Chapter 1 – Working for a Living

As the last rays of red-orange sunlight dipped beyond the jagged city walls, the deep tones of the temple bells coaxed in the evening’s darkness. I meandered through the winding marketplace, all the while taking in its many sounds, smells, and sights. This was my favorite time of day, a crescendo for my penny-pilfering pursuits. 

The merchants had just begun to pack up their carts, hurriedly stowing away any goods they had not managed to sell. The pungent aroma of pig-folk traders and their cattle-folk guards emerged from their sweat-stained clothes, a hint of money to be spent at the inn on drinks and company already leaking from their pockets. It was their dullness I was counting on. The smarter traders, mostly the rat-folk and weasel-folk, were already heading out of town before the gates slammed shut for the night, a necessary caution taken to ensure their own safety. But I knew that my portly friends would saunter further into the city - into places where shadows ran deep and darkness could be manipulated to fit one’s needs. It was these forgotten corners that I called home; it was in these dark places where I could find a steady income. Steady in that it suited my own needs: money—enough money to stay alive.

I heard pig-folk ordering their helpers around, commanding their guards, and bragging to their competitors about how good their day was. Pig-folk with guards were terrible targets. If they could afford a guard, it meant they had a high Safekeeping skill, a counter to the Pickpocketing skill. It meant if I tried to pick their pockets, I was liable to get caught. 

No, they were definitely not a good target, and neither were the guards for that matter. Their Safekeeping skill was surprisingly even higher than the pig-folk they guarded, which was unusual if you consider how at odds that was with actually wanting to keep your stuff safe.

I learned a long time ago to listen to the conversations and to trust my nose. Metal had a unique smell to it. A tangy odor that I could almost taste. I could find money with my nose easily enough. The stronger the concentration of the scent, the stronger the tang. That was only the first step. In the market, there were always coins, and it was often concentrated in one place, the merchant’s purse. 

The second step was listening and smelling.

“Ah, Armand, I had quite the day, I tell you. Sold nearly all my stock, I did. Going to have to head back to Aullido city to restock before the month’s end,” a pigman trader bragged while his guard stood imposingly behind him. A whiff of . . . cabbage coming from them both. Bragging about a good day of selling cabbage didn’t help me, other than to discount the trader. While I’d be happy to take what they had, a cabbage seller was unlikely to go deeper into the city to spend their coin. It wasn’t that I wasn’t enticed by the lightly jingling purse the pigman now carried, it was back to the fact he had a guard.

As I passed another stall in the process of packing up, I heard a pigwoman trader, who smelled of linen and silk, turn to her neighbor and ask, “Santiago, are you off to Santa Marta next? I’ve heard the Sanchez family recently opened up a new shop there.” Talking about their next destination was equally useless information. A clothier might make good coin, but a whiff of her purse told me there wasn’t much iron in there to be taken.

I was barely three meters farther when an angry pigman yelled, “Tomas, hurry and load the wagon. And for the Emperor’s sake, take a bath. You stink worse than my grandfather’s slop baths.” More useless information and a particularly powerful scent, part rotting food . . . fish maybe, and a hint of perfume in a futile effort to cover it up. Still, I didn’t need to know the guard's name or how badly he smelled according to the pigman trader. Though the comment did make me hold back a snort and a shake of my head. A pig-folk complaining about stink . . . how absurd. No, I was paying attention to his purse, it was fat . . . not with iron or even bronze . . . but cloth? Perfumed cloth? I held back a sigh, thinking of what a waste it was.

No, I was listening for something else.

“Mateo,” I heard, followed by a light jangle of metal, the smell of the iron coins concentrated well enough. I breathed in, picking up on two pig-folk. One older and smelling of tobacco and sweet water with an undertone of manure. I breathed in again, focusing on the wagon. Cigars and pipe tobacco, two valuable goods. This was promising. I heard the second pigman shuffle closer and could smell nervous sweat. It made me grin, this was definitely promising. “Go to the Boar’s Tusk, order food and drink and reserve a room.”

“Yes sir,” a young-sounding pigboy replied, followed again by the jangle of coins being passed. I breathed in deeply and made out the smell of apples, oranges, and something rotting. Not for the first time in my life, I wished so much that the pig-folk learned to bathe . . . and enjoy it.

“Straight there and you wait for me,” the pigman ordered before barking orders at the cattleman working for him. “David, if you want that meal and drink, I suggest you get on with it.”

I didn’t care about David or what he needed to get on with. I’d found my mark and memorized his scent. I could smell the nervous sweat mixing with his bouquet, creating a trail for me to follow. I heard the excited heartbeat of the young pigman. Yes, Mateo would be a good mark indeed. I didn’t immediately turn and follow after the pigboy. That was the kind of thing the guard or trader might notice. The Boar’s Tusk was eight blocks away on the border between the wolf-folk district and the area everyone else lived in. It would take a while for the young pigman to get there, which would give me the time I needed to get ahead of him.

I kept walking, only turning around a few stalls later. I trusted my nose to lead me where I needed to go. That was another good thing about the pigmen. For as much as that trader complained about how badly his guard stank, he smelled worse. Pig-folk liked the Stink. It was their curse.

I knew the path Mateo would need to take if he planned to take the most direct route. I knew a faster way. I rounded the corner and dove into an alley that reeked of rotting garbage and urine. I counted my steps and turned sharply, running down another alley. These alleys scared the traders, but not me. I knew these back alleys could be treacherous, but I had no time to waste. I had to get ahead of Mateo before he reached his destination.

I took another sharp turn and the smell of oiled wood wafted up to me, signaling a thug lurking in the shadows. 

“Ha, I knew someone would come this way,” the cattleman said, stepping from the shadows.

I rolled my eyes, unafraid of the threat he posed, dodged past him, and continued sprinting while he continued to talk.

“Now give me all your coi— Hey! Wait! Where are you going? I’m trying to mug you here!” the hunchback cattleman shouted after me. I smirked a little as I kept running, moving into the shadows and making a turn a meter later. I heard and smelled the cattleman run right past the alley I turned into.

There were times I didn’t like my own boon very much. Too often it got me into trouble with the older kids, and sometimes it even got me in trouble with the adults. Fearless. It meant I made stupid mistakes and got a beating I might have otherwise avoided if I’d been just a little bit fearful or tempered my impulse to run in, heedless of any danger. It worked out for me this time, next time I might not be so lucky.

If that weren’t enough, my curses just made things worse. Myopia and Husky. Myopia meant I was a pickpocket with poor eyesight. Up close, things were okay, blurry but okay. Anything beyond a meter was really blurry. Farther than that, I might get lucky and see an outline.

But not all was bad. Over the years, I learned to use my natural talents. My hearing and sense of smell were much stronger than others of my age. One of the priests once told me that the body compensates when one of your senses is impaired. I really took that to heart. After a lot of work and effort, I even earned a skill related to them, Synesthesia. It didn’t completely overcome my poor eyesight, but with time and practice, the skill grew.

Husky meant I was heavy and thick in the middle. I nearly killed myself multiple times growing up, learning the skills needed to compensate, but it worked. I was proud that I possessed both Dodging and Footwork skills. I hoped that, someday, they would grow enough to completely overcome my limitations.

I was quickly approaching the spot. The place along Mateo’s route with the best shadows and cover for me to work in. My dark hair, dirty skin, and stained clothes helped me stay unnoticed. It wouldn’t be long before the pigman youth came trundling along. I soon smelled the orange, apple, and rot I associated the boy with. He was so oblivious to his surroundings, I almost felt bad as he cheerfully blundered into my territory. I knew the pigboy would probably catch a beating from his boss because of what I was about to do. It made me wonder if he had any idea how dangerous a city like this could be. Then again, maybe his boss was testing him. Giving him a chance to prove himself. If that were the case, then I needed to assume he had the Safekeeping skill, though it was most likely at the Beginner rank.

The pigboy wisely tried to stay in the light of the oil-burning street lamps. It increased the difficulty of sneaking up on him. As I got closer, I noticed the boy moved his blurry head side to side, suddenly nervous. That action told me he had some kind of danger sensing skill, making it yet more difficult. But I had a trump card still to play.

I sank back into the shadows and used my most coveted skill. The one that I hoped would get me a better Job than just Pickpocket, the Stealth skill. It was only at the Beginner rank, and I couldn’t use it for long, but it was an edge that no other kid in the city had.

The world turned gray and fuzzier than it already was as I activated my Stealth skill. I was able to see the scent in the air more clearly, a cloud of yellowish-orange on the black background. I could see the cold blue of the metal coins nestled at waist height. I trod as quickly as I was able across the street, avoiding the soft light the streetlamps cast, until I could see the pigman boy, not just his scent, though that was more pronounced.

Mateo looked like a typical pig-folk boy from a merchant family. Nice robes but not too nice. Well-groomed hair on top of his head. The first signs of stubble on his chin said he was close to coming of age or had just come of age. He was quite portly, more so than I was by at least half. Mateo’s dark brown eyes glanced around nervously. He knew there was something wrong, but it was too late.

The pigboy never saw me coming, despite almost looking right at me. I brushed past the pigman youth, my hand darting in and out of the belt pouch at his waist as I passed. I never stopped moving. My Stealth lasted just long enough to get into the shadows of the alley on the other side of the street, my hand now ten copper coins heavier than it was a few seconds earlier. My Stealth ended abruptly just as I got out of sight. I leaned heavily against the stone wall, trying to get my breathing under control as quickly as possible. I looked around, trying to make sure no one noticed what I’d done, not that many people would have said anything, not on this side of town. It seemed like I’d gotten away clean. The scent of the pigman boy was moving away from me. I smiled and tucked the coins into my waistband and quickly moved away from the scene of the crime. I had one more stop to make before I could get something to eat with my gains.

Making my way through the bustling streets, I knew the scents and stalls of each vendor that sold outside the market. I could barely distinguish them visually, but I used my nose and ears to find where I was going. A few blocks away, I heard the wheels of carriages running on the cobblestones, so I turned left at the next block. The Blacktooth Butchery was nearby—it produced leather and beast meat for the locals, and the stench was unmistakable. Then I caught a whiff of fish and saltwater from the docks, and Captain Welks' cologne—I could smell a kilometer off. I heard a blacksmith hammering close by, with Mr. Garcia's gruff grunts as he made each swing of his hammer. He was a stern apeman, and no one had ever gotten on his bad side. After passing a few more piers, I detected a distinct smell that stood out from the rest—tobacco, sweat, dirt and cold metal—which belonged to one person in particular.

“Carlos,” I called out as I approached a shadowy overhang.

There was a scraping noise and a flash of fire that made me flinch at the sudden brightness, even though it faded quickly. I watched the lit match move up and then get covered by a hand to protect it from the wind. The light from the match showed me Carlos’s face as he lit his cigarette. He was one of the weasel-folk, tall and thin with a narrow face and nose. He was also a Fence. A higher ranked Job than your simple Pickpocket or Thug.

“Kid,” Carlos acknowledged me with a soft nod, his smile showing off his sharp but poorly cared for teeth, more than one of which was blackened with disease.

I wanted to scoff at being called a “kid” like that. I was almost an adult, mere months away from my Job Day, and he was still calling me “kid” like I was that little runt that just started working for Catalina. He took a long drag of his cigarette and blew the smoke at me, partly blinding me in the process as the acrid smoke overwhelmed my Synesthesia skill, coloring everything a yellow-brown that marked his brand. I didn’t know if he knew the smoke would blind my senses like that or if he was just a jerk, but I waved away the smoke. I buried my irritation and pulled the coins from my waistband, handing them to him.

“Not bad. Boss Catalina appreciates the hard work,” Carlos said, pocketing half the coins and handing the rest back to me. Keeping Boss Catalina happy was the prerogative of all criminals in Puerto Manada.

“As always,” I replied, trying to keep the frown off my face at seeing half my gains taken. Still, it was better than ending up floating in the harbor. I put my share back into my waistband. It was time to go home.