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In hindsight, it became unclear whose idea the game had been. Leliana was the obvious culprit, but she swore innocence, and swore it very convincingly. Zevran was the next-most-obvious culprit, and claimed responsibility immediately, but Zevran would claim responsibility for anything and could not be trusted. It certainly wasn’t Alistair, and given Tabris’s weary sighs throughout the affair it wasn’t her, either. Anders was terrible at it, but not as bad as Nathaniel or Soris, so they were right out. Out of everyone who might have known how to play the game, that left Wynne—and surely it wouldn’t have been her.
But, what with one thing or another, and the original team being almost fully back together, they were all playing Wicked Grace.
First they’d played with tokens, until Velanna protested that the game was pointless without real stakes. Then they’d played for real money, until it had been pointed out that only about half of them had actual jobs with actual incomes.
At which point Zevran had suggested they play for articles of clothing, which would normally have never worked, were it not for the fortified golden ale that had been flowing freely up until that point.
So, they had played for clothes.
Tabris was down to a tank top, breeches and boots, but only because most of her attention was focused on keeping Alistair semi-dressed. Even so, he only had breeches and a single boot left, and was sweating terrifically. Barkspawn occasionally let out a helpful boof. Wynne hadn’t lost the only clothing she wore—the robe—and nobody expected that she ever would, either. The old lady was far too wily.
Leliana was not only fully dressed, she was also strategically playing to undress only certain people. Velanna would have been naked if not for the magical vines covering her, although they did nothing to conceal her furious full-body blush. Shianni, down to her smallclothes, was admiring it, and was attempting to win some of the vines from her.
Leliana hadn’t even needed to target Anders much to get him down to just about nothing, and his scrawny, pale (if interestingly pierced) frame would have attracted at least one interested gaze—if Zevran were not busy swearing in thirty different directions that he was normally much better at this game, and making an absolute spectacle of himself in the process.
“Sten is cheating,” Zevran complained loudly, “He doesn’t even know how to play, how is he still fully dressed?”
“Anything worth doing is worth doing well, elf,” the Qunari said. “I do all things well.”
“You’re just angry because you wanted to see him without a shirt, aren’t you?” Sigrun said suspiciously.
“Pfeh! I travelled with him for a year, you think I’ve never seen that?”
“He hasn’t,” Sten told her, carefully placing a card. “And none of you ever will.”
Tabris couldn’t exactly tell, because Shale was made of rock, but they might have looked the slightest bit disappointed. “These cards are too small,” they complained. They’d been betting crystals instead of clothes, but only after extracting an ironclad promise from Tabris that she would get them nicer, prettier crystals if they actually lost any.
“Too small?” Oghren furrowed his brows. “They’re too damn blurry. Can’t even tell which ‘uns I have.”
“That’s because you’re drunk,” Nathaniel pointed out in consternation. Fully half the rest of the table threw whatever small objects were at hand at him. Of course Oghren was drunk. There was no need to state the obvious.
Anyway, the rest of the group had made a silent, deadly-serious oath to play in such a way as to keep Oghren as fully dressed as possible.
“What say,” Zevran suggested, “we play for something more interesting?”
“What’s more interesting than clothes?” Alistair said suspiciously. “Body parts?”
“Oh, I rather like that,” Shale said. “Yes, let us play for body parts! I do enjoy watching the meat-things squish.”
“No, Shale,” Wynne chided. “We talked about this.”
The golem sighed dramatically, grumbling.
“I suggest,” Zevran continued, “we play for dares. Winner of the pot chooses the act for the biggest loser.”
There was a murmur of agreement amongst the group. Anything to keep Oghren fully clothed.
“Alright, but here are the rules,” Tabris declared. There was a small round of whining. “The rules,” Tabris snarled, “are no disrobements, no sexual acts beyond first base, and nothing ever leaves this room. Now everyone play nice.”
Everyone agreed to play nice, mostly because Tabris was using her Persuasive voice.
It started out innocently enough. Leliana won several hands and had a never-ending stream of exciting Orlesian dares. Alistair ended up with his smallclothes on the outside of his trousers, Wynne ended up being forced to speak in Pig-Tevene for the rest of the night, and poor Nathaniel, already beet-red from Velanna’s state of undress, ended up in Zevran’s lap.
“This is absurd,” Anders, who was only mad that he wasn’t in anyone’s lap, complained. “How in the Void can you be so good at this?”
“Oh, I’m not that good,” Leliana said. “I had an Antivan friend, back when I was a bard, who would have taken all your money, your clothes, and probably some of your hair. And then she would have giggled.” Leliana sighed. “I do miss her.”
Next round, Zevran dared Anders to do a handstand. Anders, naked, tipsy, and not very athletic, made the attempt, failed, ended up knocking over several tankards, and landed in Sten’s lap.
“You know what,” he said, leaning against the Qunari man’s chest, “this is alright, I’m alright with this, I’ll just stay here.”
Sten growled. “You will not.”
“Play nice,” Tabris insisted, Persuasively, and so, Anders was spared a fate of defenestration at great velocity.
Sigrun won the next hand. “Shale,” she said, eyes bright, “I dare you to tell us who you like!”
“Who I like?” The golem scoffed. “I do not like any of these squishy creatures.”
“Now I kno-ow that’s not true,” Alistair said in a sing-song. “You were dared, you have to tell now.”
“Very well,” Shale ground out. “I like the warden. It brings me nice rocks.”
“Not that kind of liking,” Sigrun whined. “You know what I mean!”
Tabris looked pointedly at the golem. “You were dared,” she said reasonably.
“Fine,” Shale said. “I will tell. If—and only if—one of you pathetic creatures bests me in a match of arm-wrestling.”
Oghren, who had fallen asleep in his chair, shot up, roaring, demanding his shot. Within a few seconds, he sailed through the air and slammed into the opposite wall, where he peacefully returned to his sleeping. Wynne tutted. “Is-thay is ow-hay ou-yay o-day t-iy,” she said, and by the time anyone had figured out the Pig-Tevene, she had cast Rock Armor entirely on her right arm, and slammed her elbow on the table, grinning maniacally.
Unfortunately five minutes later, Wynne ran out of mana, and was forced to concede.
“Oh come on,” Sigrun sighed. “Alistair, you’re a warrior! Come on, stop shaking your head and backing away, give it a try! Nathaniel? No? Oh, where’s Justice? I bet he could do it.”
“Justice doesn’t believe in gambling,” Anders said. “He says it is unjust to take others’ property on the basis of chance, and that he would have no part of it.”
It was then that Sten heaved a sigh. “Very well,” he said, rolling up his sleeve. “I suppose anything worth doing is worth doing well. You and me, golem. Let us go.”
Shale almost seemed to grin.
A minute passed, then two, then ten. Their clasped hands did not move more than an inch from the center.
“It is quite good at this,” Shale remarked.
“Thank you,” Sten said. “You as well. Have I mentioned how beautifully the light plays off your crystals as you attempt to overcome me?”
“You charmer. You’re only saying that.”
“Not at all.”
“Well, then allow me to say how nicely its bicep bulges as it strains against my superior might.”
Sten grunted, and gained an inch. “Clearly it isn’t superior enough.”
“Oh, stop it.” Shale emitted a terrible sound—one that could reasonably have been classified as a giggle.
“Is anyone else getting a little uncomfortable?” Soris whispered uncertainly. “I’m getting a little uncomfortable.”
“Shut up,” Shianni hissed at him. “It’s cute.”
After twenty minutes, Tabris declared a tie, and decreed that Shale would not have to tell who they liked if they didn’t want to.
“Hah,” Shale intoned with an aura of self-satisfaction, as though they hadn’t just spent twenty minutes holding hands with someone who they very obviously could have defeated at any point in the contest.
A few hands later, Shianni dared Sten to try to best Shale in a footrace, around the romantic moonlit lake, all the way up to the Lover’s Hill and back.
“I don’t get it,” Nathaniel said flatly when they were gone.
“That is because you are a foolish shemlen,” Velanna sniffed, crossing her arms over her vine-covered bosom.
“It’s true,” Shianni said.
“Yeah,” Tabris put in.
“Boof,” Barkspawn agreed.
“You’re marrying a foolish shemlen,” Alistair told Tabris.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s correct. That’s factual. Oh, what? Don’t make that face. I’m happily marrying a foolish shemlen.”
This was the most bald-faced lie Tabris had ever told, as no reasonable thinking being could have ever described Tabris’s attitude towards the rapidly approaching wedding as anything approximating ‘happy’. And this was really saying something, considering that Tabris had once successfully persuaded a city guard that she didn’t actually exist, and was just a shadowy figment of his imagination.
By some miracle, Alistair won the next hand. “I dare,” he said, hiccupping, “Soris to—to give a big brotherly hug to this foolish shemlen. Cos we’re—we’re about to be family.”
“What, don’t I get one?” Shianni said, offended. “C’mere.”
“As though the rest of us are not family?” Zevran said.
It was then that Tabris, who had quietly gotten hammered along with everyone else, burst into messy tears. Her threshold had finally been reached. “Of course we’re a family,” she wailed. “You’re all—you’re all my family, and I love you all s-s-so much that I could choke.”
Everything sort of devolved into hugging and crying then.
Overall, everyone agreed, it had been a pretty good game.