"Loser? Whaddaya mean, loser? I'm winning."
>Yeah. Well. I just won.>
"You and your CASTL'ING!"
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"Exalted One won. One hundred fifteen to eight."
>Your voice is horrendous enough when you utter a syllable once. Don't make it three times in a row.>
"Would you prefer four for fortitude?"
>Stop it! Just...stop it!>
"You have been beaten ten-"
>No I haven't, I've been beaten one hundred fifteen times. Except for those which involved your cheating. Which would make it about...>
"Cheating?"
>You know you do it.>
"You do too, to-"
>No more. Pawn to e4.>
"E4? Where? Is that a square?"
>Just a system I came up with.> Rruyshah's opponent explained it. For a pathetic loser, it was a fairly creative concept.
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>Me thirty-two, you one hundred sixty two.>
"Thirty-one."
>I would have won if you hadn't toppled the board.>
"I wasn't toppling the board!"
>You reached out, and the board toppled. I think that qualifies.>
"I was…offering you a draw," Rruyshah blurted.
>By reaching out? How does that work?>
"It's…a…Kelbrid tradition."
>Tradition? You guys have, like, families and stuff?>
"How do you think we reproduce?"
>I'm just shocked that any of you can tolerate the other's presence. Your move.> Once they were into the game, her opponent realized something and commented, >You were lame enough to offer a draw when I was about to beat you?>
Oh well. She had gotten away with it for seven moves at least.
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"So is that my two-hundredth?"
>You count your own score, I'll count mine.>
"Oho, and how many do you have?"
>Eh…uh…three…hundred, and sixty-one.>
"Three hundred and sixty-one? You have eighty-nine, thank you!"
>You're not welcome, and how do you know?>
"I've been keeping track of your score," she pronounced loftily, "to prevent against such…mishaps…as this!"
>So you don't trust me. Fair enough, I can live with that. And that wasn't your two-hundredth either, it was your one-eighty-fourth.>
"Says you."
>I'm not saying it, I have to use thoughtspeak because I'm trapped in this pathetic body…>
"Shut up."
>Make me.>
Rruyshah reached out to physically assail it, but changed her mind when she remembered Na's second-hand ultimatum.
>…far from home and all my friends, stuck with you and a tail, can't talk, can't->
"What will it take for you to shut up?"
>If you believe my score was three-sixty-one…>
"I'm not that shallow."
>No, you're just chicken-you won't play me with a-uh, can't subtract-like, a hundred games advantage.>
"I am not a bird from your homeworld!"
>No, of course you're not. What does that have to do with anything?>
"You called me one."
>Did not.>
"See what I mean?" Rruyshah raged to no one in particular. "It doesn't remember what it said just then! How can I trust it to keep score?"
>We'll split the difference. Eighty-nine to one-eighty-four, my move.>