Whatever it was that was rapidly approaching Beth had to engage with it. Beth knew she had to think fast to get in the way of whatever was coming. Worst case scenario at least she’d die quickly to this dust cloud than slowly to nature. She pulled out one of her shirts, it’s colour a stark contrast to the greens around her. She then took herself into the centre of the road and began to wave the shirt aggressively over her head, shouting at what was now apparent to be a cart.

Luckily the cart driver wasn’t the type to run over people in the road and slowed her horse to a stop. Beth let out a small gulp at this, for better or worse her plan had worked and as the driver stepped down she braced herself to deal with the consequences.

The woman to stepped off the cart cut an imposing figure. She was the general size and shape of a door though she was however more or less humanoid. Noticeable differences, beyond her standing at almost 8 feet high, included a slight blue tinge to her flesh, rather than the colours Beth would expect. The figure also only had three digits on each hand with no sign of this being a result of mutilation. Finally their hair didn’t seem to grow from their scalp, instead she had a large bald patch that from where Beth was standing appeared tattooed. Though she couldn’t properly tell due to the massive height differences.

The thing that really made her tremble though, that made her second guess almost all her decisions that led her to this point was the information floating just above the figures head [Summer’s Caress Stephanie Groundfellow, 22].

She was level 22, quadruple the level of Beth. Beth couldn’t even imagine the strength such a thing would offer her or the abilities the woman would possess. As Stephanie approached Beth took an involuntary step back, meaning the lantern's light still hadn’t quite reached her.

“Who goes there?” Stephanie’s voice was naturally booming to Beth’s ears. “Why are you so far out alone at night? Has your wagon been overturned?”

Beth stepped into the light nervously. Did she have anything to offer that this woman would want, it seemed unlikely? Entering the light and getting closer to Stephanie Beth felt herself starting to overheat. Her stress combined with the heat of the pain was boiling her blood.

Further being close to this woman caused this to increase further though Beth didn’t know if that was due to something about Stephanie or her stress at the level difference raising her body temperature.

For her part Stephanie had an expression of absolute shock.

“What do you think you are doing being out here all alone. Look at you! Where are your parents? Your guardian? It’s not safe for you out here. You wouldn’t be here on a Trial, I know that for sure that would be too cruel. Don’t tell me you ended up here randomly. That would be mighty unlucky for you. No wait…” Stephanie continued to theorise without thinking to ask Beth for any clarity. In turn Beth stood their awkwardly, trying to not actively grimace from the pain that was flooding her system from her leg. In the stress she’d put more pressure on it than she intended and now she was paying the price. Stephanie eventually ran out of steam and still not seeing Beth’s broken leg came to a decision.

“Right well you can’t stay here you’ll die.” She stated matter of factly. “So I’ll give you a lift to Blutworth, hopefully from there you can survive until you have the ability to leave again. Please tell me you have the shop unlocked.” Without asking permission or even addressing Beth further she lifted Beth up with one hand. She was at the very least gentle setting her down between two bags of produce. Handling her as one might handle an ancient china doll as though scared she could break Beth, which Beth was sure she could. She then whipped the reins and they were off.

Stephanie didn’t make conversation with Beth and in fact seemed to generally have forgotten about her existence. Beth just sat there in the dark glad to be heading towards civilisation at speed. She was more than a little concerned about the level of Stephanie, if everybody such a high level, she wouldn’t stand a chance. She’d been a large fish in a small pond back home and she was feeling rapidly humbled. What could she offer these people for help with finding Pete or even with fixing her leg. She didn’t cry any further though. She had no more tears to shed by this point but she continued to despair. Nothing was going how she expected. It was in these dark thoughts, alone in the dark among the vegetables that she drifted off to sleep.

Beth was startled awake by a flooding of light, Stephanie was peering at her through the entrance of the back of the wagon squinting slightly.

“Hello you haven’t died back there have you? Damn, I knew the bumps were too aggressive.”

“No no I’m good,” Beth said her voice coming out as a slight croak.

“Okay good, time to get out now, I’ve got to continue on, but hopefully you can scrape by here or a while heading home. Or before taking a Trial if you can’t afford such a thing. Beth crawled her way out of the wagon giving Stephanie her profuse thanks. As her eyes adjusted to the light her surroundings weren’t dissimilar to those of Leeds. Though the buildings were clearly more robust and better made. Similar materials though, just larger.

The people though were what really took Beth’s breath away. She saw nobody lower than level 20 and most were in the high 20s. Some have even just about crested 30. They had titles not dissimilar to her own. Nothing boring or basic, in fact all the titles were closer to her Solarslut title. No clear job indicators were to be seen here. Beth didn’t know what she would be able to offer these people, but she’d have to try.

Beth thanked Stephanie once more and watched as the cart continued on, leaving her alone once more. She slowed hobbled herself out of the road to stand by one of the buildings. People here moved quickly and with purpose and Beth could do neither, nor did she currently have a practical purpose. She was quickly coming to terms with how little she’d thought through this whole so called rescue mission, if anything she now needed rescuing. One of the buildings as she surveyed the square had a large red cross on, something Beth associated with healing and doctors. She hobbled over trying to stay out of everybody’s way. For the most part people stayed out of her way, clearing a path for her as she hobbled forward. Many people who saw her did a double take, clearly shocked somebody so low levelled was out and about. She reached the door to what she had experimentally labelled the hospital and timidly knocked. There was no reaction but then again this town was loud. Everybody spoke like Stephanie had, loud booming voices that caused her to wince. She hadn’t seen anybody whisper yet but couldn’t imagine them being able to be quiet if they wanted to. And when they shouted? Well Somebody shouted near Beth as she travelled across and she’d had to to sit on the ground as she’d lost all sense of hearing and direction for a couple seconds following that. It had felt like a sonic boom.

Keeping all that in mind Beth pulled back her staff and wobbling slight without the support thrust it into the door with full power. Unsurprisingly it didn’t make a mark on the door despite the aggression. It did seem to work though as somebody boomed from the inside inviting her in. With her empty hand she attempted to push the door open but it didn’t give easily. Taking advantage of both of her hands and her shoulder she put the bulk of her weight against the door and forced it open. Stumbling slightly as the door finally shifted before her weight. Beth made her way in and approached the desk ahead of her. The man behind the desk wasn’t paying too much attention he was furiously scribbling something down. When he saw Beth though he let out an audible gasp.

“How are you standing? Look at that level.” Then he let out a larger gasp. “Look at that LEG. Sit down quickly quickly, l’ll look at that for you right now.”

Beth made her way in and sat in front of the desk and the man, [Empowered healer Jonathan Quigsley, 26]. His title was by far the most exciting thing about him. Otherwise he was shockingly generic for somebody of a completely different species to her. He had the type of face she was sure she wouldn’t be able to pick out of a crowd even if she spent hours with him.

At the very least it implied he was good at healing people, something Beth was currently in desperate need of.

Jonathan was generally fascinated by Beth treating her almost like a specimen as he examined her “You are just so fragile, your level and age combo is incredible. Are you alone?” He looked around “Okay then. Well most of my treatments won’t be supported by your body. You just don’t have enough mana to withstand the procedure. We do however have options. Let me know your budget and we can see what we can do for you. In the mean time, chew on this. It should help with the pain. Free of charge.”

The man reached into his bag and pulled out a bottle filled with a green tangle not dissimilar to seaweed. He pulled off a chunk and passed it across to Beth. It was wet to the touch and denser than Beth was expecting. It was pretty much the last thing she’d want to stick in her gob but she was also still in pain and was willing to trust this doctor. Especially given she didn’t really have any money that could help in this situation. People with such high levels were unlikely to have less money than she had.

The pain began to recede as she chewed, being replaced with an acute numbness that seemed to effect only the specific area of her leg that had previously been in such pain. She was more than a little impressed.

“I don’t have a lot of money on me I’m afraid.” Beth said carefully emptying out her meagre coin purse onto the doctor’s desk.

Seeing the amount he let out a sharp laugh before covering his mouth and pretending it was a cough. “Wow, and you have nobody here looking after you? That wouldn’t buy you a room for the night, let alone cover any of my treatments. I guess I could offer you a loan but that doesn’t seem like a good idea...” He trialled off but Beth leaped on it.

“No I’ll take a loan, please I can’t do anything like this.” She gestured at her leg.

His eyes took on a slight predatory glint as he pulled out a contract. “Our cheapest plan, which would be a cast and relying on natural healing, is the only one I’d feel comfortable offering. Anything fancier and your chance of making payment would shrink to zero. I’d need the equivalent of 30 gold over the next year that’s two and a half gold per month. If you fail to make these payments within a week of the deadline twice in this time period you are legally obligated to work for me at a rate set by a third party. But that lasts no longer than a year per for every remaining gold owed.

Beth gulped. This was a bad deal. A really bad deal. In fact it was one of the worst she’d seen, worst case scenario that was 30 years of what was equivalent to slavery. She knew that, from the look in the doctor’s eyes he knew she knew that. Unfortunately he also knew she had no real choice. In a last ditch effort she tried something else.

“I can offer Credits, I’m sure I could offer enough of them to reach an agreement.” The doctors eyes lit up for a second before dimming again.

“Unfortunately the exchange of Credits is banned planetwide on pain of death. It’s to stop people being taken advantage of.”

Beth rolled her eyes at this. She was being taken advantage of but it was that or hobble back out and try to fend for herself. Without the Credits being involved she had nothing to offer at all and as such she had no choices here. She took the pen offered to her by the doctor and with no clear alternative choices held the pen aloft ready to sign her name.