<span style="color: #a64dff">"Now who's got a cigarette for poor, pitiful player plying his craft?"<br/>
</span><br/>A voice like velvet flowed out to the crowd around him. A man stood from his chair and started toward the stage. He wasn't well to do. Among the silk and satin of the foreigners that had settled into the inn for the past couple of weeks, his clothes were coarse. Low quality. Stained. Viktor leaned forward to receive the man's charity. The man's hand was toughened, his cuffs white with the powder common in the sandstone quarries near the city. Viktor gently took the cigarette between his little and ring finger as he took the man's hand in a firm shake.<span style="color: #a64dff">"Thank you, friend,"</span>he uttered as his eyes shifted to the ground. It was only a moment, fleeting, where he saw the silhouette of a woman standing by the man's shadow. Viktor leaned forward just a bit more and lowered his voice,<span style="color: #a64dff">"You should confess to her."<br/>
</span><br/>Letting go and leaning back into his seat, Viktor watched with amusement as the man, confusion and dust caked on his face, returned to his table. Maybe he would follow the words of a stranger, maybe not. Leaning the guitar against the stool he sat on, Viktor retrieved a matchbook from his pants and lit the cigarette. The man sighed in relief as he peeled off a layer of illusion, letting loose wisps of smoke with his exhalations. He looked at the box in front of him where patrons had been leaving tips and was surprised with the haul for the day. Several crumpled bills, some change, and a ring of all things. He smirked as he pulled the ring out of the box and held it up to the light streaming in from the inn's doorway. A merchant garbed from head to toe in orange and white with an ornate turban upon his head shouted excitedly with a heavy accent, "For you! Very good!" Viktor laughed as he placed the silver ring on his finger and showed it off to the clapping merchant and his buddies. Placing the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, he picked up his guitar once more and began to<a class="externalLink" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0l50z-5RHw" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">pluck at his guitar once again</a>. A devilish grin graced his lips as he took drags from the cigarette and looked out into the crowd.<br/><br/><span style="color: #a64dff">"To my friend far flung from home, and the rest of the Brass Tap, may fortune find you!"</span><div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>