They actually continued to chat about this and that for more than half an hour before John got the cards out. By that time, he had ended his largely faked outrage. That everyone thought he couldn’t even prepare a room without Aclysia did bother him somewhat, but not enough to actually get and stay mad. When he was shuffling the poker deck, he was as calm as usual. Maximillian distributed the chips they would play for around the table.

“And how was the woodcarving?” he asked, blending two stacks of cards together through moderately adequate movements of his hands. With his dexterity, it was possible for him to pick up ‘professional’ shuffling without issue, but he hadn’t done it often enough to do it with the ease magicians and casino employees did.

“It was a thing,” Maximillian responded. “Not exactly my pastime of choice, but it was a nice experience. It is important to have a wealth of those, if you want to write any scripts that’re halfway decent.”

“You are trying to get into Hollywood, right?” Ted asked, understandably somewhat out of the loop. John started to deal the cards. The layout of the table was slightly suboptimal, he realized, with the bowls and glasses in the way. Given that this was just a four-player friend match, he shouldn’t have minded, but he still connected his mind to the Mandala Sphere.

To properly relax and to avoid any incidents once he was drunk, his Extension was resting in the bedroom. As he was only one glass of wine into the evening, he could change that very quickly to move Jack to one of the computers and order a proper poker table on the Abyss Auction. This may have spurred some questions with the girls, if any of them had been present. They were all either doing their own work, on their way to Rave’s party or already there. Even Aclysia would, now that she had shown the way to everyone invited, clean up some last few things and then head over there. John was having a guys’ night and the harem was having a ladies’ night. With Chemilia, some of Maximillian’s harem and Nina attached.

Networking was definitely happening.

“Less trying to get into it and more moving up inside it,” Maximillian returned and took a glance at the cards he had been dealt. His face was unmoving until he looked back up and continued the conversation. “I already got past the door… although, honestly, I’m just about ready to bow out of Hollywood again and do something independent.”

“Too much in the way of nepotism and too little meritocracy?” John theorized, checking on his own cards. It was a mediocre hand, which was the worst of all as far as he was concerned. With a bad hand he would have at least known to bow out immediately. Regardless, his face stayed unmoving, not letting know how he felt about his hand to his opponents.

“That about sums it up,” the self-exiled king nodded. “That and some shady stuff I heard is going on with certain producers.” He sipped on his whiskey and said no more about the topic, which was a pretty good indicator he was done with that part of it. Instead, Maximillian stared at Ted, who looked at his cards with a furious intensity. “Did you get shafted or what are you gloomy about, Ted?”

“I’m not sure if we should let John deal,” the general announced.

“Isn’t it a bit early to accuse me of cheating?” John wanted to know. With Possession, there were more than a few things he could do as long as he could get his hands on the cards. “We’ll just switch every round. I could just Observe you if I wanted to make this easy on myself.”

“I did put on something that will let me know if you try, so don’t!” Maximillian warned. It was exceedingly unlikely that even the king could easily get his hands on something that could actually block Observe at this point. When it came to an alert system, however, John believed that there were relatively cheap things out there.

“You mind if I smoke in here?” Magnus suddenly chimed into the conversation with something entirely different. It was a question with a very obvious answer, since there were already ashtrays on the table.

“The room has a ventilation system, so it should be fine,” John responded.

The Fateweaver nodded and reached into the air. There were a few ripples, like the flicker of heat above heated tar, when he put his hand into his dimensional pocket. Costly to buy and maintain and nowhere near as potent as John’s inventory, those folded spaces were still much better than carrying luggage around. Magnus withdrew a wooden casket.

“Can I take one?” Ted asked, when the long-haired Fateweaver placed down his box of cigars.

“Yes,” Magnus answered, took out one for himself and then turned the box around so Ted had easy access. They only had one scissors and lighter between them, so it took a bit for both to be served.

“I didn’t know you were a smoker,” John pointed out while he placed five extra cards face down in the middle to serve as the community cards.

“Not when I am sober,” Ted responded, took a deep huff of the cigar, breathed out the smoke and then finished his second glass of whiskey. The liquid went to assault his liver and the smoke was quickly sucked out of the room by the ventilation system. “Always mix your drugs.” An amused blow of air through his nose indicated that the general had just joked.

“Not sure I share that opinion.” John grinned. “Anyway, place your bets.” In turn, they all placed a moderate amount of chips in the middle of the table and the Gamer then revealed the first three community cards. Ted folded in that round, the rest of them raised. The fourth card was turned upside and now Magnus dropped out.

John turned around the last card and kept a close eye on his friend. Frowning openly at the final card that was revealed, Maximillian suddenly froze, gave John a panicked glance and then resumed his frown as if that was what he had meant to show the entire time. ‘That’s a bit too obvious acting, which means that he wanted me to catch that,’ the Gamer thought and looked at his hand. Even with what was on the table, his cards were still mediocre. ‘A frown would mean that he has bad cards, but if he wants me to catch it, he wants me to actually think he has good cards, which means he has, in reality, bad cards!’ Both of them raised the bets and John presented his result. “Two Pair,” he announced.

“Flush,” Maximillian revealed in kind and won the round. Confused, John looked at the card, Maximillian snickered. “You’re such a giant overthinker. I just wanted you to catch me pretending to have a bad hand, because I knew that would make you think I actually had a bad hand, when I had a good hand. That would work with NOBODY else.” Stacking the chips orderly by worth, the king hummed to himself. “I half expected you to go All-In.”

“When did you become so good at reading characters, huh?” John wanted to know, grumbling and pouring himself another glass of wine. Once he had emptied that bottle, he was going to get more ice for his whiskey.

“I’m not, I’m just good at reading a complicated simpleton like you, buddy,” Maximillian continued in a good mood. The cards were collected and handed over to Magnus, who started to shuffle them after placing his cigar on the rim of an ashtray. “So, how was your week?” the gravity mage asked him. “Things going well between you and Nina?”

“Surprisingly so,” Magnus responded, shuffling with light complications. The cards were new, but the Fateweaver just didn’t have the dexterity of John and so his movements didn’t make them blend as well as they could have. “She is smart and hardworking. Doesn’t cause a lot of issues. Cleans the dishes when I cook. Very reasonable woman.” Looking up from his hands, once he was done shuffling, he gave John a thankful nod. “Good pep-talk.”

“Was my pleasure.” John rolled his neck. He was still irked that he had gotten outplayed by Maximillian, but at least the successful relationship of a friend was something to boost his confidence with. “At least we all have luck with women.”

“Do we?” Maximillian asked in a joking tone. “As far as I am concerned, I have really bad luck with women.”

“Don’t you have like three big-titty elves you sleep with on the regular?” the Gamer asked.

“Sure, but I also managed to hook up with the mother of my best friend.”

Ted spewed out the sip of whiskey he was drinking at that moment and laughed. It was an oddly villainous sound, as if he was standing above the death machine that was about to chomp his rival hero into pieces he could feed to the carnivorous ducks outside his lair. “You did what?!” he asked, an extreme amount of amusement getting into his usually controlled tone.

“We don’t talk about it,” John growled and cracked his knuckles.

“We really shouldn’t talk any more about it,” the king was quick to agree. John wasn’t sure why he had even brought it up in the first place, only to relent so eagerly. Then again, Ted was still laughing and they were drinking at a pretty rapid pace. That was about all the reason necessary. With a slight smile, Magnus dealt the second round.

“Nina aside,” John changed the topic back. “What did you do this week?”

“I’m monogamous.”

“I asked what, not who.” John rolled his eyes and then looked at his cards. An ace and a king, both diamonds, a pretty good starting hand. ‘How do I even play this?’ he suddenly asked himself. If overthinking got him read by Maximillian and basic thinking by the other two, should he just not think at all? He might as well have written ‘RNGesus take the wheel’ on his forehead if that was the strategy. ‘Guess I will just have to work with what I have in each instance,’ he decided.

“Been doing research on the Worldgems,” Magnus responded. “Father gave me two to test a few things on. Fascinating things. I haven’t found anything that is relevant to talk about yet. Been spending all the time in the laboratory looking at the readings.”

“You keep working for the good of my republic,” John mused.

“I’ll keep working as long as you keep paying me and giving me interesting things,” Magnus returned.

“Don’t you think ‘my republic’ is a bit of an oxymoron, mister dictator?” Maximillian wanted to know.

“Yes, but also no, mister monarch.”

“Hey, my country elects its leader.”

“No, your highest seven leaders and Romulus elect your leader,” John responded. “Few of which are elected.”

“Still more democratic than how you get to be head of the executive,” Maximillian insisted.

“That’s true, but my people can still do more on a lower level.”

“I guess you got me there.” They both put down the discussion. “By the way, you remember this Lucifrena you mentioned to me?”

“Hard to forget it if you are face to face with a seraph.” John’s dry tone was only oiled once he finished his wine and raised his bet. “Especially one that Gaia tells to slap you around for a bit. What about her?”

“It sounded interesting, so I looked around for a little bit – discreetly,” Maximillian said. “I don’t hear about a human that can come back from the dead as her Innate Ability all that often, especially not one that supposedly is around Romulus’ level.”

“To be fair, she might just have gotten that strong in this reincarnation, if Observe is to be trusted,” John added in there and grabbed the bottle of whiskey on the table. After looking at the bottle for a moment, he deemed that he wanted some other kind and got up.

“You sound remarkably uninterested about this,” Maximillian complained.

John looked over his shoulder and saw both Magnus and Ted nodding. Given all of the mystery that surrounded the periodic appearances of the angel, and the way she had dominated the Gamer in battle, them expecting a higher level of interest was understandable. “The thing is that I can read helpful, prideful motherfuckers as well as you can read overthinking simpletons,” John said as he looked through the over fifty kinds of whiskey (and other high percentage liquors) that had been aligned in the closet. “If you had found something that’s important, you wouldn’t have waited until I drank a bottle of wine in…” he checked his smartphone and recoiled a bit, “…forty minutes to tell me on poker night. Jesus, I need to slow down a little bit.”

“Humbug,” Ted declared and toasted in John’s direction. “Drink more.” He emptied another glass and then added more cigar smoke to the taste. Inexperience with tobacco showed in a few coughs that followed an overly enthusiastic inhale.

“Moderation is good,” Magnus disagreed and sipped on his water.

John returned to the table with some ice harvested from the Guild Hall building in a bucket and a bottle of whiskey he personally found to be more tasteful in his hands. Using a metal tweezer, he threw three pieces of ice into the glass and then poured alcohol on top until it was half full. “I guess I will just stay the course then,” he declared and smelled the whiskey. That helped a little bit with taking care of shivers he often got when he downed strong alcohol too quickly. “What did you find, Max?”

“Absolutely nothing,” he said. “Isn’t that interesting?”

“It is, yeah,” John agreed and sipped on the beverage. Once the glass was on the table, he continued. “You would expect SOMEONE to have recorded the appearance of an angel. Yet, the only thing I can find that’s even approximate is Lucifer before the fall. That doesn’t work because she was female, rather human and didn’t strike me at all as evil in any sense.”

“Nothing against Christianity, but I don’t think the Bible is a particularly great source of historical facts, Abyssal or mundane, in the first place,” Maximillian said.

“Some things are tangentially true,” Magnus said. “You know, like the flooding of the middle east.”

“Yeah, not disputing that,” the gravity king nodded along. “Still, not the greatest source to get to know the whole truth, is my point.”

“It’s more an assortment of life-guiding metaphors than a historical work,” John agreed. “Anyway, where were you going with this?”

“Right, I wanted to say that I went home for a bit. Took a plane…”

“You know I can teleport you over to Berlin within five minutes, right?” John interrupted, the alcohol making it even harder to stay on topic than his tangent happy spirit made it in general.

“…Yes, I guess,” Maximillian hummed. “I’ll hit you up next time. Anyway, went back home, told my sister to concentrate on the job, checked out the rebuilding progress of Prague, but, importantly for you, I visited the libraries of Vienna, Prague and Rome. Absolutely nothing.” He made a large gesture that coincided with him throwing more chips into the betting bowl. “Three of Europe’s – the world’s – greatest archives and nothing. What do you make of that, smart guy?”

“Appearances are too scarce to be written down, too far between to let a pattern be spotted, Lucifrena generally keeps a low profile and doesn’t get involved in notable conflicts or Gaia doesn’t want any records to stay,” John quickly listed. “Or you didn’t dig deep enough.”

“Any of those,” Maximillian agreed. “Didn’t spend more than an afternoon in each and I didn’t go blabbering to the overseers. If you want to look into this, I would guess you should try out Prometheus archives in Constantinople.”