Bettin' Blind
All eyes in the sleazy, overcrowded tavern of Booty Bay were on Angel Qedem. The little gypsywoman's impeccable intuition told her that every single beholder was watching her with a mixture of devious excitement, jealousy, and the bitter longing for her to lose everything on the turn of the last card. Her cards were practically quivering with irritation, warning her of danger. She knew that she -should- fold and get out before the noose was pulled tight around her neck, but the opportunity to make a complete fool of the pious man across from her was much too enticing to pass up.
She parted her full lips in a bright, much too innocent smile at her greedy opponent, batting the thick lashes that perched like black umbrellas abover the ocean blue orbs that were her eyes. She could tell by the far too luxurious clothing that her adversary wore that he was little more than a peddler whose entire fortune was built on the backs of the ignorant beggars. Every sausage finger on the man's hands carried a blood-golden ring worth more than the entire town's weight. Thick, smothering smoke drifted from the wooden pipe in his maw as he towered over her, the clouds almost as dark as her long, raven hair.
She dipped her head in a sickeningly polite nod to her opponent. "Do not call the clock, Sir Thoroughgood." She peeped.
"I know the rules, Gypsy rat," The man snarled as she idly traced spirals into the ugly green felt plastered onto the table. "And no amount of sweet-badgering and sleight-of-hand is going to trick me into making an error of judgement." Angel simply nodded and continued her idle fidgeting, the various silver bells and jeweled rings on her fingers tinkling with each circle.
"Distract you?" She cooed, "I must say, I would never stoop to such a low and dishonorable level of play."
"Then quit darting your filthy eyes from the table." He growled back. "Listen closely, Gypsy rat. I have played with the best, and I know a desperate player when I see one."
Angel merely shifted her weight from one wide birthing hip to the other, crossing her slender legs beneath the table. She smiled sweetly once more. "You're sharp, sir. I can see that."
"You have a look that tells me you have already lost, and you know it," Said Thoroughgood with the tone of a pretentious peddler.
"Then what say we make this a little more interesting, dear?" Asked Angel, spreading her cards in a fan to carefully wave a few stray strands of hair from her long neck.
The man narrowed his eyes. "Are you able to cover that much, Gypsy rat?"
"Easily." She quipped and reached into a pocket of her billowy dancer's leggings. She plunked a hefty pouch of gold on the table. "Can you?"
Thoroughgood answered with a low, inaudible grumble as he presented an equally hefty sum of coin. "You first."
All In
The lavishly-clad, petite Gypsywoman caught the faint glimmer of a firearm out of the corner of her eye. Right there. A Kaldorein woman clad in hand-tooled leathers - a goony for Thoroughgood.
"Always," Angel suppressed a small giggle as she spoke as sweetly as ever. Suddenly, she kicked the underside of the rickety table, sending it flying upward in a shower of coins, cards, chips and deeds. The Elf's pistols fired with deafening blasts, piercing orange-sized holes into the surface of the table. Screams erupted all throughout the tavern as the table and its contents fluttered in a cloud of smoke. But when the smoke cleared and the sceaming died down, Angel was nowhere to be found - and neither were the pouches of gold.
"Where is the money?!" Thoroughgood mewled, "WHERE IS MY MONEY?!"
Five cards fluttered face-up to the floor of the seedy Booty Bay tavern.
A winning hand.