The town of Greymire was neither lively nor dull, as though it hadn’t quite decided what it wanted to be. Ellie walked through its narrow streets, her footsteps muffled by the worn cobblestones beneath her boots.

The houses here leaned inward, their old wooden beams sagging, casting long shadows over the winding roads like bent old men huddling to share secrets. Smoke rose lazily from the chimneys, the scent of peat and charred wood mingling with the faint tang of iron from the blacksmith’s shop, somewhere nearby.

She kept her hood pulled low, the fabric brushing against her freshly cut hair. Her pace was steady, unhurried, eyes alert but not lingering. In the market square, the crowd was thick enough to give her the anonymity she craved, but not so dense as to overwhelm her. Ordinary people. Ordinary lives.

A group of women haggled loudly near the well, arguing over the price of salt fish. "Three coppers a pound? Might as well starve me!"

"I've got a family to feed too," the fishmonger shot back, his voice gravelly. "If you want it cheaper, head to the river and catch your own!"

Ellie’s lips quirked into a brief, involuntary smile, but she kept her head down and drifted past them.

Two boys darted across her path, nearly knocking into her. "Move it!" one of them shouted, waving a crooked stick like a sword. "You’ll never catch me!" His laugh echoed in the narrow street, high and full of life. They raced on, oblivious to her presence.

Ellie let herself breathe, just a little. The press of the town wasn’t suffocating as she had imagined. Greymire seemed wrapped in its own quiet rhythm, its people too wrapped up in the demands of daily life to care much for a stranger’s arrival. That was good.

She needed to fade into the background, and in a place like this, where the pulse of life was slow and steady, it seemed possible.

But the closer she got to the square, the more animated the town became.

Ahead of her, in the town's open heart, a handful of adventurers had gathered. They stood out immediately—brighter, louder, a stark contrast to the muted tones of the townsfolk. Ellie stopped by a crooked stone wall, keeping to the shadows, observing them from a distance.

Among them, a tall man with a long sword strapped to his back, was laughing loudly as he demonstrated some sort of footwork to a small crowd. The sword whistled as he swung it in wide arcs, his movements more for show than anything.

"See? Light on your feet, like this!" He slashed the air again, pivoting neatly on his heel.

Across the square, another adventurer—a woman with tattoos crawling up her arms—was bartering with a merchant over a handful of glittering crystals.

"This one’s enchanted." The merchant held the stone up to catch the light.

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The woman scoffed. "It’s glass, old man. Don’t try to cheat me."

The merchant grumbled something under his breath, but Ellie didn’t linger. Her gaze shifted to the guildhall at the far end of the square. A heavy, squat building of stone and timber with a wide, open door.

The sound of clinking mugs and hearty laughter spilled from within, mingling with the clang of a blacksmith hammering away on an anvil nearby. The sign above the door swung in the breeze, the iron sigil of a crossed sword and staff catching the light.

A group of adventurers stood just outside the hall, their conversation low but filled with the kind of intensity that comes before a dangerous job. One of them—a man with a gray-streaked beard—glanced her way, his dark eyes narrowing in brief curiosity. Ellie quickly turned her head, pulling her hood lower.

She moved along the edge of the square, her heart picking up speed. “I’m not ready for this yet.”

The adventurer's life was the only path open to her in Lorthraine, where everyone aspired to be an adventurer rather than a mage like those in Velsorin. She would be just another face in the crowd, another hopeful seeker of glory and fortune. And the guild provided a roof over her head, a place to belong. She needed that.

Her feet carried her away from the guildhall and into a quieter alley. She passed a row of crooked houses, their windows cracked or missing entirely, the shutters hanging loose on rusty hinges.

"Get back here, you little thief!" A voice rang out sharply from a side street, cutting through the low hum of the town.

Ellie turned her head just in time to see a boy—no more than ten—dart past her, clutching a bundle of bread under his arm. His eyes were wide, wild with fear, his small legs pumping furiously as he raced down the narrow alley.

Behind him, an older woman in a faded apron chased after him, waving a wooden spoon in the air like a weapon. "I’ll have the constable on you, I swear it!"

The boy ducked into a side alley, vanishing into the shadows. The woman stopped short, panting, her face red with anger before turning back toward her stall. "Little rats, the lot of ‘em."

Ellie watched the scene unfold but made no move to intervene. “None of my business.”

She turned away and kept walking, her fingers curling into fists beneath her cloak. The town’s pulse was slower here, quieter, but there was still tension in the air—lives pressed against one another too closely, too sharply.

She found herself standing near a weathered stone fountain, its surface slick with rainwater and green with moss. A girl sat on the edge, no older than fourteen, her legs dangling into the shallow basin. She was sharpening a small dagger, her face streaked with dirt, her dark hair falling into her eyes.

Ellie hesitated. The girl’s focus on the blade was absolute, her movements precise. The rhythmic scrape of stone on metal was the only sound in the quiet street. For a moment, Ellie wondered if she should speak, ask something—about the town, about the guild. But no.

“Better keep my head down. No one’s supposed to know who I am.” Instead, Ellie stepped closer to the fountain, letting the cool mist from the water touch her face.

The girl standing there didn’t look up, didn’t acknowledge her. It was a kind of peace, this silence. She stood there for a moment longer, watching the girl’s hands work the blade.

Maybe, in time, she would find her own rhythm here, something that felt like normalcy. But for now, the weight of her old life pressed down on her shoulders, as real and heavy as the dagger at her waist.

She turned from the fountain, her eyes scanning the narrow street. The noise of the square had faded behind her, but the guildhall still loomed in her mind. “I can’t run forever.”

If she was going to survive here, to truly disappear, she needed to face the guild—face her new life.

Taking a deep breath, she began to make her way back toward the square. Toward the adventurers. Toward the guildhall and whatever waited for her inside.