Ok, you've definitely grabbed my attention. MUST READ ON. Damn you homework, why must you prevent me from reading!!!!

Glad you like it. And thank you for commenting, I appreciate knowing what type of response you had. :D

Pretty good.... The first several paragraphs are a little boring, but it picks up afterwards. You could try cutting down some of the history and leaving it for later. Other than that, your dialogue is great, and I get the right feel from the rest of the writing, too. Occasionally I see a word or something that doesn't quite fit with the rest of the piece (can't remember any specific examples), so look for those. The only recurrent grammatical issue I can find is comma usage; I know this is a horrible thing to say, because usually it's the opposite, but you don't use enough of them.
Other than that, though, it sounds like you've done some research and put a lot of thought into all of this. Not final draft, but getting close. And in any case the story and the characters are believable and interesting. Give me another couple of days or weeks and I'll get to the rest.

Yeah, the beginning I am still fiddling with. What you are reading here is from a suggestion from someone else I know (RL side) who said that the beginning picked up too quickly. Will probably have to fiddle a little bit to get the right ballance down.

As for commas, that is one part that really is open to interpretation. I tried to cut out as many as possible just to see how it came out. Personally I agree that it probably needs more, however if you actually look it up I believe that nothing is done technically wrong.

Thanks for the comments very much. And take your time reading, I am in no rush. ;)

Mmmm... I'd tend to disagree about the commas. For example:
There he couldn't afford to have even the smallest sum stolen so he kept his distance from everyone, using a stern glare to keep anyone who started to approach at bay.
Technically, the rule is that you put in a comma whenever you start a new clause. So in this case, you'd want one after 'sum stolen'. 'He kept' starts the new clause (subject verb).
But that kind of thing was the only thing I noticed that made me jerk a little bit. It's still completely comprehensible. Whatever you want to do, I guess. Commas are a touchy subject.

While according to the most traditional rules you are indeed correct modern usage has been moving away from that. In fact, modern usage is moving toward abolishing (or severly reducing) many things. Commas, semi-colons, colons, hyphens. All are being used much less today than original rules dictated. That is more or less what I was playing around with.

Geez... eventually modern usage is going to be like this:
ONEDAYAMANWALKEDOUTINTOTHESTREETITWASAPLEASANTDAYTHEFLOWERSWEREBLOOMINGANDTHEAIRSMELLEDNICELIKEAFTERARAIN

I share your frustration to some degree, but the fact is that any language that is not dead is going to change over time. There is honestly no stopping it and trying to is futile.

Ah! But that's not entirely true. Icelandic is a perfect example. Hundreds of thousands of people still speak it, but it hasn't changed hardly any since the 1300's.
But then again, it's Iceland. That country hasn't changed much since the 1300's either...

Oh, there are more stable languages, but even Icelandic has changed over the years. Just more slowly.

One of the big factors about English is that it evolves VERY quickly for a language. In some ways this is a good thing since it is easy to make new words to describe completely new ideas/objects that never used to exist. In others it is bad because it makes it a barrier to reading older documents (try reading the original Beowulf in the old English to see exactly what I mean.).