Prices and Risks
Part 1
By Jappio
Patrons sat in chairs and stools lining the bar and tables. Drinks and food were served to many there, but none had been to the most popular table for some time. Merriment and banter had first been exchanged, but started to turn to discourse over time. A sharp dagger cut into the table, wedged in the wooden boards, a metaphor for just how stubborn the group was being. "No deal, we aren't interested."
Hazel leaned back with a huff. They were failing to see how profitable the offer could be for all of them. It wasn't any fun if she had to cut negotiations short before she could make a bigger haul. She was running at too much of a deficit, so she had to think of something before giving up.
Hazel had called the audience to the tavern, but things weren't going according to plan. The traveling merchant had hoped to be able to offer wares and opportunities, but they hadn't been exciting enough for the people of the town.
Yet, she had a riskier option up her sleeve. She knew another way to add some girth to her coffers. Hazel could rope them into a game of chance. If they couldn't recognized a profitable business opportunity, then the redheaded woman would win her keep another way. A deck of cards would pave her way to making some money.
Despite her smarts, Hazel still was vulnerable to a cruel Lady Luck. Hand after hand, she was able to slowly learn their tells, but it was costing her. She'd feigned long enough, it was time to get serious, but her pouch was growing too empty, and her opponents bored. They felt they had won enough. She needed them to stay so she could finally turn things around. Yet little she offered seemed to get them to want to stay.
"Everyone has a price. Everyone wants something," Hazel had thought to herself. A mantra that led to the devious business woman to never give up. She knew she was crafty, and she knew there had to be a way to make her trip to this neighboring town worth her time. She leaned her head back and stroked her ponytail so that it flopped to the front of her shoulder. She really had to ponder what she did next. Hazel wasn't going to walk out with less than she came in, that was for sure!
"Maybe I can find something that you would find interesting, huh? Something even more exciting?" A smile grew on her face. Her gaze snapped back towards everyone. She set a finger to her lower lip and looked them all over. When standard business deals wouldn't work, she had to come up with something else. She gripped the dagger stabbed in the table, and maintained eye contact with the loudest of them.
She uttered a single word, "modesty." Her opponent's eyebrows rose. Hazel knew they were hooked, curious what this could mean. She captured the attention back after their violent punctuation moments ago, letting her take the lead again. "If my coin isn't enough to whet your appetite, then maybe I only left to offer you is my modesty. My pride even," Hazel explained. "I will no longer offer something as boring as a few bits of currency, but instead risk the very only other thing I have with me, and that would be my clothing."
Hazel stood, and her hands gripped the edges of her cape. The red fabric billowed as she raised it. She posed, displaying her offer, from her cape, to her tunic, to her slacks. The offer had taken them all off guard, and it was exactly the sort of thing she knew they wouldn't resist.
And she was right.
It started well for her. She'd finally been able to use all her gathered information to her advantage. Each hand they would offer up gold, at a chance to strip the spunky woman before them. Yet that was just to her advantage, as anyone who knows business knows that it's all about playing to the other's desires, and the stronger those desires, the easier it is to read them. It was agreed she'd play with a sort of credits, so she could bet in increments that would add up to an article of her outfit.
After a few rounds, Hazel's supply of gold grew again. A single loss snuck between her victories seemed of little consequence, as she hands over the garment. She felt a cape wouldn't matter much to her.
It wasn't easy to keep the playing people, since they had been already satisfied with gold. Even with her pockets filled once more with funds to bet, Hazel knew she would be more likely to keep them playing by offering up the pockets themselves, or at least the pants themselves. So to keep them playing, she kept the risk of her clothes alongside the coins.
Some players were easier to read as she sensed they were growing desperate to see her lose more clothing. Yet a few of the more respectable players were beginning to mask their tells. The scales were once again favoring chance. Hazel had no armor to give; she'd dressed for what she predicted would be friendly bartering. The redhead overextended a bet, and had to fold for the round. She unclasped her belt, and laid it on the table to let it be forfeit to the winner of the hand. Her pants loosened, but not a problem while sitting.
Her confidence swelled as she won two more hands. Just as quickly as it rose, it's dashed when Hazel gives up her pants at her next lost. She slid them off, her shirt hanging just barely past her panties. The heavy dark red cotton shield little more than her legs, but she doesn't mind. With how much money she'll win back, the buffoons could have seen more on a dozen ladies at a brothel. Hazel even thought a few of them may want to work a night or two in them, just to earn back the money they'd lose when she really turned things around.
No one probably missed how entirely confident she was.
The cards handed to her in the next round made her pause, they weren't very good. It didn't seem playable, but there was a way. She tried to meet the bet, raised it actually. "Hey, instead of some regular run of the mill tunic. How about instead... I raise the pot to 50 gold... and in that pot will be none other than my panties~" A tease and bluff. Hazel was trying to make sure they knew she was nothing but confident. They'd know a proper lady wouldn't so readily offer up something as intimate like her undergarments with a bad hand after all!
The rowdy bunch tried to argue that's way too much gold for what's even less physical material. They insist the few fibers hidden under the tunic can't be worth that much. Doubts brewed, they worried that the suspicious merchant could intend to not even pay up if she were to lose. They insist all bets should be put on the table upfront, just like gold.
Calling wouldn't win her the round, not with the junk in her hand. Folding wouldn't get her any closer to winning either of course. Yet meeting their demands, raising the bet to 50g, could have scared them and inch her ever close to positive profits. Everyone has a price, and a show of courage would be just the right price in that moment.
Inch by inch, she shimmied her panties down her legs. Hazel felt her tunic was much shorter, even if the panties didn't cover her exposed thighs at prior. Nothing more was showing, but she could feel her newly bared skin being just inches from exposure.
The garment was placed on the table, a red thong with lacy, black trim. Hazel had to wonder if the other players regretted the raised stakes. Surely they thought she would have looked amazing in the lingerie if they won the tunic first. Eyes were locked on the edge of the table, as if trying to see through it, at her bare legs and up the hem of her tunic.
"50g" the merchant confidently ordered. Hazel laid her discarded item into the pot. Her fingers lingered for a moment on the gold she hoped to win, like a lover would fondle sparse hairs after lowering such intimate clothing. Any moment they would fold and she could drag that money back to her.
Hazel wasn't sure what was more heartbreaking: seeing her panties dragged away by the winner, or the gold.
Hazel was entirely bottomless beneath a shirt, one she felt was too short to really walk out in public in. Also concerning, a money pouch not refilled. She dug her heels in the sand. The redhead was still going to stay and play. The deck at least gives her some good cards as reward for her bravery.
No one was betting high though, her gains slowed. She refused to put so much as her tunic into the pot, not on such small rounds. Instead she made micro offers to show good faith: Undoing just the top buttons, showing some cleavage, a bit more thigh. The simple shows were enough of a tease to keep them hooked, but the game was progressing too slowly for Hazel to make enough to warrant a retreat.
Never one to sit back and let things stay out of her control for long, Hazel boldly insisted on furthering the game along, speed them up. "My shirt on the line, but you have to go in big too of course. 50g, each of you." After all the teasing and peaking, they all knew she was without even a bra beneath it.
They of course demand she puts the tunic upfront as they do with their gold. She wished to refuse, but they were adamant. A few seconds of nudity... Hazel placed her finger to the edge of her grin once more. She contemplated if that was a price she was willing to pay. All the players added in their gold; so many shimmering pieces added to prize. She could win. She could really make it big in just one go. She'd have more than what she started with.
Hazel undid every binding it had. She lifted it up off her body, her back turned to each of them as she did. Hazel turned, sat confidently opposite of the other players. Legs crossed, arm slung in front of her chest, and her eyes staring each of them down. It would only be for a few a moments; she was too close to victory to cower. Along with the gold, her red tunic sat in the center of the table.
Cards dealt, hands viewed. She licked her lips, finger to her chin. Hazel is looking smug; it is a good hand, and she can't hide it. Even if they fold, what was on the table will all make it worth it.
Yet second best at the table just isn't enough to draw in the winnings. Her hand only was good enough to beat all but one.
Hazel, the traveling merchant, is then left with not a bit besides a not-quite-full coin pouch. She was so close, she had nearly tasted it. She couldn't believe she was not just in the hole by a bit of money, but also her clothing and dignity! She was entirely naked!
She stood, wanting to make further demands they keep playing, she remained as confident as she could, her blush betraying her stronger stance. A few rags wouldn't cost much money, but she wasn't about to try and buy her clothes back, no, she wouldn't stoop to that!
