I apologize for the length in advance, but in order to ensure a clear
and concise response to your post allow me to respond to several of your
key quotes, Erion:

"Where was Trance? Running."

This is the natural response when someone twice your size, and 500% your
might comes after you... you attempt to remove yourself from the
situation. Not only was this a measure of self-preservation, but by
fleeing the situation, Trance ensured that the danger would remove
itself, as well. Serpents don't always rely upon brute combat as half of
our skills are dedicated to the art of evasion and stealth. Serpents
strike when the odds are in their favor. Never bet unless you know you
will win.

"He was more worried about his own skin than any form of honor."

A dead man has no honor, therefore saving "his own skin" was, in fact,
preserving his honor. Fleeing a battle is no more a reflection of honor
than Jhui or any thief hunter effortlessly crushing someone zero percent
of their might and one-third of their level because they have legal
right to do so. In both cases the acting parties have shown nothing of
their skill or honor and thus no judgment can be drawn from their
actions.

"Typhoon gave no true reason why Trance was outguilded. And why should
he?"

Primarily, Typhoon strongly insinuated that Trance was outguilded for
thievery. But, ignoring that, the reason he should explain why he
outguilded Trance is because the guild system lives, breathes, and
thrives on effective communication. If, today, a guildmaster decided to
outguild all members of Guild X, and claim it for himself in the name of
all things profane, would you just as hastily defend his right to do so?
By communicating with guild members, especially novices as Trance was,
this could have been avoided. A simple, "Trance, calm down on the
thievery" would have sufficed, but it was precisely this lack of
communication that astonished me. As a guildmaster, you owe it to
members of your guild to keep them abreast on their position, rights,
and standing within the guild. Without this, the guild falls,
hopelessly, into confusion and disarray. A tactical and knowledgeable
army is an infinitely stronger one than a collection of uninformed
persons gathered in one place and called an army for diplomatic
purposes.

"If I charge, help me, If I retreat, kill me, if I die, avenge me."

Hopefully we can all see the inherent absurdity in this. "If I retreat,
kill me" and "if I die, avenge me" -- examine those two statements
closely, especially concerning their syntactic proximity and tell me
what is wrong with those two statements when spoken in relation to one
another. But, barring semantic asides, examine closely the Serpent
skills within the Subterfuge skillset; half, at least, of these skills
are devoted to fleeing. Evasion, worm warping, phasing, cloaking,
ghosting, hiding... these are the heart of the skillset and illustrate
something told to me by a SerpentLord himself, years ago, when I was in
the guild: "If I retreat, kill me," doesn't mean flee battle in the
strictest sense of the word; it means, more precisely: "If I back down,
kill me." Serpent's are made to flee, but SerpentLords, according to the
code, will not back down. By fleeing an impossible battle, Trance
ensured that he preserved his future, and his chance to fight that
battle at a later date on more even grounds.

"By not outguilding Trance he could have ended up on the unhappy side of
The Merchant God's Order."

It is not the duty of a guildmaster to pander to the perceived emotional
state of any Order except that of their Patron. It is a guildmaster's
duty to ensure the emotional state of his own, and to defend his own
unless they are found to be in violation of the guild's policies, which
Trance was not.

"As well, unless things changed in the years I was away, more than just
a couple of Serpents are Prosperian."

I fail to see the correlation between other guild member's Patron's and
the outguilding of a member of that guild who was clearly not in
violation of any guild policies. By this reasoning we should all live in
near harmony dominated and punished by our guildmasters for harming
anyone of any other order because surely a member of our guild shares a
Patron with the victim.

-=Profit Bayt al-Azhan=-

Penned by my hand on the 4th of Chronos, in the year 365 AF.