Swamped Chapter 220 Page 10

You think it might be easiest to look back at the story for an idea.

The woman in the story was willing to risk punishment from the church for feeding her brother. To an extent, that’s what loyalty means – the willingness to face real hardships on behalf of someone else.

So maybe Hool would be impressed by what you gave up for theater. You pretty much had to cut ties with your family, because they bought the local theater and turned it into a damned factory, and they didn’t understand why you were upset, thought you’d be excited about how it helped their business that you were going to inherit one day.

Great. Just get a couple of folks in here for an impromptu performance of that talk where you ran off. You’ll probably have to dig deep into feelings you pushed aside for years, but hey, maybe it’ll work.

Yeah, you don’t feel too sure about it either. But you haven’t got a lot of other ideas.

You run out, wrangle in the closest actors and tell them the basics of the scene. A couple of Protectors slip in, which may be helpful if this doesn’t work.

The other two really play up their roles. You think they might be going harder than your parents actually did. And you give your best effort at playing you. Though you might be emphasizing how much you care about theater a little more than you actually did at the time.

Finally, you wrap up the scene by declaring that you’re leaving to take up acting, and if there’s no theater in town any more, you’ll just have to join the next troupe that passes through.

You have no idea if Hool was impressed, but the Protectors are applauding.

And so is the person in the chair.

Well, that’s something, you suppose. But where do you go from here?