Silver Walls

Surreality doesn't begin to describe the room. A pallid pale youth sat on a grotesquely decorated chair. Adorned with crude depictions of past battles. Arms crossed over rich, yet dusty and worn clothing. A once lime green sash now just a shadow of its former colour betraying his allegiance to a prominent Miners Guild.

The typical young adult of Grecia sat sadistically juxtaposed opposite a hulking brute from Jenoa. Long years at the oars giving a hulking torso and arms a statue would envy. Jet black hair unorthodoxly tied back showing a tanned forehead in which two deep set oily eyes were sunk. Curved blades of all descriptions hung of intricate straps and harnesses all over his body.
Surrounding the two were men of all descriptions. With only three things in common: They were armed; staring at the boy and stealing the occasional glance at a huge wooden door – not the one the youth had entered through.
Nervously, the boy moved his hands into his braces, and following a deep breath stuttered
“I, I, I want to join you.” His voice trailing off.
“Whaaaaaaat?” The tanned man demanded.
“I think I misheard you boy!” a snigger slipping through his otherwise gruff accent.
The boy suddenly stood up. He had been in the room half an hour and was sick of it.
“All your gods be damned! I want to join you! I want to ride with the two tonics! And I definitely don't want to be put through this shite!”

As if on cue, the wooden door flung open and a tall aged man swathed in tan and brown coloured cloths strode through, a large hardwood mahogany toned staff in his hands.
“That's more like it boy” The words echoed in his head.
“That's more like what?” The boy exclaimed, to whoever spoke.
“We're knights, and knights don't suffer derision. Its good that you stood up for yourself. But but fix your language, and be nicer to the Gods, where we're going, they might end up being all he have.”
“Now boy, I like to know my lad's names,” the same voice in his mind said, yet this time out loud and sent forth from the old man's lips.
Horror and confusion at this mental intrusion and subsequent vocal confirmation of the source forced the boy breathless and disorientated. All this easily noticable in his features. Laughing, the tanned man shook him, explaining that everyone freaks out on their first time, and introduced the old man as Paddy, himself as Hamer.
“And that man who just put your first harness on is Philn,” chuckling again at the boy's confusion as he looked down and noticed a new leather cross harness following the line of his sash. “Don't worry, no man notices Philn, lest Philn wants to be noticed. Now, come on boy, a name for Paddy and the Two Tonics, your new brothers.”
“Arato, is it really that easy to join?”
“Of course not, boy. Ask for a knife of Mr. Hamer. Then I want you to bring me the head of the person who forced your hand into joining us...” As the last word echoed to silence Arato cleared his throat, yet before he could speak Hamer, looking truly serious for the first time handed him a knife. A slightly curved blade the length of his forearm, the handle wrapped in leather, with four metal loops to put his fingers through.
“I could use this for punching someone.” He thought as he walked out.
“Atta boy!” The old stranger's encouragement the last sound from the now deathly silent room.
Arato pushed open the iron gate which he had so nervously slid open a mere half hour before and set out. He glanced up, the weather hadn't changed too much. Slightly darker, overcast but pleasantly warm. He wandered aimlessly, enjoying the change in scenery. He decided upon his favourite café. As a place for him to contemplate the deed, and, conscience willing – decide who to kill. Just then, he bumped into a City Guard. In leather breeches, a mail shirt, leather vambraces, and the symbol of Grecia, a sphinx sitting on a pillar, emblazoned on his waistcoat. The impact caused the borrowed knife to clatter to the floor. The light of the street lamps reflecting of its wicked edge. The guardsman looked down at the blade, then down on Arato, who, though well built for a nineteen year old, stood a foot smaller than the warrior and was no match physically.
No sooner had the last ringing sound faded away had Arato's instinct took over. Flinging his fist into the man's crotch, Arato discovered that that too was guarded by mail. He hissed his pain through his teeth but was glad to see that the guard's pain far outshone his own. He bent down, picked up the knife, and punching using the iron knuckles thanked the guard for interrupting him. Without looking back and the now staggering guard, bleeding heavily from his nose. Arato leapt into full sprint. Springing through the sandy streets of Merchants Bay he knew exactly where to run to. Blurred yet familiar sights flew past as he rounded the corner. The limewashed buildings dull due to the cloud cover. The ornate doors with the signs of the respective guilds the members or lodgers of the house belonged to. Leaping over a cart selling Kebabs he grabbed onto a Lamp Post and swung himself left into Zseno street. Zseno street was always Arato's favourite place as a child. Members of all the different cultures who have come to Grecia for a myriad of reasons creating a culture of there own on this one long street. So many colours. He noticed three hulking Jenoans who looked like they could have been Hamer's brothers. The similarity would have been disconcerting had the sight of the three foreigners not morphed into a Oakfeller's Butcherfront, which itself didn't last long until an archway with a large relief of a boat on the keystone stole Arato's vision. Leaving the smells and sights he used to love behind he sprinted through this other street. The fresh salt-water smell, now not being cancelled out by the myriad of spices and baking, was prominent.
He scanned the piers, looking for... A tall golden ship! His legs now burning from his evasion he struggled with heavy legs before collapsing into the arms of a bejewelled man of whom he did not know the origins of.
He was stirred from his sleep by the same richly decorated dark skinned man.
'Wake up!' He snapped in the Zsen tongue, a language created as a common language for all those north of the Storm.

'Wake up!' he snapped again before cursing in a hushed tone in his native tongue. Reaching over to a light toned cabinet he plucked a dark brown bottle from its place, a circle of dust marking its absence.
Carefully twisting the lid with a raised chin to keep any vapours from reaching his nose, he shoved the bottle underneath the hooked Grecian nose of Arato. He shot upright. The slightest whiff of the substance shivered through him. Every colour he'd ever experienced, and probably a lot he hadn't flashed in moving spots of blinding colour. He felt weightless and as he screamed in shock his voice sounded like the sweetest angelic harmony. All of this new delight crescendoed into the highest ecstasy before his senses returned to normal and the last tinges of the sensation hung in the air as a sweet cadence.
“What... In... Hells was that?” Arato whispered. Flexing his muscles in his new found consciousness. He looked up to find the bejewelled man standing over him. His hand shot to his sheath, he just felt cold leather, no blade. He looked to find some sort of improvised weapon, anything to escape from the Reaver. Idiot! Why did you get on a Reaver ship? Oh Gods.
“Do not worry little one. You are no longer Grecian, we have no quarrel with you anymore. You are a Knight! Your allegiance is determined by coin now.” Arato begun to stammer is confusion. The bejewelled man continued in his heavily accented Zsen.
“How did I know? Hah!” He snorted, then drew Arato's knife from the inner folds of his robes. Holding the blade by balancing the point on one finger and the handle on another, he continued.
“I'd recognise one of Hamer's punchers anywhere. How is the old pirate? His two tonic's are good men to be around.” His voice tailed off as he saw Arato's wide-eyed bewilderment.
“Hamer, he's not... Dead is he?” A tear welling up for his possibly fallen friend.
“Dead, Sir? No, Sir. He, he just isn't in charge. This old man, with an odd brogue. Paddy I think it was. Yes! Paddy!” Arato said, proud at his recollection.
These words hit the man like a mailed fist, coated in acid, for it left him feeling sour.
“If that old weasel is back with them.” He spat. “It would do you good to leave, to put your knife away, and never kill anyone with it. And get off my ship.” The dark skinned man thrust the odd knife into his hand and pulled him off the bed. Still recovering from the drug used to wake him up, mixed with the rush of quickly being jerked up. Arato's senses blurred and by the time clarity was restored, he was of the ship and face to face with 5 guards. One, bruised, was the guard he escaped from, the others. He did not know, yet he knew he could expect no help from any crewmembers of the Reaver ships behind him. Shifting the dagger's weight in his hand. He twisted, setting his left foot forward. As his visual search for protection produced nothing, he twisted back, taking up a classical fencing position. Although how with his little knife he could take on five armoured guards, he did not know...