Beside me, a small stall leant out of a wagon poking out of the shadow between two thick pillars. It was crammed with odd trinkets, mismatched weapons, and fading maps, and before it, in the centre of the path, stood a fubsy man with a neat red-dyed beard. He flashed a wide, toothy grin and threw his arms out wide.

“It is I, Jothar the Haggler! Well, well, well! What do we have here? Another foolish soul looking to brave the wilds beyond Ur-Kadesh with nothing more than a splintered spear and rotting shield? Let me guess, you don’t even have a spare pair of socks!”

I raised an eyebrow. What a pitch.

“Sock’s’ll be the thing to save me, then?”

Jothar didn’t miss a beat.

“Why, friend, it is well-known that in the snowy wastes of the Shards of Korgoth, it’s not the claws or teeth you should fear, but wet feet!”

Hate how much that makes sense.

My mistake had turned my dream of hot sands and open plains into a bloody mountain hiking simulator. He knew he had me.

“Don’t worry — I’ve all you need, including socks!” He leant in, lowering his voice. “And for a special price, because I like your face.”

“Fine, give me a pair of socks.”

Absent-mindedly my hand went to my back pocket for my credit card, ended up just stroking my right bum cheek through the linen tunic and loincloth. I blinked and faked a yawn, then tugged on the bandoleer and loosened the string of the pouch. Inside was half a handful of tiny copper coins and a little paper parcel. Ignoring the parcel I tossed him a single coin.

“A single coin will buy you a single sock.”

Absolutely flabbergasted, I just stared at him. I was just nearly killed and this man is haggling with me — it felt so . . . pedestrian. Not half an hour before, I saw my life flash before my eyes. Something must have glinted in them then, as well, because the merchant recoiled.

“A joke! I’m the Haggler, after all! Two socks!”

I took the woolly treasures, surely a sign of great things to come. Still in absolute shock, I just turned and went on my way. He called something friendly after me, and slinked back into the shadows.

For what felt like the third time today (because it was), I took a deep breath and stepped out into the unknown wilderness.

Utter, searing, bleached-bone white. I squinted through the spaces between my fingers as my eyes adjusted to the jagged landscape.

// SYS : Not the Shards of Korgoth! Anywhere but this cursed place! See how its peaks are twisted and curved like the ribcage of a city-striding behemoth. On clear days, see how the two great hot suns above reflect pure and awful light from every white surface; it’s enough to burn your eyes in their sockets! But more prevalent are the dark days of roiling, ferocious clouds — suffer as the air stands still, dry and bitter for a moment, then with an awful gust of wind . . . Hark! It brings not only the suffocating cold, but the howls of a thousand restless spirits! Only the most foolish would — //

“That’s quite enough!”

Another gust of wind pulled the breath from my lungs and I staggered to keep my feet.

Presently, a figure emerged from the hoar — a tall woman with furs draped over her chest, around her hips and wrapped tightly over her shins, revealing a hard, toned stomach and huge thighs that rippled muscle with each heavy step. A cute, youthful face was framed by wild blonde hair that stuck wet to her neck. She had a two-inch fraying rope over her shoulder and she dragged a large pallet burdened with a huge pile of heavy, white animal furs, leaving a deep trough in the snow behind her.

The wind relented for a time and her face reddened and started beading sweat. She stopped outside the bronze gates and looked me up and down and nodded. She clapped her hands together, rope dust, snow and sweat burst off her body, then she gripped the robe and made to continue in.

“Might want to give this one a miss, it’s dangerous in there,” I jabbed a thumb behind me.

“Thank you, traveller – I’ll be extra cautious.” A melodious Scandiwegian accent spilled slowly from her white-painted lips as she beamed into a wry, somewhat amused smile.

I felt pretty puffed up that I’d spoken to, even given advice to, a very attractive woman, and pretty proud of my good deed for the day. But through my swagger and rose-tint my eyes caught sight of what was dragged behind her: not a pile of skins — a single, enormous carcass of ridged muscle and spiked white fur. She was a hunter, and she’d made short work of a massive beast.

She looked at me kindly as I sheepishly smiled my embarrassment away.

“Is that a warg?”

She dropped the rope and blew on her hands, stinging red-raw.

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

“No, darling, we call that an Abominable — it’s a yeti. My name’s Annika, though my character is Kikiara. Not been here long, I take it?”

I tightened my jaw at the repeated question, and I just shook my head.

“I’m Talbot.” I looked past her to the frigid wilderness. At that moment a gust blew through my bones and a mass of snow loosed itself from one of the bleached peaks to crash to the ground a few hundred yards away. “Don’t . . . suppose you could show me around this place? How do I get to . . . somewhere else?”

Kikiara gave a slow blink, and the same kind smile played on her face, though I detected a good deal more derision than before. She began pointing fingers and indicating routes with her hands while she spoke.

“Round the right corner of the second spire east, you’ll find an oream goat path that leads towards a glacial lake on the horizon. Make your way over the lake and through the pine forest there and in a few days, you’ll reach the rest of Barbican.” As she spoke, she looked me over. A gust of wind lifted my tunic and I pushed it down like a schoolgirl. She giggled. “I’m guessing you haven’t trained [Survivalism] much, so you’re going to need a thick cloak. And it’ll take you a few days, at least, so I recommend buying food, and when it starts getting dark to try to find a cave or something to sleep in. How’s your [Weapon Mastery]?”

“Oh yeah, that was one of the Skills I started with!”

“Well, that’s something. Wow, you really are brand new, aren’t you? Keep your eyes peeled, and if you see any beasts other than a single, lone, solitary wolf-like warg, lie down in the snow and stay perfectly still until you’re sure they’re gone. Hours, if you have to. I’ve never heard of a newcomer making it to Ur-Kadesh, but I’ve known many veterans to lose their lives in these wastes.”

She gazed over the mountains and snowdrifts wistfully. Reluctantly, I hung on her every word. Starting to feel a lot less like a power fantasy and more like a profoundly dangerous adventure.

Suck it up; that’s why I chose Barbican in the first place.

“You can talk to your SYS whenever you like, by the way, just think about Her.”

I nodded dumbly.

Kikiara sighed and clicked her teeth, which I saw were big and sharp. She walked around to the pallet and withdrew a good-sized, crease-streaked leather sack. She pulled out a thick, fur-lined cloak and tossed it to me.

“A gift: it’s a Stonebear Cloak. Welcome to Barbican,” she raised her hand in a single lazy wave, then took up the rope again.

“H-hold on, Anni — Kikiara — don’t suppose you’d like to — uh — join me on my way back to civilisation?” I stumbled over the words while I clasped the heavy cloak around my collarbones. As I did, I felt a momentary surge of comfort in the cold air.

// SYS : Your Constitution has received a +1 buff. //

“You’d just slow me down, Talbot.” She didn’t pause for a second, just grunted in her dancing accent. “Adjö.”

As I tumbled mentally down the well-trodden road of rejection and panic, I watched her pass me and drag the yeti through the gates. I realised I was still holding the socks. Not a cool first impression. I stuffed them into the pouch and felt the paper parcel. I brought it out unthinking and carefully unwrapped it.

Within was a small SIM card-shaped thing, looked carbon fibre, with minuscule gold lines running across it. I held it up.

“What’s—” I was going to beg Kikiara for information (all traces of pride gone), but as I looked over to her, an overlay popped up in my vision — a clean white sans serif on a transparent background — that followed her, about a foot above her head.

Name : Kikiara the Seeker, Level 17 Stats : Str 15, Dex 14, Con 14, Mnd 8 Skills : Beast Mastery Lvl 3

Herbalism Lvl 1

Survivalism Lvl 3

Vigour Lvl 2

Weapon Mastery Lvl 2 Special : If It Bleeds Inventory : Bronze Spear, Tangle Vine Trap, Obsidian Dagger, Bone Whistle, Spirit Totem Amulet, Waterskin, Cloak of Camouflage, Bronze Arrows, Boar Jerky, Herb Satchel, Tracking Powder, Firestarter, Sinew Rope, Signal Mirror, 3 Copper Coins Weakness : Very deep sleeper Home : Sweden, Earth

“Stats, Skills, Inventory . . . Weakness? Is this . . . normal?” I whispered.

A BUZZ about a half-inch from my right ear had me leap into the air and yelp. The little bronze orb hovered into view, its electric blue eye level with mine.

// SYS : This is your boon, Talbot — unique to you. Because of your daring, and perhaps the design of your fate, I have created for you an Analysis Card. Keep it safe, learn how to use it to appraise everything in this World, and, in time, you shall learn the knowledge of the Gods. Mechanically, it means you can sneak into their SYS’s mind. //

“That seems . . . like a mistake.”

// SYS : Trust me, I gave it a serious amount of thought. //

Was that a bare-faced lie, too? An all-powerful AI with a sense of humour. Fantastic. Well, I’m not going to complain.

I stashed the card in the baldric and as soon as I let go of it, the white overlay disappeared.

I had a thought.

“Does it work on monsters, too? I can see their weakness?”

The little bronze sphere bobbed up and down: Yes.

“Wild. Okay, feeling better about this excursion! Let’s find us some tavern wen—” SYS was entirely emotionless; a pure-blue alien eye set in an otherwise featureless ball of bronze, but I could still feel Her judge me. I forced a chuckle and shrugged, “I mean some fetch quests! Maybe Jothar needs some warg skins.”

Laughter fading into the snow, I turned to fully face the wilderness again. As SYS had said, there was an inwards-curve to almost all of the steep, spire-like mountains that put me in mind of the ribs of an impossibly enormous giant.

That moment, a SCREECH echoed through the peaks and unsettled tons of snow all about. I really should have looked up more lore for this World before I dived in — fell in.