As the newest and youngest associate in the band of opportunists, young Xeye (pronounced Xay-ah), also known as Xey, just Z (pronouncing only the first letter of her name), or whatever other people who bothered to get to know her would call her, is intent on using this new venue to enhance her bounty hunting resume more so than she could if she worked alone. As it is now, the group is able to tackle obstacles, especially those involving multiple, interrelated targets or gangs and syndicates of those that simply are nearly impossible for individual assassins to take out. In that sense, little Xeye found an ideal way to promote herself as an elite hit-woman, associating herself with what could become the hottest, deadliest, and most feared mercenaries this side of Aerion. If in the worst case her colleagues weren't what they're cracked up to be or didn't hold up to the reputations that they held, or if they got killed off, she would simply part ways with them and resort to solo game for a living. The only hole in this strategy is where the money gathered for successful bounties is more oriented for a single assassin, in which case money meant for one person is instead split into 7. Xeye isn't too fond of that particular outcome, contemplating how the division of profit would be done, and undoubtedly some people would get more, even if it's just a few coins more due to the unclean math of dividing most numbers by a bizarre number like 7. If anything, Xeye would likely get the smallest amount, not for any reason that she found any evidence for, but rather because she is new, or the youngest, or maybe because they don't see her as an equal in strength. Whatever reasons she conjures in her mind, somehow, she is sure that her profit margins will dwarf everyone else's, even the dwarf's! Despite all this though, she would make the best of it, after all, she can always leave if she's not getting her fair share as she saw it. Her only fear, and her greatest of all, would be if her team of mercenaries, maddened in their pursuit of money would stumble on Xeye's darkest secret, one that could threaten her very life.
The black market, when you do business in it, has its consequences, especially given the lawless nature of it. Not to mention, black market business is in and of itself illegal, and the lords of the land and their enforcers would be after those who dabble in the hit jobs that mercenaries typically engage in. Luck would have it though that Eveamoor is one of the more lawless regions of Aerion, its governments struggling to keep the people there in line and thus being a prosperous area for the lawless. Certainly, mercenaries themselves would be prone to bounties themselves, if not by the law of the land, by vengeful victims with money to spare willing to dabble in the underground to exact their revenge. Xeye hadn't checked to see if her comrades had money on their heads, but Xeye recently learned the unfortunate truth of her own bounty, on "The Blue Wildcat" herself. However, maybe she'd luck out, for this hit-job out on her is from the government itself, likely due to the sole fact that she dabbles in arts that're taboo across much of Aerion, and Eveamoor is no exception. Even cleaning up the streets of scum would offer her no solace from the lords of Eveamoor, for the Blue Wildcat wields the forbidden powers of the arcane that grant her the envy, fear, and hatred from many, often ignorant people she crosses paths with. She had the hunch her new companions wouldn't react so fearfully or superstitiously towards her skill-set, but she couldn't be too sure. They all seemed too confident in their own abilities. Perhaps for that reason they wouldn't mind that she's a wanted woman if they found out and wouldn't seek out her bounty and betray her. Maybe she'd be able to make a home with this band of misfits, but for all of her hopes, until her fears could be allayed, she has to be ready for the worst case scenario.
Scurrying across the ragged streets of Dalenham, Xeye races across town, seeking out the destination their group had agreed to meet at to receive payment. Having had minimal time to familiarize with the city's layout, all Xeye can do is stay on the move until she spots her destination. What she did know, however, is that this tavern they're to meet at is in the ****tiest part of town. Ironically, Xeye quickly discovers that the tavern is LITERALLY in the ****tiest part of town. Manure graced the streets as if whatever made their way through here tried to create a mural out of their own dung as if it were amusing to offend the senses of those who'd pass through there, but then again, given the rundown area, the people living there are probably that indecent to begin with. In fact, the dung ridden streets are exactly that, a comical fact to the immature half-elf that finds herself looking down a street reeking of disease and rot and ridden with horse crap.
"Aww, ****! Dis place stinks! Eheheheheh!" she giggles like an impish little girl, her eyes squinting from the foulness in the air while clenching her nostrils shut with the fingers of her right hand.
The streets became the home of rats, stray cats, and the occasional beggar who looked up at Xeye as she passes by, with various looks in each pair eyes. While the looks of some men, their gaze locked on her body as if in some sort of hypnotic trance that eludes Xeye's curious minds to the real focus of their attention: the obvious physical assets that the woman carries on her body that she's as usual unaware of as one of men's most sought after pursuits. Fortunately, their perverted glances, given her obliviousness fail to disturb her to the extent that it would if she knew what they were thinking about. Instead, her focus is instead averted towards the poor orange cat with patches of its fur torn off that crosses in front of her, leaving its hidden alleyway in search of a new destination.
"Aww, you're a cute kitty!" she gushes over the cat, squatting down and reaching out to the cat with her arms with a warm, friendly smile, beaming towards the street animal with her eyelids closed, ready to take on the coming warm, fuzzy embrace of the feline she finds off the street.
Inadvertently, Xeye's innocent demeanor isn't prepared for the homeless cat's hostile reaction, growling and hissing while lowering the front half of its body to the ground as if ready to pounce in retaliating for its peace being disturbed, despite the young woman's best intentions. Her eyes burst open, recognizing the creature's obvious distress, retracting her arms while taking on a crooked, nervous smile, backing away ever so slightly by sliding her feet across the cobblestone streets to give the distressed creature its personal space.
"Oh, wait, wait, wait! I didn't mean to disturb you! I just wanted to give you a warm, friendly hu- Oh ****!!" screams the girl in shock, the cat hissing and growling in anger before lunging right at her, she attempting to alleviate the creature's discomfort through friendly words as if she could reason with the animal like she could any other person.
"Oh- owch! Wait, stop! Ow- you're a nasty pussy! C-cut it out! Dammit!" her screams echo across the street, disputing with the cat in an embarrassingly comical and childish manner.
"Dammit, get off of me!" demands Xeye, finally grabbing the snarling pussy cat by its sides and tossing him away from her, hard due to her anger but not so hard that it would cause the bad mannered cat any bodily harm.
"Stupid cat... All mean and... stuff!" she pouts, glaring in the direction that her last sparring match partner scurried off towards before her sensitive nostrils catch wind of another foul scent, detecting the additional presence of an unusual, wet substance on her body she didn't recognize before she had her scuffle with the cat. "What the... ...You got to be kidding me... D-dammit! That stupid cat got my butt covered in poop!"
Now her face burns red with anger and frustration. Even with the best of intentions, bad, embarrassing circumstances continue to befall her. Investigating the damage done to her animal skin skirt and her own skin, her thighs also falling victim to the manure she haplessly landed on during her engagement with a ferocious, feral street cat, she glares at her rear end, frowning in embarrassed anger as she pulls and stretches her skirt to determine the full scope of the damage done.
"Stupid cat... Getting my butt all poopy... All I wanted was a hug too! Hrmph..." she mutters, completing her surveillance of the ****-stained portions of her clothes and body. "This sucks... I hate this place! I'm telling Wolf Pops about this. He better let us leave this place! This is a really ****** town! ...Literally!"
Giggling once again upon recognition of the terrible pun she makes, her face contorts to a smile once again, laughing off her previous misfortunes due to the concoctions of her own immature mind. Little did she know, however, of the men slowly congregating behind her, recognizing the woman's own face paintings and the leopard scalp bandana tied over the top of her head.
"That's... That's her! It's the Wildcat for sure!" one of the men whispers to the others, huddling behind her, planning their next move. "Holy ****, boys! Do you have any idea how much her head is worth? And she's all alone! This is our lucky break!"
"Uh, are you sure about this?" another comments, questioning the wisdom of their plot to the man in front, a large, burly bearded man with dirty, worn attire. "I mean, she's THE Wildcat! A notorious mercenary who's disposed of some pretty hefty bounties from all over the country and beyond! She's easily worth WAAY more than anyone we've targeted before!"
Naturally, the other men there echo the cautious one's stated wariness, beginning to back away from the man in front out of the building fear they have towards the small woman not too far in front of them.
"Oh, come on! Are you all a bunch of pansies now? Just look at her! She's a tiny woman with the body of a temptress! The only way she's worth that much is in a brothel or as some greedy lord's mistress! In fact, I bet that's exactly how her head is worth so much! She tempts men too stupid to know better and assassinates them with those silly axes of hers when they've disarmed themselves and left themselves vulnerable. Just keep your weapons in hand and don't let this wench seduce you!" affirms the gang's leader, speaking boldly and confidently, confiding in their leader the men's trust due to the fact that, obviously, he's the leader for a reason. "Yeah, boss, you're right! Yeah man, she's just a sham assassin! Yeah, she'll be easy! She's just a dirty ****! She'll wish she IS a wealthy lord's babe when we're through with her!"
Reaching consensus, the gang of thugs rally behind their fearless leader, poising to strike at the unsuspecting young woman, caught up in her own laughter from the self-induced "punny" as she likes to call them. Her joyous chuckling cuts short rather abruptly, realizing then that she forgot something of great importance.
"Oh, I still need to visit Wolf Pops! Now where did he say we were to meet? The Stolen Head? Foreboding Stead? The All Knowing Achmed? Ermm... Uhm..." ponders her discombobulated mind, trying to recover the identity of their rendezvous point. "Oh yeah! The Down-trodden Ed? No wait, that's not right... Dammit, what was it? The Broken... Sled?"
"This is our golden opportunity! Let's go men! We'll drink well tonight! Charge!" roars the gang leader, storming out from the shelter of their alley, knives and swords drawn and aiming squarely for the unsuspecting woman's pretty head. "You're about to become domesticated, girl!"
"Huh?" she utters, cocking her head around to decipher the source of the bellowings of angry men, feet trampling the stone road like a herd of angry bison.
Without hesitation, she reaches over her right shoulder, dislodging one of her axes from the harness resting over her left shoulder, and swings it viciously, just in time to intercept the marauding bandits, deflecting or shattering their weapons with her technique as she reaches for her other weapon with her left hand, sweeping it across her immediate area in front of her, cutting deep into the flesh of the thugs and for some of them, severely severing the limbs of some of her assailants. One of them even parts with his own head, lobbed off by the wild swing of the Wildcat's second axe strike. In little time, the remaining assassins stop cold in their tracks, hesitating to continue their pursuit of this fierce woman (maybe she's a model!?). Of course, anyone would probably face intimidation when their ringleader's noggin goes flying like a piece of cheese separated by a butter knife. Their knees begin trembling, backing away slowly so as to not incite the half-elf's continued aggression.
"Whoops! I think I overdid it... Eheheheh..." scratching the back of her head as she giggles over her overexertion, examining the results of her blade flailing that is the thugs' leader's dismembered head lying in the middle of the street, completing a perfect metaphor with its landing softened by horse dung in the road.
"Dammit, I knew this was a bad idea!" yells one of the assailing men, quickly turning tail and making a run for it before the woman has a chance to permanently do away with them. "Get out of here!"
Cowards typically run fast when they pick a fight with the wrong opponent, and they did, that is, with the exception of one large, fat middle aged man, his arms and midsection suffering from oozing red wounds suffered from the penetration of Xeye's axe cutting into his flesh. Horrified by the woman before him, despite her vastly dwarfed stature compared to the men. Instead, he backs away slowly, only to be backed up into a wall, causing him to collapse onto the ground, trembling in fear as he looks up in horror, eyes shot wide open as he pends his suspected end.
"P-p-please! P-please spare me! Miss, please!" he stammers, his voice clearly anxious and shaken by what he just endured and witnessed.
Forgetting about the presence of the man trembling by her feet begging for mercy, her gaze shifts towards him, her face blank as her eyes fall upon him, the gesture of a curious young woman upon her face. Upon examining his pitiful stature, her retaliation is prompt, lacking any contemplation whatsoever, preparing to judge the poor, fat criminal for the error of his ways.
"Ok!" she beams, her tone upbeat as she smiles amiably towards the man, despite the fact that mere moments ago, he was attempting to take her life.
Walking away towards her next destination, the man is dumbfounded by her reaction, his eyes wide in shock in the phenomenal display of mercy the young woman had just shown the man. Surely she was to enact some sort of punishment upon him, but instead, she departs with a friendly smile as if nothing had happened. Such indiscriminate kindness and mercy is certainly a forlorn act in these parts. Perhaps he had witnessed an angel from heaven, bestowing upon him a blessing. Whatever the case may be, his actions had been completely forgiven, or perhaps just forgotten, looking over his shoulder down the street to look upon the merciful maiden who pardoning him for his sins without even a thought.
Naturally, Xeye has more on her mind than the band of desperate murderers out for her head, contemplating the name of the destination given to her group of their meeting point. "Now where did Wolf Pops want us to meet up? The Broken Sled? The Molding Bread? No... Wait, the Coagulated Keg!! Dammit, that's not either! What the hell was it!?
She progresses down the street, trying her best to finally remember the identity of the mercenaries' meeting place before her eyes glaze across what she's looking for, bring her long lost memory back to the forefront of her mind. Bingo.
"The... Broken... Keg... That sounds like a trash heap! Looks like it too," examining the appearance of the run down tavern that she's yet to recognize as the place she's been looking for in the first place. "Wait... that's..."
Gasping slightly, she rushes up to the tavern doors and blasts through the doors, grabbing the attention of the bar patrons briefly before returning to their drink or discussion, some of them catching view of the woman's voluptuous figure, whistling and hitting on the girl, unbeknownst to her as her focus remains solely on the identification of the person she came here to find.
"Oh, hi Wolf Pops!" she yells, cheerfully smiling while giggling happily in his direction while making her way to his table.
The man she recognized is none other than the notorious, gruff looking highman and one of the mercenaries of their gang. However, her socially obnoxious entrance, introduction, and cutesy pseudonym given to what would otherwise be an elite and renowned mercenary naturally caused most of the bar to look upon them with confused, awkward, or shocked eyes, surprised that someone would refer to such a powerful man as "Wolf Pops". Some of the men begin chuckling under their breath upon hearing his nickname from the young woman, but their soft laughing is tame compared to how they react after the half-elf's next utterance.
"Oh, hey bar guy! Do you have some milk? I'm thirsty! I can pay! My friend here's loaded!" she proclaims, at least for that moment proud of her association with "Wolf Pops" as she dubs him as at this exact moment, their relationship has an immediate benefit to Xeye.
"Uhm, excuse me? You said you want 'milk'?" replies the bartender, glancing at the excessively hyper young woman with a teasingly inquisitive look on his face, taken back by the woman's request for such a beverage in a tavern, no less.
"Oh, yes please!" she replies, not picking up the subtle social vibes emanating from throughout the room, including the bartender himself.
After a brief, silent, awkward pause of all noise throughout the tavern, the bar patrons all erupt simultaneously in raucous, out of control laughter over the situation, some men even falling out of their seats and slapping the floor in comical hysteria over what just transpired before them. Lost in what just unfolded before her, Xeye looks around the tavern, catching comments here and there, ostracizing her left and right, quickly eroding the smile from her face as the hurtful words from everyone around her begins to cut deep, hurting the blissful woman's feelings.
"Milk!? You want milk? Girl, this establishment is for adults! A girl like you wont last a single night in this town! Better run home to your mother before something bad happens to you, girl! This isn't a playground, kid! Go on home before you get hurt! Are you ****ing kidding me!? Does she know where's at!? Looks like she fell in some **** too! She called Varian Sigmund 'Wolf Pops'! 'WOLF POPS'!!! The biggest merc in town reduced to 'Wolf Pops'! How embarrassing!" are just some of many of the ridiculing commentary from the hysterical patrons of the tavern.
Xeye's gaze by then locked onto the wooden floor of the bar, her face frozen in a frown as her eyes are shut, perhaps a defense mechanism to keep out the hurtful language away from her, despite the vain attempt at such isolation. Her lips quiver in frustration and embarrassment, taking in all of the punishing verbal assaults from the bar's customers but unable to conceive of a proper retaliation in public under such ridiculing pressure. All she can do is remain locked in place, her limbs quivering in anxiety as her head is cocked downward, eyes shut while moisture begins to percolate by the edge of her eyelids.