Raising the Stakes

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Anaxas' main trade port; it is also the nation's criminal headquarters, home to the Bad Brothers and Silas Hawke, King of the Underworld. The small town of Plugit is nearby.

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Leander
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Tue Sep 03, 2019 3:54 pm

2nd Day of Berthas, 2718
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Never let it be said that Leo wasn’t a creature of habit. He could often be seen in the early hours of the morning - every morning - walking home as if the ground is the deck of a storm tossed boat. The night wasn’t even half through and Leo already appeared that way: each foot landing on the road as if the collision of shoe on gravel wasn’t entirely anticipated.

It wasn’t that he meant to be drunk, yet at least. But each drink seemed like a better and better idea. In the back of his mind, Leander knew the stairs at home, that he usually took two at a time, should be a mountain to climb on all fours. Being kicked out of his first pub should have been enough. But it wasn’t, it never was. Staggering through the darkened streets, Leo happened across a pub he didn’t frequent often... least not now since his diablerie had been unleashed on the King of the Underworld - taking half the bar with it - and Hawke had claimed him as one of his own.

It was a blessing really, that he hadn’t been killed that night. Nevertheless, he had not come back here, but tonight it seemed like a fine option. Pushing his way into the already crowded establishment, Leander glanced around. It was a relatively rowdy option, with fights that broke out nightly over the odd card game. That suited Leo just fine.

The bar looked like it needed help to be propped up. The passive made a beeline over to it, leaning heavily to stop it from falling over. “A pint, if you’d be so kind, my good lady,” Leo slurred. The barmaid looked at him sceptically, clearly assessing his current state. Despite what she saw, she decided to pour it anyway. With less coordination than a concussed wick, Leo flipped a coin from his fingers, aiming for the barmaid’s hands. He missed by a mile, but she was probably just a terrible catch.

But Leo didn’t just want to drink. Now that he was sure the bar top wouldn’t fall over without his help, he scanned the room as a whole. “Anyone up for a game?


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Tom Cooke
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Wed Sep 04, 2019 12:31 pm

The Black Dove The Rose
Evening on the 2nd of Bethas, 2718
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More and more often, these past few years. Wasn’t something Tom liked to think about, but it kept slithering its laoso way into his brain, making itself right at home. More and more often he found himself drinking alone.

Was why he’d decided to get guttered tonight. Ish hadn’t wanted to go out; ne, he’d said, he was tired, he was — Tom couldn’t remember. To hell with him, then. Maybe he’d bring home a pretty kov, show him just what he was kissing out on. Missing. Shit. No Murko, either: the tsuter was out at sea, wrapped up in Hulali’s wild waves, and the hell if Tom knew whether he’d ever see him again. And then the other ones, the ones he couldn’t even think about. Faces all muddled in the drunken dark of nights like this one. You got this far, seemed like they just started disappearing, one by one.

Grim thoughts for a grim, cold clocking night, and Tom wasn’t having any of it. Ne, Tom was determined to enjoy himself, and that meant getting shit-faced enough to leave all that rubbish behind.

He was already fair deep in his cups; Spitz was giving him a look that told him it showed, too. There was a funny look in Tom’s eye, though, that went with his funny mood, and it meant asking him to leave was a bad idea. Unless you had a bigger, meaner kov around, and that was hard to find.

Tom noticed the little kov come in before he said anything. Looked like he’d already had a drink or two – or six – elsewhere, the way he grabbed the bar like it was the gunwale of a heaving ship. First glance, he looked he might’ve been a tsat: he was too tall to be a golly, Tom thought, though he’d met taller; but there was something about that lean, handsome face, just delicate enough, that separated him from the rowdy flock of natt dockers he’d flopped himself down in the middle of.

His voice, too. Tom’d been quiet, so far – quiet and grim. But when the kov called the barmaid good lady, like they was in the Widow’s Walk or something, like he was a toffin golly, he couldn’t help the smile that twitched across his face. Couldn’t help the snort, either, when he flicked that quart’penny at her and missed by a mile. As he finished off his whisky and called for another, he watched him contemplatively.

Tom had a sense for this shit. He was a regular at more places than five men could count on their hands, and he’d been kicked out of half of them; he knew the look of a ballach, and he knew the look of a man who was going to start something laoso. Some nights, he used that knowing wisely, and he steered clear. Slipped off before the points came out, before any sap got spilt over nothing in particular.

Tonight was not one of those nights. Tonight, a kov like this one was an opportunity.

When he sat down next to him, the stool creaked and cracked underneath his weight. Tom Cooke was a giant of a man, but he’d been big since he was a boch, and he moved like it. Even plastered, there was an odd grace to his motions, a fighter’s grace; he moved like he knew how big he was, like he knew where all his limbs were at any given time, like he knew what they were doing. Even when he nearly fumbled his glass setting it down on the bar, he caught himself without the slightest embarrassment.

“I’ll bite,” he offered, raising his brows. A crooked grin curled his scarred lip; up close, he studied the kov with a bit more interest. “Rooks, then?”

No glamour, he’d noticed. No field. Not the slightest woobly touch of the arcane. He could’ve been a natt, Tom supposed; it wouldn’t’ve been unusual. Tom wasn’t the best judge of height, and there were plenty of short humans to go around. But Tom had a sense for these things, and he would’ve bet a bird that this man was a parse. A parse, maybe – hell, maybe even a proper golly passive. It’d explain the way he talked.

Not that he cared much either way. Still, this had the potential to be interesting. Some toffin-sounding parse meandering his way into the Dove, drunk off his erse, ready to test his luck.

Tom shrugged, casual-like. He gathered up the tangles of his dark hair, tied them back in a makeshift bun; then he turned his attention out over the Dove. It was a two, and it was a little early, so the crowd was sparse. “Anybody goin’ to join me an’ this keja lad for a hand?” he growled, raising his voice.
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Leander
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Fri Sep 06, 2019 12:34 pm

2nd Day of Berthas, 2718
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The first - and only, at this stage - man to answer his call was not unfamiliar. Though Leander had never directly spoken to him, the passive knew him. He was as much a regular in the many taverns in Old Rose Harbor as Leo was, though one with less of a reputation for drunken shenanigans. Now he was able to look at the man up close, Leander felt no shame in allowing his eyes to linger on his face, his build, and the way he held himself. The man was evidently better at holding his drink: years of extra experience. But the years of alcohol abuse had left his cheeks rosy and probably his mind dull-witted. An easy target for a game, so Leo accepted.

His own drink turned down the volume on his thoughts, somehow steadying him. The elixir of his life. He raised the glass to sniff the yellowed liquid, breathing in a fragrance that only fermentation can achieve. He sipped at it, feeling the keen burn on his tongue and throat - a burn that made him recoil as a boy. Yet now it was a feeling he longed for right from the the moment he woke up each morning. A kindred spirit sat before him, he knew, and the passive smiled at the shared knowledge of a paradise few would ever appreciate. “Name’s Leander,” he wasn’t quite slurring yet, but he wasn’t far off losing that control of his tongue. “I seen you around, but don’t think we’ve been formally introduced yet.” Of course, they could have been; he frequency of blackened memories was increasing with each passing season, after all.

The man called for more players and he was ignored by most. Some, less experienced tavern-goers glanced at them nervously before whispering to their friends. Leo’s brow raised lazily as he met the gaze of some such patrons, daring them to take up the challenge. It wasn’t lost of him that the last time he had played this game, in this establishment no less, he had seen unceremoniously dragged out by Hawke after the first manifestation of his diablerie. The warmth of alcohol coursing through his veins was nothing compared to the warmth of his brief, uncontrollable conversation with mona that night.

Yeah, alright,” a gruff man spoke, pushing himself up and gesturing to his two companions, who also stood. The three men ambled over, drinks in hand, and all three walking with the sure-footedness of men who were barely halfway through their first drink. “Always up for gettin’ some easy money.” the forger laughed, “If it gives you hope, old man.” Turning back to the first man, he asked, “I assume you have a deck on you, then?

This time Leo had no trick cards up his sleeves. He was a good player, by average standards, and he wasn’t driven by desperation to win money like he had been the last time he had bought into a high stakes game. This time was simply for the thrill of it, and maybe the alcohol was helping, but he felt sure he was in for a fair shot at sweeping the table clean tonight.

Tom! You selected the game, I volunteer you to deal.” He felt confident in his luck tonight, and the game was half luck, half strategy. Leander was significantly more intelligent than the average cookie, so his confidence in that aspect was well placed. Downing his drink in one, he snapped his fingers, clearly expecting the barmaid to bring him a refill over to where the group had now congregated. “What are the stakes?


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Tom Cooke
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Sat Sep 07, 2019 3:33 pm

The Black Dove The Rose
Evening on the 2nd of Bethas, 2718
Seen me around?” Tom’s head swam; he forced himself to focus on the kov’s macha dark eyes, and he scratched his beard. He reckoned there might’ve been something familiar about them, but he couldn’t put his finger on what. Not ’til the name Leander slid into place in his head, and he raised both his dark brows, taking a long drink. Wasn’t there – something tickled at his memory, some story he’d heard from Shep a maw ago, maybe less, about something fucked up that’d happened right there in the Dove. King himself’d been there, he’d heard, and it’d been…

“Huh,” he started, now again with that crooked smile, “I reckon you’re that –” Scrap. Tom set his drink down on the bar, shrugging his shoulders. “Junta, lad. Cooke. Tom.”

As the other three kov wandered over, Tom turned with a pained creak of his stool. He let his eyes wander over them, one by one, his face blank, careful-like. Dockers, two of them, by the looks of them; one of them was almost as big as Tom, and the other was short, but stocky-built. Neither of them looked half as drunk as Tom or his new friend.

The third one smelled strongly of fish, even from here. He was much older, gnarled hands and deep-lined face, his beard shot through with grey, his dark eyes peering out of a mire of wrinkles. There was something about those eyes Tom didn’t trust; looked smart, that one.

All of them natt, ’course. Everyone present, except for the scrap. Tom turned his glance back on Leander, perking one eyebrow, sucking at a crooked tooth. Bold, this one. Another brief, cursory glance at the three men; none of them seemed too friendly with him. Oes, this night had the potential to turn nasty.

So Tom only smiled brighter. The first docker muttered a curse under his breath, fumbling in his coat. The fisherman tugged at his beard. Meantime, sweeping his glass back off the bar, Tom got to his feet. He grunted, rolled his shoulders. Start of Bethas, the chill got right through the rotted old wood, and a dozen hearths wouldn’t’ve warmed the Dove enough to keep the ache out of Tom’s scars; he pulled his big old greatcoat closer about him.

Soon as the kov’d got his deck out, they migrated to a nearby table. The fisherman and the second docker pulled up chairs. Reluctantly, Tom took off his coat, folding it over the back of the chair; he didn’t reckon those sleeves’d do him any favors. With a thoughtful pause, throwing Leander another faintly amused look, he put a penny in the middle for the ante, and the others followed suit (at a variable pace). He sat heavily again, feeling the chair-legs wobble underneath him – then took the deck and started shuffling.

The cards were old and creased, stained and mottled, the paint chipped. They were small, too, in his big hands. If he’d been graceful in every other way, his drunkenness showed in this: the motions of his fingers, traced with countless pale, hairline scars, were fumbling and stiff. It took him awhile, and he could feel four sets of eyes on him. On his hands, on the cards.

More than four. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Spitz at the bar, wiping off a glass, chatting idly with a white-headed old sailor. But he was keeping an eye on the table; Tom could feel it, prickling at the back of his neck.

He dealt without incident, then leaned back in his chair with a handful of pops. Took a deep breath, glanced down at his hand, glanced back up at the table. Sucked at a tooth. He glanced at the docker to his right, the passive to his left, the fisherman across the table.

The fisherman’s face was slack, tired. The first docker took another drink.
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Leander
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Sun Sep 15, 2019 8:20 am

2nd Day of Berthas, 2718
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The hard set of his eyes and squared shoulders when Leo watched the rusty cogs turn in the other man’s mind were unavoidable, and he did nothing to quell the disappointment and preemptive defensive words already forming on his tongue, they were not needed, however, as the either man paused, clearly thinking better of his choice in words. The passive’s shoulders dropped. “I guess that’s me,” he responded breezily before turning to his own drink and giving it his attention. Circle, he needed to stop doing this crap.

Why not just go on home and enjoy a nice quiet night in with Resha? Hardly his way... he lived and worked in the Attic, if he added his favourite past time of drinking to the roster of activities too... he might as well have moved to Brunnhold to live whatever squalid, pathetic lives scraps there were destined to. At least his time would be structured, he supposed.

The mismatched group settled in to the fiddling and faffing that always preceded games like these. It was a chance to drag your feet as you put on a show whilst simultaneously watching the other players. The three men joining them knew each other, which made it harder for Leo and Tom, who had no such advantage. All the same, he put on his own act, circling the table in a predatory fashion, as if his winning the game hung on the simple choice of where to sit. He sat with a learned air of ease and superiority, and if there was any doubt in Tom’s mind that the boy had spent his formative years living in privilege, that notion was now confirmed.

He ended up next to Tom, with the three others taking up the remaining seats. “My Ma always taught me it was rude to take a man’s money if yer don’ even know ‘is name,” one of the men, the fishy smelling one, said gruffly. “Name’s Desmond. This is Harry,” he nodded over at the bigger of the dockers, who grimaced more than smiled, though Leo attributed that horrific expression to a number of missing teeth. “And Gus,” then to the stockier of the pair, who tipped an imaginary hat in the direction of Tom and Leander.

The passive merely replied with his own tight smile. He knew the others knew his name, just as he had known theirs, and this introduction was for Tom’s benefit rather than his own. He slipped two slender fingers into his pocket and withdrew a penny of his own, which he flicked onto the table, his aim suddenly right on the mark, all the while meeting Tom’s amused gaze. Harry, the taller of the dockers, rolled his eyes, “Fecking scrap’s sober as the day he was torn from his Ma’s teat.

C’mon Harry, yer long enough in the tooth to fall fe’his act.” Desmond admonished, eyes glinting as his gaze met Leo’s momentarily, before all four turned to watch Tom shuffle the dog-eared cards with fumbling fingers. For his part, Leander was glad not to be doing the shuffling. It wasn’t so much that he was guttered - there had been an element of putting it on when he first walked in - but he was also by no means sober, and handling fiddly cards might have given that away. He liked the idea of putting the other players (well, Tom, seeing as the others had made their assumptions already) on an uneven footing.

Cards dealt, Leo reached forward to collect his own hand with an impassive expression, which he managed to maintain as he glanced at the cards.

ABBC3_OFFTOPIC
SidekickBOTToday at 17:05
5d6 = (3+1+4+4+3) = 15
in alphabetical order (Desmond, Gus, Harry, Leo, Tom) ^



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Tom Cooke
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Mon Sep 16, 2019 11:02 pm

The Black Dove The Rose
Evening on the 2nd of Bethas, 2718
Godsdamn, but the scrap was a cocky stopclocker. Tom’d been busy shuffling – such as he could, with these slippery, creased old things, and his drunk-numb fingers – but he’d kept an eye out, as you do. Shot glances at each of the men, the two dockers, the fisherman, then the wiry, fine-featured little lad with the swagger in his gait. Leander circled the table, looking at each chair like a cat with a choice of mice; he finally picked the seat next to Tom, and he sat down in it like a prince perching on his throne.

Oes, Tom thought, this toft was golly-born, or he was trying to look like he was. If he’d ever doubted, ever thought him a parse, there was just about no doubt in his mind, now.

Wasn’t just that. Leander returned his amused glance, and when he flicked a penny into the pot, tap-tap-hsssssk, it came to a stop right in the middle of the table. Spot-on. Tom’s mouth twitched – a brief, wicked little curl of a grin, a flash of crooked teeth. He raised his brows and went back to the business of dealing, but a ghost of that smile lingered on his scarred lip, amusement glittering in his dark eyes.

He nodded when each of the men introduced himself. Smooth as silk, maybe – hell of a lot smoother than the kenser piss they were drinking – he laughed just enough at the old fisherman’s pina joke, shrugged his big shoulders minutely at Harry’s good-natured hat-tip. Tried not to let it distract him from the cards, from each kov’s hands. “Tom,” he grunted when it was his turn, “Cooke,” tossed it out like it was part of the ante.

’Cause it was. Just like everything else – all the speculation about the scrap’s sobriety, all the little jabs. Tom shot another wicked glance at Leander as he slid him his worn, flaky hand.

“Kov ain’t guttered, ne,” he put in vaguely, pausing to shrug, then dealing to Desmond and Harry. He left that ne there to settle in the pot with the pennies and the names and the rest of the chroveshit. Dealing to Gus, then taking his own hand.

He didn’t think the lad was drunk. Not sloppy-drunk, leastways. Not like he’d thought when Leander’d waltzed in, trilling at the barmaid in that toffin voice and grabbing onto the first stable thing he saw. Then, he reckoned that was the point: he’d underestimated Leander when he’d looked at him and seen a lightweight scrap, an Uptown puppy in the Dog Yard. All the same, Tom knew a little something about functional drunks. The passive wasn’t guttered, but he wasn’t sober as an infant, neither.

He glanced over his hand, sucking at a tooth, taking another long drink. Tried to keep his face neutral. It wasn’t that hard, considering. Wasn’t a bad hand, but it wasn’t anything to sing about. Queen of stars, three of rooks.

They went round. Tom took another drink, then drained his glass, eying each man’s face. The squat docker looked fucking miserable, scratching at his jaw with dirty fingernails. Harry flashed his gap-toothed grin and upped the ante, and Tom thought him surprisingly hard to read. He had the lopsided face of a man whose jaw’d been broke more than once, traced with a couple of distracting scars. He had pale blue eyes, deep-hooded, sparse, pale eyebrows.

Desmond was the hardest, though. If Tom’d put his money on anyone, it’d’ve been the fisherman, with his long beard, his deep-set, sad eyes. His gnarled fingers, swollen and crooked, thick-veined. Tom couldn’t tell, but he had a funny feeling it’d be him, in the end.

Nobody folded, at least.

He burned a card before he laid out the flop; Harry made a little noise, that busted-up jaw grinding back and forth, and Tom just shrugged again. Kept his own scarred face blank, casual-like. Wasn’t much more complaint, with those scuffed-up old things.

Three of sparrows, three of moons. Ace of rooks.

Right off, Tom upped the ante, glancing over and down at Leander with another faintly amused twitch of his lip.
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Leander
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Tue Sep 17, 2019 5:44 pm

2nd Day of Berthas, 2718
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Leo couldn’t deny the thrill of pleasure that surged up his spine when he watched the others’ reactions to his coin toss. Scraps were underestimated for so many reasons and Leo was no exception. He was renowned as a drunk: a mess of a boy who scraped by and loved a stiff drink more than any one person, squandering everything he owned on that love. It was not a baseless rumour: it was true. But he enjoyed the knowledge that he was pigeon-holed into a certain stereotype enough to throw people off when that turned out to be false.

It didn’t take long to memories his hand: there were only two cards in it, after all, and he placed them back on the table, face down. As the other players did similar, the passive took the time to examine his opponents. He wasn’t surprised to see that the other players around the table were also maintaining careful rooks faces. Nothing was immediately obvious, apart from the odd slack-jawed expression that so often accompanied a drinker.

Following the flop, Leander did not look down to see what was played, instead choosing to watch the others’ expressions as the cards were dealt out, face up. That was somewhat more of a tell. Desmond and Tom seemed to cope under the first wave of cards, Gus less so, and Harry seemed to be enjoying himself a bit too much. They both looked, at best, displeased with the cards laid out before them. Unless they were playing the game. Leo hadn’t played enough games of Rooks with them to know their bluffing tells.

Meeting the bet was a no-brainer at this stage. To fold on the first flop of the first round? It was betting suicide and none of his decisions, whether they were bluffs or otherwise, would be taken seriously if he folded now. He downed the rest of his drink and waggled it in the air, “Another,” he shouted over his shoulder - it wasn’t normal to expect table service, but the establishment wasn’t heaving with people, and it wasn’t unreasonable for people to request drinks to the table if they were in the midst of the game. On the contrary, it was actually favoured; no one could be accused of cheating if one or more left the table during the game.

Everyone else met the the coins in the middle, which was no surprise. Another burn card, and the turn appeared: an eight of rooks.

With the second round of betting, Leander did not raise, meeting the bet as necessary, but Desmond did. Leander watched the man in silence for a long moment, curious as every as to why he was raising the stakes. No one did anything for no reason, unless they were simple-minded, and whatever he thought of the humans opposite him, he didn’t think of them as simple.

Picking up his own pennies, he tossed them into the growing pile to call the bet. His own, perfectly sculpted brow raised, he turned to wait for Tom to make his choice, an unspoken dare playing on his curled lips and shining in his eyes.

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