As Quentin leads Jojo wordlessly through back streets and sketchy alleys, she takes the opportunity to get a better look at him. He really is absurdly tall, probably closing in on nine feet, and though the finely-crafted suit hides his musculature somewhat, she can tell he’s built to match his height. His face is square and solemn, with his brown hair cropped short and evenly, and a neat, rectangular mustache. His eyes are easily his sharpest feature, focused intently forward at all times.

  She takes the chance to Identify him, as well.

  She manages not to show her shock at his level, and makes a mental note to ask Frankie later about how the system classifies people.

  Without warning, Quentin starts descending a set of stairs in an alleyway deep in the city. From the outside, Jojo would have assumed the stairs just led into the cellar of the building they’re attached to, but apparently that isn’t the case.

  Instead, the door at the bottom of the stairs opens into a long, dark tunnel lit by dim gemstones placed too infrequently for her liking. It’s a proper passageway, with brick walls and a paved floor, but it still feels like descending into some kind of catacombs.

  The tunnel system is like a maze, and Jojo quickly gives up hope of mapping it. Every hall branches out into dozens of others, turns happen seemingly at random, and it all looks exactly the same. All she can hope is that Quentin knows where he’s going, and that he’ll lead her back out once this meeting is over.

  Eventually—after long enough that Jojo starts to suspect they’re going in circles just to disorient her more—Quentin opens a door just like any other, but instead of more hallways, there’s some kind of office. It’s a cramped room, mostly taken up by the ornate wooden desk that must have been built inside the room, since there’s no way it could have fit through the door. Other than that, it’s very sparse, with no shelves or pictures or… anything.

  On the other side of the desk, sitting with his feet up on the table, is an absolute mountain of a man. His leather boots strain against his calves, his pants seem like they’re in a constant struggle not to tear, and his shirt has clearly lost that battle long ago, resting in little more than tatters against his muscles. His face is clean and freshly shaved, and his hair billows out in a wavy cloud behind him, looking like it probably goes down past his waist.

  Getting into the habit, Jojo Identifies him.

  She gulps.

  The man catches her gaze flicking up towards the display. “Good instinct, girl, but you’ll have to learn to hide it.” He grins wide, and his teeth almost sparkle. “Why don’t you have a seat.”

  Jojo lowers herself into the rickety wooden chair on her side of the desk uneasily. The man waves his hand, and Quentin shuts the door, leaving the two of them alone.

  “Um…” Jojo starts.

  “I’m The Shadow,” he says, cutting her off, “and you’re the new Traveler in town.”

  Jojo’s eyes go wide. “What? I-I’m not—”

  “Don’t bother,” he says, “my info’s rock solid. I know who you are.”

  Jojo purses her lips. “What do you want from me?”

  “See, now, that there’s the big question.” The Shadow makes a big show of tapping his chin like he’s thinking. “New traveler in the world, and I’m the first big player who knows? Honestly, most people would say I’d be an idiot to pass up that kinda opportunity.”

  Jojo frowns.

  “Thing is,” he continues, “I ain’t most people. I actually bother to look ahead, see what my moves will bring me down the line. And playing too rough with the new Traveler, you know what I see that getting me?”

  He pauses, but Jojo doesn’t give him an answer. After a moment, he goes on anyway.

  “I see it bringing me trouble. Big trouble,” he says. “The kinda trouble I don’t come back from. So, instead, I’ve got a proposition for you.”

  “I probably don’t want it,” Jojo says.

  “Aw, come on, at least hear me out!” He says, acting hurt. “Look, it’ll be good for us both, and it’ll leave us even. I’ll be outta your hair, and I’ll keep you being here hush hush. Sounds good, right?”

  Jojo stares hard at him for a long moment, then sighs. “Let’s hear it, then. What do you want?”

  He claps and sits up in his chair. “Good! It ain’t no big deal, just… Well, I have a daughter. About your age, if I had to guess, and she… Well, she ain’t big on my business. Wants no part of it. Says it’ll just get in the way of her goals, and I respect that! Everyone’s gotta have goals! I just, well, I can’t give her what she wants. But you! You could.”

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  Jojo narrows her eyes. “What does she want?”

  He laughs. “Well, that’s the funny part! Of all things, of everything, this girl? She wants to be a hero! A real, proper hero, with the Job and everything.”

  “I… Don’t understand. How can I help with that?” Jojo asks.

  “Right, right, you’re new. See, Hero is kind of a special Job,” The Shadow explains. “It can override whatever Job you already had, but the only way to get it is, well… You gotta be given it by a god. You know, for doing… Hero stuff.”

  “I don’t know any gods,” Jojo says.

  “But you could! Travelers do hero stuff all the time! So just, you know, let her tag along and share in the credit!”

  Jojo crosses her arms. She thinks for a long time. She tries to think of every possible way this could go wrong.

  And, eventually, she sighs. “Well, I guess I do need an adventuring party.”

  An hour later, Jojo finds herself in front of a small manor on the outskirts of town. It’s a fairly nondescript place, at least as far as manors go, but it’s still opulent in comparison to how the majority of the populace lives. It’s got two stories, a large plot of land surrounded by a tall iron fence, and even a small retinue of servants keeping the place together.

  “I thought you said she didn’t want anything to do with your business,” Jojo says.

  Beside her, The Shadow chuckles. “Well, I wouldn’t take no for an answer on giving her a place to live. I can’t have my daughter living out of inns, after all. Those places are dangerous!” He laughs harder, then waves for Jojo to follow and heads up to the house.

  None of the servants bother him, and he doesn’t knock on the door, instead just walking in like he owns the place—which he does.

  The inside of the house is clean but sparse, giving the impression of a place hardly used. There are closed doors leading off to several other rooms, but the majority of the main hall is taken up by a wide, fancy staircase that splits off at the far wall before leading up to open landings on either side of the second floor.

  “Penelope!” He calls out in a booming voice.

  “Dad?” A high-pitched voice comes from upstairs. A door opens, and a small, slight girl steps out onto the landing and scowls down at her guests. Jojo quickly Identifies her.

  The girl—Penelope—is tiny, probably just under four feet, and very thin. She has none of the absurd muscles of her father, instead seeming gangly and wiry. Her clothes are thick, loose, and seemingly purposefully nondescript, sort of just masses of brown and beige cloth that hang loosely off of her body, and her brown hair is cropped short and messy, sticking up in random spikes. Her face is sharp, almost gaunt, and made all the sharper by the piercing glare she aims at her father.

  Penelope stomps down the stairs, crosses her arms and puffs out her chest, squaring up against her father despite not nearly matching his height or size. “Who said you could come here? And with some dirty thief, no less.” She glances briefly and hatefully at Jojo before returning her attention to her father. “I should kick both your butts right now!”

  The Shadow holds his hands up placatingly and laughs. “Now, now, there’s no need for violence. I’m here with a present!”

  Penelope doesn’t stop glaring, but she does let her stance get a little less aggressive. “...A present?”

  “Yup!” The Shadow grins and gestures out towards Jojo. “It’s her!”

  “I don’t think I appreciate being called ‘a present,’” Jojo says.

  Penelope turns her full attention to Jojo, looking her up and down appraisingly. “Hmm… So? Who are you?” She asks. “Some weakling, it looks like.”

  Jojo smiles weakly. “For now, maybe.” She takes a moment to explain the situation to Penelope, including her status as a Traveler, and assures her that she doesn’t work for The Shadow.

  As Jojo explains, Penelope’s grim expression gradually fades. Then, it grows into a smile, as bright and radiant as her father’s, but purer, kinder. More sincere. It’s a bright, energetic smile that seems to light up her whole face and fill her with a kind of hopeful, giddy life that was completely absent when she thought she was just dealing with her father.

  “You… You’re serious?” Penelope asks after the explanation is over. “You’re gonna help me be a Hero?” She says the word ‘hero’ with the kind of weighty importance that only someone truly invested in heroes can give it.

  “Yup.” Jojo smiles back, glad to see the change that’s come over Penelope. She can’t help but find it endearingly adorable. “It’ll probably just be regular adventuring for a while, but I don’t exactly plan to be evil, you know?”

  “Yes!” Penelope jumps and cheers, and gives her father a quick hug in her excitement. Then her face burns up with a blush and she pushes him away. “Thank you, dad. Now, um… Get out.”

  The Shadow laughs. “Okay, okay, I won’t overstay my welcome. Thank you for this, Traveler. I know you probably don’t trust me, but I will keep up my end of the bargain.”

  “You better,” Jojo says. “I’ll have a Hero to point at you soon if you don’t.”

  “I have no doubt you will.” The Shadow bids the two of them farewell, and then leaves.

  Once they’re alone, Penelope bounces over and wraps Jojo in a sudden hug. Her grip is much stronger than it should be based on her appearance. “I’m so glad my journey can finally start! Our journey! You and me, we’re gonna change the world!”

  Jojo laughs awkwardly and pries Penelope off of her. “I guess we are. We should get to know each other first, though.”

  “Oh, yeah!” Penelope dances over towards the front door and grabs a bag off of a hook. “My Job is gonna be Hero, but for now it’s just Clobberer. Nothing too special, but I’m pretty good at it, if I say so myself!”

  She spins back around towards Jojo, reaches into the bag, and starts pulling out something long and heavy. She pulls, and keeps pulling, and it just keeps coming out, until finally the end of it pops out and she drops the empty bag on the floor. It’s an absolutely massive club, easily six feet long and thick to match, made entirely of iron and tipped with wicked flanges at the end.

  Jojo’s eyes go wide as this tiny girl poses with her club over her shoulder like it weighs nothing.

  Penelope laughs, loud and boisterous and full of life. “Pretty impressive, huh?”