These were orders, after all.
!! SYSTEM CORRECTION: THEY ARE NOT. ORDERS ARE IRREFUSABLE. THESE ARE SUGGESTIONS. YOU NEED NOT TAKE THESE QUESTS.
Then why the distinction between optional quests and normal quests?
The System didn't answer that, nor did Vol particularly need it to. Despite a few nagging questions, he was rather content with the arrangement. Killing was not something he necessarily shied away from. Morally, he didn't see a problem with it. It didn't go against the teaching of their forefathers. It was the path of a greater reader.
It was only socially that it had caused him negatives. With his decreased charisma, and his terrible reputation, he'd been forced into battles that he didn't need to fight.
Did it even matter if a battle was necessary or not, though? He wanted strength. Was the road there not through as many battles as it took? Did it matter if a battle had purpose? Would he grow stronger with purpose? He wasn't sure.
"He's not coming up," a voice in the darkness noted, startling Vol. He turned – it had come from directly behind him, from the shell of a shipping building, lacking its door. He squinted towards the source of the noise, and thought he could see a man sitting at an overturned table. How had he not noticed him before?
Vol's fingers danced towards his axe.
The man stood, almost stepping towards the light. "Hoh, there's a reaction I know well," he said. "It gets to be a habit, doesn't it? When you can solve every problem with a little strike here, a little murder there. Convenient."
They heard a gasp, as the drunkard surfaced. He would have shouted, Vol thought, but for the waves. They were aggressive, tossing him up and down, swimming out over his face whenever he got a head above the surface. Vol tossed a rope down to him. The man dragged it readily.
In a moment of sheer instinct, he hefted himself straight up the length of it, until he was back on the docks, lying flat against the snow-covered wood, gasping for breath.
"Gods!" The man shouted. "I fuckin… I fuckin fell in!?" He sounded incredulous, almost disbelieving. "But I never fall."
"You'd better get yourself warm," the man from earlier noted. "There's an old fire pit inside, and some wood to burn. You sober enough to see that?"
The man seemed to finally feel the cold, and he shivered. His furs were thoroughly soaked through. Those clothes would soon freeze, Vol knew, draining his heat as greedily as a bad loan.
"Shit, shit shit," the man cursed. He stumbled towards the shipping house. His drunkenness was still there. His thoughts weren't exactly lucid. He hardly seemed to notice Vol and the stranger around him, though he heeded their words. It was only his survival instinct that seemed to drive him on, as he stumbled inside.
The man regarded him with a smile, speaking to Vol again once he was out of earshot.
"Funny, aren't they?" He said. "The weak, I mean."
Vol grunted. He removed his hand from the handle of his axe. There would be no need to kill him now. There would be no proof. This man would live, and even if he didn't, it would be his own fault, of the cold. For the man's own mouth had said it – he'd fallen. He hadn't even realized that it was a wooden axe that hit him.
The man stumbled for the fireplace, desperately fishing through the old kindling basket, looking for something that the sea air hadn't got to. He picked out something papery that Vol thought might have been birch bark. Vol felt himself relax seeing it. At least the man would be able to get the fire going.
"Shit! Do you have flint?" He shouted to them, finally noticing their presence.
The man's grin only widened, as he sauntered back inside. "Gods, they're so funny."
Vol studied him as he bent over the fireplace, and struck some sparks into the papery bark. The resin in the wood caught the flame, and carried it strongly. With a handful of nearly-dry sticks on top of it, there was a steady fire growing, just in time for the drunk's shivers to get worse.
The stranger was younger than Vol had first thought him to be. He likely wasn't yet in his twentieth year. Eighteen, or so, Vol reckoned. He was tall, nearly as tall as Vol, but lanky. His body still hadn't filled out yet, to add the muscle that his frame needed to be intimidating.
His clothes were close-fitting, cut-tight, and fashionable, despite still being warm. A handsome youth, likely one from money by the way he sauntered.
With the fire going, he came back.
"What do you want?" Vol asked, his voice a growl.
"Nothing, particularly. Just curious. Like Blackbeard, I'm interested in stray dogs," the man said. The first bits of beard stubble were beginning to grow around his jaw. That, more than anything, was a giveaway of his youth. "Particularly ones with a bit of viciousness in them."
"You're not going to ask me why?" Vol said, waiting for the question.
"Gods no! You think I wouldn't understand that? You see a rock in the street, and you don't hold back from kicking it. Believe me, I understand," the boy said. "Nolan, by the way," he said, sticking his hand out for a handshake.
Vol sniffed at the gesture, refusing it. "You from the Stormfront?" He asked pointedly. The man laughed at that.
"Ah, I see, you're more of an old Gods sort, are you? I can respect that. Let me guess, for you, it's the Raiders and it's Varsharn, is it? It's Gorm's tales of glory, and Jok's miraculous rise?" Nolan said.
Vol stiffened at the mention of his brother's name. Nolan didn't seem to notice. Vol had rarely travelled far enough to see just how widespread his brother's name had become, but here he was, on the very other end of the country, and he was hearing a man speak of Jok as though it was common knowledge.