Strangers in the Night

[Sentinel]

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The hour was late. The setting sun smeared crimson and orange across the western rim of the sky, fading light robbing most shapes of their distinct impressions in the shadowy evening. There were no posted guards on the outskirts of Underwood, and why would there be? The town itself was well traveled, but though the occasional ruckus was raised by greedy thugs or drunken mercenaries passing through as guards for travelling caravans, Underwood was a fairly safe, quiet place. It was a reassuring thought to Sentinel, but hadn't been enough to get him to move from his perch in the concealing roadside brush for over four hours.

Sentinel was a sentient golem, though heavy robes covered most of his thick clay body. He had watched the comers and goers move in and out of Underwood for quite a while now, steeling his courage to himself enter the cozy Coronian town. It hadn't been long since he had left the house of his maker to see Althanas and all its marvels firsthand, but the golem had already learned to be wary of the fear that his foreign appearance created in most of the smaller, meat-based races. Adolphus, the mage who had created Sentinel, and Mordechai, his priestly teacher, had taught the golem about such things, of course, for the instructions would have been woefully incomplete had they failed to do so. Even so, experiencing baseless prejudice and hostility firsthand was something far more personal and frightening than merely knowing about it.

He could stay outside in the brush through the night, he knew, for the cold and the damp meant little to a creature made of clay, but Mordecai had always told him that "giving into fear on the little things would make it that much easier to give into fear on the big things; until your fear rules your life instead of you." Sentinel knew that he was young and inexperienced in the ways of the world, but he was determined that fear should not rule his life.

Brush rustled and groaned as the massive golem tore himself free of their restraining grip. Smoothing the plain wool robes that Mordecai had given him on his journeys start, Sentinel confidently, though cautiously, made his way into Underwood.