Oliver picks his lute quietly, listenting to the tales of the others, intent eyes looking back and forth between the companions as the stories unfold. As Niccolo finishes the old man leans over with a grunt and pulls his lute case nearer. Carefully he replaces the lute into its dark shelter and closes the lid, nodding as he snaps the lid shut. He leans back into his chair with a sigh, reaching for a nearby mug, considering its contents for a while before speaking.
"What's the worst thing you would do for money?" He looks around, bushy eyebrows raised in query, reading the faces of those gathered around, smiling crookedly at Fendric's affront, Raven's close, narrow-eyed look, Nurthk's blank expression and Niccolo's quick tabulation on his small nimble fingers.
He nods, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, mug held in both hands. His smile falls and he looks down at the floor, and snorts ruefully. "I was worse than mercenary." He looks up beyond the walls of the Inn toward distant Hedrogura, his voice is flat, "Much worse." He pauses blinking and looks around again stopping on Fendric. "I was taken under the wing of one of the luminaries of Hedrogura darker underbelly. My own mother spit in my face when she found out who I'd fallen in with." He scowls raking a hand through his wispy hair. "I was unrepentantly proud of my 'work.' Eventually my mentor, ever-paranoid - and rightly so, the bastard - set me up. I was arrested and sent to the Arena. It was a death sentence. Or, rather, it was supposed to be. I proved more resourceful than anyone, especially me, could have guessed."
He sits back again, "I became something of a celebrity, inside and outside the Arena. One of the guards used to call me S'Ollie. It wasn't long before Sebrin Oliver Manderock became 'The Salamander.'" He grimaces, but looks an odd sort of proud.
"Bookmakers loved me, especially when decadent foreign dignitaries came to take in a fight. They never bet on the scrawny, little guy." He grins, "By the time I met Fendric I had amassed a small fortune. Under the table, of course." He looks appraisingly at Fendric, "Yep... Fendric. You patched me up the day I was to meet one of those decadent foreign dignitaries, the Lady Erandalin of Sesphar." His eyes soften, "It wasn't quite love at first sight... but my life changed that day. I became an honest man. Well, a somewhat honest man."
"Erandalin had the leverage to get me out of the Arena, to the chagrin of many. She took me under her wing - scandalous, yes - and she liked that. At one party, glancing around I made a stray, and I thought at the time - damning - comment that our host's home would be an easy target for the most bumbling of theives."
He shakes his head, visions of the night playing out in his head... Erandalin in an exquisite gown smiling under her hand as Oliver bungled his way through the social briar of the upper echelons... He blinks and continues, "Word got back and a few days later I was discreetly approached to 'proof' the man's home." He shrugs, "You know how nobles are... a year wasn't out before everyone who was anyone had had me 'break in' to their homes and help them shore up their defenses."
"Hedrogura became an uncomfortable place. Knowing as much as I did about the assets and... hmmm... liabilities of Hedrogura's upper crust wasn't a boon. Nor was making the work of my former mentor and his ilk more difficult ingratiating me with those in the shadows. When Erandalin became pregnant we decided it was time to move somewhere safe. My life changed then, again. And more still after that. But I see I've put Hirtius to sleep, so I'd say that's enough for now." He arches a brow, "More than enough." He downs the dregs of his mug and puts it aside steepling his hands in front of his face.