Rolling the Bones

Mankar was drinking with an Issaries trader (who claimed his name was Iato) late into the night in a rather run-down tavern. There were numerous scars on the floor and walls from prior misadventures and most of the ‘furniture’ consisted of rough-cut logs of various widths and heights. Cheap and easy to replace was the theme of the décor.

The trader waved his mostly-empty bottle of liquor at the big man. “I know you don’t like the Lunars, fuck, I don’t like ‘em much either but they have a lot going for them. They aren’t all bad, and they have some stuff you just can’t find out in Lightbringer territory.”

“All of that is true,” Mankar said with equanimity.

“But you, you hate them even worse than the Sons of the Bull! That tribe would burn the whole Empire to the ground without thinking twice but even they lack your, your, your…” In his drunken state, he couldn’t find the right word.

“Passion?” Mankar, although having drunk as much as the trader, was far from inebriated.

“Yes, exactly! Passion!”

The young chieftain pondered for a moment. “Maybe I can demonstrate my position with an example. Do you gamble with dice?”

“Ha! I was born with dice in one hand and cards in the other! My parents were VERY surprised, ha ha ha!”

“You’re familiar with highroll, then?”

“Nnn… I think it’s called something different where I come from. Each person has some dice and you try to beat each other’s total. But you can reroll some dice and bet on various things?”

“That’s the game. Let’s play now, but I’ll teach you the Lunar version.”

“Eh? I hadn’t heard of that! Please do!” The trader dug out a pouch of dice and spread a good number on the log-top.

“Okay there are three new rules. One, every Chaos die is worth double points but you start with none.” He pulled aside the dice that were reddish or dark colored. “Two, whenever you are losing, you can switch a regular die with a Chaos die. The third rule I won’t tell you just yet.”

“Hmmm… interesting, interesting. Can you switch back to the regular dice?”

Mankar shook his head, “No, you can go one way.”

“And this mysterious third rule, it’s not some tricky way of winning, is it?”

Mankar laughed! “No, no, not at all.”

“Well, let’s try this out, then!” Iato looked slyly at the big man. “I don’t suppose you’d like to wager on this?”

Mankar snorted. “Hardly! You’d just claim afterwards that I cheated you because you didn’t know the game!”

“Ah! You got me! Well, we can play with pebbles, then.”

At first the game went normally, going back and forth. On a losing roll, Iato tried his luck with a chaos die and turned the point around. The reroll gave him the win and he scooped the pebbles into his stack. “It works just like that?”

“Exactly so. My roll, then?” Thus, the game continued.

The trader was cautious as he wasn’t sure about the mysterious third rule but, still, he kept trading for chaos dice until he had replaced all six of his originals and had piled up a mighty pile of winnings. “Is there any point of continuing? You’d need a dozen luck runes tattooed on you to win now.”

“Just a few more rounds.”

“As you wish!” Truth be told, he was rather intrigued and, as there was nothing much at stake, he could indulge his curiosity.

Three throws later, three of his dice came up with the same number, ‘1’, but he still won on points. “That’s my win again!”

Mankar shook his head, “Not exactly, here’s where the third rule comes into play.”

“Oh? What happens now?”

Rather than speaking, Mankar stood up and then he wrenched the log he was sitting on into the air! With a rage-reddened face, he started smashing the table over and over again!

Iato, with an involuntary shriek, toppled over backwards, spilling wine, dice and pebbles everywhere!

With nothing more than his massive size and immense strength, Mankar pummeled the table! Large wood chips flew until he finally broke the heart of the stump in twain! Breathing heavily, the large man finally put down his log/weapon (MUCH the worse for wear), sat on it and replied calmly. “You’ve invited Chaos into the world. It is destroyed. Everyone loses.”

The trader shakily got to his feet, righted his chair and seated himself as well. “Thank you for the demonstration!”

Mankar grinned! He flipped a silver coin to the bartender to pay for the mess. “No matter how many ‘nice things’ and ‘nice people’ live in the Empire, the world is too high a price to pay, eh?”

Iato, who lived by trade, pondered this. Profits in the left hand and infinite loss in the right. Could they ever balance out? With this thought, he was enlightened and never ventured into Empire territory again.