ArchivedLogs:Every Night Is Game Night

Every Night Is Game Night
Dramatis Personae Micah, Flicker, Lucky
In Absentia	20 November 2014 Just /especially/ Tuesday.
Location <NYC> Pandemonium Games - Lower East Side
Two floors of geekery, Pandemonium Games in the Lower East Side is, at first blush, a bookstore rather than a gaming store, small and cozy with aisles dedicated to sci-fi and fantasy books. The glass counter opposite the bookshelves, admittedly, does hold a wealth of cards from various collectible card games, though binders of Magic cards predominate. Bins of dice in a wide variety of colours stand at one end of the counter. It is the lower level of the store that is usually the busy one, though. The stairs leading down to the basement head first into shelves and shelves of games; board games, RPG sourcebooks, Warhammer figurines, battle mats. Beyond the shelves of goods, a much larger room is mostly bare save its many wide tables, filled at all hours with people playing tabletop games of all kinds. It is still chilly out, especially with the sun sinking like a dimming cinder in the spreading dark of the November evening, though not nearly the winter-like snap that had plagued the days before. As such, it is a pleasant enough time for running a few errands on the way home. Micah is still dressed work-style: TARDIS-blue polo shirt and khakis hidden under olive puffy coat, orangey-knit Jayne hat, coils of Fourth Doctor scarf, and candy corn striped convertible mittens. A messenger bag bops along at the redhead's hip as he walks through the door to a pleasant tinkling of bells tied to the handle. He rubs his hands over his arms, sparing one for a wave to the waifish-thin young man behind the counter on his way over to the dice bins. Like a cat with the shiny rolly things, really. Look, Flicker is actually using the door! Like a normal person! He walks through the door behind Micah, also dressed work-style in Mendel Clinic guard uniform, though his black-and-red button-down is hidden as well beneath black-and-red /scarf/, black jacket, black gloves, red cap. Heavy black boots. Black backpack. His wave is a little bit stiffer, kind of mechanical, but his /bounce/ is eager enough as he follow over towards the dice bins. "Still haven't hooked Jax on these." He sounds surprised. They're /so/ shiny. "We could -- bat them at him? Kind of. /Lure/ him into a game?" One person who looks rather out of place is a man in his twenties wearing a rather expensive looking tailor fit charcoal grey suit. His face is well chiseled his muscles making it rather obvious that he does a lot of working out but there's some mixed signals the suit saying businessman the body saying military. He's flipping a small box around in his hands trying to look over several boxes at once something distracting him a bit. As the two wander their way in he looks over to them for a moment a somewhat friendly expression on his face yet he turns right back to the box. The brief look from the man in the suit earns a little nod from Micah in acknowledgement. "How much more mileage d'you think I can get out of the 'my entire dice collection got blown up' excuse 'fore I gotta reinstitute the one-die-per-game-shop-visit rule? An' Jax likes 'em well enough. 'Specially the sparkly ones. Usually pick up some for 'im when I get mine...s'got a good collection of 'is own now. Y'know I got 'im t'agree t'play if we did a Changeling game, since creepysauce faeries are pretty much making up his entire alley, much less just bein' there. But...things. Um. That never really got off the ground yet." Micah peels off his mitten-gloves and stuffs them in his pockets, the better to access the pretties with. He picks out a few likely candidates to test on the provided rolling surface nearby. "I'm riding that excuse pretty hard with games shopping." A warmly amused smile curls up at Flicker's unevenly scarred face, lighting his eyes brightly as he returns Lucky's smile with a tipped-up lift of chin. His eyes flick over the man's stance, smile quirking wider. "Take Friday Night Magic /pretty/ serious, huh?" His gloved hand thunks down -- oddly /heavily/ -- into the dice bin, rattling the dice as it pulls through them. He only actually picks up dice with his other hand, though, plucking out an oily-looking sheeny black-rainbow swirly D10 to roll between his fingers before /actually/ rolling on the table. "Creepy faeries. Could do. Want me to run?" Jason lets out a bit of a chuckle, picking back up the box, and sitting it back with the others on the counter top. A somewhat decently sized grouping of miniatures boxes, a couple boardgames and the one box he decided to go with. Looking at the person behind the desk he sits back down a set of three Candelabra of Tawnos, as payment for his little collection. Micah watches Flicker's arm movements with a casual interest in how he is progressing there. “Mmn, yeah. It helps that we're restockin' the whole /Commons/ for games, essentially. S'a lotta people t'keep up with. I'm still fillin' out Spence's Dixit set with expansions again. He was makin' /such/ sad faces at first when we'd have t'reshuffle cards that was used already with just the base game.” He has a few dice set aside as 'good ones' already: a d10 with red numbers in shiny hematite-like silver-black, a blue sparkle d20, a d6 with each side and number a different rainbow colour. “Shoot, you volunteerin' t' ST? I'd be on that. Just gotta remind Jax he said he'd play. Pretty sure B was up for it last time we talked about it, too. Miiight have been a minute ago.” "I can't handle Spence-sad-face," Flicker admits, shaking his head. Sadly. "Too much. Almost as bad as sad-Horus-warble. Some things just." His tongue clicks against his teeth. He picks up /all/ the dice Micah has selected as Good, rolling them all together. Maybe just to watch the colors go. He's kinda bouncing on his toes, rattling his fingers in the dice for no particular reason anymore. "Sure, yeah. I'm good for it. Can't promise I can pull off /creepy/ as good as Ian would have. But I can do a decent enough creep when I put my mind to -- it." This last word hitches, stutter, slow, his eyebrows hiking. Up. Up. He's giving a capital-L /Look/ to Lucky's method of payment. "... Take Friday Night Magic /pretty/ serious, huh?" The repetition comes with more amusement this time. "A little bit" Jason offers with a bit of a friendly smile and a wink. "Keeps the mind sharp as a tack," he even adds after a bit making sure that he's got everything how he wants it before going right to opening boosters moving off to the side. The person behind the counter doesn't seem too surprised by the method of payment just more happy to have them in their collection. “It's fairly epic. Pretty sure he's been studyin' Jax an' just addin' adorable smallchild t'the mix. Ain't fair.” Micah's eyes widen almost comically. “Ohno, no. Not sad-Horus.” Fortunately there are happier things in the form of pretty dice rolling. A faint smile sketches itself across Micah's features as he watches them go, though it waxes wistful at the mention of Ian. “Sure y'can do it. I b'lieve in your creepiness, Flicker.” And it's moving right into lopsided grin territory. “S'there anythin' specific we was s'posed t'pick up? I just got another expansion on order an' no other real /aims/.” All the Looks going on are a little beyond him, with his history keeping any collectible-style games to more casual play on principle. "Keeps the wallet thin," Flicker adds to Lucky's comment. He scoops Micah's dice back into a neat pile and then carefully /placing/ them in his other hand. It's stiffer, when he shakes this hand, a clunky rattle, a badly aimed cast that is more drop than toss. His fingers press thoughtfully at the opposite shoulder, beneath its layers of winter gear. "I'll work up something creepy. Getting some ideas already..." His eyes are turning to the ceiling. Little distant. Little thoughtful. They snap back to Micah though, brighter, cheerier, another bounce in his posture. "Want to get Gloom again. Discworld. Funny things? Kinda feeling like cramming Hive full of all the laugh." Checking over his haul, Jason places a few cards right back down, going back to grab another pack of what he's just bought. There's luck and there's dealing with the system long enough to get those little tells that most people miss. Well at least that's what he's telling himself, when he comes right back over with the next pack. "Never a bad day for a good board game," he comments with another small smile not really caring all that much about what anyone looks like by the general attitude. Micah nods emphatic agreement with Flicker's analysis. "Yeah, s'why I never really got into the collectible stuff. Just hafta keep /buyin'/ more'n more of it." His smile broadens at Flicker's rather successful attempt with the dice, all told. "The mechanical hands're always rough. That was actually real good for that model. Robotic one'll work /with/ you a lot more, for sure. Soon, young cyborg." This is rather excited in its delivery. Yay, robot hands! "Funny things? We already got Cards Against Humanity. Pretty sure he just enjoys seein' which of us he can get t'blush the worst with that'n." Another nod answers Jason's observation. "True enough." "It's been tiring. Everything takes --" Flicker's voice is a little quieter on this, a brief rare moment of /wilt/ breaking through, shoulders drooping, even a small /wince/. Doesn't /last/, smile soon to follow: "Had another cyborg dream last night. Tentacle again. Thing seemed pretty cool. In, you know, my dreams. Better than factory-issue." His fingers knead at his chest again, then turn up, leather of his gloves creaking as his fingers spread. "Tuesday," he informs Jason seriously, "is the best day for board games." A beat. "Followed pretty soon by Wednesday through Monday." But Tuesday wins. "Can't game nearly as much as I'd like these days," Jason rattles off after nodding at the statement about Tuesday being the best day for gaming, "Been a bit too busy in the office with...." He trails off looking back to the stacks of boxes realizing these two youngsters probably aren't too keen on hearing him ramble. "S'more an' dif'rent effort for ev'rythin', yeah," says the voice of experience. Micah's brows dip toward one another at that wince, however. "You have actual not-muscle-soreness pain, lemme know. Ain't /no/ reason t'put up with a poor fittin' socket. Take y'right out t'the van an' fix y'up. An' with all the work you're doin', your muscle bulk an' distribution can change enough t'make a difference on the fit." A pleased smile takes over as Flicker tells about his dream. "Man, wish I had as many dreams 'bout that as you do. Just the one so far. S'many as you have, this thing'd be half designed in m'/sleep/. But better /is/ the plan." He snorts at the best days for gaming discussion. "Don't know as anybody ever /does/ get as much gamin' in as they'd like. Nature of the beast." He doesn't push at the sentence that seemed deliberately truncated...probably something personal or private going on there. "Think I'm just being a wimp," Flicker assures Micah easily. "Everything's hard that should be easy. Tired when I should be -- not. I'll get over it. Wish I could share my dreams with you, though, they're --" His brows pinch together. Smile drops off his face, a moment. "Strange," he admits, in a different tone entirely. "That Strange guy. Again. Like /haunting/ my dreams. You ever visited a psychic, Micah?" His smiles are never gone long. This one returns quick as it left, bright-warm to Jason. "If I gamed as much as I liked I wouldn't get much else done. But I make time. It's important, you know? All work and no play -- how /does/ that end? Makes life suck. It's probably supposed to be more eloquent, but I like life not-sucking." The conversations at hand seem to interest Jason a good deal, as he's seemingly in two at once. Though he's not about to barge into the one about dreams. "Yeah, well just missed voting season, so maybe things'll die down and I'll be able to do a bit more gaming and a bit less working," His own smile not seeming to leave all that often, but he's pulling open the next pack already a small stack of new cards off to one side. "No, you're not. S'hard. You're doin' good. Don't beat yourself up over it." Micah collects his dice again, empty hand patting at Flicker's back. "Strange guy. Psychic Strange guy? He was on the TV in m'one dream with the prosthesis... Mostly doomsayin'." Frown. Frown is his opinion of doomsaying dream psychics. "Like, a 'legit' one? Not s'much. Run into enough girls with tarot cards lookin' t'mystic at you in college, though." The frown fades somewhat as the conversation continues. "Makes Jack a dull boy." A nod to Jason here. "Hopefully y'ain't Jack." "Definite doomsaying. War and terrible. Things seemed alright, though." Flicker shrugs his good shoulder, smiling warmer at the patting. "This Strange guy's real, though. I mean, he's got a book or something, I looked it up when I woke up. Don't know if he's really a psychic or just a -- psychic." Another shrug. Another /smile/. His head shakes. "Oh, that's fine then. I don't think I actually know any dull people. I don't think I /remember/ 'dull'. You did the whole politics circuit? Don't envy you that mess." "Been in it since I left the army," Jason admits with a bit of a smile, reorganizing the stack of papers. He takes note of the mention of some kind of psychic as something he may need to look into. It's going to be good for his career if he can prove to more people that there are 'good' mutants, even if he's a doomsayer. "Not an easy job." "Yeah, that was...exactly it. Think. Huh. Might've been another one of /those/ dreams." Micah's expression goes a bit odd and pensive. "He's for real? I...need t'talk t'Maya again. She'd mentioned some...person. Maybe bein' behind all the weird. Seems like as good a candidate as any. I'll Google 'im an' bring her a picture. An' dinner or somethin'. I gotta stop showin' up on people's doorsteps with crises and bizarre requests." He gives Jason a knowing smile. "The ol' military t'politics circuit. S'a well tested approach. Where'd y'serve?" "For real for real. Thinking about picking up his book. Just for. I dunno. Curiosity." For some reason a blush floods Flicker's cheeks at the mention of Maya. "Haven't seen her in a bit. Would've thought she'd -- with the trial and all --" Now he looks thoughtful again. But shakes it off. He taps a hand lightly against Micah's shoulder, gestures towards the basement. "Gonna grab those games, aright?" "That's a very complicated question," Jason offers in return checking out the last of his goodies, before sliding the various boxes into an easy to carry bag. "Though it'd be less complicated to explain where I didn't serve," with a very jokey tone to his voice, as he makes sure he can carry everything getting ready to get back to his rather nice car waiting for him. “She /is/ a teacher,” Micah answers the speculation on Maya. Likewise, he seems to be blushing for some reason. “Don't lend a lotta flexibility t'the schedule. But y'gotta point. Checkin' in on her's a good plan, theories or no theories.” He nods at Flicker's announcement, shifting in such a way as to imply he's soon to follow. “Had y'runnin' 'round, huh? Seems like some folks they just can't keep one place for a year solid.” Micah gives a chuff of laughter at the jokey tone. “You have a good night. I gotta go help haul games up with this'n. Get the feelin' it'll be quite the stack 'fore we're done.”