Story 4: The pickpocket

It was another rough night at the ‘Plucked Chicken’, a rowdy tavern in the backstreets of the provincial capital. Passersby might have seen swift movements behind the stained yellow glass windows, and the muffled sounds of punching and yelling, and perhaps even the occasional tavern customer being launched through a window or out a door. Such passersby would have clutched their pearls and quickly hustled off, or perhaps they might have shaken their heads with a grin, because bar brawls were practically a nightly tradition at the tavern.

Inside, a cheeky rogue dodged a bar stool being flung in her general direction, and moved to skulk behind one of the tavern’s central pillars - getting some cover and being able to seize any possible opportunity that presented itself. She was a human woman with rich, brown skin; her messy dark hair fell across and around her face, and she had big, mischievous eyes of a deep amber hue. Her nose was broad and rounded, and her wide lips curled into a smile as she spotted an opening. All around her the tavern was havoc and mayhem as the patrons rolled across the floor and tumbled over the furniture to beat the living daylights out of each other, but the charming rogue was calm
and focussed, tiptoeing through the violent maelstrom towards an unsuspecting target.

Up ahead a brawny elven woman with a pixiecut of strawberry blonde hair stood her ground against a musclebound half-orc, who was drunkenly swaying and flailing his fists through the air. Despite elves’ reputation for slenderness, the elven woman was certainly not lacking in endowments. The rogue did not care about the outcome of their fight however. No, her eyes trailed down past the elf’s muscular shoulders, past the tightly laced-up leather bodice and the firm buttocks beneath, towards the evidently swollen money pouch swaying against her hip from where it hung from her belt.