He left the ridge at first light.Floodplain Reaches took weight out of steps. Ground looked firm, then wasn't. Reeds made fake walls. False lights blinked where no one lived.
He was Lv 16. The little group under him was not. He would go ahead, outside the walls, and bring strength back.
Water thumped in the channels. A low pulse. Then another."One and a half."
[Hunt: Sluice Under Surge] Clear the surge path. Keep the sluice from choking. Avoid planting both feet. Reward: 320 XP • Craft plan: Surge Whistle
—
Sump — Overrun
Mud quivered, then tore. Sump Leeches rose in a ring. More than before. Ten. Maybe more. The next surge climbed the channel early.
Switch.
First lunge at the ankle.Wisp Step. Silent step. The bite met the after-image.Line Sever. Thin mark on mud. Two crossed. Stagger.Hinge Cut I. Neck ring. Short. Clean. Fold.
Second slid under his boot. Third came high.He did not plant.Angle Step I. Ghost step to dry tuft.Lateral Guard I. Flat roof; the high mouth slid off.Cascade Parry I. Catch the push with the flat; hand it back.Hinge Cut I. Mouth hinge. Done.
Fourth hit from behind. Teeth grazed his calf. Heat. Wet. He kept the count.
Five, six, seven came like a net.Line Sever again, angled. Three crossed. Jolt.He worked short and quiet. Still too many.
The surge hit off the beat. Water shouldered him. The tuft tore. His back foot slid. He almost planted both—
False lights flared down-channel. Bog Lanterns woke. A long spine moved under the brown. Lantern Matron.
His breath clipped. The beat went jagged.
And the sword at his hand answered first.
The hilt clicked in his palm like a seat finding the right notch.A thin cold line ran from the grip into his wrist, up the forearm, under the elbow, and across his chest, as if someone drew a ruler through him and said this, not that.
Heat dropped out of the air. Sound folded to a tight ring around his head. The river was still loud, but only in the space between heartbeats. Even the flies took a breath and hung.
The edge drank the light and gave it back as marks.Not glow—tally.Short strokes in the air, faint and exact, where joints would be a half-step from now.
The world lost its color and kept only what mattered. Wet brown, iron gray, pale hinge-white.The leeches had gears in their mouths now. The lures of the Matron had knuckles in their poles. The surge itself had teeth that bit on time.
Across the reeds, lines appeared like chalk on invisible slate.Foot lines. Hand lines. Rope lines.Some lines were honest. Some were lies. The lies were thinner, quicker, ready to slip; the honest ones were stubborn and heavy, like a door that had decided to stay shut.All of it laid itself down in front of him as if the room wanted to be read.
His heart beat once. The beat arrived late to its own body.
Cold pressed his teeth together. Not pain. Shape. He felt every finger as a separate tool. The arm was a lever. The shoulder was a hinge. The spine was a mast. The feet were posts you set, not things you wore.
It came with a smell like clean iron in rain and old mint crushed flat.
A faint grid slid over the mud and reeds—nine squares around him, edges like hair. The middle one was safe. The others promised stumbles if he allowed it. He didn't know how he knew. He didn't argue with it.
The Arc tried to speak and failed once, then got a word through.
[Anomaly] Sword Core event detected. Subsystem online (unknown). Confidence spike. Duration ~3s. Aftereffect likely: Exhaustion.
Switch.
He did not choose. He executed.
Cut.The high mouth never closed. His wrist moved before the jaw decided to be a jaw.
Cut.The ankle ring opened in the space where it would have lunged. The cold line in the air matched the cut and then went out like a wick pinched clean.
Cut.The Matron's pole-hand failed before it grabbed. The braid that would have dragged him forward came apart in ideas first, wood second.
He marked four more hinges without turning his head. Wrist. Knee. Pole-hand. Gill joint.The edge went through those marks the way chalk goes through water—nothing to push against, only a trace that told the world where it had been.
Thin cold lines hung behind the blade after each motion. They held a breath. Then forgot.
The Matron braided new light fast and ugly. He saw the braid as pattern, not threat.Bind & Step I. He bound the spine where it would cross his calf, stepped past the line that had not arrived yet.Lateral Guard I. A small roof turned up to meet a shove that was still deciding whether to exist. The surge slid off like a hand that had remembered its manners.
He cut two more places he had not looked at yet because the body did not need to look. It needed to finish the sentence.
Leeches fell out of the pattern, not from wounds, but because the pattern they were trying to be could not live where the lines now lay. The Matron's braid unthreaded and sank. The false lights blinked twice like someone tired of pretending and then went dark.
The grid went away. Color returned in flakes.Weight dropped back into his arms and knees, as if someone hung sacks there.
The world let go of him.His breath came with a sour metal at the back of the tongue.His hands shook once and only once because he asked them not to do it again.
Water became loud again. Wind moved. Reeds remembered they were reeds.
He tasted mint he had not put in his mouth.
—
Sluice — Push Through
The wheel shivered. The valve lied. A double surge climbed the channel. Off-time.
He climbed the stone lip. Slick. Air heavy.
Switch. (not the same as before, but enough)
Cascade Parry I. Flat to wheel teeth. Catch the shove. Give it back to seat.Angle Step I. Ghost to the valve stem.Hinge Cut I. Short scrape to clean grit in the collar seam.
The surge hit. He held the half-beat on one foot. The wheel came honest for a breath, then kicked hard.
The blade work he'd been doing stood up and named itself.
[Class Unlocked: Swordsman] Actives: Lateral Guard I • Bind & Step I Passives: Edge Discipline I • Tempo Reading I
Water shoved again.Lateral Guard I. Roof. Step-in. The shove slid off.
Something pale slid between the gates to hook his ankle. A reed-limbed leftover from the Matron.Bind & Step I. Bind at the "wrist," step past the line. Turn.Hinge Cut I. Clip. Let go.
He listened past the noise."Half-beat."
He lifted the stem a finger and seated it on the drop.
The tone fell true. The gate took the load and liked it.Water marched through instead of clawing.
False lights tried to rise in side channels. He cut the pole hinges, not the faces. They quit.
[Task Complete: Sluice Under Surge] +320 XP • 8s • Craft plan: Surge Whistle
He stood a long breath and let the shakes pass. The hilt was only a hilt again. The blade was only a blade. The room was only a room he could fix.
[Anomaly Aftereffect] Sword Core cooldown — fatigue, focus loss (minor). Recover with rest.
He stepped back. Breath even enough.
Switch off.
—
Bench — Dusk
He bled the calf clean and wrapped it. Field bench under a bent willow. Fast work with slow hands.
Craft: Surge Bladder + reed bone → Surge Whistle (predicts pulses)Craft: Leech Gel + oil → Slick Guard (glove balm; no slip)
He set the whistle on a cord and blew once. It answered the next swell a breath early.
He walked the reed margin and took down lures at their hinges, not their faces. He left the poles stacked where the next storm would not turn them into lies again.
Night pulled up from the water. The sluice kept time and did not lie.
He lay on a drift log, hood low. The blade came out without a sound. The Prism Edge held a thin cold line for one beat and forgot. He slid it home.
[Level Up] Aiden — GreyStep → Lv 17 XP: ▓▓ 18% → ▓▓▓▓ 40% +9s • Stats: +1 Footwork • +1 Read
He watched the reeds move as if someone gentle breathed through them. He thought of Sora's lane, Kael's second foot, Lynet's coil, Faron's brace. He would bring this back as steadiness, not stories.
He closed his eyes with the sense that something had turned in him like a key. Not louder. Truer.The next time the world tried to lie, it would find less room.
The reeds counted. He did not need to.Switch off.
Aiden — GreyStep (Lv 17)
Class: Swordsman (new)
XP: ▓▓▓▓ 40% (to Lv 18)
Core stat allocations (total so far)
• Footwork +3 • Read +2 • Edge +2 • Brace +1
Unspent: 0
Actives
• Hinge Cut I — precise joint disables
• Angle Step I — half-beat micro-reposition
• Cascade Parry I — catch → return
• Feint Break I — punish failed feints (CD 12s)
• Lateral Guard I — flat guard + step-in angle
• Bind & Step I — bind limb, step past line, turn
Passives
• Line Step II — steadies your lane/timing
• Edge Discipline I — reduced waste on short cuts
• Tempo Reading I — cleaner beat reads
Field techniques (scale with Swordsman)
• Wisp Step — one silent step; after-image misleads
• Line Sever — thin ground line; crossing staggers
• Ghost Pin — pale nail pins a joint ~1s
• Grave Grip — cold numb on hand/paw; higher drop chance
Sword Core — anomaly log
• Status: triggered spontaneously in sluice fight (≈3s)
• Effects: future-hinge marks, 3×3 "safe grid," sensory narrowing
• Aftereffect: fatigue/focus dip (minor); clears with rest
• Current: on cooldown; uncontrolled
Gear / mods
• Prism Edge I (blade mod) — thin cold line holds a beat
• Sinew Laces (boots) — faster half-steps
• Latch Guard (wrap) — brief lock-resist on elbows
• Shoulder Wrap (Stability) — minor stagger resist on glancing hits
• Talon Spur (boots) — better ledge grip
• Counterweight Strap+ — brace vs. dives/shoves
• Knot Key (tool) — fast knot checks
Tools & consumables
• Surge Whistle — predicts flood surges (worn on cord)
• Slick Guard (glove balm) — no-slip; uses remaining: 2
Craft plans learned
• Surge Whistle
Recent hunts / notes
• Sump — Overrun (leeches)
• Sluice Under Surge (gate fix; Lantern Matron broken by hinge cuts)
Reputation: +2 (Eboncrest) • +1 (Road Wardens)