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Goodfellow · **12-29-2014, 01:19 PM**

Styrmsthal Tyrbsyn hated these games.Â Each subsequent word from the hyur seemed to sound from further and further away as the rushing of his blood filled his ears.Â He was uncomfortable, he was embarrassed, he was impatient, and he was tired.Â So tired.Â His normally thick skin wore perilously thin and any remnants of his geniality finally evaporated before that toothsome, shit-eating sneer.

"Jus' a runner," he mumbled as a smile, hollow and mirthless, cracked his lips.Â He sighed through it, "'Nough o' this shite."

He spread his hands out then over the table, his long arms taking them closer to Solitaire.Â Then he spoke, visibly tense but delivering every word with careful restraint and measurement, little drops of water through a crack in a dam.Â "Listen, runner, I'm lookin' fer th'girl an' yer lookin' fer me, so ye'll tell ol' Styrm what for or I'll be beatin' th'grin from yer lips," he growled, low, rumbling.Â "Don' yell, don' run.Â Ain't helpful.Â Jus' talk.Â I like what ye've got t'say, ye'll get yer money.Â I don' an' we're both like t'be disappointed.Â Jus' stop wastin' me time an' tell me where t'find Joz."

Zhavi · **12-30-2014, 05:45 PM**

Something the roegadyn said made the smile on Solitaire's face falter, though it never quite slipped away entirely. "Information'll cost ye. Help'll cost ye more. Five hunnerd gil fer what I know o' the bitch, an' another two hunnerd fer places she's like as not t'be."

The smile turned sly, and edged: the cat teasing the dog, flirting with injury for some unknown promise of self gain.

Goodfellow · **12-30-2014, 11:26 PM**

Styrm was confused.Â He'd expected his threat to rattle the bastard harder than that.

Be smart, Styrm, he thought to himself.Â What would Taru do?

The thought worried him.

He judged the distance from his hands to Solitaire's own, deciding whether or not to grab him.Â But no, he didn't want to cause a scene just yet.Â Still leaning forward, still tense, he asked the man a question.

"How's a man t'know we're even talkin' 'bout th'same lil' kitten?Â Jozzie can't be th'only girl 'round with a roughed up tail."

Zhavi · **01-28-2015, 02:31 PM**

Solitaire narrowed his eyes. "Short dark hair? Scar across here?" He drew his finger sideways over his nose. "Dark eyes? This high?" He approximated Kink's height with an uplifted hand, and shrugged. "Thing is, gadder, only one bitch in all o' lowtown I know what has a tail like that. Either ye can pay fer what I know'r keep pokin' 'round th'mud hopin' ye find yer pearl."

The roe's tension slipped across the table and took up residence in Solitaire's shoulders.

Goodfellow · **01-28-2015, 11:30 PM**

Aye, they were talking about the same girl.Â Styrm didn't know whether to feel relieved or more worried.

He didn't care what the man knew about Joz, only where he could find her.Â But then again, maybe knowing more about her would help him find her.Â But where would he come up with the gil?Â With Taru missing, he couldn't come up with that sum on short notice.Â He considered bluffing, then thought better of it.

"Can' pay ye seven-hunnerd, ye git, but I can promise to meet ye half way on the coin...an' not t'go breaking your hands--," he said as his own shot forward, seeking to close around the smaller hyuran pair.

Zhavi · **01-29-2015, 01:36 PM**

Solitaire was fast, but the roe was faster. He jerked his hands back only to find his fingers caught tight. He looked down in muted surprise, indecision keeping him silent for two long seconds before he looked up with a cheery grin and murder in his eyes. "If ye wanted t'hold me hands, scrag, all ye had t'do was ask. Three-fifty, then. Ye wantin' kisses, too?"

He couldn't help the cold sweat that prickled all over his body, nor the sudden and rapid beating of his heart. But he would not go down a mewling, pathetic coward.

Goodfellow · **01-29-2015, 04:13 PM**

Seeing the man's trapped wiliness, feeling his pulse through his clammy hand, Styrm almost smiled; a sardonic thing, crueler than the wry look he usually wore.Â Then he stopped.Â He didn't like where this was going and he didn't like what he was doing.Â He'd worked dirty business before, but he wasn't a face man.Â His interactions were simpler, more honest: hit back.Dancing like this required finesse and cleverness.Â

Taru'd handle it better.

His grip tightened.Â He regained his composure.

"Ne'er planted one on a lass so flat an' foul an' ain't lookin' t'start now," he intoned mirthlessly.Â "Now, deal's a deal," he said, releasing Solitaire's left hand to grip the right in a dangerous exaggeration of a handshake, "so start talkin'."

Zhavi · **01-30-2015, 12:47 PM**

"Y'ain't pretty enough fer me taste, anyroads," Solitaire muttered, that grin still firmly in place. "Y'got th'coin, friend?"

Goodfellow · **01-31-2015, 12:15 AM**

Shite he thought.Â Shitin' shite on a shite.Â He wants the coin now?

"I ain't fool enough t'go cartin' so much coin 'round 'ere, but ye'll be gettin' it sure enough."Â He paused a moment then slowly loosened his grip, releasing the hyur's hand.

"Now, laddie, tell me somethin' I can use.Â Pretty please."

He held his breath.

Zhavi · **02-03-2015, 05:09 PM**

"'Ye'll be gettin' it,' says th'sailor t'the whore." Solitaire winked. "I ain't workin' fer naught, an' if ye think t'break me bones fer payment, I'll see that no runner'll give ye what yer wantin'. None o' us work fer free." Solitaire was still smiling. His heart was in his throat, too, but he was getting pissed. He was too respected in lowtown for this gadder to come around slinging his weight like he was some bruiser.

Who was the man, anyways?

Goodfellow · **02-03-2015, 06:54 PM**

"Godsdammit!" he barked as he slapped his hands against the table, cracks suddenly appearing and worming their way through the wood, dust and splinters clouding the air between them.Â

"I ain't tryin' to con ye, ye jackal," he growled, a rolling rumble after the thunder-crack against the table.Â "I say I'm good fer it an' I mean it.Â Now, you canÂ be gettin' yer money tomorrow or I can drag yer thrice-damned arse 'cross town with me an' pay ye tonight, but one way or another yer tellin' me what's what!"

Zhavi · **02-04-2015, 12:49 PM**

Solitaire jumped. He almost backed right up out of his chair. He had his answer. This was a man unused to dealing. This was a man who didn't know what, by all the seas, he was doing.

The unease crawling up his back shaded into something different.

"She goes by Kink, mostly. Has some other names -- but Kink's what she's known by. She's a streetrunner. Y'know. Takes jobs, gets infermation, gets things that others can't get. Sloppy though, y'ask me. She's independent, has a few regulars from what I heard, but mostly gets jobs through Yayabuko. Ain't much she won't do, long as it pays right an' don't get th'wrong sort o'folk pissed at her."

He eyed the roe and said, very carefully, "I want me money afore I give ye her haunts."

Goodfellow · **02-04-2015, 03:42 PM**

Styrmsthal rubbed his eyes and sighed, a great gusty exhalation.Â Finally he'd caught a thread, but he was unnerved by the dark places it surely lead.

"Aye, aye, 'pay afore play' an' th'like.Â Ye'll wait fer me, an' ye'll wait right 'ere," and he jammed his finger against the creaking, whining table.Â "I come back t'an empty chair, an' I'll be tearin' this 'ole town down aroun' yer godsspitin' 'ead, I will."

He tapped the side of his head then and said, "Yers ain't a face I'm like t'be forgettin'."

He stood up and stomped outside, disappearing back into the foggy dark like a mountain in the rain.

Zhavi · **03-16-2015, 03:55 PM**

"Me-- wait, where d'ye --"

The roe was gone, with Solitaire half out of his seat, the table blocking him from dashing after the roe; he'd gotten his foot all tangled up with one of the legs, and almost kissed the floor for his troubles. By the time he'd gotten himself to rights, there was no trace of the other man. There was snickering at Solitaire's expense, which only earned grumbling and half-hearted glares from him.

He righted his chair and sat back down, folding his arms across his chest. He'd given out valuable information that he'd yet to receive coin for, and the roe thought he was going to leave without getting paid? Far more likely the roe was going to off and be gone, and not come back.

And if that was the case, Solitaire would see to it the man would pay, one way or another.

Goodfellow · **03-28-2015, 11:51 PM**

Dark and dusty, the room.Â Broken slats formed stained walls and middling rugs were tossed soggily over ever damp spots on the cold stone floor.Â At the back of the room sat a table and on the table sat a candle.Â Its pale flame was the only illumination in that dark corner of the ruined room; nonetheless, the shadow it cast was a long one, and a dark one.

The tabletop was strewn with parchment, crumpled or otherwise, all scarred with scribbles, indecipherable symbols, apparent nonsense.Â His small hand trembled slightly as it traced charcoal scratches over dry, thirsty paper, edges baking and curling up in the proximate heat of the candle.Â The lines, the waves, they were indistinct, as though that hand struggled to reproduce the motion of ripples in a pond on a particular day.Â From memory.

"Big loads o' talk 'bout town, sir," spoke a man toward the front of the room.Â "Aye, sir, whole big loads o' talk.Â Folks all 'cross town are turnin' out their book bags."

The hand paused, the charcoal pencil rested.Â The hooded head turned to listen more closely.

The man swallowed and opened his mouth to continue, then closed it again.Â Then opened it, only to close it once more.Â He didn't know how to talk to the little man at the table.Â His sort traded in dirty, broken rooms like that one, but the man at the table, drawing by the dim light of candle and memory, he didn't belong in that sort of room.Â He belonged up, up, up with the folk that got fleeced when they stumbled into dirty, broken rooms.Â Robbed and beaten and left to drag themselves back to the orderly world they knew.Â But the seated man was comfortable here, and the cut of his robe and the poise of his bearing were not dragged down by his lowly environs, rather the room had an august atmosphere, a permeating feeling of heavy drama.Â But it was darker, too, and the darkness seemed richer.

He hadn't found the book.Â He hadn't found the girl.Â Why'd I come? he asked himself.Â Got nothin' to say, so why'd I come?

"Won't waste no more o' yer time, sir.Â I'll jus' be goin'.Â Soon as somethin's worth sayin', I'll be right back.Â Yessir."Â He turned his hunched frame and took a step toward the door.

The slow, deliberate sound of the charcoal pencil resumed.

The nervous man stopped.Â "Jus' one more thing.Â A big roe's lookin' fer a girl, too.Â Same one, seems like.Â Makin' noise."

The man at the table once again half-turned toward the other man.Â His head shook, almost imperceptible beneath the hood, and he turned back to his work.Â He crumpled the page before him in a fist and tossed it to the side, then waved his hand.

"Yessir," he said, hoping in vain to fill that horrible silence.Â "We'll find 'er first, no doubt.Â First thing, it is.Â And the book!Â The girl and the book!Â First thing, we've got 'em.Â Yessir, we do.Â Yessir..." he droned on as he left.

The hooded figure's pencil set to cutting and bruising the off-white surface of a fresh sheet of parchment.Â Those figures too would disappoint.Â

How many thousands of times had the book been read?Â

Countless.

How many times had its pages been reproduced?

None.

-----

Styrm had hurried, but scrounging together the gil he'd promised took longer than he'd hoped.Â Longer than he had.

Still, it would be several hours yet before the sun tried to peak through the city's foggy veil.

More folk seemed to be scurrying about that night.Â Or maybe fewer.Â One or the other.

"Ruttin' mess..." he murmured as he stepped through the door and turned up his gaze to the table he'd left hours before.

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Innocence and Avarice [closed]

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes