Intermission
The Fantasy Nations RP Clubhouse
Groovy music played in the background of the player's lounge, where Tirin, Easy, Stoney, and Riyant shared drinks and laughter together. It played rather quietly, mind - at least three, of these four, really loved to hear themselves talk. Of these, at least one was no longer a real factor, because Riyant and Stoney looked very nearly on the brink of unconsciousness already, and had hardly said a word or moved a muscle for more than half an hour now.
The drink of the day was Easy's Pure Polish Potato Vodka, it being his turn to provide. This was technically of questionable legality, given Poland's dubious status as part of The Internet, but nobody in the room really gave a damn. Besides, the Right Honorable Justice Easy Rider was more than willing to pay any fines he might sentence himself with, if it ever came to facing charges over it.
"Sssso then, ha, then," Easy's face had been plastered in a perma-grin for several minutes now, and he leaned inadvisably far back in his chair and waved a hand sloppily around for emphasis. Tirin swiftly grabbed hold of his fedora, as the wind generated by this motion nearly blew it clear away. Since his coordination was well off by this point, he ended up crushing it right into his head. "
Fuckin' idiot Polack," he grumbled. Riyant and Stoney's eyes went wide open, for the moment, as the breeze swept over their faces.
"Hah!" Easy chuckled. "Thass' what... what'chew get f'r wearin' th' stuupid thing inside. Idiot. Anyway, what...?" He thought for a moment, and then remembered where the conversation had been taking him. "Oh, rright! Yeh. So, so... so then I get Druby to tell 'im, tell 'im he's gon' die too, if his charc'ter does! Hahahaha...!" There was overwhelming laughter for a while - more than a reasonable while - accompanied by a fair amount of swaying and general red-facedness from the last two to speak. Even Riyant and Stoney joined in with a bit of a chuckle, after a few seconds of processing.
Eventually, though, the laughter quieted down, and Easy reached out to pour another round. The bottle shattered in his hands, unfortunately, spilling the last few hundred milliliters of precious surgical disinfectant all over the table.
Well, whatever, he thought.
's about time t' open another one, anyway. Other one was getting old. Oxidizing, sorta thing. Yeah. Makes sense. Gotta drink 'em fresh. He tossed it with the others, and absentmindedly twisted the neck off of another bottle, thinking this, as Tirin chimed in with a response.
"Fuckin' kek." He snorted, waving his glass in Easy's direction to showcase its emptiness. He kept going, as Easy, with great care, leaned over to top it up.
"Tho... hey. T'be fair, 's not like it doesn't hurt sometimes, w'n that happns. Plus. 'm. ...'m pretty sure Req got hurt pr'ty bad. From when Golden Lore. When that happened. R'member?"
"Yeh. Tru." Easy nodded, and took a swig.
Oh yeah, definitely much fresher. "'e was dead f'r a while, after that. But, like. 's like the way Droobee said it, might'a happen'd an'time, like, somethin' yer controlling dies. Fuckin'. Teeesee was scared shitless. Hehe." He smiled some more, and drank, relishing the recollection.
"Well. That, yeah." Tirin answered. He'd just taken another swig of his own, and was eyeing the rest of his glass contemplatively. Actually not too bad. He hadn't been a fan of it at first, personally, but he was starting to see the appeal.
That, or maybe this bottle's just fresher. "Shit, 'f that was how it worked, you 'n me 'd be p fuckin' dead already. Buncha times. Hah!" He reached out with the glass, chuckling.
"Hah!" Easy laughed along, reaching out to clink his own glass against the other, and drank up before continuing. "Well, you would, anyway."
Just then, with singularly poor timing, the jukebox went silent. A sudden tension swept over the room, taking all mirth and relaxation away in the passing, and the two casual drinkers on the couch both sat up and prepared to intervene. Only Easy seemed oblivious to the change in mood, smiling happily to himself and drinking up, in a self-containing island of peaceful ignorance.
"You fuckin' wot, mate?"
"Oi, that's my line," Stoney objected, more or less automatically, but nobody heard him.
"You
would," said Easy, momentarily looking surprised by the question. "Be killed. 's what we were talkin' 'bout. Remember? Id'a killed th'
shit outta you, man. 's no
way I'd be lettin' you kill
my stuff all the time 'f it was like that. Hell, no. I'd wreck the
shit outta you. Over. Finished. Donezo. Fuckin'. Deader Than Disco, mate. Arr Eye Fuckin' Pee. You'd,
hic, man, you'd all just not e'en stand a chance. Hun'd percent. Bet on 't. Trufact."
"Huh. Funny. Tirin turned fully to face him, after a moment of contemplation, and leaned back with a sneer.
"I don't remember askin' some bitch-ass stinkin' faggot Czech baby bastard for permission to kill nothin' he's got, and 'm pretty sure you're one of those."
"Okay now, whoah!" Riyant sat up like a shot, holding an arm out desperately. "Tirin, you're going too far, man." But Tirin went on, talking right over him.
"I don't see why uppin' the stakes 'd really make that much of a difference f'r you. 'cept you'd lose harder. But, Czechs gonna Czech, I guess." He finished, smirking, with a taunting edge to his tone.
"Wait!" Riyant called out in desperation, as Easy's smile disappeared and his shoulders went stiff. "Wait! Hang on! He didn't mean it, man! He's just messing with you! It's just Tirin being Tirin!"
Easy didn't even look at him. Slowly, steadily, he drained the rest of his glass down in one go, and then carefully leaned forward to set it down on the table. Nothing in his face or his movements belied anything other than perfect deliberation and control as, just as calmly, he looked Tirin dead in the eyes, and then leaned over and slapped him full in the face.
It wasn't a particularly hard slap. Well, given that it was Easy who was doing the slapping, it wasn't. All it did was knock Tirin's head aside a bit, jostling him, and cause him to spill most of what was left of his drink, as he caught his balance.
It wasn't particularly loud or noisy, either. Just a bit of a sharp crack, like a piece of deadwood breaking. In the heart-stopping moment of silence that followed it, though, it seemed to resonate throughout the room and come back, more than once, as if from an echo. Like a piece of deadwood breaking in the mountains, say, in the late of winter.
The kind that kicks off an avalanche.
To Be Continued...