Spring 14th – The Establishment
Zandelia had spent some time recovering after her now infamous bout with Two-Toothed Earl, taking her duties as one of Tua’s word runners easily enough to call almost relaxed. She had not faced much trouble in her wake, the few thugs she had encountered not being up to much in the grand scheme of things. In some ways she thought that Tua had been kind to her, her decision to give him more than his standard cut of proceedings perhaps weighing his mind to give her some leniency. Generosity was something the old spider was good at, but also knew how to accept graciously – a quality she had not expected from him if she were truthful. She had made him a good sum with her fighting skills and wiles, but now she was expected to carry out her jobs as well as was possible, something she took pride in as it inevitably put her ahead of her peer, whom for the most part were street rats and cowards.
Except Shadowfang, he is worth time and energy to develop. He uses his skills well, and Tua knows my feelings in regards to the man, something I’m not sure I’m completely comfortable with she thought as she loitered within the Establishment, awaiting her next missive to dispatch.
“Tell me Greiv, why do the cockroaches clamor so much for jobs they will probably die in?” she asked one of the brutish thugs standing a few paces away from her position against the wall, relaxed and ankles crossed as she watched the crowd with her practiced gaze.
“Money” the thug grunted at her shortly before keeping his eyes upon the throng and checking his weapons as he was habitually want to do every few seconds.
“They could make money somewhere else without paying Tua a cut, hire out as a whore or the like” she kept u her questions for him, hoping to one day use him as a source of information. She could not do that unless she altered his perceptions, though he often told her things she had not thought of herself. He was a valuable differing persp3ective upon the mob of citizens.
“Nah, too much pride and not desperate enough. Whores don’t get much respect outside of the two big places. Need Tua to get into those too” he told her, a useful piece of information that she had long suspected.
If Tua holds the access to Ruby’s and Brega’s it stands to reason he does to elsewhere too. Very clever, using Tua as a sort of ‘fence’ for jobs. Tua makes coin along with them and they only get the good ones of the crowd. Sneaky spider is a filer! she thought with a wolfish smile, euphoria coursing through her mind as what she had suspected was prove as truth from a long-standing thug of Tua’s
As she wondered how she could use that, twist it perhaps to suit her own purposes, she was interrupted by one of the clerks walking towards her with a letter. The clerk’s name was Dagrel, a slimy man with a penchant for leering at women. She sighed inwardly and rebuffed his crude comments with a physical gesture of her own as she snatched the letter from his grasp and look3ed upon the destination. It bore the name of Brega and, of course, Tua’s waxen seal. She smiled at that, wondering if Tua suspected she had found a way to perhaps probe into his workings without detection. She resisted the urge to tap her pockets as she stuffed the letter deeply into her Shadowsilk Robes and set about leaving the building, weaving her way through the throng without much effort.
“Oh Brega, it ahs been some time since I visited your house, I wonder if you remember the half-naive woman you met before?” she whispered as she pushed the door open and stretched her muscles once outside.
As she set about her routine, rolling her neck from side to side and pulling her arms across her body before moving onto her legs, grabbing her ankle and stretching the front of her thighs, she considered how the younger runners had not grasped the fact yet that speed was not overly important – it was whether you arrived in one piece, or at all. She had learnt long ago now that a few moments of careful preparation paid more dividends than fleet of foot when it truly came down to it. She followed up by tugging and securing her gauntlets, making sure the rope was still coiled at the small of her back and that her weapons were well secured also. Then she was ready and she began to plan out her route in her head in advance of actual movement.
Let’s see if we can still contend with the best she told herself as she set out on her mission.
