The Gaming Outpost

Happiness to fear, third person limited…

The mother swept her front porch off with her bonnet covered head tilted to catch the cry of the gulls in the harbor. Her small house was on Dockside Street, but in the respectable south where the sailors and the bars and pickpockets and minstrels knew they were not welcome. Her eyes went up the stone-paved street, amongst the sukey carriages lightly trotting for the messengers, and the plodding milk-wagon, and slightly faster ice-wagon, both drawn by oxen, and caught sight of her body, Strange Ripley.

Ripley Champ came down the hill to the south end of Dockside, and in his hand, he held a scrolled up piece of parchment. He was twelve, and he ran in fits and starts, with a serious look all about him for every day, a man was impressed into service, or a lad run down by a wagon, or some sort of thiever got after a fellow and tossed a brick from atop one of the two story houses with an aim to brain a passerby, and then loot him.

He dodged Vicia, a loutish thug, who could not read nor write, but could curse in eight languages. The brute called for him to slow down, but the young lad was not so slow of wit as to to that. Instead he passed on, running, and walking by turns. Always he made sure he had enough energy to run full tilt if needs be.

And so it was thus that his mother Molly saw him come down, with excitement pouring from him like sweat.