"One month at whatever rate you see fit."
The offer rang better with Kechts than he cared to admit. It would perish the troubles of constantly looking for work to get by for an entire month, with a pay of whatever he deemed reasonable. Suppressing his urge to nod like a madman and quickly accept, to avoid coming off too avaricious, he instead gave a polite nod and smile, and extended his hand for an agreement.
"I accept this most gracious offer, master Gonye." Kechts' voice slid through unexpectedly clearly - rich and pleasant, as if his delight had mended his mangled speech briefly.

Nero opened his mouth to scold Lucia on her cowardly and less-than-warrior ways but quickly closed it after seeing her ready herself once more.

"I'm sorry," her voice sounded meek compared to the roaring crowd around them. "I'll try again"

Nero smiled as he crossed his arms. He was glad to see Lucia at least put up a good effort.

______
Nadya shrugged. "I was unable to see any other way into the market when I crossed the way." Rising to the tips of her toes she attempted to find a clear path through the market and to the other side. "It doesn't appear there's really a flow of traffic here, people simply move where they can when they can. I suppose we could try and do the same thing, right?" Nadya reached out and gently clasped at Talaitha's wrist. "Try and stay close-" It seemed the elder gypsy had made up her mind. "I'll try move through the crowd and get to the other side!" Immediately after her declaration of intent Nadya began to wade through the crowd with Talaitha in tow. She bobbed and weaved, ducked and dodged, and finally after some time of moving through what felt like infinite waves of moving obstacles she began to notice the density of people drop drastically. In fact, there were so few people on this side of the market that Nadya felt safe letting go of her younger companion.

"It appears as though we made it." Nadya let out a deep breath as she looked back on the lumbering crowd. It amazed her entirely that she was able to even move let alone breath in something so compact.

Directly in front of the pair was a number of stalls that seemed to be frequented much less than those on the other side of the market. Among them was the stall the butcher had pointed them towards, a tall wooden stall with a red tented top and golden lettering that read, "Trafficked Goods".. Behind the front counter of the stall was a middle aged man with black, tied back hair, tanned skin, and brown eyes. He appeared to be wearing a permanent scowl on his face and the remnants of large scar marked the entirety of an area which spanned from the back of his ear to the tip of his chin.

_______

"Great!" Gonye grinned as he returned his hand across the table. "I just have some things to get outta' the way with ya' before I send ya' on yer' way with the boy-" he c*** his head towards Quentyn. "First off; I would like it if you told me the nature of yer' abilities. Secondly I'd like to make ya' somewhat aware of our complicated situation, it'll take some explaining which can be done later but for now I need ya' t'make me a promise. I need ya' to swear that ya' won't share information with anyone but myself. We're in pretty unstable situation and some information ya' may know, as is your profession, could be... bad for us. It could shake up our little group and cause major problems for us so I'd like it if ya kept to yourself mostly, at least for now, savvy?"

______

Talaitha relaxed her body as the two broke through the crowd and arrived in a less dense area of the market. Regaining her composure after the tight squeeze, she immediately noticed that the purveyor of the stall was, despite appearing angry and possibly displeasing, judging by his looks, one of their kind. This elated Talaitha inside, if only because if he was a gypsy he would understand exactly what she was looking for.
Leading the way, she approached the tent and peered inside to see the man's wares.

"Is there any chance you sell any gypsy food?" she asked with a polite smile.

"Aren't you a bit far from home, Aitosian." The man responded coldly to Talaitha's request. "Your kind rarely fares well outside their borders." He leaned forward into his stall and began to exam Talaitha closely. It was at this range that Talaitha noticed something odd about the man, his ears. Hidden beneath his sleek, long, onyx hair was pair of ears that seemed to be pointed and curved slightly upwards at the tips.

"There's no need to be so leery..." The man returned across his table as Nadya approached. "We simply heard that you sell foreign oddities and we're hungry."


"And what exactly are you looking for? Soups? Stews? Meats?" The man responded impatiently.

Nadya immediately looked to Talaitha for an answer.

Talaitha, annoyed by the man's response, pulled her head away as he leaned in to look at her. What surprised her was his peculiar ears, something that she had never seen before in her life. She murmured thanks as Nayda approached the tent and the man returned to his original position behind the counter. After being asked what she desired, Talaitha replied

"Lamb Kebabs," answered in the same tone of voice he asked her.

Erratus gave an exasperated sigh, clearly frustrated that what he -- and probably he alone -- thought was a clever misdirection had gone to waste. Nevertheless, as Lucia returned to a fighting stance, the thief did as well. This time, she adopted ox position, which suggested that she intended to attack with a thrust. However, he couldn't be certain of that, especially after the move he had just made. Perhaps she would-

Before he could finish the thought, Erratus realized that the business end of a scabbard was coming straight toward him. He managed to react quickly enough to make a sloppy parry and knock Lucia's sheath aside, but his footing had been compromised. The thief backpedaled a few steps and recovered his balance. Having lost his opportunity to make a clean counterattack, he instead retaliated with a horizontal slice.

Lucia's arm was mildly jarred by the clashing of their sheathes, but she did not step back as she had done previously. While everything was happening so fast, it seemed to her that time seemed to slow. She watched as Khast backpedalled and raised his arm to swing horizontally at her, she raised her arm to parry it, and soon felt the reverberating vibrations travel up her arm once more, gritting her teeth as she straightened her arm to lunge forward.

While her resolve had definitely been restored, she still felt that she was very much in over her head, she knew she would not be able to take any more hits and that they would have to stop.

Erratus furrowed his brow as Lucia parried his blow and lunged toward him. She now had his full attention, something that the absent-minded thief was reluctant to give. As her sheath rushed toward him, Erratus flicked his wrist, swatting it aside with just enough force to cause it to miss. Then, in one smooth motion, his arm twisted and snaked past Lucia's scabbard, thrusting his own weapon directly toward her sternum.

Lucia had little time to react, and she gasped sharply as the scabbard jabbed her in the chest. Immediately losing her grip on her weapon, clutching a hand to her chest, as it clattered to the ground.

The vendor nodded to Talaitha's request before vanishing behind his stall via a small exit-way carved into the back of the wooden, boxlike structure. Following his exit the smell of burning wood began to fill the air and it wasn't long after that he reappeared with a wooden tray filled with lightly cooked, cut, and skewered veal.

"This kind of food isn't cheap, girl." He seemed to be insinuating that Talaitha had no way to pay. "2 copper coins a piece, I only take Aestarian coins. No inutile Riverlander coin, no thread or strings."

"We'll take six then." Nadya stepped forward and handed the man 12 copper coins. Quickly she snatched up six of the kebabs and handed three of them to Talaitha. It appeared as though the man was drawing on her last nerve. "Is there anything else then?" Nadya checked over her shoulder, back towards the vendor, one last time before taking a few steps away.

________

"Point to Khast." Nero announced as he grabbed for Lucia's scabbard. "You both did well, but Lucia you're overcommitting to your strikes." He reached forward to return her lost scabbard.

"Khast has an obvious strength advantage over you, so putting too much force into one strike, especially if it's parried, leaves you extremely vulnerable. You need to hunt for openings and try your hardest to stay within close range where the overall power of your swing matters much less. Form is what you need to try and master and abuse. If you can stay calm and collected whilst also keeping your footing you will eventually find a hole to strike. There's no such thing as a perfect defense." Nero clasped his hands together and stepped away from the pair.

"Let's set up again and try once more."

Lucia nodded, taking mental notes of what Nero had to say, and then returned to the original stance waiting for Khast to strike.

"I swear it. All will be confidential," Kechts promised Gonye assuredly.
He quickly went on to explain his abilities.
"My greatest asset      sound magic. I can creating      any kind of sound around myself,      if i wish, at different volumes. I      deafen others or whisper      with perfect privacy."
He chose to withhold a few details and continued to explain how he tracked Talaitha earlier.
"When      with your group I raised      hearing threshold in      locate their missing friend. Such a thing      toll on me so I      do it only occasionally."

"No, that should be it," Talaitha replied as Nadya handed her three of the lamb kebabs. She stopped to take in the smell of the lamb, something which reminded her of home, wherever that may be. Taking a bite of the first cube, she glanced ahead at the massive crowd. She did not really desire to walk through that crowd again, at least not until she finished her meal.

"Nadya," she mumbled, swallowing her first bite. "Where were you from? Where is home for you?"

Gonye nodded with a smile as Ketchs spoke, he seemed pleased with his new companion's responses. "That'll be all for now then. The boy will show ya' where were stayin' in town." Gonye's hand lazily waved towards Quentyn and, instinctively, Quentyn rose from his chair and quickly exited the tented-tavern with Kechts behind him...

The young mercenary guided Kechts once more through the busy streets and just like last time he spoke not a word. It seemed almost as if he were upset over the discourse that had just taken place despite the fact that he wasn't scolded for initially hiring Ketchs.


"This is it." Quentyn groaned as he halted before a two story wooden structure with a great striped canvas tent top. "This is the inn where the other members of our company are staying. The captain probably rented rooms out so I'm sure if you just ask for a room under his name they'll show you to it." Quentyn swung open the door of the inn and directed Ketchs towards a woman sitting behind a desk in the center of the door filled inn. "The others should be in their rooms... or not" he added sharply before pushing Ketchs into the inn and closing the door behind him.

______

"Vandalos." Nadya responded without even a milisecond's hesitation. "The south-west most portion of Aitos is where it is- right on the border of Doltry." Her voice wobbled as she swallowed a chunk of lamb. "It was a large city, one of the largest our people built. We rarely built cities, but of the three we built, Gitano, Mircea, and Vandalos... Vandalos was definitely the greatest." Nadya's voice was filled with striking nostalgia, but her deep brown eyes could not hide her true feelings. Sunken deep inside her memories of home was heartache and an overwhelming sense of loss.

For a moment Nadya simply dwelled on her words before pulling herself back to reality. "And where were you from?"

Talaitha felt terrible looking at Nadya's expression as she answered the question. She didn't want to bring up any painful memories, but she figured she would have done so inadvertently. She took another bite of lamb as she thought about how to answer her part of the question.

"I was born into a traveling community and was raised by it communally. We strayed away from cities due to the general opinion of our people so I mostly lived in a wagon my entire life. I always wanted to see what city life was like, but it never worked out with who I was," she replied, feeling sad as she dwelled upon it. "I sometimes wonder what it would be like to have grown up in one of the cities. The members of the community always spoke of where they were from and I always imagined what the grand buildings might have looked like in person."