Glint stood at the edge of the great tortoise's shadow and checked his gear one last time. He wanted one thing: to be the first goblin to pass the Adventurer's Academy and delve the dungeons of Detrus. No goblin had ever done it. This morning he meant to start the walk that would get him there. Mother Kajra came down the ramp, leaning on her glowing staff. She raised him here among the druids, and now she pressed a small jar into his green hands. Runes crawled across its metal face. A soft light pulsed inside. "Goodberries, laddie," she said. "Press the heart and it'll feed ye one. Dinnae eat them all the first night." Her monocle whirred as she looked him over. Then she tucked a folded letter into his pack. "And this. A recommendation. I foiled the Necroswarm once, so the school kens my name. Use it well." Glint's throat went tight. "I'll make you proud, Mum." He hugged her hard. The staff clicked against his goggles. A low hum rolled up behind them. Bramble Ironroot steered his hovering chair across the moss, the little tree on his hat swaying. The old dwarf grinned and dropped something heavy in Glint's arms. It was a crossbow built to strap onto a forearm. "Mounts here," Bramble said, tapping Glint's wrist. "Loads itself twice before ye reload. The swamp doesnae care how clever ye are, boy. It cares how fast ye shoot." He clapped Glint's shoulder with a gloved hand. Glint buckled the crossbow on and flexed his arm. It locked tight. He hugged Bramble, then Kajra again, and made himself step away before his courage ran out. "The Firefinger mountains," he said, pointing past the bog. Far off, jagged peaks blasted columns of fire and blue light into the gray sky. "Scraptown sits under them. I walk till I reach it." Kajra's monocle dimmed. "Keep to the high ground, Glint. And dinnae stop for anything that follows ye." He waved until the dome shrank behind the trees. Then he turned and walked into the swamp alone. The water sucked at his boots. Vines hung like wet rope. He hummed to fill the quiet and checked his new crossbow every few steps, proud of its weight. By midday the Grove was gone from sight. He was really doing it now. Something moved behind him. Glint froze. A branch snapped. Then nothing. He told himself it was a frog and kept going, faster. The sound came again, matched to his own steps. He stopped. The thing stopped. He spun around and aimed the crossbow into the murk. Two green eyes glowed low between the trees, steady and patient. They did not blink. They did not come closer. They only watched. Glint swallowed. His first day from home, and he was not alone. He backed toward the firelit peaks, finger on the trigger, eyes locked on the thing that had chosen to follow him.

Glint kept the crossbow raised. The green eyes had not moved in a long minute. He took one slow step back toward the firelit peaks. His boot found a root. He crouched, pointed, and waited for the thing to charge. It did not charge from the front. Something hit him from the side. He flew off his feet and landed in cold mud. The crossbow bolt shot wide into the trees. A heavy shape pinned his chest. He smelled wet fur and moss. A warm tongue dragged across his face. "Ye dinnae think ye were gettin awa' wi'out sayin goodbye, did ye?" The voice came inside his head, not his ears. Glint stopped struggling. He knew it. He knew the mossy green fur, the brown legs, the blue spiral marks that glowed along her side. It was Anu, the wolf spirit who had watched over the Grove his whole life. His aunt in all but blood. "Anu!" He shoved at her shoulder, half laughing, half shaking. "Those eyes were you? I nearly shot you!" She climbed off and sat. The glyphs on her fur dimmed to a soft blue. She looked at the spent crossbow on his arm, then at his face. "Nearly," she said. "That's the trouble, laddie. Ye let a thing follow ye half a day. Ye heard me behind ye. Ye kent I was there." Her ears flattened. "And still ye let me close enough to knock ye flat. In this swamp, close is dead." Glint's cheeks went hot. He wiped mud from his goggles. "I didn't want to waste a bolt on a frog." "A frog does not stalk a goblin for miles." She nosed his muddy chest, gentler now. "Bramble told ye. Speed, not cleverness. Ye stood still and thought. A faster beast would have had yer throat." He lowered his eyes. She was right, and it stung worse than the fall. Anu's voice softened. "Dinnae sulk. Ye're learnin. That's why I came." She looked toward the peaks, far off and burning. "Mother Kajra bid me see ye safe to Scraptown. After that the road is yours." Relief washed over him. He had thought he walked alone. He threw his arms around her thick neck and buried his face in the warm fur. "The light's going," Anu said. "We rest. Ye walk sharper tomorrow." They found a dry patch beneath a vast old tree. Its roots splayed out like the legs of some sleeping giant. Glint curled against Anu's side. Her breathing was slow and even. The blue marks pulsed like a low fire. "Sleep, wee one," she said. "I'll watch the dark." Glint closed his eyes. For the first time since the Grove, he was not afraid. He slept, and Anu watched, her yellow gaze fixed on the trees where nothing moved yet.

Far from the swamp where Glint slept against Anu's warm flank, a second light burned. It filled a glass dome packed with strange plants. Blue vines curled around flowers that glowed from inside. Among them stood Mother Kajra, the druid who had raised Glint since he was small. Her monocle flickered. In the air before her hung a wide, round image of the boy and the wolf spirit, asleep beneath the old tree. She watched them breathe. Beside her, a tall device shimmered. Golden light spun up from its frame and formed the shape of a man. His outline stayed blurred, like a figure seen through smoke. The runes along the device pulsed with each word he spoke. "You've found him, Matron," the golden figure said. "Good. The Augury does not wait." Kajra did not look away from the sleeping goblin. Her hand tightened on her staff. "He's just a wee thing, Aurelius. Nae even six cycles yet." Her voice cracked on the last word. "Look at him. He near shot his own guardian two nights past." "Old enough," the figure answered. "You knew this day would come when you took the boy in." "I took him in tae raise him, nae tae spend him." She turned at last. The glowing flowers lit the hard line of her jaw. "I didnae pull him from that mud as a bairn sae ye could feed him tae the dark." The figure's light did not waver. "The Probability Augury is clear. I have run it a thousand times. Every path where Detrus survives, the goblin stands at the center. He is our best chance. The only one above a whisper." Kajra closed her eyes. She had defeated the Necroswarm once. She knew what it cost to send the young ahead of the old. For a long moment she said nothing. The dome hummed. The image of the sleeping boy turned slowly in the air between them. "Then he reaches the Academy nae knowin," she said. "He thinks he goes for fame. Let him keep that a wee while longer." "As you wish." The golden figure bent its blurred head. "But he must reach it. See that he does." The light folded in on itself and went out. The device dimmed to a faint pulse. Kajra stood alone among the glowing plants. She reached into her coat and drew out a small carved token shaped like a wolf. She pressed it to the communicator's warm base. "Anu," she whispered. "Ye'll nae stop at Scraptown after all. Ye'll see him tae the gates." The token flared once and sent her command south. Kajra waved her hand, and the image of the sleeping boy faded. She had chosen. Glint would walk into the Academy as his guardian's final charge, carrying a purpose he did not know he bore.

Glint walked a smooth green trail across the high moor, Anu padding beside him. The swamp lay behind them now. He felt proud of the ground they had covered. Then four strangers stepped onto the path ahead, and a young warrior drew his long sword and pointed it at Glint's chest. "Stand, foul beast!" the warrior shouted. His breastplate shone with no scratches at all. "I am Prinn Legend-blade. I slay monsters like you before breakfast." He struck a pose, chin high, sword raised to the sun. Glint blinked. "I'm not a monster. I'm going to the Academy." He reached for the letter inside his armor to prove it. "My mother wrote me a—" An elven woman in a revealing fantasy outfit slid up beside him. She lowered her flute and smiled. "Oh, he talks. I like the clever ones." She trailed a finger along his bat-like ear. "Call me Nympadora. Forget the big angry boy. Come sit with me, little green thing." “Oh for crying out loud Kevin…” Prinn muttered, rolling his eyes. “It’s a goblin!” "I—what?" Glint stepped back, cheeks burning. "Please stop touching my ears." Behind them, a drunk dwarf in a tattered robe stared at the sky. He held a beer and said nothing. He did not seem to see any of it. While Nymphadora leaned closer, showing a startling amount of skin, a hooded halfling crept behind Glint. Quick fingers worked the straps of his armor. Filch lifted the recommendation letter, unbuckled the forearm crossbow, and somehow slid out Glint's smalls without untying his boots. "Nice haul," Filch muttered, backing away. "Monster's got pockets." "Enough!," Prinn said, though only he had been posing. "My legend begins now!" He swung the long sword down hard. Glint yelped and dropped. The blade whistled over his head. Anu snarled and shoved him sideways with her shoulder. Prinn's second swing bit into the dirt where Glint had stood. "Run," Anu growled. "Now. No thinking. Run." For once Glint did not argue. He scrambled up and bolted down the green trail. Anu ran at his heels, her blue markings flaring. Behind them Prinn gave chase, shield banging, shouting about glory. Nymphadora blew a kiss. Filch counted the stolen pouches. The drunk dwarf drank. Glint ran until his legs shook and the warrior's shouts faded into the wind. He stopped at last, hands on knees, gasping. Then he checked himself over and his stomach dropped. The crossbow was gone. The smalls were gone. Worst of all, the pocket that held his mother's letter was empty. "Anu," he whispered. "The letter! They’s tooked it!"

Glint turned back toward the trail. His crossbow was with the thieves, and the thieves still had his mother's letter. "If we's quick," he told Anu, "we grab my stuff and run." Then a scream cut across the swamp. Metal clanged. Something huge roared. The sounds came from where the four strangers had robbed him. Anu's ears flattened. "That's no scream of winning, laddie." They crept to the edge of a wide green pool. Across the murky water, the robbers were losing. A giant lurched among them, a mound of dead bodies fused into one hulking shape. Vines wrapped its limbs. A dozen rotting heads snarled from its chest and shoulders. Filch, the hooded halfling, lay face-down in the mud, pouches scattered. The drunk dwarf sat nearby, still clutching his beer. Prinn bled from his arm but kept swinging his long sword and shouting. And Nymphadora, the elf in the useless armor, had draped herself against one of the monster's heads, cooing at it. "You've got the prettiest dead eyes," she purred, patting its rotten cheek. Glint stared. His stomach twisted. "We could just leave them." The strangers had robbed him. They deserved the swamp. He looked at Anu, then back at the dying fight. The halfling wasn't moving. "Oh... fine!" He spotted his crossbow strapped to Filch's belt. He splashed around the pool's edge, dropped beside the limp halfling, and yanked the weapon free. It clicked. Loaded. Bramble had told him speed beat cleverness out here. Now he believed it. Glint raised his arm and fired. The bolt punched through a snarling head. It went limp. He fired again. Another head sagged. The self-loading crossbow snapped a fresh bolt into place each time. "Over here, you ugly pile!" Glint shouted. "Look at me!" It worked too well. Every remaining head swung toward him at once. The hulk forgot Prinn, forgot the elf hanging off its shoulder, and charged. Nymphadora tumbled into the mud with a yelp. The ground shook under Glint's boots. "Run!" Anu barked. "Into the water, laddie, now!" Glint bolted along the pool's muddy rim, firing backward as he went. The monster crashed after him, slow but huge, slinging mud with every step. He splashed into the shallows where the murk ran deep and soft. His small feet barely sank. The hulk's great weight did not. It lunged. One heavy foot plunged through the surface and stuck fast in the sucking mud below. The giant toppled, thrashing, pulling itself deeper with every twist. Glint spun and emptied bolt after bolt into its heads until the last one stopped snarling. Silence settled over the pool. The strangers stared at him from across the water, bleeding and stunned. Prinn lowered his sword. Nymphadora wiped mud from her face. Glint stood knee-deep in the swamp, crossbow still smoking, his mother's letter somewhere in a halfling's pouch. He had just saved the people who robbed him.