Editing Vek's Journal on Randal (section)

=='''The Hovel'''==
Its been a couple decade here in () and I resent my time away sometimes.  Its a thing wer shadowwalkers must acept.  Sometimes the places we find, live in, grow to love, are gone when se seek to find them.  Visit Amber for a month and 5 years goes by on Vulsar.  The reason so many in Star Fleet come from longlived races is that Vance has an eye on an immortal battle force.  Here in () people just get old. I had been away for several months and returned to find my place aged.  The piano was clean still but the bartender was surprised to see me.  He had worked there for 10 years and my name was just a rumor, a legend.  

I looked up my trio. We had played together for over a decade before other things drew me off planet.  

'''Gill''' headlined a band nearby and I was lucky to arrive when the band was falling apart.  Gill was delighted at the prospect of playing with me again.  He said he knew producers now and we could lay down some tracks for an album. I laughed but then decided it wasn't a terrible idea. '''Gil''' said  Krax ran a ship out of the islands and was out of the business.  He had lost track of Dana after they had a falling out.  He had tried finding her and did briefly when she was in prison.  After that she disappeared.   Too combative for her own good.  

I found poor '''Dana''' in a gutter in the city of Grrasar.  Alcoholic, sickly, showing a lot of bad years.  Someone had ruined her left hand in a battle as she had tried returning to the [[Warrior Core]] and tried for Front Warrior.  After that she went through her money, turned tricks, and fell apart.  She picked fights, even assaulted someone for their pocket change and did a bid in a local jail for it.  She got addicted to Pruno while in jail and on the street that translated to drinking the worst rot she could find.  When I found her she was sleeping, in a runoff from some cannery.  I couldn't tell if she was dead or just beaten up. She stank of fish and wet tobacco.  I rolled her over and she looked up at me with hopeless eyes.  "Have you come for my soul finally, angel of death?  I knew that's who you were even then...but I loved the music too well.."  She then passed out.  Checking her vitals she was near death. 

I took her to Vulsar.  My relationship with Amber was better now and Vance more a friend. We put Dana in a regen tank.  IN a couple weeks she was young again, clean, healed, and fresh as new.  She looked on me now with devotion I was uncertain I could return.  But she was eager to pick up the drums again if I wanted that.  She knew my secret though; Amber and Chaos.  So I did something unexpected.  I took her to the Halls of Hendrake.  Not the ones in Chaos, but the ones outside the Black Zone world of Husjkmounoud.  I enrolled her in a fighting school in exchange for serving as an instructor.  They were excited to have a Lord of Chaos and a noble of the main House Hendrake come that far out to join them.  I gave Dana 2 years under the blade in  order to control her temper.  

When we returned she took Front Warrior with ease and push strongly into Rank Warrior. She made a name as a viciously quick short blade and knife fighter.  In time I watched her take her first fight to earn the Green Gladiator harness.