But not here." He pointed to a rocky outcrop fifty yards from the camp, overlooking the road from both directions. "You'll be up there. You will be visible. You will light two fires, not one."
Old Thom frowned. "Two fires, milord? That signals a larger camp..."
"Exactly."
[ SKILL ACTIVATED: LOGISTICS II - SUB-FUNCTION: MORALE WARFARE ]
Tactic: Inflate perceived strength.
Projected Effect on Bandit Scouts: Uncertainty increase by 30%.
He then took Hugo aside. "I need you to not be a guard tonight."
Hugo spat. "Then what am I?"
"You're a ghost. Take your bow. Circle the camp at a two-hundred-yard radius. Do not engage anyone you see. Just watch. If you see scouts, note their number and direction. Then, after midnight, shoot one arrow into a tree near their position. One. Then move."
Hugo's eyes, dull with resentment, sparked with a hunter's understanding. "You want to spook 'em. Make 'em think we've got outriders."
"Make them think we're expecting them."
The night passed with a tense, electric stillness. No attack came. In the morning, Hugo reported: three scouts observed. He'd fired his arrow. They'd melted away before dawn.
[ PERCEIVED THREAT LEVEL (BANDITS): Low → Caution ]
Day two. The Pinefells closed in, the road winding through dense, gloomy forest. The perfect kill zone. Goran was sweating freely now. "They'll hit us here. They have to."
"They will," Kaelen agreed. "So we pick the ground."
He halted the caravan not at the narrowest point, but just before it—in a slightly wider section where the tree line was pushed back by a recent rockfall. It was still terrible, but it was the least terrible option.
"Uncouple the third and seventh wagons," Kaelen ordered. "Turn them sideways. Use them as barricades here, and here." He pointed, creating a crude, funnel-shaped corral of wood and wool. "Drivers, get the other wagons inside this space. Now."
It was chaos. Goran screamed about time. But the men, sensing the predatory silence of the woods, moved with frantic speed.
As the makeshift barricade was erected, Kaelen performed his true work. He closed his eyes, accessing the new, unstable skill.
[ ACTIVATING: SYSTEM GLITCH ANALYSIS II ]
Target: Localized environmental perception.
Intent: Obfuscate true numbers. Inflate presence.
[ WARNING: Glitch may cause visual distortions. ]
He focused on the tree line opposite the road. In his mind's eye, he tweaked a variable. Not much. Just a slight increase in the perceived shadow density, a faint suggestion of movement where there was none, a subtle warping of sound to carry the clank of armor from empty spaces.
To the bandits watching from the woods, it wouldn't look like magic. It would look like late-afternoon sun playing tricks. Like the wind moving branches. Like there were more men hidden in those shadows than there possibly could be.
[ GLITCH SUSTAINED: COST - 5% MAXIMUM FOCUS PER MINUTE ]
[ EFFECT: Enemy Scout Confidence -15% ]
He heard the whistle a second before the system flashed a warning.
[ AMBUSH DETECTED - SERPENT'S BEND - 200 YARDS AHEAD ]
Enemy Force: Estimated 15-20. Morale: High (But now Confused).
They hadn't attacked the prepared position. They were waiting further up, where they'd originally planned. Kaelen's weird, defensive setup and the spooky tree line had made them hesitate, shifting their ambush point. They'd lost the initiative.
"Borin, Hugo, with me," Kaelen said, his voice clipped. "The rest, hold here. If anyone approaches the barricade, scream like you're a hundred men."
He took his two most capable fighters and did the last thing bandits expected: he left the caravan.
Using Hugo's poacher trails, they flanked through the woods, coming at the bandit's prepared position from the side. Kaelen's heart hammered against his ribs. STR: 4. SKL: 3. He was a liability in a fight. He was here for one reason only.
They peered through the brush. The bandits were gathered in a ditch overlooking the expected wagon path, joking in low tones, waiting for the sheep to walk into the slaughter.
[ BANDIT PARTY - LEADER IDENTIFIED ]
Rolf (Chieftain): STR 13, AGI 8, IQ 6. STATUS: Confident (Eroding).
Kaelen looked at Hugo. "The leader. The big one with the fur cloak. Can you hit him from here?"
Hugo squinted. "It's a long shot. In this light? Maybe."
"Don't kill him," Kaelen said. "Wing him. His shoulder."
Hugo gave him a look of pure disbelief. Borin grunted. "Why spare the bastard?"
"Because a dead leader is a martyr. A wounded, screaming leader is a logistics problem." Kaelen met Hugo's eyes. "Do it."
The bowstring thrummed. The arrow was a grey streak. It struck the chieftain, Rolf, high in the shoulder, punching through fur and leather. He roared, more in shock than agony.
Chaos erupted among the bandits. Where did it come from?
Kaelen activated his glitch again, this time targeting sound. He subtly amplified the crack of a single twig behind the bandit position, making it sound like a footstep.
"Flank! They're flanking us!" a bandit yelled.
[ ENEMY MORALE: High → Panicked ]
"Now," Kaelen said to Borin. "Now you can be loud."
Borin, the dishonored soldier hungry for redemption, stood up and bellowed with all his lung power. "FOR THE COUNT! CHARGE!"
He didn't charge. He just stood there, shouting.
From the caravan barricade, hearing the shout, Old Thom and the Twins began beating spears on shields and screaming. The cacophony echoed through the woods, directionless, immense.
To the panicking bandits, it sounded like they were surrounded. Their leader was down, an unseen archer was picking them off, and enemy forces were closing in from two sides.
It was too much. They broke. They grabbed their wailing chief and fled deeper into the woods, abandoning the ambush.
[ COMBAT RESOLVED ]
Enemy Status: Routed.
Friendly Casualties: 0.
Caravan Integrity: 100%.
[ QUEST COMPLETE: THE LEDGER'S BLADE ]
STATUS: Overwhelming Success (Covert).
REWARD: 1,000 XP, +3 Attribute Points, 5% of Caravan Value (Calculating...), Unique Skill Unlock.
[ THE LEDGER OF GLORY ]
ACTION: Won an engagement through psychological manipulation, environmental cheating, and strategic cowardice.
VALERIUS'S VERDICT: "YOU FOUGHT A BATTLE OF PERCEPTION. YOU USED THE ENEMY'S MIND AS YOUR BATTLEFIELD. THIS IS THE PEAK OF THE ART. +200 GLORY."
[ VALERIUS'S INTEREST: 85/100 ]
Goran was slack-jawed when they returned. "What... what happened? We heard shouting... screaming..."
"We discouraged them," Kaelen said, wiping sweat from his brow. The glitch use had given him a pounding headache. "The road should be clear to the Keep."
The caravan rolled into Schwarzwald Keep two days later, intact. Lord Anselm received Goran's report in his scriptorium, his expression never changing. When Goran left, praising the "unconventional but effective" methods of the Count's new security, Anselm looked at Kaelen.
"The usual guard cost would have been three silver per man, plus potential loss of cargo. Your fee is five percent of the cargo value." He slid a heavy purse across the table. It clinked. "Fifty silver crowns. And your men's bonuses."
But more than the purse, a new screen, deep gold and intricate, unfolded.
[ UNIQUE SKILL UNLOCKED: PSYCHOLOGICAL FOG OF WAR ]
You understand that perception is a tangible front line. You can now design tactics specifically to create confusion, delay, and misdirection in your enemy. Formalizes the intuitive glitch-use into a replicable skill. Cost: Varies based on scale. Effect: Reduces enemy coordination and morale pre-engagement.
Anselm steepled his fingers. "A zero-casualty resolution. You cost me only silver, not blood, nor replacements, nor political capital. You are a remarkably efficient tool, Kaelen Falken."
It was the highest praise the logistician could give.
As Kaelen left, the weight of the silver in one hand and the ghostly weight of his new skill in the other, he felt a presence in his mind.
Valerius's voice was a whisper of tectonic satisfaction.
"YOU HAVE TAKEN YOUR FIRST STEP OFF THE CONVENTIONAL BOARD. YOU ARE NO LONGER A PIECE. YOU ARE BEGINNING TO LEARN HOW TO TOUCH THE TABLE. THE LEDGER IS PLEASED. NOW... WHAT WILL YOU BUY WITH YOUR COIN?"
Kaelen had 1,000 XP, 3 Attribute Points, 50 silver crowns, and a skill that let him weaponize imagination.
He was no longer just surviving the system. He was learning to hack it.
And in the shadows of the Keep, a new reputation was solidifying—not as a warrior, or a lord's son, but as something far more useful and dangerous: a problem-solver. The kind of man you send when you want a victory that doesn't appear in the songs.