Ch 2.69: Split

“No, doesn’t work,” Flora said, holding her hand up to the light and looking at it. “Can’t make any illusion at all with the bracelet on.”

“So skills are suppressed just like aspects,” Elaina said, frowning. It had been worth asking Flora to check, she guessed. “Guess we should should just get to playing. Does it matter where we sit, really?” she asked as they walked into the play area. She was silently happy they wouldn’t be up against Waine’s crew, at least. The math didn’t work out since they were a group of five, though she still was worried about seeing him in round two.

“Has to have four empty seats,” Carly said. “I guess more empty seats is better, since it means the table won’t be full of a whole team ganging up on us.”

“Depends” Tira added. “We’re already late. If we pick an empty table, or one with only one or two people, the table might not fill up at all, and then we’re screwed automatically.”

“What’re the odds of that though?” Flora asked. “There’s still plenty of people waiting to play.”

Gods Elaina wished they could use their aspects. Plenty of people were drinking, which was great for their plan. It really would have been so simple.

“That table,” Tira said, pointing off to the distance. “That’s ours, let’s hurry.”

Elaina was able to identify the one Tira was pointing at relatively quickly, but she wasn’t sure what the urgency was for. She trusted Tira with her life though, so she made a beeline, darting off as fast as she could without drawing attention to themselves, through the crowd of dressed up patrons, weaving around tables already playing, ignoring the overwhelming smell of too many different perfumes mixing together into a thick fog.

“Our table, sorry,” Tira said to another group of four that arrived to the table just after them, placing her hand one two of the open chairs. Elaina instinctively placed her hands on the other two, and she realized why Tira had chosen the table. Tira and Elaina where right next to each other, but they weren’t off to one side like all the other tables full of a group of four, but dead center. The four people already at the table weren’t a group of four sitting together, but two groups of two, a much easier set of people to bully with the combined betting power and strategy of their group of four.

“We saw it first!” one of the woman from the group said, a tall older woman with quite a modest dress compared to most patrons.

“Well we were here first,” Tira said. “It’s ours, and I won’t say it again.”

The two woman stared off, and the dealer seemed impartial, more than happy to let the patrons figure it out for themselves. But it was a forgone conclusion who would get the table; Tira just wasn’t someone you said no to, especially not when she was in the right.

“Whatever,” the woman said, turning around. “Come on girls, we don’t want to sit in chairs trash like her has touched anyway.”

Tira snorted at the comment, but simply pulled her chair out, sitting down. “I think that’s eight players, dealer.”

The dealer nodded, beginning to shuffle cards as the rest of the party sat. Elaina took a close look at the table for the first time, the sets of gold and silver coins atop the green velvet covering with no decoration, no break in the uniformity other than the eight cupholders along the outside and the small cutout at the head to mark where the dealer sat.

“My my, that was quite insistent of you,” one of the other players said. She was a woman about their age, but didn’t look familiar from school. With the way her hair was cut, half shaved on one side and the rest all swooped over to the other side, Elaina was pretty sure she would have recognized her too.

“We just happened to be here first,” Tira said. “Didn’t want to walk all the way to another table.

“Sure it’s not just because you wanted your group of four to try and pick on two groups of two?” The woman’s partner to her right snickered. It wasn’t just him either though, but the couple on the other side of them as well. They were all snickering, like they were all in on a joke together.

“Of course,” Tira said at the same time Elaina though it. “Whatever, four on four it is.”

Elaina couldn’t help but be frustrated at that. It was fair still, the most fair it could be in a tournament that encouraged collusion in a game that was meant to be a free-for-all. Still, she didn’t need fair right now, she needed to win.

Still, the odds were okay. She had Carline next to her, Tira on the other side, Flora just one chair down from there. They were together, and they were of one goal. With any luck, the allegiances of their table opponents would be as divided as their seats.

Before she realized, two face down cards were in front of her, and the two people to the right of Carly were moving coins forward. It caught her off guard, as even knowing the rules she didn’t expect the game to start so silently. Carly looked at her cards and called without word too though.

And that was how the game would go, apparently. Elaina looked at her own cards nodding to herself and pushing forward her own coins, leaving the rest up to fate.