The bench was cold.
Frank leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his thumb brushing absently over the edge of the cracked trader charm still in his palm.
He hadn’t moved since the ssage ended.
Didn’t feel like he could.
So much had happened. Too fast. Too strange. And yet here he was—ho—with no idea what to do next.
His system was quiet now.
For once, he didn’t like that.
A footstep broke the silence.
Then another.
He didn’t look up. Not yet.
The scent of leather and faint mint drifted toward him.
Then—
"Frank?"
Juliet.
Her voice was soft. Not panicked. Not scolding.
Just real.
He looked up.
She stood at the edge of the sidewalk, still in her blazer, wind pushing a strand of hair across her cheek. Her eyes flicked over him like she couldn’t decide if she should slap him or hug him.
Frank gave her a small, sheepish smile. "Hey."
She didn’t answer right away.
Then she crossed the space between them in three strides.
And without a word—
She hit him.
Not hard.
Just a smack to the shoulder. Sharp. Satisfying.
"Ow," he said flatly. "Okay. Deserved."
Juliet stood there, hands on her hips. "You vanished into a void gate in front of , didn’t answer a single call, and ca back like you just forgot your keys at the store."
"I didn’t forget my keys," he said. "Just got... temporarily abducted by a martial warlord who thinks trade is a sport."
Juliet blinked.
"...That sentence shouldn’t make sense. And yet it feels exactly like you."
He stood, pocketing the charm, brushing his jacket off.
"I didn’t plan any of this."
"I know."
"I didn’t expect to co back."
Juliet’s jaw clenched for just a second.
Then she stepped closer.
And without asking—without hesitation—she pulled him into a hug.
Not a long one. Not a dramatic one.
But real.
Grounded.
Two people holding onto the fact that they were still here.
Still standing.
Still them.
She pulled back slightly. "Don’t vanish like that again."
He nodded. "No promises, but... I’ll try."
Juliet looked him over one more ti.
Then she said, "You owe a new cup of tea."
Frank gave a slow, tired grin.
"I think I owe you a lot more than that."
They didn’t go back to the café.
Instead, they walked the quieter side streets near the outer market stalls—less noise, fewer eyes. Juliet kept glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, as if trying to gauge whether he was really there or just flickering between worlds again.
Frank shoved his hands in his jacket pockets.
"So," he said, "how much do you want to know?"
Juliet looked at him. "All of it."
He nodded. "Okay. But don’t bla if it sounds like I hit my head on the way through."
She gave him a small smirk. "If this ends with you waking up in an alien swamp, I won’t be surprised."
"It didn’t start there," Frank said. "But it got close."
And he told her.
About the broken outpost buried in the forest. The mimic voice that used his na. The trader charm cracked and left behind like a warning. The duel-trade challenge Zaruun dropped on him like a test of worth.
Juliet listened in silence, absorbing every word.
"You dueled him with... gear?"
"Technically, I out-traded him. His world treats comrce like war. Their scrolls are battle honors. You want to impress soone? You make them a better deal than they can refuse."
She frowned slightly. "That sounds like your kind of battlefield."
"I cheated," Frank said with a shrug. "Used dinsional blueprints. Gave him sothing no one else had."
Juliet shook her head. "Let guess. He hated it?"
Frank smiled faintly. "He respected it."
They turned a corner, walked past an abandoned spell kiosk and a quiet bench frad by flickering neon runes. For a mont, everything felt still.
Then Juliet asked softly, "And the mimic?"
Frank’s face darkened slightly.
"I don’t know what it was. But it watched . Studied . Used my voice like it was trying on for size."
Juliet’s jaw clenched. "Did it follow you here?"
"I don’t think so," Frank said. "But I left the world before I could find out what it wanted."
"You brought sothing back, didn’t you?"
Frank reached into his coat and held out the cracked charm from the ruined trader camp.
"This," he said. "It belonged to whoever ca before . Soone else who accessed the Consequence Tier. Soone who didn’t make it."
Juliet stared at it. "And you kept it."
"I need to rember," he said. "What happens when you go too far."
She nodded. "You’re not planning to stop though, are you?"
"No," Frank admitted. "But I’ll go in smarter next ti."
Juliet didn’t answer right away.
Then she said, "Next ti, I’m going with you."
Just ahead, tucked in the narrow alley between a closed rune-forge and an abandoned ticket booth, two cloaked figures watched the street.
One leaned against the wall, arms crossed. Older, by the gravel in his voice.
The other was younger—fidgety, scanning faces, then nodding toward a bench across the way.
"That’s him," the younger said quietly. "The one that shimred."
The older one squinted. "Shimred?"
"You didn’t see it?"
"I saw a tired man in a ratty jacket and boots covered in moss."
The younger scratched at his sleeve. "When he stepped out of that spot... there was a shimr. Like sothing slipped off his back and vanished."
The older man’s brow furrowed. "Could be a system gate?"
"We don’t deal with system gates. We don’t care about rules. We care about results."
"And you think he’ll work?"
The younger nodded, fast. "Strong signature. Doesn’t register on standard arrays. His soul’s dense. Anchored. Like he’s been sowhere else."
The older figure eyed Frank more carefully now.
Frank stood near a bench, beside a woman—talking, calm, unaware.
The older one muttered, "He looks... too aware. Too grounded."
The younger leaned closer. "That’s what makes him good. The entity needs sothing alive. Not broken. Not hollow. It wants weight. Wants noise."
A long pause.
Then the older man asked, "He’s not marked, is he?"
"No. No brand. No sigils. No known guild tags. Just... a normal."
Another pause.
Then a soft, chilling sentence.
"Normal’s fine. We just need a body that fits."
The younger one hesitated. "Should I mark him tonight?"
"No," the elder replied. "Follow him. Wait for the next silence."
"The silence?"
"When the city forgets him. When he’s alone. That’s when we take him."
The younger figure nodded.
They watched Frank one last ti.
Then turned and lted into the alley, their footsteps fading like they’d never been there at all.
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