<span style="font-style: italic">"Aaaaaaand another job done,"</span>Tess thought to herself as she checked her bank balance at the ATM outside Starbucks. The transaction history showed that transfer had gone through, her payment for seeing another paranoid family safely outside the city. Nothing else was currently lined up at the moment, but she was confident it wouldn't be too long. People were scared nowadays, and that was good for business.<br/><br/>But for now she just wanted to relax and unwind from the day's work. Not that anything even remotely dangerous had occurred, but there were still traditions to keep. For Tess that was a nice cup of coffee. While alcohol might have done better as far as relaxing was concerned, she found it too stark a contrast from the adrenaline flowing through her system as she worked. Caffeine on the other hand, that did a good job of slowly easing herself out of her heightened state of awareness.<br/><br/>As she entered Starbucks her eyes made a preliminary glance around the room. Tess was hardly expecting to be attacked, but such precautions were more habit than conscious actions. In her mind she filed away initial thoughts as her eyes landed on each person.<span style="font-style: italic">"Let's see... halfling - normal stupid kid... tiefling - just thinks she's wallowing in her own misery and self-loathing... drifter - probably just passing through, but maybe trouble... half-orc..."</span>Tess's thought process paused, unsure of how to classify the man. He seemed harmless enough, but something about him just felt wrong.<span style="font-style: italic">"Half-orc - keep an eye on that one,"</span>she finally concluded. The others hardly seemed to stand out enough to note.<br/><br/>At the same time, Tess knew she was probably drawing quite a bit of attention as well. While it was by no means uncommon to see people in armor throughout the city, her armor was so thick that at first glance she appeared to be nothing more than a jade-colored block with a woman's head on top. Only after looking closer did it become apparent that the armor did in fact curve to meet the contours of her body. Still, that raised even more questions as one of those curves was around her bulging stomach. To most people there were only possible two explanations for that. The first was that she was pregnant, but that didn't seem to agree with her attire. The second, and more seemingly appropriate one, was that she'd just eaten someone. Even though that was also wrong there was nothing to indicate such. Only when Tess was outside of her armor did her stomach look much too soft for either of those diagnoses to be true.<br/><br/>Still, his was hardly anything new, so Tess just inwardly chuckled to herself as she crossed the room to wait in line.