Father always said I was too soft for his businesses. Spokes forbid a young man find himself unpleasantly soiled after a Hostage situation. So he had a very simple solution: My 21st Kanon Hray he shouted as the doors all opened to comers, so too was it open to leave. That I could invite myself to get the hell out of his Compound.
A small stipend for travel was all I was given and he set me on his Caravans. Not as his son, not as his employee, as a drifter. I would travel for an entire season across the Great Ash Desert. Not partaking of any of his businesses, nor the lavish villas, nor the secure outposts. He wished me to become hardened to the lifestyle. Some grit and sand in me.
...It would be then I found my second love after Scholarship.
To watch, to learn, to listen, to use your senses to take in it all. I would come to joke with people that it is merely a matter of Applied and Manipulated Statistical Analysis. I learned swiftly that if you are careful in how you look, a woman's coinpurse hidden within her cleavage may be discerned. That a gentleman who claimed to have no Dinar, you could hear the rattling in his boot. More than a furtive glance you could see just how keen someone's eyes were, how they carried themselves.
To read people. It is a skill of many uses but in gambling if you are able to read someone, truly read someone, it becomes an entirely different matter all together. My physician's training useful in watching the moisture around the mouth increase or dissipate as silktongue took hold. The straining of the eyes as they attempted to conceal their excitement and joy at a favorable hand. The slow breathing before posturing that they with false bravado were glad to raise the stakes. It was so curious watching the denizens of the Desert gamble. They would grow so nervous, so giddy. The anticipation.
For a time I worried I was broken, that I did not feel such a thing. It was only after I began a losing streak did I realize. They do not have generational wealth to rely upon. These people, of all walks of life, of all Spokes, of all backgrounds. For them to gamble isn't a time passing game. It's a risk. Their entire day's wages can be lost. Their familial heirlooms hocked. The dream of striking it big, making it, no more worries, it fuels them to risk more, and more.
For them it is a vice. For me, it slowly became a narcotic. In my quiet hours during scholarship I found it the simple and most purest way to clear my mind. Surrounding myself with that manic and depressive energy, the ebb and flow of the table, the streaks of hot and cold of the dice. It became an escape.
Their misery, their successes, such emotional breadth. Utterly intoxicating. I could lose 5,000 dinar in a hand of cards and laugh, knowing I could make that back in two days time if I applied the right skills in the right leverage. I could lose 10,000 dinar in a game of Banafsian Snail Racing, knowing if I found myself truly in trouble I could hop one of Father's caravans and flee to the next Caravanserai. I could lose 15,000 dinar on a boxing match... and it was like lightning in my veins to watch that man beaten to a pulp cheering while the man who bested me shouted until hoarse and danced like the trajectory of his entire life had changed.
But I could always simply send word to Mother if I required a shipment of jewelry or otherwise, to arrive in a week or two, to settle my debts.
These people, these Dwarves of Kulkund, these Elves of Spring's Gift, these Demon-Touched Halflings from the Outer Rings, these Ring Runners, these... these "Dreamers". They aspire to so much. So much I already have. So in the labor of loves it became indulgence.
Musing that One day, it would be my hope, I may find a lovely wife to present with a well won and suitable dowry.
To wager with her our fates. In victory she would receive the dowry and a life she may enjoy as only Father's wealth can provide. In failure... well, I do not even know what would be comparable. I hope that when the moment strikes I shall have a better sense. But if she refuses, know she not the one.
But if she accepts...
Oh, if she accepts and bests me. What a beautiful life indeed we would lead.
I could not tell that to Father of course, I returned dour and dutiful and certainly more well traveled and better at lending him a facade of my business mien. And I by no means could tell Mother who is adamantly wishes for grand children, and me to find a good and honest woman who can "Tame my wild streak". I certainly could not tell her that I was awaiting a woman who loved to gamble just as much as I.
It would be a few more years before I met the third love of my life.
And it would be a few more years after that I made my way to Ephia's Well.
A small stipend for travel was all I was given and he set me on his Caravans. Not as his son, not as his employee, as a drifter. I would travel for an entire season across the Great Ash Desert. Not partaking of any of his businesses, nor the lavish villas, nor the secure outposts. He wished me to become hardened to the lifestyle. Some grit and sand in me.
...It would be then I found my second love after Scholarship.
Gambling
To watch, to learn, to listen, to use your senses to take in it all. I would come to joke with people that it is merely a matter of Applied and Manipulated Statistical Analysis. I learned swiftly that if you are careful in how you look, a woman's coinpurse hidden within her cleavage may be discerned. That a gentleman who claimed to have no Dinar, you could hear the rattling in his boot. More than a furtive glance you could see just how keen someone's eyes were, how they carried themselves.
To read people. It is a skill of many uses but in gambling if you are able to read someone, truly read someone, it becomes an entirely different matter all together. My physician's training useful in watching the moisture around the mouth increase or dissipate as silktongue took hold. The straining of the eyes as they attempted to conceal their excitement and joy at a favorable hand. The slow breathing before posturing that they with false bravado were glad to raise the stakes. It was so curious watching the denizens of the Desert gamble. They would grow so nervous, so giddy. The anticipation.
For a time I worried I was broken, that I did not feel such a thing. It was only after I began a losing streak did I realize. They do not have generational wealth to rely upon. These people, of all walks of life, of all Spokes, of all backgrounds. For them to gamble isn't a time passing game. It's a risk. Their entire day's wages can be lost. Their familial heirlooms hocked. The dream of striking it big, making it, no more worries, it fuels them to risk more, and more.
For them it is a vice. For me, it slowly became a narcotic. In my quiet hours during scholarship I found it the simple and most purest way to clear my mind. Surrounding myself with that manic and depressive energy, the ebb and flow of the table, the streaks of hot and cold of the dice. It became an escape.
Their misery, their successes, such emotional breadth. Utterly intoxicating. I could lose 5,000 dinar in a hand of cards and laugh, knowing I could make that back in two days time if I applied the right skills in the right leverage. I could lose 10,000 dinar in a game of Banafsian Snail Racing, knowing if I found myself truly in trouble I could hop one of Father's caravans and flee to the next Caravanserai. I could lose 15,000 dinar on a boxing match... and it was like lightning in my veins to watch that man beaten to a pulp cheering while the man who bested me shouted until hoarse and danced like the trajectory of his entire life had changed.
But I could always simply send word to Mother if I required a shipment of jewelry or otherwise, to arrive in a week or two, to settle my debts.
These people, these Dwarves of Kulkund, these Elves of Spring's Gift, these Demon-Touched Halflings from the Outer Rings, these Ring Runners, these... these "Dreamers". They aspire to so much. So much I already have. So in the labor of loves it became indulgence.
Musing that One day, it would be my hope, I may find a lovely wife to present with a well won and suitable dowry.
To wager with her our fates. In victory she would receive the dowry and a life she may enjoy as only Father's wealth can provide. In failure... well, I do not even know what would be comparable. I hope that when the moment strikes I shall have a better sense. But if she refuses, know she not the one.
But if she accepts...
Oh, if she accepts and bests me. What a beautiful life indeed we would lead.
I could not tell that to Father of course, I returned dour and dutiful and certainly more well traveled and better at lending him a facade of my business mien. And I by no means could tell Mother who is adamantly wishes for grand children, and me to find a good and honest woman who can "Tame my wild streak". I certainly could not tell her that I was awaiting a woman who loved to gamble just as much as I.
It would be a few more years before I met the third love of my life.
And it would be a few more years after that I made my way to Ephia's Well.