"Leader you're back!" The tall cloaked leader into the dimly lit room. He pulled back his hood revealing his rough looking face. He had a scar on each of his cheeks and black eyes. His skin is gray and looks like it would feel tough as leather. His hair was very short, almost frighteningly so. It looked like he had gotten a bad haircut from a rabid honey badger with a rusty knife.
In short, the leader was just a balding orc standing at around 7 feet tall with muscles that made his cloak always seem just a bit tight.
"It isn't that bad!" the leader exclaimed to no one but himself as he stared in the mirror. "Talking about your bad haircut again leader? I told you that not to let Leroy cut it." The feminine cloaked figure nodded over at Fanged Necklace named Leroy.
Leroy's eyes were slitted and green. His body was covered with lightly brown colored scales. He had groups of loose scales hanging from his head. The scales were dead and dried making them a dark sort of brown color that had the appearance of braids due to the natural look of scales. Leroy was some sort of lizard-person race.
"What the hell's that supposed to mean, Joana?" The feminine cloaked figure named Joana shrugged. "Just sayin'. Why would you let a person with scales instead of hair try to cut your hair. That just sounds like a bad idea waiting to happen."
Joana was an Ashen Goblin, the mortal form of the monstrous race of goblins. In comparison to the short, gangly, green race of monsters, Ashen Goblins had skin that was pale gray with white hair giving the race a look similar to that of ash. They still tended to be short normally capping out at a height of 4'8" but Joana was unnaturally tall for a goblin being the same height as Alix at 5'6".
She was quite curvaceous and had crimson eyes that could make even a demon turn their head, in her own words. She flipped her straight white hair, that she dyed red at the ends, letting fall to the base of her neck.
"Would you two just shut up! Where is Edmund?" The leader, whose name was Karic, asked his eccentric compatriots. Leroy stopped scowling at Joana and explained. "They went to go grab Narie. She escaped from capture last night. They should be here any minute now."
"Hopefully, we have something important to do tonight!" Karic spoke with a shine in his eyes. Joana stood and stretched making her voice slightly strained as she asked, "And what would that be?" Karic clicked his tonged mischievously.
"Tsk tsk tsk. We have to wait for the rest of the Djinns to arrive." And wait they did as their leader ordered. After waiting for an entire hour, Edmund and Narie entered the room. Karic stood up heated. "WHERE WERE YOU TWO! I'VE BEEN WAITING ALL DAY!" Narie looked over to Leroy for confirmation.
"He got here like an hour ago. What y'all been up too?" Edmund pulled back his cloak yawning. He had perpetually wet looking black hair. He was a wood elf but certainly did not hold the grace of one. He stood hunched his droopy hair covered one of his eyes revealing only a single baggy, black eye.
"We've been wandering the streets I think? Or were we looking for something? I can't remember." Edmund's face twitched. He flipped his head back violently throwing his damp hair back. His hair was now slicked back and his other eye revealed that it was actually red and slitted.
"What hell are you on about mate?! We went to get some food and pick up Narie then ya took a nap for like eight hours until she found us!" the elf's head twitched again making his hair cover his eye once more.
"Calm down, Mund. I just didn't get much sleep last night. And if you had such a problem with it then..." Edmund drifted off as he fell asleep standing up. Narie lightly tapped him awake making him jump."...why didn't you just go get her yourself? Don't you, like, have a crush on her or something?" The boy changed again.
"There you go again! Why the hell are you so lazy?! And who are you to comment on my emotions? I'm my own person, Ed!" That's right, Edmund was not one person but actually two. One being a constantly exhausted spell caster in Ed and the other a short-tempered slightly accented knife throwing expert in Mund. Together they form Edmund.
"Don't worry, you two? I was just wandering around anyway. I do appreciate that you came to pick me up." Narie's attempt to alleviate the situation was successful as the two personalities had settled on Ed being in control.
Narie is a fairy. Though fairies are usually the size of someone's palm the stronger fairies get the ability to modulate their height so Narie was actually just a bit shorter than Joana making her the smallest in the group. She had blonde hair that normally fell to the nape of her neck but she had it tied up right now in a bun.
"What were you doing?" Leroy asked. Narie smirked slyly. "I changed into my original form and went into peoples houses and to take some food." The others perked up with anticipation. "Did you bring any back?" Narie rubbed the back of her head apologetically.
"Sorry guys, I didn't actually get that much so I just ate it." The entire group sighed in disappointment. All except, Karic that is who hid his true feelings. "Ahem! We have far more important business to attend to Djinns." Joana turned to the orc obviously annoyed.
"How could anything you have to say be more important than eating! I mean we're only starving in the first place because of you!" Karic scoffed. "How is this my fault?" Leroy leapt forward in frustration.
"You refuse to let us actually make a name for ourselves in the underground world! We literally have to find our own work which is so exhausting and barely pays anything!" Narie nodded in agreeance.
"You even made a name for our group that you don't even let us spread. What is your aversion to being what every street rat wishes to be?"
"Rich?" Ed questioned. Narie shook her head. "Infamous!" She said with conviction. Karic shook his in disappointment. "Only a fool would wish to be infamous. That would only showcase to the world how unskilled we are." The group looked at their captain unimpressed. "You always say that boss, but what do you mean? Do you think that we're unskilled?"
Karic lifted his hand and wagged his finger back and forth. "No, I know what you all are capable of. That goes to show how little you all understand about the criminal world. The most important thing to a criminal group is what?"
"Money."
"Jobs."
"Identity."
"All wrong answers!" Karic motioned for everyone to move closer. "The most important thing is ambiguity." The others tilted their heads perplexed. "What?"
"Think about it!" Karic exclaimed. "Those famous groups can get called out by the trails that they leave behind or the method that they used to do the job or even just the type of job they did! We're different!
No one ever figures out who we are because we are very ambiguous, secretive, however you want to say it! We do good work because nobody knows us. It isn't a fault it's a strength."
Joana nodded. "I see. I understand your thinking now."
"Thank you. Now let-"
"Is what I would say if I were as big an idiot as you!" Karic didn't expect the sudden turn in Joanna's words. "I understand that you think that this idea you have is so amazing and different but, it is incredibly flawed!" Leroy jumped in.
"Yeah, for example, what happens if we do all these jobs with no name, as you say, and the people that we need to hire us take that as us being low classed and unskilled. Now no matter how well we pull off their job we'll get undercharged. Ya know, just like we've been getting undercharged for all of these jobs we've done for the past two years!" Narie nodded now also joining in.
"Not to mention the fact that in the scenario that you were talking about earlier you are assuming that the other groups are getting caught after their methods get exposed but they never do." Ed decided to speak his stance next.
"Also, isn't the group getting exposed better for the contractor. That increases the chances that they won't get caught which would decrease the chances of them being exposed as the one that wished for the crime to happen in the first place. Which would also be extremely good for business." Karic stood back in shock.
He didn't expect everyones rapid-fire answers to make so much sense. 'There's only one thing for me to do in this situation!' Karic cleared his throat and stared sternly at his crew. "What if we go get revenge on that girl from a few nights ago to relieve some steam and then from that point onwards put all our jobs under the credit of the Djinns?" Karic closed his eyes tightly not knowing what to expect.
"That sounds like a plan."
"Finally, we can make real money!"
"I'm sick of eating restaurant trash!" Karic sighed in relief. "Alright, we'll go out in an hour or so. I found out where she lives so it should be rather simple." The group nodded and began to prepare for their revenge.
Karic turned away from his group and laughing under his breathe. He lifted his hand that he held behind his back. His fingers were crossed.
"Those idiots! They just don't understand how badass a group that doesn't have any notoriety is! And restaurant garbage is still higher class food than what some commoners eat on the day to day." The Karic walked out of the storehouse that they had been staying in and lifted his clenched fist victoriously.
"The Djinns will never be known to any but those that have a sinister wish! We are the dark genies of the underground!" Karic cackled into the night completely unaware that his group did know that he didn't mean what he said.
They just gave up on trying to convince him.