"Is that your real level?" Lia said, jabbing a finger toward the glowing text above my head. It looked to me that she'd put her Progress Point into 'being irritated with Eli.'

Dammit. I really need to figure out how to hide that info box.

"How are you already that strong?" she demanded, hands now firmly on her hips in full "disappointed mom" mode. It also appeared Dema wasn't about to miss the opportunity to pile in on me, either. "You let me take on Berker alone? I nearly died while you stood around playing 'Damsel in Distress Simulator 3000!"

"Hey!" I said, raising my hands defensively. "How about we all chill the beans for a moment?"

"Trust me," Dema said. "This is absolutely the last time I pull you out of the fire."

"Same," Lia said.

And with that, they turned on their heels and marched off, arm in arm, leaving me standing there in stunned silence. Scar appeared beside me as they stormed off in a thundercloud of righteous fury. He gave me a pat on the back that was either meant to be comforting or to check if I was still breathing.

"We've all been there, mate," he said with a sage nod. "Do you want to hear the advice my old man gave me about surviving interactions with the fairer sex? It changed my perspective on such things forever."

"Sure," I said, though I didn't really.

Scar's voice dropped into a conspiratorial tone. "One day, when I was about fourteen or fifteen, he took me aside on our farm. He had his pipe in his mouth and was leaning on the old oak in the back garden. The sun was in the sky and the birds were tweeting: it was a perfect moment, you know? Like the whole world was holding its breath for what he was about to say. He gave me a look, full of all the wisdom of his years of struggle and triumph, and said—"

Scar paused for dramatic effect.

"Well, what did he say?"

"Women, eh? Can't live with them, can't legally kidnap them and hold them captive in a dungeon."

I paused. Nope. That seemed to be it.

***

Feeling suitably buoyed by all that imparted knowledge of the ages, I left Scar to oversee the rest of the clean-up and went to have a sit-down on the edge of my favourite well.

I wasn't kidding myself that we'd won anything actually important here. Sure, the extra stats we'd all picked up were nice, and it was pretty good for morale that we'd even been able to come out the other side of three-army smackdown, but we needed to be realistic about these things.

We'd defeated a bunch of Level 3s and 4s. Sure, there were lots of them, but there were going to be much harder tests ahead. We were all going to have to get very comfortable with our new Abilities very soon.

And the thing is, nobody ever tells you that rapidly growing your stats is exhausting. I imagine most people hear "Level up!" and think, Cool, I'm gonna be stronger, faster, better. Like, bam: I'm Superman now, let's lift a car and cartwheel away into the sunset.

And it's actually nothing like that at all. What happens is your body becomes this weird, untrustworthy thing that takes a lot of getting used to.

Now that the adrenaline of the battle had drained away, I was having a bit of sticker shock. I'd gained all sorts of numbers since the last time I'd fallen down this well. I'd picked up a sub-class, a couple of levels, and my gear had ramped right up. Thus, it felt like my muscles had suddenly woken up and realised they had more horsepower, but my brain had yet to update its new firmware.

Looking around at how Scar and his Unmerry Men were moving around outside of Anchorfall, I didn't think I was the only one.

Each and every step everyone was taking was like their legs were trying to audition for Cirque du Soleil, arms were jerking and swinging around like they had their own agenda. I watched as Scar idly went to scratch his nose and almost punched himself in the face.

Twice.

I sympathised. Just from taking the short walk from Lia and Dema's brief roasting felt like I'd been plugged into someone else's save file. Someone who could bench press a small elephant and had zero sense of personal space. Every step had felt like a bit of a gamble. Would my legs casually stroll forward? Or would they launch me into an accidental parkour stunt? Who knew!

And it wasn't just the doing that was weird, it was the not doing. Slouching on the edge of this well, hardly one of my key core competencies, seemed to have become a bit of a health hazard. I was genuinely worried I'd break the stone just by existing on it too hard.

The real kicker, though, was how my brain wasn't quite catching up with it all.

You'd think with all these upgrades, I'd be feeling invincible. But nope. My body might be trying to act like it was a pro athlete, but my brain was still operating on its old settings, screaming What the hell are we doing?!

Everything felt off.

Sure, on the plus side, I could apparently tank a couple of armies without breaking a sweat, but at this point, I'd settle for just walking across the village without feeling like a malfunctioning robot.

Thinking about it, though, I imagine sitting still wasn't likely to help with becoming familiar with it all. I stood, and then the world tilted slightly, like reality itself had hit the snooze button for just a moment. And then, a familiar voice pinged in my head.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Finding all your hard-won power a trip, nephew dearest?

I jumped, nearly falling down the Well again in surprise. "You're back?" I said aloud, earning a few side-eyes from Scar's Unmerry Men nearby. I ignored them.

Absolutely, Aunt Margaret said breezily. And I must admit, watching you stumble around has been a tonic. Or would be if I had a corporeal body left that required such things as tonics. You are looking somewhat like a newborn ox learning to walk. Like that scene in Bambi.

"Oh, thanks. Real vote of confidence."

I'm not sure you need many words of confidence from me, nephew. Clearly, you've been doing quite well on your own. It would be fair to say that your first foray into Wardening has gone rather well. You've defended the Well of Ascension, established a village, achieved baseline structural coherence, and, if rumours are to be believed, helped avert the total collapse of the Veil. So, well done you!

That all sounded like quite good news. However, I'd been on the receiving end of this sort of pep talk before…"I can't help but feel you're buttering me up in order to drop some bad news on me here."

Bad news is all a matter of perception, isn't it? I'd say this is more of a clarification. A matter of timing. Duration, more specifically.

"Duration of what?"

Your residency. She said it like it should be obvious.

"My what?"

Oh, Eli. You didn't think you could just plant yourself in one realm and loiter indefinitely, did you? Honestly, you should have worked this out weeks ago. It's not like I just vanished from your life one day for fun. There's a reason my cottage is called Halfway Hold. I wasn't just being poetic.

"Hang on. You're telling me there's a limit on how long I can stay here? Like, what? A ticking clock?"

Yes, dear. Surely you've worked that out for yourself. You're the Warden of the Threshold, not its permanent tenant. Thresholds exist between places, not in one realm or another. Don't worry, though. Things only get more complicated from here on in. It might be best if you prepare yourself.

"Prepare for what? I've just come through a three-army standoff, a literal god breathing down my neck, and a full-body smackdown from Lia and Dema. You name it, I've survived it. And if I didn't survive it, I at least yelled something sarcastic before blacking out."

Well, now seems like a good time to warn you about what's about to happen..

"What? What's about to happen?"

You've survived your initiation. You've stabilised. You've gathered allies and anchored a point on the Threshold. That doesn't go unnoticed, Eli. Not here. Not there. Not anywhere. The moment you drew breath in Bayteran, you were part of something bigger than yourself. But now, now they know you're not just passing through. You've made a mark. Which means… they're going to test you.

"Who's 'they,' exactly? The Empire?"

Worse.

"How worse?"

I would refer you back to some of the stories I read to you when you were younger. There are things that lurk beneath the Foundation. And I don't mean metaphorically. The Axis turns, the old Vaults whisper, and things long exiled are stirring in the dark. The realms are thinning, Eli. The rules are bleeding. And you, dear boy, are one of the few remaining fixed points in a situation that will shortly be lacking constancy.

I took a step back from the Well, suddenly unsure if it was safe to stand so close to it "My word," I said, because what else could you say to that? 'Cheers for the trauma?' 'Neat?'

A pulse rippled from the Well like a bell struck at the centre of the world.

It passed through me. Not over. Not around. But through. Every hair on my body lifted in answer to the noise. My teeth ached. My skin felt reversed, and the world of Bayteran stopped whispering. The birds, the trees, the very colour of the air paused. Then, like the end of a held breath, the world peeled back.

The sky above me paled to parchment, and the trees bled their detail, crumbling into flat sketches. Scar's Unmerry Men flickered away into quiet, and then everything collapsed inward. Anchorfall, battlefield, Well, even the scent of the still glowing fires pulled away as if someone had taken the page I stood on and turned it over.

My boots were suddenly on wooden floorboards. Cold ones.

And the light was wrong.

I looked around, heart thundering like I'd been yanked out of sleep mid-fall.

Aunt M's attic.

I was back in the attic of Halfway Hold.

The dusty beams overhead. The warped floorboards. The broken gramophone on the floor. It all waited exactly as I remembered it.

Except this time, I wasn't alone.

Katya lay crumpled beside the trunk, blood still bright and wet where it had leaked from her nose and mouth. Her whole body was twisted at an impossible angle. It looked like someone had smashed her straight through the ground and out the other side. Funny that.

Aunt Margaret's voice returned, quiet but close. This is very important, Eli. You need to spend some time back here to refresh yourself, or, very soon, you'll start forgetting things. Not important things. Not at first. Just little things. A name here. A scent there. The System might acknowledge you as a Warden, but you have a long way to go before it will accept you as the Guardian of the Threshold. Take it from someone who knows, you need to pace your journey.

I was trying to get myself used to this sudden head spin. Katya's body was lying on the floor near me. "Why is she here?"

There is a toll for standing still in a place built to flow. You have needed to return to Earth to keep your anchor strong. Think of it as a temporary absence that will keep the connection alive. You will know when it is time to move back through. And the means by which to do it.

"…What?"

But the voice was already gone.

And in its place was the ringing of a phone.

It wasn't loud. In fact, it was infuriatingly normal. Just a tinny, vibrating chime from the pocket of a woman who was far too dead to still be carrying tech.

I stared at her. At the black smear of dried blood on her temple. At the angle of her spine that suggested she'd recently been folded in two. And yet the phone kept ringing. Obnoxiously alive.

An objective part of my brain thought that it shouldn't have survived the impact. Not the way I'd killed her. I'd bounced her through enough stone to make an architect weep. Yet the phone in her pocket? Apparently, it survived without a scratch. World's most durable burner, clearly.

I crouched and reached past the assassin's splintered arm. Her fingers were brushing something metal. Something cool and faintly oiled.

Her gun. Still warm.

I picked it up with one hand, clicking the safety instinctively. Block magazine, old-school body. Clean lines. Efficient. I popped the mag and checked. Two rounds missing. No surprises there. I reckoned I probably knew where they'd ended up.

The ringing continued. I pulled the phone out from her jacket pocket with the same motion I'd used a hundred times before: pinch, rotate, thumb the edge, don't smudge the screen. Burn pattern told me it was a ghostline unit, corporate make, short-burst encryption. A little flashier than the sort I'd have been trusted with/

I answered without a word.

The voice on the other end was unmistakable.

"Well," Griff said. "Is it done?"

I stared down at Katya's crushed form. At the blood.

I didn't answer. Not immediately.

"I said, is it done? Is he dead?"

I looked at my own hand. The phone. The gun. Her. I realised that I still seemed to have access to all my Iron Provocateur Abilities. Well, wasn't that interesting…

"I'm afraid," I said, slowly manifesting my morningstar in my hand and swinging around Aunt M's attic, "I think you might just have made a truly horrible mistake."

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