A rare moment of reflection from Hardin as Ashtor leaves him to his dire work; the proverbial calm before the storm. Only proverbial, of course, as the rain looks like it won’t be letting up anytime soon. And with this, Hardin and Ashtor’s scene draws to a close — but rest assured, this night is just beginning.

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This week, we’ve got a great pair of guest art pieces from regular Western Deep reader and contributor, Veigue! In these two pieces, Veigue envisioned Hardin, Caldus, and Dabheid as living in the modern day, far removed from their medieval-inspired world!

Veigue_ModernHardin

In this first piece, Hardin is chilling out on a park bench, listening to some tunes and looking appropriately grumpy at his surroundings. He strikes me here as the visual personification of a grassroots activist or idealistic hipster — somebody who has big plans and little time to suffer fools. I also love that his plaid vest calls back to his kilt from his medieval counterpart!

Veigue_ModernCaldusDabheid

Now, Caldus and Dabheid seem to be highly-paid, powerful executives at some very big company in the city. I can definitely see this, you know? Dabheid is CEO and Caldus is his right-hand-Tamian — his enforcer! Of BUSINESS! Caldus isn’t Captain of the Royal Guard here, he’s the head of their mergers and acquisition department. Or if they’re a Wall Street-style company, Caldus would be the head honcho on the trading room floor. It’s war in there!

These two pictures have me imagining Western Deep as a modern-day business tale, with Hardin (a young and idealistic youth on the street) needing to infiltrate and dismantle the business of overzealous K-Nid, Inc. to save his eclectic neighborhood of Ermehn from being bought out by the company’s shady real estate investors. Meanwhile, CEO Dabheid, head of SunsGro Co, has young Quinlan fill the role his grandfather left in the company, putting him in as head of mergers and acquisitions despite Quinlan’s lack of a formal business school degree.

As Hardin’s grassroots campaign starts to pick up against K-Nid, Inc, Kenosh (VP of Lutra Co, purveyor of all things fresh and salmon-related) decides to schedule a very important board meeting with K-Nid COO Clovis, bringing along his son, Dakkan (a junior exec caught in the shadow of his father’s accomplishments) and Quinlan as corporate muscle. After all, K-Nid, SunsGro Co, and Lutra Co all have a strategic partnership that must be maintained!

Truly, this is riveting stuff! :)