[ She hasn't been living in the house for long, but her time there has brought a welcoming batch of distractions. One of which she is setting up at the coffee table in the living room with a couple of bottles of dark beer for her and her opponent. Nothing like a strategy game to keep her mind busy, though she wonders if Aral really knows what he's getting into. ]
[He sets out the board, a far, far simpler creature than the monstrosity in the study. The map is some replica of the borders of ancient earth, and the rules limit the armaments significantly.]
In fact, I would say it's not my wins I've ever learned from.
[ She already has the rules to this game memorized, a much simpler task than the convoluted ones the boys had made up for their patchwork game. She's already reaching for the blue colored pieces to set up. ]
[ She has no plans to move quickly, she wants to see what Aral does. It's easier to adjust her tactics if she has a profile of his strategies. Their other board game didn't exactly provide proper data with how haphazardly it was played. ]
I was going for money. But I might settle for free drinks at the cafe or you bringing me drinks all afternoon.
[Here Roy falters. Partially not expecting such easy acquiescence, partially out of frustration that they don't have a code in place for situations like this. He wasn't asking this lightly; the chance of Fulmetal actually getting into trouble was quite high. He carefully lightens his tone.]
He'd be furious if he knew I asked, so please urge discretion. If the Dendarii agree, we can consider this a trial run of sorts—our first joint operation.
[Given the low urgent tone, and what he'd already picked up of the Colonel himself, he could imagine what the issue was. Though framing it as official Dendarii business certainly changed the atmosphere of it.]
[The problem with games like this is that it just didn't have enough variables. They were all patterns, a bit like chess. There were only a certain amount of ways to open as there were to play out end game. The random variables and chaos were missing. In some ways, a clean thought exercise was refreshing.
He makes the first advance, cautious, probing.]
For that high of stakes, I'd want a fighting chance. Can you play it on a human level?
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