Concrete Summonings

MONDAY

"I'm sorry- tell us again one more time where you're going, sweetie?" The dwarf woman said.

She was nice. They were both nice. Nice in that weird, overly nice way where they think they have to be too nice, but still nice in the way that they meant her no direct harm. The little dwarf woman, in her nice mall sweater and sensible but glamourous gold earrings made a very puzzled face. She had been making the same face for about five minutes now. Maybelline was sneaking peeks at her in the rear-view mirror from the corner of her eye while she looked out the window. But when she said this, she was fully turned around in her seat to look at Maybelline in the back seat.

"Oh, I'm just goin' to the Questing Board in New Falcon. I got the address written on a piece of paper here if you want it." Maybelline Said.

The couple exchanged glances again. The man wore a pair of nice sunglasses which probably cost three times more than Maybelline's entire wardrobe (if she could call a closet full of jeans, hoodies and t-shirts with burn holes in them a wardrobe). So yes, they looked like they had money. She had never been around rich people before, and from the vibe she was getting they had never been around a... well, lower middle-class elf girl from the woods before. She knew that the elderly goblin woman Mrs. Penzshaw who lived by their old house by Sevenhold Swamp ordered a lot of things from the internet and never seemed to work a day in her life. And somehow, she always had money, but she was not exactly rich though. These people looked rich for real. Or well off.

"Ah, no dear, that's fine. I think I know where it is." The man said, giving his immaculately kept beard a skeptical stroke with one hand while the other was on the steering wheel.

"You do?" The woman said, turning back around.

"Yeah..." He said. "I mean, I'm pretty sure. I've been by it on the way to work."

She made a squinty face at him and then turned back around from the passenger's seat to Maybelline.

"So- exactly why are you going there?" she asked.

"Oh, you know- "Maybelline said. "Just to find me a job. I mean turned 18 just a week ago and I figure it's time to go out and make my way and the world and what not, plan for my future and everything. Figure I'll start off slow- help out with some minor bounties here and there like bail skippers and necromancers and all that, then I figure later in the year I'll get into big stuff like homicides and ah, whattya call 'em? Greater necromancers? Or even like them infernal terrorists. Whatever's clever, you know what I'm saying. But you know, I'm not just out there riskin' my rear end for a paycheck, I wanna do something good. Something that'll really help people and the like."

She had never told anybody about this, or any of these plans- maybe a couple friends here and there but that was it. It was odd to be even talking about it by this point. But as it was, she did- just blurted it all out. Now there was a hard silence in that quiet, nice little car you couldn't have broken with a jackhammer. The nice lady was going to give herself wrinkles with her eyebrows all scrunched up like that. And that went on as long as the rest of the car ride had lasted, with various whispers coming from the dwarf couple the whole way through, some even sounding like they were arguing with each other in the smallest way. But by that point Maybelline didn't care. She lost interest in the tension in the car and stared out the window. She'd hadn't been out of her home woods in a long time. She really wanted to take it in.

And then at some point, the woman turned around and spoke to her.

"So, "The dwarf woman said, after a particularly long silence. "If you don't mind me asking, dear- "

"-Meredith, please." Said the husband. She shot him another dirty look.

"If you don't mind me asking dear, what does your mother think of all this?"