NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shayuri" data-source="post: 5101901" data-attributes="member: 4936">For a moment it seemed like Crag had scored a point on good ol' Corporal Hedge. The guardsman took a step back with a glassy-eyed expression of startlement. he didn't even seem to hear anything spoken for the next moment or two....The alleys of Port September reflected the haste with which the city had been built. They were narrow and jagged, dark and dank. In some place a grown man could hardly walk through them sideways, so close together were the buildings put. The cobbles were uneven and the ground muddy where they were missing. Trash and refuse made slopes up against the walls at regular intervals, and the smell of rot and mildew mingled with the sea salt and sewage that hung over the rest of the city.People lived in the alleys; furtive darting shadows that moved like the rats, never getting caught out in the open. At night they huddled around what fires they could find fuel and cover for. By day, even the least of them had something they could call a trade, even if it was just sitting miserably at the alley's mouth and begging for coin.Such a man was Old Squint. He was old for his age when Thorn saw him, weathered and craggy and tired. It wasn't hard to see why he was begging either; his arms both ended in stumps. Just seeing them made Thorn wince and shiver as she imagined what it would feel like to lose one's hands. Even as a youngling she could easily feel the pains of others in her imagination. That was why she bent over to drop something in his hat...not a coin, but fine lapel pin she'd managed to slip away from a man who'd helped her up after she'd 'tripped.' No sooner than he'd seen the glint of gold in the hat though, than Squint moved like a viper, covering it with his sleeve. He fixed Thorn with appraisal in his eyes, then said, "Old Squint does appreciate your kindness, but he thinks the owner of that trinket'll be lookin' for it. You need to be rid of it before anyone finds it on you." When Thorn, surprised by the revelation of something she hadn't thought of before, started to stammer that she didn't know what to do, he stopped her. "Take it three doors down, and just within the alley to the candlemaker's shop," Squint instructed. "Tell the owner that Squint sent you. He'll give a fair price for things like these." He grinned. "And bring back one in ten for whatever he gives you, and we'll call ourselves squared away, you and I." )"I have one," Thorn replied to Doren.In the basement under the tavern, Corporal Hodge melted away to be replaced by someone else. Someone who looked awkward in a guard's uniform. A man older than his age, as craggy as a mountainside and with an ice blue gunslinger's stare. Across the sea and in the past this was not a safe face to wear. Now it was the only one Thorn could take as she advanced numbly on the tied prisoner..."What happened?" Old Squint asked, repeating her question. "It's an ugly tale, little Thorn. Squint here was betrayed. Turned on by one he trusted. And for what?!" The old man sighed. "I dared to dream of a Port September that was free of the Teach. I wasn't alone either...there were quite a few of us. Too few to fight directly, but enough to plan. And apparently enough to be noticed."Thorn listened avidly, the two of them leaning against a wall in the recess of the alleyway Squint lived near. He'd already taught her a lot, and her life had become easier as a result. She brought him food and money; offerings made in exchange for knowledge.Now, as he described the final moments of his aborted insurrection, Thorn felt anger. He'd been so close! She shuddered in hate and revulsion at his account of Teach deciding to cripple and beggar him, rather than to kill and possibly martyr him. "That's what I am now," he told her sadly, "Every day I live, I'm an example of what happens when folk cross the Teach." He eyed Thorn again with squinty eyes then and added fondly, "Except for you."Glowing with pride at that, Thorn made a decision. If she had a chance to, ever in her life, she'd kill the Teach...and the underling who'd betrayed Squint's trust. That they should live in wealth and prosperity while Squint, nobler by far, lived in humiliation and squalor...that was one thing she could correct.Thorn, now the spitting image of her old master, Old Squint, reached out and grabbed Crag's shoulder. "This is for the left hand," she said roughly...and quick as a snake; a trick taught her by Squint himself...her sword appeared in her hand and slammed forward to end whatever 'life' a warforged could be said to have.</blockquote>

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