An Evening of Avarice [Closed]

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Val Bellamy
Character
100% Guaranteed Not Her Fault
Level
01
24 / 24 HP
20 / 20 MP
0p / 0g / 0s / 50c
Race: Human and Elemental
Class: Bard
Posts: 16
Joined: July 6th, 2019, 6:23 am
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 6 times

An Evening of Avarice [Closed]

Post by Val Bellamy »

(( Egregiously late at night, well past the upstairs' final call, and buried in a back-alley basement of the notorious Velvet Goose. All patrons with good sense and the sobriety to match have been cozy at home for a while yet, and only the coded handshakes and hazy atmosphere of the seedy clever-use-of-legality establishment remains. With trinkets to gamble and coins to wager, and still with impeccably polite staff, it's the perfect blend of crass-and-high-class that thieves like @Cassian Thander and troublemakers like Val never could stay away from. ))

Val was up to what she normally was up to this late at night in the southeast of town: Nothing Good™. Big Nose upstairs had given her the lowdown and an entry token last time she 'accidentally' stumbled upon the shady pub, and now she was here again - at the proper time, at the proper place, in the proper attire. Which was to say, 'late as hell,' 'in the secret basement beneath the back alley,' and 'down a hair ribbon and two rings, but still with three more on her other hand, several entangled necklaces, her set of earrings, and an anklet,' which she felt sufficiently covered her losses.

She had gotten entry easily enough. The boxes covering the stairway in the alley were hollow and easy to move; the beer-keg-spigot-handle had been a bit of a fuss, getting stuck after only budging half an inch. Flashing her token and with no weapons to check, she glided easily enough through the check-in point, and flaunting her many sparklies with a sagacious grin, Val Bellamy had experienced no issues waltzing right up to the highest-stakes game of the night and plonking herself into the next open chair.

Now, the bard sat perched on her seat, anklet charm clinking against the legs of the bar stool as she regarded her hand with a serenity that should not be. It was a close match thus far, yet the smirk that quirked and the scan of bleary eyes hinted at a malicious move indeed - and Val, voice of pride full and hand flick of extravagance much, laid down her decisive card with a withering decree: "I play a Cecilia the Inventor, which easily converts your Black Magic Bhelest and the whole surrounding chain. And, since you so kindly blocked me in last turn, there's nothing you can place to counter - I win!"

The treasure pile before her beckoned, a growing conglomerate that consisted of glinting cufflinks, a wallet, a hand-mirror with a ship engraved in the wood on the reverse, a set of shoes that kept trying to walk off the table and required the referee to occasionally slide them back into place, a gold bracelet, a hawk-encrusted pocket watch, a glass eye, and Val's own rye-coloured hair ribbon with the elegant white-thread embroidery. Her arms were halfway enveloped around the treasure pile, dragging it towards her with delighted rapacity as her imagination rumbled with the many possible secrets the artifacts might be hiding -

When her opponent, a positively curmudgeonly hunched man with a filthy cloak, croaked out instead, "Nah so fas', sweetheart!" He also had an eyepatch. The glass eye was his contribution. "There'n one more spot to play, nay?"

Val narrowed her eyes and accused, "Yes, but I'm more than one point ahead of you and you've flanked yourself. You can't possibly flip any more cards; you can't win."

His smile said otherwise. There was something about the way it cut through the joviality of a card game that needled at her, and Val felt her stomach sinking even before he said, "An' fer this final spot, I play The Archer of Sterling." Val positively blanched as the card went down, her grip on the newly-acquired treasures going rigid as she saw her victory spiraling the drain. "An' e'eryone knows Archer beats Cecilia, an' Cecilia beats Black Magic Bhelest, and I flip the whole chain back ter me!" There was a kind of dooming guffaw that followed, and the gasps and cackles of others looking on as they moved to pry her from her losings.

Although Val had gone deaf to the room. "But... but that's my mother's ribbon - you can't have it!" she protested, to absolutely no avail.

"Eh? Tough luck," Mr. Two-Teeth shot on back. "Shouldn'a wagered a scenty-metal treasure if ya weren't prepared ta lose it."

"- How about best two out of three?" she negotiated next, undoing one of her earrings and placing it on the table. "Here, it's a Chime of Secrets - picks up all the things whispered around you!" This table at the Velvet Down wasn't a gambling ring for household odds and ends, after all - the objects were all magical in some capacity or another, all illicit items that were strictly outlawed in the city above and would get any of them thrown in jail for a long time for openly trading.

"... Tha'z all it does? There, I spy a game o' dice over yonder - ain't that more your speed? Go have fun losing coppers and dignity." He urged her to the low-end tables instead, Val finally having to give up her hold of borrowed goods and let the heartless cretin rake his hands through it with glee. There was just one problem with his suggestion:

She was lying her ass off.

The earring wasn't magical.

Neither was the ribbon she had just lost. It wasn't even her mother's, for that matter - it was a very nice accessory, and one she had received fondly as a cherished gift to herself for the hard work of finding it on sale, but it was no more enchanted than her salacious introductions. And eventually, he was going to find out, and she was going to be caught out, and then with a reputation like the Goose's, she was going to be kicked out and roughed up as an example to others.

With a steeling breath, she returned the earring to her ear and left the table, hunting the crowds and scanning hands for an individual that could help her. She needed her best sob story, and someone either with absurdly good luck, or nimble enough hands to pretend it. The One-Eyed Swindler was bound to play a few more games, energized by victory as he was; she had breathing space for now, but she needed to get that ribbon back, pronto.
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