Sticks and Stones
Author's Note: This is actually a story dedicated to a guild that I just joined with the same name, who I'm really enjoying being with at this present time.
Prologue: Lone Ranger
They called me the Lone Ranger for quite some time and now that I look back I think I begin to fully understand why. Maybe they had other reasons, but I do suspect that it was the time alone that I spent after the guild I formerly resided in broke up, and the one before that. Looking back, I've been through a lot of guilds. Hell I even ran a few good ones in my day. That makes me sound old and though I'm older than most of the people I run into, I'm by no means old. There are Elders who have been around since even my parents weren't even thoughts in the heads of my grandparents. Yet I have seen my fair share of the world.
I remember when the Wailing Caverns was infested, and as a young man having to go with men and women I did not know in order to thin the growing resistance within it. I remember trips across the ocean to kill some Van Cleef figure, not for the good of the Alliance of course, but for the riches that pirates do horde over time. I even remember my venture into Gnomergan and the staff who's magical properties still to this day allow me to breath underwater. Yet those days are past me, as most of the time I have much more daunting tasks.
Yet even though I am older now than I was in the past, I understand and I remember my humble origins. I will not shy away from those in need, those who need a hand because I was once in their place. I once needed a hand, and on many occasions I was given that hand and then one. I will not turn my back on the system that allowed me to rise to where I am now, I will keep that system going even if it means doing something I don't want to. Something I don't have to.
Not that I have any problems being a second in command to someone, none at all. In fact being in command of anything but willing and fresh minded, eager recruits, is pure hell. Being second in command, well all the responsibility doesn't fall on you. You have control, power, and responsibility to guide the people below you, but you always have someone to shift the blame on to you. Only one person stands above you, and the second in command usually can make more friends quickly. You have no reason to fear him. I have no reason to fear him, in fact I respect him.
So the time has come soon to attack, but I still have a few moments left to ponder the past, the times in which I was catapulted to where I am now. Not quite back from the Valley of Trials, my memory isn't the best. After all, I am an orc! Yet there was a time when I had just started to be able to play with the big boys, and I still needed a hand. I pulled myself through that last bit of training, went places that failed me, and ultimately found myself a home.
Funny that it would be in a form called Sticks and Stones, some silly human's childish rhyme now was a name that would become noticed. I am happy to say that I myself played a part in this role, if it was only for one night. The next night was awful, terrible. Yet we all have our good days and our bad days. A good day will have to come soon, I can just feel it.
It's funny what you can accomplish when you find a home.