[Chapter 2 is here! Featuring mainly Jinx, because I love writing her. Enjoy! Jinx specifically doesn't look like most tabaxi do in dnd, instead I gave her a more human design.

Tabaxi - cat like humanoids driven by curiosity to collect artifacts, stories, and culture

Fighter - fighting class, skilled in most armor and weapon categories

Orc - savage humanoids with stooped postures, piggish faces, and prominent teeth that resemble tusks

Goliath - strong and reclusive, goliaths are barbaric giant-offspring that reside in tribes in the mountains

Barbarian - Fighting class, a fierce warrior of primitive background who relies on flying into a battle rage, highly influenced by emotion.]

In another part of the land, a tabaxian girl dropped her grey satchel on the table of a bar with a loud thump, disturbing the other patrons. After receiving a warning glare and a gesture to leave the venue, the girl pushed the stuffed-full bag over with a roll of her eyes and an exaggerated sigh, spilling it's glittering contents onto the table.

Priceless artifacts, stunning gems in gold and green and blue, things no one would dare venture out to attempt to grab, let alone successfully steal. The passageways were too thin, the obstacles too unpredictable and dangerous, the human mind wasn't equipped for the kind of danger that came with raiding lost temples or stealing from fabled sky giants.

The rumors were right - the human mind had no chance of succeeding what Jinx had. The natural skill, speed, and hunting talent of tabaxi, however…

The tabaxi were a lonesome and isolated race of people, and Jinx often wondered what she could accomplish if only she could unite them. She alone was the only tabaxi she'd ever known to venture into the territory of man, and she'd made herself quite a living uncovering lost, priceless artifacts. Of course, she was also wanted and heavily bountied in every town in Arcadia…

She made a clicking sound with her mouth as she picked up a gemstone the size of her fist, spinning it around on her finger and glaring at the barkeep as if he was a troublesome child.

The barkeep stood back in awe for a quick moment as he took in everything Jinx has dumped out before letting out a chuckle - an ugly, growling sound coming from the orcish man - and slurred something in his native tongue that Jinx could just barely make out as "customer".

The man used his massive frame to collect everything into a more organized pile, and started filing payment. He would slide a four gold coin-worth statue his way and slide her a single silver shilling. He would collect two or three beautiful diamonds and give her only a single gold coin. It wasn't fair, it was a 4:1 ratio in payment.

Hell no.

Jinx had worked for this payment, she'd almost died plenty of times trying to get this stuff. She'd forced her body through the most dangerous of temples, ignored obvious ancient curses set upon the place. She'd fought off scavengers and travelled through the most dangerous of wilds. And she was getting only a 4:1 ratio payment? It was an insult, an outrage, an declaration of disrespect-

Just as Jinx was going to put out her dagger, the clank, clank of metal armor came sounding about the bar, quieting everyone in it. A member of the royal guard, decked in his self-glorifying armor, took a quick look over the place, suspicion in his face.

Jinx settled down, sinking into her chair at the bar and pulling her hood further down to cover her face.

The guard finally relented, going back to patrolling around the town and leaving the bar at peace.

The orcish man chuckled, waving around a faded paper with Jinx's face inked onto it, right above the angry lettering of "WANTED".

Jinx glared and let out a low growl. She could either suck it up and try to get what payment she could, or she could have one of these patrons rat on her and leave with nothing but a jail warrant.

Gritting and grinding her teeth, Jinx forced back her pride and her conscious screaming at her to gut this man for his disrespect.

"Help!" screamed a woman's voice as she stumbled through the doors of the bar, all ragged and out of breath.

"Jesus woman, did you run all the way here?" gruffed one of the human patrons in the bar.

"YES!" She screamed again, tears in her eyes. "Please, please! There's- there's a goliath in our village, he's attacking everything!" She cried in desperation.

"A-A Goliath? Well, just- just give him what he wants then! They never come down from the mountains unless they want something! You must've provoked him!" accused another patron, trying to side the responsibility of going to help to anyone else.

"We don't know what he wants! He just attacking everything! He's not even looking for something!" She wailed.

Deafening silence. Side-eyed glances.

"Please! You-You're all surely strong enough to take him down, or at least distract him so the village can evacuate! You!" She pointed accusingly, "You're elven! You could shoot him with an arrow from further away from the danger if you'd like! ...You!" She pointed again, "You're a warrior! Please, please, any of you, help us!" She cried.

"Even you!" She said, angrily as tears ran down her face, approaching the barkeep, "You're orc! You could crush him if you wanted!"

More silence.

"But no, no! Of course, I'll leave you all to your beers and your ale. Sitting here on your fat lousy lumps as people die out there. People you can't even bother to stand up and check on!" She sobbed, falling to her knees on the floor amidst the more than uncomfortable bar.

A cloaked woman knelt beside her and helped her up, and upon closer inspection, it was a pink eyed tabaxi girl.

"Out back. I have a horse we can take there instead of running. She has a black mark on her back. You'll find her." She said in a clipped, angry, determined voice.

"Thank you! Oh- oh thank you!" The dark haired woman cried, sobbing into Jinx's shoulder a bit before rushing out back to find her horse.

Was Jinx heroic? No. Was she capable of feeling empathy and did she have somewhat of a stable conscious about the lives of innocent people? Perhaps. Was she going to regret this decision? Oh, obviously.

"Coward." She hissed and spit at the orc barkeep as she snatched her satchel from him and headed out of the bar.

Did the culminations of ashamed, embarrassed, and impressed faces she saw walking out of the bar make this life-or-death decision worth it? In Jinx's straightforward mind, it did.

When finally Jinx managed to make it to the village on the edge of Calishite, her horse reared back in fear, almost tossing the village girl off it.

The goliath was huge. Jinx had never faced one of them before. They were usually a calm, isolated race of people that lived alone with their tribes in the mountains and liked it that way.

If they're whole species looked like this, she's glad she'd never had to meet one before.

He had to be 6, maybe 7 feet tall, and that was when he was hunched over, beating at the landscape in a barbaric rage. His hair was matted and the braids running through it were in disarray, and he had terrifying looking tribal markings - or were they birthmarks native to the goliaths? - running up and down his face and arms.

The large goliath lumbered his way to face Jinx where she was still dumbstruck on the horse, letting out another roar and slamming his huge axe in the ground, making it tremble slightly.

"Go!" Jinx yelled, ushering the dark girl off of her horse and pointing her in the direction of a patch of woods she might could hide under.

Jinx felt the goliath chasing behind her before she saw him. With every heavy step, a loud thud shook the ground. Jinx leapt up for a moment, giving the goliath enough time to lodge the enormous battle axe into the ground where Jinx once stood. When she fell back down, she landed gracefully on the handle of the axe that the goliath was now attempting to pull back out of the ground and probably swing at her again with. Before he could, she used the goliath's massive arm as a stepping stool and launched herself forward, swiping hard at the goliath's tough-textured face, and landing behind him with a small click of the heel of her boot.

The goliath let out a pained groan, rubbing his hands at his face a moment before abandoning his axe and turning around to face Jinx with clenched fists.

Jinx gave a sly smirk, her tail flicking proudly behind her, as she saw the thick pattern of four long scratches across the goliath's left cheek. It would probably scar. She hoped so.

"The dogs eat the cats here!" he screamed the threat with a guttural rage, stomping the ground and sending it shaking, destabilizing Jinx's position for a quick moment.

The goliath let out another guttural roar before bull charging right at Jinx, who leapt gracefully in the air again as a dodge, flicking away her cloak in the process.

She landed safely behind him, again, and let out a snort as the giant goliath went charging into the stump of a huge tree that served as the mantlepiece of the town. At this rate she wouldn't really even need to fight, just time her dodges correctly.

But now the goliath was mad - like, really mad. He was practically fuming when he turned around to her.

And then Jinx saw why he was fuming, and why he was so strained.

Jinx gave a panicked yell as the goliath tore the enormous tree right from its roots, half hurling and half banging it down where Jinx stood dumbstruck. There was no way she could dodge that - the body of the tree was the width of six of her. She could hope and try for 'third time's the charm' on her dodging abilities, but it wasn't likely.

Jinx let out an ugly sound as the tree hit her, the combined strength of the tree and the goliath who'd wieldied it knocking the air out of her lungs until she'd felt like a popped balloon. She could practically feel which bones were broken, and her back felt like she were laying on a thousand knives. Things could've been worse, obviously. The tree had just barely missed crushing Jinx's entire body, but managed to land on her ankle. She made a sad, pained sound as she tried to wiggle it free and heard a horrible crunching noise.

The goliath stepped forward again, this time leisurely, sure that he had caught his prey. As he passed where he'd stuck his axe into the ground, he easily yanked it out, chuckling darkly as he made his way closer and closer to the stuck tabaxian.

Jinx started to panic, pulling at her leg with no results.

The horrible monster looked at Jinx, then at his axe, and decided instead he wanted to crush her with his hands. A sort of payback for his face, Jinx assumed. The goliath stuck his axe into the tree, cracking his knuckles as he continued toward Jinx.

Jinx sparked an idea. And that is what separates Jinx from any other relic-seeker in Arcadia, what made her so successful. It wasn't that she was tabaxi, it wasn't that she was fast or strong or lithe. She was clever, clever than most even in her own race.

Jinx reached into her belt, pulling out a long black whip - simple, but dangerous, like her.

Jinx expertly aimed and shot at the goliath's wrist area and succeeded. The whip wasn't meant to burn or hurt, it was used to help her navigate through obstacles, and it reached its target seamlessly, wrapping around the goliath's massive wrist.

The goliath looked down at his wrist in a confused manner, as if wondering why a mosquito was bothering to bite him and ruin his sunny day. Jinx used all of the force she could muster and used both hands to tug on her end of the whip, causing the goliath to stumble forward a bit in his confused state.

Please be the dumb kind please be the dumb kind please be the dumb kind-

The goliath's eyebrows tilted downwards, taking the pull as a challenge, and using both hands yanked back on his end of the whip.

Jinx sighed in relief and curled as much of her body as she could around her end of the whip, hanging on for the free ride out from under the tree as the goliath foolishly helped her out of her prison.

The goliath had probably planned on catching Jinx to subdue her himself, but had underestimated his strength, and the small girl went flying behind him, hitting the ground in a way that put her earlier graceful landing's to disbelief.

With a grunt, she pulled herself up, ignoring the white hot pain in her ribs. From her bones or from her air being stolen for the second time, she couldn't say. Either way, she bit down on her cheeks when pain went surging through her body, and forced herself to stand strong in a fighting position, despite her probably dislocated ankle.

She sized up the ugly goliath, sized up her own beat-up self, sized up her whip that was still attached to his wrist, and she silently prayed to any god that would hear her.

Time it right. You have to time it right.

The goliath came bull rushing at her again - Jinx assumed it was to smash her into the tree she was half leaning on and to turn her into cat-jelly, though she also figured the hulking beast didn't have enough of a brain in there to think that far ahead. He was getting closer, fast. His footsteps, his heavy grunts, his blazing eyes.

Time it right, time it right.

Her entire body was screaming at her to dodge, to run, to do something besides stand there. Her entire nature was screeching in her head for her to run.

Timeitrighttimeitrighttimeitright-

Just seconds before Jinx was smeared into the tree, she used a low branch and her only good foot to push off the tree and above the goliath, twisting around and using the goliath's strength to land on his back as he stood dazed from headbutting yet another huge tree with all his strength.

She didn't dare give the monster time to steady himself, planting her good foot on the monster's back, and tugging back on the whip as hard she could, sending the goliath's own fist into his face. Smiling at her advantage, she tightened her grip on the whip.

"Why don't you pick on somebody your own size?" She yelled defiantly, pulling back on the whip over, and over, and over, using the full weight of her body each time, putting everything she had into it. She practically had to stand over the monster to use up all of the leeway she had. Over and over and over the goliath's hulking fist came pounding into his face, dazed each time it hit, and not giving him enough time between punches to stop himself.

Finally the goliath let out another angry grunt, swinging his free hand behind himself to try and grab Jinx, only for Jinx to tie the leeway left of the whip around that fist as well, sending the monster into double-punching himself.

Suddenly the goliath was getting slower with his flailing, he was swaying side to side some more, and Jinx relented a bit, just so that she could look smug and enjoy this.

"Maybe the dogs should think twice about which cats they bark at." She huffed, ever out of breath, and pulled back on the whip one last time.

The goliath went toppling down like a fallen castle, and Jinx leapt out of the way just in time not to be crushed. Wasting no time, she used what was left of her whip to tie the goliath's other limbs to each other, then kicking him in the head for good measure when he started to murmur in pain. She fell to the ground immediately after, clutching her foot.

Jinx crawled a little ways away from the goliath, falling on her back and groaning.

"We're saved! We're saved!" screamed the girl from earlier, running out of her hidey hole to kneel next to Jinx. Jinx watched as a hundred humans, halflings, and half-elves came stumbling out of their crumbled homes and other hiding spots all at once, crying in joy over the vanquished - or, unconscious - monster that was sure to kill them all.

"You did it! You did it!" The village girl cheered, hugging Jinx's arm, sensing she wasn't ready to get up just yet.

"...At least I don't think I'll ever have to crack my back again." Jinx smiled sadly.

A pained groaning and wriggling came from beside her, as the entire village gasped in horror.

There was a focused, strained grunt, and Jinx tiredly turned her head over just in time to see the goliath snapping her precious whip in four from where she'd tied him up.

The goliath stood at full height, and she prepared for the worst, only for him to come crashing back down, bracing himself on his knee. Raggedly panting, he looked at tired and beat as she felt.

"You...fight...good…" He muttered.

"...Thanks, but isn't this the part where you eat me?" Jinx asked in a deadpan.

"...No, no it isn't." He said. The goliath stood back up to full height, looking down at Jinx with something she hadn't seen before. Something akin to admiration and respect.

The goliath picked Jinx's body up, setting her upright on the ground and helping her find her balance, all while the villagers gasped and tensed, terrified of what he might do next.

"You fight honorably. My people respect that. I respect that. I'm nearly six times your size, tiny, and yet here you stand, winner." he preached in an almost fantastical way, smiling down at her.

"So, how did you do it? How did you think of the whip in just the right time?" He asked in his gruff voice.

Jinx, still utterly shocked, replied with a deadpan again.

"I don't spend the whole time screaming off my head and running into trees."

The goliath paused, and then he threw his head back and laughed a deep, mighty sound.

"I don't…I don't understand. Why did you attack this village? How are you so calm now that I've beaten you?" Jinx demanded, utterly bewildered.

"You really don't know goliaths, do you? Or barbarians, I guess." he said aloud, seeming to think to himself. "We're a raging people. Often, if provoked enough, we fly into a consuming rage, and you have to calm us to get out our good-natured side. Your fighting impressed me, and you've given me the workout I haven't had in a very long time." the goliath said.

Jinx spun on her good heel at the villagers.

"I knew you had to have provoked him!"

"But we- we didn't, we swear! We never venture to the mountains!" the girl helplessly cried.

"Nah, not you. Your people." the goliath interjected.

"Pardon?" Jinx asked.

"Because of them," He said pointing at the humans specifically, "I am exiled from my tribe, from my home. They took advantage of my...shortcomings in the intelligence department, and practically stole the sacred pelt of my tribe from me! Until I get it back, I will never see my tribe ever again. And it's because of them!" The goliath growled, pointing again at the humans. "It's because of this whole kingdom. Their king has it now, and my plan is to tear my way through this entire kingdom to get to him!" he roared.

"No! Wait, wait! What if I...if I help you, I can restore my name, and I can also keep you in check. You can't just smash your way there, the royal guard will have you speared on a stick to hang up as a trophy in the castle if you do. Let me help you." Jinx offered, her hands in a gesture of peace. Jinx knew what it was like to have something important taken from you with no respect, no care for what it did to the person it was stolen from.

The goliath thought on this a moment, and she was most likely right. He didn't know the Calishite kingdom like she did, and there was no way he could fight off even more than one of her.

The hulking goliath thought on this a moment, before smiling. He looked down at her offered handshake like it was alien, and instead brought her into a bone-shattering hug that Jinx would never - as much as she'd try to - forget.

"Wonderful! What is your name, my sister in arms?" the goliath bellowed happily.

"I'm Jinx. And what's yours, partner?" She asked, stressing the partner aspect, praying the goliath didn't get too familiar with her.

"I am Pethanithuliaga!" He said proudly.

Jinx stared at him dumbfounded.

"Could we...maybe shorten-?"

"My clan name is Mammoth!" He bellowed happily. "For my muscles!"

"...Ah, I see." Jinx muttered at the strange red-headed goliath.

This would be an...interesting quest.

[There it is! Please, please, PLEASE Read and Review!]