This Little Mage Went to Auction... [open!]

[Rhindeer]

Continued from here!


It was a rude awakening, in more than one way.

Pepper groggily awoke with a start to the sound of a stranger's voice, and before she could even sit up, she felt the net close around her. The men, two big ones and a weaselly fellow, came prepared; the wave of dizziness that fell over her was all she needed to know it was infused with iron, binding her magic and sapping her strength, but whatever strength she lost through iron she made up for in raw terror.

Experienced men. Men with nets and shackles.

Slavers. She knew all about slavers. They had been one of her biggest fears growing up on the streets; every street kid had stories of a friend just vanishing, of boys sold off to mines, girls sold off to brothels...

"Soren!" In a panic, Pepper clawed at the net, but the two men holding it gave it a tug that swept her off her knees and onto her back with a thump, further entangling her. "Soren! Soren, help!" But the only answer she received was the mens' laughter and knowing looks.

"Oh, he's long gone now, cupcake," said the weaselly man with a smirk. "High-tailed it once he got his pay."

"What?" Frantic, Pepper searched for a sign--anything--to prove he was lying, but Soren was nowhere in sight.

And neither was the satchel.

"No..." She let out a yelp when the two big men hefted the net up between them, and fear struck her anew, filtering down through the shock. Uselessly, she struggled in the net, kicking and thrashing uselessly. "No! Lemme go, ya goat fuckers! Lemme go! Soren! Soren! Kia damn yer soul, Soren, ya fuckin' lyin' bitch!"

"Well, he sure weren't lyin' 'bout her mouth," one of the big men joked, and the other gave an ugly laugh. "I can think of far better uses fer a dirty mouth."

"Cain'll hear 'bout this!" Pepper yelled as tears began to sting her eyes. "He's a powerful mage! He'll know! And when he does, you'll be the ones that's fucked! I work fer him, y'know! So ya better lemme go, or he'll kill ya!"

But her threats went unheeded, and she was carried off to to the slaver, Tivol, just the same.



It was high noon when Pepper and five other captured girls were lead into town and to the auction block.

The net had been replaced with iron chains at her wrists, and an iron collar at her throat, keeping her magic bound and her weak and ill, though Pepper couldn't tell if the nausea was from the iron or from nerves. She'd had her teeth counted, her hair checked for lice, and had been stripped of her student robes and placed in the uniform garb of an unsold slave, a simple linen dress that fit badly and showed too much leg.

Even treated like scum on the streets, she had never felt so dehumanized.

And after putting up a good struggle at first, exhaustion and iron had taken its toll. Now she walked where she was lead, too scared to fight after the things she'd been threatened with.

And too heartbroken.

How could she be so stupid, running off with a strange man like that? Alone. Into the woods. Haha, really? She'd been lead right into his trap, drank his sob story like fine wine. So stupid! All because he'd been nice to her? And flirted a little? And she had believed, actually believed, that he kind of liked her, because she'd kind of liked him. She should have known. She shouldn't have trusted. Had she really forgotten everything from her time growing up? Had she really bought that bullshit her professors preached?

She always liked to believe that she'd be brave if the worst happened, that she'd fight to the bitter end and die before she went down, but as she waited her turn on the block and the other girls were sold all she could do--stupidly, childishly--was cry, rooted in place by a sort of petrified, shivering fear.

One of the big men from that morning, who was standing near her, nudged her sharply. "Oh, stop yer bawlin'. Yer gettin' all red and ugly."

"Fuck yerself with a spoon," she managed to choke out through her tears, and then it was her turn. The man gripped her by the arm and leaned in close.

"Mind yerself when yer up there," he growled. "Ya don't need a tongue to get bought. Now dry yer damned face and move."

He shoved a kerchief into her face, drying her tears for her, and then she was lead up the steps and the bidding began.

[Listenbeastie]

The stranger lingered just beyond the crowd, quietly blowing tobacco smoke into the air while the people there were bidding madly and buying one frightened little girl after the other. He was not of a strong opinion regarding slaves and normally preferred relying on free men to work with. Really, he didn't have much use for a scared woman at all. Still when the freckle-covered girl stepped up to the block he grew inquisitive concerning these slaves.

A simple whim, really, and he was bored enough to want to entertain it. Where did they come from? Are they decent slaves or do they still have spirit? Seeing her puffy, red face made him doubt her quality quite a bit. Yet people were already lifting hands to bid. With a long stretch the fellow stepped closer into the crowd.

He was on the shorter side, with dark skin and unorthodox (if rather fancy) clothing and a large object concealed in gray cloth resting on his back. The man's hair was black with only the smallest races of red to contrast, scattered in his braided mane. He had a beard similarly styled, as well as a small series of feathers woven into wiry locks that weren't already bound. Two marks of a similar color to his hair traced down, one over each eye running from his crown until it touched his collarbone. This made the man's eyes seem like stars in the void, bright, amber and tense.

The stranger made it to the front of the crowd, fixing the girl with a glower more pensive than threatening.

[Rhindeer]

It was like a snake had curled up in her belly, twisting and writhing, as her qualities were listed--her health, her strengths, her perks, her status as a mage, all pointedly avoiding her temperament. It was surreal. People were actually bidding. This was actually happening. Her stomach lurched and her throat tightened and she felt like she might get sick, which was weird since she hadn't eaten since the night before. Her vision swam--the iron at work, no doubt--and it became a little hard to breathe.

Maybe she could still escape. When she was bought, she could...she could fight and run away. Or something! Cain would worry, right? He would notice she was gone. He'd do something! He'd try to find her. And her professors when they found out she was missing! After all, she was an investment, right?

...Unless they thought she was angry enough by her punishment to run away, back onto the streets like a feral dog.

The thought brought a shuddering sob with it, and she didn't care what anyone, especially that big bastard over there, thought. What could her professors do, anyway, to find her? Adela was big. She could be taken anywhere, kept anywhere, and no one would ever notice or ever be able to find her or--

Movement caught her eye when a man moved up to the front and glowered at her, and she caught his eye briefly and quickly looked away.

[kleineklementine]

OOC: Sorry I don't have a profile up for her yet... posting from the office. I'll try to get to it soon, though!

BIC:  Elena Strauss (neé Levi) was not comfortable. In fact, discomfort radiated from her and was palpable in the air around her. She had never been to the auction block in Ketra before, and didn't enjoy being here now. She could, of course, afford slaves. Elena had been born into a wealthy merchant family and married into a wealthier one. But that meant, both her and her husband agreed, that they could also afford to pay people. Yet here she was, in the slave market, with the full intention fo buying... someone.

Well-dressed and worried-looking, with an infant swaddled in a sling, Elena looked out of place. She was petite, fair skinned, with thick wavy brown hair that made her look even smaller. Her large, maroon eyes flitted back and forth between the baby and the girls being paraded on the block, her heart plummeting through her stomach with each one. She wishes it would just be over with. But she was sure there was something she needed to do. Or someone she needed to help. But didn't they all need help?

The reasons for her being here were murky even to Elena. She had always, since she was a child, had bouts of clairvoyance. They came intermittently and unpredictably and were never general. Rather, they were always connected to someone she had a particularly strong bond with. Already it would happen with the baby. Occasionally with her husband, though their marriage had been as practical as romantic. And, once upon a time, with her brother. Her lost brother. She hadn't seen him in years. Before her baby, before her marriage. Not since he'd left. Sometimes, in the first few years after the fallout between Soren and Kirnan that led to her losing two brothers in one day, Elena would get flashes of him. Where he was or what he was feeling. But even that had ended more than a year ago.

Until last night. She hadn't actually seen him or where he was, though she had a sense of the forest, but she'd been suddenly aware of him. And then of a confused tumble of feelings. She hadn't really been able to tease them out. She had no idea what it was about. But she'd known she needed to come here today. She knew there was a girl. And she knew the girl would be here, today. For sale.

So Elena watched, miserable, as each girl was brought forward, waiting for something to click. It was awful; she wanted to help all of them. And what if she was wrong, or if she missed the right one? Could she really help this girl, help her, by buying her? But what else could she do? She was a small woman with an infant. She certainly couldn't free anyone by force. Break them out. You'd need a small army.

These thoughts and similar were stewing in her when Pepper came onto the block and... snap, she knew. This was the girl. She let the bidding go on for a bit before, cautiously, awkwardly, raising her hand to bid on the girl. Her eyes darted nervously to the man who'd just moved to the front of the crowd. Was he holding on to be a late bidder? Maybe he knew her? Or maybe he was someone 'in the business.' She didn't know, but when someone bid against her, she raised her hand again to signal she wanted to bid again. This was just awful and she wanted more than almost anything for it to be over, but she also wanted to win.

[Listenbeastie]

The fellow stared for a long time, moving a hand to scratch at his cloth-covered shoulder. Unfortunately for the woman with the sixth sense a moment after she bid again he rose his hand. Mumbling something under his breath, the man shifted uncomfortably after brushing up against a taller man who seemed generally uninterested. It was rather unclear as to what possessed him to bid but his mind started to shift to what exactly he'd do once (and if) he won.

[kleineklementine]

This bidding business was awful. Just awful. She could hardly believe that she was bidding, money!, on another human life. But she wouldn't, of course, 'keep' the girl or anything... She just wanted to help her. Get her out of her. Elena was a healer and if the girl had some skill as a mage, maybe she could work as an apprentice until she'd learned enough skills to support herself? Or maybe, maybe once she had gotten the girl out of here, she'd know something about Soren. They must be connected somehow, right?

Oh gosh, Elena suddenly thought, maybe they were lovers. But she seemed awfully young...

She was distracted by these thoughts when the baby swaddled against her chest began to cry. Confident that she was the highest bidder, she took her attention away from the auction to comfort the child. It was instinct. She didn't even think about it. Didn't think about how, if she took her eyes away, she might miss another bidder. And that is exactly what happened. When the fellow in the front of the crowd placed a higher bid on Pepper, Elena completely missed it.

[TheHighwayman]

Soevak Ret was not having a good day so far. Sure, on the one hand he'd had a successful job and had lived to kill another day, but on the other hand, this injury of his had nearly cost him his life half a dozen times over in the course of the last job. He poked at the festering gash across his side, grimacing and cursing himself. Just sloppy. He had to do something about this, he thought as he leaned back on his bed. He couldn't keep working in this state, eventually it was going to get him killed... and Vak had no illusions about his probability of having a pleasant afterlife. Replacing the bandage on the cut, quickly washing his face, and throwing his buttoned shirt and feathered cap back on, he headed out the room door and started for the streets.

He had to fix this before he returned to Connlaoth, he knew. The injury's persistence had been caused by magic, and it would take magic to fix it- if it had been some sort of poison he'd have almost certainly heard of it... and poison didn't cause nightmares like that. Shuddering, Vak shirked away from the thought and turned his attention to the various stores and services the place offered. No, no, no good, clearly a con...

Then he noticed the slave market, with an auction clearly in progress. Vak stopped to listen- he wasn't exactly keen to buy a slave of any sort, especially this far from home, but he'd always had a certain fascination with the way people acted about it. Most of those bidding could see a sobbing, desperate wreck, and yet they still threw down the money as easily as if they were buying a new set of horseshoes or a shirt. And they said he was cruel. Heh.

The assassin was about to turn away and continue with his business- so far the auction was nothing new- when they announced that the next up was a mage. A mage? That was rare... and possibly to his benefit. Maybe, just maybe this girl could be of help in finding a remedy for his current state. As the bidding started, Vak made it into the crowd, keen eyes prying for any figures that stood out- or figures that had a particular lack of standing out. Two caught his eye- a woman carrying a child (what lunatic brought a kid to a slave auction, was what he wanted to know), and a rather more mysterious figure. Making a quick mental note to keep an eye on those two and scratching his chin, he considered whether it was worth the trouble- he had the funds, especially after that last kill, but was it worth it? He grimaced, held a hand to his side, and decided he was to the point where he'd try about anything. He waited for the next bid... and doubled it.

[Rhindeer]

It came down to two people, a man (who wasn't very friendly looking, being the glowering man from before) and a woman with a child (a child? Really? Here?), and Pepper found herself desperately wishing for the mother. Deep down, she knew women could be just as nasty as men, and that being a mother meant nothing as far as a person's character went (after all, her own mother had abandoned her--no nurturing maternal instincts there, obviously) and yet she seemed her best hope. She seemed the most likely to understand.

At least, she hoped so. Because she didn't want to go to the man. It was sick, so sick, that she felt relieved that she was the highest bidder.

But then something horrible happened. The mother was distracted by the child, and in that moment, a third bidder came in and doubled the woman's already high bid. WHAT? It was probably the nerves and illness and stress, but Pepper actually let out a startled, choking laugh, for it was surreal to learn of one's own monetary worth. That would be enough to pay off a nice chunk of her student debt.

But the woman wasn't bidding again. The child still held her attention. Heart hammering in her chest, Pepper silently pleaded for her to pay attention, but the auction carried on.

"...Going once! Going twice...!"

[Listenbeastie]

The man groaned out a series of swear words in his own tongue and rubbed his forehead, not entirely sure bidding higher was even worth it. He had no shortage of gold and very little to do with it but this still would take its toll on what he had. Did the fellow even have enough to compare to the newest bidder?

One more try, or he was done. The foreigner lifted a hand into the air to raise the stakes.

[Rhindeer]

That was an exorbitant amount for a slave, even if it was a mage, and even the auctioneer looked surprised. Still he shouted out his chant, making a last call for bids.

[kleineklementine]

OOC: Thought I'd move things along a bit. Hope you don't mind, Rhi! Shouldn't change anything for the other two bidders...


BIC: Elena hadn't even noticed the new bidder come into the fray. Avi was still fussing, but he stopped crying just in time for his mother to hear, "Going once... going twice...!" She wrenched her attention back up. Oh no. Was that her bid? Had someone else bidding since her? How could she have missed what was going on?

But then the foreigner lifted his hand again, and bought Elena the time to figure out the situation. Or at least to figure out that she was no longer in the lead. Hurriedly, she threw her hand in the air to top the man's bid. It wasn't until after she'd done this that she suddenly realized how much higher these bids had become. While they had a lot of money, neither Elena nor her husband were landed nobles who'd have money no matter what. They were merchants, owned businesses, and she knew that money didn't multiply itself when you just threw it away. Well, that didn't matter, she told herself. It could always come out of her dowry.

She bit her lip, waiting with baited breath until the man bellowed, "Going three times to the young lady in the corner."

A wave of relief swept over Elena. She'd won. Oh, now she could get out of here, take this girl home and feed her and dress her, and then figure out who she was. She pushed her way through the crowd to the small corral on the side of the auction block where the monetary transactions took place, careful to shield the baby. She realized, of course, that she shouldn't have brought him here. But she hadn't quite made it to the point yet where she could be separate from him.

"Well, well, ma'am," the slave handler said as she reached where he was waiting with Pepper, "that turned out to be quite the pricey bid! Hope she's worth it to you. Great business for us, either way, of course," he grinned.

"Yes, well," Elena frowned, a little awkward. She wanted to leave. "Where should I send the payment to?"

"Send?!" the big man laughed. "Oh, no no. Sorry, ma'am, but this is a cash and carry transaction only."

Cash and carry. Elena's stomach dropped. She didn't carry that kind of money! In trading goods and crops and spices, everything was done in ledgers, and debts or surplusses, safe, secure monetary transactions. Not huge sums of money thrown around in the market place. "Well, I don't have that much gold with me here," she argued, trying to sound important, "that would be insane. But I can pay a quarter now, and send a man back here today with the rest, plus an additional sum to make up for the time between then and now."

The slave handler was getting annoyed. His job wasn't to deal with rich young ladies who don't know how the business works. "Couldn't send someone down here who knew what he was doing?" he growled at her. "If you can't pay, why not take that pretty little baby back home where you belong. Tomorrow you can send someone else to do this for you."

"But... But I can pay," she argued, the vague startled look she'd had since entering the slave market growing to something closer to clear desperation. "I can pay today, I just need..."

But the handler ignored her. "Oy! You two gentlemen!" he shouted to the two other men who'd been bidding on Pepper, gesturing with his arms for them to come over to the corral. "Either of you who were interested in this pretty little mage actually able to pay for her?"

Elena gaped. What was she going to do? She looked to Pepper now, mouth still open, feeling momentarily helpless.

[Listenbeastie]

The short foreigner was steady in his approach, withdrawing from beneath baggy, decorative robes two very large sacks of gold. One was withdrawn as he approached and the other arrived when he closed the gap. He mumbled another curse irritably and shot the highest bidder an irritated glower. "All of it. More than enough. No ask where from." very shortly he moved to shove the bags into the slaver's hands. "Take it! Being generous to you!" He growled.

And should nobody intervene he'd be fixing his gaze back on Pepper, seeming more on the aggravated side rather than pleased to have this chance. Whatever was on his back twitched slightly despite his calm posture. The assassin still had a chance to interrupt.

[Brisinger987]

Torak didn't actually see much of what was going on. He just decided to observe.

It was unusual to see mage's at auctions. Especially as what was being bid for. So Torak had observed from afar, practicing his skills as a Shadow Wolf. He had found he enjoyed discipline, and good work ethic. He still had to kill people, but he did it with a professionalism unrivalled by his earlier "attempts", as he now called them, at being a good assassin.

So he watched and waited, seeing if he needed to intervene. And he clearly did. Torak had managed to come into significant money after killing a very wealthy target, who was a threat to a wealthy nobleman. Torak decided to up the stakes.

"I will double this man's money. That is my offer." Torak pulled four equally sized enchanted bags from his pouch, all filled with masses of accumulated coinage from clients. He was a busy assassin, but not a poor one.

The only reason Torak bid at all was out of mercy to the Mage girl.

[TheHighwayman]

Really? Others had bid after that? What possible reasons could those two have for being willing to pay so much? Soevak shrugged as the auction continued and the girl was sold to the woman from earlier. Maybe they just had limitless pockets. He waited a moment to see if they had anyone else to bring out... and was glad he did, as he soon heard some sort of commotion coming from the collection spot. Well, he was in it this far, might as well stick to it. Vak caught up just in time to hear the other man's offer. By rights the slave would go to that one, since he had the second highest bid, but Vak had an idea...

"If you can't ask where it's from, the money's probably not much good. Don't want the wrong people to come disturb your fine operation here, do you?" Tipping his coinpurse over and emptying out an assortment of coins worth what the other man had offered, he held out his hand and grinned. "Johnathan Strel. I'm here on business, looking to see if it would be worth starting up another business here- and from the looks of it I may just require your services in the future... though I suppose I might have a look around for other sources..." Vak lied easily- none of the usual signs of deception would have been visible.... though the hint he dropped came off about as subtle as a brick to the head. Now to see if it worked, or if he was getting rusty....

And then the other one got involved. Brilliant! This was turning into a three ring circus around this one girl. This newcomer though, there was something familiar about him. Something very familiar... oh. The assassin had an awareness when it came to others of his occupation, others who had the same sort of skills, and this one fit the bill. Common sense screamed at him to get out- in his current state risking involvement with anyone like that would be criminally stupid... but he had his pride. "Oh, is that so?" He hesitated- this was getting far too expensive for him. He could pay it, sure, but that was about his limit- at least if he didn't want to take a few side jobs to get back home. All for one girl? Who in all probability would only be able to point him in the right direction at best? Not worth it. Definitely not worth it... but another pain in his side changed his mind. "I could match that," he said, just barely resisting the urge to grit his teeth in pain.

[Listenbeastie]

The foreigner groaned with clear agitation. The other men so quickly involving themselves were getting on his nerves. "Fine then!" Clearly not a businessman or as persistent as the others, he moved to take his money back. This gesture may have been quite insulting to the slave handler but any movements or statements of protest would be met by a dangerous glower. The bags were returned beneath the folds and almost seemed to vanish completely.

"Not just gold. No matter." Then he began to study the others. None of them seemed particularly petty enough to just take the woman home and have her clean their dishes. Something clicked in the man's mind and he turned to look at Pepper again, squinting. "Lucky you. Very lucky." He said with irritation.

[Rhindeer]

This was turning into a mess, and the slave handler was beginning to grow impatient. The mage hadn't been the last slave, either, and there were several others left to auction off. They needed to get this transaction wrapped up so he could move onto the others.

He fixed "Johnathan" with an interested look, and took his hand in a firm grip, giving it a businesslike shake. "It's a pleasure, but a businessman like yourself surely understands we got a business to run ourselves. And ya can't run a business off of hope and promises," he said with a grin.

"Top this gentleman's offer," he said, nodding to Torak, "and she's yours. Otherwise, first come, first served." He was clearly interested in seeing how much more he could weasel out of the man. Either way, they had made a killing here today; Tivol's investment had paid off handsomely.

Pepper watched the men barter over her fate and threw the woman a desperate look. No. She couldn't have lost. Of all the people here, she wanted most to go with her, for her wild assumption had been confirmed. This wasn't a woman who dealt in slaves; this was a woman who was dreadfully out of her element--which made her wonder why she was trying to buy her. But none of that mattered, now; that hope had been dashed, and it was finally down to two of the men.

When the third--the glowering one--spoke, she gave him an incredulous look.

Lucky?

There were a lot of things she wanted to say to that, but fear glued her mouth shut, so she only shook her head, sniffling. This was not lucky. This was the furthest thing from lucky.

[kleineklementine]

Elena felt helpless and brushed aside. And after she had won the auction! What on earth was she going to do now? But when Pepper met her eyes, she knew she had to do something. Firming up her resolve, she turned back to the men who were pouring ridiculous amounts of money onto the table in front of the slave handler.

Seriously, who carried around that kind of money? Just the weight of it had to be a burden, not to mention how noisy it must be. But clearly she wasn't going to get anywhere with these men by offering more money. What kinds of lives they led where they led, devoid enough of responsibilities to casually lay out this kind of money and risk losing it by carrying it around, she didn't know. But she'd clearly have to think of something else.

So she turned to Torak and 'Jonathan Strel' (who she didn't recognize as any businessman she had ever encountered), the two men still with a chance.

"Please," she pleaded with them, "please, I have the money. She's my sister," she lied, and continued before they'd have a chance to look for a family resemblance, "or my half-sister. An illegitimate child of my father's. I only just learned of her recently and I've been looking for her but they," she gestured and shot a nasty glare at the slave handler, "found her before I could. Please. He lost her when she was little, when her mother died of consumption." She'd let them make the obvious assumption about what kind of woman the 'mother' probably was. And it was far from unheard of for wealthy men to keep in touch with their bastards without ever publicly acknowledging them or taking them in. "She was gone before he even found out about the death. Do you have children? Have you ever lost one?"

Elena's performance was graced with the authenticity; after all, as a new mother, she had spent the last few months running on exhaustion and raw emotion alone. And she had the harried look of someone who hadn't slept for more than two hours at a time in three months and might snap at any moment. Just the thought of the story she made up was bringing tears, unbidden, to her eyes. And this girl, after all, was somebody's child. The thought of her own child's freedom being sold away filled her with anguish and ferocity, and she clung to the baby at her chest.

And now, so close to the girl, she was beginning to feel Pepper's fear, too. It wasn't common that her empathy would pick up on strangers, but the girl's feelings were too strong not to have an effect on Elena.

"Please, clearly money isn't important to you," she said to them, her voice strained with emotion, "but my husband is a very well-connected merchant. I am a healer. I could get you anything. Please."

[Brisinger987]

This situation was beginning to irritate Torak a lot. Torak was clearly offering money, and he was being shown up by this woman's sob story.

"Fine. If you are that desperate, then how is this?" Torak tapped another coin bag, and it became weighted, the coins filling the bag being deposited into it from a magically enchanted pocket dimension. The coins weren't real though. He hadn't earned these. These were all stolen, filled in via an enchanted coin buried in a bank.

He held it out for everyone to see. Half the money he was offering was someone else's, but he didn't care. He had nothing else to spend his money on, and he didn't want to waste it now.

[Listenbeastie]

Although things were out of the foreigner's hands he continued to observe. He must not have had anything better to do but he took his time in registering what each party had to say. As things got more tense with money the fellow bowed his head, placing his face in a hand and beginning to chuckle. It started to grow louder as money was produced and shown. All this for some random slave girl? What was he thinking? What were they all thinking?

Then the man lifted his head and asked Pepper a question, "What'd you think, mm?" The fellow was using a joking tone for obvious reasons.

[TheHighwayman]

Soevak just waited patiently through the woman's sob story; if that sort of thing bothered him (and he wasn't entirely certain it was true to begin with) he'd have a different line of work. Besides, he wasn't planning on keeping the girl for long in any case. So he just crossed his arms and listened with half an ear throughout the whole bit, turning most of his attention to the newcomer. Wait a minute, did she just say she was a healer? Interesting... He could use this.

Drawing forth the remainder of his coin and holding it out, nearly matching Torak's, he turned to Elena and said, "Perhaps we can make a deal, miss. Give me the difference between these, and we'll have a word about it later. If we can't come to an agreement, I'll reimburse you. Otherwise, I don't see this working out for either of us." For once the assassin was entirely honest- he had no reason to deceive either of these two beyond... well, the common sense bit of lying about his profession and so on.