“Yes, yes. Ten silvers bet. No problem,” Laila smiled innocently at the motley group of mercenaries in front of her, laying her accent down as heavily as the pouch of coins she pressed onto crate they were using as a table. The shanty town that was outside of Starkvale may not be the most sanitary or safe places, she thought as she plopped herself at the empty spot across from the leader of this little troupe, but she’d be damned if it wasn’t exciting for an entrepreneuring thief. “So, then we just… hold our hands still and-” she pantomimed stabbing a knife between splayed fingers, “fast?”
The tattooed and scarred man gave her wolfish look, like she was a lamb to his slaughter. The foreign woman, indeed, seemed like an easy target; wondering about the tent city by herself with such a wide-eyed expression. Nevermind that she was armed, or that she had come to him completely unscathed through the town of morally ambiguous sellswords wanting to play five finger roulette. “Yeah, Love. Jus’ like ‘hat.”
She nodded and planted a gloved hand firmly onto the wooden crate, fingers spread wide. Her right reached beseechingly for the knife he held, “I am ready.” He shrugged and passed her the illmade weapon. Laila gave the knife a few testing twirls to check the balance and was disappointed that a self-proclaimed professional fighter would use such garbage for his trade. It had the balance of a knobby stick. It’d still work well enough, she supposed, before driving the tip of the blade into the wood between her first two fingers before alternating to the rest.
The sound of metal clunking into wood sped up steadily as the two competitors kept pace with each other’s strikes. Laila made sure she kept her brows furrowed in concentration as she went, though she was sure she could maintain such a rhythm half drunk and with blood flowing freely from an artery. A bit of a show was needed, though, because it would do her no good to so blatantly be playing the man this early in the game. Besides that, it was far less fun.
Minutes passed, and the two had plateaued at a surprisingly fast beat; Laila was impressed, but boring of this game quickly and the man had obviously reached his limit. She looked up from the knife flying between the fingers of her left hand and smiled crookedly. “This was fun,” she told him softly, “but I have a meeting.” The knife blurred in right hand, while the left began to shift back and forth as well. The game was done. Her opponent faltered before coming to a stop, his mouth agape so far she feared it’d hit the dirty ground. She halted her hands, victorious, and swept both offered pouches of coin off the crate where they quickly disappeared beneath the layers of her dark, earthen colored clothing.
Laila pushed herself into a stand and bowed her head slightly. “It’s been a pleasure,” she acquiesced before spinning on her heel away from the group, her accent oddly faint. The men couldn’t pick their jaws off the ground fast enough to stop her before she melted into the crowded mercenary city. What fun, and what profit, for the few minutes before she had to leave to answer the letter summons she’d received earlier in the day. Already the sun was threatening to dip beneath the trees the bordered Starkvale, but Laila prefered to be among the last to arrive to these sort of gatherings anyway. That way, she knew what kind of people she was dealing with long before she was trapped in an enclosed space with them.
The woman readjusted the red length of cloth that was wrapped loosely about her neck and picked her way quietly out of the tent-city and into the woods beyond. Besides that one piece of red, the rest of her clothing blended in seamlessly with the darkening forest and she feared very little as she treaded through the underbrush to the ruins. When she reached them finally she gave the area a quick but thorough assessment, padding to the actual building that was lit from the direction of the crumbling back walls just so she could get a good look at the occupants.
What a group. Damn, didn’t this Captain Kayden just pull from what looked like literally every corner of the map. So far the colorful, bejeweled mercenary captain had lured a little tinker gnome, a mage who had an odd tinge of death about her, a hulking Skayleigh that was purplish and… had a giant spike for a hand? A man wrapped in more coin than she’d probably seen since she had been banished, a baby faced knight huddled in black plate, a squirrely looking Woad she-elf, what appeared to be a dwarf that had been lit on fire, and a stoney faced, relatively bulky elf. Regardless of the risk, Laila couldn’t possibly curb her curiosity and stay away from all this.
So, she peeled away from the small opening she’d been peering through and made her way back to the tall dwarf standing stalwartly at the largest opening to the ruin. She made her steps far louder as she approached him, not wanting to find an axe blade in her forehead or some such nonsense. When she knew he saw her, Laila gave him the most cheeky of her grins and a wink before slipping inside.
A low whistle erupted from between smirked lips. “Quite the group,” she announced in a light accent of the deserts, her words lilting and rolling instead of the heavy and harsh one she’d employed earlier. Now that she was inside, Laila allowed herself another look at those who’d come before her with something akin to polite curiosity. Only the crazy colored Skayleigh earned a more pointed once over. Her eyes roamed over him unabashedly; she’d never seen the likes of one like him before.
Her silent appraisal complete, Laila sunk into one of the chairs closest to the exit. “You seem to be a bit on fire, Aghae Dwarf,” she informed the flaming Gurnson before taking a quick sniff and then swig of the offered ale.
Let's not get all Robert Jordan taking-3-pages-to-describe-a-blade-of-grass here.