This hand sucks.
"Are we doing well, Vimar?"
Vimar's had already used his two available swaps, his hand was still horrible. Each card was of a different pip, no matter how he looked, how many miraculous pairs he tried to find. A high card would be the only outcome.
A faint warm lamp sat above them, illuminating the dark alley they were sitting in. A small stool sat between them with a stack of 38 cards and 4 spare ones at the center.
There wasn't much silence, beyond the alleyway walls the sprawling capital was alive, filling the air with the idle sounds of hundreds. Carriages moving across stone paths, people chatting with one another...
The smell of the alleyways was rather unpleasant for the unaccustomed, leaking sewage pipes were a common occurrence, food rot in garbage cans that were around every corner, and the faint, bitter smell of a cigar could be felt coming from Vimar.
Vimar threw his head down and admitted. "Alright, I'm ready to show our hands."
"Great. On the count of three..." Vimar and his opponent sat right up, looking down at their hands to give their last check. "One. Two. Three!"
Ah- A What.
"Royal flush." The man across him admitted with a wide grin.
"H-High card..." Vimar looked disappointed at himself, or rather his luck as a whole. He looked at them for a moment, leaning back and laughing. The cigar at the corner of his mouth bobbed with the movement. "You're cheating."
"I'm not cheating!" The man claimed, keeping that smug smile on his face.
"You absolutely are! I know you looked at the cards, didn't you? Or perhaps Sonia didn't shuffle them properly..."
"Vimar, when have I ever cheated?"
"You always do! You've never won until tonight... That luck is unnatural."
"Its simple luck, had I cheated I would've never lost, especially since I bet most of the time."
Tchk. He's right. "You did something with your cards now while I wasn't looking."
"I was looking, he didn't do anything." A woman spoke out from Vimar's left. "Plus, I didn't mess up my shuffling, you know I'm the only one that knows how to properly shuffle around here."
Sonia was sitting on an upturned crate with her legs crossed, watching them with an entertained expression.
"You're supposed to be on my side! Not on Anfort's!"
"I side with the truth, and the truth is you're a sore loser." Sonia gave a soft laugh.
Vimar took the cigar from his mouth, tapped the ash against the stone and put it back. "Fine. Give Sonia the cards."
Sonia took the deck with both hands and shuffled them, they moved through her fingers in a clean waterfall before being split, riffled together, then split again, and bridged back into a single deck.
Vimar kept staring at her hands. "How do you do that..."
"With enough practice. I can show you, I'll do it slowly."
"Please."
Her fingers now moved at half speed through the whole process. "Right I've got it."
Vimar took the deck from Sonia with both hands and attempted the watterfall. The cards left his fingers in every direction at once, a brief explosion of cards covered the ground in a radius around him.
Everywhere in the alley laughed, their laughs coming from everywhere at once, even Anfort was covering his mouth, trying to hide the fact he was gonna burst out laughing at any moment.
Holding back tears of embarrassment, Vimar picked the cards from, gathering them into something resembling a pile and handing it to Sonia, who reshuffled it in seconds without commenting on it.
Vimar dealt the cards now, five cards to Anfort across the stool and five to himself, the remainder set between them face down.
The alley had settled back into their own business around them. Vimar picked up his hand. He looked at it without expression, which was a practiced thing.
2 of Kings, King of Death, Ace of Queens, Prince of Life, 4 of Princes.
He went through the hand twice. The Ace of Queens, it allows me to do 3 swaps. I got two cards with the Kings pip and two of the Prince pip, which one should I risk losing?
Keeping the two king cards, he discarded the two prince cards. He drew from the deck, obtaining a 5 and 8 of Kings. Now I have four kings, and a single swap left.
6 of Kings.
He held the hand and looked at it properly, examining his finishing play.
2 of Kings. King of Death. 5 of Kings. 8 of Kings. 6 of Kings.
Five cards of the same pip... A Flush! His cigar shifted a few degrees to the right.
"Are you ready?" Anfort asked, he had the same emotionless face Vimar was trying to keep.
"I am, let's go."
"On the count of three."
"One." The ends of Vimar's mouth tugged into a smirk. "Two." He looked up at Anfort whose expression hadn't changed. "Three."
They laid down their cards simultaneously.
Anfort had a pair of aces, the rest of the cards were a scattered nothing, different suits and pips, not a pattern between them. A pair of aces was a reasonable hand, however it was nothing compared to Vimar's.
He looked at Vimar's hand for a moment before looking up. "You're the cheater now."
"And, as you said, its just luck."
From her crate, Sonia said nothing, keeping her smile.
- - -
After a couple more rounds of Poker, Vimar went back inside the tent he shared with Anfort. It was more wide than it was tall, you had to be crouching to be comfortable inside.
A neat pile of blankets was their bed, with folded towels as make-do pillows. Next to their bed were bags full of their day-to-day needs; Food, clothing, hygiene products, etc.
Not the most comfortable life, but for them, it was enough. Vimar plopped down on the bed, naturally landing on the left side, which was his agreed-upon spot.
He looked up at their tent's roof. I've got about an hour before I need to head off to work. Vimar pulled on his cigar, the smoke rose and escaped through the small window the tent had.
Anfort interrupted his relaxation. "Hey, we're heading to Timra street for pottage, wanna come?"
Vimar raised his, he hadn't even answered before he was already up from bed. "Sure. I'll go with you."
The way to Timra street wasn't that long from Shumja alley, only being about a 2 minute walk.
"Who's cooking this time? Please, tell me its not Seward, I'd rather starve, don't you remember the moldy vegetables incident? I'm not in the mood for getting food poisoning."
Anfort laughed for a second. "Don't worry, I made sure Seward isn't the one cooking this time. I believe it'll be... Uhh, what was her name...? The woman with curly hair, she makes dresses from blankets..."
"Ah! Elinor, wasn't she? Then we'll be eating so good! Her cooking is almost magical."
"But doesn't she specialize in dry or cold foods? I've never eaten her warm meals."
"Weird, she cooked chicken stew a couple months ago."
"I think it's been established that I have the memory of a goldfish."
"Speaking of, did you remember to bring Skirlias?"
Anfort froze mid stride. Looking back at Sonia who was trailing behind. "Sonia, how many Skirlias did you bring?"
"I only brought enough for myself, the bakery hasn't paid my cashier income yet."
"Did you bring any, Vimar?"
Vimar shook his head. "I thought you were gonna pay, since you invited me and such."
"I'll be right back." Thankfully, they weren't too far from Shumja. Anfort went back to the alley, giving large, wide steps.
"While you wait for him I'll be heading to Timra. I'm starving, perhaps I'll save a spot for both of you." Sonia mentioned as she continued her walk.
- - -
The line at Tamra was long, but not unreasonably so, even if they got served slowly they would only be standing around for about 10 minutes maximum.
From the stall, a warm and thick smell came, it was composed of whatever vegetables Elinor had thrown into the pot today.
"She put some strong herbs to it." Anfort said, pointing our the tangy smell, Vimar took a while to notice the particular herb smell.
"How did you point them down so quickly? I can barely smell them."
"I don't know, I guess its natural to me. Have you tried opening your nose?"
Open my nose...? Vimar looked at Anfort with a weird expression and the line moved forward.
...
The pottage had a deep taste to it, the one that warmly embraces all your taste buds, even down to the back of the mouth, a hint of an earth taste, heavy aromatics, it made for the perfect comfort meal.
A small boy, maybe about eight years old approached Vimar. He was looking at the stall, then at the people eating.
He stopped a couple feet away, looking up with a teary-eyed expression. "Excuse me, sir. Do you have any spare Skirlias?"
Vimar took a look at him, then at Anfort. Anfort shrugged, he'd only brought enough for the two bowls of Pottage which costed a Skirlia when combined.
"I don't have any on me. Sorry, kid."
The boy nodded, clearly having heard that hundreds of times before. He looked down at his bowl, half-finished. He picked it up and held it out.
He turned back and accepted the bowl unconsciously. "Go on. I wasn't that hungry anyway."
The boy took the bowl with both hands. "Thank you, sir." He walked up to the wall near them, sitting against it and eating.
Anfort watched this unfold with uncertainty in his face. "You're crazy, you didn't even eat dinner yesterday, are you sure you're not starving?"
"I'm doing fine. I had berries this morning."
"Nowhere near enough."
The clock on the Timra street corner was about to strike noon. I'm gonna be late.
Anfort noticed Vimar had lifted himself off the wall. "Heading to work?"
"Yes, I don't want to be late this time."
"You always say that but you've never actually been late."
Vimar raised an eyebrow. "I wonder why."
- - -
He was back out from his tent back in Shumja in less than two minutes, with a broom and mop already in hand from where he kept them leaning against the alley wall.
The better districts of the capital received him as usual, which meant they didn't receive him at all. He moved through the upper-class streets, the people around him didn't even look at him.
Vimar swept with long even stroke, working section by section. His cigar was gone, the third rule of code of conduct, no smoking on shift.
The stone paths in this district of the city were wide and pale with people walking with a single focused destination, much more quieter, but it felt less alive in the eyes of Vimar.
"Karamild."
His boss was a broad man called Turev Zhi-Reba, he wore a spotless tuxedo everywhere he went, a single piece of that outfit could cost Vimar's yearly salary.
"Is something wrong with the Morst section?"
"Nothing's wrong with anything. Quite the opposite in fact, you've been doing good work."
Vimar stood up, leaning his body weight on the broom which he was grabbing with both hands.
"As a reward for your great efforts. Your rate is being bumped to three Skirlias a day, starting from the end of your shift."
Vimar's eyes widened, but he couldn't shake something off. "But I do the same work as everyone else."
"You do it better than the rest, every day. Now don't make me regret my decision."
"..." Vimar looked down at the floor before looking back up at his boss's face. "Thank you, sir."
The ends of Turev's mouth tugged into the slightest form that could be known as a smile. "Great. Get back to work then."
- - -
He received his pay at the end of the day, the sky had already turned that deep blue of early night.
The day's wage was counted on the table by whoever had closed the office. And today, after months of seeing the same two Skirlias on it, he finally saw a third one.
Skirlias had the looks and smell of seaweed, which was now only a cultural thing, since they were practically unbreakable.
A small mint mark was at both ends of it, shining bright under the rays of street lamps.
Anfort was waiting at the Shumja entrance. "Rumor says your salary got increased to 3 Skirlias a day, is that so?"
Vimar showed off his 3 Skirlias with a smug smirk. "Look at it yourself."
They walked back into the alley together, the lamp above emitting it's warm orange light.
"What are you going to do with the extra one?"
Vimar considered this for no time. "There's a tobacco seller on Crevis street, I've heard they got some good leaf."
"Vimar."
"They're good ones, you can tell the difference immediately."
"You gave your lunch to a child this afternoon."
"That was completely different! I could've afforded it if I wanted to but you invited me."
Anfort placed both hands on Vimar's shoulders. "You have an extra Skirlia, and your first thought is cigars."
"The second will be food."
"And what was your thought before cigars?"
Vimar remained silent. He promised to buy only a single cigar from Crevis street, just to try them out, then he'd be using his third Skirlia for food.
- - -
Most of Shumja alley had been asleep when the light went out. It was still before dawn, all at once, the municipal lights that ran along the district's outer streets simply stopped.
The people didn't stay asleep for long.
Shadow beings came through the walls, blending in with the darkness that had formed. The undead rose from the ground near the sewer gates. Arachnopods came over the walls, eight legs finding purchase in the stone.
Gangster appeared with guns and knives drawn, the government saw them as criminals, but to the homeless community they were protection.
The guns were loud in the alley's closed space, sound bouncing off the walls and doubling back. Mortal weapons were a slight inconvenience for the monsters.
Vimar came awake from the gun sounds, waking up Anfort in a panic. The tent's thin walls did nothing to muffle the sounds from the outside.
Anfort sat up beside him, his face unreadable in the complete dark. Most people would've used a lamp to keep light, but there weren't enough Skirlias for such commodities.
Vimar found his jacket and put it on, next were his shoes. The tent flap opened onto chaos that resolved as shapes and silhouettes around them.
They went the only direction that had nothing in it yet, moving close to the stone. The spread of the people was working in their favor, monsters followed the stray humans, which meant the density was lower.
Shumja opened onto one of the stone streets. The municipal buildings were dark. The better district's lights were burning up north, although practically unreachable.
Anfort touched Vimar's arm. A shadow being was at the far end of the street, which wasn't that far. It had the shame of something the human mind couldn't quite process.
It was oriented toward them, they could feel it staring at them, in the blink of an eye it's limbs started moving towards them.
They ran.
The streets in the district weren't designed for running, being laid out for commerce and foot traffic rather than flight. A dead end.
With no time to revise the decision that led there, Anfort hit the wall with one hand and turned immediately, scanning the ground. "A fire."
Vimar looked at him and his surroundings. They couldn't climb over the wall, if they tried escaping the shadow being would still follow them.
"Fire can keep them back, they're afraid of light, all of them." He found a stick, it crumbled under the slightest force, perfect dryness.
He pulled the dried grass from the base of the wall where it grew between the gaps in the stone. "I need another one, quick."
Vimar found one instantly and put it in Anfort's hands without asking any further questions.
Anfort worked as the sound got closer, it wasn't a particular sound, rather white noise that increased in volume.
The dried grass was gathered in a small pile. The sticks were positioned and rapidly rubbing against each other.
Anfort tried again and again, the rubbing increased in speed, but he couldn't find the correct point and position to do so.
Vimar kneeled down, looking at the ground. He took Anfort's hand, about to say his goodbyes. How he was so glad to have met him in this life.
When he looked up, he didn't find Anfort's face. He found the deep darkness of a shadow being.
His eyes widened. He looked down. The hands that were wrapped around the two sticks weren't attached to any arms.
Blood was pouring down onto the grass. That shadow being had already taken Anfort into the next life.
Vimar covered his mouth and backed away as fast as he could until his back hit the wall. The shadow being was busy digesting Anfort to care about Vimar.
Without thinking, he leaned forwards, taking the two sticks at once and a handful of dried grass, making sure in a half-second that none was stained with Anfort's blood.
He rubbed them together at a specific angle. The first ember. It dropped down onto the grass, causing it to spark. Now he had light.
The rapidly expanding fire spread throughout the grass patch Vimar was currently sitting down on, the bright light emitting from it caused the shadow being to disappear into thin air.
Anfort's hands fell into the flames, Vimar could notice them catching fire, a larger more impactful flame.
He couldn't believe what had just happened. His eyes were teary, but his vision was sharp, only feeling the slight cold from the tears running down his cheeks.
Crying wouldn't be the exact word for that, as Vimar wasn't sobbing, but had the adrenaline not been around, he would've been screaming and sobbing.
He stared up at the ceiling, at the small pieces of ember that flew upwards at the corners of his vision, the moon, the bright white moon and stars were looking down on him.
- - -
A blackened circle of scorched earth remained around him, still smoking at it's edges. The darkness had receded with the sunlight, the monsters were finally gone and the alley had dropped into silence.
Vimar shifted his weight to stand up. He felt a sharp pain from the knee down. He looked down, noticing burns that followed all the way down to his ankles.
He'd been sitting at the edge of the flames without noticing it, the skin was an angry red, a large portion of his skin was gone.
The adrenaline had kept him from feeling it through the hour of night that remained, but it was gone now. He sat back down.
Anfort's clothes were practically fine, his trousers had gone through the most damage, holes of different sizes covered it's surface, he could surely get them patches up.
He hadn't finished processing any of it, his mind still felt blank and he couldn't think straight, or more, he was thinking of too many things at once to know what to do with them.
Something had grown at the spot between his legs, in what little green grass remained. It appeared out of nowhere.
It was a small flower, it's head opened with white petals. In the burned circle with smoke still rising from the grass around it, something had sprouted.
"You are in pain."
The voice came from the flower, defying the way sound transmitted or how voices worked, the voice was completely neutral, neither male or female, young or old.
"Yeah, I am."
"More than the burns."
"Yeah."
The flowers petal opened further, around it, the scorched earth was showing the faintest green at it's edges.
"You are an aching soul. You have a heart of gold. The world does not have an abundance of those."
Vimar looked at the collar of his green jacket, straightening it.
"I have a proposal. I am Kamidral. God of life."
Vimar raised an eyebrow slightly.
"There is a catastrophe approaching Bambularia. The darkness is spreading. The monsters that took your family away last night are not natural to this world. There are others like you, fate will make your paths cross and merge."
"And what do I get out of it?"
"If you accept my deal. If you stop the catastrophe at it's source. The era of monsters will end at once."
Vimar's eyes widened.
"In exchange, you become my vessel. You'll carry my blessing and use it in service of what's coming. But you are allowed to say no. Your community lost people last night. They're going to need someone like you in the days ahead. Staying is not a coward's choice."
Vimar looked at the alley entrance thinking about Shumja at this hour of the day, about sleeping next to Anfort in their tent and the people waking up and starting their days one at a time.
He looked back at the flower. "Did the other vessels get to choose?"
"No. At the moment none of the vessels have been given the choice to decline."
"Why do I, then?"
"You have a community that values you deeply. The rest of the vessels only had themselves."
He looked at his burned legs. Off into the distance into the city.
"Alright."