A glance around the crowded pub has realisation dawn upon you, you know exactly what it is that you excel at, and it hasn't struck you sooner as it has been right infront of your face this whole time. You hadn't realised it, but all along you had been reading those you encountered, from the portly tormentor with his impotent rage, to the timid wirey man who had shown compassion. You had seen beneath the civilised masks they wore, read their body language and seen how they truely thought.
It was second nature to you to see when a person feigned interest, to tell when they lied, to gradually work out how they ticked. Nobody could hide their true self from you given time, though a master of the art could prevent you from reading their true self. All about you were men who had lost themselves in this escape from reality, with a handful of women pretending to be drawn to the more influential of the men here.
Every forced smile, every fake guesture, you saw it all.
The common man couldn't hope to hide a thing from you, as you practically knew what they were thinking before they themselves did.
The glance around the room must have appeared to this man like you were weighing up what you had gotten yourself into, when deep down, you were happy to accept. Simple work, something to keep you occupied and fed, it was fine by you as it was in a place that looked like all manner of street savvy types gathered here.
"That sounds like a good enough offer." You smile, despite how it makes your face ache to do such a thing, one hand reaching out to shake the large man's firmly, eliciting a nod of approval from him.
As expected, the work you do is tiring and basic, but you put yourself into it unwaveringly. You clean the floors, you clean the walls, you clean the floors, you clean the tables, you clean the floors again. You help Red, as the silverhaired bartender's name turns out to be, to set people who pass out drunkenly outside, to subdue and drag troublemakers out by their feet. You help Red's wife in the kitchen peeling and preparing food, impressing her with the efficiency you prepare and organise the food.
After meal time has been taken care of, you get a break and the chance to pick left overs from the kitchens, giving you the chance to sit down and enjoy a beer.
Scraps of beef, vegetables, bread and beer, compared to what you knew to be prison fare, you felt like you were eating like a king. Despite how simple this all was, it brought you joy, though deep down you knew that this joy wouldn't last.
Further work through the day included hauling barrels too and from the back room, cleaning the floor, cleaning the tables and cleaning the floor yet again. It seemed there was no end of blood and vomit that ended up on it between the drunkards and the brawlers. By closing time you were tired but satisfied, you had done a good job and overheard plenty of gossip.
You breathed a sigh of relief as you leaned against the bar, watching as the last of the customers wandered off drunkenly into the night. Mulling over what you had heard through the day as Red counted the takings for the day, before counting out a small stack of coins and passing them over to you. "If yer goin' t'work like that every day kid, ye be welcome fer as long as ye wish 'ere." Red states firmly, prompting a small smile from you as you bid him goodnight and make your way out onto the street, aching as you step out into the gaslight illuminated streets, with a full stomach and a fistfull of coins.
You'd overheard a lot while you were working though, from discussions about the local printshops and the new pictures in their windows, the clothing at the local markets, the shipment of tea that had been lost on the way from india, awe over the latest clockworker guild's contraptions, mentions of killers stalking the night streets, and an illegal workers fighting tournament down at the docks.
The night air was crisp and the people on the streets thinning, it was time to decide if you wanted to go back to the shack, or if you had other plans for the night.Earth: 4 - (Resiliance)
Fire: 4 - (Marksman)
Air: 4 - (Tactics)
Water: 4 - (Reading People)
Powers:
0 - Ageless.
You have all of eternity to complete your tasks, forever in your prime.
? - ? ? ? ?
About your Stats...
Your stats are measured from one to ten, with one being weakest, meaning that you're feeble, helpless in that area and ten being almost divine. A score of three is considered the 'average' for a human, a score of six is considered to be the utmost peak of human reach, with higher being that of only legendary heroes.
The brackets after your stats show your speciality, something related to that stat that when you're carrying it out, you treat as if your score was one point higher than it is.
Every point in a stat roughly doubles its effectiveness, so a person with three fire would be equal to a person with three fire, but a person with four would be equal to two people with three.
Earth - Earth is a measure of body, of endurance, of passive strength. It governs how seriously injured you may become before you are incapacitated or worse, it determines how quickly you recover from poisoning, from disease.
Fire - Fire is a measure of your active strength, of your finess, your ability to exert yourself in bursts. It governs combat prowess most notably, along with things such as sprinting and other such short term activities.
Air - Air is a measure of your mental prowess, the speed with what you are able to come to conclusions, your grasp of language, your ability to understand things of a technical nature. The higher your air score, the more intellectually able you are.
Water - Water is a measure of of your emotional sensetivity, your ability to grasp guestures and body language for what they are, how attuned you are to the world around you. Higher water means you're more able to sense and decipher emotions and make sense of certain aspects of the world about you.
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Topic: They told me I could be anything... (Read 79221 times)