Switching Sides

was a cloudy afternoon in Trinsic. Hawkeye Pike, captain of the United Pirates, had fought lots of Orcs and Soldats during the ongoing invasion. The high ranked Soldats had yielded a number of decent weapons for his treasure chamber. Again, he was engaging a General and his fellow, swinging his long pike fiercely at the foe. Generals were difficult to kill, so this would take a while...

Suddenly, a bunch of landlubbers appeared, jumping into the battle. Hawkeye recognized them being members of an enemy guild. He muttered silently and continued fighting, when he was attacked by Jamie, and a few minutes later by Little John. They probably had mistaken him for one of the evil Soldiers, so he shouted a warning and continued focusing on the battle. Suddenly, the Energy Vortexes of Jamie were attacking him. Those landlubbers seemed to be either very careless, or ignorant.

When the General was finally slain, Hawkeye walked up to careless Jamie and told him to be more careful with his magery in the future. Jamie didn't care, and scoffed at Hawkeye. Well, a captain is nobody you scoff at with impunity, so Hawkeye gave him a warning shot in front of his bow and poisoned him with his blade. Jamie ran, and Hawkeye followed him through the streets of Trinsic. Then, Jamie attacked back and a fight erupted, which ended bad for Jamie.

When Hawkeye returned to the battle scene to fight the Crimson Dragon, he was unexpectedly ambushed by Little John. What followed then was an almost endless personal vendetta, during which Hawkeye neither had the chance to heal and re-equip, nor to loot his corpse. This even continued when Hawkeye went to Yew to fight the monsters there. He lost track of the number of his deaths. Fortunately, his armor was insured and he had enough gold in the bank box to cover insurance, so his favorite items were not lost. However, his loot was gone, as well as around 100.000 gold pieces of insurance money. Not an insignificant sum for Hawkeye.

More pictures of this unpleasant event, and a previous similar incident, can be found here.

McBykar, who shared the house with Hawkeye Pike, was currently a member of the alliance/guild where said persons were accepted members. He was troubled. Although Hawkeye had apologized to Jamie for his (agressive but justified) resistance, he neither did receive apologies nor compensation (the latter he did not even expect) from those subjects who had killed him at least 15 times in return. The leaders of the alliance did not see any cause of action, as they considered the whole incident Hawkeye's own fault. One week after this occurence, Hawkeye decided that it was best to end the relationship with that alliance to avoid further trouble.

McBykar was more than disappointed. The relationship between the pirates and that alliance would have had great potential. It all went down the drain because responsible people did not want to take action. It had been the second time such a thing had happened, and both times a person of the guild, McBykar himself was member of, was involved. He didn't like to brush things unter the carpet anymore. A simple act of honor, only a word of apology, would have been enough to resolve the problem. However, pride often seems to be the biggest barrier.

McBykar visited the Eye of the Storm, a place where he had met with his guild mates so often, one last time. Then he turned around and left. He switched sides and became a member of the United Pirates.

11/2008

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