Aiden:"What happened?" Evan:"I'm a pauper. Brought low by my own family!!" Aiden:"Who?" Evan:"Yes, my own flesh and blood have brought me to this dreadful state. My own kith and kin. How can they be so unreasoning? So beguiled by phantasms?! Woe betide them. Woe..." Aiden:"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" Evan:"My papa... My dear papa... departed this vale of tears a month ago. And his siblings, my loathsome aunts and uncles--I spit at them!--went mad with grief! They traveled dark paths and found an infected with the power to raise the dead! Ever since, they've been offering valuables to the creature... beseeching it to bring back my dear departed papa."
Aiden:"(They really believe that?) They really believe that?"
Evan:"Yes. They think their offerings will make the foul beast grant papa a new life!"
Aiden:"Seems people need something to believe in, whatever it may be."
Aiden:"(And what does it have to do with your bankruptcy?) And what does this have to do with your poverty?"
Evan:"It is all papa's valuables they've taken to use as their offerings! When I tried to stop them, they threw me out of the house. I'll have nothing left! Only memories of papa and a gaping hole in my heart... I'd go to that altar myself, retrieve his belongings, but... I'm a frail man. But you... you seem like a stout fellow. Perhaps you'd go there and retrieve his treasures for me?"
Aiden:"Well... If it means so much to you, I can try."
Evan:"Ah, lion-hearted! I will reward you a hundredfold! They make 'offerings' in the evenings, so you have to go there under the cover of night. You'll find his belongings in willow-lined chests. You can wait here for the sun to descend from the sky. I'll be waiting for you in my crib on Lower Dam Ayre, on the Garrison. The entrance is near the old hotel by the canal. Farewell!"
Aiden:"Yyy... farewell."
(After obtaining the valuables) Patron:"Serves you right, you bastard! You almost got my brother killed!" Evan:"I didn't mean for him to get hurt." Patron:"But he did... because of you!! Stop conning others to run your dangerous errands. If I so much as get a whiff you pull this on anyone else, I'm turning you in!" Aiden:"Hey!" Patron:"Who are you? Another one of this fool's errand boys? Whatever... I don't give a shit. I'm getting out of here." Aiden:"What's going on here?! What was he talking about?" Evan:"You see, before the Fall, I was an actor. Not even a good one. Bereft of a stage, I took to my craft to the streets and became a con artist. But not a very good one of those, either. As I am still quite poor." Aiden:"Everything you said about your father, your family..." Evan:"... it was a lie. I had to convince you to retrieve those valuables for me. The legend of the creature is real... as real as the bandits who invented it to trick people into offering up their valuables. They come by later and collect them. I didn't dare go there myself and risk them catching me, so I figured I'd have someone else go. I'm a greedy, lazy bastard. What do you want from me?" Aiden:"Well, at least you're honest about one thing." Evan:"I try. Sometimes. Like now. You survived the ordeal. Keep the spoils, for your trouble. As for me, the curtain's going down... to be or not to be, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And, by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep - No more and by a sleep to say we end... the heart-ache. And? Well...?" Aiden:"Um, well... If you had a day job, I say not to quit it."
