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[CrimsonEon]

As the morning sun rose, Kaldach quickly made his way to find any sort of mess hall. It was a long enough journey from Cleper, and he wasn't about to leave the possibility of a properly full stomach behind.

[SeriousConcentrate]

Taft, of course, had enlisted Kaltsar to make it seem like it was just two guys walking around talking and not in fact a short dwarf casing the joint and a tall armored human desperate to not be in a situation where Julia's father could drag him off and put the boots in.

"Psh. Elves. Fuck 'em, am I right?"

He looked up at Kaltsar.

"What got up his ass, anyway, hanging all over you and trying to make threats? The fact he thought you had banged his daughter or the fact you hadn't, like it's an insult or something? Psh. Hard to tell with those pointy ear guys."

The dwarf shook his head and crossed his arms.

"Between his stuffy ass and goat girl, I don't know why you would ever want to mess with women. Either they're crazy or their dads are."

[Blade Master Model 42]

"I'm sure he's just being protective of his daughter. I still don't think I know what he wants from me at this point though, not that it matters." Kaltsar sighed. "Really, there are wonderful people out there if you give them a chance Taft. And I don't think it's fair to judge the women of the world by Shilleka, she can be considered an outlier." Kaltsar sighed deeply once more, reflecting on his own history with the fairer sex.

[SeriousConcentrate]

"Ech. He tries to mess with us, I'll put a boot in his ass."

It was hard to tell whether Taft was A) being protective of his own B) being racist against elves or C) just venting as usual.

"And I disagree. They're ALL like Shilleka. Most just have the sense to hide the fact they're completely bonkers. Eh... still, as nuts as she is, I can at least respect her honesty. But I'm still going to take that skull off of her head and toss it over the side of a mountain if I ever get the chance."

He looked up at Kaltsar again as they walked.

"Not like anyone's much better I guess... so who do you know that's 'wonderful'?"

Taft didn't seem particularly bitter and didn't fling the word like an insult as he usually did; he seemed genuinely curious, although being Taft, he also seemed quite likely to disagree about whoever was named.

[Blade Master Model 42]

"Just an old friend of mine from before I left home. She's gone now." After a moment, Kaltsar realized that was something of a lame explanation. "She was pretty, talented, but most of all she was very kind. She liked to help people, and always insisted on at least listening to their problems. We were very close for a long time."

[SeriousConcentrate]

"A real 'girl next door' type huh?"

Taft was watching the guards as they passed, committing their patrol routes to memory.

"So, what? Gone? You take to thieving to make enough money to follow her to whatever fancy ass academy she got sent to or something like that?"

[Blade Master Model 42]

"Ah, no... She was killed. There's no way I could follow her anymore." Kaltsar ignored the guards as they passed. He didn't care about them. "The local lord had a son. He wanted a bride, she wasn't interested. After a while, he got frustrated, and he killed her and her parents. I was too late to save her." Kaltsar's hands balled into fists, and the tower of a man began to shake. "I made a mistake. I killed him, right there in front of his guards, in front of everyone. I was lucky to get away while they tried to resuscitate their lordling, but now I can never go back. I don't even know if my parents are alright. They could have been put to death because of me. I'll never know. I had to take up thieving to stay alive."
Kaltsar took another deep breath to steady himself. "Sorry, didn't mean to dump all that on ya."

[SeriousConcentrate]

Taft shrugged. He probably wasn't the best candidate for deep emotional introspection.

"That figures. Nobles are always screwing things up for everybody. That's why they're the best targets for stealing from and finding out their secrets to sell. Embarrass the little bastards and show 'em they ain't no better than the rest of us."

He waved off the apology.

"Don't worry about it. If you want to put a son of privilege in an early grave for trying to take what ain't his, well, I'm not going to be crying in my beer any time soon. As far as I'm concerned you should've made sure he was dead. Sucks about your parents though."

He patted Kaltsar's forearm, since he was way too short to reach his shoulder.

[Blade Master Model 42]

"His neck snapped after I pulled him out of his gilded saddle. Trust me, he is dead. But I do thank you for your sympathy."

[SeriousConcentrate]

"Good! Score one for us then."

Taft made a 'come on' gesture and resumed walking, having seen enough of this area.

"It sounds to me like being a thief is only a temporary solution for you. So what's your end game?"

[Blade Master Model 42]

Kaltsar shrugged, following after Taft. "I don't know. I don't have a home to go back to anymore. Unless I can scrape some money together, I dunno what I'm doing."

[SeriousConcentrate]

"It's something you ought to think about then. You can't do this job forever."

Taft sighed.

"You know, before the mansion, I was already thinking of getting out of the game... because of exactly what happened. You can only roll the dice so many times before they come up snake eyes, and I was lucky to have a fifteen year run before it happened. It pains me to admit it but we're probably lucky we're doing this; we could've ended up in a dungeon for years."

"Once we get done with all this shit, I'm going to try to go legit. I don't know doing what yet. Maybe hunting or being a locksmith. I'm good at both."

He was going to try, anyway, but thieving was all he really knew.

[Blade Master Model 42]

"Yeah, I'll definitely give it some thought."

[SeriousConcentrate]

"That whole 'armor and believing in people' thing you have going on, you ought to try getting in the royal guard here."

The dwarf chuckled to himself for awhile. Some people bought into that virtue and chivalry crap the royalty, but he knew it was all a load. Everyone was out for themselves and what they could grab. That was how people were; even if they acted otherwise, they were still selfish and greedy under the veneer of society. Taft prided himself on the fact he was completely open about his baser qualities.

"Of course, then you'd have to watch out for ol' knife ears, so that might be a problem."

[Blade Master Model 42]

Kaltsar chuckled. "I can't help but feel like I might be met with some suspicion at that point." Kaltsar lowered his voice so that, hopefully, he would only be audible to Taft. "I don't think I could stomach working for the nobility anyway. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth these days." Kaltsar's voice returned to a conversational volume again. "I dunno, maybe I should go back to working the land. It's what I used to think I'd be doing with the rest of my life."