He had walked for hours, limping unsteadily, crossing the city as he avoided those who prowled the streets at night. He had found himself in an unknown part of Dunwall. His little rat nestled against his neck, one spot of warmth in the cold.
A gentle sound beckoned him down an alleyway. He hesitated, then followed. The walls were slick with rainwater, the sound glancing off its stones like an echoing throat. At the end of the path rose a twisted construction of wood and wire. A piece of carved and polished bone hummed within.
The boy heard a voice like the voice of the waves. Cold and timeless. A shadow rose up, a radiant darkness that defied all sight. A young man who wandered lonely places. The Outsider himself. When the flesh of the boy’s left hand itched and smouldered, he did not look away. When the vision vanished, the Outsider’s mark remained.
That night the boy climbed to the highest of Dunwall’s jagged roofs and looked over the city. The towers and gables undulated under his eyes, like a grand and shifting ocean. He saw all the lives that teemed beneath, and was not afraid.