p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt; text-align: left;"emstrongThis is just the little chapter at the beginning of the story that's from a side character's point of view, I'll continue if people are intrigued. /strong/em/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt; text-align: left;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt; text-align: left;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Cornelis Smeet hated being involved with the Van Eck family. As soon as he finally finished these papers legally transferring all assets from the corrupt merchant to his supposedly illiterate son, he would be completely done with those people. After Jan Van Eck's schemes had been exposed at that auction three weeks ago, the Merchant Council had found that it was just the tip of a whole iceberg of deceit. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt; text-align: left;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Smeet shook his head and straightened the stray papers scattered around his desk before pushing himself out of his chair and striding toward the window. He saw the sun rising over a city that seemed almost peaceful. Moments like this were few and far between in Ketterdam. He had planned a vacation to the country with his wife, daughter, and his precious dogs. There would be more moments like this when they were there, ones where everything had an aura of serenity around it. /span/p
p style="text-align: left;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: left;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Just as the thought passed through his head, there was a loud BOOM from the direction of one of the harbors. An explosion. That was the kind of thing that made him want to just pack his things and leave this city forever. Maybe he wouldn't come back from that vacation./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: left;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: left;"emstrongspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"I know it's a bit weird, give it time, I have a plan for it. Quick question, how do you think Inej's parent's reacted when they found out what had happened to their daughter? I'm not sure how to write them in./span/strong/em/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt; text-align: left;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt; text-align: left;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Cornelis Smeet hated being involved with the Van Eck family. As soon as he finally finished these papers legally transferring all assets from the corrupt merchant to his supposedly illiterate son, he would be completely done with those people. After Jan Van Eck's schemes had been exposed at that auction three weeks ago, the Merchant Council had found that it was just the tip of a whole iceberg of deceit. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt; text-align: left;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Smeet shook his head and straightened the stray papers scattered around his desk before pushing himself out of his chair and striding toward the window. He saw the sun rising over a city that seemed almost peaceful. Moments like this were few and far between in Ketterdam. He had planned a vacation to the country with his wife, daughter, and his precious dogs. There would be more moments like this when they were there, ones where everything had an aura of serenity around it. /span/p
p style="text-align: left;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: left;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Just as the thought passed through his head, there was a loud BOOM from the direction of one of the harbors. An explosion. That was the kind of thing that made him want to just pack his things and leave this city forever. Maybe he wouldn't come back from that vacation./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: left;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: left;"emstrongspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"I know it's a bit weird, give it time, I have a plan for it. Quick question, how do you think Inej's parent's reacted when they found out what had happened to their daughter? I'm not sure how to write them in./span/strong/em/p