<em>Hate.</em><br/><br/>The word was resounding in Ceol's skull, a steady and sonorous refrain that pulsed and groaned like distant drums, infernal instruments beating away at the black interior of his skull.  It sloshed and grew muddled with the irritating remnants of the past evening's intoxication and poisoning, a vat of pitch heated and boiling away with impotent fury.  It set his tombstone-teeth grinding, his knuckles cracking, his hair bristling, every single movement betraying an anger that the man was only<em>just</em>managing to temper beneath an outward facade of grim silence.  It was a hate born of shame and weakness, but also out of a grudging respect that he could not dispel no matter how hard he willed it.<br/><br/>For in battle one did not take chances.  One did not take the<em>honorable</em>path if he wanted to win.  One played dirty, lurked with poisoned blades and arrows and struck like a viper in numbers that bare hands and grit could not hope to match when taken unawares.  He had been bested, and not for the first time either.  But he was alive, and<em>that</em>was an old and tiresome song and dance he knew all too well.<br/><br/>If there were any other members of the party present in the dining area, Ceol ignored them completely and returned to his quarters.  It was a small blessing that his pack and coin had been brought to his bedside, perhaps by Darius or one of the staff.  Most of his tools were left, and the potions he'd lost were more luxuries than necessities.  He made a mental note to find some flint and metal once the stores had opened for the day--and perhaps a chain shirt as well, if his meager earnings could afford one.<br/><br/>-----------------<br/><br/>Returning to the ground floor he would stride over to Balthor, giving the other man a hard, but not unfriendly stare.  After a moment he held his hand between them, waiting expectantly for the cleric to grasp it.<br/><br/>"I would thank you,<em>friend</em>," he said, placing special emphasis on the title he had been so unwilling to give the stranger from before.  "Yours is not the first face I have awakened to from a deathly stupor, and I doubt it will be the last.  Whether it is fate that guided you to my body or strange luck, know that I am indebted to you."