I
“I can do it.”
The words came out steadier than Nivlac expected, given that he’d only fully committed to saying them somewhere around his third step toward the counter.
Every head nearby turned toward him simultaneously — Tal, the clerk, and, a beat behind, the archer and the broad-shouldered man, who’d both clearly been listening more closely to the surrounding hall than their posture suggested.
The clerk’s expression shifted first, relaxing into something like cautious relief.
“You’re offering to join Miss Tal’s party as support?”
“That’s the general idea,” Nivlac said.
II
Tal turned to look at him properly for the first time, and her assessment was neither warm nor particularly subtle — a quick, efficient sweep from his plain, undyed tunic down to his empty hands, then back up to his face, the entire evaluation taking perhaps two seconds and clearly concluding nothing in his favor.
Behind her, the clerk had gone very still, exhibiting the particular stillness of someone watching a fragile negotiation and desperately not wanting to say anything that might disturb it.
“What’s your class?” she asked, her tone flat.
“Light Support,” Nivlac said, deciding that leading with the honest answer was far more useful than letting her discover it later and feel deceived.
The silence that followed was brief but complete.
Somewhere behind them, a completely unrelated conversation about sword-sharpening technique continued, oblivious, providing an almost comedic backdrop of normalcy to a moment that felt, to everyone actually involved in it, considerably heavier than the words alone suggested.
III
“You’re joking,” Tal said finally.
“I’m really not.”
“Light Support,” she repeated, as though saying it a second time might reveal it to be a misunderstanding.
“The one that barely works on anything that isn’t already dead.”
“I understand if that’s a dealbreaker.
I just figured you should have the option of saying no to a real offer, instead of just to the general idea of supports.”
That seemed to catch her slightly off guard — not the class itself, which had clearly confirmed every expectation she already held, but the calm, unhurried way he’d delivered it, completely lacking the defensive over-explaining she’d probably braced herself for.
IV
“My last support,” Tal said, arms still crossed, “had a normal class.
Not even a good one, just normal.
He still froze mid-fight and nearly got someone killed.
What makes you think ‘barely works on anything living’ is an improvement?”
“Nothing makes me think that,” Nivlac said honestly.
“I can’t promise my numbers will be good.
They probably won’t be, against anything that isn’t Undead.
What I can offer you is this: give me one commission.
The easiest one available.
If I freeze, if I’m useless, if I do anything even close to what your last support did, I’ll walk away without a single complaint, and you’ll never have to see me again.”
Tal’s eyes narrowed slightly, as though searching his face for the catch she was certain had to be hiding somewhere in an offer this straightforward.
“No counter-conditions?
No ‘but if it goes well, I expect X’?” Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
“None,” Nivlac said.
“This isn’t a negotiation.
It’s just an accurate description of the actual risk you’d be taking, so you can decide with real information instead of guessing.”
V
He watched her weigh this, the calculation visible in the slight narrowing of her eyes — not trust, not yet, but something adjacent to it: the recognition that this particular offer cost her almost nothing to accept and confirmed her existing suspicions if it went badly, which, from where she stood, seemed like the overwhelmingly likely outcome anyway.
Behind her, Rowan had gone very still, watching this exchange with the careful attention of someone hoping very much that the answer would be yes, though he clearly knew better than to say so out loud where Tal could hear him rooting for the stranger.
“One commission,” she said slowly, “the easiest one on the board.
And you’re gone the second you slow us down.”
“Agreed.”
The clerk, sensing an opening before Tal could reconsider, was already reaching for a registration form.
“I can have the paperwork ready in just a moment—”
“Don’t get excited,” Tal cut in, not looking away from Nivlac.
“This isn’t me trusting you.
This is me proving a point.”
“Understood,” Nivlac said, and found, somewhat to his own surprise, that he meant it without resentment.
Proving her wrong would take time either way.
He’d learned a long time ago that the fastest route past someone’s skepticism was never arguing them out of it — it was simply outlasting it, one small, unremarkable success at a time.
[Party Status: Provisional Member Added — Tal’s Squad (Trial Basis: 1 Commission)]
[Trust Value — Tal: 0]