It barely counted as work. For the past fifteen minutes, Terry and Yan had been walking through the perpetual shitstain of a district that was the Meadows. He looked over to Terry, in whose path all shadows seemed to retreat and in front of whom nothing or no one less than civilised dared tread.

(There was actually a fair point to be made that only someone ill-bred or something completely primitive would ever have the lack of conscious thought needed to step into the path of Terry wielding his baton.)

  Where Yan wore a buttoned down overshirt, Terry opted for nothing. He wore a thick piece of leather, nearly a foot wide, across his body like a bandolier. Where it lay over his chest, he’d had his badge clipped into a little loop.

  If wear and tear made leather look better, then Terry’s ‘top’ was surely the most stunning bit of leather in a thousand miles.

  What kept people away from Terry was his baton. If you could call it that. It looked like he’d pulled a small tree out of the ground and had taken an axe to it until Emery had given up telling him to cut more wood away. It was so big you could see it strapped to his back as he walked up to you.

  The only deterrent part about it was that it took him a few seconds of fumbling with the strap behind his back before he could actually use the thing.

  They turned a corner and headed south out of the Meadows, down a main road that slowly but surely reintroduced the pair back into functioning society.

  “Normally this quiet?” asked Terry out of the blue.

  “Uhm, I’m not sure, this is my first time doing a patrol.”

  “Not patrol. You. First time talking to troll, huh?”

  “Yes,” admitted Yan, rubbing the back of his neck, “To be honest though, it’s not like I go out of my way to avoid people. It’s just, you hardly see a troll come into a city, let alone a human smithy like where I used to live.”

  “Hngh,” grunted Terry, “Not blaming, just asking. I let you in on information Yan. Trolls not stupid—”

  “No, I never thought—”

  “Relax, it okay. We speak language like children, it sound stupid, like Human or Dwarf trying to speak Troll. Just fact. But if we work together, you should know. Brains work same, just not speak same.”

  “R-right, well, thanks for the heads up,” said Yan, feeling awkward. “I am sorry if I gave off the impression that I thought that though. I was just, surprised, I guess? Seeing you and Viktor at the Watch House was like an eye opener, and—”

  Terry reached out with a hand and stopped Yan in his tracks. The sudden inertia drew the air out of his lungs, as if Yan had confidently walked into a wall and expected to carry on through it without a problem.

  He was about to ask Terry what the problem was before the door of a pub they were about to walk in front of burst open and a body flew across the street, landing in a heap against a house on the other side.

  Yan, adrenaline rushing through his body, reached for his baton, but Terry just nudged him and shook his head.

  “Adventurer fight. You not even got Class yet. Watch, learn.”

  Terry rolled his shoulders and calmly pulled his tree-baton off his back. He side-stepped into the pub, pulling his peace-keeping weapon through after his body for dramatic effect. Yan stepped through after him, nervous but curious to see how a single Troll would handle a room full of drunk adventurers.

  The pub was bathed in a warm glow in the afternoon sunlight, the darker corners of the room kept alight with standard candles. Several groups of drinkers were sat near the fireplace, their laughter and merriment cut short by the impromptu brawl. The bar ran along the right side of the room, behind which a dwarf barkeep stood silently cleaning glasses with a dirty rag as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

  Directly opposite Terry stood a wizard, his cheeks flushed and his wand wavering as it was still outstretched towards where the unlucky sod that had flown out of the pub must have been standing. As soon as Yan saw his wand pointing in his general direction, he fought with himself to not dive behind Terry for cover.

  “This is the Watch,” announced Terry, his tree-baton resting on his shoulder, “what happened here?”

  “D’you want some as well?” slurred out the wizard, brandishing his wand.

  “H-hey, be careful where you point that thing!” Yan was surprised he hadn’t already dived behind the bar.

  “Look ‘ere, I was minding my own business over by the fire,” he said, gesturing towards a bench with two dwarfs and a human sitting on it, all avoiding Terry’s gaze shiftily. They ducked and yelled out when the wizard pointed at them with his wand. “And this idiot spills his beer all down the back of my robe. What was I gonna do, let him walk away?”

  “City rules, no wands allowed,” stated Terry, uncaring of how he was backing the wizard into the corner. Yan felt like tucking his tail between his legs and running off as far as he could. Not only did the wizard have a wand, but he was also quite obviously drunk. It’d be a wonder if he hadn’t accidentally killed the other guy.

  “Listen, I’m going to go back to my friends and enjoy my night okay. You go and take that other idiot to the Watch, it was his fault!”

  “You under arrest. Come peacefully or I get to hurt you.” Yan couldn’t believe what he was hearing, he felt obliged to at least try and de-escalate the situation.

  “H-hey, don’t be stupid now,” he stuttered out, gaining a bit of confidence once the wizard seemed to be listening to him, “you don’t want to do this. The Watch has much higher Levelled [Wizards] than you on its payroll. How about we both just walk away? No need to turn this into something messy.”

  “Ha!” laughed the wizard, “You must be new in the city kid. Let me give ya a few pointers. One, everyone knows what a joke the Watch is, the only force with decent spellcasters is the City Guards. B, I’m a [Mage] not some poxy [Wizard] – proper educated ya see. And finally, four; don’t ever give a suspect time to monologue—[Petrify]!”

  Yan was frozen in terror as he saw the next few seconds stretch out in front of him.

  The spell spat itself out of the end of his wand, sizzling and crackling as it flew right into Terry’s shoulder. Terry, who was already charging towards the [Mage].

  He watched, frozen, his brain just starting to register what had happened and beginning to question why Terry hadn’t collapsed, as Terry swung his baton.

  It hit into the [Mage] with a crunch and sent him flying into the wall behind the bar, landing in a heap amongst shattered bottles and mugs. It was as if all sound had been sucked out of the pub.

  The barkeep looked at Terry, down to the Mage, and then back to Terry.

  “You’re paying for those bottles,” she said in a husky voice.

  “Watch covers damage,” he said before turning to the rest of the Mage’s party.

  “Pick up tomorrow. Station on Lupine Street.”

  The trio just nodded glumly and went back to their drinks, the silence slowly leaving the bar as everyone picked up their half-finished conversations. Terry leaned over the bar, picked up the Mage with one hand and threw him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He turned to the door and saw Yan standing there with his mouth open.

  “What?” he asked him as he walked past, crouch-shuffling out of the door.

  “What was that?” Yan burst out after following him out, “How do you just tank a spell like that? I saw it splash against your shoulder like it was just water!”

  Terry straightened up, the unconscious human from the other side of the street hanging from his other shoulder.

  “Told you, thick skin.” He saw Yan’s incredulous face and took a little pity on him, “Humans good with magic. Trolls good against magic. Easy.”

  Yan was about to plead for a better explanation, but he felt a warm feeling welling up inside of him. It was that same part of him that had made him aware of all his Level changes before, including when he’d got his Dexterity Skill.

  “Oooh wow,” breathed Yan as they walked, “I could get used to that.” Now it was his turn to explain, having seen Terry’s confusion clear on his face.

  “I got my Class. [Watchman]. Level 1.”

  “Ha!” enthused Terry, patting him on the back with enough force to send him stumbling forwards.

  “Well done. Enjoy feeling. Gets better with higher Level. My Level 11 last month, Captain [Stun] me during riot. Tried walking through crowd of angry dwarf. Very lucky.”

  Yan digested this information with a slight guilt. He remembered hearing about a crazy troll during Miner riots from one of his foster brothers, but he had point blank refused to believe the young lad at the time.

  To be fair to Yan, it still sounded completely insane.

  They made their way straight to the station after that. Unsurprisingly, even laden down with two unconscious people, everyone steered clear of Terry. Part of Yan thought he was using a Skill.

  Back at the station, Terry got Yan to help him shut the human-sized cell locks and told him to get started on writing the report.

  “Terry I’ve never written one before! How does it work?”

  “Go look at old ones. In evidence. Good experience for recruit.”

  “You know I’m a [Watchman] now Terry.”

  “Aw, congratulations love!” interjected Ilda. “Just a heads up though, if Class meant rank we’d all be suffering with Hendrik in his office rather than Emery.”

  “Hey, I heard that!” came Hendrik’s muffled response from the canteen.

  “Hendrik, come on, help me out here.”

  “Shhhhh wait wait wait, I’m halfway through last night’s leftovers.”

  “Ilda?”

  “He’s not wrong it is good experience,” said Ilda grudgingly, before turning to Terry and somehow looking down at him, “but that doesn’t mean it’s right. Just do it and let him watch.”

  “Hngh,” came Terry’s grunt, “fine, but you writing what I say Yan. Damn boxes too small for trolls to write.”

  Thankfully Terry’s grasp of Common meant that the write-up didn’t take long at all. They were both done before Hendrik was, and Yan felt a cruel sense of happiness as he sat down at started scrawling out pages and pages of notes.

  “Wait,” said Ilda when they were done, having read over their report. “Terry did you break that poor man's arm?”

  “Probably.”

  “When did you plan on telling me?” she asked him, exasperated, “when he’d need it rebroken?”

  She got up from her desk and made her way to the stairs that led down to the cells. Yan was halfway through setting up at his very own desk when Ilda made her way back.

  “What did you do?” he asked, “I’d have thought fixing a break is at least a little painful? I didn’t hear a peep out of him from up here.”

  “Well I’m a Watchman, same as everyone else,” she explained, “but I kinda… specialised, I guess? My Level 10 capstone Skill was [Healing Touch].”

  Yan was getting tired with being surprised by his fellow Watch officers today. Ilda saw his look and carried on talking.

  “Don’t get me started on the whole watchman-watchwoman thing. Debby took it surprisingly well when she joined. Anyway, basically it took me a whole lot of fixing up people that Terry had arrested.” She looked over at Terry meaningfully, but he was tactfully inspecting a piece of paper on his desk. “The Captain told me how rare of a Skill it is though, so all’s well that ends well I guess.”

  “One of my brothers saw someone with [Healing Touch] once,” said Yan, “I’m pretty sure he had his broken hand fixed within a week.”

  “Yeah, it does take a little time,” she admitted.

Yan felt guilty, he really hadn’t meant to sound so dismissive, he was genuinely happy to have such a well Skilled member in the Watch with him.

It was at this point that Hendrik gave up on writing up his reports and turned his attention to Yan.

  “You ready for training now Yan?”