977/What Is This I Don't Even

What Is This I Don't Even
Date of Scene:	15 November 2014
Location:	Boston-666
Synopsis:	Board games at the office.
Cast of Characters:	253, Theo Morrison, Riva Banari, 591, 614

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Assassin (614) has posed:
     In one of the rooms of the Heaven Or Hell Agency Office, a most peculiar thing occurs. Granted, given the clientele, the nature of the multiverse, the cases with which Heaven Or Hell primarily deals, and so on and so forth, that isn't exactly a particularly shocking event. Unusual things occur frequently around this sort of place.

     Rarely, however, do they involve quite literally the Grim Reaper.

     On the table is a jar of pickles. It is state-locked to remain closed and impervious to harm. A single pickle is missing from it. This is where this story began.

     Also on the table is a very old, very ornate chess set. It sits proudly next to the pickle jar, highly out-of-place, currently sitting in the middle of some gambit or another. Chess veterans would recognize the black player's gambit as the Sicilian Defense, an opening popular at the master level for being capable of highly complicating White's position.

     Literally anyone would instantly recognize the black player.

     It sits on a simple chair, both bizarrely out-of-place and right at home. It is eight feet tall, perhaps taller, and even seated it looms over everything like a terrible spectre. Over its shoulder, in slender white fingers, hangs a scythe. Its robes spread out along the floor, turning to roiling mist after they hit the ground. Its figure, its gender, its age - all are impossible to determine.

     What is very clear, however, is that it is the Grim Reaper, the Specter of Death, Azrael, Thanatos, Yamaraja, and a million million other names besides.

     It is also clear that it is very, very good at chess.

     "An l-shape," the asexual, lilting, yet serenely monotonous voice observes calmly, "Like the shape of a scythe, My Master. Two in one direction, one in any other, barring diagonals. It may jump pieces."

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber is here with a big breakfast burrito in his hands. It smells of chorizo, egg, spiced potatos and lots of gooey cheese. And also vaguely jalapenos. He uses his free hand to rub Aoko's shoulder encouraginly.

    "Come on, Aoko. You can do this. I have money riding on this match. So just make sure you always remember that your pieces shoot lasers after every move." He encourages to the redhead. He didnt bet that she'd win, he just bet that a specific phrase would come up three times in some form over the course of this match. And he wants to win that bet with Theo.

    After that, he'd return to just leaning against a wall and watching this match get started.

Aoko Aozaki (591) has posed:
    Aoko does not play chess often.
    Or, rather, at all.

    Sitting in front of Assassin is the red-headed magus, pondering the board. She vaguely recalls how the game goes, but not some of the finer points. If only the pieces really could shoot lasers.

    "Do we get house rules? Can I say my queen CAN shoot lasers?"

    Anyone considering the white side of the board will notice Aoko has already pretty much opened a path to her king to get the queen out and rolling, with general disregard for every other piece.

    If anyone else wants to challenge the pickle jar, the glass itself is invulnerable to harm, and the lid is state-locked to shut. The lid is not invulnerable (she didn't think about it, and most people would give up after the glass can't be broken most likely) and the jar isn't warded in any other way whatsoever, though.

Theo Morrison has posed:
Theo showed up a little while ago, fully expecting the sort of stereotypical hole-in-the-wall office you see in detective stories. He's not a hundred percent sure why, but it was just sort of the feeling he got. He spent a few minutes gawking before he actually came up to see the game and take a look around.

He looks a little bit beat, and his jacket could use a wash; it's entirely likely he was in some kind of dirty rainstorm recently. He's also armed with coffee and doughnuts, having picked some up on the way over, since it's typically a sure-fire way to make a good impression on people you don't know. There is at least fifteen bucks in his pocket after all is said and done.

"I think house rules kind of defeat the purpose of the game until you've picked up the basics," Theo says, "but I know a couple of, um, 'Chess expansion sets' that make things more interesting." Because of course he does.

Riva Banari has posed:
"HRNNNGH!" Riva has arrived on scene and has immediately begun working on trying to open the pickle jar. While the two do their chess match, Riva is busily struggling with the lid, which probably amuses Aoko immensely. She hasn't gotten to the point of violence yet, but give her a bit. "Chess would be pretty cool with lasers," Riva comments as she works on the lid. "I heard someome mention something about a 'laser chess' once..."

Assassin (614) has posed:
     Assassin plays with all the ponderousness of, well, the world's oldest chessmaster. Each move is like a glacier, those thin white fingers taking a span of forever just to move a single piece. Each movement is thought about longer than any move has any right to be thought about, likely making the already-impatient Aoko unhappy.

     "Such a thing is not part of the traditional rules. There are variants. I will teach you those, then."

     Assassin resets the board with a flurry that belies its ponderous moves. It's one of those subtle reminders that the massive thing is a Servant, not a human in a robe; the board is cleared and reset in a matter of seconds.

     Assassin looks at Theo for a very long moment. "I am familiar with many. Some involve lasers," it adds to Psyber, Riva, and Aoko.

     "They are not actual lasers. That would destroy the board. That is bad."

     Assassin lowers its hooded head to consider the board. "Do you not play many games, Master? The others here seem to be more acquainted with such things."

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "Laser chess sounds great, but I'm way too dudebro for a lot of the old board games. I gave up chess back in the fifteenth century." Psyber says pretty casually to Assassin, "So I probably missed its evolution into Laser Chess."

    Psyber pauses and thinks, "I think the game I left it for was called Knifey-Hand-Stabby-Fasty. Or whatever the German equivalent for that word was at the time." He pauses and says, "Nowadays most people call it stabscotch or five-finger fillet."

    Psyber is describing exactly the game you think he is. That was his strategy game of choice for a while.

Aoko Aozaki (591) has posed:
    "I like games! I just don't really play them often. I like fast ones better, I'm not good at the whole slow, careful thinking part, haha~." Modest, but it's kind of true, she's very impulsive and impatient. Sometimes she can make good decisions that take a while, sure, but that's rare.

    "Keep trying! You'll get it one day," is offered to Riva.

    "Do I get my cut?" is asked of Psyber, because cash money!

    Then back towards the chessboard, she ponders.

    "Yeah I guess actual lasers would be bad, huh. I'm with Psyber though, laser chess would be awesome! It's fine though, I can learn regular chess just fine. So YOU play a lot of games, Azzy? Is that really a thing Death does? Just sit around and play games a lot? Do you like it?"

Theo Morrison has posed:
Theo is alternating between watching the game and watching Riva try and open a jar of pickles. It's astounding how entertaining the latter is. Kickotron, the three-foot bird-robot called a myr, is hunched by her side of the table and watches the process with more interest. If it had expressions, it might be interested, anyway.

Assassin turning its eyeless gaze in Theo's direction makes his skin crawl. "I would be surprised if you hadn't," he says. "They're cool, but Chess... ehhh..." Theo kind of shrugs, and reaches for his coffee. Caffeine makes the world go 'round.

He gives Psyber a look. There is a second where he may be trying to count his fingers. "Uh, wow. That's kind of hardcore." Beat. "Hey, no fair deliberately engineering a win like that. It's gotta be a natural progression from chess to lasers."

Riva Banari has posed:
"Fifteenth century?" Riva pauses as she looks up from the jar... Or rather down, the exertions having by now put her upside down on the couch. "But you don't look a day over 25!" She seems slightly horrified at this revelation for some reason. "You know, Psyber, I think we might need to have an intervention. You like pain /way/ too much to be healthy." She comments.

Aoko gets her back on task, however. She stares at the jar for a moment, considering whether to begin gnawing on it. She decides not to, and heads over to into the kitchen. There's some noises, and then some clanging sounds follow. People who look in there notice she's hammering at it with a meat tenderizer with a determined look on her face.

Assassin (614) has posed:
     "People have challenged me to games for as long as there have been stories of people challenging me to games," Assassin observes paradoxically as it waits for Aoko's first move, "They have gambled, rolled dice, moved pieces, and attempted to outwit me at every conceivable game humanity has ever produced. None have so far succeeded."

     "People will attempt many things to keep their lives," it adds with a note of terrible, grim finality.

t "Yes. I enjoy it. It is the only time I am able to sit and speak with people at length. When they lie upon their deathbed and challenge me to a game, I have all the time the game takes to play. It is a fleeting glimpse."

     Assassin picks up a piece. "People challenge me to what they feel comfortable at. Those who are runners challenge me to races. Those who are gamers challenge me to games. I know little of humanity besides those windows."

     It sets the piece back down. "The games are not important. The moments are."

     Assassin looks over at Theo. "Do you dislike chess?" It inquires. "I have never found a game I enjoy as much as chess. It takes a very long time to play, and people talk a very great deal between turns. It is relaxing."

     "The jar cannot be opened," Assassin adds to Riva as it takes a piece of paper and produces a quill from God-only-knows. The quill is jet black. It writes in red ink that is unsettlingly bloody.

     "I will describe variant rules here. Please choose one that appeals to you, Master."

     Assassin starts writing. "What is 'dudebro'?"

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "Stay young at heart, I always say," Psyber says to Riva, watching her violently grapple with her new foe, Lord Picklejarius the Second. He tilts his head a bit, taking a bite of his burrito, "I try to remain youthful in spirit to match the appearance because once someone loses their sense of adventure, they tend to become very boring. So for most intents and purposes, I'm 25 in everything but actual age mostly 99 percent of the time." He smiles at her widely.

    The other 1 percent are his serious moments.

    He looks over at Theo, holding up both hands so that Theo can count 8 fingers and two thumbs. Then he grouses at Riva, "I do not enjoy pain! I have accepted it as an inevitability of my career choice! There's a difference!"

    And then to Aoko, Psyber says, "Yeah, I'll split the pot if you help me win." TAKE THAT, Theo. Collusion is occurring. He pats Aoko on the shoulder again.

    And finally to Death. When asked what a Dudebro is, Psyber simply says, "Just observe Arthur Lowell."

Theo Morrison has posed:
Kickotron follows after Riva. It comes back after a moment of observation, opening up Theo's backpack and rooting around inside it. It's pretty clearly bigger on the inside based on how it has to lean in. It retrieves what looks like a claw hammer and a chisel, turns, and hops back over to Riva, offering them up helpfully.

Theo, meanwhile, frowns in Psyber's direction -- not at the ten fingers, but at the collusion. "Hey. Hey! This is a precedent you don't wanna set," he warns. His warning gesture is spoiled by the cup of coffee. "I'll play fair as long as you do. Unless cheating's in the rules, I guess..."

"I don't mind playing Chess sometimes, but it's a solved game, at least on my world. Someone made a computer that could calculate all the possible moves pretty recently. Crazy stuff." Theo takes a sip of the magic elixir. "As you might have guessed, I prefer Magic. There's enough permutations and possibilities that the strategy is always evolving, and there's always new material to work with being made."

Theo thinks about it for a second. "Weird that Chess is the same everywhere I've checked for it," he mutters.

Riva Banari has posed:
"UGH! THE FEELS!" Riva yells from the kitchen as Assassin talks about sharing the final moments with people through the lens of a game challenge. There's still clanging. "There's got to be SOME way to get this thing open..." She grunts, then turns on the water and starts running it under hot water. THERMAL EXPANSION, RIVA CHOOSES YOU!

"So how old ARE you, Space Dad?" Riva asks, before she suddenly yells again, "THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT A MASOCHIST WOULD SAY!"

She does take a moment to pet Kickotron, because Myr Servitors are excetpionally cute for tiny helper robots, then takes the claw hammer and chisel. Hammer and chiseling noises begin to follow.

At least she is doing it in the sink?

Aoko Aozaki (591) has posed:
    "Oh. I see."
        Aoko observes the board quietly for a long few seconds.

    Then she cheers right back up and grins.

    "Something fast-paced! I'm not good at the long-term strategy stuff, but if you give me something that's more 'feel it and act right away' I bet I can put up an okay game."

    She glances about at everyone as she waits for Assassin to pick a game. Riva gets the most interest, mostly because of the eternal struggle with the pickle jar.

Assassin (614) has posed:
     Assassin stops writing. It reaches under the desk and acquires a set of cards. It begins shuffling them rapidly, dexterity beyond that of a human being sending th cards flying like a magic trick. They are normal cards, not Magic cards or anything particularly intriguing.

     "The game is Texas Hold'em," Assassin declares in its slow, sedate tone.

     It does not know what FEELS are. It watches for a long moment before it repeats, "The jar cannot be opened by the top. It cannot be damaged."

     Then it looks back at Theo and Psyber. "I believe that chess is a mathematical certainty. It must exist, because it is incredibly simple, and thus easy to invent."

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber has many things to respond to. First to Assassin, "I play Chess a lot like I do most things. I go all in with an aggressive strategy and tend to get myself soundly defeated. But sometimes it surprises a grandmaster and I win when I need to. That's why I can respect Chess." He teases to the Death-entity before watching the board. His response is to both him and Theo, "Because past a certain point, the world's worst player can outfox a master BECAUSE it's so mastered. The unpredictable moves can yield results."

    Psyber then immediately sits down at the table when cards are being dealt out for Texas Hold 'Em, "Oh, I'm in for that. I love poker."

    "Alright, fine, fine. No cheating unless we allow cheating in the rules in the future." Moments afterwords, he adds, "And I still need to learn Magic, though I think THAT might take me a while to pick up."

    And let's not forget Riva, "I'm not YOUR Space Dad. I'm Arthur's Space Dad. It sounds weird when you call me that. And I am..." Psyber wobbles his head back and fourth, "I dunno, about 'old enough', give or take a few decades for calendar drift due to inaccurate original celestial tracking." He grins a moment later. SOME DAY she may get the actual number out of him.

Riva Banari has posed:
CLANK CLANK CLANK. Riva seems to be stubborn about this. "Can't be damaged? THIS IS CHEATING!" Her yell comes from the kitchen, and she turns and throws it at the wall. It clonks, instead of shattering, and she looks down at it as it rolls back to her feet, her expression despondant for a moment. Slowly, she reaches down to the jar and picks it up, and then takes the claw hammer and chisel and gives them back to Kickotron, before taking the jar back to the couch and just folding around it in a mild grump.

"Oh, so I'm the weird one now?" She teases Psyber. "Fine. How about Teen Angel?" She chuckles a bit at that, while watching the poker game. She doesn't look like get's getting in on it yet. "I need to get back to London soon, I have to report in to my first boss."

Theo Morrison has posed:
"I guess that's true. Unpredictability on account of a lack of skill is a sort of asset," Theo agrees. He puts his cup down, leaning against a table edge and folding his arms. He thinks about it a minute. "Cheating is a bit different, though. Good wins get soured by it, I think." Betting on a phrase is slightly different, however.

"I'll teach you when you've got some time to spare. It's a complicated game." Theo actually has a real seat about then. Kickotron comes back with the tools in-hand, looking a little bit disappointed, insofar as it's capable of looking disappointed. It rummages in the bag again, fishing out something odd: a big, triangular shard of some kind of crystal carapace. Kickotron brings it over to Riva.

"Hey, no giving away the loot," Theo admonishes.

Aoko Aozaki (591) has posed:
    As Psyber brags, Aoko raises a brow. "Hey, hey, Azzy. You know what'd be way more fun than playing with me? Playing against Psyber! He's like, half-angel! How often does Death get to play a game with an angel? I bet that doesn't happen much, because God just kind of sends angels to Hell, right? They don't really die."

    But maybe she's wrong.
    She's not hyper-religious or anything.

    Plus, beliefs change between versions of the same religion.

    "For chess, I mean. I'm okay with Texas Hold 'Em!"

    She's not a pro but she'll manage.

    "What's a space dad anyway?"

    The towards Riva: "Hahaha~, sorry, sorry. I can't do a whole lot besides lasers but rigging a pickle jar to be the most frustrating thing in the world, that I can do!"

Assassin (614) has posed:
     Assassin begins dealing. It deals with that same lightning-speed dexterity - quite literally faster than the human eye can track. The upsides to being a Servant are massive, apparently! At least in terms of things like this, anyway. It flicks the cards to Psyber, Theo, and Aoko without bothering to look at them, operating purely on reflex.

     "I do not know. I have not met angels. They are not in my purview, My Master," Assassin replies serenely, "I do not know if God exists."

     "What is in London?" It asks Riva.

     "What is 'the loot'?"

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "He'd kick my ass at chess," Psyber says off-handedly to Aoko, admitting that Death would probably be frustratingly better than Psyber at all levels of Chess.

    "Ah, the space dad thing," He says to Aoko as he waits for cards, "My actions directly led to the circumstances that allowed for the creation of another being. Because of this, it is joked that I'm his Space Dad. Like... non-blood, but related through coincidence."

    "Take care travelling to London. Don't get lost on the way back or anything and don't eat the local food. Brits put beans on everything," Says the Bostonian. Psyber looks at the cards as Death deals them out and then takes a moment to reply to Death, "If, hypothetically, God did not exist, his concept would still exist in good actions and deeds, and his principles would persist through selfless deeds. Whether God exists in a tangible form is irrelevant compared to the concept of God's existence and the weight it carries."

    Pause for a beat.

    "Riva, before you go, can you toss me a beer from the fridge?" And then to Theo, "So I wanna just blitz people down and slam em to the wall. What kind of deck do I go for for that?"

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva, kind of dejected, nods to Aoko. "Well, it's good to have some skills, right?" She says with a little smile. "London is where the headquarters of the Knights Templar are in my world. We're an organization dedicated to protecting people from the various horrible things that like to send people to an untimely end or worse."

Riva gets back up and takes the pickle jar back into the kitchen, putting it on the counter. Kickotron offers her a crystal chunk. "Oooh, pretty." She says, and then absently stabs the jar lid with it. It shears straight through the thin, cheap metal, but Riva doesn't even seem to notice since she's already rummaging in the fridge for beers. She comes back out of the kitchen, carrying the jar in one arm and the beers in the other. She sets down the jar (with crystal) to one side, still apparently not noticing that she punched a hole in the lid as she sets out beers for everyone (including Death).

She sits back on the coutch, and opens up the beer to take a swig, "Actually, there's a /great/ taco place in the Haitian Quarter." Riva replies. "The Yellow Sign Fish and Chips is pretty good too."

Theo Morrison has posed:
Theo is okay with cards. This is not his final fo--er, favored game, but he'll play a couple hands. "'The loot' in a broad sense is items acquired as a result of victory with a monster, and 'the loot' in a general sense is a bunch of shards of Endbringer carapace from Brockton Bay. I was at the crazy fight last night, stopping tidal waves and stuff while people actually did the heavy lifting."

Psyber waxes philosophical. Theo looks at him for a minute, vaguely quizzically. He shakes his head slightly to dismiss it. "Um, red for a swarm of goblins or direct damage, white for soldiers, weenies, little things like that... both if you want to play turn-right-win-fight. Aggro is annoying to deal with."

Kickotron is fascinated with the now-punctured lid and the jar. Theo glances over and doubletakes. "Geez. Good for more than just hypothetical armor, I guess."