"BUST IT DOWN!" a voice shouts followed by the splintering of your door.

You're barely awake before you're rushed by several men dressed in chainmail.

"DON'T MOVE!" one shouts as several spears are pointed directly at you.
"What's going on?!"
"Shut up!" one of the men says and pokes you in the chest with his spear hard enough that it superficially breaks the skin.

You don't say any more, but between the men holding you at bay with spears and a couple other searching your room, you fear the worst. One of them inevitably grabs the package you put under your bed. He then opens it and while you're having a hard time seeing from your position, he pulls out some of its contents and holds up a vial with blue material inside it.

"Is it contraband, sir?" one of them asks.
"Yeah, there's twenty vials of Blue Dream in here." A slightly more decorated man remarks.
"You think it's the Ebony Claw Syndicate?"
"Who else would it be? They're the ones who mostly smuggle and deal this stuff."
"But this kid doesn't look like he's Claw. He doesn't even have the tattoo on his arm."
"Meh, maybe he has it elsewhere…doesn't matter, what matters is he's going away for a long damn time."

A feeling of dread overwhelms you.

"Hey wait! Can't we talk about this?!" you say.

The man with the package turns to you.

"And what would we have to talk about criminal? You've got enough Blue Dream here to get the entire town of Hegglesburg trashed. This seems like a pretty simple situation as far as I'm concerned. You think because you're young, you deserve leniency? Hah! You can try it on the judge when he sentences you, but in any case you're coming with us."

You're lifted up roughly from your bed by the men with spears (Who you're assuming are Delantium soldiers at this point)

Your arms are put behind your back and iron shackles are placed on your wrists. When you're marched down the stairs and in front of various inn onlookers, you hear Ren complain about them breaking his door, to which the one that was talking to you earlier remarks that Ren's lucky that they aren't taking him in and shutting this whole place down.

When you exit the inn, you're shoved into the back of a cart. Another older man with many scares on his face in iron shackles sits in the cart. He gives you a brief look and then returns to looking back at the cart floor.

"The prisoner is secure, sergeant." One of the soldiers says.
"Okay, let's take this drug dealing trash back to Sivak." The sergeant says, still hanging on to the Blue Dream package.

This is the second time this week that you've been accused of a serious crime and once again you didn't even mean to do it!

Was this all a set up, while Flynt took off to parts unknown? Flynt DID seem pretty willing to just hand off illegal drugs to you. Then again, why bother setting you up, when he could have just hid them somewhere rather than risk losing the product altogether? Maybe this is all just more bad luck hitting you.

In any case, your mind starts racing about what you can do in your current situation. First thing you think about is escape. The cart is going slow enough that you could probably easily jump out and just run. The problem with that plan is there are multiple mounted guards to the front and back of you. They would easily run you down and most likely kill you for attempting to escape.

The second thing you can think of is what the sergeant said. Something about the Ebony Claw Syndicate. You can make an educated guess that Flynt and his friends were part of this organization. Maybe if you told them everything that transpired at the inn, they would let you go.

Of course you could just resign yourself to your fate for now and look for an opportunity later.

You stay silent

These soldiers seem to have made up their mind about you and trying to explain things is probably just going to get you a beating. You figure if you're going before a judge, you can always explain things to him and hope he takes mercy, though you aren't optimistic about it.

Lacking any other plan, you just sit in silence as the soldiers take you to your appointed destination. It's times like this, you wish your sister was here, she'd be able to help you.

In fact you're starting to have a greater appreciation for your parents as well at this point. How many times did you avoid real trouble thanks to your father's influence?

As you ponder your life choices you glance at the other man in the cart who doesn't say anything to you. In fact he doesn't even really look at you. Upon a few more glances at him, you notice he has a tattoo of a black claw on his shoulder. You wonder if this man is a member of the Ebony Claw Syndicate.

If that is the case you realize it's probably a good thing that you didn't say anything about Flynt. The last thing you need right now is a pissed off gang member wanting to kill you for being a rat. In fact, it makes you wonder if you should say anything to the judge at all. If this Ebony Claw Syndicate is as sinister as they sound, it might be dangerous to go ratting on their people. Of course that doesn't leave you many options.

You mostly pass the rest of the time observing the scenery as you travel through Hegglesberg and farmlands.

Eventually though the sky darkens and the soldiers prepare to camp for the night.

"Alright we'll stop here for tonight and set up camp. Anders and Levin, you two can watch Mr. Scars and the kid and make sure they can't escape." The sergeant says.

With a few gruff orders, you and Mr. Scars are both taken to a nearby tree and tied to it securely with a rope while the rest of the soldiers make camp.

As you're watching the soldiers go about their jobs (And your guards doing more talking with each other than actually watching you) Mr. Scars finally says something to you.

"So, busted with twenty vials of Blue Dream eh?" he asks in a low tone.
"How did you know?" you ask.
"I heard the sergeant talking with one of his men about it earlier."
"Oh. They think I'm some big dealer and part of the Ebony Claw Syndicate too, but I'm not either of those things."
"Hm. Didn't think you were Claw, but I thought maybe you might be a prospect….hmmm…let me guess did you run into a man going by the name Flynt?"

You aren't sure if you should be talking, so you don't say anything.

"Heh, I'll take your silence as a yes. Though I suppose it's a good sign that you're not very forthcoming with that info. Talkers don't last long in this business. Of course maybe you're not telling me because you ripped him off…"
"I didn't!" you exclaim which causes the guards to look over at you and then you get quiet again until they look away.

"I didn't, he paid me to deliver a package to someone. I didn't even know what was in it, until the guards confiscated it. Hell, I didn't even know about the Ebony Claw Syndicate!"
"Yeah, sounds like Flynt. It's an unconventional method of recruitment, but sometimes he likes to randomly test youngsters that he feels could be useful. Dunno why he does things that way, but when you've got drugs and coins to blow, I guess you can afford to take risks like that. I dunno, I'm just in it for the violence myself."

You continue to stay silent.

"Anyway, you're probably looking at twenty years kid. One for each vial. The kingdom has been really cracking down lately on it. Probably get sent to Dreadcage too. They send all the serious offenders there."

Fear wells up inside you upon hearing that news. You try to keep it together, but you're having a hard time and you start exhaling multiple times, closing your eyes and muttering, "oh fuck, oh shit." several times.

"Wow, kid. You're not going to last in prison if you take that approach. They see you come in like that and you're gonna be sucking every dick in the joint and worse."
"Isn't there something I can do to stop this?" you ask.
"Well, you could try to escape I guess, but I'm betting you already figured the soldiers would easily run you down before you got very far. I suppose you could try to beg for mercy when you go before the judge, maybe even use your youth as an excuse. Depending on the judge, that MIGHT get you some time shaved off, but you'll still be doing a lot of it…and I think I don't have to warn you about the dangers of ratting out Flynt and whoever it was you were supposed to deliver to in the first place to try to save your ass."

This is just a nightmare. You're almost thinking maybe you should have just risked getting lynched back in Teckleville. At least there you would've had your parents to help you and maybe even Annah, assuming she lived. At worst, you would have at least died at home.

"Well…I ain't no rat, so that wasn't ever a possibility anyway." You say in an attempt to at least make Mr. Scars less likely to be suspicious of you.
"Bullshit kid, in your situation and first time? You probably thought about it. Don't worry though, everyone usually does at one time or another, just as long as you don't actually do it…well either that or make damn sure the reward is high enough." Mr. Scars chuckles.
"Yeah, well I might do better in prison than you think…" you say and then you whisper…"I've killed someone before."

Mr. Scars looks at you as if to detect whether you're lying or not.

"Hm, maybe you have, or maybe you haven't, but that really doesn't matter. You're going to be locked away with a lot of killers. Most of them a lot tougher and bigger than the likes of you. So just because you killed your girlfriend or mom because she pissed you off doesn't mean you're some hard man."
"I didn't kill my…" you start to say before the one of the guards starts actually paying attention to you.

"HEY! The two of you stop fucking conspiring over there! In fact the pair of you need to shut the fuck up and just go to sleep because tomorrow you'll both be going before the judge and sentenced for your crimes! Enjoy your last night of freedom criminal scum!"

And with that, you and Mr. Scars do no more talking for the rest of the night, though Mr. Scars was done talking and ready to sleep anyway. You on the other hand have a hard time getting to sleep, knowing what awaits you.

The next morning, you're put back on the cart and continue your journey to Sivak. You reach your destination by midday. Sivak is larger than anything you've ever seen and some of its buildings are very impressive. It's a very bustling place with people walking around everywhere. You just wish you were free to enjoy it.

At this point you wonder if you shouldn't just try to escape now. The streets are very busy and it would be a lot harder for the soldiers to get around on their horses. If you're quick enough you might even lose them in an alleyway or something. Of course that doesn't stop the fact that you're still shackled and ultimately surrounded by more soldiers than ever, but maybe you can figure that dilemma out later.

You escape

Maybe this is a foolish decision, but you have to try. The more you think about having to spend twenty years in a prison the more you know you aren't going to be able to handle it.

You stand up in the cart at which point several soldiers tell you to sit back down and begin pointing their spears in your direction and closing the gap. Mr. Scars just smiles a bit sensing what you're going to do.

You jump from the cart and into a group of passing citizens, which happily prevent you from falling directly into the cobblestones. You quickly get up off the mass of bodies and start running.

"STOP! STOP THAT MAN!" one guard shouts.
"Somebody grab him!" another remarks.
"Don't just stand there, get his ass!" the sergeant exclaims.
"Run rabbit! Run!" Mr. Scars laughs.

You run through the streets of Sivak, crashing and bumping into people along the way. Surprisingly or maybe not so surprisingly nobody is really trying to stop you on purpose, the average citizens seem to be more concerned with getting the hell out of your way.

The soldiers are still trying to chase you on horseback, but it's proving a little more difficult with all the people in the way. The funny thing is they're actually doing MORE damage by trampling over several citizens in their efforts to get to you!

Eventually you make so many turns down various twisting narrow streets, the soldiers on horseback can't effectively follow, but the new ones on foot that have been alerted continue the pursuit just fine.

You probably would be able to evade your pursuers if not for the fact that your hands are shackled behind you and you don't know your way around the city. That's very apparent, when you find that you've just run around in a circle and surrounded by soldiers.

"Surrender now and we might even leave you in good enough condition to stand before the judge!" one of the soldiers says.

You can't surrender. Not now. You were meant to be free and if you can't be free then it's no life at all.

You attempt to pass the soldiers in front of you and are met by their spears. To their credit, they actually do try to subdue you first by slamming you to the ground, but when you continue to struggle and kick, one of the less patient ones skewers you in the side which is then followed by another spear to your chest. You bleed out like the proverbial stuck pig and wheeze like one as breathing becomes more difficult.

It isn't exactly a quick or dignified death, but at least you didn't die in a cell.