“Why not?” he said. He didn’t smile but he didn’t frown either.
“You ever find Galadan?” she asked Melech.
“Nope,” said the thief. “From what you told me, there wasn’t enough left of him for me to kill. And if he lived, the fire did him in.”
“So aside from drinking, what are you into now?”
“Ah, my criminal days are done, Alaeda,” said Melech. “I’m an honest man now.”
The halfling snorted.
Korvak found Pakka standing in the ashes of the House Vordon emporium. He had searched for the dwarf since the battle’s end. He feared she was gone for good. He suspected she lingered there still, so he tried one last time. The sun had set, and night claimed the city once more.
“Templar,” she said.
“Dwarf.”
“No. Not anymore,” she said.
“Perhaps not,” he said, inspecting her pale flesh and the disturbing wound where Temmnya Shom had killed her. “Why are you still here?”
“I have nowhere else to go. I feel the darkness inside growing. I can’t stay but I have no future.”
Korvak nodded. “You’re free now.”
“I know the word, but not the meaning.”
Korvak sighed. “I think that’s true for us all.”
Robert J. Schwalb, a writer and award-winning game designer best known for his work on DUNGEONS & DRAGONS®, got his start in 2002 and has never looked back. He has designed or developed almost two hundred gaming books in both print and digital formats for WIZARDS OF THE COAST®, Green Ronin Publishing, Black Industries, Fantasy Flight Games, and several other companies. Some of his best-known books include the Dark Sun® Campaign Setting™, Player’s Handbook 3®, A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying, Grimm, and Tome of Corruption.
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