By Tyrain of Dark Ages

Everyone of us hides, we hide behind masks of our true selves. Some of
us hide very little, while some of us hide a great deal. My story is
about those masks and the deception that we make others believe is true
everyday of our lives. Everyone knows Cassidy, the man that runs the
bank in the good town of Mileth. Oh how could you forget him? When you
walk into his bank he greets you with a smile and a booming voice. If
that were all I could say about Cassidy I would be very happy, but I
cannot stop there.

My story begins one very cold winter night. I had arrived in Mileth
late from a hunting party and the snow was falling like cotton. The only
light I had with me when I passed the town entrance was my torch I held
high. The light creating a perfect sphere around myself and onto the
snow. Luckily for me I could walk the path blindfolded because I had
lived in the town since I was very young. Almost too young to remember.
The guard standing outside near the Glioca Temple suspiciously eyed me
until he realized who it was then in the cold mustered what smile he
could with his half-frozen face. I too was beginning to freeze and my
legs were growing numb when I first saw the lights of the tavern ahead
of me. My mind wandering to the warmth I imagined inside the inn were no
doubt I would find friends drinking and singing to chase away the
worries of the present world. Most definetly the cold was an absent
memory to all those warm inside the bar..

Running as fast as I could, I almost missed Cassidy and another man
standing beneath a tree near the fountain. I was all ready to walk up a
say Hello to a man I've known all my life when my eyes caught sight of a
dagger, gripped in the gloved hand of Cassidy. Around here drawn weapons
were not an uncommon sight as I need not tell you, but this was
different, this weapon was drawn upon another being, another aisling. I
stopped about twenty feet from them, paralyzed from the cold and
confusion equally. The dagger waved about guided by Cassidy's hand, then
he yelled, screamed almost. This was a man who I've never known to yell,
threatening a man in plain sight. Or so I assumed. My fears were
comfirmed when the dagger thrust forward into the man's chest. The
reddest blood I have ever seen spilled out onto the snow, staining it.
The tainted snow was soon crushed by the falling body. Cassidy still
standing. His hand reached down to the body, to help I thought, but no,
instead the hand drifted to the man's money belt. Twenty feet away I
watched on as Cassidy counted the ill gotten gains and smiled. Smiled?
Was this the Cassidy I had grown up to know? No I told myself. What
could I do know? I should have stopped him, but what now? I ran.

I spent my night freezing inside the stone walls of the crypt. Among
mice where that night I felt were my peers as I believed I was no better
than them. I wandered to my room at the inn early that morning, before
the sun had woken Mileth. Trudging through the snow, my tears of lost
life froze before they hit the ground. I slept for days, not wanting to
leave the room even when I could sleep no more. Since then I have slowly
become my care free self again. Whenever I go to Cassidy's Exchange, I
have to look into Cassidy's eyes, because everytime he looks upon money
you can see it in his eyes, the greed, the greed that comes from
Cassidy's Gold.

Tyrain Mythrael