(Ok, so I was playing the Hogwarts Mystery game and made singlehandedly the best choice for a last name😂🙏😭 I'll put more pics below)
John walked through the beaded draping from the door's frame.
He'd found the place while scoping for either magic, dark energy or some shot up druggie who didn't have a decent filter.
Guess which one he got to first?
Apparently, the guy Richard(who sadly reminded him of Gary), said that 'Dis little shop uh...d-down the road or so sells the craziest shit! From-from the uh bad board games, you know that haunted thing, the uh...uh..Oujia or whatever right, to like the sick crap like pig guts!'
So obviously he had to give it a shot.
And also, another thing-'down the road or so' turned into an 8 block walk before he found what the doped up asshole was describing.
'O-oh and sometimes they have bets an-and games for certain things in the back room, I've only been there like once I swear! It was a-a friend of mine who took me-'
Great.
The store's front was as shady as the product, the only reason why they probably got away with this is that the store's location was on the city's lesser taken cared for side, oh you know-like the outskirts where you know funky shit happens often.
John might not've been to London in a while, but in his experience, majority of cities were like this.
"Hey kid-The hell you think you're doin here?! Don't you know what kinda place this is?" A woman spoke to him, more annoyed that a child was here instead of a potential client over his wellbeing as a minor.
John smirked through his own irritation, "Yes luv, and if you don't mind-"
He semi-pushed past her, gaining a bewildered gaze to his moving form.
To John, this rundown place had the 'convenience store' look going for it.
Shelves standing taller than he was, row to row, jam packed with all sorts of things.
Many of which-were surprisingly useful to him.
Glancing around for cameras or an audience, weary of a man in a jean jacket and hat who wasn't looking toward him, grimacing at whatever item he held. John pocketed a few things he made his way down to the back room.
One of those objects-A brass knuckle bar with carved in crosses was stuffed inside, it wasn't gold but it'll do.
Going for quite a bit of cash too.
John leaned against the door, hearing a commotion of different conversation before shuffling inside.
Thanks to being smaller, he wasn't noticed, or at least ignored, by most. This little gambling room was easily as big as the main store, perhaps wider too.
"-Come on Matt! Our implore said to pick out somethin good and I think that book will be perfect for his needs!"
"What? What book-OH! The Bible lookin thingy, gotcha! Oh I mean sure, I guess. Did the boss say anything in particular?"
John peered over to the conversation, 'Bible' huh?
A tall, well structure brunette stood next to a shorter and more pudgier dirty blonde, Matt, John assumes.
They stood over a poker table of some sort, a game seemed close to starting.
"Nope! Just something expensive looking to con with."
"And he said to come here?"
"Nah-that was Jack's idea. Said that he stumbled in here a bit ago and saw a whole bunch of superstitional crap. That they all looked fake, but all went for high ass prices." The brunette shook his head, chuckling. "I mean-if this hellhole can pull if off then why not us?"
Matt grinned, "Sure! But I mean, you'd have to be playing though Ethan. You're the best cheat I know when it involves cards!"
"Damn straight." The man, Ethan, smirked, volunteering to join the game.
"Well before we do anything, did you get any information about what it is?"
Ethan shook his head, "Probably some bullshity topic like everything else sold down this block. Come on."
Ethan and Matt made theirs way to one of the larger tables, Ethan placing himself in an empty chair.
He smiled as he pulled out some gambling cash, putting it in the center with similar bettings.
After the dealer passed him his share of cards, he started to explain the rules.
Poker eh?
Easy.
John pushes his way to the last remaining seat, earning looks of disbelief and laughs.
"Yo! What do we have here?!" The man on his left asked aloud for the table.
"Donno man, a little far from a playground iddnit?" A man across him, in John's opinion, bullied.
"Playground? I'm here to play mate." He raised an eyebrow.
"You play?" The bloke on his right spoke up. "I really don't thing you could play with the big boys son."
The boasted, earning a few laugh around him.
John internally smirked; let him be underestimated, he was starting to con them as they spoke.
"Well, if the 'big boys' are so good, then they shouldn't have a problem taking his offers after kicking the ass of a 10 year old eh?" He gave them an innocent look that lived up to young appearance despite being in the place they were. "Unless...you weren't talking about yourselves?"
A few looked a bit startled before becoming amused.
"Come on then!"
"Yeah! What the hell?! Let em join in, we got 'reputations' to keep to standard ya know!"
The dealer, an older looking gentlemen reminding John of some old British movie butler, chuckled in amusement, shaking his head.
"Well, what are you offering up young man?"
John pulled out the leftover money he lifted onto the table, knowing that it wouldn't be up to betting standard(not the amount he had anyway) he pulled up one of his packs and his lighter.
He placed a cig in his mouth before tossing the box in the middle with the rest of them.
Half of them, probably expecting an allowance issued amount along with a gum box, opened their mouths like fish and raised their brows to meet their hair as he lit it.
Insulting really as he placed the lighter back.
John gave a grin, unsettling some.
"Let's play."
Sweat dipped down a man's temple, he was one of them only few that were still in, along with one or two sad saps playing, and was honestly regretting it.
The majority of the table quit, not wanting to be broken.
In currency or spirit.
Ah.....what the hell anymore....the man fixed his hat before placing what he had left on hand on the table's surface.
Eli was pissed off.
The end of the game and it was just him left. Him and the underestimated, conning bastard of a child.
He didn't really want the fucking book, the harder cover could burn for he cared! The only con was that he wouldn't have shit to bring back for his boss to sell.
No.
Why he did care about was the cheating little shit across from him.
There he was!
A cigarette lit and gangling in his jaws and the absolute brat messed around with his empire of winnings!
Hand in one paw, and a lighter he rather obnoxiously flicked opened and closed in the other.
The smug piece of work wasn't even looking at his cards before laying them.
MOTHERFUC-
John silently laughed as he sped out of the room, book in hand and his coat pocket stuffed with earnings and shop lifted relics he looted.
This was too easy!
He took a moment to flip through the pages. It was older, that's was for sure, holding a darker presence on it. Latin too, but he didn't stay on a page long enough to translate anything into complete sentences.
"Hey! You cheating little fucker!"
Damn his luck, glancing back he cursed, funnily enough, the two dumbasses he won the book from.
Look, it was understandable to be batshit about losing to a kid over a high stakes game of gambling-but John was fairly certain he deserved book more.
The fellows just wanted a paycheck, he wanted a potentially help way home.
Not hard to see where it should go.
Picking up his pace, he heard Eli snapped.
"Jack! What the hell do you think you're doing sitting on your ass?! Move it! After em!"
Oh.
Jacket and hat was Jack,
Jacket
Jack
Jack et
You know he could've seen it coming....
Running down and egging them(Eli) seemed like a good idea at the time truthfully, in his bigger form(and more appreciated too), he's been able to get away with that!
Piss some people of and get them so mad that they give up!
That or out run em.
But John has to guess that him now being like 10 or so fueled the house fire there......oh well.
John didn't care to keep track of how long, or how far for that matter, they ran(chased and ran actually).
John had sorta zoned out with the normalcy of jogging away from his issues, and ended up bumping into this older fella he who appeared to be allergic to shampoo.....
Whooooooo~!
That was a long one-at least for the normal chapter length of this book, but there was so much I wanted to jam pack into it!
Anyway for those who thought my rpg character's name was funny, here's some more like I promised: