Background
Spattering booze soaked spit through his checkered teeth, a rank vagabond clasps at your collar, "Spare a Tolk vet yer jink, eh?! Just enough to drink myself dead." His festered breath forces a hand to your nose, "No? Bah! Poor ol' wretched mustard, can't get no sympathy from a snooty merc like you?" Slumping down your pant-leg the unwashed mess of a man gurgles incoherently, spittle and mucus dripping on your boots. . . "Don't let that beguiler, that, that witch! Don't let 'er trick you into shooting dice -- she's cursed! A demon!"
Sobbing violently, the ooze of a man tightens his grasp of your leg to nearly that of a vice, curling around you before grabbing a fistful of tainted soil. Letting the soot slowly sift through his fingers, he simmers down. Almost out of curiosity you nearly ask the man what he was rambling about, that is, before he quakes in drunken tantrum.
Kicking his teeth in, you decide you've endured more than enough of this cullion -- you
deserve to spend that wartime cash despoiling yourself. Meanwhile, the grotesque sod curls over in delirious pain as you step over him, vomiting like the worm he is. It would almost bring a tear to your eye if it wasn't so nauseatingly pathetic.
Now spitting a mixture of sanguineous bile through his teeth, he barks and howls "The girl with black teeth! That witch! That demon! Blacker than Prosek's heart!!!"
Or at least you think he was raving something like that, honestly you weren't paying attention as you entered the local den of debasement, recommended to you by more than one lowlife in the area.
Surprisingly you see a large crowd gathered under the soft blue glow of neon light, far too thick for you to peer through. Ordering a whisky you nearly topple your glass as vulgarity echos through the small bar, followed by raucous jeering. As you turn your head round, a man -presumably the pleb you were going to toss a fist at- flies himself out the door, a tin-can bouncer dusting his hands off in the dim light lumbers back to the concrete slab he was using as a stool.
You laugh, good service is hard to come by.
But as you turn back to order another round, some hinky accent catches your ear -- the crowd has just enough of a break in it for you to catch the glimpse of some neon-haired broad sitting dealer in the corner.
Feeling lucky, you mosey up a chair and ask this doxy to deal you in; after all, you squelched a half-dozen crates of supplies from refugees, you and the crew have enough to retire on, if you didn't party through it first. . .
You don't pay attention to anything she says (other than it sounds weird, some accent you've never heard before), but you do notice she's got some freaky squint eyes. Not many people had those in these parts, hell most of them weren't technically people! D-bee's and dirt farmers, nothing worth nothing.
Peering at your cards you hear some shit that sounds like
are-eee-ghato. . . ghato? Something about a cat? Only Pecos spoke that Spanish garbage. You had half a mind to tell her to shut up and start the game, but your eyes catch something.
That woman, she was wearing a toothy grin. Even through the mile-high stack of creds you see they're beetle black, glossy. A feeling wells up in your stomach as you grimace, it just looked plain. . . freaky. . .
"Again. What is your bet, Gaijin?"
A puppy-dog giggle follows the question, but all you can focus on is glint of the sword woven in between her arms. . . and those ebony teeth.
Peering down at you with soulless eyes, "Remember, don't bet anything you can't pay. Right, tin-can sama?"
She exchanges a laugh with the bouncer. You take another swig of swill, you've stared down worse. Pushing up your bet, you just about squeeze 'deal me in' before she slides something in the stack. . . a handful of severed fingers.
Smiling through those teeth, she stares into you. . . then you notice your hand. . . mulligan?
~~~
*Episodic voice over narrative
*
Niko 'Gummy' Yamaguchi, a syndicate princess spoon-fed blood money and ill gotten gains from infancy, finds herself spirited away to a strange land -- a foreigner wandering the east in search of fortune at the bequest of her elders.
Not all that glitters is gold however, as old family feuds boil over in her time spent wandering. Pressure builds for the young woman to aid in the expansion of gang territory before the streets of Tokyo run red. . .
The aloof and carefree youth finds an uncomfortable motivation from the escalating tensions -- sworn to uphold the honor of her family. Alone and without backing from her 'Ohaguro Girls', Gummy tries to broaden her horizons. Having bleed all she can from the various deplorables fleeing the aftermath of the Tolkeen war, the wounds still fresh in the minds of those too eager to forget, Gummy keeps her ear to the ground.
A flood of rumors concerning Tomorrow Legion make their way into the hearts and minds of the disenfranchised. Gummy hopes to find the influence she needs with this fabled faction, both to amass wealth and perhaps find a way home.
Whispering a prayer to her guided sword, "The Lucky Coin", Gummy sets out to find her fortune.