Role

Chapter 10

Now that he is old enough to look back over his life, there are times during
what he calls his blue moments, when he thinks to himself that his drive
and his compulsive tell it like it is attitude have been more of a curse
than anything. But these moments never last very long before he realizes
how weak such moments make him and how lesser people than him have pushed on
through harder obstacles, and he thinks to himself how lucky he is, and
besides that...to the Hells with anyone who does not want to hear the truth
when he is talking.

It started early. His father, heir to the high-seat of the ancient Gorimm
family, was a commander of a prestigious unit of Mountaineers called the
Scalers, renowned for striking the enemy in the rear not by go at them
through the tunnels, but going out to the outside face of mountains, then
around behind the enemy position, then burrowing in. As such, he was often
called upon to move about and give training to various units.

Odrirg was always very active as a child, and a natural at the sports and
games that Dwarf children play.Unfortunately, because he was always the
new kid he was almost invariably stuck on the team of the unpopulars...
the weak, the too-smart, the effeminate, the unpopular.

On one of these occasions, under his awkward leadership, the unpopulars were
actually winning. Well. The popular children could not let that happen, so
they cheated. Afterwards, they bragged about their victory for a week until
Odrirg could take no more. He put on the voice of command that he had heard
his father use, and upbraided the fools as honorless dogs no better than the
greasy Duergar ...for being proud of their faithless cheating.

He was immediately unpopular, as can be expected. Unfortunately, a few
months later his Father retired, and settled in that community for good ...
meaning Odrirg had to finish growing up the target of vicious pranks and
name-calling, even a beating here and there, for the rest of his childhood
...which isnt really surprising, for there are seldom any creatures crueler
than children ...of almost any race. (sure those elves claim that they are
different, but those uppity bastards would ...high and mighty ...)

Despite this, he was a Dwarf male of a proud family, and made of stern and
strong stuff, through and through.

So it was that he grew up, always wanting nothing more than to follow in his
Fathers footsteps and join the Scalers. And he did. He began his training
at a young age.

He showed early on great promise. For growing up as he did he had an
extremely military mind and outlook on life. He was even given the position
of trainee commander.

Then fate tried to once again test his resolve.In a nasty fall due mostly
in part to a lack of safety precaution on the part of the instructor, Odrirg
injured both of his knees severely, and trainees in his program were
forbidden any divine healing of woe, weariness, or injury. He was allowed a
few weeks of convalescance ...but that just put him behind in the training.

Overnight, he had gone from highly-motivated, hard charging leader to
Shitbag in the eyes of the instructors and his fellow students.

But he toiled on, despite the intense pain from his knees. In a program that
had an 80% wash-out rate of HEALTHY dw