The deafening sound of the 30-minutes-before-sunrise bell startled Midday to his senses. Seeing as the sun had yet to peak over the horizon, the cabin’s interior was dark and damp with morning humidity. Midday brushed off some bugs crawling along his chest and sat up, finding his body still somewhat weaker than usual.

Besides himself, there were two other people in the cabin. Gork still in bed, struggling through the process of waking up, while another person—Glauster Fogson was his name—had clearly been up for a while. As the unofficial chef of the cabin, he was in the process of getting a fire going so that he could start making breakfast. Midday noticed that he had the already skinned corpses of two rabbits laid out on a wooden tray beside him.

“Morning.” Glauster struck his flint and steel together several times, apparently not having much luck with the ordeal. “Good job surviving yesterday.” He struck the flint a few more times, generating a few sparks with each strike, but none of them landed in just the right way necessary to get a fire going. “The logs got wet.” He hopped up onto his feet and grabbed an opaque glass bottle off the otherwise vacant bed of Romulo, who was the fourth roommate. He poured out some of the liquid onto the logs and then, with the very next strike, got a fire going. “That lit easier than I thought. Must be distilled. Whiskey, I think.” Glauster sighed. “Wonder where the hell he got it.”

“Probably won it in a fight. They make whiskey here, don't they? Probably not all that hard to come by if you know where to look."

“Probably so.” Glauster placed a pot full to the brim with water into the fireplace. “I hear you’ve got a meeting with Jenjo today.”

“Yeah.” Midday drew a deep breath. “He’ll probably make me spin the wheel.”

“Ah.” Glauster looked over his shoulder at Midday. “I suppose I’ll be praying for your luck then.” He tossed handful of flour into the pot. “Think you’ll live?”

“Yeah.” Midday frowned. “He would be doing me a favor if he killed me, no? That’s why he won’t do it.”

"Interesting thought process.”

“Thanks.” Midday stood up and started toward the door. “How long would you say we have until breakfast today?”

“Something like 20 minutes. Why?”

“I wanted to know if I had time to take a walk. Looks like I do.”

“Wait!” Gork, who had been sitting in bed, fingers combing through his long hair, spoke, “You ought to stay in bed and rest!”

“Yeah, but I need some time to think.” Midday stepped outside before Gork could respond.

The cabin in which Midday and the others lived was only a small part of a much bigger settlement tucked away within the shady confines of an otherwise untamed forest. Hundreds of rudimentary cabins, each decades old and in varying states of disrepair formed a neighborhood of sorts, and there were already dozens of slaves running to and from the drinking wells to fill their pots with the water necessary to make their breakfast stews. Things would get even busier in the coming hour as people started heading out for work, and it was that knowledge that had encouraged Midday to get outside as soon after waking up as he had.

Midday wanted to test his ring, and he absolutely could not afford to be seen doing it. Fortunately, seeing as the undergrowth surrounding the slave encampment was always incredibly thick no matter how often people tried to clear it, he was confident that he could covertly slip out beyond the confines of the settlement and test it under the cover of the surrounding vegetation.

He walked along the dirt road, trying to look as normal as possible, until he at last came to a stretch of the street where nobody was walking. Without hesitation, he threw himself into the tall thornbushes that lined the edges the settlement and slowly worked his way through them. The bushes existed mainly to deter monsters from entering the encampment and so Midday was unsurprised that it took him several minutes to get through them unscathed.

It became apparent upon reaching the other side that the area beyond the thornbushes was not meant for human traversal: a thick layer of underbrush—composed of roots, fallen branches, and small shrubs—went all the way up to his knees and filled the area as far as he could see. Each step he took had to be careful so as to not trip or rub against thorns. It took him a few minutes of hobbling deeper into the wilderness before he finally felt as though he was far enough away from everyone else to safely test the ring. Aware that his time was limited, he quickly slipped it onto his finger.

“Effect Added. Elvanerean Ring: Accelerates growth of any plant the user points at by one year. Can be used 3 times per day.”

A stupid grin spread across his face upon hearing the voice. He still struggled to fathom the fact that he was wearing a special-grade item and, as he gazed at the ring on his finger with the excited eyes of a young child about to unwrap a present. All he needed now was a target to use the ring on. He surveyed the area, looking for something interesting on which he might test its power.

There was no shortage of plants in the area—in fact, there were practically all he could see—but the sheer abundance of options made choosing all that much more difficult. He ruled out the trees and shrubs as too dull to match the exoticness of the ring. He knew that he technically had three charges and therefore didn’t necessarily need to be overly stringent about making the decision, but he wanted to save as many charges as possible in the event that he somehow obtained some Devil Peppercorn seeds by the end of the day.

“One charge it is then. Hmm…” He narrowed it down to two choices. The first was a blackberry bush that would probably bear enough fruit to make for a full meal if he used the ring on it but, seeing as he had less than an hour before his torture session with Jenjo, his appetite wasn’t very strong to begin. The second option, which was the one he ended up choosing after some thought, was a simple flower that caught his eye for its vibrant yellow color: a sunflower.

Midday had always liked sunflowers. They reminded him both of the sun and of his family name. He found it curious to see that the sunflower he was looking at lived in such a shady area, evidently not in its ideal environment, and he found himself relating to its unending toil to survive despite its impossible circumstances. “Might as well give it a boost.”

He pointed his pinky finger out at the sunflower for a few seconds, unsure of what to expect. The engravings on the ring then began to glow green. So it really is legit… Midday kept pointing at the sunflower, still unsure of if anything had happened. Finally, after about additional ten seconds of waiting for something to happen, a burst of green energy shot out of Midday’s fingertip and flew into the sunflower with the speed of an arrow. “Woah!” Midday, his hands now trembling in surprise, glanced at the ring. It had already returned to its inert state. “Did it… work?”

He looked to the sunflower for answers. Sure enough, it had already begun to grow. The speed was astounding, with every passing second seeming to add several inches of height and a few additional leaves to the plant. It continued growing about thirty seconds before the transformation stopped abruptly as it had started. The sunflower had gone from a little sprout no taller than his knees to a massive, blooming flower that was taller he was in only half a minute.

Midday felt his heart beating wildly in his chest as he let out a round of giddy laughter. The Elvanerean Ring was the real deal, he had absolutely no doubts about that now. If word got out that he had something like this, Jenjo or any other supervisor that caught wind of it would undoubtedly have him executed. But why did I, of all people, find this? He had no good guesses besides maybe divine intervention but, regardless of the reason, it didn’t really matter. What did matter, however, was how he was going to use it. He knew that he absolutely had to get his hands on at least one of the agricultural treasures as soon as possible—preferably Devil Peppercorn, as Gork had suggested—but any of them would do.

He knelt down next to the sunflower, took off the ring, and buried in the topsoil beside the plant. Better to keep it here than in my pocket. Less chance of getting caught that way. He sighed upon standing up and stepping away from the ring. What awaited him next was literal torture at the hands of Jenjo followed by figurative torture in the fields. His excitement faded as he pondered the coming day, but all would be well so long as he survived yet another day.