Editing Chapter One: A Circle from Many Parts (section)

== Who Drinks Tea in a Tavern, Anyway? ==

A quiet monk, [[Duricorre]], was calmly drinking a cup of tea in the local tavern when he noticed that a bunch of violent ragamuffins seemed to be scrabbling around him. He quickly put an end to this by using his clockwork armament to quell the uprising. Seeing the quick, clean actions of Duricorre, the instigator of the bar fight, a Night Caste thief named [[Ebon Hand of the Dragon]] was impressed. 

Ebon's intentions when she approached the monk were made clear very quickly.  In her infinitely spur-of-the-moment wisdom, Ebon proposed to this strong-armed monk that he should perform the duties of a bodyguard for her.  Since Duricorre has a high Temperance, he did not immediately throw the idea aside. Duricorre was still so annoyed by the childishness and the low temperance of the rabble around him that his response to Ebon's assumptions about what he would do for her was mere apathy. Sensing acceptance, Ebon gave a little squeal, and shadowed Duricorre everywhere he went in the city, and a tentative partnership was formed.