DM
Just inside the main doors of the Gold Goblin, two barely-clad beauties wearing man-sized bat wings, horns, and tails play the parts of incubus and succubus. Both employees cheerfully register contestants for the gambling hall's tournament and process entry fees.
Armed guards stand nearby on either side of an immense treasure chest. Each patron's entry fee is added with a hearty clink of coin on coin. The guards not only protect the money, but prevent the less sober admirers from copping a feel off the costumed customer service.
Beyond the registration table is the hall's game floor. Dozens
of gamblers, bouncers, and waiters dressed as incubi and succubi, mill about the room, wandering amid tables offering various games
while dealers shuffle cards, roll dice, and spin wheels.
In the center of the chamber is a short podium atop which sits a massive gold chest affixed to the floor by similarly gaudy chains. On either side of it stands a bare-chested bouncer, their muscled chests glistening with either oil, sweat, or both. Each stands with a naked scimitar of prodigious size tucked through
their waistband.
High above them, from the hall's velvet-draped ceiling, hangs a brass birdcage within which crouches a small, bat-winged, pointy-tailed devilish creature that sulks as it gazes over the room and occasionally rattles the bars with an apathetic threat of escape.
Racaille
A genderfluid Chelaxian of middling height and build winks an onyx-black eye at every incubi, succubi, gambler, and bouncer on his way to the roulette table. Despite the debts to Lymas Smeed looming over his head and staring daggers into his back, there's a pep in his leather-clad step and a bounce in his shiny black hair.
Racaille leans a forearm on the edge of the table and tosses ten gold to the croupier with his lucky wink and trademark grin.
"Put it all on twelve would ya, mate?"
Tiff
A dark-skinned half-elf stops just before the devilish creature's cage. They give the air a good sniff and grimace, their garnet brown eyes wincing at the tell-tale fumes of alcohol and unwashed body.
Whatever. Tiff is down to their last handful of coin and word on the street says Saul Vancaskerkin's hiring. They casually scan the crowd for the owner, a fringe of snow white hair brushing their sharp cheeks.
Lure
"Magic, magic, anywhere?" mumbles a short, slight man from the darkest corner of the gambling hall.
His rose red eyes glow and fade with the spell, their color a dead giveaway to his unsavory demonic heritage-as though the goatish horns poking through his tousled blond hair aren't enough. He'd missed his only chance to blend by wearing decidedly drabber and more clothes than the waiters.
Lure shuts his eyes to reset for a hot Riddleport second. The Cyphers wouldn't care about his heritage. They're magic first and blood...hopefully not at all.
Geleafa
None of the waiters appear particularly evil or outsider-ly. The same can't be said for the creature in the cage over the gambling floor or the glowing-eyed fellow casting magic from the shadows.
Geleafa, a genderfluid, blue-skinned samsaran with pointed ears that knife through her straight black locks sets her cards down on the gaming table. Her apologetic smile doesn't quite reach her solid white eyes.
"Sorry, but I just remembered that I don't know how to play golem. Would you mind if I gave my seat to someone else and just...watched?" she shrugs, already standing up.
DM: Racaille
"You're the boss," slurs the croupier, who's neither drunk nor sleep-deprived enough to be removed from their post but is clearly trying.
They spin the wheel by the withered head of a ghoul mounted like a knob upon it. Absol-un-fucking-believably, the ghoul's head winds down to a dizzying stop, nose facing due Twelve.
"Holy Hells," croaks the ghoul's head.
"Holy Hells," croaks the croupier, blinking and rubbing their eyes. "That's uh...one hundred platinum."
Their fingers tremble as they hand over the coin in a little velvet baggy monogrammed with two golden G's. It's a miracle they don't drop it, given the weight.
DM: Tiff
"If you're looking for that rolling ball of sleaze, Master of the House Saul Van-Sleaze-erkin himself," gripes the horned, winged, and tailed creature in the cage, "you're not gonna find him. Plenty of other sleazes to whiff on to your heart's content, though."
DM: Lure
Unfortunately or fortunately for Lure, there's magic literally everywhere. The gambling hall is awash with a flood of spells ranging from minor, everyday protective charms to disturbingly strong necromancy at the roulette table.
DM: Geleafa
"Sure, but all buy-ins are final," says the dealer, sweeping Geleafa's coin off the table with one hand and waving her off with the other.
An elf with silver hair and bronze skin shifts soundlessly past Geleafa to take her seat. Indigo tattoos whorl down the length of his left arm. His violet eyes barely graze her, but in that one second, she registers unchecked hostility.
Racaille
"Cheers, mate," winks Racaille, tipping an imaginary hat as he swipes the baggy off the croupier.
That would do real nicely...at another gaming table. Racaille sniggers and heads off toward the golem-card gambling. He freezes in mid-stride.
That elf eye-killing the blue-skinned patron is giving him a weird vibe. He rolls back into step but lets his hands swing a little closer to the friends tucked away at either side, a short sword on his right and a dagger on his left.
Tiff
Tiff raises their narrowed gaze to the grouchy, impish fellow swinging caged from the rafters.
"Thanks, I will," they reply in complete and quiet deadpan. "What's up with you?"
Lure
The gambling hall's magic aura onslaught is a stake straight through the temples. Lure grunts and stumbles back against the hard wood of the corner.
This was a mistake. He shouldn't be here. If he couldn't handle the magic in a gods-forsaken gambling hall, how was he supposed to handle working for a gods-damned magical order? He's just not Cypher material.
Lure pushes himself out of the corner and into the fray of milling bodies. It's time to get the Hells out of here.
Geleafa
Geleafa steps back from the rude elf, blinking owlishly. It's been a while since she's gotten such a hostile reaction-never, if we're counting. But the distraction lasts only as long as it takes for her eyes to flick past the tall man's tattooed shoulder.
There goes the spell-caster, wading into the crowd and looking perturbed about it. She heads after him, angling body to lead with her left shoulder. Her right hand moves up her back toward a black-wood longbow.
DM
As the purple-skinned imp stares gap-mouthed at Tiff gathering his tongue, several gamehall employees enter. They carry torches shaped like pitchforks skewering burning heads made of straw and cloth. They light several large braziers, giving the hall a more infernal hue.
A hush falls over the gathered crowd blocking Lure's passage. A short man climbs to the central podium, accompanied by two "succubi," and stands before the gold, chain-shrouded chest. He wears a formal suit, and his thinning black hair is slicked back. His left arm ends in a stump just above the wrist, and affixed to it is a bronze cap from which protrudes an oddly shaped key.
You concluded with a hundred percent certainty that this is Saul
Vancaskerkin, the owner of the Gold Goblin and host of the
tournament. He bows before the crowd and clears his throat.
"Welcome, one and all, to the Gold Goblin Gambling Hall and
your chance to cheat the Devil and win back not only your soul but all of his gold as well," he says, patting the large chest behind him. "I hope you found your reception by the Devil's lovely temptations suitably entertaining."
This is met by a general applause of hoots and laughter. The hostile elf, who hasn't turned an inch away from the card table, offers a noncommittal grunt.
"Let's take this moment to thank Old Scratch himself for attending this event. Not only did he loan us these lovely, unhallowed angels, but he also emptied the deepest vaults of Hell itself to provide the gold for this tournament."
Saul flourishes both hands toward the imp in the birdcage over Tiff. At the sudden attention of the entire gambling hall, Old Scratch flies into a flurry of theatrics, banging the cage bars, spitting, howling, and screaming vile epithets in Infernal at all assembled.
The crowd hoots even louder. As their din dies down, Vancaskerkin continues.
"Of course, he plans on replacing what he loses in gold with your soul-"
An explosion of fireworks erupts out of a brazier, shaking the hall to its roots and rafters. The sudden burst blinds Racaille and Lure.
Tiff and Geleafa may be the only two to catch four strongly built Taldans drawing their swords. A fifth roars to her comrades words tinged with magic.
"All right! Now you lot drop to the ground. Don't try anything
stupid and we'll try and let you live."
Tiff
"Hold that thought," Tiff mutters up at Old Scratch, cracking their neck to either side.
They go straight for the ringleader, coming in swinging with two cloth-bound fists.
DM
Tiff's first blow goes wide. The second hits like a fucking truck. The woman goes down with a sick crack from her skull.
The four hulks remaining don't notice. They're too busy threatening the bouncers away from the chest with the business ends of their blades.
About half the explosion-blinded patrons have dropped to the ground as ordered. The other half panic. They shriek, tear at, and trample over each other in their directionless scramble to get out. But one tall, typically pale Chelaxian with a pointed black beard slinks toward the center of the room.
Not that Racaille or Lure can see any of this.
Racaille
It's amazing how fast getting blinded in a stampeding crowd will take the fight out of someone. Racaille sits this one out for the moment, focusing instead on keeping his feet amidst all the pushing and shoving.
Geleafa
Firing into a crowd is never the best option, but a longbow is the only heat Geleafa is packing. She nocks a blunted arrow into position, her eyes fixed on the bearded slinker. If her intuition were off, at least the arrow wouldn't deal lethal damage.
DM: Geleafa
Geleafa's intuition may not be off, but her aim sure is. Her arrow lodges square in the buttcheek of a patron who'd dropped by her feet. At least their scream is drowned out by the surrounding din.
The hostile elf shakes his head at her from his unmoved seat at the golem table.
Lure
Despite the deprivation of his sight and overload of the rest of his senses, Lure senses a disturbance in the force(s).
"Balls," he mutters, summoning a protective coat of mage armor over his drabbery.
Tiff
Tiff doesn't stick around long enough to hear the ringleader hit the bodies on the floor. They charge at the bearded slinker.
DM
Geleafa and Tiff's target proves much more than the bearded slinker that meets the eye. He dodges Tiff's first fist and parries the second with a wicked-sharp sickle.
"Not today, half-bitch," he growls, slicing a bloody trail through Tiff's arm.
Racaille's sight return just in time to catch their bloody spray splattering him in the face. Lure has no such luck/unluck.
Racaille
Ever the gentlefolk, Racaille spits over his shoulder. Then shifts behind the sickle-man and stabs him in the back.
DM: Racaille
Or attempts to. Somehow, even standing directly behind this guy, Racaille still manages to fuck up a simple backstab. Both of his blades plunge directly into the legs and ass-cheeks of the patrons underfoot.
Geleafa
Geleafa pretends she didn't just see a shame to knock hers out of the water and nocks up another arrow.
DM: Geleafa
She shoots. She scores! The blunted tip bashes the sickle-man under his sickle-arm. He grunts in the presumable pain of snapped ribs but keeps his feet, snarling.
Lure
Lure can't see, but he hears the grunt and snarl and remembers that the hulks were definitely wielding swords. In the heat of the moment, he acts before the doubts come crashing home.
"Can we just lose the weapons, please?"
DM
Lure's question sets off a magical chain reaction. The metal sickle in the sickle-man's hand catches flame, burning red hot. The sickle-man screams, attempting to drop it, but his skin adheres to the blazing metal.
The flames grow, whooshing up into his screaming face. The scream dies. The sickle-man falls to the floor, face melted.
Lure's sight returns in time for him to see the four hulks, finally realizing that both ringleaders have gone down, tuck their swords and tails and run out of the gambling hall with the last of the panicked crowd.
The gambling hall doesn't quite fall silent with the other half of the patrons still whimpering and/or screaming in pain underfoot, but there's a stillness in the air. You can smell a change of fortune in the air.
The sliced and slashed up guards of the Gold Goblin throw down their swords.
"We. Quit."
They stomp out of hall, followed by several dishevelled incubi and succubi. Saul Vancaskerkin can only stare, his mouth letting in the flies. Overhead, Old Scratch breaks into a knee-slapping, wing-flapping cackle.