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Bauchelain regarded him with raised brows ’Why, it’s woody’
To Hood with plans Paran sat slouched on one of the lower benches in the Thrall’s council chaht outside see the torchlight along the walls Before hi an array of dust-caked outrigger canoes The wrapped corpses that had once filled thehast in solemn ceremony, but, to the captain’s senses, the most important artefacts had been left behind His eyes never left the seafaring canoes, as if they held truths that lean the echoes He thought he now understood the source of his illness He was not a ardless Nothing so clear or obvious as a sword, such as Dragnipur; nothing that he could wield, cutting through ene demon who knelt only before cold justice Yet, power none the less Sensitivity to unseen currents, knowledge of the inter-connectedness that bound all things and everyone to everyone else Ganoes Paran, who despised authority, had been chosen as an adjudicator A ator of pohose task was to assert a structure -- the rules of the gae to their freedoistrate in Unta Holding fast to the lahilst being pressured by every influence iinable, from rival factions to the wishes of the E even the easiest and htmare
No wonder my body recoils, seeks to reject what has been forced upon me
He was alone in the Thrall’s council chaeburners had found the Gidrath barracksthemselves blind with the half-hundred Gidrath who comprised the Thrall’s Inner Guard; whilst the priests of the Mask Council had retired for the night
And it seemed Trake’s Mortal Sword, the man named Gruntle, had initiated a friendship with Huhter, Hetan, in a ht eventually result in kin ties with the White Face clan -- the two had made their way into the heart of the Thrall, no doubt in search of soust of the woman, Stonny Menackis
Shield Anvil Itkovian had led his troop back to the barracks near Jelarkan’s Palace, to effect repairs and, coees hidden in the tunnels beneath the city The resurrection of Capustan would likely prove torturous and anguished, and the captain did not envy the Grey Sword the task
We, on the other hand, will havethe survivors, someone with royal blood -- no matter how thinned -- to set on that stained throne The city’s infrastructure is in ruins Who will feed the survivors? How long before trade is re-established with cities like Saltoan and Darujhistan? Hood knows the Barghast don’t owe the people of Capustan anything
Peace had come to his stohed Power His thoughts had a way of slipping into mundane considerations -- a le to return to the one issue he would have to deal with sooner or later A stor to ers of one hand, and so encoons A truth I’d rather not recognize But I feel those damned cards within me, like the barely articulated bones of a vast beast, so vast as to be unrecognizable in its entirety A skeleton threatening to blow apart Unless I can hold on, and that is the task forced upon a in Players to the forefront and ones behind,in the shadows Players who play fair, players who cheat Gods, where do I begin to unravel all of this?
He thought about Gruntle, Mortal Sword to the newly ascended Treach In a way, the Tiger of Su in Fener’s wake If the tales were true, the First Hero had lost his way long ago, surrendered entirely to the bestial instincts of his Soletaken forun to suspect that the Elder Gods had not orchestrated htchill had implied; that opportunism and serendipity was aselse Otherwise, against the Elder Gods, none of us stand a chance, including the Crippled God If it was all planned, then that plan would have had to involve Treach losing his way -- thereby becoated until the moment the First Hero was needed And his death, too, would have had to have been arranged, the tiht moment