Galantly strutting along one of the many smaller alleys that stretched throughout Sosshi's central area, Sogai happily whistled a tune from his childhood. The chirping, fluctuating melody held dear memories for him, it represented.. simpler times, times of bliss. As such, indulging in a bit of reminiscing made for a nice upliftment to the thief's spirits, quite precisely what he needed when traversing towns such as Sosshi. While he had spent a good deal of his time in exactly these parts of the country, he even considered Sosshi itself his home for a little while, lingering in this merchant's paradise made the discrepancies between the ever-poor commoners and ever-rich upper class all the more visible and painful to bear. Especially here, where both of these group's interests aligned and their fates intertwined, the thief got a feeling of disdain and aversion for the pompous rich folk, flaunting their various material representations of said wealth right into the faces of those that suffered in return.

Right as he turned the corner onto one of Sosshi's main roads, lined with an enormous amount of bakeries and other restaurants, jewelry vendors and clothing stores, weapon shops and anything else you could possibly think of, he found his way blocked by the imposing figure of a.. well, a rhinoceros of a man. You could virtually hear the small threads aching and desperately crying for help, as they struggled to keep the neatly crafted back of his upper attire together against the pressure of this man's disproportionate exterior. Not to even mention his bodily odor, it was this weird concoction of someone that couldn't give a rat's ass about their own hygiene, all the while still trying to fit in with the people they surrounded themselves with. Sweat from what smelled like a few eons ago, fused with an aggressively intense perfume overflowing with the smell of musk, as though to punch everyone in the vicinity in the face with the wearer's overtly sexualized perception of themselves, made for a gruesome combination. This almost perfectly crafted specimen of a noble gone bad-shit delusional was further completed by the constant sniffing, huffing and deep breaths the man had to take while speaking, not to even mention the absolute redundancy of each and every single sentence produced by whatever his intensely balding head might be called.

The thief couldn't hold an aggravated sigh of agony in, simply turning the other direction and a blind eye to this atrocity of a human being, only to find himself stopped in his tracks by a decently firm grip on his arm. "Here we go again.", Sogai rolled his eyes in anguish and terror at the prospect of having to converse with this man. Every single one of the podgy fingers that had taken hold of his arm, they looked a lot more like large, deskinned sausages to be fair, was bedazzled with at least one ring of varying sizes and materials, ranging from the obligatory ruby encased in gold to the more niche and exotic-looking silver-lined and extraordinarily cut emerald. The rat's switch was naturally flipped as the firmness of grip increased and the man forcefully turned Sogai around. While a description of this atrocious fellow's rear had already been demeaning to say the least, an actual book, or an encyclopedia rather, could've been written about what went wrong with this guy's front. "Say, don't you agree?", the man uttered, holding his left hand right in the Shengxiao's face. "My friend over here.", he continued, pointing the hand he used to hold the thief at an obviously terrified commoner apparently working the stall right on the corner. "My friend over here says, diamonds are all the rage now." In trying to drag the rat over to his camp in this quite obviously one-sided debate, the large man pouted and rolled his eyes at the simple thought. "Wouldn't you agree, it's emeralds this season?", he inquired once again, this time pointing at two of the emerald rings on his hands and snorting a few times.. extra? The thief couldn't really tell and quite literally didn't even want to look at his face.

Sogai's switch was flipped, however, and with the adaptive role-playing he had virtually internalized over the years of coercing and deceiving nobles into revealing their deepest, darkest secrets or hiding places for their precious yul, came certain benefits. One of those being the relative ease he slipped into a role with. "My, my, is that..", he stuttered excitedly, overexagerating his gasping a little bit perhaps. Pointing at the noble's hand with a questionmark plastered onto his face, he would firmly grab said hand and continue rambling: "No way, Sir. Let me take a look." Ignoring the emeralds, he mustered the biggest ring of the bunch with his eyes widened as far as he could. "I.. I can't believe it, Sir! Is that.., my god, I cannot believe it Sir, it really is a ring with an actual ruby from the Diamond Kingdom!", the Shengxiao continued his spiel, pausing in between words to gasp and excitedly alternating in looking at the ring and the man, all the while trying to keep his stomach acids from acting up. He purposely referred to the ruby, as to make the impression of an actual expert in gemstones, he simply gathered the origin from the man's being in Sosshi and the slightly different color of the stone. The thief seemingly knowing more about the current trends at the capital would provide an incentive for the bejeweled human to follow his words. "You, my friend, are a man of true style, I can already tell.", nothing flattered such a peacock more than giving them way too much appreciation. Lightly, but nonetheless very platonically manly, he patted the man on the back, a wide and open smile replaced the wonder and awe from before. With a short turn to the man he had just saved and a wink in his direction, Sogai took the wobbly steamboat by his arms and started shoving the man towards the next market stall: "You wouldn't mind me taking a closer look, now would you?"

"Ahh, come on, it's all between friends here." Still very obviously enamored by the Shengxiao's golden tongue smearing honey into his ear, the man simply let out a satisfied grunt and made a dismissive gesture. "Go ahead, go ahead.", he said with a slight, weirdly pressed chuckle almost akin to a stertorous ruckle. The man was apparently used to someone else slipping his rings on, given the habituous grace he held his hand forward with, as Sogai swiftly removed the aforementioned ruby ring from his hand. "I too am an unrivalled admirer of the Diamond Kingdom's arts and crafts, if I do say so myself.", the rat further spiraled down the rabbit-hole of one of his favorite acts to play. "You see, my name is Erten, Martin Erten. You might've heard from me.", to which the noble simply uttered some inaudible syllables. It was always a good strategy with humans like this one, to imply that one should simply know of you. Continuing to caress the man's hand in awe of it's ornaments, the sound mage further petted his ego: "A pleasure indeed, Sir. Hrm, as I was saying before, I am an admirer of the Diamond Kingdoms arts, but more than that. I am a collector of sorts." With one of his meticulously kept eyebrows raised in intrigue, the man managed to mutter: "Ah, is that so?" Proudly sporting a knowing glance, Sogai went on: "Why, yes so it is, Sir. And I was wondering.. Might you be interested in building a trading relationship? Well, since you are obviously a merchant, and one with a keen eye at that." Sliding another ring from the man's hand he still held, perpetuously looking down on it in awe, he poked the gelatinous side of the man and said: "I wondered if you might give me your address. I shall come over, and we will talk details, won't you agree, Sir?"

As lucrative as this offer sounded, a well versed expert in the Diamond's crafts providing the necessary expertise while the merchant would naturally get to keep a great share of the generated income, the noble couldn't have possibly denied the thief's proposal. "Blurgh..", the latter internally complained about smell, behavioral patterns and overall.. feeling he got from his vis-à-vis, as the former looked at him with a fairly straight face. "I'll send notification before coming, of course.", he galantly added, mimicking the internal noble politeness policies by ever so slightly tilting his head, as though to convey mutual respect without an ounce of indignity. The noble scuffed with another one of his dismissive gestures, and turned around with a snap of his fingers, calling out for his servant. "William, Williaam!", the man shouted, visibly exhausted and strained by the ever-so-grand exertions he had suffered today, only to spy his servant seemingly lurking around next to a stand that sold fine baked goods. "William! Over here, quick!", he ushered, shaken by the audacity William had to not only wander off on his own, but to ignore his first command. With another instance of physical exertion ensuing, as he intended to turn back around to Sogai, he almost fainted in disbelief. The thief was nowhere to be seen.

Sogai had immediately whistled and cast his "Whispering Veil" when the man turned around to look for his poor butler, quickly darting behind the stall of the equally as poor man his victim had pestered before. Upon sliding between the building and wooden planks, he pondered for a split second, Gorick's face appearing before his eyes, and pushed the ring through a big enough crack in the wood, before immediately heading back to where he initially came from. He would have to bring as much distance between him and the commotion that eerie noble was sure to start in a few seconds as quickly as possible. "That idiot was right about one thing, though.", he amusedly noted to himself a few minutes later, returning to whistling the aforementioned childhood song and a strutting walk through the back-alleys of Sosshi, as he inspected the large green gemstone embedded in a neatly crafted silver casing and his mana dissipated into the thin air. "Emeralds are the hit this season, I'll fetch a fat price for this one."

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[EXIT]

TWC: 1.733