Here Be Trolls [Roddy & Yao]

[sachertorteforall]

The question was almost too easy for Roderich to answer, but he held his tongue before spilling out what he wanted to say. He allowed himself a smirk before answering in his carefully picked words.

"I don't care if you're a Ruthian at all, really." he said nonchalantly. "And in fact, I prefer not to know." Complete and utter lie there, but it didn't faze him in the least. "All I want is the map, and then we can part ways and never see each other again, merchant."

Again, this wasn't entirely true. If he was indeed allied with the Ruthians, it would probably be an asset to the Military to keep tabs on this mysterious black-market trader. But certainly, there was no way Roderich would ever see him again, for he was never traveling to Mastariph again, period. No amount of bribery or number of threats could convince him to travel here again.

He stepped forward lithely, letting none of his fear or aggravation show. If he had learned one thing from his years in the Military, it was how to keep a straight face. "So, do we have ourselves a deal? The map for this bag of gold, a more than worthy sum." Dexterously, he tossed the bag a few feet in the air and caught it again in hopefully what was a tantalizing display.

[china]

He considered it for a moment. It was a lot of gold.... SO he decided to hand it over. "Fine. That amount of gold will keep me covered for days. Might as well." he said, handing the map over to the other.
"Here it is. Be careful with it. It's old and easy to rip apart." he explained, before reaching for the bag of gold and taking it. "Thank you for the deal. I'll be off now." he said and gestured to Ning-Wei to get up as he packed up his things and looked at the stranger again.
"... Be careful out of this forest again." he said, before he left.

Yao saw no reason to keep this map. He didn't even understand why they gave it to him. What was this White Shadow crap anyway? Some stupid codename for something?

[sachertorteforall]

It was almost a relief, to have that gold off his hands. But now he had something much more dangerous and altogether much more valuable: the map, the coveted bit of scribbled-on cartography that he had journeyed all this way to retrieve. The man had handed him a cylindrical case that perhaps one day had been covered with leather, but now was nearly completely worn off. Overall, it didn't look promising, but the Ruthians were known for being sly. They wouldn't store their extremely important documents in important-looking containers, he reasoned. He unscrewed the top and tipped the case forward so that the map slid out a few inches into his hand.

Holding the map, the thick paper soft against the uncalloused skin on his palms, almost made it seem worthwhile.

"Will do," he replied. "And thank you as well." There was no need to fake gratitude, for he really was thankful. Thankful that he hadn't spent days wandering around the forest in a futile search, thankful that he had managed to get this job finished at a decent time, and now his return to Granor was in the near future.

He slid the map back into the canister and replaced the top. For a moment, he wanted to say some parting words to this man, a stranger for whom he had traveled across continents, but he figured it was his ingrained politeness getting the better of him. Roderich sufficed with a last glance back at the merchant and his black-and-white bear. Somehow he doubted that he would soon forget about the pair.

[china]

After walking for a while, Yao sat down on a rock to look over his payment. The stupid man should've checked that it was the correct map first... He chuckled for himself, wondering about the look on the other's face when he realized it was just a regular map of the nearest town.

But the grin faded when he saw the contents of the pouch. "......." It wasn't gold at all. Dammit! Yao growled and threw the pouch to the ground. So they'd both fooled each other. Apparently the other wasn't as stupid as Yao had first thought. Very clever move. Yao found comfort in knowing he still had his map though, so he honestly wasn't sure who'd been fooled the most. He'd been given false money, and the other had been given a false map.