Astor paid his respects. Looking closely at each person, he wanted to carve their figures into his mind. That way, hopefully, he can carry some traces of their existences in his memory. Dying this way was probably extremely excruciating. Astor wondered if these people had family members that would carry on their memories. He breathed out slowly and stared at the slow moving clouds. Dying without leaving behind a single evidence of your existence, Astor struggled with this dreadful thought throughout the war. These people probably didn't even get the chance to fight back. "Even after all this. Some people still yearned for violence," Astor whispered. Breaking out of his melancholy, Astor cut down the remaining hanging bodies and walked back up to the path. Eyeing the sign once again from a distance, he stifled his raging, deep anger. Repressing darker memories, Astor started to jog to keep his mind from wandering. He strode to the top of an incline before stopping. He looked down at the small town on the bottom of the valley. It was positioned directly on a gorge in front of the next valley surrounded by trees. He saw multiple mining expeditions hollowing out the nearby tall mounds of rock, exposing the white, radiant stone. Astor pulled out his sword. Looking closely, he could barely make out the dark, wavy lines running across the blade in the low sunlight, like the patterns inside a tree's cross section. The sword had lasted him throughout the long war. Sadly, the blade was no longer sharp, and there were many small chips all over its sides. The red gem started to glimmer from a small ray of sunlight that broke through the clouds. Astor swung through a thick piece of branch hanging from a tree. He relished the sensation as his sword passed through the thick vegetation. Allowing his anger subside, he walked down the slope and into the town. The clouds started to trickle shortly after. Astor pulled up his hood and walked through the poor arrangement of houses. Each house was built sturdy with a pale-brown type of lumber. The planks ran up to each thatched, sun-orange roofs. Some of the more distinguishable buildings consisted of brick. Astor looked for an inn or a bar. He needed information about the nearest blacksmith unless he was lucky enough to stumble randomly upon one. Astor saw a sign protruding from the side of a building. Fink Rat's Pub He pushed through the gates of the pub and peered in. The place was dimly lit. Multitudes of glares fell upon him. Inside the pub was a single long counter to the left surrounded by round tables. To the right, there was a stairway leading up and back to the left, stopping at the top of the bar. The barrels there were disorganized and clustered together. The place reeked of grime and alcohol. Astor walked over to the counter and sat down. "One cup of ale." The well-shaved bartender proceeded to fill up a cup with a nearby barrel. Astor looked around the pub and returned any glares that still lingered on him. "Do you know of any blacksmiths around here?" Astor questioned the bartender. "Most famous one lives in a building in the middle of town. It's made of brick with a chimney that's always puffing out smoke." "Thanks," replied Astor. "How much?" "Two coins." Astor placed two metal object down on the table and sipped the ale. The bitter, sour liquid traveled down his throat. He could smell hints of alcohol and pine as the aroma filled his senses. "It's good." Astor wheezed. The bartender grunted in agreement. Astor left a small puddle at the bottom of the cup. He didn't want to feel any side-effects but the taste sure helped to eased his nerves. Astor stared listlessly at the gem on his right side. The gem on the pommel had helped him through some of his lowest times. The memories they held were sometimes all that kept him going. Gathering his self from the uncomfortable stool, Astor continued out of the door and back onto the sidewalk. He walked towards the center of the town, looking for the buillding mentioned earlier. While looking around lost in thought, Astor felt a bump as a tiny figure ran past. Astor pivoted his feet and stretched out his arm to catch the child by the shirt. He wrenched his coin bag out from the hands of the thief and locked the arm behind his/her back. Astor struggled with the squirming child while fiddling with his coin pouch. "Next time, pull your body in more," Astor whispered. He grabbed two coins and stuffed them into the hand locked behind the child. The child wrenched free of Astor's grasp and looked at their hand, stunned. Astor turned to walk away, but as he did, he felt one of the two coins he'd given the child peg him in the back of the head. "I don't need help!" the scraggly, small voice called out. Astor turned around to face the scrawny boy. Surely, accepting charity was better than stealing. Disregarding the smudges of dirt on his face, he looked into the young boy's eyes. Two brown eyes glared at him back. Astor saw naivety, rashness, and foolishness, but something unusual really interested him. Deep in the pupils of those eyes, Astor thought he saw unrelenting ferocity accompany the child's calm expression. He thought for a moment and then decided. "Oh?....... Alright," he said condescendingly. Astor threw his whole sack of coins at the boy and unveiled his sword. "I'll treat you like any other thief then." Astor charged forward. The boy stumbled backward at the sudden movement and tripped. Astor purposefully sliced at the open air that the kid's head was at a second ago. He looked down at the boy. "Come on. Get up and run. It'll be more interesting that way," Astor mocked. Astor saw the people around them back away and start to whisper, but he didn't mind. He watched as the little thief broke out of his daze and scrambled to his feet. Astor watched as the boy ran off towards a nearby alley. Astor sprinted after him just as the boy turned around to see if he was, indeed, giving chase. The boy flinched and picked up his speed as he rounded a corner. Astor reached the corner and peered down the crooked alley. It was about two of his arms' span wide, and the floor was muddy from the recent rain. He watched as the boy slowed down into a trot while eyeing the floor carefully. Astor ran at him at full speed. What is he doi..... Astor's thought was interrupted as his leg sunk knee deep into the mud. Smart..., Astor complimented the boy. Using his sword as a cane, he pulled his foot out of the syrupy mud and jogged forward. Eyeing the footprints of the child in front of him, he retraced the steps. He was now moving faster than the boy, but the initial stumble had created quite the distance between them. Astor strained to catch up as the boy rounded the corner. When Astor reached around the bend, the boy was hobbling up the side of a stone house that marked the dead end of the alley. By grabbing onto the small cracks between the rocks, the boy was able to get a stable foothold from the wall. Fast... Astor gawked at the shuffling figure. He was already near the top, which was about four persons high. If Astor didn't hurry, he wouldn't know which side the boy would climb down from on the roof. Astor hurled his sword over the boy's figure onto the roof above. The boy flinched as the sword was sent sailing past his head. Astor eyed a path up the stone wall and ran towards a corner at full speed. He jumped up and kicked off the sides of the alley with two powerful steps before reaching onto the stone wall. With one more kick up the stone wall, he reached up and grabbed a crack. Covering a third of the distance, he lifted himself onto another hold and surged both his feet and hands up off the stone cracks at the same time onto three other holdings that were higher. While he recovered from the loss of a foothold, he looked back up and saw the boy's feet disappear over the edge. Scrambling up further, he struggled with the last few feet of wall before lifting himself onto the ceiling. As he reached the top, Astor saw a glimpse of the boy's hair fall down the right side of the building. He grabbed his sword and hurried to that side before glancing down. The boy had already landed on the grassy floor below and was glaring up towards Astor with the pouch of coin in his mouth. Astor smiled. Not once had the boy thought of throwing away the coin pouch while he was being chased. "I won," was what those eyes told Astor. The boy rushed off again, and Astor dropped his sword down the side. He proceeded to crawl down the wall. When he reached the middle, he slid down the rest of the way before landing roughly on the ground. Picking up his sword again, he ran towards the boy's direction. Astor was way behind now and had no hope of catching up unless... Flooding his senses with a little bit of Empyral energy, Astor began to move at a higher speed. Running out of the alley, he was met with a high traffic of people walking from the left and right. Astor knew he was only a few seconds behind the boy and jumped as high as he could. He scanned the crowd and saw a trail people getting shoved out of the way by a low, unseeable force. Betting his luck, Astor proceeded towards that direction. Pushing and shoving his way through the mass of people, Astor soon saw a small boy make his way out of the crowd and back into another alley. Astor followed as the kid looked over his shoulder to check if the coast was clear. The boy cringed as he saw his pursuer. He quickly rounded a bend and Astor continued after him. But just as Astor approached the corner, from the blind spot, a red puffy cloud was sprayed towards his face. Reacting quickly, Astor shut his eyes tightly before running directly into the vapor. The spicy fume burned his face and inflamed his nose. Damn... Astor coughed and wheezed. He listened as the young boy ran past his left side. Astor opened his eyes briefly and turned around to locate the boy's figure. The powder began to burn his eyes, but the fleeting vision allowed him to pinpoint how far the boy was from his grasp. Dashing forward, Astor grabbed the boy's collar and heaved him against the wall. The boy tried struggling, but it was meaningless against his strength. "Let me go!" he shouted. Astor put the sword's edge near the boy's throat to stop his erratic movements. He felt the boy freeze in fear accompanied by a hard swallow. "It seems like I won this one," Astor huffed. There was a long silence as Astor wiped his face. When his vision cleared, Astor stared at the boy up close with teary eyes. He retracted his blade and let the frightened boy off the wall. The youth eyed Astor curiously with a look of surprise. "So. How about becoming my apprentice?" The young lad stared at him in even further astonishment.