Chapter 3: Earning Copper and Bruises
Two days of "no" had worn my patience thin.
"Ulf the Drunk? Fuck off."
"I don't hire sots."
"You? Work? Come back when you're sober." (I was sober. They didn't care.)
Every dock master, every warehouse foreman, every two-bit boss remembered Ulf's reputation. The brawls. The pissing in corners. The time he'd shown up so drunk he'd fallen off a pier and nearly drowned. My cover story about a divine vision didn't mean shit when you had a history of being useless.
But I needed money. Four copper stars wouldn't last another week, even eating like a beggar. So on the fourth morning, I walked down to the third pier where Maron had mentioned Gavrel.
The dock master stood on a crate, bellowing orders at a crew unloading a Tyroshi merchant vessel. He was maybe fifty, built like a barrel, with a face burned red from decades of sun and salt. Three workers hauled crates. Should've been six, according to Ulf's memories.
I waited until he paused for breath.
"I'm looking for work."
Gavrel turned, squinted at me. Recognition flashed across his face. "You're that drunk bastard. Ulf."
"Was a drunk. Not anymore."
"Right. And I'm the fucking king." He spat over the side of the pier. "Get lost."
I didn't move. "Give me one day. Unpaid. If I fuck up, you lose nothing. If I work hard, you hire me."
He stared at me like I'd grown a second head. "Unpaid."
"One day. Prove I've changed."
Around us, the other workers had stopped to watch. Gavrel's face worked through several emotions—suspicion, curiosity, calculation. He needed bodies. I could see it in the way he kept glancing at the half-unloaded ship, at the sun climbing higher.
"Fine," he said finally. "But you try any drunk shit, I'll throw you in the bay myself."
"Deal."
He pointed at a stack of crates near the ship's gangplank. "Start hauling. Those go to the warehouse, third building down. And don't drop anything."
I grabbed the first crate.
Heavy. Maybe forty, fifty pounds of gods-knew-what. I lifted it, feeling the strain in my shoulders, and started walking. The warehouse was a hundred yards down the dock. Easy enough.
Except there were sixty more crates.
By the third trip, my arms burned. By the fifth, I was sweating through my shirt. The other workers watched me with amusement, waiting for me to collapse or give up.
Not happening.
I set down the sixth crate and paused, pretending to catch my breath. Looked around. Gavrel was busy with the ship's captain. The workers were focused on their own loads.
Time to cheat.
I grabbed the next crate and focused inward, triggering the weight shift. My body went light—down to maybe fifty kilograms. The crate's weight didn't change, but my reduced mass meant less resistance. I could move faster, easier, like the load was half what it actually was.
I speed-walked to the warehouse, set it down, jogged back. Grabbed another. Repeated.
The workers' amusement faded to confusion. How was the drunk keeping pace?
Midday came. The ship was half-unloaded. Gavrel called a break, and I collapsed against a barrel, chest heaving. Pushed too hard. The weight manipulation helped, but it didn't eliminate exhaustion. And maintaining it for hours had left me dizzy.
I drank water from a communal bucket, hands shaking slightly.
One of the workers—a scarred man named Boros—sat down next to me. "You're not drunk."
"Told you."
"Huh." He offered me a hunk of bread. "Gavrel might actually hire you."
"That's the idea."
We ate in silence. Then the ship's bell rang, and it was back to work.
The afternoon was worse. A crate got stuck on the gangplank, wedged between the railing and another load. Three of us tried to shift it. No luck.
"Fuck it," Boros muttered. "We'll need a crowbar."
I stepped up, placed my hands on the crate, and focused. Weight shift. The opposite direction this time. I went heavy—three hundred kilograms, maybe more. My boots sank slightly into the wooden planks. The crate groaned as I shoved.
It moved.
Not smoothly. I wasn't strong enough for that, even with the extra mass. But it shifted six inches, enough to free it. Boros and another worker grabbed it immediately, hauling it the rest of the way.
Boros gave me a strange look. "How'd you—?"
"Leverage," I said, letting my weight drop back to normal. "Just needed the right angle."
He didn't look convinced, but he didn't push.
By sundown, the ship was empty. Gavrel counted crates, checked his manifest, then turned to me.
"You didn't fuck up."
"No."
"Didn't fall over drunk."
"No."
He pulled a copper star from his pouch and flipped it to me. I caught it.
"Tomorrow. Dawn. Five coppers a day, same as the others. Miss a shift, you're done."
I nodded, too tired to smile. "I'll be here."
Lunch the next day, I sat apart from the crew, near a stack of old anchor chains. They were talking about a brothel down in Flea Bottom. I wasn't interested.
I pulled out the knife I'd bought from a pawn shop two days ago—a cheap thing, blade pitted with rust, but sharp enough. And I needed to test something.
Tekkai. Iron Body. I knew the theory. Harden your muscles to iron density. Become a wall.
But I'd never actually tried it. Not properly.
I pressed the knife's edge against my left forearm, right below the elbow. Took a breath. Focused on that spot, imagining the muscle turning to stone.
The sensation was bizarre. A tightness, like flexing, but deeper. The muscle contracted, compressed. I could feel it hardening under the skin.
I pressed the knife harder.
The blade bent. Slightly. A tiny curve in the cheap metal.
But it also cut.
Not deep. A shallow red line welled up, blood beading along the slice. Pain followed a second later—hot and sharp.
I held the technique for five seconds. The muscle started cramping, a fierce ache radiating up my arm. I released it, gasping.
Partial. Too partial.
Only the exact spot where the knife touched had hardened. The rest of my arm was normal. And even the hardened part wasn't hard enough to stop a blade completely.
"You alright there?"
I looked up. A kid—maybe sixteen, apprentice smith's apron covered in soot—stood a few feet away, staring at my bleeding arm.
Terren. Ulf's memories supplied the name. Worked at a forge on the Street of Steel.
"Fine," I said, wiping the blood on my pants. "Just testing something."
"Testing?" He looked at the knife, at my arm, back at my face. "You're fucking mad."
"Probably."
He shook his head and walked away, muttering under his breath.
I wrapped the cut with a strip of cloth torn from my shirt and went back to work.
Note: Tekkai requires full-body practice. Spot-hardening isn't enough. And the cramp means I need better muscle control.
The cut throbbed for the rest of the day.
Evening. The sun bled red across Blackwater Bay as the crew dispersed. I'd earned my five copper stars. Four days of work now—twenty total. Real money. Enough to eat properly for a week, maybe two if I was careful.
I pocketed the coins and started walking back toward Flea Bottom.
A commotion near a tavern stopped me.
Two men grappling in the street, throwing wild punches. A small crowd had gathered, shouting encouragement or insults. Nothing unusual. Flea Bottom had a dozen fights like this every night.
Except one of the combatants pulled a knife.
The crowd scattered. The other man stumbled back, hands raised. The knife-wielder advanced, grinning.
Then someone stepped between them.
Huge. Easily six-five, broad as a door, wearing the gold cloak of the City Watch. Harwin Strong. I recognized him from the show—Ser Harwin "Breakbones" Strong, the strongest knight in the Seven Kingdoms. Rhaenyra's lover. Father of her bastards.
Not yet, though. Right now, he was just a City Watchman breaking up a fight.
"Drop it," Harwin said.
The knife-wielder hesitated. Looked at Harwin's size. Looked at the knife in his own hand. Made a stupid decision.
He lunged.
Harwin moved faster than a man his size had any right to. Caught the knife-hand, twisted. Bone cracked audibly. The man screamed. The knife clattered to the cobblestones.
Harwin drove his fist into the man's gut. Once. The man folded like wet parchment and hit the ground, retching.
The whole thing took maybe three seconds.
Harwin looked at the other man—the one who'd been unarmed. "Get lost."
The man ran.
Harwin picked up the knife, tucked it into his belt, then grabbed the groaning attacker by the collar and hauled him upright.
That's when he noticed me staring.
"You got a problem?" His voice was surprisingly calm.
I shook my head. "No. Just admiring a man who's good at his job."
He studied me for a moment, dark eyes unreadable. Then he nodded once and dragged his prisoner toward the nearest City Watch barracks.
I stood there a moment longer, watching him go.
That's what real combat looks like. Fast. Brutal. No wasted motion.
And Harwin wasn't using any supernatural techniques. Just training, strength, and experience.
I needed to be that good. Better, if possible.
I turned and headed home.
I stopped at a market stall on the way back. Bought salted fish, half a loaf of stale bread, and a used training sword from a pawn shop. The sword cost me eight coppers—a small fortune—but I needed it.
Back at my hovel, I ate slowly, chewing the tough fish and harder bread. Around me, Flea Bottom's nightly symphony played out. Screaming. Laughter. Someone fucking in the room next door, headboard slamming against the shared wall.
I ignored it all and focused on my mental inventory.
Four days in. Conditioning: better. I could run farther without vomiting. My muscles ached less. The weight manipulation: smoother. Transitions took two seconds now instead of four. Still too slow, but improving.
Tekkai: incomplete. Dangerous. I'd cut myself today because I couldn't harden properly. That would get me killed in a real fight.
The Dance was years away. Maybe a decade, if the timeline held.
But a decade could vanish faster than I thought. And when the dragons started burning each other out of the sky, I needed to be ready.
I finished eating, lay back on the straw pallet, and stared at the ceiling.
Tomorrow: more dock work. More training. More pushing this body past its limits.
The pain was worth it.
It had to be.
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