Unbound

Few people noticed Archie.

He was easy to miss. Sure, his skin was dusky, and he carried a pair of giant knives, but that described about half the people in the crowd around him. People were covered in armor and bristling with weapons, and that wasn't even counting the patrols of blue-jacketed Legionnaires. The only real thing that set him aside was his height, being more than two-thirds shorter than the average citizen, but even that only made him easier to miss.

Just like Birchstone, he thought, taking a bite out of a red vegetable. It tasted like a zucchini somehow crossed with a porterhouse steak. It was weird but delicious. Dwarves couldn't be bothered to notice a Gnome.

Dwarves grumbled all the time about being underestimated by the taller Races, but they couldn't wait to look down their noses at anyone who dared to be shorter than them.

Stupid Delven Body.

That particular thought had a lot less heat in it than it had in the past. Archie had reason to regret his choice of Race many times, but without it, he wasn't sure he would have survived working as a thief in Birchstone, fleeing the Titan when she came for him, and all the battles he'd fought since. Without Stoneswim and then Primeval Drift, Archie would've been dead a thousand times over.

Now that he'd evolved it, the Skill was even more useful. Archie had always been hard to pin down, but now his capabilities had grown by incredible strides. With a single breath, he could phase through entire buildings, feeling the optimal path through wood, stone, and plaster. Nothing could stop him.

Except Fiendstone.

He'd run into it shortly after heading out to explore, and it had been a rude awakening. His Primeval Drift had grown so capable that Archie had begun to believe he could walk through anything. Sure, he hadn't tried things like acid, and high-Tier materials still gave him trouble, but the common stuff folks built their houses out of? Easy peasy.