  <resources>
    <string name="0dQLkzEw">What you call 'honor'... I'm not sure that's the best word for it.</string>
    <string name="0FHF0OXK">I'm a surgeon. I trained at the imperial academy in {IMPERIALCAPITAL}. I had many rich and influential patients in the town. I thought I was well shielded from the intrigues and dangers of the Empire. </string>
    <string name="0reAi03W">I was a cowherd. In most villages, this is a boy's job, because one must be alone in the hills. In our village there were few boys, and I was a good shot with a sling, good at keeping the wolves away.</string>
    <string name="0SnKUaex">No doubt a sad state of affairs. So what do you do?</string>
    <string name="0ty7hiZI"> I've been in a lot of fights and I've killed a lot of people. Ask you around - you shouldn't just take my word for it. But never one who didn't deserve it, and never once outside a fair fight.</string>
    <string name="12lOrxfb">The boys of the neighboring village would pester me. One of them, the chief's son, would not leave me alone. They wanted from me what all boys want. One day he came up behind me and tried to take me by force. But I had a knife... </string>
    <string name="157MgVWG">They say I stole a horse. Indeed, I was riding a fine horse through the streets here, and Karakhuzait are supposed to be poor. I paid for it in silver, but man who sold it to me - a dog, an Arkit - seems to want both his horse and the silver. So it is my word against his.</string>
    <string name="1Gr3wo1m">I was a smith. As you can see I'm a big fellow, strong... I was good at my job. Had a nice shop on the high street through my town. Saved a bit of money and thought about finding a girl to wed.</string>
    <string name="1gXv1YlG">If the choice I had been mine, I would have never hurt anyone. I would live on my land, eat what I had grown, marry and have children. But the Heavens have decreed that I should eat by shedding other men's blood. In the city, rich men pay me well for that.</string>
    <string name="1paC3mV1">Yes. Too many men on both sides of the law prey on the weak.</string>
    <string name="1qrysbeT">If a man was drunk enough, I could usually take their purse without them even knowing, although sometimes they required a small knock on the head. Only travellers, though - much less fuss afterwards. Every trade takes finesse, as my father said.</string>
    <string name="1Slubhxc">It's not many who ask that question.</string>
    <string name="1ssGvu9j">I can tell you my story. If you spend time among merchants, I suppose you will hear it anyway, told as a cautionary tale, complete with a great deal of moralizing and tut-tutting.</string>
    <string name="1ubcomnD">I don't like to brag about my own deeds, so I'll leave it at that. I do a lot of work for the merchants around here, but they don't own me. I'm my own man. I just take their money. It's not like I'm a mercenary or something like that.</string>
    <string name="21QinZCq">Well, now there's a war on, and few are bothering with racing chariots. I went to find work with the armies. At first they had me fixing carts, but it turns out my skill with wheels came useful in making a catapult torsion twist. So I learned a bit about that. A lot about that, actually. </string>
    <string name="22ajCymb">Oh, I suppose I can tell you. Nothing that no one doesn't already know, no how.</string>
    <string name="26RU4ZRj">Wait... This famous stand you're describing. It was against your own side?</string>
    <string name="28RfiykG">Every day, I give thanks to the Heavens that I was not born a savage.</string>
    <string name="2BKMNXE7">I fought three battles under the banner of the Sultan, and two more under the banners of the Qild. No more.</string>
    <string name="2mOdY5gW">I was in the Vaegir guard in the time of Arenicos. We took our discipline seriously; we were proud of it. Then the riots happened. What I saw in {IMPERIALCAPITAL}.. Even now it makes me feel ashamed.</string>
    <string name="2PZsQPty">I will tell you my story. I haven't... I haven't spoken of this before, to anyone. Perhaps it's the wine here. But know that if you speak of this to anyone else, I'll cut your tongue out.</string>
    <string name="2rX8VwCj">I'll tell you my story. Why not?</string>
    <string name="2VTD9b4L">As it happened, my neighbors needed to supply an armed man for the king's levy. None of them wished to go, so I offered to stand in for them. They bought me a sword, jerkin and horse, and thus I became a warrior.</string>
    <string name="2ZiWirPM">I find that I like to fight, and the pay is good. But I will do my fighting far from home, so that no shame attaches itself to my family's name.</string>
    <string name="31XTldnZ">I am sorry for your fate, my lady.</string>
    <string name="33Dzgon7">Say you had a man you wanted killed. Who you would pay to kill. I could find him, bump into him, mutter an insult. He would pull out his blade. And that would be the last mistake he would ever make. But as I said, it would be a fair fight. I do not kill from behind. It is dishonorable.</string>
    <string name="37d1A0AM">I kill for a living. Some men, in my line of work, will spin a tale of how they were forced into it, orphans of war or some-such. Piss on that.</string>
    <string name="3AbNYbOo">Maybe they were like that once, but they'd changed. They robbed, forced people to give them food, called poor farmers 'spies' and killed them just to strike fear in the others. So I said one day, 'You're all a bunch of common bandits.' They came to kill me, my cousin stood up for me, and they knifed him.</string>
    <string name="3J76GzZh">My father was a cataphract in the east. We had a small estate to pay for his horse and armor. I was raised to take his place on the imperial troop rosters when he came of age.</string>
    <string name="3QxjeC94">You are a most dutiful son and brother.</string>
    <string name="3W1H83WZ">At any rate, if you know the leader of warband who's generous and honorable, he'll find no braver warrior to follow him than me.</string>
    <string name="3Yax10rQ">Well, perhaps there is something to those legends, because I did very well for myself, and made my master very rich. Imperial law now decrees that men are not allowed to kill in the arena, but no one pries into what happens at the private entertainments of the rich, and over a score of my fellow slaves must have felt my blade in their chest.</string>
    <string name="3yK4uXyt">I'm an engineer. Most of us learned our trade and got our contacts through the army. It was a good system: it was the emperor's money, so the emperor's servants kept a close eye on us. But as everyone knows, the emperor ran out of money. The lords are in charge of fortifications now, and all they have to go on is the say-so of other engineers.</string>
    <string name="41Et3Siz">You want a story? Then go toss a copper to a fellow who knows the song of Kais and Layali, because you won't get one from me.</string>
    <string name="4ee0aofe">Hmm... Strange response.</string>
    <string name="4mgqRx6a">I fought as best I could, but the imperial forces took me prisoner. When they found that there was no one to ransom me, they let me go on my pledge that I would pay them later. It was a most noble gesture of them. So, I feel that I have no choice but to earn the money.</string>
    <string name="4MJsYhys">But everyone else - they're beasts to him. And he's a beast to them. And maybe a day comes that he's gone too far, and the lord is wondering whether to hang him, and a word from you determines whether he lives or dies. And if he lives, that means more peasant women will be raped and old men cut open to look for jewels in their bellies.</string>
    <string name="4qqsndje">One moment. I need a drink.</string>
    <string name="4rC9tzki">I don't begrudge a warrior a few drinks and a fight from time to time.</string>
    <string name="4u5YQtKn">Hard to blame you for that, I suppose.</string>
    <string name="4UMf7HDe">You may call it pride, but I do not wish to enlist as a foot soldier. So I work here in town, for merchants, for pay, a hired sword. All I can say is that I hope one day to purchase the land I need to serve our emperor, whoever sits in the throne, as my father did.</string>
    <string name="4v369XQ3">Sure - I'll tell you how I wound up in here. Nothing to lose, really, what with them outside erecting the gallows for me.</string>
    <string name="548o0GKu">I could return to my people, I suppose, but I have no wish to do so. So I am here, in the towns, where I can make good money with my sword and care nothing about those who envy me.</string>
    <string name="56VPnxQd">You're a nosy one, I see.</string>
    <string name="587q6IS6">Very nice. You sound destined for the scaffold, so you might as well enjoy a hot meal or two.</string>
    <string name="5d6Xifm1">Master of empty talk, rather.</string>
    <string name="5Fp7d2cV">Sounds like justice served.</string>
    <string name="5h5bHA4o">They were and they weren't, you might say. Dozens of bands, dozens of chiefs. Some wanted to be more than bandits, to try to treat the poor decently, and some were happy being bandits. We needed to eat, so most of the time the bandits won out. But there was one chief we had, he took things too far. Made peasants hand over not just their grain but their daughters. So I told him - Vatand was his name - what I thought of that.</string>
    <string name="5mUCH99p">Suffice to say, I could not return to my father's house. I went on my way, happy to live the life of a warrior I had always dreamed of living. But soon I found out - the tales I loved as a girl, of shield-maidens who fought for honor, do not pertain to a woman with no family or land. One cannot fight for honor when one doesn't know where the next meal comes from. So I fight for pay.</string>
    <string name="5QpIypgB">Since you ask who I am, stranger, I will tell you.</string>
    <string name="5Z9SNzQw">The lords and the merchants, they sit in their lofty towers making grand decisions, but they don't see into the back alleys to know what plots are going on. They don't know where to find the debtor who won't pay his debt. They don't know where to find the wagging tongues starting rumors. So that's where I come in.</string>
    <string name="6KUJ7cYt">Sure, I'll tell you my tale. Don't expect a happy one.</string>
    <string name="6NorKoWz">Well, before we begin, here's a flagon of ale to your health - both physical and spiritual.</string>
    <string name="6OF0vjQV">After Arenicos's so-called reforms, they try to maintain an army on the cheap, letting the rich run the show out of their own pocket. No wonder the whole thing's collapsed into a bunch of squabbling factions and we're mocked by the barbarians we used to rule.</string>
    <string name="6R8hkchs">That is all there is to say, really. I still have the sword, and it is for hire, to those who pay well. I'll do most whatever is needed. The world had no mercy on me, so I feel no need to show any.</string>
    <string name="7caHipXX">So I left. And a short while later the emperor sent a third detachment, bigger than the others, and that was the end of the Kingdom of Truth. My old comrades - I see them sometimes from time to time, some in a lord's retinue, others in a cage with R for 'robber' branded on their forehead.</string>
    <string name="7JMaPpkN">We built a great temple in the back country, out in the bush, called it the Kingdom of Truth. We whipped two imperial detachments sent to track us down. But Ladicos died, 'Called up to Heaven' he said on his deathbed, and then we lost our way a bit. We needed food and we needed money, so our chiefs started collecting 'taxes' from the villages below. Some started taking money from lords and merchants for protection of caravans. And those who grumbled - well, they started turning up dead in the dry streambeds.</string>
    <string name="7KUO2swN">He really did swing at me first - I think. I was drunk. I know you think I'm just saying that to save my neck, but it's true. And if a trial by combat affirms that I'm talking truth, than I can get off with a fine, and not swing for what I did.</string>
    <string name="7QFCINsI">Every time I've fought with a band of my 'countrymen,' I've told them: 'Hold your lines. Stay firm. Fight as the Empires does: as a solid hammer, not a gaggle of goats.' And every time I have seen them disintegrate into a screaming rush as soon as the arrows start flying, to dash themselves on the enemy's shields or be cut down by cavalry coming in on the sides.</string>
    <string name="7RyQGcbI">The trouble with prophecies... People remember the one that came true, never the ten that were false.</string>
    <string name="7TbLW9lr">I could tell you of all my deeds, and you'd never believe me. But you know, if you'd met me a year back, I could have taken you to my hall some time and shown you them. Shown you my deeds! You heard that! </string>
    <string name="836klxRM">You want to know about me? Well, that's a story, that's a story.</string>
    <string name="84coQmIJ">My family was not one of the greatest clans of the Battanians, but nor are we among the poorest. When I came of age, my family sent me to join the Wolfskins. You may have heard of this tradition - for three years we live in the woods and do not eat cooked meat, wear spun cloth, or sleep under a roof, and according to the law we are beasts, not bound by the laws of men.</string>
    <string name="8aEcRzM7">I will tell you. If you are a partisan of the Khan Urkhun and his brood, however, you may not like it.</string>
    <string name="8Caa7QPs">My father had five sons. That wasn't unusual, but what was unusual is that we all made it to adulthood. There wasn't enough land for all of us, so the two youngest of us moved to Charas. Found work on the wharves, hauling in cargos from all the ships coming in. For a few years, it was good work.</string>
    <string name="8CixQpyO">Well, there's always work for the brave and the resourceful.</string>
    <string name="8duSHfDa">Ah, yes. Wise words. Do go on.</string>
    <string name="8lGql3mA">I've fought for Ulus Khan, and for Monchug Khan, and even for the old Urkhun. But I fight on foot - my family's from the town, not the steppe. Life's a little different for us.</string>
    <string name="8lQ9IM8N">The women in our family passed down the art of healing from generation to generation, and other... em... services, that can be accomplished with herbs. But for all our skill we remained poor, while richly robed, well-fed men with half our skill walked about the towns tending to the lords and ladies.</string>
    <string name="8U01rj5f">When a victim turns thief, that does not right the world.</string>
    <string name="8xrIamsU">My first foray into war, we were pursued by a force of imperial cavalry twice our number. One man was needed to stay behind and hold a ford, so that the rest could escape. The others had families, so I chose to be that one, as I could think of none who would mourn me. </string>
    <string name="8zQ9UPvX">Some boys help their fathers sew crops. Some boys learn to herd sheep. Me, I spent my childhood learning to harvest the back alleys outside winehouses. My father taught me. He was a good teacher, if a cruel man.</string>
    <string name="902xqUja">A cavalier of the empire doing errands for traders! The shame of it!</string>
    <string name="9AIyvTmF">Well... I was soon disabused of this idea. A doctor starting out in the world must either have a great deal of money, or family that ensures him a long list of clients. I had neither. Instead of working in the city, I took service aboard a ship.</string>
    <string name="9bezXRLp">It did not matter much. I always preferred the woods. I made a better living shooting squirrels and rabbits and selling fur. </string>
    <string name="9EQxlFGK">A wise man, my father. But proud, and that was his undoing. A thief cannot be proud. We do not survive long without protection from the guards, and a new captain wanted to double the 'tax' my father paid. He refused, so they hanged him.</string>
    <string name="9jYj8jGg">Resentment is poison to an army. Men must learn to follow what orders they are given.</string>
    <string name="9KJdwiWV">Aye, well, that shows how far honest work gets you.</string>
    <string name="9vt4wew9">I am a conoisseur of horseflesh, my friend. No one knows horses better than I. But I find, alas, that often the best horses are wasted on unworthy owners, so I try to rectify that.</string>
    <string name="9xJrtdOG">Truth or not, a bit more penitence would be reassuring.</string>
    <string name="9YDjFZIU">Mmm... I do appreciate virtue, but villainy makes for a much spicier tale.</string>
    <string name="a1FYCbdy">Soon after I came of age, we got wind that our neighbors would raid us for cattle. We did not know by which road they would come. I was sent with a few of our tenants to hold a ford that was far out of the way.</string>
    <string name="A6WrXPQ6">So like I said: I can ride, swing a sword, manage a caravan, and I have good idea how to turn a profit. You know anyone looking to hire someone like that?</string>
    <string name="A9r6SnWx">Yes, it must be trying.</string>
    <string name="aBqj9o7e">I suppose that's an inspiring tale, in its way.</string>
    <string name="acRHDzXI">Oh of course. Every thief is falsely accused. It's a wonder things still get stolen.</string>
    <string name="aFs4JtDV">Eventually they demanded my father drive me out of the village. Because I was the fourth of four girls, it was no great loss for him to comply. Probably saved him worry over where he was going to find the money to marry me off. My mother screamed and wept, but her opinions were of no consequence.</string>
    <string name="Agbh1AmR">I have a gift... From the Heavens, perhaps, or perhaps from somewhere else. I have never met anyone I could not kill in a fair fight. But I do not like wars. Armies are full of crude men, boasters, drunks, rapists. I have another speciality.</string>
    <string name="agmuAXJc">How would I put it? I guess I'd say I'm a lady who's gotten a reputation for doing a man's work better then the men. I guess I'm a bit of a rarity. Although that's a bit of a surprise to me.</string>
    <string name="AH4ell4y">Hmf. Very well. I'll tell you - and you can decide for yourself whether my family should be ashamed of me.</string>
    <string name="aIPLCDp7">Heavens protect us from evil! Away! Away!</string>
    <string name="Aj9ulUly">You're a cheerful one. Good day to you.</string>
    <string name="AlZlPv4b">Councils these days. Always making changes...</string>
    <string name="AMMXrcC9">Indeed. Glory is as much a spoil of war as any, and should be shared.</string>
    <string name="aNSIajhR">I found a guardsman, alone and drunk. I have no idea whether he was one of the ones that set fire to our neighborhood. Maybe I should not have done to him what I did to him. But now I have his sword. It's been very useful.</string>
    <string name="aOSiXn2O">Well, I'm not averse to less dangerous work, if it pays well. No sense going to my grave too quickly, now that I've discovered the finer things in life. I do like the wine you get in the city, especially with a bit of bread and anchovy sauce.</string>
    <string name="APcr8rgq">I'll tell you. It's a bit of a long story - you may wish to get yourself a drink.</string>
    <string name="Aqbu1o9v">Far back as I remember, I was living on the streets of {IMPERIALCAPITAL} with a bunch of other dirty, barefoot scrogs. A group of men in our alley, they called themselves the Centaurs, I guess they took a liking to me. Gave me special errands to run from them - started with picking pockets, ended with sticking knives into their enemies. Back then I'd do anything for a handful of figs and cheese and a pat on the head.</string>
    <string name="astXdbzl">The monastic calling is supposed to inspire us to live pure lives. It doesn't look good when people abandon it.</string>
    <string name="AT7pJ6Rm">It is not without some reluctance that I tell this story, for it hardly does honor to my name.</string>
    <string name="ataDrzt7">At any rate, I'm looking around to see if there's any campaign I might join.</string>
    <string name="aTGl3b1G">Anyway, that's all I'll say about my line of work - unless, of course, you'd care to make a down payment on my services. Then we can talk more.</string>
    <string name="atWYxZBh">What? Does no one respect their parents anymore?</string>
    <string name="aULjoDXL">Anyway, I wandered about a bit, but now I think it's time I found steady work. You wouldn't need someone to stick a knife in those that need sticking, do you?</string>
    <string name="AVqbfwrh">I will tell you. Perhaps you will think I am petty-minded, but a man's reputation is a valuable thing...</string>
    <string name="AX7gvmaj">So... What are you good at?</string>
    <string name="axnObjSY">Then came the day that {IMPERIALCAPITAL} burned, and everyone was out looting and robbing, and that was my chance. Lifted a bag of silver from the Centaurs' stash and lit out on the road.</string>
    <string name="axVcadKQ">My father learned his trade in the time of the old Urkhun Khan. Back then, the Khuzaits were invincible in battle, but had little knowledge of rams, catapults or even ladders, and even the most humble fortress defied them. </string>
    <string name="aZOuFJ6H">Well, he did not believe in such things, so he laughed, tossed her a few coins, and sent her on her way. I grew up. When my first suitor was skewered by a spear in battle, I grieved, but thought little of it.</string>
    <string name="b0zmbTPQ">When all was done I'd have killed for an hour of another man's company, or a sip of wine, or a glimpse of a girl. So my sister and I, we came down to the valleys. She found a husband. I can get good work as a tracker. And that's all there is to it.</string>
    <string name="b1sCl4SI">So, anyway, I am forced to spend my time in taverns, taking whatever work can be found. I can oversee the building of most structures, or, if the need is there, I am also adept at knocking them down with catapults, rams, and mines.</string>
    <string name="b2UpIO43">I left the woods, but I spent enough time with the bandits to learn a bit of woodcraft. Now I help lords hunt them. If I must choose between two evils, I will work for the one that pays better. But I also have an outstanding debt with the landlord. Perhaps some day I will be able to settle it.</string>
    <string name="b3IzpFH2">Now, I'm looking around to see if there's anyone who might want to take me on. Especially if I might one day have a chance to rain rocks on the good people of {IMPERIALCAPITAL}, who killed my da.</string>
    <string name="B3UQTCRE">Refill my glass and I'll tell you.</string>
    <string name="B7cMisFf">Weren't handed life on a silver platter, were you? Such a tragedy.</string>
    <string name="B7iZITxb">If an enemy chooses to stand in a battle-line and face my arrows, I would not hesitate to kill him. But our feuds - I cannot accept that I have no choice but to kill a man who had no choice but to be my enemy. I left my people. Here I can choose what I do.</string>
    <string name="bagbVij6">So, what you're saying is that you're a horsethief.</string>
    <string name="bDidH1Pu">It takes a vile man to do that work, and an even worse one to boast about it.</string>
    <string name="bE3LXxhw">Yeah... I can tell you all that.</string>
    <string name="bhvZuX1m">A rather sad tale of deceit and disgrace.</string>
    <string name="BIsvfC0x">You too are a victim of the hideous power of the state.</string>
    <string name="BJSnI0tW">I ran with the Wolfskins, see? You may know our way - so long as we live as beasts, we're beyond the laws of man. But a few months ago I left my brothers in the woods and became a man again, which was a foolish thing to do.</string>
    <string name="bk3Ir2uC">Well... Even now I feel I made a wise choice to buy the pepper -- wise, but unlucky. Such is fortune! Had I not seized this opportunity, other merchants would have mocked me, a woman who lacked the daring to succeed in a man's trade. Instead they mock a rash woman who lacked a man's judgment. And here I am, looking for work.</string>
    <string name="bLZVseMd">I'm sure he'll be happy if you're happy.</string>
    <string name="bMHFQgVE">Aye, real honor is as scarce as hen's teeth these days.</string>
    <string name="BuamWVTp">Yes.. My story... Jealousy, envy of my talents. That's always been my undoing.</string>
    <string name="BVQ075W6">A sad tale. Please continue.</string>
    <string name="bwthhDSN">Right or wrong, I cannot blame you for your anger.</string>
    <string name="bYrgTQ3s">It sounds as though you had no choice.</string>
    <string name="C19gsGFY">Yes - many is the healer who has come to specialize in the diseases of the rich.</string>
    <string name="C5pqZtNs">I roam the desert. I learn its secret ways, its gifts, as a lover learns the secrets and gifts of his beloved. But though the desert is bountiful, horses and steel must be bought with silver. So, I must sell my services from time to time.</string>
    <string name="CA6Ew4EL">I wandered from village to village, begging and stealing. You may imagine how I fared at ther mercy of the robbers of the road, who had no more fear of the Evil Eye then they did of man's laws. But eventually I learned to protect myself, and the body of one careless bandit afforded me with my first sword and leather jerkin.</string>
    <string name="CAiFXWEf">Yes... I can tell you my tale...</string>
    <string name="CE8we5VF">Oh, I'll tell you my story. I don't mind who knows.</string>
    <string name="cGr6RvX7">The starving do what they must.</string>
    <string name="cPpWwCU9">How virtue has crumbled since the old days.</string>
    <string name="CQq51L8J">Yes, I suppose you did what you had to do.</string>
    <string name="crRb9ZhF">A man must eat. It's easy to find traders on the steppe and take their horses. But a man, unless he wishes to live like a beast, must also have people to buy those wares and give him food and blankets. There are merchants here, in the towns, who will buy horses without asking too many questions, and sometimes have other work for me.</string>
    <string name="Csokpo5C">I was a farmer. But I split a man's head open with a hoe. He was also a farmer. It was a dispute over a broken fence, between my pasture and his. I had no intention of killing him.</string>
    <string name="cX7q60eg">So I went to her brother, and offered him 50 sheep - a good price. But he said he wasn't giving his sister to a 'man like me.' Asked him what he meant by that, and he didn't answer, so I gave him a good punch. Maybe a couple punches - no more. Shouldn't have hurt a real man, but this little whelp died on me.</string>
    <string name="CxZWemhO">Perhaps I was prouder than most, or quicker to anger. One day one of them insulted my lineage, and I insulted his. I was angry but my words were ill-chosen. Our protectors said they would no longer protect us if I remained among them. So, my clan banished me.</string>
    <string name="cyjb9lmm">I had no talent for medicine, it turned out, so I chose to be an engineer. I had one final flight of folly - a local academy was crumbling, so I submitted a sketch for a new one to the emir. He laughed and told me to come back with a schematic of siege engines. </string>
    <string name="D6Xd5ZrT">I'm drunk, so I'll tell you.</string>
    <string name="D7IINWEl">I can tell you my story, but I don't know how interesting you will find it.</string>
    <string name="d8aCwUJj">When I returned to my stepfather's hall, my mother met me outside, in tears. She had given me up for dead - my stepfather knew the direction from which the enemy clan would come, and had intended for me to die. She did nothing to stop him, but since I had survived, she bid me flee - for if not, she feared, it was inevitable that our clan should sink into the abyss of kinslaying. So here I am, looking for a worthy lord for whom to fight.</string>
    <string name="d9qUbj3I">I shall tell you... Ahem...</string>
    <string name="dCHCb1hb">The horse lords, the men of the great tribes - well they gallup here, and they gallup there, shooting this and shooting that. They win battles, I'll give them that. But at the end of the day, if the enemy's still laughing at you behind their walls, all that galluping means nothing.</string>
    <string name="ddQAXhd6">One night I was walking home with my brother when we ran into a group working for one boss they called Big Tuna. Told us our crew had killed one of theirs, and they were going to kill one of ours in return. Took my brother, wrapped a heavy chain around his legs, and threw him into the water. I don't know why they let me live. </string>
    <string name="DFaMQXWH">We foot-sloggers, we're the ones who go up the ladder and into the meat grinder. Did that for 25 years, and I'm still getting less pay than some boy fresh of his mother's tit who happens to own a horse. Piss on that, I said, and I went looking for other work.</string>
    <string name="DHCTLcp1">So here I am. I know men like me can make money guarding merchants, doing other tasks such as that. As long as no one wants me to hurt the innocent... Some day, I hope to find a new place to set up a smithy and start again.</string>
    <string name="DhQ7lgNr">Indeed. No doubt such traditions encourages husbands to behave better than they might do otherwise.</string>
    <string name="dJxHX9si">The way I look at it, we all fulfil the will of the Heavens in our own way. So I do what I'm good at.</string>
    <string name="dKAun6OE">By the time I became a woman I was sick of filthy huts and puking babies. I came to the towns and inquired after which households, among those who had wealth, might have a patient for me. Of course when I showed up at the door in my torn, stained dress they slammed it in my face. </string>
    <string name="DMQSb5MX">Ah... Very well, I can satisfy your curiosity.</string>
    <string name="DRv6hB6p">Here's what you need to know about me - I can take a man down with a single blow, or maybe two if he's got armor, and I have expensive tastes in wine and women. So I don't work for free.</string>
    <string name="DZTOovh6">My uncle - he had a great herd of cows, and in the Battanian upcountry that is only kind of wealth we value. But they were taken by his chief herdsman, a man we trusted. So we took up spears to get them back, but my uncle was now poor, but the thief had many kinsmen. Having nothing else to lose, my uncle ordered that even the women of our family take up spears and ride out to fight, and so we did.</string>
    <string name="DzyAgYIX">But Drosios Neretzes led the pick of the legions into an ambush in the Battanian woods. You may have heard that story. I was laid up sick at the time. But a lot of my comrades didn't come back, and things were never the same afterward.</string>
    <string name="E7z7aoQo">Look, friend, I'm here to drink, not talk. But if you really want to know, I'll give it to you in brief.</string>
    <string name="EB6RcaTF">Merchants take risks. I am sorry it turned out so badly for you.</string>
    <string name="ECaJe7d8">But I had killed three men with a spear that day, and found I had a taste for it. And I learned that thieves grow rich, while honest men die. So I lived in the hills, and took the cows of families more fortunate then my own. But I sold the cows I took, and kept the denars close to my chest.</string>
    <string name="eeEra0bI">Yeah, I'll tell you my story. Pass the wine and listen close.</string>
    <string name="egZ6P7sq">A boy like you killed three champions, eh? Well, all things are possible, I suppose.</string>
    <string name="ELLbiNDu">You won't find me passed out in the straw in my own vomit when needed for a task. You won't have to bribe the guard to get me out of a cell because I got on a fight on my way to work.</string>
    <string name="ELXn5Nv5">My lineage is as ancient as it is noble, so of course when King Derthert called the muster of the vassals, I took my father's horse and mail and rode off to join it. This was in our war against the Empire, you see.</string>
    <string name="EMkaeD9M">Hmm. Many men would begin their story by reciting their ancestry. I will not do this. A man should be judged on his own deeds, and a long list of ancestors does him no credit. Also, my family does not acknowledge me, so why should I acknowledge them?</string>
    <string name="EQzHDnlS">At any rate, I'll fight for any man willing to take the same risks that his men face.</string>
    <string name="ErBHSq7A">I do not know if you are familiar with the ways of my people. I will try to explain.</string>
    <string name="ESfQXTiG">I'm here because men turn a blind eye to the clear word of the law. It's sad, sad.</string>
    <string name="EtfElSU3">I did not know what to do with his body. I buried it up in the hills, then told my parents. For fear of bloodshed, they told me to leave, to find my way in the world some other way.</string>
    <string name="f4kz9PyG">A fitting reward for a man who defied the order that the Heavens instituted on earth for our own good.</string>
    <string name="F81bgvec">Instead, for my fee, I'll make sure that those who need protecting are protected, and those who need to die are dead.</string>
    <string name="F9dSDE2k">A man should fight for his hearth and his kin, however much they disappoint him.</string>
    <string name="faDAEda5">I commend your love for your fellow man.</string>
    <string name="FbVJrA77">So I ran. I left Charas. I'm not a violent man. But I will learn to fight. And then I'll return. I'll show them that there's a price to paid for killing my brother.</string>
    <string name="fELWdbuL">The viper does not trouble me, nor does the scorpion. I have faced the scouring sandstorm, the rushing flood, the killing heat of noontime, and they have all said to me, 'Pass safely, brother.'</string>
    <string name="fGhNWKgK">But with the wars, and a lot of people losing their land, things changed on the docks. Too many hands, and not enough cargos. Gangs from the back alleys started getting involved. If you didn't hire their people, maybe your ship would go up in flames.</string>
    <string name="Fgsd3jBn">You call that the cause of justice?</string>
    <string name="fGTeaCVU">My father was even a little prouder than most, I suppose. One day he was insulted by the lord's bailiff and he upped and left, moved us higher in the hills to be away from all other men. </string>
    <string name="fjeSk6KX">I was sent by my village as part of the levy to join King Derthert's army some years back. Well, I found that I liked war better than peace. Nights around the campfire after a hard fight, drinking wine with my brothers, not knowing if the morning brings death or a fortune... Can't do better than that. So when the army disbanded I went with a mate who joined the Free Company.</string>
    <string name="FjrLf4LE">Indeed. Good infantry is the backbone of an army.</string>
    <string name="fkbaYOGt">But I don't intend to live this way forever. There are a thousand paths to turning outlaw, you see, but they mostly come to a single end. So I'm here, in the town, looking for other work.</string>
    <string name="FMnIiXge">What woman wouldn't relish a husband smelling of half-cured skins, slept in for the whole winter?</string>
    <string name="FNuxKNBi">Has no one told you that leaving a gap in a shield wall is as good as treason?</string>
    <string name="FP9jn3zQ"> Well, you know what happened. Great Lord Neretzes led the legions to their deaths. I was there. Our syntagma didn't see the battle but was part of the rout. That was the end of army life for me. Don't care for glory-hounding lords leading me to my death. But I still like to fight.</string>
    <string name="FqW4dBTS">At any rate the enemy came down upon us, and the Vlandian host was scattered. I do not care to rejoin such miscreants, but if another captain were gracious enough to take me on, I would be pleased to add to my glory in his service.</string>
    <string name="fSPXXQCQ">It's a damn shame. I like duels - you don't worry about arrows, or someone coming up from behind. No need to stay sober for hours on end waiting for a fight that never comes. Just a few minutes of trouble, a bit of blood, and then usually a good meal afterwards.</string>
    <string name="fwYGme3B"> But the Khuzaits overran us, and he was slain, and our land was taken. Its revenues now belong to some tarkhan. Alas, the empire has little land to grant today, even to trained cavalrymen like myself who wish to serve. And horses are expensive.</string>
    <string name="FybsZ7yK">My father was a cataphract under the authority of {NEMESIS.NAME}. Alas, he died in battle against the Aserai, and I was placed under {NEMESIS.NAME}'s guardianship. He had eyes for my father's estate, modest as it was, so he arranged for me to be married to his cousin.</string>
    <string name="fynTmZiX">Barbarians. Just when you think you've heard it all... Good day to you.</string>
    <string name="g1sQna0D">A terrible dilemma.</string>
    <string name="g3BssthL">Oh yes. I do indeed have a story to tell you.</string>
    <string name="G7ZQb9tQ">Now some would say I should have avenged my mother. But there was a wrinkle, you see - we didn't talk about it much, but he was my father, as he was the father of so many other children of our alley. So I fled our town, and now work here, using the skills my dear parents taught me.</string>
    <string name="GCd02obf">Perhaps one should not press a courtship too far, when one is a bandit.</string>
    <string name="Gepa1szA">My father was a merchant. When he died, he left his children a small inheritance. Most went to my brothers. They headed east, to the lands of the Padishah, leaving me in charge of our interests in Calradia. For me to step into my father's shoes, and be treated as an equal by other merchants, I knew I had to make a lot of money in a short time or they would elbow me out of the market.</string>
    <string name="gMiceyRl">Well, some day there may be peace, and money to build again.</string>
    <string name="Gnczyx1v">I feel no guilt - they were trying to kill me, and some came very close. I did what I needed to do.</string>
    <string name="gPpi8a8n">I too am proud. So, I cannot work as a thief. Now I am looking for work that doesn't require me to bend down to the whims of guards, dogs and turnkeys.</string>
    <string name="gqWMrx3S">But I've been thinking.. Maybe I want to marry. And I guess I need more silver for that, probably more than I can get from the squirrels. So... People tell me that warleaders will pay for a good scout. And I know the woods well.</string>
    <string name="gSXfbTn5">I know the woods well. I can move quickly in them. I'll tell you all about a war party from the branches it broke marching through.</string>
    <string name="H7tFXLVN">I'm a soldier by trade. I've served in the empire's legions for 20 years. Once upon a time they were worthy of being called 'legions.' We served together for years, and we'd die rather than see our standards falter or fall.</string>
    <string name="H8wpFACA">The great names in our great clans - some of them are brave, and generous with the loot, but don't they like to take their names bandied out after every battle? Poets know there's silver in it if they sing the praises of the Bana Qild, the Bana Sarran - but those of us who are Bana Nobody, well, we deserve a bit of time in the sun too, don't you think?</string>
    <string name="haiCZjua">You truly are the dregs of the street, my lady.</string>
    <string name="HaQlEZPq">At any rate, I have a bit of money to my name, and the leisure to wait a few weeks before choosing my next employer.</string>
    <string name="HcMbaZn4">I learned a few skills up in the hills, how to follow a trail and spot an ambush, most useful to caravaneers. So I reckon I can probably stay ahead of the hangman. A regular job wouldn't hurt, though.</string>
    <string name="hGL3LHSN">Most unlucky you were.</string>
    <string name="hGYQ0mxR">Yes, yes. The healer must go to where there is need of healing.</string>
    <string name="HiJTqUPJ">I have heard about the riots in {IMPERIALCAPITAL}. It was an ugly thing all round.</string>
    <string name="hikXX6zE">You broke your oath. It is not surprising that you fell further.</string>
    <string name="hinn6pmX">Life's better here in the city. More 'civilized,' you could say. Oh, the work can be a bit rough and tumble, but I feel I can relax after a long day with more refined company, like your good self.</string>
    <string name="hOsJjMZ8">I expect that my kin will soon return to their homes, but I will not.  I cannot... I cannot be in a place where I am at the mercy of any beast on the rampage. I will ply my trade among warriors. I will learn to harm as well as to heal. And if the time comes for me to marry, I will live in a land where there is a king, even a tyrant, rather than raising a family amid the war of all against all.</string>
    <string name="hpKAp2ZW">The law is the law, and murder is murder.</string>
    <string name="Hq5HkaBw">I ran off to join the Brotherhood of the Woods as a kid. I don't know if I ever believed that they gave money to the poor, as the stories say. I just didn't want to till someone else's land until I dropped dead, like my father. And I thought maybe the Brothers would be better than common bandits.</string>
    <string name="HREVUExb">Anyway, well, I've had it with narrow escapes from charging cataphracts, and I'm going to seek work in a more professional force.</string>
    <string name="HSHRP59J">Of course, of course. A good engineer deserves his pay.</string>
    <string name="HtbAEEcR">Good thing you were exempt from the laws of man, eh?</string>
    <string name="I9FWCRtO">You look like someone who's been around a bit, so I probably don't have to tell you about how this faithless world of ours works. Sometimes it needs a man who's not afraid to get his hands dirty to make sure there's a bit of order.</string>
    <string name="iaagSMEa">And to think you had all the advantages of an educated childhood.</string>
    <string name="iAmsyL01">Then I joined the Skolderbrotva. The 'Shield Brothers.' It's a good name, you know? They spent most of their time hunkering behind their shields. Ha! Me, I'd wade into the midst of the enemy, dealing out death right and left - and, well, all they had to say afterward was 'Why didn't you keep ranks?'</string>
    <string name="IBlkbs19">So kind of you to take an interest in my troubles...</string>
    <string name="ieTVm3R8">I am {CHARACTER_NAME_STRING}, prince of the wastelands, lord of solitude, master of emptiness. If you wish to know my other names, you may ask my kinsmen, the leopard, the hyena and the gazelle..</string>
    <string name="ifBURmmv">I lived in a village to the north of here, across the gulf. It is a cruel land; there is no strong king, and lords think nothing of ravaging their neighbor's lands. My mother was skilled in the use of herbs to treat disease and wounds. I had a happy peaceful childhood - until one day, a month before I was to be married.</string>
    <string name="iGH88WOz">At first I was angered, because I believed that I was being kept away from battle and glory. But as it turned out, that's the way the enemy army came. When I saw them at the ford, I challenged their leaders to single combat, as that was our way. They accepted, and sent forth a champion. To make a long story short, I slew him, and then two more who came after him. The rest graciously admitted that my victories meant they were obliged to retreat. </string>
    <string name="iK5Kaa7M">Well, if you wish to know how cruel a pack can be to one of its own, I could enlighten you.</string>
    <string name="ikVu2vQU">I've fought in a few wars, for one side or the other. You want to know about my-comrades-in-arms? Piss on them too. They all turn on you in the end.</string>
    <string name="ikWAfIHX">Now some people will tell you that Zais was born of out wedlock, but those are lies. He was the legitimate son of Ghutan, and Rasad 'Ban Ghutan' doesn't deserve that name, he should be called the 'Bastard,' not Zais. Anyway, as for Ghutan's father... Well, not everyone knows this, but...</string>
    <string name="imBWFomj">Got a bit older though, and their interest in me changed. Filthy drunken louts pressing themselves against me, grabbing at me - I wasn't having that. Made up my mind to leave, but wasn't sure where to go.</string>
    <string name="iPCX96mA">My father was a tenant farmer from near Usanc. By law, so long as he paid a third of his crop in tax, he couldn't be kicked off the land. But the landlord wanted to raise sheep, so he had a document forged that said my family moved here a generation ago and therefore wasn't covered by the law... It's a bit complicated, this part, but the end is that they cheated my family of its rights and we cast into poverty.</string>
    <string name="IRTr1FXk">Aye, once I made a fine living, in the Empire, stopping merchants on the roads and asking 'em for a bit of change. But there was a lass there, beautiful as the moon and just as cold, and she was my undoing. Courted by an imperial prefect but I thought, I can do better than that, with my takings, and I brought her the pick of the rings and finery and asked her to pass the evening with me. </string>
    <string name="IUbGYeJV">A man of another clan slew my father. My father had slain his uncle many years before. It was my job to avenge my father, but the plague carried off his killer first. So I would be expected to kill his brother instead. This is how it is with us.</string>
    <string name="ivz2U3e2">See, there's a lot of tales about me, and only some of them are true. The Khuzaits call me by one name, the Aserai by another.</string>
    <string name="iWe4KrSO">About my past, that's all I have to say.</string>
    <string name="IWm0Dbzb">I would not do it. Fate had ended the feud. My mother begged me; my cousins begged me. They said others would mock my father's memory. They said no one would fear to steal our sheep and horses, to molest my sisters. They told me I had a choice: do my duty, or I would no longer be of their blood. </string>
    <string name="IX7IpWAm">Anyway, you hear of someone who might have work for me, you let me know.</string>
    <string name="iYbBHXNA">At any rate, if you know of a warband who is looking for someone who knows how to treat wounds, I would be grateful.</string>
    <string name="IyGObqs1">I'm sorry for your loss. You drew a cruel lot in life.</string>
    <string name="iZPiYDbj">Can't fault you for enthusiasm, I suppose.</string>
    <string name="iztRBaaF">Frankly, I have little time for glory-hounds of any sort. Men who do their job is what I want.</string>
    <string name="J0FbVdnt">I chose exile. Why should more men die?</string>
    <string name="J5sGlXzh">I was born with a birthmark on my shoulder in the shape of an eye. Whenever I passed my neighbors in the street, they made the sign of the Protector at me. They began to blame me for the sickness of children or livestock. </string>
    <string name="j7cE9DTZ">So, here I am. Perhaps I am not the most experienced of warriors, but I can learn. I cannot go back - I learned that {NEMESIS.NAME} filed suit that I stole a horse - my own horse, by right! - which shows you what a cad he is.</string>
    <string name="J7dPH9cj">I wandered a bit on the steppe. I starved a bit. But I followed the raiders and one, when he went beyond the campfire to empty his bladder, did not return. I now have his purse and his sword.</string>
    <string name="jaLrENzo">I need to buy a ship, and hire men to row it. But I do not wish to sell our land to outfit a risky voyage, to risk depriving my father and mother of their comforts in old age, and my brothers of their hopes for a good marriage.</string>
    <string name="JBW0WsH7">My clan was among the last of the Khuzaits to live out on the open steppe, moving from place to place in the old way. It was not a large clan; you would not have heard of it. It became even smaller when our encampment was surprised by an imperial patrol, and our flocks slain and scattered. Those of us who survived were forced to refuge in a village, under a larger clan, whose name you may know, but I shall not mention it.</string>
    <string name="jcrmV9Lg">But I've noticed something - more denars is spent on war than on anything else. So, if someone's raised an army, and doesn't want to lose their investment to infected wounds and fevers, well, it might be worthwhile to employ me.</string>
    <string name="JFdjrbAF">Huh? Well, okay. Why not?</string>
    <string name="JfTTbPag">Well, I don't play that game. If something's going to fall down and kill someone, I'll point that out. So, naturally, all my 'brothers' cut me out of contracts.</string>
    <string name="JHduQdEb">The Guard didn't kill the Emperor? Funny, that's not what the witnesses said.</string>
    <string name="JJqwFLjR">That's a start, I suppose. Have you ever considered an honest trade?</string>
    <string name="JLHhV1ta">His cousins came for me, to take me to judgment. I would have gone willingly; I would have paid blood-money. Gladly. But one of them laid hands on me, and a black rage came over me, and I killed two of them, too. I didn't want to kill them either. </string>
    <string name="jnbQL2ta">I had an opportunity to buy pepper from another trader who was selling at a discount, and needed cash. I of course inspected the pepper and its storage. I interviewed the watchmen at the warehouse. You can trust us madame,' they said. 'Rest assured your pepper is in good hands.'</string>
    <string name="jp9iAxab">I saw how much tradition was worth. I was not answerable to the law, but I heard soon enough that the family of the youth I'd stabbed hired men to kill me. I stayed in the woods, living alone. I am happy there, most of the time. But sometimes I yearn to be among other men, and come to the city to look for work.</string>
    <string name="jPGOlC7O">I don't mind talking about it.</string>
    <string name="JrnXaI9i">But the monasteries, you know. The gardens are lovely, the libraries rich... But getting up at dawn to pray for the health of the king and benefactors - I don't know if it was doing his Majesty's health much good, but it certainly wasn't doing me any favors. So I left.</string>
    <string name="JsP90A6a">I am sorry for your loss.</string>
    <string name="jsuOEu3a">There was a woman who lived out on the street. Refugee from the wars. Had a small child, a baby really. It was all she had. She'd make small cakes of wheat over a fire. Then one day a young man from the palace came down the street in his horse. Wasn't looking where he was going, didn't care, and his horse crushed that baby's head.</string>
    <string name="jUosHtkJ">Well, that was the life for me. So long as there was war, there was money, women, companionship. But recently there was a spot of peace, and I don't handle that so well. Was in a tavern here, drank more than I should, and some local lout starts cursing the Company. Calls my brothers bandits. I didn't care for that. Next thing I know I'm on top of him, smashing his face into the ground until he was dead.</string>
    <string name="jwGsuWlN">Well, you know how these things go - his kin came to our village looking for my blood. They didn't find me, but wounded one of my cousins. It was time to teach them a lesson, but my brothers had a fit of cowardice. So they brokered a deal, and I was forced to leave. How do you like that?</string>
    <string name="K9ig7Mst">A man who cannot master his rage is a greater threat then the man who murders with intent.</string>
    <string name="Kaz4NbDN">So Urkhun, a man of vision, offered to pay the weight in silver of any imperial engineer captured alive. These captives were forced to teach men like my father the art of siegecraft. My father, in turn, taught me.</string>
    <string name="KbdCL6nK">Very responsible of you. Can't go killing off the whole village, now.</string>
    <string name="KbP87Fzv">I was part of a clan that lived beyond the mountains to the south. We came under pressure from our neighbors, who wanted to take our lush grazing grounds in the foothills. We were an ancient clan, that valued its name, but in this generation we have been short of men, so I fought alongside my brothers - indeed, I slew our enemies' champion in single combat. That stopped the pressure on our lands, but not the violence. </string>
    <string name="Ke9L8QbX">The searing gravel plain knows me, as do the rippling sands and the shadowed canyon. The hidden spring whispers to me, 'Come hither and drink,' and the high outcrop unveils to me the horizons.</string>
    <string name="KGa4gmDW">Ah, yes - well, it would be beneath someone with a lineage like mine to pledge allegiance to the current parvenus who call themselves the emirs of the Aserai. So, I fight for those who pay me my value in denars, good noble denars.</string>
    <string name="KHq1bUOa">I am the prince of horsethieves! I have stolen Aserai mares from amid the tents and ridden them across the desert under the moon, I have taken Vlandian stallions from their paddocks, the sturdy ponies of the Khuzaits, and the steady geldings of the imperial lancers. But, I'll be the first to admit, it is risky work, so sometimes I do other jobs.</string>
    <string name="KiIb4MZU">Well... We do not bow and scrape, but we do honor our debts. If you were to get me out of here, my people would be quite grateful.</string>
    <string name="KNCnJN4n">I'll tell you my story. If it bothers you, I'd prefer you keep it to yourself - unless you've lived months on crusts of bread and chaff of grain, that is.</string>
    <string name="KrXlrnsg">The quarries are hiring. You could always haul rocks for a living, if you're so averse to launching them.</string>
    <string name="KtN79I0H">That's it? The dishonorable part? That you work for merchants? I'd thought it would be a lot worse.</string>
    <string name="KyiL4Hvs">So here I am. Guess I'm not so interested in the marriage part, but I like the denars and I like my freedom. Maybe some day I'll surprise my Da with a nice farm and a couple of slaves to keep him happy in his old age.</string>
    <string name="kzvTFUbj">That's a rather unique theology.</string>
    <string name="l01koCnM">My story? This is my tale in a nutshell - men's greed for cattle cost me my home and my kin.</string>
    <string name="l0OCTrl9">Indeed... Well, at any rate, if you find there is an inconvenient wall between you and the object of your desire, and you wish it reduced to rubble, you know where to find me.</string>
    <string name="L14od7cC">When I was a boy, I was the best fighter in my village. 'You're stronger as a boy than a full-grown warrior,' people would say. I'm not boasting here - that's what they'd tell me. So when I came of age I went off to make my fortune.</string>
    <string name="l4A16aGs">It's a cruel world, and if you think a warrior's life is any easier, you have a painful lesson in store.</string>
    <string name="lbLBkvoe">My father died shortly after my mother became pregnant with me. I was her only child. Like most of our people, she had wanted sons. So she raised me as a son, and boasted of me like she would boast about a son. When I was a baby, she boasted of how swiftly I emptied her breast of milk. When I was a girl, she boasted of how I killed steppe ducks with my bow. When I became a woman, she boasted that soon I would be the first of my age-set to bring home the head of an enemy slain in battle.</string>
    <string name="LDGC2Rjy">I'd be grateful if you got me out of here. Don't want to die just yet. If you want to know why I'm in here, well, I'll tell you.</string>
    <string name="lGSH1wsv">Pull up a chair, friend - you'll be glad you asked!</string>
    <string name="LIYZlInR">A hard life, but I must admire your fortitude, at least.</string>
    <string name="LjkQ4fYp">I come from a town where every alley has its 'protector.' These are men with some strength but also a lot of respect, who stand up for the rights of the people there. My father was our CommonArea's protector, and so it fell on me to take his job after he grew too old to do it himself.</string>
    <string name="LpoAp39X">Hmm... Yes... Legally, you do seem to have a case.</string>
    <string name="lQ4PPsnT">At any rate, I will find a master who allows me to win fame for myself. Or barring that, land and silver, so that I can buy a poet or two</string>
    <string name="LTvInwfa">I have a cup of wine before me. The room is nice and warm. Why not?</string>
    <string name="LVkWjJgD">I had a wild childhood, you can imagine. Living in the woods, never doing much work. But the winters were cruel. Ma died when I was twelve. And I knew I wanted something different. So I came to the town. Plenty of work for a girl who knows how to use a blade, and at least here there's a fire at night and a roof over my head. </string>
    <string name="lwvQCrG2">We kept our grazing grounds. But my brothers and cousins found that, when they mingled with other clans during the holy months of truce, that they were mocked. 'You let your women do your fighting!'</string>
    <string name="lxZouJ2B">(prebackstory generic remark for outside taverns)</string>
    <string name="LzlRFPrj">Give me a minute. It has been a long time since I spoke more than a few words at a time to others.</string>
    <string name="mFiGSOSm">Certainly. The more who know about my skills, the better.</string>
    <string name="mGTuBDtF">It wasn't easy for the men. They felt the city turn against them, blame them for killing the emperor. Whereas we were sure that we were innocent of his blood, that there was some sort of trick. But even so, there was no excuse.</string>
    <string name="mijieuku">You know, I'm sure you could put your gift to better use.</string>
    <string name="MlXbCLlO">You must have broken your poor father's heart.</string>
    <string name="mPLvjSiB">A lot of heads... You can imagine, a lot of other warriors were envious of me. Some in my village even conspired against me, had me expelled. I lost my hall, and I had to bury the heads. I doubt you could recognize them any more. What a pity, eh? A collection like that will never be seen again.</string>
    <string name="mSQSZyEF">You probably know that the Khuzaits once lived out on the open grass. But our khans became used to luxuries. They lived in cities, and wished to trade with and make war upon other kings. Khan Urkhun, whom some call the Great and others call the Cruel, decided the clans must live in fixed places, so he could count their warriors and levy them, and count their flocks and tax them. Thirty years ago Khan Urkhun ordered all the clans of the Khuzaits to claim land and live upon it, and the noyans to build castles. Most complied, for they had come to value their comforts more than their freedom.</string>
    <string name="mxK0bSmE">I am no warrior, not yet - but I could be one. I am good with a sling, and a knife. I can run fast. I can bear hardship. I would stand my ground, because I have nowhere to run.</string>
    <string name="N9rVRfaW">Oh.. Of course I am! This is fascinating. But tell me about your own deeds.</string>
    <string name="NDR2Xcoq">But you see, for a big man, it's not all sitting in the shade and counting your money. A big man must beat and he must kill, or people will not fear you. And one day, as I watched, he beat my mother to death over the share of his cut.</string>
    <string name="nHrF87Up">I guess there's something to be learned from those skilled at all trades.</string>
    <string name="nI3aJA8u">There was a great deal of marching to and fro, in the mud, and I shan't bore you with that. But you must have heard of what happened when we caught them. We were forming our ranks to charge when another knight - if indeed he is worthy of the name - told me that I had no place in the front and I must join the second rank of horses.</string>
    <string name="NKLS5mN1">My father was one of the leading warriors of our clan, but in his last battle his hamstrung was cut. We've lived well off the wealth he brought home from his raids, buying land and thralls, but now I feel it's time that I bring home some silver of my own.</string>
    <string name="nlRg040C">Better to have properly constituted authority than that of some back-alley tough.</string>
    <string name="nmtbhSbc">A warrior stands beside his comrades like a man stands beside his brothers. Whatever their crimes may be.</string>
    <string name="nqLiWPR7">Such pieties from a man who intends to pillage the labor of others.</string>
    <string name="Nz0iyKaM">All one's pepper in one warehouse. A cautionary tale indeed.</string>
    <string name="O3Pkql2y">Takes more to being a warrior than a horse and a sword, young one.</string>
    <string name="O48tYFZ0">Anyway, get me out of here, and I reckon the other wolves will be grateful. You'd be upholding the law by which we live, you see?</string>
    <string name="o6ugLOZi">I came from a good family, with much land. Since I was a girl, I wished to be a shield-maiden. I practiced fighting with the village boys and the old warriors. But it is a strange thing - while some families in our lands take pride in a daughter who takes up arms, others accord it a great shame, and my father was of the latter type.</string>
    <string name="oAyYQazn">She agreed, eagerly enough! There was wine and talk, but too much wine, and I slept off. Then woke in the morning, I did, and hooves were clattering outside and up comes the prefect and a file of horsemen, and away they took me to the town to be hanged.</string>
    <string name="OcCLz4je">When I was a child, my mother sent me out on the streets to beg and pick pockets. And the big man of our quarter took a cut of that. I got a little older and my mother taught me how to rob drunken travellers, and the big man took a cut of that.</string>
    <string name="OESUaPeh">So anyway, I need money to build a new hall, and start a new collection. So if someone wants to pay me my worth as a warrior, my spear is theirs!</string>
    <string name="OgdD6bs9">If you really took down a dozen men fighting single-handed, that is quite impressive.</string>
    <string name="OGyYFIEA">The guardsmen came to burn our neighbor's house, so their debts would be forgotten. The flames spread to our house, and it was destroyed. My father tried to save his strongbox, and that was his undoing. A riot is a holiday for thieves and robbers, and some saw him dragging it through the streets, so they knifed him and took it. We tried to find shelter with my uncle, but there was no food in the city, and he turned us out. So we joined the refugees in the country, living on what we could steal from the fields. </string>
    <string name="OHFZ9EAk">Mmm.... Well, for now, I do not know what to do with myself. Perhaps I could consider joining a warband, if the commander was well-bred and kept his word.</string>
    <string name="omEoa2q7">But this cousin... I would not marry that man! He was a boor, a drunk - never there was a night that he did not reak of wine, never a morning that he did not reak of vomit! But a cataphract's daughter is not some chit you can marry against her will. I took a horse from my father's estate - my horse, legally - his old sword, and rode off.</string>
    <string name="oqWFzmkN">Blessed be the Gods, happened that my cousin Aed was in the guard. He sprung me that night from the prison, and together we went roaming round the country. But a passing magistrate decided he weren't parting with his purse, and pulled his blade rather than handing it over like a sensible lad. I took him down, but now before my poor Aed was butchered. See now the price of woman's ingratitude?</string>
    <string name="OqzUb0E6">My story? Certainly I can tell you, if it interests you.</string>
    <string name="osaIOFNx">I like to fight, I'm good at it, and in my opinion, the Heavens smile on a man who loves his job.</string>
    <string name="OsWmIhds">Heresy, rebellion, and looting are three intertwined serpents. You should bear that brand yourself, knave.</string>
    <string name="OUTjQlW1">There are customs for that sort of thing, trials, blood money, you know.</string>
    <string name="OuUzIkaK">My parents died when I was young. My sister married. Her husband wanted my parents' farm. So he hired a devious man, a fast-talker, who knew the law well. He said... I don't even remember what he said, in court, before the council. But the council awarded both of them the farm.</string>
    <string name="OxBmSnh0">I shall tell you. Is there a bard in the house? He may wish to take notes. I believe this is fine material for a song.</string>
    <string name="oXnqNsvz">A man of integrity, or simply one who backbites his peers? I have no idea, and wouldn't want to take the risk of hiring you.</string>
    <string name="oyHzM0jb">You've said nothing about yourself, and your one word contradicts the other. I have better things to do.</string>
    <string name="OYOwasMe">You can imagine - it's a bit of a racket. People build arches that fall down, and his colleagues go on recommending him because he's someone's brother or old apprentice. The greatest sin in our brotherhood is criticizing the work of other engineers. </string>
    <string name="P1EHkSAx">When my second suitor passed of a fever, I was unnerved. When my third suitor was thrown from his horse on a hunt, I knew I must do something..</string>
    <string name="P1fLl2KS">See, some girls are attracted to bad boys. My mother was one of those. Bandits came to her village one day and she made up her mind. Ran off with them. 'Married' the leader. But he was killed soon, so she married the one who replaced him. And so forth and so on.</string>
    <string name="pD92hewA">My father was a merchant in {IMPERIALCAPITAL}. We lived in a rich house, with many servants. I wanted for nothing. Our neighbor was a moneylender, who specialized in loans to the imperial guard. That turned out to be a bad neighborhood in which to live, when the riots came. </string>
    <string name="PGa4Ehaa">My father was a wheelwright. Everyone knew that the best work was in {IMPERIALCAPITAL}, in the streets around the hippodrome fixing chariots. So we sold our shop and went there, he and I - my mother was dead. The rumors weren't wrong, the work was good, but then you know what happened. The riots, the hippodrome burned, and my father killed for being a foreigner.</string>
    <string name="phhXgKRm">Some resisted. The Karakhergit - you may have heard of them. They still dwell in the steppes but they are outcaste, raided for slaves by the others. My people were the Uvait. We were broken up - some bands were lured into the villages with silver, others were hunted down, defeated, and their sons taken as hostages. </string>
    <string name="PHVJ9fOm">But there was a lord, a customer of mine, who had no honor. And he refused to pay me. And having no honor, he laughed at my insults. He did not pull his blade. He had his men drive me away. I can kill one man but not three at once. So here I am.</string>
    <string name="piHbGBbA">Because I loved my mother, and because I was faster and stronger than the boys, I did all that she said I would do. Of those born in my year, I was the first to kill an enemy. My mother boasted even more, so that the other women came to hate her. They turned us all out of our encampment. We were forced to sell our lands and our slaves, as we could not take them with us, and we were given but a fraction of the price. All we had was our sheep. Of course raiders found us soon enough, and killed my mother, and took our flock. I escaped.</string>
    <string name="PIu7b9wO">I was born around the time she married her fourth husband. My father, well, he was hanged a few months before that. A couple others were hanged, but mostly they were killed by their own followers. You see, the trick to leading bandits is that you can't value your life very much. Never back down from a fight or an insult. Sooner or later your luck will run out. Usually sooner.</string>
    <string name="pKMVhx2v">They never cease to shock me, the sordid tales you hear from the dregs of the alleys.</string>
    <string name="PKzUUVKC">So go on - ask me how thick a mangonel's struts must be to withstand the torsion to throw a five-istar ball. Ask me how heavy a ram's head must be, compared to its total weight, so that it does rebound from the gate and strike the men who wield it. I never imagined I would know such things, when I dreamed of making men's lives better through the dispensing of justice.</string>
    <string name="PO4nU3Lz">Mince words as you like, but murder is murder.</string>
    <string name="pQVFVqa9">As well they should have. Those who curse their protectors deserve no home.</string>
    <string name="PWpTT0NM">I told the captain that I couldn't do these things. The alley people - they had to trust me. The captain didn't take 'no' for an answer. He pressured me. He threatened my father. What could I do? I couldn't betray my people but I couldn't betray my father either. I took my family and left.</string>
    <string name="pzK7TN05">But one day I was contacted by an agent of the Bureau of Barbarian Affairs. I do not know how well you know them. Their original mission was to keep the foreign tribes divided and weak, but they expanded their remit into all the affairs of the empire, anything that might be deemed a threat. At first they wanted small harmless details about my patients. To do so was a violation of my oath, but I was anxious to have the favor of the Bureau. But soon they began to call on me for more and more.</string>
    <string name="PzOwAteI">I am of the Karakhergit. If you haven't heard that name, you might have heard us called the 'Slave Tribe,' because that is what other clans of the Khuzaits call us. Which is strange, because we are the only one of them that does not bow our head to a khan and call him 'Master.'</string>
    <string name="q3ZXATdq">We burned away some of the forest and planted barley. My mother died of a fever, but me and my sister and my father, we lived up there 10 lean and lonely years, all so my father didn't have to doff his hat to any other man. Then he vanished in a blizzard.</string>
    <string name="q977EaUU">You ask a lot of questions, friend. So I'll tell you what you need to know, and no more.</string>
    <string name="qbYupvSJ">So I'm having no more of that. I'm on the look-out for an outfit that employs real fighters.</string>
    <string name="qFU6cYSe">When I was just a baby, a woman said to have the Sight came to my father's hall. When she saw me, she told him that she saw the mark of the faeries upon me. She performed a divination, and said she had learned that I was to be a prank played on mankind: I should grow up to be a great beauty, but that any man who proposes to marry me shall die.</string>
    <string name="qgmt8aPz">So that was no kind of life, neither. I left the woods, paid a little money to friends who got my name off the outlaw list, and now I'm a regular law-abiding citizen. Officially, that is.</string>
    <string name="QGw2qtpU">Of course, my word being that of a Karakhergit, and his being one of the well-dressed but servile people of the towns, they will believe his, and hang me.</string>
    <string name="QIrR9NhL">A wise decision.</string>
    <string name="qlAW1aTi">What do you want to know about? My family? Piss on them. I left home as a child and never had cause to regret it. My brothers can take my inheritance, and I hope they choke on it.</string>
    <string name="QlWhygXi">I was born out of wedlock. My father took me in, but of course there was no question of me inheriting anything. I did not wish to be a burden on my brothers, so I decided to go to war.</string>
    <string name="qMPY1rUo">Well, you know what a man of honor does when he is insulted like that -- I struck him down, and then his friends came against me, and I struck them down too! I laid a full dozen of them down before they finally overbore me. Have you ever heard of a more glorious stand against such odds in the name of honor?</string>
    <string name="QRgltY66">May all of us have such honorable foes!</string>
    <string name="qVQdEYyJ">My family had debts so I joined the army. I guess I always liked men's work more than women's work. The legions took hill women as scouts but I was never the hidey-sneaky type. So I did what I did to be in the spear line.</string>
    <string name="qxBbhtLH">Perhaps you can rise above the sorry circumstances of your birth.</string>
    <string name="QyYYfo4o">Aye - you've heard about the death of the last Emperor? Well, what most people believe is a pack of lies.</string>
    <string name="R2haBQK7">I had no special desire to be married but my family found me a groom anyway. I consented, but my husband and I detested each other from the first. Once he insulted me in the marketplace, I cursed his manhood, he struck me, and I pulled a knife and he pulled his. I won.</string>
    <string name="R36Bl55h">Most noble of you, sir.</string>
    <string name="r8ga8i93">I like to fight, so I made it known that I'd fight for anyone if the price is right. Shed a little blood, make a little coin, drink it away, make a little more, all in the cause of justice. Not a bad life, eh?</string>
    <string name="r8vQ3KpJ">You want me to kill for you? Then make me an offer. If not, piss off.</string>
    <string name="R9KivNZ6">You may have heard of Ladimos the Red. He preached that the Heavens were getting ready to unload their wrath on landowners and merchant, that we had to drive them out and live pure lives and we'd be rewarded with a Pure Emperor, come down from the skies. This was some 10 years ago. Well, a lot of us ran off to follow him, some of us believed him and some of us had debts and some just wanted to take a lick at those that oppressed us.</string>
    <string name="RaqBSakL">Me and some lads from my village, we thought we'd run away, join some other lads up there who make their living on the highways, if you know what I mean. Didn't much want to go scratching a plow across the dry fields all year every year like my father did.</string>
    <string name="RaSZtTqh">I was the son of a slave. My father, a judge, raised me in his house, but it was clear that he would never spend much time to ensure my success in the world. Still, I was tutored with his other sons, and chose to study medicine as a young man. I thought I could perhaps be a physician.</string>
    <string name="RBwhiMkD">We came down on the thief's village one day at dawn. They were too many, and we were beaten. My brothers and most of my kin were all slain. I had nowhere to go.</string>
    <string name="RdiZT1Gb">Well, I can't just sit around and drink myself to death, so I sell my sword to anyone worth following. I'm a good trainer - I don't bother with horsemen or archers, but if you've got good steady footman I can do a lot with them.</string>
    <string name="re1jRErx">Some speak well of their time in the Wolfskins. It is intended to teach you the ways of the woods. But the 'pack' I joined were all rich feral children, playing at being animals.</string>
    <string name="rgSWtZ0w">I'll tell you my story. I suppose it is a fine lesson in how destiny makes mock of our intentions.</string>
    <string name="rKeqsRyj">I'll tell you my tale. But I will warn you in advance: It is of no concern to me whether you approve or disapprove of what I did.</string>
    <string name="RObjObjy">Certainly - I make no secret of my ambitions.</string>
    <string name="rOUaG9iG">I can tell you my story, though it is painful to recall.</string>
    <string name="rpOla1Vp">I saw her nurse that babe through two fevers. The patience, the sacrifice, of that mother - to see all for which she suffered snatched away like that from her, by some young drunk's carelessness... There was a crowd around them, he was yelling. I just walked over with my hammer and struck him dead.... That was the end of my life in the city. I think back, though, and can't imagine doing different.</string>
    <string name="rriedqBz">Oh, I'll tell you. It's a fine tale, full of adventure and romance, but tragic too.</string>
    <string name="RsE01mvh">Ah, yes, you do sound like a useful type.</string>
    <string name="rSwj5KBb">Let me tell you something - I'm sick of cowardice, sick of those who don't stand by their comrades and their kin.</string>
    <string name="ruX5vDpE">I fancy myself a philosopher of medicine, you see. My parents sent me to a monastery when I was young, to study both the healing power of the Heavens and the healing powers of man - the science of herbs, that is to say.</string>
    <string name="RZglJSZ3">I think my story shows that I am adaptable, at least. If there was room for me in a warlord's retinue, say, I imagine I could quickly learn whatever skills were needed.</string>
    <string name="rZs4HKkc">Necessity or not, you seem to take pride in what you did.</string>
    <string name="sbK6AEjB">I have scraped together a few coins. I will not say how, but they were enough to buy a sword. I am determined to earn enough to buy my people what was taken away from them - herds. I am sad to say I know little of the steppe, but I know much of the towns, of the back streets, of how to live in the gutters and shadows and grow strong.</string>
    <string name="sfFLudTM">One time they came at midnight - they had a man who plotted against the Emperor, they said, and they needed a confession, and wished me to use my art to elicit that confession. If I refused, they said, they would disclose our relationship to my patients - I would be ruined. I went with them, to my shame, and what I was asked to do to that man's body -- I shall not repeat it.</string>
    <string name="SfmWAuv3">The elders sat in judgment on our case. As it turned out, they had plenty of precedent. They accorded our fight a fair duel, and thus I was innocent of murder. On the other hand, I was excluded from his inheritance. I suppose that was fair, although I would have enjoyed wearing his jewels and riding his horse in front of his family.</string>
    <string name="spHoDrGN">I said nothing. I let my brother hang.I thought I did the right thing, but every night thereafter I saw accusation in the eyes of my fellows. I could not face them. I fled. And here I am now.</string>
    <string name="SwwXXPNe">We could have marched out in battle array. No one would have stood against us. If we couldn't restore order, at least we could have gone home with honor. But instead, we turned our anger against the city. My comrades looted, set fires, even murdered those who we were supposed to protect. It was a disgrace.</string>
    <string name="SYBe3aIC">Do you have a trade? Any skills? Or just a string of ancestors?</string>
    <string name="T07xEuQR">A noble decision!</string>
    <string name="t0VGwvPo">You may have heard of my father - Cynan fen Aedeg. Many called him Cynan the Brave. It's my life's goal to be his worthy son, though he died when I was a baby. My stepfather, though rich in land and cows, does not have the same reputation, although I resolved early in my life that duty to my mother necessitated that I serve him as loyally as I would my natural father.</string>
    <string name="TAC5Tnx4">But when I got older, well, it wasn't so easy to take me on the road. Too many boys giving me funny looks. And my Da, he wanted a good husband for me, but the boys he knew weren't the marrying type. So I said to him, 'I'll be like you, Da, carry a sword and guard rich merchants. And maybe, with the money I earn, some decent boy will love me for my dowry, if not my family name.' He fussed a bit about that but he had no better ideas.</string>
    <string name="tbbQ3PZH">You slew your husband in a duel? Get away!</string>
    <string name="TgN0DvXA">Slavers took me when I was a girl. The Empire were legends of warrior-women out in the deep steppe, and when I was sold, they claimed I was one of these - to fight other slaves, to entertain them by making their legends come true.</string>
    <string name="TNOM6nuo">I am from one of the lesser known clans of the Aserai. We take the name of an undistinguished younger son of the Qildi line from five generations back. We have never held fiefs or won much wealth, but when the Qild called out their kinfolk, or the tribes were summoned by the Sultan, we took our place in the battle line.</string>
    <string name="tpPE2Ert">There's not much more to say. My master was a sadistic animal but he let me keep my winnings, and eventually buy my freedom. I think he may also have realized that eventually, had he kept me against my will, he'd have ended up with a severed neck vein. So here I am, looking to make a living through the only means I know - shedding other people's blood. Got work?</string>
    <string name="tqbc8gOd">I suppose you should be given the benefit of the doubt.</string>
    <string name="tqdwOLPg">So here I am now, drinking to my poor cousin's memory, and looking for a bit of honest work. Well, it needn't be too honest, I suppose.</string>
    <string name="tRgVxROs">I doubt you have such a collection, and if you did, it would be the last thing I'd like to see.</string>
    <string name="TVQEb0MJ">Such a cruel decree...</string>
    <string name="TwbAHDDJ">Yes... So hard to find a dependable fighter these days.</string>
    <string name="tx6L29wu">You've got spirit, I'll give you that.</string>
    <string name="TxQztLfy">I am one of those whose clan was hunted down a generation ago when they refused the decree of Urkhun Khan, that they must settle and be taxed. They took our flocks, and we have since lived like beggars on the edge of the towns. The far grass teases us with its beauty, but if we went there with no sheep, we would soon starve.</string>
    <string name="TxwPTwvh">So I have resolved to hire out my sword and make enough money for such a ship. Having done so, I shall take it to faraway shores and bring home silver and slaves so that we may buy land enough for all. In this way I will do my duty to my family.</string>
    <string name="TzOdlTeb">Yeah.. The merchants give me jobs. But I'm not sure I care much for guarding caravans. A lot of sitting around listening to boring talk about prices.</string>
    <string name="TzRarDyf">A few weeks later, got sent to a village to buy some boots. Found a whole detachment of the town watch there waiting for me. Brought me to town and charged me with a dozen murders, none of which I did. No question Vatand shopped me. The good news is, a week after I was taken, he got knifed while he slept. So the old Brotherhood, the noble Brotherhood - it's not quite dead yet! I am though, most likely.</string>
    <string name="U0zuHtwa">Of course - and I'm sure you'll agree it's a tale worth of the telling!</string>
    <string name="u1yi8YOM">Well, I guess I showed myself a bit too eager. The councils stopped accepting me as champion. Told me I sold my sword too cheaply, they said. What can I say? I have to look for other work now. </string>
    <string name="U6GQq4Id">They would sit around the fire at night and belittle each other. I was never quick with my tongue and the others learned to gang up on me. At one point I could take it no longer - I stabbed one in a fight. No one knew how to treat the wound, so he bled to death. And then I fled.</string>
    <string name="UnNwWJT2">I don't mind telling.</string>
    <string name="uSYQb9KY">Now, in Urkhun's day, if a Khuzait apprenticed in siegecraft went to work for another master, it meant a very painful death if he was recaptured. But times have changed. The richest plums of the empire's cities have fallen, and they build their walls higher than they once did. The Khuzait lords pay less for a siegemaster, and that pay is often late. So I am up to taking other employment, if it is offered.</string>
    <string name="VgyWyNvL">Yeah... I'll tell you a tale of life in the great Khuzait hordes, terror of the world.</string>
    <string name="vhQVhYFV">I started following the armies around. Always work for a herbalist, and while I don't care much for dawn marches, they're infrequent enough, and often there's a spare cart to sleep on. And warriors too - wounds of the body and wounds of the soul. I do far more good there then I ever did among my fellow monks, I can tell you.</string>
    <string name="VHyXsXu7">You know, you'd think this place could serve proper kumis, instead of this piss they call wine... Sorry, where were we? Ah yes, my story.</string>
    <string name="VILYhtjW">I'll tell you my story.</string>
    <string name="VJDZp4rM">An impossible situation...</string>
    <string name="VL2MfGM3">But they don't seem to care much about that. So mostly now I'm saying the dead man was a right tight bastard, and I could name you a dozen men who'd be proud to have cut his throat. Found some sympathy in town with that line, I have. Still, I need to stand trial.</string>
    <string name="VLIz9b7u">You thought there was such a thing as noble bandits? Perhaps you went in search of fairies next?</string>
    <string name="vney5HbZ">I rode for years behind Monchug Khan, even before he was khan. I had good name and a good sum of money. There was a girl in a neighboring village, quiet thing but good childbearing hips, who I thought would make a good bride. </string>
    <string name="VnfPb4ji">Indeed. There's much to be learned from the foreigner, whoever the foreigner is to you.</string>
    <string name="VoubR8y2">Yes, I know such injustices are common.</string>
    <string name="Vs428XEb">That seems a reasonable ambition. A good scout can command a high price.</string>
    <string name="VUbklG5U">I was raised as a stableboy. But I had a gift for breaking horses, and for my hard work, and the risks I took to my neck taming young stallions, the old lord promised me that on my fifteenth birthday I should have a horse of my own.</string>
    <string name="Vwhnrf66">So here I am. I have mouths to feed, and the thing I know best is to fight.</string>
    <string name="W2Jhsc2X">That was that. I could pay blood money for one man but not three. I fled. I cannot return.</string>
    <string name="W2x5Z40R">Up in the northwest, when  we go to bed each night we make sure we can find our spears in the dark, because you never know if that night's going to to be the one that a Sturgian or Battanian warband is going to pay a visit. We're proud men up there, and we expect the lords not to expect us to behave like some serf in a safe southern estate.</string>
    <string name="W5MlHm8t">Sure. You can't sell a horse if you don't shout its praises, as they say.</string>
    <string name="W5OECu87">A good engineer is always in demand.</string>
    <string name="WAsRyGDR">{CHARACTER_NAME_STRING} is fine. No need to bother the hyenas. So, what can you do?</string>
    <string name="waUxgr5b">Let me tell you something else - war is not a game. It's not a game. Play by the rules and you die. The streets aren't the arena. If you think someone's your enemy, you take them down - don't wait for a polite challenge.</string>
    <string name="WBE6MeCl">That was the day my life changed. A band from a nearby village came and attacked us. We had done them no harm; we had never even thought of them as our enemies. But they wanted our cattle. They killed my mother and the youth who I was to marry, and burned our village. Everything gone. Those who lived fled into the woods.</string>
    <string name="wH5GepOD">I am Battanian. But for 20 years, I fought for the Empire. Indeed, most Battanians my age learned their trade in the legions. We saw no dishonor in it. They fed us well, they paid us well, they respected our courage.</string>
    <string name="wiR9bSfw">I try at least to pick and choose my master, and hope at least that some of our equestrian honor rubs off on the men of commerce.</string>
    <string name="wk1jPh1S">A sad tale.</string>
    <string name="WmGxA0P1">But there's no legions any more. And since Caladog became king, well, he's gotten the young to think that to fight for the Empire is treason. Treason to what? 'Battania'? There is no Battania. Never has been. Just a bunch of quarreling warlords, who'll steal your cows as soon as you turn your back on them.</string>
    <string name="WQCAanal">Ah, the old days. And no doubt back then they complained about the older days. I've heard enough.</string>
    <string name="WvLK5myZ">So I acquired some denars - I will not say how - and with it bought a silk robe and some jewelry. This got me inside the doors of rich men's houses, and the cures I worked, and the reputation I earned, have done the rest. </string>
    <string name="wxSiMjJ0">Anyway, you come across a chief who needs a reliable sword in his warband, you let me know.</string>
    <string name="Wz71n66t">I'm sorry. Are you not paying attention?</string>
    <string name="Wzl0V95v">Pour yourself a drink stranger. I'll tell you all you need to know.</string>
    <string name="WZyybR2g">A tragic tale. My condolences.</string>
    <string name="X4DnbFDf">Look, if you want to give this tale a really happy ending, you think you could get me out of here? Prove in a duel that I'm innocent? Some of the Brothers - they really are my brothers. They'd pay you well.</string>
    <string name="x50bW6NF">I should have refused - my practice was ruined anyway. To blot out the memory of that night, I took opium, until my pallid face so alarmed my patients that they no longer called on me. So I fled the city, and have wandered from town to town ever since. I would welcome steady work, if I could find it.</string>
    <string name="x6acpIw7">So... Anyway, if you've got an enterprise or two that might not be entirely legal, and need a sharp eye on the villains you've got running it, you may find that my skills are of use to you.</string>
    <string name="X8Zkp0Ut">The insults were many, and they had no choice but to respond. One cousin was slain in a duel, one cousin killed his opponent, so we had two new bloodfeuds on our hands. I chose to leave home before it got any worse.</string>
    <string name="x9l3KCvQ">I'll tell you, but I don't know why you'd be interested.</string>
    <string name="X9zcXYPa">I can fight. And I don't mind doing work that others would shirk.</string>
    <string name="xB6zj8ei">I wasn't the type to take that meekly. My cousin, he'd lost his land too some years before, and he'd run off to join the Brotherhood of the Woods. People said that they stood up for the poor. Took money from those who did injustice, and gave it to those who were wronged. So I went to join them too.</string>
    <string name="Xe2pVmnX">I was the brat of a caravan guard. Never knew my mother, but my Da kept me close. I grew up running between the legs of camels on the steppe, eavesdropping on merchant gossip in the sarais, eating sesame cakes bought me by the other guards. A happier childhood you couldn't imagine.</string>
    <string name="XfMCfCXk">I resolved to take up the profession of arms, so that all men know that I am not the marrying type. And I tell all others of the curse upon me, as soon as I meet them. And I am far from my family, so no man will go to my father to ask for my hand.</string>
    <string name="XiIMYkX6">See, they want to blame me for killing a man back when I was a wolf. My father and he had a quarrel over land. First, I'm saying I didn't kill him. And second, I'm saying that, had I killed him, it would have been back when I was a wolf. So either way I'm innocent, you see?</string>
    <string name="XKsjweaA">Unfortunately, I've found that siegework pays irregularly. My contracts are usually honored if the city falls and is looted. But if dysentery breaks out in the siege camp and the army must march away, well, you may find that you submit your receipts in vain.</string>
    <string name="xl6SnA6n">I was a soldier. It was my father's profession. I thought it would be easy for me. I wasn't scared of death or hardship. But things happen in war - not the deaths, the wounds, the screaming - but terrible things. It's difficult to explain.</string>
    <string name="xNPAZdtX">My father is Aytham, son of Thamuq, who was son of Munbilas - the elder son, mind you, not the younger - and he was son of Numayn - Numayn of the Mountain, that is, not the less illustrious ones of that name - and he was son of Zais.</string>
    <string name="xpENowWf">Strange thing, how people don't wish to die in someone else's quarrel.</string>
    <string name="XRUotzSi">Indeed. Misfortune does not mean you must submit to humiliation.</string>
    <string name="xSbEUPK4">You know, we women suffer greatly when you warriors have your sport...</string>
    <string name="xSKbicft">Let's say there's a man. He saves your life. He takes a blow for you. And he doesn't boast about it, he doesn't tell anyone else - he just grins at you. Because he knows you'd do the same for him. He's your brother. Every man who fights with him is his brother.</string>
    <string name="XVZGCB0a">Yeah, sure.</string>
    <string name="xzLIIPjB">A knave who could not abide other men's knavery! May such wonders never cease.</string>
    <string name="xZuqLfE7">But I was young and foolish. Bandits - well, who'd have thought? They're real animals. Always drunk and stabbing each other, or too drunk to feel cold so they catch the plague and end up coughing up blood, or drunk and asleep when the patrol comes around so they end up on the gallows - I suspect you get the idea.</string>
    <string name="YDPpShfF">Sensible man, that Urkhun. Nomads are the enemy of order.</string>
    <string name="YfExAEAK">So, here I am, looking for a captain under whom to serve. And if I learn my trade well, perhaps I shall one day settle my account with {NEMESIS.NAME}!</string>
    <string name="YgZJYYds">Few war leaders have the patience for followers with private vendettas.</string>
    <string name="yHWwzEZQ">Aye, I can tell you my story.</string>
    <string name="yj3nO24m">I do things in the old way, and so whenever an enemy falls to my spear, I take their head! Let's see - I have Brechtan the Old, Lamaich the Lame -- don't let the names fool you, these were great warriors - Archan the Bull, so many others! A true Battanian never boasts, because his deeds are hung over the hearth for all to see. At least that's the way it used to be.</string>
    <string name="YOzdVTeS">But one of them kept a brazier lit at night, for the warmth, and a camel kicked it into a bed of straw when he was off relieving himself. When he returned, the warehouse was in flames. And so became penniless.</string>
    <string name="yPRaUTwX">Dressed as a man, of course. Weren't difficult to do. Not hard to fool men. Bound my breasts and watched where I pissed. It was easy.</string>
    <string name="ysfnd0id">Of course. Every felon is just an honest man wronged. I've heard a hundred such tales and I've no wish to hear another.</string>
    <string name="yXhf3AJk">A hard choice.</string>
    <string name="Z8TfQDSV">A few years after he retired, we had a new guard captain. We protectors, we serve the state, but we're not its tool. This new captain didn't understand. He'd come to me and say, 'One of my lads took this man's daughter - see that he doesn't make a fuss,' or, 'Let's have little private meetings, so you can tell us what your people are up to.' </string>
    <string name="z9CN2ibp">They protected us, but they treated us with contempt. We were told to hew wood for them, to bring them water. We submitted. For the sake of our old, of our nursing mothers, we submitted. But it was hard for the young men to take.</string>
    <string name="Zb6ObDEB">Sounds like you have a good head for business.</string>
    <string name="zb6VN6rr">Started in the Vaegir guard. I found that I was the only real warrior among them. They were all about marching here and there in their pretty uniforms, not pulling sword from scabbard for months on end. I told them what I thought, and my captain told me to keep my mouth shut or leave. So I left.</string>
    <string name="zB8602VE">I'd fight for myself, but a month in irons has left me a bit unsteady on my legs. But if you stand for me and win, my mates in the Company will pay the fine and I'm sure afford you a handsome purse as well.</string>
    <string name="zdOaQbDp">I'll tell you my story. But if you would judge me for what I do, you're welcome to do so, but I do not care to hear it.</string>
    <string name="ZhZlhNfn">Aye, so you want my story then?</string>
    <string name="ZKJ2pEoL">A knife in the dark is a bandit's version of nobility, it seems.</string>
    <string name="ZN3QD4Ks">I'll tell you. I'll tell anyone who listens.</string>
    <string name="ZOVdtwbw">So, you want to know about the games that Fate has played with me?</string>
    <string name="ZoxPPYLX">I thought of going home. But I lost what denars I had saved during the riots. If there is a warband looking for good men, I would like to earn it back.</string>
    <string name="ZqWHeJ9B">Envy, yes, the only possible explanation for why your clan drove you out. Such a terrible sin!</string>
    <string name="ZSaGzgmN">My father was a judge, and I had intended to study the legal rulings of the past, so I could follow in his footsteps. But when I went to study, my master told me that only two kinds of scholars were needed these days: those who knew how to build and knock down walls, and those who knew how to stem the epidemics that spread from unburied bodies.</string>
    <string name="Zu4uBSxk">We Sturgians have a tradition. If two people have a dispute, and there's no witnesses, so it all comes down to one man's word against another's, then we let them settle it with swords. If one man doesn't like to fight, he can hire someone else to do the fighting. That's how it works with us. Probably other people do the same, because it's a good tradition.</string>
    <string name="ZuHolx2r">Professionally, it was perhaps the best thing I could have done. Fevers, injuries, festering sores - the seaman has in greater number and variety than any manner of land-dweller, I imagine. But I have little patience for life aboard, the monotony, the tyranny of captains, the lack of any space to oneself, the groaning of timbers, the constant smell of rotting bilge...</string>
    <string name="zwKDTWd5">But the old lord died, alas, and when my birthday came, his heir laughed at me. He told me that a fine horse would be wasted on me; perhaps I would like a goat. So that night I took the best animal in the stable, and rode off.</string>
    <string name="zX3hVUKI">It sounds like you had no choice.</string>
    <string name="zZfHxtS5">Honor must come first!</string>
  </resources>
