“I am not going to accept anything less than three gold pieces, Machine.”
The rather rude shopkeeper met Brathis’ eyes as he placed a hand protectively over the carpenter’s kit he was selling. The shopkeeper was a green scaled Lizardken, a bit on the bigger side as those who live a sedentary lifestyle are prone to being. Still a six, nearly seven foot tall man who would not hesitate to call the watchmen on the offending customer he deemed unworthy of his wares. And this particular customer was rather more… undesirable than most. His race and general attitude are rather relevant at the moment.
For Brathis was an Ironkin. Or a Machine. Or walking scrap metal. Or a variety of other creative, wonderful names the general populace of Ninovacia came up with for her and her kind.
She looked back at the proprietor of the general goods store, quite unable to glare at him even if she had wanted to. Facial expressions were a silly thing to have where she was from. Yet one more thing that separated her from the man in front of her.
Brathis internally sighed instead and withdrew her coin pouch, feeling that it was depressingly light. Finding the three gold pieces, she paid the outrageous, outright exorbitant price of the carpenter’s kit. One she could have gotten half as cheap elsewhere, if she had not cared for the quality of the tools. But if there was anything Brathis was going to cheap out on, it was most definitely not going to be those tools. Where others recovered from wounds and injuries with bandages, medicine and general bed rest, her kind relied solely on tools to fix themselves up.
“Now piss off. Next.” The shopkeeper kindly said.
As the Ironkin opened the door to the shop, carpentry tools tucked under an arm, she heard a much more calm and agreeable exchange between the shopkeeper and another customer.
“Do you perhaps want a carpenter’s kit? I’m selling them only for one gold five silver!”
As Brathis finally exited the shop and stepped into the lively streets of the city proper, she had a thought. The Brathis of a few weeks ago might have been indignant about the blatant mistreatment, even furious. She would have demanded the actual price, and made it everyone’s problem. Well, thanks to a couple of stays in the local jail, the Brathis of now knew better than to expect any different.
Darkly amusing, but depressing nonetheless.
Brathis navigated her way through the streets, winding this way and that and avoiding any Lizard- or Drakken that gave her a dark look.
Brathis herself looked not too dissimilar to one of the Ken. If you looked at her from far away, that is. And if you had vision problems. And were colorblind.
The point was, she looked vaguely like the Ken. She had snout. They had a snout. Her hand and feet turned to claws. Theirs’ did. That’s where the similarities ended, however. Under her dark blue cloak and loose fitting clothes, Brathis was made mainly of wood, oak, with a few key parts of her body being steel. Her upper chest (No mammaries, yet another similarity to the Ken), her arm joints, her leg joints, and finally her neck. Her head was a large cone, the end point resembling the aforementioned snout and indents drilled higher up the base for her green, glowing eyes. Her torso was oddly segmented, lacking the flexibility of the flesh, and her limbs were similar to that of a wooden puppet.
The end result was an Ironkin who was made an awful amount of wood to be actually called Ironkin. She did not miss the irony.
Brathis had based her appearance on the Lizardken, back before arriving at the Brass Continent. She had idealized life in the Brass Empire as a whole, the main reason she looked this way. Had she done the same but for the Humans of the Steel Kingdom or even the Dwarves of the Golden Monarchy, she was sure she would have been given looks of mild respect or vague approval. ‘Good’, she imagined them saying, ‘That is yet one more person loyal to my nation. I should be friends with her and not sell her overpriced products.’
Quite surprisingly, this incredibly backfired on her in the case of the Brass Empire due to reasons of religious significance. She was still not that clear on why, but the long and short of it meant that anyone who tried to look like a Drakken or Lizardken mocked Orreden’no apparently.
After about half an hour of traveling, she made it to a inn. She took a moment to take in the building, it being the only establishment she was even remotely able to call home.
The Three Suns Inn was an inn of a certain reputation. It stood at two stories tall, it’s architecture timeless but for the aging wood that made up the place. Next to the door, a sign nailed to the wall proclaimed that it was open for all hours of the day, catering to both of the cycles that comprised a day. But the biggest draw to this inn was the fact that it was a known hotspot for jobs sellswords and mercenaries could take in return for payment. It had the official license issued by officials that allowed the Three Suns to keep posting these requests, in fact. It did not hurt that the options for it’s fare were, if not exquisite, at the very least cheap. The perfect place for someone looking to make a name for themselves, in short.
And Brathis’ home.
The Ironkin bounty hunter entered the inn, the sound of the ambient streets of Ninovacia suddenly morphing into the lively chatter of drunk workers enjoying their lunch hour in the inn. The inn was rather big on the inside, with many tables and stools interspersed throughout the area. Many of those tables were occupied by people of many types and walks of life. From the old, grizzled veteran retelling her glory days to doe-eyed youths to the young man in robes practicing with a flute to the dismay of the patrons near him. But where there were the most people was the wall to the right of the door, where there was a large post board. On it were job listings, bounties, general information, everything one could ask for coming in to the Three Suns Inn. And there, to the far end of the inn, right next to the stairs that led up to the rooms that were rented, was a barkeep and her assistants handling the chaotic atmosphere of the inn with the practiced grace of staff that have had to serve dozens of patrons at a time, perfected into an art of it’s own.
Brathis walked straight upstairs, already quite use to the atmosphere of the inn, and made her way to the room she resided in. Entering, she saw that compared to some of the rooms she had seen others stay at here, she drew the short end of the stick. It was simple room with a bed, a chamber pot, a table and chair, and finally a chest to store things in. That’s it. Needless to say, it was quite a cramped room, but not exactly uncomfortable to the bounty hunter, given her previous life among the jungles of her home.
Home…
Brathis slowed momentarily, halfway inside her room, at the though. Then she promptly put the image of her past life away from her mind and closed the door behind her. She sat at the chair, and carefully plopped her overpriced carpenter’s kit on the table. She opened the case, revealing a varying array of tools fit for any situation one might conceive in matters of wood working and carving. She admired the quality of the blades and tips of the tools, seeing how it shines so. She wanted to express her giddiness, but she did not. She had to conserve her voice box, not use it for frivolous sounds or noises. It was irresponsible, and the main reason why she did not speak almost at all to that rude shopkeeper.
But then again, these were good tools. Maybe just one little noise…
“Squee.”
“Puppet Girl,” The barkeep, a female orange Drakken, spoke to Brathis as she sat down at the bar on a seat to the far left of the common room. “Did you happen to hear a weird, whistling noise?”
Brathis gave a non-committal shrug, inwardly embarrassed she’d been heard.
The barkeep, Wifidia, did not look convinced, but dropped it. She began speaking with another patron as she cleaned a tankard with a dirty rag. Brathis was glad she did not need to drink. Imagine mushy foods or wet liquids in your system?
Eugh…
Wifidia, the only Drakken whose name she bothered to remember, came back to Brathis. She asked.
“What will it be today, Puppet Girl?” How Wifidia knew she was a woman, Brathis did not know. But at the very least she could guess that she resembled a life-sized puppet. Considering that’s what Wifidia called her.
Brathis spoke, carefully rationing her words. “Broken Wood.”
The barkeep sighed, quietly wondering why she was even surprised. She went over to a pile where broken furniture was put, and came back with a table leg. Brathis paid for it and inspected the table leg.
“You are lucky we have such rowdy guests.” Wifidia opined. “I would never give you whole furniture or whatever it is your kind eats.”
“Noted.” She replied. Her voice was odd, not exactly like someone who had vocal cords. If she had to describe it, she would compare it to a stringed instrument attempting to speak. Was it possible? Perhaps. Would it sound good? There was a reason instrument-speech went out of fashion long ago.
Nonetheless, Brathis got to work, pushing aside her cloak to reveal a badly damaged left arm. The Arcanic runes on her inner forearm were unscratched, thank Stavi, but otherwise her arm was banged up pretty bad from a close encounter with a huge wolf. Brathis withdrew a chisel and some adhesives, then got to work repairing her arm.
Wifidia, initially busy with the rush of lunch hour, had stopped to watch after she had finally free enough once most of the traffic had stopped. She was rapt with attention, seeing how Brathis precisely carved out bits of her own arm, then carved out the complementary pieces from the table leg, using only economical cuts and preserving as much of the table leg as possible. Once she had the pieces, she would apply adhesive to the ends of the pieces and slot them into her arm, taking care to wipe away any excess substance. Once she had finished, she applied a temporary varnish on it. Having applied the finishing touch, at least until she could fix up the arm more in private and with all her tools at her disposal, Brathis put away her tools.
“That’s weird stuff, right there.” Someone else had also been watching, a young Lizardken sitting next to her.
Wifidia nodded in agreement.
Brathis looked straight at the Lizardken’s eyes, reminding him just exactly who he was talking to. He paid for his drink and quickly left.
“But is he wrong?” Wifidia asked, staring at Brathis.
Brathis shrugged, then spoke. “Flesh is weird.”
The barkeep sighed. “Just go get what you came here for. You’re scaring away my guests.” With that she left to attend to the other patrons.
Brathis, copying that young man’s example, stood from her seat and marched straight to the job board, hopeful that she may find something worth doing. Naturally, everyone cleared the way for the foreign, despicable Ironkin that was not worth the dust of their boots.
Looking at the board, Brathis was quickly disappointed by the selection of available jobs. Sure, she could have come earlier and gotten the lucrative jobs. In fact, she had done exactly that. But it’s amazing how quickly a visit from some angry mercenaries changed your views on striking it rich quick. So now she is left jobs like…
“Hah, look at that thing. Is it really considering that listing?” She heard someone say as she glanced at a notice for gathering…plants? Who would want to do that?
“I bet it is, because it’s stupid.” Said another voice in what was quite an uncalled for insult. She briefly considered it because she was desperate.
But then her eyes landed on something interesting. It read:
BOUNTY: DEATH RAZOR GANG, 15~ MEMBERS. DEAD OR ALIVE.
Quite a bit of gold was listed as the payment. Well, if no one else had picked this job, surely that meant that she could have a go at it. Right?
Taking the paper, she went right to the bar, in front of the designated person who was supposed to authorize each request for each recipient. She placed the paper down theatrically, thinking it wouldn’t hurt to appeal to the Ken’s infamous inner sense of drama.
The Drakken looked at the listing, raised an eyebrow, looked up at who brought it, then sighed.
“Are you aware that this job is highly dangerous?” He asked.
Brathis shrugged. That was her favorite gesture. It conveyed so much, yet required so little movement.
“As in,” He continued, “You are along against an entire gang?”
Brathis shrugged again.
The administrator, used to Brathis’ tendency to be mute, sighed again. “This gang is one of the respectable, if small ones. Big enough to control the district over at least, if only from the shadows.”
Oh, this sounded like something straight out of her favorite stories! Brathis nodded vigorously.
“What does that even mean- Nevermind. Legally, you are now aware. Enjoy your attempted suicide.” The man said as he signed the document, then asked for the Ironkin’s signature.
With that, Brathis went upstairs to further repair her wounds.
She had quite the big day tomorrow.