"I'll wait outside," Corin said, pushing him toward the room door with the packages still clutched in her arms. "Get dressed, then call me. I want to see the result all at once, not one piece at a time while you fidget in your underwear in front of me."
"How romantic," Simon said, but closed the door without waiting for a reply, leaving her to wait in the hallway.
It took him longer than he'd have liked to admit — he had no idea how to fasten a leather cuirass, and his first attempt left him with a crooked strap and one whole side completely exposed, before he figured out the piece went on from the front, not the back like he'd instinctively tried. He swore under his breath at least three times, caught two fingers in a buckle that seemed designed specifically to torture anyone who hadn't grown up putting armor on and taking it off since childhood, and for a moment seriously considered calling Corin for help, before pride won out over practicality.
When he finally managed to get all the pieces to fit — the cuirass fastened more or less correctly, the ring slipped onto his ring finger, the dagger secured at his hip, the small lantern hanging from his belt — he knocked on his own door to let her in, already feeling slightly ridiculous, like a kid dressed up for a costume party whose rules he didn't fully understand.
Corin walked in, and for a long moment simply stood looking at him, an expression Simon hadn't seen on her before — something halfway between pride and the pure satisfaction of someone finally seeing a job well done.
"Well," she said, slowly circling him with her hands on her hips. "You're not a tourist anymore."
"I can still feel the cuirass pressing somewhere it shouldn't," Simon said, tugging slightly at a strap on his side.
"It'll settle with use," Corin said, reaching out to tighten a buckle he'd evidently left too loose. "Rune leather — nothing exceptional, just basic reinforcement runes, but it's already infinitely better than a cotton shirt against anything sharper than a pocketknife."
Simon looked down at his own hand, where a small, plain, almost anonymous ring now gripped his ring finger. "And this?"
"Ring of Balance," Corin said. "Won't work miracles, but if you ever find yourself walking on a rickety rope bridge, or a ship's deck rolling too much, it'll save you an embarrassing fall. It's the kind of thing you never think you need, until you desperately do."
"Basically insurance against my own clumsiness," Simon said, with a smile, moving his wrist to feel the small weight of the dagger now secured there, in a thin sheath.
"Dagger of Light Step," Corin said, anticipating the question. "Enchanted to muffle the sound of whoever carries it. It won't make you a silent ghost, but if you ever need to move without being noticed, it helps more than you'd think. And besides, let's be honest, every self-respecting adventurer needs at least one weapon, if only on principle."
Simon slid the dagger out of its sheath, handing it to her with an almost ceremonial gesture. Corin took it, examining it with more professional attention, turning it over to check the engraving on the thin blade. "Good choice, this one too, by the way," she said, handing it back. "It's not a real war weapon, but it's sharp enough to defend yourself in a dark alley, if you ever find yourself in one. Better to have it and never use it, than the other way around."
"Let's hope for 'never use it,'" Simon said, sheathing it more carefully this time.
Corin chuckled, then nodded toward the last piece, hanging from his newly adjusted belt — a small dark metal lantern, its glass faintly frosted even with no flame lit inside.
"Frost Lantern," she said. "Lights without heat, which means no risk of accidentally setting fire to something in a dry forest, and no smoke to give you away in the dark. More useful than it sounds, especially if you ever plan on spending a night away from a real inn, sooner or later."
Simon looked himself over, turning slightly to see as much as possible of his new look without an actual mirror in front of him. "So," he said, "officially I'm no longer a tourist wearing hospital clothes in disguise."
"Officially," Corin confirmed, "you almost look like a real guild member. Almost."
"Thanks for the overwhelming confidence."
"You're welcome," she said, without a hint of irony in her voice.
They both sat on the edges of their respective beds shortly after, Corin pulling out the remaining coin pouch to do a quick count out loud, her fingers moving rapidly through Crowns of various denominations, sorting them into small orderly piles on the table between the two beds — Aureus on one side, Shields on the other, the few remaining Pennies heaped in a corner almost as an afterthought.
"Almost twenty Shields, just for you," she said, with a low whistle, counting once more for good measure. "Between cuirass, ring, dagger, and lantern. Not exactly cheap, but not excessive either for decent basic gear. We could've spent double, if I'd insisted on higher-quality pieces instead of sticking to the essentials."
"And how much do we have left, total?" Simon asked, a bit apprehensive, watching the small piles of coins with the attention of someone trying to do the same math mentally, without yet having the confidence to trust his own count.
Corin did one last quick calculation, counting the remaining coins by denomination, her lips moving slightly as she added the figures in her head. "One Aureus," she said, after a moment, "and twenty Shields, accounting for all the other expenses today — the inn, the food, the rest of the minor purchases I don't even remember in detail anymore."
Simon did some mental math, still not entirely used to confidently handling that scale of values that had seemed absurd just a few days before — an Aureus worth fifty Shields, a Shield worth ten Pennies, all that math now spinning in his head with growing but still not entirely natural familiarity. "That's not a lot," he said, "if we need to survive in this city for a while, especially with prices inflated by the high season."
"No, it's not," Corin agreed, retying the pouch with a tight knot, her tone turning more practical, almost like an improvised financial advisor. "So I'd say we stop here for now. No more unnecessary purchases, at least until we earn something concrete from a real job. Better to keep a reserve for emergencies — you never know what might come up, in a city like this, especially with the Festival coming up and everyone crowding in for the occasion."
"Fully agreed," Simon said, with a serious nod that tried to sound more responsible than he actually felt. "I'm officially in savings mode. No more crazy spending, except maybe on food, because that stays non-negotiable."
"Food is always negotiable for me, but rarely for you, from what I've noticed," Corin said, with a smile lighting up at the corners of her mouth.
Simon nodded, then lay back on his own bed, arms behind his head, eyes fixed on the wooden ceiling. "There's something I'd like to understand better, rather than spend more money," he said, after a moment of silence. "That number. Two. What does it actually mean, in practice? I know it's tied to skills, but I still don't really get how the whole system works."
Corin turned to look at him, a thoughtful expression crossing her face, as if she were searching for the simplest way to condense something that, for her, had been obvious her whole life but that for Simon still represented almost entirely unexplored territory. "Skills are divided into tiers," she said, after a moment. "More or less five, if I'm counting right off the top of my head. Someone with a low score — like yours, for now — can only access the lowest tiers, the beginner ones. As the score rises, higher, more powerful, rarer tiers unlock. It's a fairly simple system to explain in words, but really understanding it, seeing it work, is a whole other thing."
"So I, with my two," Simon said, with a wry half smile, "am stuck with stuff like... sensing if someone's lying, or smelling slightly different. While someone with a higher score can do things like throw fireballs, or teleport through shadows, or something like that?"
"More or less the idea," Corin said. "Though it's not just a matter of 'more powerful equals flashier.' Some high-tier skills are subtle, almost imperceptible, but completely change the outcome of a situation. Others are showy but limited. It depends a lot on the magic family they belong to, and on who's using them."
"And how do you actually see it in action?" Simon asked, propping himself up on one elbow, curiosity now nagging at his stomach more than the exhaustion built up over the day.
Corin smiled, a spark of an idea lighting up in her eyes. "We could buy two tickets for the Festival of the Guilds," she said. "Watch a match live. There, the participants show off skills from different tiers, often pretty high ones — it's the simplest, most direct way to make you understand what the difference between a two and, say, a seven, really means. Better than any explanation I could give you sitting on this bed."
Simon sat up fully, a smile slowly spreading across his face. "So, basically, you're telling me we should go watch people bash each other's faces in with magic, and call it education."
"Exactly," Corin said, getting up from the bed with renewed energy. "Call it whatever you want. I call it a good investment of our time, since we'll be in the city for the Festival regardless of what we do."
"No objections," Simon said, standing up too, feeling the still-unfamiliar weight of the cuirass on his chest, the dagger rubbing slightly against his thigh with every movement, the little lantern jingling softly against his belt. "Though I strongly suspect that in a few days I'll want to be the one down there, instead of a spectator sitting in the stands watching others."
Corin looked at him, an expression mixing amusement and a pinch of genuine curiosity. "Who knows," she said. "Maybe someday. But first learn to put your cuirass on without catching a strap in your side. One step at a time, Simon."
"I have a psychological scar from that buckle that I'll carry for the rest of my days," Simon said, rubbing his side where he had indeed pinched his skin during the first failed attempt. "But fine, I accept the gradual challenge. First I figure out how this world works, then I'll dive in to bash faces with magic."
"Sensible order of priorities," Corin said, heading toward the room door with renewed energy that seemed to have swept away every trace of the exhaustion built up during the afternoon. "Tomorrow morning we go buy those tickets, before they sell out — with all these people in the city for high season, I doubt the stands will stay empty for long, especially for the most anticipated matches."
"What would the most anticipated matches be?" Simon asked, genuinely curious.
"Usually the final showdown between the two best Ironblades," Corin said. "But personally I prefer the Explorers' trials — less blood, more wit. Though, knowing you, I suspect you'll end up preferring the chaos of direct combat anyway."
"You already know me so well," Simon said, with a crooked smile.
"I'm learning," she replied, blowing out the small candle on the table between the two beds.
"Tomorrow morning," Simon repeated, nodding, feeling for the first time in days a sensation that almost resembled a real plan, something concrete to hold onto amid all the chaos he'd lived through so far. "Okay. A plan. I like having a plan, for once."
Corin paused at the threshold, turning to look at him one last time before blowing out the small candle on the table between the two beds. "You'll get used to it," she said, with a half smile. "Plans, in this world, rarely survive intact for more than a day. But it's still better to have something to start from, than to wander aimlessly like you've done so far."
"Wise words," Simon said, lying back down on his own bed, the cuirass now removed and carefully draped over the chair beside it, the dagger set on the table within reach out of pure habit, even though he still had no idea how to actually use it in a real situation.
The room fell into darkness a few moments later, the noise of the street below continuing, muffled, even at that hour of the evening — Cajin, it seemed, never fully slept, not even in its quietest hours. Simon stayed awake a few more minutes, eyes fixed on the invisible ceiling in the dark, thinking back over that day dense with discoveries — the magical test, the encounter in the tent, the new gear now hanging from the chair as tangible proof of how much had already changed in so little time.
Then, finally, sleep came, carrying away for a few hours all the still-unanswered questions.