In the market area, there was a food vendor at the eastern entrance who made some kind of meat pie, at least by approximation.

The approximation bit is because I was never entirely certain what type of meat it was, and somewhere around day four, I decided I was going to quit trying to figure it out. It was hot, filling, cost only two copper coins, and the vendor lady had a level of energy one might expect after thirty years of doing the same thing over and over until she attained a form of enlightenment.

I admired that.

I sat on the small wall opposite her and considered the possibilities with one meat pie in my hand and the wiki screen open on the edge of my vision while trying to think like I wasn’t fueled entirely by dungeon gas and existential dread.

That was going badly, too.

Here were the facts, as I understood them:

Female. Non-game origin. Located in Ashveil for about three days. Already contacted game characters — confirmed. No names mentioned. Foreknowledge inconsistent with NPC or standard player template.

That’s what really gave it away. The wiki didn’t mention foreknowledge as a trait of the average player. An average player wouldn’t have foreknowledge; they’d have quests, UI overlays, and whatever starter’s guide the game threw at them when they spawned. Foreknowledge was something only someone who would come into the game with preexisting knowledge would have.

Either she had prior experience playing Shattered Vows Online prior to being dragged into the plane.

Or she looked up the wiki pages.

The pie was delicious. I took half of it and looked at the market’s traffic, thinking about Daren talking about that adventurer asking about the Undercroft layout. They were a woman who apparently knew the answers.

Three days into her stay and she was already asking about dungeon layouts.

This was not the behavior of a casual tourist. This was the actions of a person orienting themselves quickly because they knew they had to.

---

WIKI — ALERT UPDATE

Entry: External Variable

Generation: 44%

New data: Subject has acquired guild registration — Ashveil Adventurers Guild. Registered rank: Unclassified. Weapon type on file: [REDACTED]. Active quest log: 1 entry. Contact log — Daren: 1 interaction, 23 relationship points generated.

---

I considered that for a second.

Twenty-three relationship points from one chat with Daren? He produced a lot, he was warm, genuine, and put people at ease quickly. Still, twenty-three points in one go was more than average for him.

Either she’d charmed him immensely, or she knew just how to handle him.

I added that to my list of considerations and finished the pie.

The guild hall was a ten-minute walk east of the market, stone structure on two floors. The kind of construction that screamed stability and some minor bureaucracy. Quest boards posted on the outside wall, permit windows on the first floor, ranking clerk inside.

I had been there so many times that the guard outside nodded as I walked up the stairs.

Inside, mid-day crowds could be expected. Adventurers checking the quest boards, some B-ranked adventurers at the other side of the room finishing their breakfasts around noon time since dungeon schedules messed with their sleeping cycles, and a clerk busy handling permits with the intensity of someone who despised paperwork.

Daren was at the corner table.

Nothing strange. He usually hung around here in the mornings after his own workouts, chatted to people, looked at the boards. Daren was the sort of fellow that actually enjoyed the guild hall — the social aspects, the infrastructure thereof. He’d made mention of how it brought back memories for him once, but he left it at that and I didn’t pry.

He wasn’t alone.

---

WIKI — ALERT UPDATE

Entry: External Variable

Generation: 61%

Identity: [PARTIAL UNLOCK]

Name: [REDACTED]

Physical description: Female, early twenties, dark hair, light eyes. Unclassified rank. Current location: Ashveil Adventurers Guild, main level.

Status: IN ACTIVE CONVERSATION — topic: Daren

Relationship / Daren: 23 — generation ongoing

Foreknowledge index: HIGH

Threat classification: UNKNOWN — lack of data

---

I paused just inside the door and performed the wholly mundane act of standing motionless and evaluating the situation from the viewpoint of someone who had by no means just identified an external variable seated opposite to his best NPC buddy.

Her back was mostly turned toward me. Dark-haired, neither long nor fancy. Standard guild-issue tunic, which she would have received during registration before being given anything better.

She had been leaning forward just a bit, arms resting on the table, talking to Daren in that relaxed body language either native or learned for the purpose of making him feel at ease.

Daren was all ears when it came to the person to whom he was speaking; Relationship Meter, still at 854. The man laughed out loud to her joke.

I made my way over to the quest board and pretended to read it.

The Observe skill activated without me actively selecting it.

---

OBSERVE — PARTIAL

Target: External Variable [Name REDACTED]

Role: [NO TEMPLATE MATCH]

Rank: Unclassified

Relationship / Daren: 23 — active generation

Foreknowledge: Confirmed HIGH

Hidden flags: [ACCESS DENIED — insufficient rank]

Note: Target has detected your presence. Reaction: NEUTRAL.

---

That particular line.

My gaze stayed fixed on the quest board.

*Target has detected your presence. Reaction: neutral.*

No surprise or alarm there; neutral — which could have been good acting on her part or foreknowledge on hers about my presence.

Had she read the wiki, she would have known who I was. NPC Unit 4471. Childhood Friend Supporting. The background character who had begun flag breaking.

Except the wiki — the true wiki, the one she would have consulted prior to entering the world — did not contain me. As I was never intended to be part of the narrative. I was a post-canon addition. A cheat engine glitch incarnate.

So she had noticed someone whose existence she lacked knowledge of.

She and I weren’t the only ones.

I stepped away from the bulletin board as if having found nothing of interest there and headed for the table in the corner, knowing that there could be no variation of the circumstances where discretion was the wiser choice. She was aware of my presence. Vorn was aware of hers. The time frame during which she could observe without suspicion had expired.

Daren looked up at a distance of six feet and performed the usual reaction on seeing me.

"Kai." Heartfelt. Affectionate. "Didn’t know you had resurfaced."

"Came up for lunch." I pulled out the chair on the other side of him and took a seat. Gazed right at her for the first time.

Twenty-something years old, dark hair, light eyes — gray or close to it. One of those faces that was difficult to read. That in itself was telling enough. She met my look without adjusting her expression.

Neutral. Exactly like the Observe had said.

"This is Mira," Daren said casually, as if he were introducing two individuals he knew would get along well. "Registered yesterday. I was just showing her the floor plan of the Undercroft."

"I heard," I said.

A beat.

Her mouth opened a bit. Not smiling. "You’re Kai," she said.

Not a question.

"Yeah," I said.

"Daren mentioned you," she confirmed. "He said you’re grinding Floor 3 solo at D-rank."

"Solo work has to be done by somebody."

"That’s not a reason worth mentioning."

"It’s all I have."

Daren watched the two of us with the expression of someone enjoying a private joke. "You two have the same energy," he remarked, "and I can’t tell whether that’s a good thing or not."

I watched her.

And she stared right back at me.

My wiki generation was still proceeding in the background — 61%, on its way up to 62%. Name partially unlocked. Mira. No last name yet, nor any additional information about her background. Foreknowledge index definitely high.

She knew something. I knew something. And we both knew each other knew something, without either of us ever admitting it in front of Daren, who didn’t seem to realize that his two dinner companions were operating under pieces of information that should have been classified.

"You planning on managing the Undercroft?" I asked her.

"Eventually." She put her cup down. "First floor, then see how that goes."

"Smart."

"You started at Floor 3."

"I have context."

Pause. Slightly longer than the previous one.

"Yeah," she said. "I figured."

---

WIKI — ALERT UPDATE

Entry: External Variable — MIRA

Generation: 67%

Name: Mira [surname REDACTED]

Classification: Non-game origin confirmed

Foreknowledge source: [REDACTED]

Current objective: [REDACTED]

Relationship / Kai: 12 — initial contact registered

Note: Identification confirmed. Both sides aware.

---

Daren downed the last of the drink and stood the way Daren stood — as if there was someplace to go, but no hurry in getting there. "Got a Floor 4 permit window in twenty minutes," he stated. "Mira, the south passage on Floor 1 is the least contaminated entry point. Kai understands the dungeon structure far better than the clerks do now — he can explain it to you."

He might as well have been stating the obvious. The two people who’d barely met and been conducting an extremely cautious dance of avoiding each other’s existence ought to spend time alone going over dungeon structure.

Daren had no clue how helpful he could sometimes be.

He clapped me on the shoulder once before he turned and walked away.

I looked at Mira.

Mira looked at me.

"So," she stated, and the neutral tone she’d adopted earlier was off by about ten percent. "How long did it take you to realize that you’re not supposed to be here?"

"Forty seconds."

"Twenty," she said. "I was faster."

"You had three extra days."

"Fair." She reclined in her chair. "Your wiki entry is blank, by the way. You don’t show up there."

"I know. I’m post-canon."

"Yeah." She sized me up. "Me too."

---

WIKI — ALERT UPDATE

Entry: Mira

Generation: 78%

Foreknowledge source: CONFIRMED — Shattered Vows Online wiki, pre-insertion

Origin: CONFIRMED — non-game, same classification as Kai

Current objective: [REDACTED]

Relationship / Kai: 19 — accelerating

Hidden flag: 1 active — content [REDACTED]

Note: Direct identification confirmed. Mutual confirmation recorded. Dynamic classification: UNKNOWN.

---

Outside the guild hall, the market district continued its steady flow of activity. Permit clerks stamped papers. Adventurers read notices. In some part of the city, Vorn continued doing whatever it was that Vorn did while he plotted his next carefully orchestrated move.

And there I sat in a guild hall corner, talking to someone else who really didn’t belong in this story, trying to determine whether she was going to make my life easier or significantly more difficult.

The wiki was at 78%, still growing.

I had a sneaking suspicion that I wouldn’t like the last 22%.

---

CURRENT STATS

STR: 12

AGI: 17

INT: 20

Skills: Friendly Conversation / Moral Support / Observe / Evasion I / Throwing I / Fast Learner / Precision Shot II / Enemy Analysis I / Pattern Recognition II

EXP: 767/1000

Rank: D

MIRA — INITIAL PROFILE

Name: Mira [surname pending]

Rank: Unclassified

Origin: Non-game confirmed

Foreknowledge: HIGH

Relationship / Kai: 19

Relationship / Daren: 23

Hidden flag: 1 — [REDACTED]

Threat classification: UNKNOWN