[Wager] Another monster you shouldn't meet (Pash'nar)

by **Bob Barton** on May 30th, 2012, 6:43 am

33rd day of Spring 512 AV

Bob liked the Wager even if he was not there for his own personal enjoyment and instead for a job that was forced on him because compared to the rest of Alvadas, there were no monsters in the building. None but the ones that he was already used to and could take care of by himself just like he has always done throughout all the years. In fact with all the usual sounds of people crying from loss or even their exclamations of victory, Bob would not have thought that anything major happened this season. Just business as usual for the city and the Wager.

He was just about to call the game over with the woman he was playing against. The other two men walked away already. Unhappy because not only they lost their money, they also did not get a chance with anything that was suggsted by the traps that the woman laid out for them. Bob was not happy too because even if it was the Wager's money that he was playing with, he was still losing in something that he thought he was good at! Even if "it looks like you're having a good day" why does she have to stay? She already took everyone's mizas so she should leave and become someone elses problem. Bob looked at his hand and tried to predict what might happen. Another loss.

Finally the woman left and Bob was actually happy for it. At least she had the decency to not lure Bob along anything throughout the whole game. Actually Bob should be unhappy with the whole thing because it means that he does not have any excuse to have lost like the other men. Quickly, he needed another person even if he was tired. Just one! One person was just enough for him to keep his attention on and even if he did lose, his losses will be little in comparison.

Clearing out the table of its cards, Bob took some dice instead. Dice were easier than cards. Easier to rig and easier to blame on luck if things went bad again. Changing everything sounded good. Maybe he should not play against a woman this time just in case he was on a bad streak again just every other he met during his life.

by **Pash'nar** on June 4th, 2012, 3:30 am

He wasn't sure what drew him to the Wager of all places. This wasn't his first time washing here after the djed storm since he'd been in Alvadas. It wouldn't be his last. He just didn't know where else to go—he'd found it one day, he seemed to be able to stumble his way back here despite the shifting streets and destruction, and he found the people here interesting enough. Ionu's city was full of unusual places … but not all of them held Pash'nar's interest.

The risk kept his attention. Like the sea—calm one moment and dangerous the next.

It was easier to slip in unnoticed under Syna's light—just another Svefra washed ashore, wandering a bit far from the Patchwork Port looking for trouble. The tattooed sailor found the anonymity of his daytime form worthwhile on occasion, though gambling in either form held different reactions that were sometimes entertaining to say the least.

His coins were few. He didn't have high expectations of keeping them, but it would be a rare bonus to leave with more than he came with for once.

The dark-haired navigator wandered a while, drifting from table to table like flotsam, watching and trying to decide where to settle first for the evening.

One table emptied, leaving only a small man and some dice. Surely, children didn't work or gamble here, so it must have been a man. Pash stepped up curiously, leaning against the table with intricately inked elbows, cerulean gaze washing over the man at the table with curiosity. He looked down at the dice and back up again, arching a dark brow in question,

"Y'workin'? I don't wanna interrupt your break if you're on one." He grinned, implying perhaps the other man may have been tired, "Wouldn't want anythin' unfair, y'see. You looked open, though ..."

He wasn't entirely committed, but he preferred less crowded spots anyway. A calloused hand rubbed at the tattooed back of his neck as he waited for an answer with only a hint of eagerness. He could always move along if he was in the wrong spot at the wrong time, but he didn't think he was after all.

by **Bob Barton** on June 6th, 2012, 11:31 am

The table was bare and by the looks of it every other customer in the Wager was already comfortable with where they already were whether or not they were winning or losing except one. A svefra man and Bob's eyes were already on him thinking first that he was just another player as soon as the door opened and Syna revealed the silhouette. The dwarf's expectations changed when the light settled down like a curtain to reveal the scum of the sea. The svefra as all Zeltivan's would know those disgusting sea thieves for. Unlike maybe one other svefra that Bob had a chance to meet the season before, this one had nothing that would help improve his impression.

Except maybe those colourful scarves (which were probably stolen as well) he had all over him in the strangest of places, the svefra looked just like another poor fool that Bob wanted nothing to do with but the problem was also that he was a customer. "Don't come here, don't come here..." Bob kept chanting over to himself over and over as if it would ward the man off. To protect himself further Bob tried to cover his eyes but not too obvious, he had his fingers at his temples as if he was trying to get rid of some sort of headache. The headache now was of course the very same svefra which was still coming over. His efforts failed.

He felt the table shifting slightly but with no sound he thought that the svefra had lost interest and moved on until he spoke. Groaning with disappointment Bob just said that "if I was on a break I wouldn't be wasting it here" still rubbing his temples to stop any eye contact. The svefra still pressed on. Bob was lucky that he was not a woman and the svefra was not pressing an attack or he might have been boarded...eventually.

Bob looked up with weary eyes and said that "you would be the first" player or svefra he knew of who "don't want the advantage." That grin actually said something when Bob saw it. It was translated as either the svefra was a first timer or a very confident player. Either way, because it was not his money maybe he can have some fun with it today. "Maybe you are afraid that you can't beat someone like me, y'see?" he flicking one of the dice forward. "Do you know how to play?"

Even if the svefra were nothing but thieves Bob knew that they had some pride somewhere. He remembered hearing about one of those mob things which happen. Svefra sailing from all over just because some idiot insulted one and then killing everything they could. Even the vermin like the rats turned up dead or that was how the story went.

But there were no other svefra he could find in the Wager and so no threat to him. "Come on now, time is mizas y'see?" Bob invited very nicely. He even went to the extent of mimicking the svefra's speech for it. Maybe he would be more willing to part with more of his money if Bob gave him something to prove.

by **Pash'nar** on June 19th, 2012, 2:26 am

If the dark-haired navigator noticed the shorter man's discomfort at his approach, it was neither anything he wasn't used to nor was it anything that particularly concerned him. He was used to being considered flotsam, untrustworthy, sea trash. This was just the price he had to pay for wearing a Svefra's skin by day—a choice he didn't make on his own, a choice he never would have made given the chance. Now, he'd made it his own, however, and he lived in it without the same kind of objections he once did.

Still, it never felt like home. Not really. It just felt borrowed. He'd decorated it, covered it in more tattoos than he woke up with all those decades ago in Mathews Bay. He'd broken it a few times—on purpose and by mistake. He'd nearly drowned it a few more, at least one time just to see how close he could get to dying in some hopes he could see the edges of his lost home, the Ukalas, filter into view in his fading vision. He'd enjoyed it, getting it drunk, finding other bodies to press against it, feeling Syna's light darken it's sea-worn tan. He'd hated it, too, oh, how he'd hated it in the century he'd been forced to wear it.

But still, he would always be a false Svefra.

At least on the inside.

To the short man at the game table, he was by all appearances some tattooed sailor washed up from the Patchwork Port with a few mizas too many in his pocket to waste.

Pash'nar offered Bob a thin-lipped smile, teeth nearly too perfect to be his own, weathered face full of an ebullient, immune sort of warmth. Finely inked elbows propped themselves against the felt of the table and long, inked fingers traced the patterns in the space between the two men idly as he watched the uncomfortable little man gruffly attempt to intimidate him toward another table,

"Petch, yeah, I know how to play. Y'think I jus' washed ashore, eh?" He taunted with a lopsided grin, a hand straying to his belt to reach for his pouch of mizas and set thing lightly onto the felted surface next to himself, "How much t'start? I got th'ante in 'ere 'M sure. You got any house rules that make a lil' one like yourself happy or you jus' wanna stick to what everyone knows?"

He watched the man as he asked his questions, studying him for his responses, expectant and yet still rather amused, "I'll let you pick. You look like you'd know best."

He winked then, tauntingly, and waited for any further instruction or for the game itself to begin.

by **Bob Barton** on June 30th, 2012, 2:22 pm

Normally Bob would not have minded a thick person that was unable to discern the situation around him. It made them more simple. Easier to control and do what the midget wanted just like a mindless animal. A svefra by all accounts are just like mindless animals to Bob but instead of animals that Bob did not mind taking care of, it was animals that he wanted to stuff dice down their throat and watch them choke to death. It would also save Bob on stuffing later on and hopefully rattle those undeserved teeth on the way down.

But this animal was also a "customer" which meant that the dice was supposed to take all his mizas, not kill him. The svefra would also know that will become Bob's main goal if his boast, that "if you already know play, it'll make things easier." Now deciding the minimum ante will be hard. It will need to be enough to make the svefra miserable while he loses but not to the point that he will quit too soon. Believing that there is no way that one of 'those' can ever make more than him, "how 'bout we start wit' at least a gold?" and to make it as if the svefra had a choice, "no mor' th'n three?"

And the game? It had to be simple enough so Bob can put in all his efforts to beating this seascum. The game which came to mind involved "these two dice. You guess correctly if its over or under seven, you get double" and there was no reason to tell what happened if he guessed wrong since he should already know "but if you guess and get seven, you'll get..." five? No five is the normal one and its not like Bob did not want the chance of happiness he was offered so "four times your bet!" he announced with false excitement. Hopefully the svefra did not know enough to know when he was being taken for a fool.

"So then..." Bob asked as he held the dice in his hand, "...what're your numbers?"

by **Pash'nar** on August 21st, 2012, 12:03 am

Pash'nar was used to disdain; it was, perhaps, the most common reaction he received in his daytime skin unless he was at sea. He didn't mind so much after all this time, for it made his reception by those same individuals after the sunset and Leth took to the sky all the more amusing. Perhaps if he'd have decided to spend time in the Wager wearing the opalescent flesh of his more celestial, somewhat more true form, the gruff little thing across the table from him wouldn't look like he was about to hatch some glassbeak out from under his miniature arse.

Maybe.

Then again, maybe not.

Calloused fingers made something purposefully dramatic out of removing two gold mizas from his meager collection of coins, sliding them to their place on the table between them even as the dark-haired navigator made no effort to respond at first, letting the much smaller man wallow in his own self-made silence for several heartbeats. He eyed the dice as they were showed to him, cerulean eyes full of an obvious suspicion as to their unbiased functionality. Hopefully, those bone cubes weren't too loaded against his favor.

He didn't mind playing along. If the little man wanted to play at being the smarter of the two just to make up for his stature, that was fine with the false Svefra. It felt much better to walk away from a table with a pouch heavier than you started when you knew those still left behind were still confused as to how you accomplished robbing them blind.

Not that Pash was a particularly talented gambler.

He was just certainly smarter than often assumed.

"My numbers, eh? Oh, les'see … I s'pose I should pick two for y'here... Hmm." One hand rubbed a chin that never grew facial hair, new every morning as if he'd just slipped through Leth's fingers in the night instead of roamed the Suvan for over a hundred years. The blue-black markings on tanned, salt-worn skin were reminiscent of map-making symbols, turned into finely-lined patterns that crawled their way from his fingers and up over the curve of his shoulder, disappearing under the threadbare vest he wore,

"S'gonna be o'er this time; not under; not seven even." Smirked the tattooed sailor, tone of voice carrying above the din of the small crowd with an uncaring sort of confidence, "I say a three anna six—" The coy expression on his wind-swept features turned into something more mischievous, and he added a bit of a conversational sort of insult to the end of his bet just to see how flustered a few stray words could get the smaller man who he was stuck with tending his table in all his disdain,

"—Might be 'ow many insides'o barrels you've seen in your life for pranks, eh? Nine? Maybe more if'n y'aint' sure how to smile, though."

by **Bob Barton** on August 23rd, 2012, 9:52 pm

Whichever one of his faces the svefra wanted to show Bob, the results would be the same. While Bob inherited his disdain of the god claimed seamen from the true seamen of Zeltiva, his hate for the ethaefal was his own. He had the horrible luck of getting the chance to meet one in Sunberth and then travel with him all the way to Alvadas. From that time he he had the chance to find out that the way they looked, their gift to have two good looking forms is nothing more than a way to hide how disgusting they really were. Perhaps this one was different enough to know that Bob did not give a shyke about his true form. Probably saved him from Bob setting the miniature glassbeak from his miniature arse on the opalescent face.

Maybe when Bob was not on the clock. He was supposed to do his job, get as much mizas from the people at his table and...and...and...why not? Why can't Bob just take all the mizas that this svefra had with him now just like he does with anyone who crosses his path in the Suvan? It would be, justice... However Bob needed to know how to get him to put in more mizas. Two was just too little a price for justice but maybe Bob can get it to increase a little once he learned how this svefra liked to play the game. Yes, Bob was just that smart but it was not to make up for his stature. It was just another way to survive. Not everyone was able to live off their looks.

However it was quite unfortunate that the both did not know how similar they were. Each wanting to rob the other right in their face. The unfortunate fact was it was going to be determined by experience, or so Bob hoped. Bob saw the way his dice was being eyed. Better for the svefra to be suspicious of it instead of the man right in front of him. A mistake that he will regret like all the others after Bob rolled the dice.

As soon as the svefra got to deciding his number. Bob waited, and waited...listening to the reasons that did not quite make any sense. "Pretty confident there" Bob said listening to how accurate the numbers were before giving a confused look at the svefra's remark. Barrels? Pranks? What was he on about? Bob gave him a smile anyway seeing the dice. Neither three nor six nor nine. "Looks like you've got to try again and..." maybe it was time to play one of those strange games that the Wager was famous for. The fun little side bets.

But would this svefra join in? Bob gave a smile again asking "why don't you bet more? Don't know 'bout Viku but Ovek likes those who takes risks." Belvare may like it if there was more mizas but Bob wanted the svefra to accept his proposition which was why he said like some friendly advice, "if you don't have the mizas we can always arrange something else. How about the loser gets into a barrel?" It would be fun. Normally with those he met, they would rather take the cheaper route when it was presented but there was no telling what these svefras think. "Ovek might like to see that and repay you in in the future for the fun " Bob said like he was already sure he would win. A challenge anyway someone might put it if the earlier proposition failed.

Giving a yawn, Bob also decided to say that "you should keep the mizas until the round after. Thats when the big payoff is..." Of course all he was doing is just setting up the trap for later. If the svefra got it that is.

roll :