Tsuiraku - A Contest of Miseries

For in-universe game play. Journey through both familiar and foreign settings, explore lost ruins and forgotten cities, and try to bring light to the darkness of the world... or, you know, blow stuff up. Either way.
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Tsuiraku - A Contest of Miseries

Post by Jack Rothwell »

"So where do you think we have the best chance of finding Leo?"

"Well, if he's not holed up in his shack in the poor quarter he'll be in one of taverns nearby." Eve replied matter of factly. "He got like this the last time he and Jade were separated, sulking in the streets of Port Lorrel... not that it helped that his father was dying at the time."

The short merc finished strapping on a pair of wicked looking blades and hoisted herself over the balcony that overlooked the lower floors of the guild. She hit the floorboards a moment later with an audible thud; Rufus gave a tut of disapproval.

"Time's a-wasting!"

.......

"Call."

"All cups."

The hand was laid upon the table with all the showmanship of a Ringmaster directing a grand circus. Somebody groaned.

Leo had been idly watching the game the rough looking gentlemen and the equally rough looking woman were playing as the wine's rosy haze began to envelop him. Not that he was half as drunk as he appeared, but even in his moping the noble had an unerring habit of staying committed whenever he was playing a character. It was probably some childhood hangover born from an attention-seeking ambition to work on the stage... in a way he supposed he was.

His attention had since turned to the newcomer who'd stuck out like a sore thumb from the moment he'd entered the poor excuse for a bar. It was his youth, the student-ish look more than anything which marked him. It was a look which was easy to recognise, he'd been one of those bright-eyed boys himself after all.

"... I'll have an Old Peculiar."

"...and so the Archbishop says 'these aren't the heretics you're looking for!'"

Raucous laughter from the corner table where the card game was proceeding. The sound made the mercenary feel small and mean, that irrational feeling that other people didn't deserve to have a good time when oneself was miserable. Leo slowly straightened up from his affected slump and cast his eyes over the coins on the table, then on the pouch possessed by the young man which almost certainly included a lot of pocket money from mummy and daddy.

'Einy meany miny mo...'
Alberich
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Re: Tsuiraku - A Contest of Miseries

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Finding an "imperious mistress for hire" was starting to sound like looking for a real girlfriend. If you sat around listening and waiting, you'd end up going home alone and beating your...head against the wall at the prospect of a bad evaluation from Choubei. Until the fatal day when you were snapped up by the first neurotic scarecrow with the lovelight in her eyes who had the guts to make the first move on you...

No, no one here, not even the likely tart with the legs or the likely bawd with the feathers, was walking up to Khoo or giving him the eyeball. He might have to summon the fortitude to walk up to a stranger and strike up a conversation. Or he could wait a little longer, maybe have a belt of something first, and see if Time and Fate would lend a friendly hand after all.
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Graybeard
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Re: Tsuiraku - A Contest of Miseries

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I'm not the right person for this, Khoo thought miserably. I don't know how to sweep up a nasty lady, I don't like bars like this, I'm a long way from home... However, one thing he was not was lacking in self-confidence. He managed to put his discomfort behind him and case the joint one more time.

Maybe he could recruit one of the locals to lead him to what he was looking for. He knew better than to approach the gamblers, and the thought of talking to the muscular woman (woman? he wasn't sure) filled him with dread. That just about left the drunk in the corner as the only option. He summoned up his courage and walked over to where Leo was sitting.

"Excuse me, sir," he started, "might you be..." The look in his eyes ... the stink on his breath ... and other things. I just can't do this.

"Oh, sorry," he said, backing away. "I thought you were someone else."

---------

Meanwhile, the vineyard people and Eve were getting on the road.
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Tsuiraku - A Contest of Miseries

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"Oh, sorry. I thought you were someone else."

In a state of melancholy or not, there was no way a seasoned thief like Leo going to let an opportunity like that pass him by.

"Now there, lad." He rasped, standing up with a sway and doffing an imaginary hat. "The someone else you thought I was I'm not, but another someone else can sometimes the right someone else be."

He offered a friendly smile, showing off an ugly set of yellow teeth. A trick credited to the dye he'd rubbed on them back at the hovel.

"You look like a man on a hunt in an exotic land, if you don't mind my saying so sir, perhaps... a man on a hunt for some direction?"
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Re: Tsuiraku - A Contest of Miseries

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"You look like a man on a hunt in an exotic land, if you don't mind my saying so sir, perhaps... a man on a hunt for some direction?"

Runawayrunawayrunawayrunawayrunaw


"Uh, trying to help a friend. Did you just order a Swoggles Old Peculiar?"

The mouth that produced the sound was Khoo's, but his brain was still looping and disengaged from his vocal cords.
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Tsuiraku - A Contest of Miseries

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"Swoggles? I'm more of a Kensington red kind of man." The name of cheap wine the conman was emptying from it's bottle. "But swoggles is a cider that fair dances on the tongue of a thirsty man... popular among the student crowd."

He left the assumption about the young man's background hanging, making a hard left to what had piqued his interest.

"But what about this friend of yours? If he's looking for help in Renshaw he must be an interesting one." He let out a rusty chuckle and wiped the spittle from his chin. A 'prop' only partially credited to his commitment to the character.
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Re: Tsuiraku - A Contest of Miseries

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"But what about this friend of yours? If he's looking for help in Renshaw he must be an interesting one."

Khoo resisted the growing urge to simply turn and run away. How to answer this, though? Of course, he'd never met the man whom he was serving as, well, procurer.

"He has -- distinctive tastes in women," he finally got out. "Likes 'em rough and tough." He glanced quickly at the one woman in the bar who seemed to fit that description, and hoped that the resulting cringe wasn't visible to this Bowriel bum he was talking to.
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Tsuiraku - A Contest of Miseries

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Leo missed Khoo's cringe, instead he followed the younger man's gaze to the mercenary woman at the card-game. She was currently chugging a sizable mug of rotgut to the rowdy approval of the men who accompanied her.

"A delicate flower like that is at her most receptive to the sound of clinking gold or the slosh of a drink being poured. That would be the best approach for your... friend to try."

The pause was full of meaning, suggesting pretty clearly that the 'bum' was somewhat skeptical about the existence of Khoo's mysterious friend. In face, he was almost sure that 'friend' was euphemism for something else entirely. He'd seen types like him before; boys looking for that special someone to make them a man, and he felt he could help him on that score. It was true in his experience that women like the leathered and feathered mercenary ('She's more likely a bandit' He mentally corrected himself) were in their natural environment when engaging in unscrupulous acts of violence, but...

"Perhaps your friend would like some extra help in securing the... services of such a lady? Perhaps a savvy man who can speak her language?"

He gave another ugly smile and idly jiggled the empty bottle still clutched in his hand. Internally, he was smiling, the day was starting to become interesting.
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Re: Tsuiraku - A Contest of Miseries

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"Perhaps your friend would like some extra help in securing the... services of such a lady? Perhaps a savvy man who can speak her language?"

Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthank


Khoo caught himself before his mouth caught up with his thoughts. He was getting the idea that this drunk wasn't exactly what he appeared to be, and most of the things he might be were, well, things he wanted no part of. There was also the question of just how much involvement by outsiders Choubei would tolerate. Admittedly, what Choubei didn't know wouldn't hurt him, but he seemed to have a way of finding things out. Finally, he glanced over at the imposing (that was the polite word) woman again. He just couldn't bring himself to make a contact with somebody like that, no matter if some drunk was the one doing the actual contacting. He couldn't. Best would be to wander down the street, find a different bar, get the general lay of the

"Thank you," he heard someone else say using his voice.
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Alberich
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Re: Tsuiraku - A Contest of Miseries

Post by Alberich »

While Khoo and Leo were chatting, a large, apelike man rolled into the bar and called out a cheerful greeting to the short-skirted woman with the muscular legs Khoo had noted earlier. Crushing together, they engaged in a sport known in other worlds as "Olympic tonsil hockey." They tossed off a pair of drinks before departing together, clinging and laughing. Khoo saw that between the filthy-looking bum and this woman, he'd done well to approach the filthy-looking bum.

That left only one tough-looking woman unengaged -- well, romantically unengaged -- in this bar, and that was the tough gal at the card game that Leo was eyeballing. But it was early yet.
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