The trouble with EXP grinding is that you end up with too much time to think.

Floor 2 of the Undercroft had its own rhythm, provided you knew the routes the patrolling monsters took. Skitterers always came in packs of three, following the same circuit around the northeast corner, past the central pillar, pause, and back. If you set yourself up correctly, you could ambush the last Skitterer before the other two even heard your approach. Four EXP each, with no risk of getting into melee range or needing a minimum STR of 12.

By now, I felt like I was working in a factory, clocking in my shifts.

+4 EXP — Skitterer (Ranged Kill)

EXP: 251/500

I drew my next arrow.

Shortbows were perfect for this task. Nothing fancy—Tier 2 equipment, AGI scaling, the kind of weapon that rewarded precision rather than brute force. My AGI was 15, meaning that while I didn’t have the strength to draw back a powerful arrow, my aim was steady enough. Daren had watched me shoot the day before and commented politely enough that I had translated it as ’Not bad for someone who’s only ever used a bow two days ago.’Fair.

The Skitterer rounded the pillar and I shot the arrow through the space between its front two leg joints. It folded in on itself. The others were oblivious. I was already in motion, shifting into another firing position.

+4 EXP — Skitterer (Ranged Kill)

Current EXP: 255/500

Next, the edge of the UI started flashing.

But I didn’t check it directly; the way to have a claw ripped off your face was to try to read a passive notification in the middle of combat. I got into position and then took a quick look after making sure the wall was behind me.

PASSIVE MONITORING — LYRA

Relationship / Daren: 853 ▲2

Corruption: 91/100 — static

Mood flag: Cautious / Engaged

Active interaction: IN PROGRESS

Interaction party: [VORN]

Duration: 04:17 and counting

There it was.

I set the bow down.

Four minutes and seventeen seconds. It would take me a minimum of twelve minutes to get out of the Undercroft, climb the stairs, cross the marketplace. Maybe more like fifteen. That was the play. I knew it was coming. The timing assessment for Vorn had been on complete status for two days, and I had told myself that I had some cushion, that he would hold off, that the escalation pathway implied something less intense than a day or two after Kai said no to negotiating with him.

It did not imply anything less intense.

I returned the arrow to the quiver and brought up the entire monitoring overlay.

VORN — ACTIVE FLAGS

Escalation pathway: ACTIVE

Primary target: Lyra (presence maintenance)

Secondary target: Kai (variable — active)

Strategy deployment: IN PROGRESS

Current tactic: Casual contact / Low pressure / Passive trust erosion

Corruption delta from this interaction: PENDING

Passive trust erosion. This is the one that does not leave a trail. There is no pressure, no push, no action. Just being there. Being easy to talk to. Being the entity that shows up when Daren is not around. Building presence until the needle swings on its own.The corruption counter was still reading 91. Static. However, static didn’t necessarily imply unchanging – static implied the most recent change to the number was static. In other words, an interaction would not update its status until it ended.

I was completely clueless regarding what it would read once the interaction completed.

I sat against the dungeon’s wall, alongside a group of Skitterers patrolling the area at twenty feet distance from me, and did the calculations.

Decision one: Leave now. Sacrifice my current EXP momentum, show up late, likely miss Vorn by then, and gain a corruption tick that will happen whether I am here or not. Lyra will survive. She might even have survived already – surface-level survival, the kind where she will register a number close to 92 or 93 out of a hundred. Vorn will mark it as a successful visit and set up the next appointment accordingly.

Decision two: Stay here. Reach three hundred EXP before surfacing. Surface with statistics higher than the ones I currently have and take responsibility for whatever happens at the stall.Lyra had asked Daren to ask for her; Daren had been promoted. The relationship bar had advanced by two stages since my intervention. The narrative hadn’t completely fallen back into place but the rail remained, two parallel lines stretching into nothing.

Option two was easier to live with right now and harder to live with in the future. This, I knew, was definitely the second option.

I got to my feet, wiped the dungeon dirt from my knees, and turned to look at the Skitterer cluster once more.

+4 EXP – Skitterer (Ranged Kill)

One last hit before I went out again. Call it a principle.

I emerged from the Undercroft and into bright sunlight and walked across the marketplace at something like a jog, knowing that if I ran, someone was sure to notice, and Vorn would be waiting for me thirty feet out.

The weave of the fabric quarter changed when the sun reached its zenith. Mornings were busy — merchants making deals, stall keepers bustling, shoppers buying things. Afternoons, the weave was loose — browsers, wanderers.

Vorn would love this window. He’d definitely appreciate this window.

I spotted Lyra’s stall from the edge of the district. Piles of cloth stacked in their usual formation, the frayed guild uniform, her hair shining gold in the sunlight. She was talking to somebody.

My UI updated before I came within range to get a good look at his face.

VORN — PROXIMITY DETECTED

Range: 14 meters

Active interaction: Lyra (closing)

Corruption change (recorded): +1

New corruption total: 92/100

Mood indicator adjustment — Lyra: Warm / Slightly Unsettled

Ninety two.

One point. Eight engagements’ worth of effort for one point, probably. It was the patience, which made Vorn really dangerous not in his dramatic actions, but in the gradual accumulation. One point per visit, repeated enough times until Lyra no longer treated him as an unpredictable variable and just treated him like she would a piece of furniture. And pieces of furniture did not trigger the caution flag. Pieces of furniture were simply there.

I watched him depart.

He never once glanced back in my direction. No need. The secondary assessment flag on my own interface had already been updated.

VORN — EVALUATION: KAI

Reaction to absence: recorded

EXP grind identified: ongoing

Tactic interpretation: predictable period – dungeon timeframe

Modification: presence retention through Kai grind timing

He’d planned his visit around my dungeon expedition. He had analyzed my EXP generation rate, determined my time underground, and fit his visit into the interval as if I’d presented him with a calendar.

I positioned myself outside the fabric marketplace and experienced a sensation familiar from the wiki but not yet known to me personally.

Outmaneuvered.

Not defeated. Not finished. But outmaneuvered, decisively, in a play I had seen coming and still could not effectively counter from two stories belowground with a shortbow and 255 EXP.

I approached Lyra’s booth.

Her eyes met mine as I drew near, and the warm indicator was visible on her UI and she offered me a smile that suggested nothing had changed. Perhaps nothing had, for her. A single point did not feel like a single point from the inside perspective. This was the entire concept.

"Quiet day?" I asked.

"A little," she said. "I’ve had some visitors recently." Simple. Relaxed. "Kai, have you ever heard of someone called Vorn? He’s stopped by a few times."

Here it was.She was asking me. At corruption level 92, she was asking me, which meant that Lyra’s trust threshold towards me was higher than zero, which meant that the intervention had not been wasted, which meant that —

SECONDARY BOND — LYRA/KAI

Trust threshold: 61/100

New flag: Actively seeking input

Window: OPEN

I had only a few seconds left to say something appropriate before it closed and became one more boring afternoon in the fabric market.

I glanced at my UI. I glanced at 92/100. I glanced at the warm / slightly unsettled labels that sat side by side without realizing they were mutually exclusive.

"Yeah," I said. "I know him a little."

She didn’t speak.

"I would tell Daren he’s been visiting," I said. "Just as something to mention. Nothing specific."

Her face remained neutral. However, her hands, which had been running their fingers along the edges of a bolt of fabric, suddenly stopped moving.

LYRA — FLAG UPDATE

Unsettled: heightened

Processing: active

Corruption delta for this window: 0

It took eight seconds. Not a single word spoken, not a single confrontation made. No Wikipedia quotes on what Vorn was up to. Just inform your partner that a strange man keeps stopping by your place.Corruption delta remained at zero.

Vorn’s flag continued to update itself on my overlay screen in the corner. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

VORN — ADJUSTMENT LOGGED

Kai arrival time after interaction: 11 minutes

Window adjustment: shorter than expected

Tactical information: variable is quicker than predicted

4 days before D-rank. Vorn was adjusting his window. So was I.

Current EXP: 259/500

I had to be much faster.