Chapter 13: Running the Casino

June 14

The group decides what each will do. Kieron sings and works at the door as a greeter. Ra just wanders around and listens, trying to advance the adventurers’ guild mission. Jaysek looks for cheaters and additionally tries to advance the adventurers’ guild mission. Neiia works at the door as a greeter and the rest of the time wanders the streets looking for new customers (and at the same time looking for those who are studying that cloud). Saul Vancaskerkin introduces the casino, and when Jaysek notices an empty room and tries to talk it into being his rest room, Saul says that you apparently have too much free time, so he assigns Jaysek more work.

June 16

The casino reopens to customers. A couple of hours after opening, Kieron notices some disturbance at the door and starts moving there fairly quickly. Neiia notices the quickly moving Kieron and sees the four troublemakers at the door. She also moves there and succeeds in calming the guys down by talking. She says that these are old acquaintances, that is, they once served on the same ship. So Neiia gets them funded, and they come inside to play. Because Neiia knows they will probably at some point start a fight to get a brawl going, she convinces them that when you want to fight, move to the next casino.

Later, Saul comes to the middle of the hall and announces that the casino is adopting a weapons-free policy, meaning everyone not belonging to the staff leaves their weapons with the doorman.

June 21

Saul fetches all the group members one by one and takes them upstairs, where he points down into the main call to show them one large-sized spike-haired man he says is Clegg Zincher, one of the local crime bosses. Clegg Zincher also runs one of those other casinos. He’s worth keeping an eye on.

Ra goes downstairs and climbs on a chair to stare at Clegg Zincher. Neiia goes directly to talk with Clegg. Neiia politely asks about Clegg’s intentions here. Clegg says he had come to watch this last attempt of Saul’s and to get to know Saul’s friends, referring to Ra and Neiia. After this, Neiia continues on her way. Clegg Zincher plays for a while before leaving. Right after this, Jaysek upstairs notices that a man comes out of the bathroom who also leaves. Jaysek and Kieron move downstairs and go to the door. At the door, Jaysek sends one guard to check the bathroom before Kieron and Jaysek start shadowing the man.

Inside, Ra has noticed that Jaysek and Kieron have gone out, so he follows. Outside, Jaysek and Kieron notice that Ra is following them. In addition, they have noticed that the man has noticed that Kieron is following him, so Kieron returns to Ra and orders him inside. Meanwhile, the man gets out of sight, but Jaysek continues following him.

Kieron follows and trails Jaysek. The man continues but notices that Kieron is still following, so he goes into a narrow dark alley. Jaysek stops to wait for Kieron. Kieron comes to the mouth of the alley and stops there to observe the situation. She counts that there are eleven guys there to ambush her, so she says half-aloud, “That’s probably a bit too much” and leaves. Jaysek had noticed only eight but also leaves.

When they return to the casino, there’s a bit of commotion because the guard that Jaysek sent to check the bathroom has been bitten by a snake.

June 23

The casino has been open for a week now, but it hasn’t been producing very well. Jaysek tries again to argue that he shouldn’t have to do so many grunt jobs so that he could better acquire new customers. Saul agrees.

June 24

Suddenly everyone notices that all small metal objects are suddenly highly magnetized. After six minutes, the magnetism disappears.

June 28

Both Kieron and Neiia are near the door when a youngish female half-elf, with magic symbol tattoos on her face, asks the doormen something, and after that, the doormen gesture toward Kieron and Neiia. The woman comes to them and introduces herself as Samaritha. She says she has been trying to become a student of some Cypher mage, but now that quite a large part of those Cypher wizards are studying that cloud, she hasn’t found a teacher. Now she needs a job because money is running out. She’s apparently good at talking, so she could work well, for example, at the door as a greeter. Neiia talks with the woman and then sends her to talk with Saul. Saul hires Samaritha.

July 2

The second week ends, but still the success is somewhat stunted.

During the day, suddenly all spells get an extra purple smoke puff. Priest and nature magic don’t produce that smoke, but other magic does. The group goes to test this outside the city and notice that it only happens in the city. Some time later, the effect disappears.

July 8

A tidal wave suddenly hits the city. Neiia is near the harbor and sees that she could get wet or something else there, so she casts a flying spell and flies away. After that, she lands to help those in need, mainly those who have ended up in the water.