Jace woke up with a cramped neck and an ache in the back of his head. He sat up slowly, rubbing the back of his head where Kinfild had struck him.

As his vision cleared, he looked around. He had been brought to the inn—the same inn he had slept in the first night after he had arrived, and possibly the same room. Kinfild, or whoever had brought him here, had set him down on a cot.

This time, he was alone. He stood up, then walked a lap around the room, examining every corner. Nothing unusual. On one of the counters, he found his coat and his old clothes bundled up, but he still wore the stolen Koedor-Terginian cavalry armour. Since it had the spirit-enhancement on it, he left it on—except for the helmet—then stuffed his other clothes in his backpack.

Anything within the backpack had travelled with him through hyperspace, it seemed, so long as the pockets remained closed. One of the side pockets had been opened before the last jump, and a couple plastic bags and old receipts from earth had fallen out—probably never to be seen again.

Once he was satisfied that he was properly equipped, he tied the Whistling Blade to his hip and pulled his backpack over his shoulder. He sighed, then ran through the last conversation he had with Kinfild.

Kinfild had decided not to trust anyone, was that it? After his teacher, his mentor and friend, had turned out to be a warmongering psychopath?

Jace sighed. Was it an unreasonable reaction for Kinfild to have? Was it unheard of, or unreasonable? Probably not.

But it didn’t mean that Jace couldn’t be trusted, and it certainly didn’t mean that Jace should be left behind. It didn’t matter if it was too dangerous—staying locked up here wouldn’t help him nearly as much.

He’d been waiting all his life. No more waiting for things to fall in his lap. If he wanted something, he’d have to take it for himself.

He plucked the Reader out of his bag and pointed it at himself.

[Gathered Analytics]

Name: Jace Scott Baldwin

Worldjumper #: 5

Class: Core Hunter

Advancement Progress: Foundation 1 (86%)

Standard Level Rating: 13

[Attributes]

Strength: 9

Vital: 17

Resistance: 11

Agility: 11

Potency: 1

[Technique Cards]

Trigger Hyperjump

[Significant Items]

Unnamed Whistling Blade, spirit-enhanced armour (+1 Resistance while wearing 3+ pieces), spirit-enhanced shirt (+1 Resistance), spirit-enhanced coat (+1 Resistance), spirin-enhanced pants (+1 resistance), spirit-enhanced gaiters (+1 Resistance), spirit-enhanced boots (+1 Resistance). [Item readout will be simplified on next use.]

[Titles]

Worldjumper #5 (no effect) (cannot be removed)

Witness of the Ancients (+1 Agility) (cannot be removed)

Jace raised his eyebrows. Kinfild must have put spirit-enhancements on all the other clothes before he left as well—and he didn’t want to know what the Wielder had done to bind them to Jace’s spirit.

Jace changed. He pulled off the armour and put back on his old coat, pants, boots, and gaiters. But the armour had an enhancement on it, too, and he couldn’t leave that behind. Wherever he was following Kinfild, he’d need it. He put on the silver cuirass and vambraces, then a pauldron and knee plates. If it restricted his mobility, he left it behind.

As he changed, the Reader’s Resistance attribute climbed from eleven to sixteen. He shut it off once he was satisfied with his new accumulated attire, then set off.

He had to catch up with Kinfild before it was too late.

He stepped up to the room’s door. It slid open, revealing a short hallway with many, many doors embedded in it—all other rooms in the inn. Two candlefolk guards stood outside his door. One held a pitchfork, and the other carried a woodcutting axe. The moment Jace stepped out of the room, they turned to face him.

“Good morning, Mr. Baldwin,” the candlefolk with the pitchfork said. He wore a loose tunic and dirty pants, and had to be at least fifty years old—if the race aged by human standards. His tail was twice as short as Lessa’s. “Good to see you awake, finally!”

How hard had Kinfild hit him? He gulped.

“Where would you be headed this morning?” the other candlefolk asked.

Jace said nothing. He walked past the candlefolk and down the hallway—towards the stairs at the end, which (if he remembered correctly) would lead him to the bottom floor. Before he could make it three steps, the candlefolk crossed their tools in front of him. The man with the pitchfork said, “We’re under strict orders not to let you leave.”

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Jace tilted his head.

“Yes, strict indeed!” chimed the other guard. “Kinfild’ll turn us into snakes if we let you out!”

“You don’t think he actually meant that, do you?” the first candlefolk asked.

Jace shut his eyes for a moment. He brought his feet together and sighed. He would have to talk to these guards, at least. “Why are you following the instructions of Kinfild, in the first place?” Wasn’t Kinfild resented around here? Or at least, thought poorly of?

“Because he said he’d turn us into—”

Jace scowled. “I get it, I get it. Now”—he took a step forward—“if you don’t stop me, you’ll be in trouble. But if you do stop me, how will you do it without hurting me? And if you do hurt me, don’t you think that Kinfild will also be angry?”

The two candlefolk glanced at each other and pulled their weapons back. Jace kept walking, and they matched him step-for-step. Jace didn’t slow down. Once they reached the stairs, the candlefolk with the axe said, “We can escort you, at least! Where are you going?”

“Outside,” Jace said. He took the stairs as fast as he could, and the candlefolk ran to keep up with him.

At the bottom of the stairs, he arrived on the tavern floor of the inn. So early in the morning, it was quiet. Only a few candlefolk sat at the tables, and they ate hearty breakfasts. The smell of food made Jace’s stomach growl, and he knew he couldn’t go much further without a proper meal. A brief annoyance passed over him, but he couldn’t deny his body. He spotted the innkeeper—the candlefolk was in the corner of the inn, pouring out a bowl of milk. As Jace watched, a long cat slinked out of the shadows. Its legs were packed tightly together, and there…there more than four. More than eight. More than…well, it had lots. It had the proportions of a caterpillar.

Jace blinked quickly, then shook his head. He shouldn’t have expected to see anything normal this morning. Why should a cat…not be a caterpillar? He walked towards the innkeeper with his “escorts” trailing him.

“Ah, good morning, Mr. Baldwin!” the innkeeper said cheerfully. He ran his hand through the cat’s fur, then stood up and faced Jace. “How can I help you?”

Jace grimaced. “I’m…I was hoping to find some breakfast, though I don’t have anything to pay—”

“It can be arranged,” the innkeeper said. “Don’t need to make Kinfild angry. Take a seat.”

Jace turned back towards the tables. Most were empty, and he would have been perfectly happy to sit alone, but the innkeeper laid a hand on his shoulder and pointed to the corner. “You see, over there?”

Jace followed the innkeeper’s finger with his eyes. He traced it to the corner, where a middle-aged woman sat alone at a table, petting another cat-caterpillar. She wore a dirty, grease-stained apron, and her waxy skin was covered with grime. At her hip hung an array of hammers and vice-grips.

“She was asking about you,” the innkeeper said. “Heard Kinfild came back, she did. Lovely lady. She’s the glass-smith. Figured she probably made that sword of yours.”

Jace cleared his throat. His mouth slipped open a sliver, and he scrunched his eyebrows. She was Lessa’s mother, wasn’t she? He muttered, “Oh no…”

“Take a seat!” the innkeeper hissed. “I’ll be right back with a breakfast for you, young man. No charge for the worldjumper.”

Jace grimaced, and he really didn’t want to talk with the glass-smith, but she was staring right at him. No doubt she’d seen him.

Maybe he could pick her mind about where Kinfild had gone.

The innkeeper pranced away, his flaming tail swishing behind him as he ran, but the two escorts stood behind Jace, holding their farming equipment like they were spears. But they didn’t strike him as the type to ever use a weapon. Slowly, Jace stepped over to Mrs. Kendine. He offered a small smile, then a shy wave.

“I know my daughter ran off with you and the wizard,” Mrs. Kendine said. “Where is she?”

“She’s fine,” Jace blurted out. Quickly, he conjured a lie in his mind. “She stayed on the Luna Wrath. She…was worried about the innkeeper, and, because she’d let loose another herd of the goats and tore up the inn’s garden, she didn’t want to—”

“Good.” Mrs. Kendine gripped her mug with a strong grip. Her sleeves were rolled up, and her forearms rippled with muscles. Was that…beer that she was drinking? In the morning? She must have caught Jace staring at the mug, because she said, “Gives me a good start to the day.” She took a large swig of it, then said, “If anything happens to her, I’ll hold you personally responsible.”

“Problem is…Kinfild left me behind,” Jace said. “Can’t exactly fill your request without him.”

A bit of a lie, again, but he wasn’t certain Lessa had died. Chances were, she was in some Koedor-Terginian prison.

Before he could elaborate, the innkeeper returned, holding a plate loaded with orange hashbrowns, scrambled eggs, and toasted blue bread. He set it down in front of Jace, then walked back to his counter and began polishing mugs.

Jace began to eat, shoving food in his mouth as quickly as he could. No time to waste.

“He won’t have left the planet immediately,” Mrs. Kendine said. “Starships don’t have infinite fuel, and his monstrosity was sitting here chuffing smoke and clogging up the air for days before he returned.”

“You didn’t give him starcoals, did you?” Jace asked hurriedly.

“Not one. But the Crimson Table kept a storage magazine on this planet, in case the worldjumpers needed help. Some extra fuel, rations, stim shots and Aes elixirs, and more. It’s at the top of Blunt-Tip Summit, keeping it out of the hands of scavenger-folk and the like.” Mrs. Kendine tapped her fingers on the side of her mug. “That’s where Kinfild will be, no doubt.”

“He had an entire night,” Jace lamented. “You don’t think he’s left by now?”

“The supply magazine only opens in daylight hours—a preventative measure. Less likely to steal from a middling sect at daytime. And it’ll take him a few hours to restock alone, no doubt.”

“Then that’s where I’ll go.”

Both of the candlefolk guards behind him exclaimed, “What?”

Mrs. Kendine ignored the guards. She looked Jace in the eyes. “If Lessa and Kinfild are left to their own devices, they’ll rip each other to shreds within the week. And you’re probably the only other person on this grass-ball who’s willing to step into a starship.” She paused, then sighed. “I know my daughter can’t stay here. She’s an adventurer, not a blacksmith, but she doesn’t know the world outside. It’s a cruel place. I’ll not have her adventuring alone with that mischievous, incompetent wizard.”

He wasn’t a chaperone, and he knew enough about Lessa to know that she didn’t need one. But he had a chance to get back to Kinfild.

“Hey, wait now,” the candlefolk guard with the pitchfork said. “You can’t just—”

“You couldn’t stop him if you wanted to,” Mrs. Kendine said. She looked directly at Jace. “There is a repeller-bike in the forge’s storage shed. It was a project of my late husband. He didn’t reject the technology of the other world like other candlefolk do, and it hasn’t been run since he died, but it should still work.”

Jace inhaled slowly. “You’re…you’re a widow?”

“Lessa didn’t say?” Mrs. Kendine turned her head. “Ah, I suppose she wouldn’t have. The repeller-bike was her father’s. He’s where she got her adventurousness from. He taught her to shoot plasma rifles and all.” Mrs. Kendine leaned forwards, grimacing. “One day, he got sick. Lung-scourge. Kinfild tried to help, but he couldn’t. He had no healing cards or elixirs that would work on a candlefolk, and stim shots don’t do much good for disease.”

Jace nodded slowly. He grabbed the last hashbrown off his plate, and, refusing to meet the widow’s gaze, muttered, “With your leave, Mrs. Kendine.”

“Go,” she said. “Make sure my daughter is safe.”

“Now, now,” said the guard with the axe. He tilted his pseudo-weapon towards Jace. “You sit right back down, Mr. Balwin. I’ll not have you—”

Jace used a hyperdash to pass straight through the guards unhindered, and emerged right in front of the inn’s door. He sprinted outside, then set off toward the forge.