Quarry Road hugged the hillside like a belt pulled one notch too tight. Dust hung in the air—fine, glittering, the kind that sneaks into teeth and tools. To the right, the hill had been bitten open in terraces: timber frames, rope cranes, iron wheels, and a track that descended in narrow switchbacks to a cart stalled halfway like a thought that couldn't finish.
A foreman waited at the bend, boots braced, jaw set. Two apprentices hovered behind him, trying not to look young.
"Ledger sent you?" the foreman asked.
Aiden nodded.
"Gremlins," the foreman said, jerking his chin uphill. "They nest in the pulley frames, throw grit, chew knots. When the rope lies, the cart lies, and my men run. If the counterweight drops, we'll have a neat hole where the road used to be."
"Clear the bend," Aiden said. "Back to the blue marker. If the pulley screams, lie flat and stay boring."
The foreman opened his mouth, read the geometry, and did exactly what he was told. The apprentices followed, grateful to have orders that sounded like a plan instead of hope.
Aiden climbed the inside of the cut. The timber frame hummed a thin complaint under his hand—claw click, grit hiss, rope whisper. Oil and hot dust gave the air a metallic sweetness; somewhere a drip had learned to keep time with the wind.
Three gremlins showed themselves like stagehands who wanted applause: stone-gray hide, long fingers dusted in glitter, eyes like wet iron marbles. One carried a snapped tool like a baton. Another held a spark stone in teeth, biting down so it kissed grit and spat orange.
Aiden studied their hands, not their faces. The rope lay in a shallow groove on the wheel—good when honest, unforgiving when not. The stalled cart below had twisted half off-rail; the wheel ticked one notch each breath like it was counting its own bad ideas.
He shifted his grip and exhaled.
Switch.
Read hinge, not grin.Cut hand, own elbow.Don't let rope change the room. Count one-and-a-half.
The first gremlin dropped from the brace, claws aimed for his wrist. He didn't meet the hand; he trimmed the hinge—short cut across the tendon where forearm turns to grip. The hand went dumb. It didn't scream; it lost the clarity to think of pain. It fell and ricocheted off a brace, scrambling away with its pride held together by habit.
The second slid along the rope and slashed at fibers as it went, leaving a glitter trail like cheap powder. Aiden stepped half on the beat—one-and-a-half—and put the flat of his blade across elbow curve, not hard, precise. The joint failed, the arm folded, the gremlin clung by its knees and discovered knees were poor fingers. It dropped, teeth clicking on wood.
Above, the spark-stone one bit down. Grit hissed. Orange sparks trickled toward the groove like a promise. Aiden didn't argue with the flame; he argued with the arc that would carry it. He nicked the stone mid-fall, changed its curve by a thumb's width, and let gravity swallow it into a puddle pooled in the wheel's lip. The hiss turned to a sulk.
The rope twanged a higher note as the counterweight bounced. He set two fingers under the line at a brace and lifted—not much, just enough to give it a truer seat. The tone dropped. The cart below settled one hard inch back in line.
Two more gremlins unfolded from a dark plank seam, fast and low. One took the high wheel rim like a runner skirting a pond; the other slid along the counterweight chain, trying to turn weight into weapon.
The wheel-runner flicked grit toward his eyes. Aiden didn't blink. He turned his head just enough that the bright dust painted air where his gaze had been and stepped into the runner's future foot—blade kissing shin, then the inside of knee. The cut wasn't deep. It didn't need to be. It told the leg to forget its job. The gremlin stumbled, flailed, and went off the rim with a sound like a pebble disappointed to be a pebble.
The chain-crawler swung its body to bounce the counterweight. The rope responded with a stutter. The cart answered with a slide. The foreman, down on the bend, made a noise no one heard because he was lying flat like a good idea.
Aiden paced up the brace, letting the angle give him speed. The crawler raised its head to hiss triumph; he met the throat with the guard, not the blade, and shoved. Not a strike. A correction. The gremlin missed its next link, swung wide, and found air a poor handle. It hit dirt in a puff of glitter and rage.
The baton-holder came for his hands—tap tap tap—and tried to force a catch. He felt the beat as if it had been printed in the wood. He let his guard drop a thumb, then changed his mind. The baton kissed nothing. He bit the feint the instant it finished failing—Feint Break—and returned a quick cut across the elbow seam. The baton fell, the hand lost its verb, the gremlin took insult harder than pain.
[Skill Unlocked] Feint Break IPunish after a failed feint/fake → fast interruption, small stagger. CD 12s.
The pulley screamed high and thin as a rock-happy gremlin hammered the wheel with a fist-sized stone. Aiden let go of the rope, met the swing, and cut the plan off the hand. The stone flew, the wheel shuddered, then remembered honesty. The scream died.
Below, the cart made up its mind to cooperate. Aiden slid down the brace, grounded himself on the outer axle, and turned the wheel with his hip more than his arms—angle, not power. The cart bumped, scraped, then thunked back into the groove. The track accepted it the way a line accepts the right word.
Gremlins scattered, furious and suddenly convinced of other careers. A few dived into holes. One tried to glare and nearly fell because indignation is bad footing.
Aiden didn't chase. He did what keeps cities alive. He checked. Pin half out—reset. Grit packed wrong—clear. Wheel lip gouged—note for later. He stepped under the housing and found, low where only a crawler would, a fresh mark scratched in dust: triangle with a slit eye cut through it.
"Anyone under here recently?" he called.
"Only those little mistakes," the foreman shouted back, voice flatter now he remembered lying flat. "And me, when I had less sense and longer knees."
Aiden wiped the mark with the edge of his boot. Dust clung to leather as if it had been waiting for a home.
He climbed out. The apprentices had crept closer, curiosity outweighing orders by two pounds. One had a question bulging behind his teeth.
"How do you always hit the… right piece?" the boy asked.
"Hinges tell the truth," Aiden said. "Backs brag."
The boy mouthed it like a verse, then wrote it on the inside of his skull.
The foreman joined them, counting silently the way men who have almost lost something count. His eyes went to the rope, the cart, Aiden's shoulder.
"Take coin," he said, pushing a purse forward. "And take this, so my boys don't. They'll call it a scarf and choke on it."
He held out a roll of thick cloth with leather patches—stiff where it should be, soft over bone. Aiden slid the wrap under his harness. The weight settled and the strap bite eased.
"Not a miracle," the foreman said. "A kindness. Keeps glancing knocks from stealing your breath."
"Kindness is enough," Aiden said.
They walked down to the bend together. The quarry frames calmed to a patient clatter. Dust abandoned its shimmer and became work again. The Arc Terminal folded a neat line into Aiden's view.
[Quest Complete: Quarry Spill — Gremlin Suppression]Reward: 240 XP • 6s • +6 City Reputation
[Loot] Shoulder Wrap (Stability) — minor stagger resist on glancing hits.
He closed both windows without ceremony.
Sora reached the bend at a jog, breath even, eyes already reading timber and line. "We heard a scream," she said.
"The wheel tried to sing," Aiden said. "It was out of tune."
Kael arrived half a beat later, looked at the wrap, and nodded like a critic. "That's practical," he said, reverent. "The best kind of pretty."
"Keep your distance from the housing," Aiden told him, glancing up the frame. "Claws and boredom live there."
Lynet ran a finger along a brace and grimaced at the glitter stuck to her glove. "Mark here," she said, pointing at dust near the housing seam. Triangle, slit eye. "You saw it?"
"Erase them if you find them," Aiden said. "Busy hands draw better lines."
Faron checked the cart's axle with a practiced look and a new habit of not overtouching. "True," he said, a little proud he could tell.
They started back toward the city. Quarry Road shook dust off their boots with each step. Aiden's wrap changed the harness bite: pressure redistributed, breath smoother. Kindness, like the foreman said.
At the gate, Mara Elric leaned on the post as if the post had always been a friend. She studied the grit on his guard and the way the wrap sat.
"Pulley?" she asked.
"Pulley," he said.
"Hands still yours," she said.
"For now," he said.
The Arc Terminal chimed a clerk's voice in polite text.
[City Ledger] Maintenance thanks noted. Voucher: Bearing Oil (Fine) x1 — East Works Counter.
He accepted. Mara saw the acceptance without being told and smiled with the edge of her mouth.
"Cross-steps on half-beat at second bell," she said. "Your friends miss on the half."
"They'll come," Aiden said.
"They'll complain, then improve," she said.
"They already do both," Aiden said, and moved on.
The plaza breathed in slow waves—vendors set tables, guards changed routes, pigeons argued about statues. A boy with a canvas satchel brushed his sleeve too carefully to be clumsy. Empty bag. Clean stitching. Practiced path.
Aiden caught the strap with two fingers, not hard. "Watch your line," he said.
"Sorry," the boy said, too quick, trained not to stop. He kept moving. On the cobble he left: a faint triangle, slit eye, drawn with dust confident enough to ask for attention.
Aiden erased it with his boot and stepped aside so the next person would stand over the ghost. He pointed Kael and the others toward the pump.
"Drink," he said. "Then steps."
Kael groaned for show. Sora rolled her eyes and smiled with them. Lynet muttered something kind to her coil. Faron tightened his wrist wrap exactly once and got it right the first time.
They drank. They drilled. Cross-steps. Half-steps. Counters on the half-beat. A clockwork construct trundled a lazy pattern and, for once, found no one willing to be obvious. Mara corrected a stance here, a shoulder there, then left them to the honest work of repetition.
When the bell cut the afternoon into before and after, Aiden wiped the blade, checked his wrist (no drag), and let his view open only enough to read what mattered.
— — —
Aiden — GreyStep (Lv 10)
New Active:• Feint Break I — Punish after a failed feint/fake; fast interruption, small stagger. CD 12s.
Actives: Hinge Cut I • Angle Step I • Cascade Parry I • Feint Break IPassives: Line Step II
Gear:• Shoulder Wrap (Stability) — minor stagger resist on glancing hits.— — —
He closed the pane. Mint in his pocket remembered to be mint; he bit a leaf and let the clean taste beat back the quarry dust.
Evening would bring errands. Night would bring the kind of messages that asked you to arrive early and leave lighter. For now, the road back to the bend stayed honest. He had made it so, and he liked when things he touched remembered to remain true—even for one more afternoon.