RE: Petty Squabble [ROUND 3] [Goldhenge]
06-15-2014, 09:25 PM
So the problem, she figured, was this:
The luck powers gave her what she wanted. But they got snippity, maybe, if she wanted too many things at once.
Or maybe it was that the luck powers only let her win at cards so she could get here and get the pictures on her phone (which she hadn’t yet), so it wouldn’t really be lucky for her to keep winning.
Or maybe she was just losing big now so that the luck powers would let her win bigger later. That one was called the “Gambler’s Fallacy,” she knew, but hey, she had a full Vetruvian in her hand right now with, what, eight hundred gold coins in the pot?
Her poker face certainly wasn’t very good right now, but the wizard guy kept putting more money in. Which had to be a luck powers thing, right?
She took a deep breath and laid down her hand. Four male arms, four male legs, one male torso, one male head. “Full Vetruvian,” she said, her eyes squarely on the wizard.
“Hmm.” The wizard looked at his own hand. “Well, then.” He placed three male torsos and six male legs down on the table.
And then surrounded each torso with fifty male arms, fifty female arms, twenty-five male heads and twenty-five female heads. The cards crowded the table, arranged in formations that looked almost floral. “Triple Hecatoncheires,” he proclaimed. With a wave of his wand and a jingle he dropped the gold into his coinpurse and reshuffled the deck for good measure. “Care to front your champion another few hundred, mister mayor?” he asked Benny, fuming in the corner. “Things could turn around at any moment.”
Benny Diccio Giacomo Honorope Pontiff X, mayor of Goldhenge, ignored the wizard and instead dragged Alison out of her chair, holding her up by the collar. “Thou stealing little shrew!” he growled. “My boys claimed my money to be in good hands with you! I oughta—”
“Boss, boss, mister mayor, take it easy maybe, huh?” suggested Jack “Innocent” VIII, casino regular and Alison’s usual bank. “Allie’s always brought the goods against marks who weren’t wizards.”
“Always!” Alison agreed. “That guy’s obviously cheating! He pulled three hundred arms out of his sleeves!”
“You mean these sleeves?” asked the wizard, raising his arms. His sleeves were indeed quite spacious around the wrists. “I can’t fit any cards in here. This is where I keep all my confetti!”
Showers of pastel-colored confetti rocketed out of the wizard’s arms and coated the walls of the casino. Benny brushed some out of his mustache. “And so, if he cheats? If he cheats, cheat also! Such is the game, and for such are we here convened!”
“I don’t know how to cheat!” protested Alison. “I’m just lucky!”
“Oh, lucky, is she?” Benny dropped Alison to the floor and clasped his hands to his head. “Eight hundred coins we waste on lucky. Youth, that is taxpayer money! One does not gamble that away! Does your father on the student council propose foreign aid to Wizard Castle that I ain’t heard about it yet? Huh?”
“All due respect, Mister Mayor,” barked Innocent. “Benny. She’s a kid. These last couple’a weeks she musta netted me three, four times the eight hundred just running her ‘lucky’ game against some’a the drunks come here.”
Benny closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Making… three thousand? Good money, that.” He adjusted his pointy hat. “Good money is good. That’s what I always say.”
“You do always say that, Ben,” Innocent affirmed. “Good money keeps the demons at bay.”
“It most certainly does not,” grumbled the wizard. “Unless, say, that money toward hiring the services of a practitioner of white magic.” White confetti sprayed out of his sleeves in spurts.
“Cork it, heathen,” grumbled Benny. Alison pulled her phone out of her pocket and opened up the camera function. “You’re to bar magic-types from entering this joint,” the mayor told Innocent. “Their ways are mysterious and they may be packing demons. As a matter of fact,” he added, turning to the wizard. “I may well make a mayoral proclamation, barring your wizardly ilk from Goldhenge altogether.”
The wizard sneered. “Mister mayor, the monument in our town is a holy site for many of my associates in Wizard Castle. We will come calling now and then. We’d prefer to do so under respectful terms, but—”
“The monument?” Benny rolled his eyes. “Some primordial work of modern art pretension. You can have it. For its weight in real gold, of course.”
“You’ll find it’s not so easy to relocate, else we would have done so centuries ago.”
Click click click. The mayor himself, unfortunately, had never touched a card. Everyone at the other tables was too distracted by the scene with the wizard to notice their “lucky charm” shooting pictures. “Listen up!” growled Benny. “There is but one true religion in Goldhenge, and it’s my one. I make no accommodations for demon worshippers, wizards white or otherwise, COFCAn empirical neo-pantheism, none of that new thing, what’sit, Jack.”
“It’s, uh, the Lock & Key cult, boss.”
“Yeah, none’a them.” Benny cleared his throat. “And so from the mouth of the Order, so shall it be… so.”
“No, I’m afraid it shan’t,” said the wizard, raising his wand. “My ‘wizardly ilk,’ as you call us, have been watching the recent growth of your foul little religion with nothing more than bored disgust. But if you progress from mere usury to actual atrocity, I warn you—”
“You warn me nothing!” Benny pointed his cross to match the other’s wand. “Nobody talks to Benny Diccio Giacomo Honorope Pontiff X thus in his own house of sin and debauchery! My faith will protect me from your sorcery. As will my boys. Get ‘im!”
Innocent V and BonyFace III, Benny’s omnipresent muscle, drew knives and moved on the wizard, who yawned performatively. He pointed his wand at Innocent and began to intone a magic word…
…And then stopped. “Hold on,” said the wizard, stopping the Holy Order men in their tracks with a wave of his hand. “Trouble at the homestead. Let’s save this pissing contest for later, shall we?” And teleported away with some swirling yellow lines and a whoosh. Playing cards and confetti rose into the air and fluttered downwards.
“Gentlemen,” said Benny. “Our enemies grow in number by the day. Let us draft some legislation.”
The men deliberated over the bar, forgetting about Alison—and the coinpurse of holding left on the card table. She was graduating from gambling to stealing—but the luck powers must have wanted her to have it if they’d made it so easy to get. Right?
Trying not to think of Nancy, she wondered how far the powers’ influence spread. The luck powers must have caused the wizard to leave when he did, which means they must have caused whatever he was going back to attend to in Wizard’s Castle.
So that was probably going to turn out well, too.
* * * * *
Ethan was hungry.
Alison was out doing secret spy work. Dad was starting his new job at the government. He was pretty sure that made it Mom’s job to feed him. And to feed Emma, for that matter. She’d been crying all day, which usually either meant she was hungry or could feel something evil coming. Dumb baby that she was, Emma was pretty good with that sort of thing.
Ethan knew that he was expected to stay in his room and look after his sister, but Mom was expected to come feed them, so all bets were off. He went downstairs to the dining room, where the innkeep sold bacon and veggies and beer every day. The turkey smelled okay but Ethan didn’t have any money. “Hey, mister,” he asked the innkeep. “Can I have free lunch until my dad pays back later? He’s on the government now.”
The innkeep looked worried. “I think not, lad.” He pointed towards a door Ethan hadn’t gone through before. “Why not retrieve your mother from the cellar, she if she might provide some coin? She ran down there around sunrise and I’ve had half a mind to ask her her business m’self.”
“Okay! I’ll be back in a minute with bacon money!” Ethan scampered through the door. The basement was dark and the stairs were steep. He took them one at a time. “Mom?”
Mom’s voice from the bottom of the stairs sounded kind of sick. ”Ethan!”
she cried. ”Careful on the stairs!”
“I’m being so careful, Mom,” teased Ethan, jumping up and down on the top step. “Hey, can I have money for food? Plus you should feed Emma.”
”Oh, Ethan baby, I’m so sorry. Is it breakfast time already?”
”It’s lunchtime, Mom.”
“Lunchtime? Shit. I mean. Darn.” Mom had said a swear. Ethan remembered that so he could use it as an excuse to swear later. ”Ethan, could you do me a tiny favor? I’m going to be down here until it gets dark, I think.”
Ethan was way too smart than to fall for the “tiny favor” trick. ”What’s the favor?” he asked first.
”Can you, um. Can you find your Dad over at the town hall and tell him not to worry, but that I’m a vampire now? Say, ‘Mom says don’t worry, but she’s a vampire now.’ And that he should come home and feed Emma. Make sure you say the ‘Don’t worry’ part first.”
Ethan groaned. “Can’t I get some lunch first? I’m starving.”
* * * * *
Meanwhile Tom Broderburg, in the process of filling out a pertinent form, was trying to figure out what his date of birth would be by Goldhenge reckoning. He did a lot of complex-looking arithmetic with his fingers. “Hey!” he told the clerk. “It’s F—back where I come from, originally, today is Father’s Day.”
“That’s very nice,” replied the clerk.
“I’m a father.”
“So I gathered.”
"Three times over."Tom redid the math a third time. His fingernails were getting pretty long. He made a mental note to figure out a good way to take care of that. “Oh, wait, sorry,” Tom corrected. “I think Father’s Day was yesterday.” He sighed. “Passed me right by.”
The luck powers gave her what she wanted. But they got snippity, maybe, if she wanted too many things at once.
Or maybe it was that the luck powers only let her win at cards so she could get here and get the pictures on her phone (which she hadn’t yet), so it wouldn’t really be lucky for her to keep winning.
Or maybe she was just losing big now so that the luck powers would let her win bigger later. That one was called the “Gambler’s Fallacy,” she knew, but hey, she had a full Vetruvian in her hand right now with, what, eight hundred gold coins in the pot?
Her poker face certainly wasn’t very good right now, but the wizard guy kept putting more money in. Which had to be a luck powers thing, right?
She took a deep breath and laid down her hand. Four male arms, four male legs, one male torso, one male head. “Full Vetruvian,” she said, her eyes squarely on the wizard.
“Hmm.” The wizard looked at his own hand. “Well, then.” He placed three male torsos and six male legs down on the table.
And then surrounded each torso with fifty male arms, fifty female arms, twenty-five male heads and twenty-five female heads. The cards crowded the table, arranged in formations that looked almost floral. “Triple Hecatoncheires,” he proclaimed. With a wave of his wand and a jingle he dropped the gold into his coinpurse and reshuffled the deck for good measure. “Care to front your champion another few hundred, mister mayor?” he asked Benny, fuming in the corner. “Things could turn around at any moment.”
Benny Diccio Giacomo Honorope Pontiff X, mayor of Goldhenge, ignored the wizard and instead dragged Alison out of her chair, holding her up by the collar. “Thou stealing little shrew!” he growled. “My boys claimed my money to be in good hands with you! I oughta—”
“Boss, boss, mister mayor, take it easy maybe, huh?” suggested Jack “Innocent” VIII, casino regular and Alison’s usual bank. “Allie’s always brought the goods against marks who weren’t wizards.”
“Always!” Alison agreed. “That guy’s obviously cheating! He pulled three hundred arms out of his sleeves!”
“You mean these sleeves?” asked the wizard, raising his arms. His sleeves were indeed quite spacious around the wrists. “I can’t fit any cards in here. This is where I keep all my confetti!”
Showers of pastel-colored confetti rocketed out of the wizard’s arms and coated the walls of the casino. Benny brushed some out of his mustache. “And so, if he cheats? If he cheats, cheat also! Such is the game, and for such are we here convened!”
“I don’t know how to cheat!” protested Alison. “I’m just lucky!”
“Oh, lucky, is she?” Benny dropped Alison to the floor and clasped his hands to his head. “Eight hundred coins we waste on lucky. Youth, that is taxpayer money! One does not gamble that away! Does your father on the student council propose foreign aid to Wizard Castle that I ain’t heard about it yet? Huh?”
“All due respect, Mister Mayor,” barked Innocent. “Benny. She’s a kid. These last couple’a weeks she musta netted me three, four times the eight hundred just running her ‘lucky’ game against some’a the drunks come here.”
Benny closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Making… three thousand? Good money, that.” He adjusted his pointy hat. “Good money is good. That’s what I always say.”
“You do always say that, Ben,” Innocent affirmed. “Good money keeps the demons at bay.”
“It most certainly does not,” grumbled the wizard. “Unless, say, that money toward hiring the services of a practitioner of white magic.” White confetti sprayed out of his sleeves in spurts.
“Cork it, heathen,” grumbled Benny. Alison pulled her phone out of her pocket and opened up the camera function. “You’re to bar magic-types from entering this joint,” the mayor told Innocent. “Their ways are mysterious and they may be packing demons. As a matter of fact,” he added, turning to the wizard. “I may well make a mayoral proclamation, barring your wizardly ilk from Goldhenge altogether.”
The wizard sneered. “Mister mayor, the monument in our town is a holy site for many of my associates in Wizard Castle. We will come calling now and then. We’d prefer to do so under respectful terms, but—”
“The monument?” Benny rolled his eyes. “Some primordial work of modern art pretension. You can have it. For its weight in real gold, of course.”
“You’ll find it’s not so easy to relocate, else we would have done so centuries ago.”
Click click click. The mayor himself, unfortunately, had never touched a card. Everyone at the other tables was too distracted by the scene with the wizard to notice their “lucky charm” shooting pictures. “Listen up!” growled Benny. “There is but one true religion in Goldhenge, and it’s my one. I make no accommodations for demon worshippers, wizards white or otherwise, COFCAn empirical neo-pantheism, none of that new thing, what’sit, Jack.”
“It’s, uh, the Lock & Key cult, boss.”
“Yeah, none’a them.” Benny cleared his throat. “And so from the mouth of the Order, so shall it be… so.”
“No, I’m afraid it shan’t,” said the wizard, raising his wand. “My ‘wizardly ilk,’ as you call us, have been watching the recent growth of your foul little religion with nothing more than bored disgust. But if you progress from mere usury to actual atrocity, I warn you—”
“You warn me nothing!” Benny pointed his cross to match the other’s wand. “Nobody talks to Benny Diccio Giacomo Honorope Pontiff X thus in his own house of sin and debauchery! My faith will protect me from your sorcery. As will my boys. Get ‘im!”
Innocent V and BonyFace III, Benny’s omnipresent muscle, drew knives and moved on the wizard, who yawned performatively. He pointed his wand at Innocent and began to intone a magic word…
…And then stopped. “Hold on,” said the wizard, stopping the Holy Order men in their tracks with a wave of his hand. “Trouble at the homestead. Let’s save this pissing contest for later, shall we?” And teleported away with some swirling yellow lines and a whoosh. Playing cards and confetti rose into the air and fluttered downwards.
“Gentlemen,” said Benny. “Our enemies grow in number by the day. Let us draft some legislation.”
The men deliberated over the bar, forgetting about Alison—and the coinpurse of holding left on the card table. She was graduating from gambling to stealing—but the luck powers must have wanted her to have it if they’d made it so easy to get. Right?
Trying not to think of Nancy, she wondered how far the powers’ influence spread. The luck powers must have caused the wizard to leave when he did, which means they must have caused whatever he was going back to attend to in Wizard’s Castle.
So that was probably going to turn out well, too.
* * * * *
Ethan was hungry.
Alison was out doing secret spy work. Dad was starting his new job at the government. He was pretty sure that made it Mom’s job to feed him. And to feed Emma, for that matter. She’d been crying all day, which usually either meant she was hungry or could feel something evil coming. Dumb baby that she was, Emma was pretty good with that sort of thing.
Ethan knew that he was expected to stay in his room and look after his sister, but Mom was expected to come feed them, so all bets were off. He went downstairs to the dining room, where the innkeep sold bacon and veggies and beer every day. The turkey smelled okay but Ethan didn’t have any money. “Hey, mister,” he asked the innkeep. “Can I have free lunch until my dad pays back later? He’s on the government now.”
The innkeep looked worried. “I think not, lad.” He pointed towards a door Ethan hadn’t gone through before. “Why not retrieve your mother from the cellar, she if she might provide some coin? She ran down there around sunrise and I’ve had half a mind to ask her her business m’self.”
“Okay! I’ll be back in a minute with bacon money!” Ethan scampered through the door. The basement was dark and the stairs were steep. He took them one at a time. “Mom?”
Mom’s voice from the bottom of the stairs sounded kind of sick. ”Ethan!”
she cried. ”Careful on the stairs!”
“I’m being so careful, Mom,” teased Ethan, jumping up and down on the top step. “Hey, can I have money for food? Plus you should feed Emma.”
”Oh, Ethan baby, I’m so sorry. Is it breakfast time already?”
”It’s lunchtime, Mom.”
“Lunchtime? Shit. I mean. Darn.” Mom had said a swear. Ethan remembered that so he could use it as an excuse to swear later. ”Ethan, could you do me a tiny favor? I’m going to be down here until it gets dark, I think.”
Ethan was way too smart than to fall for the “tiny favor” trick. ”What’s the favor?” he asked first.
”Can you, um. Can you find your Dad over at the town hall and tell him not to worry, but that I’m a vampire now? Say, ‘Mom says don’t worry, but she’s a vampire now.’ And that he should come home and feed Emma. Make sure you say the ‘Don’t worry’ part first.”
Ethan groaned. “Can’t I get some lunch first? I’m starving.”
* * * * *
Meanwhile Tom Broderburg, in the process of filling out a pertinent form, was trying to figure out what his date of birth would be by Goldhenge reckoning. He did a lot of complex-looking arithmetic with his fingers. “Hey!” he told the clerk. “It’s F—back where I come from, originally, today is Father’s Day.”
“That’s very nice,” replied the clerk.
“I’m a father.”
“So I gathered.”
"Three times over."Tom redid the math a third time. His fingernails were getting pretty long. He made a mental note to figure out a good way to take care of that. “Oh, wait, sorry,” Tom corrected. “I think Father’s Day was yesterday.” He sighed. “Passed me right by.”