Carlos found the farm before the sun cleared the last of the morning haze. The place looked like a hundred others he had seen over the years: neat rows, mended fences, a barn that had seen work but not neglect. Chickens scratched near the coop. Breath steamed from an ox in the paddock.
Nothing about it said, "Here lives a problem."
Quest Updated
Objective:Secure consent from guardian of anomaly before next gate run.Status:Incomplete.
Carlos clicked his tongue and shoved the faint shimmer of words out of his thoughts.
The barn door opened. Arthur stepped out, wiping his hands on a rag. He wore simple work clothes, but there was a way he carried his shoulders that said the hoe and the hammer were not the only tools he knew how to use.
"You must be Carlos," Arthur said, squinting against the light. "Jacob told me you might come."
Carlos inclined his head.
"Figured it was better than you coming to find me," he said. "Do you have a moment?"
Arthur glanced at the fields, then at the barn, then nodded.
"For this, I do," he said. "Walk with me."
They fell into step along the packed earth between two plots, boots crunching lightly on frost.
"So," Arthur said after a few paces, "how badly did he embarrass himself?"
Carlos huffed.
"He did not," he said. "Your boy stood up to Tamsin for longer than most fresh E ranks manage. Took hits that would have put a normal lad in the healer's care. Stayed calm. Blocked when he should have blocked. Let his armor do what it was made to do."
Arthur's mouth curved, proud and tight.
"He said he lost."
"He did," Carlos said. "He was never going to win that fight. Tamsin has years of experience and tricks your boy has never seen. But losing and being useless are not the same thing."
They walked a few more steps in silence. A crow called from the fence line.
Carlos cleared his throat.
"I am not here to tell you he is weak," he said. "I am here to tell you where I am taking him, if you agree to it."
Arthur's eyes hardened a little.
"The gate."
"Yes," Carlos said. "We are going back in a few days. F rank or not, it can still kill you if you make enough bad choices. People older and stronger than Jacob die in those places. I can keep him behind us. I can make him stay back and watch. I can drag him out if something goes wrong. But there is always a chance I walk out with fewer heads than I walked in with. You understand that."
Arthur was quiet for a long moment.
"I remember monsters on the road," he said at last. "Not the same as a gate, but close enough. You do not plow into a nest without accepting someone might not come back."
He stopped, turned to face Carlos fully.
"I watched him walk out of here yesterday," Arthur went on. "Watched him come back with bruises and all his skin still attached. He faced an experienced fighter who was trying to hit him, and his work held. That is worth something."
"It is," Carlos agreed. "It is why I am even considering this. But he is still a boy, Arthur. No training, no formal backing, no tricks to pull him out of trouble if all the steel in the world fails."
Arthur snorted.
"You think he will be safer if I tell him no and he spends the next year finding worse ways to test himself?" he asked. "This is his Trial Year. He is supposed to push at the edges. If I forbid him, he will find some half-trained caravan guard or drunk with a sword to follow instead. At least with you, I know someone with sense is in front of him."
Carlos held his gaze.
"If he breaks my orders, I send him home," Carlos said. "If he freezes, if he runs forward when he should be hiding, if he tries to play hero, I will drag him back to your door myself, and you will not see him near a gate again until he is grown."
Arthur nodded.
"That is fair."
"And if he dies," Carlos said quietly, "even with every precaution I can take, I need to hear now whether you will come looking for my head."
Arthur looked past him, out over the fields, then back.
"If he dies because you were careful and the world was still cruel, then that is the life we live," Arthur said. "If he dies because you were arrogant or lazy with his safety, I will bury you right here in my field and plant barley over you."
Carlos believed him.
A slow grin tugged at his mouth anyway.
"Reasonable terms," he said. "So. Do I have your permission?"
Arthur let out a breath.
"You do," he said. "On one condition."
Carlos raised a brow.
Arthur's eyes softened.
"You bring him back with a story," he said. "Not just fear. Something worth the bruises."
Carlos considered that, then nodded once.
"I can manage that," he said.
They shook hands, grip firm, dirt cold under their boots, and the winter sun just starting to climb.
Quest Updated
Objective:Secure consent from guardian of anomaly before next gate run.Status: Completed.
New Objective:Escort anomaly to new F-rank gate.
Status: Incomplete.