7th Hat Flip [Voice/Action]

[immamartillo]

[Voice]

[After having a close friend return home a few weeks ago, Firo's been largely keeping to himself. He was aware of the danger of losing friends in Luceti, but it always seemed abstract and alien until it actually happened.

It's boredom that finally prompts him to address the network. That and the concern that if he doesn't keep using his skills he'll be near useless when he gets back home. Why not kill two birds with one stone?]

Does anybody here wanna play cards? Any kinda game is fine, or even if you just wanna learn. Most of 'em aren't that hard to pick up and I don't mind teachin' anyone.

[His tone suddenly becomes less light and takes a turn for the grouchier.]

But if you're gonna cheat, save it. I'll know.

[He wasn't put in charge of a Family casino for nothing.]

[Action]

[Soon after he makes his message, Firo will be rummaging through the item shop for a few packs of cards, carefully going through each one he finds to make sure they're complete. Then he'll linger a little while by the art supplies to pick up some markers.

...No, he is not going to be using them to mark the cards.]

Comments

action!

[tomodachi]

[Hmm, hmm...]

Am I going first again? 'Cause if I am, I think I'll "check" for this round... [That's what it's called, right? Not because his hand is particularly awful now or anything, mostly because he thinks that's the best option to go with now.

...Or maybe he's just being random with whatever he wants to do, who knows.]

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[immamartillo]

[Firo nods.]

I'll check too.

[He's pretending to be cautious in hopes that it wills make Crow think he has an edge; Firo finds that overconfidence can be quite profitable for the house. It's a very simple ruse, but it won't hurt to try even if Crow can see through it. And Firo is curious to see if Crow will be able to figure it out.

He hands them each their next card.]

You can keep goin' first for the rest of the game.

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[tomodachi]

Okay!

[Yyyeah, we've got Firo on the edge! How many more cards are there? He's not sure if this or the next one is the last one, but he looks down at his cards and at the face up ones for a moment before he nods and, after perhaps only a second or two of hesitation, adds one more screw forward.]

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[immamartillo]

[He sneaks a peak at his last card, then slides one screw forward. It never hurt anybody to play it safe, even if this isn't real money.]

Call.

Ready to see who won?

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[tomodachi]

Yeah! And this time's definitely a better set of cards to have!

[And...it sort of is? Look at him glowing with excitement even though it's not OMG impressive and most of his cards are still kind of random, but at least three Jacks is better than his previous hand of only a pair of twos, right?]

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[immamartillo]

Certainly is. You got some high ones there.

[He flips over his hole cards to reveal his entire hand. By comparison, Firo's cards are low, and he's missing a straight by one card: he has a three of spades up to a six of hearts. The other three cards are eights, not enough to beat his opponent's. He sits back to wait and see if Crow will realize that the pot is all his and take it.]

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[tomodachi]

[Crow looks between their two sets of cards, trying to remember what Firo said earlier about the types of hands there were.]

The cards with the faces are worth more than the numbered ones right? So... [...Did we win?]

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[immamartillo]

Yeah. Except for aces.

[And Firo has none of those.

He's smiling faintly. He doesn't relish losing, but maybe this'll get him some brownie points with Crow.]

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[tomodachi]

[Well Crow certainly seems to be in a much better mood than he was before when hanging around Firo, now that he's realized that he won. We rarely get to play games with other people that even give us a chance of "winning" the game, so to speak.]

So...that means I won, right? [Yatta!] Hahaha, we won!

[Fist pump in the air! We're the winner, it is us!]

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[immamartillo]

Yeah, you did.

[He chuckles and nudges the screws they bet towards Crow.]

It's all yours. What'd you think?

[Winning tends to make a game more enjoyable.]

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[tomodachi]

That was actually pretty cool. [Oh, right. He gathers the screws back together into a small pile.] I didn't know you could actually do games like that with cards.

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[immamartillo]

What'd you think people did with cards, then?

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[tomodachi]

[Uh...] I dunno, I usually just found them lying around in different places, like on tables and junk.

[It's a little hard to know what exactly they were for when there was nobody around playing them.]

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[immamartillo]

Really? That's--

[Oh. That actually makes sense considering that little detail Seto mentioned about their world being largely empty.]

There's a lotta different games you can play with these. There're ones you can do by yourself, too.

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[tomodachi]

[Good save--apocalypse world isn't exactly a pleasant topic of discussion, so he's distracted by the mention of more games.]

Really? Like what?

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[immamartillo]

Yeah, my friend Keith likes solitaire. All you need to play is one deck and it's pretty easy to set up.

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[tomodachi]

"Solitaire"? [sounds lonely ba-dum pish] Well how do you play that?

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[immamartillo]

[/applause]

Lemme show you.

[He collects their cards, shuffles them, then starts laying them out in front of Crow.]

You'recan stack your cards from king to ace, in order, alternatin' colors. The goal is to stack all the cards of each suite right here, but first you gotta put down the ace, then the two, and so on.

[He taps a space above the layout.]

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[tomodachi]

...Right. [He still seems kind of confused though, so a demonstration is probably in order.]

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[immamartillo]

Here.

[He looks around until he finds a four of diamonds on top of one of the piles. Then he picks it up and puts it on a five of spades.]

Like that, see?

[He goes back to the pile where he got the four and flips the face down card beneath it.]

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[tomodachi]

Oh, so you don't have to put it down on the same shapes or colors... [Just...alternating between numbers and colors? Huh...]

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[immamartillo]

No. And you can't pick up a card out from under another one.

Wanna try it?

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[tomodachi]

[He stares down at the cards laid out in front of him for a long moment before he reaches out to move a seven of clubs and places it on top of an eight of hearts.]

Like that, right?

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[immamartillo]

Exactly. You keep doin' that until you've got each suite in its pile, face up.

There's another game called "clock solitaire," that works a little differently. It's not as popular because it relies more on how the cards fall than skill.

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[tomodachi]

Is that one harder to play? [Honestly why do these card games seem unnecessarily complicated, but at least he seems to be getting an idea for them as he's moving some cards around now while the other talks.]