Charlie Chance sat cross-legged atop a ramshackle wagon which had no steer or creature hitched to it. The wagon looked in working condition, with its canvas and wooding all in observably good appearance. In front of the wagon was a long, short table covered in hats. Hats on hooks and stands, while some just stacked on top of each other. No two hats looked the same, each one with different shapes and colors and fir pieces to accentuate. There were 2 standing coat racks that again, held more hats. These racks held rger hats at the top, about the size of a medium shield, and traveling down the hooks towards the base, the hats became smaller until one resembled a sort of fez. This seemingly impromptu shop was set up just outside of the Market District of Amhull, in the grass and dirt path just below the steps leading up to the roughly paved city streets. The wagon leaned gently on its long tongue hitches digging into the ground as she tossed her head back and forth in a distracted, rhythmic fancy. Her eyes were closed, her long brown curled hair bobbing and weaving back and forth along her cheeks and face. “Hats for sale, we’ve got hats for sale! Hats for sale, yep we got hats for sale. Uh-huh! Hats for…” she repeated this cadence over and over as light foot traffic passed by, paying her and the wagon no real mind.
Charlie had a young face and an even younger sounding voice, though she had seen more years than her appearance demonstrated. Her skin was a slight tan like one would acquire from sitting in the sun regurly, with dashes of freckles scattered about her face, ears and shoulders. Her lips were thin and tanned making it difficult to really tell her emotions from a smile to a frown most days. Her eyebrows were thick and prominent, but well managed, and they were the real tell. Her long-pointed ears jutted almost straight out from her skull, decorated with a lovely gold chain piercing on the left, and three gold studs on her right.
She wore a sleeveless, bck rogue-like top that adorned a buckled colr for decorative purposes. A few buckles around the chest hinted that there was more to see behind her long curled hair, but atop the wagon it was hard to say for sure. Her bck pants matched her top which clung tightly to her thinned yet toned figure. She had a dancer’s build that was for certain, and it was clear to any passerby that day who witnessed her gyrations how she kept it. “Hats for sale. What, what! We got hats for sale. Hats and hats and hats and—” Her feet were covered by long bck boots that hosted a number of straps along her shins. The clothing did not look too fancy or too blemished, just a perfectly well-fit ensemble of comfortable clothes for a hot summer’s day in hat sales.
“Hats. Not bats, not cats, not rats. Just hats. Big ones, short ones, round ones, square ones. Hats, we got hats for sale.” Her eyes stayed closed as she became lost in her own cadence. One passerby stopped for a moment to look closer at one hat, but taking an awkward gnce at the dy-child bobbing back and forth cross-legged atop the wagon quickly made his way onward after sharing a uncomfortable grimace at the scene. “Hats. Ooh yea, Hats. Come on. Hats. Dig it. Hats. We got—”
“Charlie!” an angered voice called out to her from a short distance away. Charlie snapped out of her childlike trance and opened her eyes. They were a remarkable mix of amber and gold and it was then that her beauty could be fully realized. On cue, her eyebrows raised to attention and began to almost dance on her forehead in anticipation. She could see in the distance two figures headed her way. Both men, one green and somewhat scaley in appearance with long pointed ears, and the other a tall bck human man with human features. The human still walking towards Charlie and the wagon commenced with an overly-articuted tirade.
“Are you dumb? Do you have some sort of deficiency we don’t know about? We put you in charge of the wagon to sell hats and you are literally sitting on top of the wagon, as far away from the merchandise as possible, while those brats are stealing from our deposit box!” the human figure barked loudly. Charlie shook her head almost like a twitch and then looked down towards the ground by the table where their deposit box sat. There they were. Two small children, scoundrels and beggars by the attire, sifting through the deposit box and giggling as they did. Charlie quickly sprung to her feet but caught one foot over the other as coming out of a cross-legged position takes grace and a little more attention than Charlie was affording at that moment. She sprung up and reached her hands out to grasp at the great nothing in front of her as she tumbled to the ground with a loud thud. The two children, one tiefling girl with tiny rosy pink horns atop her head and one that looked like a dirt-covered human boy filled the belly scoops of their shirts with whatever they had grabbed and began to run off into the Market District.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me…” the human stopped dead in his tracks and pced his head in his hands in disbelief, shaking it with an obvious disappointment. The man was tall with dark brown braided dreadlocks that pulled back into a loose nest behind his head, save for a handful of strands at the front that hung down just beyond his shoulders. The braids were knotted at the end with a few mismatched golden beads and caps. His face was stern, built around a strong jawline that was covered in mossy, bck beard that shaped neatly up to his braids and around his mouth. His eyes were a smokey grey with thick brows that were cleaned up nicely and had one stripe missing from the middle. His nose was rge and somewhat bulbous, but it did not take away from his masculine appearance. His lips were very full and dark which seldom came apart even in his often-had shouting tirades. The wrinkles between his brows made it clear that these tirades were a regur occurrence. He wore some ckluster armor pieces, far from a full suit, that sat loosely over some meshed clothing that resembled the texture of a potato sack. Were it not for the gold beaded hair and the less than adequate armor pieces, one might mistake him for a vagabond.
A green hand pced itself on his shoulder, “Worry not, friend. I will take care of this.” The green, scaly man (a githzerai by race) took a step towards the direction the children went and vanished in a whisp of bck mist. The children nearly bumped into him as he reappeared in another light bck mist in front of them. The children let out audible gasps of being startled, gnced at one another and back at the githzerai man. He looked down at them with piercing bck pupils that swam in a sea of yellow eyes. His face was scaley, but not like that of a reptile. It was patterned and yered in the most shallow way possible, like a human has wrinkles. His eyes were sunken slightly into his green skull that showed no indications of a nose aside from two sharp, upturned nostrils where a nose would be.
His tattered armor glinted in the sun and blinded the children for a brief moment as they stared each other down. The githzerai’s lips were thin and pursed, demonstrating his often serious demeanor, complimented by his equally thin eyebrows that seemed to be at a constant furrow. The hood of his cloak was down, revealing his smooth, bald scalp. He had a well-taught brown and orange ponytail of hair that stuck out from the back of his head, the end of the hairs dancing gently in the subtle breeze of the Market District.
His upper lip twitched ever so slightly for a moment which made his goatee wiggle ever so slightly. It was thin and long, like someone taped a thinning quill to the underside of his bottom lip feather-side down. Bck spots, rger than freckles, scattered along his brow lines and high cheek bones. His gaunt figure looked menacing in that moment to the two children who were still frozen in a stare down with the rge green githzerai. The githzerai cleared his throat and began to open his mouth, giving a new look that would insinuate a life-lesson lecture was imminent. Before a word left his mouth, the two children ran off in separate directions. He snapped back to the moment, having been cut off from what would have been a long-winded, parable filled lecture and reached out to grab the children. One hand each reaching for one child, he only managed to snag the one teifling girl on the left. The little teifling began kicking and shing out with one hand, while her other hand trembled to hold the scooped shirt that was quickly losing its contents.
The githzerai raised the child higher in the air until her eyeline matched his, as he stood just slightly over six feet tall. She met his eyes with a pouty scowl, her lips turned up and to the side frowning. His eyes squinted slightly at her as if to acknowledge how annoying he found her in that moment. Then turned away to see where the boy had run off to. He did not see the little boy, but saw the skirt of a rotund woman’s dress fly up as she gave a cry of shock. No doubt, the boy used it as a tunnel of escape and was lost in the sea of sellers in the bustling Market District.
The githzerai walked slowly back to the wagon with the tiefling girl, who had stopped struggling at this point, but swished her tail furiously in a non-combative manner. Charlie was standing next to the deposit box rubbing her head furiously with an expression of mild discomfort, though it was uncertain whether it was physical pain or embarrassment (most likely a combination of the two). The githzerai put the child down and said nothing, simply pointed to the deposit box with vigor. The tiefling girl looked at the box, back at the githzerai sticking out her tongue, and began putting everything she still had on her person back into the box.
“Thanks, So-Nobu…” Charlie spoke softly to the githzerai as she continued to rub her head. She had hoped the other man had not heard her, but he did.
“Yea, thanks So-Nobu. Thanks for actually being useful. Thanks for not being a complete Dip. Shit.” The man accentuated the final two words by speaking them with extra diction and looking directly at Charlie. Charlie’s eyebrows unmistakably furrowed as her lips turned into a brief snarl bearing no teeth.
“I said I was sorry,” said Charlie. The man who was still staring daggers at Charlie now turned his face into a horrifying grimace of disbelief. “No. No the fuck you did not.”
“Well, I’m saying it now. Jeez, get off my back. I just didn’t see them, they’re small and—” Charlie looked anywhere but directly into the man’s eyes.
“You didn’t see them because you were having a fucking daydream again.” The man leaned in closer to Charlie who was actively avoiding his eyesight. He opened his mouth as if to say something more, caught himself and just began to shake his head as he backed away from Charlie.
So-Nobu spoke up in this moment towards the angered man, “Andro, it is not wise to dwell on the past. The only things we can correct is in the now and the future. We are all very tired and—”
Andro held up his hand to So-Nobu, still shaking his head and said, “No, So-Nobu. We don’t make excuses. Everyone here is responsible for doing their part. And when somebody falls short on their part, it affects all of us. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go find a little boy!” Everyone, including the tiefling girl, Charlie, So-Nobu and a few passers-by all froze in silence at this statement. Andro turned flush red in the face as all eyes were on him, and he demonstrated he may attempt to expin what he meant by this. All that came out was a stuttered, “He, uhh, he stole my uhh, my business cards. I’m just…I’m just looking for my business cards.” A few looks of disgust from the passers-by and a wide-eyed expression from the tiefling girl was enough to convince him it was time to just carry on with his task at hand.
So-Nobu watched Andro walk off into the Market District and walked over to Charlie who was still staring down at the ground near the tiefling girl’s feet. Her arms were crossed and she looked a mixture of angry and disappointed in herself. So-Nobu did not say anything, just looked at her. Charlie gnced back at him briefly, back at the ground and then turned to face him. “Spare me the lecture. I know I fucked up, alright?” Her eyes rolled off to the side towards the cart. So-Nobu looked down as if to acknowledge this fact and then back to her face still saying nothing.
“It’s just…” Charlie started to expin, but her voice began to tremble a bit. She composed herself with a deep breath and began again. “It’s just that I haven’t had much opportunity to really be a part of these jobs tely and I feel like I am just dragging along by a colr while you two do all the real business y’know?” She looked at So-Nobu pleadingly. He returned this with an expressionless stare, clearly listening. “I do still have my talents you know. And I can be a great negotiator. And I can—” Charlie stopped mid-sentence. Without looking away from So-Nobu, she reached out quickly with her hand and grabbed the tiefling girl who was trying to sneak away. Unlike So-Nobu, she did not lift the child or even look at her. Instead, she used her other hand in a sort of wagging, give-it-here motion. The child scoffed and yelled “FINE!” and pced the st set of coins into Charlie’s beckoning hand. Charlie released the little girl and the girl ran off into the busy streets of the Market District. Charlie still had her eyes fixed on So-Nobu and So-Nobu only shared a brief gnce in the direction of the apprehended child.
So-Nobu sighed and put a hand on her shoulder. “To heir is human…” he said nodding his head. Charlie looked intently into his eyes awaiting for the second part of the saying. He said nothing, still nodding his head. “Isn’t there like a second part of that saying?” Charlie said with an impatient furrowed brow. So-Nobu thought for a moment and shook his head slowly, “Mmmmmm-no. To heir is human. But I am gith.” Charlie’s eyes rolled so far back into her head she may have seen what was behind her if there were a window instead of long hair. She groaned and walked off stomping her feet loudly.
It was then that So-Nobu noticed the group of hooded figures just off in the distance near the treeline of the forests behind where Charlie was standing. They were discussing something in a huddle, pointing to the forest behind them and to the Market District. They almost seemed to be arguing, but not loudly. They did not want to seem to bring too much attention to themselves. His head slowly tilted to the side as his eyes narrowed to get a better look. The hoods of the figures were drawn very low, but it seemed as though their noses (or perhaps snouts?) protruded beyond what the hood of their cloaks could hide. One figure took notice of So-Nobu watching them and gave a stifled change of posture to stand up straighter than when they were huddling. So-Nobu noticed the figure give a subtle point towards his direction as the other hooded figures looked over at him collectively. They all sprinted off into the forest in tandem, except for the one that spotted him who stood there looking at him for just a moment longer.
So-Nobu put a hand around the hilt of one of his katana-style swords which were sheathed at his waist. He always carried two of them on his waist harnesses except when he did his daily meditations. He would sit in a tight cross-legged position, light a candle, remove both swords delicately and raise them up before him ft against his palms in a beholding type of fashion. He would gently pce the swords down on a special cloth in front of him, bow his head to the swords, and then begin to enter a meditative state. He began to draw the sword ever so slightly as he made his first few steps towards the remaining hooded figure when he heard a voice from behind him.
“Fucked. Completely fucked!” So-Nobu whirled around to see Andro, covered in slimy, yellow substance dripping down his head and face. Andro was also coated in spatterings of yellow and clear slime all over his body, but mostly the top half. So-Nobu looked at Andro with some confusion, trying to figure out what was all over him before realizing it was egg yolks as he noticed parts of eggshell were still stuck to some of the slimy yolk dripping down Andro. So-Nobu quickly turned back around to look at the hooded figure, but it was gone. He stared in the direction, looking around carefully to see any traces left of them, but there were no signs of the figures. He released his hand from his sword and let out a sigh.
So-Nobu could hear Charlie stifling her ughter and doing a very poor job of it (seemingly on purpose because she wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to ugh at Andro’s expense). “Did you uhh (snicker) did you find that boy you were looking for?” Charlie said in a mocking tone. “Or did he make a swift egg-zit??” At this moment, Charlie could not help but burst out into ughter at her own joke. Andro shouted obscenities and expletives galore as Charlie gripped her stomach and dried an eye from ughter.
“How about this, Charlie? Hey! Stop ughing and how about this. Hey, how about you get your easily-distracted ass in there and go find him yourself? How about you do something useful? How about that Charlie? Hmm???” Andro was clearly very upset, but the environment felt all too familiar to So-Nobu who had seen these two bicker like siblings at least a thousand times before. Charlie, still ughing and wheezing, composed herself for a brief moment and smiling said, “You know what Mr. Wick? That sounds like—” she began ughing uncontrolbly as Andro cut her off. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you fucking dare say it.” Andro was staring daggers at Charlie who was once again trying to compose herself from her ughter. “That sounds like an EGG-cellent idea!” At this point Charlie could not control her ughter and fell to the ground kicking and grasping her abdomen as tears fell from her eyes.
Andro was snarling at Charlie and about to say something more to her when he heard a stifled snort off to the side. The egg-covered Andro Wick slowly turned his head towards the noise to notice So-Nobu was staring off in the distance and clearly trying to stifle his own ughter. So-Nobu noticed Andro’s attention was on him and shook himself back to composure, straightening up as he did.
“You know what?” Andro said, “I’m going to go to the Ill-Maiden’s Tavern, run a bath, and forget this day ever existed.”
“Going to see your girlfriend?” Charlie’s ughter was dying down, but not stopped as she emphasized the word “girlfriend” like a child would. Andro’s face went ft, “She’s definitely not my girlfriend.”
“Oh, so sorry mister grumpy pants. I didn’t realize she was your ex-girlfriend.” Charlie was standing back up now and smirking mockingly at Andro. Andro was about to answer when So-Nobu said, “Uh, Charlie.” Andro and Charlie both went silent and looked at So-Nobu with anticipation. “I think you mean, his eggs-girlfriend?” Charlie and So-Nobu both took a moment to process before both breaking out into roaring ughter. Andro looked up at the sky, “Fucked. Completely fucked…” and he walked off towards the Ill-Maiden’s Tavern.
It was there that Charlie and So-Nobu would meet him trying to dissuade his eggs-girlfriend that he was not hitting on one of the other dies at the bar. He was, but he would do anything to not admit it. As Charlie and So-Nobu found a table in the back and started enjoying a much needed mug of ale, a thin, dark-skinned drow elf with pale purple hair sat himself at their table. Both Charlie’s and So-Nobu’s eyes widened as they recognized the drow immediately. The drow smiled a deceptive smile and said, “Boss wants to see you.” Charlie tried her best to hide her uncomfortable expression behind the rge mug of ale that was quickly washing down her gullet. So-Nobu responded first and calmly, “We will visit him in the morning. It has been a long day and we just—” The drow cuts So-Nobu off from his speech, “Boss said he wants to see you. Now.”
