Role

Chapter 11

...and all the men and women merely fuel.

Those still living would say, eating and scratching wants but a beginning.
Turns out, it applies to making conflict as well. Since Redclaw had allowed
himself to tangle in wars of the factions, if only to try and destabilize
things a bit, he finds he doesn't want to hold back from participating.

To give it some perspective: Redclaw has two major drives in his life.

The first is the curiosity of an experimenter. In a recent conversation,
he compared it with poking a stick at an anthill and watching what happens.

The second and newer one is a desire to enlighten others to his beliefs:
that everyone lives on borrowed time, and must make use of it in a way they
wouldn't regret at the end. He seeks to both preach the tenuousness of life
and also demonstrate it: when he hunts, it pleases him most not to destroy
a foe, but to deny them the feeling of safety, anywhere, at any time.

But both of these goals are held back by his lack of subtlety, and though
he can wield great magics now, wielding them like a sledgehammer only gets
him so far. The dead have no aptitude for mind games and bargaining... so
far he's begun to vaguely realize it as a shortcoming, and that only thanks
to his observations of the Scions. But now Alyce and Aritnaza are gone, and
Redclaw is left with a taste for more but without means to attain it.

Perhaps he should align with Scions in a more permanent way after all.