Petros let the world fall away and slipped into meditation. When Jack evolved, he said the shift felt like stepping inside his own spirit realm and being handed a short list of impossible choices. Petros waited for that clean slide and got something else.

  This felt like a lucid dream. Images stuttered past, jumbled and out of order. A young man’s face was unfamiliar to him. A name that rang like a bell, he could not speak, as if his mouth had forgotten how to shape it. Jack, somewhere far off, accepting a basic quest.

  A voice cut through the fog. Petros had never heard it, yet he knew it at once. Jack had spoken of meeting this presence when the Demon God dragged him into the Inbetween. The voice sounded rushed, like someone trying to pass a note through a closing door. Instructions came in quick, clipped phrases. Meaning gathered for a heartbeat, then the light went out.

  He opened his eyes inside his spirit realm.

  Here, the air tasted like old stone and rain. The usual thread that let him sense his body and the camp beyond was gone. Jack had warned him about that part. During evolution, the tether cut clean, so no stray touch could yank you back wrong. This was why Jack stood guard.

  Petros let the worry about the voice drift to the edge of thought. Trust first. Work second.

  Choices rose from the ground like carved pillars, each glowing with a different seam of Myriad. The thread is shaping into Ward. Resonance braiding with Stone. Lattice singing low, asking for structure. He walked among them with his hands behind his back, reading the edges the way Eamon had taught him. One path promised reach. Another promised precision. A third hummed like a lock that wanted a key.

  “Alright,” he said to the quiet, steadying his breath. “Time to evolve my skills”

  He set his palm to the first option and began.

  Jack watched Petros sink into the deep stillness that meant the work had begun. A dark ichor beaded at Petros’s eyes, nose, and mouth, the impurities Myriad would drive out of his body. The smell was sharp and wrong. Jack stayed where he was anyway. After a few minutes, he shifted to the other half of the tent, close enough to reach Petros in one step. Close enough to catch him if he thrashed.

  An hour in, a prickle ran along Jack’s skin. “Not again,” he murmured. Lightning gathered over his knuckles, a quiet field rather than a shout, and he stepped to the tent’s opening.

  The flap faced the clearing. The back wall was almost pressed against the great oak. A figure detached from the treeline two hundred meters out, not hiding, not hurrying. Tall and very thin. Black cloak. A hat like a fedora with a brim so wide it threw its own shadow twice. Hands and face wrapped in a dark cloth. A large bird rode on one shoulder.

  Crow, Jack thought. Then corrected himself. Raven.

  The stranger came on with empty hands shown. Peace, at least in posture. Jack did not relax. By feel alone, he knew this was one of the thirteen who had reached C-tier.

  He took a single step and crossed the distance to a polite two meters.

  “Hello, Skylar,” he said.

  “Jack Hart,” they answered.

  Jack rolled his eyes. “Why does everyone use my full name?”

  He could not see a face, but he felt the smile.

  “I go by Raven now,” they said, as if the name were a test.

  “No,” Jack said mildly. “I already have a friend named Raven.”

  The smile dipped, returned. “Very well. Though you should not be so free with the list of people you value.”

  Lightning cracked once across Jack’s knuckles.

  “What do you want, Skylar?”

  A soft click of the tongue. “Split the difference. Call me Rave.”

  “Rave it is.”

  “I am here to challenge you,” they said, blunt as a hammer.

  “Seriously?” Jack asked, more tired than angry. “What is with the line that has formed to punch me?”

  “You should understand this. Many wish to test the first. To measure themselves against the great Jack of Harts.”

  “I have no interest in fighting you,” Jack said. “Or anyone else.”

  “You are not curious to see how far you have climbed?”

  “Not even a little,” Jack said, without a beat.

  Rave stood in thoughtful silence. “I chose this place because it is far from town. I know you were approached already. Others will try.”

  “Of course,” Jack said, spreading his hands.

  “I have patience,” Rave went on. “I will not strike first, and I will not threaten your friends.”

  Power flared around Jack at the word friends. Rave lifted both hands again.

  “I mean, others might,” they said quickly. “Ambition grows with level. So does pride.”

  Jack let the field fall. He had known this was coming from the moment the portals began to work and people started to believe in borders again.

  “I would rather we were allies,” Rave said. “We can always spar someday, properly. Your aims sound like mine. Order. Community.”

  Jack knew of Jovish. Far to the west. Quiet. Building.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  He stepped closer and offered his hand. “Then let us start there. If you plan to visit Anjelica, send word first. Asil has enough to manage without a surprise C-tier at the gate.”

  “Thank you,” Rave said, clasping his hand. Their grip was steady, dry, and very cold. “I appreciate the courtesy.”

  “Another time we can see what you can do,” Jack said. “Not here. This place matters. And my friend needs me.”

  Rave’s smile showed through the cloth at last. Their body unraveled into black wings and sharp cries. A flock rose where a person had stood, wheeled once over the oak, and kited north until the trees swallowed them.

  “An unkindness,” Jack said to himself, trying the old word for a gathering of ravens. He watched the sky until it was empty, then turned back into the tent and to the work that mattered.

  The tent flap fell shut behind Jack, and his journal thrummed against his palm, a low, familiar pulse he’d come to think of as a heartbeat that wasn’t his. The little bronze-hued tome slipped from his dimensional pouch into his hand at a thought. Since his breakthrough, it had changed with him: heavier, finer, filigree along the spine like strands of Myriad worked into metal.

  They had long guessed the journals were gifts of a new god born with Myriad, a god of Stories that dressed guidance up as “systems.” Helpful. Maddening.

  A fresh page uncurled.

  Find the prince.

  That was it. No marker. No timer. No flavor text.

  “What the hell,” Jack murmured, thumbing back through earlier entries. Nothing more. The words sat there like a thrown stone.

  Petros stirred.

  Jack closed the book, filed the quest cold and hard in the back of his mind, and crossed to his friend.

  “Did anyone get the license plate of that truck?” Petros croaked, squinting at the slice of daylight.

  “That’ll pass,” Jack said, hauling him gently upright, and then a half-step back. “Shower first.” He nodded toward the corner rig: tank, rune pump, a hose, and enough privacy to keep dignity mostly intact.

  Petros sniffed once, grimaced, and vanished under the water. “Jack, this is important,” he called between lather and rinse. “I… had a dream before I went under.”

  Jack’s head tilted. That put a crease in his certainty; no one he knew had dreamed on the way down. “We’ll get to it,” he said, interest sharp now. “Dry off.”

  By the time Petros stepped out, toweling his hair, Jack had a folding table open and a careful spread laid out, breastplates, greaves, gauntlets, helms, C-tier work from a dozen dungeons, each piece chosen because it might fit a different build.

  “What’s this?” Petros asked, eyes widening.

  “Happy evolution day,” Jack said. “I didn’t know what your kit would favor, so I brought a little of everything.”

  Petros whistled low, fingertips hovering over etched rune-lines and good stitching. He chose a chest piece, pants, gauntlets, and a circlet-style headpiece, balanced stats, room to grow, then ducked behind the screen. He emerged a moment later, fitting a strap, the armor sitting like it had been waiting for him.

  “Snazzy,” Jack said, arms folding, grin easy. “Raven is going to swoon.”

  Color touched Petros’s cheekbones; he pretended it hadn’t. “Okay. Stand back. I don’t know how this one… looks,” he said, ready to show off one of his newly evolved skills.

  Jack took a pace. Petros drew on Myriad. A sigil flared to life under his boots, with clean lines, three interlocking arcs, and the air over it condensed. Light took on shape: a blue-skinned woman with small curved horns, a long tail, pointed ears, and digitigrade legs furred from the thigh down.

  “Stars, Petros, she’s naked.”

  Startled, Petros snatched a clean blanket from the bedding and swung it around her shoulders. Jack stepped in, quick and gentle, knotting it secure. The fur on her lower half covered most of what modesty complained about; the rest was now decent enough for introductions.

  “I didn’t know what I would summon,” Petros said, both mortified and fascinated. “It’s a new Companion ability.”

  “Raven is going to tan your hide,” Jack said, unable to help the grin.

  Petros froze. “I… can’t change who I summon.”

  Jack studied the newcomer. “Looks like a Faun, blue variant. Good omen or bad fashion choice, we’ll see.”

  The summoned woman blinked once, eyes a deep river color, then inclined her head to Petros with serene patience, as if she’d been waiting a long time to be called.

  The blue faun studied Petros with new, intent eyes. “What do you wish of me, master?”

  Petros recoiled. “Please call me Petros. That is a non-starter.”

  “Yes, master Petros.”

  He dragged a hand down his face. Jack stepped in, dry as ever. “I think the kid would like you to use his name.”

  “Oh?” the faun said. “I cannot. The master must order it.”

  Petros coughed. Jack tilted his head. “What does he need to say for you to drop the ‘master’ business?”

  “He must order me.”

  Petros straightened. “I order you to call me Petros. Not ‘master.’”

  The faun inclined her head. “As you wish, Sir Petros.”

  Jack produced a folded blouse and skirt from his satchel. “Try these.” He caught her hand when she began to shrug off the blanket. “Privacy,” he added, nodding at the curtain.

  She vanished behind it and returned a moment later, clothed and composed.

  “Table the rest for later,” Jack said. “Can you dismiss her?”

  Petros winced. “Not exactly. She despawns on death with a one-day cooldown. I would rather not test that.”

  “Agreed,” Jack said. “Ask her to sit quietly and listen.”

  Petros nodded to her. The faun padded to a corner and settled, patient as carved stone.

  “Alright,” Jack said, humor giving way to focus. “Tell me about the dream.”

  Petros gathered the strands. “The details slip when I reach for them, but the certainty is still there. It felt urgent. The voice was Lucien’s.”

  Jack’s attention sharpened. “You have never spoken to him before.”

  “No, but I knew the voice. It was like remembering someone you met once at the end of the world.” He drew a breath. “He said you would receive a quest.”

  “Find the prince,” Jack said.

  Petros blinked. “You already got it?”

  “Just before you woke.”

  “Then this matters,” Petros said. “You need to go west. Soon. You need to keep the quest quiet. Lucien did not give reasons. I think he could not. What came through felt like… constraints. Like an oath. He broke something about a year ago to help someone, and he is still paying for it. This was the most he could risk without drawing notice.”

  Jack leaned back a fraction, weighing it. “Notice from whom?”

  “I do not know. But the feeling was clear. If the quest is spoken of widely, it tangles. If too many strong strands pull at it, something else pulls back.” Petros met his eyes. “He wants you to travel alone. No escort. No show of force. He was very clear on that part.”

  Jack nodded once. It fit the Journal’s bare line. It fit Lucien’s habit of telling the truth in the only shape he was allowed. “I will not keep this from Asil,” he said. “She is my wife.”

  “Of course,” Petros said. “Inside our circle is safe. Beyond that, less so. And we need to be quick.”

  Jack studied him. “You think you are ready to move?”

  Petros stared at the floor and fought the sting behind his eyes. “No. He said it has to be you. Only you. I wanted… I thought that after my breakthrough, we would go back to the way things were before. But this is different.”

  “That serious,” Jack said, not a question.

  Petros nodded.

  Jack pulled him into a hard, brief hug. “Then we move now. We can still catch the late window from Pendle. We cannot override from an Anchor.”

  Petros and his faun stepped outside into the clearing. Jack touched the tent with a thought. Canvas, cots, table, and gear unraveled into motes and slid into his satchel. He set his cap, looked once at the great oak that had watched them both change, and then fell in beside his friend.