Sir Jacob Frye (brassknuckles) wrote in valloic, @ 2020-03-19 05:46:00 |
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“The landlord warned the place needs a little work, so don’t turn your nose up if it’s a mess, alright?” He opened the door down into the basement and pulled out the flashlight he’d been warned to bring. Better than a lamp, that was for bloody sure.
The stairs were wide but rickety and they needed to be patched up first, he could feel that already as they swayed under his boots. Once he hit the cement floor, he swept the flashlight across the room.
“Well...it’s big.” It was certainly that. It was also full of scattered junk and smelled like a rat graveyard. But the ceiling was higher than expected and there were alcoves along the edges that would work well for built in seating. “What do you think?”
“Well,” Evie stepped on something that crunched under her boot, and she gave it a quick glance before wrinkling her nose. She followed Jacob into the concrete area, surveying it as his flashlight swept across. “It smells better than London, at least.” Barely, but it was something. A noticable difference since being in Vallo for the two of them, where clean air reigned supreme.
“It’s got size on it’s side,” Evie agreed, walking further into the open space, sidestepping large piles of rubbish that were about. “We’ll have to clean it out, get some proper lighting….” She was already picturing exactly where and how everything could go, and it did have potential. Evie glanced back at Jacob and nodded. “I think it has potential, Jacob.”
While he’d never ever in a million years admit it, Jacob enjoyed his sister’s approval. Or at least, he preferred it to the sinking feeling her disappointment left in his gut. Not that it bothered him enough to stop doing as he pleased, of course, but still.
"Lighting's easy enough, yeah? Well, easy enough to steal.” He looked up at the ceiling where lights could hang, then he held up his hands like a frame to point around the room. “Picture this. Lights that change color. A big ring, right here.” He gestured wide to encompass the area in the center of the room, currently full of dusty crates and busted boxes. “Maybe a few tables over here? A bar? Galahd might help us out there.”
“A bar is a must, it’ll draw more crowds if people have drink.” She agreed easily enough to all of that, it was practical. “Standing room only, or tiered seats, do you think?” Evie swept the room again, attempting to picture all of it in the large space. Thankfully, she had the imagination to go along with it. Not quite as fanciful as Jacob was, but it worked well enough for her needs.
And keeping things simple was more along her line, anyway. But still, this was something that could benefit a lot of people, from the personalities she’d met since arrival. People loved a good fight.
“I wonder how difficult it is to have those neon lettered signs made up. Like the one at Galahd.” She gestured to a blank wall. “Right over the bar here…”
“With the shite people claim they can do here?” Jacob barked a laugh. “A sign should be cake.” He still wasn’t sure how much he believed, but as he was a roll with the punches sort to begin with, he didn’t spend a lot of time mulling it over. Either they were surrounded by magic or they were surrounded by lunatics. Sooner or later, they’d get all the proof they needed one way or the other.
“How about a bit both on the seating, right?” He grinned sharply and hopped up on to a box along the edge, balancing precariously as it tried to tip to the side. “We keep a spot around the ring for those who like to risk a spray of blood on their faces and we set up some tiered seats a few yards back. Not a bad seat in the house.”
“Probably so,” Evie agreed, but pulled a little face. People could do extraordinary things here, and it worried her more than excited. Extraordinary meant Trouble, as far as Templars were concerned, and more than a few people had set off her eagle vision while here. It was to be expected in a larger city, and it was no more than London had done. But her training meant she was always left on edge over it.
As she worried, wandering through the place, there was a loud crash above her. Evie jumped out of the way just in time for a portion of the ceiling to fall to the ground, narrowly avoiding impaling her. She bumped shoulders with Jacob and a grin formed on her face. “That’ll help with putting people in the blood spray range, won’t it? Add an extra level of challenge?”
The ceiling caving in was a surprise, but only so much. Jacob tipped off the side of his box, put him in a perfect position to get nudged by his sister. He snorted and peered up at the roof. “As long as it doesn’t come down on me, I’m on board.”
Thankfully the rest of the ceiling didn’t look too bad, but he was still peering at things with a flashlight. He darted over to a wall with one of those switches everyone used here and flipped it. Two sad lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling lit up with an audible tink.
The basement didn’t exactly look better like this, but Jacob was already thinking about fighting and didn’t really need much. “So we’re good? You wanna harass the owner about rental price? You know how much I hate haggling.”
Evie huffed out a noise and nodded. The light turning on got her attention for the rest of it, so she could make sure nothing else was going to crash down on them. The rest of the ceiling thankfully looked stable, and she stepped around any dropped debris a little more carefully.
“I’ll negotiate, brother.” Jacob might’ve hated haggling, but Evie was also quick to temper when it came to men talking down to her. Sometimes it worked to their advantage, sometimes it didn’t. But it was always interesting. “Before I look into budgets based off of how much both of us are making, are we planning on requiring an admittance fee for this? Might help to off-set costs.”
“Sure, fine,” Jacob shrugged. Talking about administrative details always made his eyes roll back in his head. It helped that these were fight club details though. He hummed and toyed with the coin he wore on a cord around his neck. “Maybe we waive it for fighters, though, yeah? We can make a little extra from the bar if we work out a percentage of their profits, even things out that way.”
The money here was still impossible to sort out. Mostly because Jacob hadn’t bothered trying. He sat down on a box and pulled out a wallet he’d purchased with his tips. He’d only intended to see how many bills he had in there from his last shift, but he was surprised to open it up and find many bills. A lot more than he’d ever put in there. “What in the bloody hell... Might have some starter cash for us, Evie.” He lifted out the bills and fanned them in front of his smirking face.
“I’ll run the numbers.” She was already trailing off as she watched Jacob perch and go through his wallet. Her eyes got progressively more narrowed as she saw him make a show of going through the money. They both already had jobs (odd as that was, not just being an Assassin), and money could easily be earned here. But that was … a great deal more than she’d seen in one place since arrival.
And, of course, Evie immediately thought he was just having her on. “Jacob. Did you steal that?” Not that she could talk, given they’d taken their fair share of money from unsavory sorts before. But they were still supposed to be playing nice.
“If I’d stolen it,” Jacob scoffed, “I’d have said, look what I stole. I’ve been keeping my nose clean until we know exactly what we’re on about here.” He paused, his eyes darting to the side. “Alright, mostly clean.” There’d been a few scuffles and he’d cheated at cards once but it hadn’t led to this type of profit. In fact, it had led directly to one of the scuffles.
He wasn’t even really sure how to put the money to best use. He stood up, thumbed out two hundred for himself and held out the rest for her. “Look, you wanted to handle the boring shite, right? Let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth.”
Evie took the money, after giving Jacob a long, even stare. She believed him, for the most part. He was right, he would’ve just gloated about it and she would’ve had to get on his case for it. Stealing was appropriate against certain other factions back home, and neither of them were the sort to go after those that actually needed the money.
“Alright then.” Finally, just because they did really need the money if they were going to do this. Especially as she’d gotten a good look at it once the lights were on. “After we’ve negotiated the rent, we can go down to the warehouse district, maybe hire one or two for cleaning it up, seeing what we can do.” She offered him up an identical Frye smirk, “Be just like home, yeah?"
Having gotten that look on many occasions, Jacob merely gave her a mock-innocent stare back, eyebrows raised. He dropped the farce when she took the money, he hooked an arm around her shoulders and tugged her towards the door with a sharkish grin.
“Excellent plan, dear sister. About time we properly befriended the underbelly of this place anyhow.” Letting go, he skipped over to the stairs and swept open the door at the top. A plume of dust poofed up into the air and he coughed, waving it out of his face. “Let’s go intimidate a greedy landlord. I’m warming up to the idea of a good haggle after all.”
Evie laughed and slipped out of the wave of dust and pushed him forward with a little nudge. Out the door they went, after he got set to rights again. Evie stayed smug, and took the lead. “I’d offer to let you do the talking, dear brother, but I don’t want to pay extra.”