“So… What did you want to talk about?”

  ? Silver was too busy working her way down a chicken skewer at first to answer, only giving him a muffled, “Onf Sucund!”

  ? Swallowing the last mouthful of meat, she let out a sigh of satisfaction, then looked at him, her head tilted slightly. He took the time she considered her answer to take a bite of his own skewer, roasted beef heavily spiced with garlic. Smelling it in her breath had made him crave the spice, and he had to admit it was a good choice. He made a mental note to visit this food stall more often now that he knew where it was.

  ? “Well, I suppose I’d like to know all about you,” she finally gave him. “What… kind of a person you are.”

  ? He let out a quiet ‘ah’ of understanding. The request did make sense. “Not much to tell at the moment, I’m afraid. I didn’t get up to a lot growing up in Beastwick.”

  ? “So you grew up in the vi-ah, Beastwick? That’s so cool! What’s it like there? I haven’t been there in aaages!”

  ? He frowned slightly. Hadn’t Veyra and Bolton picked her up from Beastwick, just as they’d done for him? Maybe she came from one of the outlying villages, and just met them at the gate, he reckoned. Then again, he’d only heard that Veyra had gone to Beastwick, not that it was the actual pickup point. “It sucked. Easily the worst place ever for someone like me.”

  ? “Someone like you?” Her head tilted to the other side. The dancing light of a nearby torch made her eyes more luminous than seemed normal, but he supposed it was a mere illusion. “How so?”

  ? “I was raised in an orphanage,” he said. He’d briefly entertained the idea of holding that information back, but decided against it. If they were truly to be teammates in the future, he should tell her. Besides, the easiest way to let things go was to get through them, right? “All anyone in that city cares about is your connections. And if you have none, like an orphan, you’re mostly ignored. And being ignored was the good treatment.”

  ? A flicker of something like sorrow crossed over her face, but it was gone before he could be certain he’d seen it. “You said you were in an orphanage? What happened to your parents?”

  ? And so he told her about how his parents had died, and how he’d been orphaned. Then, when she didn’t seem bored with hearing the story and asked for more, he gave a brief overview of what it was like after he awakened, up until the time that he left for Ironmarsh. It was the first time he told another person about his excursion into his old hometown, though he did leave out the parts about meeting his ancestor and learning the truth of his family’s fate.

  ? Silver was the perfect audience, giving her honest reaction to every piece, and asking questions to get more information without interrupting him. She seemed to eagerly drink in anything he could tell her, as if she were intent on committing it all to memory. When he finished with his first night in the Cartographers, she smiled, the expression equal parts joy and sadness. “Yes, they seem like lovely people. It’s a dangerous job, but I’m glad you found somewhere to belong. I’m sorry you had to go through all that.”

  ? That was… distinctly odd, he thought. Guildmates or no, she seemed extraordinarily invested in his contentment. “… Right. Thanks, I guess.”

  ? Her smile widened, and, not for the first time, her eyes glanced from his to his hair, then over his face. She would have seen enough of him in the past few days, so why was she so interested in looking at him now?

  ? “You look just like him,” she whispered, almost too quietly for him to hear.

  ? “Huh? Who?”

  ? Silver flushed slightly, apparently unaware she’d said the last line aloud. “Oh, nothing! You just reminded me of someone I used to know, that’s all!”

  ? She let out a high-pitched laughter that couldn’t entirely hide her sudden nervousness. “So, uh… Why’d you choose to come to Ironmarsh, then? Was Veyra just too tempting?”

  ? “You could say that,” he replied, still staring at her. What was that reaction? “It’s more like I got tired of Beastwick. I was ready for a serious chance to advance, even if it meant leaving behind everything and everyone I knew. Not that leaving it behind was hard.”

  ? “I see,” she said quietly. Then, without anything else to say, she started to attack her second skewer.

  ? “What about you?” He asked, turning the conversation around. “Where were you before Ironmarsh? I’ve heard a bit of an accent from you, but I can’t place it. Were you in one of the coastal villages?”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  ? “Hmm. You could say that. My family never really left our little village. I even met my hu-ah, friend there. The one you remind me of.”

  ? Probably another ‘Child of Evandross’, he reasoned. It made sense that a few of the survivors would have ended up in the remote villages along the eastern coast. “What was he like?”

  ? “Oh, he was amazing,” she said, and her smile returned in full force. Her entire being seemed to glow with happiness as she talked about her friend. “He was a great hunter, but he never cared much about delving. After we both awakened, I got stronger than him pretty quickly.”

  ? “Yeah, I’ve heard the guild members saying you’re nasty with that staff of yours. Gerald said he’s never met a level four as experienced with the weapon as you.”

  ? “Aw, I’m nothing special,” she retorted, waving away his praise, though she did seem pleased. “I had a… bad injury when I was a kid. Messed my leg up for quite a while, and I needed a walking stick to get around. After I was better, I decided to use it as my weapon. Of course, it’s not the same one. I’ve gotten so many new staves since then.”

  ? Another high-pitched laugh, this one genuine. Her awkwardness had passed, then. After a few seconds, she leaned forward again. “So. What kind of things do you like to do?”

  ? Back to the awkward questioning, then, he thought. “Uhh, not sure. I like delving, but I don’t want to do that full-time. At least, not enough that it’s my only activity.”

  ? “Oh, right. I heard that a lot of delvers pick up a secondary job or hobby nowadays. What are you thinking of doing?”

  ? Frowning again, he ran through the list of options in his head. “I’m… thinking about taking up hunting. It’s a family tradition, in a way. And I have the boon bow, so I can even hunt monsters as well as wild animals. The hunter-delvers in Beastwick always seemed to do well for themselves, so I was thinking that would be a pretty good idea.”

  ? She nodded slowly. “That’s it? Just hunt animals?”

  ? “Well, I’d sell whatever I could harvest,” he added quickly. He’d purchased a field guide to monsters, and the types of materials that could be harvested from them, after all. “As soon as I’m allowed to go outside the wall on my own, I can gather rare materials.”

  ? “No, I mean, what are you going to do with the hides and stuff when you get them? Just sell them?”

  ? “What else?”

  ? “Well, you could turn the hides into something, couldn’t you? Make… clothes and stuff. Nothing from your hunt should go to waste, you know?”

  ? “Is that wisdom from your hunter friend?”

  ? “Kinda. But it’s also just how we did things in my village. You didn’t waste anything that the Elder Beast gave you.”

  ? That made him hesitate. “Elder Beast?”

  ? She nodded emphatically. “Have you not heard of the Elder Beast?”

  ? As he shook his head slowly, her eyes widened. “What? I thought everyone knew about him!”

  ? “And… what is he, exactly?”

  ? “He’s everything! He’s the giant beast on the back of which we all live!” Without warning, Silver was standing, leaning across the table with both of her hands planted firmly, her face mere inches away from his own.

  ? “A… giant… on his back?”

  ? “Yes!” She said, her voice nearly a shout. Grim flinched back, both at the volume and the light in her eyes. “The slumbering beast Masmorra! It’s his chaotic lifeforce that created the dungeons and spawns all monsters! We all live on his back! How do you not know this? Have you never heard the old sages tell of the first Grand Quest?”

  ? Those two words again… They sent a shiver through Grim just as they had the first time he’d heard them. Her eyes burned even brighter now, to the point that he was sure it couldn’t have been a mere reflection of the torchlight. Standing on unsteady legs, Grim took a step away from here. “Who… Who are you?”

  ? The light in her eyes dimmed, and she took a step back, suddenly looking sheepish. Muttering under her breath, she shook her head. “Sorry, sorry. I always get overexcited when I talk about Masmorra. I didn’t mean to startle you. Please… don’t hate me?”

  ? “You’re related to me,” Grim continued, ignoring her reply. “We share the same bloodline, don’t we?”

  ? There was a long silence as she watched him, suddenly looking bashful. With her shoulder hunched and her face turned down, she seemed more a bashful child than the competent warrior he’d heard the other guild members speak of. When she finally did speak, it was in a soft, almost timid voice. “I’m… I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

  ? She lifted her face, and her eyes flashed again. Then, she was gone. In an instant, Grim leaped back, also activating his Camouflage. She reappeared to his eyes, still in the same position as before. But she was smiling now, and it was a different sort of smile. While still a sign of good humor, there was something… feral about it. Without a doubt left in his mind, Grim latched on to the other instinct he’d had since meeting her, thought it had been buried deep inside him, disguised as familiarity. This woman was a threat, the likes of which he’d never met.

  ? Grim used Shadow Dash to move as far back as he could, flicking the bow from his shoulders. But before he could draw back on the string, Silver was directly in front of him. Had he seen a golden thread connecting the two of them for a moment? No, he was sure he’d imagined it. He Shadow Dashed back again, and again, she caught up with him easily. He gave up on the bow then, reaching down to draw his knives.

  ? She caught each hand as he tried to stab at her, holding his wrists in an iron grip. For a brief moment, the light of her eyes intensified, and the golden light flashed through her entire body. Then she simply stepped through him as if he weren’t solid. The gold light that suffused her own body stayed with him, thought, and he felt his power compressed. All the progress of his delving, every level of strength he’d carefully cultivated, simply vanished. And with it, his consciousness.

  ? The last thing he heard as he fell backwards, caught by something inexplicably warm and soft, was her whispering voice in his ear. “Sleep for a while, Grim. I’ll explain when you’re calmer. Damn Granden, he should have warned you. I’m sorry.”