Bariton ran through the streets, his frail body incapable of withstanding much torment. The timing of the town guards was always the worst. Never showing up when the poor kid was in need of assistance from the scum beating him, but always turning up when he had to steal.

  Bariton’s quick thinking left him to dive into a sewer. It was terrible, a place like that with the scrapes and bruises Bariton had was risking infection along with potential diseases like dysentery and gonorrhea.

  The diseases were the only good part about this situation. Bariton felt every reason in his bones to hate the world. And yet there was always light available. Whether it be in the kind person that walks alongside the sewers at night, or the meager sun that Bariton could see from inside.

  The meager sun felt bright on a small little screen. This screen seemed physically impossible, as it simply said the words [Welcome to the system!]. Bariton instinctively reached out and a rat tried to bite at him.

  His hand pulled back, as he kicked the rat into the waters that pulled the creature every which way. He watched as it tried to swim in the brown water. It failed, and when it died the screens awarded him.

  He was busy looking at the achievement when a pack of cards showed up. His wounds were all healed magically, leaving nothing but a dull ache. One of the cards stood out to him. A poorly drawn rendition of him, older.

  Pleasing a crowd. One of his only dreams. He reached out and gripped the card, and a warmth fell down his cheek as a singular tear fell.

  [Class Change -> Entertainer].

  He felt the power of music fill his bones, and he knew he finally had a chance for his dreams.

  ******

  Bariton kept staring at where the door had been. It wasn’t there, even with the eyeglasses on. Granted, the lenses were gone, replaced by a red jaggedness to the frame. He kept staring on until Shammus said something grabbing his shoulder.

  “Huh?” Bariton quickly blinks a few times, and when Shammus repeats himself he knows he doesn’t hear it, but responds anyways, “Yeah, yeah… I’m fine”

  A concerned glance shared between Shammus and Clara allowed Bariton to click that they didn’t believe him when he said that. Nobody did. Judine simply nodded when Bariton said it, and Bariton noticed his breathing was uneven.

  “Are you sure, friend?” Pallad walks forward, the shield on his back reflecting whatever light was filling the cavern they were entrapped within. “I think I speak for us all when I say we all can go for a break. That was an odd battle, and for the system to reward us with these weapons implies another strong threat around the corner.”

  Pallad gestured to the shield on his back, as Bariton looked at Shammus. He remembered what the system had said, ‘the original owner’ of the dual blades Justice and Agony.

  He looked upon Shammus, and when Shammus looked back Bariton felt ashamed. A deep abyss in his heart as Shammus seemed to grip and ungrip the dual blades, although testing them to be true or fake.

  He opened his mouth to ask if what he’d heard was true, but closed it quickly, remembering the threat from the system. The party seemed to not notice as they were busy deciding as to how to make a rest place.

  Everyone except for Shammus, who was looking into Bariton’s eyes, his eyebrows were furrowed in worry. Shammus simply just sighs, and leans against a wall after placing his two machetes in the inventory.

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  “What’s actually wrong?” Shammus asks. He closes his eyes as he speaks in his soft voice, his impossible to resist-

  “Nothing,” Bariton speaks, the half truth filling his mouth with what tastes like vile.

  “Hm…” Shammus looks off towards the party setting up the camp, the unnatural lighting. “Would you tell me if there was?”

  The question caught Bariton off guard in such a way he rarely was. He was always a dancer, and entertainer. He knew his way around casual conversation. But this was different. This was a tripwire placed in the center of the stage.

  “I…” Bariton had to spend a second picking up what mask he’d play. What character he’d play. “...I think so, yes.” Bariton decides to play the person clueless of own feelings. It was a character he learned when he wasn’t an awakened.

  “Then why aren’t you telling me this time?”

  Bariton looked up, and the first thing he noticed was how Shammus wasn’t even looking at him. Shammus didn’t seem ashamed, but more as if he’d had this dance every other week. He was being led along, and the Bard did not like it.

  “What do you mean by that?” A warm feeling was building up in Bariton. One that would ruin the whole performance were it to escape. And so he buried it. The tone of that seemed more accusatory now that he replayed it in his mind.

  Shammus looked at him the first time since the conversations began. The red light shining off his eyes seemed to burrow into the Bard’s soul. Bariton found himself staring as the Swordsman responded, “something is clearly affecting you. Now whether it’s an issue of trust, or an issue of something else-”

  “I already said it’s nothing!” Bariton heard his own voice raise as the fire in his gut burned brighter. He covered his mouth as he quickly ran off somewhere in this cavern. Somewhere else. Somewhere away.

  Shammus doesn’t even chase. Why would he? It was pointless to hide from his emotion, but it wasn’t pointless to hide his emotion from the party. It protected them. The warning the System gave him was plenty.

  He kept running until he stopped hearing Pallad and Clara talking, their conversation being reduced to mere chatter, then reduced to nothing. All Bariton could hear where he was now was his own breath, and the heartbeat in his throat.

  He felt his organs churn. He hated seeing a performance like that break, especially when it was going so well in his mind. Tears fell down his cheeks as he curled up in a ball. The bard knew it was unsafe in the dark, ever since he became an adventurer.

  But it was also his place of comfort. Whenever the guards beat him, they left him to bleed out in the light. And in the dark, he wouldn’t inconvenience the kind town healers. Just like how he wouldn’t inconvenience Clara now in the dark.

  Just like how he wouldn’t inconvenience his party.

  ******

  Shammus raised his arm before he decided against calling out to Bariton. He knew what it was like to run from your own problems, especially when a group member confronted you. As the old leader of the Freedom Knights back when the second prince was in control over them, he experienced it tens of hundreds of times.

  Comfort was found alone. The swordsman nodded before opening one of the many rations he brought with him to the tower. He was still fully stocked, since he hunted before he met the party.

  He simply tosses a piece of hard tack wherever Bariton ran off to. Shammus was sure that would comfort him at least a little.

  “I was always bad at comforting my team,” the swordsman mutters to himself as he bites the flavorless brick. He looks head on at the dark, as if challenging it himself.

  “Ah, we are all bad at comforting each other when it matters the most.” Clara walks forward to where Shammus was standing. Shammus looks over to her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you see how Bariton comforted me?” Clara asks, leaning upon her staff in a similar way Shammus leaned on the pillar of stone. “He did it in a way too insincere to comfort, but too sincere to cut off conversation regarding it.”

  Shammus’s sound of agreement wasn’t enough to end it, “You deserve to know how Sornid really was. Who he was.”

  Shammus’s eyes widened as he looked at her pink eyes. They didn’t even seem to falter even a little. “I’d recommend you join the party. I feel this is a conversation best done without Bariton…”