The hall you find yourself in now is not particularly long, nor are there many doors down its length - least that you can see. There is a door that you can smell though, a door to a privy. And if you are any to judge, you'd say you are getting closer and closer. You'd say that is where you are being led. You miss another step - and a heartbeat or three - but the Guard doesn't, and for half a stride you are dragged until you find your feet. When no apology nor acknowledgement is forthcoming, you ... you have to acknowledge you have made a ... a number of mistakes here. First and foremost being that it is not without reason that women are escorted or otherwise chaperoned, especially after dark. The second, you suppose, is the ... level of trust that you put in random Guards. Obviously, you are most familiar with the Middenguard, who while far from the Emperor's finest, are ... are hands-off in their conduct, considering the spiritually and physically Unclean nature of their charges. Somewhere along the line, you must have ... made these observations into assumptions about all Guards. The third is that you were expecting ... institutional traps. Well-thought, well-crafted. The notion of being a ... a target of opportunity never really occurred to you, but ... now that you think of it ... you are out unconscionably late after wandering off from your accommodations for the night, you put the idea in their head that you had already been ... mistreated, and to top it off, there is something ... dangerous happening, hence the state of silent alert. Really, you couldn't think of a more perfect night for someone to be just ... swallowed up by the streets. You have never had issues like that before, traveling around the Mount ... but then again, up until four - or is it five? - days ago, you were always with your father, not making yourself known - at least, not to the point of having conversations with anyone - and never dressed as a woman, especially wearing a 'worn piece' that was worth at least a year or two of wages for a skilled laborer. That ... that must be what - what ... attracted them to ... oh, Pattern's Perdition. Oh, oh no. No. You ... you cannot, this - this - this cannot!

And yet, what else can this really be? Just because you made mistakes earlier by bailing out of this, that and the other thing, it doesn't follow - it - it didn't follow, rather, that this was a sure thing. That this was the one to see through to the end. You fraying idiot! You absolute fraying idiot! Oh, your ... your head. You've gone and done it. You have finally gone and done it, and you barely feel anything. You don't feel numb, it is like ... it just cannot register, it ...