| abstract | - By the time Sparrow returned, Reaver had hired Barnum to take his picture with his picture box. At first Reaver was cynical about it the device and how it could capture a person’s exact features, but then he merely shrugged and reminded himself that over the past few centuries he had seen weirder thing come about. That was how Sparrow found Barnum and Reaver talking when she returned from Wraithmarsh. She was very jumpy and desired nothing less than a long hot bath to remove the filth that desecrated her body. ‘And you’re sure it will look exactly like me?’ Reaver asked Barnum as he sheltered his pistol on his left leg. Barnum had taken the picture just before Sparrow had entered. ‘Exactly like you, sir,’ Barnum replied confidently. ‘In three months the picture will be developorised and –‘ ‘Three months?’ Reaver laughed humourlessly. ‘That’s no good.’ He swiftly withdrew his Dragonstomper .48 again, and killed Barnum before turning his attention back to his descendant. He saw that she hadn’t aged a bit. He smirked. ‘I see you are a clever girl,’ he said, sheltering his pistol. ‘You must have followed my instructions and took someone with you.’ ‘I did,’ Sparrow said, ‘and I discovered that you are the brother from the tale my Guide told me about the destruction of Oakvale.’ ‘I will not deny it,’ Reaver replied, before going to the door and ordering someone to dispose of Barnum’s body. He then turned back to Sparrow and changed the subject. ‘Now, most of the time I do not keep my word, but on this rare occasion, I will. Tomorrow I will follow you to wherever and help you defeat Lucien. I will have a maid show you to where you can bathe and where you can spend the night.’ ‘Thank you, Reaver,’ Sparrow said gratefully. She would kill to bathe right now. That night, the pair ended up having dinner together, though Sparrow noticed that Reaver didn’t touch anything on his plate. Instead, he sat there staring thoughtfully out a nearby window with a chalice of wine in his hand. He was uncomfortable, and not because he knew his descendant, who was oblivious to being his descendant, was staring at him. No, he was uneasy because he had no idea what Theresa was playing at. Was she leading the girl before him blindly to her death, or was she manipulating her for a different reason? Whatever it was, Reaver found himself caught up in it again. He knew that he should have just broken his word to the girl, telling her to get out of his house, but he couldn’t. How could he say no to someone who reminded him of what he used to be? These thoughts haunted him until he fell into an uneasy sleep. Then, a few hours later, just before sunrise, he was abruptly awoken by an earth moving tremor. Leaping ungracefully out of bed, the shirtless Reaver ran onto his balcony and saw giant shards transporting an army of Spire soldiers onto his costal paradise. He also saw one of his men running towards the manor. ‘Norman, what’s going on?’ Rowan yelled down at him. ‘The city’s under attack by a bloody army!’ the man yelled back. I’m surrounded by idiots, Rowan thought before saying, ‘I can see that. What do they want?’ ‘You! The guy in charge is yelling at his men, “Find this Reaver”!’ ‘Thought so,’ Reaver muttered, running back into his room and throwing on a light shirt and shoes, before grabbing old Avo’s Tear and Dragonstomper .48. With these in hand, he ran to where Sparrow was staying. He knocked on the door and entered, only to find her completely dressed and hair perfect. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked calmly, while Reaver wondered how she managed to make herself look so perfect so fast. ‘Your friend, Lucien is attacking the city,’ Rowan informed her, grabbing her wrist and pulling her from the room. ‘He is after me and once he knows you are here, he will be after you too.’ ‘So what should we do?’ Sparrow asked, following Reaver into his back room. ‘Well, I suggest that we flee down this rather handy escape tunnel,’ he replied as he pulled on one of his books in one of his bookcases. The bookcase moved aside to reveal a hidden passage way that looked rather dark and creepy. ‘Are you sure there are no other options,’ Sparrow asked hopefully. ‘Well you can always surrender to them or go out and fight them, but those options would likely lead to your death,’ Reaver said, entering the passage. Sparrow hesitantly entered after him. She then clung to his arm as he closed the passage. ‘Set fire to this, would you,’ Reaver said, holding out a torch. ‘I don’t have a match.’ ‘Are you or are you not a Will user? Use the Inferno spell to light the torch.’ ‘Oh, right.’ Sparrow did as Reaver said. With the torch lit, the old Hero led her through the dark tunnels. The entire time she clung to his free arm. And she calls herself a Hero, Reaver thought. She would have never made it as a Hero back when the Guild was around. ‘Smugglers built these tunnels ages ago,’ Reaver informed Sparrow, trying to take her mind off whatever was scaring her. ‘I don’t think they’ve been used for about three hundred years.’ Sparrow shuddered at that. Who knew what was lurking in the dark labyrinth? ‘Oh no, wait a minute now,’ Reaver said when he realised he was mistaken. ‘I came through here in… That’s right, I was consorting with Ursula at the time and Penelope found out.’ ‘What did she do when she found out?’ asked Sparrow. ‘She set the house on fire while I was sleeping,’ Reaver said casually as though it was no big deal. ‘With Andrew, as I recall. That would have been two hundred years ago.’ As the pair came to an abandon mine, the cavern wall opposite them was blasted open and Lucien’s men enter the mine, weapons at the ready. ‘I won’t even ask how they found this place,’ Reaver sighed as he casually began to kill them with ease. He found that guns were definitely ten times better than bows. They were quicker and easier to use. ‘So much for a nice walk through the labyrinth, hey,’ he added to Sparrow when all the guards were dead. Sparrow was beyond impressed with Reaver’s skills. They were unnatural and she had seen no equal. There was no doubt in her mind that Reaver was the Hero of Skill she was after. Lucien’s men ended up appearing several more times during their journey, and each time, Reaver took care of them as though he was merely swatting away flies. Sparrow figured that he must have had a lot of practice to be that good, but then she reminded herself that he was six hundred years old. When the pair came to the end of the Smugglers’ Caves, they exited onto a beach with a dock and a ship anchored at the dock. Hammer and Garth were there waiting for them. Written: 24 February 2013
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