[Arc Terminal: Resume][Anchor found: Eboncrest — North Plaza][World Sync: Stable]
The plaza woke in layers—awnings creaked open, kettles started to hiss, guards swapped a joke for a route. At the Arc pillar, a crier lifted a slate and read:
"Field request. East pasture, wagon lane. Payment on delivery. No banners."
Aiden rolled his wrist. No drag. HUD steady.
Elda drifted up with a basket of herbs, as if the cobbles had grown her. "Taking that pasture call?"
"Yes," Aiden said.
"Burrowbacks, most likely." She made a face. "Spines, bad tempers. They don't think, but they make ankles think."
"Busy hurts ankles," Aiden said.
She tucked a sprig of mint into his palm. "For luck. Or for your mouth when luck runs out."
"I'll keep the leaf," he said. "You keep the luck."
She snorted. "Fair trade."
He cut through a side lane. At Stonehaven Grounds, a fundamentals block lined up. Mara Elric flicked him a look—Going?—and he answered with one that said—Going. I'll bring them back.
Outside the east gate the road softened from cobble to hard dirt. Fences split pasture from lane. Two wagons waited under a wind-torn cloth: grain sacks, a crate labeled NAILS like it hoped honesty would protect it.
The foreman met him halfway—gray cap, hands like knots. "Ledger sent you?"
Aiden nodded.
"Burrowbacks," the foreman said, jerking his chin. "They chew harness leather, the boys hop the ditch, then twist pride and ankles. Grain needs moving. I'm done yelling at holes."
"Show me the stretch," Aiden said.
The lane looked fine until it didn't—shallow dimples where earth felt hollow under boot, ruts that ran clean then jittered, a strap end chewed to strings. To the left, a ditch pretended not to be a trap. To the right, scrub grass whispered like it had news.
Footsteps behind. Kael jogged up first, too much air for the distance. Sora and Lynet arrived like people who simply decided to be here now; Faron followed, wrist-wrap neat and correct.
Kael grinned. "We helping?"
"It's an ankle job," Aiden said. "Which is worse than it sounds."
Sora scanned the lane. "Three bad patches," she said. "Maybe four."
"Five," Aiden said. "Two are trying to be polite."
The foreman eyed them. "You charge more if it's five?"
"We charge the same," Aiden said. The foreman relaxed like a man who'd expected to argue and was glad to skip it.
Aiden crouched at the first dimple. Dirt settled in a near-perfect ring. He pressed the rim with the heel of his hand. The ground breathed back—soft grit shifting, something ready to test.
"Back two steps," he said, quiet.
They moved. The foreman's shoulders dropped an inch.
Aiden stood, thumb brushed the guard. He let his breath narrow the world.
Switch.
Pressure. Step. Draw. Keep the tip low.When it climbs—cut knee. Turn. Don't chase shell. Chase hinge.
The dirt bulged, split. A burrowback popped up—spined, squat, eyes glassy with busy intent. It rattled like a bad box of nails and lunged, fast and flat.
Aiden didn't meet the mouth. He trimmed the hinge—short, precise line where forelimb met body. The leg lost its verb; momentum turned the creature into its own problem. It tried to pivot. He took the second hinge and let it learn new careers in the ditch.
Another surfaced to the right, claws scritching leather hunger. He shifted a half-step—one-and-a-half—let it miss where his boot had been, then returned inside the knee. Simple. It folded into the rut; the rut taught it honesty.
A third patch pretended to be nothing. Aiden knelt, skimmed two fingers under the loose top layer, found the packed lip where the tunnel mouth actually lived. He raised his hand. "Here," he told Sora. "They hide the hinge under soft."
She nodded, filed the feeling in muscle, said nothing.
Two more boiled up—one gunning for dangling harness, one hugging the lane. The harness-hunter leapt like a shovel with teeth. Aiden set two small steps on the beat: slide, cut, turn. The blade kissed joint, not shell. Weight and decision did the rest.
The lane-hugger crept in false slow. Lynet toed a pressure seam by accident and froze instead of flinching. Aiden passed her shoulder, guard low, grafted his footwork to hers for half a step so stillness wouldn't become panic, and trimmed the hinge like thread. The burrowback collapsed like a tent that realized it never had poles.
"Ugly," the foreman muttered, impressed despite himself.
Aiden rolled one for the novices to see. "Hinge here," he said, touching the muscle under a plate line. "Back looks brave. Hinge is truth. Cut truth."
Kael bent, seriousness clean on his face. "Truth," he repeated, like it would glue itself to his ankles.
They paced the lane. Safe spots felt firm with a push. Trouble breathed under the palm. Aiden chalked thin lines where wheels should roll, dragged a twig over scrub where feet should not. He set a leaning fence post with his shoulder and wedged it with a stone.
Halfway, a cluster of four came at once, two with arrogance. The nearest novice squeaked; others tensed into a shape mistakes love.
"Fence line," Aiden said. "Feet small. If I say stop, stop. If I say step, step. Don't guess. Guessing is apologizing early."
They formed up. The first lunged. He let it. It went where he'd decided it would; when it discovered its future, he trimmed it. The second tried a circle. He didn't chase—he cut where the circle had to complete, and let it run into that truth. The third hesitated. Kael counted "one—and—a—half," moved his foot exactly once with exactly enough weight. The thing missed and ate ditch.
"Good," Aiden said. He meant it like giving a coin back because you've counted right.
Kael blinked. "Thanks," he said, as if he wasn't sure he'd heard.
Aiden marked two more patches with chalk and erased one when the sun shifted and turned an honest shadow into a liar. The foreman watched and learned where to look. Faron kept his guard where it belonged and stopped letting his shoulders do his thinking. Lynet tested a short hop over a shallow soft spot and then didn't do it again because habit is a trap. Sora breathed in step and kept the novices' feet where they were asked to be.
The lane smoothed. The burrowbacks ran out of bodies or patience, and somewhere underground a long, ridiculous hallway became less exciting.
The foreman counted, then handed Aiden coin like a man paying a bill he'd budgeted for and still resented. "You made it look easy."
"It isn't," Aiden said. "You called help. That part matters."
The Arc Terminal laid polite numbers across his sight.
[Quest Complete: East Pasture — Wagon Lane Clear]Reward: 280 XP • 5s • +7 City Reputation
He dismissed it. Numbers follow. Feet first.
They walked the fence one last time. A gully cut across a side field like a line someone had drawn too hard. Thorn hid a narrow choke point where teeth and boredom could live. Aiden stacked three stones at the lane edge—lopsided on purpose.
"Farmers will fix it straight," he said. "Then they'll remember why."
Wind tugged dust sideways. The city wasn't far—hammer ticks, laughter, bargaining—but the field felt like a place where small problems learned to be large while backs were turned.
"Back?" Sora asked.
"Back," Aiden said.
At the gate, Mara saw the mud on their boots and the grit on his blade. "Ankles saved?" she asked.
"A few," Aiden said.
She glanced at the novices—standing like people who'd done a job instead of a story. "Good. Second bell, cross-steps. Your lot leak on the half."
"We'll be there," Sora said before anyone could groan.
They were. They drilled. Cross-steps, half-steps, counters on the half-beat. Mara tapped a knee, a shoulder, a wrist—Now. Not there. Less. A clockwork construct trundled a lazy arc and, for once, found nobody happy to be obvious.
Between drills, Aiden leaned against the wall. The HUD ticked once, quiet and clean.
[Skill Up] Line Step I → Line Step IILateral footwork: cleaner recovery on half-steps; slightly wider evade window.
Kael squinted. "That good?"
"Cheaper feet," Aiden said.
"I like cheap," Kael said, solemn.
They broke for water. Aiden bit Elda's mint; cool cut dust. A boy with a canvas satchel brushed him too carefully to be clumsy. Aiden caught the strap with two fingers and eased it back.
"Careful," he said.
"Sorry," the boy said, fast and trained. Empty bag. Clean seams. Practiced path. He vanished into a moving knot of bodies. On the cobble where he'd been: a faint triangle scratched in dust with a slit through the middle.
Aiden erased it with his boot and stepped aside so the next person would stand on it without ever knowing.
Across the plaza, a quarry man in a yellow scarf argued at the pillar and won a fresh line:
"Quarry Road. Gremlin spill. Pulleys lying. Payment on resolve. No banners."
Aiden watched the scarf man's eyes keep flicking uphill, as if he'd left a door open. He tasted grit that wasn't from the pasture.
Sora followed his gaze. "You're going?"
"Pulley," he said.
"Fun," Kael said, unconvincing.
"Don't touch what hisses," Lynet added, to herself or everyone.
"Drink first," Aiden said. "Then I'll look. If the pulley screams, lie flat."
"Copy," Faron said, deadpan and pleased.
They drank. The plaza flowed—merchants trading gossip, guards changing routes, the Arc pillar listing polite disasters next to a civic cooking contest that sounded like a different kind of fight.
Aiden adjusted his harness and checked his wrist. No drag. He let the city sound thin to edges. Steps lined up: errands, drill, Quarry Road in the morning.
He liked when a day clicked that neatly.
— — —Aiden — GreyStep (Lv 9)
Actives:• Hinge Cut I • Angle Step I • Cascade Parry I
Passives:• Line Step II (just upgraded)
Gear:• —
Notes:• Wagon lane cleared; burrowback hinges mapped.• Triangle–slit dust marks observed (twice).• Quarry call posted (next hook).— — —