I accidentally spent all night writing out William’s backstory, because I started at bedtime, and then went to bed and couldn’t make my brain shut up.
And I need to share this from Karzov’s point of view.
Once upon a time, you were a young man in a ruined city. Then, a dastardly pretender to the city’s throne shows up, and you, patriot that you are, join the resistance group. You cement yourself as a leader among the other young men and women (though not as well as one of the other young men, Arlon Bladeshaper, who has ancestral ties to the Neverwinter Nine and thus commands respect). There’s also this quiet guy whose parents are pretty influential in the older half of the Resistance. He has good ideas, sometimes. Too cautious for your taste, but good ideas nonetheless, and so he has respect among the younger Resistance members as well, though he laughingly denies being a leader.
Whatever. He’s not in your way. Let him do what he wants.
The young folk grow increasingly discontent as the years go on and Neverember still sits in his stolen throne. The old folk still urge caution. At some point, quiet guy’s parents are both dead (or as good as), and he gets this kind of hunger to him. About time, really. Kid’s a mean shot with a crossbow. He’ll be useful once the Resistance REALLY gets going.
Then the Pretender kills the Resistance’s leader, and the young folk have their CHANCE. You and Arlon name your faction the Nashers, in honor of the glory days you’ve heard about, back before your city was an ash-filled ruin. Things are GREAT! There are protests, riots, whatever - You start to assassinate some of Neverember’s higher-ranking flunkies to sow chaos in the enemy’s ranks. The old folk practically disown you, but whatever - you’re making more progress than THEY are, at least.
And hey, you were right - quiet guy’s crossbow skillz do come him handy. You and Arlon manage to sweet talk him into assassinating some guys himself. It’s good for morale - the more hesitant kids who remember his old caution throw themselves into the cause! THINGS ARE GREAT.
And then quiet guy wimps out and disappears. Whatever. Everyone who idolized him before had either left already or completely switched over to your way of thinking. The pathetic false patriot can go waste away in the ruins of the city if he wants, for all you care.
Things continue to go great.
You take over Blacklake. You start to plan a daring heist - some of the Nashers will cause an enormous riot, and a small team will break into Neverember’s precious vault and steal the crown that the Pretender doesn’t dare to try on. Arlon will crown himself, the people will see that he is the TRUE King of Neverwinter, and you will WIN. Some crazy lich lady even takes care of the riot part for you! What luck!
The kids in charge of getting the crown succeed. They seem spooked by some adventurer who showed up in time to watch them leave, though. No matter. The crown is in transit.
The adventurer kills Honor. A shame, but an acceptable loss. You have more important things to worry about. Like getting the crown safely to Arlon.
Word is that the adventurer saved Gothwan from the Dead Rats. Well. Little shit probably told him where to find you, but at least he probably didn’t go out the way Honor did. You still have time.
The Nashers guarding your hideout are screaming. Adventurer apparently has either a sadistic streak or a complete disregard for suffering. Well, what would you expect from one of the Pretender’s thugs? Still, you can respect that. Violence gets results, after all. You catch a glimpse before you escape from your burning hideout - swirling dark energy, green fire, burning cold eyes.
Oooookay.
You kind of get why the underlings were screaming.
...
You’ve been hearing the screaming again, and you figure it’s time to stop this guy before he burns through all of your patriots. The crown’s all packed away for Arlon, so all you have left to do is wait. You see a dark figure begin to stalk across the bridge and into the light and -
Wait.
That’s Quiet Guy.
He looks worse for the wear, his hair and beard are kind of wild and crazy looking, and he’s got a wicked looking blade and swirling dark energy instead of his crossbow, but it’s quiet guy. His eyes are more haunted than burning now, and you recognize them this time. This is the wimp you left to crawl into a gutter and die. The fuck.
“Betrayer,” you growl. His eyes start to go cold and burning again, but he doesn’t deny it. Not that he could, considering all he’s done.
“Karzov,” he says, in that stupid perfectly-intoned accent of his. There’s hatred in his eyes, but he still sounds like he’s calmly giving advice on Arlon’s latest plan. Again: the FUCK?
“I thought that I made it clear years ago that attacking the Vault was off. limits.”
...No.
Really.
WHAT THE SHIT.
(And then William kicked his ass horribly, got knocked on HIS ass from the booby trap on the crown’s crate, and kind of. Poked the crown with his pact blade. wrapped it in something to carry it out and return it to the Vault. And then he spent like two months doing alchemy in the Bryce family crypt before Knox managed to track him down and bother him again.)
im still gradually working my way through pkmn sun and i’ve just reached Po Town for the first time and
there is something incredibly unnerving and sad about seeing a pokemon centre like that. this franchise has been around for twenty-five years and as far as i can remember, pokemon centres have always just been pokemon centres. nothing like... that.
