Walking with Bangen made Kaldalis nervous all over again. He kept glancing up at the rooftops, wondering if some lunatic with a spooky weapon was going to drop on their heads at any moment. He tried to remain calm, but he found himself staying protectively close to Bangen and keeping a wary eye on any other Vathon who happened to walk just a little too close. He considered equipping his new identity-disguising cloak, but he wasn’t sure how much good it would do him. Walking alongside Bangen meant that anyone who had done their homework would be able to quickly identify him anyway.

Bangen didn’t seem to notice his paranoia, and tried to make conversation. Kaldalis let her drive the conversation, because if he tried to control the topic, he might end up spilling that he was afraid of an attempt on their lives. As much as he feared Bangen might be in danger, he was positive she could get herself in way worse trouble if she was in a state of mild panic. He wasn’t sure how she would respond to the ceaseless questioning by the Contender, if she employed a Lataxinan ability to evade a harmless beggar or hawker who approached her a little too fast.

“So how did you and Ess meet, anyway?” Bangen asked.

“We met while she was working in her mom’s restaurant,” Kaldalis said. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized that they could be a problem. Ess was a PC, and so didn’t have a mom in this world, let alone one who owned a restaurant. “I mean… Well.”

“Did you work there, too?” Bangen asked with a smile, seemingly unaware of the awkward turmoil she’d caused. “Or somewhere nearby?”

“I lived in an apartment nearby,” Kaldalis said. “So I was a regular customer.” Again he realized he was just blurting out the truth rather than considering the canon he was establishing for their characters. Especially when he realized to his stream audience, she was a minor celebrity. Any information they could use to narrow down her real-world identity might develop into a huge problem.

The sort of problem that leaves debilitating scars.

“So how long have you and her been friends?” Bangen continued to press. She was either oblivious to Kaldalis’s inner turmoil, or looking around for street signs was just that distracting. “You two seem really good together, so I imagine there’s some history.”

“I don’t know if I’d call it history,” Kaldalis said, trying to dodge the question. “But we’ve been acquaintances for years. It wasn’t until more recently that we’ve actually become real friends.”

“And how did you do that?”

“Well, I’m… Kind of a creature of habit? I guess it just happened from frequent exposure,” Kaldalis said. Being in Baimer had gotten him back in touch with the Dylan side of his brain, but even that guy didn’t have the clearest picture of how they became friends. Obviously his frequenting the restaurant made them familiar, but when did it switch from that to friendship? “Eventually she learned to tell the difference between when I went in to celebrate and when I went in to cheer myself up. And then just… Made polite conversation. I suppose it just grew from there.”

Bangen made an interested noise, acknowledging that she’d heard him, but she didn’t ask another question to urge him on. She found a street sign and used it to direct them to the right down the next narrow lane.

“She’s a great friend,” Kaldalis said. He wasn’t sure why he felt defensive about it. “She’s smarter than I am, and it’s really good to have another opinion on your troubles sometimes. Or another smiling face to share your successes with.”

“I imagine so,” Bangen said, turning her attention back to him. “It’s always great to have someone close to you, who you can count on.”

Kaldalis wasn’t sure where she was going with this. Or, rather, he had an idea, and didn’t want to acknowledge it. Kaldalis liked Bangen, and thought that she could be a good friend, and he got the impression that she was trying to be a good friend to someone else right now.

“Things have complicated between us recently, though,” Kaldalis said. As he suspected, that got Bangen’s attention, and she almost tripped over the curb as she turned them to the left down a wider avenue, studded with small trees. “And I don’t know how to think about it properly.”

“Oh?” Bangen asked. “What happened?”

Bangen was normally possessed by a very calm demeanor. She had always seemed very chill and relaxed - much more focused on her research than literally anything else, including her own physical well-being. But apparently whatever budding friendship was happening between her and Ess (and possibly Reno?) had engaged her social instincts. Or, rather, had made Kaldalis’s thoughts a valid target for research. He wondered if she was going to write down a report to bring back after this conversation, outlining his strengths and weaknesses just like she had with the monster-related research notes.

“When I was in school, I followed a…” He struggled for a moment to figure out how to explain esports to someone inside a videogame. “I followed a pro circuit in a particular event. It’s not important what. But I found out recently that my favorite competitor was Ess the whole time.”

Bangen’s brow furrowed, trying to parse what he was saying, but didn’t ask any prying questions.

“So that means that she’s been kind of… Not who I thought she was?” Kaldalis said. He scratched his head. “I don’t think it’s dishonesty. Like, I never told her I was on the high school chess team, so why would I have expected her to tell me what she did when she was a teenager? But I’m struggling to reconcile two different people in my memory into one person. It’s complicated.”

“Right,” Bangen said. “Have you tried talking to her about this? You ought to tell her your feelings, right?”

“You’re not wrong,” Kaldalis agreed, “but she was something of a celebrity. I can’t imagine she wants a friend who is just a starstruck sycophant. If she wanted that, she’d have mentioned it. I want to keep thinking of her as…” He was about to say “Amy” but stopped himself. “I want to think of her as Ess, not SeventyEight.” He shook his head. “It’s not a conversation we need to have with each other, but rather one I need to have with myself. I’ll get there, but until then, I’m afraid I might just be a little bit weird around her for a while.”

Bangen nodded at his response, but didn’t have an immediate follow-up, as she craned her neck back to look up at the nearest street sign. He hoped that he’d given her enough to bring the awkward conversation to a close.

They walked half a block up from the sign before stopping at what he guessed was the address. It was a proper house, which surprised Kaldalis. He hadn’t thought it through, but deep down, he’d thought NPC adventurers would have come from obscure origins, driven to the dangerous profession by economic pressures.

While the home wasn’t really anything huge or noble like Garyung’s estate, it was still nothing to sneeze at. A cozy little townhouse, tall and narrow, with a strip of grass along each side separating it from the neighbors. Along one side there was even a little row of tilled earth that appeared to be a garden, though nothing was sprouting just now. The house had a vaguely Tuscan construction, with shutters hanging beside the numerous windows, and smooth walls painted a claylike orange-beige. It seemed like a strange sight in the middle of a city as big as Baimer.

Bangen gestured for him to take the lead from here, and so he stepped up the three-step stoop to knock at the door.

“One minute!” someone yelled from inside. There was a brief series of loud thumps, followed by, again: “one minute!”

Kaldalis wasn’t sure what to expect, but about a minute later a young woman answered the door with a wiggling child on her hip, perhaps two or three years old.

Kaldalis felt his blood run ice cold.

The kid was a familiar shade of green - very unusual for a Vathon. Terrifyingly familiar. When the kid looked up at him, all Kaldalis could see was Haldir’s features in miniature.

After a few uncomfortable seconds, Bangen cleared her throat. “Kaldalis,” she said, “this is Haldir’s sister, Verhaldar.”

Kaldalis blinked and diverted his gaze to the woman. She, too, had the same teal-green skin.

The pieces started to come together.

This was Haldir’s sister, and the kid was his niece or nephew.

“Nice to meet you,” Kaldalis said, offering his hand. For a moment, he offered the wrong hand - the one that would require her to drop the child to shake - and quickly corrected, offering the other. He felt like he was making a fool of himself, but he couldn’t exactly leave now. “I’m Kaldalis, of the Adventurers League.”

“Nice to meet you as well,” Verhaldar said carefully, shaking his hand. “Are you a friend of Haldir?”

Are. Present tense. Kaldalis tried not to wince. “Uh. Yes. Yeah,” he said. He struggled for a moment to remind himself what Garyung sounded like when his anxiety took full hold, and managed to stop stammering before he made that much of a fool of himself.

“Would you like to come in?” Verhaldar asked, though she seemed to be speaking past Kaldalis to Bangen.

“I’ve got some research to get back to,” Bangen said, though she reached up and pushed Kaldalis forward. “But I’m sure Kaldalis will be happy to speak with you further.”

“Um. Yes,” Kaldalis said. “May I?”

“In or out makes no difference to me,” Verhaldar said, stepping back and gesturing for Kaldalis to come inside. “I just need to shut the door or this one will make a break for it.” She nodded down at the wiggling toddler. As she stepped back from the door, the kid took their eyes off of Kaldalis and reached their hands for the outside world, making a wordless complaint.

Kaldalis wasn’t sure about going in without a familiar face for support, but he couldn’t exactly argue without making a fuss. Verhaldar was gonna close the door in his face if he tried to stall.

And he owed her - and Haldir - better than that.

He went inside.