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Gysavur looked up from the papers. 

"Perhaps not an unexpected question, considering what I have before me." He put away the stamp, slid the papers back to Krow. "Most entrants are recommended by their Houses."

"I am the only one of my House."

Gysavur hummed. "Then you must recommend yourself."

Krow let out a huff of laugher. This old man. "Are there no requirements?"

"The Gauntlet is always held on the first circling of the year, to rouse the spring. Are you certain you would be ready then?"

Today was the afternoon of November 17, which translated to the third day of the eighth circling. Then the first circling of the Redlands year would be in…February. The first half of February.

"If not, there is next one, and the one after that." 

Krow was only answering the village head\'s concerns, like he would placate one of his aunt\'s friends.

Taking the next would be nearly too late, as it would occur in August, just four months before the Quake. And the year after, he would already be in Zushkenar. 

Krow had to pass the first time, or the plan\'s difficulty would double and triple with the rush needed to get everything into place.

"It is a virtue, to know how to go slowly." Gysavur laced his fingers on the table. There was a glint of amused knowing in his steel eyes. "I can tender an application for you, if you wish."

"I do."

"Then you must prepare clothing."

Krow waited. Gysavur said nothing more.

…what?

"Ah, that\'s…it?"

"A young draculkar with the ability to defeat a Silverstripe Tasseline Serpent will do well enough to pass the Gauntlet battles. As for the other tests, you only have to prove that you have the family scroll and a name token."

"Really?"

"They are a test of fortitude, to be certain. You only need to be seen out and about. There are many gatherings."

"It\'s….a social test?"

"Indeed. You might want to change your registration, if you are planning to attend the next Gauntlet. Those of the skycities think little of us here at the foot of the grand mountains."

"I\'d prefer not to mix harmoniously with them, if they thought people were lesser for coming from different locations."

Gysavur smiled, his platinum eyebrows quirking up over his lined face. "If you say so, then your information will be sent toward the capital tomorrow."

"Thank you."

His quest notification pinged.

"It is a small matter. You have saved those of my village, after all, from a Silverstripe, and honorably offered appeasement for the damage. I would like to know the reason it attacked. Silverstripes generally stay away from settlements, preferring to avoid conflict."

Krow considered, then inwardly sighed. He needed the RP more than the armor.

"I can help with that."

A notification told him he accepted the quest. He smiled wryly.

A twist of his wrist, and a pile of armor appeared on the village head\'s floor.

"The Serpent was possessed."

Gysavur stood, eyes riveted on the dwarviran armor for a long moment, intense. Then a tired expression came over his features. "I see."

Krow was surprised. "You know him."

"We were known to each other, a long time ago." He looked away, out the window. His voice was carefully modulated. "Where did you find this?"

They were friends, Krow realized. He thought about the cage, the rage and misery that turned into malice after a few hundred years as a ghost…

He glanced at the armor. Ah. 

He was now gladder he destroyed the cage.

"At the underground reservoirs of the largest broken tower, on the other side of the falls. I was tracking the Silverstripe."

Gysavur glanced at him, smiled briefly. "Do not feel bad. A practical reality of the long-lived is that emotions fade in time. As everything does. You found him. And that is a good thing."

Krow took the chest out of his Inventory quietly. "I was going to find a lake, for this."

Gysavur blinked at him. Then looked at the old chest that used to keep books. 

"Ah." He returned his gaze to Krow after a moment. "You are an odd one, aren\'t you?"

Considering he\'d transmigrated to another world, then time-traveled back, yes. Very odd. 

But old man, he was only odd by circumstance!

"You may leave things to me, continuing."

Krow nodded. He tucked his name-papers into his coat. "Good day, village head."

"And you, young friend. You are of course welcome to stay in the First Tower as long as you wish."

[You\'ve finished the quest |:An Old Friendship:|, gaining +9 Experience Points, +5 Silver Serpens!]

[You\'ve finished the Hidden Sub-objective: Renounce the Dishonored Armor, gaining +25 Reputation in Cerkanst Village, +1 Reputation in Guinsant Alliance Territory!]

[Your local Reputation has increased to 200! You are now Known to Cerkanst Village.]

"I would give you the armor, in normal circumstances," continued the village head, "but if you sold it, I\'m afraid there will be unrest. And keeping it as a trophy would not be advised."

Hah?

Gysavur must have seen his confusion, because a corner of his lips lifted fleetingly, amusement flashing through his eyes. "The armor of a duke-commander of the dwarviran nobility, placed on auction in the Bourse. What a thing to happen, in this uncertain climate. It would have tongues wagging from here to the Shattered Continent. And storms brewing over the strongholds of the Grens."

Oh.

When said like that, Krow was doubly happy he divested himself of a ticking time-bomb he didn\'t even know he had.

His RP with the village was a satisfactory replacement.

He walked to his room, and once there with the door barred, he brought out a battered journal, one of the two books from the secret room.

He\'d skimmed it, in that dark room under a tower.

He\'d thought to give it to the village head, but not when he heard the name.

It had glossed over the story of Anaret Gren, from five hundred and forty years ago, who was lost to wander the  Grandshield Forest, and was found at the border half-dead by herb-growers. 

He was nursed to healthiness by the prowess of the village apothecaries, and taken in by the village head of that time, one Valemere bal Thaunal. The current village head\'s mother.

It took some years for the dwarvir to completely recover, and by then had formed deep ties in the village.

The writer of the journal hated the dwarvir, for taking the attention and care of Gysavur bal Thaunal, who was their friend. He hated how close they were, like brothers.

The writer learned in his journeys outside the draculkar kingdom that the armor Anaret Gren wore was from their high nobles.

He schemed to capture the dwarvir, then wrote a note of ransom to the Gren family who lived in the Gate City of Duryndon.

The journal detailed how the writer taunted him, called him many derogatory names, and beat him until the armor dented and could not be removed.

The ring, the one that radiated malice, belonged to the writer. 

Anaret Gren had bit it off him, and swallowed the finger.

The writer hated him more after that.

Krow closed the journal.

It wasn\'t something that he could give to Gysavur bal Thaunal. 

The old draculkar said that emotions faded in time. But Krow knew that the memories of the young were the most vivid.

He remembered more things from when he was a child than when he was an employed adult, for example. What he remembered of corporate life now was general, the days blurring together. But he could remember vividly six days from when he was eight years old that his mother pulled him from school and took him to visit a different place every day.

He had friends that he knew for years from work, that he saw every day, but with whom he was more distant with than an old friend from childhood who he had not seen in years.

Well. He once had friends.

Krow sighed at himself.

The journal wasn\'t continued.

Krow could only speculate what happened.

Probably the Grens tracked down the writer and devastated the village, but Anaret Gren was nowhere to be found.

With no one to know he was held in a secret tunnel that the ancestors of the journal writer knew because they were once builders, he starved to death, believing his friends had abandoned him.

No wonder he was angry enough to possess people.

The village head probably suspected something like this, but he didn\'t know the details.

Krow should just throw the journal into a fire.

Something in him hesitated.

He was a child of the modern Earth, where books were revered. There were very few people who published print books in the traditional manner anymore, very few who wrote in notebooks like this.

To burn a book was sacrilege.

He didn\'t want to keep it, and it wasn\'t something that should see the light of day. 

He shook his head, tossed the journal into his Inventory.

For now, it was safer there.