Snippet #2816165

As their voices echoed nonchalantly through the chasm, Maria offered a quiet prayer to the fallen. Just some junkies with no future, banging sticks together like animals. That was probably what they thought. But a life -- human or otherwise -- was so much more than that. A complex web of dreams, decisions, and little quirks that were unique and dear to each person. She gently shut the lids of a younger hatchet with her gloved fingertips, her gaze traveling down his face to his collar. Around his neck was a crude string necklace fashioned out of mismatched seashells. It was small, likely just barely enough to fit over his head. His jerkin, faintly decorated by numerous stitches painstakingly sewn and patched multiple times over by careful hands.

This man had a story, and it ended today. It didn't have to. Slowly, the priestess rose to her feet and watched the discussion unfold with superficial interest.

"Don't play coy, orc. You've got a brain like everyone else, I think you can piece together the results of your careless behavior." She gestured with her mace to the various bloody corpses strewn across the floor. "In any case..." Maria rolled the head of her weapon across her palm, back and forth as her eyes swept the chamber and her legs guided her around the edge of the pit. "Perhaps we could all stand to be more compassionate toward our fellow man, as we stand and... casually converse amongst their bodies as though they were little more than wild dogs."

Maria stopped square before the bandit leader, nodding at his words.

"The bloodshed that took place here today is a disgrace, and I take full responsibility. I pray it is not too late for you and your men to begin life anew, once this is over." She glanced towards Orcimedes once more.

"Well. Anyway. Accidents happen. But, I'd like to have your word -- presuming you value it -- that you won't cause any more problems as long as I have you within my sight. Can we get a little..." Maria bumped her fists together a few times. "...man-to-man agreement here? Man-to-woman. Whatever."