"Hindsight"

Forest outside Regan, Day 151

	Velgut strode purposefully through a shallow valley that lead into what was left of
Regan.  He had just left here a few days ago, and would rather spend as little time here as
possible.  His journeys usually meant months would go by before he visited the same
town twice.  As he saw some people in the distance, his pace slackened.  Once he could
see that they were Mantas, he went back to a brisk step.
	The poet wasn’t completely comfortable with Mantas, but he was not at all
worried about them.  In his earliest years of travels, he and another poet, Hogran, had
followed a pack of Mantas for weeks.  They thought they were being poetic at the time;
he recalled Hogran once joking that they were spiritually scavenging the scavengers. 
Velgut remembered no lines he had written then, only what a fool he was for traveling
with someone else, for trusting Hogran.  
	A Manta stopped as Velgut approached.  "Who goes there?"
	"The name is Velgut.  I come only to go, just passing through."  He hoped that
would suffice, but several Mantas blocked his path, so he stopped.  Instead, he tried to
win trust by removing his hood so they could see his face.  "I have no interest in your
treasure or collecting my own, merely the stories that await me in-" he struggled to think
of a nearby town, "-the town of Vent."
	Several Mantas looked at each other, and were about to let him through, when
their leader walked up.  "Anything you find in Regan is not just ours, but mine."
	"I only come to bury a friend." said Velgut, hoping the leader would let him near
Liam’s body.  The leader gazed at Velgut’s face inquisitively, but merely nodded.  Velgut
began walking again, but the leader followed.  He wouldn’t have gone straight to Liam’s
body, but he noticed the leader was alone after a moment.  He had motioned the other
Mantas to stay behind.
	When Velgut did find her, there was nothing to do.  One of her fingers was
missing, the orb was gone.  The leader walked up beside him.  "You want it to, don’t
you?"
	"I don’t know what you’re talking about." Velgut lied.
	"The orb.  One of my men took it, but he’s dead now.  Killed by a swordtiger." 
	"You’re only saying that to make me think you don’t have it."
	"I can prove it."  The leader took Velgut to the Manta’s body, it had been indeed
a swordtiger.  The swordtiger itself lay nearby, hacked into very tiny pieces.  "We
couldn’t find the orb on the ground, so we thought maybe the animal ate it.  We were
wrong."
	Velgut kneeled closer to the dead Manta.  There was a slight dagger cut to his
neck.  Too precise a cut for a Manta.  "I believe you.  That cut could only be done by a
trained soldier, and I’m willing to bet you found no tracks of one?"
	"That’s correct."
	"A Spyre agent then.  He’s the one with the orb."
	"I recognize you, Velgut.  You and that Hogran followed my group. How long was it
before we discovered you?"
	"Six weeks." Velgut muttered.  He was too eager to travel to keep running into
people from his past.  "I don’t suppose you have seen him since he ran."
	"If I had, he’d be dead.  He raped two of the girls in my group while you two were
tailing us.  He was an arrogant thing.  Even told one of them no one would come since
you thought he was just having some private time to write."
	"That’s what he honestly told me!" said a shocked Velgut.  "I remember you
now, you’re Selvix."  The two sat and chatted briefly, remembering their earlier
encounter, one not quite trusting the other.  After a while, Selvix stood.
	"So, young poet.  Will you be competing with me to find that orb?"
	"No.  I have no intention of chasing a Spyre agent.  That’s almost impossible,
actually.  I’ll return to Ralla."
	"Then may there be good light on both our backs."  Selvix walked back to his
group, and Velgut turned back to Ralla.  Nashgoln would not be happy about this, but
what’s a poet to do?