[MilesBeyond]

In the softly-spreading glow of dawn, a lone figure crept furtively along the roof of a building. Progress was slow, and it took him the better part of half an hour to reach his destination, stumbling several times as he went, and once ignobly falling only to catch the gable and hoist himself back up. Just as he had manged to cross the rooftop, the tranquility of the early morning was suddenly broken by an explosive outcry.

"You! Stop right there! Just what do you think you're doing!"

"Damn," the figure said, cursing his luck. Ah, well. He hadn't been looking forward to the climb down anyway. He turned slowly, hands held out obviously to indicate that he was unarmed, only to find a man leaning out the window with a crossbow trained on him. "Er, ah..." the figure seemed momentarily lost for words. "Hullo."

"Don't you 'hullo' me! How dare you? We took you in, gave you food and a bed, not asking for anything in return! And this is how you repay us?"

"Well it's not as though I killed someone," the figure said, nonplussed.

"You may as well have!" shouted the man with the crossbow. "She was to be wed next month! To a merchant! Oh, it may not sound like much to you, but he was going to give her a good life, away from all this, this-" he gestured aimlessly "this! Did she happen to mention that? But he won't want her now, oh no, not now that she's been -"

"Er, she's to be married then?"

"Was, yes, but not anymore, thanks to you."

"Hmmm. Oh dear. Well, er, if there's any way I could make it up to you-"

The man at the window grinned wickedly "Oh I should say there is. You're my new farmhand, boy."

The figure sighed. Looks like he'd have to make that climb after all. "I'm sorry, but that's really not going to work out for me. You see -"

The man indicated the crossbow "I don't think you're in any position to be trying to negotiate."

"Right, er, no of course not. No, not at all. It's just that, I'm sure if you just heard me out - Goodbye!" and with one jerky, slightly clumsy movement, the figure lowered himself off the roof and on to the wall, the building hiding him from view.

"By the gods... He's trying to get away!" came the shouts of the man with the crossbow. The figure chuckled at his own cleverness, then immediately stopped as he lost his footing and plummeted to the ground. Giving a slight groan, he checked himself to find that he was either unharmed or so injured that his body had gone into complete shock. Deciding to gamble on the former, he stood up and, finding his legs good, slipped inside a nearby shed.

As he watched from the door, the man - crossbow still in hand - and several of his employees came thundering across the farm on horseback. They rode past the shed unawares and left the farm, chasing their imagined quarry down the road to the west. As soon as they were out of sight, the door slid open, and the figure emerged from the shed and began heading east, shaking his head ruefully as he walked. "Getting chased out by a farmer for taking too many liberties with his daughter," he said to himself. "Alek Kelter, you've become a walking cliche."

As the excitement of the past few moments died away, however, his mind returned to the issue that had been haunting him for years: What in the Nine Hells was he to do with his life? He once again went over all the options in his head, though he already knew that it would do him no good. He was far too impulsive and reckless to be any good as a merchant. He'd received some limited martial training when he was younger, but even on his best days he was a mediocre fighter. He had the ability but not the temperament for clerical work. He was enamoured with magic but lacked the discipline and the patience to ever succeed as a wizard. He thought priestly duties looked like easy money but found most orders to be too restrictive, while the life of a craftsman looked to be too much work. As a musician he was both passionate and skilled, but he considered himself to be above tavern songs and he lacked the connections to play in a noble's court. He'd fall on his sword before he'd consider manual labour.


He shook his head and sighed. No, he thought to himself as he walked off into the midmorning sun, there was only one thing for it. He'd just have to keep wandering and hope something turned up.

[MilesBeyond]

Alek Kelter wandered through the city streets, his new weapon of choice - the crossbow - slung across his back. His original weapon of choice, when he'd first gone on the road, had been the double-edged longsword, until he found that lifting it for more than fifteen minutes at a time was far too much of a chore. He then moved on the rapier, fancying himself a dashing rogue cutting his way through nefarious criminals and malicious monsters - a fantasy that survived up until the first time he was accosted by bandits, at which point he'd decided that the further away he was from the action, the better.

So he was left with the crossbow, a weapon he preferred because it minimized both required training and exposure to danger. He felt it's reassuring weight on his shoulder as he walked, knowing that if he got into danger... Well, there probably wouldn't be enough time to unsling it, and really his aim still wasn't all that good. But it reassured him just the same.

He kept turning over the question in his mind - what to do? He still didn't have any marketable skills, and he was nearly out of money. He wasn't even sure which city he was in. He vaguely recalled crossing the border into Sembia a while back, and felt as though he may have passed another one since then. Or maybe not. It was hard to remember anything, these days.

As his problems all came spilling over him, he suddenly knew exactly what it was that he needed to do. It was only five minutes later that he was through the door of the nearest tavern with a large mug of ale in his hand. As he ordered his second drink, he knew that he was spending more than he could afford, and that at this rate he'd be broke by the end of the month. He shrugged - that was Future Alek's problem. He gave a snort of derision. Future Alek really needed to figure things out - the man's life was falling apart, and he didn't have a plan to put things back together. Alek counted himself fortunate that he was different. He had a plan, even if it was to drink until he couldn't remember Future Alek's problems.


As he was on to his fourth drink, three strangers approached his table. They indicated the full tavern with nowhere else to sit, and asked if they'd mind if they joined him. Though they seemed highly annoyed over Alek taking an entire table to himself, the drink had put him in a mood that could only be described as categorically charitable, and, beaming, he asked them to have a seat. While the three were dour at first and kept mostly to themselves, as the spirits began to flow, they began including Alek more and more in their conversation, until eventually the four of them were swapping stories.

"Me?" Alek said unsteadily, leaning back in his chair only to catch himself before nearly falling over "Oh, I haven't got a story. Hmmm? Oh, you needn't look at me like that. It's actually quite wonderful. You see, I just go what I want, doing wherever. It's quite magnificent, really."

"But surely, you've got to make a living somehow?" the leader of the group pushed. He was a little nonplussed - he'd always rather longed to live his life on the road, but has settled down as a cobbler some years before that, and felt it rather unfair that someone could be finding success living the dream he'd abandoned.

"Er, well, no, not really" Alek was a little abashed at the sound of his own voice, but soldiered on nonetheless "To be honest, I haven't got all that money much left. Er. Much left money. Er. Something."

"There may be some work around here, somewhere, if you need it," said one of the other men noncommittally. He was actually looking for an apprentice himself, but wasn't sure Alek was the sort of person he'd like to take on. His suspicions were almost immediately confirmed.

"Pfffft. Work." Alek slurred. "Ridiculous. Work is for... work is for... whatsit. Poor things. Things that are poor." The men stared, uncertain of how to react. "I'd rather die than work. Did you know... Did you know how many people die before they're of forty years? Do you... do you... do you... do you really want to spend that time... spend that time... Er..." The others waited expectantly. Alek blinked. "Er... I forget what I was saying. Another round, perhaps?" he said, looking up brightly.

"You know," said the third man, barely suppressing a laugh, "Have you ever considered travelling to Thay? I feel that someone of your particular, ah, ambition would thrive there." The other man guffawed noisily, while the leader hushed him, admonishing him to not even joke about such things - though he was smiling himself.

"Thay!" Alek shouted incredulously ("Shhh! Keep it down!" hissed the leader, this time grinning openly). "Thay! No, I'd never go there. Wizards and slaves and... things. Dead sucky things."

"Vampires?" supplied one of the men.

"Vampires!" Alek exclaimed triumphantly. "That's the word. That's the ticket. I'd rather face a thousand deaths than go on to Thay."

After that, the conversation turned away from Alek's future and towards the day-to-day matters of the three men's trades. A few rounds later, Alek finally fell over on to the table, snoring loudly.


Early afternoon the next day, he awoke to found himself lying in the gutter across the street from the tavern with a splitting headache and no memory of the night before. He stood up to find his coinpurse significantly lighter than it'd been yesterday.

"Damn that Past Alek for ruining my life" he muttered to himself as he staggered off down the street towards the city gates.