Aginot: Disarmed

Before settling down for the night, Aginot takes a few moments to ruminate near the spring over previous events.

Trickles of sweat run down the priests neck onto his back beneath his robe.  His matted hair, damp from that same sweat, bothers him incessantly.  It takes a great effort not to jump into the spring and cleanse himself.

Though the ever-present heat of Mudar forced him to finally remove his heavy overcoat of chain, it was not the catalyst.  He has seen much violence of late, enough to unsettle him, and the priest has given long thought to his companions, as well as his own role in the group's actions.  He rolls his shoulders, finally free of the ever-present weight of his armor.  The skin of his shoulders shows bruising where the armor rested and chafed, a result of the weakness that has been a part of him since childhood.  Aginot has always bruised easily, and his bones would break as a child if stressed.  It was a condition he learned to live with, the constant pain and discomfort becoming a part of him, never relenting.

Finally removing the heavy chain, however, was both a physical and spiritual relief.  Separating himself from the group for a short time, he uses his hands to dig a small pit in the sand near the spring, placing the armor into it.  Settled on a course of action, Aginot removes his pouch and dumps the contents onto the sand.  18 gold coins glitter up at him.  He counts out 17 of the coins, one for each life he has taken with violence, and puts them into the pit along with his chain armor.  The fact that one gold coin remains bothers the priest in a way that he can't shake, but he returns the gold coin, along with his other small coinage to the pouch, and covers the armor again with sand.

"Our debts are settled," he mutters on the way back to the others, unable to forget the single gold coin that remains in his pouch.