Jack awoke in near total darkness. With the events of the day before, namely the exploration of the forest, hunting the elk, killing the kobold and preparing the meat, he expected to sleep all the way through.

So when his eyes flickered open, he sensed that something was wrong – he just couldn’t put his finger on what.

Clunk.

Unplaceable sounds were a given by now in this strange world. Just like the twangs of metal pipes expanding and the shrinking cracks of plasterboard in the cold, so too did the creaks of wood and the rustling of leaves dominate the dark here, breaking through the quiet of night.

But this was different.

Something was moving around out there – he just couldn’t figure out which direction it was coming from.

He needed somebody with more adept hearing.

Jack carefully climbed out from his bedroll and took up his dagger. He lit his lantern and glanced about the attic in the flickering light to check for intruders, but nobody was there.

It was cold, but the prickling heat of adrenaline rushed through his body and over his skin as his heart raced.

Tap-tap-tap.

‘Where the hell is that coming from?’ He whispered to himself.

There was a chance that it could have been Zania, but nope – after crossing to the window and glancing down to the stable across the plaza, he caught sight of her among the hay, her huge figure resting on a pile of hay at the edge of the glow of the Builder’s Flame.

I’m not sleeping until I figure out what that is.

Jack pulled on his clothes quickly and moved quietly downstairs. To his surprise, both Fiora and Aeshara were awake and crouched close to their lanterns. They glanced over at him as he came into view.

‘Shh,’ Aeshara whispered. ‘Listen carefully.’

‘Something is on the roof,’ Fiora whispered, her fae ears twitching as she pointed up. ‘My bet is more kobolds.’

‘They are very good climbers,’ Aeshara added.

‘But kobolds are supposed to be stupid, aren’t they?’ Jack asked quietly. ‘Would they really be smart enough to come up with an attack plan that was actually, you know… Logical?’

‘Not necessarily,’ Fiora spoke. ‘They’re aggressive, but they’re resourceful when trying to get what they want, which is probably us in this case.’

‘I thought the one we killed earlier was a lone wolf,’ Aeshara opined.

‘Perhaps he was, but kobolds can often smell each other, and they’re great trackers. One might have found its way back here… It’s just strange that it’s not making any sounds beyond footsteps.’

‘Only one way to find out what this thing is,’ Jack said.

He headed downstairs with Fiora and Aeshara and woke Eldrin and Torick from their slumber. Torick glanced around in a daze and rubbed his eyes, while Eldrin yawned awake and ran a hand through his messy hair.

‘Wh… What is it?’ He muttered groggily.

‘You know,’ Aeshara smiled, ‘for a knight you’re not so alert.’

Jack promptly explained the situation to Eldrin and Torick.

‘Fiends,’ Eldrin seethed, clenching his fingers around his polearm. ‘We need a battleplan.’

‘The four of us will head up to the roof and subdue this thing, whatever it is,’ Jack decided, ‘If we can get the drop on it quickly, I need Zania and you too, Eldrin, to be on the ground ready to deal with it.’

‘How will we deal with it from the ground if it’s on the roof?’ Eldrin frowned.

‘You’ll deal with it,’ Jack said resolutely, checking his dagger in the lantern light, ‘right after we push it off the roof.’

‘A justified blood lust,’ Eldrin smiled with admiration, tapping the tip of his polearm with his index finger. ‘I knew you had it in you, Jack.’

Torick joined Aeshara, Fiora and Jack as they headed upstairs while Eldrin moved quietly outside, checking his corners before sneaking across to meet with Zania. He ventured into the stable, and a moment later-

‘Do not sneak up on Zania! Zania kill you!’

‘Shh…!’

Eldrin managed to keep her quiet and explain the situation quickly enough that she didn’t make any further noise.

Eldrin and Zania readied their weapons and took a spot either side of the mayor’s house while Jack and the others crept up to Jack’s small quarters in the attic.

‘Do we even know if this thing is still on the roof?’ Torick asked.

‘It is up there,’ Fiora said confidently. ‘I can hear its movements.’

‘Since when did fae have such an impressive sense of hearing? I knew they were good, but not this good.

‘Well…’ Fiora shrugged. ‘I… Used to spend my days in a quiet library. Small sounds are common to me. It is the subtleties that a learned being should pay attention to.’

Jack and Fiora quietly pushed open the windows on one end of the attic while Aeshara and Torick did the same on the other. Jack climbed out into the cold night air with Fiora right behind him.

‘Got a footing?’ He whispered.

‘I’m good,’ she smiled.

‘Ready?... Go!’

Jack scrambled onto the roof with his weapon at the ready, converging on the unknown presence with the help of his companions. They each glanced around, but there was nothing awaiting them no matter how hard they looked.

‘There’s nothing up here.’ Jack crossed to the roof’s edge, peered over and waved down to Eldrin and Zania. ‘You two see anything down there?!’

‘Nothing down here, Jack,’ Eldrin responded.

‘Zania see no intruder.’

‘What the hell was that?’ Aeshara frowned.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

‘I definitely heard something,’ Fiora added in confusion.

‘Wait,’ Aeshara whispered, holding up a hand to quieten everybody. ‘I can hear something. You hear that?’

They collectively shook their heads.

‘It’s the sound…’ Aeshara whispered. ‘The sound of my bedroll begging for me to get back inside of it. Screw this.’

The girls sheathed their daggers and headed back inside. Jack moved to follow, but Torick remained on the rooftop, looking out into the distance.

‘You coming, Torick?’

‘Mm?’ Torick replied suddenly, as if snapped from an entrance combination of irritation and impatience. ‘Yes, of course. Let’s go.’

***

The night’s sleep was interrupted, but Jack still awoke early the next day feeling well-rested. Maybe it was the clean air or the fresh food in his stomach – or the constant threat of dangers lurking nearby – but he was ready to take on the day.

Jack crossed to the window and peered out. Zania was still fast asleep in the stable across the plaza, just beyond the Builder’s Flame. It had been light for so little time that the sun had yet to peak over the hilltops to the east.

Before dressing he examined his clothes. Two days in the same attire would have been pushing it back home, but in the kingdom of Virendel, after running around in the streets of Silverward, checking out abandoned buildings, hunting for elk in the wilds and butchering one? The simple t-shirt, jacket and jeans he had arrived here with were starting to show serious signs of wear, not just to the eyes but to the nose. These garments weren’t built for a world like this, and he was going to have to come up with an alternative that was much more hard-wearing in the near future.

He pulled on the clothes, equipped his weapons and his water canteen and headed downstairs. Aeshara and Fiora were both still fast asleep, tucked into their bedrolls on the second floor. Down on the first floor, Eldrin was in a deep sleep, his tall figure stretched out beneath the window with a hand wrapped tightly around his polearm.

But there was no Torick.

‘Torick?’ Jack whispered. ‘You around here?’

No response.

Jack crossed to Torick’s bedroll, pulled it back and found it empty.

A gentle breeze pulled his attention to the window by the door, where he saw that it was standing open slightly.

There was only one person who could fit through that.

He wanted to pursue Torick, but even turning the front door handle would set off a trained guard like Eldrin in an instant.

Jack creeped back upstairs, opened the attic window and climbed out, scaling the ledges of the mayor’s house before dropping down onto the cobbled ground below.

He pulled up his action bar and activated his Tracker ability. After hunting the elk and levelling up, he had unlocked the ability to track sentient beings as well as animals, and he was damn well going to use it.

The trail of Torick’s footsteps ignited upon the ground for a second. Jack followed the trail away from the center and through the town, eventually finding the gnome pacing with purpose through the cobbled streets amid the fresh morning air.

‘Torick?’ Jack called after him. ‘What’s going on? Where are you going?’

‘I’m heading out,’ he replied simply.

‘Heading out where?’

‘All I have managed to do since arriving here is be a burden, drinking and loitering. Everybody else can do something – Eldrin and Zania are fighters, Fiora is a scholarly genius, even you seem competent with a bow and your organizational skills… Even if those skills are not as impressive as the others.’

‘Still working on progressing, but sure,’ Jack nodded, taking the backhanded insult on the nose.

‘But Aeshara can wield bard magic. Bard magic, Jack! And what can I do? The answer, if you’re curious, is sweet nothing, at least without staff. Last night when we were on the roof looking for that thing, whatever it was, even though I could get up there with haste, I still felt useless. Sure, I can climb and wield daggers, but that is hardly of any use when there are other better-trained fighters among us. I need something through which to wield my magic. It is the only way that I can contribute.’

‘But I thought you said that your staff was back in your own world.’

‘It is,’ he nodded, ‘but if I were to acquire another staff, I would be able to wield my magic once more. The bonding process would take some time, but what thing of value does not take time to acquire?’

‘And where exactly are you going to get a staff? No offence, but I doubt that you’re going to find one just kicking about in a drawer somewhere.’

‘When we were up on the roof the morning after we first arrived, I saw something, something that nobody else did.’

‘Which was?’

‘The tower.’

‘… You’re going to need to help me out, man,’ Jack frowned. ‘I’m not well-versed in the importance of towers.’

‘Towers are centers for arcane magic. I didn’t know whether that principle would extend from my world to this one, but last night on the roof, I could sense the presence of a tower in the distance – a tower possessing stray magical energy, likely left behind by the last mage that abandoned it. If there’s a tower that has magic within it, there’s a good chance that a weapon through which to wield magic has also been left there. I know that what resides out there is the thing that I seek. I know it.’

‘Look,’ Jack said. ‘I get that you want to regain your abilities and everything, and I’ll bet this tower probably does have what you need if its principles are the same as those in your world, but the wilds are dangerous. We’re still working to get Silverward locked down before we go wandering out there for any reasons other than food or water, and when we do, we need to make sure that we do it in groups. You can’t go out there on your own. It’s dangerous.’

‘Are you saying I can’t?’ Torick retorted angrily. ‘You are not the boss of me, human!’

‘I’m just saying that you should wait until somebody can help you do this. Eldrin or Zania or both of them are well-trained. They can help you get there.’

‘That is the precise reason why I ventured out now before you all awoke. I do not need you to assist me. Magic is my calling. This is a quest that I can accomplish alone! I do not need your help!’

‘I’m telling you,’ Jack said, beginning to lose his temper, ‘if you go out there you don’t know what you could run into. It’s not just kobolds that are bastards – the animals aren’t exactly friendly either. That elk would have gotten the drop on us if we hadn’t taken it down first. And even if you make it to the tower, who’s to say it won’t be occupied by somebody already? Just because there’s stray magical energy inside, doesn’t mean somebody isn’t still calling it home right now.’

‘I am going alone, Jack! I must! That is the end of it!’

‘Fine, you want to go and get yourself killed on principle? That’s fine. You go right ahead and do that. But if you care so much about your use, surely you care about your reputation and your legacy too, and when everybody asks me what happened to you? I’m not going to lie. I’m going to say he went into the forest alone, ignoring my pleas, and probably got himself cut to bits by a kobold. Is that what you want?!’

‘If that is the fate of my quest, Jack, then so be it!’

‘Fine!’

‘Fine! Go get yourself fucking killed! See if I give a shit!’

Jack turned on his heel and headed back through town while Torick stormed off towards the forest.

‘Stubborn little bastard,’ Jack muttered to himself. ‘Suddenly this whole Mediator shtick doesn’t seem so simple. Just because Eldrin and Zania have to take on the explicitly dangerous tasks, doesn’t mean this thing is a walk in the freaking park…’

Halfway back to base at the center of Silverward, a quest alert window perked up in the corner of Jack’s vision.

‘Something to take my mind off Torick going kamikaze. Exactly what I need.’

Jack tapped the quest alert and read the box as it appeared before him.

Quest: A Helping Hand

Objective: Keep Torick alive in his quest to reach the tower

Reward(s):

- Receive a skill point to allocate to any one of your stats.

- Gain 1 Trust Point with companion Torick.

Jack read the quest over. Not quite believing his eyes, he read it a second time. Then a third.

‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ he finally said to himself. ‘No. That does not say what it says. How…?’

Ayak the realm keeper was lazy, that much Jack knew.

And if the realm keeper wasn’t paying attention to this situation, then he definitely wasn’t responsible for sending Jack on such a well-timed quest, or offering such a generous reward.

There was only one possibility.

‘Somebody or something is seriously messing with me. I don’t know whether it’s the System itself or a facilitator of it, but I’m going to find out.’

Jack stopped in the street and read the quest once more.

‘No,’ he said to himself resolutely. ‘I’m not doing it. He clearly doesn’t want to be saved.’

Still, even though he was saying it out loud, Jack knew the truth of the matter. He was simply trying to convince himself; the truth was that Torick needed saving from himself before he encountered anything nefarious in the wilds.

Each of them had strengths, and each had weaknesses; keeping the group together, and more importantly keeping everybody alive, was the only way that they were going to succeed – and therefore it was Jack’s only priority.

Mediator’s gotta do what a Mediator’s gotta do…

‘… Damn it.’

Jack turned around and set off running through the streets of Silverward.