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+---- Thread: a good night for bad choices (/showthread.php?tid=12349)
a good night for bad choices - Jack - 01-04-2026
The trip down from the Cordillera had been a blur of motion and adrenaline, Jack having little time to process his run-in with Flora in order to push The Ark to stay ahead of the swarming dragons. Halo had been the closest region out of necessity rather than desire, and as his ship docks in her Skyport with dusk closing in on her heels, the seeds of something dark and ravenous are already spreading its roots deep at his core.
The rest of the crew disembarks to find warm lodgings for the night, and although a lot of them end up at the same tavern as the Captain, Jack keeps himself purposely separate, purposely apart, purchasing a bottle of strong whiskey and seating himself at a gambling table with around half a dozen assorted hunters, soldiers and alcoholics. It isn't a great tavern, which is exactly why he'd picked it out - sordid, shady and with a history of grudges waiting for retaliation, it's the sort of powder keg he plans to get lost in.
First, though, he plans to lose himself in the cards and the whiskey, drinking every time Flora's face so much as flashes through his mind, which means he's well into his cups even by the second game.
RE: a good night for bad choices - Rhiannon - 01-04-2026
Rhiannon wandered the streets of the Citadel in a seemingly random pattern, looking for all the world like she was simply taking a walk and enjoying the evening. Those who knew her waved hello or called a greeting, which she returned with a polite, if distant, reply. She wasn't roaming without purpose - she was on duty. Her current job was to keep an eye on the seedier taverns of the Citadel and report any disturbances. It was boring, but necessary work, even if it wasn't something that Rhi particularly enjoyed.
In plain clothes, she could be anyone, so she slipped in and out of a bar or two, hovering in the shadows before moving on to the next. It was her own personal form of bar hopping, she supposed, and though she much preferred the fun, drinking kind, this was simply something she had to stomach. It was almost the end of her shift, anyway - and then she could go to the nicer parts of the city to find some fun of her own.
She slipped into the last tavern on her list to lean against the wall by the door. Her gaze roved over the crowd, taking in the faces she knew and cataloguing the ones she didn't. She'd found that it was often the travelers that caused her the most trouble, but so far she saw nothing other than a bunch of drunk sailors playing card games.
RE: a good night for bad choices - Jack - 01-05-2026
Jack's telepathy has grown recklessly fuzzy around the edges by the time Rhiannon walks in through the doors, such that he doesn't immediately clock the arrival of an agent of law and order in their midst - not that he'd have changed tactics even if he had realised. No, he's busy cheating at his third game of cards, bottle of whisky half empty, his decisions careless and sloppier than he'd ever normally allow - almost gunning for a fight, one might think.
More than one does think, in fact, the members of his crew who are still present and sober enough to realise it quietly angling themselves to jump into the fray if and when the time comes. And they won't be kept waiting all that long either; one of the gamblers at Jack's table, a grizzled hunter even more drunk than the Captain, slams his fist hard enough to send drinks toppling, his flushed cheeks all the more ruddy for his anger.
"Yer cheatin'!" he barks, chair scraping hard as he rises to his feet, seizing his bottle of beer.
Jack scoffs and slumps back in his seat, shrugging his shoulders like he's the owner of the tavern instead of a stranger in the heart of this cold city. [say]"An' you're ugly,"[/say] he fires back. [say]"Y'know, if we're goin' 'round sayin' shit that's obvious."[/say]
The bottle shatters against the table, glinting fiendishly in the tavern's low light, and honestly, no one is all that surprised when the hunter lurches across the table with the weapon held aloft.
RE: a good night for bad choices - Rhiannon - 01-05-2026
All was quiet at first - so quiet that Rhiannon was tempted to leave and go about her evening. But just as she turned away from the tavern's warm interior, just as she went to step out into the chilly night, raised voices give her pause. She turned on her heel just in time to see a hunter lurching across a table, broken bottle in hand, lunging for a man that Rhi didn't recognize.
The soldier hurried towards the fray, noting that several of the other men around seemed to be keeping an eye on the fight - though whose side they would ultimately be on was anyone's guess. As she arrived at the table, she inserted herself into the situation without preamble, grabbing the hunter by the back of his shirt and attempting to haul him away. [say]"Hey!"[/say] she said, loud and authoritative. [say]"None of that."[/say] With any luck, the pair would grumble a bit and leave the tavern. If she could get them to go their separate ways, perhaps the suddenly tense atmosphere would calm and the men surrounding them would go back to their drinking.
RE: a good night for bad choices - Jack - 01-06-2026
It's Rhi's unlucky night, as it happens, because Jack has been asking for a fight all evening and now that he's finally getting one, he's not keen to have it fizzle into nothing. And to his credit (he supposes) neither is the drunk hunter; as the soldier steps forward to haul at the back of the man's shirt, he's already wheeling around to try and elbow her away. Being wasted, of course, he misses entirely and instead catches a passing server with a tray of drinks, which then upends all over another table.
And really, that's all it takes in a powder keg like this tavern. Jack's grin is all teeth as chaos and lost tempers detonate through his magic. He's not even the one to throw the first punch in the end - one of the men who'd had beer spilled all over him cracks the drunk hunter across the back of the head. He staggers but doesn't go down, though when he turns it's with the broken bottle firmly in hand, the glass glinting jaggedly in the lamplight.
Shouting, swearing and general brawling erupts after that, fists and feet and glass flying in all directions, and the gambling table tips over to spill cards and dice into the fray as well. The knife, if it can be called that (just a wickedly sharp shard of ice called to life by his magic) is in Jack's hands before he even knows it. He might as well tick another item off his checklist whilst he's here, he figures, and no one will even realise it in the fray.
RE: a good night for bad choices - Rhiannon - 01-06-2026
Unfortunately for Rhiannon, her attempt at ending the brawl before it started failed miserably. The man she'd grabbed elbowed at her head (but was far too drunk to successfully make contact) and ended up reeling into a nearby table, spilling beer on other patrons in his efforts. Rhi cursed under her breath as she watched the tavern go up like a wildfire, the fights that broke out around her raging and roaring like so many flames.
The man who caught her eye, though, was not the hunter she originally grabbed, but the man he'd squared up against. The stranger held a knife of what looked like ice, where Rhi could only see fists being thrown around her. That made him the most dangerous of the crowd, and therefore the one that she needed to stop.
So she stepped towards him. [say]"Hey, man, you don't want to do this,"[/say] she yelled over the din, holding up her hands in an attempt at peace. [say]"Just put the knife down."[/say]
RE: a good night for bad choices - Jack - 01-07-2026
His magic floods with the wildfire of drunken violence, of chaos made manifest in bruised knuckles and bleeding teeth and black eyes. Add in the potent sting of liquor in his veins and, simply put, Jack is about as fucked up as anyone else here in the tavern, and for once it's exactly how he wants to be. No strategy or calculations or plans, just raw action layered atop the briefest flicker of opportunity.
It's why he doesn't really see Rhiannon until its too late.
He's aiming for the man with the broken bottle, his back turned away now so he can tussle with one of the other guys he's spilled beer over. A tray sails over their heads and someone else trips over an upturned table leg - he and two other men go down, brawling. Jack steps forward smoothly, or at least he thinks so, his hand lancing out to catch the drunkard right in the kidneys.
It catches Rhiannon under the ribs instead. A flicker of surprise echoes in the Captain's face for just a second as he gazes at her, hands up as if placating, leaving her wide open instead for what he's just done. For the tiniest of moments Jack almost feels guilty, before it's swallowed up by the cold acknowledgement of a task completed to fruition.
[say]"Ain't personal, love,"[/say] he mutters through the din, bodies around them writhing and falling and throwing punches, still, even as he directs more ice into the knife, letting it creep and crawl up towards her heart. [say]"Just the wrong place for you, I guess."[/say]
RE: a good night for bad choices - Rhiannon - 01-08-2026
All hell broke loose around her, and yet somehow Rhiannon ended up in a pocket with the stranger that felt oddly like the eye of the storm. Everything seemed to slow down, and despite time moving slowly, Rhiannon found it impossible to react to the series of events that followed.
A hand lanced out, aiming for a drunkard; Rhiannon stepped towards it, hoping to deflect it; she missed, and the knife sank into her ribs with a dull thud and a stabbing pain.
Rhi's lips parted, a soft gasp escaping as her mind struggled to catch up. Her side was on fire (ironic, really, given that the knife was made of ice), but it dulled as her chest became cold, colder, colder. Blood bubbled up to her lips and she coughed once, a harsh, hacking sound that should have hurt far more than it did.
The stranger was speaking, but it sounded far away. Rhi realized dimly that her legs were giving out, and she collapsed to her knees with a wheeze -
And then... nothing. Rhi fell to the floor, her chest still, her heart frozen over.
RE: a good night for bad choices - Jack - 01-09-2026
Jack is stepping away before Rhiannon even falls to the ground. It's regrettably not his first rodeo when it comes to taking a life, even if it is the sloppiest, and as her thoughts wink out and the brawl continues to blaze around them, the ice is gone from the Captain's fingers, dripping instead as water onto the sticky tavern floor. The fire in his blood is already starting to go out, whether it's because of the kill or because he's gotten what he wanted - chaos, violence, and the added bonus of being a step closer towards his quest's completion.
He senses it just before it comes but is too drunk to move, and a flying fist catches against his cheek. Grunting and staggering into another table, Jack stumbles to one of the walls before using it as a guideline towards the doorway. It's just as he reaches the tavern exit that he hears the first cries of alarm - someone has been hurt! oh gods is that a soldier? fuck, I know her I think! - but it's not enough to stop him slipping back out into the night.
~FIN