Aye, I'm Edarl, what did you need? I'm setting off in the morning and I don't have much time to chat if I want to get at least some sleep. But if you're up for buying the drinks I'll stay a bit longer. I am an Apprentice of the Order of Periath, you know. Every third night I'm down at the catacombs keeping undead from ripping your family's throats out.

(Edarl pauses, then frowns, half in annoyance and half in forbearance. Obviously he's been buying all his drinks of late.) Well at least buy your own.

What did you want again?

That's where I'm going in the morning. My master has selected me and my friend Dirival to go on a secret mission to the town of Middlegardth, where the Tomb of Periath lies, and retrieve our hero's sword. It's a relic of great power, I'm told. Perhaps even enough to cure my arm where not even the Life mages can.

As for whether it's approved with the Order of Periath, I suppose you mean the Sages. I know only that my master is a Sage, and he's promised Initiation for both of us when we return. It'll be an easy enough task for Apprentices of our skill.

You master the Sage, do you believe him when he says he will initiate you? Do Sage's lie? Can you tell who you could trust?

Can you really trust anyone?

Who is the stronger of the apprentices? Does Dirival treat you as an equal, or an invalid who can not use his arm? Do people treat you different because of your handicap? Do people think you are weak or slow, because of your arm? Do you resent being a broken man? Would you do anything to have your arm repaired?

I see you like to unleash a barrage of questions in an attempt to unsettle the person you're talking to into revealing secrets. A poor way to make friends, and an even poorer way to thank me for revealing a secret as I have done. You see my master ordered me to keep knowledge of my cursed arm from the rest of the Order, in the fear it would spread hopelessness in an already hopeless situation. It has not been easy, but I have done so.

As for whether I would do anything to have my arm healed, that is a fool's question. I do my duty to Northerad and the Order first and foremost. Others have given their lives to keep undead off the streets at night, my arm is a small enough sacrifice. But at the same time, I hope Periath's sword may offer some cure, when we retrieve it.

As for Dirival, he is my closest friend. We have sparred together since both of us became Apprentices, and the difference in our skill is hair-thin. He is slightly faster, and prefers the use of lighter weapons and to fight without a shield. I myself favor greatswords, perhaps because that is the weapon Periath was said to wield, and what boy does not idolize the hero of Northerad?

You don't like paying for your drink, why do you think you are entitled to free drinks? Do you hold tightly to your money? Is the money yours? Do you deserve it? Would you turn on Dirival for money? What do you regard higher than money?

Again, your questions are either a fool's babbling or an attempt to assess my loyalty to the Order. Did my master send you? I don't like paying for my drinks because an Apprentice's stipend offers a few scant coppers a year on luxuries, and unless I want to drink in the Sanctuary I have to pay for my ale. Of course there was a time when men remembered Maneld and the good men of the Order who were slaughtered trying to hold back the undead, and paid for my drinks willingly.

As to whether I am entitled, that begs the question is a mug of ale worth the nights I spend at the catacombs, holding back your ancestors' ravening corpses so that you can sleep at night? My friend Marten died last night alongside one of the Durvanese Fire mages, holding a breach in the main entrance until help could arrive. Yet more often than not you sitting snug in your homes spit at me when you pass me on the street, and the Monarch's guards taunt members of the Order as feeble and weak, because we cannot hold back a scourge that none expected and no one else even dares to face.

You master the Sage, do you believe him when he says he will initiate you? Do Sages lie? Can you tell who you could trust? Can you really trust anyone?

Sage Yardeth took me under his tutelage when I was five years of age. Had you asked that question two weeks ago I would have laughed at you. Yet now...

My whole life I have trained to master the sword, all the while hearing rumors of increasing undead incursions. Dirival and I are skilled, far outstripping all other Apprentices and even some of the Initiates. Yet during my Test of Initiation when Yardeth faced me in single combat he cheated, using magic in a contest that should have been skill in weapons alone. He certainly would have bested me either way. And then to add insult to this injury he taunted me before the Order, saying I was weak, and in these times I would die before I'd unsheathed my sword.

Then, even though my skills were more than sufficient to grant Initiation, he declared to the Sages that he would not sponsor me.

So I obey him still, and call him master, but I do not love him so well. I try to tell myself he had cause for his betrayal, but I cannot see it.

(Edarl smiles bitterly) Ah well, Master Marenad is gone and so Dirival has been unable to take the test. We'd always supposed we'd become Initiates near the same time; now it looks as if we'll have that chance.

I prefer sage as a spice. Lamb with sage perhaps.

Yes, mock the wisest and most venerable men in Northerad. You would not be alone; even some of our own wonder why they huddle in the Sanctuary rather than taking the battle to the undead, at least so far as to scour the Catacombs. Yet those who complain were not at Maneld. They didn't see how our own dead rose alongside those of the destroyed city.