Spiriting of the Flower Court II

Spiriting of the Flower Court
II: Ichabod gambles for his freedom (and the evidence)

“Aw, chum. Don't be such a sour apple! We're all down on our luck once in a while. Sometimes luck runs dry and lands ya with a loss, 's all there's to it! Chin up!”
Ichabod was not having a good day. To be fair his days had largely been pretty shitty ever since his failed heist of the princess' garments had landed him in the dungeon cell he was currently occupying, but he'd grown to accept that particular failure by now. As if that wasn't bad enough, though, today there was a new guy on guard duty; a particularly obnoxious fellow with an obnoxious accent who was way too talkative to be a dungeon guard. That, and his mustache was just pissing Ichabod off, the way it swung up and down like some freaky purple cat's whiskers as he spoke. Even with his ambition of serving the Princess, Ichabod had no particular wish to acquaint himself with the fuzz any further than was absolutely necessary; he'd much prefer to be left alone right now. “Officer, I'm not much particular of a...sour apple. I've accepted the punishment for my deeds. I'm serving my time, just as you're serving yours. Can't we just leave it at that?”

The excessively purple-colored guard raised an eyebrow – no, half of his face, because with the eyebrow followed an insufferable smirk and one of those freaky whiskers –  at him, and twirled the other whisker around his pinky. “Oh ya do got some spunk in ya still then, chum. I'd have thought ya lost it all when Lady Luck decided to throw ya down her windowsill like a sack of fish the other eve! Still think you've got her favor then, do ya, chum?”

Ichabod bared his teeth at the man in a smile that was more than halfway to a snarl. “If Lady Luck didn't favor me like her own son, I'd never have gotten this far, chum. I'd favor a guess that you hardly know what luck even feels like. Damn fuzz don't need luck, you've got enough on your side as it is.” The purple guard's grin widened even further, and Ichabod swallowed reflexively – looking at him was like staring at a shark. “I don' know what luck feels like, ya say? Are ya sure about that?” Flink fingers flashed – way faster than anyone of the fuzz had right to be – and in a blink of an eye the man held a single card in his hand. It was a playing card. A joker.

At once, Ichabod felt his adrenaline surge – both thrilled and cautious at the same time. “I'm not sure what you mean with that question, officer,” he said, eyes fixated on the joker. The guard snorted a little laugh, and thrust his face up right to the bars. “I'm sayin', ya little scoundrel, that I'll give ya a run for your money, any time of day. And I'll even let ya choose what you want me to bet.” Ichabod gave the man a slightly incredulous look. “Are you saying you'll let me go free after I win?” The guard laughed in his face, and started prancing around the dungeon like the surest cock in the henhouse. “That's assuming a lot, ya are – that ya're gonna win, first off! But ya know, I can do ya one better than that. What do ya say about this?” He sat down at the heavy oaken table outside the cell, and carelessly cleared out the books and ledgers that was occupying the space. “If ya win, I'll sign yer release right here and now, and ya will be a free man – I'll even throw in the evidence of yer crime as a bonus! Now, if I win, I'll also sign yer release right here and now...and ya and I will take a nice little walk over to the precinct, where ya will sign up as a police recruit right proper.” The sharklike grin was back for a moment, before he stood back up and started walking over to the cell door. “Of course, if I catch ya cheatin' or ya try to run off on me, I'll have ya locked up in the slammer for a good few years, and all ya will be hearing of the Flower Court will be from the broadsheets that I'll be readin' to ya every morning. If I don't get accepted myself, of course – then I'm afraid I'll have to let one of my assistants do the job.” He took up the key to the cell door and the deck of cards he'd pulled the joker from, and waggled them in front of the bars. “What ya say, chum? Ya dare to bet yer luck on freedom or a life in 'the fuzz'?” Ichabod didn't hesitate for a second, and grabbed at the deck through the bars. “You've got balls, challenging me. Fuzz usually don't do very well in that department. What game do you have in mind?”

-/-/-/

The room was tense. The guard – Officer Giancarlo Servaine, according to his badge – had proposed a set of games, best of three. First a round of Bazrian Double Gambit, then a full score session of Fivehundreds; and as the decider, a simple game of Bluff. Giancarlo had beaten him handily in Double Gambit, but Ichabod had just about managed to wrench a surprise comeback in their last round of Fivehundreds. Now they were roughly halfway into their game of Bluff, and without any other players to draw the attention, pulling off decent Bluffs was damnably difficult for either of them; but Ichabod was also growing increasingly nervous that he'd be called out for cheating if Giancarlo caught him doing one. Technically Bluffs were part of the game, but only as long as you didn't get caught or called out doing them; and Ichabod was not overly experienced facing only a single opponent. However, if what his intuition was telling him was right, neither was Giancarlo. And in that case, he could be baited into falling for something that'd be much too obvious to work under any other circumstances...a double triple-Bluff.

Ichabod drew his card, trying not to sweat too much – the dungeon was fairly cold, but that didn't help much – shuffled it into his hand, and then put three of his ten remaining cards face-down on the table. He couldn't let Giancarlo call his bluff this turn, or it'd all be over. “Your move,” he said, throwing one more card face-up on the discard pile before folding his cards back on the table. Giancarlo frowned at him, but didn't say anything. The first part of the gambit was complete.

The double-triple was a simple tactic, but in an environment with more players it was nearly impossible to pull off; you put down a triple-stack two turns in a row, Bluffing the first turn and throwing a legitimate stack of your worst cards on the second, expecting your opponent to call the second stack as a Bluff and thus get handed a big pile of crap in return. In a multi-player environment, however, turns returned too slowly, and you generally had too few cards to pull it off properly; and even if you did, there was no guarantee that anyone would fall for the bait on the second turn. But in a one-on-one situation the situation was different; especially now, with the stakes so high and the game nearing its end. Giancarlo would not have any choice but to call his Bluff, if he wanted to have any chance of winning.

Giancarlo drew his card, and his shark-grin returned – but at this point, Ichabod was fairly certain it was mostly a charade. True to his prediction, his opponent merely shuffled his new card into his hand, and threw a single card face-up on the discard pile. “Yer move.” This was it. Ichabod drew a card, and did his best to repress his pokerface for a moment; he wanted his opponent to think he'd seen a tell, that Ichabod was about to pull a big Bluff to get ahead. Of course, Ichabod had already pulled that big Bluff last turn. Now, he just needed to cement his victory. He shuffled his last six cards a few too many times before grabbing his highest-value suit, and put them down on the table in a triple-stack.

As expected, Giancarlo immediately slammed his hand on the table, motioning for him to flip them over. “Alright ya scoundrel, yer not getting that one past me. That's a bluff.” Ichabod feigned shock only for the shortest of moments, before he answered – his mouth crowned by a grin so wide he could have embarrassed a cheshire cat. “Are you sure about that?” He flipped his cards face-up, and Giancarlo's expression went from triumph to exasperation. “Are ya bloody- Ya pulled a double-triple on me, ya baitin' scoundrel! I've never even seen anyone play that in a proper match before!” Ichabod simply smiled and tapped the stack with his finger before pushing it over to Giancarlo's side of the table, before putting a card in the discard pile. “Your move.” Giancarlo grumbled, but scooped up the stack and put it into his hand. He had more than ten cards left, while Ichabod only had two.

It didn't take more than a few more turns before Ichabod drew a card that he could play in a two-stack with one of his cards, and deposited his last on the discard pile. “Looks like Lady Luck wins again, Officer. What was that about giving me a run for my money? Are you sure you didn't mean 'money for my run'?” He stood up and gestured toward the cell ledger, which he'd been looking at with hungry eyes toward for most of the game.

Giancarlo sighed heavily, before shaking his head and standing up as well. “Well, damn me boots. Here I thought I'd at least get another recruit out of this deal. But I suppose luck sometimes does run dry and land even me with a loss! Hold on, sit tight and I'll go fetch the release papers for ya. He opened the heavy dungeon door and slunk out, with a lot less spring in his step than he'd had coming in earlier that morning.

It was a few tense minutes for Ichabod, waiting for the guard to come back – and hoping he hadn't pulled a fast one on him and gone back on his word. Finally, though, the dungeon door creaked open once again, and the officer waltzed back in – with a good bit of luggage in his arms, too. “Here lad, these are yer release papers and yer confiscated items. Now if ya let me see ya picking locks or what for in this here city again, I don't think I need to explain what'll happen to ya. Turn these in upstairs and they'll let you walk. Oh, and these,” he added as he threw another, clearly lighter sack on the table, “are yer winnings for the wager.”

Ichabod raised an eyebrow. “Winnings?” he asked, opening the sack to look inside. It looked to be mostly fabric – fancy fabric, at that. He could have sworn he'd seen it somewhere before, but he couldn't quite place it...until he remembered what Giancarlo had said about the wager. “The 'evidence'? Is this the dress I tried to steal?” The officer rolled his eyes and splayed his hands. “Well, not exactly the same one, mind ya, at least in terms of the state it's in. I had to fetch it from the laundry, ya see. If ya really are lucky – and I think we've proven that much by now – there might even be a pair of the princess' undergarments in there as well, who knows!”

Ichabod's face turned red, and he hastily drew the bag shut and threw it into his pack, slinging it on. “You're a bloody lunatic, fuzz. I'll do my best to keep off your streets, for my own safety.” He grabbed the release papers, and stepped towards the door as quickly as he could without running. Left in the dungeon was only Giancarlo, wearing the silliest shark grin ever known to man, twirling his mustache and giggling under his breath.