54: Iron Hills, Wanqing
Wanqing logged in at 8:00 PM IRL with the small *I am here* ping.
I logged in at 8:02 with the small *and I* answer. The bond aura — pale gold, the *light* glyph thread — found her at the Iron Hills west zone-gate at the end of the second waiting beat. She had come up the eastern road from her own dorm-pod node in Suzhou to the Jianghai-server's Iron Hills west zone-gate over the previous twenty IRL minutes. She had on the dark cloak and the leather archer's bracer and the small narrow Iron Hills-region quiver Yu Tieshou had had Hammer Lao re-lacquer for her at the founding-feast Friday with the small in-game pale-gold thread laid into the lacquer at the rim.
She did not, when I rendered, turn from the zone-gate.
She said: "The mastery node is at the second cleft. It opens at 8:20. I want to be at the cleft mouth at 8:14."
"All right."
"You will hold the cleft mouth. I will run the node alone. The node is solo or duo — I am running it solo because the duo path gives a smaller mastery weight."
"All right."
"You will not, when the second wave at the cleft mouth comes through, kill them in under two seconds each. They will look at you sideways if you do."
"All right."
"You will hold them. You will let them push. You will not, however, let them past."
"All right."
She turned. The pale-gold thread at the eight-centimeter mark brightened the small fraction. She looked at me a beat longer than the practical look took. Then she turned back and started up the path at the brisk walk.
We climbed the north ridge.
The Iron Hills north ridge in the launch-week-plus-three-months mid-tier window was a quiet zone — most adventurers in the Lv 25 to Lv 28 band took the eastern path because the eastern path had the higher drop tables. The ridge took the patient ones. Wanqing had been the patient one in two timelines, and she was the patient one in this one. She walked the ridge ahead of me at the cadence she walked all ridges: the steady one-meter-twenty stride that did not change for the steepness or for the wind, the small sideways glance every fifty meters at a small detail of the terrain — a moved stone, a fresh game track, the angle of a small fallen branch — that registered without commentary.
I watched her from three paces back and tried to remember whether she had always walked exactly like this or whether I had simply not been paying attention in the old timeline. The answer, when it came, was the kind of answer I had been arriving at too often since launch-week: both.
The ridge rose at the moderate grade the first-month-patch survey had seeded with the small careful mix of loose scree and exposed root-rock that made a certain kind of adventurer careless. Wanqing was not careless. She stepped each root-rock the way she stepped difficult terrain in general — weight low, the centre of gravity over the balls of the feet, the bow arm swung back slightly to counterbalance the incline. The third-month patch had added wind at the second ridge turn. The wind came off the high northern crags at the angle that guttered torch-light and kicked up the fine grey Iron Hills dust. Wanqing did not break stride for the wind. She adjusted her hat-brim by a fraction. She kept walking.
The ridge had, on this server's launch-week, exactly three adventurers running it per evening. By the three-month patch the number was eleven. By the seven-month patch, which I could see coming, the number would climb to forty. The drop table shift that came with the seventh-month patch would bring the crowd. Right now it was quiet. That was one of the things I had come back knowing to use, and it still felt like an unfair advantage every time I used it.
At the second cleft mouth at 8:13:50 she stopped.
She turned.
She said, "You see the small bird at the rock above the cleft."
"Yes."
"It will not, when the node opens, fly. It is part of the node decor."
"All right."
"The waves are: small wolves at minute one — a pack of four. Then two minutes' clear. Then the cleft-spiders at minute four — a swarm of about twelve. Then four minutes' clear. Then the cleft-bear at minute ten. The bear has a one-shot frontal swipe. Don't take the swipe. Step the angle."
"All right."
"At minute twelve the node closes. I come back through the cleft mouth on the western lip and we walk down."
"All right."
She raised the bow off her shoulder. She nocked a small training arrow — a courtesy, not a shot. She walked into the cleft.
The small bird at the rock above the cleft did not fly.
I sat down at the cleft mouth on the small flat stone Yu Tieshou's recon had marked on Wanqing's map at 1:8000 last night. I drew the heavy blade across my knees.
I waited.
The Iron Hills at the cleft mouth in late-October in-game dusk had the smell the third-month-patch olfactory-bank had added to the north-ridge zone: cold iron-oxide from the lichen on the upper rocks, the dry-grass note from the scrub at the shelf below, and under both of them the faint animal warmth of the cleft itself. I had walked past this cleft in the old timeline without stopping, on the main path, at level fifteen, looking for drop tables. The flat stone had been here then too. I had not sat on it.
At minute one — 8:21 — the four small Iron Hills wolves came through the cleft mouth in the small disorganized rush small Iron Hills wolves came through cleft mouths in. I did not, as instructed, kill them in under two seconds each. I held them at the lateral angle — taking each one by the small turn of the blade at the upper shoulder, letting them push, letting them spend a small careful eight to twelve seconds on the engagement before the small final cut. The pack went down at minute one and forty-two seconds.
I sat back down. I cleaned the blade on the small cloth in the belt-pouch.
At minute four the cleft-spiders came.
There were eleven, not twelve. They came in the small tactical wedge cleft-spiders came in: two scouts forward at three meters, the main body at five, two slow ones at the rear at seven. I held them at the cleft mouth's outer angle — the angle the geometry of the cleft mouth made smallest for them and widest for me. I did not, when the main body collapsed onto the lateral, accelerate. I let them push. I let them try, as cleft-spiders did, the small ankle-rush. I stepped the rush. The eleventh went down at minute four and fifty-eight seconds.
I sat back down.
From the cleft, faint — Wanqing's bowstring, the small dry release the launch-week-plus-three-months bowstring made when the third arrow on a node ring had gone through clean. The mastery-node arrows were silent at impact; only the release made the sound. By the third release I knew she was at the third ring of the node's seven.
At minute seven the bond aura brightened the small fraction it brightened when the ringside engine acknowledged a *clean ring* event. At minute seven and forty seconds it brightened again. At minute eight and twelve seconds again.
She was running the node clean.
Between the brightening beats the cleft mouth was quiet. The small bird above the cleft was still on its rock. I looked at the shelf below — the scrub-grass at the base of the eastern wall, the dark line of the game trail running west toward the far pass. In the old timeline I had not known any of this was here. I had been fast and oblivious and I had, at every step, believed that being fast was the same as being ahead. It was a position I understood now only by its absence.
At minute ten the cleft-bear came.
It came through the cleft mouth at the slow heavy four-step amble bears came through cleft mouths in. It saw me at the small flat stone. It paused. It snorted the small sound the cleft-bear sound-bank had been seeded with at the second-month patch. It raised its head.
It charged.
I did not — as instructed — take the frontal swipe. I stepped the angle on the second step of the bear's charge — left foot back at thirty degrees, right foot rotating on the ball at sixty, blade up at the throat-line angle the launch-week bestiary had laid out for the cleft-bear's neck-armor gap. The bear's swipe went through the air at the spot I had just been. Its momentum carried it three meters past the cleft mouth. I came in at its right shoulder. The blade went into the gap. The bear came down at minute ten and twenty-four seconds.
*Ding!* [System Notification: Cleft Bear (Lv 26) felled. EXP +480, Gold +6.]
I sat back down.
I cleaned the blade.
At minute eleven and forty-eight seconds the bond aura brightened in the way it brightened when the ringside engine acknowledged the seventh and final ring of a seven-ring node.
At 8:42 PM IRL Wanqing came back through the cleft mouth on the western lip.
She was — at the small visible level the bond-aura register read for both of us — out of breath. She had her bow across her back and the small training arrow back in the quiver. The small Iron Hills mid-tier mastery glyph on the inside of her left wrist had gained the third pale-gold sub-band.
She looked at the cleft-bear at the cleft mouth.
She said, "You stepped the angle."
"I stepped the angle."
"The eleven spiders went down in fifty-eight seconds. The four wolves in one-forty-two. You did not under-two-second any of them."
"I did not."
She nodded once.
She sat down on the small flat stone beside me — close, but with the small eight-centimeter gap. She drank from the small leather waterskin she had in the belt-pouch. She passed me the waterskin. I drank. I passed it back.
The third pale-gold sub-band on the inside of her wrist caught the ambient light the way the bond aura caught it — the same registry, the same pale-gold. I had, in the old timeline, never noticed that. I noticed it now only because I had been given the time to look. She had earned that sub-band the hard way tonight — seven rings clean, alone, with me at the cleft mouth keeping pace. In the old timeline she had never made it to the Iron Hills mid-tier node at all. A lot of things had been different in the old timeline. Not all of them in directions I could call better.
She said, "Two more weeks until Lv 30. Don't go before me."
"I won't."
"You could. You have the XP differential. You have the small specific equipment differential. You have, by the small specific Wei-line cache items, the promotion cache. You could be at Lv 30 in five days."
"I know."
"You will not."
"I will not."
She looked at me sideways.
She said: "Why."
I considered it.
I said: "Because I came back to a world where I was, at every step of the small specific old timeline, four steps ahead of the people I came up with. The four steps ahead bought me, in the old timeline, the things the four steps ahead always buys. None of those things were the things I came back for."
She did not, for a moment, answer.
She looked at the cleft mouth. The small bird on the rock above it was still there. It would still be there at server reset. It was part of the node decor.
Then she said: "All right."
We sat at the cleft mouth for the rest of the small in-game evening at the eight-centimeter gap. Two further sets of Iron Hills wolves came through at the standard re-spawn timer. I held the cleft mouth at the angle. She watched. She did not, after the third set, comment. At 11:30 PM IRL she stood up. She brushed the small dust off the dark cloak.
She said, "We walk down."
"We walk down."
We walked down.
At the Iron Hills west zone-gate she paused.
She said, "Tomorrow Friday. I will run the Cinnabar Marsh archer node alone. Don't come. The day after Saturday — you and I and Wenqing and Yu Tieshou and Old Wolf will do the second charter scout. The route is south of Greenwood, through the Cinnabar Marsh corridor, back. Wanqing tactical. I have the route at 1:8000 already."
"All right."
"And —"
She stopped.
She looked at me.
She said, "The small bench by the western fountain on Friday night was MoonShadow's. The lab on Wednesday afternoons is the chemistry honors student. I do not, Cangtian, want her at our scout. Not yet. Maybe never. The scout is ours."
"All right."
"I will revisit the maybe-never in a year."
"All right."
She turned and walked down through the zone-gate to her own log-out point.
The bond-aura thread between us shortened to the small single golden line that meant *one of the ends has logged out cleanly* and, at 11:42 PM IRL, brightened once at her end and dimmed.
I logged out at 11:43.
The small mastery node's third sub-band on the inside of her left wrist was, I noted before logging out, the same pale-gold as the bond aura. The launch-week patch had laid those two color-banks at the same registry. I had not, in the old timeline, ever noticed.
In my chest the second voice — *three months* — was quiet.
I slept.