Kaladin scowled as he walked out of the guild. At least none of the storming lighteyes were so convinced of their own superiority that they tried to physically stop him from leaving. The most they did was ask him to stay, but he wasn't in the mood to sit around and listen to lighteyes either decide his fate for being strange, or lecture him about entering the dungeon without their permission.
It was, after all, without a doubt under some sort of lighteyes control.
The reasoning was simple, really. It had value directly proportional to how many darkeyes you threw into it's maw. And if Kaladin knew one thing in life, if the shattered plains and Amaram had taught him anything, it was that to lighteyes, a price in darkeyes blood was no price at all.
The old man was right behind him, somehow, but Kaladin supposed it was fair enough that he wasn't the only one suddenly getting strange magic. Even more than that, he appreciated that healing magic existed at all, and that whoever had it was willing to spend it on a wretch, rather than saving it for the lighteyes.
He'd have to find whoever had that magic later, after he figured out what to do, and thank them somehow.
Damnation take him if they were some lighteyes trying to get him in their debt, though, because then, they had already succeeded.
Kaladin's scowl lessened, then, as Syl flew to hover in front of him, beaming at him like he hadn't ever seen her do. She looked happier than he even thought she could at that moment, and Kaladin almost wanted to smile back at her, until the sinking feeling in his gut reminded him of how she had shrunk into herself, completely alone in a world without spren, as he abandoned her.
Damnation take him, what was it even for? Just to wallow in the darkness? For how long had he even left her to break down together with him, just because he was weak?
"You did it, Kaladin! You- you were back! You saved Alam! You were so- so alive and just… you did it!" Syl yelled in her small voice, excitement and joy clear as she kicked her legs while floating in the air.
He wasn't. He could never be the sergeant again, not like he was, and knowing he would have to tell her that only worsened his guilt.
"I'm not back, Syl." He forced out. And as he said it, Syl's face fell.
But then she smiled again, and at that moment, Kaladin wasn't sure he'd ever seen anything more beautiful as she spoke.
"Maybe not. But you took a step, right? And even if you don't know where you're going, taking a step means you're going somewhere, right? So, really, if you always take a step, then no matter where you end up, you're always going somewhere! And eventually, somewhere has to be up!" She said, smiling at him. And it wasn't with the wild, frantic excitement of before. That was unshaped, unsteady. This?
It was warm and full of pride, and a silent promise that no matter how long it took, she would be beside him until somewhere started heading up.
He opened his mouth to speak, feeling his face drifting into a quiet, cautious look of wonder, but no words came out through the lump in his throat.
In the end, he could only give a begrudging nod. He wasn't sure Syl was right. He wasn't sure he wouldn't eventually find himself once again surviving something alone, except with the corpses of those he cared for finally stacked so high around him that there was no room to take a step. But for now… for now he would keep walking, so long as Syl would have him and his legs could bear.
The voice of Alam broke the moment, and pulled the world back into sharp focus.
"So, Grumpy, what's the plan now? Gonna become a big adventurer with your spirit and your magic and a long stick? Gonna take old Alam with you to the top? I'd settle for a modest mansion in the center, to avoid walking too far." The old- Alam joked, grinning as he jogged up beside Kaladin.
Kaladin slowed his stride, so the strangely short man could keep up.
Kaladin thought, only for a moment, about how to ask his questions. How to approach what he knew he would do. He couldn't leave them behind.
"How many are there? Of the people like us? The wretches between the streets?"
Alam slowed down, looking curiously at Kaladin, who walked slower to match him.
"Not that many. There's always a last chance when you really get desperate, after all. Those who're still there after a month or two are the ones a bit too smart to dive in, but not good enough to join any familia. Scrawny kids, the wretched, you know them all by sight. A third are too young to have to live on the street, a third too old like me, and another third too in their prime to have to live like that."
Kaladin felt his face harden as his plan settled into place.
"Go find some small square with enough space where people don't come, then go back to our alley, and get people there to follow us there when I come back. And the crystals? They can be traded for your metal currency, correct? Then I need them for my part of the plan, if you trust me?" He rattled off, as they came to a halt in the mouth of an alley.
Alam looked at Kaladin, and took in his features, and the look in his eyes. He nodded, and handed over the magic stones.
"I think I know just the place. And Kaladin? Get a shave before you come. I think that might help your plan more than anything."
Then Alam turned and disappeared into the alleys of the city, as Kaladin stared after him.
"Kaladin?" Syl said, quiet mirth in her voice like she was expecting something funny.
"Yes?"
"You know you have to register as an adventurer to trade the uncut spheres for metal, right?" Syl asked, a teasing grin on her lips.
"Damnation." He swore, and Syl giggled beside him
Misha Flott stared as the wild hobo walked in again half an hour after leaving.
He looked like he was smuggling lemons slices in his mouth, and was trying as hard as he could not to show it.
"You!"
She was almost surprised as she said it, pointing at him as he went to stand at her counter, but the big, tall weirdo only stared down at her, face all sour in a broody way, before he spoke through clearly gritted teeth.
"I'd like to register as an adventurer."
Misha stared at him. She- Well she supposed he technically could register, since he had a falna somehow, but… but nothing, she supposed.
"Okay. I guess. What's your familia?" Misha said, her words stilted even to herself, and she was pretty sure she was also smuggling lemons now, because there was nothing she could actually do to stop him from registering.
The fairy he seemed to be carrying around with him popped into existence on his shoulder, before flying out between them to speak with a grin.
"I know this one! I heard it talked about, and Kal is clearly in the incredible Sylphrena Familia, under the awesome Syl herself!" Said the tiny blue woman, as she preened in the air.
Misha turned to look incredulously at 'Kal', and he nodded in lemon-sucking confirmation.
Misha sighed and wrote it down on his sign-up sheet, as she pulled out the familia registration sheet too. Both were pretty simple, at least, so she wouldn't have to deal with these weirdos for too long.
"Okay, sure, just… sign here, agree to be an adventurer and not smuggle monsters or magic stones, and sign here, and agree to become a familia captain, and to pay the appropriate familia taxes depending on your Familia rank. You start as F, and you'll barely pay a tax, just a thousand Valis a month, and we'll tell you when you rank up depending on member count and strength of members. Fill in here, here, here, here and here, and sign here," Misha droned out, tapping each spot as she went along, before holding out the pen.
Kal looked at her, looking… vaguely insulted? Before speaking like the idea itself was ridiculous.
"I can't read."
Misha could only stare at him. She… she supposed he was just a hobo, but still. She looked to his goddess-spirit-whatever, who… also shook her head.
An illiterate, hobo-giant with some weird sort of natural magic and a spirit bonded to him as a goddess was starting a familia where no-one could read.
Eina would've torn them to shreds.
Misha, though? Misha sighed, and started to fill out for them.
His date of birth? Jeseves. She'd thought he'd coughed, but apparently, whatever little island he came from had decided that the gods' calendar wasn't good enough, and instead had ten months with ten weeks of five day weeks. And every day had a specific name. Because why not, she supposes.
The rest of the questions weren't so weird, at least, until of course she came to the name part.
"And lastly, name?" Misha asked, looking up at him.
"Kaladin" was all he said. She wrote it down, and it was better than Kal, she supposed, but it was also policy to make sure, so with a deep breath, she asked, prepared to find out that his last name was actually a poem or something.
"Any last name?"
The big guy only grunted, which she thought meant no, but then his… then Syl jumped into the conversation again, appearing out of nowhere.
"Stormblessed! His name is Stormblessed!" She said, while using her whole mouth to "block" Kaladin's mouth. He only looked like he was starting to chew on those lemons, though.
Misha winced in sympathy. The gods would absolutely give him a stupid nickname if he got that far, no doubt about it, to "balance him out" or something.
"Alright then, that should be it. As a gift to the captain of a new familia, the guild would like to offer you a beginner's weapon free of charge, to help you get on your feet properly. Would you like a spear?" She said, sighing that it was finally at least over with mostly, as Kaladin nodded.
Then she cringed, remembering the last thing she had to offer. She really hoped he said no. She didn't want to deal with all the weirdness until he got himself killed for no good reason, or the divine attention that always followed mildly successful uniqueness.
"And before I leave… Do you want a guild adviser, such as me, assigned to you to help guide you on your adventure?"
Misha was honestly surprised at how tough it was to force out the words.
Kaladin opened his mouth to speak, immediate refusal clear on his face, fueling her hope, before he glanced at the air, and started a hushed argument. Probably with his goddess, but boy did it look like he was a crazy shirtless homeless guy about to be handed a spear. The line behind him, what little of it remained, quietly dispersed to other lines.
"I'll just… let you discuss while I go to grab your spear," was all Misha said, as she went off to grab his weapon. What a weirdo, was her last thought as she left.
Kaladin knew it would be a mistake to sign up with the storming lighteyes who'd helped him register, but there, of course, wasn't a darkeyes option, so he picked who he figured would be the best option, since she at least seemed to marginally view darkeyes as people when she tried to stop him from entering the Dungeon.
She must have had some other reason of doing so than empathy, though, because she spent the whole process sighing, making weird faces, and acting like he was the strange one for having a normal calendar. Honestly, what sort of god came up with the utterly bizarre thought of having seven days in a week, the week having nothing to do with the moth, moths be seemingly random lengths, and having twelve of them, just to be special?
Except, of course, for the one time when there was actually four weeks worth of days in a month, one singular month, except that month sometimes every four years had an extra day, because one completely sensible month out of twelve was too much sense for their taste.
Maybe people needed Highstorms, or the air would get stale and rot their storming brains. Didn't make sense from a physicians perspective, but not making sense was their foremost hobby apparently, so why not? Storming airsick breeze-landers.
And now he was arguing with Syl, because she thought some lighteyes woman actually had anything worth listening to to say about fighting.
And worst of all, she was making a storming good point!
"Maybe she doesn't know a lot about fighting, but what about traps, or whatever you haven't seen yet! Back when you were fighting, I remember you always pestering everyone about everything, so why are you saying no now! It's not like we can read about it either, is it?" Syl said, looking smug as she pointed out that neither of them could read. Which wasn't even fair, because he could read Glyphs at least, while she was… well, more woman than he was, and couldn't read anything.
He supposed he'd at least see what the storming lighteyes bothered to tell the darkeyes they sent to kill and die in the dark below.
After today, of course. Today, he would need to make sure to earn enough to prepare for the first step.
Then the woman with the pink hair, and what a strange color that was, if only marginally strange by the standard of there being mink-people, came back, a solid looking spear in hand. She handed it to him, and it was indeed a fine spear. A solid, even shaft with enough bend to it, and a spear-tip sharp but with a good ring to it when he hit the pen against it. Nothing about the sound indicated warp in the thing's insides. It was a fine spear, worthy of a soldier, and worthy of a soldier was the best weapon he had ever wielded, his hands not fit for the quality of lighteyes weapons.
He nodded to himself and the woman, as he set into motion the second step of his plan.
"The Sylphrena familia would like to take out a loan of ten of these spears or enough Valis for us to buy them. We need them for familia business."
The woman looked up at him in shock, before pulling out a tome of some sort filled with the strange half glyphs half women's script that was their writing, and flipping through it.
Then she read it. Then she flipped to elsewhere and read that. Then she started flipping around looking for things to read, and Kaladin nearly suspected her of trying to get him to leave, before she looked up at him with consternation.
"I… Technically, an F rank familia can take out that amount in loans, but I wouldn't recommend it. It isn't only for the bank's sake that we don't lend that money to, well, the homeless, the debt will crush you too, and what will you even do with ten spears?"
Kaladin thought about explaining himself, but the storming lighteyes hadn't earned his trust, and she'd already looked for ways to stand against his plan when she didn't even know it. He wouldn't trust her to not find some loophole to bar his path should he tell her.
"I would like to take the loan. I'll pick up the spears when I leave. And a guild adviser… seems like a good idea. For later. For now, I have work to do." Then he turned, and walked away with a scowl, as his new adviser grumbled behind him.
Storming lighteyes.
He couldn't help but think as he descended into the dungeon for the second time that day, because he was almost sure he had finally found an answer to the old argument between him and his father.
His grip on the shaft tightened.
Because when killing monsters for the sake of others, you really were killing to protect.
