#dark charade

Lady Mylrith: (quietly) "How many head of cattle and sheep have you stolen since then?"

As you enter the inn's public room, you take a moment to let your eyes adjust to the dim light, and to wipe your dusty boots on the doormat. You let the sounds tell you about the room: low conversation, the clink of glass, the clatter of dice, the splash of a dipper in the water barrel, a single flute playing a soft, low melody...

And a rasping sound that alerts you to your quarry. There he is, in the darkest corner of the room, a black hood obscuring his face. With his back against the wall, he is sharpening a small dagger with a whetstone. Without fear, you cross the room and walk right up to him, ignoring the stares of the common folk.

The hooded man looks up as you approach, alerted, no doubt, by the clink of your armor and sword belt. The light catches his face as he sits up straight. A young lad of about eighteen, with greenish eyes and a missing front tooth.

"How much for a longsword, son?" you ask the itinerant knife-sharpener.

"Euh... I'd have to unpack me grindstone in the courtyard for that," he says. "Call it thirty mark, an' meet me outside the stables, an hour after dinner."

He drives a hard bargain, and in spite of yourself, it makes you smile. "Perhaps you can do it for twenty-five marks," you suggest.

"If'n she don't have any bad nicks, I could manage for twenty-eight," he replies.

"Nah, she just needs a little care," you say, patting the sword lovingly.

"Twenty-eight mark, then, 'venturer," the knife-sharpener says. "An hour after dinner." He grips the dagger, now fully sharpened, by its pommel, and waggles it at one of the tables. A merchant gets up and waddles over, ready to receive back his knife.

...I fell off a roof during a wild post-delve carouse, and ruined my back.

...my wife threatened to divorce me.

...I realized my kid was growing up without me.

...I found out I have a kid!

...I got turned into a frog. Never again.

...I realized that adventuring is an exploitative practice used by the mercantile class, to maintain their stranglehold on the wealth that rightfully belongs to the masses.