The tens of thousands of fresh faces that graced the Tri-City every half century brought out the worst of the worst. Out of every caravan that came bearing a load. You could guarantee that at least three or four of the mercenary guards were either cut throats, rogues, bandits, members of the thrives guild, assassins guild, bounty hunters, monster hunters, known as seekers, and other forms of scumbaggery would be using the humble guise of 'Hired Guard' to get themselves in to the city. Most of the caravan masters knew all too well that some, if not most of his retinue was the underbelly of society. He also knew that most of these men would turn tail and run at the slightest sign of conflict. But even those men made good targets for the raiders and bandits to shoot their arrows and bolts at, if nothing else. So, the Caravan Master took them on in good faith they would serve some purpose or other.

Kavarden had no prime trading hours, nor did the markets have an open or a closing time. The streets were full, with a chaotic clamouring and movement that sent a feeling on un-steadiness on the feet and ill of the tummy through anyone who stood and looked too long. The taverns and inns had their fair share of patrons. Some of these were specifically designed for the multitude of tastes and sensibilities from such a diverse range of differing races and species. The golden amber mead's and ale’s that humans drank, did nothing for faeries other than make them burp. Much like the hard, black earthy sap like concoction the trolls favoured seemed to send most men mad and threw the Shk'ah adolescents into a fit of rage and blind destruction.

This amount of diversity mixed with the confines of the tight city walls and alley ways made for a smelting cauldron of tension and violence. For the most part, people who were just going about their day with two of three of their family members or friends would suffer little more than a sly pick pocket or cut purse stealing what they hadn't spent yet. It wasn’t uncommon for you to peer down a secluded alley way or darkened corner and see a motionless body, or a scuffle being brought to a quick end. However, most people seemed to go about their business without any recognition for the theft or murder that took place. As long as you didn't step on too many toes, you might make it home with all the limbs you left with.

For 'The Meeting of Markets' brought out the best of the worst across all the realms. Of the worst of the worst you had infamous murderers and thieves. Infamous for the fact that they walked the streets freely and did most of their bidding unperturbed. Some of them powerful enough to level a couple blocks of Kavarden, or kill over thirty armoured guards with their bare hands and ferocious fighting capabilities. So, the guards just kept their eyes down and hoped they didn't have to come into any direct conflict with any of them, especially after a loud, alcohol fuelled night.

The best of the worst however were far more dangerous however. They looked like everybody else they passed. Never sticking out, but never going unnoticed enough to stand out. Never raising suspicion. Weaving their way between peasants and rich merchants alike. Blending in with a perfect veil of normality. These were among the most dangerous travellers to come through Kavarden. For they could carry out an assassination with the flick of a wrist as a stranger, stumbles and falls fifty paces behind him. Or perhaps steal a priceless relic and replace it with a useless bit of scrap they found behind a blacksmith’s hearth. Only for the excited victim to discover in horror, the relic that was going to cut a path through a mountain to the next village for better trade and medical supply by simply holding it above your head and holding your breath. The dust was unbearable. Would have been, had it not been stolen and replaced with what seemed to be a discarded rusty buckler from a shield.

Kavarden didn't care, however. It didn't care for who got stabbed over a bad deal or how much you paid for sand and not the magical dust formulae that would insure fertile ground for a thousand years. It cared only that your money or your goods pass through as many hands as possible. Ensuring return business, and finally, that you come back if you make it out with all your wits and senses.

This made the perfect breeding ground for aspiring, talented, and young criminals to cut their teeth, and hone their chosen craft. Some cut purses and simply ran, hoping they would be faster than their mark and rely upon their knowledge of the rabbit warren of back streets and cut outs. Others worked in pairs or groups. Running different forms of cons and coming up with new ways of how best to swindle the next poor soul that had the clinking, rattling sound of gold and silver in pockets and purses. Some who were born with latent, natural abilities made little work of conjuring up an alluring image of a sweet innocent girl who was absolutely beside herself and desperate for help. Only for the sweet image to disappear in a haze of coloured vapour once they rounded a corner and instead found themselves boxed in and surrounded on all sides by a group of rogues with gnarled and twisted blades pointing in his or her direction.

This place was a paradise for the rich and the scum of the earth alike. People made names for themselves. Many didn't. Many of them didn't even get to say their name before someone slid a dagger across their throats for walking into the wrong room at the wrong time. You had to be tough to survive a place like this. You had to know your way around and know who to talk to and most importantly you had to know who to avoid. You had to play to your strengths and either learn to develop your weaknesses or learn how to dance around them. No one was going to give you anything in a place like Kavarden, not unless you want to owe someone a favour. You had to take it with your bare hands. But if you couldn't, you could always find someone in Kavarden who was willing to do anything for a fist full of gold.

It was this breeding ground of despots and brigands that fed the economic beast. If you had a bounty high enough, in turn, you attracted the best bounty hunters. Some usually travelled in groups, but all of them needed a resupply once they reached Kavarden. If you managed to kill the hunters, your bounty went up, and the next batch of bounty hunters came to answer the call. They to needed to resupply also. If you were unlucky enough to be captured or killed. Most of the bounty was transformed into grog and sprits at the nearest tavern's and inns.

The tavern's spewed acrid grey smoke from the windows and unintentional holes in the walls. Smoke that was mixed with 'Backie' a leaf that most people smoked through pipes or communal bubbles with multiple hoses fuelled by magic and simply dropping some of the leaf in the bubble. Smoke from the fires, lanterns, and the cook pot all mixed in to the one pungent aroma that seemed to be worse from the outside somehow. A warm orange glow emanated from below the doors and frames. Inviting and comfortable was the glow. But the noise was deafening and predatorial. It was rare you couldn't hear at least one fight and one argument, being held separately. Mostly being bets thrown across the room as to who the victor of the scuffle was likely to be. Behind most taverns was an alley where people would relieve themselves, the cook’s helpers would throw the leftovers and rotten off cuts, and some people found that a perfectly reasonable place to pass out drunk.

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It was here you'd find some of Kavarden’s youth. Mostly orphans from the first big clan war with the Kar'Thul. Rummaging around in the stale straw and hay for something, anything that was edible. But you would mostly see a slim lump of a shadow perched above what seemed to be a dead body. Most of the time it was. But dead or drunk, it mattered not, they still carried something, anything that could be sold or swapped. It was common practice for more experienced street urchins to take a few of these young, impressionable, unfortunate few under their greedy black wings and send them out to do all the scavenging for them.

It was a night that was much darker than usual. The only night in the moons cycles that there wasn't any one of the three moons to illuminate much of the dark corners you hope nothing is concealed in. A night that most knew to stay home and bar the doors and shutters. But it was the night where Kavarden's underbelly flourished. Darker shadows, louder distractions. Perfect conditions for thieves and scumbags alike. They called this fated night, ‘Lights out’. For even the lanterns that burned on high mounted poles, burned a light the same strength as every night before and after it. But on ‘Lights out’ the light seemed to have trouble pushing through the ambient air. The air seemed thicker. Almost like a thin layer of mist hung above every head and encompassed everything that went outside.

The air was full of literal smoke and figurative electricity. Sparks seemed to fly out of fingertips. Fingertips that knew would be put to work relieving some poor people of the weight of their hard-earned gold and silver. Thorn had already had a busy night. He had found a few breathers behind some of the more well-known taverns. He found more dead ones however behind some of the lesser known drinking holes. But whether their heart was beating or not mattered little to him.

Thorn was an orphan his entire life. His father going off to fight in the first clan war. Not knowing his beloved was with child. His mother had died in childbirth only being three years into maturity. So, Thorn was placed in an orphanage before he could even receive a name. He did however receive one after the age of six. When, after a certain incident with the master cook. He was told "You are a Thorn and always will be a Thorn. One that should have been pruned and discarded on sight!!" So, he adopted his new name with pride 'Thorn'. He was known by many other names before this one. 'Boy', 'The unknown bastard', 'Never Loved', 'No name'. For obvious reasons, he felt Thorn was the most amicable, even if it wasn’t the most accurate. However, much like a real Thorn, he was slender and sharper than the tip of a needle knife. Now encroaching the age of fifteen cycles. Thorn was tall for his age, and had the muscle density of a hunting hound. Tightly woven muscles hidden under a thin layer of skin that was poorly hydrated. Dark, dirty sandy hair, poorly cut short around the ears, but longer in the fringe. Cut with who knows what random kitchen knife or sharp rock. A few black hairs coming out of his upper lip and chin, forming more of a shadow effect than facial hair. With a strong jaw line and sharp cheek bones he was by no means unattractive. But the filthy, raggedy and torn clothes he wore that matched his scared and dirty face betrayed that fact. However, he was mostly indistinguishable from the next or last street rat that had to find a niche to survive. Except for his eyes. Those hollow blue eyes.

Thorn ran away from the orphans’ home straight after he was gifted his new name. He flew out of the kitchen and up to his bed where he hid his most precious possession. His mother's amulet. The most beautiful piece of jewellery he had ever seen, even the ornate pieces he saw when he managed a glimpse at the nobles and knights. It was on a heavy silver chain, with a beautifully intricate filigree lining the edge and just encroaching on to the gem itself. The gem was the most striking feature of the piece, and rightly so. For it changed colours, seemingly at random. Sometimes of the day it was a light, almost opaque blue. Tricking the eye in to seeing what appeared to be the heart of the gem. But upon closer inspection, it appeared to keep on going and going never reaching the centre, always going deeper. Sometimes it was a deep purple. Sometimes a bright yellow. Right now, however, it was blood red. Tucked under his bed cloth and re-hidden every time he re-stuffed it with less mouldy straw than what he pulled out of it. He snatched the amulet up and ran for the window, just as the door to the small dorm room flung open. Thorn spun around to see what had thrown it open. Quickly followed by the cook holding one hand to her eye and in the other clutching with white knuckles and cracked gnarled nails, stained at the edges with blood, was a large knife that was slick with thick coagulated blood. "You're done for dead eyes. No one's going to miss you. No one loved you enough to even ever give you a name! The God's didn't even love you enough to give you a soul. That’s why your eyes are dead. You can still see with them, but they are looking through a dead soulless ugly little thorn." Spat the cook, blood seeping between her fingers that clutched her eye. Or the socket that used to house it. "Don't call me that!" Screamed Thorn with the cracking voice of a child. He turned to climb out the window, getting his leg and most of his body through quick as a flash for he had used this escape route many times. But just as he was about to pull the rest of himself through, an immense pain shot up his arm from his hand and shot down his spine. "HA! Gotchya. Not bad for one eye! You're done for now little thorn. You're not going anywhere." Thorn turned back to see that she had thrown the knife from across the room over thirty paces away and had managed to hit the dead centre of his hand with one eye, a hand that was on the windowsill, effectively pinning him there. His heart shot through his mouth and he could hear every beat like it was the beat of an eternal drum, ushering the ever marching steps of death that encroach upon us all. For he knew these were his last moments. He had stabbed the wretch in the eye in the hopes of killing her. Years of torment, malnutrition, bullying, over work, the horrible names, he had suppressed for years, but when he found out the wench had stolen his mother’s amulet and hidden it from him for years. All this built up to the point where he had had enough and took matters into his own hands. No quarter would be given once she had her hands on him. Her footsteps were even louder than his heart beat now for she was right on top of him. He looked at his hand. Looked back at the grimaced face, half covered in a blood-stained hand still clutching the hole in her head and the other half covered in pure murder. Thorn looked back at the hand and braced himself against the windowsill from the outside. Put his feet on the edge and with one final glimpse at the room he spent most of his life in, one glance at the now reaching hand of death, he took one deep breath and with all his might leaned back and kicked off the window. Pulling his hand free of the knife. Slicing it straight out of the top of the palm between the middle and ring finger on his right hand. Effectively separating the last two fingers from the rest. Still clutching his mother amulet, he managed to get away just in time so deaths hand clutched empty air. With a scream and a thud, he hit the ground. Got to his feet. Held his hand to his chest and ran. Ran through streets and alleys. Ran as far and as fast as he could, hoping to lose an imaginary pursuer. After the cook master missed her prey. She heard the thud, knew he was wounded by the fall and saw the blood stain that ran from the blade, and along the wood of the window. No child could survive such an injury. He knew no one, had no money, had no means to obtain help from a cleric or herbalist. He would be dead within a week, either by starvation, frost burn, or poison flesh from the hand wound that would surely get infected. She hardly cleaned her knifes; it would be riddled with bacteria and other forms of filth. She had nothing to worry about in the way if infection from her own injury, for her eye had come out with the knife after she had removed it herself.