The inside of the Explorers' Guild headquarters didn't resemble the small room in Tidecrest Haven at all. A wide atrium opened before them, the ceiling held up by crossed dark wooden beams, the walls covered in enormous maps — not the rough sheets Renn sold for five Shields, but real, detailed charts, some still incomplete, with areas marked in pencil and notes in the margins written by different hands over the years. Thick glass display cases showed off objects recovered from past expeditions — an enormous claw, a yellowed scroll under glass, a piece of rock that seemed to faintly pulse with its own light. Dozens of people came and went between the counters, some in green uniforms with the compass symbol stitched on the chest, others in travel clothes still dusty, evidently just back from some job.
A large carved wooden emblem, hung above the main entrance, depicted the same compass seen on Simon's small document, surrounded by a motto engraved in lettering too elaborate to read at a glance. Below, an enormous board was plastered with job postings — some handwritten on plain parchment, others officially stamped with the guild's seal, the rewards marked in Crowns of varying denominations depending on the estimated difficulty.
"Impressive," Simon said, his eyes running from one wall to another, trying to catch as many details as possible in a single glance.
"Wait till you see the rest," Corin said, leading him toward a counter where an elderly woman, thick glasses perched on the tip of her nose, was leafing through an enormous register bound in worn leather.
"Provisional document from Tidecrest Haven," Corin said, setting the small piece of wood Simon had carried with him for days on the counter.
The woman took it, examining it with an almost clinical attention, turning it between her fingers to check the engraved name and the small compass mark burned into the wood. "Simon Hans," she read aloud, then looked up at him. "Job completed at Tidecrest Haven, verified. For definitive registration, only a basic magical assessment is needed — standard procedure for every new member, regardless of race. This way."
She led them into a small side room, where a man with a perpetually bored expression sat beside a stone pedestal holding an opaque crystal, about the size of a closed fist.
"Put your hand on it," the man said, without even looking up from what he was writing. "Doesn't hurt. Usually."
Simon glanced at Corin, who gave him a reassuring nod, then rested his palm on the crystal. For an instant nothing happened. Then a faint light, barely perceptible, began pulsing inside the stone, a dim glow that stabilized after a few seconds at a constant intensity.
The man finally looked up, studied the crystal, then noted something in his register. "Two," he said, in the same tone he'd use to announce the weather. "Initiate tier, upper end. Nothing exceptional, but not absolute zero either, which is already more than you usually see in a human."
Simon stayed quiet for a moment, digesting the number, then turned to Corin with a crooked smile. "So," he said, "I'm a rarer-than-unique case, for a human. Basically a sideshow attraction." He paused for effect. "But still pathetic compared to you."
Corin burst out laughing, a full sound that shook her shoulders. "Magic five isn't even that impressive, if you want to know," she said. "But yes, for someone starting literally from zero less than a week ago, two points isn't bad. The problem is both numbers stay pretty much fixed, barring rare exceptions — so don't expect to climb to ten by touching enough people's heads."
"Shame," Simon said, pulling his hand back from the now-dark crystal. "I'd already planned a career as a serial toucher of strangers."
The man at the pedestal rolled his eyes, with the air of someone who's already heard worse jokes in that same room, and waved them off toward the exit with a curt gesture.
They went back to the main atrium, where a small group of guild members had gathered near the job board, including the Beastman with the now-healed paw whom Simon had already run into twice — first on the wrecked ship, then at the small Tidecrest Haven office.
"Look who it is," the Beastman said, a grin showing his short tusks. "The confused sailor, now officially enlisted. Congratulations, I guess." His gaze slid quickly over Simon, head to toe, an expression slowly shifting into something closer to genuine amusement. "But are you sure you want to show up looking like that? You look more like a tourist on holiday than someone ready for a real job."
A second member, a human with a scar crossing one eyebrow, joined in the joke with a crooked smile. "With those clothes, if they sent you scouting into dangerous territory, the enemies would mistake you for a lost merchant and let you pass out of pity."
A few of those present laughed, not out of cruelty but with the lightness of colleagues joking around, and Simon looked down at his own clothes — essentially the same ones he'd been wearing since the day he arrived: a now-worn shirt, plain pants, no protection, no weapon, nothing that even remotely resembled the equipment of the other members in the room, between light armor, reinforced bracers, and sturdy boots meant for terrain far more hostile than a city street.
"It's part of the charm," Simon tried, with a shrug. "The lost tourist nobody expects anything from is the best disguise there is."
"Interesting philosophy," the Beastman said, "but I doubt it'll save your skin at your first real job."
Corin, beside him, visibly stiffened — not out of embarrassment for Simon, but from something closer to frustration directed at herself, as if that joke, harmless as it was, had touched a nerve that concerned her too, maybe the thought of not having taken care of it sooner, or having let him show up like this in front of a whole room of strangers ready to judge him at a glance.
"He's right," she said, grabbing Simon by the arm with a decisiveness that left no room for objections. "Let's go. You can't be registered in a guild and walk around dressed like you just stepped off a tourist cruise."
"Technically I did step off a ship," Simon tried, as he was practically dragged toward the exit, seen off by a chorus of good-natured laughter behind him.
"Exactly," Corin said, without slowing her pace, her mind already jumping ahead to the mental list of things to buy before evening fell.
Cajin's main market turned out to be a maze of stalls stretching across entire blocks, an unbroken river of people moving between hanging fabrics, baskets of unfamiliar fruit, weapons displayed on makeshift counters, artisans working leather and metal a few steps from their own customers. The air was thick with clashing smells — pungent spices, new leather, warm bread, the sweat of hundreds of people packed into the same narrow alleys — and the noise was a constant wall of overlapping voices, vendors' calls, the jingle of coins changing hands every few seconds.
Corin dragged him from one shop to another for the first half hour, buying with professional speed a reinforced leather jacket, a sturdy pair of boots, and a small dagger she insisted he carry with him at all times "at least on principle, if not for real usefulness." She negotiated with a confidence that reminded Simon more and more of the way she'd handled Yorin in his shop — no hesitation, no easy concessions, every price haggled down to the last coin so as not to get taken for tourists.
"You have no idea how much decent equipment costs if you look desperate," she explained, dragging him toward yet another shop. "Merchants smell naivety from a mile away. Better to look bored and indifferent, even if inside you're counting every single Penny."
It was during a lull in a particularly crowded shop, while Corin was animatedly haggling over the price of a protective bracer with a stubborn merchant who wouldn't budge a single Penny, that Simon wandered a few steps away, drawn by a nearby stall displaying what looked like small enchanted objects, glinting under the afternoon light — pendants, rings, small engraved seals that vaguely reminded him of the stall he'd seen at the Hearth days before, with Corin dismantling the seller's claims in a flat three seconds.
When he turned to go back to her, Corin was gone.
"Corin?" he called, looking around, but the crowd had thickened meanwhile, a wave of people moving in every direction making it impossible to spot a single figure among the many. He rose on his toes, desperately searching for a flash of honey-colored hair among the sea of unfamiliar heads, but saw nothing resembling her.
He pushed his way in what he hoped was the right direction, his heart starting to beat a little faster from the annoyance of having gotten lost in a city he still didn't know at all, wondering vaguely if there was a sensible way to find each other again in such an enormous place without an agreed-upon landmark set in advance. He had to remember that for next time, he thought — a fixed meeting spot, something simple, the way tourists in his old life used to do in front of some famous fountain.
It was right as he was mulling over that thought that a sudden push from a group of porters carrying an unwieldy load forced him to swerve abruptly, making him stumble past the edge of a tent flap he hadn't even noticed.
He found himself inside before he even realized what had happened.
The tent was wider than it seemed from outside, shaded, with thick rugs laid on the ground that completely muffled the market noise just outside, as if that heavy fabric were enough to cut off an entire world. A low table occupied the center of the space, and around it sat two figures engaged in what looked very much like a formal negotiation, not a casual stall exchange.
One was a man — human, in his forties, dressed in elegant but practical clothes, free of any decorative excess, an open ledger of exchanges in front of him and a pen still in hand, suspended mid-air in the moment Simon's sudden entrance had interrupted the conversation. The other figure wore a sand-colored tunic, a light veil leaving only dark, penetrating eyes exposed, and held in hand a small clay tablet engraved with symbols Simon didn't recognize — probably numbers, or maybe units of measure specific to goods he hadn't yet learned to call by their proper names.
Both turned toward him the moment the tent flap moved with his sudden entrance, two glances that went from surprise to a quick, silent appraisal, the kind of look anyone who does business regularly learns to instinctively give any stranger who walks in unannounced.
"I'm sorry," Simon said immediately, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I didn't mean to interrupt, I got... lost. The crowd out there practically spat me into your tent."
The man with the ledger studied him for an instant, then a professional smile formed on his face, cordial but measured, the kind of expression cultivated over years of negotiating all kinds of deals. "No problem," he said, finally setting down the pen. "We were just finalizing the terms for the next shipments arriving from the desert — salt, mainly, and a few batches of fine fabrics that always sell fast here in Cajin. New in town, I imagine? I don't recall ever seeing you among the market's regular faces."
"I'd say so," Simon said, still a bit disoriented, his eyes moving between the two negotiators, distinctly feeling that he'd stumbled, by pure chance, right into the middle of something that had every appearance of being more important than a simple exchange of ordinary goods — the kind of quiet, respectful agreement that held together, day after day, the economic web of an entire continent.
The veiled figure hadn't said a word yet, but its eyes stayed fixed on Simon with a silent intensity, as if sizing him up in a way completely different from the purely commercial one shown by the man at the table. Simon felt for an instant like he was under examination, unable to grasp exactly what that gaze was looking for, but uncomfortable enough to stay frozen at the threshold, unsure whether to apologize again and leave or stay, waiting for some cue telling him what to do.
"Please," the man with the ledger said finally, gesturing broadly toward a free cushion beside the little table, as if the sudden intrusion were already water under the bridge. "If you're not in a hurry, sit for a moment. It's rare to see a new face during these negotiations, and I have to admit curiosity is almost second nature in this line of work."
Simon hesitated an instant, his gaze drifting back toward the tent flap behind him, through which the muffled noise of the market still filtered and, somewhere out there, probably, an increasingly worried Corin over his sudden disappearance. But curiosity, that same inability to let things go that had already gotten him into trouble more than once in this world, won out over good sense.
He sat down.