His room was paid for with tricks and displays of illusion and very little skill, for it did not take a master of the arcane of sleight of hand to convince the world to give you a little coin when the going was tough and the money in your pocket was lighter than you'd have liked. The art of the hustle was something he'd mastered as a young man in Karnaca, well before the days of detective work and his rise within the city and the greater island of Serkonos. In those days, a young man with a coltish body and reddish-brown hair would hop from corner to corner, leaping across rooftops or dazzling the young and wistful or the old and gullible with seemingly impossibly feats of grace and power, though he had always been wary and careful of maintaining a safe distance from the Overseers and the Abby of the Everyman. The Grand Guard, on the other hand, had seemed all too eager to let his swindling go on -- provided they get a cut, of course.

He'd been worried that such a lifestyle would be ultimately unsustainable in Rhy'Din, given the inherently fantastical nature of the city. Worried that the people had grown too comfortable with the extraordinary to be taken in my the few paltry tricks he could conjure up. But, Jin should have known better. People were people, and no matter where you go, there's always someone looking for a little sparkle of spontaneous joy in their life -- some kind of momentary reprieve from whatever routine consumes them. Everyone wants a show to some degree, and so his first week or so back had been less troublesome than he'd expected.

Still, the kind of money he earned was not what he needed. Not to get back to where he had been before. A position within the Watch seemed far out of reach, not only due to his sudden and unexplained absence, but also because from what gossip he'd been able to collect, the Watch had become even more of a joke since he left five years ago than it had been when he was still a member of their ranks. He toyed briefly with the idea of a new career field, but Jin was a detective at heart and knew that he'd never be as good at anything else as he was at finding out the things people didn't want found out, for good or bad.

With this and more in mind, he purchased a newspaper and started circling through the want ads while occupying a bench in the marketplace near the fountain. The air was brisk and cold and a wind rustled his papers about but he didn't mind, because while his home city of Karnaca was a warm and tropical place, his coat was thick and sturdy and his tricks went beyond a few light shows or turning bugs into coins. A gentle kind of warmth spread from his toes to his ears and kept him pleasantly cozy as though he were sitting out there enjoying the light breeze of a mid-Spring or early-Summer afternoon, rather than the chilling end of Autumn and encroaching cold of Winter.

Jin could not, however, control the wind and so when it kicked up with a sudden gusto that he'd been ill-prepared for, it stole away the folded up papers clutched between his gloved hands and he scrambled to his feet to chase after it.

"Blast!" he cried in dismay as the papers shot out in all directions as though the winds were purposefully making his life difficult. He chased one down an alley and caught it, then came back and saw another flapping overhead and followed it down another narrow avenue. It crackled and crumpled in his fingers as he leapt up to catch it and because he hadn't been paying attention to his surroundings -- a rare oversight to be sure -- he didn't see the little pile of garbage coming up in front of him, and thus was not expecting to land on a pile of trash bags with uneven footing. He held back a yelp and tumbled down, face first, into the powerful smelling pile of trash.

It took a moment to register what had happened. His mind worked and reeled and another gust of wind stole the papers again. Jin looked up as they danced away, taunting him, and sighed in defeat. It was then that he heard raised voices coming from the building to his right and shortly thereafter that a door burst open and two men came running out with firearms drawn. One had his arm twisted backwards and was firing blindly into the open doorway while the other held the strap of a large black duffel bag that was hanging from his shoulder. In their rush they did not notice Jin, but instead turned and darted off in the same direction as his fleeing want-ads. Seconds later more men came running out and opened fire after the previous two, so Jin hunkered down into the pile of garbage to avoid being spotted and promptly executed himself.

Despite the onset of violence, he couldn't suppress the little smile. Just when things looked like they would never get better, life threw a little something his way as a show of good faith.