The next 14 years were spent from tavern to tavern, drink to drink, job to job. I had only one policy, work alone, I was not going to be weak again. Clearly relying on other people was weakness, obeying orders was weakness. Either way, I took whatever jobs I could get just to be able to afford the next drink and room in whatever tavern hadn’t banned me and kicked me out. I got many jobs, and most of them quite simple, bodyguard, kill a creature something something and many other shitty fucking jobs. But at least I got paid. It wasn’t until five years into this shit that I started getting into the wrong crowd, started working with a gang in Cootegar. That's where the trouble started, for real this time. It all started quite simple, got a shady job offer in a tavern, paid better than any job I had gotten beforehand. Turns out I was protecting a half elf burglering a house, he just handed me the goods and ran. Luckily the guards on duty weren’t the brightest around and I was able to trick them into following the half elf. This got me some nice money. So I decided to keep working with this gang, managed to make quite the name for myself, extortion, assassination and everything inbetween, the countless lives I must have destroyed. My mother probably looks at me with shame from her grave, but there was no turning back. What I had commited was already done. I was still a rampant drinker but now could retreat to the gang layer when I needed sleep. Although I still had tavern brawls, pretty much all of the guards were bribed so I got away mostly unscathed. When It had been five additional years of working with the gang I started getting introduced to other underground contacts, many of them working for some sort of scientist. Not that I gave a shit at the time, but oh how I would regret that decision. I was eventually sent to Stormrock on the gang bosses order to carry out some business there. And that was what it began as, but eventually he ordered me to set up my own place there, with a couple others. I specifically remember HER. Oh Demine, I still miss her. She was a centaur girl whose family was in considerable debt and their debtors choose to put their daughter into the prostitute business. I had a business meeting with said debtors who were also heavily involved with the crime of the city, and upon seeing her I was immediately infatuated. After concluding our deal, I inquired about her, and upon hearing her story I felt sympathy. I decided to pay her family's debts and clear their names from any dealings with any bad crowds. For the next year I visited them quite often, and me and Demine eventually fell in love. We spent the next two years happily together, I made sure her family was protected from any outside threats. But one day everything would change, you see during my time there I had gotten happy and complacent. I had a good life counting coin and spending time with Demine. But during this time a rival gang had moved in, apparently having some powerful dwarven sponsor. They started making moves against me. And at first I ignored it, but then it happened. One day me and Demine were walking back from her family house towards my part of the city. When in a moment's notice a blade stuck out of the throat of Demine. I looked back and saw what looked like someone from the rival gang. I tried to fight back against him, but I could not even harm the bastard, he was strong as hell. After a long fight he eventually had me on the ground, but that bastard spared me, probably saw me as too weak to see me as a threat. When I think back on the whole encounter the guy had strange symbols all over his body, the one I specifically remembered was the three snakes with their tails intertwined. But again I had lost everything because I was WEAK. Upon returning to my gang headquarters I decided that only full out war was what could solve this issue. Demine had gotten me off of alcohol, but that day after three years of being sober I got shitfaced again. It was a mixed feeling of sorrow and anger. I’m sure the alcohol didn’t help, I didn’t know what else to do at the time. Now you might’ve thought back and wondered “why did you mention that the dipshit Michiel would continue to be a thorn in your ass”. Well turns out that dipshit felt like the capital could use a cleansing of its criminal life, me included. After the long and hard fight I was eventually imprisoned. 14 hard years and in the end I was imprisoned, I questioned everything while in that prison. I tried to hold on to any memory of Demine but the gods decided to challenge me at every turn. In the prison there was no supply of alcohol and I suffered extremely from drawbacks, causing me to fall down into the deepest depths.