Sigil: City of Doors

About Metagaming: Let's keep this short and sweet. I'm not going to report anyone. We're not children, if anyone can't understand the OOC nature of this information then I'll simply cease all future roleplaying activity with the offender. Play fair or don't play at all.

Basic Information
Name: Sharp
Aliases: Margo Kiss-the-Sun
Gender: Female
Race: Halfling
Age: Late 30s, roughly
Profession: Professional assassin, fixer, ex-professional gambler.
Languages: Infernal, Celestial, Halfling, Undercommon, Common.
Accent: Just another Primer. Typical happy-go-lucky halfling.

Physical Information
Height: 3'11"
Weight: 50 lbs.
Body build: Slim and nimble.
Skin type: Dusky and travel-worn.
Hair style: Short and boyish.
Scars: Faded line along the front of her neck.
Colouring:

[b]Hair:[/b] Shiny black. [b]Eyes:[/b] Warm blue. [b]Skin:[/b] Very strong tan. [/li]

Mental Information
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Philosophy: The world's fun if you're strong. It's a pretty miserable shitshow if you aren't. Find the power that suits you best and wield it ruthlessly. Don't lie when the truth serves better but beware of letting anyone too close. No such thing as justice or love, everyone's got violence in their hearts. Good times won't last so don't wait, do what you want today. Selfishness is power.
Allegiance: The Merkhant Lord Taslei V. Throne.
Personality: Cunning. Cold. Two-faced. Ruthless. Hedonistic. Greedy.

Additional Information
Gear: Doesn't take a bright berk to figure out she's got something for kukris.
Habbits/hobbies: Gambling, chocolate-based candy and darts.
General Health: Mature and reasonably fit, bags under her eyes.
Weaknesses: She can't always conceal her contempt and disdain for other people properly. When she slips up, it can be jarring. Sometimes her lies catch up to her when she can't keep all her stories straight. She fears torture.

Tradegate.

It's a hell of a drug. Slums that stretch deep under as the bold berk dares going. Ivory towers gilded in gold and jewels stretching as high as the eagles fly. The wealthy and the ambitious alike mingle in the colorful streets, every day is carnival and grand bazaar in Tradegate. Bathhouses and dive bars churn out white smoke from the cooking and steaming, cards fold and dice roll and coins clank in the casinos and warehouses. Hands are shaken and knives coated bright red.

Silver flows like blood in Tradegate. And everyone from the lowliest berk to the loftiest magnate dreams of seeing his face on Tradegate's infamous dinar. Who doesn't want to be Potentate?

Riches beyond the wildest dreams of avarice await.

It's good to be Sharp. Can't touch this halfling, y'all. Another day, another mark. Gleaming gold and burning blood, excitement and lasciviousness and fine food. Owning this town. Calling it your own. This is your home, damn straight.

Let's rock this joint. Live hard, die young. Does anything matter but the next morning?

Smack.

Ow.

Sharp comes to eventually, she feels pretty groggy. Hungover? No, she didn't drink any-Â… oh right. She was drugged uh?

The Aasimar has a smile like all the Nines and some of the lower layers too. His small stunted wings are perfectly groomed and he's got the charming allure of a real paladin acolyte.

Except the smile. Never reaches his eyes.

"Thought you could cheat the great Lord Taslei, did you?" he asks, grabbing her hair roughly.

"Â… for a while, yeah." she admits, trying to offer her typical fake smile.

"Wipe that disgusting vulgar smirk off your face, you worthless ***." he pulls harder. She whines at the sudden sharp pain. Feels like he's about to tear her neck off.

"Do you want to die?" the Merkhant asks with eyes that might as well be daggers.

"Â… no, not really." she manages eventually with some effort.

"Then, as they say in Tradegate, let's make a deal."

Somehow, she felt as if she might've made the wrong call.

And that was the day that Sharp vanished from Tradegate.

And then the next, Margo Kiss-the-Sun made her appearance in the same. Can't outrun them all. Can't beat them all. And some monsters have more than knives and poison.

AndÂ…

And some contracts are more binding than others.

Drip drip drip.

Counter-intuitively, silence can be deafening. It can ring so bombastic that you'd imagine you were audience to an avalanche.

Air can be heavy too. Clinging to clothes and cloying with the heavy lingering persistence of lead. Life doesn't smell nice, even if we're fooled to imagine otherwise by common wisdom.

There's nothing pretty about the dead family. They didn't spite her or wrong her. They hadn't known her and hadn't been in her way. But they had to die and her hands were used to do it. It wasÂ… different. Very different. No release or vindication.

Second thoughts? No, not really. People die, shit breaks. It happens, she was only doing her job.

And yet there's this annoying itch that makes it hard to move on. Already she should've been gone without a trace. Bright blue eyes languish on bloodied knives.

Is this what they call survival of the fittest? Guess so.

She reaches for the smooth featureless platinum coin in her pocket and leaves it on the glassy-eyed and pot-bellied man resting limp on his dinning chair. Then she throws away the gloves on her way out.

And something else too.

Date unspecified, Tradegate, Cloudy morning

Sometimes, I dream about my childhood. And how happy I was then.

They say ignorance is bliss, right? That's not true. I just didn't know what it meant to be happy. We were all nobodies. And our lives meant nothing. Like this morning, I remember the taste of breakfast together and the warmth of family.

When it went away, I realized that I was able to survive. And they weren't. So I left the childish things behind. I knew better than to cling to old discarded toys. Adversity isn't always the worst despite what naivety and sentimentality might have people believe.

It taught me so much. That life is fragile. That life is cheap. That we're all careless fishes in a sea of sharks unless we keep our eyes peeled. That we all live in the shadow of towering wolves most don't even dare peek at.

The very same people will tell you that innocence is precious. That we have to be better ones. That you shouldn't gamble with death. What do I have to say to that?

Lift your eyes up. You can't know how high you can fly until you fall.

And I'm still falling.

Packing is such a pain.

Check and double-check and triple-check that you've got everything. Can't afford to backtrack otherwise. Right there spread over that nice mahogany table she won two years ago from that gullible genasi carpenter. There's the tax records, the various invoices, the certificate of residence, old letters and every scrap she shouldn't forget. Clear blue eyes rest too long on a framed picture. That sure brings back memories, doesn't it?

She can't help the laughter that slips past her lips. Once when she was dating a member of a theater troupe, she heardÂ… yeah, something like "Life often imitates art."? That sounds about right to her at least.

She takes another swig of cheap whisky from the flask. Should be about enough left now right? She lifts the container up "Cheers." and then drops it on the ground. It shatters clearly and stains the rug deep.

As she leaves, she lights a rag soaked with black tar and then throws it over her shoulder. She makes sure to close and lock the door behind her nice and tight before she drops the key in a nearby sewer grate.

Gotta hustle, the caravan departing for the fabled City of Doors isn't gonna wait on some no-name pilgrim.

It's a long road going home.