The noon-day sun hung high above the heads of those within the city and its slums, bearing down with an oppressive heat that left citizens slick with sweat and tired from their labors in and about the great capital. There was comfort to be had in the shade and the services of "beer boys" who ran up and down the streets with small chests of ice in their arms, filled with chilled brew one could purchase to slake their thirst. It was cheap but it was fattening, and it was safer to drink than water seeing as beer never gave a soul cholera like the drinking water could. Tents erected here and there rented chairs to rest, costing a song but making a fortune as the days of summer heat dragged on. It was true that if a man could profit from it by virtue of the theory someone ought to pay for the service, then man would. And as it turned out, many were making a proper killing for almost no real labor or effort or capital investment. Lemming envied them that sort of ingenuity and made plans to acquire such loftily returning businesses for herself in the future; though perhaps ones that weren't such a niche market with a limited time for doing business. When you considered the few weeks they would be able to do such a thing, you had to question if it was worth it in the end for someone who wasn't a filthy peasant NPC. No, she would need something with a more lasting demand and a more drawing appeal. Perhaps a brothel? She could collect girls from across the kingdom to add variety and make some real coin, to spare her all this adventuring crap. Give her more time to focus on growing her abilities instead of eking out a living with the small jobs she performed here and there. Or the NPCs she killed for their pocket change. Always on the hunt for easy money, she had come to the slums and found herself a nice cooled and shaded establishment to invest in. The place called itself "The Club" and catered to those who needed a drink and wanted to gamble outside the eye of the law and the taxman. It appeared to attract those with either a death wish or the ability to protect themselves, and neither was a pleasant sort to be around. Its name came from the fact that its owner, Mason, had clubbed the previous owner to death and taken over. Before that it had been The Shank. Before that, The Poison. The Noose. The Strangle. The Window Drop. And before all of those, it had originally been called Able's Tables and opened as a gambling den, until Able's brother had shoved him out a window to keep the profits all to himself. She smiled as she recalled the story and wrapped her fingers around the sheep's knuckles in front of her, which apparently this place used in favor of cubed dice. Sheep Knuckles were harder to tamper with, or so it was said... One needed foul magic to put a counterweight in them, whereas any Geo or Nature caster could put a weight in wood or stone or metal and throw the rolls off. The Club was notoriously not friendly to cheats. In fact, the last one was still hanging from the rafters on a noose and served as a swinging menu for people who wished to order something to eat. The sign that made up the menu was simple and read "WE DON'T DO FOOD." Blowing on the knuckles for luck, Lemming tossed them onto the table, swearing loudly as she lost the round and slid her money over to the prospective winner. The game was incredible simple, which was pleasant for somebody like her that didn't have the patience to learn complicated nonsense. And as a compulsive gambler, it also gave her the pleasure of learning fast and playing long. @Dempsey Fabijain
The game was ridiculously simple. Called "Knuckles" because its creator lacked any better imagination, the game involved throwing four knuckle-dice on the table and counting up whatever was rolled. The rules were few but practical: The highest added numbers wins if there are no doubles or triples or quadruples in any of the throws. By that logic, the worst roll you could ever get would be a 1-2-3-4, because none were doubles or better, and they added up to the smallest possible sum. Doubles will always beat non-doubles. Triples will always beat doubles or worse. Quadruples will always beat triples or worse. Meaning a 1-1-1-2 was better than a 6-6-5-4, etc. A pair of doubles beats triples, but not quadruples (which effectively are a pair of doubles as well.) The higher number always wins if there are multiple doubles, etc. Smiling she tossed the knuckles and counted up numbers on them, laughing lightly as the men and women around her swore and she raked in a small pile of coins. She sipped at a cold beer and delighted in its bitter kiss and the way its cold brew slid down her throat and chilled her core on this hot summer day. Lemming watched as the people about her continued to throw the dice, letting herself get lost in introspection while letting the fringe of her mind pay attention to what was happening around her. So far, there had been little of value in terms of teaching her the magical arts or helping her to grow her power. She had come to the city from Brisshal's woods in the hopes of finding a teacher or a shortcut, swearing up and down there had to be some kind of magical shop or NPC tutor to teach her things. No such luck as it were, however. Her dark art magic was a forbidden thing and had to be kept a secret lest the NPCs of the world frown upon her as a malevolent force and she no longer be allowed in the cities. And her pyromancy was apparently so common a thing that most people chalked it up to intuitive, and there was no formal text or study of it that she had managed to find. She'd give an arm, or at least a lot of money to find out how to increase either one, but such things would apparently just take time. Sighing, she took another sip of beer and then picked up the dice, satisfied that it was her turn to throw once again. Thrown dice: 4 1 4 6 @Dempsey Fabijain
She strolled into the seedy establishment, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. She wasn't here for bar fights or games of chance. What she was here for was to meet a customer who preferred not to be seen in certain parts of town, including the district her store was located in, and most others that were regularly patrolled by the city guards. She had to wonder at the irony of having put so much effort into securing financial stability specifically in order to avoid shady dives and gambling dens like this one, just to be drawn back into one in order to accommodate a client. The man, whom she'd only known by his face had asked her to deliver a small but exotic selection of strangely specific street drugs and poisons, offering her three times the normal rates she'd charge for such products. while she didn't advertise and hand out flyers on the street advertising her willingness to provide recreational concoctions as well as the staple salves and tinctures an alchemist would sell on a normal business day, she was not adverse to the practice either. All one had to do was come alone, ask nicely, and pay well. The place was crowded, as could be expected at this time of the day, or any other time for that matter. Most of these people did't have full time employment, and instead only worked enough to fund an afternoon of meager sustenance, cheap drink, and a few rounds of dice before calling it a day and retiring to the leisure establishment of their choice. Some didn't even work that much, instead choosing theft and burglary over semi-honest labor to pay for their entertainment. She wove through the crowd mostly unnoticed, though one fellow was unfortunate enough to pinch her butt as she made her way to the bar. Her retaliation was quick and vicious; Without missing a step she kicked the back leg of his chair. It snapped off neatly, causing the man to fall sideways and backwards straight into her knee which rose to meet him. With her admirer now crumpled on the floor and nursing a badly broken nose, she looked around with a placid expression as if to invite others to try their luck before taking a seat at the bar. Such scenes were not uncommon in this place, and moments after it had happened the event was forgotten just as quickly. She ordered a glass of liquor which she knew would be watered and still taste vile despite this, but she would rather suffer through the sting of cheap liquor than the mind numbing irritation of being the only sober woman in a room full of loud drunks or those aspiring to achieve this lofty goal. She did her best to not breathe through her nose, and swallowed the stuff as soon as it hit the back of her throat, but she still couldn't help but make a slight face at the awful taste of the stuff. @Lord Lemming
The coin continued to flow with each throw of the dice as time passed, the excitement beginning to wane rapidly after the first half hour of playing. With an elbow propped up on top of the table to support her lulling head, she more observed the game than joined it at this point, desperate for some sort of... actual entertainment in this fetid establishment that didn't end her in getting gutted like a fish. It wasn't promptly on cue, for Lemming still had time to down another beer, but briefly later Dempsey arrived and the evening went from drab to fab in the course of seconds. Whoever had made the woman's body had been extra generous when it came to proportions and Lemming glanced down at her own leaner hips and breasts, wondering if it had really been a good idea to model the character after her own real life appearance. But she was a megalomaniac who wanted to be known, so of course her hubris had demanded she make the avatar identical to the real thing. Perhaps she should have been a little more... flexible in interpreting her own breasts, though? Not at all shy about watching the felis woman as she walked, Lemming was one among many who suppressed a laugh as the cat's... cat-like reflexes... handily dealt with one of many perverts within The Club. This one, unlike all of the others of course, had been stupid enough to reach out and pinch the ass of whoever this fabulous specimen was. Glad that he had done the groundwork on danger levels for her, Lemming slid up out of her seat and pocketed her coins, then walked around to the bar and upturned the collapsed stool of the man she had beaten to the ground. Sidling into its seat with her back to the bar, she propped her head up onto a fist, elbow on the bar top, feet crossed and resting on the head Dempsey had K.O.'d moments prior as if he were placed there solely to be a foot stool. She noted the grimace the woman made at drinking the swill here glanced at the door, knowing that anywhere finer would be much farther off. Pity. She didn't give enough of a damn to make that trek just to flirt up whoever this woman was. She'd just have to do her best here and in the now, with what was available immediately. "Promise to be gentler to me?" she inquired as she tried to catch Dempsey's eye, heel digging into the face of the man that the stronger woman had deposited on the floor. "Or not," she added as an afterthought, pointing casually to some hemp rope on the wall used for hogtying trouble makers or hauling freight. @Dempsey Fabijain
She looked over her shoulder and did her best not to make a face at the other woman. Her display from earlier was indeed meant to send some sort of message, but that message wasn't "Hey come talk to me!". On the other hand, she couldn't afford to appear much more out of place than she already had. She addressed the woman with a wordless communication in the form of a quick and casual 'come here' double-curl of her finger and a glance at the empty stool to her right. Her buyer had asked that she come alone, but she figured he was welcome to take his buisness elsewhere if she had a problem with her socializing. It would be out of place to find someone drinking alone in a place like this after all. Without waiting to see how the other woman responded, she turned to the barkeeper and waved for his apparently very limited attention. Poor service was a hallmark of dive bars, unless you earned a reputation for being a good tipper or a careless spender. She was neither. She tapped her finger impatiently as she waited on her drink, watching the door behind her through a grimy mirror that was mounted on the wall behind a shelf of assorted liquor bottles. It was a fairly common practice in most bars. For one, patrons liked being able to see what was going on behind them in places like these, and it served to make their limited and generally unappealing stock look less limited, and maybe even less unappealing if anyone had ever bothered to wash it once in a while. It was only a few moments later when her drink arrived, a simple but sweet concoction of whisky, ale, and apple juice. One thing she would always give these cheaper establishments is that they knew how to mask the awful taste of low quality food and drink with spices and sweeteners. After taking a sip from the rocks glass, she turned back around to see if the woman she'd casually invited over earlier was coming or not.
