Rem smiled as he settled into bed. The room dimmed to blue as his favorite streamer bloomed across the virtual screen.

  Chief crawled through a maintenance tunnel on his atlas-class IBF, . His shoulders brushed carbon-dark walls, his lamp cutting a narrow cone through the dust. Chief wasn’t just another streamer; he was a world-streamer — one of the few who didn’t play a role so much as a fiction.

  Ahead floated PV, the ship’s system avatar, a chrome sphere lit in shifting blue tides. It spoke to the grizzled custodian in a language of clicks and valve-hisses, pressure sighing through unseen lines. Somehow, Chief always understood.

  “Five more on this side,” he rasped. The cold still clung to his voice from that subzero moon-stop to mine metals.

  PV replied with a long cascade of mechanical chatter. Rem’s eyes flicked to the chat feed — a vertical river of noise. Hardcore fans competed to translate the avatar’s speech: half-confident, half guessing. Sometimes a moderator blur erased whole sentences before they finished forming.

  Then Rem saw it. His handle — — blinking up once, twice, before vanishing downstream.

  “Remind me why we care about leaderboards?” Chief muttered, pulling a coil from its housing. He wiped it clean with slow precision. “Not exactly eager to run into these Union fellas.”

  PV answered with a dry rattle of servos. The fiction held: Chief adrift between stars, a man centuries from any colony. But everyone watching — Rem included — knew he was Moon-born, streaming from his lunar studio. That was the beauty of it. The pretense was the permission. As long as he stayed , he could say anything.

  Rem leaned back, letting the sounds of the ship fill his room — the hum of the reactors, the faint hiss of circulating air. He loved the pace of it. The rhythm of work done right. The calm steadiness of a man tending his small corner of the universe.

  Pure escapism. And something else he didn’t have a word for.

  Chief dropped the cleaned coil into place and fastened it down. “What’re they saying about him?” he asked, moving to the next panel. PV’s clicks rolled on like distant rain.

  “A mystery, then.” Chief pried off another cover.

  The chat fractured into factions: believers who swore he’d earned every win; skeptics who called him a cheat; conspiracy theorists who claimed the Union rigged the data. Zelfstryt’s name rode the current again, lost and found in argument.

  PV’s chatter softened, then stopped.

  Chief turned to the floating orb. “PV, give me the cam.”

  The view shifted. Chief faced the lens squarely now. The tunnel’s work light edged his features in pale gold. His skin — dark, sweat-sheened — carried the weary gloss of someone long accustomed to heat and metal. His hair was close-cropped, military precise, a habit that hadn’t loosened even out here in fiction’s long orbit. Brown eyes met the camera with a steady calm, the kind that spoke of duty rather than performance. A trace of stubble shadowed his jaw, catching the glow from his lamp like fine carbon dust.

  “Zelfstryt,” he said, voice low but carrying, “if you’re watching — keep being you. People need someone to look up to. Strong people who stand against adversity. I salute your efforts.”

  The ship’s hum held the silence after. His eyes didn’t waver. For a second, Rem felt the boundary thin — the man and the myth aligning perfectly on screen.

  Then chat exploded.

  Rem smiled into the dim glow of his room. He had never expected to hear his name spoken , beneath that hum, inside the quiet danger of someone pretending freedom.

  

  FINAL SURGE: Repelled

  The last roar faded. The yard went still.

  Then the shouting began — ragged, half-laughing, half-crying — the kind of sound that came only after a miracle.

  Sweat traced Rem’s spine as he watched the defenders of Madarox lift their arms in joy. The relief across their faces hit him each time the same way. Even Tiny was smiling now — or something close to it.

  The runs had worn the fight out of him. Now he barely glanced through his barracks before coming to wait for the dire wolf’s arrival.

  Rem wiped his face on his sleeve, the fabric heavy with sweat. He lingered by the bucket, dipped his hand, and drank cold water until his breath steadied.

  “Rem!” Penny burst through the crowd, nearly tripping over a crate. Her hair stuck to her forehead, her hands black with soot.

  “Dank you,” she blurted, then bit her lip, eyes darting down. The lisp caught on the word like a hiccup. “I mean, tank you. For, for saving us.”

  He smiled. “You guys did this, Penny. I just watched.”

  She shook her head fast, the grin blooming anyway, that wide gap flashing in the sunlight. “Nuh-uh. You did more’n tat. You made Tiny fight. Nobody makes Tiny fight.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Her laugh cracked, bright and rough. Around them, Captain Voss was hugging Maraget, soldiers cheering, a child waving a broken sword in the air. For once, Madarox felt alive.

  Rem’s throat caught. “I wish I could stay,” he said quietly. “Next time… we’ll celebrate proper, yeah?”

  “Promise?” she asked, nose wrinkling, her s-sound slipping soft through the gap. “You promish?”

  He nodded. “Promise.”

  The glyph stone pulsed, pale and patient. He took one last look at her — the soot on her cheeks, the small light in her eyes — and placed his hand on the stone.

  The world folded. The noise, the heat, the joy — all gone in a blink. The locker awaited.

  Rem exhaled.

  Then he stepped forward, ready to claim his reward.

  From Gesture to Concept: A Survey of the Lesser Traditions (Level 3)

  Unorthodoxies and Heresies. Grade:

  Alpha Wolf’s Hide (Level 4)

  Grade:

  Rem took the book. The chill of it sank past his skin, bone-deep. The leather was drawn taut, holding a weight no stack of pages should. Rings of tarnished metal circled the cover—soft, uneven halos catching the lamplight. Between them, the title shimmered in a language he didn’t know.

  The letters curved with impossible grace, shifting when his eyes lingered too long. Along the spine, the Union script hadn’t been inked or pressed—it had from the leather itself. When he turned it, a drift rose from the grooves. Not dust. Something finer.

  He smelled it before it reached him: metal, parchment, the faint edge of storm. The scent of time unspooling.

  Rem opened the book, his attention caught by his first true glimpse of magic. He strained to focus, catching fragments—chapter marks, diagrams, constellations, illustrated glyphs. But the writing was unreadable. After a moment, he closed it, his enthusiasm fading.

  “Nothing worth learning would be that easy,” he said quietly, breaking the stillness.

  Rem pulled out his journal, found the loot table, and marked down the two new rewards. He glanced at the locker—his growing stash. Three runs a day, dipping only a little into his extra passes. If luck held, he’d find something he could duplicate, something that meant real strength. Not coin, not trade. Power he could use himself. Power enough to stop running from fights.

  He shut the journal, slid it back into his satchel, and left.

  A cold wind cut through him as he stepped out beneath the academy’s arch. It felt like rain was coming. Rem pushed his hands deep into his coat pockets. Around the courtyard, the crowd lingered—too many. That meant the current trial was dragging on.

  He spotted Finn by the stone rail, tablet in hand, brow furrowed as always.

  Finn looked up when he approached. “It worked. The notes you gave me.”

  “Yeah.”

  All Rem had sketched were locations—extra spears, a few arrow bundles. Small things. Trivial. But if Finn managed to deliver them, it would still count toward contribution points. Enough for steady XP. Enough to keep moving.

  Finn shifted, scanning the courtyard like it might bite. “You know, I was in the ninetieth percentile for intelligence before the Union came.”

  Rem nodded. He’d always thought of Finn as the type who studied harder—steady, not brilliant. But maybe that was brilliance now.

  “I get a class bonus for intelligence every level,” Finn went on. “And I heard what you said that day—about Challenge One being a puzzle.”

  “I remember.”

  Rem’s throat tightened. That one would be hard to explain, once his first book dropped.

  Finn’s shoulders sagged. “I’ll be honest. I was angry with you this morning. Thought if you’d said more, maybe Noah—” He stopped. Swallowed. “Maybe he would still be—”

  “You’re not wrong.” Rem looked down. The name still hurt to hear aloud. “I blame myself too.”

  Finn shook his head. “No. If anyone should’ve seen it coming, it was me. I’m supposed to be the smart one. Instead I followed Mara and Eva like everyone else.”

  Silence spread between them. The wind scraped over flagstone, carrying fragments of chatter and boots on stone. They stood shoulder to shoulder, neither ready to move.

  Finn spoke first, nodding toward the rankings board. “Now look at them.”

  Eva and Mara hovered near it, uniforms stained, movements sluggish. Their names slid lower as more passed beneath the arch.

  “Struggling with Challenge Four,” he said.

  Rem watched the glow of the tablet flicker across Finn’s face—blue light slicing through the dark beneath his eyes.

  Finn’s hand tightened around the tablet. “I’m joining them soon. Once I level.”

  “You’re going back to them?”

  “We both should. For Noah.”

  “For Noah?”

  “You know he liked Eva, right?”

  Rem blinked. “Really?”

  “If he were still here, he’d do anything to keep her safe. That’s why he joined our party in the first place.”

  “I heard Challenge Four wasn’t dangerous,” Rem said.

  Finn glanced toward the arch. “Let’s ask them.”

  Rem swallowed but nodded and followed.

  “I brought him,” Finn said as they approached.

  Rem frowned at the phrasing.

  Eva straightened. “You look good, Rem.”

  “Too good. Something isn’t right. You’re practically waltzing through the challenges care-free.” Mara’s voice rasped, her cheeks hollow. Whatever Challenge Four was, it was burning them down from the inside.

  “Just crafting,” Rem said. “It’s slow. Nothing to brag about.”

  “Right. Crafting.” Mara’s tone was all edge and exhaustion.

  “How’s Challenge Four?” he asked.

  Eva exchanged a look with Mara. “You know how you said the challenges were puzzles?”

  “Yeah?”

  “We both think you were right,” Eva said.

  “Challenge Four especially,” Mara added.

  “So what do you say?” Eva asked. “Want to team up? We could use your insight.”

  Finn stayed silent. Apparently, bringing Rem here was his only part.

  “Mara?”

  “I’m not stupid, Rem. You’ve got skills we don’t.” She looked tired enough to crack. “Let’s just try it and see. It’s not like we’re asking you to marry us.”

  Rem laughed softly. No point in taking it too seriously. Still, the thought of running it twice—once with them, once alone—sat uneasily in his chest. Hiding was safer. But silence had cost him before.

  “Okay. But I’ve still got crafting to do on Three. Won’t be done for a week.”

  “Great.” Eva’s relief sounded too bright, almost rehearsed. “We’ll send you a brief on everything we’ve learned about Four.”

  “You’re in too, right Finn?”

  “Yep,” he said. “Us four. Let’s do our best.”

  For a moment, everything felt almost normal again. Then Rem realized—if Noah were still here, he’d be standing beside him. The thought hollowed him out. When the talking ran out, he turned away and walked toward Oldetown. The rain finally began to fall.

  He crossed the bridge, the scent of witch hazel riding the wind that pressed against his coat. His first stop was Tessel’s—a quick check to record what new books had come in. Then The Absolute Retort, where he’d sell off the latest potions. From there, apothecary row, to refill his supplies and restock ingredients.

  This was his rhythm now. His grind. Collect rare loot. Sell duplicates. Learn what he could before the next challenge came calling.