Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-5543592-20190402224637/@comment-3293219-20190411231911

It took a few moments to set everything up as some of the chess pieces was missing, so they had to be replaced with a nuke cola bottlecap, a checkers piece, a pink token and an old world Quarter.

“Man… You’d think that chess pieces wouldn’t go missing in a place like this.” Maeve sighed, putting the bottlecap on the place, where the white pawn should go.

“They were all missing before my time.” Hamilton observed, looking over them.

“We used to use a 10mm bullet, instead of a bottlecap though.”

Maeve nodded, figuring that a bullet would be cooler. Hamilton decided to keep it to himself that the raiders used to play with bullets. Small 9mm bullets for the pawns, shotgun shells for the rooks, etc.

“White moves first.”

“Why?”

“It just does.” Hamilton shrugged, not really having a reason. Maybe it was racial commentary or some shit.

Maeve paused and looked around before moving the bottlecap, two spaces forward.

“These are the only pieces I know, by the way. Oh and the King, he moves one space at a time, in any space, right?”

“Right…” Hamilton backed her as he moved his knight, two forward, one left.

“Why though? He’s the king? Can’t he do whatever he wants?” Maeve pointed out as she moved a different pawn forward, eyeing Hamilton’s knight. That was the one that sort of jumps around, so she didn’t think it could reach her from there.

Confident of that, the middle pawn moved forward one space.

“Leaders don’t get to do what they want. They’re very restricted, can’t go too far from the nest and leave everyone guessing as to what they do next. They’re burdened down by commitments and obligations and rules.

That’s what the Queen is for. She has the power and authority, she gets things done on behalf of her leader. She’s less of a queen and more of a spymaster… A right hand. Like your security chief, I guess. The King’s more like your Mom, the Overseer.” Hamilton explained as he moved the knight, one forward, two to the right.

“If Raiders breached the Vault and were attacking people, your Mother would be involved with the defence of the place… sure. She wouldn’t be the defence as her going down would mean that this place would fall or would be in danger of doing so.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“So, this pointy guy, how does he move?” Maeve asked, holding up the bishop.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Diagonal. I like to think of those guys as being like snipers. Situational but effective.”

<p class="MsoNormal">She seemed like she was looking more for confirmation as she moved the bishop four spaces to the right, until it was next to Hamilton’s knight.

<p class="MsoNormal">“The rook. The castle here? He goes forward and sideways. He’s like a tank, large and powerful. Some see him as a safehouse or a fort, which works too but I rarely used those.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Used? You were a king at some point?” Maeve asked, with a faint smirk, knowing she had him now.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Hmm? In a sense… I remember the time before that more fondly, back when I was the equivalent of the Queen piece. When I was the King, it was just moving one space at a time. I didn’t like having a title, too restrictive but no one else would step up, so it had to be me.”

<p class="MsoNormal">As Hamilton spoke, he moved his right knight three steps forward and one to the right.

<p class="MsoNormal">“You use your knights a lot…” Maeve pointed out as she moved a pawn forward, to let her bishop out.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I like to think of them as assassins, specialists that are very situational but worth a thousand other pieces. I guess that’s how I started off.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Killing people for money?”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Sometimes for money, mostly for status. Earning favour with the king. Any pawn with ambition wants to make it to the far end of the board as fast as possible, so it can be a different piece. A knight or a bishop or a queen. The pawns are usually the first to go, during a fight like this.”

<p class="MsoNormal">Maeve was quick to make her move as he spoke, moving the bishop behind her bottlecap pawn.

<p class="MsoNormal">“So… The Wasteland is like a medieval kingdom?” Maeve asked, taking the metaphor a little too seriously at that point. It’d make sense to her, given how everything had gone to shit out there or so grandpa said.

<p class="MsoNormal">“No. I mean… There’s the Kingdom of Tom, which basically is a medieval kingdom but for the most part, it’s not that organized. There’s councils and sheriffs and mayors and even a President or two. But most communities? You become king by walking up to the current king and putting a bullet in his head.”

<p class="MsoNormal">Maeve winced at that as it sounded somewhat messy. She hoped that he wasn’t wearing the crown, when that happened or else it would’ve gotten messy.

<p class="MsoNormal">“So… Is that how you became King?”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Heh, no. I became King, because the Kingdom was dead and I was the only one who cared enough to revive it. A few other shared my sentiments, so… we became a Kingdom, once more.”

<p class="MsoNormal">As he reminisced, he moved his dime forward, two spaces, hoping to get his bishop out and unfortunately missing the fact that his knight was vulnerable. A fact that Maeve quickly picked up on and moved her bishop into position.

<p class="MsoNormal">“And I gotcha assassin!” She smirked, plucking the black horse from his board and placing it behind the table.

<p class="MsoNormal">It took Hamilton a moment to ensure that she wasn’t cheating or getting it wrong but no, it was a fair take. He needed to focus more.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I’m going easy on you, y’know that, right?”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Uhuh, sure. So, you said your Kingdom like… died at some point?”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Yeah… This swanky, charismatic Pimp used to run it. Eulogy Jones. ‘Till Callaghan shot him, along with everyone who ran with him.”

<p class="MsoNormal">Hamilton hoped to save face by moving his bishop to the right and planning a new move.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Callaghan? Y’mean Denis Callaghan?”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Yep.” Hamilton nodded, it wasn’t exactly easy to talk about him, like he only knew him by reputation. Especially since he was but an inch away from killing the bastard at one point.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Mom talks about him, sometimes. Grandpa does but he really doesn’t like him. Dad’s a little… I dunno, he usually leaves the room, when Mom talks about him, guess her talking about her cool childhood friend makes him feel a little erm… Y’know like…”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Inadequate?”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Yeah, that.” She nodded, moving her knight forward three, one to the right.

<p class="MsoNormal">Hamilton tried to not let it show that she kind of doomed herself with that move and casually kept talking.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Who is your Dad, anyway? I mean… I’d assume it was Denis, if he wasn’t exiled, all those years ago.” As he spoke, the bishop moved across the board, like a well placed bullet, taking out the rook.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Aww, shit…” Maeve sighed, slumping her head in her hand as she eyed the pieces. She opted to take Hamilton’s dime in retaliation.

<p class="MsoNormal">“My Dad’s name is Fred? Sometimes they call him Freddy.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Wait you’re…” Hamilton found himself legitimately amused for the first time in a while. Freddy Gomez? The retarded Ginger Kid? Really?

<p class="MsoNormal">“Well, I’m kinda surprised at that, not going to lie. I thought, maybe it would be Wally Mack or something.”

<p class="MsoNormal">The Slaver wasn’t exactly involved in the internal politics of the place but news travelled, whether you wanted it to or not and he knew how close knit the Overseer and Mack were, like two friendly Chinese Dynasties. He was somewhat surprised that Wally and Amata weren’t arranged to be married.

<p class="MsoNormal">Mind you, it would probably be hard, given that she is the overseer.

<p class="MsoNormal">“My brother and sister got his hair, I didn’t sadly.” Maeve sighed, gesturing for Hamilton to move, prompting Hamilton to move the black bishop, that killed the rook, back to the white space next to the white horse that killed his dime.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I like it, it’s way cooler and striking! Like a redhead outlaw, y’know?”

<p class="MsoNormal">“I suppose… Women with red hair have always been seen as desirable. Not so much men though…”

<p class="MsoNormal">As Hamilton spoke, Maeve’s knight moved and took out his pawn, the one hiding behind his remaining knight. Maeve opted to climb onto the steel chair and kneel up on it now, leaning forward on her elbows as she peered over the board.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I don’t get why you wouldn’t be with a guy for his hair colour.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“If you were shallow, it would be an issue, sure.” Hamilton shrugged in agreement. He kind of appreciated her maturity, most of the kids down here had a lot of issues wising their asses up by her age. Still whining about ‘cooties’ and shit.

<p class="MsoNormal">Despite her not being completely insufferable, this bitch was going down. He took her knight, without hesitation, with a single step of his rook.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Oof, you really aren’t going easy on me, are you? I’m only a kid.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“I’ve seen kids, half your age, do this for real.” Hamilton shrugged as he observed her moving the bishop on the brown back, to take out his rook.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Wait, like… fighting in an actual war?” Maeve asked, finding that concept a little unsettling.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Yeah. They didn’t last long as you could imagine. Both got shot in the head.” Hamilton opted to leave the part about him pulling the trigger out of that story, to make it a tad more family friendly.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Why were they there?” She asked as Hamilton moved his rook a space to the left to shield it from the ‘sniper.’

<p class="MsoNormal">“Why didn’t they get to safety or something?”

<p class="MsoNormal">“They were child soldiers, wired up on chems and gunpowder, that was mixed into their food. We found a basement, full of ‘training manuals’ that some crazy asshole cooked up, to indoctrinate them into becoming killing machines.

<p class="MsoNormal">Didn’t really work though, they were too small and malnourished and had no preservation skills at all. The only good thing about it is that the guy who ran their ‘unit’ died in the process.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Good, hope it was painful.” The Thirteen year old grumbled as she went to move her bishop back but saw the precarious position that it would put her in. Technically, you’re supposed to commit to the move, once you’ve touched it but he only ever witnessed one person suggest that and he got curb stomped for his efforts.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Y’know, there’s a settlement out there, Little Lamplight. A community that has an age limit of fifteen years old. If you get too old, you’re exiled and you have to find a new place to live.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“That sounds a bit… harsh.” Maeve observed, moving the queen forward, one space.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Well, they’ve been a community since the war ended, so… I guess it works. For them at least…

<p class="MsoNormal">Then they get to go to ‘Big Town,’ which used to be the greatest practical joke in the Wasteland, until they made it into a real settlement. I believe that was Callaghan’s involvement as well…”

<p class="MsoNormal">Hamilton saw what she was doing with her Queen and decided to do one better than moving it out of the way, moving two forward and one to the left, straight into the Queen’s line of fire. Obviously Maeve sensed a trap with that one and opted no to take the bait, instead moving her brown-square bishop just behind the knight.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Well, at least they have somewhere to go.” Maeve sighed, propping herself up again as she felt herself slipping.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I wish the vault could house more people, they sound like they live such hard lives, y’know?”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Honestly? You don’t want to start letting these people in. The setup you have now? You can keep the raiders and psychos out, whilst dealing with the sensible people but letting people in? You could let in any raider, slaver, psychopath, cannibal in here, without a second’s thought.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“What, like you?” Maeve pointed out, with a faint smirk as Hamilton hesitated to move his knight but eventually did so, putting it two rows to the left and one down.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Like me.” He agreed, though he didn’t sound like he was kidding.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I could be anyone, could’ve done anything and yet you let me in. I could do anything from here and who would stop me?”

<p class="MsoNormal">“I would.” Maeve shrugged as she moved her second pawn on the left two forward.

<p class="MsoNormal">“You’d stop me?” Hamilton asked, quizzically.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Sure I would, I’d kick your ass.” She grinned, knowing how preposterous that sounded. Just looking at the build of Hamilton and the battle scars, she could tell he was no stranger to conflict.

<p class="MsoNormal">Hamilton just shrugged at that, moving the knight again two spaces to the right and one down.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I’ll tell the others, you fought bravely.”

<p class="MsoNormal">By now, she’d moved her Queen one to the right, one forward, prompting Hamilton to move his pawn, two in from the right, forward a space and making her white bishop back off, back behind her bottlecap.

<p class="MsoNormal">Hamilton moved the fourth black pawn forward, prompting her to move her second white bishop back, to cower next to the queen. This then allowed him to kill her now abandoned second pawn on the left, consequence free.

<p class="MsoNormal">Opting to save her left bishop, she moved it to the furthest brown square she could protecting it from everything else but allowing Hamilton’s rook to slide in between her two pawns. She tried to bring her bishop back, to the Queen’s side but by this point, Hamilton had already killed the third pawn on the left.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Man, you’ve gotten into it again, haven’t you?” Maeve pointed out, glancing up to the intently thinking Slaver.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Putting on your ‘A’ game, to beat the thirteen year old girl?”

<p class="MsoNormal">It caused Hamilton to break his concentration as he met her gaze, forcing a bit of a smile a that.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I learned long ago, to raise my guard around women. Women like your mother taught me that.”

<p class="MsoNormal">As he said that, Maeve’s knight moved one to the left, two forward.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I don’t blame you, the girls in my class can be so damn snide. They remember shit, you did years ago and punish you for it. It’s almost creepy.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“I half expect Miss Jones to be stood around every corner, waiting to return the bullet I put in her, one of these days.” Hamilton nodded, relating to that quite well.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Wait, you shot her?” Maeve asked, in disbelief as Hamilton moved his fourth pawn to the right in.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Why?”

<p class="MsoNormal">“She was a bitch and I didn’t like her.” Hamilton shrugged.

<p class="MsoNormal">“That and we fell out, mostly because she’s a bitch and I don’t like her.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Ouch…” Maeve couldn’t really fathom having such a relationship with anyone, even Hannah.

<p class="MsoNormal">“If you shot me, I’d still be hunting you down. So I can hardly blame her.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“She’s got bigger fish to fry. I hear her favourite robot got trashed.” Hamilton shrugged as Maeve moved her bishop away from the advancing pawns. She put it at Hamilton’s end of the board, on his far right, where nothing could reach it.

<p class="MsoNormal">“She had robots? That sounds awesome.” Maeve grinned, picturing a mechanist-like villain lady. With red hair, natch.

<p class="MsoNormal">“She probably still has them, made a bunch of them over the years and annoyed the ever loving piss out of everyone she met, with them.”

<p class="MsoNormal">As she said that, Hamilton moved his queen behind her bishop, more or less condemning its fate.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Oof…” Maeve mumbled, sitting back and trying to think of a good move to counter it or at least appeared to be.

<p class="MsoNormal">“What other kind of people did you meet?” By now, she’d put the rook in, next to the King, most likely to protect it from Hamilton’s. As soon as she made this move, Hamilton took her brown tile bishop with his black queen but immediately lost it to Maeve’s white queen.

<p class="MsoNormal">It was a rather impressive misdirection as loathe as he was to admit it. It would seem that a common problem, during power plays was that he lost his queen too early in the game…

<p class="MsoNormal">He began to wonder if she was better than she let on or if Hamilton was rustier than he let on.

<p class="MsoNormal">Maybe it was both.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I…” He began, hoping to move the topic of conversation away from the crippling of his forces.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I met a man with thousands of lives. He made zombies, from the dead and could even possess living people. That was until I killed him.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Woah… How’d you do that though? I mean… He had thousands of lives, so did you have to kill him a thousand times?” Maeve asked, finding it hard to suppress her grin, knowing that she’d more or less destroyed his chances of victory at that point.

<p class="MsoNormal">“No, I destroyed the source of his immortality. Well, me and a group of six or so? Had to fight our way to the heart of the facility and destroy it.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Sounds… tough.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“It was, got a few scars from that.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Yeesh…” Maeve sighed as she watched him move his rook back, to a safer space. Her knight moved one down, two left, prompting Hamilton to move his brown-tile bishop into play, placing it so that the knight was in a precarious position.

<p class="MsoNormal">The knight had no intentions of stopping there and instead moved two spaces to the left and one forward. Hamilton moved his rook next to said knight, to stop it from taking him. This prompted her fourth pawn from the right to move two forward as she knew that Hamilton wouldn’t take her knight, due to it being next to a pawn.

<p class="MsoNormal">He did as she had predicted, moving one step towards her, with said rook, so that he could take out the pawn.

<p class="MsoNormal">She on the other hand saw opportunity, taking out the black pawn, with her queen. While a pawn wasn’t a big achievement, Hamilton observed that the King was now dangerously close to being in check. He took this opportunity to move his rook two to the left and take out the pawn, that protected Maeve’s knight. Of course, now his bishop went unprotected, allowing her rook to move one to the left and immediately put it in danger.

<p class="MsoNormal">Hamilton, of course, saw fit as to remove the bishop, putting it next to Maeve’s knight, to put it in jeopardy, prompting her to put her rook next to it, to build up a defence. It didn’t seem to deter Hamilton from taking the Knight, even knowing that his bishop would immediately fall. In hindsight, he probably should’ve moved the rook instead but it was too late to do much about that now.

<p class="MsoNormal">He opted to move his rook down, putting Maeve in check. She pushed her king forward, knowing it was the only move she could make, prompting Hamilton to move his rook two spaces to the right.

<p class="MsoNormal">Still on her guard, Maeve opted to take the bishop, with her queen, not noticing Hamilton’s brown-tile bishop on his far left, that immediately took it out.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Balls!” She sighed, leaning back as she ran her hands through her hair.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Man, we’re both bad at this, aren’t we?”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Hmm… I like to think of it like flying an aircraft. Any landing you can walk away from…”

<p class="MsoNormal">Maeve decided to put Hamilton in check, mostly out of spite at this point. She moved her rook back to his side of the board, making it so that he would have to move forward and then took his little pink generic boardgame piece that he used for a rook.

<p class="MsoNormal">Seeing that his options were running out, Hamilton moved his knight in front of Maeve’s Nuke Cola Cap pawn, it at least gave him options. Maeve, however, took this as an opportunity to take his pawn and put his knight in danger. He moved the knight back a space, two to his right, so that the rook wouldn’t be able to simply take it, this forced her to move her endangered rook aside, moving it just in front of Hamilton. <p class="MsoNormal" style="border:none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt; padding:0cm;mso-padding-alt:0cm 0cm 1.0pt 0cm">His bishop, which hadn’t seen some action in a bit, opted to move one brown-square to the left. Maeve decided that it was a good opportunity to place her rook in front of it, forcing him to move the bishop one step closer to his own pieces, to which Maeve was quick to follow, to force him to move in again. Though she didn’t expect him to move further out. This prompted her to put him in check, again, to spite him. His king moved back, one diagonal to his left. <p class="MsoNormal">The two of them walked that dance for a while, around the board but eventually, mistakes were made and both Hamilton and Maeve found themselves evenly matched, with a pawn and a king piece each. Though, that was about to change.

<p class="MsoNormal">“That makes me, more or less the victor.” Hamilton declared, sounding somewhat tired now. In truth, he probably wouldn’t care if she’d won by now.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Well, that was… Productive.”

<p class="MsoNormal">In truth, he enjoyed that a bit more than he originally thought he would. He couldn’t remember the last time that he got a moment to do anything like this with someone. A bit of relaxation and amusement. Maybe when he and Harriot spoke in the diner, when he actually got to talk about who he really was.

<p class="MsoNormal">Times like these, it made it seem not completely hopeless. Though, then again, it was easy to fall into that trap.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I think your Mom should be a bit more talkative now.” Maeve observed, glancing over to the elderly woman before getting up and approaching her from behind, gently taking her hand as she made herself visible to her by stepping in front of her.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Mrs Hamilton? Your son’s here, to see you. He…”

<p class="MsoNormal">She glanced up, gesturing for Hamilton to come over but to her surprise, he was gone. It seemed that he got what he had come for…