The bar hit me on the second step down, full volume, every conversation, scrapes of mugs and chairs arriving at once.
I spotted the group before I had to look for them because you do not look for Nom-Nom; you simply let your eyes go to whatever has created a ten-meter bubble of empty space, and you'll find her in the center of it.
Peko clocked me coming down the stairs before I reached the floor.
"The contract is signed," she said, lifting the folded papers toward me.
"If you handled it, it's handled…" I said, walking past her. "Let's go."
The papers went back down, the Iron Vanguard exchanged a look, and I caught Garek filing this away in whatever mental folder he kept his observations about us in.
Trust like that was apparently not something most adventurer groups handed out casually, and judging from the way Garek's eyes lingered on Peko for half a second afterward, he had definitely clocked the implication behind it.
