How Dreary to Spend a Day (Looking for the Missing/Stolen Jewelry)

It wasn’t every day that Leah found herself scouring the streets of Hargeon Town for someone’s apparently lost jewelry. All of this was because a random merchant had stopped her on the street (really, it was just like that café job), and he had begged the redhead to help him. To be honest, it was no wonder why the man had not been able to find the missing necklace already; the port city was huge. In fact, the girl found herself thoroughly regretting the decision to assist him, no matter how generous the reward had been promised to be. She had spent enough time in the past wallowing in the mud of towns such as this one, digging through trash and riffling through discarded plastic bags that littered the street. The entirety of her efforts had been for the sake of simply getting enough to eat, but this idea of having to search for precious jewels in the slick and mud of the city was new. Leah didn’t like it; the situation almost felt like making fun of her previous one, where people actually worried about finding enough to eat because they hadn’t gotten to do so in the past five or six days. Although to be fair, it was true that a shopkeeper’s goods were his livelihood, so the girl could only try her best to complete her mission. With a dark look at the sky, which was already becoming shadowed and overcast with clouds despite the fact that it should have been high noon right about now, she continued on her way. Perhaps she would have some more luck in finding the piece of jewelry, even if so far within two hours of searching she hadn’t…? What an unlikely scenario, in her opinion, but the girl hadn’t taken the time to measure the odds. So in reality, she had no idea of their true nature.

With a huff, she decided to just go back to her roots and ask a gutter kid. Heck, when she had been younger she usually was poking into all sorts of messes in the hopes that it would lead to something like food in her belly. Grabbing the arm of a nearby street urchin, the redhead dragged him close, much to the surprise of the boy. “Ye listen here t’ me,” said Leah with just enough irritation in her tone to show the youngling she was talking serious, “I’m lookin’ for sommat pretty, here about long and wi’ a nice great number of dangley stones hangin’ on it all expensive like. Don’t suppose ye know nothin’ about that do ye?” she addressed him in a low, but fast paced voice. The boy blinked at her blankly, but she was positive that he had understood; the kid looked like the kind that would be a pickpocket. They always were aware of their surroundings and paid attention to what other people were saying (lest they realize something was up and the foist outta run). Unfortunately, it seemed that the little guy wasn’t willing to cough up anything, so reluctantly Leah let him go. With a sigh of relief, the raggedy boy scrambled away and disappeared into an alley way.

“It ain’t like em to be so close-minded, might as I have offered em a little sweeten’in or the like t’ get a better response?” she wondered to herself. After all, she hated to let any jewels escape from her purse, but it wasn’t as though much could be done about it if information was what she desired from street goers. Shrugging to herself and deciding that it was probably inevitable that she couldn’t get a good informant on the first try, Leah slunk away from the main roads of Hargeon. The back streets and less bustling places might be the hangouts or living areas of those whom the mage wished to talk to. Generally speaking, the less eyes of authority which were on a scene, the more willing people were to open their mouths. Of course, who even knew if the missing jewelry was related to some kind of crime? Just as she was thinking about crime and lying, the redhead realized that indeed, the client had lied to her! The girl clearly remembered overhearing a conversation between the man and his wife just a few moments after she had left the parlor room, presumably to go to the bathroom. Although she had assumed that it was nothing much of useful information, in fact it revealed the discrepancy between the job description and the words during the couple’s exchange. Firstly, the slip of paper had dictated that the necklace had been lost during a vacation to the town, while clearly the man had muttered something along the lines of it mysteriously gone missing from her shop. But reading over the job advertisement again had gotten Leah into the mind of thinking it was simply a case of lost goods. Not this… this situation of something being stolen; as most knew or would be able to say after thinking even only briefly, there was more to be learned about thefts than the location of carelessly misplaced objects.

With a new extra skip in her easy step (somehow, the idea that it had been an actual crime paled in comparison to the realization that indeed, finding a street urchin would be even more helpful now and information would have a greater chance of having circulated or even existing in the first place) the emerald eyed mage finally reached the back end of an alley. Having expected to have been tailed here, presumably to be mugged or to have her head bashed in for some nefarious (or even just desperate) reason, the girl whirled around to meet eyes with anyone who could possibly be behind her. Much to her disappointment, nobody had seen the violently crimson hair as a beacon and instead, they had all left the weird foreign girl alone. Well, then. Leah supposed she would have to go seek out an informant using a different plan.

As the girl smiled wryly, she set off with a light and delicate step with an arrogant tilt to her head. If the signals she had sent out before weren’t good enough, then the mage intended to create a beacon so bright at least one thief would have to take as bait. Even going so far as to ReQuip a lovely pink dress that brushed her low calves and had trailing sleeves with puffy shoulders, Leah was intending to act the part of some wealthy woman on vacation in Hargeon Town. After all, that had been the excuse the man had used before (probably for the sake of not wanting to pay more jewels if there was combat involved, though). Continuing on at her slow, gentlewoman’s pace, the redhead wanted to groan with frustration when nobody immediately jumped her. That phrase sounded strange in her head and would probably be worse out loud, but all the girl wanted was a street urchin to extract info from- for gods’ sakes! The girl ended up basically patrolling the city once or twice before she realized that her path was too straight and unhesitating for it to be that of a midafternoon stroll, as she was hoping for. Changing the route to reflect the wandering mind of a juvenile sort of person, the kind that she was putting on airs as, the redhead crossed her fingers for greater success. And luckily, this new twist of the road took Leah to a much seedier place in the town, where there were plenty who looked to foist something off of her person.

One of them seemed to have won the rights to be the first to take a go at robbing the redhead, as he sidled up from behind her, slipping easily to her left side. Feigning that she was unknowing of his presence (and it would have worked anyways, since the shadows were in her favor; or not normally one in her position, but to her plan’s sake), the mage waited until he was close enough that she supposed he would try to obstruct her path sometime soon and use intimidation tactics to frighten her into giving up all her money. The girl hated the very idea of losing any jewels at all, so she resolved not to attempt bribery unless the situation was recognized as absolutely calling for it.

Throwing out her right arm in front of the boy, palm towards him, Leah caught him well off guard and the street urchin’s neck slammed into the limb that was stretched across his walking space. Before the would be thief could react to this unexpected bar of human flesh, the redhead twisted her body around to face him a bit more and manage to slide her left arm around his shoulders. Simultaneously, she loosened her right arm just enough to let it fall a bit farther down to tighten across his chest, rather than between his torso and head. “Well, me dear boy, lemme just ask ye a few questions then,” the green eyed girl said with a playful lilt to her voice. The boy didn’t seem nearly as interested in stopping for a quick chit-chat, but his eyes widened as Leah’s clothes disappeared in a dim glow of light, replaced with her ordinary leather armor and battle gear. Although it wasn’t exactly to her disadvantage for him to be scared of her, it did mean that she could have the possibility of acquiring false information if it turned out that he truly possessed none at all. People had a tendency to lie when they were worried about their safety.

“A-A mage,” the youth stuttered as his Adam’s apple bobbed nervously. “I-I ain’t wantin’ no trouoble wi’ a mage, missus, so’s be like if ye lemme go I ain’t tellin’ nobody about this.”

Leah was quite positive that the poor boy didn’t even know what he really was talking about, as she had no qualms about being known for forcing a thief to take a short break to chit-chat with her. Nonetheless, she flashed a kindly smile to sooth the more boy. “Da's right, I's a mage, bu' I jus’ be wantin’ ye to tell me if ye’ve seen sommat like this?” she queried, and his eyes showed true relief.

“Aye’s, true I did, missus!” he managed to get out, though his shallow breathing showed he was still only barely able to communicate. “Bu’ bein’ like, I ain’t a snitch or nothin’ I can’t tell ye much, trustin’ that ye understand, don’ ye? Talkin’ like that an’ all, missus?”

The boy did have a point, as Leah admittedly had been one of the street kids at some point in her life. But no longer, and anyways, she had no problems lying effortlessly (not even between her teeth). “No, you are incorrect in that statement. Now if you would kindly divulge the location of this fine piece of jewelry, we would not be having any additional problems,” she murmured quietly, her piercing eyes fixed on his dark ones. After visibly gulping, the street urchin nodded hastily and relinquished the information. Miraculously enough, the address was that of a pawnshop only one or two blocks away. Whispering her thanks to the youngster, the redhead released him and promptly continued walking as though nothing had even happened in the first place.

Talking to the boss was easy enough, armed with the extra knowledge the kid had given her. Apparently, the shady old man kept his records of all items acquired and their original sources in a secret file in the back room. All that had to be done was to blackmail him into opening it for her, which the girl did smoothly and without hesitation. Something about the glint to her jade eyes made it difficult to disagree without fearing for his life. The entire time she had rifled through the safe, his eyes had become more and more resentful that now he would be arrested and likely thrown into prison for not only theft, but for the unrightful reselling of property belonging to others, among other criminal acts. As this annoyance at being busted evolved into a decision to attack the girl, the man lifted up a one handed mace that had been rather surreptitiously stashed behind a table, only to be met with the grinning expression of the tall redhead. Leah had been waiting for this; having noticed the weapon right upon entering the room, since it was barely even hidden at all, the only question was of when the shop owner would decide to strike. Immediately acting and dashing across the room (not so fast that one’s eyes couldn’t follow, but quick enough that non magic users would be unable to react in time) the redhead slit his throat cleanly and easily. It was perfectly legal, and she doubted anyone would miss the cheap geezer anyways.

2162 Words.