Role

Chapter 4

I do love the moments of inflection, pals. Those moments when it all stands
on a knife edge and can all come crashing down. I can think back over my
youth and come up with loads of them.

But the one that really changed... well, everything.

That one was a bit different. Not honestly sure I'm the same lad as I was
before it, to be honest. Not sure I'm still all me. Hard to know. Am I less?
Or am I more. I suppose it could be both.

Judge for yourselves.

See, I got a little bit too big for my new steel capped boots. A little bit
too confident. There's a fact of the world too: poke and prod and
eventually the world pokes back, and let me tell you I'd done a fair bit of
poking and prodding lately.

Turns out I'd not been as subtle as I thought, and one of my plans had come
a calling. Not sure which to this day, to be honest. I had been getting a
bit carried away with the old arson lately, so... eh. Who even knows what
it was.

I was packing up in the Dragon's Head one night after a good long day.
Whispering in ears. Patting backs. You know how it goes. Looking for the
next opportunity as you do.

Bar was mostly empty when the three of them came. Dragged me out bac,
without a word. I'm pretty good at reading the room, ya know? Noone drags
you out the back of the Dragon's Head for a chat. The innkeeper don't ask
questions, and noone tells him lies. Its a good system.

Unless you're the one being dragged, anyway.

I don't reckon I really grasped how proper screwed I was until they took me
down into the catacombs. I've never been down there. Never really saw the
need. But when I saw that great big well and one of the ones not holding me
pulls out a knife as casual as you please I got the message.

Disposal job. No body, no crime.

So I did what any duergar worth his salt would do in my place I reckon.

I kicked the one holding me in the nads. Steel capped boots, remember?
Nicked them off some vender. Hope he's doing well, and I mean that from the
bottom of my gods damned black heart.

So. About that inflection point.

I reckon on any other day, he just lets go of me and I leg for it when he
makes that noise that every man instinctively can sympathise with even when
they're the reason for it. Maybe I make it out, I'm a quick bastard when I
want to be. Maybe they catch up and that's that.

That weren't what happened though.

This lump fell against me instead.

And I went a tumbling down into the well.