[Ionu's Wager] Cheating Pays (Belaya)

[Ulric]

86th of Summer, 511 AV Ulric wasn’t losing. That was the most he could say for the evening he’d spent in the long, smoky chamber. He hadn’t done much of anything. He was a cautious gambler, ever seeking to keep from overplaying his hand. That wasn’t exactly a good thing here, where the patrons were used to wagering not only the contents of their purse, but their homes, the clothes off their backs, or even a child. He was glad that hadn’t happened so far. Taking another gulp of ale, he lowered the tankard and glanced sharply at the burly woman guarding the door, wondering if she knew how to use the falchion at her hip. Then he thrust a stack of coins across the table, his face hardening. “Let’s make this interesting,” he growled, upending the tankard again. The others stared at him for a moment, brows raised as they leaned their elbows on the table, wondering at what had changed his mind. He hadn’t dared to bet this much for the entire span they’d been playing. “I’m out,” grunted the sailor. “Me too,” echoed the dandy. The others were swift to follow. Ulric’s face curled into a grin as he scraped up the heap of coins, his fingers lingering on the bright golds and bent, tarnished silvers. Then he drained the rest of his tankard, casting a subtle wink over his shoulder. Having an undetectable creature guarding your back had certain advantages. Now he was going to empty the purses of these pricks. “Huan iadn oandb to dubaead.” Desank shambled back around the table, taking up the place he’d stood on the prior hand. The Gasvik was a darker shadow of blue than usual, with a long, broad jaw, a faint ridge on his brow, and tasks erupting from his broad lips. The dealer began to work his magic again, deft fingers making the deck crack and soar through the shadows, until they slid to a stop before the players. And yet, something was wrong. Ulric heard a sharp growl from the Gasvik. He turned his head just in time for smoldering eyes to catch a card disappear into the folds of the dandy’s dark, embroidered jerkin. “What the petch was that?” he snarled. Secret : You won’t be able to see/hear/interact with Desank, the Gasvik, so just ignore him for now.

[Belaya Smert]

After answering Thorren Belvare's riddle correctly, Belaya entered Ionu's Wager, not a place he would normally go, but today Alvadas had teased him, seemingly taking him to the place no matter which direction he walked on the streets. Seeing as he had no choice in the matter, he had decided to go inside. Now that he was in here, he didn't know why the city wanted him here. He wasn't much of a gambler, and couldn't control his anger at times. Besides, he knew few card games, so he wasn't about to play some. Looking around, he saw a group of card players in a back room, and quietly walked in through the door before anyone could notice him. Well, not quite everyone. The woman guarding the door gave him a menacing look, but did nothing that would disturb the card game since he hadn't made any moves for the table or his swords.

Watching the game, he saw that one of the card players, a queerly dressed man, had a strange look about him that made Belaya immediately distrust him. This was confirmed when the man slipped a card up his sleeve. Another player, this one a tough looking man with leathery skin, snarled out a question at the queer looking fellow. Knowing he had been found out, the odd man pulled out a short sword and pointed it at the scarred man who had spoken up. The sailor still sitting down looked nervous and backed to the edge of the wall, evidently not wanting to be involved. Looking to his left, Belaya saw that the woman had drawn her falchion and was facing him, just as the man on the far side of the room flipped the table over to block the thrust from the dandy. Belaya drew his wakizashi, "Death", and blocked the overhead swing from the woman. Usually he would be worried about the reach of her blade compared to either of his weapons, in a enclosed room it would be more of a hindrance than a help, compared to his much shorter "Death".

Blocking another clumsy swing, he kept putting on the pressure, keeping inside the reach of her sword. She suddenly moved one hand up to the back of the falchions blade and grabbed there in order to effectively shorten the length of the sword. She then swung at him again, this time grazing him across the chest. The rush he felt from the warm blood going down his chest caused all thoughts of holding back to leave his mind. Either she died or he did. Adrenaline causing the world to slow around him, he saw her prepare to slash at him from his right for his head. Ducking beneath the swing, he feinted a thrust for the chest and turned it into a slash into her sword arm. He felt his sword go through her arm, slashing open blood vessels and tearing through her tendons, causing her to drop the sword and clutch at her arm. He then made a return stroke across her throat, sending blood spurting all over him. Covered in blood, he looked around to see how the other fight was going.

[Ulric]

The dandy turned pale. The tanner began to shout. The blonde woman seated beside him drew a knife, and that was that. There would be no bringing his painstaking swindle to fruition. Ulric swept up his earning up with a quick sweep of his arm, trying to gauge when the fight would break out. He didn’t have to wait for very long. The dandy cried out, his face slack with terror and desperation as he reached for his slender sword, and then the sailor’s cutlass scraped from its sheath, the pitted iron twisting through the shadows. Ulric sighed. With a grunt, he surged to his feet and took a firm grip on the edge of the table, arms straining as he upended the rectangle of heavy wood. The others spun away, cursing and grunting, as cards and coins spread over the floor. “You crazy bastards,” Ulric snarled as the onlookers came rushing at him, disregarding the danger to their persons as they scrambled to pick up the coins. He took a step back, only to find a filthy, bloody man standing over the corpse of the guard, a puny sword clutched in his hand. Now that was a bit of a shock. “Murderer,” snarled a woman at the bar, gesturing at the man. The cry was taken up by others. Ulric’s lips curled into a frown. There were rules here, and though they could be bent, you weren’t supposed to break them. There was something profoundly stupid about striding into a gambling den, cutting down a guard, and then just standing there as if the enraged patrons weren’t about to draw and quarter you. This isn’t petching Sunberth, he snorted. The city watch would probably come running, and he definitely didn’t want to be around for that. Making for the door, he pushed aside the murderer’s sword and gave him a brief stare, his eyes cold and uncaring. “You might want to get out of here,” he grunted, “Unless you don’t give a shyke about what happens to your hide.”

[Belaya Smert]

"Murderer!"

He could hear them, echoing his past. A vision of blood dripping from his jaws, a man with a bloody throat looking at him with accusing eyes filled with betrayal, flashed before him. I am not a murderer. To the man who had flipped the table, he asked, "Why do you give a petch? I'm just some nobody to you." Looking around, he could see the accusatory stares, as if none of the others hadn't seen the guard swing at him first. Not again, not again! Can't I stay in a city more than a season without getting accused of something I didn't do? Of course not. Then I'd have a semi-normal life. Putting his sword away, he tried to block out the accusations. Looking down at the corpse of the woman who had so recently tried to take his life, kneeled down to close her eyelids, then placed two gold mizas over her eyes.

He stood back up and turned to the man who had told him to leave. Leaning in, he said "You might want to come with me to make sure I get out of town, or at least out of sight. Because if the city watch get me, I'm going to say you paid me to ensure that the guard was taken care of so that you could steal all their money. I'm sure they'll love to hear all about how you had planned to murder her and the others ahead of time so that there would be no witnesses. Especially the part about how you faked catching the dandy cheating in order to have an excuse."

[Ulric]

Ulric had kept on moving to the door, not wanting to get involved, but then the strange man had to open his mouth. He spoke of some kind of half-baked scheme when he really should have been watching the angry throng which, having dispatched of the dandy in a welter of blood, screams, and viscera, was now heading slowly toward them. He was about to drive a boot into the man’s gut, but he discerned the narrow squint of eyes suggesting that some of the crowd had taken the hushed word as a sign that they were working together. That was not good. “You shyke,” he grunted, and then, using his left hand to heave open the heavy, metal-bound door, grasped the man’s shoulder with his right and hurled him out of the door. Desank leaped after him, hissing. Ulric hastily sought to follow, but the crowd was just as swift. He drove his fist into the nose of the first man to rush him, took a quick step back so he was outside, and swung the door into the snarling face, catching it against the jamb. “Run that way,” he shouted, making a vague gesture at a dank, sinuous lane, and threw a broad shoulder back against the door, trying to stop the others from bursting into the empty lane. Then he surged away from the building, legs churning madly as he went the other way, a hand reaching for the haft of his bearded axe. "Desank," he began with a wry grimace, "This is not a good day." "Petch," spat the Gasvik.

[Belaya Smert]

Though the man had told him to run away, turning back Belaya saw him hold the door back and then run in the opposite direction. Knowing that the crowd was more than likely going to think the card player was the leader of the "scheme", since Belaya had whispered like a conspirator with him, and thus follow the man, he decided the only proper thing to do was help the guy for getting him out of there. Taking his grappling hook from out of his backpack, he threw it and let it catch on the roof of the building next to him. Climbing up the rope, he thanked his foresight in buying this item. Once on the roof, he quickly caught sight of the man and the crowd at his heels. Grabbing his grappling hook and putting it back in his backpack, he set off in pursuit of the man along the rooftops.

Luckily for Belaya, all the roofs were close enough together that it took no great skill for him to jump, and sometimes just run, from rooftop to rooftop. Catching up to the man with the axe, he yelled out, "Hey, you with the axe! You need some help?"

[Ulric]

Now this was too much. He’d gone from the verge of cheating his way to a fortune to running from a pack of pursuers, just because a whelp had strode into the wrong joint on the wrong day. Ulric hurtled down the lane, heavy boots ringing on the cobbles as he ducked a line of laundry, edged past a stack of crates, and turned down a corner. As ever, the city defied his wishes. He couldn’t seem to shake the pursuers. He kept making twists and turns, forcing his legs to churn ever faster, but that didn’t seem to matter. They were always behind him, their cries echoing in the narrow space between bright, plastered houses and crumbling edifices of wattle and timber that were stacked almost randomly. Had he wished, he could have turned and made the soil drink deeply, but he was reluctant to soak the ground with their blood. Ionu might not take that kindly, and he needed the trickster’s help if he wanted to elude the wrath of the other gods. So he kept running, hot sweat beading on his forehead, throat rasping for breath as he leapt over a low bulwark of stones and charged over a patch of mud. He jumped a gutter, nose crinkling at the stench of refuse, then forced himself onward. That was when the whelp spoke to him. From the roofs. “Throw me a rope, damn you,” He snarled, more out of curiosity than a desire to seek safety above the roads. “Do something useful for once!”

[Belaya Smert]

Grabbing some rope from his backpack, Belaya tied it off and threw one end down. "Now hurry up! I don't want the crowd behind you climbing it as well."

[Ulric]

Take the rope, or don’t take the rope. That wasn’t exactly the first question that came to his mind. Ulric was fully intending to yank the whelp from his shaky perch, creating a gory mess to divert his pursuers, but he didn’t think that would be of any great value at the moment. He wouldn’t have given it much of a thought if he was in their situation. So he made up his mind to take the rope. Then changed his mind, because having thrown the whelp out of the door, he knew there was no petching chance that he’d be able to drag his bulk up the rope without taking a short, sharp drop on his arse. Then he saw the whelp tying the rope. That was a very good idea, but tying ropes tends to take a great deal of time. He was also in danger of running past the rope once it was ready to bear him. “Desank, change of plans,” he growled. “Give us a push,” He changed his course, charging straight towards the sheer side of a building, and leaped on a heap of crates, reaching for a spar of timber that had been used to suspend a ragged awning over the lane. The wood was rough against his grasping hands. He swung once, trying to hook a leg over the spar, and then Desank was there, heaving him to the side. “What the-” Ulric, focusing on swinging to a ledge, did not expect this abrupt shift in direction, but his dark eyes swiftly picked out the timely rope. With a grunt, he caught the swaying thing and heaved himself up, grunting again when he reached the planed surface of the roof. Some people might have offered a brief prayer to their gods. Some people might have offered up thanks. Ulric wasn’t among them. Having just spurned the chance to severely beat and perhaps maim a bunch of dirty gamblers, he felt like venting his rage. “You just lost me quite a bit of gold,” he growled, kicking desultorily at a shingle.

[Belaya Smert]

Interesting, he looked surprised that he had fallen towards the rope. Must be hard being him, if he's that clumsy. Looking on as the bulky man finally grunted his way to the roof, Belaya smirked, showing one of his canines. He untied the rope and rolled it up as the man spoke, putting it back into his backpack. Replying to the man's comment, he said, "Then you should have known better than to call him out on his bluff so plainly. Anybody could tell that calling out someone is going to lead to an altercation. I would have acted like he wasn't doing anything wrong, and bested him at his own game. Anyways, we should probably get out of here before the mob finds a way up here."

Turning to begin running, he stopped and looked over his shoulder, before adding, "Oh, the name's Belaya, by the way. Not the best name, but it was the one I was given."