Master Aderyn Forge's workshop is a cathedral of heat and metal. Rows of anvils crowd a dirt floor scarred by countless hammer blows; blast furnaces throb like slow hearts; racks of half-finished flux-engines line the walls, each one caged in copper runes to keep the power from eating itself alive. The moment she slams the iron door behind us, the din outside drops to a muffled growl, as if the building itself is swallowing Brack's distant shouts.
I lean against a workbench, catching my breath. The Interface hovers in my peripheral vision—letters faint against the glare of forge-fire.
⟢ Spectral Authority—User: Cipher
Status: Null Overtone (Stable)
Flux Reservoir: 02 %
Paradox Risk: 15 %
Mentor Link: Aderyn Forge (Active)
Tutorial—Quiet Smithing … Ready
"Ignore the pop-ups," Forge says, tossing a coal-black coat over my shoulders. "First lesson: keep your skin. Furnaces here run hot enough to melt arrogance."
The coat's weight steadies me. "You saw my Interface?"
"Everyone sees their own. But when you walked in I felt Null resonance crawling up the brickwork, so I guessed yours is screaming for guidance." She hands me a chipped tin cup of water. "Drink. Then tell me what you already understand about Spectra."
I drain the cup in three gulps. "Twelve Spectra. Each is like a… trade. Pulse for muscle, Echo for memory tricks, Vector for force direction, and so on. Each Spectrum has ten steps, zero to nine, except there's a secret tenth called an Overtone. Riddles stop us from cooking our insides. Mass is the fuel; Flux is the pipe size. If Mass goes up or Constraint goes down too far, you risk Paradox—disappearing into Deep Null."
Forge's eyebrows lift. "Not bad for a street rat."
"I've listened at taverns."
"Then let's refine those tavern tales." She scoops iron filings onto the anvil, strikes a flint, and the filings bloom into a cool pearl-grey flame—Quietstone fire, soundless, swallowing the clank of the forge in a five-pace circle. In the hush, her voice carries like a bell.
"Picture power as water," she says. "Strata"—she taps my chest—"is the bucket you carry. Flux is the spout. Riddle is the lid. You need some lid or the water sloshes out and drowns you."
The Interface obliges, etching a faint diagram in the air: a bucket with a corked lid and a spout.
⟢ Mass (Strata) → 0.00
Flux → 02 % throughput
Constraint → Undefined1 & Echo-for-Silence2
Footnotes bloom under the asterisks:
*1 Primary Riddle: Undefined — division by undefined enables Null Overtone but elevates Paradox volatility.*2 Secondary Riddle: Echo-for-Silence — borrowed energy must be returned as negated resonance within 3 heartbeats.
Forge sees me studying the panel and nods approval. "Good. You're literate already. Now—levels. Why do people shout Pulse 5 / Nova 1 instead of just 'strong'?"
"They're bragging rights?"
"Partly. Mostly shorthand for how many times they didn't die while climbing. Each Spectrum grants its own perks every three steps. Pulse three lets you bench-press a horse; Pulse six lets you shoulder-check a city gate; Pulse nine makes castles nervous. Nova's first step only lights torches, but Nova six can scoop white-hot star-glare into a blade. Those tags tell you which toolkit a fighter owns and what tricks to expect."
She strikes the filings again. Quiet-flame flares brighter, revealing a wall chart drawn in chalk: twelve columns, ten rows. Someone has inked icons—a fist for Pulse, an eye for Echo, etc.—into scattered boxes. The lowest rows are smudged; the upper ones glow faint rune-light.
"Every citizen of Iron learns this table in school," Forge says. "But we smiths add the footnotes no one else bothers with." She jabs a chalk nub at the blank spaces. "These aren't empty; they're just not walked yet. You've already leaped outside the chart with that Overtone stunt. That makes you a statistical insult to the Concord."
The interface pulses politely.
⟢ Note: Concord Statistical Integrity—Breached
I rub my temples. "Aderyn, I get the basics. What I don't get is why the Interface talks like a bored accountant and how to stop Brack from pulping me before I can read the glossary."
"Because the Authority is a ledger," she says. "Every Strata unit mined, borrowed, or stolen is logged somewhere. The Interface is the margin notes. It hates bad bookkeeping—so learn to keep clean accounts."
Outside, metal screeches—Brack must be prying sheets off the facade. Forge slings a hammer across her back and draws a pair of goggles down. "Lesson two: application. The world only respects theory after you've proved you can swing it."
She kicks a lever; shutters seal the windows. A side door rattles as bolts slide home. The tutorial pane glows:
⟢ Quiet Smithing—Sub-discipline of Vector & Null
Purpose: shape kinetic stress into silence, forging weapons that absorb force instead of reflecting it.
Requirement: Null affinity ≥ 1, Flux control ≥ 2 %
Forge dumps molten iron onto an anvil; it splashes yet makes no sound in the hush of quiet-flame. "I'll draw Brack's eye," she says. "You mold this into a spike before it cools. Think of silence as a mold stronger than any steel."
Molten metal hisses. My Flux bar creeps to 05 %; sweat beads down my spine. I extend both hands; Null Overtone senses every micro-gap in the iron. I press will into those empty lattices, coaxing them to widen, giving heat somewhere to escape without cracking. The roar of the furnace next to me dulls to a heartbeat throb. The metal's glow slips from white to sunrise orange to hopeful red.
Quiet-flame contracts, compressing heat inward. Somehow the temperature drops yet the iron stays pliant, as if cold were another kind of fire. I pinch the bar, draw it like taffy into a slender spike. Threads of silent force swirl into the shape, sealing pores.
⟢ Flux 12 %—Borrowing Strata (0.08)
—Repayment due in 3 beats—
I whisper my secondary Riddle. The air shivers; the energy I stole exhales as a hush so profound the furnace itself pauses, its bellows caught mid-sigh. When sound returns, the spike has cooled—a velvety black needle that sucks echo from the room.
Forge whistles, then laughs. "Adapter talent. You welded hush into iron on your first pull." She wraps the spike in rag cloth. "Throw this at his armor seams; it'll mute the Pulse in his muscles on contact. He won't like that."
A crash booms—Brack has ripped the side door from its hinges. Steam rolls through the gap. He steps into the dim glow, face mask dented from our earlier dance.
"I know you're in here, rat," he growls. "And now you've dragged the black-smith into your bounty. Pity."
He slams his war-pick into the floor. Sparks climb, swirl, compress into a bolt of Nova-tinted fire—his new trick. Nova 1, but channeled through Pulse 5 muscles; the flame is thick as a man's arm, aimed straight at us.
Forge hurls a smithing hammer. The head ignites mid-air from the heat, but the wooden haft stays cool—Quiet-flame residue, I realize. The hammer smashes the firebolt sideways; ember spray patters the walls harmlessly.
"Try your needle," she mutters.
I step forward, heart rabbit-fast. The Interface floats to one side:
⟢ Threat Analysis—Brack Morrow
Pulse 5 — Kinetic output est. 7 000 N
Nova 1 — Thermal output est. 3 000 J
Recommended Counter: Quiet Vector Dampener
That must mean the spike. I grip it like a dart. Quiet energy purrs along its length. Brack rears back, muscles swelling. I sight the seam between two breastplate plates—the narrowest zero I can see—and throw.
The spike doesn't hum or whistle; it glides, eating noise. It strikes with a dull pwump, burying halfway. Cyclones of hush flood Brack's chest. The Pulse aura around him blinks out as if smothered under a blanket. His next breath wheezes; he tries to lift the war-pick and can't.
His eyes go wide, cracked vessels spidering red. "What… did you do?"
"Balanced the ledger," I answer, surprised at how steady my voice sounds.
Forge tilts her goggles up. "Lesson three: quiet metal beats loud men."
Brack staggers, muscles trembling, then collapses to his knees. The Interface logs his state:
⟢ Target: Brack Morrow
Flux Interruption: 100 %
Status: Unconscious (45 s) — Vox Silence Overload
Forge hauls a set of rune-etched manacles off a hook. "We'll tie him up and drop him outside the Concord barracks. They might pay a sabotage fee."
I wipe sweat and molten dust from my forehead. "Won't the Concord trace the silent spike to us?"
"Only if you sign it." She smirks. "Besides, by morning they'll be arguing how a nameless Null anomaly pulled a Smith-class stunt. Meanwhile, my shop gets a rep boost, and you get your next lesson."
I look at the forge fires, now flickering back to normal sound, at Brack's unconscious form steaming on the floor, at the Interface still glowing patiently.
⟢ Quest Progress — Solve the Impossible Fraction
Step 2 of 2 000: Acquire foundational trade.
New Sub-Skill: Quiet Smithing Lv 1
The number "2 000" makes my knees weak. Forge catches the wobble, nudges my shoulder with steel-ringed knuckles.
"Easy, Cipher. Tall mountains look smaller when you start the climb hammer stroke by hammer stroke. Daylight grows; you'll want sleep before the Concord wakes. My apprentice cot's in the loft."
I follow her up the ladder, thinking not of the cot but of columns and rows of chalk on her wall chart—empty boxes waiting for stories. Beneath my ribs the Null Overtone murmurs, settling like cooling iron. The impossible fraction still looms vast, but now I've learned the weight of a single digit, the hush inside iron, and how many kinds of silence a spike can hold. That feels like a start worth logging—ledger neat, books balanced, heart still counting