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: HP = 82, PP = 42, EP = 44, Status = FineTimes hadn't exactly been hard of late for Tala, for there was always something to do among the ranks of the sellswords working along the Amazonia-Badaria border. The going was certainly far easier than it had been in the depths of the Pfitheran jungle, the land that her tribe called home. She could fight when she wanted, where she wanted, and be paid for it in simple coin that could be exchanged for whatever she wanted in the moment. There were fewer rules, and even if she was less interested in it than she had been back home, plenty of loose women and eager men to take to bed among the various settlements across which she had wandered. Hedhonism would be an easy lifestyle to fall into in that environment, and certainly many of her contemporaries had fallen into such mindsets around her, flitting away their wages and brothels and pleasure houses rather than putting it to any sort of long-term purpose. Not all were so cavalier with their funds, however; some were more ambitious with their funds, investing in ventures to perhaps earn some coin back, and others simply sent a portion of their wages back to some family that many of them hadn't seen in years.
Her wide ranging tactics had earned Tala a number of special contracts over time, particularly where spellcasters or other supernatural elements were expected, but the majority of her work had undoubtedly been mundane. Bodyguard work, town watch in dangerous parts of the year, enlistment in petty conflict between one person with the wealth to muster a force against another, courier work, caravan guard work along or even across the border, and tracking down wanted criminals for bounty money had all been sources of quick wealth when she wanted or needed it.
This time of year, in early Autumn by the Badarian calendar and the end of the monsoon season by the jungle's accounting, offered a number of options for seeking contract work. The breeding season of a dangerous breed of creature that lived within the jungle but sometimes spread out into Badaria had just begun, and the call had gone out for people to engage in the extermination of nests and elimination of breeding males so as to keep them from trying to claim too much territory. That would take her into the jungle, however, and while necessary, it also didn't pay all that well unless she also scavenged the hides, meat, and assorted other body parts of the creatures efficiently. An even less glamorous but far more civilized offer of work had come for another of the minor conflicts between lords, taking place some ways up North. That would mean traveling a ways, low pay, low quality food, and fighting alongside a number of other mercenaries and maybe a smattering of hapless militia for a cause that probably didn't matter and that she almost certainly wouldn't care about, but it would mean steady pay and, potentially looting if they got to sack a town or estate. It might also mean that she would be shot at, however, which generally wasn't a pleasant experience. Finally, for more adventurous work, a rumor was going around that a local noblewoman was putting out a call for someone to go into the jungle to find and retrieve the treasure from a long lost temple of some sort. Such things could pay well, particularly if the place turned out to actually exist and have not been pillaged yet, but also came with a far greater risk and would, naturally, necessitate going back East into the ever-dangerous Pfitherian jungle.