. . .he would pay a terrible price. . .
No one could be trusted; he only felt the violent impulse, all the evil souls whom had slighted him terribly.
. . . for the enforcing of unforeseeable chaos. . .
. . .to control the wild dogs. . .you are only something above them then. . .
He recalled torture at the iron-fisted hands of a street-level banite; a spiked oil-drenched whip lashing across the knights's back and what the wicked man had said heartlessly to Valiant.
"How'd it feel, boy? How'd it feel?"
The imagery left him. Valiant stepped off his horse and limped towards the hole-in-the-wall tavern before him; seeing stars from the booze he had already drank.
****
His appearance was "Disguised" and he wore black shades, grimacing at the lack of alcoholic darkness in the tin tankard he thumbed to a strangely bright-eyed server girl considering the scummy gazes and leers that seemed to strike back at him and the drug-ridden countenance of the dark-eyed bartender and ordered something much darker indeed. The smell of the place was a wretched, roiling mess; re-breathed alcohol fumes and the odor of foul-toxined sorts that spent their days in a Hell of their own design. Hours passed.The bartender didn't seem pleased n the smoke-choked room and asked mean-spiritedly. . .
"Are you ordering something," a cold sneer shaping on his gaunt features.
Valiant managed to give his thought sound, his eyes far-away as he spoke in a drawled voice: "I seemed to of carried little gold on my person, I can come back tomorrow with more. . . "
Valiant removed his shades and wig and took a long pull of the ale; romanticizing the entire process.
"I don't care if you have diamonds shoved up where the Sun doesn't herald, pay or get the f**k out."
"You have any idea who your talking to. . . your an amoral Luskan-bred bastard who makes profit off my misery and others. Your the excess crap that slides down the bottom of a maple tree."
The bartender whirled around towards the bouncer lurking by the front door, looking stricken, "Did you let a paladin into my bar, Rexlin? Or worse a nosy, self-righteous fist." The bartender eyed a muscled bouncer and his voice was reedy and all echo-like to Valiant. The bouncer strode forward; Valiant flicked out a punch dagger lightning-quick.
****
Valiant was sent flying through the bar door; wood fragments splintering into ghost-pale flesh. He hobbled clumsily onto gray horseback and rode the night, angry prison scum hurling sharp rocks missing his skull by dagger-tosses.