Reputation didn't arrive like applause.
It came like damp in stone—quiet, persistent, creeping into the joints of everything until you stopped remembering what dry felt like.
Sawyer learned that within two days of the bout with Erika.
Not because anyone congratulated him.
Because the guild began to treat him differently in ways nobody would admit to doing.
It started in fragments.
A pause too long when he entered the hall.
A conversation that didn't end—just thinned, like smoke drawn away from flame.
The Song did what it always did in the main hall: it pushed and eased bodies through the crowded space, nudged traffic away from collisions, softened sharp edges of movement until a hundred boots could pass without turning into a fight.
But Sawyer's presence caused tiny distortions.
Not in the Song itself—he wasn't arrogant enough to believe he could bend it by existing—but in how people moved within it. The resonance would suggest a path, and bodies would follow. When Sawyer stepped into that flow, the path adjusted around him as if a stone had been dropped into a stream.
Some didn't notice they were doing it.
Others did.
Those were the ones who looked away first.
He crossed the main floor toward the commission board and felt the gaze before he saw it—eyes catching, holding, then sliding off like hands touching a hot pan. A knot of juniors near the training racks went quiet as he passed.
One of them—barely older than Sawyer, with a bronze badge and a third mark—muttered something to his friend.
Sawyer only caught two words. "It's him."
Sawyer didn't react.
He reached the commission board, scanned it out of habit, then turned away without pulling a slip. The sealed tube at his side was lighter now—empty, its contents already delivered to the land and walked back again with nothing more than notes and measurements to show for it.
The surveying job had been exactly what it claimed to be.
Entry-level. Peripheral. Boring.
A stretch of old trail skirting a shallow ravine on the settlement's outer ring. No monster sign. No structural failure. No reason for anyone important to care. He had walked it twice—once out, once back—paced distances, checked stone anchors, noted a mild resonance thinning where the Song slid instead of flowed. Seasonal, most likely. Worth recording. Not worth alarm.
He'd finished before noon.
Now, dust clung to the hem of his coat and his boots carried the honest scuffing of a day spent walking rather than fighting. Nothing about him looked like a problem.
Which, Sawyer suspected, was precisely why the room kept watching him.
He moved toward the reception counter.
The clerk on duty wasn't one of the nervous juniors. She was older—mid-twenties, maybe—with a neat tabard and ink-stained fingers that spoke of long hours and little patience. Her hair was tied back tightly, expression already set in the practiced neutrality of someone who dealt with adventurers all day.
"Report," she said, holding out a slate without looking up.
Sawyer placed his folded notes on the counter instead.
Surveying logs. Clean handwriting. No embellishment.
The clerk glanced down, scanning quickly. Her eyes moved with professional speed—coordinates, timestamps, margin annotations.
Then she paused.
Just for a fraction of a second.
Sawyer saw it anyway.
She looked up at him properly this time.
"…Sawyer," she said, not asking.
"Yes."
Her mouth tightened. Not displeasure. Calculation.
"You were assigned to the Ravine along Route Seven," she said. "Bronze-tier perimeter survey."
"That's correct."
She flicked her eyes back to the page. "You're filing resonance observations."
"Yes."
"That's not required for entry-level surveys."
"It was present," Sawyer said. "Mild thinning near the eastern bend. I noted probable cause."
The clerk studied him again, longer this time. Around them, the hall's noise surged and dipped, the Song working tirelessly to keep traffic from collapsing into friction. Sawyer felt the subtle bend around the counter, people unconsciously giving it space.
Giving him space.
The clerk exhaled through her nose.
"…All right," she said, reaching for a second slate. "I'll log it."
She paused again, fingers hovering.
Then, with visible reluctance, she leaned sideways and raised her voice—not loud, but precise.
"Viceguildmaster—"
Sawyer felt it ripple through the room before he saw it.
Not the Song.
Attention.
Erika's name did not echo. It didn't need to. It moved through the hall the way pressure moved through water—felt before understood.
A few heads turned.
A few conversations stalled.
Someone near the benches muttered, "Again?"
Sawyer kept his eyes on the counter.
From the far end of the hall, Erika looked up from where she'd been speaking with a quartermaster. Her expression sharpened immediately—not surprise, but irritation contained behind discipline.
She excused herself with a gesture and crossed the hall.
As she approached, the Song seemed to straighten, its flow tightening into cleaner lines. People shifted unconsciously out of her path. Sawyer felt it happen without needing to look.
Erika stopped beside the counter.
"What is it," she asked the clerk, tone flat.
The clerk straightened. "Routine survey turn-in," she said. "But—" She hesitated, then gestured at Sawyer's notes. "He logged resonance irregularities."
Erika's eyes flicked to the papers.
Then to Sawyer.
Her annoyance was immediate—and precise.
"You were assigned a Bronze-tier survey," she said. "Not a diagnostic. Not a scouting report."
Sawyer met her gaze evenly. "I wrote what I observed."
Erika stared at him for a long breath.
Around them, the hall held itself just a little quieter.
Finally, she took the notes from the counter and skimmed them. Her eyes moved faster than the clerk's had. When she finished, she closed the pages with a sharp tap.
"…You didn't embellish," she said.
"No."
"You didn't speculate beyond cause."
"No."
"You didn't attempt correction."
"No."
A pause.
Erika exhaled slowly, the irritation bleeding into something closer to reluctant approval—or perhaps resignation.
"To be clear," she said, lowering her voice, "you are not expected to do more than what is assigned."
"Yes."
"And yet you did."
"Yes," Sawyer replied. "I did what was needed."
Erika studied him, searching for something—pride, defiance, ambition.
She found none. Only annoyance from his single word replies.
That, more than anything, seemed to bother her.
She turned to the clerk. "Log the report as submitted. Flag it for review, nothing further."
"Yes, Viceguildmaster."
Erika stepped back, then paused.
Her voice dropped just enough that only Sawyer would hear.
"You're being noticed," she said. "Even when you try not to be."
Sawyer inclined his head slightly. "I know."
Her eyes narrowed.
"…Try harder," she muttered, already turning away.
As Erika walked back across the hall, conversation resumed in her wake—carefully, quietly. The Song loosened again, its flow returning to its usual managed chaos.
The clerk finished logging the report and slid a stamped receipt across the counter.
"All set," she said, then hesitated. "…Good work."
Sawyer took the receipt.
"Thank you."
He turned from the counter and felt the eyes on him again—juniors whispering, veterans watching, rumors taking shape without asking permission.
It had been a simple job.
Entry level.
And still, somehow, it had reached her.
Sawyer stepped out of the hall into the evening air, the Song cooling around him like water over stone.
He had done nothing remarkable.
And yet his name had moved again.
Reputation didn't need spectacle.
It only needed time.
The door had barely swung shut behind Sawyer when the receptionist let out a slow breath.
"…That's the fifth report he's turned in," she said, lowering her voice as her fingers moved back to the ledgers. "In two days."
Erika stopped a few paces away, not turning yet. "I know."
The receptionist flipped a page, eyes scanning timestamps. "All submitted within the expected window. No delays. No missing details."
She paused, then added, almost reluctantly, "No wasted words, either."
Erika glanced back. "He writes clearly."
"Clearly is an understatement," the receptionist replied. "Most Bronze submissions read like apologies. Or excuses. His read like records."
She tapped the ledger with a fingernail. "Clean handwriting. Proper structure. He references coordinates correctly. Even corrected a margin error on the map copy we issued him."
Erika's brow furrowed. "He shouldn't have caught that."
"He did."
Silence settled between them, thin but thoughtful.
"And efficiency?" Erika asked.
The receptionist didn't need to look it up. "He finishes 2 commissions a day. Not rushed—early. Survey route, double pass, cross-check, return. No loitering. No detours logged."
Erika turned fully now. "No deviations?"
"One," the receptionist said. "He stopped long enough to note a resonance thinning."
Erika's mouth tightened. "He is doing something extra again."
"He didn't," the receptionist said quickly. "Just observed. Logged it. No recommendations. No speculation beyond cause."
That earned a faint, sharp exhale from Erika. Not quite irritation. Not quite approval.
"And punctuality?" Erika asked.
The receptionist slid another ledger open. "Arrived before the estimated mission length on all assignments. Report submitted within the hour of completion. No prompting."
She hesitated, then looked up. "Most people need a week to learn how we want reports done. We gave him the format and a sample." The receptionist looked at a copy of both. "And before we knew it a flawless report came in only 3 hours later."
Erika's gaze drifted to the door Sawyer had exited through.
"He has a history," she said quietly.
The receptionist blinked. "That… explains a lot, actually."
Erika's eyes flicked back to her. "How many Bronze initiates can read their own commission sheets without asking questions?"
"…Not many," the receptionist admitted. "Less who understand them."
Another pause.
"He's been an adventurer for two days," the receptionist said. "And he's already easier to process than half the floor."
Erika didn't respond immediately.
When she did, her voice was low. "That's what concerns me."
The receptionist frowned. "Because he's competent?"
"Because he's invisible about it," Erika replied. "No complaints. No ego. No noise."
She turned away again. "People like that don't stay unnoticed. Not here."
The receptionist glanced at the ledger, then back at Erika. "Should I tag him?"
Erika shook her head once. "Not yet."
She paused, then added, "Just keep writing everything down."
The receptionist nodded.
Outside, the Song flowed on—steady, indifferent—while somewhere within the Guild, Sawyer's name continued to settle into the stone.