Eventually, I outright fled from the clinic, unwilling to be anywhere near where the apparently amnesiac Sylvia was. I didn’t know where I was going frankly. All I wanted was to be gone.

I found a place.

An abandoned bar.

Honestly, it was a wreck. Most of the furniture had been reduced to splinters, and there were more than a few splotches of dried blood littering the floorboards. I’m guessing the owners of this place were either dead or had more important things to worry about right now than how their business was nearly scrapped.

At least there weren’t any bodies in here. Guess the rescue crews had already passed through this area.

But the bar counter itself, and more importantly its stock of booze, seemed to have survived the chaos mostly intact. I’d gathered up whatever bottles I could find behind it, dragged a wobbly stool up to the claw-marked surface, and got to work.

Guzzling those bottles, I hadn’t moved from my shitty stool in hours. In that time, I had…plenty of thoughts, even though I was trying to drown them in an ocean of alcohol.

Dangerous ones.

Thoughts that made me wonder…

I was barely aware of the door to my hiding spot slamming open. I was drunk enough now that I didn’t give a shit if anyone found me here, pilfering booze from a disaster zone. I didn’t even bother to turn around to see who had discovered me. What were they going to do to me that was worse than had already been done?

Hard to top my recent hardships.

I heard heavy plated feet plod into the bar and then slam the door closed behind them, before approaching my hunched-over form. Only when the new arrival pulled up a nearby stool and sat to my left at the bar did I turn my head slightly, to see who they were.

Ah.

Normally, I would have been pretty happy to see them. It had been months since we’d last seen each other. The person sitting next to me was likely my oldest friend on Vereden, after all.

Azarus.

My dwarven friend was fully kitted out in his personal plate armor, forged with his own hands and splattered with mud. To me, it looked like he had just come in from the road and hadn’t gotten a chance to clean up. For a moment, I wondered if Grey or someone else had sent the dwarf after me, after the disaster from earlier.

But I doubted it. I think he must have gone looking for me entirely on my own.

Azarus looked pissed.

The dwarf was grinding his teeth and glaring out into space, looking more furious than I had seen from him since Addersfield. He had thrown down his carefully forged shield and hammer carelessly onto the splintered floorboards of the tavern, and looked ready to fight someone with his bare hands. Moments after sitting, he grabbed one of the bottles of liquor I had stolen, outright snapped off the glass head of it, and guzzled the entire thing down in seconds.

Even as pissed as I was, I still retained enough cognizance to be impressed by the feat. That much booze all at once would have probably killed me, back on Earth. I also…had enough thought left in my core ring to realize what this was probably about.

I turned away from Azarus to pick up my own bottle and take a swig. After setting it down, I finally spoke up. “Told you about Hook then?” I asked shortly.

Azarus sat in fuming silence for a moment before finally speaking up. “Yeah,” He said roughly.

It didn’t seem like he wanted to speak about it. That…was fine with me.

I could respect that.

Silence descended once more before my core ring nudged me about a promise I had made. I told it to shut the fuck up, but still begrudgingly did its bidding. Releasing my grip on my bottle, I reached under my armor at my neck and fished out the chain I found there. Slipping it over my neck, I handed the pendant I had been safekeeping over to Azarus.

For a moment, he didn’t even see my offering as absorbed in his drink as he was. But when he did, my red-haired friend grit his teeth once more. He numbly took the locket in one beefy hand and just stared down at it for a moment in apparent recognition. “Ye fucking bastard,” He breathed. “How dare ye…”

I don't think he was speaking to me, to be honest.

Almost reluctantly, Azarus cracked open the locket to stare down at the contents for a moment. I was only able to catch a brief glimpse of the tiny portrait inside before Azarus roughly slammed the locket down on the bar.

The miniature painting had looked to be of an extended dwarven family, with almost all of them being red of hair.

There were more than a few children in it. I even thought I recognized some of them, young as they were.

I looked away and sighed, returning to my own brooding.

Silence, as Azarus breathed heavily next to me. Eventually, he reached for another bottle.

Some time passed, with the two of us simply drinking to drown our own troubles. Azarus and I…we weren’t really the talking type.

But sometimes, some things needed to be said.

Surprisingly, Azarus was the one to break the silence. As we’d been systemically mowing through the bar’s stocks of liquor, he had calmed down some. “Sorry about Sylvia,” He said roughly, not turning to look at me.

I grunted. I was unsurprised that Grey had told the dwarf about what had happened to my…former girlfriend.

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“What are ye goin’ to do about it?” Azarus continued awkwardly, making an attempt. I was, surprisingly, grateful. I knew he wasn’t the best at this kind of emotional stuff. Hell, I wasn’t either. I knew how hard it was for people like us.

Still, I took a deep breath before I answered him. “That’s the thing, isn’t it?” I said quietly, my gaze sharpening even through my inebriation. After the shock and horror of what had happened with Sylvia passed, something else had been left in its wake.

Indignation, and more than a bit of anger.

“Why…should I bother anymore?” I said aloud, voicing the thoughts that had been running through my mind.

Azarus finally turned to look at me in alarm at my words. “Nate…ye can’t mean-”

I slashed out with one hand, knocking one empty bottle off the countertop to shatter on the floor below. “No,” I said sharply. “No, I don’t want to…end things. I’m talking about all of this!” I nearly shouted, finally standing up from my stool and making a sweeping gesture at our surroundings. Azarus looked around in confusion at the decimated bar, but I wasn’t talking about that.

More…my whole fucking life.

“Why am I here Azarus?” I asked him, almost desperately. I continued before he could even try and answer the almost rhetorical question. “Why am I so deep in this fucking war?! WHY…” I screamed, tearing at my Order armor furiously and ripping off my breastplate. I threw it down onto the floorboards beneath me hard enough to crack them. “Was I a fucking assassin?! Why was I killing people?! Look at everything I’ve lost!” I said, holding up my arm desperately. “I’ve lost my arm! I almost lost an eye! I have brain damage! And…!” I reached up and tugged painfully at one of my elongated, sensitive ears. “I lost my fucking humanity! What more do I have to give?! Why am I even doing this anymore?!”

Silence descended on the bar, when I finished my ranting. Azarus stared at me for a moment before sliding off of his own stool. “Then stop,” He said bluntly. I blinked at his words, knocked out of my near hysteria. “If doin’ the work ye were in is makin’ ye miserable, then just drop it.”

My lips parted for a moment in shock as I considered them.

Just…stop.

I considered that for a moment.

Oh…oh that sounded…

Nice.

“What was I even doing?” I asked in a whisper. “Was…Rhazal rig-” I shook my head sharply, before starting to pace. Now I was just speaking my thoughts out loud, uncaring if Azarus heard them. There were few people I trusted more, after all. “No, he wasn’t. I do want to build a life on Vereden, I know I do. Just not this one. I refuse to be a blade in the dark anymore. I don’t want to treat life as casually as an assassin does.”

“Then let’s go,” Azarus spoke up behind me. I blinked rapidly and turned to face him. He shrugged at my regard. “Honestly Nate, I’m sick of this shit too. I ain’t got nothing against the Sculpted. They don’t deserve ta be slaves. But I’m sick of fightin’, and it's not like the Uprising is goin' ta lose after all this shit. They got the Loyalists held at the end of a blade. We can just…go. What’s stoppin’ us?”

I stared at him numbly for a moment. “But…Grey…” I said slowly. “We were going to join the Academy…?”

“No reason we still can’t,” Azarus said dismissively. “Ain’t like classes are goin’ ta start back up anytime soon. War’s still on, and when this shit is all over, it’ll take ‘em some time to start things back up. We can just bugger off till then.” At that, Azarus walked up to me and deliberately set his hands on my shoulders to stare into my eyes. It wasn’t that hard for the abnormally tall dwarf to do. “We don’t got ta fight this war. I sure as shit ain’t a Herztalian, and ye aren’t either. This mess ain’t our gods damned responsibility.”

“Where would we go…?” I trailed off, the thought of Azarus’s proposal meandering through my mind.

Azarus shrugged, stepping back. “I dunno. Wherever the hell we want to, I guess.”

I stood stock still for a moment. “Wherever we want to…” I breathed.

Somewhere I didn’t have to be an assassin. Somewhere I wasn’t getting ordered into war. Somewhere my friends and comrades weren’t getting murdered left and right.

Somewhere I didn’t have to see the stranger that now lived in my former love’s Mithril skin.

My eyes watered, but no tears ran down my cheeks as I let out a shuddering breath. “I like that idea, Azarus,” I said quietly. “I like it a lot…”

The two of us simply stood together as the very basic idea of a plan coalesced in our minds. The bar was silent, while out in the street, we heard the shouting and shuffling of feet as rescue efforts continued.

I nodded slowly. “Alright,” I said, just barely loud enough to be heard. “Alright. Let’s do this. I’m…done. Let someone else finish this war.” With those words, I felt an indescribable weight lift off of my shoulders as the decision was made.

Azarus let out a sigh of relief of his own. “Thank fuck,” He said, slumping slightly. “I gotta tell ya Nate, I was thinkin’ of just leavin’ on me own after talkin’ to ya. But,” He smiled slightly and slugged me on the shoulder. A few months ago, I probably would have staggered from the blow. Now, though, it just felt like a friendly punch. “I got me a travel buddy. It’ll be just like old times.”

I leaned back up against the bar for a moment in thought. “Maybe…” I said out loud. “More than just us. I…have an idea, but we’ll have to talk to some other people first,” I abruptly shook my head. “Grey comes first, though. We have to tell him we’re bowing out. He deserves…that much, at least.”

Azarus nodded seriously, before looking around the bar. “Let’s get goin’ then. I’ve only been in this city fer a day, and I’m already sick of it.”

I snorted, nodding. “You think you’re sick of it,” I muttered, as we picked up both of our discarded equipment. Azarus his shield and hammer, while I strapped my breastplate back on and picked up my staff. I only remember to slip my hood up over my head at the last minute, before we left. “You try operating here for weeks. I’m never coming back again.”

“Don’t blame ya,” Azarus said, as we walked up to the door that was barely hanging onto its hinges. He opened it and stepped through. “If I ever have ta-”

The dwarf was cut off by someone abruptly running into his chest. He stopped in place while I stepped out of the bar. I walked around him to see who had interrupted him, only to stop in place in shock.

I…recognized them.

It was Jason, the owner of the potion shop I had been working at as part of my cover here in Elderwyck. I was strangely happy to see the slight man. It was…nice to see that he had survived the fighting and the chaos.

Only…he didn’t look so good.

The slim bespectacled man was swaying on his feet, looking far drunker than either Azarus or I were. He wore dirty, ripped clothes and peered out at the world resentfully through glasses that only had a single cracked lens in them. He drunkenly stumbled away from Azarus, nearly falling over before I managed to catch him. He stared at the gloved hand that had grabbed him in incomprehension for a moment, before following it up to my face. He blinked one eye and then the other, before shitfaced recognition crossed his face. “Hans…?” He slurred. “Izzat you?”

I helped the other man to his feet and did my best to smile at him. “Yeah, Jason. It’s me. You…don’t look so good, man,” I looked up at Azarus before smiling regretfully at him. “Ah, I know this guy. Let me get him back home and then we’ll go do what we were talking about, okay?”

Azarus shrugged. “No problem. I can tag along fer now.”

When I looked back down at Jason, I was…somehow unsurprised to see that the man had started sobbing into his hands. “I don’t have a home anymore!” He cried drunkenly. “Those fuckin’ things wrecked the shop! I’m ruined!”

I sighed regretfully, before reaching down a hand to help him. Jason stared at it in incomprehension, before he followed it up to my…body for some reason? He stared at me, or more specifically my Order armor, before something unexpected happened.

A rictus of hate stole over his ragged features. The shopkeep snarled and knocked my hand away before staggering to his feet. “YOU!” He shouted, pointing an accusing finger at me. “YOU’RE ONE OF THOSE ORDER PEOPLE, AREN’T YOU!”

All around us, I could see his shouting was drawing attention. Rescue workers, guards, and soldiers stopped to watch the confrontation.

Not all of the looks on their faces were friendly, when they caught sight of me.