Cosmo
Does Not Know Kung-fu
The Lusty Mare
Ingvarr twirled the dirty, now woefully empty, glass in his hand as he eyed the card table. The low light that managed to sneak in from the fire and candles, since the heavy clouds had all but blocked out the sun, glinted off the small stack of coins tantalizingly. Granted, the vast majority of it was just aquila with a few legates here and there... save for the one denar that a rather chubby fellow had and used as his 'trump' card, playing it to scare the others into folding. Most of them were farmers or day labors, if Ingvarr had to guess, a denar was just too much to risk for most of their blood least their wives take their balls when they come home... assuming they hadn't already in the wonder that was marital bliss, not that he had ever had the 'pleasure'.
Most of them weren't the best players, save for the chubby fellow and a heavily muscled beast of a man who probably carried tree trunks under his arm, crushed children's heads in his hand and couldn't count to seven. Either way, he liked his odds. Ingvarr rose up from his stool, tucking his great helm in the crook of his arm and moved over to the table, pausing only to grab a vacant chair from a nearby table and bring it over to an open spot on the table, "Looks fun lads," Ingvarr said, flashing a smile to the other men, "Nothing I like better then donating other's money to the holy and righteous cause of my coin purse," he goaded setting the helm down and dropping into the chair with a heavy thud.
"Private game, sod off," The chubby fellow said, his eyes glancing to the muscled brute, and Ingvarr raised his hands, "Now, gents, lets not be hasty, would hate for anyone to get hurt, especially myself," he replied easily, and was rewarded with a few chuckles from the other players, which was a start.
Reaching down to his waist, he hefted his starving coin purse and dropped it on the wooden surface with a clink, "Plus, I got good coin. Ain't no man worth his salt going to turn down proper coin, right? I mean, less he is some kind of cowardly hobbe," Ingvarr baited hoping to wound the man's pride and force him to relent if only to 'show him what for' in front of his friends and brutish, troll spawned, lacky. Sure enough, just like he betted, the man's chubby face turned a rather interesting shade of beet red and he raved his hands, "Well come on then, I ain't turning down good coin from a smell fool."
Ingvarr nodded, "Ain't going to deny that one chubby, every man's a fool, and I do stink to hell and back, I'd say," He took the time to lean over and pretend to smell his arm pit and grimace, "Put hair on a demon's balls right there," he finished earning him a few more chuckles, nothing like earning a bit of good will before one took someone's coin, after all men tended to get violent when drunk and coin deprived and he had no desire to let the muscled brute rearrange his face, he wasn't very pretty as it was.
With practiced ease, Ingvarr undid the knot holding the purse closed and coined out the coins, eleven aquila, six legates and a gold denar. He had yet to be paid for the minotaur job, but he was only getting five denar for that since the tight fisted merchant knew damn well that he was the only one offering a job worth doing and had set his price 'accordingly', "Well lads, lets get to it, eh?"