Chapter 62: Plain Sight

Subject: Caim Location: Maliscade - Gate District

Caim found Gwen wandering around in front of the Guild Headquarters, looking distraught. Even though she was wearing clean clothes now, and even though she looked composed, Caim knew her well enough to glimpse at her internal emotional turmoil.

She looked uncertain, worn down. She was living on the edge, like him.

This isn’t the life she wants either, he mused.

An Enforcer was also watching Gwen looking up at the Guild. The structure was still standing, but she must have seen what it looked like inside.

The helmeted peacekeeper gripped the hilt of their blade in its sheath and stalked closer.

“Show me Identification.”

The merchant looked a little like a rodent caught in a trap, with her lips pursed, and panicked determination shining through widened eyes.

Gwen hastily fumbled for her identification. Caim tapped a hand to the loop of his cloak where the Seeker Badge was permanently fixed. The only time he removed it was when it was being cleaned, a convenient service the Guild offered for a small fee.

He could use the Seeker Badge as identification for simple matters, but if he was detained and asked for anything more, it would be too late for regrets.

“Gwen!” he called out.

She jumped in fright at the sound of the greeting. He felt a pang of guilt for having only made her look more suspicious, but then he saw that she had already recovered.

Gwen donned a mask to hide her feelings. He could learn a thing or two from this survival tactic. This confident face held secret how much she didn’t fit in, so others wouldn’t see her weakness.

I should ask her to teach me how to make a face like that.

Gwen looked to the Enforcer to see if she was allowed to respond to Caim’s greeting, and the Enforcer nodded, watching closely to see how the two would interact.

Caim made sure his badge was visible as he hastily paid his respects to the peacekeeper with a well-practiced prayer gesture. Once that formality was done with, he gripped Gwen’s shoulders and looked straight into her eyes.

He looked at her like he was greeting a longtime friend, hoping the two of them could avoid distrust in this way. Then, he pulled her into a hug, continuing to ignore the suspicious eyes of the guard. The Enforcer was still looking for enemy holdouts in the city.

After a moment, he released Gwen, but she held on, so he didn’t back away.

“Caim… there you are,” came her meek reply.

She matched his exaggerated concern perfectly. He had no idea he was such a good actor.

“I didn’t know what to do!” he lied, pretending to be shaken up, keenly aware of their audience.

In truth, he was as calm as if it had never happened, and it felt normal to be that way now that he was confident they were out of danger for now.

But he wore the badge of a Seeker Initiate, and an Initiate would be scared. This Enforcer didn’t know he’d met with the Hexknight, and she definitely didn’t know he’d fought with said Hexknight.

“I was trapped in there and there were knights fighting these people. The people were… they were bursting apart!”

Even though he was saying the words as part of an act, it did actually hurt to remember those poor people dying in front of him. Especially the first one, who’d come up to him, pleading to be set free from whatever was causing their bodies to self-destruct.

Caim saw genuine concern flash in his friend’s pink eyes. Even though she’d gathered he was exaggerating, she didn’t know how much it had affected him, and she was largely unfamiliar with different forms of violence.

Oddly, I’ve seen this before. Unfortunately, I’ve seen worse. Never in person, but…

...But the guilt made it just as hard to handle. Intended on the part of the perpetrator or not, people died violently every day.

“Then there was this strange person and I felt dizzy, but the knights saved us. I’m confused, but everyone is alive. Some people needed special treatment, I think, but a Hexaline Knight said he would protect the Guild.”

If I had power. I could prevent this kind of thing from happening, he found himself thinking. If I had that high-and-mighty Vera’s power, I would find even more people to help me solve this.

Gwen’s body shook and her lips trembled. Caim somewhat regretted assuming she could handle his act. He valued her expertise and she would be very valuable to him in the future, but she was barely an adult.

He pulled her close again and rested a palm on the back of her head. Gwen’s head shook and silent tears trickled down the front of his cloak. Maybe something had happened to her too.

“Everything is fine,” the Enforcer seconded. “There was a slight incident, but we are all safe now. The Hexaline Knights made sure of that. You are safe now.”

“Thank you,” Caim found himself saying, genuinely feeling grateful for her unexpected concern.

She was a faceless Enforcer, and so she was bad. She was an agent of Shroud, and so she was bad. These were the assumptions he’d been going on. As he watched the peacekeeper leave to patrol elsewhere, he wondered if he should reevaluate how he felt about these people.

Gwen turned her head to see that they were alone, still pressed against his body.

“She is right. We are safe, from whoever those outsiders were, at least.”

“Hexknights were here?!” Gwen finally whispered in alarm. “Is that why they were locking people in their homes? I wasn’t… I wasn’t in the district. They put us in a temporary shelter, but then they opened it and said the danger had passed.”

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“I’ll tell you everything I know, but we should probably go somewhere else. I actually have a-” he started to say, but he was interrupted.

Gwen was still visibly shaken by his performance. Out of some exaggerated sense of urgency, she hastily tugged him along by the arm. Or, rather, she tried to, but he barely felt his body move.

He couldn’t allow her to be a real seeker, no matter how desperate she was to secure her place. And besides, she was even more afraid of the life than he was. Alice had a small frame too, but that Seeker Adept had well-toned muscles. This girl was a twig who’d been starving her muscles away not long ago.

Despair and desperation made people stupid. Hopefully, the merchant was too smart to throw her life away. But there were many stupid ways to die, and Caim feared that kind of end for himself too.

He heard Gwen’s stomach grumble, and her voice raised louder to hide her hunger.

“I know a perfect place! I started working for Novette, like we talked about, and her shop is private on account of the way she’s been running the place. It works out because she also has something important to tell you. I completely forgot about that. She wouldn’t tell me without you there.”

She’s working. Good, that probably means Novette is paying her something.

He reached into one of his pockets and found the packet of seeker survival rations he’d been eating while out on contracts. They were cheap, nutritious, and completely tasteless. Actually, it tasted more like the bland, ultra-processed food of the other world.

Gwen was pouting at the mention of Novette withholding from her. It must have bothered her because though the three of them were technically strangers, new acquaintances at best. Gwen had seen Novette more than the one time Caim had been there, from the sound of it.

He opened one of the food bars and poked her cheek with it. She glared at him and apologized, handing it to her properly.

“I wish I had something better, sorry.”

She only began to eat once he’d taken a bite of his own portion.

Caim agreed that it was a good place to talk privately. It was better than what he was about to suggest. His empty and unfurnished apartment was not the best idea.

After a few steps along the short walk, he decided there were still some things that shouldn’t wait.

“I have a part-time job for the Guild now. As compensation, they gave me a spare single residence. Unfurnished, except for a bed. As happy as I am to be out of it, the bunkhouses are better than nothing. Will you be moving there?”

Gwen looked a little frazzled, but she wasn’t acting suspicious towards him for asking after her plans. It was good. He didn’t want to have to go out of his way to prove that he wasn’t trying to take advantage of her.

“You know about my change in status? Oh, was it that clerk friend you mentioned?”

He nodded.

“I know it isn’t comfortable, but it’s not the wilderness, right? Did you turn them down or something? They won’t let you sleep in the Guild if it becomes a long term habit, and I don’t want you sleeping outside again. I’d offer to put you up, but I really-”

She flashed a perplexed frown and then nervously smiled.

“Actually, Champion Nina is letting me stay with her for the time being. It was just for a day or two to start, but. The Guild said I could sleep in the bunkhouse after my registration finished, but Nina’s spare room isn’t going away, and the rest of her party doesn’t have a problem with it.”

“Weren’t they going to fill that slot in their party? It can’t be safe to be a member down long term.”

Gwen nodded in agreement.

“It isn’t safe, but I’m happy to say they found a guy who already has a place of his own. He won’t be a permanent party member, but any girl they find is expected to be a free agent like that. Nina is kind of a big fish in a small pond, yes?”

He recalled the equipment and badges of every seeker he’d met or encountered so far. Badges, weaponry, and armor all grew more fanciful the higher ranked the seeker became.

“It does seem that way.”

This was a little concerning. They continued walking down the main street. The crowd around them was larger than usual. These must have been people who were trying to make up lost time after the lockdown was lifted. It really did appear to be city-wide.

“She didn’t ask for anything in return, did she?”

“I know what you’re getting at. Yes I know she likes girls, and maybe she would like to do… I don’t know. But she isn’t like that. She’s actually pretty amazing. Champion Nina knows I wouldn’t want that, and that I wouldn’t feel comfortable sleeping there without doing something, so I’m actually working on her party’s finances.”

The merchant let go of Caim’s arm, but not because she was angry with him. She was actually pumping her fists excitedly, while he smiled discreetly.

She was feeling better talking about something that made more sense to her. Maybe it was that something concrete, like coin, was something she could actually control in her life. Caim felt that way about his work as a seeker, but it really wasn’t a perfect comparison. Being a seeker scared him too much.

“Rich people always seem to waste way too much coin… even seekers. Champion Nina would probably be fine even if I wasn’t able to make a difference, but I’m happier knowing now that it is easy to do something for that group of hopeless heroes. I can help save their poor coin purses from their own mismanagement while they focus on the seeker stuff.”

They were awkwardly silent for a short while, but Gwen scrunched her face up like something was still bothering her.

“She’s a little strange, like all you seekers are, but she’s a really nice person. Do people actually say stuff about her?”

Gwen was maybe feeling hurt that Caim would question Nina’s intentions. Now he felt guilty for feeling the need to question how Alice’s friend might behave and what Gwen would put up with in order to survive. He’d mishandled a sensitive subject.

“Oh, no. Well, I guess there were some rumors, but I don’t think anyone thinks she is a bad person. My friend just said something like ‘the strong seekers get what they want’ and I got worried.”

“Yeah, they probably do, but that doesn’t mean they all demand things from people. It’s frustrating…”

“She saved you, I know. I get it. I never thought she was a bad person, I just knew you were in a rough spot, and...”

She bit her lip in a playful grin.

“You saved me too, you know. Did you ask me for that kind of payment?”

“No, I… I already know it was wrong of me to ask what I did. I’ll be more careful about what I say.”

“I don’t think it was wrong to ask, and I’m happy you care about me, actually. If you had wanted something like that from me, I would understand. I’m just happy you know better than to say anything about it when I’m… Well, anyway.”

When she’s vulnerable.

Exploiting vulnerabilities is something you do to an enemy or a competitor, not someone you care about.

“You aren’t mad?” he asked.

“No. Not about this, but I have something else I want to talk about when we are alone in the shop.”

So she’s mad about something else?

“Oh? Ok, well then please understand that this is only because I care, but here is my spare key. I’ll show you where the room is later. You can go there if you are ever in trouble. I don’t mean with Nina or her party but in case you can’t find me or someone who knows where I am. I had no idea how inconvenient it would be to not have an easy way to get in contact with someone far away at a moment’s notice.”

“Convenience costs coin and other things… or did you think I didn’t know about the unreliability of that kind of magic. Oh, and of course it would be really hard to learn, I think. Otherwise, there would be loads of mages using it. Ok, so I’ve studied the markets, not the magic itself.”

Of course it is. Well, not like I want to use an unreliable spell. But now I’m a little worried about the other thing she is mad about. What did I do?

“Wait. Caim… don’t tell me you can use something like that…”

“No, no, I just think it would be very convenient if I could. Communication is crucial.”

It must have shown on his face. He knew not magic, but technology that could do something like what he wanted. A phone or tablet, even a bulky personal computer was leagues better than anything he’d seen in use here.

“Of course it would be. It would also be convenient for me if I knew someone who could, but I’d never waste time dreaming like that.”

Gwen shot a sly sideways glance his way, and he pretended not to notice. This girl was too smart for her age. You had to be twenty-one to afford a driver’s license back home, not that he had ever owned one. Here was someone who left home and struck out on her own before she’d have been allowed to drive.

Caim wondered what the average lifespan was around here. Come to think of it, did it vary between different intelligent species?

“Yeah, it would only disappoint you. It would be out of my reach to learn something like that.”

Would it really, though?

“Exactly. Oh, and we’re already here.”