Usually, Rin was thrilled to visit Craggton. Today, his thoughts were in turmoil.

His heart, still reeling from the goodbye with his mother, was also struggling to reconcile the news of his birth mother. It felt like he was drowning, desperately seeking a gulp of fresh air amongst murky waters.

Fortunately, the feeling was short-lived as the glorious sunrise pierced his brain fog with blessed relief. The majesty of the Steppe Mountains never failed to bring a smile to his lips and peace to his mind.

He hiked up his breeches and stretched his legs into broad, purposeful steps that matched his father’s. A few miles in, they stopped for their usual break when traveling to Craggton. It was the perfect spot: a scenic overlook where a gap in the infinite alpine forest revealed an interlocking network of valleys, with trees marching fluidly down the mountainside until they dissolved into the plains.

It was breathtaking.

One might think a lifetime in the mountains would make such a familiar scene boring. Yet every time Rin happened upon this spot, he was struck silent with awe. To ignore the scene seemed a grave injustice, a crime risked by only the most wayward of fools for fear the gods themselves might descend to mete out punishment.

He glanced at his father. The sentiment was shared.

“Remember this, son,” said Garrett. “You won’t get views like this off-mountain. By the gods, you won’t get views like this anywhere else on the continent.”

Rin smiled. No response was necessary. After all, what could he say? Rin had never been beyond Craggton. The sum of his life experience had occurred within a five-mile radius of his home. This very day, the upper limits of that world would be stretched. Tomorrow, as he journeyed farther to Bastion, they would be positively shattered.

He couldn’t wait.

They sat there in companionable silence, sharing strips of dried jerky and crumbling hunks of cheese. After a quick swill of water, they resumed their brisk pace.

As the trail ducked and wove between trees and worn granite boulders, a landslide came into view, a recent victim of the blustery summer thunderstorms frequenting the mountain. The trail lay submerged in a sea of jagged shale pieces. When Garrett placed a foot on the precipitous slope, it slipped away, and he scrambled back. The motion dislodged a lone pebble that careened down the hill, launching into the vacant air and the thousand-foot drop at the slope’s end.

The man paused to stroke the stubble on his chin. “We’ll have to climb around this one. There’s no secure footing.”

Garrett picked his way up the slope, arriving at the looming cliff base where the shale was birthed. There was a precarious way forward around several teetering boulders, nothing too arduous for lifetime mountain residents like themselves. The problem was that the path wended into a dank cave—the sort where monsters were prone to roost.

Garrett turned to his son.

“This’ll be good experience for you, lad. I smell a fight coming.”

Garrett gestured with the storage ring on his left hand and a steel shortsword appeared in his grasp.

“Take this. You’ll be needing it.”

Anytime his father used his storage ring, Rin gawped. This occasion was no different. He knew it was one of the finer ones with a larger capacity because it was gold. Cheaper rings were copper, iron, or bronze.

Rin longed to look inside the ring, but it was off-limits, magically bound via a drop of the man’s blood. For now, the boy carried a simple knapsack with all his worldly belongings. A storage ring of his own would have to come later. It was at the top of his shopping list.

As soon as I get stronger.

He traded his walking staff for the sword with a nod of thanks, gripping it tightly and giving it a few experimental swings against the breeze. He caught his father’s raised eyebrow at the display.

“The pointy end goes in the monster.”

“Father!”

Garrett trudged into the dim light of the cave’s entrance. It was a short forty-foot jaunt around the boulder blocking the way before they’d be out in the light again. But those few steps would be a prime opportunity for monsters to attack.

Rin focused his vision on the cluster of dark shadows, activating his gods-given Identify ability:

Level 5 Fire Jinnee (Fire Type)

Level 5 Fire Jinnee (Fire Type)

Level 6 Fire Jinnee (Fire Type)

…

The notifications continued, indicating six of the creatures huddled above them. The boy gulped.

I’m not sure I can take them all.

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The monsters attacked with a chorus of shrieks. Rin instinctively raised his sword and began thwacking the beasts from the air. Fire Jinnees like these were common in the mountains, and he had trained against their attacks from a young age. They appeared like a squat serpent, about a foot long and as thick as his wrist, bursting into flame as they launched from their roost. These were a large variety with haunting, blood-red eyes and embers that wafted loose as they flapped.

Rin focused his attacks on the monsters’ weak points: their shoulder joints, where the wings met the thorax. He didn’t need to sever the limb, as even a glancing blow to the tendon would cause the monster great pain, forcing its retreat.

Being fire-types, their body temperature was exceedingly high, and Rin found his steel sword warming as he fought.

The battle was short-lived. Even with half a dozen of the monsters flying about, their attacks were weak and uncoordinated. When enough of them screeched in pain, the entire flock fled, leaving the humans to navigate the treacherous shale field alone.

“Nothing like a good fight to get your blood flowing, eh lad?”

A simple nod was all Rin could manage as he gasped for breath.

His old man didn’t hide his wide grin. “Once you have your class, you can boost your stamina. Even the less physical options, like the mage class, can accumulate solid increases. A fight like that won’t take it out of you nearly so much.” Garrett’s hand rested on Rin’s shoulder. “Still, you did good. You’ve been fighting Fire Jinees so long, I forget you’re a level zero. Most beginners struggle with one monster, let alone six of them.”

Praise from Father was rare. It made Rin’s cheeks burn. “I just hate that I can’t level up until I get my class. Otherwise, my level would be in the teens by now.”

Rin offered the sword to his father, but the man shook his head. “That’s for you to keep. Happy birthday, Rin. I commissioned it for you on a previous trip to Craggton. I wasn’t sure I’d gauged the size right until now. You’ll be needing these, too.” In Garrett’s hands were a brown belt and sheath made from cured leather. Their design was basic and practical. They fit Rin perfectly. The boy found tears unexpectedly welling up in his eyes.

“Thank you so much, Father. It’s just what I need for dungeon fighting. I wondered why you had a shortsword in your ring when you prefer the spear.”

Garrett grunted, acting as if it was of no consequence, but Rin caught the glimmer in his eye.

“You’ll want to clean that,” said the man, nodding at the sword. “Wouldn’t want wolves to catch our scent before we get to Craggton. You know what I always say.”

“Yes, Father.” Rin sighed. “A clean weapon is a sharp weapon.”

“Damn straight. We should be coming up on the waterfall shortly. You can wash it there.”

As Garrett predicted, right around the bend was a fountain of spray jetting from the cliffside above. The unbroken sheet of water arced over the path before tumbling to the valley below. The trail here narrowed to a slickened stone ledge, and they slowed their approach to tread carefully. When they reached the ledge’s middle, piercing sunbeams from above created a vibrant rainbow suspended in the mist.

Rin paused to clean his sword of a few lingering hunks of monster flesh, dipping it into the sheet of water. The torrent battered the blade with surprising force, but his grip held firm. Once clear of the mist, he wiped the weapon down with an oiled rag.

They hastened on. Within twenty minutes, the ramshackle homes of Craggton leaned along the sides of the path like tottering old men with bent backs and sagging features.

“Hurry now,” said Garrett. “There’s my contact.”

A tinker stood ahead, waiting patiently beside a cart overflowing with leather goods, weapons, and random curiosities. His clothing was worn but serviceable, the most notable component being a green felt vest. The man’s broad grin peeked from within a salt-and-pepper beard, and his eyes glinted merrily. Behind him, a miserly old donkey was hitched to the cart, and as they approached, Rin realized he recognized them both. It was his Uncle Percy and his donkey, Grumps. Well, not his real uncle. That’s just what he’d always called him. Rin concentrated, activating Identify.

Percy Wildernocken

Level 17 Traveling Merchant

Hmm, he must be hiding his titles. Or maybe he doesn’t have any?

Rin blinked, discovering the good-natured Percy waiting on him while he’d been gawking at the words in his mind’s eye.

“Still getting used to the Identify ability, are you?”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Rin bashfully shuffled his feet. “It’s good to see you, Uncle Percy. I didn't know you were coming to send me off.”

“Send you off? I’m carrying you on, if anything! I’m to be your caretaker on this sodding adventure. Until we reach Bastion, anyway. Then you’re on your own, scamp.”

Garrett and Percy clasped forearms in a heartfelt mountain greeting. Then Rin’s father turned to him, handing him a palm-sized leather pouch jangling with money.

“There’s ten bronze there. I wish we had more to get you started.”

Rin peeked inside the pouch and stared. To his inexperienced mind, it was a fortune. They’d always traded via bartering, and he rarely saw a single bronze coin, let alone ten of them. According to his parents, their mountain cottage was worth twenty bronze. And here in this meager pouch, he held half that!

A downcast look hung on Garrett’s face. “This is as far as I go. Percy here will get you to Bastion and the beginner’s dungeon there. You get your backside in that dungeon and get the best damn class there is. Then, make your way to Dunspire City and the Magic Academy to compete for a scholarship, just like we planned. Or, worst case, do what I did and work your way up as a traveling guard. Once you’ve got buckets of gold to spare and you’ve leveled up enough to kick my ass, you come visit, you hear?”

Rin flung his arms around his father. Choking back tears and before he lost his nerve, he spun away, calling over his back. “I’ll be back before you know it, old man! Keep the fire warm for me!”

Percy snorted. “Don’t worry, Garrett. I’ll keep him out of trouble.” The tinker gave him a wink.

One of Garrett’s eyebrows rose. “Him, I’m not so worried about. Who’s going to keep you out of trouble?”

Percy laughed, clucked his tongue, and Grumps lurched forward, plodding faithfully beside his master with the cart trundling behind. They caught up to Rin at a small copse of trees outside the eastern edge of town. The boy was standing there frozen, staring at his feet.

“What’s wrong?”

“This is it. The farthest I’ve ever been from home.”

The tinker chuckled. “Look up, not down, boy. Just look at that view! The rivers and valleys. The plains and cities. The world is your oyster!”

Rin raised his head, his eyes wide with excitement. “I’ve never had oysters. What are they like?”

The man cackled, clapping Rin on the shoulder and urging him onward. “Terrible.”

Rin didn’t look back. A goofy grin was plastered on his face.

He took the biggest step of his life.