His cheeks blazed with shy heat when he opened his eyes and caught sight of the stable girl staring at him a bit too intently while he scrabbled about for discarded clothes... putting gambeson and leggings and underwear on in thankfully the right order, if perhaps with a bit more hay than usual. And it was only when he was fully dressed and feeling both embarrassed as hell and absolutely delighted with life, that he dared look at the stable girl, probably his own age, her soft brown eyes dancing as her lips widened in a wicked grin.

"Nice sword."

Jack flushed, patting the hilt of his scabbarded blade and pretending that's what she had met. "Thanks. I don't suppose you might know where..."

"That beautiful witch grinning like a cat that licked all the cream went?" her teasing smile turned sad. "Yes. She left with the soldiers, maybe an hour ago." The girl's gaze turned solemn. "Thank you again for helping Master Brightgrain, hero. We're all grateful. And thank the heavens your lover talked some sense into the captain." The girl cleared her throat. "I'll quote her directly. You filled her with happiness, don't turn that to regret. Don't follow. The captain hasn't forgotten, and never will."

The stablehand flashed an arch smile. "Between you and me, I think she was trying to keep you out of trouble as much as, well, the obvious. But she's right. You'd be stupid to follow."

Jack nodded in complete agreement. "I agree. I'd be a complete idiot to follow." He then took a deep breath, forcing himself to ask the question. "I don't suppose the innkeeper has a horse I could borrow or buy?"

This earned a pitying shake of her head. "You just cost me a fat copper, goofball."

He blinked. "What?"

She pouted. "I told Elonia there was no way you'd actually be stupid enough to follow a girl you just met if she was serving as the hound of a half-cocked captain with a dozen riflemen and a hard-on for your head."

She flashed an arch smile at Jack's sudden flush as he tacked and saddled the docile looking chestnut mare, about 15 hands high at the withers, that she brought before him. "But of course Yon and Elonia declared you would, saying that the blood of heroes flows through your veins. And no, they're not going to charge you a single silver, and she's clearly worth three, so please try not to get her killed."

Jack couldn't help laughing at her cute pout, moved to flip a copper through the air from his soul pouch, just one coin among many he had claimed that he really should count. Not surprisingly, she caught with an adroit twist of her palm, earning him a cheeky smile.

"Good luck on not being an idiot. Try not to get killed, okay, Jack?"

Jack flushed and nodded, more thrown off that people kept knowing his name... and he didn't even know the name of the girl he had...

He shook his head, hiding his blush, and with a final farewell wave for the inn and the beaming innkeeper who had already packed rations in one of the saddlebags, so sure he was of Jack's next move. Jack's flush deepened, now utterly certain that absolutely everyone in the entire area knew about his tavern adventure, almost as if he really was a character in one of his favorite storybooks, with interested readers just needing to look at his blushing smile to read all the secrets trapped between the pages of his soul.

"Boy, do I hope that's not the price of being able to level," he muttered to himself, taking off back the way he had come, not that many hours ago, at a brisk, steady canter.

Promising himself that he wouldn't be an idiot about it. He would just head back in the general direction at a leisurely pace, stay purposefully along the main road, and unless he heard something untoward in the general direction of the wolves' den, just a mile through thick forest, then he would turn around and be on his way.

He didn't even wonder about how such a captivating girl could sense a den she'd never been to, but was somehow certain that she could, already beginning to have an inkling of just how resourceful she could be.

Lush pasteurlands with the occasional grove of apple trees covered in prizes of red and gold soon gave way to fields long left fallow, as if marking the boundary between human lands and those surrendered back to the wilds, and the occasional cove of abandoned fruit trees mixed with wilder stock rapidly became wild unbroken forests, the wolves territory in truth.

Jack did his best to keep both heart and horse pounding away at a steady trot. Neither allowed to relax, neither pushed too hard by bit or worry that would do neither any good in the long run. Instead, Jack stopped a time or two gathering wild yet surprisingly sweet apples quickly put into storage for himself and the horse, and calm words for a heart that had absolutely no business falling for a girl he had only met hours ago... no matter how sweet the interim between them had been.

He was no fool, though, Infravision and Magesight always in play, his ability to blend and overlay the sensory impressions his brain was sending him into one unified whole he could instantly react to steadily improving, much like someone first learning the power moves to ten different White Desert configurations finding it all a flashy headache... until it finally clicked and one was chaining moves as effortlessly as Jack now registered the murder of crows as a flock of dark outlines filled with bright red heat upon the dusky outline of an imposing elm with the deepest red glow from heat absorbed during the day, and Jack didn't know whether to be elated or chilled that he could also sense the faintest arboreal corona about each crow and the tree as a whole.

Magic, at least to a minute degree, or perhaps indicative to the opening act of the story between crow and tree and ancient deeds both foul and mournful he absolutely didn't have the time to embrace, no matter the invitation clearly in the largest crow's eyes when the haunting gaze of a witch who had felt far too good in his arms haunted him still.

He didn't know if the apologetic smile he flashed was for the crow or his own desperate foolishness, knowing it was stupid to canter along a road as a too rapid dusk turned to night, and why the hell had that idiot of a captain pushed his men to investigate so late?

But of course he knew why.

The awkward humiliation of a hotblooded man who had been made to look like a fool, and had only himself to blame. And Jack, of course, and how poorly that had turned out for the captain, perhaps in his own mind having sought to arrive at that tiny town, more an inn with a couple nearby farms than anything else, as a hero, instead ended up looking like a monster. And perhaps he had been all too eager to find an excuse, any excuse at all to not stay there for the night with his witch now carrying the mark of the man he had almost killed, and everyone inside that inn, absolutely everyone, knowing the truth of the tale the captain would be forced to choke down like the crows that had gazed at Jack so intently, along with his stew and ale, had he actually stayed at the inn.

Jack grimaced and shook his head, now not sure who the greater fool truly was.

Because Magesight and Infravision had both just leveled again.

Which could only mean that he truly was putting his life on the line once more, enemies either gazing his way or he was entering a Delver's tale in truth, pitting himself against Peril's promise, his growth the fuel that compelled his madness, even as his soul blazed with the taste of death just minutes or hours away.

"I'm walking the Path of Peril. I was an idiot to expect the fairy-tale happy endings another part of me had savored so often, turning in perfect vanilla quests, embracing endless charmed lives as sweet and ephemeral as dreams." he muttered to himself, flashing a bitter smile, knowing he had only himself to blame.

Because against all odds, he had helped rescue a band of fast friends before rescuing, or perhaps forging whole cloth from living dream, or the AI interface that shaped reality according to laws far more sentient than the mindless physics of the world that had come before... the perfect starter town. Thanks to the magic released by closing such a deadly rift serving as the key his friends had needed to restart their own tales along Immortality's Path. The only concession would be leaving dreams of power behind, almost all of them content to savor storybook perfect lives of wise women and craftsmen, with the gentlest of Delves they had already mastered for sport and resources and the perfection of skills that was the illusion of growth, content to spend the rest of their lives and potency helping that perfect dream of a town, and the lush forests and fields just beyond, blossom into a true miniature realm all its own that only those with kind dispositions and worthy hearts could ever hope to find.

A dream he had only allowed himself a season to savor that already felt more dream-like than real, for all that he had relished every day learning the very basics of blacksmithing to better understand the flow of fire and steel, and how best to incorporate the dwarven rune he now knew better than all others.

Resilience. A single Elite tier rune now known so well it would blend harmoniously with the magical enchantments used by arcane craftsmen anywhere. Especially with Mitch's sigil-bound masterwork blade and Sharon's strongest Enhancer spells, the three of them forging masterwork shields that would never break or crumple, and blades that would neither bend nor chip, even when honed to razor sharpness, like the blade now sheathed at Jack's hip.

It was as if they had all invested a full level's worth of potential together in mastering their single unified enchantment, with no magic save the incredible durability of it's construction. Iron and carbon, along with traces of silicon, tungsten, and silver, of all things, somehow perfectly forged into a blade that even Jack could use to cleave right through a sheep carcass with his 12 strength, 14 finesse, and a Journeyman's sword & shield skills.

Slicing through bone without a single scratch to his blade.

Because he was now that good, and his viking era chopping blade had been designed for the madness of combat and cleaving through quilted armor, leather, and rawhide, as well as the limbs such armor protected.

He and Mitch had tested the limits, of course. For all that the center of balance was six inches from the hilt, their swords weighted for fast, vicious chops, they were also designed to thrust with deadly intent, just like the originals. Jack was able to consistently burst at least one iron link of a shirt of mail placed on a padded pel, which was actually quite a feat, historically, from the ancient Self-Tube videos Jack had once watched, a lifetime ago. Because his blade really was that sharp, and the incredibly hard alloy that close to being indestructible.

Mitch, of course, was able to burst right through a shirt of steel mail links with surprising ease, thanks to his twenty plus Strength, Finesse, and Quickness. And most remarkably, without either suffering a single scratch to their respective blades. Even after banging them against metal helms, which a laughing Jack had done under Mitch's care enough to always hit with the sweet spot of his weapon so as to deliver maximum force, such that his weapon never popped out of his hands, his weapon would actually deliver respectable dents to the helmets, which was unusual for most swords. But again, most remarkably, he did it all without leaving a single scratch on his weapon, or even dulling the supernaturally hard blade or curling the impossibly sharp edge.

Of course the enchanted chopping blades the three of them had forged together were the farthest thing from a fencer's lightning-fast spadroon or smallsword, or even a dueling saber, those weapons able to strike and parry in a single beat, and only a fool would pit such a blade as the one Jack now wore at his hip in a duel against a rapiersman without proper protection. But when used along with a shield for defense while facing off against magical beasts or the leather-hard limbs of the undead, the ancient Carolingian blades used a thousand years before Earth's destruction were supremely effective and deadly instruments, ideal for any warrior mad enough to take on inhuman abominations along the Path of Peril.

The path he now chose to embrace once more, forsaking what could have been his second home.

So like his own town, that his parents had both retired to, and a part of him wondered if they too had already chosen Immortality's Promise for Peril's Path, and if he truly was a fool for not doing the same when he had the chance.

For all that his own sacrifice had been necessary, lest the dream of Loamsville's elevation proved as transient and ephemeral as his own parent's sanctuary. The town of his birth forever needing their stewardship, their sacrifice. Even their children forced to stand sentinel over the loom of its existence, as weavers of souls. And how many souls of the foul and corrupt did Jack help bundle in strands tighter than any spider's web?

Jack shivered at half-forgotten memories he dared not dwell upon too deeply. Knowing already how foolish he was to know what he knew, and still refuse to follow in his mother's footsteps, embracing an Adept class all but made for him.

Because here he was, without even a class to call his own and shivering at the howl of wolves he dreaded to hear, knowing just how foolish he was, and exactly what he'd do when the night broke out in the crack of gunfire and a handful of desperate shouts...

And the sonorous chant of a witch.

A girl who had sung far sweeter songs in his arms, just hours ago.

Jack's heart lurched in his chest when disciplined volleys and a hotblooded captains orders became the disorganized shots of panicked men.

"Save your fire! Line your targ—"

Words cut off with a woman's cry.

And Jack didn't even care what a fool he was being as he leaped off his mare, guttural words in the back of his throat covering his head and torso in crimson armor with not one but two full-sleeved gauntlets covering his arms, 40 mana points instantly reserved as he slipped through the trees, racing as fast as he could in the direction of those shouts and yells.

And, moments later, screams.