Part the First

The setting for this story is a sort of early, untamed America, specifically like antebellum New Orleans, such as the one described in Herbert Asbury'sThe French Quarter.I haven't done any extensive world-building because I've been focused on the core stories. In any case, this is the story of a thief (you) who is confronted with a crime committed years ago. How the situation reaches its conclusion is up to you. There are seven possible endings.

I.

You are a thief. Not a pickpocket or cutpurse, although you did your time in petty theft as a youth on the streets. Your bread-and-butter is armed robbery: a man on a lonely gravel road at night, a woman taking a shortcut down an alley home with her groceries. You take what you want, and sometimes you have to hurt people. One time you killed a man. He made a struggle, the situation looked desperate, the gun discharged. You didn't take the money that time. You ran. You were never caught for the man's murder. You threatened, you stole, you lived your life little different from before.

One night you are sitting in a bar treating yourself to a pint of beer on someone else's coin, when a young man--too young to be in such a rough place--enters and takes the seat beside you. There is something familiar about his features, but it is hard to place where you have seen them.

He notices you looking at him. "You got a problem with me, mister?"

You do have a problem, but it's not one you care to mention casually to a stranger: his face reminds you of a mistake, of a man you didn't mean to kill. "No, it's nothing," you say.

"Funny," he says, "you're looking at me like we've got some history."

"Do we?" you ask.

"You tell me, Raymond--where do you know me from?"

You've run with aliases so long that the sound of your given name on this stranger's tongue makes you shiver. He knows enough to be dangerous--maybe too dangerous to leave here tonight. You rest your hand on the pistol holstered at your hip. You can't tell if he's carrying any sort of weapon, but with your experience you could outdraw him.

A. You draw your gun and shoot him.

B. You continue the conversation.